Duoda De Gascogne

She was a scholar and wrote a Manual which is piously Christian. According to later romances she was a pagan. There is nothing to exclude this possibility. She might have been daughter of Sanche I Loup de Gascogne. She has also been called sister, or sister-in-law, of Louis I of France. Zuckerman dismisses the idea that she might have been a daughter of Charlemagne because of the problem of consanguinity, namely that she would have been a half 2nd cousin of her husband. Moriarty also questions her parentage.

DHUODA DE GASCUÑA, UNA MUJER EJEMPLAR DEL SIGLO IX

Desde los primeros tiempos, las mujeres recibían un ajuar de bienes domésticos y personales que, para desgracia de Tácito, ahora también incluye una gran cantidad de joyas y vestidos costosos.

En la aristocracia, el servicio real y de guerra absorbían las energías de los hombres, de modo que la supervisión de las propiedades de la familia se dejaba en manos de las mujeres. Dhuoda, la esposa de Bernardo de Septimania, permaneció en su casa, en Uzes, y dirigió las posesiones rurales, mientras él pasaba el tiempo en la corte como chambelán Imperial.

Los padres de Dhuoda fueron Sancho I López, duque de Gascuña (775-816) y Aznárez de Aragón (hija de Aznar Galindo I, conde de Aragón). Nacida en una familia de la alta nobleza a principios del siglo IX (c.810), la casaron el año 824 con Bernardo, Duque de Septimania y primo de Carlomagno. El hijo de ambos, Guillermo, nació en noviembre del 826. Poco después -exactamente cuándo y por qué no se sabe- Bernardo envió a su mujer a Uzes, en el sudoeste de Francia, donde parece haber pasado el resto de su vida, separada de su marido. Aprendió a vivir sola, a gobernar los campos, a pedir préstamos a cristianos y judíos para armar a su marido (otra costumbre que conservan). En el 841 nació Bernardo, a quien el padre se llevó a la Corte al niño a toda prisa, sin bautizar. Guillermo estaba en la corte de Carlos el Calvo, como prueba de la lealtad de Bernardo hacia el rey. Dhuoda, sola en su castillo, le escribió un manual de educación a su primogénito. En el tratado le explica sus ideales religiosos y mundanos, "... se trata de un notable retrato de una dama digna y culta, golpeada, pero no abatida por las dificultades de la vida".

El manual expone muy claramente el doble sistema de valores que Dhuoda deseaba presentar a su hijo: el servicio a Dios, por supuesto, pero también la adecuada defensa del ideal de una existencia noble en esta vida. Dhuoda insiste en que debe actuar noblemente, respetando los rangos y haciendo dádiva, pero mostrando también cortesía con todos, no sólo con sus iguales. Dhuoda está convencida de que esta conducta, cuando se combina con la devoción cristiana, le traerá tanto felicidad terrenal como la salvación eterna. Su libro es un notable retrato de la propia Dhuoda con todo su anhelo humanos de una vida normal con sus hijos, pero con una auténtica devoción religiosa y la dignidad y el autocontrol que se podía esperar de una mujer de su alcurnia.

La reina carolingia supervisaba el palacio, los estados reales, y representaba a su marido en ausencia de éste. La posición la adquiría cuando era ungida y coronada, las concubinas no llegaron a tener este poder. En su Capitulare de Villis, Carlomagno declaró que lo que la reina ordenara a los jueces, ministros, senescales y escanciadores, debía ejecutarse al pie de la letra. En una época en que no se distinguía entre el poder privado y público de un gobernante, era éste un poder enorme. Hincmaro de Reims explicó, dos generaciones después, que la reina, con ayuda del chambelán, también estaba a cargo del tesoro real. Agregó que el rey no podía verse implicado en tales trivialidades domésticas. Las reinas merovingias también tenían acceso al palacio y al tesoro, pero el chambelán ejercía las funciones administrativas, que luego pasarán a las reinas carolingias.

