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Source: Baldwin I "Iron-arm" (Baudouin I "Bras de Fer", Balduinus Ferreorum-brachiorum)

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Type	Valeur
Titre	Baldwin I "Iron-arm" (Baudouin I "Bras de Fer", Balduinus Ferreorum-brachiorum)

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Personnes
BALDWIN I Margrave of Flanders CR002

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Notes


Count [presumably of Flanders], before 862-879. Lay-abbot of Saint-Pierre de Gand (St. Peter's, Ghent), 870. Count Baldwin I, ancestor of the counts of Flanders, first appears in history in the year 862, when Judith, daughter of king Charles the Bald, and successively widow of the two Anglo-Saxon kings Æthelwulf and Æthelbald, eloped with him, with the assistance of Judith's brother Louis (later king Louis II) ["Karolus per Remi civitatem Suessionis venit. Ubi non incerto nuncio comperit, quia filia eius Iudith, relica scilicet Edelboldi regis Anglorum, quae, possessionibus venditis quas in Anglorum regno optinuerat, ad patrem rediit et in Silvanectis civitatem debito reginae honore sub tuitione paterna et regia atque episcopali custodia servabatur, donec, si se continere non posset, secundum apostolum, scilicet competenter ac legaliter, nuberet, Balduinum comitem, ipso lenocinante, et fratre suo Hludowico consentiente, mutato habitu est secuta; sed et quia Hludowicus, filius eius, a praefatis Guntfrido [et Gozfrido] sollicitatus, relictis fidelibus patris, cum paucis noctu aufugit et transfuga ad se sollicitantes pervenit." (Translation: Charles came through Rheims to the city of Soissons, where he learned news from an undoubted source [about his daughter Judith and his son Louis.] Judith, widow of Æthelbald, king of the English, having sold the possessions which she had obtained in the kingdom of England, had returned to her father, and was kept with the honor due to a queen under the guardianship of her father under royal and episcopal custody in the city of Senlis, until, if he could not contain her, she should be properly and legally married according to the apostles. [Charles learned that] Judith, changing her clothes, had followed count Baldwin by his instigation, with the consent of her brother Louis; and that his son Louis, urged by the aforesaid Guntfrid [and Gozfrid], had abandoned his loyalty to his father, and had run away in the night with a few men and had gone in refuge to those urging him.) Ann. Bert., s.a. 862, 56-7]. Charles asked his bishops to anathemize Baldwin and Judith, but he reconciled with them the next year at the pope's request, when Baldwin and Judith were married [Ann. Bert., s.a. 863, 66 (see below)]. Flodoard mentions two relevant letters of Hincmar of Reims during this time, one to bishop Hungarius of Utrecht, urging that Hungarius warn the Viking Roric, then ruling at Dorestadt in Frisia, not to receive Baldwin, and another with the same warning to Roric himself [Flodoard, Historia Remensis Ecclesiae iii, 23, 26, MGH SS 13: 529, 541]. A document based on a charter of king Charles the Bald, dated 13 April 870, but having later interpolations in its present form, mentions a "vir venerabilis Balduinus" who was abbot of Saint-Pierre de Gand [Cart. S.-Pierre de Gand, 1: 19-20 (#13); Prou (1920), 61]. It has been argued that the name of the abbot was one of the interpolations [e.g., Sproemberg (1935), 27-8], but these arguments were not accepted by Ganshof or Grierson [Ganshof (1937), 375-9; Grierson (1939)], and the most natural interpretation of this record is that count Baldwin I himself was lay-abbot of Saint-Pierre de Gand. In 871, Baldwin was sent by Charles along with abbot Gauzlin to negotiate with Charles's rebellious son Carloman [Ann. Bert., s.a. 871, 115]. The Annales Vedastini record his death in 879 ["Balduinus comes moritur sepeliturque in Sithiu" Ann. Vedast. 