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Source: A Modern Review of Thidrekssaga, Merovingians by the Svava

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Titre	A Modern Review of Thidrekssaga, Merovingians by the Svava

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Theoderich der Grosse König der Ostgoten

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by Rolf Badenhausen Date: 2019-08-07

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Contents Introduction The original narrative geography by the Old Norse & Swedish texts King Theuderic I = King Þiðrek of Bern Some literary and historical environments Gransport & Some historical and literary analogues Theuderic's disappearance after 507 Some interliterary receptions Low Saxon Historiography and the 'Annals' How reliable is Gregory of Tours ? Interliterary recognitions: Chlodio and Hloðr in northern Húnaland Theuderic I or Þiðrek of Bern: »King of Bonn« Which are the dynasties of the eastern Franks of 5th century ? King Sigebert of Cologne = King Sigurð the Nibelung ? Preliminary Filiations Ermenrik and Samson Weland and Widga Atala of Susat and a perspective survey Some literary-historical perspectives Early activities in Baltic lands and Western Russia Remarks on 'Historicity' of 'Vilkinaland' and other Baltic lands Ostancia, queen of 'Vilkinaland', Baltic Sea Region Résumé General conformity of contemporary residential regions Common geostrategical ambitions Dénouements on literary genre Endnotes Appendix A1 Remarks on the evaluation of Þiðreks saga manuscripts A2 Edward R. Haymes on oral tradition and Þiðreks saga A3 Appended documents Introduction The reviewing literary research into Old Norse and Swedish traditions, as initiated by Heinz Ritter-Schaumburg, PhD († 1994), might motivate not only experts in Late Antiquity and prae-mediaeval times to take note of some new interesting context: The Old Norse Þiðreks saga and Old Swedish 'Didriks chronicle', both appearing closely related to the sagas or legends about an »Ostrogothic Dietrich von Bern«, seem to throw back certain narrative light from Frankish history, whose Merovingian origin and its 5th–6th - century period have been briefly regarded by Gregory of Tours, Fredegar’s Chronicle and the so-called 'Chronicle of Frankish Kings'. Contradicting scholastic conviction, Ritter has evaluated the mediaeval Old Swedish texts he shortly called Svava, catalogued as E 9013, of Skokloster-Codex, formerly No. I/115 & 116 quarto, at the 'Riksarkivet' Stockholm, as more objective copy from an early but unknown archaic manuscript being prior to the more longwinded narrating Þiðreks saga which, however, is of surviving elder version and sometimes rendering more topographical information. As the late expert was able to prove by means of his numerous German publications and lectures, these manuscripts cannot mean the 'Ostrogothic Theoderic' mainly for both topographical and biographical reasons, but rather provide narration related to an equally named Frankish king, the Old Swedish Didrik, who started his rise at 'Bern(e)' in the northern Rhine-Eiffel outland. Regarding a circumspect re-evaluation of the aforementioned manuscripts and other records of occidental antiquity, we obviously have to contemplate a sharp natural limit that was previously forming the big border between the Roman Empire and Germanic tribes, and, later again, the Franks and more eastern folks: The Rhine. Apparently, our first Frankish historiographers or 'chroniclers' would hardly cross that river to have a look at the outlandish tribes beyond; and almost all their foreign colleagues seemto have left an almost blank sheet about their history, particularly from the times after the downfall of the Roman Empire to Charlemagne. The original narrative geography by the Old Norse and Swedish texts Heinz Ritter’s primal geographical terminology of Þiðreks saga and Old Swedish 'Didriks chronicle' represents an interesting result of his diligent verification of intertextual location and hydronymic names. With respect to the environment and localization of Bern, the 1st-century Roman Eiffel Map, issued by Kurt Stade, provides a Roman based mining location nowadays called Breinig ('Breinigerbg.') at the exceptional Gallic-Roman temple site VARNE (VARN → VERN → BERN). Although the contemporary name of Breinig was not handed down, the name of this place has been suggested as a derivation based on Varneniacum → Bereniacum → Breniacum (Otto Klaus Schmich, Hünen, Viöl 1999, p. 306), as we have to come back later to the region of these and other related places on account of both geohistorical and the narrative geostrategical contexts. Since Heinz Ritter has thoroughly translated the Old Swedish 'Didriks chronicle' into German language and reviewed the Þiðreks saga manuscripts, the regions of today’s North Rhine-Westphalia, the Rhineland and its Palatinate, Low Saxony, Jutland and western Baltic territories appear as authentic locations focused by ancient and mediaeval historiographers who enticingly forwarded lifetime events related to a king of an obvious Franco-Rhenish descent. Nonetheless, we must