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Birth:          ABT 1028 Bavaria, Germany
Death:          AFT 1066 

Notes
of West Friesland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha,_wife_of_Edward_the_Exile
Agatha (before 1030 – after 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.[1]

Life[edit]

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,[2] Simeon of Durham[3] carries 
what appears to be the last reference to her in 1070.[4]

Origin[edit]

Medieval sources[edit]

Agatha's origin is alluded to in numerous surviving medieval sources, but the 
information they provide is sometimes imprecise, often contradictory, and occasionally 
demonstrably false. The earliest surviving source, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, along 
with John of Worcester's Chronicon ex chronicis and its associated genealogical 
tables (sometimes named separately as Regalis prosapia Anglorum), Symeon 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), even though he 
was 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).[5]

Onomastics[edit]

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 the latter 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
 Ætheling 
 
 Cristina
   
Margaret
   
 Malcolm III
 of Scotland 

Edward 
 
 Edmund 
 
 Ethelred 
 
 Edgar 
 
 Alexander 
 
 David 
 
 Edith 
 
 Mary 
 
German and Hungarian theories[edit]

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.[6]


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 John of 
Worcester 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.
[7] This solution remained popular among scholars through a good part of twentieth 
century.[8]
 Henry II
 Duke of Bavaria 
 Gisela of
 Burgundy 

Henry II
 Emperor 
 
 Bruno of
 Augsburg 
 
 Giselle
 of Bavaria 
 
 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, 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. 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 last child, Edgar.
 
Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor, said to have been kinsman of Agatha.
Based on a more strict translation of the Latin description used by John of Leicester 
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, Jozsef Herzog published an analysis suggesting that 
Agatha was daughter of one of Henry's half-brothers, born to his mother Gisela of 
Swabia by her earlier marriages to Ernest I of Swabia and Bruno of Brunswick, 
probably the former based on more favourable chronology.[9] 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.[10] 
This theory saw broad acceptance for thirty years[11] until René Jetté resurrected a 
Kievan solution to the problem,[12] since which time opinion has been divided among 
several competing possibilities.[13]

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[edit]

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".[14]

Eduard Hlawitschka also identifies Agatha as a daughter of Yaroslav, pointing out that 
Adam of Bremen,[15] 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)[15] 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 to the land of the Rus and 
that there he married a noble woman.[16][15]

Onomastics have been seen as supporting Jetté's and Hlawitschka's theory.[17][18] 
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.[19] 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.[20]

The names of Agatha's immediate descendants — Margaret, Cristina, David and 
Alexander — were likewise extraordinary for Britain at that time. 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.[21] The name of Margaret's 
son, David, mirrors that of David of Hungary, like his elder brother Solomon a son of 
Andrew I of Hungary and Anastasia of Kiev.[22][23] 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
 (perhaps born Margaret) 

Harald III
 of Norway 
 
 Elizabeth
 
 Andrew I
 of Hungary 
 Anastasia

 Anna
 
 Henry I
 of France 
 
 Vsevolod I
 
 Anastasia
 Monomacha 

 Adelaide
   

 Solomon
 of Hungary 
 
 David
   

 Maria 

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, and it was a common name in the Greek-
influenced Orthodox tradition. Humphreys would review the two main types of 
hypotheses, which he called the Salian and the Slavic theories, and pointed out that 
the critical evidence in weighing them is whether one accepts the testimony of John of 
Worcester (Salian) or William of Malmesbury (Slavic) as representing the earliest, most 
accurate version of her ancestry. He would later point out the occurrence of the name 
Maria in the next generation of the Kievan dynasty, and suggested that Agatha could 
instead have been sister of the Byzantine wife of Vsevolod I of Kiev, that the tradition 
of imperial connections had confused which Empire was involved. However, he 
subsequently studied the sources and particularly the chronology of this dynasty in 
more detail and concluded that this solution was unlikely, though he did favor a 
reconstruction making Yaroslav the son, rather than the step-son, of the Byzantine 
princess Anna Porphyrogeneta.[24]

One inference from the Kievan theory is that Edgar Ætheling and St. Margaret were, 
through their mother, first cousins of Philip I of France. The connection seems 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[edit]