43-4]. The epithet of "Iron-arm" usually attributed to him appears in the work of Wimann (d. 1192), who attributed the nickname to his strength and audacity ["... Balduinus comes Flandrie, filius Odocri, vir audax et fortis, ita ut Ferreorum-brachiorum vocaretur, ..." Wimann, Liber de possessionibus sancti Vedasti, MGH SS 13: 711]. Additions to Annales Vedastini give him the epithets of Bonus (the Good) and Ferreus (Iron) [Ann. Vedast. 44]. Beyond the indication that he was lay-abbot of Saint-Pierre de Gand, there is no contemporary evidence indicating the specific pagi over which he held authority. Because his son Baldwin II clearly held authority there, Flanders (pagus Flandrensis) would be one obvious choice, and would make him a neighbor of Roric, thus explaining the above letters of Hincmar. It seems likely that he was count of Flanders by the time of his death at least, if not much earlier, but this is not directly documented. He is also likely to have benefitted in some way by the dispossession of count Ingelram sometime between 870 and 875 (see below), but the details here are also unclear. [See, e.g., Sproemberg (1935), Ganshof (1937), Grierson (1938)] Date of Birth: Unknown. Place of Birth: Unknown. Date of Death: 879. Place of Death: Unknown (buried at Saint-Bertin). Mother: Unknown. Probable father: Audacer/Odoacer. Audacer's name is given as the father of Baldwin from the first appearance of Audacer's name in the records, which appear to go back to the tenth century. Thus, it is likely that the name Audacer/Odoacer can be accepted as the name of Baldwin's father. Nothing is known of Audacer beyond his status as Baldwin's father, unless there is some truth to the hunting rights from abbot Einhard mentioned below. Spouse: m. at Auxerre, 863 (eloped 862), Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, king of the West Franks, emperor, and widow of Æthelwulf (d. 858) and of Æthelbald (d. 860), kings of the West Saxons. ["..., et ad Autisiodorum civitatem usque pervenit, ibique filiam suam Iudith, sicut dominus apostolicus eum petierat, consilio fidelium suorum Balduino, quem secuta fuerat, legaliter coniugio sociari permisit." (Translation: ... and he [Charles] arrived in the city of Auxerre; there, just as the pope had requested, by the advice of his loyal men, he allowed his daughter Judith to be legally joined in matrimony with Baldwin, with whom she had run off.) Ann. Bert., s.a. 863, 66] For a detailed account of Judith, see Sproemberg (1936). Children: The contemporary Annals of Saint-Vaast state that Baldwin and Raoul were brothers ["Balduinus vero comes et Hrodulfus frater eius, ..." Ann. Vedast., s.a. 895, 76]. Regino, writing in the first decade of the tenth century, states that Raoul was a son of Baldwin [I], and that Raoul's brother Baldwin [II] held Flanders [Regino, s.a. 818, MGH SS 1: 567 (see below)]. Writing between 951 and 959, Witger also states that Baldwin II was a son of Baldwin I by Judith ["Quam Iudith prudentissimam ac spetiosam sociavit sibi Balduinus comes fortissimus in matrimonii coniugium. Ex qua genuit filium, imponens ei nomen sibi equivocum, videlicet Balduinum." Witger, Genealogia Arnulfi comitis, MGH SS 9: 303]. MALE Baldwin II, d. 918, count/marquis of Flanders, 879-918; m. Ælfthryth, daughter of Ælfred "the Great", king of Wessex. MALE Raoul (Rodulfus), d. 28 June 896, count of Vermandois, 895-896. [often called count of Cambrai, probably falsely] In 895, Raoul took the castle of Saint-Quentin, expelling the unnamed son of Theodoricus ["Nam Sancti Quintini castrum, per noctem tradendo eum abintus, tulerat Rodulfus filio Theoderici." Ann. Vedast., s.a. 895, 77]. This made him master of Vermandois (of which Saint-Quentin was the principle stronghold), and, as was pointed out by Grierson, it is not until after this event that Raoul is given the title of count by the Annales Vedastini [Grierson (1937a), 15, n. 2]. Expelled in the next year by king Eudes ["Post haec Odo rex castrum Sancti Quintini et Perronam obsedit hominesque Rodulfi inde eiecit." Ann. Vedast., s.a. 896, 78], Raoul continued to ravage possessions of the abbacy of Saint-Quentin until he was killed in battle with count Heribert I on 28 June 896 ["Rodulfus vero in ira commotus propter castella perdita, dum