Agatha, wife of Edward the Exile

Female Bef 1030 - Aft 1070  (~ 41 years)


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  • Name Agatha  
    Suffix wife of Edward the Exile 
    Born Bef 1030 
    Gender Female 
    Died Aft 1070  Scotland Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Notes 
    • Wikipedia
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha,_wife_of_Edward_the_Exile

      She 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 ancestry is unclear and the subject of much speculation. She may have Russian, Germanic, or Hungarian roots.

      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.

      Agatha and Edward had three children:

      1. Edgar Ætheling (c. 1051-c. 1126) Elected King of England after the Battle of Hastings but submitted to William the Conqueror.

      2. Saint Margaret of Scotland (c. 1045-16 November 1093) Married King Malcolm III of Scotland.

      3. Cristina (c. 1057-c. 1093), Abbess at Romsey Abbey.

      Their grandchild Edith of Scotland, also called Matilda, married King Henry I of England, continuing the Anglo-Saxon line into the post-Conquest English monarchy.

      Nothing is known of Agatha's early life, and what speculation has appeared is linked to the contentious issue of Agatha's paternity, one of the unresolved questions of medieval genealogy. The search and speculation of her ancestry has spanned over nine hundred years into the 21st century.

      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." In an earlier entry, the same Ailred of Rievaulx had called her a daughter of emperor Henry, as do later sources of dubious credibility.

      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. 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).

      In the study of the origin, history, and use of proper names, 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.

      While various sources repeat the claims that Agatha was either the daughter or sister of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry, it seems unlikely that such a sibling or daughter would have been ignored by the German chroniclers. Some later historians in the 1700's suggested that Agatha was daughter of Henry II's brother Bruno of Augsburg (an ecclesiastic described as beatae memoriae, with no known issue), or 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. This solution remained popular among scholars through a good part of twentieth century.

      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, or at least that Agatha's family failed to play a role in that strife. If St. Stephen and Giselle were indeed Agatha's parents, her offspring would have had a strong claim to the Hungarian crown.

      Rene 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 native-born wife "of noble parentage" or that his father-in-law was a "Rus king." Eduard Hlawitschka also identifies Agatha as a daughter of Yaroslav, pointing out that Adam of Bremen, who was well-informed on North-European affairs noted around 1074 that Edward was exiled in Russia (E[d]mund, vir bellicosus, in gratiam victoris sublatus est; filii eius in Ruzziam exilio dampnati)and that the author of Leges Edwardi confessoris, who had strong ties with Agatha's children, Queen Margaret of Scotland and her sister Cristina, and could thus reasonably be expected to be aware of their descent, recorded around 1120 that Edward went usque ad terram Rungorum, quam nos uocamus Russeaim [as far as the land of the rungs, which we call Russeaim], and that Aedwardus accepit ibi uxorem ex nobili genere, de qua ortus est ei Eadgarus atheling et Margareta regina Scotie et Cristina soror eius [Edward from a noble family and took them to his wife , Margaret, Queen of Scotland, which has given rise to him , Edgar and Christina , and sister of him atheling].

      Jetté's and Hlawitschka's theory seems to be supported by a naming argument. Among 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. 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.

      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. The name of Margaret's son, David, obviously echoes that of Solomon, the son and heir of Andrew I. In addition, Yaroslav's daughter Anastasia and her husband King Andrew I also had a son named David, the brother of Solomon. Furthermore, the first saint of the Rus (canonized ca. 1073) was Yaroslav's brother Gleb, whose Christian name was David.

      In response to the recent flurry of activity on the subject, Ian Mladjov reevaluated the question and 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 Agatha, the wife of Edward the Exile. This was Agatha, wife of Samuel of Bulgaria. Some of the other names associated with Agatha and used to corroborate theories based on naming patterns 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.

      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 contemporary with Agatha and was very probably well informed in reporting an Imperial kinship with the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry. Parsons stresses that the sources claiming Russian parentage for Agatha, and her kinship with an Hungarian queen, are of much later date, and consequently likely to be less reliable than a source contemporary with her.

      Purely in an attempt to show that not all avenues have been fully pursued in the effort to identify Agatha, Parsons pointed to the documented existence of a German Count Cristinus, whose given name might explain the name Christina for Agatha's daughter. Count Cristinus married a Saxon noblewoman, Oda of Haldensleben, who is hypothesized to have been maternally a 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.

      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. Ravilious and MichaelAnne Guido subsequently published an article setting forth further evidence concerning the hypothesized Polish parentage of Agatha, including the derivation of the name Agatha (and of her putative sister Gertrude of Poland) from the names of saints associated with the abbey of Nivelles.

      This argument is further supported by the replacement by Andrew I of Hungary (husband of Anastasia of Kiev) of his brother Bela as his heir apparent with his young son Salomon in 1057. If Agatha had been Andrew's sister-in-law, and aunt of Salomon, this act by King Andrew would have strengthened her bonds and those of her husband Edward to Hungary's future: however, if Agatha was a sister-in-law to Bela (husband of Richeza of Poland) she and Edward would most likely have been inclined to leave Hungary in 1057 at the time of Bela's rebellion.

      It's fascinating that this woman's roots is still the subject of speculation after all this time. If only her body could be discovered and DNA recovered to provide some concrete answers to her ancestry.

      For a more concise, but expanded, speculations of Agatha's heritage from medieval to modern times, go to
      http://sbaldw.home.mindspring.com/hproject/prov/agath000.htm
    Person ID I36098  Master File
    Last Modified 15 Sep 2016 

    Family Edward Ætheling, the Exile,   b. ca 1016, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. Aug 1057, England Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age ~ 41 years) 
    Children 
     1. Saint Margaret of Wessex, Queen of Scotland,   b. ca 1045, Hungary Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 16 Nov 1093, Edinburgh Castle, Scotland Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age ~ 48 years)
    Last Modified 14 Sep 2016 
    Family ID F14884  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart