https://cunnan.lochac.sca.org/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=80.225.110.234&feedformat=atomCunnan - User contributions [en]2024-03-29T00:30:12ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.39.3https://cunnan.lochac.sca.org/index.php?title=Isabella_of_Angouleme&diff=33011Isabella of Angouleme2007-06-16T08:56:33Z<p>80.225.110.234: </p>
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<div>'''Isabella''' was the daughter of Aymer, [[Count]] of [[Angouleme]]. Her maternal great-grandfather was [[Louis VI]], [[king]] of [[France]]. She was her father's [[heir]] and had been promised in [[marriage]] to Hugh IX de Lusignan, Count of La Marche, in an attempt to unite two feuding families of French [[nobility]]. However, the union of the two [[county|counties]] would have threatened the [[Angevin]] land-holdings in France, by dividing [[Normandy]] (held by [[John Lackland|John]] of [[England]]) from Aquitaine (then held by [[Eleanor of Aquitaine]], John's mother).<br />
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With typical Angevin speed and ruthlessness, John simply seized the girl (Isabella was then about 12 years old) and married her himself, in August 1200.<br />
In doing so, he is generally reckoned to have precipitated the loss of English holdings in France: he gave the French king, [[Philip II]], an excuse to confiscate his lands, as well as uniting the independant nobility of France against him (the king actually governed only a small area, around [[Paris]], and was dependent on his [[noble]]s for the exercise of [[Royal]] power in the rest of his supposed [[realm]]).<br />
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John and Isabella had 5 children before his death in 1215: <br />
* [[Henry III|Henry]], his successor <br />
* Richard, who became [[Earl]] of [[Cornwall]]<br />
* Joan, who married [[Alexander II]] of [[Scotland]]<br />
* Isabella, who married the [[Emperor]] [[Frederick II]]<br />
* Eleanor, who was to marry [[Simon de Montfort]].<br />
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When John died, Isabella was still in her twenties. She returned to France, and in 1220 married the son of her former fiance, Hugh X of Lusignan, and had 9 children with him, including her Hugh's successor, Hugh XI; Aymer, who became a [[Bishop]] of Winchester; Alice who married the Earl of [[Surrey]]; and William who became [[Earl]] of Pembroke. <br />
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In her later years, Isabella was accused of plotting against the King of France ([[Louis IX]]). She fled to the [[abbey]] of Fontevrault, where she died in 1246. Most of her remaining family then upped sticks and went to the [[court]] of their half-brother [[Henry III|Henry of England]].<br />
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[[category: people (medieval)]] [[category:12th century]] [[category:13th century]]</div>80.225.110.234https://cunnan.lochac.sca.org/index.php?title=Anjou&diff=33010Anjou2007-06-16T08:55:43Z<p>80.225.110.234: </p>
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<div>'''Anjou''' was first a [[count]]y, then a [[duke|duchy]] of [[France]], in the lower valley of the Loire river. <br />
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In the [[classical]] period, it was first occupied by the [Gaul|Gallic]] people, the ''Andecavi'', before [[Julius Caesar|Caesar]] conquered it. In the 5th century it fell to the [[Franks]], and it became a county under [[Charlemagne]].<br />
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Lambert of Nantes sought to carve out a [[prince|principality]] for himself in the mid-[[ninth century]]; after his death the [[duke]] of [[Brittany]], Erispoe, took the territory over, and it was handed down in his line. At the same time the dukes of [[Normandy]] also coveted the lands and attacked incessantly. Toward the end of the century one '''Fulk the Red''' was made [[viscount]] and, he holding on to the lands (although he lost the county of Nantes), he assumed the title of "[[count]]". His son (another Fulk) and grandson (Geoffrey) succeeded him and the latter successfully made Nantes his vassal and obtained the district of Loudon in fief.<br />
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Fulk III (Geoffrey's son) threw off attacks by the counts of Blois and of Rennes, as well as holding off the [[France|French]] [[king]], Robert the Pious. Fulk's son, Geoffrey Martel, continued the expansion: in 1051 he beat the counship of Maine into submission, and obtained recognition of his authority, although he was not, at that time, able to obtain revenge on Normandy (then under Duke [[William the Conqueror|William]], the Bastard.<br />
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Fulk's line contined to hold Anjou until 1113, when, after a [[battle]] at Alencon, Fulk V was obliged to recognise [[Henry I]] of [[England]] as his liege lord. Henry later married his son, William, to Fulk's daughter, Matilda. After William's death, and some further complexities, a second marriage, between Henry's daughter [[Empress Matilda|Matilda]], widow of the [[Holy Roman Empire|Holy Roman]] [[Emperor]] Henry V, and Fulk's son, Geoffrey. Then, on the invitation of [[Baldwin II]], [[king]] of [[Jerusalem]], Fulk set sail for the Holy Land, where he was to marry Baldwin's daughter, [[Melisende]]. Geoffrey, meanwhile, adopted the surname ''"Plantagenet"'', made substantial inroads into the territories surrounding his own, until only the French king was his overlord (and that more by sufferance than obligation), and founded a pocket empire for himself, becoming a duke and taking over [[Normandy]] in 1144. His son, Henry Curtmantle, was gifted the duchy in 1149 (his father died in 1151) and in 1154 he ascended the English [[throne]] as [[Henry II]].<br />
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On the death of Henry's son [[Richard I]], Arthur of [[Brittany]] claimed Anjou, over the succession of [[John Lackland]] of England. A war ensued: John was recognised count by Philip Augustus in 1200, only to lose it to Arthur when John refused to do homage to Philip in 1202. Arthur's death meant the duchy came under the French crown. In 1246 Louis IX of France gave it, as an appenage, to his nephew Charles, then heading for the thrones of Naples and Sicily.<br />
<br>Later Charles of Valois obtained the duchy, among the dowry of his wife, Margaret, daughter of the king of Naples; he left it to his son, Philip, who reunited it with the French crown when he became king of France in 1328. Thereafter the title and territory remained within the extended French royal House, being granted out and taken back.</div>80.225.110.234