Aleid/Adelaide of Holland

Overview

Title social-status

Countess of Hainaut

Date of Birth

before 1234

Date of Death

1284

Biography

(See also Genealogical Table(s): 2.3, 2.4.1, 2.4.2, 4.1.)
Aleid or Adelaide was the daughter of Floris IV, count of Holland and Mathilde of Brabant, whose sister Marie married the emperor Otto IV. Aleid’s brother William II, count of Holland became Anti-King of the Romans in 1247. Aleid married John/Jean I of Avesnes, count of Hainaut, in 1246. John was the son of Margaret of Constantinople, countess of Flanders, and her first husband, Bouchard d’Avesnes. When that marriage was dissolved, Margaret rejected the children from it, and made the children of her second marriage to William of Dampierre her heirs in Flanders. The Avesnes and Dampierre children fought over their rights and eventually the Avesnes were granted Hainaut, while the Dampierre held Flanders. Aleid and John I had seven children: John II, count of Hainaut and Holland, Joanna, abbess of Flines, Bouchard, bishop of Metz, Guy, bishop of Utrecht, William, bishop of Cambrai, Floris, prince of Achaea, and another son, Baldwin. Aleid served as regent of Holland (1258-63) for her nephew Floris V after her brothers, William and Floris, died; she continued to advise him after he took over. After Floris’s son died, in 1299, Aleid’s son John II, count of Hainaut, succeeded to Holland as well. Like her mother Mathilde, Aleid was a patron of various religious institutions, among them Cistercian houses and beguinages. She died in 1284.

Letters from Aleid/Adelaide of Holland

Letters to Aleid/Adelaide of Holland

A letter from Dirk/Theodore of Teylingen (1272, September 25)
A letter from Florence, count of Holland (1272, September 8)
A letter from Godfried of Kruiningen (1262, April 25)
A letter from Henry, bishop of Utrecht (1264, May 14)