depraedari non cessit abbatiam sancti Quintini, ab Heriberto in bello occiditur." Ann. Vedast., s.a. 896, 78; "Rodulfus comes interficitur 4. kal. Iulii." Ann. Bland., s.a. 896, 15: 24; "... qui Heribertus Rodulfum comitem, filium Balduini interfecit nostris temporibus, et non multum post occisus est a Balduino, satellite Balduini, fratris Rodulfi, qui Balduinus hucusque in Flandris ducatum tenet." Regino, s.a. 818 (in a retrospective annal written ca. 906, describing the family of Bernard, son of Pepin of Italy), MGH SS 1: 567]. It was on Raoul's defeat that Heribert obtained the region of Vermandois which gave Heribert's family the name by which it is now commonly known [see Werner (1960), 88-91]. The claim that Raoul was count of Cambrai does not appear in sources until the twelfth century [see Meyer & Longnon (1882), xviii-xix; Vanderkindere (1902), 1: 287; Grierson (1937a), 15, n. 2], and is evidently based on confusion between the present Raoul (enemy of Heribert I) and his kinsman Raoul de Gouy, father of the Raoul who was the historical prototype of the Raoul de Cambrai of romance (and also an enemy of the sons of Heribert II of Vermandois, which no doubt helped to contribute to the confusion between the two) [see Meyer & Longnon (1882), xviii-xix]. Supposed additional son (no early evidence, doubtful): Charles, d. young. This supposed son is known only from late sources [e.g., "Balduinus Ferreus, primus comes, filius Audachri per Judith uxorem, illustrissimus fuit, cum ea esset Calvi Caroli cesaris et regis Francorum, filia, ex Ermentrude propria uxore; ex qua liberi prodierunt: Carolus brevis vite, Balduinus, Rodulphus quoque, Cameracensis comes." Flandrie comites, secundum Jacobum Balliolanum, Guérard (1840), 11; Sproemberg (1936), 947, n. 2, attributes the same claim to Oudegherst, p. 46 (not seen by me)]. One possible explanation of how this claim could have arisen as an error is that the statement that Baldwin II got his nickname of Calvus from his maternal grandfather [Chronicon sancti Bavonis, s.a. 980, de Smet 1: 495], if later distorted and misinterpreted, could have led to the present claim. Supposed daughter by earlier marriage/ concubine: NN, nun ....... MUCH MORE INFORMATION IN ARTICLE

Count [presumably of Flanders], before 862-879. Lay-abbot of Saint-Pierre de Gand (St. Peter's, Ghent), 870.
Count Baldwin I, ancestor of the counts of Flanders, first appears in history in the year 862, when Judith, daughter of king Charles the Bald, and successively widow of the two Anglo-Saxon kings Æthelwulf and Æthelbald, eloped with him, with the assistance of Judith's brother Louis (later king Louis II) ["Karolus per Remi civitatem Suessionis venit. Ubi non incerto nuncio comperit, quia filia eius Iudith, relica scilicet Edelboldi regis Anglorum, quae, possessionibus venditis quas in Anglorum regno optinuerat, ad patrem rediit et in Silvanectis civitatem debito reginae honore sub tuitione paterna et regia atque episcopali custodia servabatur, donec, si se continere non posset, secundum apostolum, scilicet competenter ac legaliter, nuberet, Balduinum comitem, ipso lenocinante, et fratre suo Hludowico consentiente, mutato habitu est secuta; sed et quia Hludowicus, filius eius, a praefatis Guntfrido [et Gozfrido] sollicitatus, relictis fidelibus patris, cum paucis noctu aufugit et transfuga ad se sollicitantes pervenit." (Translation: Charles came through Rheims to the city of Soissons, where he learned news from an undoubted source [about his daughter Judith and his son Louis.] Judith, widow of Æthelbald, king of the English, having sold the possessions which she had obtained in the kingdom of England, had returned to her father, and was kept with the honor due to a queen under the guardianship of her father under royal and episcopal custody in the city of Senlis, until, if he could not contain her, she should be properly and legally married according to the apostles. [Charles learned that] Judith, changing her clothes, had followed count Baldwin by his instigation, with the consent of her brother Louis; and that his son Louis, urged