Beatrix von Hohenstaufen

Beatrix married Otto I von Meran on 21 Jun 1208. Otto (son of Berthold VI von Andechs and Agnes von Nieder-Lausitz) was born about 1180; died on 7 May 1234. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Elisabeth von Meran died on 18 Dec 1272.
2. Beatrix von Meran was born in 1210; died on 9 Feb 1270.
3. Adelheid de Meran was born about 1219; died on 8 Mar 1279.

Notes:

Count Palatine of Burgundy.

Otto married Marguerite de Blois about 1191. Marguerite (daughter of Thibaut V and Alice of France) died on 7 May 1231. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Drowned in the Saleph River (now known as the Göksu) while leading an army in the Third Crusade.

Frederick married Beatrice of Burgundy on 9 Jun 1156 in Würzburg, Germany. Beatrice (daughter of Renaud III of Burgundy and Agatha of Lorraine) was born about 1144; died on 15 Nov 1184 in Jouhe, Jura, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 15 Nov 1185

Notes:

Count of Blois. Died in the Third Crusade.

Thibaut married Alice of France about 1164. Alice (daughter of Louis VII, King of France and Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen Consort of France; Queen Consort of England) was born in 1151; died after 1195. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 6 Apr 1147, Alzey, Germany

Notes:

Called Frederick the One-eyed. Duke of Swabia from 1105 to his death, second of the Hohenstaufen dynasty.

Frederick married Judith of Bavaria in 1121. Judith (daughter of Henry IX of Bavaria and Wulfhilde of Saxony) was born on 19 May 1100; died after 22 Feb 1130; was buried in Waldburg, Heiligen Forst, Alsace. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1103
• Alternate death: 27 Aug 1130

Notes:

Count of Macon and Burgundy.

Renaud married Agatha of Lorraine. Agatha (daughter of Simon I of Lorraine and Adelaide of Louvain) died in 1147. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 1093, Blois, Loir-et-Cher, France

Notes:

Count of Blois, Champagne, and Troyes. Nicknamed "le Grand".

Thibaut married Mathilde of Carinthia in 1123. Mathilde (daughter of Engelbert II von Sponheim and Uta of Passau) died on 13 Dec 1160 in Fontevault, Maine-et-Loir, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 13 Dec 1161, Fontevault, Maine-et-Loir, France

Notes:

Also called Machaldis, Matildis, Mathildis, Matirdis, etc. Also called Mathilde von Kärnten. Also called Mathilde of Sponheim.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 1121
• Alternate death: 19 Sep 1180

Louis married Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen Consort of France; Queen Consort of England in Jul 1137 in Cathedral of Saint-Andre, Bordeaux, Gironde, France. Eleanor (daughter of William X of Aquitaine and Aénor de Châtellerault) was born in 1122; died on 1 Apr 1204; was buried in Fontévrault Abbey, near Chinon, Anjou, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1124
• Alternate death: 31 Mar 1204, Poitiers, Vienne, Poitou-Charentes, France

Notes:

Also called Alienor, Helienordis. Duchess of Aquitaine.

Notes:

Duke of Swabia from 1079 to his death, the first ruler from the House of Hohenstaufen.

Frederick married Agnes of Germany about 1086. Agnes (daughter of Heinrich IV, Holy Roman Emperor and Bertha of Turin) was born in 1073; died on 24 Sep 1143; was buried in Klosterneuberg, Austria. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Agnes of Waiblingen; Agnes von Franken.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 1075

Notes:

Duke of Bavaria. Called "The Black."

Henry married Wulfhilde of Saxony about 1100. Wulfhilde (daughter of Magnus of Saxony and Sophia of Hungary) was born about 1075; died on 29 Dec 1126 in Weingarten Abbey, Ravensburg, Upper Swabia, Germany. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Weingarten Abbey is also called St. Martin's Abbey.

Notes:

Count Palatine of Burgundy; Count of Mâcon and Vienne. Called (like his father) "tête hardie", "the rash" or "the stubborn".

