Genealogia comitum Flandrensium

Last updated July 07, 2019

The Genealogia comitum Flandrensium, also called the Genealogia Bertiniana, is a short text containing a genealogy of the counts of Flanders. It exists today in three versions, all based on an archetype produced probably at Saint Peter's Abbey in Ghent shortly after the death of Count Baldwin V in 1067. The three versions are all identical up to the 1067, thereafter they diverge. The first version, 204 words in length, continues the genealogy to the death of Robert II (1111); the second, 243 words, to that of Baldwin VII (1119); and the third, 337 words, to that of Theoderic (1168). The complete, 337-word text with variants was edited by Ludwig Bethmann and published in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Scriptores, IX, 305–7). It was published under the title Genealogia comitum Flandriae Bertiniana because Bethmann mistakenly believed it to originate in the Abbey of Saint-Bertin.^[1]

Genealogy is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members. The results are often displayed in charts or written as narratives. Although generally used interchangeably, strictly speaking, "genealogy" begins with a person who is usually deceased and traces his or her descendants forward in time, whereas, "family history" begins with a person who is usually living and traces his or her ancestors.

The concept of an archetype appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychological theory, and literary analysis. An archetype can be:

a statement, pattern of behavior, or prototype (model) which other statements, patterns of behavior, and objects copy or emulate.
a Platonic philosophical idea referring to pure forms which embody the fundamental characteristics of a thing in Platonism
a collectively-inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc., that is universally present, in individual psyches, as in Jungian psychology
a constantly recurring symbol or motif in literature, painting, or mythology. In various seemingly unrelated cases in classic storytelling, media, etc., characters or ideas sharing similar traits recur.

Saint Peter's Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey in Ghent, Belgium, now a museum and exhibition centre.

The Genealogia had a wide circulation in Flanders. It also circulated in northern Germany, where a Middle Low German translation was included in some manuscripts of the Sächsische Weltchronik , and it was known at the monasteries of Notre-Dame-du-Bec in Normandy and Cîteaux in Burgundy. It was a very influential text in Flanders. The canon Lambert of Saint-Omer used the Genealogia as a source for the genealogy in his Liber floridus , which was in turn a source for the Flandria generosa .^[1]

Middle Low German or Middle Saxon is a developmental stage of Low German. It developed from the Old Saxon language in the Middle Ages and has been documented in writing since about 1225/34 (Sachsenspiegel). During the Hanseatic period, Middle Low German was the leading written language in the north of Central Europe and served as a lingua franca in the northern half of Europe. It was used parallel to medieval Latin also for purposes of diplomacy and for deeds.

The Sächsische Weltchronik is a universal history written in vernacular German prose between 1229 and 1277. The twenty-four surviving manuscripts are a mix of Low German (ten), High German (nine) and Central German (five). The 98-line verse prologue is always in High German. The Weltchronik is the oldest historical work in German prose. Ludwig Weiland, who made a critical edition for the Monumenta Germaniae Historica in 1877, gave it the conventional title by which it is most commonly known. The first edition was prepared by Hans Ferdinand Massmann in 1857, but was based on only one manuscript. The manuscripts are classified into three recensions—A, B and C—and the oldest group (A) is entirely High German. Michael Menzel classifies a fifteenth-century manuscript from Wolfenbüttel as the Leittext.

Bec Abbey, formally the Abbey of Our Lady of Bec, is a Benedictine monastic foundation in the Eure département, in the Bec valley midway between the cities of Rouen and Bernay. It is located in Le Bec Hellouin, Normandy, France, and was the most influential abbey of the 12th-century Anglo-Norman kingdom.

The Genealogia is the earliest source for the so-called "Foresters of Flanders" (Forestiers de Flandre), the legendary three foresters—Liederik of Harelbeke, Ingelram and Audacer—who were the first counts of Flanders and the progenitors of the later counts.^[1]

List of manuscripts

The Genealogia in all its variants is found in nine manuscripts, eight from the twelfth century.^[1]

Arras, BM, 685
Boulogne-sur-Mer, BM, 102
Brussels, KBR, 8675–89
Dijon, BM, 322
Douai, BM, 318
Douai, BM, 319
Leiden, UB, BPL 20
Lincoln, Cathedral Library, 98
London, BL, Cotton Fragments, vol. 1

Related Research Articles

Joan, Countess of Flanders Countess of Flanders

Joan, often called Joan of Constantinople, ruled as Countess of Flanders and Hainaut from 1205 until her death. She was the elder daughter of Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders and Hainaut, and Marie of Champagne.

Baldwin VI, also known as Baldwin the Good, was Count of Hainaut from 1051 to 1070 and Count of Flanders from 1067 to 1070.

