CP correction - death of William de Warenne, 3rd earl, in January 1148

[Peter Stewart]

In CP vol xii part 1, p. 497 William is stated to have died on 19
January 1147/8 "when the rearguard of the French King's army was cut to
pieces in the defiles of Laodicea". This was the battle at Cadmos
mountain, when Louis VII had to fight his way to safety after being
separated from his guard including William, Gaucher II of Châtillon &
Montjay and Evrard III of Breteuil, who were killed.

However, the battle took place ca 7 January, certainly before 19th which
was the date given without citing any authority by George Watson in *The
Genealogist* (1895), referenced in CP as "G. W. Watson in Genealogist,
N.S., vol. xi, p. 132, and authorities there cited". Odo of Deuil, who
was present, said that the battle took place on the day after the king's
army set off from Laodicea, and they had stayed there only a few days
after arriving on 3 or 4 January.

Jonathan Phillips in his chronology in *The Crusades, 1095–1204*, second
edition (2014), p xvii, placed the battle definitely on 7 January, but
other historians have estimated 6 or 8 of the same month.

Peter Stewart

[Patrick Nielsen Hayden]

I'm guessing -- let me know if I'm wrong -- that this correction should
also apply to the death date of Gaucher II de Châtillon, husband of
Alde de Roucy, at least as given on Genealogics.

Genealogics gives his death date as "19 Jun 1148", but the attached bio
says he was "killed in the winter of 1147/48 in a battle at Laodicea in
Anatolia", making it very likely that "Jun" is a typo for "Jan." And
that, per Peter Stewart above, "19 Jan" should be further corrected to
"circa 7 Jan" of the same year.

--
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
http://nielsenhayden.com
http://nielsenhayden.com/genealogy-tng/

[Peter Stewart]

Thanks for pointing out the mistake in Genealogics - this was not
originally made by Leo, but copied either from one of the two works
cited on the page or else directly from ES (nF) vol. 7 table 17 where 19
June 1148 is incorrectly given as the date of Gaucher's death. At least
one of Leo's sources must be blameless in this, as he wrote "Gaucher was
killed in the winter of 1147/48" and presumably no-one supposed this
happened in the southern hemisphere.

The three men named in my post above were all killed on the day of the
battle ca 7 January 1148. We have excellent sources for this - most
notably a letter from Louis VII himself, written to Suger of Saint-Denis
on or about 19 March 1148, specifying five men who had been killed
crossing the mountain (the earl of Warenne, Renaud of Tonnerre, Manasses
of Bulles, Gaucher of Montjay and Evrard of Breteuil). Of these, Renaud
III of Tonnerre was by another account only taken prisoner, though this
is uncertain (his family still thought as late as 1159 that he might yet
return from captivity). Odo of Deuil named as killed the other four but
not Renaud, wrongly adding that Evrard of Breteuil was a brother of
William de Warenne.

By the way, Leo has also taken over an assumption about the parents of
Gaucher of Châtillon that is very likely to be a reversal of their
families - his father is named in Genealogics as "Henri I de Châtillon"
and his mother as "Ermengarde de Montjay", but as cogently argued by
Jean-Noël Mathieu in 1992 his father was probably Henri de Montjay and
his mother Ermengarde the heiress of Châtillon. Mathieu also
persuasively refuted the speculation by William Mendel Newman that
Gaucher of Châtillon's wife may have belonged to the seigneurial family
of Pierrefonds rather than being a daughter of Hugo Cholet of Roucy.

Peter Stewart

[John Higgins]

Is this the work by Jean-Noël Mathieu that is mentioned above?

Jean-Noël Mathieu, A propos des châtelains de Châtillon-sur-Marne, Mémoires de la Société d'agriculture, commerce, sciences et arts du département de la Marne, vol. 107, pp. 7-27 (1992)

[Peter Stewart]

Yes - incidentally, the false date of death given without citation by
George Watson apparently came from André Du Chesne's *Histoire de la
maison de Chastillon sur Marne* (1621), p. 35, where Gaucher is stated
without proof to have died on "le dix-neufiesme iour de Ianuier l'an mil
cent quarante sept".

