Anna Agnesa Yaroslavna of Kiev

Notes:

Source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_of_Kiev

Her parents were Yaroslav the Wise, Grand Prince of Kiev and Novgorod, and Ingegerd Olofsdotter of Sweden, his second wife.

After the death of his first wife, Matilda of Frisia, King Henry of France searched the courts of Europe for a suitable bride, but could not locate a princess who was not related to him within legal degrees of kinship. At last he sent an embassy to distant Kiev, which returned with Anne (also called Agnes).

Anna could ride a horse, was knowledgeable in politics, and actively participated in governing France, especially after her husband died. Many French documents bear her signature, written in old Slavic language.

Anna is often credited with introducing the name "Philip" to royal families of Western Europe, as she bestowed it on her first son; she might have imported this Greek name (Philippos, from philos and hippos, meaning "loves horses") from her Eastern Orthodox culture).

For six years after Henry's death in 1060, she served as regent for Philip, who was only eight at the time. She was the first queen of France to serve as regent. Her co-regent was Count Baldwin V of Flanders. Anne was a literate woman, rare for the time, but there was some opposition to her as regent on the grounds that her mastery of French was less than fluent.

A year after the king's death, Anne, acting as regent, took a passionate fancy for Count Ralph III of Valois, a man whose political ambition encouraged him to repudiate his wife to marry Anne in 1062. Accused of adultery, Ralph's wife appealed to Pope Alexander II, who excommunicated the couple. The young king Philip forgave his mother, which was just as well, since he was to find himself in a very similar predicament in the 1090s. Ralph died in September 1074, at which time Anne returned to the French court. She died in 1075, was buried at Villiers Abbey, La Ferte-Alais, Essonne and her obits were celebrated on 5 September. All subsequent French kings were her progeny.

Buried:
Grave location and historical portrait:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7645955

Anna married Henry I of France. Henry was born 04 May 1008, Reims Departement de la Marne Champagne-Ardenne, France; died 04 Aug 1060, Vitry-aux-Loges Departement du Loiret Centre, France; was buried , Saint Denis Basilica, Paris, France. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_I_of_France

Unusual at the time for Western Europe, his name was of Greek origin, being bestowed upon him by his mother. Although he was crowned king at the age of seven, until age fourteen (1066) his mother acted as regent, the first queen of France ever to do so.

The was called the Amorous because of his marital difficulties.

Philip first married Bertha of Holland in 1072. Although the marriage produced the necessary heir, Philip fell in love with Bertrade de Montfort, the wife of Fulk IV, Count of Anjou. He repudiated Bertha (claiming she was too fat) and married Bertrade on 15 May 1092. He was excommunicated by Pope Urban II. Several times the ban was lifted as Philip promised to part with Bertrade, but he always returned to her, but in 1104 Philip made a public penance and must have kept his involvement with Bertrade discreet.

A great part of his reign, like his father's, was spent putting down revolts by his power-hungry vassals. In 1077, he made peace with William the Conqueror, who gave up attempting the conquest of Brittany.






Buried:
Grave location, biography, portrait and effigy:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=53676134&ref=acom

Philip married Bertha of Holland. Bertha (daughter of Floris I of Holland and Gertrude of Saxony) was born ABT. 1055, Vlaardingen, Netherlands; died 30 Jul 1093, Montreuil, Pas-de-Calais, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_VI_of_France

He was the son of of Philip I and his first wife, Bertha of Holland. Louis married Lucienne de Rochefort, a French crown princess, in 1104, but repudiated her three years later. They had no children.

Louis married Adelaide of Maurienne, daughter of Humbert II of Savoy and Gisela of Burgundy, and niece of Pope Callixtus II. They had eight children. Adelaide was one of the most politically active of all France's medieval queens. Her name appears on 45 royal charters from the reign of Louis VI. During her tenure as queen, royal charters were dated with both her regnal year and that of the king.

Louis was the first member of the House of Capet to make a lasting contribution to the centralizing institutions of royal power. He spent almost all of his twenty-nine-year reign fighting either the "robber barons" who plagued Paris or the Norman kings of England for their continental possession of Normandy. Nonetheless, Louis VI managed to reinforce his power considerably and became one of the first strong kings of France since the division of the Carolingian Empire in 843.

When Louis ascended the throne the Kingdom of France was a collection of feudal principalities. Beyond the Isle de France the French Kings had little authority over the great Dukes and Counts of the realm but slowly Louis began to change this and assert Capetian rights. This process would take two centuries to complete but began in the reign of Louis VI.

The second great challenge facing Louis was to counter the rising power of the Anglo-Normans under their capable new King, Henry I of England. Louis was involved with a coalition of Norman and French seigneurs opposed to Henry. The plan was to drive the English King from Normandy and replace him.

