Petronila of Aragón, Queen of Aragón

Other Events and Attributes:

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

Notes:

Also Countess of Barcelona.

Petronila married Ramon IV Berengar in Aug 1150 in Lleida, Lleida, Catalonia, Spain. Ramon (son of Ramon III Berenguer and Dulce de Gévauden) was born about 1113; died on 6 Aug 1162. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Alfonso II, King of Aragón, Sobrarbe, and Ribagorza died on 25 Apr 1196 in Perpignan, Pyrènèes-Orientales, Languedoc-Roussillon, France; was buried in Royal Abbey of Santa Maria de Poblet, Conca de Barberà, Catalonia, Spain.
2. Dulce of Barcelona was born about 1159; died on 1 Sep 1198 in Coimbra, Portugal.

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.

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:

"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.

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

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Bef 1001

Notes:

According to Todd A. Farmerie (citation detail below), he was not called "el Tremblón" or "el Tremuloso," the Trembler; this was a latter-day confusion with his paternal grandfather. He succeeded his father in 994 and ruled less than ten years; he was last recorded as being present at a defeat in 1000.

Garcia married Jimena Fernandez before 981. Jimena (daughter of Fernándo Vermodéz and Elvira Diaz) died after 1035. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Count of Carcassonne and Razès.

Roger married Adelaide de Pons. Adelaide (daughter of Bernard II Melgueil and Sénégonde) died after Apr 1011. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Adelaide of Rouergue.

Notes:

Count of Bigorre.

Garcia married Ricarda d'Astarac. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 960

Notes:

Sire of Ramerupt.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 991
• Alternate death: 19 Apr 1000

Notes:

Count of Roucy.

Notes:

Count of Hainaut.

Reginar married Hedwig of France in 996. Hedwig (daughter of Hugues Capet, King of France and Adélaïde, Queen Consort of France) was born about 969; died in 1013. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 1013

Notes:

Also called Avoise, Edith, Hadvisa.

Notes:

Called "Fierebras," "Iron-Arm." Count of Poitou.

William married Emma of Blois in 968. Emma (daughter of Thibaut I of Blois and Luitgarde de Vermandois) was born in 950; died about 1003. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Buried: 21 Sep 1027, Dijon Cathedral, Dijon, Côte-d'Or, Burgundy, France

Notes:

Count of Burgundy.

Also called Othon Guillaume.

Otto-William married Ermentrude de Roucy. Ermentrude (daughter of Renaud I and Alberade de Lorraine) was born about 950; died on 5 Mar 1002. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 5 Mar 1003
• Alternate death: 5 Mar 1004
• Alternate death: 1005

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 27 Mar 971, Orléans, Loiret, France
• Alternate birth: 27 Mar 972, Orléans, Loiret, France

Notes:

Called "The Pious."

Robert married Constance of Provence, Queen Consort of France about May 1004. Constance (daughter of Guillaume I "le Liberateur" and Adelaide-Blanche of Anjou) was born between 985-990; died on 22 Jul 1034 in Melun, Seine-et-Marne, Île-de-France, France; was buried in Abbey of Saint-Denis, Saint-Denis, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 986
• Alternate death: 25 Jul 1032, Château Melun, Seine-et-Marne, Île-de-France, France

Notes:

Also called Constance de Toulouse; Constance of Arles.

"Queen Constance was not someone to be caught with down a dark alley, or even a well-lit street -- she was a violent termagant who once poked out a priest's eye with a stick when undertaking crowd control at a heresy trial. She fomented war between her sons over the succession after Robert II's death." [Peter Stewart, SGM, 3 Jun 2022]

Notes:

"The Black." Count of Anjou.

Died while returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Foulques married Hildegarde de Lorraine after 1000. Hildegarde died on 1 Apr 1040 in Jerusalem. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 1 Apr 1046, Jerusalem

Notes:

Guillaume III; Taillefer; Tallefer; Tallifer. Count of Toulouse.

William married Emma of Provence. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Mentioned 1006.

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.

Herluin married Herleve about 1030. Herleve was born about 1003; died about 1050; was buried in Grestain Abbey, Fatouville-Grestain, Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 1051

Notes:

Also called Arlette. Also called Herleve "de Falaise", this predicated on the belief that she was the daughter of a tanner or forester named Fulbert from the town of Falaise.

Notes:

Earl of Shrewsbury. Also styled, variously, as Earl of Arundel, of Chichester, of Sussex, and of Shropshire. Regent in Normandy during the Conquest. A loyal servant to the dukes of Normandy, he became an important administrator in post-Conquest England and Wales, and (following the disgrace of bishop Odo) the richest of William's tenants-in-chief. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography points out that "Alone of all the Conqueror's vassals, Roger de Montgomery gave his name to a British county, appropriately in Wales." He died as a monk.

Roger married Mabel de Bellême about 1050. Mabel (daughter of William I Talvas and Hildeburg) died in Dec 1077 in Bures-sur-Dives, Normandy, France; was buried in Troarn, Calvados, Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 2 Dec 1079

Notes:

Also called Mabel Talvas; Dame de Alencon, de Seez, and Belleme; Countess of Shrewsbury and Lady of Arundel.

From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

Earl Roger's first wife, Mabel de Bellême, has been depicted unforgettably for posterity by Orderic Vitalis, though that historian never saw her. He describes her as 'a forceful and worldly woman, cunning, garrulous, and extremely cruel', 'a perfidious woman', and 'a cruel woman, who had shed the blood of many and had forcibly disinherited many lords'; and he recounts several stories to her discredit related to him by colleagues at St Evroult. Whatever allowances can be made for Mabel there must have been something particularly aggressive and brutal about her for four of her vassals to ride at night into her castle at Bures [-sur-Dives] and cut off her head as she lay in bed after a bath. Her murderer Hugh Bunel was among those whom she had disinherited and was never caught. The date of the murder must be December 1077, not 1082 as long accepted from a marginal note in the editio princeps of Orderic. There is evidence that Mabel, like a very few other baronial wives, was a tenant-in-chief in England, but no evidence that she ever visited that land or the Montgomery estates there.