Ménia, a Lombard

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Biography

Menia (fl. c. 500) was the queen of the Thuringians by marriage and the earliest named ancestor of the Gausian dynasty of the Lombards. She became a legendary figure after her death, strongly associated with gold and wealth.

Only one other person is known by the name Menia, from a 9th-century polyptych of the Abbey of Saint-Remi. In origin it is probably a Germanic name, signifying collar, ring or necklace, and by extension treasure.

Menia and Fenia, from the legendary Icelandic Grottasöngr

Menia's marriage is recorded only in the Historia Langobardorum codicis Gothani. According to that source, she was the wife of King Pissa, usually identified as Bisinus, king of the Thuringians.[1][2] The same source and the other Lombard chronicles make Bisinus the father of Raicunda, first wife of Wacho, king of the Lombards. She may have been the daughter of Menia. Frankish sources, such as Venantius Fortunatus, make Bisinus the father of the three brothers who ruled Thuringia in the 520s: Hermanafrid, Bertachar (father of Saint Radegund) and Baderic. They are sometimes considered as sons of Menia,[3] or else as sons of Basina, who is called a wife of Bisinus by the Frankish historian Gregory of Tours.[4] Many scholars, however, reject Bisinus' marriage to Basina as ahistorical, leaving Menia as his only known wife.[5]

By a relationship with an unnamed man of the Gausian family—a Gausus, perhaps a Geat, according to the Historia Langobardorum—she was the mother of Audoin, king of the Lombards from 546.[1]

She also had a daughter from whom the later dukes of Friuli were descended [6]

Audoin was in turn the father of Alboin, who led the Lombards into Italy.

As an ancestor of Lombard royalty, Menia seems to have entered the oral tradition and from there various Germanic epic traditions, such as the Icelandic Poetic Edda. She is a gold-grinding giantess in Grottasöngr and in Sigurðarkviða hin skamma her name is part of a kenning (Meni góð, "Menia's goods") meaning gold.[1] She is also featured in the Byzantine tradition. In the Greek Life of Saint Pankratios of Taormina, she is the wife of the Lombard Rhemaldos who kills the mother of Tauros and then marries him. She learns alchemy and turns base metals into gold. The entire legend is used to explain how the city of Taormina (Tauromenia) got its name.[7]

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• https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menia#Leben

Menia war die Gattin des ersten namentlich bekannten Thüringerkönigs Bisin (oder Basin).[2] Mit ihm hatte sie drei namentlich bekannte Söhne, Herminafried, Berthachar und Baderich, die nach dem Tod ihres Vaters das Reich unter sich aufteilten, sowie eine Tochter, Raicunda,[2] die um 510 den lethingischen Langobardenkönig Wacho heiratete, aber bald darauf starb und kinderlos blieb.[2] Menia ging, wohl nach dem Tod Bisins, zusammen mit ihrer Tochter in Wachos Langobardenreich an der mittleren Donau und heiratete dort etwa um 510 in zweiter Ehe einen Langobarden aus Gausus’ Geschlecht. Aus dieser Ehe ging Audoin hervor, der spätere König des pannonischen Langobardenreichs an der unteren Donau.[3] Unter Audoins Sohn Alboin fielen die Langobarden im Jahr 568 in Italien ein und begründeten das italienische Langobardenreich.

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Family

-http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/HUNGARY.htm#AlboinLombardsdied572A

[---] . King of the Pissa.

m MENIA ---. The Historia Langobardorum names "mater…Audoin…Menia uxor fuit Pissæ regis"[149]. This wording suggests that "Pissæ regis" was not the father of Audoin, presumably Menia's second husband. It is assumed that "Pissæ" indicates that he was king of a tribe of that name.

[Pissa] & his wife had one child:

• 1. AUDOIN (-in Pannonia 560). ... ... ... ....
  m firstly RODELINDA [Roddenda], daughter of ---. ... ...
  m secondly --- of the Thuringians, daughter of HERMINAFRID King of the Thuringians & his wife Amalaberga the Ostrogoth. ... ...
  King Audoin & his first wife had [two] children:
  • a) ALBOIN (-murdered 28 Jun 572). ... ... ... ... ... ... - KINGS of ITALY.
  • b) [ ---. m ---. ] One child:
    • i) GISULF . ... ... "Gisulfum…suum nepotem" as "ducem…[in] Foroiulanæ civitati" [163]
      "nepoti sui Gisolfi" [164] ... ... - DUKES of FRIULIA.

