Richilde herself donated to Saint-Hubert in 1071 an estate at Chevigny,
less than 15kms south of the abbey, that was specifically said to come
from her patrimony but possibly may have come to her instead from the property of Herman's mother. This lady was the daughter of Herman of
Verdun, margrave of Ename, from the dynasty of Ardenne. His agnatic
first cousin Gozelo (incidentally a son of his paternal uncle named
Reginar, and brother of a bishop of Laon) was count probably at Bastogne around 32 kms north-east of Chevigny. Gozelo, who was living in the late 1020s, is known to have had a daughter who died as a recluse at
Saint-Hubert, and he was himself buried there. He had no other known offspring, but of course that does not absolutely preclude the
possibility. However, the names Richilde and Roger cannot be associated
with him, and if he - as a first cousin of Herman of Hainaut's maternal grandfather - had been closely related to Richilde it is not plain to
see why her marriage to her first husband would have been allowed.
Peter apart from the so-called House of Ardenne, with all its Gozelons, the places you mention seem to indicate a centre of gravity with the princebishopric of Liège, and perhaps the pre-eminent family there in this period were the lords of Montaigu.
Peter apart from the so-called House of Ardenne, with all its Gozelons, the places you mention seem to indicate a centre of gravity with the princebishopric of Liège, and perhaps the pre-eminent family there in this period were the lords of Montaigu.
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 8:57:46 PM UTC+1, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
Peter apart from the so-called House of Ardenne, with all its Gozelons, the places you mention seem to indicate a centre of gravity with the princebishopric of Liège, and perhaps the pre-eminent family there in this period were the lords of Montaigu.
Another question Peter. Do you see Arnulf of Cambrai as a different person to Arnulf of Valenciennes?
On 15-Mar-23 6:57 AM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
Peter apart from the so-called House of Ardenne, with all its
Gozelons, the places you mention seem to indicate a centre of gravity
with the princebishopric of Liège, and perhaps the pre-eminent family
there in this period were the lords of Montaigu.
Richilde does not appear to have had very strong sway in the diocese of Liège - she tried to get Bishop Wazo to arrest her first husband and
hand him over to the emperor, but he ignored her request.
Another question Peter. Do you see Arnulf of Cambrai as a different person to Arnulf of Valenciennes?It seems more likely to me that this was one person - whether he was connected to the earlier namesake counts who had contested with Roger of Laon for control of Ostrevant, perhaps introducing his name into their family through a reconciliatory marriage, is unknown. But there has to
be some limit to how many different counts named Arnulf a region could produce in a century.
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 11:07:39 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:Hanret. Also west of the imperial boundary he and his mother clearly had a presence in "Caribant" near Lille. There is also evidence that he held the castle of Visé near Liège which later seems to have been a castle associated with the Antwerp march. I
Another question Peter. Do you see Arnulf of Cambrai as a different person to Arnulf of Valenciennes?It seems more likely to me that this was one person - whether he was
connected to the earlier namesake counts who had contested with Roger of
Laon for control of Ostrevant, perhaps introducing his name into their
family through a reconciliatory marriage, is unknown. But there has to
be some limit to how many different counts named Arnulf a region could
produce in a century.
I agree. Arnulf of Valenciennes must be of interest here anyway because he appears in Flemish records in Gent while he clearly also held lands in both Brabant and what is now Limburg (see his mother's grants to Sint-Truiden). His widow was also holding
In any case he is the type of relative who might explain the later implied claims of Richild, although direct descent seems doubtful unless via a daughter. His son Adalbert predeceased him. As you know, it is typically presumed that the castellans ofValenciennes after him were also relatives.
On 15-Mar-23 11:03 PM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:holding Hanret. Also west of the imperial boundary he and his mother clearly had a presence in "Caribant" near Lille. There is also evidence that he held the castle of Visé near Liège which later seems to have been a castle associated with the Antwerp
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 11:07:39 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
Another question Peter. Do you see Arnulf of Cambrai as a different person to Arnulf of Valenciennes?It seems more likely to me that this was one person - whether he was
connected to the earlier namesake counts who had contested with Roger of >> Laon for control of Ostrevant, perhaps introducing his name into their
family through a reconciliatory marriage, is unknown. But there has to
be some limit to how many different counts named Arnulf a region could
produce in a century.
I agree. Arnulf of Valenciennes must be of interest here anyway because he appears in Flemish records in Gent while he clearly also held lands in both Brabant and what is now Limburg (see his mother's grants to Sint-Truiden). His widow was also
Valenciennes after him were also relatives.In any case he is the type of relative who might explain the later implied claims of Richild, although direct descent seems doubtful unless via a daughter. His son Adalbert predeceased him. As you know, it is typically presumed that the castellans of
I think it likely that Hugo, Isaac and Emissa "the countess", incumbents
of the castellany of Valenciennes from the mid-11th to the mid-12th
century, may represent the kindred that Richilde and Herman bought off
for possession of Arnulf's countship/margraviate.
Platelle's notion that Richilde was perhaps the daughter of Arnulf's
brother Roger or the niece of both men is flawed chronologically yet may point in the right direction. Descent from Arnulf seems to me less
plausible than a collateral link.
The purpose of setting out the possibility mentioned upthread of
Richilde's having inherited property she donated in Ardenne and the
Hesbaye is just to record indicators we can find, not to advocate for
her birth family's placement in that region east from Mons as I suspect
she originated from west of there - allods at Somal (in the county of
Huy) and Taviers (in Namur) may well have fallen into her possession
through the maternal inheritance of her first husband.
Peter Stewart
On Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at 11:32:46 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:holding Hanret. Also west of the imperial boundary he and his mother clearly had a presence in "Caribant" near Lille. There is also evidence that he held the castle of Visé near Liège which later seems to have been a castle associated with the Antwerp
On 15-Mar-23 11:03 PM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 11:07:39 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
Another question Peter. Do you see Arnulf of Cambrai as a different person to Arnulf of Valenciennes?It seems more likely to me that this was one person - whether he was
connected to the earlier namesake counts who had contested with Roger of >>>> Laon for control of Ostrevant, perhaps introducing his name into their >>>> family through a reconciliatory marriage, is unknown. But there has to >>>> be some limit to how many different counts named Arnulf a region could >>>> produce in a century.
I agree. Arnulf of Valenciennes must be of interest here anyway because he appears in Flemish records in Gent while he clearly also held lands in both Brabant and what is now Limburg (see his mother's grants to Sint-Truiden). His widow was also
Valenciennes after him were also relatives.
In any case he is the type of relative who might explain the later implied claims of Richild, although direct descent seems doubtful unless via a daughter. His son Adalbert predeceased him. As you know, it is typically presumed that the castellans of
I think it likely that Hugo, Isaac and Emissa "the countess", incumbents
of the castellany of Valenciennes from the mid-11th to the mid-12th
century, may represent the kindred that Richilde and Herman bought off
for possession of Arnulf's countship/margraviate.
Platelle's notion that Richilde was perhaps the daughter of Arnulf's
brother Roger or the niece of both men is flawed chronologically yet may
point in the right direction. Descent from Arnulf seems to me less
plausible than a collateral link.
The purpose of setting out the possibility mentioned upthread of
Richilde's having inherited property she donated in Ardenne and the
Hesbaye is just to record indicators we can find, not to advocate for
her birth family's placement in that region east from Mons as I suspect
she originated from west of there - allods at Somal (in the county of
Huy) and Taviers (in Namur) may well have fallen into her possession
through the maternal inheritance of her first husband.
Peter Stewart
Arnulf's brother Roger must have died in the early 980s, which is presumably why you find him an unlikely parent.
As explained in my Loon article I think Arnulf had brothers named Geveard and Herman. Another close relative was apparently Bishop Balderic II of Liège, and therefore presumably also the future counts of Loon.
On 17-Mar-23 2:31 AM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:holding Hanret. Also west of the imperial boundary he and his mother clearly had a presence in "Caribant" near Lille. There is also evidence that he held the castle of Visé near Liège which later seems to have been a castle associated with the Antwerp
On Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at 11:32:46 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
On 15-Mar-23 11:03 PM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 11:07:39 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote: >>>
Another question Peter. Do you see Arnulf of Cambrai as a different person to Arnulf of Valenciennes?It seems more likely to me that this was one person - whether he was >>>> connected to the earlier namesake counts who had contested with Roger of
Laon for control of Ostrevant, perhaps introducing his name into their >>>> family through a reconciliatory marriage, is unknown. But there has to >>>> be some limit to how many different counts named Arnulf a region could >>>> produce in a century.
I agree. Arnulf of Valenciennes must be of interest here anyway because he appears in Flemish records in Gent while he clearly also held lands in both Brabant and what is now Limburg (see his mother's grants to Sint-Truiden). His widow was also
of Valenciennes after him were also relatives.
In any case he is the type of relative who might explain the later implied claims of Richild, although direct descent seems doubtful unless via a daughter. His son Adalbert predeceased him. As you know, it is typically presumed that the castellans
I think it likely that Hugo, Isaac and Emissa "the countess", incumbents >> of the castellany of Valenciennes from the mid-11th to the mid-12th
century, may represent the kindred that Richilde and Herman bought off
for possession of Arnulf's countship/margraviate.
