Mayke de Jong

Utrecht University

Queens and beauty in the early

medieval west: Balthild, Theodelinda,
Judith

M
y original brief for this conference was to talk about « being
pretty in the ninth and tenth centuries ». Much as I appre-
ciated this challenge, I have narrowed down the field to
« some queens and beauty in the early medieval West ». My point of
departure is the recent collection of articles on Gender in the Early
Medieval World, edited by Leslie Brubaker and Julia M.H. Smith. The
index has an entry on « beauty, linked with virtue/vice » – which is
rather unusual, even in scholarly literature dealing with gender. The
references mostly come from two articles on the so-called bride show,
a theme especially prevalent in Byzantine historiography and litera-
ture: the emperor chooses his future spouse from the fairest maidens
in the land paraded in front of him. Martha Vinson’s « Romance and
reality in the Byzantine bride shows » argues that this alleged custom
was in fact a powerful fiction creating the illusion that the bride was
chosen for her own merits only, and not for her status, wealth or
family connections ; thus the parents of brides who had not been
chosen could retain the illusion that their daughter might also have
been the lucky one. But more importantly, a « darker truth » was
concealed, namely that the bride was effectively severed from her
family, and put entirely under the control of her husband.
In my companion piece on the one and only contemporary bride
show in the West by which in 819 Louis the Pious chose Judith from
the « daughters of the aristocracy » (filiae noblium) or the « daughters
of the great of the realm » (filiae procerum, Astronomer) I was prima-


M. Vinson, Romance and reality in the Byzantine bride shows, in L. Brubaker, J. M. H. Smith
(ed.), Gender in the Early Medieval World : East and West, 300-900, Cambridge, 2004, p. 102-
129 ; v. p. 119-120

Annales regni Francorum s.a. 819, in MGH, Script. rer. Germ., 6, ed. F. Kurze, Hannover, 1895,
p. 150 : Quod peracto imperator inspectis plerisque nobilium filiabus Huelpi comitis filiam nomine
Iudith duxit uxorem ; Astronomus, Vita Hludowici imperatoris, ed. E. Tremp (in MGH, Script.

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rily concerned with countering the assumption that this was a clear
instance of the Franks adopting Byzantine custom. To my mind, Lou-
is’s truly imperial right to choose was emphasized, but the real inspira-
tion of these two brief passages was the biblical story of Queen Esther,
who had been chosen by King Ahasverus from the fairest maidens of
the land, to replace Queen Vashti whom he had repudiated (Est. 2,
1-18). This is particularly clear in the Astronomer’s biography of Louis
the Pious, written in the early 840s, and therefore with hindsight. By
then, Judith had become closely associated with Queen Esther. A dec-
ade earlier, Hraban Maur had thrown his weight on the side of an
empress not quite cleared of scandal yet, dedicating his commentary
on the Book of Esther to Judith. This then became a text fit for the
legitimate empress and consors regni, for Hraban re-dedicated it to the
Empress Irmingard, Lothar’s wife, to express his allegiance to the new
imperial couple. For the rest, this article concentrated on Judith’s
beauty, which was the key element around which praise and invective
revolved.
Female beauty is ambivalent, for it can be taken as the external
manifestation of inner goodness, but also as the hallmark of the wan-
ton seductress – now as much as then. Supporters praised Judith’s
loveliness and splendour, detractors pointed at the dangers of her
youthful sexuality that had gotten out of control. Even Hraban par-
ticipated in this discourse, by consequently spiritualizing Esther’s
beauty and transforming it into the purity of the ecclesia. With refer-
ence to Barbara Bush and Nancy Reagan, Martha Vinson makes an
obvious but no less important point: the public images of elite women
were carefully constructed to put their male kinsmen in either a pos-
itive or a negative light. Thus, the fiction of the bride show was not
so much about the brides themselves, as about the reputations of
imperial bridegrooms and their fathers – and, one might add, in the
case of Byzantium, the grooms’ powerful mothers. In the debate on
Judith that raged in the 830s, it was clearly Louis’s reputation that was

rer. Germ., 44, ed. E. Tremp), c. 32, p. 392 : […] et undecum adductas procerum filias inspitiens,
Iudith filiam Uuelponis nobilissimi comitis in matrimonium iunxit.

M. de Jong, Bride shows revisited : praise, slander and exegesis in the reign of the empress Judith, in
Brubaker, Smith (ed.), Gender in the Medieval World... cit., p. 257-277. See also M. de Jong,
Exegesis for an empress, in E. Cohen, M. de Jong, (ed.), Medieval Transformations. Texts, Power
and Gifts in Context, Leiden, Boston, Köln, 2001, p. 69-100. The data for Judith’s life have
been compiled by Ph. Depreux, Prosopographie de l’entourage de Louis le Pieux (781-840),
Sigmaringen, 1997, p. 279-285.

