Enguerrand II, Count of Ponthieu

Enguerrand II (d. 25 October 1053) was the son of Hugh II count of Ponthieu. He assumed the county upon the death of his father on November 20, 1052.

Life

Enguerrand II was the eldest son and heir of Hugh II, Count of Ponthieu[1] and his wife Bertha of Aumale, heiress of Aumale.[2][3] Enguerrand was married to Adelaide, daughter of Robert I, Duke of Normandy and sister of William the Conqueror.[2][4] But at the Council of Reims in 1049, when the proposed marriage of Duke William with Matilda of Flanders was prohibited based on consanguinity, so was Enguerrand's existing marriage to Adelaide, causing him to be excommunicated.[5] The marriage was apparently annulled c.1049/50.[6] He had given her in dower, Aumale, which she retained after the dissolution of their marriage.[7]

The Conqueror's uncle, William of Arques, who had originally challenged Duke William's right to the duchy based on his illegitimacy, had been given the county of Talou by Duke William as a fief, but still defiant and on his own authority proceeded to build a strong castle at Arques.[8] Enguerrand was allied to William of Arques by virtue of the latter being married to Enguerrand's sister.[9] By 1053 William of Arques was in open revolt against Duke William and Henry I of France came to William of Arques' aid invading Normandy and attempting to relieve the castle of Arques.[10] Duke William had put Arques under siege, but had remained mobile with another force in the countryside nearby.[11] To relieve the siege Enguerrand was with Henry I of France and on October 25, 1053 was killed when the Normans feigned a retreat in which Enguerrand and his companions followed and were ambushed, a tactic the Normans used again to great success at the Battle of Hastings.[10]

Issue

Enguerrand married Adelaide of Normandy, Countess of Aumale, daughter of Robert I, Duke of Normandy.[a][12] By her he had a daughter:

• Adelaide, living in 1096.[13]

As Enguerrand died without male issue[13] he was followed by his brother Guy I as Count of Ponthieu.[9][14][15][16]

References

1. Paul 2012, p. 33.
2. Power 2004, p. 484.
3. Thompson 2022, p. 23,26.
4. George Edward Cokayne, The Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant Extinct or Dormant, ed. Vicary Gibbs, Vol. I (The St. Catherine Press, Ltd., London, 1910), pp. 350-2
5. Kathleen Thompson, 'Being the Ducal Sister: The Role of Adelaide of Aumale', Normandy and its Neighbours 900-1250; Essays for David Bates, ed. David Crouch, Kathleen Thompson (Brepols Publishers, Belgium, 2011), p. 68
6. Kathleen Thompson, 'Being the Ducal Sister: The Role of Adelaide of Aumale', Normandy and its Neighbours 900-1250; Essays for David Bates, ed. David Crouch, Kathleen Thompson (Brepols Publishers, Belgium, 2011), p. 71
7. Collectanea topographica et genealogica, Volume 6, ed. Frederic Madden, Bulkeley Bandinel, John G. Nichols (John B. Nichols & Sons, London, 1840), p. 265
8. Elisabeth van Houts, The Normans in Europe (Manchester University Press, Manchester & New York, 2000), p. 68
9. Barlow 1999, p. xliv.
10. Jim Bradbury, The Routledge Companion to Medieval Warfare (Routledge, NY, 2004), pp. 160-1
11. David C. Douglas, William the Conqueror (University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1964), p. 388
12. George Andrews Moriarty, The Plantagenet Ancestry of King Edward III and Queen Philippa (Mormon Pioneer Genealogy Society, Salt Lake City, UT, 1985), p. 13
13. George Edward Cokayne, The Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant Extinct or Dormant, ed. Vicary Gibbs, Vol. I (The St. Catherine Press, Ltd., London, 1910), p. 351
14. Musset 2005, p. 104.
15. Tanner 2004, p. 295.
16. Thompson 2022, p. 27.

Notes

1. The name of Adelaide's mother remains unsettled. David C. Douglas [William the Conqueror, 1964, pp. 381] stated that William had a sister or half-sister Adelaide; that she may have been the daughter of Robert I by a mistress other than Herleva, but that "it is more probable she was the Conqueror's sister of the whole blood". As such the question remains open.

Sources

• Barlow, Frank, ed. (1999). The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio of Guy, Bishop of Amiens. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-820758-1.
• Musset, Lucien (2005). The Bayeux Tapestry. Boydell Press.
• Paul, Nicholas L. (2012). To Follow in Their Footsteps: The Crusades and Family Memory in the High Middle Ages. Cornell University Press. When Count Hugh II of Ponthieu died in 1052, his son Enguerrand II...
• Power, Daniel (2004). The Norman Frontier in the Twelfth and Early Thirteenth Centuries. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-57172-3.
• Tanner, Heather (2004). Families, Friends and Allies: Boulogne and Politics in Northern France and England, C.879-1160. Brill.
• Thompson, Kathleen (2022). "The Perspective from Ponthieu: Count Guy and his Norman Neighbour". In Church, Stephen D. (ed.). Anglo-Norman Studies XLIV: Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2021. The Boydell Press. pp. 19–34. doi:10.1017/9781800106314. ISBN 978-1-80010-631-4. It was not a happy start for Enguerrand's successor, his younger brother, Guy, who must have been a very young man in 1053..

Further reading

• Hariulf (1894). Lot, Ferdinand (ed.). Chronique de l'abbaye de Saint Riquier (V siècle-1104) (in French). Alphonse Picard et Fils, Editeurs. p. 236. Gui I, comte de Ponthieu, frère d'Enguerrand II (mort en 1053).(Gui I, Count of Ponthieu, brother of Enguerrand II (died in 1053)).
• Louandre, C. F. (1845). Histoire d'Abbeville et du comté de Ponthieu jusqu'en 1789 (in French). Vol. 1. T. Jeunet, Imprimeur-Editeur, rue Saint-Gilles. p. 116. "L'histoire ne nous a rien transmis sur les actions de Hugues II, sinon qu'il enrichit differents monasteres et qu'il mourut en 1052, peu de temps apres son avenement. Il laissa deux fils: Enguerrand II et Gui I..."(History has not transmitted anything to us about the actions of Hugh II, except that he enriched various monasteries and that he died in 1052, shortly after his accession. He left two sons: Enguerrand II and Gui I...)
• Montgomery, Thomas Harrison, ed. (1863). A Genealogical History of the Family of Montgomery including the Montgomery Pedigree. Philadelphia. pp. 32–33. Hugh II, succeeded to the county of Ponthieu, and died November 20, 1052. His children were I. Enguerrand, and II. Guy, successively Counts of Ponthieu..

Preceded by Hugh II

Count of Ponthieu 1052–1053

Succeeded by Guy I