• General Notes

  [charlemegne.FTW]
  
  Hedwig von Sachsen, also known as Hathui.
  
  see Weis for debate over her identity and parentage.
  
  Earlier historians were obsessed with the idea that anyone elect ed to the German throne had to be descended from Charlemagne an d some of them went to extraordinary lengths to prove that suc h descents really existed.  The French genealogist Lavoisne (181 1) went so far as to state flatly that Count William of Hollan d in the 13th century had no right to be elected king of the Ger mans because he had no such descent.  (Today we know that he did --and of course, he was really an anti-king.)
  
  Leo van de Pas has already indicated that the descent he first p osted earlier today is fictitious.  So is the "Arnulf" descent .  Henry the Fowler's mother was named Hedwig, but all we know o f her ancestry is that she was the daughter of a count named Hen ry in the Saxon Ostmark.  He is often identified, not improbably , with a Saxon Margrave Henry, who fell in battle in 886.  Thi s margrave is said to have been son of Poppo, count in Buchonia , who flourished in the 860s.  The identity of Margrave Henry' s wife is unknown, as is that of Poppo.

Details of Hedwig's family with Otto the Illustrious