Individual Page

Person Info

• Name: Hildegarde Of Metz
• Sex: F
• Birth: Abt 964 ^b
• Death: 1 Apr 1046 in Jerusalem ^d


Parents:

Family:
Marriage:

• Fulk III The Black Count Of Anjou on After 1000 .^m1
  
• Fulk III The Black Count Of Anjou Birth: Abt 965 Death: 21 Jun 1040 in Metz

Children:

1. Geoffrey II Martel Count Of Anjou Birth: 14 Oct 1006 Death: 14 Nov 1066
2. Ermengarde Of Anjou Birth: Abt 1010 Death: 18 Mar 1076 in Fleurey-Sur-Ouche

Bibliography

Sources for birth and parent Information

date:

abt 964/974 [Ref: Alan B. Wilson SGM 3/27/1997]

Sources for death Information

date:

[Ref: Brandenburg 1995 p5, HenryII ermen001 5/11/2006, HenryII fulk0003 5/11/2006, Moriarty Plantagenet p4, Paget HRHCharles p140]

1 Apr 1040 [Ref: Watney WALLOP #9, Weis AR7 #118],

place:

[Ref: Brandenburg 1995 p5, HenryII fulk0003 5/11/2006, Moriarty Plantagenet p4, Weis AR7 #118]

Sources with Information about marriage to Fulk III The Black Count Of Anjou

date:

abt 1000 [Ref: Moriarty Plantagenet p4]

after 1000 [Ref: Brandenburg 1995 p5, Weis AR7 #118]

second marriage of Fulk [Ref: ES III.1 #116, Paget HRHCharles p140],

child:

[Ref: Brandenburg 1995 p5, ES II #20, HenryII ermen001 5/11/2006, HenryII fulk0003 5/11/2006, Moriarty Plantagenet p4, Paget HRHCharles p140, Settipani Anjou p265, Watney WALLOP #9, Weis AR7 #118]

Research Notes:
called Hildegarde of Lotharingia [Ref: Alan B. Wilson SGM 3/27/1997]
called Hildegarde of Metz [Ref: ES II #20]

late 1045 or early 1046: departed for the Holy Land [Ref: HenryII ermen001 5/11/2006]

Bernard Bachrach, in his book *Fulk Nerra*, 1993, has on p 100:
"Fulk's vigorous activities following his return from the Holy Land were highlighted by his marriage to Hildegarde, an *illusta puella* from Lorraine who was descended from royalty."
To this, he has a footnote on p 318: "*Cartul. du Ronceray*, no. 173, provides the documentary evidence for Hildegarde's royal birth. The veracity of this text is unchallenged: e.g., Halphen, *Le comte' d'Anjou*, 11, n. 1. Thus far, however, no one has been able to trace her immediate family with any certitude. See the literature cited by Bachrach, "Origins of Countess Gerberga," 14-15, n. 11."
The last part is evidently a reference to his article cited in his bibliography, "Some Observations on the Origins of Countess Gerberga of the Angevins: An Essay in the Application of the Tellenbach-Werner Prosopographyical Method.", *Medieval Prosopography 7*, no. 2 (1986): 1-23.
Bachrach says on p 100: "King Robert's diplomatic exchanges with the Germans, of which the Meuse meeting is the best documented, are likely to have prompted his interest in Hildegarde. More to the point, Fulk needed a wife who could provide a male heir and his choice of a woman from a prominent family in Lorraine might perhaps be seen to have had a diplomatic and strategic purpose as well, which could be threatened by Fulk's in-laws if the count of Blois chose to mount military operation against the Angevin count in the west."
In the previous paragraph, Bachrach seems to be assuming without question that Hildegarde is from Lorraine, although as he says in the footnote, her "immediate family" hasn't been determined (as of 1993, to the best of Bachrach's knowledge). [Ref: Gordon Fisher SGM 4/3/1997]

The most recent statement on Hildegarde's ancestry is to be found in Christian Settipani's article on the counts of Anjou and their marriages which appears in the volume edited by Keats-Rohan, _Family Trees and the Roots of Politics: The prosopography of Britain and France from the Tenth Century to the Twelfth Century_ (Boydell, 1997).
On pp. 253-54, Settipani discusses the lack of secure evidence for Hildegarde's family. The only reliable statement comes from a charter for the abbey of La Ronceray, which states that she came from Lotharingia and was of royal descent. An 1887 work by Loizeau de Grandmaison took this to mean that she belonged to the family of the counts of Nordgau, though there is no documentary proof of this. Bernard Bachrach however thought that she might be identified with the Hildegarde who is known as a sister of Pope Leo IX, himself a member of the Nordgau family. Unfortunately we also know that that Hildegarde married a count of Montbeliard, which puts her out of the running as a possible countess of Anjou. As Settipani notes, moreover, a sister of Leo IX, who was born in 1002, would have been extremely young at her (supposed) marriage to Fulk of Anjou around 1000.
Settipani accepts, however, the likelihood that Hildegarde was in some way related to the counts of Nordgau, the only family of that region that was of sufficient eminence, and royal ancestry, to marry into the rising and powerful house of Anjou. The name Hildegarde was common among the Nordgau house, moreover, and they certainly had royal blood. Assuming Hildegarde was born around 985, he theorizes she might have been a first cousin of Leo IX, possibly a daughter of Leo's uncle Eberhard though there is no proof of that filiation and Settipani scrupulously leaves it as a "working hypothesis." [Ref: John Carmi Parsons SGM 2/11/1999]



Pedigree of Hildegarde Of Metz
Hildegarde Of Metz



Descendants of Hildegarde Of Metz

2nd generation


3rd generation


4th generation


5th generation