carefully study their records to find some synchronous or completing passages about Franco-Rhenish politics of 5th and the first third of 6th century. Regarding the Rhine again as dominant natural and cultural border, they seem to have had nearly the same limited geographical horizon of recitation as their Frankish colleagues vice versa. Thus, besides primal geographical terminology, we have to interpret the Old Norse + Swedish writers' farthest known southern centre ROME as 'Roma secunda', whose spelling, localization and significance is unmistakably provable as the Roman Augusta Treverorum (today: Trier on the Moselle) through both historical and geostrategical contexts. However, we should not expect a detailed recitation of the Merovingian bloodline from Þiðrek’s 'biographers' who certainly were not crossing the Meuse westward, therefore providing fragmentary views, and we also should keep an eye on the right sequence of more than 300 chapters written by the scribes of the 'Didrikschronicle' and Þiðreks saga. Since the 'Didriks chronicle' and its derived epic novel Thidreks saga, as Ritter prefers this literary classification (see Der Schmied Weland; posthumously published by Olms, Hildesheim 1999), like to put forward some coherent historical information and relations upon large territories of today’s Central and North Europe, we should estimate with him that these texts would basically not prefer depiction of any less important provincial antics against more reasonable reports on superior events. Evaluating Ritter’s conclusions by means of the momentous context of the Old Norse + Swedish manuscripts on such level, we finally will be confronted with the impasse of not enough geographical, temporal and personal space for Theuderic '&' Þiðrek. It has been considered that – Þiðrek, Franco-Rhenish king, died c. 534–36 according to Ritter’s estimation; – Theuderic, not only Franco-Rhenish king, died at the end of 533. Kemp Malone (1959) and Karl Simrock, German translator of the Nibelungenlied, Old Norse Epics and the Old English Beowulf, identify Dietrich von Bern with Frankish king Theuderic I. Simrock, reviewing and basically following his colleague Prof. Laurenz Lersch, pleads for an original cycle of (Franco-)Rhenish tradition centered around Bonn = Verona (notably Franz Joseph Mone) which, as these scholars do generally combine, thereafter was assimilated by receiving authors of southern Dietrich von Bern epics. (F. J. Mone, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der teutschen Heldensage, 1836, p. 67; id. Anzeiger für Kunde der teutschen Vorzeit, 1836, p. 418. Laurenz Lersch, Verona., in: Jahrbücher des Vereins von Alterthumsfreunden im Rheinlande. Bonn 1842, I, pgs 1–34.Karl Simrock, Bonna Verona., in: Bonn. Beiträge zu seiner Geschichte und seinen Denkmälern. Festschrift Bonn 1868, III, pgs 1–20.) Karl Müllenhoff, another 19th-century scholar, tried to discern Dietrich von Bern as an amalgamation of Frankish kings Theuderic and his son Theudebert with a poetical 'Ostrogothic Theoderic' (Die austrasische Dietrichsage, in: ZfdA 6 (1848), pgs 435–459). Thereafter Hermann Lorenz declared Theuderic of the Frankish kingdom as the prototype serving for Dietrich epics, estimating [transl.] 'Theuderic utterly dragged into the cycle of the Gothic Dietrich saga' (Das Zeugniss für die deutsche Heldensage in den Annalen von Quedlinburg, in: GERMANIA 31 [19, 1886], pgs 137–150, p. 139). Regarding newer publications, Helmut G. Vitt renders short but astute initial intercessions resulting in Þiðrek = Theuderic I and Samson = Childeric I : Wieland der Schmied (ISBN3 925498 00 1), pgs 127–138. However, all these authors do not provide detailed studies which ought to substantiate more firmly their opinion. We must state deficient biographical information about that young Theuderic before 507 and, again, c. 523. He is mentioned as most talented son of C(h)lodovocar I or 'Clovis' in the texts written by Bishop Gregory of Tours, principal Frankish 'chronicler'whom we obviously have to credit with truth telling, and who might appear to some item more informative than the pseudonymous Fredegar. Unfortunately, Gregory has not left a line to find the answers to these urgent questions about this Franco-Rhenish king: 1. May a clerical raconteur punish Theuderic with a certain portion of ignorance, since he has taken him for a son of any heathen concubine? 2. Has that skilled young man kept a respectable distance to his rude and bloodthirsty father? Fact is that King Clovis could rely on Theuderic for daring missions, e.g. against the Visigoths. On the subject of this operation, the history reveals that only the powerful appearance of Theoderic the Great could stop the conquests made by Theuderic in 507/508. Nonetheless, we may wonder whether or how much Gregory did discriminate him against Clovis' sons Chlothar, Chlodomer and Childebert, whose mother was the honourable Saint Clotilde (primordially rather Chrodechildis, Chrodigildis) of Burgundian dynasty; and we may also wonder whether Theuderic trained his skilfulness and sophistication by keeping out of Clovis' gory ways. Thus, we may con...