Vinson, Romance, p. 108.

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at stake. If the gallivanting empress could not control the effects of

her seductive beauty, and the emperor could not control his house-
hold, that is, his wife and sons, how could he truly govern ?
Vinson’s views on bride shows, along with the Book of Esther that
was so central to Judith’s representation in contemporary sources,
raise other questions. Judith seems to have been the first Western
queen to be so emphatically portrayed as chosen for her beauty, and
Louis the first emperor to be depicted as a ruler choosing a spouse
from « almost all the daughters of the aristocracy ». Why did this hap-
pen there and then, or had I overlooked earlier instances ? Why did
ninth-century authors invoke Queen Esther as a suitable simile of
Judith, the emperor’s choice ? Was there something contentious in
this choice that needed glossing over by means of biblical rephrasing ?
A « darker truth », as Vinson expressed it ? It is some of these ques-
tions I want to address in this paper, by way of an ongoing exploration.
Before getting back to Judith, I shall discuss two earlier queens whose
beauty played an important role, at least in the narratives that pre-
served and shaped the memory of their marriage with a ruler: the
Merovingian Queen Balthild and the Lombard Queen Theodelinda.
As far as I can see now, they are exceptions in Western hagiography
and historiography, for in the majority of western early medieval nar-
ratives, queens are « links in the chain », transmitters of royal legiti-
macy, whose beauty was rarely something to write about. If this is true,
the exceptions deserve all the more scrutiny.

1. Balthild
Queen Esther remains an excellent guide into the field of queens
and beauty. As a model for queenship this Old Testament heroine
surfaces long before the ninth century, namely in the first Vita Balth-
ildis, written by a cleric shortly after her death around 680. In her
own way, Balthild was as powerful a queen as Judith, and as contested.
After a successful career as the wife of Clovis II and as a regent for
their son Clothar III, she had to retire from the court sometime
between 664 and 665, probably because she had antagonized impor-


P. Fouracre, R. Gerberding (ed.), Late Merovingian France. History and Hagiograpgy, 640-720,
Manchester, New York 1996, p. 114-115.

Cf. J. L. Nelson, Queens as Jezebels : Brunhild and Balthild in Merovingian History, in J. L.
Nelson, Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe, London, Ronceverte, 1986, p. 1-48 ; Ian
Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms, 450-751, London, New York, 1994, p. 197-202 ; Fouracre,
Gerberding (ed.), Late Merovingian France...cit.

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tant aristocratic factions. Her hagiographer wrote for a larger audi-

ence than the just the nuns at Balthild’s foundation of Chelles, where
she lived for the rest of her life. He (or she ?) is eager to counter her
detractors, and to preserve her memory. He informs us that she was
a Saxon slave purchased by the mayor of the palace Erchinoald, in
whose household she led a virtuous life. «And although (or because ?)
she was from the race of the Saxons, the form of her body was pleas-
ing, very slender, and beautiful to see. Her expression was cheerful
and her gait dignified. And, since she was thus, « she was exceedingly
pleasing to the prince and she found favour in his eyes ». The hagio­
grapher continues to praise Balthilds exemplary humility, both as
Erchinoald’s slave and when he summoned her to his bed after his
wife died. She « astutely » went into hiding. This was God’s will, the
hagiographer claims, so she could be raised to a higher station – that
is, her marriage to King Clovis II.
As has been noted, the passage on the young Balthild, slave in
Erchinoald’s household, contains a part sentence (« she was exceed-
ingly pleasing to the prince and she found favour in his eyes ») that
is derived from the Book of Esther10. As in the case of the Astronomer
and Judith, this is not all that much of a harvest, for this reference may
not be more than just a turn of phrase at the back of the mind of an
author steeped in biblical knowledge. What is more interesting is the
similarity of the content and structure of the two narratives. Before
she was presented to Ahasverus, Esther was taken into the household
of the eunuch Egus, whom she pleased – quae placuit ei et invenit gratiam


Fouracre, Gerberding (ed.), Late Medieval France... cit., p. 112-113. On Balthild’s monastic
« retirement » and its portrayals as a voluntary action, see M. de Jong, Monastic prisoners or
opting out? Political coercion and honour in the Frankish kingdoms, in M. de Jong, F. Theuws, C.
van Rhijn, Topographies of Power in the Early Middle Ages, Leiden, Boston, Köln, 2001, p. 316-
317.

