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From: John Carmi Parsons < >
Subject: Re: Clementia de Foix ' older generations
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 12:57:40 -0500 (EST)


Michel Bur's _La Formation du comte' de Champagne_, p. 129, suggests the
following:

Adalbert or Albert, duke of Upper Lorraine and lord of Longwy d. 1048, husband
of Clemence de Foix fl. 1035, was the son of Gerard count of Metz and his wife
Gisella. (Adalbert was thus a brother of Gerard, who succeeded him as duke of
Upper Lorraine 1048-70 and is the ancestor of all later dukes of Lorraine and
the present house of Habsburg-Lorraine).

Bur believes that Adalbert's parents, Count Gerard of Metz and Gisella, were
first cousins. Gerard was the son of a Count Adalbert d. bef. 1030 and
his wife Judith (no family), while Gisella was the daughter of this Count
Adalbert's brother Count Gerard of Metz fl. 1030 by his wife Eve, daughter
of Count Sigfroi of Luxembourg and Hedwig, who belonged to the family of
the counts of Ardennes.

Bur makes the brothers Adalbert d. bef. 1030 and Gerard fl. 1030 sons of a
count Richard or Richer of Metz fl. 968-86. Michel Parisse's _Noblesse et
Chevalerie de Lorraine_ (1982), however, notes another Count Gerard in this
region in the last part of the 10th century and suggests that either Richer or
Gerard could have been the father of Adalbert d. bef. 1030 and Gerard fl. 1030.
(Some authorities state that this Adalbert d. 1033 and Gerard sometime between
1021 and 1033, and add to their family a sister, Adelaide, wife of Count Henry
of the Speyergau d. 989 and by him mother of the Emperor Conrad II.)

Parisse, building on earlier work by Maurice Chaume and Leon Vanderkindere,
takes the line further back by making either Count Richer or Count Gerard
a son (or sons) of a Matfried/Matfroi, son of Count Adalbert (of Metz?) d.
944 by Liutgarde, daughter of Count Wigeric of the Bidgau. This Adalbert d.
944 is known as the brother of Bishop Bernouin/Barnouin of Verdun fl. 928-39.
Parisse and others agree in making Adalbert d. 944 and Bernouin sons of a
yet earlier Count Matfroi of Metz fl. 897, d. ca 930 (some say in 926) and
his wife Lantsind, a sister of Bishop Dadon of Verdun fl. 880-923. Matfroi
husband of Lantsind was brother of Abbot Richer of Prum, later bp of Liege
920-45, and of a Count Gerard d. 910, husband of Uda of Saxony the widow
of King Zwentibold of the Germans.

Parisse does not extent this line any further, but Chaume et al. make Matfroi
husband of Lantsind the son of a Count Matfroi fl. 867 (d. by 882?), who was
in turn son of a Count Matfroi of the Eiffelgau fl. 843-59 and perhaps as late
as 867. Said Count Matfroi of the Eiffelgau was the son Count Matfroi of
Orleans (d. 836) by NF, daughter of Count Leuthard of Paris, a son of the
well-known Count Begon-Conrad of Paris (d. 816) by a first wife named Guiburg
(NOT by Begon-Conrad's second wife Alpais, who was an OOW daughter probably of
Louis the Pious, though also perhaps of Charlemagne himself according to
some authorities.)

Either Chaume or Vanderkindere suggested that Matfroi d. 836 had a sister Ava,
wife of Count Hugh of Tours d. 834, and mother of Adelaide wife of Robert the
Strong d. 866. That same Matfroi's wife's sister, another daughter of Leuthard
of Paris, married Count Eudes of Orleans d. 834 and was presumably mother of
Ermentrude, wife of Charles the Bald. Like the pre-Capetians from the time of
Robert the Strong, then, the line of counts believed to be ancestors of the
dukes of Lorraine probably benefited from their female relatives' marriages.

Schwennicke, vol. 6 table 129, follows the above but gives descendants of
the Count Gerard d. 910 by Uda of Saxony.

I hope this is of some help.

John Parsons

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