United States or Poland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Its image is engraved on the middle of the minster door, where you can also see the big cracks produced by the devil's hammering it in his impotent anger. The Ring of Fastrada This story too leads us back to the time of the great Emperor Charles, whose life has come down to us with a halo of glory. Charlemagne's favourite residence was Aix-la-Chapelle, but he also held court in Helvetia.
Hildegarde, the wife of Charlemagne, had now been dead some short time, when he married Fastrada, the daughter of a Frankish noble. It is said that from this union there arose a spirit of discontent among some of the leading men of his nation, who in consequence rebelled against him; but, finding themselves too weak to contend with him, dispersed, and endeavored to find safety in concealment.
He ordered it to be mounted in a golden ring, which he presented to his well-beloved wife, Fastrada. The jewel possessed a wonderful quality. Fastrada had always been loved tenderly by her imperial husband, but after the diamond ring adorned her slender finger, a sweet charm seemed to bind her still more strongly to him.
From that time to the day of her death he was her devoted slave, blind and deaf to all her faults. Nay, even when she died, he refused to quit the room in which she lay, or permit the interment of her body; refused to see the approach of corruption, which spares not youth or loveliness; seemed, in short, to have lost all count of the passage of time in his grief for the beloved Fastrada.
Mag., 17: Deinde cum matris hortatu filiam Desiderii regis Langobardorum duxisset uxorem, incertum qua de causa, post annum eam repudiavit et Hildigardam de gente Suaborum praecipuae nobilitatis feminam in matrimonium duxit ... Habuit et alias tres filias ... duas de Fastrada uxore ... tertiam de concubina quadam ... defuncta Fastrada ... tres habuit concubinas. Gregory of Tours, 4, 3.
The rumour was, that his sorrow was so intense that he refused to permit the remains of his wife to be duly buried. The charm the living Fastrada had exercised over him seemed to linger even after her death. The Archbishop of Rheims, the pious Turpin, heard of the emperor's sorrow, and he offered fervent prayers to God for help. Soon afterwards he had a strange dream.
An abbey is founded on the field of battle, which Sebile enters; Dyalas, baptized as Guiteclin the convert, receives charge of the kingdom, and the Emperor returns, bearing with him the bodies of Baldwin and Berard; after which well was France in peace many a year and many a day; the Emperor found not any who should make him wroth. Fastrada: a Legend of Aix-la-Chapelle
This done, the serpent bowed low, as on the previous occasion, and quitted the room as silently as it had entered. The diamond, set in a gold ring of exquisite workmanship, Charlemagne presented to his wife, the beautiful Fastrada.
Fastrada, we are told, was the fourth wife of the Emperor Charlemagne and the best beloved.
Charlemagne was born at Aix-la-Chapelle, and died there. He was born in the old place, of which there now only remains the tower, and he was buried in the church that he founded in 796, two years after the death of his wife Fastrada.
Word Of The Day