Adelaide of Normandy
Countess of Aumale
Reign1069–1090
Bornc. 1030
Diedbefore 1090
Spouses
Issue
HouseNormandy
FatherRobert the Magnificent

Adelaide of Normandy (or Adeliza) (c. 1030 – bef. 1090) was the ruling Countess of Aumale in her own right in 1069–1087. She was the sister of William the Conqueror.

Life

Born c. 1030,[1] Adelaide was an illegitimate daughter of the Norman duke Robert the Magnificent.[2] Adelaide's brother or half-brother, Robert's son and successor William the Conqueror, was likewise illegitimate.[lower-alpha 1]

Adelaide's first marriage to Enguerrand II, Count of Ponthieu potentially gave William a powerful ally in upper Normandy.[3] But at the Council of Reims in 1049, when the marriage of William with Matilda of Flanders was prohibited based on consanguinity, so were those of Eustace II, Count of Boulogne and Enguerrand of Ponthieu, who was already married to Adelaide.[4] Adelaide's marriage was apparently annulled c. 1049/50 and another marriage was arranged for her, this time to Lambert II, Count of Lens, younger son of Eustace I, Count of Boulogne forming a new marital alliance between Normandy and Boulogne.[5] Lambert was killed in 1054 at Lille, aiding Baldwin V, Count of Flanders against Emperor Henry III.[6]

Now widowed, Adelaide resided at Aumale, probably part of her dower from her first husband, Enguerrand, or part of a settlement after the capture of Guy of Ponthieu, her brother-in-law.[lower-alpha 2][5] As a dowager Adelaide began a semi-religious retirement and became involved with the Abbey of Saint-Martin d'Auchy, presenting them with a number of gifts.[5] In 1060 she was called upon again to form another marital alliance, this time to a younger man, Odo, Count of Champagne.[7] Odo seems to have been something of a disappointment as he appears on only one of the Conqueror's charters and received no land in England; his wife being a tenant-in-chief in her own right.[7]

In 1082, William and his wife, Matilda, gave to the abbey of the Holy Trinity in Caen the town of Le Homme in the Cotentin with a provision to the Countess of Albamarla (Aumale), his sister, for a life tenancy.[8] In 1086, as Comitissa de Albatnarla,[8] as she was listed in the Domesday Book, was shown as having numerous holdings in both Suffolk and Essex,[9] one of the very few Norman noblewomen to have held lands in England at Domesday as a tenant-in-chief.[10] She was also given the lordship of Holderness which was held after her death by her third husband, Odo, the by then disinherited count of Champagne; the lordship then passed to their son, Stephen.[8] Adelaide died before 1090.[11]

Family

Adelaide married three times; first to Enguerrand II, Count of Ponthieu (died 1053)[12] by whom she had issue:

  • Adelaide, living 1096.[8]

She married, secondly, Lambert II, Count of Lens (died 1054);[11] they had a daughter:

Adelaide married, thirdly, in 1060 Odo, Count of Champagne (d. aft. 1096),[14] by whom she had a son:

References

  1. ↑ Moriarty, George Andrews. The Plantagenet Ancestry of King Edward III and Queen Philippa (Mormon Pioneer Genealogy Society, Salt Lake City, UT, 1985), p. 13
  2. ↑ Douglas, David C. William the Conqueror (University of California Press, 1964), 380.
  3. ↑ Thompson, Kathleen. 'Being the Ducal Sister: The Role of Adelaide of Aumale', Normandy and its Neighbours 900–1250; Essays for David Bates, ed. David Crouch, Kathleen Thompson (Brepols Publishers, Belgium, 2011), pp. 69–70
  4. ↑ Thompson, Kathleen. 'Being the Ducal Sister: The Role of Adelaide of Aumale', Normandy and its Neighbours 900–1250; Essays for David Bates, ed. David Crouch, Kathleen Thompson (Brepols Publishers, Belgium, 2011), p. 68
  5. 1 2 3 Thompson, Kathleen. 'Being the Ducal Sister: The Role of Adelaide of Aumale', Normandy and its Neighbours 900–1250; Essays for David Bates, ed. David Crouch, Kathleen Thompson (Brepols Publishers, Belgium, 2011), p. 71
  6. ↑ Andressohn, John Carl. The ancestry and life of Godfrey of Bouillon (Ayer Publishing, 1972) p. 20
  7. 1 2 Thompson, Kathleen. 'Being the Ducal Sister: The Role of Adelaide of Aumale', Normandy and its Neighbours 900–1250; Essays for David Bates, ed. David Crouch, Kathleen Thompson (Brepols Publishers, Belgium, 2011), p. 72
  8. 1 2 3 4 Cokayne, George Edward. The Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant Extinct or Dormant, ed. Vicary Gibbs, Vol. I (The St. Catherine Press, Ltd., London, 1910), p. 351
  9. ↑ Williams, Ann. The English and the Norman Conquest (The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, UK, 1995), p. 58, n. 57
  10. ↑ Thompson, Kathleen. 'Being the Ducal Sister: The Role of Adelaide of Aumale', Normandy and its Neighbours 900–1250; Essays for David Bates, ed. David Crouch, Kathleen Thompson (Brepols Publishers, Belgium, 2011), p. 76
  11. 1 2 Cokayne, George Edward. The Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant Extinct or Dormant, ed. Vicary Gibbs, Vol. I (The St. Catherine Press, Ltd., London, 1910), p. 352
  12. ↑ Cokayne, George Edward. The Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant Extinct or Dormant, ed. Vicary Gibbs, Vol. I (The St. Catherine Press, Ltd., London, 1910), pp. 350–2
  13. ↑ Higham, N. J. The Kingdom of Northumbria, AD 350 – 1100 (Alan Sutton Publishing, Ltd., 1993), p. 226
  14. 1 2 Schwennicke, Detlev. Europäische Stammtafeln: Stammtafeln zur Geschichte der Europäischen Staaten, Neue Folge, Band II (Verlag von J. A. Stargardt, Marburg, Germany, 1984), Tafel 46

Notes

  1. ↑ The question of who her mother was remains unsettled. Elisabeth van Houts ['Les femmes dans l'histoire du duché de Normandie', Tabularia « Études », n° 2, 2002, (10 July 2002), p. 23, n. 22] makes the argument that Robert of Torigny in the GND II, p. 272 (one of three mentions in this volume of her being William's sister) calls her in this instance William's 'uterine' sister' (soror uterina) and is of the opinion this is a mistake similar to one he made regarding Richard II, Duke of Normandy and his paternal half-brother William, Count of Eu (calling them 'uterine' brothers). Based on this she concludes Adelaide was a daughter of Duke Robert by a different concubine. Kathleen Thompson ["Being the Ducal Sister: The Role of Adelaide of Aumale", Normandy and Its Neighbors, Brepols, (2011) p. 63] cites the same passage in GND as did Elisabeth Van Houts, specifically GND II, 270-2, but gives a different opinion. She noted that Robert de Torigni stated here she was the uterine sister of Duke William "so we might perhaps conclude that she shared both mother and father with the Conqueror." But as Torigni wrote a century after Adelaide's birth and in that same sentence in the GND made a genealogical error, she concludes that the identity of Adelaide's mother remains an open question.
  2. ↑ Prior to it becoming a small county, Aumale was a town on the Bresle river in north-eastern Normandy. It came into the family by way of Enguerrand's mother, the heiress of Aumale. It was settled on Adelaide of Normandy as a countship by her brother William the Conqueror, but at what exact time is not known. Adelaide was the first countess followed by her son Stephen of Aumale as the second holder but first count. See Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, Vol. I, p. 350.
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