Richilde, Countess of Hainaut

[taf]

I have come across a 2018 artilce by Frans J Van Droogenbroeck that concludes Richilde, Countess of Hainaut, was child of Reinier de Hasnon by a daughter of Hugh IV of Egisheim, with that Reinier being paternal grandson of Lambert of Louvain, and maternal grandson of Baldwin IV of Flanders. Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for others here, the article appears to be in Dutch, which is not high on my list of fluency. I would appreciate a summary of the argument (if it is worth summarizing) if any of our Dutch-competent participants can parse it.

Frans J Van Droogenbroeck, "De markenruil Ename – Valenciennes en de investituur van de graaf van Vlaanderen in de mark Ename", Handelingen van de Geschieden Oudheidkundige Kring van Oudenaarde 55 (2018) 47-127

https://www.academia.edu/35663101

In particular, see summary chart, p. 72.

Without having read it, I have to say this solution seems problematic. This pedigree would make her second cousin of husband #1, Herman, and first cousin once-removed, of #2, Baldwin VI, neither of which one would expect to be ignored by the church (but maybe the author addresses this?)

taf

[Peter Stewart]

In the chart on p. 72, Van Droogenbroeck makes Richilde into a second
(not first) cousin once removed to her first husband. Such a pesky
little thing as probability never gets in the way of this author when he
has the bit between his revisionist's teeth.

His shaky understanding (to put it kindly) of medieval sources is
indicated on p. 56 where he mistranslates "et ipsum comitatum
Valencenensem comitatus Hanoniensis et castri Montensis honori
addiderunt" (they [Herman and Richilde] added the county of Valenciennes
to the honor of the county of Hainaut and the castle of Mons) as if they
had added it "in an honorable manner" (op eervolle wijze).

Peter Stewart

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[lancast...@gmail.com]

It has been a while since I looked at these articles but I think there is a whole bundle of proposals and some are less convincing than others. One simple question: is there really a convincing explanation about Richilde's ancestry?

Perhaps a second one. Peter concerning the citation you make, do you agree with the interpretation that Gislebert of Mons was saying that Richilde had her own claim of inheritance upon Valenciennes, distinct from

[taf]

On Sunday, February 26, 2023 at 8:57:58 PM UTC-8, Peter Stewart wrote:
> On 27-Feb-23 1:30 PM, taf wrote:
> > In particular, see summary chart, p. 72.
> >
> > Without having read it, I have to say this solution seems problematic. This pedigree would make her second cousin of husband #1, Herman, and first cousin once-removed, of #2, Baldwin VI, neither of which one would expect to be ignored by the church (but maybe the author addresses this?)
> In the chart on p. 72, Van Droogenbroeck makes Richilde into a second
> (not first) cousin once removed to her first husband.

Yes. He shows Richilde as daughter of Reinier, son of Reinier, son of Lambert of Louvain, and Herman was grandson of Lambert's brother Reinier IV via Reinier V. However, he also refers there to Richilde's paternal grandmother as 'a daughter of Baldwin IV of Flanders', so Baldwin V would be her great-uncle, and Baldwin VI a first-cousin-once.

taf

[Enno Borgsteede]

Op 27-02-2023 om 03:30 schreef taf:

> I have come across a 2018 artilce by Frans J Van Droogenbroeck that concludes Richilde, Countess of Hainaut, was child of Reinier de Hasnon by a daughter of Hugh IV of Egisheim, with that Reinier being paternal grandson of Lambert of Louvain, and maternal grandson of Baldwin IV of Flanders. Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for others here, the article appears to be in Dutch, which is not high on my list of fluency. I would appreciate a summary of the argument (if it is worth summarizing) if any of our Dutch-competent participants can parse it.

Well, I'm Dutch, but at the moment I'm too busy to translate the whole
reasoning for you. It's on pages 70 - 73, so it should be small enough
for Google translate.

When you have that, I'll be happy to answer questions that may arise
from things that were lost in translation.

> Without having read it, I have to say this solution seems problematic. This pedigree would make her second cousin of husband #1, Herman, and first cousin once-removed, of #2, Baldwin VI, neither of which one would expect to be ignored by the church (but maybe the author addresses this?)

He does, in the 2nd paragraph of p. 104. I found that by looking for the
word 'dispensatie'. According to the author, dispensation was given by
Pope Leo IX.

Enno

[Hans Vogels]

Op maandag 27 februari 2023 om 17:05:18 UTC+1 schreef taf:

[Hans Vogels]

Op maandag 27 februari 2023 om 17:05:18 UTC+1 schreef taf:

The author let me outside the forum know, that he can do little or nothing to change his view of Richilde's lineage. He wonders why Peter Stewart's uses this kind of taunting remark. The sketched relationship is supported by source material (Bishop of Cambrai intervenes and approves marriage).
The translation problem can easily be solved with Google's translation machine.

Hans Vogels

[taf]

On Monday, February 27, 2023 at 11:54:07 AM UTC-8, Hans Vogels wrote:

> The translation problem can easily be solved with Google's translation machine.

Except for some reason I can't lift the text from the PDF. I would have to retype it all, and I have a hard enough time typing when I know the language.

taf

[lancast...@gmail.com]

There seems to be a translation function within academia itself now?

[Enno Borgsteede]

Op 27-02-2023 om 21:55 schreef taf:

> Except for some reason I can't lift the text from the PDF. I would have to retype it all, and I have a hard enough time typing when I know the language.

You may be able to do that with an alternative PDF viewer. When I use
the one that's built in Linux Mint, text selection by dragging is
spoiled by the watermark, but I can still use select all and copy to put
everything onto the clipboard and paste it into LibreOffice Writer.

[Peter Stewart]

I'm afraid this response fits the pattern of Van Droogenbroeck's work -
ignoring the difficulty that he didn't even recognise 'honori' as a
dative noun in a salient context and yet not understanding why I might
suggest he is a headstrong revisionist.

