The Antecedents of the Counts of Amiens, Vexin, and Valois
The male line of the Drakes of Drakenage, along with that of their senior kinsmen, the Sudeleys and Tracys, derives from the 10th and 11th century Counts of Amiens, Valois, and the Vexin. The genealogy is clear as far back as Ralph de Guoy who died in 926 A.D. Beyond Ralph there is difficulty, and the thinking of experts in this field has evolved.
1931
Maurice Chaume ("Les origines du duché de Bourgogne, seconde partie : géographie
historique," Académie des sciences, arts et belles lettres de Dijon, 1931
XV p. + 817-1249) proposed that the father of Ralph de Guoy was Walter, Count of
Laon.
This theory has been superceded more recently, and it has been shown that Heilwich, attested as the mother of Raoul de Guoy, married (2) Roger, Count of Laon, whereas Ralph de Guoy appears to have been the son of an earlier marriage.
1939
Philip Grierson ("L'Origine des Comtes d'Amiens, Valois et Vexin," Le Moyen
Age XLIX, Vol III (1939), pp. 81-125) identified Heilwich, mother of Ralph
de Guoy, with the woman of the same name who was married to Hucbald, Count of
Ostrevant. The origins of Hucbald are unknown, but Heilwich, in this case, would
be the daughter of Eberhard of Friuli, whose wife Gisela was the granddaughter
of Charlemagne. This is the predominant theory encountered in print and is the one
presented in The Sudeleys–Lords of Toddington (Manorial Society, 1987).
This theory has difficulty explaining how the descendants of Hucbald came to hold Amiens, Vexin, and Valois, which prior to the 10th century were properties of the Nibelungs. Grierson proposed that the Nibelungs fell out of favor with King Odo and were dispossessed.
2005
David Kelley ("The Nibelungs," Foundations, Vol. 1, No. 6, pp. 425-550,
Foundation for Medieval Genealogy) has identified Ralph of Guoy with Ralph, son
of Theuderic, one of the Nibelungs, which family held Amiens, Vexin, and Valois
in the 9th Century. He points out that the supposed disinheritance of the
Nibelungs is unattested, and that the descent of the holdings makes perfect
sense if Ralph de Guoy were also a Nibelung. Theuderic (Thierry III) was the son
of Nibelung, Count of Vexin in 864, who was in turn the son of Theudebert, Count
of Madrie in 802. This Theudebert was the gr-gr-grandson of Childebrand I,
Seigneur of Baugy and Perrecy in 751, brother of Charles Martel, grandfather of
Charlemagne. If this is so, then the male line might possibly be carried back to
the Merovingians, often alleged as ancestors of Charlemagne.
Burke is reserved about the ancestry of the 10th Century Counts of Amiens, Vexin, and Valois, simply stating that they were "very possibly of Carolingian male ancestry further back" (Peerage, "Sudeley," 106th Edition, Vol. 2, p. 2757).
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