Rotrou IV, Count of Perche

Rotrou IV (1135-1191), was the Count of Perche. He joined Louis VII of France in a war against Henry II of England, in which he lost lands to the English. Rotrou later went on crusade with Philip II of France and died after the Siege of Acre in 1191.

Biography

Born in 1135, Rotrou was the son of Rotrou III, Count of Perche, and Hawise, daughter of Walter of Salisbury, and Sibilla de Chaworth.

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. Aside from this long-running blood feud, his uncle Patrick had married William Talvas' daughter Adela. His mother Hawise and her second husband, Robert I of Dreux, served as regents at Perche until he reached the age of maturity.

Rotrou aided 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 sometime after the Siege of Acre in 1191.[1]

Family tree of Rotrou de Perche.

Marriage and issue

In 1160, Rotrou married Matilda of Blois-Champagne, daughter of Theobald II, Count of Champagne, and Matilda of Carinthia.[2]

Rotrou and Matilda had:

Rotrou was succeeded as Count of Perche by his son Geoffrey upon his death.

References
  1. Thompson 2002, p. 113.
  2. Baldwin 2002, p. 46.
  3. Money 1887.
  4. Thompson 2002, p. 6.
  5. Van Tricht 2011, p. 109.
  6. Fassler 2010, p. 457.

Sources
  • Baldwin, John W. (2002). Aristocratic Life in Medieval France. Johns Hopkins University.
  • Fassler, Margot Elsbeth (2010). The Virgin of Chartres: Making History Through Liturgy and the Arts. Yale University Press.
  • Thompson, Kathleen (2002). Power and Border Lordship in Medieval France: The County of the Perche, 1000-1226. The Boydell Press.
  • Van Tricht, Filip (2011). The Latin Renovatio of Byzantium: The Empire of Constantinople (1204–1228). Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-20323-5.
  • Money, Walter (1887). A history of the ancient town and borough of Newbury, in the county of Berkshire. Parker & Co., Oxford & London.
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