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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 2004-01 > 1073112554


From: "Todd A. Farmerie" <>
Subject: Re: Norbrii
Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2004 23:49:14 -0700
References: <00ac01c3d027$3a912ac0$f5874d0c@oemcomputer>


Le Bateman wrote:
> I came across a website, but I question the information on the site, so
> that is why I am writing to
> any of the experts. I have never seen a Anglo-Saxon King with a name like
> Norbrii. This name is not
> even on the Kings list for Northumbria. So this must be made up.

Norbrii is not an Anglo Saxon name form. This looks like an
epinomous ancestor - an invented ancestor created to explain the
name of (or to be the personal representation of) the kingdom or
peoples tracing their leadership back to him (such as Bernic, for
Bernicians).

> Any idea
> who this is really supposed
> to be. He was supposedly born in 504. So will the real King of Bernicia
> please stand up. His supposed
> daughter Ogne married Hroar Halfdansson.

Well, this is about 250 years before the earlies documented
Scandinavian leader, so any talk of Hroar Halfdanson is dealing
with legend, not historical reality. As to his wife and father
in law, such connections were regularly invented, as appears to
be the case here (to give him a Northumbrian wife, Norbrii is
invented as the prototypical Northumbrian to be her father. It
is the end of the 10th century before any of these Scandinavian
spouses are trustworthy.

taf

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