Robert I. (Artois)

Robert von Artois (recognizable by the red tournament collar in the coat of arms) is killed in the battle of al-Mansura. Next to it his grieving brother, St. Ludwig. Miniature from the 14th century.

Robert I , known as the Brave (* probably September 17, 1216 ; † February 8, 1250 in the Battle of al-Mansura ), was a Count of Artois from 1237 to 1250 . He was the progenitor of the Artois family .

Robert was the second of four sons of King Louis VIII the Lion († 1226) and his wife Blanka of Castile († 1252) who reached adulthood . His older brother was the king and later Saint Louis IX. (1214–1270), his younger brothers were Alfonso von Poitiers (1220–1271) and Karl von Anjou (1226–1285).

Life

Despite his carefree character and knightly disposition, Robert was considered the favorite brother of King Louis IX, who lived the life of a monk. According to his father's will, Robert was knighted by his brother in 1237 and enfeoffed with the county of Artois and the dominions of Saint-Omer , Aire-sur-la-Lys , Hesdin , Bapaume , Lens and Poissy (the birthplace of St. Louis) . In the same year Robert married on June 14th in Compiègne Mathilde von Brabant († 1288), a daughter of Duke Heinrich II. Von Brabant and Maria von Staufen. Through her mother, Mathilde was a cousin of Emperor Friedrich II , with whom the relationship was to be strengthened through this wedding. In 1240 he refused a request from Pope Gregory IX. comply and run for the German throne as an opponent of the Hohenstaufen.

After disputes between his brother and King Theobald I of Navarre , who was also Count of Champagne , a peace talks between the two kings took place in June 1236 in Vincennes Castle . Robert had thrown a bowl full of curd cheese on the head of the King of Navarre from a window of the castle , about which his brother was very angry. Allegedly Robert was jealous of the King of Navarre, who openly praised his affection for Robert's mother.

In 1239 Robert and his brother, barefoot and dressed in a penitent shirt, carried the crown of thorns in a procession from Villeneuve-l'Archevêque to Paris.

Robert accompanied his brother on the sixth crusade to Egypt in 1248 , for the catastrophic failure of which he was largely responsible. After the capture of Damiette in June 1249, he wrote a letter to his mother in Latin, describing the course of the crusade so far. But in contrast to the letters of Jean de Beaumont and Jean Sarrasin , his superficial descriptions offer little information. Then the crusader army marched towards Cairo , only the city of al-Mansura blocked their way and therefore had to be taken. On February 8, 1250, the army crossed the arm of the Nile, Bar as-Saghir, to get to the bank in front of the city. Robert led the vanguard consisting of the Knights Templar and a Franco-English contingent. Arriving on the other bank of the river, he routed an Egyptian army that had left the city with open gates and apparently given up. Contrary to the warning calls of his brother, who still led the main army over the Nile, and the admonitions of the temple grand master Guillaume de Sonnac , Robert decided to attack the city immediately, believing that he could take it in a coup. But Robert ran into a trap of the elite warriors of the Mameluks under their leader Baibars al-Bunduqdari , who closed the gates after the incursion of the Crusaders and involved them in close combat in the narrow streets of the city. Robert and almost the entire vanguard were killed in the city, of around 280 knights no more than five survived, including the severely injured temple grandmaster.

Louis IX later tried unsuccessfully to have his brother and all other crusaders who fell on February 8, 1250 recognized by the Pope as martyrs. The crusade legate Odo von Châteauroux wrote a sermon on his death.

Because of his personal interest in the geographic nature of the earth, Robert commissioned Gautier de Metz to write the prose work l'image du Monde ( The Appearance of the World ) in 1246 .

In his Historia Anglorum (13th century), Matthäus Paris noted some of the Crusaders who fell near al-Mansura with their coats of arms. Next to the coat of arms of Robert von Artois (second from right) he drew a falling black bird, while the coat of arms of the English knight William Longespée ( far left), carried by a white dove and guided by divine hands, soars into the sky.

ancestors

Louis VII the Younger (1120–1180)

Adele of Champagne (1140–1206)

Baldwin V of Hainaut (1150–1195)

Margaret I of Flanders (1145–1194)

Sancho III. of Castile (1133–1158)

Blanka of Navarre (? –1157)

Heinrich II. Plantagenet (1133–1189)

Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122–1204)

Philip II August (1165-1223)

Isabelle of Hainaut (1170–1190)

Alfonso VIII of Castile (1155-1214)

Eleonore Plantagenet (1161-1214)

Louis VIII the Lion (1187-1226)

Blanka of Castile (1188–1252)

Robert I of Artois (1216-1250)

Descendants

Robert and Mathilde von Brabant had two children:

• Blanche (1248–1302)
  • ⚭ 1269 with King Henry I of Navarre († 1274)
  • ⚭ 1276 with Edmund Crouchback († 1296) Earl of Lancaster , Cornwall and Leicester
• Robert II (1250–1302), Count of Artois

Web links

Commons : Robert I.  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Robert I. the brave , collection of material at medieval-genealogie.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ see appendix to Jean Sarrasin, Lettre à Nicolas Arrode (1249) edited by Alfred L. Foulet in Lettres Françaises du XIIIe siècle (Paris, 1924)
2. ↑ Sermo in anniversario Roberti comitis Attrabatensis at aliorum nobilitum qui interfecti fuerunt a Sarracenis apud Mansuram in Egipto , ed. by Penny J. Cole: The Preaching of the Crusades to the Holy Land, 1095-1270 (Cambridge, MA, 1991), appendix D, pp. 235-239

predecessor	Office	successor
---	Count of Artois 1237-1250	Robert II