View source for Innogen

{{Short description|Legendary Queen}}
{{For|the institute|Innogen Institute}}
[[File:Expedición de Bruto a Aquitania (Innogen).jpg|thumb|Innogen in a {{circa|1475}} tapestry now in the [[Cathedral of the Savior of Zaragoza]]]]
'''Innogen''' is a character in the ''[[Historia Regum Britanniae]]'' and subsequent medieval British pseudo-history. She was said to have been a Greek princess, the daughter of King [[Pandrasus]], and to have become Britain's first [[Queen consort]] as the wife of [[Brutus of Troy]], the purported first king of Britain who was said to have lived around the 12th century BC. Her sons [[Locrinus]], [[Camber (legendary king)|Camber]], and [[Albanactus]] went on to rule [[Loegria]], [[Cambria]], and [[Alba]] respectively.

== ''Historia Regum Britanniae'' ==
[[File:Expedición de Bruto a Aquitania (recortado).jpg|thumb|Complete tapestry of "Brutus' expedition to Aquitaine", with Innogen on the left]]
Innogen first appears in [[Geoffrey of Monmouth]]'s ''[[Historia Regum Britanniae]]'' ({{circa|1136}}). She was the eldest daughter of the Greek king [[Pandrasus]], and was given in marriage to [[Brutus of Troy]] after he united the enslaved Trojans in Greece and defeated Pandrasus to gain their freedom.<ref name="HRB 1">{{cite wikisource | author=[[Geoffrey of Monmouth]] | wslink=Six Old English Chronicles/Geoffrey's British History | chapter=Book 1 | plaintitle=[[Historia Regum Britanniae]] | at=Chapters 10–11 }}</ref>

When Innogen left Greece with Brutus and the Trojans, she was inconsolable at leaving her parents and country. They travelled through the Mediterranean, around the coast of Iberia and Gaul, and arrived in Britain, where it was prophesied that Brutus would found an empire.<ref name="HRB 1"/>

Innogen had three sons with Brutus, who divided his kingdom between them after his death: the eldest, [[Locrinus]], inherited [[Loegria]] (England except for [[Cornwall]], which belonged to Brutus' general [[Corineus]]); [[Camber (legendary king)|Camber]] inherited [[Cambria]] (Wales); and the youngest, [[Albanactus]], inherited [[Alba]] (Scotland).<ref name="HRB 2-1">{{cite wikisource | author=[[Geoffrey of Monmouth]] | wslink=Six Old English Chronicles/Geoffrey's British History | chapter=Book 2 | plaintitle=[[Historia Regum Britanniae]] | at=Chapter 1 }}</ref>

Her great-great grandson [[Ebraucus]] named one of his thirty daughters Ignogni, who was sent along with her sisters to [[Alba Silvius]] in Italy, where they were married to the Trojan nobility there.<ref name="HRB 2-8">{{cite wikisource | author=[[Geoffrey of Monmouth]] | wslink=Six Old English Chronicles/Geoffrey's British History | chapter=Book 2 | plaintitle=[[Historia Regum Britanniae]] | at=Chapter 8 }}</ref>

== Analysis ==
Academic Fiona Tolhurst suggests that Innogen performs a pivotal function in the foundation of Brutus' Britain, by providing legitimacy to his rule through her bloodline, in the same way that [[Lavinia]] did for [[Aeneas]].<ref>{{cite book| first=Fiona | last=Tolhurst | year=2013 | title=Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Translation of Female Kingship | chapter=Geoffrey's History as Preparation for a Female King | series=Arthurian and Courtly Cultures | doi=10.1057/9781137329264 | isbn=978-1-137-32926-4 | publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] | publication-place=New York | page=105| url=http://www.gbv.de/dms/bowker/toc/9781137277848.pdf }}</ref>

== Name ==
Innogen's name is spelled a number of different ways in the ''[[Historia Regum Britanniae]]'', with the best readings being Innogen and Ignogen,<ref name="WCD Innogen"/> but other spellings include Ignoge, Euogen, and Ygnogen.<ref name="Roberts 1811 p 13">{{cite book | translator-first=Peter | translator-last=Roberts | translator-link=Peter Roberts (priest) | title=The Chronicle of the Kings of Britain | publication-place=London | publisher=E. Williams | year=1811 | page=13 | hdl=2027/umn.31951002129852i?urlappend=%3Bseq=97 | url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/umn.31951002129852i?urlappend=%3Bseq=97%3Bownerid=13510798903076724-101 }}</ref>

