Ansbertus

Ansbertus (also transcribed as Ansbert) was a Frankish Austrasian noble, as well as a Gallo-Roman Senator. He is thought to be the son of Ferreolus, Senator of Narbonne and his wife, Dode. This would make him the great-grandson of Tonantius Ferreolus, Praetorian Prefect of Gaul and his wife Papianilla.

Little of his actual life is known. His wife Billihild was reputed to be a daughter of Charibert I (reigned 561-567), Merovingian King of Paris, and granddaughter of Chlothar I.

Marriage and issue

The Liber Historiae Francorum, written centuries later, states that he married Blithilde, a daughter of King Hlothar and then continues the line to the Pippinids through his son Arnoald to Arnulf of Metz, one of the progenitors of the Carolingians.[1] William of Malmesbury in his History of the Kings of England, repeats the line, without naming his source.[2]

While some versions identify that this "King Hlothar" as the "father of Dagobert" and hence Clothar II, a 9th century genealogy and some modern reconstructions posit that Ansbertus' wife must be a daughter of Clothar I and make her the offspring of his brief relationship with Waldrada, proposing the following offspring:

However, Gregory of Tours, writing contemporary to the sons of Clothar I and our main source on the early Merovingians, does not ascribe to Waldrada any children by her brief unmarried relationship with Chlothar.[3]

Footnotes
  1. Liber Historiæ Francorum 27, MGH SS rer Merov, Tome II, p. 285
  2. "Chronicle of the Kings of England", William of Malmesbury, page 64
  3. "The History of the Franks" IV.9, by Gregory of Tours

Sources
  • "Europe after Rome : a new cultural history 500-1000", by Julia M H Smith, Oxford University Press 2005 : "The Carolingian dynasty...appropriated the Roman past into its ancestry by a genealogy that claimed that its sainted (and historically attested) founder, Arnulf of Metz (d.c. 643) was the grandson of the (mythical) Merovingian princess Blithild and her (equally mythical) husband Ansbert, hailed as a Roman senator."
  • Weis, Frederick Lewis Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonist Who Came To America Before 1700 (7th ed.), lines 180 (all) & 190-9
  • New England Historic and Genealogical Register 101:112
  • Christian Settipani, Les Ancêtres de Charlemagne (France: Éditions Christian, 1989).
  • Christian Settipani, Continuite Gentilice et Continuite Familiale Dans Les Familles Senatoriales Romaines A L'epoque Imperiale, Mythe et Realite, Addenda I-III (juillet 2000-octobre 2002) (n.p.: Prosopographica et Genealogica, 2002).
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