Agatha, wife of Edward the Exile

Agatha (before ca. 1030 – after ca. 1070) was the wife of Edward the Exile (heir to the throne of England) and mother of Edgar Ætheling, Saint Margaret of Scotland and Cristina of England. Her antecedents are unclear and the subject of much speculation.

Contents

Life

Nothing is known of Agatha's early life, and what speculation has appeared is inextricably linked to the contentious issue of Agatha's paternity, one of the unresolved questions of medieval genealogy. As the birth of her children is speculatively placed at around the year 1045, her own birth was probably before about 1030. She came to England with her husband and children in 1057, but was widowed shortly after her arrival. Following the Norman conquest of England, in 1067 she fled with her children to Scotland, finding refuge under her future son-in-law Malcolm III. While one modern source indicates that she spent her last years as a nun at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, dying before about 1093,[1] Simeon of Durham [2] carries what appears to be the last reference to her in 1070.[3]

Origin

Medieval sources

Agatha's origin is alluded to in numerous surviving medieval sources, but the information they provide is sometimes imprecise, often contradictory, and occasionally cannot possibly be correct. The earliest surviving source, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, along with Florence of Worcester's Chronicon ex chronicis and Regalis prosapia Anglorum, Simeon of Durham and Ailred of Rievaulx describe Agatha as a kinswoman of "Emperor Henry" (thaes ceseres maga, filia germani imperatoris Henrici). In an earlier entry, the same Ailred of Rievaulx had called her a daughter of emperor Henry, as do later sources of dubious credibility such as the Chronicle of Melrose Abbey, while Matthew of Paris calls her the emperor's sister (soror Henrici imperatoris Romani). Geoffrey Gaimar in Lestoire des Engles states that she was daughter of the Hungarian king and queen (Li reis sa fille), although he places the marriage at a time when Edward is thought still to have been in Kiev, while Orderic Vitalis in Historiae Ecclesiasticae is more specific, naming her father as king Solomon (filiam Salomonis Regis Hunorum), actually a contemporary of Agatha's children. William of Malmesbury in De Gestis Regis Anglorum states that Agatha's sister was a Queen of Hungary (reginae sororem) and is echoed in this by Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, while, less precisely, Ailred says of Margaret that she was derived from English and Hungarian royal blood (de semine regio Anglorum et Hungariorum extitit oriunda). Finally, Roger of Howden and the anonymous Leges Edwardi Confessoris indicate that while Edward was a guest of Kievan "king Malesclodus" he married a woman of noble birth (nobili progenio), Leges adding that the mother of St Margaret was of Rus royal blood (ex genere et sanguine regum Rugorum).[4]

Onomastics

Onomastic analysis has also been brought to bear on the question. The name Agatha itself is rare in western Europe at this time. Likewise, those of her children and grandchildren are either drawn from the pool of Anglo-Saxon names to be expected given her husband's membership of the royal family of Wessex, or else are names not typical of western Europe. There is speculation that those of the latter kind derive from Agatha's eastern European ancestry. Specifically, her own name, the names of her daughters Cristina and Margaret, and those of her grandchildren Alexander, David, and Mary, have been used as possible indicators of her origins.

 
 
 
 Edward the Exile
 
 
 
 Agatha
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Edgar the
Ætheling
 
 Cristina
 
 Margaret
 
 
 
 Malcolm III
of Scotland
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Edward
 
 Edmund
 
 Ethelred
 
 Edgar
 
 Alexander
 
 David
 
 Edith
 
 Mary

German and Hungarian theories

While various sources repeat the claims that Agatha was daughter or sister of either Emperor Henry, it seems unlikely that such a sibling or daughter would have been ignored by the German chroniclers.[5]