Platelle's notion that Richilde was perhaps the daughter of Arnulf's
brother Roger or the niece of both men is flawed chronologically yet may >> point in the right direction. Descent from Arnulf seems to me less
plausible than a collateral link.
The purpose of setting out the possibility mentioned upthread of
Richilde's having inherited property she donated in Ardenne and the
Hesbaye is just to record indicators we can find, not to advocate for
her birth family's placement in that region east from Mons as I suspect >> she originated from west of there - allods at Somal (in the county of
Huy) and Taviers (in Namur) may well have fallen into her possession
through the maternal inheritance of her first husband.
Peter Stewart
Arnulf's brother Roger must have died in the early 980s, which is presumably why you find him an unlikely parent.Not just an unlikely parent but an impossible one - Richilde had two
sons to her second husband Balduin of Flanders, whom she married in
1051, so that her father cannot have been a man recorded as dead by 29
June 983 - unless that record is false, in which case we have no
reliable evidence for the existence of Roger in the first place.
Richilde's birth cannot have been earlier than ca 1010 to allow for the birth of her youngest son ca 1055, or later than ca 1020 if her eldest
son was born by 1036 as proposed upthread. Her first husband was born
after 1015, and it is likely enough that she was too.
As explained in my Loon article I think Arnulf had brothers named Geveard and Herman. Another close relative was apparently Bishop Balderic II of Liège, and therefore presumably also the future counts of Loon.The record of Arnulf of Valenciennes having a brother named Roger says
that on 29 June 983 Arnulf donated to Saint-Pierre abbey in Ghent for
his own soul and that of his deceased brother Roger. Another record from Saint-Pierre abbey represents a Roger with brothers named Arnulf, Odo
and Rainer as making a donation on 2 October 983, by when Roger the
brother of Arnulf of Valenciennes reportedly had been dead for more than
3 months, and a pseudo-original charter forged ca 1035 dated 29 June 960
- presumably drawing on the transaction recorded with the same date in
983 - represents a Roger as donating to Saint-Pierre abbey maning five
of his brothers as subscribers, Odo, Hugo, Arnulf, Rainer and Robert. Evidently the forger had not read your Loon article.
Peter Stewart
On Thursday, March 16, 2023 at 10:44:13 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:holding Hanret. Also west of the imperial boundary he and his mother clearly had a presence in "Caribant" near Lille. There is also evidence that he held the castle of Visé near Liège which later seems to have been a castle associated with the Antwerp
On 17-Mar-23 2:31 AM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at 11:32:46 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote: >>>> On 15-Mar-23 11:03 PM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 11:07:39 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote: >>>>>
Another question Peter. Do you see Arnulf of Cambrai as a different person to Arnulf of Valenciennes?It seems more likely to me that this was one person - whether he was >>>>>> connected to the earlier namesake counts who had contested with Roger of >>>>>> Laon for control of Ostrevant, perhaps introducing his name into their >>>>>> family through a reconciliatory marriage, is unknown. But there has to >>>>>> be some limit to how many different counts named Arnulf a region could >>>>>> produce in a century.
I agree. Arnulf of Valenciennes must be of interest here anyway because he appears in Flemish records in Gent while he clearly also held lands in both Brabant and what is now Limburg (see his mother's grants to Sint-Truiden). His widow was also
of Valenciennes after him were also relatives.
In any case he is the type of relative who might explain the later implied claims of Richild, although direct descent seems doubtful unless via a daughter. His son Adalbert predeceased him. As you know, it is typically presumed that the castellans
them must have been from about the right time. I tend to think that there might be two sets of Arnulf-Roger brothers because (1) the titles were important, and (2) because of the evidence I laid out for Arnulf of Valenciennes having a whole different setNot just an unlikely parent but an impossible one - Richilde had twoI think it likely that Hugo, Isaac and Emissa "the countess", incumbents >>>> of the castellany of Valenciennes from the mid-11th to the mid-12th
century, may represent the kindred that Richilde and Herman bought off >>>> for possession of Arnulf's countship/margraviate.
Platelle's notion that Richilde was perhaps the daughter of Arnulf's
brother Roger or the niece of both men is flawed chronologically yet may >>>> point in the right direction. Descent from Arnulf seems to me less
plausible than a collateral link.
The purpose of setting out the possibility mentioned upthread of
Richilde's having inherited property she donated in Ardenne and the
Hesbaye is just to record indicators we can find, not to advocate for
her birth family's placement in that region east from Mons as I suspect >>>> she originated from west of there - allods at Somal (in the county of
Huy) and Taviers (in Namur) may well have fallen into her possession
through the maternal inheritance of her first husband.
Peter Stewart
Arnulf's brother Roger must have died in the early 980s, which is presumably why you find him an unlikely parent.
sons to her second husband Balduin of Flanders, whom she married in
1051, so that her father cannot have been a man recorded as dead by 29
June 983 - unless that record is false, in which case we have no
reliable evidence for the existence of Roger in the first place.
Richilde's birth cannot have been earlier than ca 1010 to allow for the
birth of her youngest son ca 1055, or later than ca 1020 if her eldest
son was born by 1036 as proposed upthread. Her first husband was born
after 1015, and it is likely enough that she was too.
As explained in my Loon article I think Arnulf had brothers named Geveard and Herman. Another close relative was apparently Bishop Balderic II of Liège, and therefore presumably also the future counts of Loon.The record of Arnulf of Valenciennes having a brother named Roger says
that on 29 June 983 Arnulf donated to Saint-Pierre abbey in Ghent for
his own soul and that of his deceased brother Roger. Another record from
Saint-Pierre abbey represents a Roger with brothers named Arnulf, Odo
and Rainer as making a donation on 2 October 983, by when Roger the
brother of Arnulf of Valenciennes reportedly had been dead for more than
3 months, and a pseudo-original charter forged ca 1035 dated 29 June 960
- presumably drawing on the transaction recorded with the same date in
983 - represents a Roger as donating to Saint-Pierre abbey maning five
of his brothers as subscribers, Odo, Hugo, Arnulf, Rainer and Robert.
Evidently the forger had not read your Loon article.
Peter Stewart
Yes Peter the question about the Arnulf-Roger brothers revolves around the question of the dating on the charters. Koch believed the dates to be falsified as per the various citations. I don't feel qualified to comment on that, but in any case many of
On 18-Mar-23 7:10 AM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:holding Hanret. Also west of the imperial boundary he and his mother clearly had a presence in "Caribant" near Lille. There is also evidence that he held the castle of Visé near Liège which later seems to have been a castle associated with the Antwerp
On Thursday, March 16, 2023 at 10:44:13 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
On 17-Mar-23 2:31 AM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at 11:32:46 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
On 15-Mar-23 11:03 PM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 11:07:39 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
Another question Peter. Do you see Arnulf of Cambrai as a different person to Arnulf of Valenciennes?It seems more likely to me that this was one person - whether he was >>>>>> connected to the earlier namesake counts who had contested with Roger of
Laon for control of Ostrevant, perhaps introducing his name into their
family through a reconciliatory marriage, is unknown. But there has to
be some limit to how many different counts named Arnulf a region could
produce in a century.
I agree. Arnulf of Valenciennes must be of interest here anyway because he appears in Flemish records in Gent while he clearly also held lands in both Brabant and what is now Limburg (see his mother's grants to Sint-Truiden). His widow was also
castellans of Valenciennes after him were also relatives.
In any case he is the type of relative who might explain the later implied claims of Richild, although direct descent seems doubtful unless via a daughter. His son Adalbert predeceased him. As you know, it is typically presumed that the
of them must have been from about the right time. I tend to think that there might be two sets of Arnulf-Roger brothers because (1) the titles were important, and (2) because of the evidence I laid out for Arnulf of Valenciennes having a whole differentNot just an unlikely parent but an impossible one - Richilde had twoI think it likely that Hugo, Isaac and Emissa "the countess", incumbents
of the castellany of Valenciennes from the mid-11th to the mid-12th >>>> century, may represent the kindred that Richilde and Herman bought off >>>> for possession of Arnulf's countship/margraviate.
Platelle's notion that Richilde was perhaps the daughter of Arnulf's >>>> brother Roger or the niece of both men is flawed chronologically yet may
point in the right direction. Descent from Arnulf seems to me less
plausible than a collateral link.
The purpose of setting out the possibility mentioned upthread of
Richilde's having inherited property she donated in Ardenne and the >>>> Hesbaye is just to record indicators we can find, not to advocate for >>>> her birth family's placement in that region east from Mons as I suspect >>>> she originated from west of there - allods at Somal (in the county of >>>> Huy) and Taviers (in Namur) may well have fallen into her possession >>>> through the maternal inheritance of her first husband.
