Rotrou IV, Count of Perche
Rotrou IV (1135-1191), Count of Perche, son of Rotrou III, Count of Perche, and Hawise, daughter of Walter of Salisbury, and Sibilla de Chaworth. Rotrou was from the House of Châteaudun and descended from the Viscounts of Châteaudun. His mother was a sister of Patrick of Salisbury, 1st Earl of Salisbury. Patrick’s sister Sibyll married John FitzGilbert, the Marshal of the Horses, whose son Henry was Bishop of Exeter and a knight in the service of Rotrou.
Upon the death of his father in 1144, Rotrou continued the fight against his archenemy, William III Talvas, Count of Ponthieu and Lord of Alençon. Not withstanding a long-running blood feud, his uncle Patrick had married William Talvas' daughter Adela as her second husband.
From 1152, he fought with Louis VII the Younger against Henry II of England in an ineffective war that saw their troops routed, lands ravaged and property stolen. He was forced to yield the communes of Moulins and Bonsmoulins to the crown England. Nevertheless, a matrimonial alliance with the House of Blois consolidated the declining power of the Counts of Perche.
In 1189, Rotrou joined Philip II of France and Richard I the Lionheart in the Third Crusade. He died in the Siege of Acre in 1191, the deadliest event of the Crusades, but nevertheless remained a victory for the Christians.
In 1160, Rotrou married Matilda of Blois-Champagne, daughter of Theobald II, Count of Champagne, and Matilda of Carinthia.[1] Rotrou and Matilda had six children:
- Geoffrey III, Count of Perche
- Stephen (d. 14 April 1205), Duke of Philadelphia, killed in the Battle of Adrianople fighting the Bulgarians, as recorded by Geoffrey de Villehardouin,
- Henri du Perche, Vicomte de Mortagne
- Rotrou du Perche (d. 10 December 1201), Bishop of Chalons (1190-1200)
- William II, Count of Perche and Bishop of Chalons
- Thibaut du Perch, Archdeacon at Reims
Rotrou was succeed as Count of Perche by his son Geoffrey upon his death.
References
- ↑ John W. Baldwin, Aristocratic Life in Medieval France, (Johns Hopkins University, 2002), 46.
Sources
- Thompson, Kathleen, Power and Border Lordship in Medieval France: The County of the Perche, 1000-1226, Royal Historical Society Studies in History New Series, 2002
- Villehardouin, Geoffroy de and Joinville, Jean de (translated by Margaret R. B. Shaw), Chronicles of the Crusades, Penguin Books, 2009
- Byzantine Armies AD 1118-1461, Osprey Publishing, 1995
- Runciman, Steven, A History of the Crusades, Volume Three, The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades, Cambridge University Press, 1954
- Tout, T. F., Periods of European History, Volume II: The Empire and the Papacy, 918-1273, Rivingtons, London, 1932
- Bury, J. B. (Editor), The Cambridge Medieval History, Volume V, Contest of Empire and Papacy, Cambridge University Press, 1926
- Medieval Lands Project, Perche, Mortagne