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From:
Subject: Re: Zaida (& Isabel, Jimena and the others)
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 19:28:36 -0700
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On Oct 15, 6:16 pm, Roger LeBlanc <> wrote:
> Not having received a response to my previous question on the subject,
> I'm going to try again.
>
> Who is this Helias/Elias/Helie count of Maine referred to in the
> following discussion? He is surely not the Helie of Maine who died in
> 1110. Kimberley LoPrete, who has recently spilled a good deal of ink on
> the subject of Maine appears not to know of any second marriage for him.
> Neither does Stewart Baldwin's page in the Henry Project show a second
> marriage. So who is he then?
>


>From a post by Peter Stewart:

: He wrote (see book X, chapter 18 in _The Ecclesiastical History of
: Orderic Vitalis_, edited by Marjorie Chibnall, 6 vols (Oxford,
1969-81)
: V p. 306): "Defuncta coniuge sua celibem uitam actitare renuit, sed
: Agnetem filiam Guillelmi Pictauorum ducis relictam Hildefonsi
senioris
: Galiciae regis uxorem duxit. Celebres nuptias cum ingenti tripudio
: perpetrauit, sed sequenti anno multis lugentibus obiit" (trans:
After
: his wife died he [Helias of Maine] declined to lead a celibate life
and
: instead married Duke William of the Poitevins' daughter Agnes, the
widow
: of old King Alfonso of Galicia. The nuptials were performed with
: extraordinary celebrations, but the following year to general
mourning
: he died).

There can be no doubt to whom this refers - the Helias who died 1110.
There is room to doubt whether Orderic was accurate. The more I mull
over this the more I think this is a reference to Alfonso's widow,
Beatrice. Whether she was actually daughter of (a) Duke William is
another story. (Perhaps Orderic simply knew two facts - that Alfonso
married Agnes daughter of William, and that Helias married the widow
of Alfonso, and he put two and two together. or perhaps he was just
misinformed.) If it is Beatrice, then she has a pattern of marriage to
old codgers who then immediately croak on her.

taf

This thread:

• Re: Zaida (& Isabel, Jimena and the others) by

  • Re: Zaida (& Isabel, Jimena and the others) by WJhonson <>