Peter Stewart
Arnulf's brother Roger must have died in the early 980s, which is presumably why you find him an unlikely parent.
sons to her second husband Balduin of Flanders, whom she married in
1051, so that her father cannot have been a man recorded as dead by 29
June 983 - unless that record is false, in which case we have no
reliable evidence for the existence of Roger in the first place.
Richilde's birth cannot have been earlier than ca 1010 to allow for the >> birth of her youngest son ca 1055, or later than ca 1020 if her eldest
son was born by 1036 as proposed upthread. Her first husband was born
after 1015, and it is likely enough that she was too.
As explained in my Loon article I think Arnulf had brothers named Geveard and Herman. Another close relative was apparently Bishop Balderic II of Liège, and therefore presumably also the future counts of Loon.The record of Arnulf of Valenciennes having a brother named Roger says
that on 29 June 983 Arnulf donated to Saint-Pierre abbey in Ghent for
his own soul and that of his deceased brother Roger. Another record from >> Saint-Pierre abbey represents a Roger with brothers named Arnulf, Odo
and Rainer as making a donation on 2 October 983, by when Roger the
brother of Arnulf of Valenciennes reportedly had been dead for more than >> 3 months, and a pseudo-original charter forged ca 1035 dated 29 June 960 >> - presumably drawing on the transaction recorded with the same date in
983 - represents a Roger as donating to Saint-Pierre abbey maning five
of his brothers as subscribers, Odo, Hugo, Arnulf, Rainer and Robert.
Evidently the forger had not read your Loon article.
Peter Stewart
Yes Peter the question about the Arnulf-Roger brothers revolves around the question of the dating on the charters. Koch believed the dates to be falsified as per the various citations. I don't feel qualified to comment on that, but in any case many
This speculation is based partly on a late-15th century version of a confirmation by Otto I dated 24 January 966, reciting a list of
benefactions to Nivelles, in which several donors are accorded the title 'count' but Bertha the mother of Arnulf, Herman and Gerard or Gebhard
(all three brothers untitled) is not called countess ("Bertha cum filiis suis Harnulfo, Hermanno, Girardo [in the MGH edition]/Giuardo [in the 'Oorkondenboek van Noord-Brabant' edition]"). Titles, as you say, were important, not least to the imperial chancery. Nonethelss counts and
their wives sometimes did occur without stating their rank, even in
their own charters - but in imperial diplomatic, not so much
Another document in question is a confirmation by Thierry of Alsace,
count of Flanders, dated 1146 in which a donation by Coucnt Arnulf to Sint-Truiden was witnessed by no less than six other counts, all titled
so, along with nameless others ("Huic traditioni facte ab Arnulfo comite interfuerunt Eremfridus comes Hermannus comes Raynerus comes Rodulfus
comes Geueardus comes Rogerus comes et alii multi"). Arnulf's family
must have been rarely if not uniquely successful if he and two of his brothers were all counts simultaneously, and yet oddly unfraternal
enough for his brothers to be separated among counts who were not
Arnulf's siblings on such a red-letter occasion with seven counts present.
In other words, I can't agree with the analysis of Aarts.
Peter Stewart
On 18-Mar-23 7:17 PM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:holding Hanret. Also west of the imperial boundary he and his mother clearly had a presence in "Caribant" near Lille. There is also evidence that he held the castle of Visé near Liège which later seems to have been a castle associated with the Antwerp
On Saturday, March 18, 2023 at 12:13:59 AM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
On 18-Mar-23 7:10 AM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Thursday, March 16, 2023 at 10:44:13 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote: >>>> On 17-Mar-23 2:31 AM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at 11:32:46 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
On 15-Mar-23 11:03 PM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 11:07:39 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
Another question Peter. Do you see Arnulf of Cambrai as a different person to Arnulf of Valenciennes?It seems more likely to me that this was one person - whether he was
connected to the earlier namesake counts who had contested with Roger of
Laon for control of Ostrevant, perhaps introducing his name into their
family through a reconciliatory marriage, is unknown. But there has to
be some limit to how many different counts named Arnulf a region could
produce in a century.
I agree. Arnulf of Valenciennes must be of interest here anyway because he appears in Flemish records in Gent while he clearly also held lands in both Brabant and what is now Limburg (see his mother's grants to Sint-Truiden). His widow was also
castellans of Valenciennes after him were also relatives.
In any case he is the type of relative who might explain the later implied claims of Richild, although direct descent seems doubtful unless via a daughter. His son Adalbert predeceased him. As you know, it is typically presumed that the
of them must have been from about the right time. I tend to think that there might be two sets of Arnulf-Roger brothers because (1) the titles were important, and (2) because of the evidence I laid out for Arnulf of Valenciennes having a whole differentNot just an unlikely parent but an impossible one - Richilde had two >>>> sons to her second husband Balduin of Flanders, whom she married in >>>> 1051, so that her father cannot have been a man recorded as dead by 29 >>>> June 983 - unless that record is false, in which case we have noI think it likely that Hugo, Isaac and Emissa "the countess", incumbents
of the castellany of Valenciennes from the mid-11th to the mid-12th >>>>>> century, may represent the kindred that Richilde and Herman bought off
for possession of Arnulf's countship/margraviate.
Platelle's notion that Richilde was perhaps the daughter of Arnulf's >>>>>> brother Roger or the niece of both men is flawed chronologically yet may
point in the right direction. Descent from Arnulf seems to me less >>>>>> plausible than a collateral link.
The purpose of setting out the possibility mentioned upthread of >>>>>> Richilde's having inherited property she donated in Ardenne and the >>>>>> Hesbaye is just to record indicators we can find, not to advocate for >>>>>> her birth family's placement in that region east from Mons as I suspect
she originated from west of there - allods at Somal (in the county of >>>>>> Huy) and Taviers (in Namur) may well have fallen into her possession >>>>>> through the maternal inheritance of her first husband.
Peter Stewart
Arnulf's brother Roger must have died in the early 980s, which is presumably why you find him an unlikely parent.
reliable evidence for the existence of Roger in the first place.
Richilde's birth cannot have been earlier than ca 1010 to allow for the >>>> birth of her youngest son ca 1055, or later than ca 1020 if her eldest >>>> son was born by 1036 as proposed upthread. Her first husband was born >>>> after 1015, and it is likely enough that she was too.
As explained in my Loon article I think Arnulf had brothers named Geveard and Herman. Another close relative was apparently Bishop Balderic II of Liège, and therefore presumably also the future counts of Loon.The record of Arnulf of Valenciennes having a brother named Roger says >>>> that on 29 June 983 Arnulf donated to Saint-Pierre abbey in Ghent for >>>> his own soul and that of his deceased brother Roger. Another record from
Saint-Pierre abbey represents a Roger with brothers named Arnulf, Odo >>>> and Rainer as making a donation on 2 October 983, by when Roger the >>>> brother of Arnulf of Valenciennes reportedly had been dead for more than
3 months, and a pseudo-original charter forged ca 1035 dated 29 June 960
- presumably drawing on the transaction recorded with the same date in >>>> 983 - represents a Roger as donating to Saint-Pierre abbey maning five >>>> of his brothers as subscribers, Odo, Hugo, Arnulf, Rainer and Robert. >>>> Evidently the forger had not read your Loon article.
Peter Stewart
Yes Peter the question about the Arnulf-Roger brothers revolves around the question of the dating on the charters. Koch believed the dates to be falsified as per the various citations. I don't feel qualified to comment on that, but in any case many
you are questioning that, but just to be sure.This speculation is based partly on a late-15th century version of a
confirmation by Otto I dated 24 January 966, reciting a list of
benefactions to Nivelles, in which several donors are accorded the title >> 'count' but Bertha the mother of Arnulf, Herman and Gerard or Gebhard
(all three brothers untitled) is not called countess ("Bertha cum filiis >> suis Harnulfo, Hermanno, Girardo [in the MGH edition]/Giuardo [in the
'Oorkondenboek van Noord-Brabant' edition]"). Titles, as you say, were
important, not least to the imperial chancery. Nonethelss counts and
their wives sometimes did occur without stating their rank, even in
their own charters - but in imperial diplomatic, not so much
Another document in question is a confirmation by Thierry of Alsace,
count of Flanders, dated 1146 in which a donation by Coucnt Arnulf to
Sint-Truiden was witnessed by no less than six other counts, all titled >> so, along with nameless others ("Huic traditioni facte ab Arnulfo comite >> interfuerunt Eremfridus comes Hermannus comes Raynerus comes Rodulfus
comes Geueardus comes Rogerus comes et alii multi"). Arnulf's family
must have been rarely if not uniquely successful if he and two of his
brothers were all counts simultaneously, and yet oddly unfraternal
enough for his brothers to be separated among counts who were not
Arnulf's siblings on such a red-letter occasion with seven counts present.
In other words, I can't agree with the analysis of Aarts.
