Women of the Teutonic Nations

by Hermann Schoenfeld

Paul Warnefried, a Langobard noble, calling himself, in his clerical capacity, as an author, Paulus Diaconus, is, through his historical work, De Gestis Langobardorum, the principal source of our knowledge concerning his great but barbarous race.

For the first time in the history of the Langobards we meet with a wicked woman in the person of the murderess Rumetruda, daughter of the seventh Langobard king, Tato, who, through her lust of blood, precipitated her people into a terrible war with the Heruli.

Looking from the window of her palace she perceived one day a Herulian embassy, which, under the guidance of the brother of the king, had just concluded an alliance with the Langobards, and was now returning to its own country. The demoniacal woman sent to the prince of the Heruli a cordial invitation to a cup of wine. No hospitable feelings, however, had induced Rumetruda to send the invitation, but curiosity and scorn at the somewhat abnormal, heavy-set shape of the foreign prince. Soon she began to mock and ridicule him concerning his stature and finally enraged him to such a degree that he also began to upbraid her with insulting words. Revenge arose in the soul of the cruel woman, and, having conciliated him politely and forced him back upon his seat, she proceeded to the execution of her murderous plan. Behind the seat of her royal guest there was a large window covered with costly curtains, behind these she placed a number of Langobard warriors, bidding them hurl their spears against the curtain. Pierced by several lances, the prince of the Heruli sank to the ground; the flagitious woman had satisfied her revenge at the expense of the peace and the alliance between the Langobards and the Heruli. A terrible war was kindled by this violation of the sanctity of ambassadorial rights.

The savagery of these times of bloodshed in the constant wars, when every race had to be "hammer or anvil," appears in the stirring history of the death of King Alboin, the Langobard. The latter had, with the aid of the Avars, defeated the old enemies of his tribe, the Gepidae, and with his own hand slain their king, Kunimund. According to a barbarous custom of his time, he had a drinking cup fashioned from the skull of the slain enemy. Rosamunde, the beautiful daughter of the unfortunate king, Alboin took for his wife, his former consort, the Prankish Clodsunda, having just died. Sometime after these events, it happened that Alboin at a great feast held at Verona, was seized by the desire of drinking wine from the skull of his dead enemy. Flushed with wine, and careless of the feelings of his wife, he bade her, following his example, drink from the ghastly cup. Rage and desire for revenge filled Rosamunde's heart, but of necessity she obeyed the cruel order, though at the same moment she resolved upon a terrible retribution for the horrible deed. Through her personal charms she won Helmichis, the royal shield bearer, and while Alboin lay sleeping upon his couch after a heavy repast, he was pierced by the murderer's sword. To make sure of his death, Rosamunde had fastened Alboin's weapon to the bedpost so that he might the more safely be delivered into the hands of her lover. Helmichis's hope to succeed to Alboin's throne was vain. He was compelled to flee with Rosamunde to the eastern Roman prefect, Longinus, at Ravenna. Tired of her now useless tool, Helmichis, the treacherous woman was easily persuaded by Longinus to do away with the murderer and to marry the prefect. She offered to Helmichis, who was arising from his bath, a cup of poisoned wine. While drinking it, either the taste of the wine or a triumphant glance in the eye of his mistress suggested his fate, and, sword in hand, he forced Rosamunde to drink the rest of the poison and thus to die with him.

Turning from this ghastly tragedy, we may read the first story of romanticism. This is the tale of the love and marriage of fair-locked Authari, a successor of Alboin in the kingship of the Langobards, to Theodelinda, daughter of Garibald the Bavarian duke. A brilliant embassy, headed by King Authari himself, who was incognito, arrived at the Bavarian court to sue for the hand of the beautiful princess. At a solemn festival, King Authari besought that Theodelinda herself should give him a draught of wine. The lady gratified his desire, and Authari, charmed by so much loveliness, caressingly stroked the hand of his future bride; she, blushing at his boldness, modestly cast down her eyes. Later on, she complained to her nurse of the boldness, but the wise old woman consolingly assured her: "No simple Langobard nobleman would have dared the deed; this man can be no other but the king himself and your bridegroom." Having obtained the consent of the duke and the princess, the Langobard embassy, accompanied by a host of Bavarian nobles, joyfully rode homeward. Arrived at the frontier, Authari, his heart swelling with love, raised himself aloft in his saddle and hurled his battle-ax with a powerful arm deep into a tree, exclaiming: "This is the throw of Authari, the Langobard." Unfortunately, the romance ended shortly after the marriage. Authari died one year later, as the rumor goes, by poison. Theodelinda became a passionate missionary of Christianity among the German tribes; and it is a general fact that royal women, as we shall see later in the case of the Christianization of the Franks, were the most ardent propagators of the faith. Christianity appealed especially to women because of its spirit of humility, of charity, and of submission to a higher will. The Church showed due gratitude by canonizing many noble and deeply pious women of the time. After the death of Authari, Theodelinda, seeing that the reins of rulership were too heavy for her, looked for the worthiest of the Langobard princes, to whom she might offer her hand and heart. Agilulf, the brave Duke of Turin, was her choice. A prophetess had, on the day of Theodelinda's marriage with Authari, prophesied to Agilulf that he would become the consort of the Bavarian princess. Theodelinda now summoned him and offered a cup of welcome, which the duke accepted with a grateful kiss on her hand. Blushingly she withdrew her hand, with the words: "he should not kiss her hand who was permitted to kiss her lips and cheeks." The overjoyed vassal, who had always suppressed his love for his queen, saw his most secret desire fulfilled, and lovingly embraced her. And the queen never had to regret her choice.

