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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 1998-11 > 0911887718


From: Don Stone < >
Subject: Agatha of Hungary (or not of Hungary)
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 01:08:38 -0500


John Carmi Parsons recently said:
>
> One point seems to be getting lost track of in the discussion of the
> origins of the Drummonds, Livingstons and so forth. Claims that these
> families shared Hungarian origins with St Margaret obviously derive from
> the old belief, which is nowadays discounted, that Margaret's mother was
> Hungarian. (There continues to be considerable debate about Agatha's
> background, some claiming she belonged to the house of Brunswick, others
> that she was Russian; but it seems fairly well accepted today that she was
> NOT Hungarian.)

This is certainly true for published discussions of Agatha's parentage.
However, Prof. David H. Kelley recently made the following comments to
me on the matter of Agatha's parentage:

Even if one accepts Yaroslav, which I think is a reasonable explanation,
one still should have some sort of Hungarian wife, because it seems to
me that the evidence from Britain is awfully strong in favor of actual
Hungarian lineage (which, of course, Vajay's explanation doesn't supply,
and neither does the new one, but there's no reason that Yaroslav
couldn't have had half a dozen other wives).

Kelley goes on to point out that Byzantine names were used in the
Hungarian family as well as in the Russian family.

-- Don Stone

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