Family of Ermengol IV + and Adelaide + BERTRAND

Husband:	Ermengol IV + (1056-1092)
Wife:	Adelaide + BERTRAND (1054- )
Children:	William + (1080- )

Husband: Ermengol IV +

Wife: Adelaide + BERTRAND

Name:	Adelaide + BERTRAND
Sex:	Female
Father:	William II + BERTRAND (1029-1094)
Mother:	Adelaide + of CAVENEZ (1030- )
Birth	1054	Forcalquiers, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, France
Occupation		Countess of Forcalquier
Title		Countess of Forcalquier

Child 1: William +

Name:	William +
Sex:	Male
Spouse:	Gersende + of ALBON (1095-1160)
Birth	1080	Forcalquiers, Basses-Alpes, France
Occupation		Count of Forcalquier
Title		Count of Forcalquier
Death	"10/1129"	Avignon, Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, France

Note on Husband: Ermengol IV +

Ermengol (or Armengol) IV (1056–1092), called el de Gerb or Gerp, was the Count of Urgell from 1066 to his death. He was the son of Ermengol III and Clemencia, daughter of Bernard II of Bigorre.

 

Ermengol inherited Urgell when he was only ten years old and ruled under the tutelage of the countess dowager, Sancha, third wife of his father, until he was twelve. During this brief minority, the nobility took the opportunity to plunder and occupy the comital demesne. It was not until 1075 that Ermengol was in control of his county and his nobles.

 

Ermengol was an active count. During his reign, Urgell profited economically by receiving exiles from Lleida and Fraga. In 1076, having brought the nobles to submission, he began a Reconquista of his own, taking the basin of the river Sió with the villages of Agramunt and Almenara that year and Linyola and Belcaire in 1091. He conquered Calassanç and built a castle at Gerb, Spain, where he died, in an effort to pave the way to the recapture of Balaguer, which occurred during the reign of his son, Ermengol V, in 1102.

 

Armengol was a firm supporter of the contemporary Gregorian reform of the Church, which he introduced to Urgel.

 

In 1077, Ermengol married Lucy, daughter of Bernard I of La Marche. With her, he had his son and heir, the aforementioned Ermengol. In 1079, he remarried to Adelaide Bertrand, daughter of William Bertrand of Provence. She bore him one son, William, who inherited Forcalquier, and a daughter who died young.

Note on Wife: Adelaide + BERTRAND

The earliest mention of a castle at Forcalquier dates to 1044, when it was in the possession of Fulk Bertrand, joint count of Provence. When Fulk died in 1051 his lands were shared between his sons William Bertrand and Geoffrey II, who inherited Forcalquier. Sometime in the 1060s Forcalquier was inherited by William's daughter Adelaide, who was the first person to be styled "Countess of Forcalquier". She married Ermengol IV of Urgell and died in 1129, at a time when Provence was sharply disputed by the many persons who had inherited some title to it.