Fought in the Crusade of 1101, helping with the capture of Ancyra and fighting in the disastrous Battle of Mersivan, from which he barely escaped.

Stephen married Beatrix. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Duke of Lorraine.

"Continuing the policy of friendship with the Holy Roman Emperor, he accompanied the Emperor Henry V to the Diet of Worms of 1122, where the Investiture Controversy was resolved. He had stormy relations with the episcopates of his realm: fighting with Stephen of Bar, bishop of Metz, and Adalberon, archbishop of Trier, both allies of the count of Bar, whose claim to Lorraine against Simon's father had been quashed by Henry V's father Henry IV. Though Adalberon excommunicated him, Pope Innocent II lifted it. He was a friend of Bernard of Clairvaux and he built many abbeys in his duchy, including that of Sturzelbronn in 1135. There he was interred after his original burial in Saint-Dié." [Wikipedia]

Simon married Adelaide of Louvain. Adelaide (daughter of Henry III of Louvain and Gertrude of Flanders) died after 4 Nov 1158. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Stephen of Blois, confusingly enough.

Count Of Blois. Died at the Siege of Ramallah in the First Crusade.

Etienne married Adela of Normandy in 1080 in Chartres, Eure-et-Loir, Beauce, Centre, France. Adela (daughter of William I, King of England and Matilda of Flanders, Queen Consort of England) was born about 1061; died on 8 Mar 1137 in Convent of Marcigny-sur-Loire, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1067
• Alternate death: 8 Mar 1138, Convent of Marcigny-sur-Loire, France

Notes:

Also called Adele of England.

Notes:

Duke of Carinthia. Margrave of Istria.

Engelbert married Uta of Passau. Uta (daughter of Ulrich of Passau and Adelaide) died after Nov 1141. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

"The Fat."

Louis married Alix of Savoy, Queen Consort of France in Mar 1115 in Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris, France. Alix (daughter of Umberto II of Savoy and Gisela of Burgundy) was born about 1092; died on 18 Nov 1154; was buried in Abbey Church of Saint Pierre, Montmartre, Paris, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Adelaide of Maurienne.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 28 Mar 1136, Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain
• Alternate death: 9 Apr 1137

Notes:

Called "The Saint." Duke of Aquitaine. Also, as William VIII, Count of Poitou. Also Duke of Gascony.

William married Aénor de Châtellerault in 1121. Aénor (daughter of Aimery I of Chátellerault and Dangereuse) died after 3 Mar 1130. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft Mar 1130

Notes:

Also called Eleanor; Aénor de Rochefoucauld.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 1068

Notes:

Count in the Riesgau and Swabian Count Palatine. "He is generally seen as the ancestor of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, also called the Staufer dynasty, which ruled the Holy Roman Empire from 1138 to 1208 and from 1212 to 1254." [Leo van de Pas]

Frederick married Hildegard of Egisheim-Dagsburg about 1042. Hildegard (daughter of Gerhard I) was born about 1028; died about 1095. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Hildegard von Schlettstadt. "Her naming as 'von Schlettstadt' arises from her foundation between 1087 and 1094 of the abbey of St. Fides (Sainte Foy) in Schlettstadt, the oldest burial place of the Hohenstaufen in Alsace, where she was probably buried." [Leo van de Pas]

Also from LVDP: "Her parentage is not established with certainty, but according to recent researches she was probably the daughter of Graf Gerhard III von Egisheim-Dagsburg. [...] The brother of her probable father was Bishop Bruno of Toul, the later Pope Leo IX." This is a bit confusing, since according to both van de Pas's own site and German-language Wikipedia, the Gerhard who was brother to Leo IX was Gerhard I, not III, but quite possibly he was both a I and a III depending on which of several titles or dignities one is counting.

Heinrich married Bertha of Turin on 13 Jul 1066. Bertha (daughter of Otto I of Savoy and Adelaide of Susa) was born in 1051; died on 27 Dec 1087 in Mainz, Hessen, Germany; was buried in Speyer Cathedral, Speyer, Germany. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Bertha of Maurienne, Berta de Savoie.

