A letter to her brother, bishop Udo

Translated letter:

To her lord and most beloved brother, Udo, by the grace of the Lord bishop, Beatrice happy not by fortune but only by name, what a sister [owes] to a brother, beloved to the most beloved, single to single.

How much  my spirit exults from the promotion of your office, as my soul extols the Lord, author of this reward, by solemn action of thanks, I can never set forth in words, nor is it necessary for me to attempt it, since you can read in your heart from my silence, what joy it would be to the only sister for the honor to her only brother.  Though the adverse fortune of things might deject me and be hateful for the tedium of life, it is still pleasing to live and be consoled for domestic misfortune by fraternal happiness.  It gives me hope that I have not yet altogether fallen, when I can hear that you  have so risen; and perhaps divine dispensation, which is merciful, after it has scourged, prepared this promotion of yours as salvation to my loss.

But I would wish to recite the story of my woes to you if I did not seem to weigh down your spirit, busy with so much, so that, having heard the state of my things (situation), I might find suitable help from you.  The first and greatest of my ills, the misery of my soul, is that my sons live wanderers and exiles in a land not their own, and that a foreign hand, however benign, now ministers to them, whose opulence either surpasses or easily equals their former greater opulence in their fatherland.  Whose virtue – since virtue brings envy – provoked the hatred of the envious to civil war against them, and while they could not oppose the injuries of their enemies, they preferred everything rather than abandon virtue.  Who yet small live with me up to now to be cherished and nourished in the maternal bosom, they can not be … with regard to small age.  For the estates (?predia) which they ought to have ceded in part to my son Herim. [Hermann], not only the royal power but hostile violence usurped to itself almost everything and it harmed my son with the king to have had brothers.  And my daughter Sophia, who lies hidden as if stolen, he so far unequal dares to hope to make his wife, and while he thinks of fortune not family in us, he tries to vindicate his ignobility to the harm of our nobility.  Thus the fruit of my womb, before a glory, is now a shame to me and I seem to bring forth sorrow which once brought joy.  

Yet the royal measure contracted that property, the fullness of my estates, with such narrow, such wicked limit to me, that it reduced me from great opulence of things to indigence.  It took from me gold, silver, clothes,  every different kind of thing; it was not ashamed to persecute a woman, nor was there any cause for it except that I had given birth to such sons.  For what I was before in terror, now I am in contempt, now necessity compels me to go away to enemies, to seek aid and counsel from enemies, so that I might confess myself truly born to be proof of fortune, which thus throws [one] down into a lake of misery from great height.

There, you have heard the pitiful epilogue of my misfortune; now, I beg, hear my petition not so much with the ear of the body, but with the ear of the heart.  I also ask you, by the grace you owe with fraternal blood, that if the Saxons give themselves [up] to royal majesty by a pact, be mindful there of my exiled sons, and do not permit them to be excluded from the pact of mercy to your disgrace and shame, who bore with you the burden of that cause, so much more heavily as more weakly, since the allied forces departed from them.  Indeed, if my son Conrad should come to you, receive him kindly, treat him kindly.  And my daughter Sophia, already old enough for a husband, whose age and beauty enflamed unworthy abductors against her, indeed whom not even fraternal protection defends from violence, try to join [her] in a matrimony where it might be honorable and suitable, lest she be married to the shame of her family, and provide as I can not, since just as the promotion of her honor looks to the common honor of her family, so her shame redounds to its detriment.   Promote the lady Burtgard, my daughter, who married in Christ,  to some degree of honor suitable to her profession, when the occasion arises, so that the promotion to your height may also be useful to us, an honor and elevation. But since the excessive petition of the sister does not have a great counterweight of shame  towards a brother, the necessity of my situation implores and awaits your help.  Finally, I beseech you, that you recognize my just cause in my estates, which my brother of blessed memory, lord H. usurped to himself with non-fraternal spirit, and have them rewarded to me by hereditary right, returned to me with regard to justice.

I ask you to send me a sure and mature emissary [to say] what I might expect on all these issues.  May the Lord grant me that we may see us in peace as soon as possible who, if not in spirit, yet in place, are far apart for so long from each other.  Amen.  Be well in Christ, dearest brother.

Over this, I beg your kindness most humbly, as is just:  if fraternal love deign to send us something out of what is needed, that the letter be fixed under the seal of your name for each one because of fraud.

Original letter:

Domno et fratri dilectissimo U. Domini gratia episcopo Beatrix non fortuna sed solo nomine felix, quod soror fratri, dilecta dilec­tissimo, unica unico.

Quantum de dignitatis vestre provectione spiritus meus exultet quamque solemni gratiarum actione Dominum huius muneris auctorem anima mea magnificet, numquam verbis pos­sum explicare, neque opus est illud laborare, quia et me tacente in corde vestro legere potestis, quale gaudium sit unice sorori super honore fratris unici. Licet adversa rerum fortuna me infra me deiecerit et usque ad vite tedium exosa sit, libet tamen adhuc vivere et domesticum infortunium consolari fraterna felicitate. Spes est me nondum totam cecidisse, cum vos audiam in tantum ascendisse; et forsan divina dispensatio, que miseretur, postquam flagellaverit, hunc vestri provectum defectui meo salutem preparavit.