Louis was a warrior king but by his forties his weight had become so great that it was increasingly difficult for him to lead in the field.

As Louis VI approached his end there seemed reasons for optimism. He made great strides in exercising his royal authority over his barons. William X, Duke of Aquitaine, on his deathbed, had appointed Louis VI guardian of his fifteen-year-old daughter and heiress, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor was suddenly the most eligible heiress in Europe and Louis wasted no time in marrying her to his own heir, the future Louis VII. At a stroke Louis had added one of the most powerful Duchies in France to the Capetian domains.

Henry I of England was dead and Stephen of Blois had seized the English Crown, reneging on the oath he had sworn to support Empress Matilda. So England was in turmoil. That was not to last as Matilda married Geoffrey of Anjoy [ Plantagenet] and fought to regain the throne for her son, Henry II. Henry II married Eleanor of Aquitaine and added to the hostilities between France and England for Louis descendants.

Source:

GenealogieOnline. Coret Genealogie. http://www.genealogieonline.nl/en/

Name: Louis VI France
Gender: m (Male)
Birth Date: 1 dec 1081
Birth Place: Paris, France
Death Date: 1 aug 1137
Death Place: Béthisy-Saint-Pierre, France
Death Age: 55
Father: Philip I France
Mother: Bertha Holland
Spouse: Adelaide Maurienne
Children: Louis VII France
Robert I Dreux
Peter Courtenay
Constance France



Buried:
Grave location, biography, historical portraits, and photo of tomb effigy:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=21089

Louis married Adelaide of Maurienne, de Savoy. Adelaide (daughter of Umberto II of Savoy, the Fat and Gisela of Burgundy, Marchioness of Montferrat) was born 1092, Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, France; died 18 Nov 1154, Abbey of Montmartre, France; was buried , Church of St. Pierre, Montmartre, France. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_VII_of_France

He was King of the Franks from 1137 until his death. He was the son and successor of King Louis VI of France, hence his nickname, and married Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in western Europe. Eleanor came with the vast Duchy of Aquitaine as a dowry for Louis, thus temporarily extending the Capetian lands to the Pyrenees, but their marriage was annulled in 1152 after no male heir was produced. They had two daughters, Marie and Alix.

Immediately after the annulment of her marriage, Eleanor married Henry Plantagenet, Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, to whom she gave the Aquitaine. When Henry became King of England in 1154, as Henry II, he ruled over a large empire that spanned from Scotland to the Pyrenees. Henry's efforts to preserve and expand on this patrimony for the Crown of England would mark the beginning of the long rivalry between France and England.

Louis VII's reign saw the founding of the University of Paris and the disastrous Second Crusade. Louis and his famous counselor Abbot Suger pushed for a greater centralization of the state and favoured the development French Gothic architecture, notably the construction of Notre-Dame de Paris.

Louis was born in 1120 in Paris, the second son of Louis VI of France and Adelaide of Maurienne. The early education of Prince Louis anticipated an ecclesiastical career. As a result, he became well-learned and exceptionally devout, but his life course changed decisively after the accidental death of his older brother Philip in 1131, when he unexpectedly became the heir to the throne of France. He spent much of his youth in Saint-Denis, where he built a friendship with the Abbot Suger, an advisor to his father who also served Louis well during his early years as king.

In the first part of his reign, Louis VII was vigorous and zealous in his prerogatives. His accession was marked by no disturbances other than uprisings by the burgesses of Orléans and Poitiers, who wished to organise communes. He soon came into violent conflict with Pope Innocent II, however, when the archbishopric of Bourges became vacant.

Louis VII then became involved in a war with Theobald II of Champagne by permitting Raoul I of Vermandois, the seneschal of France, to repudiate his wife, Theobald II's niece, and to marry Petronilla of Aquitaine, sister of the queen of France. He was personally involved in the assault and burning of the town of Vitry-le-François. More than a thousand people who had sought refuge in the church died in the flames. Overcome with guilt and humiliated by ecclesiastical reproach, Louis admitted defeat, removed his armies from Champagne and returned them to Theobald.

Desiring to atone for his sins, he declared his intention of mounting a crusade on Christmas Day 1145. In June 1147, in fulfilment of his vow to mount the Second Crusade, Louis VII and his queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, set out from the Basilica of St Denis, first stopping in Metz on the overland route to Syria. Just beyond Laodicea, the French army was ambushed by Turks. The French were bombarded by arrows and heavy stones, and the Turks swarmed down from the mountains. Louis VII and his army finally reached the Holy Land in 1148. His queen Eleanor supported her uncle, Raymond of Antioch, and prevailed upon Louis to help Antioch against Aleppo. But Louis VII's interest lay in Jerusalem, but this ended in disaster and the project was abandoned. Louis VII decided to leave the Holy Land, despite the protests of Eleanor, who still wanted to help her doomed uncle Raymond. Louis VII and the French army returned home in 1149.

