Family of Robert II +* and Constance + * of ARLES

Husband:	Robert II +* (972-1031)
Wife:	Constance + * of ARLES (986-1034)
Children:	Adela +* CAPET (1003-1079)
	Advisa (1003-1063)
	Hugh Magnus of FRANCE (1007-1025)
	Henry I +* (1008-1060)
	Robert I + CAPET (1011-1076)
	Eudes (1013- )
	Constance + (1014- )
Marriage	1000	Melun, Aquitane, France

Husband: Robert II +*

Wife: Constance + * of ARLES

Child 1: Adela +* CAPET

Child 2: Advisa

Name:	Advisa
Sex:	Female
Spouse:	Renaud I+ (972-1040)
Birth	1003
Occupation		Countess of Auxerre
Death	1063 (age 59-60)

Child 3: Hugh Magnus of FRANCE

Child 4: Henry I +*

Child 5: Robert I + CAPET

Child 6: Eudes

Name:	Eudes
Sex:	Male
Birth	1013

Child 7: Constance +

Name:	Constance +
Sex:	Female
Spouse:	Manasses + (970-1037)
Birth	1014	France
Occupation		Princess of France
Title		Princess of France

Note on Husband: Robert II +*

Robert II (27 March 972 – 20 July 1031), called the Pious (French: le Pieux) or the Wise (French: le Sage), was King of France from 996 until his death. The second reigning member of the House of Capet, he was born in Orléans to Hugh Capet and Adelaide of Aquitaine.

Immediately after his own coronation, Robert's father Hugh began to push for the coronation of Robert. "The essential means by which the early Capetians were seen to have kept the throne in their family was through the association of the eldest surviving son in the royalty during the father's lifetime," Andrew W. Lewis has observed, in tracing the phenomenon in this line of kings who lacked dynastic legitimacy.[2] Hugh's claimed reason was that he was planning an expedition against the Moorish armies harassing Borrel II of Barcelona, an invasion which never occurred, and that the stability of the country necessitated a co-king,

should he die while on expedition.[3] Ralph Glaber, however, attributes Hugh's request to his old age and inability to control the nobility.[4] Modern scholarship has largely imputed to Hugh the motive of establishing a dynasty against the claims of electoral power on the part of the aristocracy, but this is not the typical view of contemporaries and even some modern scholars have been less sceptical of Hugh's "plan" to campaign in Spain.[5] Robert was eventually crowned on 25 December 987.[6] A measure of Hugh's success is that when Hugh died in 996, Robert continued to reign without any succession dispute, but during his long reign actual royal power dissipated into the hands of the great territorial magnates.

 

Robert had begun to take on active royal duties with his father in the early 990s. In 991, he helped his father prevent the French bishops from trekking to Mousson in the Kingdom of Germany for a synod called by Pope John XV, with whom Hugh was then in disagreement.

 

[edit] Marital problemsAs early as 989, having been rebuffed in his search for a Byzantine princess,[7] Hugh Capet arranged for Robert to marry the recently-widowed daughter of Berengar II of Italy, Rozala, who took the name of Susannah upon becoming Queen.[8] She was many years his senior. She was the widow of Arnulf II of Flanders, with whom she had children, the oldest of whom was of age to assume the offices of count of Flanders. Robert divorced her within a year of his father's death. He tried instead to marry Bertha, daughter of Conrad of Burgundy, around the time of his father's death. She was a widow of Odo I of Blois, but was also Robert's cousin. For reasons of consanguinity, Pope Gregory V refused to sanction the marriage, and Robert was excommunicated. After long negotiations with Gregory's successor, Sylvester II, the marriage was annulled.

 

Finally, in 1001, Robert entered into his final and longest-lasting marriage to Constance of Arles, the daughter of William I of Provence. She was an ambitious and scheming woman, who made life miserable for her husband by encouraging her sons to revolt against their father.

 

Robert, however, despite his marital problems, was a very devout Catholic, hence his sobriquet "the Pious." He was musically inclined, being a composer, chorister, and poet, and making his palace a place of religious seclusion, where he conducted the matins and vespers in his royal robes. However, to contemporaries, Robert's "piety" also resulted from his lack of toleration for heretics: he harshly punished them. Indeed, he is credited with advocating forced conversions of local Jewry, as well as mob violence against Jews who refused.[9]

 

 

"Robert had a kindly feeling for the weak and poor" — from François Guizot, A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times.The kingdom Robert inherited was not large, and in an effort to increase his power, he vigorously pursued his claim to any feudal lands which became vacant, which action usually resulted in war with a counter-claimant. In 1003, his invasion of the Duchy of Burgundy was thwarted and it would not be until 1016 that he was finally able to get the support of the Church and be recognized as Duke of Burgundy.