As to Richilde's lineage he accepts (p. 73), on the sole and outlying
authority of 'Flandria generosa' written in the mid-1160s, that she may
have been a niece of Pope Leo IX, daughter of a purported sister of his
with no extant medieval documentation; and he claims (p. 104), on the
same basis although misrepresenting the source and/or conflating it with
another (but without citing it in either case), that Leo had granted a
dispensation for her marriage in the 5th degree of consanguinity to
Balduin VI of Flanders.

There is no support at all for a blood relationship between Richilde and
Leo IX in any other source where mention of such a noteworthy connection
would be expected, and even 'Flandria generosa' only says Leo agreed
that Balduin and Richilde could stay together as a chaste couple
explicitly because of the blood relationship between Balduin and her
prior husband Herman - not over a 5th degree relationship between
Balduin and Richilde themselves ("Balduinus [VI] ... duxit uxorem
Richeldem comitissam Haionensem, ut illum comitatum etiam haberet per
eam ... A domno tamen Ingelberto Cameracensi et Atrebatensi episcopo cum
Richelde sua excommunicatus est, eo quod per incestum adulterio peiorem
cognati sui Herimanni comitis uxorem duxisset; sed a domno papa Leone
nono, eiusdem Richeldis avunculo, hanc meruerunt indulgentiam, ut in
coniugio quidem, sed absque carnali commixtione manerent").

Herman of Tournai, writing two decades earlier, said nothing about a
relationship with the pope or about his granting a dispensation, but did
report that he declared the marriage illicit due to consanguinity
between the husband and wife themselves, forecasting that Balduin's
descendants would not hold either Flanders or Hainaut for long, which
proved to be the case ("Hic [Balduinus VI] ... Richeldem, uxorem
Hermanni Montensis comitis, post mortem eius coniugem duxit ... Quod
audiens Leo tunc temporis papa Romanus, qui prius fuerat Tullensis
episcopus et vocabatur Bruno, dixit coniugium illud non esse legitimum
quoniam consanguinitatis linea propinqui erant, prophetavitque posteros
Balduini non diu possessuros utrumque comitatum. Quod verum fuisse finis
probavit.").

Fudging details in order to bolster the argument for a novel
interpretation may make a splash with some readers but as a research
method it doesn't make for conscientious scholarship.

[Peter Stewart]

Gislebert wrote that Richilde and Herman added Valenciennes to the
honour of Hainaut and Mons by hereditary right and buy-out of noble
claimants after the count had died without a direct heir ("Sciendum
igitur quod Hermannus comes, qui comes Montensis dicebatur ... uxorem
habuit Richildem comitissam ... qui defuncto comite Valencenensi absque
proprii corporis herede tam jure hereditario quam coemptione facta cum
quibusdam nobilibus qui in hereditate illa reclamabant, sibi in
proprietatem comitatum illum vendicaverunt et ipsum comitatum
Valencenensem comitatus Hanoniensis et castri Montensis honori addiderunt.")

The couple's right to acquire Valenciennes probably belonged to Richilde
rather than to Herman, as implied by the use of "coemptio" which in
classical Latin meant the acquisition of the bride's inheritance by a
pretended sale to avoid family obligations, but Gislebert does not
specify this much less explain how it came about. Her origin remains an
unsolved puzzle.

[Raf Ceustermans]

Maybe to provide some additional background:
The extra branch of the counts of Leuven that Van Droogenbroeck proposed and where he places Richilde starts with a Reinier, who he sees as the third son of Lambert I and Gerberga. This Reinier would then be the grandfather of Richilde. This Reinier is absent from the 13th century chronicles and genealogies of the counts of Leuven and and dukes of Brabant. He appears first in the mid 15th century in the work of Peter a Thymo. He wrote a chronicle which is a mix of copies of old documents and some historical notes, written in Latin. In one part a Thymo publishes a text on the youth of duke Godfrey I. It's a very fantastical tale where Godfrey goes east, allies with Gengis Khan, fights a giant in Georgia, and in the end marries Sophie, the only daughter of the German emperor. A Thymo used as source a story written in Dutch, now largely lost. The text was studied by Belgian scholars David Guilardian and Serge Boffa (https://www.persee.fr/doc/bcrh_0001-415x_1999_num_165_3_1174). They showed that the author of the Dutch text was inspired by the crusades. So he took names of famous crusaders, and changed them to fit the story about Godfrey. So Baldwin of Bourq was the inspiration for Baldwin of Brussels. In the story of a Thymo and the article by Van Droogenbroeck this Baldwin is the grandson of Reinier, third son of Lambert I and Gerberga, and a Thymo also added this Reinier in his genealogy of counts of Leuven. To me this background is not the soundest foundation for a parallel branch.

Yet Van Droogenbroeck has a very good point on the marriage of Adela of Orlamunde and count palatine Herman, who are obvious too closely related if Adela is the granddaughter of Lambert II and Oda, Herman presumably being the son of Mathilde, the sister of Oda. He is also correct in pointing out the close relations of Adela of Leuven, the mother of Adela of Orlamunde, to the counts of Flanders. Baldwin VI calls her his "neptis" and she owned part of an allodium that previously belonged to Baldwin IV. However, I see a different solution than a parallel branch. The issue with the marriage would be solved if Adela of Leuven was the daughter of Lambert II, but not by Oda. In that case the Saxon chronicles that call her a sister of Henry II and Reinier are right, and the closeness to the counts of Flanders can be explained by her mother being a daughter of Baldwin IV. She is then indeed the niece of Baldwin IV. Given the later marriage of count Henry III of Leuven to Gertrude of Flanders, it's clear that Henry II and Reinier were children of Oda, and so half-brothers of Adela. Chronologically it would appear somewhat more likely that Adela would be a daughter of a first marriage of Lambert II than a second. In terms of names I can remark that Adela of Leuven had a daughter with the name Kunigunde, this was also the name of the aunt of Baldwin IV's wife, empress Kunigunde. So the name of Lambert II's first wife might have been Kunigunde, but that is off course a pure hypothesis.
With this solution the need for a parallel branch falls away.