The name is likely to be Celtic in origin, from [[Goidelic languages|Gaelic]] ''inghean'' ([[Irish language|Irish]] ''iníon'' and [[Scottish Gaelic]] ''nighean''), meaning {{gloss|daughter}},<ref>{{cite dictionary | title=1. ingen | dictionary=[[Dictionary of the Irish Language|eDIL]] | year=2019 | url=https://dil.ie/28651 }}</ref> {{gloss|girl}}, or {{gloss|maiden}}.<ref name="ADoFN">{{cite dictionary | title=Imogen | editor1-first=Patrick | editor1-last=Hanks | editor2-first=Kate | editor2-last=Hardcastle | editor3-first=Flavia | editor3-last=Hodges | dictionary=A Dictionary of First Names | edition=2 | publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] | orig-year=2006 | year=2019 | isbn=9780191726675}}</ref><ref name="Findley 2010">{{cite encyclopedia | title=Imogen | encyclopedia=Women in Shakespeare | first=Alison | last=Findlay | year=2010 | publisher=[[Bloomsbury Publishing]] | isbn=9780826458896 | page=201 }}</ref> However, Innogen could instead be derived from the Latin name {{lang|la|Innocentia}},<ref name="WCD Innogen">{{cite encyclopedia | title=Innogen daughter of Pandrasus | encyclopedia=A Welsh Classical Dictionary | volume=7 | first=Peter C. | last=Bartrum | author-link=Peter Bartrum | orig-year=1993 | year=2009 | editor=MPS | publisher=[[National Library of Wales]] | page=442 | url=https://www.library.wales/fileadmin/docs_gwefan/new_structure/discover/digital_exhibitions/printed_material/welsh_classical_dictionary/07_H-LL.pdf }}</ref> with a possible intermediate Celtic form of the name being ''Enogent''.<ref>{{cite book | first=Robert | last=Owen | author-link=Robert Owen (theologian) | title=The Kymry | publication-place=Carmarthen | publisher=W. Spurrell and Son | year=1891 | url=https://archive.org/details/kymrytheirorigin00oweniala/page/48 | page=48 }}</ref> Since Innogen is a Greek character, other theories have suggested that it was intended to be a Greek name, with possible reconstructions {{lang|grc-x-classic|ἐκγόνη}} ({{transliteration|grc|Ecgone}}, {{gloss|a daughter}}) or {{lang|grc-x-classic|—ιγόνη}} ({{transliteration|grc|—igone}}), from the final part of a name such as [[Erigone (daughter of Icarius)|Erigone]] or [[Antigone (mythology)|Antigone]].<ref name="Roberts 1811 p 13"/>{{NoteTag|The theory that Innogen might be derived from {{lang|grc-x-classic|—ιγόνη}} ({{transliteration|grc|—igone}}) was put forward by [[Peter Roberts (priest)|Peter Roberts]]. Roberts suggested that Geoffrey of Monmouth might have been reading a manuscript which had a Greek name such as [[Erigone (daughter of Icarius)|Erigone]] or [[Antigone (mythology)|Antigone]], but the first part of the name was illegible, leading him to form the name Innogen from the remaining readable part.<ref name="Roberts 1811 p 13"/>}} Some sources claim Innogen means {{gloss|beloved child}} in Greek.<ref>{{cite book| first=Michele | last=Brown | title=The New Book of First Names | year=1985 | publisher=[[Corgi (publisher)|Corgi]] | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vrPf_A9KN_0C | page=154 | isbn=9780552122573 }}</ref> The name [[Imogen (given name)|Imogen]] is also attested from before the ''Historia Regum Britanniae''.<ref name="Keats-Rohan 1991">{{cite journal | first=K. S. B. | last=Keats-Rohan | author-link=Katharine Keats-Rohan | editor-last=Chibnall | editor-first=Marjorie | editor-link=Marjorie Chibnall | title=William I and the Breton Contingent in the non-Norman Conquest 1060–1087 | journal=Proceedings of the Battle Conference | publisher=[[Boydell & Brewer]] | series=Anglo-Norman Studies | volume=13 | year=1991 | isbn=978-0-85115-286-8 | issn=0954-9927 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tu4Eu5ozEVIC&pg=PA164 | page=164 }}</ref>{{NoteTag|Imogen of Dol, the sister of [[Rivallon I of Dol]], died some time after 1064,<ref name="Keats-Rohan 1991"/> around seventy years before Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote the ''Historia Regum Britanniae'' ({{circa|1136}}).}}