The description of Agatha as a blood relative of "Emperor Henry" may be applicable to a niece of either Henry II or Henry III, Holy Roman Emperors (although Florence, in Regalis prosapia Anglorum specifies Henry III). Early attempts at reconstructing the relationship focused on the former. Georgio Pray 1764, Annales Regum Hungariae), P.F. Suhm (1777, Geschichte Dänmarks, Norwegen und Holsteins) and Istvan Katona (1779, Historia Critica Regum Hungariae) each suggested that Agatha was daughter of Henry II's brother Bruno of Augsburg (an ecclesiastic described as beatae memoriae, with no known issue), while Daniel Cornides (1778, Regum Hungariae) tried to harmonise the German and Hungarian claims, making Agatha daughter of Henry II's sister Giselle of Bavaria, wife of Stephen I of Hungary.[6] This solution remained popular among scholars through a good part of twentieth century.[7]

 
 
 
 Henry II
Duke of Bavaria
 
 
 
 Gisela of
Burgundy
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Henry II
Emperor
 
 Bruno of
Augsburg
 
 Gisela
 
 
 
 St. Stephen
of Hungary
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 St. Emeric

As tempting as it may be to thus view St. Margaret as a granddaughter of another famous saint, Stephen of Hungary, this popular solution fails to explain why Stephen's death triggered a dynastic crisis in Hungary. If St. Stephen and Giselle were indeed Agatha's parents, her offspring might have succeeded to the Hungarian crown and the dynastic strife that followed Stephen's death could have been averted. Actually, there is no indication in Hungarian sources that any of Stephen's children outlived him. Likewise, all of the solutions involving Henry II would seem to make Agatha much older than her husband, and prohibitively old at the time of the birth of her son, Edgar.

Based on a more strict translation of the Latin description used by Florence and others as well as the supposition that Henry III was the Emperor designated in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, genealogist Szabolcs de Vajay popularised another idea first suggested in 1939. In that year, Joszef Herzog published an analysis suggesting that Agatha was daughter of one of the half-brothers of Henry III, born to his mother Gisela of Swabia by one of her earlier marriages to Ernest I of Swabia and Bruno of Brunswick, probably the former based on more favourable chronology.[8] De Vajay reevaluated the chronology of the marriages and children of Gisela and concluded that Agatha was the daughter of Henry III's elder (uterine) half-brother, Liudolf, Margrave of Frisia.[9] This theory saw broad acceptance for thirty years [10] until René Jetté resurrected a Kievan solution to the problem,[11] since which time opinion has been divided among several competing possibilities.[12]

Ernest I
of Swabia
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Gisela
of Swabia
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Bruno of
Brunswick
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Conrad II
Emperor
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ernest II
of Swabia
 
 Herman IV
of Swabia
 
 Liudolf
of Frisia
 
 
 
 Henry III
Emperor
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Judith
of Swabia
 
 Solomon
of Hungary
 

Kievan theory

Jetté pointed out that William of Malmesbury in De Gestis Regis Anglorum and several later chronicles unambiguously state that Agatha's sister was a Queen of Hungary. From what we know about the biography of Edward the Exile, he loyally supported Andrew I of Hungary, following him from Kiev to Hungary in 1046 and staying at his court for many years. Andrew's wife and queen was Anastasia, a daughter of Yaroslav the Wise of Kiev by Ingigerd of Sweden. Following Jetté's logic, Edward's wife was another daughter of Yaroslav.

This theory accords with the seemingly incongruous statements of Geoffrey Gaimar and Roger of Howden that, while living in Kiev, Edward took a nativeborn wife "of noble parentage" or that his father-in-law was a "Rus king".[13]

Jetté's theory seems to be supported by an onomastic argument.[14] Among the medieval royalty, Agatha's rare Greek name is first recorded in the Macedonian dynasty of Byzantium; it was also one of the most frequent feminine names in the Kievan Rurikid dynasty.[15] After Anna of Byzantium married Yaroslav's father, he took the Christian name of the reigning emperor, Basil II, while some members of his family were named after other members of the imperial dynasty. Agatha could have been one of these.[16]

The names of Agatha's immediate descendants—Margaret, Cristina, David, Alexander—were likewise extraordinary for Anglo-Saxon Britain. They may provide a clue to Agatha's origin. The names Margaret and Cristina are today associated with Sweden, the native country of Yaroslav's wife Ingigerd.[17] The name of Margaret's son, David, obviously echoes that of Solomon, the son and heir of Andrew I.[18] Furthermore, the first saint of the Rus (canonized ca. 1073) was Yaroslav's brother Gleb, whose Christian name was David.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Alexander
 
