King of the Franks Louis VI of France

Other Events:

• Name: the Fat
• Name: The Fat
• Reference Number: 10588

Notes:

(Louis the Fat), 1081-1137, king of France (1108-37). He succeeded his father, Philip I, with whom he was associated in government from c.1100.

He firmly established his authority within the royal domain, suppressing brigandage by robber barons and besieging their castles, and punishing wrongdoers. He continued his father's policy of opposing the English in Normandy and was almost continuously at war with King Henry I (1109-13, 1116-20, 1123-35); he often met with defeat, but his resistance checked a greater English advance.

In 1124 he called up forces from far-flung regions of France; with strong support from the nobles he resisted the invasion of Holy Roman Emperor Henry V, who had come to the aid of Henry I. As a part of his plan for strengthening royal authority, Louis favored the church, liberally endowing its enterprises and selecting churchmen-notably the Abbâe Suger -as his ministers; he was vigorous, however, in enforcing his privilege of interference in ecclesiastical affairs.

To gain support from the towns, he began to grant them royal charters. He obtained a foothold in Guienne (Aquitaine) by marrying his son Louis (his successor as Louis VII) to the heiress of the duchy, Eleanor of Aquitaine . His enforcement of order and justice made Louis popular with the middle classes, the peasantry, and the clergy. Suger's Vie de Louis VI Le Gros (tr. 1964) is the standard monography for the history of Louis's reign.

Louis — Adelaide of Savoy De Maurienne. Adelaide (daughter of Umberto II of Savoy and Gisela of Burgundy) was born Abt 1092; died 18 Nov 1154. [Group Sheet]

1. Robert De Dreux was born Abt 1123; died 11 Oct 1188.

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 15799

Notes:

Philip I (23 May 1052 - 29 July 1108), called the Amorous, was King of France from 1060 to his death. His reign, like that of most of the early Direct Capetians, was extraordinarily long for the time. The monarchy began a modest recovery from the low it reached in the reign of his father and he added to the royal demesne the Vexin and Bourges.

Philip was the son of Henry I and Anne of Kiev. His name was of Greek origin, being derived from Philippos, meaning "lover of horses". It was rather exotic for Western Europe at the time and was bestowed upon him by his Eastern European mother. Although he was crowned king at the age of seven[2], until age fourteen (1066) his mother acted as regent, the first queen of France ever to do so. Her co-regent was Baldwin V of Flanders.

Philip first married Bertha, daughter of Floris I, Count of Holland, in 1072. Although the marriage produced the necessary heir, Philip fell in love with Bertrade de Montfort, the wife of Count Fulk IV of Anjou. He repudiated Bertha (claiming she was too fat) and married Bertrade on 15 May 1092. In 1094, he was excommunicated by Hugh, Archbishop of Lyon, for the first time; after a long silence, Pope Urban II repeated the excommunication at the Council of Clermont in November 1095. Several times the ban was lifted as Philip promised to part with Bertrade, but he always returned to her, and after 1104, the ban was not repeated. In France, the king was opposed by Bishop Ivo of Chartres, a famous jurist.

Philip appointed Alberic first Constable of France in 1060. A great part of his reign, like his father's, was spent putting down revolts by his power-hungry vassals. In 1077, he made peace with William the Conqueror, who gave up attempting the conquest of Brittany. In 1082, Philip I expanded his demesne with the annexation of the Vexin. Then in 1100, he took control of Bourges.

It was at the aforementioned Council of Clermont that the First Crusade was launched. Philip at first did not personally support it because of his conflict with Urban II. The pope would not have allowed him to participate anyway, as he had reaffirmed Philip's excommunication at the said council. Philip's brother Hugh of Vermandois, however, was a major participant.

