Rudolf I (Vermandois)

Rudolf I (1116)

Rudolf I , called the Brave or the One-Eyed ( Raoul I le vaillant or le borgne , * 1085 ; † October 14, 1152 ), had been Count of Valois , Amiens and Vermandois since 1102 . He was the son of the French prince and crusader Hugo I , Count of Vermandois and Valois, and Adelheid, heiress of the counties of Vermandois and Valois. On his father's side he was a grandson of King Henry I of France .

Life

Around 1120 he married Eleonore von Blois , daughter of Count Stephen II and Adele of England . Their son was Hugo II, Count of Vermandois and Valois, who was later canonized as Felix of Valois .

He supported the kings Ludwig VI. the fat one and Ludwig VII the boy against the rebellious nobles. He lost an eye while taking Livry (1129). The following year, during the siege of Coucy , he killed Thomas de Marle , Lord of Coucy. In 1131 the king appointed him Seneschal of France after this post had been vacant for four years after the fall of the Garlande family .

Her younger sister Petronilla lived in the household of the French Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine . In the summer of 1141, the 16-year-old began an affair with Rudolf, 35 years her senior, who was married to Eleonore, the sister of Count Theobald IV of Blois . In the winter of 1141/1142, Ludwig found three well-meaning bishops who annulled Rudolf's existing marriage because they were too closely related by blood and then married him to Petronilla. Theobald von Blois not only took his sister Eleanor and her children into his household, but also protested to Pope Innocent against Ludwig's interference in a matter that was to be decided by the Church alone. Theobald found support from Bernhard von Clairvaux , who was shocked to Pope Innocent about the crime against the Champagne family and against the sacrament of marriage.

At a council ordered by Pope Innocent in June 1142, the papal legate Cardinal Yves excommunicated one of the three bishops involved in the marriage annulment, suspended the other two from their office and ordered that Rudolf return to his wife. When Rudolf refused to do so, both he and Petronilla were excommunicated and their territory was placed under an interdict . Ludwig refused to recognize the decision of the papal legate, which he interpreted as an attack on his royal authority, and began a campaign against Theobald, whom he accused of being responsible for this development. The conflict over marriage was not resolved until 1148, when the French royal couple were on a crusade. With the help of two cardinals, an absolution was obtained for Rudolf in Rome, with which all obstacles to his marriage to Petronilla were removed.

The disputes over the marriage of Eleonore's younger sister Petronilla and the subsequent campaign in Champagne also meant that the legality of the marriage between Eleonore and Ludwig was questioned for the first time. The Bishop of Lyon was the first to point out the close relationship between the two spouses and Clairvaux twice in his disputes with Ludwig raised the question of why Ludwig, because of too close blood relations, dissolves his seneschal's first marriage while he was himself is no less closely related to Eleanor.

He had two children with Petronilla:

• Mabile, (* probably 1143; † March 26, 1182 in Arras ) 1167 Countess of Vermandois etc., buried in the cathedral of Amiens ; ⚭ 1159 Philip I († 1191), 1168 Count of Flanders , 1167 Count of Vermandois etc., Regent of France;
• Rudolf II the Leper († 1167), Count of Vermandois and Valois etc., ⚭ around 1160 Margarete von Flanders (* around 1145; † 1194), 1191 Countess of Flanders , daughter of Dietrich von Alsace , Count of Flanders.

When Louis VII set out on the Second Crusade in 1147 , Rudolf remained as regent (together with Abbot Suger von Saint-Denis ) in France. After the king's return, he cast his wife Eleonore and Rudolf her sister Petronilla in order to marry a third time in 1152, now with Laurette von Flandern , daughter of Dietrich von Alsace, Count of Flanders, the sister of his future daughter-in-law. With her he had a daughter who was married five times:

• Eleonore (* 1152; † 1213), 1183 Countess of Vermandois, Valois and Saint-Quentin ,
  • ⚭ I) Gottfried von Hennegau († April 7, 1163), Count of Ostrevant ;
  • ⚭ II) before 1167 Wilhelm IV. († 1168), 1161 Count of Nevers ;
  • ⚭ III) around 1170 Matthew of Alsace († 1173), 1160 Count of Boulogne ;
  • ⚭ IV) around 1175 Matthieu III. Count of Beaumont-sur-Oise († November 27, 1208/09) ( House of Beaumont-sur-Oise );
  • ⚭ V) around 1210 Stefan II of Blois († 1252), lord of Châtillon-sur-Loing .

literature

• Marion Meade: Eleanor of Aquitaine - a biography. Penguin books, London 1991, ISBN 0-14-015338-1 .
• Daniela Laube: Ten chapters on the history of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Lang, Bern a. a. 1984, ISBN 3-261-03476-9 .
• Ralph V. Turner: Eleanor of Aquitaine - Queen of the Middle Ages. CH Beck, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-406-63199-3 .
• Alison Weir: Eleanor of Aquitaine. By the wrath of God, Queen of England. Pimlico, London 2000, ISBN 0-7126-7317-2 .

Remarks

1. ↑ Alison Weir: Eleanor of Aquitaine. By the wrath of God, Queen of England. London 2000, p. 39.
2. ^ Meade, p. 56.
3. ↑ Alison Weir: Eleanor of Aquitaine. By the wrath of God, Queen of England. London 2000, p. 40.
4. ↑ Alison Weir: Eleanor of Aquitaine. By the wrath of God, Queen of England. London 2000, p. 40.
5. ↑ Alison Weir: Eleanor of Aquitaine. By the wrath of God, Queen of England. London 2000, p. 41.
6. ↑ Ralph V. Turner: Eleanor of Aquitaine - Queen of the Middle Ages. Munich p. 92.
7. ↑ Alison Weir: Eleanor of Aquitaine. By the wrath of God, Queen of England. London 2000, pp. 43-44.
8. ^ Date of death according to E. Lalou: Eleonore 7) . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages . Volume 3 (1986), Col. 1809.

predecessor	Office	successor
Hugo I.	Count of Valois and Vermandois 1102-1152	Hugo II
Stephan von Garlande	Seneschal of France 1131–1152	Theobald V. of Blois