 
 Leo VI
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Romanos I
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Constantine VII
 
 
 
 Helena
Lekapene
 
 
 Agatha
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Romanos II
 
 Agatha
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 St. Vladimir
 
 Anna
Porphyrogeneta
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
St. Boris
"Roman"
 
 St. Gleb
"David"
 
 Yaroslav I
 
 
 
 Ingigerd
of Sweden
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Harald III
of Norway
 
 Elizabeth
 
 Anastasia
 
 
 
 Andrew I
of Hungary
 
 Anna
 
 Henry I
of France
 
 Vladimir
of Novgorad
 
 unknown
wife
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Adelaide
 
 Solomon
of Hungary
 
 David

The name of Margaret's other son, Alexander, may point to a variety of traditions, both occidental and oriental: the biography of Alexander the Great was one of the most popular books in eleventh-century Kiev.

One inference from the Kievan theory is that Edgar Atheling and St. Margaret were, through their mother, first cousins of Philip I of France. The connection is too notable to be omitted from contemporary sources, yet we have no indication that medieval chroniclers were aware of it. The argumentum ex silentio leads critics of the Kievan theory to search for alternative explanations.

Bulgarian theory

In response to the recent flurry of activity on the subject, Ian Mladjov reevaluated the question and presented a completely novel solution.[19] He dismissed each of the prior theories in turn as insufficiently grounded and incompatible given the historical record, and further suggested that many of the proposed solutions would have resulted in later marriages that fell within the prohibited degrees of kinship. He argued that the documentary testimony of Agatha's origins is tainted or late, and concurred with Humphreys' evaluation that the names of the children and grandchildren of Agatha, so central to prior reevaluations, may have had non-family origins (for example, Pope Alexander II played a critical role in the marriage of Malcolm and Margaret). However, he then focused in on the name of Agatha as being critical to determining her origin. He concluded that of the few contemporary Agathas, only one could possibly have been an ancestor of the wife of Edward the Exile, Agatha,[20] wife of Samuel of Bulgaria. Some of the other names associated with Agatha and used to corroborate theories based in onomastics are also readily available within the Bulgarian ruling family at the time, including Mary and several Davids. Mladjov inferred that Agatha was daughter of Gavril Radomir, Tsar of Bulgaria, Agatha's son, by his first wife, a Hungarian princess thought to have been the daughter of Duke Géza of Hungary. This hypothesis has Agatha born in Hungary after her parents divorced, her mother being pregnant when she left Bulgaria, and naming her daughter after the mother of the prince who had expelled her. Traditional dates of this divorce would seem to preclude the suggested relationship, but the article re-examined some long-standing assumptions about the chronology of Gavril Radomir's marriage to the Hungarian princess, and concludes that its dating to the late 980s is unsupportable, and its dissolution belongs in c. 1009-1014. The argument is based almost exclusively on the onomastic precedent but is said to vindicate the intimate connection between Agatha and Hungary attested in the Medieval sources. Mladjov speculates further that the medieval testimony could largely be harmonized were one to posit that Agatha's mother was the same Hungarian princess who married Samuel Aba of Hungary, his family fleeing to Kiev after his downfall, thereby allowing a Russian marriage for Agatha.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Comita
Nikola
 
 
 
 Ripsimia
of Armenia
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Aron
 
 Moses
 
 David
 
 Samuil
of Bulgaria
 
 
 
 Agatha
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ivan
Vladislav
 
 Marija
 
 
 Theodora
Kosara
 
 
 Miroslava
 
 
 Gavril
Radomir
 
 
 
 Hungarian
princess
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Peter Delyan

This solution fails to conform with any of the relationships appearing in the primary record. It is inferred that the relative familiarity with Germany and unfamiliarity with Hungary partly distorted the depiction of Agatha in the English sources; her actual position would have been that of a daughter of the (unnamed) sister of the King of Hungary (Stephen I), himself the brother-in-law of the Holy Roman Emperor (Henry II, and therefore kinsman of Henry III).

