Ermengarde of Savoy
Overview
Biography
(See also Genealogical Table(s): 1, 2, 5.)
From a charter of Rudolph’s, which describes Burchard bishop of Lyons as her brother, it appears that Ermengarde might be the daughter of Humbert/Umberto I, count of Savoy and his wife Auchilia; they had three other sons, Amadeus I of Savoy, Aymon, bishop of Sion, and Oddo I.* She was married twice, first to Rotbold II, count of Provence, with whom she had two sons and a daughter: Hugh, William III of Provence, and Emma, who married William III Taillefer, count of Toulouse. After Rotbold died, Ermengarde married Rudolf III, king of Arles/Burgundy by 1016. They had no children and after Rudolph died in 1032 Burgundy became a constituent kingdom of the empire. Ermengarde had received Vienne and Sermorens as her dower from Rudolph. She founded and supported the monastery at Talloires. She is named with Rudolph in various charters and continued to make and to agree to donations after his death (see Regesta Comitum Sabaudiae, 37, # 106, dated 1036, recording a gift to the church of St. Ferreol by the archbishop of Vienne, “with the agreement of Ermengarde, the queen, now widowed,” “annuente Hermengarda regina, nunc vidua”). That she was still a recognized presence in Burgundy is suggested by a passage in a contemporary biography of the emperor Conrad II by Wipo in an entry for 1033: “The emperor returned to Zurich, where many Burgundians, the widowed queen of Burgundy and count Umberto and others who were not able to come to the emperor in Burgundy because of the plots of Oddo, proceeding through Italy, met him [Conrad], and, having given promises on the sacrament to him and his son king Henry, went back wondrously gifted” (“Imperator reversus ad Turicum castrum pervenit; ibi plures Burgundionum , regina Burgundiae jam vidua, et comes Hupertus et alii qui propter insidias Odonis in Burgundia ad imperatorem venire nequiverant, per Italiam pergentes occurrebant sibi, et effecti sui promissa per sacramentum sibi et filio suo Heinrico regi, mirifice donati redierunt” cited by Dominico Carutti, Regesta Comitum Sabaudiae, p.34, #95. Oddo was a nephew of Rudolph's, son of his sister Bertha; Henry II, son of Conrad, was also a nephew, son of Rudolph's sister Gisla.
Letters from Ermengarde of Savoy
A letter to Eremburga (1028, April 16)A letter to Public
A letter to Public
A letter to Public (1057, June 24.)
A letter to Public (1057, September 20)
A letter to Public (after 1030)
A letter to Public (after 1032)
A letter to Public (c.1031)
A letter to Public (c.1057)
Letters to Ermengarde of Savoy
A letter from RudolphA letter from Rudolph
A letter from Rudolph
A letter from Rudolph