William FitzEmpress

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William FitzEmpress , or Wilhelm von Anjou , (* July 22, 1136 in Argentan , † January 30, 1164 in Rouen ) was the third son of Count Gottfried Plantagenet of Anjou and the "Empress" Matilda of England . The chronicler William of Tire called him by the nickname Longaspata (long sword), which is why he should not be confused with his nephew William Longespée .

Life

Wilhelm is mentioned in 1156 at the side of his eldest brother Henry II of England when they besieged their rebellious brother Gottfried in Chinon Castle. In the years that followed, he received extensive land holdings in England from his brother , which made him one of the richest barons in the country. In Normandy , Wilhelm was awarded the port of Dieppe and the surrounding area as a vice-county. At a council of his barons in Winchester in September 1155, Henry II announced his intention to conquer Ireland in order to transfer the island to his brother William as a kingdom. However, he had to give up these plans after her mother objected.

In 1163, William intended to marry Isabel de Warenne , the heir to the county of Surrey . But since she had previously been married to his third cousin, Wilhelm von Blois († 1159), the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket , refused to grant a necessary dispensation, with which the marriage could not be realized. Wilhelm therefore traveled to Rouen to get his mother's support there, but died there in January 1164 and was buried in the Cathedral of Rouen . In the same year Isabella de Warenne married his half-brother, Hamelin . Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered by four knights in 1170. One of them, Richard le Breton, was once part of Wilhelm's entourage and justified his involvement in the murder in retaliation for the supposed injustice done to Wilhelm.

literature

  • Douglas Richardson, Kimball G. Everingham: Plantagenet ancestry: a study in colonial and medieval families , in: Royal ancestry series (2004), p. 2
  • K. Schnith: Wilhelm fitz Empress . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 9, LexMA-Verlag, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-89659-909-7 , Sp. 130.

Web link

  • Emilie Amt, William FitzEmpress (1136–1164) , Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 viewed April 19, 2012 License required

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Chronicle of Robert of Torigni , ed. by Richard Howlett in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephan, Henry II, and Richard in Rolls Series 82,4 (London, 1889), p. 186
  2. ^ Marie Therese Flanagan: Irish Society, Anglo-Norman Settler, Angevin Kingship (Oxford, 1989)
  3. ↑ The Draco Normannicus of Etienne de Rouen , ed. by Richard Howlett in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephan, Henry II, and Richard in Rolls Series 82,2 (London, 1885), p. 676
  4. ^ Materials for the history of Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury (MTB) , ed. by James Craigie Robertson, Rolls Series 67, Volume 3 (London, 1877), p. 142
personal data
SURNAME William FitzEmpress
ALTERNATIVE NAMES William of Anjou
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Vice Count of Dieppe
DATE OF BIRTH July 22, 1136
PLACE OF BIRTH Argentan
DATE OF DEATH January 30, 1164
Place of death Rouen