Aénor of Châtellerault and William X of Aquitaine

- David Fox 2014

Fom Wikipedia:

Aénor of Châtellerault (also known as Aénor de Rochefoucauld) duchess of Aquitaine was born about 1103 in Châtellerault, the daughter of Viscount Aimery I, Viscount of Châtellerault and his wife, Dangereuse de L' Isle Bouchard ( - 1151).

Marriage

Aenor was married in 1121 in France to William X of Aquitaine, the son of her mother's lover, Guillaume IX "le Troubadour", duc de Guyenne, comte de Poitiers and Ermengarde d' Anjou

William X

William X (1099 Toulouse – 9 April 1137), called the Saint, was Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, and Count of Poitou (as William VIII) from 1126 to 1137. He was the son of William IX by his second wife, Philippa of Toulouse, 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 Philippa's ire, Duke William IX mortgaged Toulouse to Philippa's cousin, Bertrand of Toulouse, and then left on Crusade.

Affair and Divorce

Philippa and her infant son William X were left in Poitiers. When Duke William IX returned from his unsuccessful crusade, he took up with Dangerose, the wife a vassal, and set aside Philippa his rightful wife.

William and Aenor

This caused strain between father and son, until 1121 when William X married Aenor de Châtellerault, a daughter of his father's mistress Dangerossa by her first husband, Aimery.

Children

Aenor and William X had three children:

. Eleanor of Aquitaine (6 Dec 1122 Bordeaux, Aquitaine - ), Duchess of Aquitaine, and wife of both Louis VII of France, and Henry II of England. Eleanor was arguably the most powerful woman in Europe of her generation.

. Petronilla of Aquitaine (1126 Aquitaine - ), wife of Raoul I, Count of Vermandois. Chronicler John of Salisbury tells us that Petronella died in 1151 or 1152, after which her husband Raoul of Vermandois briefly remarried.

. William Aigret (1127 Valois - Mar 1130 at Talmont-sur-Gironde) aged about four. He died about the same time as his mother

The duchess Aenor appears to have obtained the appointment for her uncle as bishop of Poitiers, perhaps because he was a supporter of Anacletus, and she was probably excommunicated with her husband as an adherent of the anti-pope.

William X possibly had one natural son, William. William, called of Poitiers in the Pipe rolls may have been a half brother of Eleanor. For a long time it was thought that he had another natural son called Joscelin and some biographies still erroneously state this fact, but Joscelin has been shown to be the brother of Adeliza of Louvain. The attribution of Joscelin as a son of William X has been caused by a mistaken reading of the Pipe Rolls pertaining to the reign of Henry II, where 'brother of the queen' has been taken as Queen Eleanor, when the queen in question is actually Adeliza of Louvain.

Death

Aénor died March 1130 at Talmont-sur-Gironde, Charente, Poitou-Charentes

William administered his Aquitaine duchy as 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 V, Count of Anjou who claimed it in his wife's name) and for 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 papal 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.

The county "Châtelherault" later became a title belonging to the Dukes of Hamilton.