[Peter Stewart]

The single citation given by Van Droogenbroeck for this on p. 104 is the
1057 entry in the annals of Mont-Blandin abbey, to which he refers for
Baldwin VI of Flanders having obtained the countship of Hainaut from the
emperor in that year through the intervention of Pope Victor II
("Balduinus iunior marchysus Nerviorum comitatum imperiali munificentia
et auctoritate apostolica suscepit"), adding - without citing any
authority - that Victor's predecessor Leo IX (died 19 April 1054) had
previously granted a dispensation for the 5th-degree consanguinity
between Baldwin and Richilde.

Yesterday I noted that this is not an accurate representation of the
uncited source/s Van Droogenbroeck was evidently relying on, as Leo's
alleged dispensation was given for the blood kinship between Baldwin and
Richilde's previous husband, not with the lady herself, but it is also
worth pointing out that the 1057 information implicitly undermines the
already shaky credibility of 'Flandria generosa' about this.

First, it misnames the bishop of Cambrai who had reportedly
excommunicated Baldwin over the marriage as Ingelbert (the bishop at the
time was actually named Lietbert). Secondly, in contradiction to Van
Droogenbroeck's assertion the (apparently informal) papal dispensation
was supposedly granted on condition that the couple should live together
in chastity ("absque carnali commixtione manerent"). However, by the
time of Pope Victor II's intervention on Baldwin's behalf in 1057 he had
fathered two sons with Richilde, who were presumably not born from
immaculate conception. Popes in the 11th century were of course not in
the habit of favouring miscreants who had flouted the conditions of
their own release by a predecessor from excommunication.

[Peter Stewart]

On 28-Feb-23 11:24 PM, Raf Ceustermans wrote:
> Maybe to provide some additional background:
> The extra branch of the counts of Leuven that Van Droogenbroeck proposed and where he places Richilde starts with a Reinier, who he sees as the third son of Lambert I and Gerberga. This Reinier would then be the grandfather of Richilde. This Reinier is absent from the 13th century chronicles and genealogies of the counts of Leuven and and dukes of Brabant. He appears first in the mid 15th century in the work of Peter a Thymo. He wrote a chronicle which is a mix of copies of old documents and some historical notes, written in Latin. In one part a Thymo publishes a text on the youth of duke Godfrey I. It's a very fantastical tale where Godfrey goes east, allies with Gengis Khan, fights a giant in Georgia, and in the end marries Sophie, the only daughter of the German emperor. A Thymo used as source a story written in Dutch, now largely lost. The text was studied by Belgian scholars David Guilardian and Serge Boffa (https://www.persee.fr/doc/bcrh_0001-415x_1999_num_165_3_1174). They showed that the author of the Dutch text was inspired by the crusades. So he took names of famous crusaders, and changed them to fit the story about Godfrey. So Baldwin of Bourq was the inspiration for Baldwin of Brussels. In the story of a Thymo and the article by Van Droogenbroeck this Baldwin is the grandson of Reinier, third son of Lambert I and Gerberga, and a Thymo also added this Reinier in his genealogy of counts of Leuven. To me this background is not the soundest foundation for a parallel branch.
>
> Yet Van Droogenbroeck has a very good point on the marriage of Adela of Orlamunde and count palatine Herman, who are obvious too closely related if Adela is the granddaughter of Lambert II and Oda, Herman presumably being the son of Mathilde, the sister of Oda. He is also correct in pointing out the close relations of Adela of Leuven, the mother of Adela of Orlamunde, to the counts of Flanders. Baldwin VI calls her his "neptis" and she owned part of an allodium that previously belonged to Baldwin IV. However, I see a different solution than a parallel branch. The issue with the marriage would be solved if Adela of Leuven was the daughter of Lambert II, but not by Oda. In that case the Saxon chronicles that call her a sister of Henry II and Reinier are right, and the closeness to the counts of Flanders can be explained by her mother being a daughter of Baldwin IV. She is then indeed the niece of Baldwin IV.

I'm not clear how this helps, since it was Balduin VI who called Adela
his "neptis" not Balduin IV. If Adela's mother had been a daughter of
the latter, Balduin VI would more likely have called her "consobrina" or
"cognata" than "neptis".

The trouble with conjuring unrecorded marriages and personages out of
thin air to solve genealogical problems is that there is no stopping
point, let alone a verifiable starting point.

> Given the later marriage of count Henry III of Leuven to Gertrude of Flanders, it's clear that Henry II and Reinier were children of Oda, and so half-brothers of Adela. Chronologically it would appear somewhat more likely that Adela would be a daughter of a first marriage of Lambert II than a second. In terms of names I can remark that Adela of Leuven had a daughter with the name Kunigunde, this was also the name of the aunt of Baldwin IV's wife, empress Kunigunde. So the name of Lambert II's first wife might have been Kunigunde, but that is off course a pure hypothesis.
> With this solution the need for a parallel branch falls away.

Rather I would say it is pushed away. If there are to be no constraints
from lack of medieval sourcing, why not make Adela's mother an
unrecorded daughter of Balduin IV by his second marriage, later
honouring the saintliness of empress Kunigunde without a blood
connection, or a daughter of Balduin V by his Capetian wife after whom
she herself might then have been named?

[Raf Ceustermans]

On Wednesday, March 1, 2023 at 1:16:52 AM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
> I'm not clear how this helps, since it was Balduin VI who called Adela
> his "neptis" not Balduin IV. If Adela's mother had been a daughter of
> the latter, Balduin VI would more likely have called her "consobrina" or
> "cognata" than "neptis".

