Gerberga of Mâcon

There has been some debate about Gerberga’s ancestry. It is generally thought that Gerberga’s parents were Lambert of Chalon and Adelaide, daughter of Gilbert, Duke of Burgundy, and widow of Robert of Vermandois.[1] Yet, because Gerberga’s son, Otto-William, later succeeded to the county of Mâcon (through marriage to Ermentrude de Roucy, the widow of the previous count), some scholars have mistakenly argued that Gerberga must have been descended from the counts of Mâcon rather than from Lambert of Chalon.[2]

Gerberga’s first husband was King Adalbert of Italy.[3] They married around 956, and had at least two children together, Otto-William[4] and Gisela, who married Anselm I of Savona.

After Adalbert's death in 971/5, Gerberga married for a second time, to Henry I, Duke of Burgundy, the younger brother of King Hugh Capet.[5] Gerberga and Henry had no children together. Since Henry had no son of his own, he adopted Gerberga’s son, Otto-William, and left him the county of Burgundy.[6]

• Constance Brittain Bouchard, Sword, Miter, and Cloister; Nobility and the Church in Burgundy, 980–1198 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2009 [1987]).
• E. Brandenburg, Die Nachkommen Karls des Großen (Verlag Degener & Co Neustadt an der Aisch, 1998).
• Detlev Schwennicke, Europäische Stammtafeln: Stammtafeln zur Geschichte der Europäischen Staaten, vol. 2 (Marburg, Germany: J. A. Stargardt, 1984).
• A. Thiele, Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte Band II, Teilband 2 Europäische Kaiser-, Königs- und Fürstenhäuser II Nord-, Ost- und Südeuropa (R.G. Fischer Verlag, 1994).