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From: John Carmi Parsons< >
Subject: Re: Hengist
Date: 6 Sep 1998 06:57:43 -0700
The only authentic line of descendants I know that has been reliably
traced from Wittekind/Widukind is the line of Saxon counts that produced
St Mathilda, wife of the German king Henry I "the Fowler." The fact that
St Mathilda was descended from Wittekind is mentioned in passing by more
than one chronicler, though none of them give details of the intervening
generations. Several modern historians have tried to piece together a
pedigree; for one convincing effort see Heinrich Banniza von Bazan,
_Deutsche Geschichte in Ahnentafeln_, vol. 1 (Berlin: Metzner, 1940),
Tafel 1 on p. 27. According to this descent:
II. Wittekind's son Wibert/Wigbert (d. 827) left a son:
III. Waltpraht, count in the Saxon Lehrgau ca 872; by his wife, possibly
Altburga, he left a son:
IV. Immed, count in Saxony d. 891/2. Married Mathilde d.c. 915 as abbess
of Hervorden), daughter of a Saxon count Ekbert/Egbert whom Banniza
suggests might be identical to the Ekbert, father of Duke Liudolf I of
Saxony (grandfather of Henry the Fowler). Immed/Immad and Matilda were
the parents of:
V. Dietrich, count in Westfal in Saxony d. 916. Married Reginhild/Reginhat,
a Frisian, daughter (Banniza says) of a Count Gottfried in Frisia d.
885 (born a royal Dane and married a Frisian lady possibly descended
from the 6th-century Frisian king Radbod). Father of (among others):
VI. St Mathilda "of Ingelheim," b. ?ca 890, d. 14 Mar. 968, married (as 2nd
wife) 909 Henry, duke of Saxony, who became the German king Henry I
"the Fowler" in 919.
This was not, however, the line that eventually became known as the "Wettin"
family, of which were descended the margraves of Meissen, dukes, electors and
kings of Saxony, and dukes and grand dukes of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-
Coburg-Gotha, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Altenburg, etc.
The earliest generations of the Wettin line are well documented and set forth
in Herbert Ludat, _An Elbe und Oder um das Jahr 1000_ (Cologne/Vienna, 1971)
as follows:
I. Rikdag/Riddag, count in the Saxon Harzgau, fl. 833-74. Married
Immchild (parentage unknown). Certainly parents of Rikburg, abbot
of Lamspringe in the year 873. *Possibly* parents of Adalgar,
count in the Saxon Wisgau in 889, and of:
II. Frederick (certainly brother of count Adalgar fl. 889), also count in
the Saxon Harzgau, fl. 875-80. Married Bia (parentage unknown).
Parentsof:
III. Frederick II, count in the Harzgau 937-945. Wife unknown. Father of
IV-a. Volkmar I, count in the Harzgau, died 945/61. Wife unknown.
Children below, generation V.
IV-b. Rikbert, count in the Harzgau, died 942. Wife unknown. Father of
Rikdag II, margrave of Meissen d. 985 and of Elswith, abbess of
Gerbstadt in the year 985. Rikdag II's wife is unknown; Ludat
suggests he had several children, but traces no further descendants.
V-a. Frederuna, wife of Bruno count of Arneburg d. 978. Ancestors of the
counts of Querfurt (male line) and thus of Emperor Lothar III d. 1137
(female descent from Querfurt).
V-b. Frederick III, fl. in the Harzgau 961-1000. Wife unknown; left two
sons, Rikbert III d. ca 1022 and Volkmar II d. 1015; Ludat traces no
further descendants of this line.
V-c. Dietrich/Dedi, count in Quesizi (sometimes rendered "Buzizi"), d.
982. Wife unknown. Children: generation VI.
VI-a. Dedi, count in Saxony, d. 1009. Married Thietberga fl. 1018, dau. of
Dietrich count of Haldensleben, margrave of the Saxon North Mark.
Son: generation VII.
VI-b. Frederick IV, sometimes called count of Eilenberg d. 1017. Ludat
indicates no marriage or issue.
VII-a. Dietrich d. 1034; margrave of Lower Lusatia (Saxon East Mark).
Married Matilda, daughter of Ekkehard Margrav of Meissen by Swannhild,
daughter of Hermann Billung.
>From this point on the male-line descent is well established, though some
older compilations continue to play fast and loose with the identities of the
Wettin counts' wives. One suspects this was done primarily to flatter the
existing Wettin family by implying their remote ancestors had consistently
married only into the highest aristocracy. The same tendency explains the
early attempts to graft the Wettins onto the family tree of Wittekind, the
early Saxon duke and national hero of the Saxon people.
These fictive genealogies were popular for a period of some centuries--cf. the
longstanding belief that both the Habsburgs and the dukes of Lorraine were
descended from the semi-fictional Etichon, count of Alsace, a fiction that
arose to paper over the extinction of the Habsburg's original male line of
the at Charles VI's death in 1741: his elder daughter Maria Theresa was, of
course, married to the former Duke Franz Stefan of Lorraine, but the fable
that the house of Lorraine also descended from Etichon implied that the
family really had not become extinct at all.
Similarly, attempts were made to "prove" that the Wittelsbach dukes, electors
and kings of Bavaria had a descent from the ancient Agilolfing dukes (the
family ended when Charlemagne deposed Duke Tassilo III and put all Tassilo's
children into monasteries and convents, making it rather unlikely they left
any issue at all).
John Parsons
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