Alfonso II, King of Aragón, Sobrarbe, and Ribagorza

Notes:

Called "the Chaste" (el Casto); also "the Troubador." By 1162, as his paternal heritage, Count and Marquess of Barcelona, Tortosa, and Lerida, and Count of Tarragona, Gerona, and Cordagne. By 1164, as his maternal heritage, King of Aragon, Sobrarbe, and Ribagorza. In 1166, by devolution, Marquess of Provence.

Christened Ramón, he was called both Ramón and Alfonso from birth. When he took the united throne of Aragon and Barcelona, he took Alfonso as his single name as a gesture to the Aragonese.

The issue of his birth year was for a time confused due to the fact that his mother's eldest son, b. 1155, was actually christened Alfonso. This prior Alfonso died in 1162.

Szabolcs de Vajay (citation details below) has his birth as in 1157, before 25 March, in "Villamayor del Valle," a place we cannot locate.

Alfonso married Sancha of Castile on 18 Jan 1174 in Zaragoza, Aragón, Spain. Sancha (daughter of Alfonso VII, King of Leon and Castile and Richeza of Poland) was born on 21 Sep 1154 in Toledo, Toledo, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain; died on 9 Nov 1208 in Villanueva de Sigena, Huesca, Aragón, Spain; was buried in Monastery of Nuestra Señora, Sigena, Huesca, Aragón, Spain. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Pedro II, King of Aragón was born between 1174 and 1176; died on 14 Sep 1213 in Muret, Occitan, France.
2. Alfonso II was born about 1180; died in Feb 1209 in Palermo, Sicily.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 7 Aug 1162, Borgo San Dalmazzo, Piedmont, Italy

Notes:

Called "The Holy." Count of Barcelona, Gerona, Osona, and Cerdagne.

Ramon married Petronila of Aragón, Queen of Aragón in Aug 1150 in Lleida, Lleida, Catalonia, Spain. Petronila (daughter of Ramiro II, King of Aragón & Navarre and Agnes of Aquitaine) was born on 29 Jun 1136 in Huesca, Aragón, Spain; died on 13 Oct 1173. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 15 Oct 1173, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
• Alternate death: 17 Oct 1174

Notes:

Also Countess of Barcelona.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 19 Jul 1131, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

Notes:

"The Great." Count of Barcelona.

Ramon married Dulce de Gévauden on 3 Feb 1112. Dulce (daughter of Gilbert of Gévauden and Gerberga of Provence) was born after 1092; died between 28 Nov 1127 and 1130. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Countess of Provence.

Notes:

Called "The Monk," he pursued a religious life, eventually becoming bishop of Barbastro-Roda in 1134, just before being elected king of Aragon upon his brother's unexpected death.

Although the nobles who selected him expected him to be mild and pliant, in fact he defended his throne with considerable ruthlessness. While legendary rather than historical, the story of the Bell of Huesca is probably rooted in an occasion upon which he had several troublesome nobles summarily beheaded, nominally for having attacked a convoy of Muslims in time of truce but in fact because they were conspiring to end his reign.

After three years he passed royal authority to his son-in-law Ramon Berenguer and withdrew to monastic life, although he kept his royal title until his death twenty years later.

Ramiro married Agnes of Aquitaine in 1135. Agnes (daughter of William IX of Aquitaine and Philippa of Toulouse) was born about 1105; died about 1159. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

In Spanish, called Ines de Poitou.

Notes:

"The Fratricide"; "The Towhead". Count of Barcelona. "Killed while hunting in the woods of Perxa del Astor."

Ramon married Mahalta of Apulia before 13 Jul 1078. Mahalta (daughter of Robert Guiscard and Sigelgaita di Salerno) was born about 1059; died on 19 Sep 1108. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Between 1111 and 1112

Notes:

Count of Gévauden; Viscount of Millau and Lodeve; Count of Provence. Also called Gilbert of Millau.

Gilbert married Gerberga of Provence. Gerberga (daughter of Geoffrey I and Etiennette) was born about 1060; died in 1115. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Countess of Provence; Countess of Arles.

