Judith of France (844 - unkown), Our 35th Great-grandmother: A Love Story

 

Baldwin I of Flanders and his wife, Judith of France, by Jan van der Asselt, ca. 1372/73, but probably heavily restored in the 19th century.

Who does not enjoy a love story, especially when it involves one's ancestors. In a previous blog, I wrote of our 35th great-grandfather, Alfred the Great, and his youngest daughter, Ælfthryth of Wessex (877- 929), who married Baldwin II (865-918), Margrave of Flanders, and they became our 34th great-grandparents. Baldwin's parents were Baldwin, first margrave of Flanders and Judith of France, a woman with a mind of her own.

Charles the Bald as depicted in 845 in his personal Bible

 

Born about 844, Judith was the eldest daughter of Charles the Bald (823-877), king of West Francia HERE, and Ermentrude of Orléans, our 36th great-grandparents. Her great-grandfather was Charlemagne, our 38th great-grandfather HERE.Royal Carolingian princesses seldom married, but were sent into nunneries to avoid entangling alliances. If they did marry, it never was to a foreigner, but times they were a-changing. The encroachments by the Danes got into Charles the Bald's head, for when Judith was twelve, the 55-year-old elderly King Æthelwulf of Wessex negotiated for her hand in Paris while on a pilgrimage to Rome, accompanied by his youngest son, the future King Alfred the Great, and married her on his way back. 

All the lands Charlemagne conquered. West Francia with capital Paris on left.

After the wedding ceremony in October 856, little Judith was anointed with myrrh by the archbishop of Rheims and declared Queen of Wessex - something unheard of, as previous wives of Wessex kings were not called 'queen', but only wives. This honor was insisted upon by her father, perhaps to secure her position in Wessex, a wild and crazy place, because King Æthelwulf's eldest son, Æthelbald, had risen against him during his absence, but settled for half of Wessex. Or, he rose up after Judith arrived in Wessex, fearing any son she would have would take precedence over his claim to the throne.

A King Æthelwulf penny. Was this a good likeness of our ancestor?

 

Judith settled into royal life in Wessex, but King Æthelwulf HERE died in January 858. We are descended from this 36th great-grandfather only through King Alfred because Judith had no children by him. 

  

After Æthelwulf's death, Judith, now 14 or 15 years old, married that eldest son, Æthelbald, chosen by the witan (council) as king of Wessex. It saved her from being sent to a nunnery. Marrying one's stepmother was beyond the pale, not even the pagan Danes committed such an offense, but marrying into the Carolingian dynasty enhanced Æthelbald's position. Judith was still a queen, the signing of numerous charters proving her status. Two and a half years later, in 860, Æthelbald died. Judith was still childless at age seventeen.

She sold her property in Wessex and returned to Francia, where her father placed her in the monastery of Senlis in modern northern France, under royal protection, with all the honors due a queen until such time as she was suitably remarried to a noble of his choice.

The Meeting of Baldwin and Judith. Wood panel at the seminary in Bruges, Belgium. I doubt he would have worn armor on a visit to a monastery, or she a crown, but we get the symbolism.

 

It was at Senlis that same year of 860 that she met Baldwin, perhaps already a count in Flanders, allegedly the son of a forester named Odoacre, but a man with some status, else how would he have been allowed in her presence. Foresters were often knights and minor nobles given control over royal forest lands. These two fell in love and, with the consent of her older brother, Louis the Stammerer, they likely married at the monastery in 861/862 before fleeing. Louis may have sent troops with them for his sister's protection, or Baldwin may have had his own following.

Judith's father, Charles the Bald, was enraged. He imprisoned her brother Louis in the Abbey of St. Martin and sent out troops to search for the couple. He had Baldwin excommunicated for kidnapping Judith and marrying her without royal consent.

In 862 Charles the Bald held a council with the bishops and nobles of his kingdom. According to contemporary chronicles he asked the bishops to pass a canonical verdict on Baldwin and Judith, according to the decrees of Pope Gregory II: “if anyone marries, having kidnapped a widow, let him be anathematized himself, as well as those who contributed to this.”  Charles was not an ancestor in whose company we would have been comfortable. 

Present-day Frisia in northern part of modern Netherlands

Baldwin and Judith initially sought refuge with the Viking Rorik, ruler of Frisia. Rorik was no friend to Judith's family, having  already fought against Charles the Bald on the side of Charles' brother, Lothair I. After Lothair and Charles concluded the Treaty of Verdun in 843, Lothair imprisoned Rorik, accusing him of treason. Rorik escaped and began attacking Lothair's Middle Francia kingdom, . Unable to cope with the Vikings, Lothair gave him Frisia on condition he protect the Carolingians from the rest of the Danes.

 Judith and Baldwin left Rorik because this Dane, recently converted to Christianity, was ordered by Charles' bishops not to give refuge to the king's enemies, and threatened, not with an invading army, but with the same spiritual doom Baldwin had received.  Judith and Baldwin fled for protection to the court of her cousin, Lothair II of Lotharingia (Middle Francia) at his capital of Aix-La-Chapelle, present-day Aachen, in western Germany.

  From there they traveled to Rome to plead their case to Pope Nicholas I.  The Pope listened to their arguments and sent two bishops as his legates to Charles the Bald, asking that he recognize the marriage and bring the couple into his royal circle. Still angry, Charles rejected a rapprochement. In a letter dated 23 November 862, the Pope expressed to the king his fears that Baldwin, after his excommunication from the church, might joined forces with the 'Jute prince Rorik'. This missive indicates to me that Baldwin had status and a following.

When this message reached Charles in his capital of Paris, he reluctantly forgave them, and the couple returned to France and were officially married at Auxerre on 13 December 863. Charles gave Baldwin the March of Flanders (the borderland), perhaps hoping he'd be killed in a Viking raid. 

10th century Flanders at the top encroached from Normans from the south and Vikings from the north

Baldwin quelled the Viking threat (earning the nickname of 'Iron' [Ferreum] from his contemporaries, which later generations replaced with the nickname "Iron Hand"), expanded his army and his territory quickly, and became a faithful supporter of Charles the Bald. His County of Flanders became a powerful domain in France. He and Judith lived on an island at the confluence of the Boterbeke and Roya rivers that became modern Bruges, Belgium.

Baldwin I died in 879 in the city of Arras (in present-day France on the Belgian border) and was buried in the Abbey of Saint-Bertin near Saint-Omer.  His and Judith's son became Baldwin II (born c.865/867 – c. 918). We don't know exactly when Judith died. It's possible it was she who arranged the marriage of her son Baldwin II to Alfred the Great's youngest daughter Ælfthryth of Wessex (877- 929), between 893 and 899. They became our 34th great-grandparents.

Baldwin and Judith