Since its creation up to 1498, the county was directed by counts, often with various more or less prestigious titles of nobility, or sometimes delegating their task to viscounts. The county existed until its definitive attachment to the Kingdom's lands in 1660, when Gaston, Duke of Orléans and last count of Blois, died.
History
Ancient times
From the 1st to the 5th centuries, Bloisian depended on the Carnutesoppidum of Autrium[1] (corresponding to current city of Chartres), in the Roman province of Gallia Lugdunensis Senonia. At that time, Blois was actually a little growing city around a fortress built by the Romans, named CastrumBlesense,[2] and administrated by a Roman consul.[3] Therefore, the surrounding region was called pagus Blesensi.[4]
In 410, a Breton chieftain named Ivomadus would have conquered Blois as well as Chartres[5] by overthrowing the consul in place, a man named Odo who was likely Frankish. The cheftain would have established an independent State, the Kingdom of Blois,[6] within the Roman Empire itself, when Emperor Flavius Honorius was already weakened because of repetitive raids conducted by Barbarians. This entity is not well known to historians, but it seems to have resisted the invasion of the Visigothic Kingdom of Toulouse, but it did not resist to those by the Franks between 481 and 491.[7]
A county of the Frankish kingdom
The Franks established there a first county named Comitatui blesensi,[8] whose capital city was already in Blois, on the right bank of the Loire river.[9] The counts' names of that time are not known.
When King Chlothar I died, the county was administratively attached to the Kingdom of Orleans then offered to his elder son Guntram[10] until 592, whereas the neighboring cities of Chartres and Tours were gifted to the second son, Charibert I, yet King of Paris.
At the spiritual level, the diocese of Blois would still depend on the bishopric of Chartres, since the first Frankish Kings would have taken this decision in order to keep the clergy of Chartres away from politics and management of the Blois area.
At these times, Blois was governed by one of the 7 mayors of the palace whose mission was to select a Frankish nobleman to raise him as a count.[11] The name of the chosen count did not come down to us, but a civil war did break out in the region. Along with the Carnutes, the Bloisians fought against people from Orléans and Châteaudun.[12]
Hence, the title would have formally created in 832 when King Louis the Pious by making Adrian's second son, called William.[13] Then, William gathered with King Pepin I of Aquitaine to help him retake its Kingdom, that King Louis gave to King Charles II. The first-ever known Count of Blois died in 834 during a battle in this war.[14] Because he did not have any child, the county would have been transmitted to his supposed nephew, Robert the Strong,[15] who would later become Count of Orléans, Anjou, Auxerre and Nevers, but also Margrave of Neustria after 861.
In the meantime, the county was several times looted and burned down by the viking chieftain Hastein: in 851,[16]854, and somewhen between 856 and 857.[17] He came again in 882 and conquered Chartres before becoming a vassal to King Louis III. The new county of Chartres was hence created right at the North of Blois.
Creation of a Robertian viscounty
Before 900, Count Robert decided to delegate the administration of a more autonomous Bloisian to a viscount. He would have chosen to replace him a man called Garnegaud (before 886 - after 906). After Garnegaud's death, Robert as count of Blois gave the viscounty to the viscount of Tours Theobald the Elder (before 923).[18] Robert's son Hugh the Great succeeded his father. Blois remained in the Robertian domain until 940, when King Hugh is said to have offered the county to Theobald I, Count of Blois, son of the previous viscount.[19]
In 958, during the infancy of the Hugh's son, Hugh Capet, Theobald gathered with Count Fulk II of Anjou, who he is allied with since the last King of Brittany perished in 952. Both went so far as to present themselves as "governors and administrators of the kingdom of Neustria" and "counts by the grace of God".[21] From 960 onwards, Theobald got more strongly associated with Carolingian King Lothair, in peculiar during his war against Normandy.[22] However, he did not succeed in getting the agreement of the new Duke Hugh Capet, his direct lordship.
By 1019, his grandson Odo II continued the Trickster's conquests by adding to the family domain the county of Meaux as well as that of Troyes in 1023. When he died in 1037, the domains he administered were divided, until they were reunited in 1063 by Count Theobald III, Odo II's son. Meanwhile, the county of Tours was definitively lost in 1044 after the Battle of Nouy against the House of Anjou. The counties of Blois and Champagne are united again until 1152,[23] date on which Theobald IV bequeaths Champagne to his elder Henry I and Blois to his younger brother Theobald V.
