On 15-Feb-23 7:31 AM, Jean de Huit wrote:
On Monday, February 13, 2023 at 11:00:35 PM UTC-5, Peter Stewart wrote:
On 14-Feb-23 1:49 PM, Jean de Huit wrote:
On Wednesday, June 30, 2004 at 3:54:29 AM UTC-4, Peter Stewart wrote:
I suspect that there is still a story to be uncovered about the Capetian >>>> family around this time, and that biologically the royal personnel may >>>> not all have been quite as generally received.
Peter Stewart
I'm not one to hold someone to statements espoused more than a decade ago, Peter, but I can't help but be intrigued by what you had in mind here (if specifics still come to mind after all this time). Naturally we can never prove paternity at a remove
on the level of nearly a thousand years, but I'm always curious when relationships may not be as they are "generally received," in your words.
Please forgive my nosiness,
It doesn't seem at all nosey to me, since this forum is meant for asking
such questions.
My memory is hazy, but I suppose I was thinking (not very prudently) of
faint indications that not everyone felt quite convinced of the
paternity of Philippe I's younger brother Hugo Magnus, perhaps including
Balduin of Flanders and others of the nobility - as well as the man
himself, possibly, if he was overcompensating for a doubt and projecting
this onto Philippe when he reportedly wrote to the Byzantine emperor
proclaiming himself "the king of kings and the greatest under heaven" (ὁ >> βασιλεὺς τῶν βασιλέων καὶ ὁ μείζων τῶν ὑπ’ οὑρανόν).
Peter Stewart
--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
www.avg.com
I see! Thank you for doing your best to remember. I can see the logic in it, though there's not much to conclude either way (as there so often is in any case of possible disputed paternity). Hugo of Vermandois may have only had an overinflated opinion
of himself--as many then and regrettably now still do.
In this case the way Hugo represented himself to the Byzantine emperor
was beyond vanity - since he was not even a king, much less the greatest monarch on earth, absurdly calling himself this would have been
tantamount to denying his elder brother's sovereignty that was of course perfectly well-known in Constantinople. He evidently wanted to be shown
a degree of honour abroad, when he arrived in the East, out of all
proportion to any he could receive at home.
When Henri I died his widow Anna was initially recognised as co-regent
with her eldest son (of three living at the time), but this did not last
long. She went on calling herself Queen Anna for some years, but around
a year after Henri's death she remarried, to a relative of his, and this
was considered a breach of duty and divine law ("contra ius et fas").
Whether this led to a retrospective doubt over the birth of Hugo or he
was just held to be compromised as a child in her custody is unclear.
But he was unusual by precedent at that time when as an adult brother of
a king he was given no significant apanage, only becoming count of
Valois, Crépy & subsequently Vermandois by right of his wife, and this marriage taking place at the request of the nobles of Vermandois rather
than on the initiative of the king.
Accusing Anna of adultery before Hugo's birth in 1057 would have
reflected on the legitimacy of Philippe and his next brother Robert, who obviated half of this difficulty when he died in the early 1060s.
Sidelining Hugo from the succession may have been a less divisive means
of rectifying a suspected problem with his biological right.
Peter Stewart
Peter Stewart
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)