 

The pious Robert made few friends and many enemies, including his own sons: Hugh Magnus, Henry, and Robert. They turned against their father in a civil war over power and property. Hugh died in revolt in 1025. In a conflict with Henry and the younger Robert, King Robert's army was beaten and he retreated to Beaugency outside Paris, his capital. He died in the middle of the war with his sons on 20 July 1031 at Melun. He was interred with Constance in Saint Denis Basilica. He was succeeded by his son Henry, in both France and Burgundy.

 

Robert had no children from his short-lived marriage to Susanna. His illegal marriage to Bertha gave him one stillborn son in 999, but only Constance gave him surviving children:[10]

 

Hedwig (or Advisa), Countess of Auxerre (c. 1003 – after 1063), married Renauld I, Count of Nevers on 25 January 1016 and had issue.

Hugh Magnus, co-king (1007 – 17 September 1025)

Henry I, successor (4 May 1008 – 4 August 1060)

Adela, Countess of Contenance (1009 – 5 June 1063), married (1) Richard III of Normandy and (2) Count Baldwin V of Flanders.

Robert (1011 – 21 March 1076)

Odo or Eudes (1013–c.1056), who may have been mentally retarded and died after his brother's failed invasion of Normandy

Constance (born 1014, date of death unknown), married Manassès de Dammartin

Robert also left an illegitimate son: Rudolph, Bishop of Bourges.

Note on Wife: Constance + * of ARLES

Constance of Arles (986 – 25 July 1034), also known as Constance of Provence, was the third wife and queen of King Robert II of France. She was the daughter of William I, count of Provence and Adelais of Anjou, daughter of Fulk II of Anjou. She was the half-sister of Count William II of Provence.

In 1001, she was married to King Robert, after his divorce from his second wife, Bertha of Burgundy. The marriage was stormy; Bertha's family opposed her, and Constance was despised for importing her Provençal kinfolk and customs. Robert's friend, Hugh of Beauvais, tried to convince the king to repudiate her in 1007. The knights of her kinsman, Fulk Nerra then murdered Beauvais, perhaps at her order[1].

 

In 1010 Robert went to Rome, accompanied by his former wife Bertha, to seek permission to divorce Constance and remarry Bertha. Constance encouraged her sons to revolt against their father, and then favored her younger son, Robert, over her elder son, Henri.

 

During the famous trial of Herefast de Crepon (who was alleged to be involved with a heretical sect of canons, nuns, and clergy in 1022[2]), the crowd outside the church in Orleans became so unruly that, according to Moore:

 

At the king's command, Queen Constance stood before the doors of the Church, to prevent the common people from killing them inside the Church, and they were expelled from the bosom of the Church. As they were being driven out, the queen struck out the eye of Stephen, who had once been her confessor, with the staff which she carried in her hand.

 

The symbolism, or reality, of putting an eye out is used often in medieval accounts to show the ultimate sin of breaking of one's oath, whether it be heresy, or treason to ones lordship, or in this case both. Stephen's eye was put out by the hand of a Queen wielding a staff (royal scepters were usually tipped with a cross) thus symbolically providing justice for the treasoned lord on earth and in heaven.

 

At Constance's urging, her eldest son Hugh Magnus was crowned co-king alongside his father in 1017. Hugh Magnus demanded his parents share power with him, and rebelled against his father in 1025. He died suddenly later that year, an exile and a fugitive. Robert and Constance quarrelled over which of their surviving sons should inherit the throne; Robert favored their second son Henri, while Constance favored their third son, Robert. Despite his mother's protests, Henry was crowned in 1027. Fulbert, bishop of Chartres wrote a letter claiming that he was "frightened away" from the consecration of Henry "by the savagery of his mother, who is quite trustworthy when she promises evil."

 

Constance encouraged her sons to rebel, and Henri and Robert began attacking and pillaging the towns and castles belonging to their father. Robert attacked Burgundy, the duchy he had been promised but had never received, and Henry seized Dreux. At last King Robert agreed to their demands and peace was made which lasted until the king's death.

 

King Robert died in 1031, and soon Constance was at odds with both her elder son Henri and her younger son Robert. Constance seized her dower lands and refused to surrender them. Henri fled to Normandy, where he received aid, weapons and soldiers from his brother Robert. He returned to besiege his mother at Poissy but Constance escaped to Pontoise. She only surrendered when Henri began the siege of Le Puiset and swore to slaughter all the inhabitants.

 

Constance died in 1034, and was buried beside her husband Robert at Saint-Denis Basilica.

[edit] Children

 

Constance and Robert had seven children:

 

Advisa, Countess of Auxerre (c. 1003 – after 1063), married Count Renaud I of Nevers

Hugh Magnus, co-king (1007 – 17 September 1025)

Henri (4 May 1008 – 4 August 1060)

Adela, Countess of Contenance (1009 – 5 June 1063), married (1) Duke Richard III of Normandy (2) Count Baldwin V of Flanders

Robert I, Duke of Burgundy (1011 – 21 March 1076)

Eudes (1013–1056)

Constance (born 1014, date of death unknown), married Manasses de Dammartin