I'm no specialist on these terms. It seems at least in some cases it was used for a cousin, but if it was more likely to be used for a sibling's daughter, it indeed points more to Baldwin V as father.

> The trouble with conjuring unrecorded marriages and personages out of
> thin air to solve genealogical problems is that there is no stopping
> point, let alone a verifiable starting point.

I would say the use of "neptis" by Baldwin VI, and the common possession do provide a starting point.

> Rather I would say it is pushed away. If there are to be no constraints
> from lack of medieval sourcing, why not make Adela's mother an
> unrecorded daughter of Balduin IV by his second marriage, later
> honouring the saintliness of empress Kunigunde without a blood
> connection, or a daughter of Balduin V by his Capetian wife after whom
> she herself might then have been named?
> Peter Stewart

The sources on the 11th century counts of Leuven are not great. The foundation of Saint-Goedele in Brussels in 1047 by Lambert II and Oda is only known from later sources, and the charter from 1062 where Adela acts with her husband Otto is also considered a forgery (https://www.diplomata-belgica.be/charter_details_en.php?dibe_id=3906). The first would imply Adela was born no later than 1047, while the second is in line with that. Off course she could also be born much earlier than that.

Adela's mother being a child from the second marriage then appears chronologically tight, but not excluded. Her being a child from the marriage of Baldwin V would also be tight, but leaves more room, and indeed offers a good explanation for the name Adela (although Adela could have been named for her in any of the three options).

So to recap
-It is very unlikely that Oda was the mother of Adela of Leuven given the marriage issue of Adela of Orlamunde, and the unexplainable statement by Baldwin VI that Adela of Leuven was his neptis
-It is nearly certain that Adela of Leuven was the sister of count Henry II of Leuven and Reinier, as this is confirmed by an (albeit later) Saxon chronicle
-Taken together they make it very likely Adela was the daughter of Lambert II by a different (and unrecorded) wife
-Taking into account the fact that Baldwin VI calls Adela of Leuven his neptis, and that she had a stake in a domain that Baldwin IV acquired, there does not seem any other solution than the mother of Adela of Leuven being either a daughter or granddaughter of Baldwin IV
-The use of neptis and the name Adela might make it likelier that she is a daughter of Baldwin V, but it is not excluded she is a daughter from either the first or second marriage of Baldwin IV.
-In either case, there is no need for an extra branch in the family of counts of Leuven

[lancast...@gmail.com]

Having not looked for too long, I will ask some dumb questions...
So who was Richilde's family in the end? May we accept she was the daughter of the castellan of Hasnon? May we accept that she had an hereditary claim on Valenciennes?

[Enno Borgsteede]

Hello Peter,

OK, that's clear, thanks.

This leaves one question for me, and that's about her paternal descent.
About that, the author wrote that she's not a daughter of Reinier V van
Bergen, as she appears in many GEDCOM files that I found, but rather a
granddaughter of Reinier Langhals, a.k.a. Reinier van Leuven, as he is
named in footnote 72.

He defends this position by claiming that Hasnon should not be mixed up
with Hainaut, and that sounds quite reasonable to me.

What's your opinion on that?

Regards,

Enno

[taf]

This really intermingles two distinct issues. Many traditional pedigrees showed her as daughter of Reinier V. This arose from the passage of Hainaut from Herman, Reinier V's son, to Baldwin VI and Richilde, who were of the same generation, and thus Richilde was portrayed as sister of Herman and daughter of Reinier V. This has long been known to be false, as she was widow of Herman, not his sister, with her parentage unknown.

The novel theory assigns her new parentage, with her father, solely by coincidence, being a man also named Reinier (lord of Hasnon). Whether this relationship is true or not, Reinier V is not an option. I suspect he said the line about Hasnon mixed up with Hainaut, not as a defense of his position, per se, but just to head off possible confusion between his recent conclusion and the old and known to be false Hainaut paternity, lest anyone looking at it superficially and seeing the name 'Reinier' might think he was rewarming the old chestnut rather than presenting a novel theory.

taf

[Peter Stewart]

On 02-Mar-23 2:43 AM, Raf Ceustermans wrote:
> On Wednesday, March 1, 2023 at 1:16:52 AM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
>> I'm not clear how this helps, since it was Balduin VI who called Adela
>> his "neptis" not Balduin IV. If Adela's mother had been a daughter of
>> the latter, Balduin VI would more likely have called her "consobrina" or
>> "cognata" than "neptis".
>
> I'm no specialist on these terms. It seems at least in some cases it was used for a cousin, but if it was more likely to be used for a sibling's daughter, it indeed points more to Baldwin V as father.

The primary meanings of "neptis" are granddaughter and niece, though it
was occasionally used for more distant junior relatives - clearly
Balduin VI cannot have had a granddaughter owning property in 1065.

Occasional usages can be risky to follow when there is an alternative
possibility adhering to the norm. For instance, in the late-12th century
a count whose mother was definitely named Beatrix called a woman named
Oda his mother ("Odam, matrem meam"): from the context we can tell that
this was a retainer, presumably his nurse as a child, but this is not
clear from the immediate wording.

>> The trouble with conjuring unrecorded marriages and personages out of
>> thin air to solve genealogical problems is that there is no stopping
>> point, let alone a verifiable starting point.
>
> I would say the use of "neptis" by Baldwin VI, and the common possession do provide a starting point.

By a verifiable starting point I meant an established fact that is not
open to conjecture or opinion - in this case, simply Balduin VI calling
a lady he named as Adela countess of Thuringia his "neptis". That is a
starting point to assume that he meant a niece married to a count of
Thuringia, and turning her into a cousin married to a count of Weimar is
a secondary jump. We know far less about females born into most families
in the 11th century than about their male siblings, and there may have
been an unrecorded Adela briefly married to a count in the heartland of
Germany other than the lady of that name from Louvain married to Otto of
Weimar (or Orlamünde if you prefer). In 1065, by when Otto was margrave
of Meissen, Balduin VI might have been more observant than to call his
wife "countess of Thuringia".

