Herbert II, Count of Vermandois | |
---|---|
Count of Soissons | |
Reign | 907–930 |
Predecessor | Herbert I |
Successor | Guy I |
Count of Vermandois | |
Reign | 907–943 |
Predecessor | Herbert I |
Successor | Adalbert I |
Count of Meaux | |
Reign | 907–943 |
Successor | Robert of Vermandois |
Died | 23 February 943 Saint-Quentin, France |
Spouse | Adele |
Issue | Eudes Adalbert I Adele of Vermandois Herbert 'the Old' Robert Luitgarde Hugh of Vermandois Guy I |
Dynasty | Carolingian dynasty |
Father | Herbert I of Vermandois |
Herbert II (died 23 February 943), Count of Vermandois, Count of Meaux, and Count of Soissons. He was the first to exercise power over the territory that became the province of Champagne.
Herbert was the son of Herbert I of Vermandois. [2] He was apparently well aware of his descent from Charlemagne. [3] Herbert inherited the titles of his father in 907: count of Soissons, count of Vermandois, including the positions of Lay abbot of St. Quentin and St. Médard entitling him to the income of those estates. His marriage with a daughter of king Robert I of France brought him the County of Meaux. [4] He acquired the county of Beauvais on the death of his relative, Count Bernard. [5]
In 922, when Seulf became Archbishop of Rheims, in an effort to appease Herbert II, Seulf solemnly promised Herbert II that he could nominate his successor. [6] In 923, Count Herbert took the bold step of imprisoning King Charles III, who died still a captive in 929. [a] [4] Then, on the death of Seulf in 925, with the help of King Rudolph, he acquired for his second son Hugh (then five years old) the archbishopric of Rheims. [8] Herbert took the additional step of sending emissaries to Rome to Pope John X to gain his approval, which that pope gave in 926. [6] On his election young Hugh was sent to Auxerre to study. [3]
In 926, on the death of Count Roger I of Laon. Herbert demanded this countship for Eudes, his eldest son. [9] He took the town in defiance of King Rudolph leading to a clash between the two in 927. [3] Using the threat of releasing King Charles III, whom he held captive, Herbert managed to hold the city for four more years. [3] But after the death of Charles in 929, Rudolph again attacked Laon in 931 successfully defeating Herbert. [3] The same year the king entered Rheims and defeated archbishop Hugh, the son of Herbert. [10] Artaud became the new archbishop of Reims. [10] Herbert II then lost, in three years, Vitry, Laon, Château-Thierry, and Soissons. [11] The intervention of his ally, Henry the Fowler, allowed him to restore his domains (except Rheims and Laon) in exchange for his submission to King Rudolph.
Later Herbert allied with Hugh the Great and William Longsword, duke of Normandy against King Louis IV, who allocated the County of Laon to Roger II, the son of Roger I, in 941. Herbert and Hugh the Great took back Rheims and captured Artaud. [12] Hugh, the son of Herbert, was restored as archbishop. [12] Again the mediation of the German King Otto I in Visé, near Liège, in 942 allowed for the normalization of the situation.
Herbert II died on 23 February 943 at Saint-Quentin, Aisne (the capital of the county of Vermandois) from natural causes. [13] The story of him being hanged by king Louis IV (see fig. above) during a hunt is fictitious. [b] His vast estates and territories were divided among his sons. [14] Vermandois and Amiens went to the two elder sons while Robert and Herbert, the younger sons, were given the valuable holdings scattered throughout Champagne. [14] On Robert's death his brother's son Herbert III inherited them all. Herbert III's only son Stephen died childless in 1019–20 thus ending the male line of Herbert II. [14]
Herbert married Adele, daughter of Robert I of France. [15] Together they had the following children:
Name | Birth Date | Death Date | |
---|---|---|---|
Eudes of Vermandois | c. 910 [16] | 946 [16] | Count of Amiens and of Vienne |
Adalbert I, Count of Vermandois | c. 915 | 987 | Married Gerberge of Lorraine [17] |
Adela of Vermandois | 910 | 960 | Married 934 Count Arnulf I of Flanders [16] |
Herbert 'the Old' | c. 910 | 980 | Count of Omois, married 951 Eadgifu of Wessex daughter of Edward the Elder King of England and widow of Charles III King of France. [c] [16] |
Robert of Vermandois | 967 | Count of Meaux and Troyes | |
Luitgarde of Vermandois | c. 915 | 978 | married 940 William I, Duke of Normandy; [17] married secondly, c. 943–44, Theobald I of Blois [d] Their son was Odo I, Count of Blois. [17] |
Hugh of Vermandois | 920 | 962 | Archbishop of Reims [17] |
Hugh Capet was the King of the Franks from 987 to 996. He is the founder of and first king from the House of Capet. The son of the powerful duke Hugh the Great and his wife Hedwige of Saxony, he was elected as the successor of the last Carolingian king, Louis V. Hugh was descended from Charlemagne's son Pepin of Italy through his paternal grandmother, and was also a nephew of Otto the Great.