Notes:

Duke of Bavaria. Died while returning from the Crusade of 1101. In the elder house of Welf he is enumerated as Welf IV.

Welf married Judith of Flanders in 1071. Judith (daughter of Baldwin IV "The Bearded" and (Unknown daughter of Richard II, Duke of Normandy)) was born about 1033; died on 5 Mar 1094 in Weingarten Abbey, Ravensburg, Upper Swabia, Germany. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Countess of Northumbria; later Duchess of Bavaria.

Given in Ancestral Roots, 8th ed., as a daughter of Richard III, Duke of Normandy, and Adele of France, but Stewart Baldwin's overview of the evidence at The Henry Project demonstrates that she was almost certainly a daughter of Baldwin IV's second marriage to an unknown sister of Richard's.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Bef 1045

Notes:

Duke of Saxony.

Magnus married Sophia of Hungary between 1070 and 1071. Sophia (daughter of Béla I, King of Hungary and Adelaide of Poland) was born about 1050; died on 18 Jun 1095. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Count of Burgundy and, from 1078, Count of Mâcon.

Called "tête hardie", "the rash" or "the stubborn".

William married Stephanie between 1049 and 1057. Stephanie died after 1092. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

The Wikipedia article about William I, Count of Burgundy, asserts (as of 29 Jun 2015) two wives for him, an "Etiennette de Longuy" that he married circa 1040 and a "Stephanie" that he married before his death in 1087. The article then lists one set of children for Stephanie and another set of "children of either Stephanie or Etiennette". This appears to be confused. [Note that as of 1 May 2016, Wikipedia's article appears to have been cleaned up and corrected.]

According to Ancestral Roots, William had one wife, whom they identify as "Stephanie, parentage NN". They then note: "Prof. David H. Kelly believes her parentage unproven (2003). De Vajay, in Annales de Bourgogne vol. 32 (1960) 258-261, identifies Stephanie (Etiennette) as dau. of Clemence de Foix & Albert de Longwy, Duke of Lorraine, d. 1048. Clemence is identified as dau. of Bernard I Roger, Comte de Foix, d. 1035, & Garsinde de Bigorre; & Bernard as son of Roger I de Carcassonne & wife Adelaide. Moriarty, The Plantagenet Ancestry of King Edward III and Queen Philippa, supplies pedigree charts for these families, but does not agree with de Vajay as to her identity. Garnier, Tableaux Généalogiques des Souverains de la France et de ses Grand Feudataires, table XXVIII, shows her as dau. of Raymond II, Count of Barcelona."

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 23 Jan 1115
• Alternate death: 30 Dec 1115

Notes:

Duke of Lorraine. Count of Flanders.

Thierri married Hedwig of Formbach. Hedwig (daughter of Frederick of Formbach and Gertrude von Haldensleben) died between 1085 and 1090. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Count of Leuven.

Died of wounds sustained at a tournament.

Henry married Gertrude of Flanders about 1090. Gertrude (daughter of Robert I "The Frisian" and Gertrude of Saxony) was born about 1070; died in 1117. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Bef 1012
• Alternate death: 30 Sep 1089

Notes:

Also called Theobald.

Count of Blois, Chartres, Châteaudun, Champagne, Meaux, Provins, and Sancerre.

Thibaut married Garsinda of Maine. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Gersent de la Mans.

Carl Boyer, in his Medieval English Ancestors of Certain Americans, states that Thibaut III was married three times: first to Gersenda of Maine, daughter of Herbert, Count of Maine, second to a Gundrada, and third to Alix de Crepi. He gives Etienne Henri (whom he calls "Stephen III") as a son of the second wife.

Douglas Richardson, in Royal Ancestry, also gives Etienne Henri as a son of Gundrada / Gondrée.

Both Richardson and Boyer cite Arbois de Jubainville's 1859 Histoire des Ducs et des Comtes de Champagne, which contains a charter of Count Etienne and his wife Ala, dated 1089, which names his father, Count Thibaut, and his mother, Gundrea.

