Ramon III Berenguer

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]

1. Ramon IV Berengar was born about 1113; died on 6 Aug 1162.
2. Berenguela of Barcelona was born about 1114; died on 15 Jan 1149 in Palencia, Castile, Spain; was buried in Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain.
3. Berenguer Ramon I was born about 1114; died in 1144.

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:

"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 Pope Victor II excommunicated them both, but the writ was rescinded in 1056.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:

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]