Adela of Louvain had descendants who could be expected to figure in
documentation as kindred of the Flemish comital family, for example her
grandsons Sigefrid and William, counts palatine of the Rhine and
advocates of Trier, the former when Balduin VII died in 1119 and latter
during the troubles after the assassination of Charles the Good in 1127.

>> Rather I would say it is pushed away. If there are to be no constraints
>> from lack of medieval sourcing, why not make Adela's mother an
>> unrecorded daughter of Balduin IV by his second marriage, later
>> honouring the saintliness of empress Kunigunde without a blood
>> connection, or a daughter of Balduin V by his Capetian wife after whom
>> she herself might then have been named?
>> Peter Stewart
>
> The sources on the 11th century counts of Leuven are not great. The foundation of Saint-Goedele in Brussels in 1047 by Lambert II and Oda is only known from later sources, and the charter from 1062 where Adela acts with her husband Otto is also considered a forgery (https://www.diplomata-belgica.be/charter_details_en.php?dibe_id=3906). The first would imply Adela was born no later than 1047, while the second is in line with that. Off course she could also be born much earlier than that.
>
> Adela's mother being a child from the second marriage then appears chronologically tight, but not excluded. Her being a child from the marriage of Baldwin V would also be tight, but leaves more room, and indeed offers a good explanation for the name Adela (although Adela could have been named for her in any of the three options).
>
> So to recap
> -It is very unlikely that Oda was the mother of Adela of Leuven given the marriage issue of Adela of Orlamunde, and the unexplainable statement by Baldwin VI that Adela of Leuven was his neptis
> -It is nearly certain that Adela of Leuven was the sister of count Henry II of Leuven and Reinier, as this is confirmed by an (albeit later) Saxon chronicle
> -Taken together they make it very likely Adela was the daughter of Lambert II by a different (and unrecorded) wife
> -Taking into account the fact that Baldwin VI calls Adela of Leuven his neptis, and that she had a stake in a domain that Baldwin IV acquired, there does not seem any other solution than the mother of Adela of Leuven being either a daughter or granddaughter of Baldwin IV
> -The use of neptis and the name Adela might make it likelier that she is a daughter of Baldwin V, but it is not excluded she is a daughter from either the first or second marriage of Baldwin IV.
> -In either case, there is no need for an extra branch in the family of counts of Leuven

I agree with the last point.

[Peter Stewart]

Van Droogenbroeck was arguing that a problematic charter from Homblières
in which a Reinier occurs as count (not lord) of Hasnon was not
referring to a count of Hainaut as usually assessed, because he thought
(p. 68) that if Hainaut had been meant he would then have been
designated either "Montensis" or "Castriloci" rather than
"Hasnonnensis". However, the charter was probably written in the 1080s
by when the monks of Homblières may have mistaken the name of the count
some 40 years earlier rather than his territorial jurisdiction, in which
case Herman would be correct instead of Reinier.

In any event, there is insufficient basis in this one occurrence to
assume there was any lord or count of Hasnon distinct from the count of
Hainaut. In the 11th century comital courts were peripatetic, and counts
were frequently designated by their place of residence within their
territorial sphere at different times (e.g. Otto of Weimar or Orlamünde).

The matter at issue in the Homblières charter concerns an allod
apparently on the Sambre, not near enough to Hasnon for them to appeal
to anyone whose authority did not extend far from there.

[Peter Stewart]

That Richilde (more probably) or her first husband Herman of Hainaut had
some hereditary claim to Valenciennes that allowed them buy off rival
claimaints is stated by Gislebert of Mons, immediately after stating
that the former count there has died without a direct heir ("defuncto

comite Valencenensi absque proprii corporis herede tam jure hereditario
quam coemptione facta cum quibusdam nobilibus qui in hereditate illa

reclamabant").

This cannot be twisted to mean that the former count had a daughter but
no sons, as Van Droogenbroeck maintains, since if Richilde's claim was
that much better than any collateral relatives (unless she had to buy
out sisters, whom of course Gislebert would not have mentioned vaguely
even along with their putative husbands as "quidam nobiles") she would
have faced no competition for the inheritance.

[lancast...@gmail.com]

I certainly agree that in this period and region the term county did not imply any kind of logical, contiguous, geographical unit. That is something I have spent a little time on, although looking more concerning other examples. As you know, comitatus in this period and region mainly referred to jurisdictions, and if lands were being referred to, then the lands were probably connected to the office involved. For example a castallany, or advocacy, would involve the holding of lands which supplied an income to the office-holder. The term "pagus" (which was territorial) was very clearly distinguished from "comitatus". I think it also gets confusing because the words count and county do not always line up well. It appears there could be counts without counties, partly because the word count also implied a certain level of noble status. The terminology was not standardized or easy to interpret. I don't think there was any clear line stopping a castellan occasionally getting called a count, especially if they were wealthy, well-connected and held a few such offices.

But coming back to your remark Peter, doesn't this all mean that it is in fact possible during this period for relatively minor lords to occasionally be called a count, especially if he had the right relatives? I also think it was possible for them to have quite distant lands. The counts of Duras and the counts of Loon originally had isolated lands which lay very far away from the castles they were named after. I am not arguing for anything specifically, but I am wondering about the way you try to narrow down the options. Can we exclude the possibility that there was a "count" of Hasnon who held land on the Sambre?

[Peter Stewart]

Not at all, because the count of Hasnon was the count of Hainaut.

Van Droogenbroeck correctly says (p.69) that Hasnon became the house
abbey and burial-place of the counts of Hainaut, noting that Richilde's
second husband who was buried there (as she was too) became known as
Balduin of Hasnon.

