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Death:          20 Feb  691 

Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adalrich,_Duke_of_Alsace
Adalrich (Latin: Adalricus; reconstructed Frankish: *Adalrik; died after c. 683 AD), also 
known as Eticho,[a] was the Duke of Alsace, the founder of the family of the 
Etichonids and of the Habsburg, and an important and influential figure in the power 
politic of late seventh-century Austrasia.

Adalrich's family originated in the pagus Attoariensis[1] around Dijon in northern 
Burgundy. In the mid-seventh century they began to be major founders and patrons of 
monasteries in the region under a duke named Amalgar and his wife Aquilina.[2] They 
founded a convent at Brégille and an abbey for men at Bèze, installing children in 
both abbacies. They were succeeded by their third child, Adalrich,[3] who was the 
father of Adalrich, Duke of Alsace.
Civil war of 675–679[edit]

Adalrich first enters history as a member of the faction of nobles which invited 
Childeric II to take the kingship of Neustria and Burgundy in 673 after the death of 
Chlothar III. He married Berswinda, a relative of Leodegar, the famous Bishop of 
Autun, whose party he supported in the civil war which followed Childeric's 
assassination two years later (675). Adalrich was duke by March 675, when Childeric 
had granted him honores in Alsace with the title of dux and asked him to transfer some 
land to the recently founded (c. 662) abbey at Gregoriental[4] on behalf of Abbot 
Valedio. This grant was most probably the result of his support for Childeric in 
Burgundy, which had often disputed possession of Alsace with Austrasia. Later writers 
saw Adalrich as the successor in Alsace of Duke Boniface. After Childeric's 
assassination, Adalrich threw his support behind Dagobert II for the Austrasian throne.

Adalrich abandoned Leodegar and went over to Ebroin, the mayor of the palace of 
Neustria, sometime before 677, when he appears as an ally of Theuderic, who granted 
him the monastery of Bèze.[5] Taking advantage of the assassination of Hector of 
Provence in 679 to bid for power in Provence, he marched on Lyon but failed to take 
it and, returning to Alsace, switched his support to the Austrasians once more, only to 
find himself dispossessed of his lands in Alsace by King Theuderic III, an ally (and 
puppet) of Ebroin's who had opposed Dagobert in Austrasia since 675, who gave them 
to the Abbey of Bèze that year (679).

Power in Alsace[edit]

Adalrich maintained his power in a restricted dukedom which did not encompass land 
west of the Vosges as it had under Boniface and his predecessors. This land was a 
part of the kingdoms of Neustria and Burgundy, and only the land between the Vosges 
and the Rhine south to the Sornegau, later Alsace proper, remained with Austrasia 
under Adalrich. The west of Vosges was under duke Theotchar.

In Alsace, however, the civil war had resulted in a curtailed royal power and Adalrich's 
influence and authority, though restricted in territory, was augmented in practical 
scope. After the war, parts of the Frankish kingdom saw a more powerful viceregal 
hand under the exercise of the mayors of the palaces, while other regions were even 
less directly affected by the royal prerogative. The Merovingian palace at Marlenheim 
in Alsace was never visited by a royal figure again in Adalrich's lifetime. While 
southern Austrasia had been the centre of Wulfoald's power, the Arnulflings were a 
north Austrasian family, who took scarce interest in Alsatian affairs until the 730s and 
740s.

Adalrich had initially made his allies counts, but in 683 he granted the comital office to 
his son and eventual successor Adalbert. By controlling monasteries and counties in 
the family, Adalrich built up a powerful regional duchy to pass on to his Etichonid 
heirs.

Relationship with monasteries[edit]

Adalrich had a rocky relationship with the monasteries of his realm, upon which he 
relied for his power. He is infamous for the suppression of that of Moutier-Grandval, 
and for lording it over monasteries, including his own foundations. According to the 
Life of Germanus of Grandval, Adalrich "wickedly began oppressing the people in the 
vicinity [Sornegau] of the monastery and to allege that they had always been rebels 
against his predecessors." He removed the centenarius ruling in the region and 
replaced him with his own man, Count Ericho. He exiled the people of the Sornegau, 
who denied being rebels against previous dukes. Many of the people exiled from the 
valley were attached to Grandval and could not thus be exiled. Adalrich marched into 
the valley of the Sornegau with a large army of Alemanni at one end while his 
lieutenant Adalmund entered with a host by the other. The abbot, Germanus himself, 
and his provost Randoald met Adalrich with books and relics in order to persuade him 
not to make violence. The duke granted a wadium,[6] a device of recompense or 
promise, and offered thus to spare the valley devastation, but for unknown reasons 
Germanus refused it. The region was ravaged.

Perhaps as penance for his relationship to the deaths of two future saints, Leodegar 
and Germanus of Grandval, or perhaps out of a secret desire — disclosed it is said to 
his intimate friends — to found a place to the service of God and take up the religious 
life, Adalrich founded two monasteries in north central Alsace between 680 and 700: 
Ebersheim in honour of Saint Maurice and Hohenburg on the site of an old Roman fort 
(of the emperor Maximian) discovered by his huntsmen and which he appropriated for 
his own military uses. Adalrich's daughter Odilia served as Hohenburg's first abbess 
and was later named patron saint of Alsace by Pope Pius VII in 1807.
Veneration as a saint[edit]

His daughter Odilia was reputedly born blind, which Adalrich took as a punishment for 
some offence done to God. In order to save face with his retainers, he tried to 
persuade his wife to kill the infant child in secret. Bereswinda instead sent the child 
into hiding with a maid at the monastery of Palma. According to the Life of Odilia, a 
bishop named Erhard baptised the adolescent girl and smeared a chrism on her eyes, 
which miraculously restored her sight.

The bishop tried to restore the duke's relationship with his daughter, but Adalrich, 
fearing the effect of admitting to having a daughter hiding in poverty in a monastery 
would have on his subjects, refused. A son of his, ignoring Adalrich's orders, brought 
his sister back to Hohenburg, where Adalrich was holding court. When Odilia arrived, 
Adalrich, in a rage, struck a blow with his sceptre to his son's head, accidentally 
killing him. Disgraced, he reluctantly allowed Odilia to live in the monastery, which had 
no abbess, with a minimal wage under a British nun.

Towards the end of his life he was reconciled to her and made her the first abbess of 
his foundation, handing the abbey over as if it were private property.[7] Through his 
daughter Adalrich was reconciled to God and as early as the twelfth century was 
regarded as a saint with a local cult. His burial garments were displayed to pilgrims in 
his foundation at Hohenburg and a feast day was celebrated annually by the nuns. 
The portrayal of Adalrich as a nobleman who became holy while retaining his noble 
status and rank was very popular in the Rhineland and as far away as Bavaria in the 
Middle Ages. The Life probably sought to show how by simply maltreating a blind 
daughter in order to save face, Adalrich ended up far more dishonoured than he 
otherwise would have.

Parents
____ Amalgar ()
____ Aquilina ()

Siblings
____ Adalric ( - 20 Feb  691)

Marriage To ____ Berswinde ()
    m.  

Notes


Children by ____ Berswinde 
____ Adelbert (ABT  675 -  723)

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