Marie of Champagne was the first Latin Empress of Constantinople by marriage to Emperor Baldwin I. She acted as regent of Flanders during the absence of her spouse from 1202 until 1204.

Corbie is a commune of the Somme department in Hauts-de-France in northern France.

Richilde, Countess of Mons and Hainaut, was a ruling countess of Hainaut from c. 1050 until 1076, in co-regency with her husband Baldwin VI, Count of Flanders and son Baldwin II, Count of Hainaut. She was also countess consort of Flanders by marriage to Baldwin VI, Count of Flanders. She served as regent of Flanders during the minority of her son Arnulf III, Count of Flanders in 1070-1071.

Adela of France, known also as Adela the Holy or Adela of Messines;, was, by marriage, the Duchess of Normandy, Countess of Flanders (1035–1067).

Fulk of Guînes was the first Lord of Beirut (1110–c.1117) following its conquest in the wake of the First Crusade. He was from Guînes in the Boulonnais, the second son of Count Baldwin I of Guînes and distantly related to the counts of Boulogne.

Elias I, called de la Flèche or de Baugency, was the Count of Maine, succeeding his cousin Hugh V, Count of Maine.

Eleanor of Normandy was a Countess consort of Flanders.

Dirk II or Theoderic II was Count in Frisia and Holland. He was the son of Count Dirk I and Geva.

Liber Floridus is a medieval encyclopedia that was compiled between 1090 and 1120 by Lambert, Canon of Saint-Omer. The text compiles extracts from some 192 or so different works.

The Vita Ædwardi Regis qui apud Westmonasterium Requiescit or simply Vita Ædwardi Regis is a historical manuscript completed by an anonymous author c. 1067 and commissioned by Queen Edith, wife of King Edward the Confessor. It survives in one manuscript, dated c. 1100, now in the British Library. The author is unknown, but was a servant of the queen and probably a Fleming. The most likely candidates are Goscelin and Folcard, monks of St Bertin Abbey in St Omer.

Gerard of Florennes, bishop of Cambrai as Gerard I, had formerly been chaplain to Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor, and helpful to the latter in his political negotiations with Robert the Pious, King of France. In 1024 Gerard called a synod in Arras to confront a purported heresy fomented by the Gundulfian heretics, who denied the efficacy of the Eucharist. The records of this synod, the Acta Synodi Atrebatensis, preserve a summary of orthodox Christian doctrine of the early eleventh century, as well contemporary peace-making practices. According to this text's author, the heretics were convinced by Gerard's explanation of orthodoxy, renounced their heresy, and were reconciled with the church.

Johannes a Leydis or Jan Gerbrandszoon van Leiden was a Dutch chronicler from the 15th century. A Leydis died in 1504.

Judith of Flanders (died 1095) Wife of Tostig Godwinson, Earl of Northumbria, and of Welf I, Duke of Bavaria

Judith of Flanders was, by her successive marriages to Tostig Godwinson and Welf I, Countess of Northumbria and Duchess of Bavaria.

The Historia pontificum et comitum Engolismensium is an anonymous genealogical history of the Taillefer dynasty of the Counts and Bishops of Angoulême written around 1160. It presents its subject family as a lineage, concentrating on agnatic descent from its founder, William (Guillaume) Taillefer. It records the legend that Taillefer died defending his lands from the Normans with a magic sword. For events before 1030 it depends heavily on Adhemar of Chabannes, but thereafter is an independent source. It provides a precise record of the "succession of counts and bishops, of their genealogy, their fights and their alliances".

Gerbod the Fleming, of Oosterzele, 1st Earl of Chester, was a hereditary advocate of the Abbey of Saint Bertin at Saint-Omer, Flanders and Earl of Chester in 1070.

The Kentish Royal Legend is a diverse group of Medieval texts which describe a wide circle of members of the royal family of Kent from the 7th to 8th centuries AD. Key elements include the descendants of Æthelberht of Kent over the next four generations; the establishment of various monasteries, most notably Minster-in-Thanet; and the lives of a number of Anglo-Saxon saints and the subsequent travels of their relics. Although it is described as a legend, and contains a number of implausible episodes, it is placed in a well attested historical context.

Ralph IV was a northern French nobleman who amassed an extensive array of lordships lying in a crescent around the Île-de-France from the border of the Duchy of Normandy in the northwest to Champagne in the southeast.

References

1 2 3 4 Georges Declercq, "Genealogia comitum Flandrensium", R. G. Dunphy, ed., Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010), 666–67.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[Declercq-1] 1 2 3 4 Georges Declercq, "Genealogia comitum Flandrensium", R. G. Dunphy, ed., Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010), 666–67.