Maintaining important abbeys was core business for 11th-century counts -
their worldly prestige as well as eternal hopes were bound up in
this. Comital families were not likely to chose an abbey that had once
been hived off as an apanage of a cadet branch to be at the centre of
their dynastic brand on earth and in heaven.

[Peter Stewart]

I overlooked this before - I'm not sure what you can mean by "counts
without counties" unless this refers to someone accorded the title "ad
personam". Who in particular are you thinking of?

As for castellans occasionally getting called count, again who in
particular did this happen with in 11th-century France or Germany? There
were certainly some countships that appeared in north-eastern Francia
during the decay of Carolingian authority and the uncertainty of early
Capetian rule. There were also some minor countships that held a status
barley above that of viscountcies, as clients of major counts in the
region (e.g. Saint-Pol to Boulogne) or as upstarts that were prone to be
taken over (e.g. Cambrai by Flanders).

[Peter Stewart]

I didn't have time to check this earlier - the summary in Newman's
edition of the document in which a count of Hasnon occurs is as follows:

"A notice describes the legal remedies pursued by the monks of
Homblières against Fulbert, who usurped an allod [of Dinche] claiming
its advocacy by hereditary right. The monks showed him the charter of
his relative Amalric confirming their rights, but to no avail, so they
appealed to Rainer, count of Hainaut, for justice. The count took the
abbot, Bernard, to the court of Geoffrey, duke [of Lorraine], to state
his case, and on their return the count assembled all the notables of
the region and required them to testify on oath as to Fulbert's right to
that advocacy. When those consulted replied that Fulbert had not
received it from the count, the count ordered him to make satisfaction
to the abbot, which he did."

If Rainier - or more probably Herman by his correct name - had been
merely the castellan or (under-)count of Hasnon incidentally happening
to own property on the Sambre, he would not have been the comital
authority to whom the monks of Homblières would have appealed for
justice, or who would have taken the abbot directly to the ducal court
and subsequently assembled all the notables of his countship
("coadunavit omnes maiores natu et pares sui comitatus"), since he would
have been immediately subordinate in such matters regarding allodial
property on the Sambre, beyond the confines of the Hasnon castellany, to
the count of Hainaut.

[lancast...@gmail.com]

Just on the counts without counties topic:
Many readers of this list will be familiar with the Breton counts who came to England after 1066. But actually I have examples in mind from the Belgian region. Vanderkindere already named a few from my region (Aarschot, Diest, etc) back at the end of the 19th century, and wrote that a comitatus could evidently sometimes simply be a jurisdiction. After looking into more cases and discussing it with specialists it is clear that Vanderkindere under-rated this potential source of confusion. Examples which have been discussed in print by Michel Margue include Durbuy and La Roche in the Ardennes. The example I have looked at the most is the county of Duras which I believe had no simple geographical definition at all. The founder of that family was known in his own lifetime as Count Otto of Loon, but he was evidently the younger brother of the actual count of Loon (Emmo). Duras was a small fort. Otto's descendants apparently held it for the Princebishops as a defence against the counts of Leuven to their west. Even the status and geography of the early county of Loon/Looz itself is an entity which is surprisingly difficult to pin down. This becomes clear when you try to read the speculative debates about how it became a vassal of the Princebishop of Liège. The counties we know from later centuries often seem to have been built partly upon bluff and bluster and good luck. I suppose that as with many things feudal, Anglo-Saxon readers like myself are sometimes misled because of what we've learned about post-1066 England, where things were in many ways much more neat and tidy than they were in the empire.

[Enno Borgsteede]

Op 02-03-2023 om 00:54 schreef Peter Stewart:

> That Richilde (more probably) or her first husband Herman of Hainaut had
> some hereditary claim to Valenciennes that allowed them buy off rival
> claimaints is stated by Gislebert of Mons, immediately after stating
> that the former count there has died without a direct heir ("defuncto
> comite Valencenensi absque proprii corporis herede tam jure hereditario
> quam coemptione facta cum quibusdam nobilibus qui in hereditate illa
> reclamabant").

To me, this suggests that the former count might have been an uncle.
Would that be a reasonable thought, based on the laws of those times?

Enno

[lancast...@gmail.com]

Well who was previous count of Valenciennes then? I think this is an important point for interpreting this thesis we are discussing.

[Peter Stewart]

It would be helpful to provide specifics when making such assertions -
do you mean these men (assuming you have in mind Brian of Cornwall and
Alan Rufus of Richmond) were titled count in contemporary documents or
later?

> But actually I have examples in mind from the Belgian region. Vanderkindere already named a few from my region (Aarschot, Diest, etc) back at the end of the 19th century, and wrote that a comitatus could evidently sometimes simply be a jurisdiction. After looking into more cases and discussing it with specialists it is clear that Vanderkindere under-rated this potential source of confusion. Examples which have been discussed in print by Michel Margue include Durbuy and La Roche in the Ardennes.

But these were not occasional countships - once appearing they remained
and were inherited. They were more like subsidiary jurisdictions made
into semi-independent countships for cadet lines.

> The example I have looked at the most is the county of Duras which I
> believe had no simple geographical definition at all. The founder of
> that family was known in his own lifetime as Count Otto of Loon, but
> he was evidently the younger brother of the actual count of Loon
> (Emmo). Duras was a small fort. Otto's descendants apparently held it
> for the Princebishops as a defence against the counts of Leuven to
> their west.

This is another example of a countship that was not occasional, since
after Otto it was inherited by his descendants

> Even the status and geography of the early county of Loon/Looz itself is an entity which is surprisingly difficult to pin down. This becomes clear when you try to read the speculative debates about how it became a vassal of the Princebishop of Liège. The counties we know from later centuries often seem to have been built partly upon bluff and bluster and good luck. I suppose that as with many things feudal, Anglo-Saxon readers like myself are sometimes misled because of what we've learned about post-1066 England, where things were in many ways much more neat and tidy than they were in the empire.

