Gertrude DE NORDGAU

Filiation controversée.

In this case Albert of Stade, writing in the 13th century, told the story of Oda - according to him she was a daughter of Lippold (called sonof Glismod) by Ida of Elsdorf (said to be daughter of a brother of Emperor Heinrich III by a sister of Pope Leo IX, i.e. apparently, by default, making Ida of Elsdorf a daughter of Liudolf, count of Brunswick by his wife Gertrud).

Franz Legl discussed this alleged relationship of Ida as niece on her

mother's side to Leo IX in _Studien zur Geschichte der Grafen von

Dagsburg-Egisheim_ (Saarbrücken, 1998) 141-144:

Hans Dobbertin [in ‘Das Verwandtschaftsverhältnis der „schwäbischen“ Edlen Ida von Elsdorf zum Kaiserbruder Ludolf IV. von Braunschweig (†1038) und zu Papst Leo IX (†1054)’, Braunschweigisches Jahrbuch 43 (1962)] thought that Leo IX’s mother Heilwig of Dagsburg had been married toa count named Ekbert before her marriage with Hugo IV of Egisheim, regarding Gertrud as a half-sister of Leo IX. Dobbertin proposed that a daughter of Count Ekbert named Gertrud, who (according to Annalista Saxo)was divorced in 1019 from Gottschalk, son of Count Ekkehard, was identical with Gertrud the mother of Ida of Elsdorf. However, there is no direct evidence for this in the sources. [NB for enthusiasts in onomastics- Gertrud had sons named Ekbert

and Bruno, the baptismal name of Leo IX, but her husband’s father was also named Bruno].

Hermann Jakobs [in Der Adel in der Klosterreform von St. Blasien (1968)] was sceptical about the report of Albert of Stade making Leo IX anuncle to Ida of Elsdorf. He agreed with Dobbertin in assuming that Gertrud was the daughter of Ekbert, and accepted some relationship betweenGertrud and Leo IX while leaving open whether they were actually siblings or half-siblings.

Eduard Hlawitschka [in Untersuchungen zu den Thronwechseln der erstenHälfte des 11. Jahrhunderts und zur Adelsgeschichte Süddeutschlands (1987)] agreed with Dobbertin that Count Ekbert was the father of Gertrud. However, he placed less value in the statement that Gertrud was a sister of Leo IX.

He noted that the sources are totally silent about a prior marriage of

Heilwig of Dagsburg and that the name Gertrud did not occur in the count of Egisheim’s family before this time. Hlawitschka considered the opinion of Jakobs on Albert of Stade’s reliability to be plausible. Gertrud and Leo IX were indirectly linked through the Salians by her marriage, but Albert had the connection between emperor Heinrich III and Pope Leo IX in the forefront of his mind and exaggerated his representation of Ida’s origin with an unduly direct relationship to Leo IX. [NB Hlawitschka discussed this again in Die Ahnen der hochmittelalterlichen deutschen Könige, Kaiser und ihre Gemahlinnen: Ein kommentiertes Tafelwerk(2006–2009) Bd. 1 Teil 2 pp. 699-703.]

Legl concluded that Gertrud was most probably not a sister or a half-sister of Leo IX.

Peter Stewart

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