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http://www.tacitus.nu/historical-atlas/francia.htm

During the period from 531 to 537 the Frankish kingdom again conquered vast territories. The Thuringian kingdom was destroyed and a part of it was conquered 531.

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Sources Gregory of Tours Brief History of Thuringia Thuringia is a state in central Germany named after the Thuringii tribe who occupied it ca. AD 300. The Thuringii or Toringi were a Germanic tribe which appeared late during the Völkerwanderung (the great wandering) a 400-year period in which vast human migration in the European region changed the borders of the Roman Empire and marked the end of the Age of Antiquity and the beginning of the Early Middle Ages. The Thuringii emerged from about in the Harz Mountains of central Germania around 280, in a region which still bears their name to this day - Thuringia. They evidently filled a void left when the previous inhabitants - the Alemanni - migrated south to the region named after them, Alemannia. They may have been remnants of the Alemannic confederation, or simply another lesser tribe. Some have suggested that they were the remnants of the Hermanduri tribe. The Thuringii established an empire in the late 5th century. It reached its territorial peak in the first half of the 6th before it was conquered by the Franks in 531-532. Examination of Thuringian gravesites reveal cranial features which suggest the strong presence of Hunnic women or slaves, perhaps indicating that many Thuringians took Hunnic wives or Hunnic slaves following the collapse of the Hunnic Empire. There is also evidence from jewellery found in graves that the Thuringians sought marriages with Ostrogothic and Lombard women. After their conquest, the Thuringii were placed under Frankish duces (dukes), but they rebelled and established themselves independently again by the late 7th century under Radulf. Towards the end of this century, parts of Thuringia came under Saxon rule. By the time of Charles Martel and Saint Boniface, they were again subject to the Franks and ruled by Frankish dukes with their seat at Würzburg in the south. Under Martel, the Thuringian dukes' authority was extended over a part of Austrasia and the Bavarian plateau. The valleys of the Lahn, Main, and Neckar rivers were included. The Raab formed the southeastern border of Thuringia at the time. The Werra and Fulda valleys were within it also and it reached as far as the Saxon plain in the north. Its central location in Germania beyond the Rhine was the reason it became the point d'appui of Boniface's mission work. The Thuringii had a separate identity as late as 785-786, when one of their leading men, Hardrad, led an abortive insurrection against Charlemagne. The Carolingians codified the Thuringian legal customs (but perhaps did not use them extensively) as the Lex Thuringorum and continued to exact a tribute of pigs, presumably a Merovingian imposition, from the province. In the 10th century, under the Ottonians, the centre of Thuringian power lay in the northeast, near Erfurt. As late as the end of the 10th century, the porcine tribute was still being accepted by the King of Germany. The Thuringii had been converted to Christianity in the 5th century, but their exposure to it was limited. Their real Christianisation took place, alongside the ecclesiastical organisation of their territory, during the early and mid 8th century under Boniface, who felled their "sacred oak" at Geismar in 724, abolishing the vestiges of their paganism. In the 1020s, Aribo, Archbishop of Mainz, began the minting of money at Erfurt, the oldest market town in Thuringia with a history going back to the Merovingian period. The economy, especially trade (such as with the Slavs), greatly increased after that. The Thuringian nobility, which had an admixture of Frankish, Thuringian, and Saxon blood, was not as landed as that of Francia. There was also a larger population of free peasant farmers than in Francia, though there was still a large number of serfs. The obligations of serfs there were also generally less oppressive. There were also fewer clergymen before Boniface came. There was as small number of artisans and merchants, mostly trading with the Slavs to the east. The town of Erfurt was the easternmost trading post in Frankish territory at the time. Thuringia came under Frankish domination in the 6th century, forming a part of the subsequent Holy Roman Empire. Thuringia became a landgraviate in 1130. After the extinction of the reigning Ludowingian line