Gisela of Swabia

Empress Gisela entering the church. Echternacher Perikopenbuch , 1039-1043. Bremen, University Library b. 21, fol. 3 ^r

Gisela von Schwaben, also Gisela von Limburg (* November 11, 989, November 13, 990 ^[1] or (according to the grave plate) November 11, 999; † February 15, 1043 in Goslar ), was 1024 German queen since September 21 and since March 26, 1027 German Empress as the wife of the King and Emperor of the Roman-German Empire Konrad II. She is the mother of Emperor Heinrich III. Before her marriage to Konrad, Gisela had been married and widowed twice.

Gisela was considered a beautiful and clever, but a little arrogant woman. The Gesta Chuonradi II imperatoris of Hofgeschichtsschreibers and -dichters Wipo According to Konrad she was a necessaria comes (necessary companion). This is supported by the high number of interventions in Konrad's diplomas.

Life [ Edit
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Her mother was Gerberga of Burgundy , daughter of Conrad III. from Burgundy from the family of the Guelphs and granddaughter of the Franconian Carolingian king Ludwig IV. Her father, the Swabian Duke Hermann II of Swabia , also boasted Carolingian descent. In this respect, Gisela was the eighth or ninth generation descendant of the Carolingians . On her grave plate, which was found in 1900 when the imperial graves were opened in Speyer, the date of birth is 11 November 999. According to research, this date is incorrect because it cannot be combined with the dates of their marriages.

Gisela had her first marriage around 1002 or 1004 with a count Brun (probably count of Braunschweig ), a relative of the Liudolfinger , who died in 1008 or 1010. Around 1010 she married Babenberger Ernst I. , who died in 1012 after Hermann III died. von Schwaben (Gisela's brother) was granted the Duchy of Swabia . He died in a hunting accident on May 31 (or March 31) 1015. At the end of 1016 or at the latest in January 1017 she married Konrad II. This marriage was among others by Thietmar von Merseburg (VII. 62; older count: 45) regarded as an illegal relative marriage . ^[2] A kidnapping of Gisela before marriage is not impossible, but historians regard it as very unlikely, since there are very few sources for it, which are also very far removed from these events.

She was not only the heir to the Duchy of Swabia, but attained through her mother after the death of her uncle Rudolf III. (1032) also claimed the Kingdom of Burgundy. This could be one of the reasons for the connection between Konrad and Gisela, since Gisela wanted to secure these claims and those of her children from the first two marriages.

The marriage to Brun gave birth to the son Liudolf , who became Margrave of Friesland , and possibly a daughter named Gisela.

From her second marriage Gisela had two sons, the Dukes Ernst II (around 1010-1030) and Hermann IV (around 1015-1038) of Swabia, of whom the older one is particularly known for his uprising and the playwright poem " Herzog Ernst " . Gisela initially led the regency for him in Swabia. After her third - controversial - marriage and the bad relationship with Emperor Heinrich II. The administration was withdrawn and Archbishop Poppo von Triertransfer. In addition to the successful attempts to wrest the Burgundian inheritance in favor of the younger Heinrich from him and his brother, this was one of the reasons for the young Duke's uprising. Rudolf's successor was Konrad on March 2, 1033, and not his stepson Hermann, whose sons were then withheld from the Duchy of Swabia in favor of Heinrich in 1038.

During her third marriage she gave birth to three children: two daughters, Mathilde von Franken and Beatrix, and a son, the later Emperor Heinrich III, whose upbringing and education she devoted much attention to.

On September 21, 1024, Archbishop Pilgrim of Cologne crowned Gisela Queen. Previously, Archbishop Aribo of Mainz on September 8, 1024 rejected the coronation of Gisela as queen on 8 September 1024 and only crowned Konrad as king. The coronation meant a significant increase in rank for the queen. Of course, she owed this to her husband.

Pope John XIX presented in Rome . less than three years later, on March 26, 1027, Konrad and Gisela adopted the imperial crown. Although she could not pursue self-sufficient politics as queen and empress, she exercised influence on Konrad's politics in many ways. For example, she had a say in questions of filling leadership positions in the Church.

After her husband's death in 1039, her influence waned. Gisela appeared only rarely and always together with her son Heinrich III. in public before she died on February 14 or 15, 1043 in the Ruhr . She was buried in the Speyer Cathedral next to Konrad II.