Constance of Arles

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.

Constance — Robert II of France. Robert (son of Hugh Capet and Adelaide of Aquitaine) was born 27 Mar 972, Orléans, Loiret, Centre, France; died 20 Jul 1031. [Group Sheet]

1. Henry I of France was born 4 May 1008, Reims, Marne, Champagne-Ardenne, France; died 4 Aug 1060, Vitry-en-Brie, France; was buried Saint Denis Basilica, Paris, France.
2. Adèle of France was born 1009; died 8 Jan 1079.
3. Constance of France
4. Hedwig of France
5. Hugh of France
6. Robert of France
7. Odo of France

Other Events:

• Name: William the Liberator
• Reference Number: 15903

Notes:

William I (c. 950 - 993, after 29 August), called the Liberator, was Count of Provence from 968 to his abdication. In 975 or 979, he took the title of marchio or margrave. He is often considered the founder of the county of Provence. He and his elder brother Rotbold II, sons of Boso II of Arles and Constance of Viennois, daughter of Charles-Constantine, both carried the title of comes or count concurrently, but it is unknown if they were joint-counts of the whole of Provence or if the region was divided. His brother never bore any other title than count so long as William lived, so the latter seems to have attained a certain supremacy.
In 980, he was installed as Count of Arles. His sobriquet comes from his victories against the Saracens by which he liberated Provence from their threat, which had been constant since the establishment of a base at Fraxinet. At the Battle of Tourtour in 973, with the assistance of the counts of the High Alps and the viscounts of Marseille and Fos, he definitively routed the Saracens, chasing them forever from Provence. He reorganised the region east of the Rhône, which he conquered from the Saracens and which had been given him as a gift from King Conrad of Burgundy. Also by royal consent, he and his descendants controlled the fisc in Provence. With Isarn, Bishop of Grenoble, he repopulated Dauphiné and settled an Italian count named Ugo Blavia near Fréjus in 970 in order to bring that land back to cultivation. For all this, he figures prominently in Ralph Glaber's chronicle with the title of dux and he appears in a charter of 992 as pater patriae.

He donated land to Cluny and retired to become a monk, dying at Avignon, where he was buried in the church of Saint-Croix at Sarrians. He was succeeded as margrave by his brother. His great principality began to diminish soon after his death as the castles of his vassals, which he had kept carefully under ducal control, soon became allods of their possessors.

Marriage and issue:

He married 1st Arsenda, daughter of Arnold of Comminges and their son was:
William II of Provence

He married 2nd (against papal advice) in 984, Adelaide of Anjou, daughter of Fulk II of Anjou and Gerberga of Maine, and their daughter was:
Constance of Arles (973 - 1034), married Robert II of France

William — Adelais of Anjou. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 15902

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 15904

Boso — Constance of Viennois. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 15905

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 37286

Notes:

Fulk II of Anjou (died 958), son of Fulk the Red, was count of Anjou from 942 to his death.

He was often at war with the Bretons. He seems to have been a man of culture, a poet and an artist. He was succeeded by his son Geoffrey Greymantle.
Fulk II died at Tours. Fulk's date of death 11 November 958 is given by Christian Settipani in his work La Noblesse du Midi Carolingien, but it's unclear upon what primary evidence this is based.

By his spouse, Gerberge, he had several children:

Adelais of Anjou, married five times
Geoffrey I, Count of Anjou, married Adelaide of Vermandois

Fulk — Gerberge. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 37287

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 15906

Notes:

Charles-Constantine (died 962) was the Count of Vienne, son of Louis the Blind, King of Provence and Holy Roman Emperor.

Name and maternity:

About his name, he was never called "Charles Constantine". Rather Flodoard, copied later by Richar, calls him "Constantinus". We know that his proper name was "Carolus" (Charles) from a diploma of his father, and from his own charters. Modern scholars have typically called him Charles Constantine, but this was not a name used during his lifetime.

Some modern genealogical scholars speculated that his mother was Anna of Constantinople, daughter of Leo VI the Wise and his second wife Zoe Zaoutzaina. However, his father's marriage to this princess is much disputed and rather unlikely. Christian Settipani postulates that his name refers to the founders of the empires governed by his father and maternal grandfather, i.e., to Charlemagne and Constantine the Great.
Regarding his birthyear, or age, we have few datapoints. He was Count of Vienne and acting as an adult by (but not in) December 927. This evidences that his father must have had a prior union. Some speculation would place him born in 901/3 but this is just a force-fit to allow Anna to be his mother and his father's wife.

Life:

When Charles' father Louis died in 929, Hugh of Arles, who was already king of Italy, took over Provence and gave it, in 933, to King Rudolf II of Burgundy. Charles-Constantine for whatever reason, could not inherit his father's right to the imperial throne or his right to rule Provence. This has led many to believe he was, in fact, a bastard. He did however rule the county of the Viennois, until his death in 962.

He was married to Thiberge de Troyes. It has been speculated that Constance, wife to Boso II of Provence and grandmother of Queen Constance of Arles, was their daughter. Through her, Charles Constantine would be an ancestor of the Capetian kings of France and the Norman and Plantagenet kings of England (through Queen Constance's daughter Adela Capet, and Adela's daughter Queen Matilda of Flanders, who married William the Conqueror).

Sources:

Dictionnaire de Biographie Française. Roman d'Amat and R. Limousin-Lamothe (ed). Paris, 1967.

Other Events:

• Name: the Red
• Reference Number: 37288

Notes:

Fulk I of Anjou (about 870 - 942), called the Red, was son of viscount Ingelger of Angers and Resinde "Aelinde" D'Amboise, was the first count of Anjou from 898 to 941. He increased the territory of the viscounty of Angers and it became a county around 930. During his reign he was permanently at war with the Normans and the Bretons. He occupied the county of Nantes in 907, but abandoned it to the Bretons in 919. He married Rosalie de Loches. He died around 942 and was succeeded by his son Fulk II. The modern day Queen of the United Kingdom, Elizabeth II, is a descendant of his, along with various other European monarchs.

I — Rosalie De Loches. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 37289