Richard III of Normandy's bride Adela

[Peter Stewart]

In the Henry Project page for Robert II of France's daughter Adela, the
wife of Balduin V of Flanders
(https://fasg.org/projects/henryproject/data/adele002.htm), I overlooked
a point that is worth noting here:

We know about a marriage of Richard III to a lady called "D[omina].
Addalla" from his wedding charter dated January 1026, the text of which
is given in several 17th-century transcriptions from copies in
13th-century and later cartularies of the collegiate church of
Saint-Pierre d'Aire in the Pas de Calais. In this Richard lists a series
of gifts to his bride in the Cotentin and to the south of the peninsula,
headed by the county of Coutances. At the end he stated that these gifts
were suitable to her noble lineage ("juxta nobilitatis tue lineam dotata").

This phrase has been adduced as somehow proving that Adela's father was
King Robert II, but it seems to me pretty strong evidence that he was
not: bloodlines were far too important for the purple-born daughter of a
reigning king to have her royal antecedents reduced to mere nobility,
much less in this context, and for no specific mention to be made of her
illustrious parentage.

Whatever her background, even if the marriage was consummated the bride
did not survive - or stay in Normandy - for long after the death of
Richard in the summer of the following year. One of the gifts she
received was the domain of Le Homme, and a charter of William the
Conqueror states that this was inherited by his aunt Adeliza, daughter
of Richard II's wife Judith to whom it had been given earlier, with
possession for life subsequently reserved to her niece and namesake,
William's sister.

Peter Stewart


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