The expedition to the Holy Land came at a great cost to the royal treasury and military. It also precipitated a conflict with Eleanor that lead to the annulment of their marriage. Perhaps the marriage to Eleanor might have continued if the royal couple had produced a male heir, but this had not occurred. The marriage was annulled on 21 March 1152. The pretext of kinship was the basis for annulment, but in fact, it owed more to the state of hostility between Louis and Eleanor, the decreasing likelihood that their marriage would produce a male heir to the throne of France, and the distinct possibility that Louis had learned of Eleanor's affair with Henry, Count of Anjou.

In 1154, Louis VII married Constance of Castile, daughter of Alfonso VII of Castile. She also failed to supply him with a son and heir, bearing only two daughters, Marguerite and Alys. Constance died in childbirth on 4 October 1160.

Five weeks after the death of Constance, Louis VII married Adèle of Champagne. In 1165, she bore him a son and heir, Philip II Augustus. Louis had him crowned at Reims in 1179, in the Capetian tradition (Philip would in fact be the last king so crowned). Already stricken with paralysis, Louis himself could not be present at the ceremony. He died on 18 September 1180 at the Abbey at Saint-Pont, Allier, and was buried in the Cistercian Abbey of Barbeaux (later moved to Saint-Denis in 1817).

From the point of view of the preservation and expansion of the French royal domains, the reign of Louis VII was a difficult and unfortunate one. Yet royal authority was more strongly felt in the parts of France distant from these domains: more direct and more frequent connections were made with distant vassals, a result largely due to an alliance between the clergy with the crown. Louis VII thus reaped the reward for services rendered the church during the least successful portions of his reign. His greater accomplishments lie in the development of agriculture, population, commerce, the building of stone fortresses, as well as an intellectual renaissance. Considering the significant disparity of political leverage and financial resources between Louis VII and his Angevin rival Henry II, not to mention Henry's superior military skills, Louis VII should be credited with helping to preserve the Capetian dynasty.

Louis' children by his three marriages:

Eleanor of Aquitaine:

1. Marie (1145-11 March 1198), married Henry I of Champagne[

2. Alix (1151-1197/1198), married Theobald V of Blois


Constance of Castile:

3. Margaret (1158-August/September 1197), married a) Henry the Young King; b) King Béla III of Hungary

4. Alys (4 October 1160-ca. 1220), engaged to Richard I of England; she married William IV, Count of Ponthieu


Adele of Champagne:

5. Philip II Augustus (22 August 1165-1223)

6. Agnes (1171-after 1204), who was betrothed to Alexius II Comnenus (1180-1183). but married first Andronicus I Comnenus (1183-1185), then Theodore Branas (1204)






Buried:
Grave location and tomb photo:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=21090

Louis married Constance of Castile. Constance (daughter of Alfonso VII Raimúndez of León, King of Galicia, King of León and Castille and Berenguela (Berengaria) of Barcelona, Queen of Castille, León and Galicia) was born 1140, Spain; died 04 Oct 1160, Paris, France; was buried , Saint Denis Basilique, Saint-Denis, Île-de-France, France. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_I_of_Courtenay

He was the youngest son of Louis VI of France and his second wife, Adélaide de Maurienne. In about 1150, he married Elizabeth de Courtenay (1127-September 1205),[1] the daughter of Renaud de Courtenay and Hawise du Donjon, thus starting the Capetian line of the House of Courtenay.

Pierre being the son of the king had important connections, a brother who was king, two brothers who were archbishops, one in Paris and one in Reims, his brother the Count de Dreux, and his sister Constance, the Countess of Boulogne. He died in Acre, Palestine, presumably as a Crusader.

Pierre and Elizabeth had ten children:

Phillip (1153-before 1186)

Peter, Latin Emperor of Constantinople (c. 1155 to 1218

Unnamed daughter (c. 1156)

Alice (died 12 February 1218), married Count Aymer of Angoulême

Eustachia (1162-1235), married firstly William of Brienne, son of Erard II of Brienne and of Agnès of Montfaucon, secondly William of Champlitte

Clémence (1164)

Robert, Seigneur of Champignelles (1166-1239), married in 1217 Mathilde of Mehun (d. 1240). Their eldest son was Peter of Courtenay, Lord of Conches.

William, Seigneur of Tanlay (1168-before 1248)

Isabella (1169-after 1194)

Constance (after 1170-1231)




Buried:
Grave location, biography, and portrait:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=58301000

Pierre/Peter married Elizabeth de Courtenay. Elizabeth (daughter of Renaud/Reginald de Courtenay, Seigneur of Courtenay and Helvis (Elizabeth) du Donjon) was born 1127, France; died Sep 1205, France. [Group Sheet]