Ledgarde, Countess of Blois
Overview
Biography
Daughter of Herbert II of Vermandois, count of Champagne, mother of Count Odo I of Blois, Hugo bishop of Bourges, and Emma, who married Guillaume II count of Poitiers. Ledgard may have first married Guillaume Longue Epee, duke of Normandy (Jubainville questions this marriage, Histoire 130); but by at least 945 she had married Thibaud "le Tricheur," count of Blois and Chartres and father of her children. Herbert II, count of Vermandois, was a great-grandson of Bernard, King of Italy, whose father was Pepin, son of Charlemagne. Herbert married a sister of Hugh the Great, Adele (inferred from passages in Flodoard's histories, see Histoire des Ducs et des Comtes de Champagne, depuis le VIe s. jusqu'a la fin du XIe, H. D'Arbois de Jubainville [Paris: Aug. Aubry, 1859], 78); she would presumably have been the countess's mother. Ledgard's siblings were Odo, count of Amiens, Albert, who became count of Vermandois (943-88), Robert and Herbert, successively counts of Champagne, Hugh, archbishop of Reims, and Alix, married to Arnoul I, count of Flanders. Both Adele and her sister Emma, married to the French king Raoul (Rudolph of Burgundy, king of France 923-36), refused in different incidents to give up Laon after their husbands had ceded the city. Emma, who was in charge of a garrison refused to move it out of Laon when Raoul ceded it to Herbert; her action nullified the treaty (Histoire,102). Herbert, then allied with the German Henry the Fowler, had previously supported Raoul. Emma surrendered the city only after papal intervention and a new agreement. Later, Adele refused to give up Laon after her husband had surrendered it to Raoul who had to raise a longer and harder siege to overcome her (Hist.111-12, drawing on Chronicon Flodoardi for the years 927-31). Ledgard was still alive in 978. Her epitaph, in Saint Peter of Chartres read: "Hic jacet illustris quondam Ledgardis comitissa, cui deus aeternam det laeta sede coronam. Hujus ab oppositis clypeis numquam tumuletis." "Here lies the illustrious Ledgard once countess, to whom God give an eternal crown with happy setting. May you never be buried with opposed shields." Ledgard left three villages in the Vexin to the abbey of Saint Peter: Juziers, Fontenay-Saint-Père, and Limay.