Guillaume aux Blanches Mains
Called William of Blois, William with white hands ( Guillaume aux Blanches Mains, * 1135, † September 7, 1202 ) was Bishop of Chartres ( 1164-1176 ) Archbishop of Sens ( 1169-1176 ), archbishop of Reims ( 1176-1202 ) and cardinal. He was the first archbishop of Reims, the peer of France and Duke of Reims was.
Life
Born as the son of Count Theobald ( Thibaut ) IV of Blois and Matilda of Carinthia, William was already determined very young for church service and educated by Bernard of Clairvaux. He was a canon in Saint- Quiriace in Provins, then church Vogt of Soissons and Troyes. 1164 he was elected bishop of Chartres, and despite his young age and the reluctance of Pope Alexander III. also confirmed. 1169 elected him the chapter of Sens to the Archbishop; He stepped up to the task, but gave the old for it not to.
William of Blois confirmed the privileges of the recently founded town of Villeneuve - l'Archevêque and put the order in some monasteries, restore, where the monastic rules were loosened. 1175, after the death of Archbishop Henry of Reims, the cathedral chapter elected him as his successor. In connection with the office he had time on his previous dioceses. In the same year he anointed his nephew Philip II King of France as co-regent of his father Louis VII.
But this did not prevent him to join as one of the brothers of the queen mother Adele of Champagne the coalition that in 1180 it turned out after the death of Louis VII in the year against the new king, as the family, the house of Blois, to their position of power as regent of the kingdom feared. When Philip II and Adele each addressed English King Henry II, who is the most powerful vassal of the crown was at the same time as Duke of Normandy and Guyenne, stood on the side of Philip, and also clearly see was that he his royal colleague would never let you down in France and even protect him against larger attacks of the counts, the coalition broke apart. 1182 Wilhelm submitted his nephew.
In 1182, he accepted the charte Willelmine the citizenship of Reims, which should remain about five centuries in use.