by the aforesaid Guntfrid [and Gozfrid], had abandoned his loyalty to his father, and had run away in the night with a few men and had gone in refuge to those urging him.) Ann. Bert., s.a. 862, 56-7]. Charles asked his bishops to anathemize Baldwin and Judith, but he reconciled with them the next year at the pope's request, when Baldwin and Judith were married [Ann. Bert., s.a. 863, 66 (see below)]. Flodoard mentions two relevant letters of Hincmar of Reims during this time, one to bishop Hungarius of Utrecht, urging that Hungarius warn the Viking Roric, then ruling at Dorestadt in Frisia, not to receive Baldwin, and another with the same warning to Roric himself [Flodoard, Historia Remensis Ecclesiae iii, 23, 26, MGH SS 13: 529, 541]. A document based on a charter of king Charles the Bald, dated 13 April 870, but having later interpolations in its present form, mentions a "vir venerabilis Balduinus" who was abbot of Saint-Pierre de Gand [Cart. S.-Pierre de Gand, 1: 19-20 (#13); Prou (1920), 61]. It has been argued that the name of the abbot was one of the interpolations [e.g., Sproemberg (1935), 27-8], but these arguments were not accepted by Ganshof or Grierson [Ganshof (1937), 375-9; Grierson (1939)], and the most natural interpretation of this record is that count Baldwin I himself was lay-abbot of Saint-Pierre de Gand. In 871, Baldwin was sent by Charles along with abbot Gauzlin to negotiate with Charles's rebellious son Carloman [Ann. Bert., s.a. 871, 115]. The Annales Vedastini record his death in 879 ["Balduinus comes moritur sepeliturque in Sithiu" Ann. Vedast. 43-4]. The epithet of "Iron-arm" usually attributed to him appears in the work of Wimann (d. 1192), who attributed the nickname to his strength and audacity ["... Balduinus comes Flandrie, filius Odocri, vir audax et fortis, ita ut Ferreorum-brachiorum vocaretur, ..." Wimann, Liber de possessionibus sancti Vedasti, MGH SS 13: 711]. Additions to Annales Vedastini give him the epithets of Bonus (the Good) and Ferreus (Iron) [Ann. Vedast. 44]. Beyond the indication that he was lay-abbot of Saint-Pierre de Gand, there is no contemporary evidence indicating the specific pagi over which he held authority. Because his son Baldwin II clearly held authority there, Flanders (pagus Flandrensis) would be one obvious choice, and would make him a neighbor of Roric, thus explaining the above letters of Hincmar. It seems likely that he was count of Flanders by the time of his death at least, if not much earlier, but this is not directly documented. He is also likely to have benefitted in some way by the dispossession of count Ingelram sometime between 870 and 875 (see below), but the details here are also unclear. [See, e.g., Sproemberg (1935), Ganshof (1937), Grierson (1938)]
Date of Birth: Unknown. Place of Birth: Unknown.
Date of Death: 879. Place of Death: Unknown (buried at Saint-Bertin).
Mother: Unknown.
Probable father: Audacer/Odoacer.
Audacer's name is given as the father of Baldwin from the first appearance of Audacer's name in the records, which appear to go back to the tenth century. Thus, it is likely that the name Audacer/Odoacer can be accepted as the name of Baldwin's father. Nothing is known of Audacer beyond his status as Baldwin's father, unless there is some truth to the hunting rights from abbot Einhard mentioned below.
Spouse: m. at Auxerre, 863 (eloped 862), Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, king of the West Franks, emperor, and widow of Æthelwulf (d. 858) and of Æthelbald (d. 860), kings of the West Saxons.
["..., et ad Autisiodorum civitatem usque pervenit, ibique filiam suam Iudith, sicut dominus apostolicus eum petierat, consilio fidelium suorum Balduino, quem secuta fuerat, legaliter coniugio sociari permisit." (Translation: ... and he [Charles] arrived in the city of Auxerre; there, just as the pope had requested, by the advice of his loyal men, he allowed his daughter Judith to be legally joined in matrimony with Baldwin, with whom she had run off.) Ann. Bert., s.a. 863, 66] For a detailed account of Judith, see Sproemberg (1936).