According to Fouracre, Gerberding... cit., p. 115, the author was probably male, for he
dedicated the work to his dilectissimi fratres. Janet L. Nelson, however, thinks she may have
been a woman, with reference to the Vita Balthildis (MGH, Script. rer. Mer., II), c. 12 p. 498 :
Et conferens saepe cum matre monasterii, ut ad regem et reginam et proceres cum digno honore cum
eulogias semper visitarent, ut erat consuetudo ; cf. J. L. Nelson, Gendering courts in the early medi-
eval west, in Brubaker, Smith (ed.), Gender in the Early Medieval World... cit., p. 189, n. 20.

Fouracre, Gerberding (ed.), Late Merovingian France... cit., p.119-120 ; Vita Balthildis A
(MGH, Script. rer. Mer., II), c. 2, p. 438 : Et cum esset ex genera Saxonum, forma corporis grata ac
subtilissima at aspectu decoris, vultu hilaris et incessu gravis. Et cum talis esset, fuit omnino grata
principi et invenit gratiam in oculis eius.
10
M. van Uytfanghe, Stylisation biblique et condition humaine dans l’hagiographie mérovingienne
(600-750), Bruxelles, 1987 (Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen,
Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Klasse er Letteren 40, n. 120), p. 209-210 ; Fouracre,
Gerberding (ed.), Late Merovingian France... cit., p. 120, n. 146.

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in conspectu eius (Est. 2, 9) – so Egus showered her with privileges, giv-

ing her preferential treatment by preparing her immediately for the
upcoming bride show by a thorough beauty treatment. It is the mayor
Erchinoald and the eunuch Egus who were singled out for compari-
son here, not the kings Clovis II and Ahasverus, even if the passages
from Esther directly cited by the hagiographer are also derived from
those concerning Esther eager to please her royal spouse11. This is not
surprising, for a royal marriage was Balthild’s destiny, and her Esther-
like anticipation in Erchinoald’s household – which was, as in the
biblical eunuch’s case, effectively part of the royal domus – only served
to heighten the expectations of any audience familiar with the Esther
story. Like Esther, Balthild staunchly remained a virgin until she found
favour in the eyes of her « real king ».
The book of Esther is by no means the only text that shaped these
chapters of the Life of Balthild. Onto this, a motif very common in
Merovingian hagiography is grafted: the saints’ refusal of marriage12.
But it is precisely because Balthild did marry a king, it would seem,
that Esther and her beauty sprang to mind. The central theme here
is not that of the mighty ruler able to choose from all the maidens in
the realm, as was the case in Byzantine historiography. It has been
suggested that Balthild, a Saxon slave, was a prestigious gift to the king
on Erchinoald’s part, who wished to ingratiate himself with his ruler13.
This may well be the case, and one might add that by associating
Erchinoald with Egus, the first hagiographer also underlined Erchi-
noald’s closeness to the royal household. He (or she) saw no reason

11
The crucial passages from Esther are the following :
2, 4 : Et quaecumque inter omnes oculis regis placuerit, ipsa reget pro Vashti.
2, 7 : […] pulchra aspectu et decora facie [...].
2, 9 : Et factum est, cum percrebuisset regis imperium, et iuxta mandatum illius multae virgins pulchrae
adducerentur Susan et Ego traderentur, Esther quoque in domum regis in manus Egei custodies femi-
narum tradita est. Quae placuit ei et invenit gratiam in conspectu illius [...].
5, 8 : Si inveni in conspectus regis gratiam, et si regi placet, ut det mihi, quod postulo et meam impleat
petitionem, veniat rex et Aman ad convivium, quod parabo eis, et cras faciam secundum verbum
regis.
7, 3 : Ad quem illa respondit : « si inveni gratia in oculis tuis, o rex, et si tibi placet, dona mihi animam
meam, pro quo rogo, et populum meum, pro quo obsecro ».
12
There is another context I consciously leave aside here : the hagiographical discourse on
the beauty of saints, and the relation between outer comeliness and inner goodness. Cf. F.
Graus, Volk, Herrscher und Heiliger im Reich der Merowinger, Prague, 1965.
13
Fouracre, Gerberding (ed.), Late Merovingian France... cit., p. 99. I agree with Nelson,
Gendering courts, p.188, that Balthild must have been a high-born Anglo-Saxon, who for this
very reason was instrumental in cementing political alliances between the men who control-
led her.