One difference is that England did not have bishops whose diocesan
advocates could try calling themselves count (or earl), as happened in
Utrecht and elsewhere.

I thought you probably had in mind some seigneuries whose lords called
themselves count on occasion but failed to stick the landing on their
pretended comital status as hereditary.

There were also other cases of the title count getting occasionally
transferred to non-comital lordships (as evidently with Hasnon), such as
with Ramerupt and Bulles.

[Peter Stewart]

We do not have definite information about this - Arnulf of Cambrai had
been count (or marquis) of Valenciennes from 973 until displaced by
Balduin IV of Flanders in 1006, but Balduin had to wait until after
Arnulf's death in 1012 to be recognised as ruler in Valenciennes by
Heinrich II as German king. Then castellans apparently related to Arnulf
held it from the mid-11th to the mid-12th century - Hugo, Isaac, and the
latter's daughter Emmissa who was called "countess".

Arnulf's sister was married to Amaury whom Jan Dhondt considered to have
been count of Valenciennes before July 964 until 973. Presumably
Richilde was descended from Arnulf or perhaps Amaury, since the
hereditary right mentioned by Gislebert of Mons cannot plausibly be
traced back to Balduin IV of Flanders.

[Peter Stewart]

Yes, but it is not verifiable and the possibility of a more distant
relationship also fits with the little we are told.

[Peter Stewart]

On 04-Mar-23 9:25 AM, Peter Stewart wrote:
> On 04-Mar-23 2:08 AM, Enno Borgsteede wrote:
>> Op 02-03-2023 om 00:54 schreef Peter Stewart:
>>
>>> That Richilde (more probably) or her first husband Herman of Hainaut
>>> had some hereditary claim to Valenciennes that allowed them buy off
>>> rival claimaints is stated by Gislebert of Mons, immediately after
>>> stating that the former count there has died without a direct heir
>>> ("defuncto comite Valencenensi absque proprii corporis herede tam
>>> jure hereditario quam coemptione facta cum quibusdam nobilibus qui in
>>> hereditate illa reclamabant").
>>
>> To me, this suggests that the former count might have been an uncle.
>> Would that be a reasonable thought, based on the laws of those times?
>
> Yes, but it is not verifiable and the possibility of a more distant
> relationship also fits with the little we are told.

By the way, Van Droogenbroeck argued (pp. 53-54) that the anti-imperuial
pact between Herman of Hainaut and Balduin V of Flanders took place
between April 1044 and July 1045 at the latest, instead of in 1147 as
usually assigned, suggesting that Anselm of Liège from whom we know
about this had gotten ahead of himself in narrating it.

Anselm was writing by 1056, and according to his account Richilde
betrayed her husband by trying to get the bishop of Liège to capture
Herman and hand him over to the emperor ("ut imperatori tradat"). Anselm
in the 1050s might be supposed to have remembered that Heinrich III did
not become emperor until Christmas day in 1046, so that a dating to 1047
is implicitly more plausible on that basis.

The attempt by Richilde to interfere with her husband's political
activity suggests that she may have been working in the imperial
interest from some hereditary position of her own, as most comital wives
of that time would not have had the resources or daring to get involved
in such a way.

According to the Anchin continuation of Sigebert of Gembloux's
Chronographia, in a section written in 1201 perhaps by André du Bois,
later prior of Marchiennes, Richilde is described as having imperial
blood and as having been a sister of Pope Leo IX (not his niece as in
'Flandria generosa', written around 35 years earlier, and maybe drawing
from a different source). Leo was thought by Vanderkindere to have been
a cousin of Emperor Conrad II through the latter's mother, but the
rationale for this does not hold up to scrutiny. However, Richilde's
effort to help Conrad II's son Heinrich III at the expense of throwing
over her own husband may have been due to a family relationship.

[lancast...@gmail.com]

"[Duras] is another example of a countship that was not occasional, since after Otto it was inherited by his descendants"

Well the details are in any case unknown, despite what Mantelius wrote. Otto was called a count of Loon but his descendants did not inherit Loon from him. There is also no evidence that they inherited Duras from him as that fort was not mentioned until later generations. There are no contemporary records of anything called a "county of Duras", and there are I think only two mentions of any "county" at all being held by any of the later generations. I have much more detailed explanations. Maybe I should send to these to you for your comments.

"England did not have bishops whose diocesan advocates could try calling themselves count (or earl), as happened in Utrecht and elsewhere."

Yes, and there is a background to that. One aspect I find interesting is that by around 1000 many lands and titles in the German sphere or influence were under clerical control. The landed families were still there holding their allodial lands, and expecting to be given advocacies etc. But the system did not really work for either side, and indeed out of this mess we end up with the separation of church and state. Gradually the medieval systems of secular titles which we know from later centuries developed. Of course England there was a tabula rasa situation, and a lot more centralization. The king and his secular underlings, the barons, kept more control.

"I thought you probably had in mind some seigneuries whose lords called themselves count on occasion but failed to stick the landing on their pretended comital status as hereditary."

Yes, some failed to stick the landing. Good metaphor. I am not sure Duras would have "stuck the landing" if it had continued to exist, and did not end up being absorbed into Loon. (In Loon records from after the fusion only give references to Duras lands, but these are simply scattered among the Loon lands, and look like a private division of family lands. Despite what Jean Baerten claimed, there is no clear core territory.) I also don't know if we can describe Diest, Aarschot, Durbuy and La Roche as lordships which all stuck the landing. Some of them were later counties. But in the later middle ages there was all kinds of title inflation and so we even have Duchies of relatively small places. These did not necessarily evolve directly out of the 11th century claims.