== Legacy ==
[[File:Armoiries Bretagne - Arms of Brittany.svg|thumb|150px|The [[coat of arms]] of the former [[Duchy of Brittany]], blazoned "''Ermine''", which had its origin [[attributed arms|attributed]] to Innogen]]
Modern uses of the name [[Imogen (given name)|Imogen]] probably derive from a misspelling of Innogen in the 1623 [[First Folio]] edition of [[William Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Cymbeline]]''. Shakespeare probably took the name from a retelling of the story of Innogen and Brutus in ''[[Holinshed's Chronicles]]'' (1577), and had used the name Innogen once before for [[Ghost character#Innogen (Much Ado About Nothing)|a non-speaking 'ghost character']] in ''[[Much Ado About Nothing]]'' (1600). An early description of ''Cymbeline'' by [[Simon Forman]] in 1611 consistently spells the name of [[Imogen (Cymbeline)|the character]] as "Innogen", and the spelling of the character's name as "Imogen" in the First Folio appears to have been the result of "scribal or compositorial error".<ref name="Oxford Shakespeare 2015">{{cite book | editor1-last=Dobson | editor1-first=Michael | editor2-last=Wells | editor2-first=Stanley | editor2-link=Stanley Wells | editor3-last=Sharpe | editor3-first=Will | editor4-last=Sullivan | editor4-first=Erin | title=The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare | edition=2 | publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] | year=2015 | isbn=978-0-19-870873-5 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2nQYCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA244 | page=244 }}</ref>

Innogen was mentioned in the funeral orations of [[Anne of Brittany]] in 1514. In the oration, Guillaume Parvi traced Anne's ancestry back to Innogen, and recounted a story that explained the origin of her family's heraldic [[Ermine (heraldry)|ermine]] coat of arms. According to the story, during a hunt at [[Le Croisic]], a [[stoat]] being pursued by Brutus' dogs took refuge with Innogen, who saved and fed it, and adopted it for {{lang|fro|ordre et armes}} ({{gloss|order and [[Coat of arms|arms]]}}).<ref>{{cite book | chapter='{{lang|fr|La Royne est morte! La Royne est morte!}}' | first=Joël | last=Cornette | title=Anne de Bretagne | year=2021 | publication-place=Paris | publisher=[[Éditions Gallimard|Gallimard]] | series=NRF Biographies | isbn=9782070770618 | lang=fr | page=209 }}</ref>

[[Edmund Spenser]] mentioned Innogen in book two, canto ten of ''[[The Faerie Queene]]'' (1590), as "fayre Inogene of Italy".<ref>{{cite book | first=Edmund | last=Spenser | author-link=Edmund Spenser | title=The Faerie Queene | year=1590 | url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiuo.ark:/13960/t1tf07d08?urlappend=%3Bseq=332 | page=328 | hdl=2027/uiuo.ark:/13960/t1tf07d08?urlappend=%3Bseq=332 }}</ref>

Innogen was a character in the [[Lost literary work|lost play]] ''The Conquest of Brute with the First Finding of the Bath'' by [[Henry Chettle]] and [[John Day (dramatist)|John Day]], which was performed by the [[Admiral's Men|Lord Admiral's Men]] at [[The Rose (theatre)|the Rose]] in December 1598.<ref>{{cite book | last=Wiggins | first=Martin | last2=Richardson | first2=Catherine | title=British Drama, 1533–1642: 1598–1602 | volume=4 | publisher=Oxford University Press | series=British Drama, 1533-1642: A Catalogue | year=2012 | isbn=978-0-19-926574-9 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qRk2BQAAQBAJ&pg=PA79 | page=79 }}</ref>

== Notes ==
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==References==
{{reflist}}

{{House of Brutus family tree}}


[[Category:Legendary British people]]
[[Category:British folklore]]


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