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to gloss over Balthild’s subservient status. On the contrary, the most

is made of her drudgery as a slave to elaborate upon her saintly humil-
ity14. Subsequent authors, however, gradually raised her status. The
Liber historiae Francorum omits her servile status15 ; in an early ninth-
century version of the Life, she became claro sanguine16. What all these
authors retained, however, was the fact that Balthild was both foreign
and beautiful. What better biblical story than Esther, a foreigner and
a slave at the court of Ahasverus, to lend legitimacy to Balthild’s less
than illustrious past, still remembered by all when her first hagiogra-
pher preserved her memory ? Like Esther, she was an outsider who
was not an obvious royal marriage candidate. Possibly Balthild’s slave
status and her foreignness had been grist to the mill of her detractors
whom her hagiographer felt he needed to counter. Thus, Balthild was
an outsider but she was chosen, first by Erchinoald/Egus, then by
Clovis/Ahasverus. This was apparently not an uncontested union, and
it is in such a context of contention, I suspect, that the beauty of the
future royal spouses plays a key role. If royal women were not an obvi-
ous choice, as a female link in the dynastic chain, their presence in
the king’s bed needed to be explained by their other attractions.

2. Theodelinda
Over to another stranger in a royal bed: Theodelinda, a Bavarian
princess who became the spouse of the Lombard king Authari (584-
590). Paul the Deacon’s version of the story is like a fairy tale. In this
sense it resembles the wild and cunning tale of Queen Esther, rather
than the formal hagiographical prose of Balthild’s first Life. A brief
summary: King Authari sent emissaries to Bavaria to ask « King »

14
Compare Baudonivia’s Vita Radegundis (MGH, Script. rer. Mer., II), p. 377-395 for a similar
highlighting of humility, but now the subject is a former queen, committed to monastic
humility, whereas Balthild remained a real queen within the monastic confines of Chelles.
15
Liber Historiae Francorum (MGH, Script. rer. Mer., II), c. 43, p. 315.
16
Vita Balthildis B (MGH, Script. rer. Mer., II), c. 2, p. 483 : Claro namque sanguine, licet alterius
gentis serviret obsequiis, progenita Saxonum demonstrabatur. Erat itaque forma corporis grata et omni
aspectu decora, vultu hilaris et incessu gravis. In an eleventh-century version Balthild became
an English royal princess ; see Nelson, Queens as Jezebels, p. 17.

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Garibald17 for his daughter’s hand. The king promised Theodelinda,

but Authari wished to inspect her first. He chose some loyal Lombards
to join him, and went with them to Garibald’s court, disguised as a
royal emissary, and requested to see the girl. After some tacit contem-
plation and admiration – for she was satis eleganti forma – Authari
announced that he wanted her as « our queen » and requested that
he could accept a cup of wine from her. Garibald agreed, so Authari,
still in disguise, received the cup of wine and secretly touched the
fingers of the girl with a finger of his right hand, with which he sub-
sequently touched his forehead, nose and lips18. The girl, filled with
shame, told this to her nutrix, who comforted her: this could only have
been her real rex et sponsus, for nobody else would have dared to touch
her like this. But, said the nutrix, let’s keep quiet about this, so your
father won’t know ; this is a man worthy of ruling a kingdom and of
marrying you19. Then follows a sentence of praise on Authari’s beauty,
starting with the familiar catalogue of virtues from hagiography, a
genre with which Paul the Deacon was not exactly unfamiliar : Erat
autem tunc Authari iuvenali aetate floridus, statura decens, candido crine
perfusus et satis decorus aspectu. When it came to explicit praise of phys-
ical beauty, with Paul the Deacon the king took precedence over his
future queen.
The story of Theodelinda being chosen is primarily about Authari’s
choice: his cunning disguise so he could inspect her beauty, his devi-
ous way of claiming his bride by inappropriately touching her hand,
and then linking himself to her by touching his own face with his right
hand, in what was apparently a deeply meaningful gesture to Paul the
Deacon’s contemporaries. But this is not all. When King Authari died,
Queen Theodelinda, because she much pleased the Lombards (quia
satis placebat Longobardis)20 could remain a queen. What is more, she
could choose one of the Lombards as her husband and king, as long
as he would be capable of ruling. The counsel of prudent men yielded

17
Dux Garibald, sent to rule Bavaria by the Franks. About Paul rating the authority of local
rulers much higher than other writers, see Wood, Merovingian Kingdoms... cit., p. 165-166.
18
On this widely diffused motif, see M. Enright, Lady with a Mead Cup. Ritual, Prophecy and
Lordship in the European Warband from La Tène to the Viking Age, Dublin, 1996.
19
Paulus Diaconus, Historia Langobardorum, in MGH, Script. rer. Germ., III, c. 30, ed. G. Waitz,
p. 134-135. On the context of this story, see S. Gasparri, I longobardi fra oblio e memoria, in G.
Barone, L. Capo, S. Gasparri (ed.), Studi sul Medioevo per Girolamo Arnaldi, Roma, 2001, p.
237-273, at p. 255-262. Furthermore : Ross Balzaretti, Theodelinda, most glorious queen :
gender and power in Lombard Italy, in Medieval History Journal, 2 (1999), p. 183-207 ; Patricia
Skinner, Women in Medieval Italian Society 500-1200, Harlow, 2001, p. 56.
20
Paulus Diaconus, Historia Langobardorum... cit., III, c. 35, p. 140.

