Marriage date of William the Conqueror's daughter Adela

Moderator: MOD_nyhetsgrupper

Svar
Peter Stewart

Marriage date of William the Conqueror's daughter Adela

Legg inn av Peter Stewart » 30 apr 2007 05:10:16

On January 14 this year I wrote:

On 6 Feb 2005 I wrote:

I can remember seeing the year 1081 given for the marriage of Adela to
Stephen Henry, count of Blois, though I can't recollect where.

Kimberly LoPrete in 'Adela of Blois: Familial Alliances and Female
Lordship', _Aristocratic Women in Medieval France_, edited by
Theodore Evergates (Philadelphia, 1999) pp. 14-15 stated that her
wedding took place "most likely sometime between January 1083
and her mother's death in November of that year, shortly after her
fifteenth birthday". Further to this (in note 22 on p. 183) she adds
that Adela "was certainly married by 1085", citing a charter of that
year, but that she "does not appear to have been married by January
1083", citing (apparently a document printed in) Henri d'Arbois de
Jubainville's _Histoire des ducs et des comtes de Champagne_,
vol. 1 pp. 497-99 no. 59. I haven't seen this.

However, the foundation charter of Saint-Julien de Sézanne priory
(_Gallia Christiana_, vol. XII, Instrumenta col. 254, Troyes no. 11),
dated 1081, makes it clear that Stephen Henry was already married at
that time, mentioning a ceremony "astante comitissa uxore Stephani
Henrici comitis" (in the presence of Count Stephen Henry's wife).
No name is given for the countess, who joined in her husband's
donations, but Stephen Henry was married only once as far as we
know.

Can anyone check what is in the document that LoPrete cited for
Adela being still unmarried in January 1083?

I can now answer my own question, that wasn't resolved last year.

The document printed by Arbois de Jubainville was a charter of Stephen
Henry's father Count Thibaud III for Chartres cathedral, dated 9 January
1083, stating "Consensu ergo sororis meae Bertae et uxoris Adelaidis
atque filiorum meorum Stephani et Odonis" (therefore with the consent
of my sister Berta and [my] wife Adelais and my sons Stephen and Odo).

This is not evidence that Stephen was still unmarried. The consent of the
count's second (or possibly third) wife is not unusual, but adding that of
a daughter-in-law would have been distinctly less common. The sister
and two named sons did not attest the charter, while there is no reference
to two other living sons, Philip and Hugo.

There is nothing else in it that could be taken to imply whether or not
Stephen Henry was already married as clearly evidenced in the 1081
charter cited above from _Gallia christiana_. It appears that LoPrete
simply read too much into this.

Although I still think the same about this last specific point, I should
have known better than to dispute Kimberly LoPrete on important matters of
evidence relating to Adela.

In her monumental new biography, _Adela of Blois, Countess and Lord
(c.1067-1137)_ (Dublin, 2007) she discusses the foundation charter of
Saint-Julien de Sézanne priory in this context, pointing out that the many
historians who have read this as placing Adela's marriage by 1081 are
mistaken. LoPrete - who must know Adela's life better than the lady herself
did - is quite right, it only proves that the marriage had taken place by
1085.

The charter records a ceremonial confirmation by Hugo II, seigneur of
Broyes, of his father's original donation made in 1081. Count Stephen
Henri's wife is said to have been present on the later occasion, in 1085,
not earlier. The relevant text is:

"Quomodo vero hæc donatio firmata sit, manifestandum est...Hugo ipsius
Bartholomæi filius...ad altare accessit, & donum, ut diximus,
confirmavit...astante comitissa uxore Stephani Henrici comitis...Fuit autem
ista donatio facta anno ab Incarnatione Domini M. LXXXI, sed M. CLXXXV [sic]
firmata".

Despite the slip (presumably by the editors of Gallia christiana) giving
1185 instead of 1085 for the confirmation at the altar in Saint-Julien
priory, the document shows only that Adela was there at the time, and
consequently that she and Stephen Henri had been married in or before 1085.

Peter Stewart

Svar

Gå tilbake til «soc.genealogy.medieval»