WHO’S WHO – inspired by real people*

DON CARMINE (Pron. CAR-me-nay.) ‘barelegged’ Master of Bowmen, Commander of Balistreri Crossbow Archers (bolted and spanned) in the service of King Conrad. Life-ward to the Empress.

CROWN PRINCE CONRAD*, eldest son of Henry, later Iron Crown (King) of Lombardy and Burgundy born 12 February 1074 – Died Florence 27 July 1101 aged 27 – nominally Emperor of Germany 1095-1098 (deposed by his younger brother).

GHERDËI (pron. GAIR-di, formerly Maria) Parasia’s bonded chamber serf, a Ladin peasant woman seized from Val Gherdëina beyond the Brenner Pass (South Tyrol, Italy) by the Emperor’s men.

EMPEROR HENRY (HEINRICH IV* 1050-1106) Salian Saxon dynasty. Emperor of Germany, Burgundy and Lombardy – Cruel adulterer, serial excommunicant and libertine without regard to moral principles.

PRINCESS IMILLA (Maximilla* d.1135) ‘the black-maned Moro’, daughter of Roger* Grand Count (later King) of Naples and Sicily - a Norman knight known as the Christian Sultan. Her mother, an Iberian noblewoman from Moorish Andalusia.

MATILDA OF CANOSSA* (1046-1115) ‘Matilda cannot be restrained, being so aroused by female rage, she prefers war to peace. Warrior, Countess, Ruler of the Mark of Turin, revered to this day. Cousin and bitter enemy of the Emperor and formidable ally of Popes, Gregory VII and Urban II. (Sub femineo corpore cor habens virile – a man’s heart in a woman’s body.)

BALD MEINING THE UNFREE KNIGHT* Senior Ministerial to Henry. ‘A judicious man, familiar with the law.’ (inspired by Meinger of Bamberg who, in a joint imperial diploma on 14th August 1089 in Bamberg, received his freedom and royal estates at Ehrenbach.)

BRAVE TILO (Odilo) son of Meining the Unfree Knight and the Good-Wife Hilde. Companion, Master of Horse and childhood friend of King CONRAD. Awarded a personal motto ‘Diutius Fortio -Stronger Longer, his emblem was the golden black-spotted cat.

POPE URBAN II* adversary of Emperor Henry – known by him as ‘The False Monk’- Sponsor with Pope Gregory VII of the Great Saxon Revolt. see Investiture Controversy.

PRINCESS YEVPRAKSIA*  blaze-haired Ruthenian beauty known as PARASIA (diminutive form). In Greek mythology Eupraxia (from Εὐπραξίασ = good conduct) was the personification of luck, fortune and well-being. Empress of Germany (1089-1095). Aka Eupraxia of Kyiv, Old Slavic Еоупраксиа, Ukrainian Євпраксія, Russian Евпраксия Всеволодовна. Rurikid grand-princess, eastern Christian, probably born Pereyaslav (now Ukraine) c1071, died Kyiv 1109, approx. 38 years old. Daughter of Grand Prince (King) Vsevolod, a son of Yaroslav the Wise, and his second wife ‘Anna’ - possibly a tribute bride or seized Polovtsi (Cuman) girl. According to the Song of Igor (1185) Polovtsi girls were prized for their great beauty. Half-sister of Grand Prince Volodymyr Monomakh and sister-in-law of the ‘English Princess’ Gytha of Wessex, daughter of King Harold (d. Hastings 1066). Sent to North Germany aged about 12 (c1083) to marry ‘Longshanks’ Marquess (Markgraf) Heinrich III of the Saxon Northmark and Stade (d.1087). On her second marriage, to Salian Emperor Heinrich IV in Cologne in 1089, Yevpraksia took the formal regnal appellative Adelheid (Adalheit) and is known in German accounts by a Greco-Latin name-form Praxedis, (aka Agnes, also Gisila also Paraskeva). Yevpraksia, a character in The Decembrists by Tolstoy is called Parasha (Параша).

ZALLM The Celibate and Silent Count, Commander of the Imperial Hearth Guard. Knight of The Most Noble Order of the Brotherhood of Knights (fictitious, based on the Teutonic Knights) who swore an oath of chastity, poverty and obedience, providing the Catholic Emperor with military protection The motto of his order: ‘Silence! Serve On!’ Maul Halten, Weiter Dienen.

Others

ADELHEID* Salian Imperial Princess, sister of Henry. See the Black Linburg (Quedlinburg) fortress.

AMELIA The Estate Steward’s (Amtmann) youngest daughter at Ehrenbach, Betrothed to Brave Tilo. 

EDELINDE Imperial Countess, cousin of Henry and Lady-in-Waiting to the Empress.

GIOSEF Captain of the Guard at San Zeno fortress in Verona, an ethnic Ladin from Val Gherdëina.

THE GOOD-WIFE HILDE (CLOTHILDE): Meining’s ‘sturdy’ Burgundian wife and Brave Tilo’s mother.

GUELPH* ‘The Pompous Little Duke’ Ruling Bavarian nobleman aka Welfhard V the Fat (1072-1120). Second Husband of the peace-hating warrior Countess Matilda of Canossa and 26 years her junior – [about the same age as Conrad, Parasia and Tilo.] Guelph’s mother Judith of Flanders was first married to the traitor Earl Tostig (d. Stamford Bridge, 1066) brother of King Harold II of England (d. Hastings 1066) and uncle to the ‘English Princess’ Gytha of Wessex[1],

LONGSHANKS* Marquess (Markgraf) Heinrich III of the Saxon Northmark and Stade, Parasia’s first husband, eldest son of March Count Lothar Udo, rebellious Saxon nobleman and Countess Oda von Werl. He died without an heir in 1087 aged 16.

PETRO  the ‘Peg Leg’ Ruthenian, sworn to protect Parasia in life and death. Petro was a chelyadnik. A medieval term for dependent retinue, including slaves (kholopy) and bonded labourers (zakupy).

COUNT UGO* (d 1131) Italian Nobleman. Devious half-brother of the pompous little Duke Guelph.  

[1] Wild Field: an 11^th Century Love Story by the author (2021)