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 mayke de jong

Duke Agilolf – strong and warlike, and outwardly and inwardly entirely
qualified to govern a kingdom (tam forma quam animo ad regni guber-
nacula coaptatus). Theodelinda met her future husband, and again a
cup of wine served as the expression of « choice » : Theodelinda drank
first, and then she passed the cup to Agilolf, who took it and « honour-
ably » kissed her hand. This was different from Authari’s underhand
touch, but still the queen blushed, as she had done earlier. Yet this
time she also laughed and said that Agilolf should not kiss the hand
of a woman of whom he should kiss the mouth. And then there was
the kiss, with Thedolinda revealing everything to Agilolf about his
future kingship.
Quid plura ? as Paul the Deacon would have expressed it. Well, the
ensuing marriage, of course, but also the story of Gundeperga, the
daughter of Agilolf and Theodelinda, who, according to Paul the Dea-
con, married King Rodoald21. She was subsequently accused of adul-
tery and cleared by a slave who proved her innocence in a duel ;
shades of the Empress Judith and her oath of purification in 83122.
The longer version of the story, with the correct king in place (Ario-
ald), is in Fredegar’s Chronicles. This is also where Gundeperga’s beauty
is fully brought into play. She was loved because of her goodness,
largesse and piety, but also because she was beautiful (cum esset pulchra
aspecto) ; she also made the mistake of praising the comeliness of a
Lombard from the king’s palace retinue (honeste staturae Adalulfo fuisse
formatum). The man instantly propositioned her, and accused her to
the king of conspiracy and adultery. Then followed the judicial duel
by which the queen was cleared, recalled from exile and « elevated to
the throne »23. Upon Ariold’s death, it was Gundeperga to whom the
Lombards then swore their allegiance, and it was she who selected the
new king, Rothari, whom she took as her spouse after having ordered
him to discard his wife. But then the history of royal marital (and
political) discord repeated itself: Rothari, having forgotten his oaths
to Gundeperga, says Fredegar, forced her to live a private life in a
bedchamber of the palace in Pavia, for all of five years24. But then the
Franks intervened, and Gundeperga was restored to her former dig-

21
Paulus Diaconus, Historia Langobardorum... cit., IV, c. 47, p. 171-172 ; the king she married
was Arioald (626-636).
22
G. Bührer-Thierry, La reine adultère, in Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale, 35 (1992), p. 300-
312.
23
Chronicae que dicuntur Fredegarii, in MGH, Script. rer. Mer., II, IV, c. 51, ed. B. Krusch, p.
145-146.
24
Chronicae que dicuntur Fredegarii... cit., IV, c. 70, p. 156.

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 queens and beauty in the early medieval west

nity, making her public appearance by a royal progress per loca sancto-
rum et oracionum25.
All this is reminiscent of the alleged adultery of the Empress Judith
and her oath of purification in 831. In courts where queens played a
pivotal role, one way to curb their formidable influence and ingratiate
oneself with the ruler (although admittedly a dangerous strategy) was
to discredit the domina of the palace. As Walter Pohl argued, female
agency played a significant part in Lombard dynastic history26, which
may partly explain the frequency of Lombard palace scandals revolv-
ing around the queen’s adultery, along with Paul the Deacon’s excep-
tionally strong interest in royal women27. Yet it is Fredegar’s narrative
that I find even more intriguing, and especially the way in which he
presents Gundeperga as a beautiful stranger at the Lombard court.
Regardless of her indisputable Lombard paternal ancestry, to Frede-
gar she remained a parens Francorum28 whereas her adversary, the man
who propositioned her, then maligned her, was ex genere Langobardo-
rum29 (IV, c. 47). Yes, there is Fredegar’s Frankish bias, but I wonder
to which extent a tenacious Lombard memory of queens being alieni-
gena had an impact on their actual fate, making them more vulnerable
to accusations of adultery. This may also have helped to shape the way
in which Paul the Deacon and others depicted « foreign » queens who
became so central to Lombard ethnic identity. Within kingdoms with
a fluid ethnic identity still in the process of being consolidated, such
queens from elsewhere who were not obvious links in a Lombard
dynastic chain – which was constructed only after the event by Paul
the Deacon – needed a lot of explaining. And along with stories of
false accusations of adultery, real and remembered, their beauty was
part of the explanation.