Other theories

In 2002, in an article meant not only to refute the Kievan hypothesis, but also to broaden the consideration of possible alternatives beyond the competing German Imperial and Kievan reconstructions, John Carmi Parsons presented a novel theory. He pointed out that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle represents the earliest surviving testimony, and argues that it was probably well informed in reporting an Imperial kinship. He proposed that Agatha might be daughter of a documented German Count Cristinus (explaining the name Christina for Agatha's daughter) by Oda of Haldensleben, hypothesized to be maternal granddaughter of Vladimir I of Kiev by a German kinswoman of Emperor Henry III. Parsons also noted that Edward could have married twice, with the contradictory primary record in part reflecting confusion between distinct wives.[21] Recently, a Polish hypothesis has appeared. John P. Ravilious has proposed that Agatha was daughter of Mieszko II Lambert of Poland by his German wife, making her kinswoman of both Emperors Henry, as well as sister of a Hungarian queen, the wife of Béla I.[22]

Notes and references

  1. ^ Complete Genealogy of the House of Rurik
  2. ^ Historia Regum, vol.II, pp. 190-192
  3. ^ Foundations(Journal of the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy), vol. 1, no. 4, July 2004, pp. 302-303, ISSN 1479-5078
  4. ^ René Jetté, "Is the Mystery of the Origins of Agatha, Wife of Edward the Exile, Finally Solved?", in New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 150 (October 1996), pp. 417-432; Gabriel Ronay, The lost King of England : the East European adventures of Edward the Exile, Woodbridge, Suffolk ; Wolfeboro, N.H., USA : Boydell Press, 1989, ISBN 0-85115-541-3, pp. 109-121
  5. ^ Edward Augustus Freeman, The History of the Norman Conquest: its causes and its results, Third Edition, Revised, Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1877, pp. 668-673.
  6. ^ Ronay, The lost King of England, pp. 109-121.
  7. ^ e.g. Sandor Fest, "The sons of Edmund Ironside Anglo-Saxon King at the Court of St. Stephen", in Archivum Europae Centro-Orientalis vol. 4 (1938), pp. 115-145; G. Andrews Moriarty, "Agatha, wife of the Atheling Eadward", in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 106 (1952), pp. 52-60; Gregory Lauder-Frost, "Agatha-The Ancestry Dispute", in The Scottish Genealogist, Vol. 49, No.3 (September 2002), pp. 71-72.
  8. ^ Jozsef Herzog, "Skóciai Szent Margit származásának kérdése" [The problem of St Margaret of Scotland's Scottish origins], in Turul vol. 53 (1939), pp. 1-42; Marcellus D. R. von Redlich, "The Parentage of Agatha, Wife of Prince Edward the Exile", National Genealogical Society Quarterly, vol. 28 (1940), pp. 105-109; G. Andrews Moriarty, "Agatha, wife of the Atheling Eadward", in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 106 (1952), pp. 52-60; Szabolcs de Vajay. "Agatha, Mother St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland", in Duquesne Review, vol. 7, no. 2 (Spring 1962), pp. 71-80; Gábor Klaniczay, Holy rulers and blessed princesses: dynastic cults in medieval central Europe, Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 132-133 [1]
  9. ^ Szabolcs de Vajay. "Agatha, Mother St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland", in Duquesne Review, vol. 7, no. 2 (Spring 1962), pp. 71-80.
  10. ^ e.g. Ronay, The lost King of England; Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots fo Sixty Colonists who came to New England between 1623 and 1650, sixth edition, Walter Lee Sheppard, ed., p. 3.
  11. ^ René Jetté, "Is the Mystery of the Origins of Agatha, Wife of Edward the Exile, Finally Solved?", in New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 150 (October 1996): 417-432.