Ancestral Roots [111:26] gives her as a daughter of Fulk (Bertrand), Count of Provence, citing Europäische Stammtafeln, but the discussion in this SGM thread suggests that this is an error on ES's part and that she was, as most other sources have her, a daughter of Fulk (Betrand)'s father, Geoffrey I of Provence.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 1045

Notes:

Ancestral Roots and other sources to the contrary, he was probably never married to Philippa of Toulouse (1073-1117), wife of William IX of Aquitaine. Wikipedia's article on Philippa of Toulouse cites two sources to this effect:

"Szabolcs de Vajay, 'Ramire II le Moine, roi d'Aragon et Agnes de Poitou dans l'histoire et la légende', in Me?langes offerts a? Rene? Crozet, 2 vol, Poitiers, 1966, vol 2, p 727-750; and Ruth E Harvey, 'The wives of the first troubadour Duke William IX of Aquitaine', in Journal of Medieval History, vol 19, 1993, p 315. Harvey states that, contrary to prior assumptions, William IX was certainly Philippa of Toulouse's only husband. Vajay states that the marriage to an unnamed king of Aragon reported by a non-contemporary chronicler is imaginary even though it has appeared broadly in modern histories, and likewise he cites J de Salarrullana de Dios, Documentos correspondientes al reinado de Sancho Ramirez, Saragossa, 1907, vol I, nr 51, p 204-207 to document that Sancho's wife Felicie was clearly still married to him just months before his death, making the marriage to Philippa several years earlier, as reported in several modern popular biographies of her granddaughter, completely unsupportable."

Sancho married Felicia of Roucy in 1076. Felicia (daughter of Hildouin IV de Montdidier and Adele de Roucy) was born about 1050. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1060, Barbastro, Huesca, Aragón, Spain

Notes:

Also called Felicie de Montdidier.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 10 Feb 1127

Notes:

Also called Guilhèm de Peitieus; Guillaume de Poitiers. Duke of Aquitaine; also, as William VII, Count of Poitou. A leader of the Crusade of 1101, he is much more famous as the first troubador poet whose work has survived.

"Ab la dolcher del temps novel"
By William IX, Duke of Aquitaine

Out of the sweetness of the spring,
The branches leaf, the small birds sing,
Each one chanting in its own speech,
Forming the verse of its new song,
Then is it good a man should reach
For that for which he most does long.

From finest sweetest place I see
No messenger, no word for me,
So my heart can't laugh or rest,
And I don't dare try my hand,
Until I know, and can attest,
That all things are as I demand.

This love of ours it seems to be
Like a twig on a hawthorn tree
That on the tree trembles there
All night, in rain and frost it grieves,
Till morning, when the rays appear
Among the branches and the leaves.

So the memory of that dawn to me
When we ended our hostility,
And a most precious gift she gave,
Her loving friendship and her ring:
Let me live long enough, I pray,
Beneath her cloak my hand to bring.

I've no fear that tongues too free
Might part me from Sweet Company,
I know with words how they can stray
In gossip, yet that's a fact of life:
No matter if others boast of love,
We have the loaf, we have the knife!

Translated by A. S. Kline. © 2009; All Rights Reserved. This work may be freely reproduced, stored, and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose.

"For any of the later Provençals, i.e., the high-brows, we have to...'put ourselves into the Twelfth Century' etc. Guillaume, writing a century earlier, is just as much of our age as of his own."
[Ezra Pound, The Spirit of Romance]

And Poictiers, you know, Guillaume Poictiers,
had brought the song up out of Spain
with the singers and viels...
[Ezra Pound, Canto VIII]

He is also remembered for his specularly public affair with a woman named Dangereuse, the wife of his vassal Aimery I of Châtellerault. Aside from its interest as pure medieval melodrama, he was the paternal grandfather of Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Dangereuse was Eleanor's maternal grandmother.

William married Philippa of Toulouse in 1094. Philippa (daughter of William IV of Toulouse and Emma of Mortain) died on 28 Nov 1117. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 28 Nov 1118, Fontévrault Abbey, near Chinon, Anjou, France

Notes:

Also called Mathilda; Maud. Regent of Toulouse.

Ancestral Roots and other sources to the contrary, she was probably never married to Sancho V Ramirez (1043-94), king of Aragon. Wikipedia's article on Philippa of Toulouse cites two sources to this effect:

"Szabolcs de Vajay, 'Ramire II le Moine, roi d'Aragon et Agnes de Poitou dans l'histoire et la légende', in Me?langes offerts a? Rene? Crozet, 2 vol, Poitiers, 1966, vol 2, p 727-750; and Ruth E Harvey, 'The wives of the first troubadour Duke William IX of Aquitaine', in Journal of Medieval History, vol 19, 1993, p 315. Harvey states that, contrary to prior assumptions, William IX was certainly Philippa of Toulouse's only husband. Vajay states that the marriage to an unnamed king of Aragon reported by a non-contemporary chronicler is imaginary even though it has appeared broadly in modern histories, and likewise he cites J de Salarrullana de Dios, Documentos correspondientes al reinado de Sancho Ramirez, Saragossa, 1907, vol I, nr 51, p 204-207 to document that Sancho's wife Felicie was clearly still married to him just months before his death, making the marriage to Philippa several years earlier, as reported in several modern popular biographies of her granddaughter, completely unsupportable."

