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Genevieve (also Genoveva or Genoveffa) of Brabant is a heroine of medieval legend. The story is told in the "Golden Legend" and concerns a virtuous wife falsely accused of infidelity.
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Genevieve (also Genoveva or Genoveffa) of Brabant is a heroine of medieval legend. The story is told in the "Golden Legend" and concerns a virtuous wife falsely accused of infidelity.
Her story is a typical example of the widespread tale of the chaste wife falsely accused and repudiated, generally on the word of a rejected suitor. [1] Genoveffa of Brabant was said to be the wife of the palatine Siegfried of Treves, and was falsely accused by the majordomo Golo. Sentenced to death, she was spared by the executioner and lived for six years with her son in a cave in the Ardennes nourished by a roe. [2] Siegfried, who had meanwhile found out Golo's treachery, was chasing the roe when he discovered her hiding-place, and reinstated her in her former honour. [3]
Her story is said to rest on the history of Marie of Brabant, wife of Louis II, Duke of Bavaria and Count Palatine of the Rhine. Marie of Brabant was suspected of infidelity and subsequently tried by her husband, found guilty and beheaded on 18 January 1256. When the verdict was shown to be mistaken, Louis had to do penance for the beheading. The change in name from Marie to Genevieve may be traced back to a cult of St Genevieve, patroness of Paris. [3]
The Genevieve tale first obtained wide popularity in L'Innocence reconnue, ou vie de Sainte Genevieve de Brabant (pr. 1638) by the Jesuit René de Cerisiers (1603–1662), and was a frequent subject for dramatic representation in Germany. [3] Starting in the mid-18th century, it became very popular among traveling puppet companies. [4]
Genoveffa 's history may be compared to the Scandinavian ballads of Ravengaard og Memering, which exist in many recensions. These deal with the history of Gunild, the wife of Henry Duke of Brunswick and Schleswig. When Duke Henry went to the war he left his wife in charge of Ravengaard, who accused her of infidelity. Gunild is cleared by the victory of her champion Memering, the smallest of Christian men. The Scottish ballad of Sir Aldingar is a version of the same story. The heroine Gunhilda is said to have been the daughter of Canute the Great and Emma. In 1036 she married King Henry, afterwards the emperor Henry III, and there was nothing in her domestic history to warrant the legend, which is given as authentic history by William of Malmesbury (De gestis regum Anglorum, lib.ii.~i88). She was called Cunigund after her marriage, and perhaps was confused with St Cunigund, the wife of the Emperor Henry II. [3]
In the Karlamagnus-saga the innocent wife is Oliva, sister of Charlemagne and wife of King Hugo, and in the French Carolingian cycle the emperor's wife Sibille (La Reine Sibille) or Blanchefleur ( Macaire ). Other forms of the legend are to be found in the story of Doolin's mother in Doon de Mayence , the English romance of Sir Triamour , in the story of the mother of Octavian in Octavian the Emperor , in the German folk book Historie von der geduldigen Königin Crescentia, based on a 12th-century poem to be found in the Kaiserchronik , and the English Erl of Toulouse (c. 1400). In the last-named romance it has been suggested that the story gives the relations between Bernard I, Count of Toulouse, son of the Guillaume d'Orange of the Carolingian romances, and the empress Judith, second wife of Louis the Pious [3] —who were indeed charged with adultery and purged themselves by an oath and an offer for trial by combat, although the historical situation has been embellished with romantic incident. [5]
In Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time (1913–27), the narrator remembers a magic lantern he had in his room, in Combray, that showed the image of Golo riding his horse towards Genevieve's castle. He says: "... and I would fall into the arms of my mother, whom the misfortunes of Geneviève de Brabant had made all the dearer to me, just as the crimes of Golo had driven me to a more than ordinarily scrupulous examination of my own conscience." [8]
In 
Chapter II of Volume One of his Reminiscences (1907–09), Carl Schurz recalls the puppet play of "Die Schöne Genovefa" (lit. 'The Beautiful Genevieve') which he used to see performed in his youth. Its plot is an adaptation of the tale of Genevieve of Brabant.
Johann Ludwig Tieck was a German poet, fiction writer, translator, and critic. He was one of the founding fathers of the Romantic movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
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Christian Friedrich Hebbel was a German poet and dramatist.
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Genoveva, Op. 81, is an opera in four acts by Robert Schumann in the genre of German Romanticism with a libretto by Robert Reinick and the composer. The only opera Schumann ever wrote, it received its first performance on 25 June 1850 at the Stadttheater in Leipzig, with the composer conducting. It received only three performances during the premiere, and the negative criticism it received in the press played a decisive role in Schumann's decision to not write a second opera.
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Geneviève de Brabant is an opéra bouffe, or operetta, by Jacques Offenbach, first performed in Paris in 1859. The plot is based on the medieval legend of Genevieve of Brabant.
Maria of Brabant (1226–1256) was a daughter of Henry II, Duke of Brabant, and Maria of Swabia. She married Louis II, Duke of Bavaria, being the first of three wives.
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The Mistress of Treves is a 1952 historical drama film directed by Arthur Maria Rabenalt and starring Rossano Brazzi, Anne Vernon and Gianni Santuccio. Made as a co-production between France, Italy and West Germany, it was filmed at the Icet Studios in Milan and on location in the Aosta Valley. It is based on the legend of Genevieve of Brabant and is set during the time of the Crusades.
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Geneviève de Brabant is a theatre piece composed around 1900 by Erik Satie. The score was intended as incidental music for a three-act comedy in verse and prose by J. P. Contamine de Latour, based on the medieval legend of Genevieve of Brabant. Unproduced at the time, its existence was not discovered until after Satie's death in 1925.
Genovevaburg is a castle standing on the southwestern side of Mayen in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The castle is the symbol of Mayen and has been rebuilt several times since first being destroyed in 1689. Its name comes from a legend, according to which the seats of counts palatine, Siegfried and his wife, Genevieve of Brabant, were supposed to be on the same hill in Mayen. The earliest references linking the legend to this region date to the 17th century. Since when the castle and its bergfried, the so-called Golo Tower (Goloturm), have been linked to the legend is unknown.
"Der blonde Eckbert" is a Romantic fairy tale written by Ludwig Tieck at the end of the eighteenth century. It first appeared in 1797 in a collected volume of folktales published by Tieck under the publisher Friedrich Nicolai in Berlin. For some literary scholars and historians, the publication of Eckbert represents the beginning of a specifically German romantic movement.
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Wilhelmine von Schwertzell (1787-1863) was a German author, lieder composer, and folklorist who helped Wilhelm Grimm collect fairy tales.
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