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Birth:          ABT 1025 
Death:          8 Sep 1074 
Burial:         Crepi

Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_IV_of_Valois
Ralph IV (French: Raoul; born c. 1025, died 1074) was a northern French nobleman 
who amassed an extensive array of lordships lying in a crescent around the Île-de-
France from the border of the Duchy of Normandy in the northwest to Champagne in 
the southeast.

Ralph was the count of seven counties: Valois (Crépy) from 1037/8, Bar-sur-Aube and 
Vitry from the 1040s, Montdidier from 1054, Vexin (Mantes) and Amiens from 1063 and 
Tardenois from an unknown date. He held suzerainty over a further seven counties: 
Corbie, Dammartin, Meulan, Montfort, Péronne, Soissons and Vermandois. In addition, 
he was the advocatus (defender) of five abbeys: Saint-Denis, Jumièges, Saint-
Wandrille, Saint-Père-en-Vallée, and Saint-Arnoul.[1][2]

Initially an enemy of the reigning Capetian dynasty, Ralph became a staunch royal ally 
after 1041. He was one of the royal domain's most powerful neighbours. The historian 
John Cowdrey likens Ralph's lands to a "clamp ... set upon the northern part of the 
Capetian demesne".[1] After the death of King Henry I in 1060, Ralph married the 
king's widow, Queen Anna Yaroslavna. He thus became an important advisor to the 
young king, Philip I, until his death. Guibert of Nogent, a contemporary of Ralph, 
wrote, "How great he was can also be gathered from the single fact that he married 
the mother of King Philip after the death of her husband."[3]
Name and number[edit]

Given the multiplicity of titles he held, the popularity of his name within his family and 
the fact that all contemporary references to him are in Latin, how to refer to Ralph in 
modern English (or French) can pose a problem. In the seventeenth century, the Sieur 
du Cange, followed a century later by Claude Carlier and most recently by Louis 
Carolus-Barré, argued that Raoul de Gouy (died 926) was never Count of Valois and 
re-numbered the succeeding counts named Ralph. This made Ralph IV and his father 
Ralph III and Ralph II, respectively.[4] In older literature, he is sometimes called 
"Ralph the Great".[5]

Contemporary chroniclers generally referred to him as Ralph of Crépy, while modern 
scholars have tended to prefer Ralph of Valois. The English historian Orderic Vitalis, 
writing in Normandy, called him Ralph of Montdidier (Rodulfo de Monte Desiderii) and 
Ralph, count of Mantes (Radulfum comitem Medantensium), spelling his first name 
differently each time. He signed a royal document of 27 May 1067 as "Rodulf, count 
of Crépy" (Rodulfi comitis Crispiniacensis). The spellings "Radulf" and "Rodulf" both 
have a basis in contemporary sources.[6][7][8]

Early life[edit]

Born around 1025,[9] Ralph was the eldest son of Count Ralph III of Valois and Alix of 
Breteuil.[10] His father died in 1037 or 1038 and Ralph succeeded to the county of 
Valois, with its seat at Crépy.[11][12] The castle of Crépy was divided between Ralph 
and his younger brother Theobald, who inherited their mother's fief of Nanteuil-le-
Haudouin. At Crépy, Ralph received the living quarters and the outbuildings, while the 
donjon went to Theobald. The castle was thus a kind of condominium between the 
brothers.[13]

Ralph's father had been a supporter of Count Odo II of Blois against King Henry I. 
After Odo's death in 1038, Ralph continued to support Odo's two sons, counts 
Theobald III of Blois and Stephen II of Troyes. He took advantage of the fighting in 
the Beauvaisis, however, to break free from his inherited vassalage to the count of 
Troyes.[12] In 1041, while fighting on behalf of Odo's sons in an effort to depose the 
king, Ralph was captured by royal forces. Thereafter, he was the king's man and an 
opponent of the Blois–Troyes family.[14][11][15] He tried to prevent Theobald from 
annexing the lands of his nephew, Odo III, after the latter moved to England in 1066.
[16]
First marriage and children[edit]