Notes:

"The Old". Count of Barcelona.

Ramon married Almodis de La Marche after Apr 1053. Almodis (daughter of Bernard I and Amelie) was born about 1010; died on 16 Oct 1071. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1020

Notes:

Married Hugh V of Lusignan around 1038. After three children, he divorced her "due to consanguinity" and arranged for her to marry Pons of Toulouse. She had several children by Pons and was still married to him in 1053 when she was abducted by Ramon Berenguer I, Count of Barcelona, who kidnapped her from Narbonne with help from his ally, the Muslim emir of Tortosa. Ramon married her immediately and set about getting her with children. Pope Victor II excommunicated them both, but the writ was rescinded in 1056.

From Wikipedia:

Almodis maintained contact with her former husbands and many children, and in 1066/1067 she traveled to Toulouse for her daughter's wedding [Almodis, who married Count Pierre of Melgueil]. A few years before, in 1060, [her first husband] Hugh V of Lusignan had revolted against his lord, Duke William VIII of Aquitaine, in support of Almodis' son [by her second husband] William IV of Toulouse.* Her sons supported one another in military campaigns; Hugh VI of Lusignan [by her first husband], Raymond IV of Toulouse [by her second], and Berenguer Ramon [by her third] all took the Cross.

*****

She was murdered in October 1071 by one Pere-Ramon who had been Ramon Berenguer's heir before Ramon married her. Wikipedia: "He was disinherited and exiled for his crime, and fled the country. When his father died in 1076, Barcelona was split between Berenguer Ramon and Ramon Berenguer, Almodis' sons. The family history of murder did not end with Pedro Ramon, as Berenguer Ramon earned his nickname 'The Fratricide' when he killed his own twin brother."

*****

* See her first husband Hugh V's entry: she seems to have persuaded him to enter the fray on behalf of her son by husband #2, and he lost his life by so doing.

Notes:

"Robert Guiscard (c.?1015 - 17 July 1085) was a Norman adventurer conspicuous in the conquest of southern Italy and Sicily. Robert was born into the Hauteville family in Normandy, went on to become Count of Apulia and Calabria (1057-1059), and then Duke of Apulia and Calabria and Duke of Sicily (1059-1085). His sobriquet, in contemporary Latin Viscardus and Old French Viscart, is often rendered 'the Resourceful', 'the Cunning', 'the Wily', 'the Fox', or 'the Weasel'. In Italian sources he is often Roberto il Guiscardo or Roberto d'Altavilla (from Robert de Hauteville)." [Wikipedia]

The Byzantine historian Anna Comnena described Robert Guiscard:

"This Robert was Norman by birth, of obscure origins, with an overbearing character and a thoroughly villainous mind; he was a brave fighter, very cunning in his assaults on the wealth and power of great men; in achieving his aims absolutely inexorable, diverting criticism by incontrovertible argument. He was a man of immense stature, surpassing even the biggest men; he had a ruddy complexion, fair hair, broad shoulders, eyes that all but shot out sparks of fire. In a well-built man one looks for breadth here and slimness there; in him all was admirably well-proportioned and elegant...Homer remarked of Achilles that when he shouted his hearers had the impression of a multitude in uproar, but Robert's bellow, so they say, put tens of thousands to flight." [The Alexiad of Anna Comnena, trans. E. R. A. Sewter (London: Penguin, 1969), p. 54.]

Robert married Sigelgaita di Salerno in 1058. Sigelgaita (daughter of Gaimar IV of Salerno and Gemma) was born about 1040; died in 1090. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Viscount of Millau and Rodez; Viscount of Carlat.

Berenger married Adele de Carlat. Adele (daughter of Girbert and Nobilia de Lodève) was born in 1060; died in 1115. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Josfred. Count of Provence.