In 1171, Blois was one of the first cities in Europe to accuse its Jews of ritual crimes following the unexplained disappearance of a Christian child. On the orders of Count Theobald V, 30 to 35 Jews (out of a community of about 130 people) were burned alive on May 26 near the pitchforks.[24]
The county remained in the Thibaldian family, but in the younger branch of Avesnes from 1230 to 1241 with Countess Mary, then in that of Blois-Châtillon until 1397. The latter lost influence, which was felt in the control of the territories included in the county. When Count Guy II gave up his domain to Duke Louis I of Orléans, for lack of direct male descendants and in the middle of the Hundred Years' War, the county was limited to the area between the manors of Vendôme, Beaugency and Valençay.
Incorporation to the Royal domain
The Duke established the Blois Castle as his official residence, since there was no castle in Orléans, even though he usually sat at the King's court in the Louvre Castle in Paris.
Despite its proximity to the Atlantic front, the county was relatively spared from the Hundred Years' War. At the end of April 1429, Joan of Arc stayed in the Blois Castle before liberating Orléans, then occupied by the English.
Although they were handed down as an apanage within the house of Valois, the counties of Blois and Orléans did not formally enter the Crown's domain until 1498 when Count Louis II of Orléans was crowned King of France as Louis XII, and naturally established his court in Blois that year. He was thus the last hereditary count of Blois.[25]
Continuity
In 1498, the county was integrated into the royal domain with the former county of Orléans, thus creating the Orléanais province. By setting up his court in Blois, King Louis XII not only invited his court's nobles to the banks of the Loire but also made Bloisian the cradle of the French Renaissance. The county became considerably richer, and a new castle was built in Blois. The treaty of Blois was signed there in 1504. By 1516, newly King François I ordered the conception of an ideal city, a "new Rome" -today known as Romorantin-, but it was aborted after the Leonardo da Vinci's death in 1519.[26] Then began the construction of a huge annex castle dedicated to hunting in the forest of Chambord, in place of the old fortress built under the counts in the 10th century.[27][28] This lasted for almost 25 years, until 1544. Later, another sovereign took the same type of decision by converting a hunting lodge into a sumptuous palace: King Louis XIV. Nevertheless, if the Sun King wished to leave the capital, King François I left Bloisian from 1526 to install his court in Paris. Since then, this move as well as the loss of the title of count relegated Blois to a simple provincial town.
In 1626, Duke Gaston of Anjou, third son of King Henry IV, married -not without regret- the rich duchess of Montpensier, Marie de Bourbon, imposed on him by Richelieu. He thus received the duchies of Orleans and Chartres as an apanage, as well as Blois, which was again raised to an independent county. His reign was marked by his motivation to renovate multiple castles within Sologne. After the Fronde, Duke Gaston d'Orléans, as he was called from then on, was assigned to that of Blois from 1652 and died in 1660 in his newly built residence in Blois-Vienne. In accordance with the appanagist tradition, his titles were transferred to Duke Philippe, King Louis XIV's younger brother, but His Majesty decided not to grant him Blois as a county. The county was thus attached once again to the royal domain.
Since that time, Bloisian no longer depends directly on the Duchy of Orléans, but remains administratively attached to the Orléanais province.
Robert II, called the Pious or the Wise, was King of the Franks from 996 to 1031, the second from the Capetian dynasty. Crowned Junior King in 987, he assisted his father on military matters. His solid education, provided by Gerbert of Aurillac in Reims, allowed him to deal with religious questions of which he quickly became the guarantor. Continuing the political work of his father, after becoming sole ruler in 996, he managed to maintain the alliance with the Duchy of Normandy and the County of Anjou and thus was able to contain the ambitions of Count Odo II of Blois.
Blois is a commune and the capital city of Loir-et-Cher department, in Centre-Val de Loire, France, on the banks of the lower Loire river between Orléans and Tours.
Maine is one of the traditional provinces of France. It corresponds to the former County of Maine, whose capital was also the city of Le Mans. The area, now divided into the departments of Sarthe and Mayenne, has about 857,000 inhabitants.
Theobald the Great (1090–1152) was count of Blois and of Chartres as Theobald IV from 1102 and was Count of Champagne and of Brie as Theobald II from 1125. Theobald held Auxerre, Maligny, Ervy, Troyes and Châteauvillain as fiefs from Odo II, Duke of Burgundy.
During the Middle Ages, the counts of Blois were among the most powerful vassals of the King of France.
