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From: "Peter Stewart" < >
Subject: Re: Henry of Poitou, Abbot of Peterborough 1127-
Date: Sat, 06 Aug 2005 06:44:08 GMT
References: <1e.4a9d180c.3023ad22@aol.com> <1123200317.130180.322710@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com> <1123201219.480115.182770@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <42f3e964@news.ColoState.EDU> <03b701c59a13$2b0aee80$0300a8c0@Toshiba> <dd14ti$f6o$1@eeyore.INS.cwru.edu>


"Todd A. Farmerie" < > wrote in message
news:dd14ti$f6o$1@eeyore.INS.cwru.edu...
> Leo van de Pas wrote:
>> Dear Todd,
>>
>> A guideline, no cast-iron proof, is Schwennicke ES Volume II Tafel 76.
>>
>> Here is shown that Guillaume VII-IX le jeune had by Maubergon or
>> Dangerose both wife of Amaury de Chatellerault the following children
>> Raimond, Prince of Antiochia
>> Henri Abbot of Cluny
>> Agnes/Mathilde wife of (1) Aimery de Thouars (2) Ramiro II King of Aragon
>> Adelaide wife of Raoul de Fays
>> Agnes Abbess of Saintes
>> Guillaume Count of Valentinois ancestor of the family
>> Poitiers-Valentinois
>>
>> Tafel 76 gives as sources
>> Erich Brandenburg Nachkommen Karl's des Grossen
>> Siegfried Rosch Caroli Magni Progeni
>> Jacques Saillot Le Sang de Charlemagne
>>
>> Isenburg/Freytag von Loringhoven, Volume II Tafel 28 (corrected and added
>> to by Schwennicke) gives Guillaume VII-IX a wrong second wife, mother of
>> all his children
>> Guillaume VIII-X, Raimond, Agnes (Agnes/Mathilde by Schwennicke) and four
>> daughters.
>>
>> What do you think is the situation? Do you think Henri is somehow a
>> confused addition to this family?
>
> I don't know one way or the other, but we have had two conflicting answers
> here - ES showing the relationship as related, but Richard showing it
> otherwise.
>
> As usual, in failing (yet) to definitively answer one question, we have
> raised another. Every source I have seen to date (and obviously, I have
> not seen ES) has shown Agnes, wife of Ramiro II of Aragon as daughter of
> William by Philippa/Matilda of Toulouse.

There's not much room to doubt that Agnes was the daughter of Philippa.
Szabolcs de Vajay placed the birth of Agnes in 1103, at a time when by all
evidence her father was living as the husband of Philippa, whom he deserted
for his mistress a decade or so later. Agnes was first married shortly
before 9 January 1117, that fits neatly enough with her birth in 1103 or a
few years earlier.

We are told by the chronicler of Saint-Maixent that William married Philippa
in 1094, and with the later report of the birth of his two sons (his
namesake & heir, and Raimond of Antioch) we are told that "he also had five
daughters by the aforesaid wife, one of whom [Agnes, as noted above] was
married to the viscount of Thouars" (ex supradicta conjuge habuit quoque
quinque filias, quarum unam desponsavit vicecomiti Toarcensi).

In other words, all his known & legitimate children were by Philippa. Ruth
Harvey studied the evidence in a 1993 paper and concluded that William had
only one wife anyway, and that the report by Orderic of a repudiated
countess named "Hildegarde" was just a misnaming of Philippa. Orderic made
plenty of mistakes like this.

Agnes followed Philippa in taking the veil at Fontevrault, where both of
them died. It hardly seems likely that a widowed queen would have returned
to her homeland in order to join nuns who had previously received a rival of
her mother, if she had not been Philippa's daughter in the first place.

So far I have not been able to find evidence of any illegitimate children
attributed to William the Troubadour in an early source, although his
amorous habits are well documented. Richard says that Raoul de Faye was
actually the son of Mauberge by her husband, and so the brother-in-law of
William's son by that means rather than by marriage to his supposed
illegitimate sister. The Poitiers-Valentinois connection was purely
fictional - the mother of Guillaume de Valentinois was still living in 1180,
many decades after Mauberge had died.

Peter Stewart



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