Hermanfrid | |
---|---|
King of Thuringia | |
Reign | 507–531 |
Predecessor | Bertachar |
Died | 532 Zülpich |
Spouse | Amalaberga |
Issue | Amalafrid Rodelinda |
Father | Bisinus |
Mother | Menia |
Hermanfrid (also Hermanifrid or Hermanafrid; Latin : Hermenfredus, died 532) was the last independent king of the Thuringii in present-day Germany. He was one of three sons of King Bisinus and his Lombard queen Menia. His siblings were Baderic; Raicunda, married to the Lombard king Wacho; and Bertachar.
Between 507 and 511 Hermanfrid married Amalaberga, daughter of Amalafrida who was the daughter of Theodemir. Amalberga was the niece of Theodoric the Great, [1] who received a number of "silver-white" horses from Hermanfrid. [2] It is unclear when Hermanfrid became king, but he is called king (rex thoringorum) in a letter by Theodoric dated to 507. He first shared the rule with his brothers Baderic and Bertachar, but later killed Bertachar in a battle in 529, leaving the young Radegund an orphan.
According to Gregory of Tours, Amalaberga now stirred up Hermanfrid against his remaining brother. Once she laid out only half the table for a meal, and when questioned about the reason, she told him "A king who owns only of half of his kingdom deserved to have half of his table bare." Thus roused, Hermanfrid made a pact with the king of Metz, Theuderic I, to march against Baderic. Baderic was overcome by the Franks and beheaded, but Hermanfrid refused to fulfill his obligations to Theuderic, which led to enmity between the two kings. [3]
In 531 or 532, Theuderic, his son Theudebert I, and his brother King Clotaire I of Soissons attacked the Thuringii. The Franks won a battle near the river Unstrut and took the royal seat at Scithingi (modern Burgscheidungen). Hermanfrid managed to flee, but the Franks captured his niece Radegund (see Venantius Fortunatus, De excidio Thoringae) and his nephews. [3]
Theuderic gave Hermanfrid safe conduct, ordered him to come to Zülpich, and gave him many gifts. While Hermanfrid talked with Theuderic, somebody pushed him from the town walls of Zülpich and he died. [4] Gregory mentions that certain people had ventured to suggest that Theuderic might have had something to do with it.
Radegund was then forced to marry King Clotaire, while Hermanfrid's wife Amalaberga fled to the Ostrogoths with her children Amalafrid and Rodelinda. She was later captured by the Byzantine general Belisarius and sent to Constantinople, where Amalafrid later became an imperial general and Rodelinda was married to the Lombard king Auduin.
The Thuringian kingdom ended with Hermanfrid. The area east of the Saale River was taken over by Slavic tribes, north Thuringia by the Saxons.
The fall of the Thuringian dynasty became the subject of numerous epic treatments, the best known of which is in the Rerum gestarum saxonicarum libri tres by Widukind of Corvey, a Saxon foundation myth written in 967. Rudolph of Fulda tells a related story. In this version, it is the Saxons under Duke Hadugato, as allies of the Franks, who win the great battle on the Unstrut.
The main source for this period is Gregory of Tours, who represents the Frankish viewpoint. Widukind is much later and has clearly incorporated mythical elements into his account. Procopius only mentions the events in passing as far as they affect Italy.
Year 531 (DXXXI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year after the Consulship of Lampadius and Probus. The denomination 531 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Year 507 (DVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Anastasius and Venantius. The denomination 507 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Widukind of Corvey was a medieval Saxon chronicler. His three-volume Res gestae Saxonicae sive annalium libri tres is an important chronicle of 10th-century Germany (Germania) during the rule of the Ottonian dynasty.
Theuderic I was the Merovingian king of Metz, Rheims, or Austrasia—as it is variously called—from 511 to 534.
The Thuringii, or Thuringians were a Germanic people who lived in the kingdom of the Thuringians that appeared during the late Migration Period south of the Harz Mountains of central Germania, a region still known today as Thuringia. The Thuringian kingdom came into conflict with the Merovingian Franks, and it later came under their influence and Frankish control as a stem duchy. The name is still used for one of modern Germany's federal states (Bundesländer).
