Is "Count Eudes of Cambrai" a fraud?
Stewart Baldwin
newsgroup before. The basic claim, from Moriarty's manuscript of
Plantagenet Ancestry, stated to be based on a manuscript study by
Friedrich von Stauffenberg, gives the following basic claimed table
[usual warning about using a constant-width font]:
Arnulf II Thibaud
count of seigneur of
Flanders Bois Ferrand
____________|____________________ |
| | | |
Baldwin IV Mathilda | |
count of m. Guibert | |
Flanders sgr. of Beaumont | |
|________ | |
| | |
Adela-m-Eudes-m-Adela
| |
2 sons Counts of
St. Pol and
Brienne
I had commented earlier on my failure to find anything backing up the
above, but a closer look has now left me with much suspicion.
The account (evidently based on notes that Moriarty took from
Stauffenberg) states that the records of St. Pierre de Cambrai (no
more specific citation) contain a remembrance of count Odo/Eudes, son
of count Arnulf and Susanna "lately queen of France" (i.e., Arnulf's
wife who later married the king of France) providing for prayers for
the souls of his father Arnulf, mother Susanna, and sister Mathilda,
widow of Guilbert de Beaumont.
It then goes on to say that Eudes created a stir by marrying his own
niece Adela, daughter of Mathilda ca. 1009/10, was anathematized by
Pope Benedict IX, and that a letter from Baldwin IV to the pope in
1012 regarding the matter is in Migne PL vol. 116 or 117 (with the
possibility mentioned in earlier postings that this should be read as
126-7 or 136-7, although the second digits do not look like any other
2's or 3's on the same page).
In describing the second marriage of Eudes, it states that Thibuad
sgr. of Bois Ferrand is called "Thibaud de Louvain" by Alberic de
Trois Fontaines, Orderic Vitalis, and William of Jumièges.
So what is suspicious? Many things:
1. The pope in 1012 was Benedict VIII, not Benedict IX.
2. I checked volumes 116-7, 126-7, 136-7 of PL PLUS all of the volumes
that actually have letter of popes Benedict VIII or IX, without
finding the alleged letter. (Of course, the lack of good indexes here
makes this result inconclusive.)
3. I checked Alberic de Trois Fontaines, Orderic Vitalis, and William
of Jumièges without finding any reference to the Thibaud of Louvain in
question (or to Thibaud of Bois Ferrand, or to Eudes).
4. With the exception of a couple of places clearly using Moriarty as
a source, no account of the counts of Flanders that I have seen
(Vanderkindere, ES, Brandenburg, etc.) mentions a son of Arnulf II
named Eudes.
5. The marriage of an uncle and niece would have been so
extraordinarily rare in this setting that one would think that it
would attract much attention in the literature, yet I have seen the
claim nowhere else.
6. I have seen no source that proves that "count Eudes of Cambrai"
ever even existed, let alone providing any parentage for him (again
excepting items using Moriarty as a source).
It seems to me that this all adds up to a very suspicious picture,
especially as it includes several apparently nonexistent citations. I
lean toward the tentative conclusion that the Stauffenberg paper on
which Moriarty relied was a fraud, and that much of the claim is a
fabrication. I would guess that Moriarty never got around to checking
the citations, as this does come from his notes, and is not what he
was presenting as a finished product.
Point 6 would be a good place to start. Is there any good evidence
anywhere that such a count Eudes ever existed?
Stewart Baldwin
Peter Stewart
<snip>
> The account (evidently based on notes that Moriarty took from
> Stauffenberg) states that the records of St. Pierre de Cambrai (no
> more specific citation) contain a remembrance of count Odo/Eudes, son
> of count Arnulf and Susanna "lately queen of France" (i.e., Arnulf's
> wife who later married the king of France) providing for prayers for
> the souls of his father Arnulf, mother Susanna, and sister Mathilda,
> widow of Guilbert de Beaumont.
This is highly dubious - in 995 Susanna remembered her daughter
Matilda, evidently then dead, and mentioned her living son Balduin.
Arnulf had died some 7 or 8 years earlier, and since she mentioned no
son Eudes, it is most unlikely that such a person ever existed.
Cambrai was not in the gift of the counts of Flanders but an imperial
fief by 1007, when regalian rights were granted to the bishop. It's
hard to see when & by whom a "Count Eudes" could have been installed
there.
I would regard any source as suspect that referred to Susanna as
"lately queen of France". We are told by one contemporary writer that
she "reigned as queen", but this possibly means as regent in Flanders
and can hardly be literally true for her career in France - her
mother-in-law Queen Adelaide was definitely the reigning queen and
first lady of the kingdom throughout the period of Susanna's
connection with Robert II.
As to whether this was indeed a consummated marriage or just a
contract under negotiation between the parties, we have no solid
evidence. At least one bishop was reportedly disturbed by Robert's
informal repudiation of Susanna, but apparently no-one ever brought
their "union" forward as a bar to his subsequent & highly
controversial second marriage, to Bertha of Burgundy.