“ …Philip died in the castle of Melun and was buried per request at the monastery of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire - and not in St Denis among his forefathers. He was succeeded by his son, Louis VI, whose succession was, however, not uncontested. According to Abbot Suger: ”

“ … King Philip daily grew feebler. For after he had abducted the Countess of Anjou, he could achieve nothing worthy of the royal dignity; consumed by desire for the lady he had seized, he gave himself up entirely to the satisfaction of his passion. So he lost interest in the affairs of state and, relaxing too much, took no care for his body, well-made and handsome though it was. The only thing that maintained the strength of the state was the fear and love felt for his son and successor. When he was almost sixty, he ceased to be king, breathing his last breath at the castle of Melun-sur-Seine, in the presence of the [future king] Louis... They carried the body in a great procession to the noble monastery of St-Benoît-sur-Loire, where King Philip wished to be buried; there are those who say they heard from his own mouth that he deliberately chose not to be buried among his royal ancestors in the church of St. Denis because he had not treated that church as well as they had, and because among so many noble kings his own tomb would not have counted for much.

Philip — Bertha De Hollande. Bertha (daughter of Florent Hollande) was born 1055; died Abt 1093. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 7212

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 15795

Notes:

Henry I (4 May 1008 - 4 August 1060) was King of France from 1031 to his death. The royal demesne of France reached its smallest size during his reign, and for this reason he is often seen as emblematic of the weakness of the early Capetians. This is not entirely agreed upon, however, as other historians regard him as a strong but realistic king, who was forced to conduct a policy mindful of the limitations of the French monarchy.

Reign:

A member of the House of Capet, Henry was born in Reims, the son of King Robert II (972-1031) and Constance of Arles (986-1034). He was crowned King of France at the Cathedral in Reims on 14 May 1027, in the Capetian tradition, while his father still lived. He had little influence and power until he became sole ruler on his father's death.

The reign of Henry I, like those of his predecessors, was marked by territorial struggles. Initially, he joined his brother Robert, with the support of their mother, in a revolt against his father (1025). His mother, however, supported Robert as heir to the old king, on whose death Henry was left to deal with his rebel sibling. In 1032, he placated his brother by giving him the duchy of Burgundy which his father had given him in 1016.
In an early strategic move, Henry came to the rescue of his very young nephew-in-law, the newly appointed Duke William of Normandy (who would go on to become William the Conqueror), to suppress a revolt by William's vassals. In 1047, Henry secured the dukedom for William in their decisive victory over the vassals at the Battle of Val-ès-Dunes near Caen.

A few years later, when William married Matilda, the daughter of the count of Flanders, Henry feared William's potential power. In 1054, and again in 1057, Henry went to war to try to conquer Normandy from William, but on both occasions he was defeated. Despite his efforts, Henry I's twenty-nine-year reign saw feudal power in France reach its pinnacle.

Henry had three meetings with Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor-all at Ivois. In early 1043, he met him to discuss the marriage of the emperor with Agnes of Poitou, the daughter of Henry's vassal. In October 1048, the two Henries met again, but the subject of this meeting eludes us. The final meeting took place in May 1056. It concerned disputes over Lorraine. The debate over the duchy became so heated that the king of France challenged his German counterpart to single combat. The emperor, however, was not so much a warrior and he fled in the night; despite this, Henry did not get Lorraine.

King Henry I died on 4 August 1060 in Vitry-en-Brie, France, and was interred in Saint Denis Basilica. He was succeeded by his son, Philip I of France, who was 7 at the time of his death; for six years Henry I's Queen, Anne of Kiev, ruled as regent.

He was also Duke of Burgundy from 1016 to 1032, when he abdicated the duchy to his brother Robert Capet.

Henry married Anne of Kiev 19 May 1051. Anne (daughter of I Yaroslav and Ingegerd Olofsdotter of Sweden) was born Abt 1024; died 1075; was buried , La-Ferte-Alais, Essonne, France. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Name: Anna Yaroslavna
• Reference Number: 15798

Notes:

Anne of Kiev or Anna Yaroslavna (between 1024 and 1032 - 1075), daughter of Yaroslav I of Kiev and his wife Princess Ingegerd of Sweden, was the queen consort of France as the wife of Henry I, and regent for her son Philip I.

