House of Avesnes
Avesnes was a Frankish noble family.
Around the year 1000 the whole area belonged to the city of Avesnes (today France Dep. Nord) to the territory of the County of Hainaut. One of the most powerful vassals of the Count was Wederich the Red ( Wéderic ), Lord of Leuze and Condé. His son Wederich II " the Bearded " and his son Theobald could build a castle in Avesnes. This should be once the headquarters of the eponymous family. Neither ego only daughter Ada married the governor of Doornick, Fast Radus of Oisy († June 5, 1093 ).
The gentlemen of the House of Avesnes d' Oisy
After the family became extinct soon Neither ego, the d' Oisys inherited a large part of the property. Already Almost Radus ' son Goswin d' Oisy, Mr. Avesnes, Condé and Leuze could call. This makes them among the most powerful men of the Count of Hainaut. On the one hand this had newly acquired social status are respected and on the other hand tried the first gentlemen of the House of Avesnes d' Oisy systematically expand its position by at stimulating their fief. Although relatively little is known about these beginnings of the family, whose rule strategy seems to have paid off, because in the 1100s married Theobald of Avesnes, the great-nephew of Goswins Oisy, Richildis of Hainault, the daughter of Count Baldwin III.
Although Theobald died before his father at a young age and you had to put the ambitious project of intermarriage with the family of the Prince initially been shelved, the marriage proves a certain peak position of Avesnes within the hen Gauer nobility.
With James of Avesnes († 1191 ) entered a prominent figure on the stage of international politics. Even a comrade in arms King Richard the Lionheart ' he was married to the heiress of the Lords of Guise and his family could with this new marriage out extensive possessions. It is likely that the English king had his fingers in the pie, as Jacob's children, the social promotion to the aristocracy. The English king needed support in the ranks of the French nobility and provided through the intercession with various high lords for his protege. So Jacob married eldest son, Walter II of Avesnes, an heiress of the house of Champagne and thus became the Count of Blois and Chartres, and Burkhard Avesnes married the sister of the Countess of Flanders. But the daughters of Jacob were married on great men. So Mathilde became the Countess of Chiny after she had married in 1206 Louis IV of Chiny, Ida mistress of Enghien and Ada Countess of Soissons.
While the County of Blois already in the next generation came to the house of Châtillon, because Walter was only survived by a daughter, eventually attended the marriage Burkhards for major complications which turned in its course for Flanders Hen Gauer succession dispute, during which the house Avesnes the County of Hainaut was awarded.
Burkhard's son, John of Avesnes, Count of Hainaut, married in the October 9, 1246 in Frankfurt am Main with the sister of the Roman ( counter-) King William of Holland. When in 1299 John of Holland, died without an heir, claimed John's son of the same, Count John II of Hainaut, the territories of his Dutch relatives. After the house Avesnes de facto was the largest claims the inheritance of the Dutch log, fell Holland and Zeeland to the family, and John II ruled until his death on August 22, 1304, the counties of Hainaut, Flanders and Zealand in personal union. The house Avesnes kept this dominion, fell to Count William IV in Staveren on September 26, 1345. The inheritance went about his eldest sister Margaret, who had married the Emperor Louis of Bavaria, to whose second son, William V. ( William I of Lower Bavaria ), and thereby to the Wittelsbach family.