Ralph I, Count of Vermandois
Rudolf I, the Brave or the one-eyed man called ( Raoul I. le vaillant or le borgne ) (* 1085, † October 14, 1152 ), was since 1102, Count of Valois, Amiens and Vermandois. He was the son of the French princes and the Crusader Hugh I, Count of Vermandois and Valois, and Adelaide, the heiress of the counties of Vermandois and Valois. Father's side he was a grandson of King Henry I of France.
Life
Around 1120, he married Eleanor of Blois, daughter of Count Stephan II and the Adele of England. Their son was Hugh II, Count of Vermandois and Valois, who was later canonized as Felix of Valois.
He supported the kings Louis VI. the thicknesses and Louis VII the boy against the rebellious nobles. When taking Livry ( 1129 ) he lost an eye. The following year, at the siege of Coucy, he killed Thomas de Marle, Lord of Coucy. 1131 appointed him to the King Seneschal of France, after this post had been vacant after the fall of Garlande family for four years.
In the budget of the French queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, among others, her younger sister Petronilla survived. The 16 - year-old began in the summer of 1141 an affair with the 35 years older Rudolf, the IV was married to a close relative of Count Theobald of Blois. In winter 1141/1142 Ludwig found three well-meaning bishops who picked up Rudolf's existing marriage due to close kinship and subsequently married him with Petronilla. Theobald of Blois took not only his relatives and their children in his household on, but protested to Pope Innocent against Louis interference in a matter which needs to be decided solely by the Church. Support was Theobald in Bernard of Clairvaux, which expressed itself against Pope Innocent shocked by the crime against the family Champagne and against the sacrament of marriage.
When arranged by Pope Innocent Council in June 1142 excommunicated the papal legate Cardinal Yves one of the three involved in the Eheannulierung bishops, the other suspended from her post them and ordered that Rudolf return unto his wife. When Rudolf himself denied this, both he and Petronilla were excommunicated and placed under interdict their domains. Ludwig refused to recognize the decision of the papal legate, which he interpreted as an attack on his royal authority, and began a campaign against Theobald, whom he accused of being responsible for this development. The conflict over the marriage was first settled in 1148 when the French royal couple was on a crusade. With the help of two cardinals absolution for Rudolf was obtained in Rome, so that all obstacles to his marriage were eliminated with Petronilla.
The disputes over the marriage of Eleanor's younger sister Petronilla and the subsequent campaign in Champagne led for the first time also means that the legality of the marriage between Eleanor and Louis was questioned. The Bishop of Lyon was the first to point to the close degree of relationship between the two spouses and Clairvaux reached into his disputes with Louis twice on the question of why Ludwig due to close blood relationship, the dissolution of the first marriage of his seneschal operate, while he himself is no less closely related to Eleonore.
With Petronilla he had two children:
- Mabile, ( probably * 1143, † March 26, 1182 in Arras ) 1167 Countess of Vermandois, etc., buried in the cathedral of Amiens; ∞ 1159 Philip I († 1191 ), Count of Flanders in 1168, 1167, Count of Vermandois, etc., Regent of France;
- Rudolf II of lepers († 1167 ), Count of Vermandois and Valois, etc., ∞ around 1160 Margaret of Flanders (* 1145, † 1194), 1191 Countess of Flanders, daughter of Dietrich of Alsace, Count of Flanders.
When Louis VII in 1147 set off the Second Crusade, Rudolf remained as regent (together with Abbot Suger of Saint- Denis ) in France. After the return of the king repudiated his wife Eleanor of these and Rudolf her sister Petronilla, to marry a third time in 1152, now with Laurette of Flanders, daughter of Dietrich of Alsace, Count of Flanders, sister of his future daughter in law. With her he had a daughter who was married five times:
- Eleanor (* 1152, † 1213), 1183 Countess of Vermandois, Valois and Saint -Quentin, ∞ I) Gottfried April of Hainaut ( 7 † 1163 ), Count of Ostrevant;
- ∞ II) 1167 William IV († 1168 ), Count of Nevers 1161;
- ∞ III) 1170 Matthew of Alsace ( † 1173 ), 1160 Count of Boulogne;
- ∞ IV) 1175 Matthieu III. Count of Beaumont- sur -Oise († November 27, 1208 /09) (House Beaumont- sur -Oise );
- ∞ V) 1210 Stefan II of Blois († 1252), Lord of Châtillon -sur- Loing.