Marriage

After the death of his first wife, Matilda, King Henry searched the courts of Europe for a suitable bride, but could not locate a princess who was not related to him within illegal degrees of kinship. At last he sent an embassy to distant Kiev, which returned with Anne (also called Agnes or Anna). Anne and Henry were married at the cathedral of Reims on 19 May 1051.
[edit]Children

With Henry I of France:
Philip (23 May 1052 - 30 July 1108) - Anne is credited with bringing the name Philip to Western Europe. She imported this Greek name (Philippos, from philos (love) and hippos (horse), meaning "the one that love horses") from her Eastern Orthodox culture.
Hugh (1057 - 18 October 1102) - called the Great or Magnus, later Count of Crépi, who married the heiress of Vermandois and died on crusade in Tarsus, Cilicia.
Robert (c. 1055-c. 1060)
[edit]Regency

For six years after Henry's death in 1060, she served as regent for Philip, who was only seven at the time. She was the first queen of France to serve as regent. Her co-regent was Count Baldwin V of Flanders. Anne was a literate woman, rare for the time, but there was some opposition to her as regent on the grounds that her mastery of French was less than fluent.
A year after the king's death, Anne, acting as regent, took a passionate fancy for Count Ralph III of Valois, a man whose political ambition encouraged him to repudiate his wife to marry Anne in 1062. Accused of adultery, Ralph's wife appealed to Pope Alexander II, who excommunicated the couple. The young king Philip forgave his mother, which was just as well, since he was to find himself in a very similar predicament in the 1090s. Ralph died in September 1074, at which time Anne returned to the French court. She died in 1075, was buried at Villiers Abbey, La-Ferte-Alais, Essonne and her obits were celebrated on 5 September.
[edit]Ancestry

Ancestors of Anne of Kiev[show]
[edit]Note

11th-century fresco of the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev representing the daughters of Yaroslav I, with Anna probably being the youngest. Other daughters were Anastasia wife of Andrew I of Hungary, Elizabeth wife of Harald III of Norway, and Agatha wife of Edward the Exile.
In 1717, Tsar Peter the Great stopped in the cathedral in Reims where the French monarchs were crowned. He was shown the missal on which all French kings since the 11th century swore their coronation oaths. To everyone's surprise, he began reading from the missal which was written in Old Church Slavonic, the ancestor of all literary Slavonic languages, and used in Christian Orthodox Churches during the services; its function was the same as Latin in Western Europe.
Anna had brought the missal with her from Kiev to the Church where she and Henry had taken their vows. All French monarchs, save the Bonapartes, were crowned after swearing their oaths on it.
[edit]Sources

Bauthier, Robert-Henri. Anne de Kiev reine de France et la politique royale au Xe siècle, revue des Etudes Slaves, Vol. 57, 1985

Buried:
Villiers Abbey

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 7213

Other Events:

• Name: the Pious
• Reference Number: 15796

Notes:

Robert II (27 March 972 - 20 July 1031), called the Pious or the Wise, was King of France from 996 until his death. The second reigning member of the House of Capet, he was born in Orléans to Hugh Capet and Adelaide of Aquitaine.

Immediately after his own coronation, Robert's father Hugh began to push for the coronation of Robert. "The essential means by which the early Capetians were seen to have kept the throne in their family was through the association of the eldest surviving son in the royalty during the father's lifetime," Andrew W. Lewis has observed, in tracing the phenomenon in this line of kings who lacked dynastic legitimacy. Hugh's claimed reason was that he was planning an expedition against the Moorish armies harassing Borrel II of Barcelona, an invasion which never occurred, and that the stability of the country necessitated a co-king, should he die while on expedition. Ralph Glaber, however, attributes Hugh's request to his old age and inability to control the nobility. Modern scholarship has largely imputed to Hugh the motive of establishing a dynasty against the claims of electoral power on the part of the aristocracy, but this is not the typical view of contemporaries and even some modern scholars have been less sceptical of Hugh's "plan" to campaign in Spain. Robert was eventually crowned on 30 December 987. A measure of Hugh's success is that when Hugh died in 996, Robert continued to reign without any succession dispute, but during his long reign actual royal power dissipated into the hands of the great territorial magnates.

Robert had begun to take on active royal duties with his father in the early 990s. In 991, he helped his father prevent the French bishops from trekking to Mousson in the Kingdom of Germany for a synod called by Pope John XV, with whom Hugh was then in disagreement.

