, Agatha

Agatha (before 1030 – after 1070) was the wife of Edward the Exile (heirto the throne of England) and mother of Edgar Ætheling, Saint Margaret ofScotland and Cristina of England. Her antecedents are unclear and thesubject of much speculation.[1]

Nothing is known of Agatha''s early life, and what speculation hasappeared is inextricably linked to the contentious issue of Agatha''spaternity, one of the unresolved questions of medieval genealogy. As thebirth of her children is speculatively placed at around the year 1045,her own birth was probably before about 1030. She came to England withher husband and children in 1057, but was widowed shortly after herarrival. Following the Norman conquest of England, in 1067 she fled withher children to Scotland, finding refuge under her future son-in-lawMalcolm III. While one modern source indicates that she spent her lastyears as a nun at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, dying before about 1093,[2] Simeonof Durham[3] carries what appears to be the last reference to her in1070.[4]

Agatha''s origin is alluded to in numerous surviving medieval sources, butthe information they provide is sometimes imprecise, often contradictory,and occasionally cannot possibly be correct. The earliest survivingsource, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, along with Florence of Worcester''sChronicon ex chronicis and Regalis prosapia Anglorum, Simeon of Durhamand Ailred of Rievaulx describe Agatha as a kinswoman of "Emperor Henry"(thaes ceseres maga, filia germani imperatoris Henrici). In an earlierentry, the same Ailred of Rievaulx had called her a daughter of emperorHenry, as do later sources of dubious credibility such as the Chronicleof Melrose Abbey, while Matthew of Paris calls her the emperor''s sister(soror Henrici imperatoris Romani). Geoffrey Gaimar in Lestoire desEngles states that she was daughter of the Hungarian king and queen (Lireis sa fille), although he places the marriage at a time when Edward isthought still to have been in Kiev, while Orderic Vitalis in HistoriaeEcclesiasticae is more specific, naming her father as king Solomon(filiam Salomonis Regis Hunorum), actually a contemporary of Agatha''schildren. William of Malmesbury in De Gestis Regis Anglorum states thatAgatha''s sister was a Queen of Hungary (reginae sororem) and is echoed inthis by Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, while, less precisely, Ailred says ofMargaret that she was derived from English and Hungarian royal blood (desemine regio Anglorum et Hungariorum extitit oriunda). Finally, Roger ofHowden and the anonymous Leges Edwardi Confessoris indicate that whileEdward was a guest of Kievan "king Malesclodus" he married a woman ofnoble birth (nobili progenio), Leges adding that the mother of StMargaret was of Rus royal blood (ex genere et sanguine regum Rugorum).[5]

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

While various sources repeat the claims that Agatha was daughter orsister of either Emperor Henry, it seems unlikely that such a sibling ordaughter would have been ignored by the German chroniclers.[6]

The description of Agatha as a blood relative of "Emperor Henry" may beapplicable to a niece of either Henry II or Henry III, Holy RomanEmperors (although Florence, in Regalis prosapia Anglorum specifies HenryIII). Early attempts at reconstructing the relationship focused on theformer. 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 daughterof Henry II''s brother Bruno of Augsburg (an ecclesiastic described asbeatae memoriae, with no known issue), while Daniel Cornides (1778, RegumHungariae) tried to harmonise the German and Hungarian claims, makingAgatha daughter of Henry II''s sister Giselle of Bavaria, wife of StephenI of Hungary.[7] This solution remained popular among scholars through agood part of twentieth century.[8]

As tempting as it may be to thus view St. Margaret as a granddaughter ofanother famous saint, Stephen of Hungary, this popular solution fails toexplain why Stephen''s death triggered a dynastic crisis in Hungary, or atleast that Agatha''s family failed to play a role in that strife. If St.Stephen and Giselle were indeed Agatha''s parents, her offspring wouldhave had a strong claim to the Hungarian crown. Actually, there is noindication in Hungarian sources that any of Stephen''s children outlivedhim. Likewise, all of the solutions involving Henry II would seem to makeAgatha much older than her husband, and prohibitively old at the time ofthe birth of her son, Edgar.

Based on a more strict translation of the Latin description used byFlorence and others as well as the supposition that Henry III was theEmperor designated in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, genealogist Szabolcs deVajay popularised another idea first suggested in 1939. In that year,Jozsef Herzog published an analysis suggesting that Agatha was daughterof one of the half-brothers of Henry III, born to his mother Gisela ofSwabia by one of her earlier marriages to Ernest I of Swabia and Bruno ofBrunswick, probably the former based on more favourable chronology.[9] DeVajay reevaluated the chronology of the marriages and children of Giselaand concluded that Agatha was the daughter of Henry III''s elder (uterine)half-brother, Liudolf, Margrave of Frisia.[10] This theory saw broadacceptance for thirty years[11] until René Jetté resurrected a Kievansolution to the problem,[12] since which time opinion has been dividedamong several competing possibilities.[13]

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

This theory accords with the seemingly incongruous statements of GeoffreyGaimar and Roger of Howden that, while living in Kiev, Edward took anativeborn wife "of noble parentage" or that his father-in-law was a "Rusking".[14]

Jetté''s theory seems to be supported by an onomastic argument.[15] Amongthe medieval royalty, Agatha''s rare Greek name is first recorded in theMacedonian dynasty of Byzantium; it was also one of the most frequentfeminine names in the Kievan Rurikid dynasty.[16] After Anna of Byzantiummarried Yaroslav''s father, he took the Christian name of the reigningemperor, Basil II, while some members of his family were named afterother members of the imperial dynasty. Agatha could have been one ofthese.[17]

The names of Agatha''s immediate descendants—Margaret, Cristina, David,Alexander—were likewise extraordinary for Anglo-Saxon Britain. They mayprovide a clue to Agatha''s origin. The names Margaret and Cristina aretoday associated with Sweden, the native country of Yaroslav''s wifeIngigerd.[18] The name of Margaret''s son, David, obviously echoes that ofSolomon, the son and heir of Andrew I.[19] Furthermore, the first saintof the Rus (canonized ca. 1073) was Yaroslav''s brother Gleb, whoseChristian name was David.

