William VIII, Duke of Aquitaine

William VIII ( baptized as Guido, Guido - called Gottfried, * 1025, † September 25, 1086 ) from the family of Ramnulfiden was Duke of Gascony ( 1052-1086 ), Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou ( 1058-1086 ).

In Gascony, he followed Bernard II Tumapaler, in Aquitaine and Poitou his brother William VII. Guido was the youngest son of Duke Wilhelm V and his third wife Agnes of Burgundy. He was the brother of the emperor Henry III. , Who had his sister Agnes of Poitou married.

He was Duke of Gascony during the reign of his brother William VII of Aquitaine. Gascony had come to the Ramnulfiden by William V. marriage to Prisca of Gascony, a daughter of the Duke Guillaume Sanche; Guido was Duke, although he was not a descendant Prisca.

William VIII was one of the leaders of the allies, the Sancho I Ramirez, King of Aragon, arrived at the siege of Barbastro 1064 to help. This was the first organized by the Pope campaign, here Pope Alexander III, against a Muslim city -. Foreshadows the later Crusades. Barbastro was conquered, the inhabitants were killed, an immense booty was made; However, the city was lost again after a few years. The marriages, which included William daughters with rulers of the Iberian Peninsula, indicate the priority that was south of the Pyrenees Wilhelm politics.

William VIII married three times and had at least five children. After he had been from his first ( a daughter after 10 years of marriage ) and his second wife (no children ) divorced, he married a much younger, who was related to him. From this marriage came forth a son, and William VIII had to travel in the early 1070er years to Rome to get the Pope to acknowledge his children from this third marriage as legitimate.