(Redirected from Hunfriding)The 'Hunfridings' or 'Burchardings' (''Bouchardids'') were a family of probably
Alemannic origin who rose to prominence in their homeland, eventually becoming the first ducal dynasty of
Swabia. The first known member of the family was
Hunfrid,
Margrave of Istria under
Charlemagne from 799. The last member of the clan was
Burchard III, Duke of Swabia, who died in 973. Descendants of the dynasty lived on through the female line.
The most common and oft-recurring names in the family were Hunfrid, Adalbert, Odalric/Ulric, and Burchard. During the rise of the ''jüngeres Stammesherzogtum'', that is, the "younger"
stem duchies, the Hunfridings, like the
Conradines in
Franconia, were merely the most powerful among many well-entrenched ancient families vying for supremacy in Swabia. It took longer for them to establish their hereditary dukeship than either the
Liudolfings in
Saxony or the
Liutpoldings in
Bavaria.
When some Hunfridings,
Odalric and
Hunfrid III, rebelled against
Louis the German in the 850s and fled to the court of
Charles the Bald in
West Francia, they were enfeoffed in
Gothia and even given the title ''marchio'', but though they successfully dealt with the
Moorish threat from
Iberia, they failed to establish a dynasty there.
The Hunfriding genealogy is difficult to trace with certainty. That the later Swabian dukes were descendants of the margrave of Istria and relatives to the host of other counts whose names were common in the family is difficult to prove with certainty, but is nonetheless very likely.
References
★ Reuter, Timothy. ''Germany in the Early Middle Ages 800–1056''. New York: Longman, 1991.