Adela of England, Countess of Blois

Overview

Title social-status

Countess of Blois, Chartes, and Meaux

Date of Birth

c.1067

Date of Death

1137

Biography

(See also Genealogical Table(s): 2, 2.3, 2.4.2.)
\Adela was the daughter of William the Conqueror, sister of Henry I of England, wife of and regent for Stephen of Blois, and mother of Stephen, king of England. Born to the purple, after her father became king of England, Adela could claim royal blood on both sides — her mother Matilda of Flanders was descended from Robert the Pious through her mother and king Alfred through her father — which gave Adela particular prestige. She was co-ruler with her husband ("Stephano comite et Hahela ejus uxore regnantibus," from the Cartulaires de l’abbaye de Molesme, v.2.139-40, #143). When he went on [the first] crusade in 1096, a venture she underwrote with her personal wealth, she ruled for him for three years. He came back without fulfilling his vow, indeed with the shame of a cowardly retreat, and Adela urged him to return to the Holy Land, where he died in 1102.(1) She continued to rule for her sons, and even for her childless brother-in-law Hugh, count of Troyes, while he was on crusade, keeping the family holdings intact, and she participated in meetings between her brother and her sons as late as 1118. She was involved in the secular and religious politics of England and northern France until her retirement. Kimberly LoPrete calls Adela “one of the most prestigious, influential, and effective power brokers in the turbulent secular and ecclesiastical politics of the late-eleventh and early-twelfth centuries.”(2) Adela had five sons, William, count of Chartres, Thibaud IV count of Blois (II of Champagne), Odo, Stephen (king of England), and Henry (abbot of Glastonbury, bishop of Winchester, papal legate in England), and at least one daughter, Matilda (married Richard of Chester, died on the White Ship), and perhaps Agnes.(3) Thibaud’s sons Henry of Champagne and Thibaud V of Blois, married Marie and Alice, daughters of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Louis VII, his daughter Adela married Louis VII and was the mother of Philip Augustus, so Adela was mother of a king of England and great-grandmother of a king of France. In 1120, Adela retired to Marcigny, where she died in 1137.

Ivo, bishop of Chartres, wrote frequently to Adela about problems in their common jurisdiction. He often criticized her actions and warned against her tendency to anger, but he did his best to maintain a working relationship.(4) Nine letters from him are extant. Ivo also mentions a letter not extant from Adela to him in his letter to Walter II, bishop of Meaux, ep. 70, about the scandalous life of the nuns of St. Fara of Marmoutier c.1098: Quod ideo suggero dilectioni vestrae quia tam ex verbis Turonensium monachorum quam ex litteris dominae Adeleidis [domnae Adelae] venerabilis comitissae audivi turpissimam famam de monasterio Sanctae Farae, quod jam non locus sanctimonialium, sed prostibulum dicendum est, mulierum daemonialium corpora sua ad turpes usus omni generi hominum prostituentium (cited by LoPrete, Adela of Blois, 450, #18); "Therefore I suggest to your love that I have heard, as much from the reports of the monks of Tours [Marmoutier] as from the letters of the venerable countess lady Adela, the very shameful rumor about the monastery of St. Fara, that it is not called a place of nuns, but a brothel, of devilish women prostituting their bodies to the shameful uses of men of all kinds." LoPrete notes that no letters Adela wrote before her retirement survive though "the letters of Adela's several episcopal correspondants suggest she wrote to them on more than one occasion" (Adela of Blois, p.546, fn.62). I am endebted to LoPrete for detailed editing of my translations of Adela's letters.

Adela issued various charters, grants of land, of jurisdiction, rights to and freedom from customs, vicarial rights, both during her regency and after she had retired to Marcigny. There are also poems to and about Adela, two from Baudri of Bourgeuil and one or two from Hildebert of Lavardin addressed to her, one about her by Godfrey of Rheims in a verse epistle to Ingelran, and at least one anonymous poem.(5)

Letters from Adela of England, Countess of Blois

Letters to Adela of England, Countess of Blois