Contents
Introduction
The original narrative geography by the Old Norse & Swedish texts
King Theuderic I = King Þiðrek of Bern
Some literary and historical environments
Gransport & Some historical and literary analogues
Theuderic's disappearance after 507
Some interliterary receptions
Low Saxon Historiography and the 'Annals'
How reliable is Gregory of Tours ?
Interliterary recognitions: Chlodio and Hloðr in northern Húnaland
Theuderic I or Þiðrek of Bern: »King of Bonn«
Which are the dynasties of the eastern Franks of 5th century ?
King Sigebert of Cologne = King Sigurð the Nibelung ?
Preliminary Filiations
Ermenrik and Samson
Weland and Widga
Atala of Susat and a perspective survey
Some literary-historical perspectives
Early activities in Baltic lands and Western Russia
Remarks on 'Historicity' of 'Vilkinaland' and other Baltic lands
Ostancia, queen of 'Vilkinaland', Baltic Sea Region
Résumé
General conformity of contemporary residential regions
Common geostrategical ambitions
Dénouements on literary genre
Endnotes
Appendix
A1 Remarks on the evaluation of Þiðreks saga manuscripts
A2 Edward R. Haymes on oral tradition and Þiðreks saga
A3 Appended documents

Introduction

The reviewing literary research into Old Norse and Swedish traditions, as initiated by Heinz Ritter-Schaumburg, PhD († 1994), might motivate not only experts in Late Antiquity and prae-mediaeval times to take note of some new interesting context: The Old Norse Þiðreks saga and Old Swedish 'Didriks chronicle', both appearing closely related to the sagas or legends about an »Ostrogothic Dietrich von Bern«, seem to throw back certain narrative light from Frankish history, whose Merovingian origin and its 5th–6th - century period have been briefly regarded by Gregory of Tours, Fredegar’s Chronicle and the so-called 'Chronicle of Frankish Kings'.

Contradicting scholastic conviction, Ritter has evaluated the mediaeval Old Swedish texts he shortly called Svava, catalogued as E 9013, of Skokloster-Codex, formerly No. I/115 & 116 quarto, at the 'Riksarkivet' Stockholm, as more objective copy from an early but unknown archaic manuscript being prior to the more longwinded narrating Þiðreks saga which, however, is of surviving elder version and sometimes rendering more topographical information. As the late expert was able to prove by means of his numerous German publications and lectures, these manuscripts cannot mean the 'Ostrogothic Theoderic' mainly for both topographical and biographical reasons, but rather provide narration related to an equally named Frankish king, the Old Swedish Didrik, who started his rise at 'Bern(e)' in the northern Rhine-Eiffel outland.

Regarding a circumspect re-evaluation of the aforementioned manuscripts and other records of occidental antiquity, we obviously have to contemplate a sharp natural limit that was previously forming the big border between the Roman Empire and Germanic tribes, and, later again, the Franks and more eastern folks: The Rhine. Apparently, our first Frankish historiographers or 'chroniclers' would hardly cross that river to have a look at the outlandish tribes beyond; and almost all their foreign colleagues seemto have left an almost blank sheet about their history, particularly from the times after the downfall of the Roman Empire to Charlemagne.

The original narrative geography by the Old Norse and Swedish texts

Heinz Ritter’s primal geographical terminology of Þiðreks saga and Old Swedish 'Didriks chronicle' represents an interesting result of his diligent verification of intertextual location and hydronymic names. With respect to the environment and localization of Bern, the 1st-century Roman Eiffel Map, issued by Kurt Stade, provides a Roman based mining location nowadays called Breinig ('Breinigerbg.') at the exceptional Gallic-Roman temple site VARNE (VARN → VERN → BERN). Although the contemporary name of Breinig was not handed down, the name of this place has been suggested as a derivation based on Varneniacum → Bereniacum → Breniacum (Otto Klaus Schmich, Hünen, Viöl 1999, p. 306), as we have to come back later to the region of these and other related places on account of both geohistorical and the narrative geostrategical contexts.

Since Heinz Ritter has thoroughly translated the Old Swedish 'Didriks chronicle' into German language and reviewed the Þiðreks saga manuscripts, the regions of today’s North Rhine-Westphalia, the Rhineland and its Palatinate, Low Saxony, Jutland and western Baltic territories appear as authentic locations focused by ancient and mediaeval historiographers who enticingly forwarded lifetime events related to a king of an obvious Franco-Rhenish descent.

