Eleanor of Vermandois

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Eleanor of Vermandois

Eleanor of Vermandois (* after October 14, 1152; † June 19, 1213 ) was Countess of Beaumont-sur-Oise and Saint-Quentin and mistress of Valois .

Life

Eleanor was the posthumous daughter of the French Seneschal Raoul I of Vermandois , called the Brave (French le Vaillant ) († October 14, 1152) and Alix (called Petronilla), a sister of the French and later English Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine .

Eleonore entered into a total of four marriages:

  1. ∞ around 1160 Gottfried (Godefroy) von Hainaut , Count of Ostrevant († 1163)
  2. ∞ before 1167 Wilhelm (Guillaume) IV. , 1161 Count of Nevers († 1168)
  3. ∞ around 1170 Matthew (Matthieu) of Alsace , 1160 Count of Boulogne († 1173)
  4. ∞ around 1177 Matthieu III. , Count of Beaumont-sur-Oise († 1208) ( House Beaumont-sur-Oise )

Despite their numerous marriages, Eleanor had no children. Her older sister Elisabeth von Vermandois (also called Isabelle or Mabile) was married to Philip of Alsace , Count of Flanders. After Elizabeth's death (March 26, 1182), Eleanor wanted to inherit her deceased sister, but Philip of Alsace refused to hand it over. But the young French King Philip II August supported Eleanor's demands, because he hoped, because of her previous childlessness, to be able to appropriate her possessions after her death. As a result, there were several years of fighting between the French king and the Count of Flanders. Philip II August emerged victorious from this war, and in the Peace of Boves (July 1185) Philip of Alsace suffered severe territorial losses. Eleanor received the lower Valois and the Vermandois, but without the castellans Saint-Quentin, Péronne and Ham. The Count of Flanders was allowed to keep the usufruct of the latter areas. When he died on June 1, 1191, Philip II. August exercised the right to claim the Artois he had acquired in the Peace of Boves and took possession of it. He now handed over to Eleonore Saint-Quentin and Péronne, for which she agreed to renounce the remaining inheritance. According to a later regulation, Eleonore was awarded several castellans such as Origny, Lassigny and others in exchange for her cession from Péronne and the Amiénois to the king.

Eleanor was a witty and pious princess. She founded the Parc-aux-Dames Abbey in Auger-Saint-Vincent , loved poetry and gave the clergyman Renaud the impetus to write the Roman de Sainte-Geneviève .

In 1213 Eleanor died childless at the age of 60 and was buried in Longpont Abbey (in what is now the Aisne department ). Now the French king definitively enlisted the Vermandois and the Valois for the crown.

literature

  • M. Prevost: Beaumont 14) . In: Dictionnaire de Biographie française . Volume 5 (1951), Col. 1140.
  • E. Lalou: Eleonore 7) . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages . Volume 3 (1986), Sp. 1808f.

Remarks

  1. ↑ E. Lalou (see lit.), col. 1808.
  2. ↑ E. Lalou (see lit.), col. 1808.
  3. ↑ M. Prevost (see lit.), col. 1140 and E. Lalou (see lit.), col. 1808f. quote only these four marriages of Eleanor; that she married Stephan II. de Sancerre , Lord of Châtillon-sur-Loing, in her fifth marriage around 1210 , also contradicts the information on the French Wikipedia, according to which this Stephan married an Eleanor of Nesle-Soissons.
  4. ↑ Date of death according to E. Lalou, Col. 1809.
personal data
SURNAME Eleanor of Vermandois
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Countess of Beaumont and Saint-Quentin
DATE OF BIRTH after October 14, 1152
DATE OF DEATH June 19, 1213