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238 SIR ALDINGAR. |
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real passages in the life of Gunhild, require us to look a little further for their origin.
The empress Gunhild was called by the German chroniclers of her day by various names — as Cuni-hild, Chunihild, Chunelind, and Cunigund, which last name she is said to have assumed at her coronation. This change of Gunhild's name accounts for the unfounded scandals which were in circulation about her in her native land, scarcely a hundred years after her death. Cunigund, wife of Henry III., was in fact confounded with a contemporary German queen and empress, St. Cunigund, widow of the Emperor Henry II. This mistake, which has been made more than once, will be acknowledged to be a very natural one (especially for foreigners), when, it is considered that both queens not only bore the same name, but were married each to an emperor of the same name (Henry), both of whom again were sons of Conrads.*
Referring now to the history of St. Cunigund, we read in the papal bull of Innocent III., by which she was canonized in the year 1200, that " she consecrated
made on the splendid nuptial procession, by which Gunhild was conducted to the ship that was to bear her to her husband, as still sung about the streets in his time.
* An argument in confirmation of what is here said is afforded by a German annalist of the 14th century, who states, under the date 1038, that the empress Cunigund died the 3d of March, and was buried at Spires. Now St. Cunigund actually did die the 3d of March, and that day is dedicated to her in the Roman calendar, but the year was 1040, and she was buried at Bamberg, while Gunhild died in 1038 (July 18), and was buried in the monastery of Limburg, near Spires. |
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