Peter Stewart
Thanks for those remarks Peter. Just to be clear, the way I understand it the witnesses you mention are normally understood to have been witnesses of the original 10th century grant, and not from the time of the much later confirmation. I don't think
Of course they are supposed to be the original 10th century witnesses - kindly refrain from patronising me or SGM readers generally with such fatuous considerations.and Godfrey the captive were mentioned together several times and generally understood to have been assigned by the empire to be marcher lords confronting Flanders. This is also indicated by his connection to Visé.) As discussed elswhere it is difficult
Concerning your main point I have nothing conclusive to offer, but I think in the 10th century we do find families with many "counts" at the same time, such as for example the so-called Ardennes family and Arnulf was apparently of a similar rank.(He
Produce examples of sets of three brothers all counts at the same time
and yet witnessing the senior brother's act with no distinction from
four other non-sibling counts among whom they are intermingled, and then
I will take your point seriously.
Peter Stewart
On 18-Mar-23 10:11 PM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:also holding Hanret. Also west of the imperial boundary he and his mother clearly had a presence in "Caribant" near Lille. There is also evidence that he held the castle of Visé near Liège which later seems to have been a castle associated with the
On Saturday, March 18, 2023 at 9:30:59 AM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
On 18-Mar-23 7:17 PM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Saturday, March 18, 2023 at 12:13:59 AM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote: >>>> On 18-Mar-23 7:10 AM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Thursday, March 16, 2023 at 10:44:13 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
On 17-Mar-23 2:31 AM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at 11:32:46 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
On 15-Mar-23 11:03 PM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 11:07:39 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
Another question Peter. Do you see Arnulf of Cambrai as a different person to Arnulf of Valenciennes?It seems more likely to me that this was one person - whether he was
connected to the earlier namesake counts who had contested with Roger of
Laon for control of Ostrevant, perhaps introducing his name into their
family through a reconciliatory marriage, is unknown. But there has to
be some limit to how many different counts named Arnulf a region could
produce in a century.
I agree. Arnulf of Valenciennes must be of interest here anyway because he appears in Flemish records in Gent while he clearly also held lands in both Brabant and what is now Limburg (see his mother's grants to Sint-Truiden). His widow was
castellans of Valenciennes after him were also relatives.
In any case he is the type of relative who might explain the later implied claims of Richild, although direct descent seems doubtful unless via a daughter. His son Adalbert predeceased him. As you know, it is typically presumed that the
many of them must have been from about the right time. I tend to think that there might be two sets of Arnulf-Roger brothers because (1) the titles were important, and (2) because of the evidence I laid out for Arnulf of Valenciennes having a wholeNot just an unlikely parent but an impossible one - Richilde had two >>>>>> sons to her second husband Balduin of Flanders, whom she married in >>>>>> 1051, so that her father cannot have been a man recorded as dead by 29I think it likely that Hugo, Isaac and Emissa "the countess", incumbents
of the castellany of Valenciennes from the mid-11th to the mid-12th >>>>>>>> century, may represent the kindred that Richilde and Herman bought off
for possession of Arnulf's countship/margraviate.
Platelle's notion that Richilde was perhaps the daughter of Arnulf's
brother Roger or the niece of both men is flawed chronologically yet may
point in the right direction. Descent from Arnulf seems to me less >>>>>>>> plausible than a collateral link.
The purpose of setting out the possibility mentioned upthread of >>>>>>>> Richilde's having inherited property she donated in Ardenne and the >>>>>>>> Hesbaye is just to record indicators we can find, not to advocate for
her birth family's placement in that region east from Mons as I suspect
she originated from west of there - allods at Somal (in the county of
Huy) and Taviers (in Namur) may well have fallen into her possession
through the maternal inheritance of her first husband.
Peter Stewart
Arnulf's brother Roger must have died in the early 980s, which is presumably why you find him an unlikely parent.
June 983 - unless that record is false, in which case we have no >>>>>> reliable evidence for the existence of Roger in the first place. >>>>>>
Richilde's birth cannot have been earlier than ca 1010 to allow for the
birth of her youngest son ca 1055, or later than ca 1020 if her eldest
son was born by 1036 as proposed upthread. Her first husband was born >>>>>> after 1015, and it is likely enough that she was too.
As explained in my Loon article I think Arnulf had brothers named Geveard and Herman. Another close relative was apparently Bishop Balderic II of Liège, and therefore presumably also the future counts of Loon.The record of Arnulf of Valenciennes having a brother named Roger says
that on 29 June 983 Arnulf donated to Saint-Pierre abbey in Ghent for >>>>>> his own soul and that of his deceased brother Roger. Another record from
Saint-Pierre abbey represents a Roger with brothers named Arnulf, Odo >>>>>> and Rainer as making a donation on 2 October 983, by when Roger the >>>>>> brother of Arnulf of Valenciennes reportedly had been dead for more than
3 months, and a pseudo-original charter forged ca 1035 dated 29 June 960
- presumably drawing on the transaction recorded with the same date in
983 - represents a Roger as donating to Saint-Pierre abbey maning five
of his brothers as subscribers, Odo, Hugo, Arnulf, Rainer and Robert. >>>>>> Evidently the forger had not read your Loon article.
Peter Stewart
Yes Peter the question about the Arnulf-Roger brothers revolves around the question of the dating on the charters. Koch believed the dates to be falsified as per the various citations. I don't feel qualified to comment on that, but in any case
think you are questioning that, but just to be sure.This speculation is based partly on a late-15th century version of a >>>> confirmation by Otto I dated 24 January 966, reciting a list of
benefactions to Nivelles, in which several donors are accorded the title
'count' but Bertha the mother of Arnulf, Herman and Gerard or Gebhard >>>> (all three brothers untitled) is not called countess ("Bertha cum filiis
suis Harnulfo, Hermanno, Girardo [in the MGH edition]/Giuardo [in the >>>> 'Oorkondenboek van Noord-Brabant' edition]"). Titles, as you say, were >>>> important, not least to the imperial chancery. Nonethelss counts and >>>> their wives sometimes did occur without stating their rank, even in >>>> their own charters - but in imperial diplomatic, not so much
Another document in question is a confirmation by Thierry of Alsace, >>>> count of Flanders, dated 1146 in which a donation by Coucnt Arnulf to >>>> Sint-Truiden was witnessed by no less than six other counts, all titled >>>> so, along with nameless others ("Huic traditioni facte ab Arnulfo comite
interfuerunt Eremfridus comes Hermannus comes Raynerus comes Rodulfus >>>> comes Geueardus comes Rogerus comes et alii multi"). Arnulf's family >>>> must have been rarely if not uniquely successful if he and two of his >>>> brothers were all counts simultaneously, and yet oddly unfraternal
enough for his brothers to be separated among counts who were not
Arnulf's siblings on such a red-letter occasion with seven counts present.
In other words, I can't agree with the analysis of Aarts.
Peter Stewart
Thanks for those remarks Peter. Just to be clear, the way I understand it the witnesses you mention are normally understood to have been witnesses of the original 10th century grant, and not from the time of the much later confirmation. I don't
He and Godfrey the captive were mentioned together several times and generally understood to have been assigned by the empire to be marcher lords confronting Flanders. This is also indicated by his connection to Visé.) As discussed elswhere it isOf course they are supposed to be the original 10th century witnesses - >> kindly refrain from patronising me or SGM readers generally with such
fatuous considerations.
Concerning your main point I have nothing conclusive to offer, but I think in the 10th century we do find families with many "counts" at the same time, such as for example the so-called Ardennes family and Arnulf was apparently of a similar rank.(
the document involved the family inheritance. I am not sure how strict we can be about that, but you are certainly making a reasonable point. On the other hand we do not know who the other counts in this list are, and whether they also had a claim on theProduce examples of sets of three brothers all counts at the same time
and yet witnessing the senior brother's act with no distinction from
four other non-sibling counts among whom they are intermingled, and then >> I will take your point seriously.
Peter Stewart
Peter if I understand correctly your point is not that there are no other examples of multiple brothers being counts, but that they would always appear next to each other in witness lists, and they would generally be noted as brothers, especially if
The Sint-Truiden chronicle is not highly reliable, and it identifiesvery much. It is already very significant that we can connect Arnulf to acts made in Gent, places in Artois, and important imperial offices in Lotharingia. This shows that he must have had a very interesting family background (which we can now only guess
this Arnulf as count of Flanders rather than of Valenciennes, but it
states that his donation to the abbey was made at the request of his
mother Bertha while she was on her deathbed after visiting Aachen and
that she died on 16 July 967 (at odds with other information).
Even supposing that her illness had brought together seven counts at Sint-Truiden, of whom at least three were her own sons, how then to
explain why Emperor Otto I in the year before had not deigned to call
this widowed great lady countess or any of her sons count?
In 967 Arnulf was evidently not yet the father of his only recorded son Adalbert, who occurs three decades later, so that however many brothers
he may have had were his presumptive heirs with an equal interest in carrying out their mother's dying wishes. The idea that in these circumstances they would be named merely as present at his ceremonial handover along with four other counts not stated to have any family connection is a pretzel-stretch of credulity that Aarts may have accomplished, but I won't try to emulate.
Just because some aspects of comital titulation may appear hazy to you
does not mean that these were equally murky to medieval observers or
that they might have scattered the title count around like confetti to
mark their way through the fog.