The name of Margaret''s other son, Alexander, may point to a variety oftraditions, both occidental and oriental: the biography of Alexander theGreat 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. Theargumentum ex silentio leads critics of the Kievan theory to search foralternative explanations.

In response to the recent flurry of activity on the subject, Ian Mladjovreevaluated the question and presented a completely novel solution.[20]He dismissed each of the prior theories in turn as insufficientlygrounded and incompatible given the historical record, and furthersuggested that many of the proposed solutions would have resulted inlater marriages that fell within the prohibited degree of kinship. Heargued that the documentary testimony of Agatha''s origins is tainted orlate, and concurred with Humphreys'' evaluation that the names of thechildren and grandchildren of Agatha, so central to prior reevaluations,may have had non-family origins (for example, Pope Alexander II played acritical role in the marriage of Malcolm and Margaret). However, he thenfocused in on the name of Agatha as being critical to determining herorigin. He concluded that of the few contemporary Agathas, only one couldpossibly have been an ancestor of the wife of Edward the Exile,Agatha,[21] wife of Samuel of Bulgaria. Some of the other namesassociated with Agatha and used to corroborate theories based inonomastics are also readily available within the Bulgarian ruling familyat the time, including Mary and several Davids. Mladjov inferred thatAgatha was daughter of Gavril Radomir, Tsar of Bulgaria, Agatha''s son, byhis first wife, a Hungarian princess thought to have been the daughter ofDuke Géza of Hungary. This hypothesis has Agatha born in Hungary afterher parents divorced, her mother being pregnant when she left Bulgaria,and naming her daughter after the mother of the prince who had expelledher. Traditional dates of this divorce would seem to preclude thesuggested relationship, but the article re-examined some long-standingassumptions about the chronology of Gavril Radomir''s marriage to theHungarian princess, and concludes that its dating to the late 980s isunsupportable, and its dissolution belongs in c. 1009-1014. The argumentis based almost exclusively on the onomastic precedent but is said tovindicate the intimate connection between Agatha and Hungary attested inthe Medieval sources. Mladjov speculates further that the medievaltestimony could largely be harmonized were one to posit that Agatha''smother was the same Hungarian princess who married Samuel Aba of Hungary,his family fleeing to Kiev after his downfall, thereby allowing a Russianmarriage for Agatha.

This solution fails to conform with any of the relationships appearing inthe primary record. It is inferred that the relative familiarity withGermany and unfamiliarity with Hungary partly distorted the depiction ofAgatha in the English sources; her actual position would have been thatof 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, andtherefore kinsman of Henry III).

In 2002, in an article meant not only to refute the Kievan hypothesis,but also to broaden the consideration of possible alternatives beyond thecompeting German Imperial and Kievan reconstructions, John Carmi Parsonspresented a novel theory. He pointed out that the Anglo-Saxon Chroniclerepresents the earliest surviving testimony, and argues that it wascontemporary with Agatha and was very probably well informed in reportingan Imperial kinship. Parsons stresses that the sources claiming Russianparentage for Agatha, and her kinship with an Hungarian queen, are ofmuch later date, and consequently likely to be less reliable than asource contemporary with her. Purely in an attempt to show that not allavenues have been fully pursued in the effort to identify Agatha, Parsonspointed to the documented existence of a German Count Cristinus, whosegiven name might explain the name Christina for Agatha''s daughter. CountCristinus married a Saxon noblewoman, Oda of Haldensleben, who ishypothesized to have been maternally a granddaughter of Vladimir I ofKiev by a German kinswoman of Emperor Henry III. Parsons also noted thatEdward could have married twice, with the contradictory primary record inpart reflecting confusion between distinct wives.[22]

Recently, a Polish hypothesis has appeared. John P. Ravilious hasproposed that Agatha was daughter of Mieszko II Lambert of Poland by hisGerman wife, making her kinswoman of both Emperors Henry, as well assister of a Hungarian queen, the wife of Béla I.[23] Ravilious andMichaelAnne Guido subsequently published an article setting forth furtherevidence concerning the hypothesized Polish parentage of Agatha,including the derivation of the name Agatha (and of her putative sisterGertrude of Poland) from the names of saints associated with the abbey ofNivelles. This argument is further supported by the replacement by AndrewI of Hungary (husband of Anastasia of Kiev) of his brother Bela as hisheir apparent with his young son Salomon in 1057. If Agatha had beenAndrew''s sister-in-law, and aunt of Salomon, this act by King Andrewwould have strengthened her bonds and those of her husband Edward toHungary''s future: however, if Agatha was a sister-in-law to Bela (husbandof Richeza of Poland) she and Edward would most likely have been inclinedto leave Hungary in 1057 at the time of Bela''s rebellion.[24]