  12. ^ David Faris and Douglas Richardson supported the Liudolf connection, "The Origin of Agatha-The Debate Continues: The Parents of Agatha, Wife of Edward The Exile" in New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 152, (April 1998). Norman Ingham supported Jetté in two articles: "A Slavist's View of Agatha, Wife of Edward the Exile, as a Possible Daughter of Yaroslav the Wise" in New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 152 (1998), pp. 216-23; "Has a Missing Daughter of Iaroslav Mudryi Been Found?" in Russian History, vol. 25 (1998 [pub. 1999]), pp. 231-70. Gregory Lauder-Frost, summarized numerous early sources and the various theories: "Agatha-The Ancestry Dispute", in The Scottish Genealogist, Vol. 49, No.3 (September 2002), pp. 71-72. He follows Moriarty in discounting the Herzog/de Vajay theories, both leaning towards Saint Stephen as her father.
  13. ^ It has been suggested that Agatha is one of four or five Yaroslav's daughters represented next to him in the famous eleventh-century fresco in the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev. It is known that Yaroslav's other daughters married Henry I of France and Harald III of Norway. At the time of their marriages, both Harald and Andrew were, just like Edward, the landless pretenders to foreign thrones, who found shelter and support in distant but powerful Kiev.
  14. ^ Pointedly criticized by John Carmi Parsons in his article "Edward the Aetheling's Wife, Agatha", in The Plantagenet Connection, Summer/Winter 2002, pp. 31-54. Donald C. Jackman, "A Greco-Roman Onomastic Fund", in Onomastique et Parente dans l'Occident medieval, Prosographica et Genealogica, Vol. 3 (2000), pp. 14-56, shows several genealogical groupings of individuals in Germany at this time, including Agatha, with seemingly Eastern names. He indicates several possible sources (e.g. the marriages of Emperor Otto II and of Vladimir I of Kiev, and the supposed marriage of Emperor Louis the Blind, to Byzantine brides) for the introduction of these names into the western European dynasties.
  15. ^ А.Ф. Литвина, Ф.Б. Успенский. Выбор имени у русских князей в X-XVI вв.: Династическая история сквозь призму антропонимики. Moscow: Indrik, 2006. ISBN 5-85759-339-5. Page 463.
  16. ^ According to one theory, Agatha was not a daughter but sister of Yaroslav. Indeed, the last wife of Yaroslav's father, Vladimir I, seems to have been a German princess, who could have been described as "filia germani imperatoris Henrici". It is generally accepted that their daughter Dobronega married Casimir I of Poland about the same year when Edward is thought to have married Agatha (judging by the date when their eldest child was born). If Agatha was Yaroslav's sister (rather than daughter as Jette thought), she would still have close ties to the Hungarian royal family. For instance, one of Yaroslav's sisters was the wife of Ladislas the Bald, a paternal uncle of Andrew I.
  17. ^ It has been argued that Ingigerd's original Christian name was Margaret. Whatever the truth, the names Margaret and Cristina were not explicitly recorded in Sweden before the twelfth century. For details, see: Ф.Б. Успенский. Скандинавы-Варяги-Русь: Историко-филологические очерки. Moscow, 2002. Pages 60-61.
  18. ^ Andrew's second son was actually named David. Current scholarship traces these names to the famous oration of Ilarion of Kiev, in which he likened Vladimir (i.e., grandfather of Andrew's wife) to the victorious David and Yaroslav (i.e., Andrew's father-in-law) to the wise Solomon. The comparison became so popular that later historians assigned to Yaroslav the sobriquet "Wise".
  19. ^ Mladjov, Ian. "Reconsidering Agatha, Wife of Eadward the Exile", in The Plantagenet Connection, vol. 11, Summer/Winter 2003, pp. 1-85. See also a summary in "The Bulgarian Descent of HM Simeon II", in Sega: April 13, 2002 and here.
  20. ^ Her father was a Dyrrachian notable, Ioannes Khrysilios.
  21. ^ Parsons, "Edward the Aetheling's Wife, Agatha", pp 52-54.
  22. ^ John P. Ravilious, "The Ancestry of Agatha, Mother of St. Margaret of Scotland", The Scottish Genealogist, vol. 56, pp. 70-84.

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