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____ Nithard "the Chronicler"
Birth: ABT 795 Ponthieu, Picardy, France
Death: 14 Jun 833 St. Riquier, Artois, France
Notes
Abbe (Advocate?) of St. Ricquier
Book of French Kings says d 844
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nithard
Nithard (c. 795–844), a Frankish historian, was the son of Bertha, daughter of
Charlemagne. His father was Angilbert.
Life[edit]
Nithard was born sometime before Charlemagne was crowned Imperator Augustus in
December 800. He was probably raised either at the imperial palace, where his mother
continued to live until the death of the emperor, or at the monastery of St. Riquier,
where his father was lay abbot. He would have been educated most likely at the
imperial schola, which offered the kind of high-quality instruction in both military and
literary training he is known to have received.[1]
Nithard himself later became lay abbot of St Riquier in commendam. He served his
cousin Charles the Bald in both war and peace, carrying out two missions to Lothar
during the Carolingian civil war and fighting at Fontenoy in June 841. It is probable
that he died as the result of wounds received whilst fighting for him against the
Northmen near Angoulême. The date of his death is disputed among scholars, but
consensus is now for June 14, 844.[2] In the 11th century his body, with the fatal
wound still visible, was found in the grave of his father, Angilbert.
Works[edit]
Nithard's historical work consists of four books on the history of the Carolingian empire
under the turbulent sons of the emperor Louis I, especially during the turbulent period
between 838 and 843. The Historiae or De dissensionibus filiorum Ludovici pii (On the
Dissensions of the Sons of Louis the Pious) is valuable for the light which it throws
upon the causes which led to the disintegration of the Carolingian empire. The first
three of these books were written before Nithard's appointment as lay-abbey of St-
Riquier in the winter of 842, the fourth and final in spring of 843 after taking up office
there. Although rough in style, partisan in character and sometimes incorrect in detail,
the books are the work of a man who had an intimate knowledge of the events which
he relates, who possessed a clear and virile mind, and who above all was not a
recluse but a man of action. They are dedicated to Charles the Bald, at whose request
they were written.
His work as a military intellectual places him in the tradition of Xenophon, Julius
Caesar, Ammianus Marcellinus, and Flavius Merobaudes. For the military historian,
Nithard's description of the complex exercises of cavalry in Gaul is particularly
valuable as a supplement to the account in the Tactical Handbook of Arrian as well as
for its insight into Carolingian techniques.[3]
Only two manuscripts of the Historiae survived, one roughly contemporary and an
incomplete Renaissance-era text useless in the reconstruction of the text.
The standard critical edition of Nithard (with French translation) is that of Philippe
Lauer, Histoire des fils de Louis le Pieux, Paris: Champion, 1926.
The 1907 Latin edition of Ernst Müller was republished in 1965 as part of the
Monumenta Germaniae Historica series.
An English translation by Bernhard Walter Scholz and Barbara Rogers is available in
Carolingian Chronicles: Royal Frankish Annals and Nithard’s Histories (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan, 1972).
Parents
____ Angilbert (ABT 770 - 814)
____ Berthe (Bertha) (ABT 772 - ABT 825)
Siblings
____ Nithard "the Chronicler" (ABT 795 - 14 Jun 833)
Marriage To ----- ----- ()
m.
Notes
Children by ----- -----
DE PONTHIEU Helgaud I (ABT 816 - 864)
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