Adelaide of Aquitaine

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 15811

Adelaide — Hugh Capet. Hugh (son of Hugh of France and Hedwige of Saxony) was born 940; died 24 Oct 996, Paris, France; was buried Saint Denis Basilica. [Group Sheet]

1. Robert II of France was born 27 Mar 972, Orléans, Loiret, Centre, France; died 20 Jul 1031.
2. Hedwig Capet
3. Gisela Capet

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• Name: Towhead
• Reference Number: 15812

Notes:

William III (915 - 3 April 963), called Towhead (French: Tête d'étoupe, Latin: Caput Stupe) from the colour of his hair, was the "Count of the Duchy of Aquitaine" from 959 and Duke of Aquitaine from 962 to his death. He was also the Count of Poitou (as William I) from 935 and Count of Auvergne from 950. The primary sources for his reign are Ademar of Chabannes, Dudo of Saint-Quentin, and William of Jumièges.
William was son of Ebalus Manzer and Emilienne. He was born in Poitiers. He claimed the Duchy of Aquitaine from his father's death, but the royal chancery did not recognise his ducal title until the year before his own death.

Shortly after the death of King Rudolph in 936, he was constrained to forfeit some land to Hugh the Great by Louis IV. He did it with grace, but his relationship with Hugh thenceforward deteriorated. In 950, Hugh was reconciled with Louis and granted the duchies of Burgundy and Aquitaine. He tried to conquer Aquitaine with Louis's assistance, but William defeated them. Lothair, Louis's successor, feared the power of William. In August 955 he joined Hugh to besiege Poitiers, which resisted successfully. William, however, gave battle and was routed.

After the death of Hugh, his son Hugh Capet was named duke of Aquitaine, but he never tried to take up his fief, as William reconciled with Lothair.

He was given the abbey of Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand, which remained in his house after his death. He also built a library in the palace of Poitiers.

He married Gerloc (renamed Adele), daughter of Rollo of Normandy. They had at least two children:
Adelaide, who married Hugh Capet
William, his successor in Aquitaine. He abdicated to the abbey of Saint-Cyprien in Poitiers and left the government to his son.

William married Gerloc of Normandy 935. Gerloc (daughter of Rollo of Normandy and Poppa of Bayeux) was christened 912, Rouen, Seine-Maritime, Haute-Normandie, France. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 15892

Other Events:

• Name: Ebles Manzer
• Reference Number: 15894

Notes:

Ebalus or Ebles Manzer or Manser (c. 870 - 935) was Count of Poitou and Duke of Aquitaine on two occasions: from 890 to 892 and from 902 (Poitou) and 927 (Aquitaine) to his death.

Ebles was an illegitimate son of Ranulf II of Aquitaine. The meaning of his surname is disputed. Manzer is a Germanic habitational name, but also a Germanic personal name formed from magin, meaning "strength" or "might" (cf magnus). The same surname was used by another Prince from Occitania, Arnaud Manzer, Count of Angoulême (born 952-died 988/92), who also was a bastard. No other European Prince used the name Manzer. This fact makes the speculation about the Germanic origin of the Ebles' surname problematic.

Ebles succeeded his father Ranulf in 890, but was driven out in 892 by Aymar, who was supported by Eudes of France. Ebles gained the backing of William the Pious, Count of Auvergne, who placed Aquitaine under his own authority in 893.

In 902, Ebles launched the reconquest of his county with an army lent by his distant relative William the Pious. He took Poitiers while Aymar was away and established control of the county. He was invested as count by Charles III, with whom Ebles had been raised.

The comital title was the only one to which he ever had legitimate investiture. Ebles allotted the abbey of Saint-Maixent to Savary, Viscount of Thouars, who had been his constant supporter. He restructured Poitou by creating new viscounties in Aulnay and Melle and dissolved the title and position of Viscount of Poitou upon the death of its holder, Maingaud, in 925.

In 904, he conquered the Limousin. In 911, Ebles was in Chartres with an army to oppose Rollo, the Viking leader.

In 927, William the Younger, successor of William the Pious, and then his successor, his brother Acfred, died in the space of one year. Acfred had made Ebles his heir; Ebles thus found himself Duke of Aquitaine, Count of Berry, Auvergne, and Velay.

In 929, King Rudolph started trying to reduce the power of Ebles. He withdrew from him access to Berry, then in 932 he transferred the titles of Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Auvergne to the Count of Toulouse, Raymond Pons. Moreover, the territory of La Marche, which was under the control of the lord of Charroux, vassal of Ebles, was transformed into an independent county.

Ebalus married Emilienne and they had two sons:
Ebalus, Bishop of Limoges
William III of Aquitaine married Gerloc, daughter of Rollo of Normandy

Ebalus — Emeilienne. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 15895

Other Events:

• Name: Robert I
• Reference Number: 15901

Notes:

Rollo (c. 870 - c. 932), baptised Robert and so sometimes numbered Robert I to distinguish him from his descendants, the son of the Earl of Møre was the founder and first ruler of the Viking principality in what soon became known as Normandy. The name "Rollo" is a Frankish-Latin name probably taken from the Old Norse name Hrólfr, modern Scandinavian name Rolf (cf. the latinization of Hrólfr into the similar Roluo in the Gesta Danorum).