Marital problems:

As early as 989, having been rebuffed in his search for a Byzantine princess, Hugh Capet arranged for Robert to marry the recently-widowed daughter of Berengar II of Italy, Rozala, who took the name of Susannah upon becoming Queen. She was many years his senior. She was the widow of Arnulf II of Flanders, with whom she had children, the oldest of whom was of age to assume the offices of count of Flanders. Robert divorced her within a year of his father's death. He tried instead to marry Bertha, daughter of Conrad of Burgundy, around the time of his father's death. She was a widow of Odo I of Blois, but was also Robert's cousin. For reasons of consanguinity, Pope Gregory V refused to sanction the marriage, and Robert was excommunicated. After long negotiations with Gregory's successor, Sylvester II, the marriage was annulled.

Finally, in 1001, Robert entered into his final and longest-lasting marriage to Constance of Arles, the daughter of William I of Provence. She was an ambitious and scheming woman, who made life miserable for her husband by encouraging her sons to revolt against their father.

Piety:

Robert, however, despite his marital problems, was a very devout Catholic, hence his sobriquet "the Pious." He was musically inclined, being a composer, chorister, and poet, and making his palace a place of religious seclusion, where he conducted the matins and vespers in his royal robes. However, to contemporaries, Robert's "piety" also resulted from his lack of toleration for heretics: he harshly punished them.

Military career:

Robert II dispenses alms to the poor: "Robert had a kindly feeling for the weak and poor" - from François Guizot, A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times.

The kingdom Robert inherited was not large, and in an effort to increase his power, he vigorously pursued his claim to any feudal lands which became vacant, which action usually resulted in war with a counter-claimant. In 1003, his invasion of the Duchy of Burgundy was thwarted and it would not be until 1016 that he was finally able to get the support of the Church and be recognized as Duke of Burgundy.

The pious Robert made few friends and many enemies, including his own sons: Hugh Magnus, Henry, and Robert. They turned against their father in a civil war over power and property. Hugh died in revolt in 1025. In a conflict with Henry and the younger Robert, King Robert's army was beaten and he retreated to Beaugency outside Paris, his capital. He died in the middle of the war with his sons on 20 July 1031 at Melun. He was interred with Constance in Saint Denis Basilica. He was succeeded by his son Henry, in both France and Burgundy.

Children:

Robert had no children from his short-lived marriage to Susanna. His illegal marriage to Bertha gave him one stillborn son in 999, but only Constance gave him surviving children:
Constance, married Manasses de Dammartin
Hedwig (or Advisa) of France, married Renauld I, Count of Nevers on 25 January 1016 and had issue.
Hugh Magnus, co-king (1017-1025)
Henry I, successor
Robert, became Duke of Burgundy
Odo (1013-c.1056), who may have been mentally retarded and died after his brother's failed invasion of Normandy
Adela (d. 1079), married firstly Richard III of Normandy and secondly Baldwin V of Flanders.

Robert also left an illegitimate son: Rudolph, Bishop of Bourges.

Robert — Constance of Arles. Constance (daughter of William I of Provence and Adelais of Anjou) was born 986; died 25 Jul 1034. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Name: Constance of Provence
• Reference Number: 15797

Notes:

Constance of Arles (also known as Constance of Provence) (986 - 25 July 1034) was the third wife and queen of King Robert II of France. She was the daughter of William I, count of Provence and Adelais of Anjou, daughter of Fulk II of Anjou. She was the half-sister of Count William II of Provence.

Biography

In 1003, she was married to King Robert, after his divorce from his second wife, Bertha of Burgundy. The marriage was stormy; Bertha's family opposed her, and Constance was despised for importing her Provençal kinfolk. Robert's friend, Hugh of Beauvais, tried to convince the king to repudiate her in 1007. Constance's response was to have Beauvais murdered by the knights of her kinsman, Fulk Nerra. In 1010 Robert even went to Rome, accompanied by his former wife Bertha, to seek permission to divorce Constance and remarry Bertha. Constance encouraged her sons to revolt against their father, and then favored her younger son, Robert, over her elder son, Henri.

During the famous trial of Herefast de Crepon (who was alleged to be involved with a heretical sect of canons, nuns, and clergy in 1022), the crowd outside the church in Orleans became so unruly that, according to Moore:

At the king's command, Queen Constance stood before the doors of the Church, to prevent the common people from killing them inside the Church, and they were expelled from the bosom of the Church. As they were being driven out, the queen struck out the eye of Stephen, who had once been her confessor, with the staff which she carried in her hand.

