Genealogy Story – William the Conqueror and the Pierrepont family

Why this research

While I have not been able to find a common ancestor between William the Conqueror and the Pierrepont/Pierpont family, there is another connection that is even more interesting.

The Pierpont Family Association is primarily concerned with documenting the descendants of the Pierpont family in New England, although they acknowledge that there is another branch of Pierponts who settled in the Virginia area. And, of course, they recognize that there are still branches in both England (where the family resided for nearly 600 years before coming to America) as well as in France where the family name began. Regarding this last group (who still bear the original name de Pierrepont), the following lines are all that exist in the official Pierpont Family Association genealogy tree.

>111 Sir Godfrey de[PM] P-re [ca 1050] 
>1111 Sir Ingolbrand de[PM] P-re ca 1090 
_a "lord of Castle P-re, Picardy, A.D.1090" [PD]
_q is PD confused about the location? 
_n ancestor of the French line of P-re [PD] 

In the recent post that I made on William the Conqueror, I received a reply from Geoffroy de Pierrepont, one of my distant cousins who is a descendant from this French line. He said, “dear cousin, regarding to your research, I strongly recommend you to read and take into account Reims University Professor Michel Bur key finding through his 2013 book we own in Institut de Pierrepont library and which we provide an extract here: http://www.depierrepont.net/publications/hugues-de-montfelix-batard-de-champagne. You will understand how Pierrepont second dynasty we own is most of all a direct descend from the Conqueror through his daughter Adela, countess of Blois Champagne and his grandson Thibaut IV earl of Champagne.”

The original book is in French, as is the extract, but since the readers of my blog are going to be primarily English speakers, I’ve tried to prepare the below in English phraseology and brought in some additional sources for confirmation. But this definitely shows a relationship between William the Conqueror and the Pierrepont families.

Background Information

William and his wife, Matilda of Flanders had at least nine children. One of them was Adela who married Stephen, Count of Blois. In French William’s name would be Guillaume le Conquèrant. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror#Family_and_children).

Adela was probably the youngest of William’s children and was a favorite sister of King Henry I of England. In French her name would be Adèle de Normandie. She was born sometime between 1066 and 1070, after the Norman conquest of England. Sometime around her 15^th birthday she married Stephen Henry (in French Etienne-Henri), son and heir to the count of Blois. Stephen was about 20 years her senior and he inherited Blois, Chartres and Meaux upon his father’s death in 1089. He participated in the first crusade in 1096 and trusted Adela to rule as regent while he was away. One of their many children was Theobald II, aka Thibaud IV Count of Champagne. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adela_of_Normandy)

Theobald II was Count of Blois and of Chartres as well as later Count of Champagne and Brie. He and his wife had 10 children, but he also had an illegitimate son, Hugh, who was abbot of Lagne near Paris. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theobald_II,_Count_of_Champagne). It is with Hugh that we leave the public sources of Wikipedia and get into the research of this recent book in French.

French Sources

Hugh (called in this research Hugues de Montfélix) was born of a relationship between his father Theobald and a young woman from the castle of Possesse. But because he is thus an acknowledged great-grandson of William the Conqueror and the son of Theobald, Hugh is also thus a nephew of King Stephen of England, and an uncle of the French king Philippe-Auguste. The account in the reference above is in French with inserts from Latin. However, let me attempt a quick summarization in English.

Hugh, without permission, built a new castle and took possession of a pond on the estate of the abbey at Vanault. The local abbot of Gorze and bishops complained, resulting in first a council meeting in Chalons, then the council of Reims, and finally a decision by Pope Innocent II. Although Hugh was obviously in the wrong and the first several judgements went against him, because of the support of his father, Count Thibaut II, the abbot finally bent and gave in. Hugh then built a new church and town (Saint-Loup) around his castle, with the intent to lure the inhabitants of the original town to join with him and to desert the old town and church.

One of the questions was where did Hugh get the resources to build his new castle and to defy the abbots of Gorze, the bishops of Chalons, and Pope Innocent II. He was unmarried when all this originally took place, but in 1138 he married a certain Alix. Alix was the daughter of Ermengarde, Dame de Montaigu, and Roger, Sire [Lord] de Pierrepont. (She was also is the granddaughter of Ingolbrand mentioned above in the Pierpont Family genealogies.) Her brothers were Guillaume (William), Robert, Lord of Montaigu and Lord de Pierrepont after his brother died, Guy de Montaigu, Dean of Laon, then bishop of Chalons, and Gauthier who had no property. Because all her brothers died without descendants, Alix inherited the chatellenies of  both Pierrepont and Montaigu, which she was able to pass on to her children (http://portier.christian.free.fr/alix.htm). This marriage was arranged by Thibaud II to connect areas in the north, i.e. the properties of both Montaigu and Pierrepont, where he had none to his properties in the south. Thus Thibaud was using his illegitimate son to help fulfill his desires to expand his property and his influence.

And thus, by marriage to a rich heiress of the Pierrepont family, Hugh helped carry on the name of the Pierreponts. As the chart in the above website shows, Hugh and Alix’s son was Hugues de Pierrepont (first name of his father and family name from his mother) and through them such individuals as Robert (Count de Roucy), Gauthier (Sire [Lord] de Vanault), Robert (Sire de Vanault), Regnault (Sire d’Amblie), and Jean (Sire de Pierrepont en Lantheuil).

So, while the Pierrepont family may not have had any ancestral connections to William the Conqueror (at least that I have been able to discover), their connections to William’s offspring and the Pierrepont family fortune gave them a very different kind of connection in the 12^th and 13^th centuries.