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Godfrey I (born 940/945; died 964) was the count of Hainault from 958 and margrave or vice-duke of Lower Lorraine from 959, when that duchy was divided by Duke Bruno, who remained duke until his death in 964. [1]
Godfrey was the son of Godfrey, Count Palatine of Lotharingia, and Ermentrude. He was a sixth generation descendant of Charlemagne and was related, through blood and marriages, to the most important royal families in Europe. His great aunt was Oda, married to Gerhard I, Count of Metz, and the widow of the Carolingian king of Lotharingia Zwentibold, also sister of Henry the Fowler, the Saxon king of Germany. His aunt, Oda, was married to Gozlin, Count of Bidgau and Methingau, and he was thus a cousin of Godfrey I, Count of Verdun, whose children later became dukes of Lower Lorraine as well. In 958, Bruno finished off the revolt of Count Reginar III and exiled him. He gave his county to Godfrey. The next year, Lorraine was divided, to make it easier to defend from enemies within and without. The lower portion went to Godfrey while the upper to one Frederick. In 962, he was made count of Jülich. He accompanied the Emperor Otto I, his first cousin once removed, into Italy, against the usurper Adalbert, in 962 and died at Rome of an epidemic in 964.
The Duchy of Lorraine, originally Upper Lorraine, was a duchy now included in the larger present-day region of Lorraine in northeastern France. Its capital was Nancy.
Lotharingia was a medieval successor kingdom of the Carolingian Empire. It comprised present-day Lorraine (France), Luxembourg, Saarland (Germany), Netherlands, most of Belgium, and Germany west of the Rhine. It was named after King Lothair II, who received this territory as his share of the Kingdom of Middle Francia which his father, Lothair I, had held.
The Duke of Brabant was the ruler of the Duchy of Brabant since 1183/1184. The title was created by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in favor of Henry I of the House of Reginar, son of Godfrey III of Leuven. The Duchy of Brabant was a feudal elevation of the existing title of landgrave of Brabant. This was an Imperial fief which was assigned to Count Henry III of Leuven shortly after the death of the preceding count of Brabant, Herman II of Lotharingia. Although the corresponding county was quite small its name was applied to the entire country under control of the dukes from the 13th century on. In 1190, after the death of Godfrey III, Henry I also became duke of Lotharingia. Formerly Lower Lotharingia, this title was now practically without territorial authority, but was borne by the later dukes of Brabant as an honorific title.
The County of Hainaut, sometimes spelled Hainault, was a territorial lordship within the medieval Holy Roman Empire that straddled the present-day border of Belgium and France. Its most important towns included Mons, now in Belgium, and Valenciennes, now in France.
Sophie of Bar was sovereign Count of Bar and lady of Mousson between 1033 and 1093. She succeeded her brother, Frederick III, Duke of Upper Lorraine, ruled in co-regency with her spouse Louis, Count of Montbéliard, and was succeeded by her son Frederick of Montbéliard.
Gothelo, called the Great, was the duke of Lower Lorraine from 1023 and of Upper Lorraine from 1033. He was also the margrave of Antwerp from 1005 and count of Verdun. Gothelo was the youngest son of Godfrey I, Count of Verdun, and Matilda, daughter of Herman, Duke of Saxony. On his father's death, he received the march of Antwerp and became a vassal of his brother, Godfrey II, who became duke of Lower Lorraine in 1012. Gothelo succeeded his brother in 1023 with the support of the Emperor Henry II, but was opposed until Conrad II forced the rebels to submit in 1025. When the House of Bar, which ruled in Upper Lorraine, became extinct in 1033, with the death of his cousin Frederick II, Conrad made Gothelo duke of both duchies, so that he could assist in the defence of the territory against Odo II, count of Blois, Meaux, Chartres and Troyes. It was during this time 1033-1034, that Gothelo clashed with Baldwin IV, Count of Flanders, concerning the march of Ename.
