Editing Hygelac

{{Short description|Legendary king of Geats}}
[[File:Bataille entre Francs et Danois en 515.jpg|thumb|Anachronistic portrait depicting a battle between Franks and Danes in 515, from [[Jean Fouquet]]'s illumination in the ''[[Grandes Chroniques de France]]'', Tours, ''c'' 1455-60]] 
[[File:Hettergouw.jpg|thumb|[[Chattuarii|Hettergouw]] at the lower [[Rhine]], inhabited by the ''Attoarii'' or ''Hetware'', who killed Hygelac, according to ''Beowulf'', line 2916]]

'''Hygelac''' ({{langx|ang|Hygelāc}}; {{langx|non|Hugleikr}}; {{langx|gem-x-proto|Hugilaikaz}};<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sofi.se/images/NA/pdf/urnord.pdf |title=Lexikon över urnordiska personnamn |last=Peterson |first=Lena |year=2007 |publisher=[[Swedish Institute for Language and Folklore]] |pages=39 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927235937/http://www.sofi.se/images/NA/pdf/urnord.pdf |archive-date=2007-09-27 }} (Lexicon of Nordic Personal Names Before the 8th Century); from ''hyg'' "courage" and ''[[-lac]]''.
</ref> {{langx|la|Ch(l)ochilaicus}} or ''Hugilaicus'';<ref>{{cite book |last1=Haubrichs |first1=Wolfgang |editor-last1=Haubrichs |editor-first1=Wolfgang |chapter=Ein Held für viele Zwecke. Dietrich von Bern und sein Widerpart in den Heldensagenzeugnissen des frühen Mittelalters |title=Theodisca. Beiträge zur althochdeutschen und altniederdeutschen Sprache und Literatur in der Kultur des frühen Mittelalters. Eine internationale Fachtagung in Schönmühl bei Penzberg vom 13. bis zum 16. März 1997 |date=2000 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |location=Berlin |isbn=978-3-11-016316-2 |page=332 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vnW0nhUevx0C&q=%22huiglaucus%22+%22liber+monstrorum%22&pg=PA332 |language=de}}</ref> died {{circa}} 516 or 521) was a king of the [[Geats]] according to the poem ''[[Beowulf]]''.  It is Hygelac's presence in the poem which has allowed scholars to tentatively date the setting of the poem as well as to infer that it contains at least some points of historical fact.<ref name="Newton2004">{{cite book|author=Sam Newton|title=The Origins of Beowulf and the Pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5a_WO4rcTBkC&pg=PA27|year=2004|publisher=DS Brewer|isbn=978-0-85991-472-7|pages=27}}</ref> ''Beowulf'' gives Hygelac's genealogy: according to the poem, he was the son of [[Hrethel]] and had two brothers [[Herebeald]] and [[Hæþcyn]], as well as an unnamed sister who was married to [[Ecgtheow]] and was the mother of the hero Beowulf.  Hygelac was married to Hygd, and they had a son [[Heardred]] and an unnamed daughter who married [[Eofor]]. When Hygelac's brother Hæþcyn was fighting with the [[Suiones|Swedes]], Hygelac arrived at Hrefnesholt one day too late to save his brother Hæþcyn, but he managed to rescue the surviving Geatish warriors, who were besieged by the Swedish king [[Ongentheow]] and his three sons. The Swedes found refuge at a [[hill fort]] but were assaulted by the Geats. In the battle, the Swedish king was slain by Eofor. After the death of his brother Herebeald, Hygelac ascended the Geatish throne. After he was killed during a raid on [[Frisia]], Hygelac was succeeded by [[Heardred]], according to ''Beowulf''.

==Historical identification==
The raid to Frisia enabled [[N. F. S. Grundtvig]]<ref>Grundtvig produced the first translation of ''Beowulf'' into a modern language, ''Bjovulfs Drape'' (1820).</ref> to approximate the date of Hygelac's death to c. 516, because a raid to France under a Danish King '''Chlochilaicus''' is mentioned by [[Gregory of Tours]].<ref>{{citation |last=Gregory of Tours |author-link=Gregory of Tours |title=Decem Libri Historiarum III 3| url=http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/gregorytours/gregorytours3.shtml}} at [[The Latin Library]]</ref> In that source he is recorded as invading the [[Frankish Empire|Frankish Kingdoms]] during the reign of [[Theuderic I|Theodericus I]] (died 534), the son of [[Clovis I|Clovis ("Chlodovechus")]], the king of the Franks in the early sixth century, and was killed in the ensuing chaos after the Scandinavian raiders were caught by the sudden appearance of a military response force led by Theodericus I’s son, [[Theudebert I|Theodebertus]]. After the defeat the rest of the survivors took to sea in such disordered haste that they left their dead on the field, including their king. The Franks must have taken back whatever had been taken in pillage as well as spoils of the battlefield; and it is reported by Gregory that they found the corpse of Chlochilaicus so awe-inspiring due his extraordinary height, that, as a pagan barbarian not entitled to burial, his remains were exposed for a long time in the nearest Merovingian Court as a curiosity, following the usual triumphal trophy exhibition customary after battle or pirate captures.

