Robert I, Count of Artois

Robert I
Count of Artois
Spouse Matilda of Brabant
Issue Blanche of Artois
Robert II of Artois
Father Louis VIII of France
Mother Blanche of Castile
Born September 25, 1216
Died February 8, 1250

Robert I (25 September, 1216 – 8 February 1250), called the Good, was the first Count of Artois, the fifth (and second surviving) son of Louis VIII of France and Blanche of Castile.[1]

Life

He received Artois as an appanage, in accordance with the will of his father (died 1226) on attaining his majority in 1237 (aged twenty-one). In 1240 Pope Gregory IX, in conflict with the Emperor Frederick II, offered to crown Robert as emperor in opposition to Frederick, but the French count refuse to pretend to such a title.

Coat of Arms of Robert of Artois

Marriage

On 14 June 1237 Robert married Matilda, daughter of Henry II of Brabant and Marie of Hohenstaufen.[2]

They had two children:

Death

Robert died while leading a reckless attack on Al Mansurah, without the knowledge of his brother King Louis IX. He and the Templars accompanying the expedition charged into the town and became trapped in the narrow streets. According to Jean de Joinville, he defended himself for some time in a house there, but was at last overpowered and killed. In Egypt it is believed that Sultan Qutuz killed him, although it is more likely that an anonymous soldier did so. According to Matthew Paris who is not considered reliable by modern historians, he fled in disgrace at the height of the battle, and drowned while trying to cross a river named Thanis (a branch of the Nile).

Ancestry

Notes

  1. Masson, Gustave, The story of mediaeval France: from the reign of Hugues Capet to the beginnings of the sixteenth century, (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1888), 90.
  2. Leese, Thelma Anna, Blood royal: issue of the kings and queens of medieval England, 1066–1399, (Heritage Books Inc., 2007), 35.

References

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French nobility
Preceded by
Louis
Count of Artois
1237–1250
Succeeded by
Robert II