Baldwin IV, Count of Flanders

Called Baldwin IV Nice beard, or the bearded one, (* 980, † 1035 ) was a Count of Flanders from the House Flanders. He was the only son of Count Arnulf II of Flanders ( † 987 ) and the Rozala († 1003), a daughter of King Berengar II of Italy.

Life

When the father's death, Baldwin was still a minor, so his mother soon afterwards King Robert II married the pious to this win as a protector of her son. The reigning king Hugh Capet took advantage of the situation and installed shortly after 989 in Ponthieu his attendant Hugo. Even 992 could be King Robert II of Rozela divorce, for which the age difference was crucial after Richer of Reims. Robert still retains her dowry, the important seaport Montreuil with its castle, the Baldwin's ancestors had fought long.

Come of age presented the Count Baldwin violence in Kortrijk and Ghent restored. Strengthened in that he took the expansionist policies of his ancestors again. Bound To the south he oriented himself to the East, to the right regions of the Scheldt and so on Reich territory. First he took Cambrai, whose bishop fled to the emperor, and was made in 1006 in alliance with Count Lambert I of Leuven, the conquest of Mark Valenciennes. In response, Emperor Henry II allied with the Holy King Robert II and in the summer of 1007 drew the emperor in Ghent a what Baldwin still forced in October of the same year in Aachen for submission to the emperor.

Not long after that, Baldwin approached the emperor on diplomatic channels, of which he was eventually Walcheren ( 1012) and Valenciennes (1015 ) as a fief from the imperial hand, at Cambrai, however, he had to renounce his earldom was handed over to the bishop. This, however, Baldwin was the first Count of Flanders of fasting on imperial soil foot (see " Empire Flanders " ) and thus stood to France and to the kingdom in vassalage.

The agreement with the emperor was deepened by its closed around 1012 marriage to Otgiva of Luxembourg, who was a niece of Empress Cunegonde. The emerged from the marriage Heritage

• Baldwin V († 1067) proved a rebellious son who repeatedly rose against Baldwin IV. Apparently the father was there once even banished from Flanders, so that only the Norman Duke Robert I was able to obtain via mediation his return. Father and son were reconciled in 1030 at a meeting in Oudenaarde.

After the death of Baldwin IV Otgiva 1031 Eleanor, married a daughter of the Norman Duke Richard II, with whom he had one daughter:

• Judith († March 5, 1094 ) ∞ 1051 Earl Tostig of Northumbria († 1066)
• ∞ 1071 Duke Welf I of Bavaria († 1101)