In the second part of the article by Frans van Droogenbroeck discussed
earlier (here:
https://www.academia.edu/36736769) it is proposed that
the three daughters conventionally ascribed to Henri I of Louvain were
instead great-grandaughters of his brother Lambert II aka Baldric. In
this, it seems to me, after trying to expunge Henri I's son Otto who
apparently did exist, Van Droogenbroeck has almost certainly invented
some comital relatives that did not exist.
In a genealogy of St Arnulf's descendants compiled at Metz in 1164 and
revised in or after 1261 (here:
https://www.dmgh.de/mgh_ss_25/index.htm#page/383/mode/1up), following a substantial lacuna indicated by dots in line 27, which as noted by the
editor evidently detailed the children of the Carolingian princess
Gerberga (who married Lambert I) it is said that (her son) Lambert (II)
was father of Henri (II) count of Louvain who in turn fathered the
brothers Henri (III) and Godfrey (I, the Bearded, subsequently duke of
lower Lorraine). Then it goes on to say that Gerberga's son Henri was
father to Adeleid, Cunegundis and Adela (omitting Otto, who was a
genealogical nullity), and that Gerberga's daughter Mathilda was mother
to Eustace (II), count of Boulogne and his sister Gerberga who married Frederick (II) duke of (lower) Lorraine ("Lambertus genuit Henricum
comitem Lovaniensem. Hic Henricus genuit Henricum et Godefridum fratres. Henricus, filius Gerberge, genuit Adeleidam, Chunegundem et Adelam.
Mathildis, filia Gerberge, genuit Eustachium comitem Boloniensem et
Gerbergam, Frederici ducis uxorem").
This is set out in a very ordinary way for narrative genealogies,
detailing one line of descent and then going back to trace another.
Unless the writer is deemed to have been an absolute scatter-brain, it
ought to be clear enough that Henri son of Gerberga and Mathilda
daughter of Gerberga, treated in succession using equivalent terms of reference, were both children of the same lady.
However, Van Droogenbroeck disputed this straightforward reading that
has gone unquestioned for centuries. In his view Mathilda's mother
Gerberga was indeed the Carolingian wife of Lambert I - since
chronologically she must have been - and yet Henri's mother Gerberga was
a namesake granddaughter of hers, a daughter of Lambert II.
The evidence adduced for this revision is unconvincing as well as being inadequately presented in important aspects.
First, Van Droogenbroeck has reasonably enough identified a Gerberga who
was daughter of a count Lambert as a daughter of Lambert II. This lady
occurs with a son named Henri in an undated charter of Godfrey I of
Louvain, as duke of lower Lorraine, for Forest abbey ascribed to 1106/10 (printed here, note 1:
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=LVFbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA534). She is not accorded the title countess but only called "domina" and she is not
described as Godfrey's aunt, although the context and names make Van Droogenbroeck's identification plausible if not compelling.
Secondly, it is proposed that the same lady can be identified with the
Gerberga occurring as wife of a Lambert "filius Coie" under 25 January
in the 15th-century necrology of Saint-Pierre de Louvain. On the line
below this couple, under the same date, occurs the name Conegu[n]d[is] (transcribed for some reason as "Cunegundis"). There is nothing to say
or imply that she was granddaughter of this or any other Lambert and
Gerberga - including Lambert I and the Carolingian princess - but Van Droogenbroek assumes that she was a great-granddaughter of Lambert II as
the second of three daughters of Henri son of Gerberga in his
interpretation of the Metz genealogy quoted above. An inscription on the
grave of a lady aged 20-25 named Cunegundis was found in Saint-Pierre
church in the 1950s, stating that she died on a 6 July without giving
the year. Normally 11th/12th-century burials in a church are people of
note recorded under their specific date of death in the corresponding necrologies, but Van Droogenbroeck assumed that this same young lady who
died on 6 July is listed under 25 January on the line below her supposed grandparents without explicitly linking them - a very unusual if not
unexampled practice that would be hard to find and prove elsewhere, but
that the author does not even attempt to compare with a similar instance.
Thirdly, Lambert "filius Coie" is arbitrarily identified as the "Lambert
count of Brussels" occurring in a document ostensibly dated 21 September
1062, which Van Droogenbroeck cites from an edition plainly labelling it
a forgery without mentioning this, treating it as if authentic evidence
for a namesake son-in-law of Lambert I whom he considers to have died in
1054. Why an alleged "count of Brussels" would pop up in a Louvain
necrology with no comital title together with a wife who is nowhere
called countess is not explained.
The "1062" charter was forged at the end of the 11th or beginning of the
12th century according to the edition cited by Van Droogenbroeck, from
in my view over-neatly categorising the handwriting as if this must be
styled up-to-the-minute and could not be simply old-fashioned or
deliberately made to look so for the sake of verisimilitude. Jan
Frederik Niermeyer had more convincingly placed it around the middle of
the 12th century in the context of other documents forged in a dispute
at that time. There is no other record of a "count of Brussels" in the
mid-11th century, but this designation came into frequent use for the
counts of Louvain later. The occurrence in a forgery from 40-100 years
after the death of Lambert II has little bearing on whether or not he
died in 1054 (which is doubtful anyway), so there is no need at all to
posit a namesake son-in-law on this flimsy basis.
Van Droogenbroeck further suggests that "filius Coie" in the
Saint-Pierre necrology may be a transcription error for an abbreviation
meant as "filius Cononis", but this is most unlikely. If it was a
scribal quirk it might be expected to occur more often than once for a
name as frequent as Cono, or only once if a peculiar mistake. However, "Lambertus filius Coie" is not a unique occurrence, and he was not a
son-in-law of Lambert II - the man occurs with exactly the same name and patronymic as a citizen of Louvain in a charter for Parc abbey dated
April 1250, "Interfuerunt autem huic facto consortes allodii ...
Lambertus filius Coie et Theodoricus de nova platea oppidani Lovanienses
.. Datum et actum anno Domini M. CC. quinquagesimo mense aprili", on p.
26 of the edition by Edgar de Marneffe in _Bijdragen tot de
geschiedenis, bijzonderlijk van het aloude hertogdom Brabant_ 3 (1904).
The genitive "Coie" presumably represents the name of this Lambert's
father accurately in both cases, possibly derived from the French "coi"
(= quiet) for a mute or perhaps related to the Dutch suranme Kooy/Kooij.
Peter Stewart
--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
www.avg.com
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)