25
Chronicae que dicuntur Fredegarii... cit., IV, c. 71, p. 156. An interesting aspect of this narra-
tive is the way in which public prayer marks the reappearance of the queen onto the public
and political scene.
26
Walter Pohl, Gender and ethnicity in the Early Middle Ages, in Brubaker, Smith (ed.), Gender
in the Early Medieval World... cit., p. 23-43, esp. p. 37-42. Perhaps there is a pattern here, in
that in a patrilineal and virilocal society, women came from elsewhere ; hence, the genetrix
tended to be a stranger.
27
Also in cases where female agency goes very mad indeed : cf. Romilda, the wife of Duke
Gisolf of Friuli, who in Cividale fell for the charms of the khagan of the Avars (and a very
pretty khagan it was), betraying her people because of her lust : Paulus Diaconus, Historia
Longobardorum... cit., IV, c. 37, p. 162. As Walter Pohl suggested to me, Paul’s interest in
women at the court may also have been inspired by his own experience as Adalperga’s
courtier.
28
Chronicae que dicuntur Fredegarii... cit., IV, c. 47, p. 146 ; c. 71, p. 156.
29
Chronicae que dicuntur Fredegarii... cit., IV, c. 47, p. 145.

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3. Judith
With all this in mind I shall return briefly to Judith’s marriage. Only
Thegan, Louis’s biographer who wrote in 836, explicitly mentions her
beauty one of the reasons for Judith being chosen being as a royal
bride. In 836, Louis’s biographer Thegan wrote:
In the following year he married the daughter of his duke Welf who
came from the noblest family of the Bavarians. The virgin’s name was
Judith and her mother, whose name was Heilwig, came from the noblest
family of the Saxons. He made her queen, for she was very beautiful30

Thegan wrote in 836, when the revolts of 830-833 were over and
Judith had been safely re-established at the court as the domina augusta.
The erat enim pulchra valde is another echo from the Book of Esther
(Est. 1, 11). Paradoxically, the one report of the marriage that cannot
be construed as a « bride show » was the only one to explicitly mention
what is assumed to be the bride shows’ crucial ingredient : the bride’s
beauty. But for Thegan, her pedigree was equally important, if not
more so. With Judith’s ancestry, we land ourselves in an ongoing Ger-
man debate, for in the high Middle Ages, her father, « Duke Welf »
became the Spitzenahn of the illustrious Welfs. The crucial question
became the following : did this family burst onto the scene because of
Judith’s royal marriage, becoming real proceres only then or there, or
were they already part of an ancient family with a Königsnähe that went
back at least as far as Pippin III ? In a recent study of Die Welfen, Bernd
Schneidmüller opts for the latter. Judith’s father Welf was not just any
count from Alemannia, but a Carolingian Reichsaristokrat with roots in
Francia.31 I reserve judgement on this, but at first glance, I do find
Schneidmüller’s arguments somewhat problematic – quite apart from
the fact that the bride show and its Byzantine inspiration is still taken
for granted32. We are asked to credit Thegan’s report on Judith’s illus-
trious ancestry because it is the only one from the ninth century33,
and we are cautioned that both the Royal Frankish Annals and the

30
Thegan, Vita Hludowici... cit., c. 26, p. 214 : Sequenti vero anno accepit filiam Hwelfi ducis sui,
qui erat de nobilissima progenie Bawaiorum, et nomen virginis Iudith, quae erat ex parte matris, cuius
nomen erat Eigilwi, nobilissimi generis Saxonici, eamque reginam consituit. Erat enim pulchra
valde.
31
Bernd Schneidmüller, Die Welfen. Herrschaft und Erinnerung (819-1252), Stuttgart, Berlin,
Köln, 2000, p. 43-50.
32
Schneidmüller, Die Welfen, p. 45. Not to mention Louis’s alleged « depressiver Befindli-
chkeiten », same page.
33
Schneidmüller, Die Welfen... cit., p. 48.