OTOH, the proposal that we can equate the two Berthas and their two eldest sons named Arnulf does not totally rely on any of the witnesses in Sint-Truiden. In the end though, the extra information the other Bertha could bring to the discussion is not
The proposal that we can equate Bertha the mother of Arnulf of
Valenciennes with the donor to Nivelles in Otto I's confirmation is practically baseless without tacking onto it the tendentious proposal of Aarts. If you think otherwise, why not elucidate this rather than just tossing it into a post without detail?
The names Bertha and Arnulf were far too common to conclude that every mother/son pair must be the same people, and as pointed out before if
the second son named by Otto I was Girard as the MGH editor read it
rather than the peculiar form Givard then Aarts is short of one corner
for his triangulation that was implausible anyway.
If you want to have a discussion about Vanderkindere's unacceptable
proposal of Bertha's parentage, it would be courteous to SGM readers to start a new thread and specify this in more detail than just to say it
"has to be rejected" - not everyone here has ready access to, or hangs
on, everything he published.
Peter Stewart
On Sunday, March 19, 2023 at 12:33:54 AM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:also holding Hanret. Also west of the imperial boundary he and his mother clearly had a presence in "Caribant" near Lille. There is also evidence that he held the castle of Visé near Liège which later seems to have been a castle associated with the
On 18-Mar-23 10:11 PM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Saturday, March 18, 2023 at 9:30:59 AM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
On 18-Mar-23 7:17 PM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Saturday, March 18, 2023 at 12:13:59 AM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
On 18-Mar-23 7:10 AM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Thursday, March 16, 2023 at 10:44:13 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
On 17-Mar-23 2:31 AM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at 11:32:46 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
On 15-Mar-23 11:03 PM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 11:07:39 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
Another question Peter. Do you see Arnulf of Cambrai as a different person to Arnulf of Valenciennes?It seems more likely to me that this was one person - whether he was
connected to the earlier namesake counts who had contested with Roger of
Laon for control of Ostrevant, perhaps introducing his name into their
family through a reconciliatory marriage, is unknown. But there has to
be some limit to how many different counts named Arnulf a region could
produce in a century.
I agree. Arnulf of Valenciennes must be of interest here anyway because he appears in Flemish records in Gent while he clearly also held lands in both Brabant and what is now Limburg (see his mother's grants to Sint-Truiden). His widow was
castellans of Valenciennes after him were also relatives.
In any case he is the type of relative who might explain the later implied claims of Richild, although direct descent seems doubtful unless via a daughter. His son Adalbert predeceased him. As you know, it is typically presumed that the
many of them must have been from about the right time. I tend to think that there might be two sets of Arnulf-Roger brothers because (1) the titles were important, and (2) because of the evidence I laid out for Arnulf of Valenciennes having a wholeNot just an unlikely parent but an impossible one - Richilde had twoI think it likely that Hugo, Isaac and Emissa "the countess", incumbents
of the castellany of Valenciennes from the mid-11th to the mid-12th
century, may represent the kindred that Richilde and Herman bought off
for possession of Arnulf's countship/margraviate.
Platelle's notion that Richilde was perhaps the daughter of Arnulf's
brother Roger or the niece of both men is flawed chronologically yet may
point in the right direction. Descent from Arnulf seems to me less
plausible than a collateral link.
The purpose of setting out the possibility mentioned upthread of >>>>>>>> Richilde's having inherited property she donated in Ardenne and the
Hesbaye is just to record indicators we can find, not to advocate for
her birth family's placement in that region east from Mons as I suspect
she originated from west of there - allods at Somal (in the county of
Huy) and Taviers (in Namur) may well have fallen into her possession
through the maternal inheritance of her first husband.
Peter Stewart
Arnulf's brother Roger must have died in the early 980s, which is presumably why you find him an unlikely parent.
sons to her second husband Balduin of Flanders, whom she married in >>>>>> 1051, so that her father cannot have been a man recorded as dead by 29
June 983 - unless that record is false, in which case we have no >>>>>> reliable evidence for the existence of Roger in the first place. >>>>>>
Richilde's birth cannot have been earlier than ca 1010 to allow for the
birth of her youngest son ca 1055, or later than ca 1020 if her eldest
son was born by 1036 as proposed upthread. Her first husband was born
after 1015, and it is likely enough that she was too.
As explained in my Loon article I think Arnulf had brothers named Geveard and Herman. Another close relative was apparently Bishop Balderic II of Liège, and therefore presumably also the future counts of Loon.The record of Arnulf of Valenciennes having a brother named Roger says
that on 29 June 983 Arnulf donated to Saint-Pierre abbey in Ghent for
his own soul and that of his deceased brother Roger. Another record from
Saint-Pierre abbey represents a Roger with brothers named Arnulf, Odo
and Rainer as making a donation on 2 October 983, by when Roger the >>>>>> brother of Arnulf of Valenciennes reportedly had been dead for more than
3 months, and a pseudo-original charter forged ca 1035 dated 29 June 960
- presumably drawing on the transaction recorded with the same date in
983 - represents a Roger as donating to Saint-Pierre abbey maning five
of his brothers as subscribers, Odo, Hugo, Arnulf, Rainer and Robert.
Evidently the forger had not read your Loon article.
Peter Stewart
Yes Peter the question about the Arnulf-Roger brothers revolves around the question of the dating on the charters. Koch believed the dates to be falsified as per the various citations. I don't feel qualified to comment on that, but in any case
think you are questioning that, but just to be sure.This speculation is based partly on a late-15th century version of a >>>> confirmation by Otto I dated 24 January 966, reciting a list of
benefactions to Nivelles, in which several donors are accorded the title
'count' but Bertha the mother of Arnulf, Herman and Gerard or Gebhard >>>> (all three brothers untitled) is not called countess ("Bertha cum filiis
suis Harnulfo, Hermanno, Girardo [in the MGH edition]/Giuardo [in the >>>> 'Oorkondenboek van Noord-Brabant' edition]"). Titles, as you say, were
important, not least to the imperial chancery. Nonethelss counts and >>>> their wives sometimes did occur without stating their rank, even in >>>> their own charters - but in imperial diplomatic, not so much
Another document in question is a confirmation by Thierry of Alsace, >>>> count of Flanders, dated 1146 in which a donation by Coucnt Arnulf to >>>> Sint-Truiden was witnessed by no less than six other counts, all titled
so, along with nameless others ("Huic traditioni facte ab Arnulfo comite
interfuerunt Eremfridus comes Hermannus comes Raynerus comes Rodulfus >>>> comes Geueardus comes Rogerus comes et alii multi"). Arnulf's family >>>> must have been rarely if not uniquely successful if he and two of his >>>> brothers were all counts simultaneously, and yet oddly unfraternal >>>> enough for his brothers to be separated among counts who were not >>>> Arnulf's siblings on such a red-letter occasion with seven counts present.
In other words, I can't agree with the analysis of Aarts.
Peter Stewart
Thanks for those remarks Peter. Just to be clear, the way I understand it the witnesses you mention are normally understood to have been witnesses of the original 10th century grant, and not from the time of the much later confirmation. I don't
He and Godfrey the captive were mentioned together several times and generally understood to have been assigned by the empire to be marcher lords confronting Flanders. This is also indicated by his connection to Visé.) As discussed elswhere it isOf course they are supposed to be the original 10th century witnesses - >> kindly refrain from patronising me or SGM readers generally with such >> fatuous considerations.
Concerning your main point I have nothing conclusive to offer, but I think in the 10th century we do find families with many "counts" at the same time, such as for example the so-called Ardennes family and Arnulf was apparently of a similar rank.(
if the document involved the family inheritance. I am not sure how strict we can be about that, but you are certainly making a reasonable point. On the other hand we do not know who the other counts in this list are, and whether they also had a claim onProduce examples of sets of three brothers all counts at the same time >> and yet witnessing the senior brother's act with no distinction from
four other non-sibling counts among whom they are intermingled, and then
I will take your point seriously.
Peter Stewart
Peter if I understand correctly your point is not that there are no other examples of multiple brothers being counts, but that they would always appear next to each other in witness lists, and they would generally be noted as brothers, especially
not very much. It is already very significant that we can connect Arnulf to acts made in Gent, places in Artois, and important imperial offices in Lotharingia. This shows that he must have had a very interesting family background (which we can now onlyThe Sint-Truiden chronicle is not highly reliable, and it identifies
this Arnulf as count of Flanders rather than of Valenciennes, but it states that his donation to the abbey was made at the request of his mother Bertha while she was on her deathbed after visiting Aachen and
that she died on 16 July 967 (at odds with other information).
Even supposing that her illness had brought together seven counts at Sint-Truiden, of whom at least three were her own sons, how then to explain why Emperor Otto I in the year before had not deigned to call
this widowed great lady countess or any of her sons count?
In 967 Arnulf was evidently not yet the father of his only recorded son Adalbert, who occurs three decades later, so that however many brothers
he may have had were his presumptive heirs with an equal interest in carrying out their mother's dying wishes. The idea that in these circumstances they would be named merely as present at his ceremonial handover along with four other counts not stated to have any family connection is a pretzel-stretch of credulity that Aarts may have accomplished, but I won't try to emulate.