The symbolism, or reality, of putting an eye out is used often in medieval accounts to show the ultimate sin of breaking of one's oath, whether it be heresy, or treason to ones lordship, or in this case both.

Stephen's eye was put out by the hand of a Queen wielding a staff (royal scepters were usually tipped with a cross) thus symbolically providing justice for the treasoned lord on earth and in heaven.

At Constance's urging, her eldest son Hugh Magnus was crowned co-king alongside his father in 1017. Hugh Magnus demanded his parents share power with him, and rebelled against his father in 1025. He died suddenly later that year, an exile and a fugitive. Robert and Constance quarrelled over which of their surviving sons should inherit the throne; Robert favored their second son Henri, while Constance favored their third son, Robert. Despite his mother's protests, Henry was crowned in 1027. Fulbert, bishop of Chartres wrote a letter claiming that he was "frightened away" from the consecration of Henry "by the savagery of his mother, who is quite trustworthy when she promises evil."

Constance encouraged her sons to rebel, and Henri and Robert began attacking and pillaging the towns and castles belonging to their father. Robert attacked Burgundy, the duchy he had been promised but had never received, and Henry seized Dreux. At last King Robert agreed to their demands and peace was made which lasted until the king's death.

King Robert died in 1031, and soon Constance was at odds with both her elder son Henri and her younger son Robert. Constance seized her dower lands and refused to surrender them. Henri fled to Normandy, where he received aid, weapons and soldiers from his brother Robert. He returned to besiege his mother at Poissy but Constance escaped to Pontoise. She only surrendered when Henri began the siege of Le Puiset and swore to slaughter all the inhabitants.

Constance died in 1034, and was buried beside her husband Robert at Saint-Denis Basilica.

Children:

Constance and Robert had seven children:
Advisa, Countess of Auxerre, (c.1003-after 1063), married Count Renaud I of Nevers
Hugh Magnus, co-king (1007-17 September 1025)
Henri (4 May 1008 - 4 August 1060)
Adela, Countess of Contenance (1009-5 June 1063), married (1) Duke Richard III of Normandy (2) Count Baldwin V of Flanders
Robert I, Duke of Burgundy (1011-21 March 1076)
Eudes (1013-1056)
Constance (1014-unknown), married Manasses de Dammartin

References:

"The heresy was sui generis, probably an amalgam of neoplatonic speculation and of inferences made from the search, familiar to biblical scholars of the time, for an inner meaning beneath the literal surface of the text of Scripture 'written on animal skins.' The radical nature of the denials of the adherents of the doctrines of incarnation and resurrection, have led some historians to argue that the heresy was imported, to some degree ready-made, and that it represents a fragmentary influence from the developed heretical tradition of the movement of the Bogomils, then spreading from its cradle-land in Bulgaria into other parts ... But the absence of any external evidence of Bogomil missionizing at this time and a wider realization of the number of factors in Western society which fostered dissisence in the eleventh century ... have caused the theory to lose support. What seems most likely is that the heresy was intellectual in origin and a facet of the reawakening of learning in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries." Malcolm Lambert, Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from the Gregorian Reform to the Reformation (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1991) 16 - 17.

Sources:

Jessee, W. Scott. A missing Capetian princess: Advisa, daughter of King Robert II of France (Medieval Prosopography), 1990
Nolan, Kathleen D. Capetian Women, 2003.
Moore, R.I. The Birth of Popular Heresy, 1975.
Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Lines: 53-21, 101-21, 107-20, 108-21, 128-21, 141-21, 141A-21, 185-2.
Lambert, Malcolm. Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from the Gregorian Reform to the Reformation, 1991, 9 - 17.

Other Events:

• Name: Yaroslav I the Wise
• Reference Number: 15907

Notes:

Yaroslav I the Wise (East Slavic: ??????? ??????; Old Norse: Jarizleifr, c. 978 - February 20, 1054) was thrice Grand Prince of Novgorod and Kiev, uniting the two principalities for a time under his rule. During his lengthy reign, Kievan Rus' reached the zenith of its cultural flowering and military power.

