William Clito

Notes:

"The death by drowning of William Atheling, King Henry's only legitimate son, on 25 November 1120 transformed William Clito's fortunes. He was now the obvious male heir to England and Normandy, and a significant party of Norman aristocrats adopted his cause. Henry's problems became worse, as his son William Atheling had been betrothed to Matilda of Anjou, daughter of Count Fulk V of Anjou and Fulk wanted her dowry, several castles and towns in Maine, returned, which Henry refused. Fulk in turn betrothed his daughter Sibylla to William Clito giving him the county of Maine, between Normandy and Anjou, as her dowry. King Henry astutely appealed to canon law, however, and the marriage was eventually annulled in August 1124 on the grounds that the couple were within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity." [Wikipedia]

William married Sibyl of Anjou in 1123. Sibyl (daughter of Fulk V, King of Jerusalem and Eremburge de la Flèche) was born in 1112; died in 1165. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

William married Joanna of Montferrat in 1127. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1054
• Alternate death: 10 Feb 1134, Cardiff, Glamorgan, Wales
• Alternate death: 11 Feb 1134, Cardiff, Glamorgan, Wales

Notes:

Duke of Normandy. Eldest child of William the Conqueror.

"Orderic Vitalis describes Robert as 'talkative...with a clear, cheerful voice and a fluent tongue. Round-faced, short and stout, he was commonly nicknamed Gambaron ("Fat Legs") and Curta Ocrea ("Short Boots")' [Ordericus Vitalis, Eccl. hist., 2.356], and it is Curthose, the Norman-French version of the latter name, as used by Wace, that has become attached to Robert's name." [Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]

"Probably in 1078, when Robert would have been about twenty-five, Rufus eighteen, and Henry ten, they were with their father at L'Aigle, on the south-east frontier of Normandy, when he was about to attack one of his neighbours. The two younger sons were lodging with the king in the house of the merchant Gunher, while Robert, who had his own household, was quartered on another burgess. Rufus and Henry paid Robert a visit, went upstairs, began to play dice, 'as soldiers do', made a great commotion and then urinated on the heads of Robert and his friends. Robert dashed upstairs to punish his juniors, and the brawl was so fierce that it brought the king onto the scene. He restored order and forced them to make friends. But Robert had lost face, and the following night he and his companions decamped and made for Rouen, probably about one day's forced march away, where they tried to seize the keep. When they failed and the king ordered their arrest, they fled from Normandy. In the following year both Rufus and his father were wounded when they attempted to expel Robert from the fortified town of Gerberoi, where he was living as a robber baron, and, since the father's wound was inflicted by Robert himself, this incident probably determined Rufus's future." [Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry on William Rufus]

"Robert was still estranged in September 1087 when his father lay on his deathbed. William had made no explicit arrangements for the succession beyond the designation of Robert as his heir in Normandy. The De obitu Willelmi, a not altogether reliable source which is largely copied from Carolingian exemplars, suggests that the Conqueror intended to disinherit Robert completely and was only persuaded against this course by the archbishop of Rouen. Robert himself may have expected to succeed his father in all the latter's lands, but ducal practice, dating back to the time of Robert's great-grandfather, Duke Richard (II), indicated that all sons should have some share in the inheritance. In the event William Rufus was dispatched to rule England with a letter addressed to Archbishop Lanfranc, and Robert was summoned from Abbeville to succeed only in Normandy." [Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]

Robert married Sibyl of Conversano in Sep 1100 in Italy. Sibyl (daughter of Goffredo of Conversano) died in 1103. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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:

Also called Geoffroi, Geoffrey of Brindisi. Count of Conversano and Brindisi.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 1035
• Alternate death: 22 Jul 1035

Notes:

"The Devil." Duke of Normandy.

Robert married Herleve. 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.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Bef 1012
• Alternate birth: 1012

Notes:

Count/Marquess of Flanders 1035-1067; Regent of France 1060-1067.

Also known as Baudouin de Flandre, Baldwin "De l'Isle"; Baldwin of Lille; Balduinus Insulanus; Balduinus Pius.

Baldwin married St. Adele of France in 1028 in Paris, France. Adele (daughter of Robert II, King of France and Constance of Provence, Queen Consort of France) was born between 1010 and 1015; died on 8 Jan 1079; was buried in Abbey of Messines, Ypres, Flanders. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1003
• Alternate birth: Abt 1009, Ypres, Flanders
• Alternate death: Abt 1063

Notes:

Also called Adela; Aelis; Alais; Adelaide; Adelheid; Alix; Adela the Holy; Adela of Messines. Countess of Auxerre; Countess of Cotentin.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 28 Aug 1026
• Alternate death: 1027
• Alternate death: 23 Aug 1027

Notes:

Duke of Normandy.