Geoffrey married Etiennette. Etiennette died in 1095. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Douce, Estève. French-language Wikipedia says she was "perhaps" a daughter of William II, viscount of Marseilles (d. 1031).

Notes:

"Apparently born before 1007, he was the illegitimate son of Sancho III of Navarre by his mistress Sancha de Aybar. Ramiro was reputed to have been adopted by his father's wife Mayor after he was the only of his father's children to come to her aid when needed, although there is no surviving record of these events and the story is probably apocryphal." [Wikipedia]

"Ramiro's exact status is vague. He was called king by his vassals, neighbors, the church and even his sons, yet he always referred to himself simply as Ranimiro Sancioni regis filio (Ramiro, son of King Sancho). Likewise, in his two wills, he refers to his lands as having been given him in stewardship: in the first by García, and in the second by God. He is called regulus (rather than rex used for García) and quasi pro rege (acting as if king) in charters from Navarre. Due to his growing independence and the small size of his Pyrenean holdings, he is sometimes called a 'petty king', Aragon a 'pocket kingdom'." [Wikipedia]

Ramiro married Gilberga de Couserans. Gilberga (daughter of Bernardo Roger and Garsenda) died in 1054. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Hermesenda.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1010

Notes:

Count of Montdidier & Roucy.

Hildouin married Adele de Roucy in 1031. Adele (daughter of Ebles I de Roucy and Beatrix of Hainaut) was born about 1014 in Roucy, Aisne, Picardy, France; died in 1062. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Between 1015 and 1020
• Alternate death: 1063

Notes:

As Count of Poitou, he was called William VI; as Duke of Aquitaine, William VIII. Also Duke of Gascony.

Guy-Geoffrey married Hildegarde of Burgundy in 1069. Hildegarde (daughter of Robert I and Ermengarde of Anjou) was born about 1050; died after 1104. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Duke and Count of Toulouse.

William married Emma of Mortain before 1080. Emma (daughter of Robert de Mortain and Maud de Montgomery) died after 1134. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Ancestral Roots and Richardson's Royal Ancestry have a 54-year spread between their two different death dates for Emma of Mortain.

Notes:

Also called "The Crooked"; "The Hunchback". Count of Barcelona, Girona, and Ausona from 1018 to his death.

Berengar married Sancha Sanchez in 1021. Sancha (daughter of Sancho Garcia and Urraca Gomez) died on 26 Jun 1026. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 1047

Notes:

Comte de la Marche and Périgord.

Bernard married Amelie. Amelie was born about 985; died in 1072. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Ainal. She is shown in various sources as of the families d'Angoulême, de Montignac, or d'Aulnay, but her parentage is unknown.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 980

Notes:

"Tancred of Hauteville (980-1041) was an 11th-century Norman petty lord about whom little is known. His historical importance comes entirely from the accomplishments of his sons and later descendants. He was a minor noble near Coutances in the Cotentin. Various legends arose about Tancred which have no supporting contemporary evidence that has survived the ages." [Wikipedia]

Tancred married Fressenda. Fressenda died in 1057. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

"Guaimar IV (c. 1013 - ass. 2 or 3 June 1052) was Prince of Salerno (1027-1052), Duke of Amalfi (1039-1052), Duke of Gaeta (1040-1041), and Prince of Capua (1038-1047) in Southern Italy over the period from 1027 to 1052. He was an important figure in the final phase of Byzantine authority in the Mezzogiorno and the commencement of Norman power." [Wikipedia]

Assassinated by the his wife's four brothers.

Gaimar married Gemma. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Viscount of Millau and Rodez.

Richard married Richilde. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Viscount of Carlat.

Girbert married Nobilia de Lodève. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 4 Mar 1019

Notes:

Count of Arles, 967. Marquess of Provence from before 967 to 993-94. ]

Guillaume married Gerberga of Mâcon. Gerberga (daughter of Otto-William of Burgundy and Ermentrude de Roucy) died between 1020 and 1023. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 1019

Notes:

Also called Gerberge de Bourgogne.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Between 990 and 992

Notes:

Count of Aragón and Castile. "Sancho Garces III, first appears as king in 1004, he would reign for 3 decades and came to be called Sancho el Mayor (the Great). He was successful in overthrowing the submission his family had been forced into over the previous three generations." [Todd A. Farmerie, citation details below.]

Sancho married Sancha de Aybar. Sancha died after 27 Oct 1070. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Count of Bigorre. First count of Foix, from 1012 until his death.