The Duchy of Lower Lotharingia, also called Northern Lotharingia, Lower Lorraine or Northern Lorraine, was a stem duchy established in 959, of the medieval Kingdom of Germany, which encompassed almost all of the modern Netherlands, central and eastern Belgium, Luxemburg, the northern part of the German Rhineland province and the eastern parts of France's Nord-Pas de Calais region.
Godfrey II (965–1023), called the Childless, son of Godfrey I, Count of Verdun was the first of several members of his family to become duke of Lower Lorraine which roughly corresponded to modern Belgium and the Netherlands.
Otto II, a member of the Ezzonid dynasty, was Count Palatine of Lotharingia from 1034 until 1045 and Duke of Swabia from 1045 until his death.
Frederick I was the count of Bar and duke of Upper Lorraine. He was a son of Wigeric, count of Bidgau, also count palatine of Lorraine, and Cunigunda, and thus a sixth-generation descendant of Charlemagne.
Wigeric or Wideric was a Frankish nobleman and the count of the Bidgau and held the rights of a count within the city of Trier. He received also the advocacy of the Abbey of Saint Rumbold at Mechelen from King Charles the Simple of West Francia. From 915 or 916, he was the count palatine of Lotharingia. He was the founder of the House of Ardennes.
Sigfried was count in the Ardennes, and is known in European historiography as founder and first ruler of the Castle of Luxembourg in 963 AD, and ancestor and predecessor of the future counts and dukes of Luxembourg. He was also an advocate of the abbeys of St. Maximin in Trier and Saint Willibrord in Echternach.
The House of Ardenne–Verdun was a branch of the House of Ardenne, one of the first documented medieval European noble families, centered on Verdun. The family dominated in the Duchy of Lotharingia (Lorraine) in the 10th and 11th centuries. All members descended from Cunigunda of France, a granddaughter of the West Frankish king Louis the Stammerer. She married twice but all or most of her children were children of her first husband, Count Palatine Wigeric of Lotharingia. The other main branches of the House of Ardennes were the House of Ardenne–Luxembourg, and the House of Ardenne–Bar.
Count Lambert "the Bearded" was the first person to be described as a count of Leuven in a surviving contemporary record, being described this way relatively late in life, in 1003. He is also the patrilineal ancestor of all the future counts of Leuven and dukes of Brabant until his descendant John III, Duke of Brabant, who died in 1355.
The Reginarids were a family of magnates in Lower Lotharingia during the Carolingian and Ottonian period. Their modern name is derived from the personal name which many members of the family bore, and which is seen as a Leitname of the family. At least two Dukes of Lotharingia in the 10th century belonged to this family. After a period of exile and rebellion, the two brothers who returned to power founded the first dynasties of the County of Hainault and County of Louvain. The latter were ancestors of the House of Brabant, Landgraves and later Dukes of Brabant, Lothier and Limburg. The Reginarid Brabant dynasty ended in 1355, leaving its duchies to the House of Luxembourg which in turn left them to the House of Valois-Burgundy in 1383. Junior branches of the male line include the medieval male line of the English House of Percy, Earls of Northumberland, and the German House of Hesse which ruled Hesse from 1264 until 1918, included King Frederick of Sweden and still exists today.
Cunigunda of Sulichgau (893-924) was the daughter of Ermentrude of France, and granddaughter in turn of Louis the Stammerer. In 898 her uncle Charles III gained control as king of the Franks, changing Cunigunda's life for the better.
Godfrey, Count Palatine of Lotharingia was count of the Jülichgau from at least 924 to 936 and probably even until 949. He was the son of Gerhard I of Metz and Oda of Saxony, a daughter of Otto I, Duke of Saxony from the family of the Liudolfings, and thus a nephew of King Henry the Fowler. Moreover, he was the younger brother of Wigfried, the archbishop of Cologne from 924 to 953, and arch-chancellor of his cousin King Otto I from 941.
Werner, Count in Hesbaye was a count in Hesbaye, now in Belgium. During his life he held lands in the Condroz, and lands as far away as Zülpich, now in Germany. All the areas he was associated with were part of the Kingdom of Lotharingia, which during this period was no longer independent, but mainly under the control of Germany.
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