Just because some aspects of comital titulation may appear hazy to you does not mean that these were equally murky to medieval observers or
that they might have scattered the title count around like confetti to mark their way through the fog.
OTOH, the proposal that we can equate the two Berthas and their two eldest sons named Arnulf does not totally rely on any of the witnesses in Sint-Truiden. In the end though, the extra information the other Bertha could bring to the discussion is
proposed. However I am interested to check a few points.The proposal that we can equate Bertha the mother of Arnulf of Valenciennes with the donor to Nivelles in Otto I's confirmation is practically baseless without tacking onto it the tendentious proposal of Aarts. If you think otherwise, why not elucidate this rather than just tossing it into a post without detail?
The names Bertha and Arnulf were far too common to conclude that every mother/son pair must be the same people, and as pointed out before if
the second son named by Otto I was Girard as the MGH editor read it
rather than the peculiar form Givard then Aarts is short of one corner
for his triangulation that was implausible anyway.
If you want to have a discussion about Vanderkindere's unacceptable proposal of Bertha's parentage, it would be courteous to SGM readers to start a new thread and specify this in more detail than just to say it "has to be rejected" - not everyone here has ready access to, or hangsHi Peter, Although I don't really I agree with how strongly you describe the doubts, I'm happy to file the Nivelles proposal of Bas Aarts under "uncertain". (I think he would too.) Perhaps I will indeed write a quick explanation about Bertha, as
on, everything he published.
Peter Stewart
1. Can you explain what you are referring to with these words? "Even supposing that her illness had brought together seven counts at Sint-Truiden, of whom at least three were her own sons, how then to explain why Emperor Otto I in the year before hadnot deigned to call this widowed great lady countess or any of her sons count?" Is there a specific record from the year before that you have in mind?
2. You write: "The Sint-Truiden chronicle is not highly reliable, and it identifies this Arnulf as count of Flanders rather than of Valenciennes". The chronicle is really at least 4 different works. IMOH there has been a problem of historians callingit unreliable for the bits that they don't like, but then relying on other parts of it. So we need to look at the details. Granted, this record is in a 14th century part, but it concerns an important grant which was still being commemorated and the
In fact, the reason that we also know about this grant from a later confirmation by the count of Flanders is because the grant involved lands in Provin, which is near Lille, ie "Flanders" (or more correctly Artois). This was no one off. Count Arnulf (and his wife and son, who you claim is only known from much later) appear in Gent records in the 980s, giving grants of lands in exactly the same pagus of Caribant. So how can we claim that Arnulf and his mother are known not to be Flemish? I think we
A third question. "The Sint-Truiden chronicle [...] states that [...] that she died on 16 July 967 (at odds with other information)." Which other information is it at odds with?
On 19-Mar-23 8:47 PM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:also holding Hanret. Also west of the imperial boundary he and his mother clearly had a presence in "Caribant" near Lille. There is also evidence that he held the castle of Visé near Liège which later seems to have been a castle associated with the
On Sunday, March 19, 2023 at 12:33:54 AM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
On 18-Mar-23 10:11 PM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Saturday, March 18, 2023 at 9:30:59 AM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote: >>>> On 18-Mar-23 7:17 PM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Saturday, March 18, 2023 at 12:13:59 AM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
On 18-Mar-23 7:10 AM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Thursday, March 16, 2023 at 10:44:13 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
On 17-Mar-23 2:31 AM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at 11:32:46 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
On 15-Mar-23 11:03 PM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 11:07:39 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:
Another question Peter. Do you see Arnulf of Cambrai as a different person to Arnulf of Valenciennes?It seems more likely to me that this was one person - whether he was
connected to the earlier namesake counts who had contested with Roger of
Laon for control of Ostrevant, perhaps introducing his name into their
family through a reconciliatory marriage, is unknown. But there has to
be some limit to how many different counts named Arnulf a region could
produce in a century.
I agree. Arnulf of Valenciennes must be of interest here anyway because he appears in Flemish records in Gent while he clearly also held lands in both Brabant and what is now Limburg (see his mother's grants to Sint-Truiden). His widow was
castellans of Valenciennes after him were also relatives.
In any case he is the type of relative who might explain the later implied claims of Richild, although direct descent seems doubtful unless via a daughter. His son Adalbert predeceased him. As you know, it is typically presumed that the
many of them must have been from about the right time. I tend to think that there might be two sets of Arnulf-Roger brothers because (1) the titles were important, and (2) because of the evidence I laid out for Arnulf of Valenciennes having a wholeNot just an unlikely parent but an impossible one - Richilde had twoI think it likely that Hugo, Isaac and Emissa "the countess", incumbents
of the castellany of Valenciennes from the mid-11th to the mid-12th
century, may represent the kindred that Richilde and Herman bought off
for possession of Arnulf's countship/margraviate.
Platelle's notion that Richilde was perhaps the daughter of Arnulf's
brother Roger or the niece of both men is flawed chronologically yet may
point in the right direction. Descent from Arnulf seems to me less
plausible than a collateral link.
The purpose of setting out the possibility mentioned upthread of >>>>>>>>>> Richilde's having inherited property she donated in Ardenne and the
Hesbaye is just to record indicators we can find, not to advocate for
her birth family's placement in that region east from Mons as I suspect
she originated from west of there - allods at Somal (in the county of
Huy) and Taviers (in Namur) may well have fallen into her possession
through the maternal inheritance of her first husband.
Peter Stewart
Arnulf's brother Roger must have died in the early 980s, which is presumably why you find him an unlikely parent.
sons to her second husband Balduin of Flanders, whom she married in >>>>>>>> 1051, so that her father cannot have been a man recorded as dead by 29
June 983 - unless that record is false, in which case we have no >>>>>>>> reliable evidence for the existence of Roger in the first place. >>>>>>>>
Richilde's birth cannot have been earlier than ca 1010 to allow for the
birth of her youngest son ca 1055, or later than ca 1020 if her eldest
son was born by 1036 as proposed upthread. Her first husband was born
after 1015, and it is likely enough that she was too.
As explained in my Loon article I think Arnulf had brothers named Geveard and Herman. Another close relative was apparently Bishop Balderic II of Liège, and therefore presumably also the future counts of Loon.The record of Arnulf of Valenciennes having a brother named Roger says
that on 29 June 983 Arnulf donated to Saint-Pierre abbey in Ghent for
his own soul and that of his deceased brother Roger. Another record from
Saint-Pierre abbey represents a Roger with brothers named Arnulf, Odo
and Rainer as making a donation on 2 October 983, by when Roger the >>>>>>>> brother of Arnulf of Valenciennes reportedly had been dead for more than
3 months, and a pseudo-original charter forged ca 1035 dated 29 June 960
- presumably drawing on the transaction recorded with the same date in
983 - represents a Roger as donating to Saint-Pierre abbey maning five
of his brothers as subscribers, Odo, Hugo, Arnulf, Rainer and Robert.
Evidently the forger had not read your Loon article.
Peter Stewart
Yes Peter the question about the Arnulf-Roger brothers revolves around the question of the dating on the charters. Koch believed the dates to be falsified as per the various citations. I don't feel qualified to comment on that, but in any case
think you are questioning that, but just to be sure.This speculation is based partly on a late-15th century version of a >>>>>> confirmation by Otto I dated 24 January 966, reciting a list of >>>>>> benefactions to Nivelles, in which several donors are accorded the title
'count' but Bertha the mother of Arnulf, Herman and Gerard or Gebhard >>>>>> (all three brothers untitled) is not called countess ("Bertha cum filiis
suis Harnulfo, Hermanno, Girardo [in the MGH edition]/Giuardo [in the >>>>>> 'Oorkondenboek van Noord-Brabant' edition]"). Titles, as you say, were
important, not least to the imperial chancery. Nonethelss counts and >>>>>> their wives sometimes did occur without stating their rank, even in >>>>>> their own charters - but in imperial diplomatic, not so much
Another document in question is a confirmation by Thierry of Alsace, >>>>>> count of Flanders, dated 1146 in which a donation by Coucnt Arnulf to >>>>>> Sint-Truiden was witnessed by no less than six other counts, all titled
so, along with nameless others ("Huic traditioni facte ab Arnulfo comite
interfuerunt Eremfridus comes Hermannus comes Raynerus comes Rodulfus >>>>>> comes Geueardus comes Rogerus comes et alii multi"). Arnulf's family >>>>>> must have been rarely if not uniquely successful if he and two of his >>>>>> brothers were all counts simultaneously, and yet oddly unfraternal >>>>>> enough for his brothers to be separated among counts who were not >>>>>> Arnulf's siblings on such a red-letter occasion with seven counts present.
In other words, I can't agree with the analysis of Aarts.
