ABSTRACT: Judith, great-granddaughter of Charlemagne, was born ca. 843 to King Charles the Bald of West Francia and his wife Ermentrudis. Around the age of 13, in late 856, she was married to King Aethelwulf of Wessex and crowned queen, and upon his death married his son, Aethelbold. When he died, two years later, she moved back to France. In France, she became acquainted with Baldwin, an aristocrat, and eloped with him. After her father condoned her marriage to Baldwin, she became the first Countess of Flanders and co-founder of the dynasty of the Counts of Flanders. The whereabouts of the grave of Judith are still unknown from historic sources. In 2006, upon the excavation of the square in front of Saint-Peter’s abbey church, an elite burial cluster was found containing two females, a male, and four children. Carbon dating and a basic anthropological analysis led to historians suggesting that the remains of the oldest female, S127, could be those of Judith, yet this hypothesis was not tested further at the time. The current study tests this archaeo-historic possibility through multidisciplinary analysis of the skeletal remains. The skeletal, dental, and stable isotope analyses suggest the individual had a privileged childhood but that in her later years, S127 did suffered from a number of pathologies that would have caused her daily discomfort. Proteomic analysis confirmed the macroscopic sex estimation of the adults and provided sex information for the child and infant remains. Ancient DNA preservation was insufficient to provide any relevant information. The sStrontium isotope analysis does not contradict the geographical movements of Judith identified by the historians. It cannot therefore not be excluded that the skeleton in grave S127 is that of Judith, Queen of Wessex, first Countess of Flanders.
Alexandra Burnett 