Geoffrey II, called Martel, son of Fulk the Black, was Count of Anjou from 1040 to 1060 and Count of Vendôme from 1032 to 1056. He fought battles against William VII, Duke of Aquitaine, Theobald I, Count of Blois, and William, Duke of Normandy. During his twenty-year reign Geoffrey II faced the ambitions of the Bishop of Le Mans, Gervais de Château-du-Loir, but was able to maintain his authority over the County of Maine. Martel founded the Abbey aux Dames in Saintonge and also -in collaboration with his wife Agnes- founded the Abbaye de la Trinité at Vendôme. The first mention of Geoffrey II in the Gesta Normannorum Ducum reads: "Geoffrey, count of the Angevins, nicknamed Martel, a treacherous man in every respect, frequently inflicted assaults and intolerable pressure on his neighbors."
Theobald III of Blois (1012–1089) was count of Blois, Meaux and Troyes. He was captured in 1044 by Geoffrey II, Count of Anjou, and exchanged the County of Touraine for his freedom. Theobald used his nephew's involvement with the Norman invasion of England, to gain authority over the County of Champagne. He died in 1089.
Odo II was the count of Blois, Chartres, Châteaudun, Champagne, Beauvais and Tours from 1004 and count of Troyes and Meaux from 1022. He twice tried to make himself a king: first in Italy after 1024 and then in Burgundy after 1032.
Odo I, Count of Blois, Chartres, Reims, Châteaudun and Omois, lord of Provins, was the son of Theobald I of Blois and Luitgard, daughter of Herbert II of Vermandois. He received the title of count palatine from King Lothair of West Francia.
During the early Middle Ages, the count of Tours was the ruler of the old Roman pagus Turonicus: the city of Tours and its hinterland, the Touraine.
Theobald I, called the Trickster, was Count of Blois, Tours, Chartres and Châteaudun, as well as Lord of Vierzon and Provins. He was a loyal and potent vassal of Hugh the Great, duke of the Franks.
The House of Blois was a noble family that arose in the Kingdom of West Francia in the early 10th century, and whose prominent members were often named Theobald.
The crown lands, crown estate, royal domain or domaine royal of France were the lands, fiefs and rights directly possessed by the kings of France. While the term eventually came to refer to a territorial unit, the royal domain originally referred to the network of "castles, villages and estates, forests, towns, religious houses and bishoprics, and the rights of justice, tolls and taxes" effectively held by the king or under his domination. In terms of territory, before the reign of Henry IV, the domaine royal did not encompass the entirety of the territory of the kingdom of France and for much of the Middle Ages significant portions of the kingdom were the direct possessions of other feudal lords.
The County of Châteaudun was held in the 9th century by counts who also held the County of Blois. Theobald I created the first viscount of Châteaudun with the appointment of Geoffrey I, founder of the House of Châteaudun. The viscounts were entrusted with the government of the county of Châteaudun, records of whom are continuous from the mid-10th century. The actual rule of Châteaudun between the late 9th and the mid-10th centuries, and the relationships between the count and viscounts, is uncertain. The county was revived in 1439 when the region was recreated as the County of Dunois and granted to Jean Levieux Valois des Orléans, the illegitimate son of Louis I, Duke of Orléans, son of Charles V of France.
Hugues IV, Viscount of Châteaudun, son of Geoffrey III, Viscount of Châteaudun, and Helvise, Dame of Mondoubleau, daughter of Ilbert “Payen” de Mondoubleau. He became Lord of Mondoubleau upon his mother's death, based on her inheritance, and acquired the lordship of Saint-Calais by marriage.
Hugh III, Seigneur of Le Puiset, son of Éverard III, Seigneur of Puiset and Viscount of Chartres, and Adelaide, Countess of Corbeil. Count of Corbel.
Solemnis was a Christian saint and bishop. He appears in the Acta Sanctorum for 25 September.
↑ Michel-Jean-Francois Ozeray, Ibid (in French), p.107, 1836.
↑ Michel-Jean-Francois Ozeray, Ibid (in French), p.114, 1836.
↑ Michel Dillange (1995). Les comtes de Poitou, ducs d'Aquitaine: 778-1204 (in French). Geste éditions. ISBN2-910919-09-9..
↑ Michel-Jean-Francois Ozeray, Ibid (in French), p.108, 1836.
↑ Goujet, Jean (2004). Les comtes de Blois et de Champagne et leur descendance agnatique - Généalogie et histoire d'une dynastie féodale Xe-XVIIe siècle. Publication: Saint-Sébastien-de-Morsent. p.22.
↑ Sassier, Yves (2004). Structures du pouvoir, royauté et res publica (France, IXe-XIIe s.). Presses universitaire de Rouen. p.60.
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