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Astronomer presented Welf like a Carolingian count34. This is true

enough, but what is left out is the fact that as time passed, the authors
concerned tended to upgrade the status of Judith’s family. In the Royal
Frankish Annals, which were presumably a contemporary record,
Judith was chosen from the daughters of the nobiles, but in the Astron-
omer, who wrote after Louis’s death, these nobles had become proceres
– that is, the top echelon of the emperor’s faithful men. In the Annales
regni Francorum Welf was a comes, without further adornment, but in
the Astronomer he became the comes nobilissimus Welf, and for Thegan
he was a dux qui erat de nobilissima progenie Bawaiorum35.
One might well wonder whether this subsequent upgrading of
Judith’s father has anything to do with the fact that both Thegan and
the Astronomer wrote after the ascendancy of Judith and her family
had become a fact. From 823 onwards, when the new queen had given
birth to a son who lived, members of her family rose to prominent
positions. Her mother Heilwig became abbess of the venerable royal
nunnery of Chelles (825), her sister Hemma married Louis’s son
Louis the German (827) ; this was the second daughter of Welf who
made it into a royal bed. Her brothers Conrad and Rudolf became
sufficiently prominent to merit the punishment meted out to really
powerful political opponents: they were tonsured and sent to a mon-
astery36. A second question that should be asked is whether there is a
connection between the emphasis on Louis « choosing » a bride, and
the possible contentiousness of his choice. I am certainly not arguing
that Judith came from nowhere, or that there was no political expedi-
ency that informed Louis’s selection of his bride. First of all, this mar-
riage served to draw Germania closer into the imperial fold. When in
830 Louis was in dire political straits, it was the Germani upon whom
he felt he could rely, not the Franci, as the Astronomer remarked37.
Thegan’s praise of Judith’s illustrious background includes Saxony
and Bavaria – quite a wide sweep – and regardless whether Welf was
an Alemannian count or not38, the subsequent ascendancy of the

34
Schneidmüller, Die Welfen... cit., p. 46.
35
See above, n. 2.
36
Depreux, Prosopographie, p. 279-285 ; on the punishment of Judith’s brothers, see Thegan,
Gesta Hludowici... cit., c. 36, p. 222.
37
Astronomus, Vita Hludowici... cit., c. 45, p. 460 ; see also ibidem, c. 24, p. 356.
38
On the search for Welf’s background, see J. Fleckenstein, Ueber die Herkunft der Welfen und
Ihre Anfängen in Süddeutschland, in J. Tellenbach, Studien und Vorarbeiten zur Geschichte des
grossfränkischen Adels, Freiburg i.B, 1957, p. 71-196. But M. Borgolte, Die Grafen Alemanniens
im merowingischer und karolingischer Zeit : eine Prosopographie, Sigmaringen, 1984, p. 280-290

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Welfs was based in Alemannia. Secondly, there was Liudewit, Louis’

fierce foe in Pannonia. The threat posed by Liudewit is interwoven
with the story of this second imperial marriage, both in the Royal
Frankish Annals and in the Astronomer, in ways that require further
analysis39. Neither Judith nor her parents were insignificant players
on the political scene, but I also suspect that the search for an ancient
Frankish connection of this particular family has more to do with « the
Welfs » in retrospect, and with a modern need to give them properly
illustrious roots in early medieval history, than with the realities of this
particular marriage.
Paradoxically, we can only get at some of these realities by taking
fiction seriously, including the fiction of the bride show of 819. The
message clearly conveyed in the Royal Frankish Annals is that the
emperor – and only he – had wide-ranging options, and that these
were empire-wide, without any obligation to select a daughter from
one particular aristocratic family. This becomes clear from the por-
trayal of two other royal marriages, shortly after 819. The report on
Louis’s eldest son Lothar’s marriage to Irmingard, the daughter of
Count Hugh of Tours, is deceptively brisk and matter-of-fact. During
the well-attended assembly of Diedenhofen in 821 Lothar solemnly
made Irmingard his wife40. No wide-ranging options here, or praise
of the beauty of the bride, but instead, an implicit assumption that
the son married according to his father’s wishes. The public and there-
fore legitimate nature of this union was highlighted ; this was a union
contracted solemni more and in the presence of an overwhelming
number of Franks. Lothar’s brother Pippin’s marriage to the daughter
of Theodebert of Madrie in 822 was also depicted as taking place dur-
ing an important royal assembly, but above all, as an instance of heavy-
handed paternal discipline. After Louis made his son accept this

doubts whether Welf was a count in Alemannia, and Th. Zotz in Lexikon des Mittelalters no
longer calls Welf a count at all. S. Konecny, Die Frauen des karolingischen Königshauses. Die
politischen Bedeutung der Ehe und die Stellung der Frau in der frankischen Herrscherfamilie vom 7.
Bis zum 10. Jahrhundert, Wien, 1976, p. 93, voiced her suspicions at an early stage : « Er
[Welf] gehörte kaum zu den Adligen die in unmittelbare Nähe des Königs lebten und an
politischen Entscheidungen wesentlich beteiligt waren ». For the distinction between « ordi-
nary » nobiles on the one hand, and procures on the other, see R. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir
dans le monde Franc (VIIe-Xe siècle). Essai d’antropologie sociale, Paris 1995, p. 126-137.
39
As I shall undertake in my forthcoming book, The Penitential State.
40
Annales regni Francorum, s. a. 821, ed. Kurze, p. 156 : Medio menso Octobrio conventus genera-
lis apud Theodonis villam magna populi Francorum frequentia celebratur, in quo domnus Hlotharius,
primogenitus domni imperatoris Hludowici, Irmingardam Hugonis comitis filiam solemni more duxit
uxorem.

