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From: "Peter Stewart" <>
Subject: Re: Renaud (or Reginald) de Courtenay and his alleged father,Fleury of France
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 23:19:27 +1100
References: <223039a5-4037-46b7-aaef-141c99b3d917@r4g2000prm.googlegroups.com><1e69ec56-4af0-43e1-83dd-97c539e97de6@o32g2000prb.googlegroups.com><ii8bhr$3tf$1@news.eternal-september.org><db74a4ca-0c16-4da3-ae96-ac15dd2ddf36@g1g2000prb.googlegroups.com>
In-Reply-To: <db74a4ca-0c16-4da3-ae96-ac15dd2ddf36@g1g2000prb.googlegroups.com>


"Douglas Richardson" <> wrote in message
news:...

<snip>

> I think a fair assessment of Mr. Church's comments is that he feels
> the evidence is weak that Elizabeth, wife of Pierre of France, was
> the daughter of the earlier Renaud de Courtenay (living 1149) of
> France. Even so, I believe there is other evidence which supports
> this marriage which eluded Mr. Church. See for example Recueil
> des Historiens des Gaules et de la France 18 (1879): 760.

Is this supposed to be a joke? The "evidence" you think eluded Church is the
work of Alberic of Troisfontaines, written in the 1230s and frequently
unreliable for events closer to his own time. He was explicitly uncertain
about whether Pierre's wife, dame of Montargis, was sister or niece ("soror
vel neptis") to Guillaume, archbishop of Bourges, and he doesn't even
mention Renaud.

> Mr. Church's research reveals that Renaud de Courtenay (living
> 1149) had a sister named Elizabeth. If this Elizabeth married
> Fleury of France, they could well be the parents of Renaud de
> Courtenay who later surfaces in England. The use of the
> Courtenay surname by Renaud de Courtenay in England could
> be explained if he adopted his mother's surname as his own.
> This arrangement would also explain why Renaud de Courtenay
> in England inherited none of the Courtenay family land holdings
> in France, as his mother would have been the aunt of the actual
> heiress of the family, the heiress being the younger Elizabeth
> de Courtenay, who married c.1150 Pierre of France.

But as pointed out before the wife of Florus was an heiress in her own
right, of Nangis, and this was inherited by her daughter Isabelle so the
speculation that she had a landless son is pointless.
'
> Insofar as Fleury of France being the father of Renaud de Courtenay
> in England, I certainly have an open mind regarding that possibility.

You mind is clearly "open" to the elements on this question.

> What would prove or disprove the connection is DNA evidence.
> If the Y-chromosome of men descended from the English
> Courtenays can be found to match male descendants of the
> Capetian family, then I think a good case could be made that the
> Ford Abbey pedigree was correct in identifying Renaud de
> Courtenay in England as a son of Fleury of France. To disregard
> the Ford Abbey pedigree outright would be an error in my
> judgement. At the present date, there appears to be insufficient
> DNA evidence at hand to settle the matter.

And if they had the same Y-DNA as Jack Sprat then a case could be made that
they wouldn't eat fat. There's no more reason to look for scientific
evidence in support of this than for any of the numberless false claims
about founders' and patrons' kin in countless similar monastic screeds of
the 14th and 15th centuries.

Peter Stewart

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