Alias: Duodene (Dhoude) Liegarde

Born: ABT 804 in Gascony, France 1

Died: AFT 2 FEB 842/43 1

Father: Sancho Loupez Duke\Prince of Gascony b: ABT 772 in Gascony, France

Mother: __________ Aznarez b: ABT 788 in Aragon, Spain

Marriage 1 Bernard I Count of Autun, Margrave Septimania b: BEF 804 in Autun, Saone-et-Loire, Bourgogne, France

Married: 29 JUN 824 in Aix-la-Chapelle, Aachen, Germany 1

Children:

William b: 826 d: 849

Rosalinda (Sancha) of Toulouse b: ABT 825 in Toulouse, Haute-Garonne, Midi-Pyrenees, France

Aton Trencavel, Vicomte de Rouergue b: ABT 830 in Sauveterre de Rouergue, Languedoc, France

Bernard II Plantevelue Comte d'Auvergne b: 22 MAR 840/41 in Uzes, Languedoc, France

Notes [PJ]

Dhuoda was the wife of Bernhard, a military and political figure in the early medieval French court. In 843, she finished writing a manual for her 16-year-old son, William. Bernhard had put Dhuoda away in a castle and handed their son over to Charles the Bald as a hostage. Dhuoda, confined like Rapunzel, reached out to her exiled firstborn by writing an instruction manual for him.

Meanwhile, Bernhard was vying for favor among Charlemagne's squabbling grandsons, of whom Charles was one. He was also evolving into a monster as he gained power. Cruel, lecherous, and political, he tortured and maimed his enemies. He seduced the previous king's wife. He also removed a second son from Dhuoda even before the baby was baptized. Bernhard's enemies were no better. One by one, they had the rest of his family blinded or murdered. And, hostage or no, Charles the Bald finally beheaded Bernhard, only a year after Dhuoda wrote her book.

This was an age when few men, and almost no women, could write. Yet the manual shows a fine grasp of theology, philology, philosophy, and mathematics. Translator James Marchand judges that it's written in fairly good, but certainly not fluent, Latin.

Dhuoda speaks in a unique voice, slipping from poetry to prose and back again so deftly it's hard to find the seams. She has a first-class knowledge of the classics. She loves words, word games, arithmetic, and the mystic power of numbers. Her religious conviction is absolute, and she's fervently committed to William as his loving mother.

She begins with a poem praising God and asking for William's well-being. She also spells her name out in an acrostic. Later, she calls up numbers to direct her meditations. In her thinking, four has a special perfection. Four is the number of letters in the Latin word Deus, for God. And the first letter of Deus, D, is the fourth letter of the alphabet. All that is typical medieval thinking rendered with a fluency that suggests a mind chafing for somewhere to go. But her playfulness is gone by the time she finishes the book with her own epitaph,

Dhuoda's body, formed of earth,

Lies Buried in this tomb. ...

O King, forgive her sins ...

Great Hagios, unlock her chains ...

Almus, give her rest ...

When he was 23, young William had proven to be, in the words of one old chronicle, "too much the son of [his father] in flesh and in habits." So Charles the Bald had him beheaded as well.

Dhuoda's manual on how to grow up in the Grace of God had done scant good without her presence behind it. What she did accomplish was to leave us a glimpse into the heart and mind of a woman living in the worst of times -- one rare woman who escaped the veil of anonymity shrouding all women -- twelve centuries ago. Engines of Our Ingenuity

Notes [JW]

Turton has Bernard's wife as Duodene, a daughter of Charlemagne, the marriage date being 824.

Sources:

Title: Newsgroup: soc.genealogy.medieval, at groups - google.com

Page: Alan B Wilson, 12 Jun 1998

The first we know of Dhuoda is that she was married in 824 in the imperial palace at Aachen to Bernard, Duke of Septimania (c.802-844). Her own family was noble, but she tell us nothing specific about them. She learned to write fluently in Latin at a time when relatively few lay persons did. In 826 she and Bernard had a son, William; in 841 they had another, who would be named Bernard.

Until the 840 death of Charlemagne's son Louis I, Bernard of Septimania was a powerful figure: he was an important military leader who briefly acted as Louis' chancellor, and he was godfather to Louis' youngest son, Charles. There are contemporary accounts accusing Bernard of financial malpractice and of adultery with Louis' queen, but these were written by his political opponents who, like Bernard, were seeking to gain and hold positions of power.

At Louis' death, the Carolingian empire began to collapse. His eldest son held the title of emperor, but there was fierce conflict about what son would rule what portion of land. For three years, there was a state of war. Bernard was officially on the side of his godson, Charles the Bald, but at one battle in 841, Bernard either was late sending his troops to Charles' aid or actually betrayed him (depending on which sources you read). At any rate, Charles was furious, and Bernard sent his 15-year-old son William to his court, both to serve the 20-year-old Charles and to act as a hostage to his father's future loyalty.