William II of Provence

William II of Provence
Spouse(s) Gerberga of Burgundy
Noble family House of Arles
Father William I of Provence
Mother Arsende de Comminges
Born c. 981
Died 1018

William II (or III) (c. 981 – 1018), called the Pious, was the Count of Provence.

Life

William was the son of William I (or II) of Provence and Arsende de Comminges,[1] daughter of Arnaldo, Count of Comminges and Arsende, Countess of Carcassonne.[2] William succeeded his father; William I, on the latter's retirement to a monastery just before his death in late 994.[1] He was a minor under his step-mother's regency until he came of age in 999. His regent was Adelaide-Blanche of Anjou, his father's second wife.[lower-alpha 1] William did not succeed to the margravial title, which went to his uncle Rotbold II.[1] Around 1002, he married Gerberga, daughter of Otto-William, Count of Burgundy and Ermentrude, Countess of Mâcon and Besançon.[3] William died in 1018, about 30 May.[1]

Family

Together William and Gerberga had:

Notes

  1. ↑ According to this cartulary, published by F. de Marin de Carranrais, L'Abbaye de Montmajour. E'tude Historique, etc. (Marseille, 1877), where Countess Adelaide was called his mother and guardian. According to ES II, 187 Adelaide-Blanche married William's father c. 984-86 making it chronologically improbable she could have been his birth mother. In a 990 charter to Cluny, William II is a signatory (also indicating he was more than an infant) and is called the son of Count William, but not of Adelaide(-Blanche). See Recueil des Chartes de L'Abbaye de Cluny, Formé par Auguste Bernard, Tome 3 (987–1027) (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1884), pp. 80–1. Lastly, William II cannot have been a son of Adelaide-Blanche because as William I's widow she next married Otto-William, Count of Burgundy. Since William II married Gerberga the daughter of Otto-William, first degree affinity would have attached if he were her son. See Constance Bouchard, 'Consanguinity and Noble Marriages in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries', Speculum, Vol. 56, No. 2 (Apr., 1981), pp. 268–287.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Detlev Schwennicke, Europäische Stammtafeln: Stammtafeln zur Geschichte der Europäischen Staaten, Neue Folge, Band II (Marburg, Germany: Verlag von J. A. Stargardt, 1984), Tafel 187
  2. ↑ Christian Settipani, La Noblesse du Midi Carolingien, (Oxford: Unit for Prosopographical Research, 2004), pp. 68 & n, 70
  3. ↑ Detlev Schwennicke, Europäische Stammtafeln: Stammtafeln zur Geschichte der Europäischen Staaten, Neue Folge, Band II (Marburg, Germany: Verlag von J. A. Stargardt, 1984), Tafeln 59, 187

See also