[Raf Ceustermans]

As for the inheritance rights of Richilde to Valenciennes, it's worth remembering that Baldwin IV of Flanders had succeeded as count of Valenciennes after the death of Arnold of Cambrai. There are indications that later Baldwin V and count Herman, the husband of Richilde exchanged Valenciennes and Ename in a more or less fraudulent way. It's possible that Giselbert, who was writing to glorify the counts he worked for as chancellor, wanted to portray Richilde as legal heiress of Valenciennes to avoid putting his employers ancestors in a bad light. He doesn't mention anything about how Ename was lost either

[Peter Stewart]

On 04-Mar-23 9:03 PM, Raf Ceustermans wrote:
> As for the inheritance rights of Richilde to Valenciennes, it's worth remembering that Baldwin IV of Flanders had succeeded as count of Valenciennes after the death of Arnold of Cambrai. There are indications that later Baldwin V and count Herman, the husband of Richilde exchanged Valenciennes and Ename in a more or less fraudulent way. It's possible that Giselbert, who was writing to glorify the counts he worked for as chancellor, wanted to portray Richilde as legal heiress of Valenciennes to avoid putting his employers ancestors in a bad light. He doesn't mention anything about how Ename was lost either

Balduin IV did not succeed to Valenciennes by hereditary right - he had
taken it by conquest from Arnulf but then had to wait until after
Arnulf's death to be enfeoffed there by the emperor.

As for Giselbert of Mons wanting "to portray Richilde as legal heiress",
how does he do this? I mentioned before that his use of "coemptio"
perhaps implied that the securing of some kind of birthright to
Valenciennes by Herman and Richilde, effected through buying off rival
claimaints, may have belonged to her rather than to him - but although
plausible this is not certain and in any case not an explicit portrayal
by Gislebert of Richilde's standing.

We can't be sure that Gislebert even knew of "coemptio" in Roman law as
a form of marriage by fictitious purchase between the couple to avoid
the bride's family duties. It had long been in use by medieval writers
to mean any compulsory purchase, requisition or relief - for instance,
in the Vita of Pope John V (end of the 7th century) "coemptio" was used
for the fixed price of produce that the Church could barely afford which
was the main cost of several annual charges waived by the emperor at
John's request ("sed et coemptum frumenti vel alia diversa quae ecclesia
Romana annue minime exurgebat persolvere"). Earlier in Gislebert's own
century, and closer to home, Galbert had used the same word when the
citizens of Bruges said that Louis VI had falsely sworn he was not due
any relief or exchange price for the election of William Clito of
Normandy as count of Flanders ("nullam coemptionem vel pretium").
Galbert used it again in this sense, with no suggestion that it related
in any way to a woman, to mean that William had been imposed as count
through the king's power in return for payment ("per coemptionem ex
regis potestate potestative comes effectus"). Ganshof discussed
Galbert's use of the word in 'Coemptio gravissima mansionum', *Archivum
latinitatis medii aevi" 17 (1942) 149-161.

[Peter Stewart]

It could be argued that Gislebert came closer to implying Richilde was
legal heiress of Valenciennes (though I don't think it sustainable as a
"portrayal") when he wrote that "they [she and Herman] added
Valenciennes" to the honor of Hainaut. A count's wife would not usually
receive this level of billing in a late-12th-century narrative.

There is circumstantial evidence that Richilde behaved as virtual ruler
of Hainaut and Valenciennes in the lifetime of her first husband,
Herman. This was perhaps due to their respective personal character
rather than to legal standing - she may have been simply the more
masterful of the couple.

One possible partial explanation of her position consistent with the
little evidence we have, which surprisingly (as far as I know) has not
been put forward before - and which I emphasise is _not_ my own opinion
by a long stretch - is that Richilde may have been Herman's step-sister,
daughter by a prior husband of a second wife of his father Reginar V, a
lady named Hathuidis who was a potential heiress to Valenciennes.

Herman's mother was named as Mathilde by Jacques de Mayere in 1538, but
this does not appear in any extant earlier source. In the 1070s Sigebert
of Gembloux wrote that Herman's father Reginar had donated to his abbey
with his wife Hathuidis. In 1936 André Boutemy assumed that Hathuidis
was the correct name for Reginar's only wife, mother of Richilde's
husband Herman, but there is no compelling reason why Mathilde could not
have been the name of Herman's mother and Hathuidis a second wife of his
father, possibly the mother of Richilde.

Galbert of Bruges wrote that after the death of Richilde's second
husband Balduin VI of Flanders their son Arnulf stayed in his paternal
land around Cassel and Saint-Omer while his mother returned to Hainaut
and the environs of a mother ("Igitur cum Balduinus vir Richildis in
Brugis obiisset, filius ejus Arnoldus, cui patria pertinebat, cum mater
versus Montes et viciniam matris rediit, circa Casletum et Sanctum
Audomarum et illas partes conversabatur"). This text has usually been
considered problematic if not corrupt, but understood to mean that
Richilde returned to Mons and the environs of _her_ mother. These
environs presumably included Valenciennes, and if considered the
territory of Richilde's mother it may have been through her that the
hereditary right to Valenciennes was claimed. I think it more likely
that Galbert meant "vicinia matris" only in contrast to "patria", i.e.
the environs of Arnulf's mother as opposed to the lands of his father -
and possibly he actually wrote "vicinia materna" with 'er' represented
by the conventional horizontal mark that was too small or faint for a
copyist to notice and 'na' misread as 'rıs' ( the letter 'i' was not
normally dotted in his time). However, if following the translation
given most recently by Jeff Rider and by others before him, the mother
in question was Richilde's rather than Arnulf's.

In a different thread I will set out some chronological, relationship
and onomastic markers for seeking the elusive origin of Richilde, that
is among the most intriguing and intractable mysteries in medieval
genealogy.

[taf]

Indeed. A few years back Paulo asked what some of the 'big unanswered questions' in medieval genealogy were, and Richilde definitly should have been included in that list.

taf

[lancast...@gmail.com]

thanks Peter. Very interesting