Bernardo married Garsenda about 1010. Garsenda (daughter of Garcia Arnaldo and Ricarda d'Astarac) died after 1038. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Comtesse de Bigorre.

Notes:

Sire de Ramerupt. Mentioned 1026.

Notes:

Count of Reims & Roucy. Archbishop of Reims.

Ebles married Beatrix of Hainaut. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Count of Poitou. Duke of Aquitaine.

William married Agnes of Burgundy. Agnes (daughter of Otto-William of Burgundy and Ermentrude de Roucy) was born about 995; died on 10 Nov 1068; was buried in Abbey of St. Nicolas de Poitiers, Vienne, Poitou-Charentes, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Agnes de Macon. Duchess of Aquitaine.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 21 May 1076

Notes:

"The Old." Duke of Burgundy.

"In 1025, with the death of his eldest brother Hugh Magnus, he and Henry rebelled against their father and defeated him, forcing him back to Paris. In 1031, after the death of his father the king, Robert participated in a rebellion against his brother, in which he was supported by his mother, Constance of Arles. Peace was only achieved when Robert was given Burgundy (1032). Throughout his reign, he was little more than a robber baron who had no control over his own vassals, whose estates he often plundered, especially those of the Church. He seized the income of the diocese of Autun and the wine of the canons of Dijon. He burgled the abbey of St-Germain at Auxerre. In 1055, he repudiated his wife, Helie of Semur, and assassinated her brother Joceran and murdered her father, his father-in-law, Lord Dalmace I of Semur, with his own hands. In that same year, the bishop of Langres, Harduoin, refused to dedicate the church of Sennecy so as not "to be exposed to the violence of the duke." [Wikipedia]

Robert married Ermengarde of Anjou about 1048. Ermengarde (daughter of Foulques III "Nerra" and Hildegarde de Lorraine) was born about 1018; died on 18 Mar 1076. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 21 Mar 1076

Notes:

Also called Ermengarde-Blanche.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 991

Notes:

Count of Toulouse.

Pons married Almodis de La Marche about 1040, and was divorced after 1053. Almodis (daughter of Bernard I and Amelie) was born about 1010; died on 16 Oct 1071. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1020

Notes:

Married Hugh V of Lusignan around 1038. After three children, he divorced her "due to consanguinity" and arranged for her to marry Pons of Toulouse. She had several children by Pons and was still married to him in 1053 when she was abducted by Ramon Berenguer I, Count of Barcelona, who kidnapped her from Narbonne with help from his ally, the Muslim emir of Tortosa. Ramon married her immediately and set about getting her with children. Pope Victor II excommunicated them both, but the writ was rescinded in 1056.

From Wikipedia:

Almodis maintained contact with her former husbands and many children, and in 1066/1067 she traveled to Toulouse for her daughter's wedding [Almodis, who married Count Pierre of Melgueil]. A few years before, in 1060, [her first husband] Hugh V of Lusignan had revolted against his lord, Duke William VIII of Aquitaine, in support of Almodis' son [by her second husband] William IV of Toulouse.* Her sons supported one another in military campaigns; Hugh VI of Lusignan [by her first husband], Raymond IV of Toulouse [by her second], and Berenguer Ramon [by her third] all took the Cross.

*****

She was murdered in October 1071 by one Pere-Ramon who had been Ramon Berenguer's heir before Ramon married her. Wikipedia: "He was disinherited and exiled for his crime, and fled the country. When his father died in 1076, Barcelona was split between Berenguer Ramon and Ramon Berenguer, Almodis' sons. The family history of murder did not end with Pedro Ramon, as Berenguer Ramon earned his nickname 'The Fratricide' when he killed his own twin brother."

*****

* See her first husband Hugh V's entry: she seems to have persuaded him to enter the fray on behalf of her son by husband #2, and he lost his life by so doing.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1040, of Mortain, Manche, Basse-Normandie, France

Notes:

Earl of Cornwall. Count of Mortain. Also called Robert de Mortaigne.

One of the five additional persons agreed upon by both David C. Douglas and Geoffrey H. White, and recorded in Complete Peerage XII/1 appendix L, as companions of the Conqueror at Hastings, in addition to the fifteen "proven Companions".

Robert married Maud de Montgomery before 1066. Maud (daughter of Roger de Montgomery and Mabel de Bellême) died between 1082 and 1084; was buried in Grestain Abbey, Fatouville-Grestain, Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 21 Sep 1082