Richard married Judith of Brittany about 1000. Judith (daughter of Conan I "Le Tort" and Ermengarde of Anjou) was born in 982; died on 28 Jun 1017; was buried in Bernay Abbey, Bernay, Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 16 Jun 1017

Notes:

Also called Judith de Rennes. Founded the abbey of Bernay, Normandy.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Between 980 and 985
• Alternate death: 30 May 1035
• Alternate death: 1037

Notes:

Count of Valenciennes 1007. Count/Marquess of Flanders 987/988-1035.

Also called Baudouin IV le Barbu, Balduinus Barbatus.

Excommunicated in 987 for having abandoned his wife.

Baldwin married Otgiva of Luxembourg about 1005. Otgiva (daughter of Giselbert) was born about 995; died on 21 Feb 1030. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 21 Feb 1036

Notes:

She may have been instead the daughter of Frederick, brother to the Giselbert shown as her father here -- in which case her ancestry would be the same except for the immediately preceding generation. Stewart Baldwin discusses the issue here.

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:

Also known as Richard the Fearless; Richard Sans Peur. Called in retrospect "Duke of Normandy," a title he did not use.

From The Henry Project: "Richard is described by such a wide range of words (comes, marchio, consul, princeps, dux) by various sources (sometimes of dubious authority) that it would be difficult to argue that there is a specific 'title' by which he should be called."

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

Notes:

Count of Rennes before 979. Duke of Brittany.

"[S]lain at the 2nd Battle of Conquereuil near Nantes". [Royal Ancestry]

Conan married Ermengarde of Anjou about 973. Ermengarde (daughter of Geoffroi I Grisegonelle and Adèle of Troyes) died after 992. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Stewart Baldwin has pointed out that she was not the same individual as her sister Gerberge who married William IV of Angouleme, despite the contrary claim in several sources including Wikipedia, Ancestral Roots, and Leo van de Pas (the latter presumably deriving from Europa?ische Stammtafeln).

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Between 23 and 30 Mar 988
• Alternate death: 23 Mar 988
• Alternate death: 30 Mar 988

Notes:

Marquess of Flanders 964/965-987/988; Lay-abbot of Saint-Bertin.

Arnulf married Rozala of Italy, Queen Consort of France in 968. Rozala (daughter of Berengario II, King of Italy and Willa of Arles) was born between 945 and 955; died on 13 Dec 1003; was buried in Abbey of Saint-Pierre, Ghent, Flanders. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Rozela; Susanna of Ivrea; Susanna of Italy.

Notes:

Count of Vaudrevange/Wallerfangen (in Moselgau).

"He died of wounds received in Pavia after the coronation of the emperor as king of Italy on 18 May 1004." [Royal Ancestry]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Aft 939
• Alternate birth: 941

Notes:

Nicknamed le Grand or Capet. First of the Capetian kings of France.

Hugues married Adélaïde, Queen Consort of France in 968. Adélaïde (daughter of Guillaume "Tête-d'Étoupe" and Adèle of Normandy) died on 15 Jun 1003. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 15 Jun 1004
• Alternate death: 15 Jun 1005
• Alternate death: 15 Jun 1006

Notes:

Also called Alix.

Her origins are contested. At the Henry Project, Stewart Baldwin considers her a "probable" daughter of William/Guillaume III "Tête-d'Étoupe" ("Towhead"), Duke of Aquitaine, who was also William I of Poitou, "possibly" by Adèle/Gerloc, daughter of Rollo of Normandy. Regarding William III as her father, Baldwin writes "No definitive solution is possible on the known evidence, but this parentage is more likely than the alternatives." He presents a long summary of the competing arguments for and against this model. We follow the Henry project, but in this case we note some strong arguments against this ancestry for the wife of Hugh Capet.

From Peter Stewart, 22 Jun 2010, on soc.genealogy.medieval:

The evidence that Hugo Capet's wife was a daughter of Guilhem III, duke of Aquitaine (Guilhem I as count of Poitou) is late and unsatisfactory but nonetheless straightforward enough.

The evidence that she was related to the ducal family of Normandy is more satisfactory and also straightforward.

However, that this relationship came about through Adela/Gerloc is somewhat less satisfactory, and muddied to a degree by contradictions in the sources for this mysterious personage.

Dudo says that Guilhem III proposed his own marriage to a sister of William Longsword of Normandy in the course of a gathering to hunt mating deer near Rouen, attended amongst others by Hugo Capet's father Hugo Magnus described as duke and leading man of the kingdom—the title and position were accorded to him ca 936. William reportedly called his sister a 'girl' at the time, suggesting that she was perhaps ca. 14 and born well after the conversion of her father Rollo to Christianity. Yet William of Jumièges later gave her the pagan name Gerloc, which appears rather anomalous considering that even William (who must have been ca. 20 years older than her) never occurs with any Norse name.

