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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_of_VermandoisDuke of France and Burgundy
Marquis of Orleans
Count of Amiens, Chaumont, Paris, Valois, Vermandois
Leader of the first Crusade
Hugh I , called
Magnus or
the Great, was a younger son of
Henry I of France and
Anne of Kiev and younger brother of
Philip I. He was in his own right
Count of Vermandois, but an ineffectual leader and soldier, great only in his boasting. Indeed,
Steven Runciman is certain that his nickname Magnus , applied to him by
William of Tyre, is a copyist's error, and should be Minus , referring to Hugh as younger brother of the King of France.
In early 1096 Hugh and Philip began discussing the
First Crusade after news of the
Council of Clermont reached them in
Paris. Although Philip could not participate, as he had been
excommunicated, Hugh was said to have been influenced to join the Crusade after an
eclipse of the moon on
February 11, 1096.
That summer Hugh's army left
France for
Italy, where they would cross the
Adriatic Sea into territory of the
Byzantine Empire, unlike the other Crusader armies who were travelling by land. On the way, many of the soldiers led by fellow Crusader
Emicho joined Hugh's army after Emicho was defeated by the
Hungarians, whose land he had been pillaging. Hugh crossed the Adriatic from
Bari in
Southern Italy, but many of his ships were destroyed in a storm off the
Byzantine port of
Dyrrhachium.
Hugh and most of his army was rescued and escorted to
Constantinople, where they arrived in November of 1096. Prior to his arrival, Hugh sent an arrogant, insulting letter to
Eastern Roman Emperor Alexius I Comnenus, according to the Emperor's biography by his daughter , demanding that Alexius meet with him:
"Know, O King, that I am King of Kings, and superior to all, who are under the sky. You are now permitted to greet me, on my arrival, and to receive me with magnificence, as befits my nobility."
[1]Alexius was already wary of the armies about to arrive, after the
unruly mob led by
Peter the Hermit had passed through earlier in the year. Alexius kept Hugh in custody in a monastery until Hugh swore an oath of vassalage to him.
After the Crusaders had successfully made their way across
Seljuk territory and, in 1098,
captured Antioch, Hugh was sent back to Constantinople to appeal for reinforcements from Alexius. Alexius was uninterested, however, and Hugh, instead of returning to Antioch to help plan the
siege of Jerusalem, went back to France. There he was scorned for not having fulfilled his vow as a Crusader to complete a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and
Pope Paschal II threatened to excommunicate him. He joined the minor
Crusade of 1101, but was wounded in battle with the Turks in September, and died of his wounds in October in
Tarsus.
Family and children
He married Adele of Vermandois, the daughter of
Herbert IV of Vermandois and
Adele of Valois.They had nine children:
1. Count
Raoul I of Vermandois 2. Henry, senior of
Chaumont-en-Vexin, .
3. Simon,
Bishop of Noyon 4. Elizabeth de Vermandois, married
1. Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester;
2. William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey 5. Matilde de Vermandois, married
Raoul I of Beaugency 6. Constance de Vermandois, married Godefroy de la Ferte-Gaucher
7. Agnes de Vermandois, married Margrave
Boniface del Vasto. Mother of
Adelaide del Vasto.
8. Beatrix de Vermandois, married Hugh III of Gournay-en-Bray
9. Emma de Vermandois
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