Charles III, called the Simple or the Straightforward, was the king of West Francia from 898 until 922 and the king of Lotharingia from 911 until 919–923. He was a member of the Carolingian dynasty.
Robert I was the elected King of West Francia from 922 to 923. Before his election to the throne he was Count of Poitiers, Count of Paris and Marquis of Neustria and Orléans. He succeeded the overthrown Carolingian king Charles the Simple, who in 898 had succeeded Robert's brother, king Odo.
Hugh the Great was the duke of the Franks and count of Paris. He was the most powerful magnate in France.
Rudolph, sometimes called Ralph, was the king of France from 923 until his death in 936. He was elected to succeed his father-in-law, Robert I, and spent much of his reign defending his realm from Viking raids.
Lothair, sometimes called Lothair II, III or IV, was the penultimate Carolingian king of West Francia, reigning from 10 September 954 until his death in 986.
Charles was the duke of Lower Lorraine from 977 until his death.
The Battle of Soissons was fought on 15 June 923 between an alliance of Frankish insurgent nobles led by Robert I, elected king in an assembly the year prior, and an army composed of Lotharingians, Normans, and Carolingian forces under King Charles III's command. The battle took place at Soissons, near Aisne. Robert was killed, but his army won the war. Charles was imprisoned by Herbert II of Vermandois and held captive until his death in 929. Rudolph, Duke of Burgundy, Robert's son-in-law, succeeded him as ruler of West Francia.
Adalbert I of Vermandois, was the son of Herbert II of Vermandois and Adela of France. Born about 915, he succeeded his father as Count of Vermandois in 946.
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.
Luitgarde of Vermandois was a French noblewoman from the Herbertian dynasty. She was a countess consort of Rouen and Normandy by her first marriage, and a countess consort of Blois and Chartres by her second. She was a daughter of Herbert II of Vermandois, and Adele, daughter of Robert I of France. She first married William I of Normandy before 940. As a widow, following his death in 942, she married Theobald I of Blois in 943 or 944.
Beatrice of Vermandois was a Carolingian aristocrat, queen of Western Francia by marriage to Robert I, and mother of Hugh the Great.
Emma of France was a Frankish queen. The daughter of Robert I of France, she was a descendant of the powerful aristocratic Robertian family; her younger half-brother was Hugh the Great, the duke of the Franks and count of Paris.
Artald of Reims was twice Archbishop of Reims. He held the post first 931 to 940, when he was displaced by Hugh of Vermandois. He was restored, with the help of Louis IV of France, in 946.
The Universal Synod of Ingelheim began on June 7, 948 in the then church of Saint Remigius in Ingelheim. Being summoned by Pope Agapetus II its primary goal was to resolve a long running Schism concerning the archiepiscopal see of Reims. The synod was presided by Marinus of Bomarzo, then the Roman Church's librarian. In the run up to the convocation there were two earlier synods, in Verdun in November 947 and in Mouzon in the beginning of 948, both considering the same problem but unable to resolve it.
Hugh of Vermandois was the archbishop of Reims from 925 to 931, when he was removed from office by the actions of Hugh the Great and others, his father Herbert II, Count of Vermandois who had been the power behind his episcopate was driven out of Reims and the bishopric was then assumed by Artoldus.
Barthélemy de Jur was a French bishop. He was bishop of Laon from 1113 to 1151. Some documents give his name as Barthélemy de Grandson or de Joux.
Abbo was the bishop of Soissons from 909. Throughout his episcopate, he was "under the thumb" of Count Herbert II of Vermandois (907–943).
Pepin III, Count of Vermandois was a Frankish noble; the Count of Senlis and Count of Vermandois ; Lord of Valois, and later Count of Valois. He was a son of Pepin, Count of Vermandois and Valois and thus a grandson of Bernard of Italy, who was himself a grandson of Charlemagne. The brothers of Pepin III were Herbert I, Count of Vermandois and Bernard II, Count of Laon.
Louis IV, called d'Outremer or Transmarinus, reigned as King of West Francia from 936 to 954. A member of the Carolingian dynasty, he was the only son of king Charles the Simple and his second wife Eadgifu of Wessex, daughter of King Edward the Elder of Wessex. His reign is mostly known thanks to the Annals of Flodoard and the later Historiae of Richerus.