Juliane de Fontevrault

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Juliane de Fontevrault (* 1090, † after 1136) was an illegitimate daughter of King Henry I and his lover Ansfride. Julian's biography is handed down in the Historia Ecclesiastica of the chronicler Ordericus Vitalis .

Life

Around the year 1103 Juliane married the Norman nobleman Eustache de Pacy , lord of Pacy , Breteuil and Pont-Saint-Pierre , from the FitzOsbern family . With him she had the sons Guillaume († 1153) and Roger and two daughters.

On the occasion of her marriage, Juliane received Ivry Castle as a dowry from her father . This was also intended to resolve an ongoing conflict between her husband. Because Ivry still belonged to his father, who, however, had to cede this castle to his rival and son-in-law Ascelin Goël after a defeated battle. As an additional security Juliane and Eustache got the son of the royal Constable of Ivry, Ralph Harnec, made hostage to insure the loyalty. In return, the couple had to give their daughters to the king's court as a pledge of their loyalty.

In 1118 Eustache had the young Harnec blinded, presumably by Amaury III. de Montfort moved to do this. Montfort was one of the leading figures in an aristocratic opposition, which Eustache had probably joined, which this year rose to open revolt against the king with the aim of elevating Wilhelm Clito to the throne of Normandy . Ralph Harnec now demanded his right to retaliation from the king, since he had not been guilty of any offense against Eustache and Juliane that could justify the treatment of his son. The king gave in to Harnec's request and approved the torture of Eustache's daughters, his own grandchildren. Harnec blinded them and cut off their noses.

Against the father

In the winter of 1118 the king landed with an army in Normandy and began to put down the uprising. While Eustache put the castle of Pacy in readiness for defense, Juliane holed up in the castle of Breteuil. When the king encamped outside Breteuil in February 1119 , he asked his daughter to start negotiations, as he did not want to fight his own child. Juliane accepted the offer, but as the king and his negotiators approached the gate of the castle, Juliane shot her father with a crossbow . The bolt missed its target and the king had to take the castle in battle. Juliane was captured by the king's men, who allowed his daughter to move freely to her husband in Pacy, however, to her own shame and amusement of her father's knights, she had to jump from the castle wall into the cold water of the moat with bare buttocks ahead . According to another interpretation of this episode, Juliane jumped into the ditch during the fight to avoid capture by her father and embarrassed herself because her dress was thrown up during the fall. In June 1119 the castle of Pont-Saint-Pierre was also lost when the king burned it down.

By the end of the year, King Henry succeeded in re-establishing his rule in Normandy, not least through a victory on August 20 over Clito and his ally, King Ludwig VI. of France at the Battle of Brémule . In October the king reconciled himself with the Norman nobility, forgiving his daughter and her husband. However, Juliane and Eustache could only keep Pacy, the castle of Ivry was returned to the Goël family, Breteuil took over Juliane's brother Richard . After he drowned in November 1120 together with both half- brothers William Ætheling in the sinking of the white ship , the king gave Breteuil in 1121 to Robert de Beaumont , 2nd Earl of Leicester , who was married to a cousin of Eustache.

After the death of her husband in 1136, Juliane retired as a nun to Fontevrault Abbey .

literature

  • David E. Jones: Women Warriors: A History. 2000
  • C. Warren Hollister: Henry I. 2001
  • Judith A. Green: Henry I .: King of England and Duke of Normandy. 2006

Individual evidence

  1. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~lzrslong/b1265.htm#P220534