In the 1040s, while en route to Rome, Ralph met his recently widowed cousin, Adela 
(or Adelaide, Latin Adelhais), countess of Bar-sur-Aube and Vitry-en-Perthois[17] since 
the death of her father, Nocher III, in 1019.[10] Bar-sur-Aube was a fief of the count 
of Troyes.[14] Having secured a promise of marriage, Ralph continued his pilgrimage 
to Rome. Upon his return he found that Adela's vassals, fearing his authority, had 
attempted to marry her to Renard, count of Joigny. Ralph immediately began pillaging 
Joigny until Adela was returned to him.[10][11] Ralph and Adela had four children:
Walter (died 1065/72), who succeeded in Bar-sur-Aube and Vitry
Simon (died 1080),[10] who succeeded in Valois, Vexin, Amiens, Montdidier and 
Tardenois
Elisabeth, married Barthélemy, lord of Broyes and Beaufort[10]
Adela, married firstly Count Herbert IV of Vermandois and secondly Count Theobald III 
of Blois[10]

Second marriage and excommunication[edit]

In 1053 or 1054, Adela died. By 1060, Ralph had married Eleanor, who was 
nicknamed Haquenez or Hannequez. She was the heiress of the county of Montdidier, 
with suzerainty over the county of Péronne.[18][19] He later accused Eleanor of 
adultery and repudiated her. In 1061 or 1062, he married the Russian princess Anna 
Yaroslavna, the widow of King Henry I and mother of the reigning king, Philip I.[20]

Despite having abandoned Eleanor, Ralph did not relinquish his control over her 
counties of Montdidier and Péronne.[18] Eleanor appealed to Gervase, archbishop of 
Reims, who wrote to Pope Alexander II explaining the situation. According to the 
archbishop, "the marriage of our queen to Count Ralph (Comiti Radulpho) grieves our 
king most of all" (rex noster ... maxime dolet). Eleanor then went to Rome to appeal to 
the pope in person.[21]

The pope's response, addressed to Gervase, his suffragans and to the unnamed 
archbishop of Sens, was brought back to France by Eleanor. She had apparently 
reported to the pope that Ralph had stolen everything she owned (by which she meant 
the counties), and the pope instructed Gervase and the archbishop of Sens to open 
an investigation and preside as judges. The purpose of the inquiry was to return 
Eleanor's property to her and clear her name of the false accusation of adultery. In the 
end, Ralph was excommunicated from the church. In March 1062, Mainard, 
archbishop of Sens, died and by April he had been succeeded by Richer. It is possible 
that Alexander did not name the archbishop because the letter was drafted in the 
interim, when the name of the new archbishop was not yet known in Rome.[18][21]

Third marriage and co-regency[edit]

The Chronicle of the abbey of Saint-Pierre-le-Vif records the death of Henry and the 
re-marriage of Anna in the same sentence, fuelling speculation that the queen and 
Ralph had been involved in a love affair. In fact, Henry's death came in 1060, a year 
or two before Anna's second marriage. There is no hint in any contemporary source 
that the queen and Ralph were involved before their marriage. Nor is there any 
evidence that she was abducted or otherwise forced into marriage.[21]

At the time of her marriage to Ralph, Anna was about thirty years old. Since Philip, the 
eldest of her four children with Henry, was not yet of age, she has been accused my 
modern historians of abandoning her children. Contemporaries made no such charge. 
Ralph, however, was accused of bigamy, since his repudiation of Eleanor had been 
illegal under both civil and ecclesiastical law, and consanguinity, since he was related 
to the Capetian house to within the prohibited degree. As a result it seems, Ralph and 
Anna did not attend the French court regularly again until 1065, although she 
continued to be acknowledged as co-regent with Count Baldwin V of Flanders.[20][21] 
The marriage had at least three advantages for Ralph: it brought him a dowry that 
included an abbey at Laon, it brought him influence at court and it brought him 
enhanced prestige because of Anna's high rank and even "exoticism".[16]