I would not accept the unsupported word of Dudo for anything at all, including his own existence. He was an outstanding nincompoop, and relied for this period on the memories of people who clearly did not have the story of Rollo's life and family straight in the first place.

Dudo's contemporary Ademar of Chabannes, who certainly knew more about the ducal family in Aquitaine though not that in Normandy, says that Rollo's daughter married Ebles Manzer and was mother of Guilhem III/I ("filius Rannulfi, Eblus manzer, Arvernis et Pictavis simul comes promotus est...Acceptaque in conjugium Adala, filia Rosi [sic] Rotomagensis comitis., genuit ex ea Willelmum Caput Stupe.") The monks of Saint-Maixent, where Guilhem's younger brother Ebles was abbot from 936 (NB around the time that Dudo placed the marriage to Guilhem III/I), followed Ademar and made him also a son of Ebles Manzer and the daughter of Rollo ("Eblus filius Ramnulfi...acceptaque in conjugio Adela, filia Rolli Rothomagensis, genuit ex ea Willelmum Caput Stupæ et episcopum Ebulum".)

We don't know much about the marriages of Ebles Manzer—in the 890s he appears to have had a wife named Aremburgis and by February 911 he was married to a lady named Emillana, probably the same as the Countess Alaina who later became a nun. Guilhem III/I occurs with a wife named Adeleidis in the early 950s. There is no evidence apart from Dudo, Ademar and William of Jumièges that any of these women (or perhaps another who does not occur in charters) was a daughter of Rollo and also had the name Gerloc.

There are such wide gaps in our knowledge of these genealogies that trying to fill in a "Norman ancestry alleged for Adelaide" from the fact that her grandson was somehow related to Edward the Confessor is a stretch too far.

From Peter Stewart, 22 Dec 2020, on soc.genealogy.medieval:

The question of the family origin of Hugo Capet's wife has been raised here before, and I have given reasons for doubting her connection to the dukes of Aquitaine.

A further point has just occurred to me that as far as I know has not been brought into the discussion here or in print before:

In 1025 after Robert II (the only son of Hugo and Adelais) had declined to become king of Italy, Guilhem V of Aquitaine decided to support the candidacy of his own eldest son. To further this he asked for support from the king to prevent opposition from Germany, offering inducements to Robert (1,000 pounds and 100 mantles) and to the queen (500 pounds).

But he put forward the request indirectly, through the queen's first cousin Fulco Nerra of Anjou. A letter to the king, written by St Fulbert of Chartres for Fulco on behalf of Guilhem, sets out the terms of the proposal asking the king to reply to Fulco so that he could relay the answer to Guilhem.

This round-about procedure through a proxy related to the king's wife would seem somewhat odd if Guilhem had been a nephew of Adelais, and his alternative candidate for the Lombard crown therefore the king's first cousin once removed.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 994

Notes:

Count of Arles, 967. Marquess of Provence from before 967 to 993-94. Sometimes enumerated as Guillaume II.

Guillaume married Adelaide-Blanche of Anjou after 984. Adelaide-Blanche (daughter of Foulques II "Le Bon" and Gerberge) was born between 945 and 950; died in 1026 in Montmajour, Bouches-du-Rhone, Provence, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

"Wife of four husbands, and the ancestress of important comital families through three of her marriages, Adélaïde, alias Blanche, was also briefly queen of France, and the mother of another French queen. Yet, in the early nineteenth century, scholars were still confused about her identity. Her story has to be pieced together from various records which, for example, mention an Alaiz, mother of count Pons de Gévaudan, or a Blanca, wife of Louis V, king of France, or an Adelaidis, cui prenomen erat Candida, mother of queen Constance, and only in hindsight is it clear that these records refer to the same woman. The discovery of the work of the historian Richer in the 1830's added a key piece to the puzzle by mentioning three of Adélaïde's marriages, but historians were slow to take advantage of the new information. Nevertheless, by the late nineteeth century, historians had accepted that Adélaïde, alias Blanche, daughter of Foulques II of Anjou, had been successively married to Étienne de Brioude (at the time often incorrectly called count of Gévaudan), king Louis V of France, and Guillaume I (or II) of Provence, and that she was the mother by the last of queen Constance, wife of king Robert II of France, although the marriage to Raymond of "Gothia" was still widely doubted. More recently, in the face of clear proof that Adélaïde was the mother of Guillaume "Taillefer", count of Toulouse, it has been recognized that her marriage to the obscure Raymond was genuine." [The Henry Project]