Susanna, perhaps from the opportunism of her Flemish supporters, tried
to take back Montreuil-sur-Mer, said to be hers as dower. This port
had been a bone of contention amongst the rulers of Flanders, Normandy
and France for some time, and a grab for it is not exactly proof of
Susanna's marital rights. I doubt that she was ever called "queen" in
France proper - certainly Bertha, her successor as wife of the young
associate king, was not given the title regina in an act which she
subscribed along with her mother-in-law.
I am preparing an article (for print) on some questions raised by
Rozala Susanna's names, or change of name, and her title of regina
assumed by 1 April 988. A summary of this will be included in the
material on her which I will send (soon I hope) to Stewart Baldwin for
the Henry Project. Since Moriarty's notes were not revised for
publication, I don't propose to include this "Eudes of Cambrai" as a
son ascribed to her, but naturally the editor may wish to add these
details.
Peter Stewart
Stewart Baldwin
Stewart) wrote:
>I am preparing an article (for print) on some questions raised by
>Rozala Susanna's names, or change of name, and her title of regina
>assumed by 1 April 988. A summary of this will be included in the
>material on her which I will send (soon I hope) to Stewart Baldwin for
>the Henry Project. Since Moriarty's notes were not revised for
>publication, I don't propose to include this "Eudes of Cambrai" as a
>son ascribed to her, but naturally the editor may wish to add these
>details.
Since the account from Moriarty has now been copied in a number of
places, the claim that Eudes was a son of Arnulf at least needs to be
mentioned somewhere on the Henry Project pages for Arnulf II and/or
Rozala Susanna, if only to dismiss the claim as a falsehood. Several
days ago, I was starting to update Arnulf's page to include some
reference to this, and then set the project aside temporarily because
I was unsure how to deal with it. On one side we have certain
statements claiming to quote from contemporary records that, IF
GENUINE, would seem to clearly prove the affiliation. On the other
hand, for reasons already described in this thread, there are good
reasons to be suspicious about this information, even if those reasons
contain nothing that amounts to a "smoking gun" giving actual
disproof. Based on what I know now, I am inclined to list the claim
as very doubtful, but I am hoping to find out more before deciding
exactly how to revise Arnulf's page to deal with this problem.
Moriarty's abstract indicates that Stauffenberg cited cartularies of
the abbeys of St. Omer, St. Pierre, St. Bavo, Notre Dame d'Oursecamp
(? - hard to read), and Cysoing, with particular mention of "records"
of St. Pierre de Cambrai for the key evidence. The convenient lack of
more specific citations makes these references hard to follow up, but
if anyone has access to a published cartulary that looks like one of
the above, it would be helpful to know what information (if anything)
they provide about Eudes. I have noticed that the Gallica site has a
couple of histories of Cambrai that should probably be examined (use
"Cambrai" as a search term in the title box), and I will do so in the
next few days after I arrange the necessary download time for my slow
connection.
In the meantime, some evidence that Eudes actually existed would be a
good start to solving this puzzle.
Stewart Baldwin
Stewart, Peter
I can't help with that - indeed I can't access the Gallica site at present,
getting instead a message that this is unavailable due to maintenance from
13 to 17 September. C'est la vie....
I think Eudes belongs better on Arnulf's page than on Rozala Susanna's,
although a cross-reference may be needed there. We have the evidence that
she didn't name such a son by Arnulf in 995, and there is no reason to
suppose he was hers by a different father.
Jean Dunbabin has published a suggestion that Rozala took the name Susanna
following an accusation of adultery, but this is by some way the least
likely of three plausible causes for the change (or reversion) that I shall
discuss in the article mentioned already. In any event, the Apocryphal
Susanna was innocent of the adultery charge, so that if Rozala did take her
name the indication would still be against an illegitimate son.
Peter Stewart
Stewart Baldwin
Peter....@crsrehab.gov.au ("Stewart, Peter") wrote:
>I think Eudes belongs better on Arnulf's page than on Rozala Susanna's,
>although a cross-reference may be needed there.
In fact, such cross references are probably desirable in general for
cases where alleged children are rejected as being falsely attributed.
It seems unnecessary to duplicate things by including the reasons for
rejecting such children on both pages.
>... We have the evidence that
>she didn't name such a son by Arnulf in 995, and there is no reason to
>suppose he was hers by a different father.
Since the supposed evidence for Eudes is an alleged charter making him
a son of both Arnulf and Susanna, there does not seem to be any reason
to complicate things by suggesting that Eudes might be a son of one
but not the other. Either the charter is genuine (in which case he
would be a son of both) or the charter is a forgery or nonexistent (in
which case the claim can be dismissed). The latter is certainly
looking like the more likely alternative.
Stewart Baldwin