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spouse and the marriage had been duly celebrated, he sent his son
back to ‘the Western parts’, that is, Aquitaine41.
These three portrayals of royal marriages within three years – the
imperial father and the royal sons – may well have been meant to be
read in conjunction, with obvious contrasts to be observed by the well-
informed reader. But there is another level at which the annalist’s
rendering of these marriage ceremonies could have been compared
by contemporaries. Whereas Louis’s first wife Irmingard came from
an ancient family in the Middle-Rhine area, his choice of Judith as a
marriage partner meant a clear choice in favour of the Germani who
would later support Louis at a time of crisis. The annalist’s terse sen-
tence about Louis having « inspected » potential brides stresses the
emperor’s freedom of choice – of a kind emphatically not enjoyed
by his sons – but it also implies that many others might have been
chosen, and that one candidate was as noble as the next, deliberately
obfuscating the issue: that others who should have been considered
were passed over in favour of the daughter of a relatively unknown
Alemannian aristocrat. Precisely because Judith was not an obvious
choice, she was presented as « the emperor’s choice ». Two years
later, Louis made sure his eldest son and co-emperor Lothar married
a girl with an impeccable pedigree, from the inner circles of Francia42.
By the time his daughter married Lothar I, Hugh of Tours was one
of the most powerful men in Louis’s realm. If there was indeed any
grumbling about Louis choosing Judith, to the extent that it took a
biblical bride show to counter the critics, the solemn and public mar-
riage of his eldest son to Hugh’s daughter during an assembly full of
Frankish proceres must have gone a much longer way towards silencing
it.

41
Annales regni Francorum, s. a. 822, ed. Kurze, 158 : Pippinum autem in Aquitaniam ire praece-
pit, quem tamen prius filiam Theodberti comitis Matricensis in coniugium fecit accipere et post nuptias
celebratas ad occiduas partes proficisci.
42
Hugh of Tours’ ancestors had occupied royal offices in the Alsace since the 670s. As
Charlemagne’s envoy to Constantinople in 811, Hugh already qualified as a procer, although
he owed his subsequent even more prominent position, including his countship, to Louis.
Cf. F. Vollmer, Die Etichionen, in G. Tellenbach (ed.), Studien und Vorarbeiten zur Geschichte des
Grossfränkischen Adels, Freiburg i/B, 1957, pp. 137-184, at p. 163-164 ; Ph. Depreux, Proso-
pographie de l’entourage de Louis le Pieux (781-840), Sigmaringen, 1997, p. 262-264. Hugh lost
the office and lands he held from Louis the Pious when he fell from grace in 828.

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Conclusion
What emerges from this brief comparison between the marriages
of these very different but equally beautiful queens is nothing like a
consistent pattern, yet there are some similarities to think about. In
representations of royal marriage the bride’s beauty may have been
depicted more prominently if she was not an obvious link in the dynas-
tic chain – either because she was a stranger, or because her pedigree
was suspect, or both. Rulers had excellent reasons for marrying outsid-
ers who were not daughters of the upper echelons of their local aris-
tocracy, for selecting one local aristocratic daughter would mean
elevating her kin group, while alienating the families of comparable
candidates. Unlike Balthild, Theodelinda and Gundeperga, Judith
was never expressly represented as « foreign », but I still suspect that
her marriage to Louis was contested in some quarters, possibly also
because she hailed from Germania. Hence, her presence in the dynas-
tic chain needed to be explained. That she was chosen because of her
beauty was an important element in representing Judith’s royal mar-
riage, precisely because this might gloss over the underlying conten-
tiousness of this particular royal match. To those shaping the memory
of such contentious marriages, the Book of Esther provided a power-
ful biblical image. A foreign girl, one of the Jews who lived in Susa,
was preferred over all others by the king, becoming not only his wife,
but the saviour of her people. She did so merely by her stunning
beauty. This is not just the kind of Cinderella story people have loved
to hear throughout the ages, but it also has all the elements required
to invest a doubtful or debatable royal marriage with biblical legiti-
macy.

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