Answering a query from us on soc.genealogy.medieval, Joe Cook pointed out, on 12 Jan 2020, that the question is "if it is more likely that Thibaut had a wife Gundreae who appears only in one place in recorded history (this charter of 1089 [...]) who died shortly after this birth...or if someone perhaps misread 'Gersendae' as 'Gundreae' when transcribing the charter. The latter seems a lot more likely to me; but doubt it can be resolved beyond that?"

Peter Stewart also remarked on the subject, saying on the same date: "I agree with this, as implicitly did Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville whose book (vol. 1, cited by Joe above) is cited for 'Gundrea'. In his own work (same vol., p. 392 note 5) he stated that Stephen Henry was the son of his father's first wife Gersende of Maine, but on p. 504 he printed the charter dated 1089 representing that Stephen Henry named his mother as 'Gundre'. However, Arbois de Jubainville took this charter directly from the text as printed in a history of Blois published in 1682, where the same name is clearly given as 'Gandrea' - and as suggested by Joe, this is fairly likely to be a copyist's error for Garsenda."

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 1027

Notes:

Duke of Normandy 1028-1087; King of England 1066-1087.

William married Matilda of Flanders, Queen Consort of England about 1050. Matilda (daughter of Baldwin V and St. Adele of France) was born in 1032; died on 2 Nov 1083; was buried in Abbey of Sainte-Trinitie, Caen, Calvados, Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 3 Nov 1083

Notes:

She was about four feet tall, probably accounting for the short stature reported of some of her children, notably including Robert "Curthose" and probably including William Rufus as well.

Notes:

Count of Sponheim. Count in the Kraichgau.

Engelbert married Hedwig of Mossa. Hedwig died after 1 Jun 1100. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

"She is called Hedwig 'of Mossa' (died on 1 June in an unknown year after 1100, perhaps ca 1112)." [Peter Stewart, citation details below.]

Notes:

Count of Passau.

Ulrich married Adelaide. Adelaide (daughter of Kuno of Harburg and Mathilde) died about 1112. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Philippe married Bertha of Holland, Queen Consort of France in 1072. Bertha (daughter of Floris I of Holland and Gertrude of Saxony) was born about 1055; died on 30 Jul 1093 in Montreuil-sur-Mer, Pas-de-Calais, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 1094

Notes:

Called "the Fat." Count of Maurienne, Savoy, and Turin

Umberto married Gisela of Burgundy about 1090. Gisela (daughter of William I "The Great" of Burgundy and Stephanie) was born about 1070; died after 1133. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Marchioness of Montferrat.

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."

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Bef 7 Nov 1144, Notre-Dame de Noyers monastery, Nouâtre, Indre-et-Loire, France
• Alternate death: 1151

Notes:

Also called Almeric. Viscount of Chatellerault. Died as a monk.

Aimery married Dangereuse. Dangereuse was born about 1079; died after 1119. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

In 1903 Alfred Richard proposed that the Dangereuse who was wife to Aymeric I of Châtellerault was the Dangerosa who occurs as a daughter of Barthelemy de l'Isle-Bouchard and his wife Gerberge in a charter ascribed by its editor to roughly 1087. In a charter dated 1109, Aimery I of Châtellerault names his wife as Dangerosa but says nothing about her parentage. As Peter Stewart pointed out in a post to SGM on 26 Feb 2021, this doesn't add up to proof, although it (Stewart's words) "does seem reasonably likely."

The fact that her Wikipedia article is titled "Dangereuse de l'Isle Bouchard", as if this parentage were an established fact, does Wikipedia no credit.

She was also called La Maubergeonne; Amauberge. The latter may have been her actual baptismal name.

She was mistress to William IX of Aquitaine, father of her son-in-law, in a spectacularly public affair that encompassed papal condemnation and a great deal of other medieval melodrama. The fact that she was Eleanor of Aquitaine's maternal grandmother, and he was Eleanor's paternal grandfather, has only served to add further sizzle to the tale.