Chlothar I, sometime called "the Old", also anglicised as Clotaire, was a king of the Franks of the Merovingian dynasty and one of the four sons of Clovis I.
The Kingdom of the Franks, also known as the Frankish Kingdom, the Frankish Empire or Francia, was the largest post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Frankish Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties during the Early Middle Ages. Francia was among the last surviving Germanic kingdoms from the Migration Period era.
Amalafrid was the son of the last Thuringian king Hermanafrid and his wife Amalaberga, daughter of Amalafrida and niece of the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great.
Radegund was a Thuringian princess and Frankish queen, who founded the Abbey of the Holy Cross at Poitiers. She is the patroness saint of several churches in France and England and of Jesus College, Cambridge.
Theuderic II (587–613), king of Burgundy (595–613) and Austrasia (612–613), was the second son of Childebert II. At his father's death in 595, he received Guntram's kingdom of Burgundy, with its capital at Orléans, while his elder brother, Theudebert II, received their father's kingdom of Austrasia, with its capital at Metz. He also received the lordship of the cities (civitates) of Toulouse, Agen, Nantes, Angers, Saintes, Angoulême, Périgueux, Blois, Chartres, and Le Mans. During his minority, and later, he reigned under the guidance of his grandmother Brunhilda, evicted from Austrasia by his brother Theudebert II.
Amalaberga was the daughter of Amalafrida, daughter of Theodemir, king of the Ostrogoths.
Baderic, Baderich, Balderich or Boderic, son of Bisinus and Menia, was a co-king of the Thuringii. He and his brothers Hermanfrid and Berthar succeeded their father Bisinus. After Hermanfrid defeated Berthar in battle, he invited King Theuderic I of Metz to help him defeat Baderic in return for half of the kingdom. Theuderic I agreed and Baderic was defeated and killed in 529. Hermanfrid became the sole king.
Bertachar was a king of Thuringia from about 510 until about 525, co-ruling with his brothers Hermanfrid and Baderic.
Agilulf, called the Thuringian and nicknamed Ago, was a duke of Turin and king of the Lombards from 591 until his death.
Alduin was king of the Lombards from 547 to 560.
The Deeds of the Saxons, or Three Books of Annals is a three-volume chronicle of 10th-century Germany, written by Widukind of Corvey. Widukind, proud of his people and history, begins his chronicon, not with Rome, but with a brief synopsis derived from the orally-transmitted history of the Saxons, with a terseness that makes his work difficult to interpret. Widukind omits Italian events in tracing the career of Henry the Fowler and he never mentioned a pope.
Medardus or Medard was the Bishop of Noyon. He moved the seat of the diocese from Vermand to Noviomagus Veromanduorum in northern France. Medardus was one of the most honored bishops of his time, often depicted laughing, with his mouth wide open, and therefore he was invoked against toothache.
Rodelinda (6th-century), was a Lombard queen by marriage to king Audoin, and mother of king Alboin.
The Duchy of Thuringia was an eastern frontier march of the Merovingian kingdom of Austrasia, established about 631 by King Dagobert I after his troops had been defeated by the forces of the Slavic confederation of Samo at the Battle of Wogastisburg. It was recreated in the Carolingian Empire and its dukes were appointed by the king until it was absorbed by the Saxon dukes in 908. From about 1111/12 the territory was ruled by the Landgraves of Thuringia as Princes of the Holy Roman Empire. When Frederick IV, the last independent ruler of Thuringia died in 1440, the territory passed to his nephew, the Saxon elector Frederick II.
Hadugato or Hathagat was an early Saxon leader, considered a founding father of Saxony by the tenth century. In 531, he led the Saxons to victory over the Thuringians at the battle of Burgscheidungen, "a legendary victory, and one so great that [Hadugato] appeared to [later] Saxons as an epiphany of divinity itself." The Chronica ducum de Brunswick records that in the Duchy of Brunswick in the sixteenth century a memorial week was still observed following Michaelmas to celebrate the Saxon victory over the Thuringians.