Peter Stewart
Thanks for those remarks Peter. Just to be clear, the way I understand it the witnesses you mention are normally understood to have been witnesses of the original 10th century grant, and not from the time of the much later confirmation. I don't
He and Godfrey the captive were mentioned together several times and generally understood to have been assigned by the empire to be marcher lords confronting Flanders. This is also indicated by his connection to Visé.) As discussed elswhere it isOf course they are supposed to be the original 10th century witnesses - >>>> kindly refrain from patronising me or SGM readers generally with such >>>> fatuous considerations.
Concerning your main point I have nothing conclusive to offer, but I think in the 10th century we do find families with many "counts" at the same time, such as for example the so-called Ardennes family and Arnulf was apparently of a similar rank.(
if the document involved the family inheritance. I am not sure how strict we can be about that, but you are certainly making a reasonable point. On the other hand we do not know who the other counts in this list are, and whether they also had a claim onProduce examples of sets of three brothers all counts at the same time >>>> and yet witnessing the senior brother's act with no distinction from >>>> four other non-sibling counts among whom they are intermingled, and then
I will take your point seriously.
Peter Stewart
Peter if I understand correctly your point is not that there are no other examples of multiple brothers being counts, but that they would always appear next to each other in witness lists, and they would generally be noted as brothers, especially
not very much. It is already very significant that we can connect Arnulf to acts made in Gent, places in Artois, and important imperial offices in Lotharingia. This shows that he must have had a very interesting family background (which we can now onlyThe Sint-Truiden chronicle is not highly reliable, and it identifies
this Arnulf as count of Flanders rather than of Valenciennes, but it
states that his donation to the abbey was made at the request of his
mother Bertha while she was on her deathbed after visiting Aachen and
that she died on 16 July 967 (at odds with other information).
Even supposing that her illness had brought together seven counts at
Sint-Truiden, of whom at least three were her own sons, how then to
explain why Emperor Otto I in the year before had not deigned to call
this widowed great lady countess or any of her sons count?
In 967 Arnulf was evidently not yet the father of his only recorded son >> Adalbert, who occurs three decades later, so that however many brothers >> he may have had were his presumptive heirs with an equal interest in
carrying out their mother's dying wishes. The idea that in these
circumstances they would be named merely as present at his ceremonial
handover along with four other counts not stated to have any family
connection is a pretzel-stretch of credulity that Aarts may have
accomplished, but I won't try to emulate.
Just because some aspects of comital titulation may appear hazy to you
does not mean that these were equally murky to medieval observers or
that they might have scattered the title count around like confetti to
mark their way through the fog.
OTOH, the proposal that we can equate the two Berthas and their two eldest sons named Arnulf does not totally rely on any of the witnesses in Sint-Truiden. In the end though, the extra information the other Bertha could bring to the discussion is
proposed. However I am interested to check a few points.The proposal that we can equate Bertha the mother of Arnulf of
Valenciennes with the donor to Nivelles in Otto I's confirmation is
practically baseless without tacking onto it the tendentious proposal of >> Aarts. If you think otherwise, why not elucidate this rather than just
tossing it into a post without detail?
The names Bertha and Arnulf were far too common to conclude that every
mother/son pair must be the same people, and as pointed out before if
the second son named by Otto I was Girard as the MGH editor read it
rather than the peculiar form Givard then Aarts is short of one corner
for his triangulation that was implausible anyway.
If you want to have a discussion about Vanderkindere's unacceptable
proposal of Bertha's parentage, it would be courteous to SGM readers to >> start a new thread and specify this in more detail than just to say it
"has to be rejected" - not everyone here has ready access to, or hangs
on, everything he published.
Peter Stewart
Hi Peter, Although I don't really I agree with how strongly you describe the doubts, I'm happy to file the Nivelles proposal of Bas Aarts under "uncertain". (I think he would too.) Perhaps I will indeed write a quick explanation about Bertha, as
not deigned to call this widowed great lady countess or any of her sons count?" Is there a specific record from the year before that you have in mind?1. Can you explain what you are referring to with these words? "Even supposing that her illness had brought together seven counts at Sint-Truiden, of whom at least three were her own sons, how then to explain why Emperor Otto I in the year before had
The confirmation by Otto I dated 24 January 966, as discussed in theit unreliable for the bits that they don't like, but then relying on other parts of it. So we need to look at the details. Granted, this record is in a 14th century part, but it concerns an important grant which was still being commemorated and the
text of this thread copied above.
2. You write: "The Sint-Truiden chronicle is not highly reliable, and it identifies this Arnulf as count of Flanders rather than of Valenciennes". The chronicle is really at least 4 different works. IMOH there has been a problem of historians calling
Being Flemish in a general sense, or even being descended from theand his wife and son, who you claim is only known from much later) appear in Gent records in the 980s, giving grants of lands in exactly the same pagus of Caribant. So how can we claim that Arnulf and his mother are known not to be Flemish? I think we
counts of Flanders specifically, is not the same as being "comitissa Flandrie" as the Sint-Truiden continuator called Bertha. This means straightforwardly countess "of Flanders", not "in the Flanders area".
In fact, the reason that we also know about this grant from a later confirmation by the count of Flanders is because the grant involved lands in Provin, which is near Lille, ie "Flanders" (or more correctly Artois). This was no one off. Count Arnulf (
The epitaph given for Bertha by the continuator was written after her remains had been moved to a different tomb under abbot Adalard II, who
died in December 1082. The third line of this says "Stemma prefulsit ei regalis progeniei", i.e. she rejoiced in a royal pedigree. Given her
name, general location and the choice of "royal" as opposed to recasting
the line to describe her ancestry as "imperial" fitting the metre,
suggests that by the late 14th century she may have been remembered as a Carolingian descendant through the illegitimate Vermandois lineage,
traced from a king of Italy, rather than legitimately from any emperor including Charlemagne himself. But if so that is just a vestigial implication, not particular evidence.
I hope Hans Vogels is not upset by my posing as too knowledgeable.
Peter Stewart
On Sunday, March 19, 2023 at 11:36:02 PM UTC+1, Peter Stewart wrote:witness list. However it does not ring a bell with me that Ruffini-Ronzani made any remarks on this.
On Sunday, 19 March 2023 at 9:39:37 pm UTC+11, lancast...@gmail.com wrote: >>
<snip>
A third question. "The Sint-Truiden chronicle [...] states that [...] that she died on 16 July 967 (at odds with other information)." Which other information is it at odds with?The obituary of Saint-Lambert de Liège places the death of countess Bertha on 30 October, and Ruffini-Romzani and others place her death after 967 (though I can't at present recall or check why so).
Thanks for that reference. There are standard Vanderkindere/Baerten reasons for saying the date is wrong, and indeed Bas Aarts also accepted those in the older articles I mentioned. However most of them they are based on various assumptions about the
On Sunday, 19 March 2023 at 9:39:37 pm UTC+11, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
<snip>
A third question. "The Sint-Truiden chronicle [...] states that [...] that she died on 16 July 967 (at odds with other information)." Which other information is it at odds with?The obituary of Saint-Lambert de Liège places the death of countess Bertha on 30 October, and Ruffini-Romzani and others place her death after 967 (though I can't at present recall or check why so).
Count Arnulf (and his wife and son, who you claim is only known from much later) appear in Gent records in the 980s, giving grants of lands in exactly the same pagus of Caribant.
On 19-Mar-23 8:47 PM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
<snip>
Count Arnulf (and his wife and son, who you claim is only known from much later) appear in Gent records in the 980s, giving grants of lands in exactly the same pagus of Caribant.Can you please post citations for these 980s Gent records that include Arnulf with his wife and son?
There is a single charter of Arnulf for Saint-Pierre abbey dated 29 June 983, already discussed in this thread, donating an inherited estate in
the pagus of Caribant for the soul of his deceased brother Roger - but
no wife or son of Arnulf are mentioned in it.
Apart from that I can only find two charters of Arnulf with his wife Lietgard and son Adalbert, dated 1 January 994 and 30 September 998 respectively, which is why I wrote that Adalbert does not occur until
three decades after the 960s. He certainly does not appear among the
crowd of counts who were drawn like moths to the dying flame of his grandmother's sickbed at Sint-Truiden in 967.
The name Richilde is not very helpful in narrowing down potential birth families for the countess. This was most notably associated with Charles
the Bald's second wife, daughter of a count of Metz, whose only
descendants were through her own daughter married to a count named
Roger. Onomastics zealots may instinctively react "Bingo!" and mark
their cards accordingly, since Roger was the name of Richilde of
Hainaut's eldest son and she was said to have imperial blood. But of
course genealogy, like reality, does not work that way. The Roger
married to Empress Richilde's daughter was a count of Maine whose
dynasty cannot be shown to have used the name Roger ever again or that
of Richilde at all for certain, nor to have made any marriage
connections in the north-east of France. The name Richilde pops up occasionally by the early 11th century in other families closer to
Hainaut, for example a countess of Blois whose descendants were counts
of Champagne (a younger son of one of them was successor to Richilde's
son Roger as bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne); and another Richilde of
unknown family origin married to Thierry I, duke of Upper Lorraine, with descendants including counts of Bar, Mousson, Arlon etc, all
consanguineous with Herman of Hainaut via Hugo Capet through Thierry,
but no Rogers or Richildes on record before the time of interest.