Nonetheless, we must carefully study their records to find some synchronous or completing passages about Franco-Rhenish politics of 5th and the first third of 6th century. Regarding the Rhine again as dominant natural and cultural border, they seem to have had nearly the same limited geographical horizon of recitation as their Frankish colleagues vice versa. Thus, besides primal geographical terminology, we have to interpret the Old Norse + Swedish writers' farthest known southern centre ROME as 'Roma secunda', whose spelling, localization and significance is unmistakably provable as the Roman Augusta Treverorum (today: Trier on the Moselle) through both historical and geostrategical contexts. However, we should not expect a detailed recitation of the Merovingian bloodline from Þiðrek’s 'biographers' who certainly were not crossing the Meuse westward, therefore providing fragmentary views, and we also should keep an eye on the right sequence of more than 300 chapters written by the scribes of the 'Didrikschronicle' and Þiðreks saga.

Since the 'Didriks chronicle' and its derived epic novel Thidreks saga, as Ritter prefers this literary classification (see Der Schmied Weland; posthumously published by Olms, Hildesheim 1999), like to put forward some coherent historical information and relations upon large territories of today’s Central and North Europe, we should estimate with him that these texts would basically not prefer depiction of any less important provincial antics against more reasonable reports on superior events. Evaluating Ritter’s conclusions by means of the momentous context of the Old Norse + Swedish manuscripts on such level, we finally will be confronted with the impasse of not enough geographical, temporal and personal space for Theuderic '&' Þiðrek.

It has been considered that

– Þiðrek, Franco-Rhenish king, died c. 534–36 according to Ritter’s estimation;
– Theuderic, not only Franco-Rhenish king, died at the end of 533.

Kemp Malone (1959) and Karl Simrock, German translator of the Nibelungenlied, Old Norse Epics and the Old English Beowulf, identify Dietrich von Bern with Frankish king Theuderic I. Simrock, reviewing and basically following his colleague Prof. Laurenz Lersch, pleads for an original cycle of (Franco-)Rhenish tradition centered around Bonn = Verona (notably Franz Joseph Mone) which, as these scholars do generally combine, thereafter was assimilated by receiving authors of southern Dietrich von Bern epics. (F. J. Mone, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der teutschen Heldensage, 1836, p. 67; id. Anzeiger für Kunde der teutschen Vorzeit, 1836, p. 418. Laurenz Lersch, Verona., in: Jahrbücher des Vereins von Alterthumsfreunden im Rheinlande. Bonn 1842, I, pgs 1–34.Karl Simrock, Bonna Verona., in: Bonn. Beiträge zu seiner Geschichte und seinen Denkmälern. Festschrift Bonn 1868, III, pgs 1–20.)

Karl Müllenhoff, another 19th-century scholar, tried to discern Dietrich von Bern as an amalgamation of Frankish kings Theuderic and his son Theudebert with a poetical 'Ostrogothic Theoderic' (Die austrasische Dietrichsage, in: ZfdA 6 (1848), pgs 435–459). Thereafter Hermann Lorenz declared Theuderic of the Frankish kingdom as the prototype serving for Dietrich epics, estimating [transl.] 'Theuderic utterly dragged into the cycle of the Gothic Dietrich saga' (Das Zeugniss für die deutsche Heldensage in den Annalen von Quedlinburg, in: GERMANIA 31 [19, 1886], pgs 137–150, p. 139). Regarding newer publications, Helmut G. Vitt renders short but astute initial intercessions resulting in Þiðrek = Theuderic I and Samson = Childeric I : Wieland der Schmied (ISBN3 925498 00 1), pgs 127–138.

However, all these authors do not provide detailed studies which ought to substantiate more firmly their opinion.

We must state deficient biographical information about that young Theuderic before 507 and, again, c. 523. He is mentioned as most talented son of C(h)lodovocar I or 'Clovis' in the texts written by Bishop Gregory of Tours, principal Frankish 'chronicler'whom we obviously have to credit with truth telling, and who might appear to some item more informative than the pseudonymous Fredegar.

Unfortunately, Gregory has not left a line to find the answers to these urgent questions about this Franco-Rhenish king:

1.
May a clerical raconteur punish Theuderic with a certain portion of ignorance, since he has taken him for a son of any heathen concubine?

2.
Has that skilled young man kept a respectable distance to his rude and bloodthirsty father?

Fact is that King Clovis could rely on Theuderic for daring missions, e.g. against the Visigoths. On the subject of this operation, the history reveals that only the powerful appearance of Theoderic the Great could stop the conquests made by Theuderic in 507/508. Nonetheless, we may wonder whether or how much Gregory did discriminate him against Clovis' sons Chlothar, Chlodomer and Childebert, whose mother was the honourable Saint Clotilde (primordially rather Chrodechildis, Chrodigildis) of Burgundian dynasty; and we may also wonder whether Theuderic trained his skilfulness and sophistication by keeping out of Clovis' gory ways. Thus, we may con...