Rise to the throne

Coins of Yaroslav and his descendants represent the trident.

Forensic facial reconstruction
The early years of Yaroslav's life are shrouded in mystery. He was one of the numerous sons of Volodymyr the Great, presumably his second by Rogneda of Polotsk, although his actual age (as stated in the Primary Chronicle and corroborated by the examination of his skeleton in the 1930s) would place him among the youngest children of Volodymyr. It has been suggested that he was a child begotten out of wedlock after Volodymyr's divorce from Rogneda and marriage to Anna Porphyrogeneta, or even that he was a child of Anna Porphyrogeneta herself. Yaroslav figures prominently in the Norse Sagas under the name of Jarisleif the Lame; his legendary lameness (probably resulting from an arrow wound) was corroborated by the scientists who examined his remains.
In his youth, Yaroslav was sent by his father to rule the northern lands around Rostov but was transferred to Novgorod, as befitted a senior heir to the throne, in 1010. While living there, he founded the town of Yaroslavl (literally, "Yaroslav's") on the Volga. His relations with father were apparently strained, and grew only worse on the news that Volodymyr bequeathed the Kievan throne to his younger son, Boris. In 1014 Yaroslav refused to pay tribute to Kiev and only Volodymyr's death prevented a war.
During the next four years Yaroslav waged a complicated and bloody war for Kiev against his half-brother Sviatopolk, who was supported by his father-in-law, Duke Boleslaw I Chrobry of Poland. During the course of this struggle, several other brothers (Boris, Gleb, and Svyatoslav) were brutally murdered. The Primary Chronicle accused Svyatopolk of planning those murders, while the Saga of Eymund is often interpreted as recounting the story of Boris's assassination by the Varangians in the service of Yaroslav.
Yaroslav defeated Svyatopolk in their first battle, in 1016, and Svyatopolk fled to Poland. But Svyatopolk returned with Polish troops furnished by his father-in-law, seized Kiev and pushed Yaroslav back into Novgorod. Yaroslav at last prevailed over Svyatopolk, and in 1019 firmly established his rule over Kiev. One of his first actions as a grand prince was to confer on the loyal Novgorodians (who had helped him to gain the Kievan throne), numerous freedoms and privileges. Thus, the foundation of the Novgorodian republic was laid. For their part, the Novgorodians respected Yaroslav more than they did other Kievan princes; and the princely residence in their city, next to the marketplace (and where the veche often convened) was named Yaroslavovo Dvorishche ("Yaroslav's Court") after him. It probably was during this period that Yaroslav promulgated the first code of laws in the East Slavic lands, "Yaroslav's Justice" (now better known as Russkaya Pravda, "Russian Truth").
[edit]Reign

Yaroslav's monument in Yaroslavl depicted on Russian 1000 roubles banknote

The Ukrainian hryvnia represents Yaroslav.

Eleventh-century fresco of St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev representing the daughters of Yaroslav I, with Anna probably being the youngest. Other daughters were Anastasia, wife of Andrew I of Hungary; Elizabeth, wife of Harald III of Norway; and Agatha, wife of Edward the Exile.
Leaving aside the legitimacy of Yaroslav's claims to the Kievan throne and his postulated guilt in the murder of his brothers, Nestor the Chronicler and later Russian historians often presented him as a model of virtue, styling him "the Wise". A less appealing side of his personality is revealed by his having imprisoned his younger brother Sudislav for life. Yet another brother, Mstislav of Tmutarakan, whose distant realm bordered the Northern Caucasus and the Black Sea, hastened to Kiev and inflicted a heavy defeat on Yaroslav in 1024. Yaroslav and Mstislav then divided Kievan Rus between them: the area stretching left from the Dnieper, with the capital at Chernihiv, was ceded to Mstislav until his death in 1036.
In his foreign policy, Yaroslav relied on the Scandinavian alliance and attempted to weaken the Byzantine influence on Kiev. In 1030, he reconquered Red Rus from the Poles and concluded an alliance with King Casimir I of Poland, sealed by the latter's marriage to Yaroslav's sister Maria. In another successful military raid the same year, he founded Yuriev (named after Saint George, or "Yury", Yaroslav's patron saint) and forced the surrounding province of Ugaunia to pay annual tribute.