Peter Stewart

[John Higgins]

Du Chesne's work happens to be one of the two sources cited for all of the Châtillon pages in vol. 7 of ESNF (published in 1979). The other source is La Chesnaye-Desbois, Dictionnaire de la Noblesse, vol. 5, 3rd ed., 1961. (There are supplemental sources for some of these pages, but not for p. 17)

[Peter Stewart]

There was a slip from January to June in ES that is not due to either of
the cited works - according to La Chesnaye-Desbois, vol. 5 p. 453:
"[Gaucher II] fut tué par les Sarrasins avec plusieurs autres Seigneurs
le 19 Janvier 1147". I doubt that Watson referred to this directly, but
the misstatement by Du Chesne could well have found its way into earlier
English accounts of William de Warenne's death in Phrygia.

Peter Stewart

[Peter Stewart]

On 06-Sep-19 10:37 AM, John Higgins wrote:

> On Thursday, September 5, 2019 at 3:55:53 PM UTC-7, Peter Stewart wrote:

<snip>

>> By the way, Leo has also taken over an assumption about the parents of
>> Gaucher of Châtillon that is very likely to be a reversal of their
>> families - his father is named in Genealogics as "Henri I de Châtillon"
>> and his mother as "Ermengarde de Montjay", but as cogently argued by
>> Jean-Noël Mathieu in 1992 his father was probably Henri de Montjay and
>> his mother Ermengarde the heiress of Châtillon. Mathieu also
>> persuasively refuted the speculation by William Mendel Newman that
>> Gaucher of Châtillon's wife may have belonged to the seigneurial family
>> of Pierrefonds rather than being a daughter of Hugo Cholet of Roucy.
>>
>> Peter Stewart
>
> Is this the work by Jean-Noël Mathieu that is mentioned above?
>
> Jean-Noël Mathieu, A propos des châtelains de Châtillon-sur-Marne, Mémoires de la Société d'agriculture, commerce, sciences et arts du département de la Marne, vol. 107, pp. 7-27 (1992)

I hadn't looked at Mathieu's article for some time, but now that my
memory has been refreshed it's not 100% convincing about the descent of
Châtillon, though I agree it seems more likely that Ermengarde was the
heiress of the family rather than that her husband Henri was the heir.

We know for certain that Gui I of Châtillon (died after 1087) and his
wife Ermengarde had sons named Gaucher and Jacques. Mathieu concluded
that Ermengarde was either a sister of Gaucher and Jacques or a daughter
of the latter, but I think she was more probably daughter of the former
and still young when Gaucher was killed on crusade in August 1101.

She and her husband Henri occur first in a charter along with Jacques
that is difficult to date precisely. It is a donation to Saint-Remi de
Reims confirmed on 7 May 1123 but possibly made some while earlier ("nos
videlicet Jacobus de Castellione filius Guidonis, et Henricus de
Montegayo, et Hermengardis uxor mea ... Acta sunt apud Damairacum et
confirmata sunt apud castrum Virtutum an. M. C. XXIII ... in mense maii,
nonis ipsius mensis"). The charter was considered suspect by Pierre
Varin in the early-19th century, but in 2007 Kimberly LoPrete thought it
was reworked or carelessly copied and not an outright fabrication.

Anyway, there is no reason to doubt that Jacques occurred along with
Henri of Montjay and the latter's wife Ermengarde, and that Henri was
probably the direct informant of the scribe since he referred to "my
wife". Henri first occurs with the denomination Châtillon ("Henricus de
Castellione") in 1117. It seems less likely to me that he appeared as a
donor along with his wife's brother or father after this than that he
did so with her paternal uncle who had acted as castellan between the
time of her father's death in 1101 and her marriage by 1117.

LoPrete argued that the donation confirmed in 1123 may have been made up
to a decade beforehand, which I find unconvincing. Mathieu placed it in
1123, making it odd that he thought Jacques was still the castellan of
Châtillon in his own right while his brother- or son-in-law had already
taken this as his surname. It is also add, given Mathieu's strong
conviction about hereditary onomastics, that he wasn't bothered by the
absence of the name Jacques among descendants of Henri and Ermengarde
until the sixth generation whereas Gaucher occurs in each of the next
three generations after them.

Peter Stewart