While Gregory calls him a king of the Danes, the much younger ''[[Liber historiae Francorum]]'' instead calls him a king of the Goths (''rege Gotorum''), agreeing with ''Beowulf''.<ref>[http://www.heorot.dk/beowulf-rede-notes.html#e1202 All three sources in Latin and in English translation]</ref>

==Transmission to England==
There are two theories on how the account of the Frankish raid came to be preserved in the English epic ''[[Beowulf]]'', and they have a bearing upon the date assigned to the poem.

===Oral transmission===
One view considers the account to have been kept alive by the oral tradition of heroic poetry until it was included in the ''epos''.<ref name="Norton19">The Norton Anthology of English Literature (1986). W. W. Norton and Co., Ltd, 1986:19. {{ISBN|0-393-95472-2}}.</ref> That Hygelac was known in England already in the early eighth century is seen by the ''[[Liber Monstrorum]]'' ("Book of Monsters"), where he is referred to as ''Higlacus'':

{{block quote|''Et fiunt monstra mirae magnitudinis, ut rex '''Higlacus''', qui imperavit Getis et a Francis occisus est, quem equus a duodecimo aetatis anno portare non potuit. Cuius ossa in Rheni fluminis insula, ubi in Oceanum prorumpit, reservata sunt, et de longinquo venientibus pro miraculo ostenduntur.''}}

{{block quote|And there are monsters of an amazing size, like King '''Hygelac''', who ruled the Geats and was killed by the Franks, whom no horse could carry from the age of twelve. His bones are preserved on an island in the river Rhine, where it breaks into the Ocean, and they are shown as a wonder to travellers from afar.<ref>''Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf Manuscript'', ed. and trans. Andy Orchard (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1995), 258–9.</ref>}}

[[Leonard Neidorf]] argues that the authors of ''Beowulf'' and the ''Liber Monstrorum'' must have been relying on a shared [[Germanic heroic legend|oral legendary tradition]] ultimately stemming from Scandinavia, since they could not have reconstructed the etymologically accurate forms ''Higlac'' and ''Hygelac'' based on the garbled Frankish ''Chlochilaicus.''<ref>{{citation |first=Leonard |last=Neidorf |title=The Dating of Beowulf |chapter =Germanic Legend, Scribal Errors, and Cultural Change | pages=41-42}}</ref>

===Literary transmission===
Other scholars have instead suggested that the episode shows that Beowulf was composed as late as the 10th century, the date of the sole surviving manuscript.<ref name="Norton19"/> It has been suggested that the poem is in fact dependent on the ''Liber historiae Francorum'', because it mentions the ''Attoarii'', which in ''Beowulf'' become ''Hetware''. One scholar considers it to be inconceivable that independent oral tradition would have faithfully transmitted such a detail.<ref>{{citation |author=Weibull, C. H. J. |title=Die Geaten des Beowulfepos|year=1974 |isbn=9185252026 |pages=24 |publisher=Kungl. Vetenskaps- och vitterhets-samhället |author-link=Curt Weibull}}</ref> German historian [[Walter Goffart]] estimated that ''Beowulf'' could not have been written with these historical details before 923.<ref>{{citation |first=Ruth |last=Johnston Staver |title=A Companion To Beowulf |isbn=031333224X |year=2005 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/companiontobeowu0000stav/page/135 135] |chapter=Placing Beowulf on a Timeline. |publisher=Greenwood Publishing |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/companiontobeowu0000stav/page/135 }}</ref>

{{Hrethling}}

==See also==
* [[Hugleik]]
* [[:de:Chlochilaicus|Chlochilaicus]]

==Sources and notes==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite journal | last = Storms | first = Godfrid | author-link = Godfrid Storms | date = 1 September 1970 | title = The Significance of Hygelac's Raid | journal =   Nottingham Medieval Studies| publisher = University of Nottingham | volume = XIV | pages = 3–26 | doi = 10.1484/J.NMS.3.44 }}

{{s-start}}
{{s-reg | leg }}
{{s-bef | before=[[Hæthcyn]]}}
{{s-ttl | title=([[King of the Geats#Legendary kings|legendary]])<br />[[King of the Geats]]}}
{{s-aft | after=[[Heardred]]}}
{{s-end}}

{{Beowulf}}

[[Category:Characters in Beowulf]]
[[Category:English heroic legends]]
[[Category:Legendary kings of the Geats]]
[[Category:Early Germanic warriors]]
[[Category:6th-century monarchs in Europe]]
[[Category:6th-century Germanic people]]