Children:
The contemporary Annals of Saint-Vaast state that Baldwin and Raoul were brothers ["Balduinus vero comes et Hrodulfus frater eius, ..." Ann. Vedast., s.a. 895, 76]. Regino, writing in the first decade of the tenth century, states that Raoul was a son of Baldwin [I], and that Raoul's brother Baldwin [II] held Flanders [Regino, s.a. 818, MGH SS 1: 567 (see below)]. Writing between 951 and 959, Witger also states that Baldwin II was a son of Baldwin I by Judith ["Quam Iudith prudentissimam ac spetiosam sociavit sibi Balduinus comes fortissimus in matrimonii coniugium. Ex qua genuit filium, imponens ei nomen sibi equivocum, videlicet Balduinum." Witger, Genealogia Arnulfi comitis, MGH SS 9: 303].

MALE Baldwin II, d. 918, count/marquis of Flanders, 879-918;
m. Ælfthryth, daughter of Ælfred "the Great", king of Wessex.
MALE Raoul (Rodulfus), d. 28 June 896, count of Vermandois, 895-896. [often called count of Cambrai, probably falsely]
In 895, Raoul took the castle of Saint-Quentin, expelling the unnamed son of Theodoricus ["Nam Sancti Quintini castrum, per noctem tradendo eum abintus, tulerat Rodulfus filio Theoderici." Ann. Vedast., s.a. 895, 77]. This made him master of Vermandois (of which Saint-Quentin was the principle stronghold), and, as was pointed out by Grierson, it is not until after this event that Raoul is given the title of count by the Annales Vedastini [Grierson (1937a), 15, n. 2]. Expelled in the next year by king Eudes ["Post haec Odo rex castrum Sancti Quintini et Perronam obsedit hominesque Rodulfi inde eiecit." Ann. Vedast., s.a. 896, 78], Raoul continued to ravage possessions of the abbacy of Saint-Quentin until he was killed in battle with count Heribert I on 28 June 896 ["Rodulfus vero in ira commotus propter castella perdita, dum depraedari non cessit abbatiam sancti Quintini, ab Heriberto in bello occiditur." Ann. Vedast., s.a. 896, 78; "Rodulfus comes interficitur 4. kal. Iulii." Ann. Bland., s.a. 896, 15: 24; "... qui Heribertus Rodulfum comitem, filium Balduini interfecit nostris temporibus, et non multum post occisus est a Balduino, satellite Balduini, fratris Rodulfi, qui Balduinus hucusque in Flandris ducatum tenet." Regino, s.a. 818 (in a retrospective annal written ca. 906, describing the family of Bernard, son of Pepin of Italy), MGH SS 1: 567]. It was on Raoul's defeat that Heribert obtained the region of Vermandois which gave Heribert's family the name by which it is now commonly known [see Werner (1960), 88-91]. The claim that Raoul was count of Cambrai does not appear in sources until the twelfth century [see Meyer & Longnon (1882), xviii-xix; Vanderkindere (1902), 1: 287; Grierson (1937a), 15, n. 2], and is evidently based on confusion between the present Raoul (enemy of Heribert I) and his kinsman Raoul de Gouy, father of the Raoul who was the historical prototype of the Raoul de Cambrai of romance (and also an enemy of the sons of Heribert II of Vermandois, which no doubt helped to contribute to the confusion between the two) [see Meyer & Longnon (1882), xviii-xix].
Supposed additional son (no early evidence, doubtful): Charles, d. young.
This supposed son is known only from late sources [e.g., "Balduinus Ferreus, primus comes, filius Audachri per Judith uxorem, illustrissimus fuit, cum ea esset Calvi Caroli cesaris et regis Francorum, filia, ex Ermentrude propria uxore; ex qua liberi prodierunt: Carolus brevis vite, Balduinus, Rodulphus quoque, Cameracensis comes." Flandrie comites, secundum Jacobum Balliolanum, Guérard (1840), 11; Sproemberg (1936), 947, n. 2, attributes the same claim to Oudegherst, p. 46 (not seen by me)]. One possible explanation of how this claim could have arisen as an error is that the statement that Baldwin II got his nickname of Calvus from his maternal grandfather [Chronicon sancti Bavonis, s.a. 980, de Smet 1: 495], if later distorted and misinterpreted, could have led to the present claim.
Supposed daughter by earlier marriage/ concubine: NN, nun ....... MUCH MORE INFORMATION IN ARTICLE