See also
Husband: | William X + (1099-1137) | |
Wife: | Aenor + of CHATELLERAULT (1103-1130) | |
Children: | Eleanor of AQUITAINE (1121-1204) | |
Petronilla of AQUITAINE (1125-1193) | ||
William AIGRET (1126-1130) | ||
Marriage | 1121 | France |
Name: | William X + | |
Sex: | Male | |
Nickname: | The Saint | |
Father: | William IX + (1071-1126) | |
Mother: | Philippa + (1073-1117) | |
Birth | 1099 | Toulouse, Haute-Garonne, Midi-Pyrenees, France |
Occupation | Duke of Aquitane | |
Title | frm 1126 to 1137 (age 26-38) | Duke of Aquitane |
Title | frm 1126 to 1137 (age 26-38) | Count of Poitiers |
Death | 9 Apr 1137 (age 37-38) | France |
Cause: suspected food poisoning |
Name: | Aenor + of CHATELLERAULT | |
Sex: | Female | |
Father: | Aimery I + (1075-1151) | |
Mother: | Amauberge + of the ISLE BOUCHARD (1079-1151) | |
Birth | 1103 | Chatellerault, Vienne, France |
Occupation | Duchess of Aquitane | |
Death | Mar 1130 (age 26-27) | Talmont |
Name: | Eleanor of AQUITAINE | |
Sex: | Female | |
Spouse 1: | Louis VII + (1119-1180) | |
Spouse 2: | Henry II + (1133-1189) | |
Birth | 1121 | Chateau de Belin, Bordeaux. Aquitaine |
Occupation | Duchess of Aquitaine | |
Title | frm 9 Apr 1137 to 1 Apr 1204 (age 15-83) | Duchess of Aquitaine |
Title | frm 9 Apr 1137 to 1 Apr 1204 (age 15-83) | Countess of Poitiers |
Title | frm 1 Aug 1137 to 21 Mar 1152 (age 15-31) | Queen Consort of the Franks |
Title | frm 25 Oct 1154 to 6 Jul 1189 (age 32-68) | Queen Consort of England |
Death | 31 Mar 1204 (age 82-83) | Poitiers, Poitou, France |
Burial | Abbaye de Fontebrault, Fontrevrault, France |
Name: | Petronilla of AQUITAINE | |
Sex: | Female | |
Spouse: | Raoul I of VERMANDOIS (c. 1120- ) | |
Birth | 1125 | |
Death | 1193 (age 67-68) |
Name: | William AIGRET | |
Sex: | Male | |
Birth | 1126 | |
Death | 1130 (age 3-4) |
William X (1099 – 9 April 1137), called the Saint, was Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, and Count of Poitou (as William VIII) between 1126 and 1137. He was the son of William IX by his second wife, Philippa of Toulouse.
William was born in Toulouse during the brief period when his parents ruled the capital. His birth is recorded in the Chronicle of Saint-Maixent for the year 1099: Willelmo comiti natus est filius, equivoce Guillelmus vocatus ("a son was born to Count William, named William like himself"). Later that same year, much to his wife's ire, Duke William mortgaged Toulouse to Philippa's cousin, Bertrand of Toulouse, and then left on Crusade.
Coin of William X, 8.90g.Philippa and her infant son were left in Poitiers. Long after Duke William's return, he took up with Dangereuse, the wife of one of his vassals, and set aside his rightful wife, Philippa. This caused strain between father and son, until William married Aenor de Châtellerault, daughter of his father's mistress, in 1121.
He had from her three children:
Eleanor, who would later become heiress to the Duchy;
Petronilla, who married Raoul I of Vermandois;
William Aigret, who died at age 4 in 1130, about the time their mother Aenor de Châtellerault died.
He also had two natural sons, William and Joscelin. These half brothers of Eleanor, along with Petronilla, accompanied Eleanor and Henry II to England when they left to claim the crown after Stephen died . According to the Pipe Rolls, which recorded wine bought for them and Petronilla, they were still part of Eleanor's court in 1156. After that, Eleanor's siblings drop from the record.
As his father before him, William X was a patron of troubadours, music and literature. He was an educated man and strove to give his two daughters an excellent education, in a time when Europe's rulers were hardly literate.
When Eleanor succeeded him as Duchess, she continued William's tradition and transformed the Aquitanian court into Europe's centre of knowledge.
William was both a lover of the arts and a warrior. He became involved in conflicts with Normandy (which he raided in 1136, in alliance with Geoffrey le Bel of Anjou who claimed it in his wife's name) and France.
Even inside his borders, William faced an alliance of the Lusignans and the Parthenays against him, an issue resolved with total destruction of the enemies. In international politics, William X initially supported antipope Anacletus II in the schism of 1130, opposite to Pope Innocent II, against the will of his own bishops. In 1134 Saint Bernard of Clairvaux convinced William to drop his support to Anacletus and join Innocent.
In 1137 William joined the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, but died of suspected food poisoning during the trip. On his deathbed, he expressed his wish to see king Louis VI of France as protector of his fifteen-year-old daughter Eleanor, and to find her a suitable husband. Louis VI naturally accepted this guardianship and married the heiress of Aquitaine to his own son, Louis VII.
Aénor of Châtellerault, (known also as Aénor de Rochefoucauld) duchess of Aquitaine (Châtellerault, Vienne, France, c. 1103, – March 1130 in Talmont) was the mother of Eleanor of Aquitaine, arguably the most powerful woman in Europe of her generation[citation needed].
Aenor was a daughter of Viscount Aimery I of Châttellerault and his wife, Dangereuse de L' Isle Bouchard (d. 1151). Aenor married William X of Aquitaine, the son of her mother's lover, and had three children with him:
Eleanor of Aquitaine, Duchess of Aquitaine, and wife of both Louis VII of France, and Henry II of England.
Petronilla of Aquitaine, wife of Raoul I, Count of Vermandois.
William Aigret (who died at the age of four with his mother at Talmont)
The county "Châtellerault" later became a title belonging to the Dukes of Hamilton.