Baldwin II, Count of Hainaut

Baldwin II of Mons (1056–1098?) was count of Hainaut from 1071 to his death. He was the younger son of Baldwin VI, Count of Flanders and Richilde, Countess of Mons and Hainaut.

[edit] History

Baldwin became Count after the death of his older brother, Arnulf III, Count of Flanders. The family claim to the title Count of Flanders was lost by his brother's death, passing instead to their uncle Robert the Frisian.

Baldwin joined the First Crusade in the company of Godfrey of Bouillon (rather than with Robert II of Flanders, whose family was still at odds with his own), after selling some of his property to the Bishopric of Liège. In 1098 he was sent back to Constantinople with Hugh of Vermandois after the siege of Antioch, to seek assistance from Byzantine emperor Alexius I. However, Baldwin disappeared during a raid by the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia, and was presumably killed.

He married Ida of Leuven (a daughter of Count Henry II of Leuven and sister of Godfrey I of Leuven, Duke of Lower Lotharingia) in 1084. Their children were:

Baldwin III, Count of Hainaut
Louis, living 1096
Simon, a canon in Liege
Henry, living 1096
Willem, died after 1117
Arnould; m. Beatrix von Ath (b. c. 1075–before 1136), daughter of Walter von Ath and Ade de Roucy
Ide, (c. 1085–after 1101); 1m: Guy de Chievres; 2m: c. 1100 Thomas I de Coucy
Richilde, (c. 1095–after 1118); m. c. 1115 (div. 1118) Amaury IV de Montfort
Aelidis, (before 1098–1153); m. Nicolas II de Rumigny

Alan V. Murray, The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Dynastic History, 1099-1125. Prosopographica et Genealogica, 2000.
Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Lines 106-23, 163-24.

Preceded by Arnulf I	Count of Hainaut 1071–1098?	Succeeded by Baldwin III