Thanks
Post by Roger LeBlancI have been following with interest the on-going discussion about the
Empress Gisela, and have discovered errors in the ancestry I show for
another relative of hers, Bernard von Werl (c 1007-1063). He is shown as a
descendant of Gerberga of Burgundy (who was the mother of Empress Gisela),
but descended from her first marriage rather than the second. What should be
the correct links between Bernard and Gerberga?
Unfortunately there isn't a definite or simple answer, as the genealogy
of the counts of Werl is somewhat obscure in the late-10th and
early-11th centuries.
According to Annalista Saxo, writing in the mid-12th century, Gisela had
a brother named Bernard ("Gisla et soror eius Machtildis fratresque eius
Rodulfus et Bernhardus nati erant in Uuestfalia de loco, qui dicitur
Uuerla", see p. 362 here:
http://www.dmgh.de/de/fs1/object/goToPage/bsb00066318.html?pageNo=362.
Perhaps this was badly phrased and he meant that Gisela and Mathilde had
half-brothers Rodulf and Bernard who were born in Werl, rather than that
all four were full-siblings born there. But of course, he may have been
flatly wrong.
Anyway, Rodulf and Bernard are thought to have been uterine
half-brothers of Gisela, and their father was probably Hermann who
occurs as count in the approximate timeframe of a first marriage of
their mother Gerberga of Burgundy. However, the name of her Werler
husband is uncertain.
This Bernard according to Annalista Saxo had only daughters ("Bernhardus
comes, alter frater eiusdem regine, habuit filias ...", p. 363 here:
http://www.dmgh.de/de/fs1/object/goToPage/bsb00066318.html?pageNo=363).
He is usually identified as the count of Hövel and advocate of Essen who
died after ca 1030, by ca 1050.
From the dates in your post it appears you may be following the
genealogy given by Friedrich von Klocke in 1049, identifying Gisela's
half-brother Bernard with the count of Werl and advocate of Paderborn
who died in the 1060s or later. However, Klocke's version has been
contradicted by others and this man is more usually placed as her
nephew, the son of Hermann II (thought to have been probably the eldest
son of Gerberga of Burgundy by her Werler husband, whether or not he was
also named Hermann).
Peter Stewart
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