One of many statues of Yaroslav holding the "Russkaya Pravda" in his hand. See another image here.
In 1043, Yaroslav staged a naval raid against Constantinople led by his son Vladimir and general Vyshata. Although the Rus' navy was defeated, Yaroslav managed to conclude the war with a favourable treaty and prestigious marriage of his son Vsevolod to the emperor's daughter. It has been suggested that the peace was so advantageous because the Kievans had succeeded in taking a key Byzantine possession in Crimea, Chersones.
To defend his state from the Pechenegs and other nomadic tribes threatening it from the south he constructed a line of forts, composed of Yuriev, Boguslav, Kaniv, Korsun, and Pereyaslav. To celebrate his decisive victory over the Pechenegs in 1036 (who thereupon never were a threat to Kiev) he sponsored the construction of the Saint Sophia Cathedral in 1037. Other celebrated monuments of his reign, such as the Golden Gates of Kiev, have since perished.
Yaroslav was a notable patron of book culture and learning. In 1051, he had a Russian monk Ilarion proclaimed the metropolitan of Kiev, thus challenging old Byzantine tradition of placing Greeks on the episcopal sees. Ilarion's discourse on Yaroslav and his father Vladimir is frequently cited as the first work of Old Russian literature.
[edit]Family life and posterity

In 1019, Yaroslav married Ingegerd Olofsdotter, daughter of the king of Sweden, and gave Ladoga to her as a marriage gift. There are good reasons to believe that before that time he had been married to a woman named Anna, of disputed extraction.[citation needed]
The Saint Sophia Cathedral houses a fresco representing the whole family: Yaroslav, Irene (as Ingegerd was known in Rus), their five daughters and five sons. Yaroslav had three of his daughters married to foreign princes who lived in exile at his court: Elizabeth of Kiev to Harald III of Norway (who had attained her hand by his military exploits in the Byzantine Empire); Anastasia of Kiev to the future Andrew I of Hungary, and the youngest daughter Anne of Kiev married Henry I of France and was the regent of France during their son's minority. Another daughter may have been the Agatha who married Edward the Exile, heir to the throne of England and was the mother of Edgar Ætheling and St. Margaret of Scotland.

Sarcophagus of Yaroslav the Wise.
Yaroslav had one son from the first marriage (his Christian name being Ilya (?-1020)), and 6 sons from the second marriage. Apprehending the danger that could ensue from divisions between brothers, he exhorted them to live in peace with each other. The eldest of these, Vladimir of Novgorod, best remembered for building the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod, predeceased his father. Three other sons-Iziaslav, Sviatoslav, and Vsevolod-reigned in Kiev one after another. The youngest children of Yaroslav were Igor (1036-1060) of Volyn and Vyacheslav (1036-1057) of Smolensk.
[edit]Legacy

Four different towns in four different countries were found by and named after Yaroslav: Jaroslaw (in today's Poland), Yaroslavl (in today's Russia), Yuryev (now Tartu, Estonia) and another Yuryev (now Bila Tserkva, Ukraine). "Yuriy" was a Christian name of Prince Yaroslav. Also, derived from the Russian custom of naming military objects such as tanks & planes after historic characters, The helmet worn by many russian soldiers during the Crimean War was called the "Helmet of Yaroslav Mudry". It was the first pointed helmet to be used by any army, even before any German armies wore pointed helmets.
[edit]See also

List of Ukrainian rulers
List of rulers of the Kievan Rus
List of Russian rulers
[edit]Sources

Martin, Janet (1995). Medieval Russia, 980-1584. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36276-8.
Nazarenko, A. V. (2001) (in Russian). Drevniaia Rus’ na mezhdunarodnykh putiakh: mezhdistsiplinarnye ocherki kul’turnykh, torgovykh, politicheskikh sviazei IX-XII vekov. Moscow: Russian History Institute. ISBN 5-7859-0085-8.

I — Ingegerd Olofsdotter of Sweden. Ingegerd (daughter of Olof Skötkonung and Estrid of The Obotrites) was born 1001; died 10 Feb 1050. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 15908