William VI (Guy-Geoffrey) OF POITOU
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William VI (Guy-Geoffrey) OF POITOU (1024?-1086)

Name: William VI (Guy-Geoffrey) OF POITOU 1
Sex: Male
Father: William V OF AQUITAINE (969-1030)
Mother: Agnes OF BURGUNDY ( -1068)

Individual Events and Attributes

Birth 1024 (app)
Occupation (1) frm 1052 to 1086 (age 27-62) Duke of Gascony
Occupation (2) frm 1058 to 1086 (age 33-62) Duke of Aquitaine
Occupation (3) frm 1058 to 1086 (age 33-62) Count of Poitiers
Child Count 3
Marriage Count 3
Group/Caste Membership Ramnulfids or House of Poitiers
Death 25 Sep 1086 (age 61-62)

Marriage

      picture    
      Miniature of William IX, Duke of Aquitaine from a 13th-century chansonnier now in the Bibliothèque    
 
Spouse Hildegarde OF BURGUNDY (1050?-aft1104)
Children William VII (IX) OF POITOU (1071-1127)
Marriage 1068/69 (age 44-45)

Individual Note

William VIII (1025 – 25 September 1086), born Guy-Geoffrey (Gui-Geoffroi), was duke of Gascony (1052–1086), and then duke of Aquitaine and count of Poitiers (as William VI) between 1058 and 1086, succeeding his brother William VII (Pierre-Guillaume).

 

Guy-Geoffroy was the youngest son of William V of Aquitaine by his third wife Agnes of Burgundy. He was the brother-in-law of Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor who had married his sister, Agnes de Poitou.

 

He became Duke of Gascony in 1052 during his older brother William VII's rule. Gascony had come to Aquitanian rule through William V's marriage to Prisca (a.k.a Brisce) of Gascony, the sister of Duke Sans VI Guilhem of Gascony.

 

William VIII was one of the leaders of the allied army called to help Ramiro I of Aragon in the Siege of Barbastro (1064). This expedition was the first campaign organized by the papacy, namely Pope Alexander II, against a Muslim city, and the precursor of the later Crusades movement. Aragon and its allies conquered the city, killed its inhabitants and collected an important booty.

 

However, Aragon lost the city again in the following years. During William VIII's rule, the alliance with the southern kingdoms of modern Spain was a political priority as shown by the marriage of all his daughters to Iberian kings.

 

He married three times and had at least five children. After he divorced his second wife due to infertility, he remarried to a much younger woman who was also his cousin. This marriage produced a son, but William VIII had to visit Rome in the early 1070s to persuade the pope to recognize his children from his third marriage as legitimate.

 

First wife: Garsende of Périgord, daughter of Count Aldabert II of Périgord (divorced November 1058), no children. She became a nun at Saintes.

 

Second wife: Matoeda (divorced May 1068)

Agnes (1052–1078), married Alfonso VI of Castile

 

Third wife: Hildegarde of Burgundy (daughter of duke Robert I of Burgundy)

Agnes (died 1097), married Peter I of Aragon

William IX of Aquitaine, his heir

 

SOURCES:

Owen, D. D. R. Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen and Legend.

Nouvelle Biographie Générale. Paris, 1859.2

Sources

1Weis, Frederick Lewis & Sheppard, Walter Lee, Jr, "Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America before 1700: Lineages from Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, Robert the Strong, and other Historical Individuals". p 111, 110-23.
2"Wikipedia". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_VIII_of_Aquitaine.