In strange contrast to the attractive and poetic queen Theodelinda stands the detestable Romilda, wife of Duke Gisulf of the Forum Julium. At the time of the invasions of the savage Avars, she was compelled, with her husband and her children, to take refuge in the fortress of the Forum Julium. One day she noticed, from the height of the wall, the handsome form of the young Avar prince Cacon, and the undutiful woman was seized with a violent passion for the fair barbarian. Secretly she sent him a message that she would open the fortress for him, if he vowed to take her for his wife after the conquest. The Avar consented; and having become master of the important stronghold, he married Romilda. But after the bridal night, to shame and disgrace her, he turned her over to twelve Avar warriors; and when they had wrought their will upon her, he caused her to be impaled on a pole in the open field, exclaiming: "This is the husband thou art worthy to have!" Paulus Diaconus, while condemning Romilda, praises the exemplary conduct of her two chaste daughters, Appa and Gaila, who, to protect their virtue, placed pieces of putrid meat between their breasts. This heroic measure drove the assailants back, but unjustly secured to the entire Langobard nation the reputation of a bad odor. Pope Hadrian evidently credited the slander, for, when he seeks the aid of Charlemagne against Desiderius, he writes of the "perjurious and stinking nation of the Langobards." But our two chaste virgins escaped and were richly rewarded for their virtue, as one was married to the Alemannian duke and the other, to the Bavarian.

We find a curious lack of foresight related of another Langobard queen, Hermilinda, wife of Cunipert. The queen once surprised Theodata, a wondrously beautiful Roman slave, of patrician family, in the bath. Her form was exquisite, her golden hair flowed down to her very feet, and the queen could not help praising her charms to the king. The consequence was that in due course of time Theodata gave constant pleasure to Cunipert, and Hermilinda became an inmate of a fine monastery named after her, where she died in the odor of sanctity.

The migration of the Teutonic peoples had been in great measure spontaneous, it is true, but the impetus of the avalanche had undoubtedly been tremendously increased by the irruption of a mysterious nomad people, the Huns, who broke forth from the steppes of middle Asia like a hurricane, hurled the Alans to the ground, overpowered the Ostrogoths, pushed the Visigoths over the Danube into the eastern Roman Empire, and, occupying the Roman province of Pannonia (Hungary), made it the centre of an empire which, though loosely connected, extended, more or less, over the length and breadth of Europe. About the middle of the fifth century the Huns arose anew from their Pannonian seat, and again threw Europe in a turmoil. The moving spirit of that commotion of savagery and barbarity which seemed to shake the three continents known to antiquity was Attila, called Etzel in the German lays and sagas, the "scourge of God" (Godegisel). His hordes were estimated at more than half a million warriors. His death was an event of immense political significance, and appears in the German saga in many romantic forms. The historian Jordanes relates, after Priscus, that Attila died suddenly of violence during his bridal night, while lying intoxicated beside his young wife Ildico (HildikS). In the morning his servants found him in his blood, but without wounds, beside him was the young wife with downcast eyes, weeping under her veil. The circumstances of his death were such as to throw suspicion upon the young woman. Ammianus Marcellinus reported as a fact that "Attila came to his death at night by the hands of a woman." But the legendists have tried to establish motives for the deed of violence, and nothing was more natural than the story that Ildico committed the deed out of revenge for Attila's murder of her relatives. According to the poet Saxo and the Quedlinburg Chronicle she avenged the murder of her father.

The famous Nibelungenlied, however, in its fundamental Norse form shapes the story as follows: Attila, the Terror of Europe, is the consort of the Burgundian princess Hild. He conquers and treacherously kills her brothers, the Burgundian kings Gundaheri, Godomar, and Gislahari, sons of Gibica, and afterward meets his death by the hand of their sister, his wife.

Felix Dahn has immortalized Ildico by his genius, and made her the most ideal, heroic woman of the Migration period. Reared in the palace of her father, King Visigast, in the land of the Rugii, she gives her tender love to Daghar, the son of Dagomuth, King of the Sciri; but a dark cloud hovers over her young life. Attila has heard of her incomparable beauty, and is still further aroused by the descriptions of her charms given by Ellak, his son by a Gothic princess. The Hun resolves upon the possession of Ildico.