Historical evidence

Rollo was a Viking leader of contested origin. Dudo of St. Quentin, in his De moribus et actis primorum Normannorum ducum (Latin), tells of a powerful Danish nobleman at loggerheads with the king of Denmark, who had two sons, Gurim and Rollo; upon his death, Rollo was expelled and Gurim killed. William of Jumièges also mentions Rollo's prehistory in his Gesta Normannorum Ducum, but states that he was from the Danish town of Fakse. Wace, writing some 300 years after the event in his Roman de Rou, also mentions the two brothers (as Rou and Garin), as does the Orkneyinga Saga.
Norwegian and Icelandic historians identified this Rollo with a son of Rognvald Eysteinsson, Earl of Møre, in Western Norway, based on medieval Norwegian and Icelandic sagas that mention a Ganger Hrolf (Hrolf, the Walker). The oldest source of this version is the Latin Historia Norvegiae, written in Norway at the end of the 12th century. This Hrolf fell foul of the Norwegian king Harald Fairhair, and became a Jarl in Normandy. The nickname of that character came from being so big that no horse could carry him.

The question of Rollo's Danish or Norwegian origins was a matter of heated dispute between Norwegian and Danish historians of the 19th and early 20th century, particularly in the run-up to Normandy's 1000-year-anniversary in 1911. Today, historians still disagree on this question, but most would now agree that a certain conclusion can never be reached.

Latin Wikisource has original text related to this article:
De moribus et actis primorum Normannorum ducum

Invasion of France

In 885, Rollo was one of the lesser leaders of the Viking fleet which besieged Paris under Sigfred second official king of the Danes. Legend has it that an emissary was sent by the king to find the chieftain and negotiate terms. When he asked for this information, the Vikings replied that they were all chieftains in their own right. In 886, when Sigfred retreated in return for tribute, Rollo stayed behind and was eventually bought off and sent to harry Burgundy.

Later, he returned to the Seine with his followers (known as Danes, or Norsemen). He invaded the area of northern France now known as Normandy.

In 911 Rollo's forces were defeated at the Battle of Chartres by the troops of King Charles the Simple. In the aftermath of the battle, rather than pay Rollo to leave, as was customary, Charles the Simple understood that he could no longer hold back their onslaught, and decided to give Rollo the coastal lands they occupied under the condition that he defend against other raiding Vikings. In the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte (911) with King Charles, Rollo pledged feudal allegiance to the king, changed his name to the Frankish version, and converted to Christianity, probably with the baptismal name Robert. In return, King Charles granted Rollo the lower Seine area (today's upper Normandy) and the titular rulership of Normandy, centred around the city of Rouen. There exists some argument among historians as to whether Rollo was a "duke" (dux) or whether his position was equivalent to that of a "count" under Charlemagne. According to legend, when required to kiss the foot of King Charles, as a condition of the treaty, he refused to perform so great a humiliation, and when Charles extended his foot to Rollo, Rollo ordered one of his warriors to do so in his place. His warrior then lifted Charles' foot up to his mouth causing him to fall to the ground.

Statue of Rollo in Rouen:

Initially, Rollo stayed true to his word of defending the shores of the Seine river in accordance to the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, but in time he and his followers had very different ideas. Rollo began to divide the land between the Epte and Risle rivers among his chieftains and settled there with a de facto capital in Rouen. With these settlements, Rollo began to further raid other Frankish lands, now from the security of a settled homeland, rather than a mobile fleet. Eventually, however, Rollo's men intermarried with the local women, and became more settled as Frenchmen. At the time of his death, Rollo's expansion of his territory had extended as far west as the Vire River.

Death:

Rollo's grave is at the cathedral of Rouen

Sometime around 927, Rollo passed the fief in Normandy to his son, William Longsword. Rollo may have lived for a few years after that, but certainly died before 933. According to the historian Adhemar, 'As Rollo's death drew near, he went mad and had a hundred Christian prisoners beheaded in front of him in honour of the gods whom he had worshipped, and in the end distributed a hundred pounds of gold around the churches in honour of the true God in whose name he had accepted baptism.' Even though Rollo had converted to Christianity, some of his prior religious roots surfaced at the end.

Legacy:

Rollo is a direct ancestor of William the Conqueror. Through William, he is an ancestor of the present-day British royal family, as well as an ancestor of all current European monarchs and a great many pretenders to abolished European thrones.

The "Clameur de Haro" in the Channel Islands is, supposedly, an appeal to Rollo.


Buried:
Rouen Cathedral

Rollo — Poppa of Bayeux. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 15900

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 15897

Notes:

Ranulf II (also spelled Rannoux, Rannulf, Ramnulf, and Ranulph; 850 - 5 August 890) was Count of Poitou from 866 and Duke of Aquitaine from 887. On the death of Charles the Fat in 888, he styled himself King of Aquitaine and did so until 889 or his death, after which the title fell into abeyance.

He may have been selected as a temporary king by the Aquitainian nobles, for they accepted Odo of France after his death. Only the Annales Fuldenses definitively give him this title. He is recorded to have taken custody of Charles, the young son of Louis the Stammerer and he certainly did not recognise Odo as king. He appeared in the Annales Vedastes in 889 with the title dux maximae partis Aquitaniae: "duke of the major part of Aquitaine." He founded the viscountcy of Thouars at about that time, part of larger movement to creat viscounts with powers over regional fortresses to man them against the Vikings.

Ranulf was a son of Ranulf I and Bilichild of Maine. He married an Ermengard (died 935) and by her had a son, Ranulf III, who succeeded him in Poitiers. His illegitimate son Ebalus succeeded him in Aquitaine and, upon the death of Ranulf III, in Poitiers too.

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 37324