of counts in 1247 and the War of the Thuringian Succession (1247-1264), the western half became independent under the name of Hesse, never to become a part of Thuringia again. Most of the remaining Thuringia came under the rule of the Wettin dynasty of the nearby Margraviate of Meissen, the nucleus of the later Electorate and Kingdom of Saxony. With the division of the house of Wettin in 1485, Thuringia went to the senior Ernestine branch of the family, which subsequently subdivided the area into a number of smaller states, according to the Saxon tradition of dividing inheritance amongst male heirs. These were the " Saxon duchies", consisting, among others, of the states of Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Eisenach, Saxe-Jena, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Coburg, and Saxe-Gotha; Thuringia became merely a geographical concept. Thuringia generally accepted the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic faith was abolished as early as 1520; priests that remained loyal were driven away and churches and monasteries were largely destroyed, especially during the Peasants' War of 1525. In Mühlhausen and elsewhere, the Anabaptists found many adherents. Thomas Müntzer, a leader of some non-peaceful groups of this sect, was active in this city. Within the borders of Thuringia the Catholic faith was maintained only in the district called Eichsfeld, which was ruled by the Archbishop of Mainz, and to a small degree in the city and vicinity of Erfurt. Wife of Childerc I, King of the Franks Basina, Queen of Thuringia "Ancestors/Descendants of Royal Lines" (Contributors: F. L. Jacquier (History of Charlemagne by Christian Settipani); L. Orlandini, Manuel Abranches de Soveral, Reynaud de Paysac, F.L. J P de Palmas (Aurejac et Tournemire; Frankish line; The Complete Peerage}, Jacquier (Genealogy of Lewis Carroll, Justin Swanstrom, The Royal Families of England Scotland & Wales by Burkes Peerage; Debrett's Peerage & Baronage; Table of descendants French Canadian Genealogical Society; Families of Monfort-sur-Risle & Bertrand de Bricquebec; The Dukes of Normandy, XXXXI), A. Brabant ("Dynastie Montmorency, Michel d'Herbigny), Paul Leportier, Claude Barret, H.R. Moser (Burke Peerage), O.Guionneau, L.B. de Rouge, E. Polti, N. Danican (Britain's Royal Families; Buthlaw, Succession of Strathclyde, the Armorial 1961-62) A.Terlinden (Genealogy of the existing British Peerage, 1842), L. Gustavsson, C. Cheneaux, E. Lodge, S. Bontron (Brian Tompsett), R. Dewkinandan, H. de la Villarmois, C. Donadello; Scevole de Livonniere, H. de la Villarmois, I. Flatmoen, P. Ract Madoux (History of Morhange; Leon Maujean; Annuaire de Lorraine, 1926; La Galissonniere: Elections d'Arques et Rouen), Jean de Villoutreys (ref: Georges Poull), E. Wilkerson-Theaux (Laura Little), O. Auffray, A. Brabant (Genealogy of Chauvigny of Blot from "Chanoine Prevost Archiviste du Diocese de Troyes Union Typographique Domois Cote-d'Or 1925), Emmanuel Arminjon (E Levi-Provencal Histoire de l'Espagne Andalouse), Y. Gazagnes-Gazanhe, R. Sekulovich and J.P. de Palmas ("notes pierfit et iconographie Insecula", Tournemire), H de Riberolles (Base Tournemire), Franck Veillon; ,(Histoire Généalogique de la Maison de Hornes, Bruxelles 1848; Notice Historique Sur L'Ancien Comté de Hornes, Gand 1850; Europäische Stammtafeln, Marburg 1978); E.Driant / "La Maison de Damas" par Hubert Lamant, 1977 (Bibliothèque municipale d'Eaubonne) ........... http://geneastar.org.

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Menia van Thüringen (born Der Longobarden)

• MyHeritage Family Trees
• Van Cakenbergh Web Site, managed by Hugo Van Cakenbergh
• Birth: After 445
• Husband: Basinumus Ii Van Thüringen
• Children: Balderic Van Thüringen, Bertaire Van Thüringen, Hermenfried Van Thüringen

Menia van Thüringen (born Der Longobarden)

• MyHeritage Family Trees
• Stamboom van Tweel 1 maart 4103 in van Tweel Web Site, managed by J.J. van Tweel
• Birth: 445
• Husband: Basinumus Ii Van Thüringen
• Son: Hermenfried Van Thüringen

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References

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menia (DE even more sourced)
• https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9C%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F*http:/...
• http://fabpedigree.com/s028/f295412.htm
• genealogics.org

Menia Dronning av langobardene.

Hun kan ha vært gift 2 ganger

Hun hadde sønnen Audoin

http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/HUNGARY.htm#GisulfFriulia

http://fabpedigree.com/s028/f295412.htm