Sed velim historiam miseriarum mearum vobis recitare, si non viderer animum vestrum in multis occupatum aggravare, ut audito statu rerum mearum inveniam apud vos auxilium oportunum. Hoc primum et summum malorum meorum est, hec est anime mee miseria, quod filii mei vagi et exules in terra vivunt non sua, et quod illis nunc aliena manus, licet benigna, ministrat, quorum opulentia quondam opulentiores in sua patria aut superabat aut facile coequabat. Quorum virtus — quia virtus invidiam parat —invidorum odia usque ad civile bellum in se concitaverat, et dum non possent iniuriis inimicorum contraire, maluerunt omnia quam virtutem relinquere. Qui autem parvuli mecum utpote adhuc in materno sinu fovendi et nutriendi vivunt, non etatis parve respectu .... esse possunt. Nam predia, que filio meo Herim. in partem cedere debuerunt, tum regia potestas tum hostilis violentia pene omnia sibi usurpavit, et apud regem filio meo fratres habuisse nocuit. Filiam vero meam Sophiam, que quasi furtum absconditum latet, quilibet ad hoc longe impar uxorem sibi sperare audet, et dum fortunam, non genus in nobis considerat, ignobilitatem suam nobilitatis nostre detrimento vendicare laborat. Sic fructus ventris mei, ante gloria, nunc mihi est ignominia, et dolorem peperi, que gaudium peperisse videbar.

 Denique ut ad me ipsam veniam, amplitudinem prediorum meorum tam angusto, tam iniquo limite regia mensura contraxit, ut ex magna rerum opulentia ad indigentiam me redegerit. Aurum argentum vestes, omnia mihi diversa rerum occasione tulit; feminam persequi non puduit, nec alia, nisi quod tales filios genuissem, causa fuit. Quibus eram ante formidini, nunc sum despectui, nunc me necessitas cogit in inimicos abire, ab inimicis consilium, auxilium petere, ut me vere fatear natam esse ostentui fortune, quam sic precipitavit in lacum miserie de magno rerum culmine.

Ecce flebilem epylogum infortunii mei audistis; nunc, obsecro, petitionem meam audite non tantum carnis, sed et aure cordis. Rogo itaque vos in gratia, quam mihi fraterno sanguine debetis, ut, si Saxones sub pactione regie maiestati se dedunt, ibi exulantium filiorum meorum memineritis, nec ad dedecus et opprobrium vestrum excludi sinatis in pactione gratis, qui portaverunt vobiscum onus eiusdem cause, tanto utique gravius quanto, quia socie vires illis aberant, infirmius. Chonradum vero filium meum, si venerit ad vos, benigne suscipite, benignius tractate. Sophiam autem meam iam viro maturam, cuius etas et forma raptores non dignos in se accendit, quippe quam non iam fraternum presidium a violentia defendit, ubi sit honestum et idoneum, matrimonio iungere temptate, et ne ad ignominiam generis sui infra se nubat, cum ego non possim, vos procurate, quia, sicut ad communem generis sui honorem honoris ipsius provectio spectat, ita in com­mune dedecus ipsius deiectio redundat. Domnam vero Burtgardam filiam meam, que in Christo nupsit, ad aliquem honoris gradum sue professioni convenientem nacta occasione promovete, ut ad summa vestri provectio nostra quoque utilitas, decus sit et elevatio. Porro quia nimia petitio sororis non magnam erga fratrem habet iacturam pudoris, necessitas quoque mearum rerum vestrum implorat et expectat auxilium. Ad ultimum vos obsecro, ut in prediis meis, que frater meus beate memorie domnus H. non fraterno animo sibi usurpavit, iustam causam meam cognoscatis, et que me hereditario iure respicere debent, ad me redire iustitie respectu faciatis.

Quid super his omnibus expectem, certam et maturam mihi mittite queso legationem. Dominus mihi concedat, ut quantocius nos in pace videamus, qui, si non animo, loco tamen ab invicem iam diu distamus. Amen. Vale in Christo, frater dilectissime.

Super hoc omnia humillime almitatem tuam, ut equum est, exoro:  si quid fraterna dilectio nobis ex necessariis transmittere dignetur, sub sigillo tui nominis per singula propter fraudem litteris terminetur.

Historical context:

Beatrice writes to her brother, Udo, newly appointed bishop of Hildesheim, lamenting her situation, loss of property, exiled sons, a daughter in danger, and asks his help.  Beatrice’s worry about her daughter Sophia’s situation may be in part explained by the Saxon attitude described by James Westfall-Thompson:  “Social differences were jealously guarded by social prescription. The death penalty was imposed on any man who married above his rank; the marriage of a man below his station was severely condemned; bastardy was not tolerated; intermarriage between Saxons and other Germans was frowned upon; and strangers were hated.”1  Beatrice’s family was part of the Saxon-Gregorian party and involved in Saxon revolts against Henry, which was probably the cause of the exile of her sons and the loss of her property.  Since Rudolf died as a result of battle wounds in 1080, there is a possibility of reconciliation, though Henry was not noted for mercy to his opponents.  Erdmann suggests that the address "unica unico" is an expression of special love, not a literal description of the family.2

Scholarly notes:

1  Feudal Germany (Chicago:  University of Chicago, 1928), p. 170.

2 Studien zur Briefliteratur Deutschlands im elften Jahrhundert (Stuttgart:  Hiersemann, 1938), 164, fn.1.

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