The name Roger given to Richilde of Hainaut's eldest son, along with the hereditary claim she and/or this son's father Herman had to
Valenciennes, led Henri Pirenne to speculate that she was a niece of
Arnulf of Cambrai, count of Valenciennes at the beginning of the 11th century, who had a brother named Roger. The latter was proposed by
Pirenne as a possible father of Richilde, but since he was dead before
the end of June 983 he was certainly not the parent of a woman whose
last son was born ca 1055. However, Arnulf had another brother named Reginar, and Platelle further suggested that this man may have been her father - also perhaps the source of medieval confusion making her the daughter of his namesake, her father-in-law Reginar V of Hainaut. This scheme is hardly convincing from the chronology, since Arnulf's siblings most probably belonged to the broad age-group of Richilde's grandparents (unless she was born to a father in his 70s), but it has the advantage
of locating her family origin closer to the little else reported or
implied about her blood relatives. Pirenne pointed to the frequency of
the name Richilde in 11th-century charters from Hainaut as supporting
his conjecture (that he somewhat hopefully called a conclusion).
The name Agnes given to Richilde's daughter, presumably the otherwise unnamed child of Herman said to have been consigned to a nunnery by her step-father Balduin of Flanders, is not much more helpful. Roger was probably born by 1036 and Agnes was apparently younger than him if she
was encloistered around 1051 and yet had the opportunity to leave and possibly wish to marry by 1071, as mentioned before. The likelihood that Agnes was Herman's daughter is indicated by her occurring in a charter
of her mother's son Arnulf of Flanders written after his father Balduin
VI's death on 17 July 1070. This was a donation for the souls of both
his father Balduin and his mother's prior husband Herman to Saint-Hubert abbey in the Ardennes of allods in Huy (Ardenne) and Namur (Hesbaye),
which appear more likely to have come into his possession from
Richilde's own family or through her from the maternal inheritance of Herman, and so either way concerning their daughter, than directly to
Arnulf through Balduin or by acquisition. In any case, King/Emperor
Heinrich III's wife from November 1043 was Agnes of Poitou and
Richilde's daughter may have been named in her honour if born ca 1044,
which would fit well enough with her not being a professed nun in the
early 1050s and still freely able to think of marrying in the early 1070s.
Richilde herself donated to Saint-Hubert in 1071 an estate at Chevigny,
less than 15kms south of the abbey, that was specifically said to come
from her patrimony but possibly may have come to her instead from the property of Herman's mother. This lady was the daughter of Herman of
Verdun, margrave of Ename, from the dynasty of Ardenne. His agnatic
I read that Gilles D'Orval writing c1250, said that her father was Reginar son of Reginar. I dont have a ref for this but it seems he was cited
by Van Droogenbroeck work which I havnt seen either.
[knip]
Mike
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 1:54:51 AM UTC, Peter Stewart wrote:
The name Richilde is not very helpful in narrowing down potential birth
families for the countess. This was most notably associated with Charles
the Bald's second wife, daughter of a count of Metz, whose only
descendants were through her own daughter married to a count named
Roger. Onomastics zealots may instinctively react "Bingo!" and mark
their cards accordingly, since Roger was the name of Richilde of
Hainaut's eldest son and she was said to have imperial blood. But of
course genealogy, like reality, does not work that way. The Roger
married to Empress Richilde's daughter was a count of Maine whose
dynasty cannot be shown to have used the name Roger ever again or that
of Richilde at all for certain, nor to have made any marriage
connections in the north-east of France. The name Richilde pops up
occasionally by the early 11th century in other families closer to
Hainaut, for example a countess of Blois whose descendants were counts
of Champagne (a younger son of one of them was successor to Richilde's
son Roger as bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne); and another Richilde of
unknown family origin married to Thierry I, duke of Upper Lorraine, with
descendants including counts of Bar, Mousson, Arlon etc, all
consanguineous with Herman of Hainaut via Hugo Capet through Thierry,
but no Rogers or Richildes on record before the time of interest.
The name Roger given to Richilde of Hainaut's eldest son, along with the
hereditary claim she and/or this son's father Herman had to
Valenciennes, led Henri Pirenne to speculate that she was a niece of
Arnulf of Cambrai, count of Valenciennes at the beginning of the 11th
century, who had a brother named Roger. The latter was proposed by
Pirenne as a possible father of Richilde, but since he was dead before
the end of June 983 he was certainly not the parent of a woman whose
last son was born ca 1055. However, Arnulf had another brother named
Reginar, and Platelle further suggested that this man may have been her
father - also perhaps the source of medieval confusion making her the
daughter of his namesake, her father-in-law Reginar V of Hainaut. This
scheme is hardly convincing from the chronology, since Arnulf's siblings
most probably belonged to the broad age-group of Richilde's grandparents
(unless she was born to a father in his 70s), but it has the advantage
of locating her family origin closer to the little else reported or
implied about her blood relatives. Pirenne pointed to the frequency of
the name Richilde in 11th-century charters from Hainaut as supporting
his conjecture (that he somewhat hopefully called a conclusion).
I read that Gilles D'Orval writing c1250, said that her father was Reginar son of Reginar. I dont have a ref for this but it seems he was cited
by Van Droogenbroeck work which I havnt seen either. I cant believe that
GD meant by this reginar V son of Reginar IV, or else she would have married her own brother, clearly ridiculous. But what if this indicates that her father
was Reginar son of Reginar the brother of Arnulf of Valenciennes?
Something like this:
1 Reginar [983? bro of Arnulf of Valenciennes d1011/12]
2 Reginar son of Reginar
3 Richilde [c1020-1086] dau of Reginar son Reginar
I dont think the chronology is such a stretch.
I havnt looked at how to square this with the reference in Flandria
generosa that she was the neice/neptis of Pope Leo or he was
her uncle until i've read your part2b.
snip
The name Agnes given to Richilde's daughter, presumably the otherwise
unnamed child of Herman said to have been consigned to a nunnery by her
step-father Balduin of Flanders, is not much more helpful. Roger was
probably born by 1036 and Agnes was apparently younger than him if she
was encloistered around 1051 and yet had the opportunity to leave and
possibly wish to marry by 1071, as mentioned before. The likelihood that
Agnes was Herman's daughter is indicated by her occurring in a charter
of her mother's son Arnulf of Flanders written after his father Balduin
VI's death on 17 July 1070. This was a donation for the souls of both
his father Balduin and his mother's prior husband Herman to Saint-Hubert
abbey in the Ardennes of allods in Huy (Ardenne) and Namur (Hesbaye),
which appear more likely to have come into his possession from
Richilde's own family or through her from the maternal inheritance of
Herman, and so either way concerning their daughter, than directly to
Arnulf through Balduin or by acquisition. In any case, King/Emperor
Heinrich III's wife from November 1043 was Agnes of Poitou and
Richilde's daughter may have been named in her honour if born ca 1044,
which would fit well enough with her not being a professed nun in the
early 1050s and still freely able to think of marrying in the early 1070s. >>
French wiki has Roger and the nun Gertrude from her first marriage
and Alix, Arnulf III Baldwin II and Agnes from her 2nd. It says the
2nd marriage was annuled and they were excommunicated, but
obtained special dispensation from Leo IX. Theres no ref, but
Van Droogenbroeck work [which youve already trodden on] is
cited at the end. You have already cited the Flandria Generosa
as saying they excommunicated by their bishop, but does the
other info also come from this source or is it just assumed?
snip
Richilde herself donated to Saint-Hubert in 1071 an estate at Chevigny,
less than 15kms south of the abbey, that was specifically said to come
from her patrimony but possibly may have come to her instead from the
property of Herman's mother. This lady was the daughter of Herman of
Verdun, margrave of Ename, from the dynasty of Ardenne. His agnatic
In many places on french sites, Richildes mother is called Matilda of
Verdun! I see that Pope Leo is occasionally 'given' a sister called
Matilda who was the wife of Richwin count of Scarponne 1019-43.
On 21-Mar-23 12:26 PM, mike davis wrote:
In many places on french sites, Richildes mother is called Matilda of
Verdun! I see that Pope Leo is occasionally 'given' a sister called
Matilda who was the wife of Richwin count of Scarponne 1019-43.
The attribution of Matilda of Verdun as mother (rather than correctly mother-in-law) of Richilde comes from clinging onto a remnant of the
mistake by Gilles d'Orval and Aubry of Troisfontaines as above. The
putative sister of Leo IX who married a count in the Charpeigne (of
Scarpone or Montbéliard/Mömpelgard) was named Hildegard not Mathilde,
and this alleged relationship was one of several refuted by Frank Legl
as discussed upthread. The supposed connection as either 'neptis' or
'soror' of Richilde to Leo should not be taken in isolation from the
other legendary sisters and nieces ascribed to the pope as a result of imaginative interpretation of his visits to them, which may be have been
due to political support for the emperor rather than selective family reunions.
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