In response to the recent flurry of activity on the subject, Ian Mladjov reevaluated the 
question and presented a completely novel solution.[25] He dismissed each of the 
prior theories in turn as insufficiently grounded and incompatible given the historical 
record, and further argued that many of the proposed solutions would have meant that 
later documented marriages would have fallen within the prohibited degree of kinship, 
yet there is no record the issue of consanguinity was ever raised with regard to these 
marriages. 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, having played a critical role in the marriage of 
Malcolm and Margaret, may have inspired their use of that name). However, he then 
focused in on the name of Agatha as being critical to determining her origin. He 
concluded that of the few contemporaries named Agatha, only Agatha Chryselia, the 
wife of Samuel of Bulgaria could possibly have been an ancestor of Edward the Exile's 
spouse. Some of the other names associated with Agatha and used to corroborate 
theories based in onomastics were present within the Bulgarian ruling family at the 
time, including Mary and several Davids. Mladjov inferred that Agatha was 
granddaughter of Agatha Cryselia, daughter of Gavril Radomir, Tsar of Bulgaria by his 
short-lived first marriage to 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, yet would entail 
her mother naming her after the mother of the Bulgarian prince who had just rejected 
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 that 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
 
 Samuel
 of Bulgaria 
 

 Agatha
 Cryselia 
 
Ivan
 Vladislav 
 
 Maria
   
 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; by this 
reconstruction she would have been niece of the King of Hungary (Stephen I), who 
was himself the brother-in-law of the Holy Roman Emperor (Henry II, and therefore 
kinsman of Henry III).

Other theories[edit]

In 2002, in an article meant not only to refute the Kievan hypothesis, but also to 
broaden the field of possible alternatives beyond the competing German Imperial and 
Kievan reconstructions, John Carmi Parsons presented a novel possibility. 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. Parsons stresses that the sources claiming Russian 
parentage for Agatha, and her kinship with a 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.[26]
 
 Conrad I
 of Swabia 
 (perhaps
 identical) 
 
 Cuno of
 Öhningen 
 Herman II
 of Swabia 
 

 daughter 
 
 St. Vladimir 
 
 Anna
 Porphyrogeneta 

 
 Conrad II 
 
 Gisela
 of Swabia 
 
 Bernard of
 Haldensleben 
 
 daughter 
 
 Ladislas
 of Hungary 
 
 Premislava 
 
 Casimir I
 of Poland 
 
 Maria Dobroniega
 of Kiev 
 Henry III 
 
 Cristinus 
 
 Oda of
 Haldensleben 
 
 Conrad of
 Haldensleben 

 Diagnementia
Margaretha 
 
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.[27] 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.[28]

 
 Henry I 
 
 Eadgyth
 of England 
 
 Otto I 
 
 Adelaide
 of Italy 
 

 Henry I
 of Bavaria 

Conrad of
 Lorraine 
 
 Liutgarde
   
 Otto II 
 
 Theophanu of
 Constantinople 
 

 Henry II
 of Bavaria 
 
 Otto of
 Worms 
 
 Otto III
   
 Ezo of
 Lorraine 
 
 Matilda 
 
 Henry II
   
 Gisela of
 Bavaria 
 
 Stephen I
 of Hungary 
 
 Henry of
 Speyer 
 
 Mieszko II
 of Poland 
 
 Richeza 


 Conrad II 
 
 Casimir I
 of Poland 
 
 Maria Dobroniega
 of Kiev 
 
 Iziaslav I
 of Kiev 
 
 Gertrude 
 
 Béla I of
 Hungary 
 
 Richeza/
 Adelaide 

 Henry III 


Parents
VON BRAUNSCHWEIG Liudolf (Ludwig) (ABT 1006 - 23 Apr 1038)
VON EGISHEIM Gertrude (ABT 1000 - 21 Jul 1077)

Siblings
VON BRAUNSCHWEIG Egbert I (Eckbert) (ABT 1025 - 11 Jan 1068)
VON BRAUNSCHWEIG (BRUNSWICK) Agatha (ABT 1028 - AFT 1066)

Marriage To ____ Edward "Atheling" (1016 - 1057)
    m. ABT 1041 

Notes

Parents
____ Edmund II "Ironside" (ABT  988 - 30 Nov 1016)
OF MERCIA Ealgyth (Ealdgyth) (Algitha) (ABT  993 - )

Children by ____ Edward "Atheling" 1016 - 1057
OF SCOTLAND Margaret "Atheling" "Saint" (ABT 1048 - 16 Nov 1093)

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