Ralph was, however, "Baldwin's greatest rival in north-eastern France and a potential 
threat to his influence over the young king." This may explain why at least one later 
source, the Annales sancti Benigni Divonensis, the chronicle of the cathedral of Dijon, 
claims that Philip's younger brother Hugh acted as his "co-adjutor". Keeping Hugh 
close prevented any split in the royal family.[22] After the reconciliation of Philip and 
his mother, Ralph was the second most important counsellor to the king after Baldwin.
[16] He is cited as a witness in thirty royal diplomas, and is explicitly called a 
counsellor of the royal court in one of 1062.[2] In 1065, Ralph and Anna were with 
Philip as the royal court visited Soissons, Orléans, Laon and Corbie. In 1067, Philip 
paid a visit to Amiens, which lay in Ralph's county. In 1069, Ralph was calling himself 
the king's step-father.[23]
Death and legacy[edit]

Ralph died, still excommunicate,[34] in 1074 and was buried in the church of Saint-
Pierre in Montdidier. Since Montdidier had rightfully belonged to Ralph's abandoned 
second wife, and the count of Vermandois also had a claim,[17] Pope Gregory VII 
requested that his body be moved. His son Simon had it removed to the priory of 
Saint-Arnoul at Crépy. The sight of his father's decaying corpse is said to have 
motivated Simon to first contemplate the vanity of seeking after worldly glory. In 1077, 
he retired to become a monk at Saint-Oyend. The Vita beati Simoni comitis 
Crespeiensis (Life of Blessed Simon, Count of Crépy), a hagiography written by an 
anonymous monk of Saint-Oyend in the generation after Simon's death, is an important 
source for Ralph's life.[35] Since Ralph's eldest son, Walter, had died before him, all 
his lands passed to Simon.[7]

Ralph himself began his career with only one county owing homage to the count of 
Troyes and ended it with seven counties and a further seven owing homage to him.[2] 
France was more stable in the eleventh century than the tenth, and in the first century 
of Capetian rule relatively fewer noblemen than in the previous century were 
successful at building up principalities by a combination of inheritance, marriage, 
usurpation and force. Jean Dunbabin argues there were only two such ephemeral 
principalities formed in the eleventh century: Ralph's northern principality and a 
southern one forged by the marriage of Robert II of Auvergne and Bertha of Rouergue 
in 1064/66.[16][36] After Ralph's death, Robert II tried to arrange a marriage between 
his daughter Judith and Ralph's son, but the arrangements fell through when Simon 
became a monk and Judith a nun.[37]

The breakup of Ralph's principality followed quickly on his death. His stepson Hugh 
claimed a part of his lands, sparking a war with Simon in which the king took part as 
Hugh's ally. In the end, "Ralph's budding principality",[20] "the nearest approximation 
to a principality to emerge" in Picardy, was broken up.[38] The crown acquired Vexin 
and the advocacies of Corbie and Saint-Denis, Amiens returned to the bishop and 
Simon granted his brother-in-law Herbert of Vermandois both Valois and Montdidier. 
These then passed on Herbert's death in 1080 to his daughter, Adelaide, who married 
Simon's step-brother Hugh, brother of the king.[39] Much of the counties of Amiens 
and Valois had belonged to the county of Vermandois in the tenth century.[16]

The monk Guibert of Nogent, whose father fought at Mortemer, wrote in the first 
quarter of the twelfth century that he had spoken to many who had known Ralph. 
According to the monk, "They can say to what degree he increased his power, what 
authority he acquired and what despotism he used. If he found a castle convenient to 
him, he besieged it. Site attacked, site taken: so great was his ability in the art of 
sieges. Of all the places he took, he never returned one. His birth gave him an 
illustrious rank among the great lords of the kingdom."[12]

Parents
OF VEXIN Raoul II (ABT  985 - 1060)
DE BRETEUIL Adele (ABT  992 - 11 Sep 1051)

Siblings
____ Raoul III "the Great" (ABT 1025 - 8 Sep 1074)
OF VALOIS Hawise (ABT 1032 - )

Marriage To BAR-SUR-AUBE Adele (ABT 1015 - ABT 1053)
    m.  

Notes

Parents
____ Nocher II (ABT  995 - BEF 1040)
----- ----- ()

Children by BAR-SUR-AUBE Adele ABT 1015 - ABT 1053
DE VEXIN [DE VALOIS] Adele (ABT 1040 - 1080)
DE VEXIN Alais (Elisabeth) (ABT 1045 - )

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