Family tree Homs » Constance de Bretagne Duchess (± 1162-1201)

Personal data Constance de Bretagne Duchess 

• Alternative name: Duchess Constance of Brittany
• She was born about 1162 TO ABT 1162 in Nantes, Bretagne, France.
• She was christened in (5-1166).
• Baptized (at 8 years of age or later) by the priesthood authority of the LDS church on January 15, 1924.
• Alternative: Baptized (at 8 years of age or later) by the priesthood authority of the LDS church on January 15, 1924.
• Alternative: Baptized (at 8 years of age or later) by the priesthood authority of the LDS church on January 15, 1924.
• Alternative: Baptized (at 8 years of age or later) by the priesthood authority of the LDS church on January 15, 1924.
• Alternative: Baptized (at 8 years of age or later) by the priesthood authority of the LDS church on January 15, 1924.
• Alternative: Baptized (at 8 years of age or later) by the priesthood authority of the LDS church on January 15, 1924.
• Alternative: Baptized (at 8 years of age or later) by the priesthood authority of the LDS church on May 27, 1994.
• Alternative: Baptized (at 8 years of age or later) by the priesthood authority of the LDS church on February 28, 1995.
• Occupations:
• .

  {geni:job_title} Duchesse, de Bretagne, Comtesse, de Richmond

• .
• She died on September 5, 1201 in Nantes, Loire-Atlantique, Pays de la Loire, France.
• She is buried on November 24, 1225 in Villeneuve Abbey, Nantes, Loire-Atlantique, Pays de la Loire, France.
• A child of Conan IV de Bretagne and Margaret Huntington
• This information was last updated on July 19, 2011.

Household of Constance de Bretagne Duchess

She is married to Guy de Thouars.

They got married about 1199 at Brittany, France.

Child(ren):

1. Alix de Thouars  1199-1221 

Notes about Constance de Bretagne Duchess

Constance of Brittany (1161 Bretagne – September 5, 1201 Nantes) was Duchess of Brittany between 1186 and 1196. Constance was the only child of Conan IV, Duke of Brittany and Earl of Richmond, by his wife Margaret of Scotland, countess of Hereford (granddaughter of king David I).

Contents [hide] 1 First Marriage 2 Later Marriages 3 Death and Burial 4 Media 5 See also

[edit] First Marriage In 1181, Constance married Geoffrey Plantagenet, the fourth son of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and had three children by him: Eleanor, Fair Maid of Brittany (1184-1241), Matilda/Maud of Brittany (1185-bef 1189) and Arthur, the latter born after Geoffrey's death. Geoffrey assumed the title of Duke of Brittany and became the effective ruler of the duchy from the date of their marriage. However, he died in 1186, stamped by a horse during a tournament. Constance then became ruler of Brittany until 1196, when she abdicated in favour of Arthur.

[edit] Later Marriages After her son's rebellion was quashed, Arthur disappeared into one of King John's castles, never to be seen again, and Eleanor was imprisoned for the rest of her days. King Henry had arranged for Constance to marry Ranulph de Meschines, 4th Earl of Chester on 3 February 1188, but this marriage was not successful, and Ranulph imprisoned his wife in 1196, an act that sparked a rebellion in her native Brittany. Finally in 1198 she was released, and had her marriage to Ranulph annulled. In the same year, at Angers, Constance took Guy of Thouars as her husband, and by him was mother of twin daughters; Alix of Thouars, who married Peter de Dreux, first Breton ruler of the House of Dreux; and Katherine of Thouars (1201-c. 1240) who married Andre III of Bretagne, Sire of Vitre.

[edit] Death and Burial Constance died, age 40, on 5 September 1201 at Nantes. She was buried at Villeneuve Abbey in Nantes.

Constance's cause of death is debated. Some historians believe she died of leprosy. Others believe she died from complications of childbirth, shortly after birthing twin girls. Still others believe that she had leprosy, leading to a difficult delivery, and ultimately to her death shortly after the birth of the twins, thus both leprosy and childbirth being the causes of death. That Constance was birthing twins, at the age of forty, in the unsanitary conditions of the age, should be taken greatly into account in this debate. As the exact date of the twins birth is not currently known, and may never be known, there may never be a resolution to this question.

[edit] Media She has several very eloquent speeches on grief and death in Shakespeare's play King John.

Name Suffix: Duchess Of Brittany

In 1166, in furtherance of his father's policy of extending and consolidating Angevin power in France, Geoffrey was betrothed to Constance, daughter and heir of Conan IV, Duke of Brittany.

____________________________________
• Occupation. Duchess (Heiress) of Brittany.
• Occupation. Countess of Richmond.
• Interred, 24 Nov 1225, Villeneuve Abbey, Nantes, Brittany.

1 AUTH Sl

From Plantagenet Ancestry:

GEOFFREY OF ENGLAND, 4th son, born 23 Sept. 1158, in right of his wife, Duke of Brittany and Earl of Richmond. He married about July 1181 by dispensation (they being related in the 3rd and 4th degrees of kindred) CONSTANCE OF BRITTANY. ... They had three children. ... In 1184 they founded a chaplaincy in Rouen Cathedral for the soul of his late brother, Henry. In 1185 they issued an assize regulating the succession of lands in Brittany. GEOFFREY, Duke of Brittany, Earl of Richmond, was killed in a tournament at Paris 19 August 1186, and was buried there in the quire of Nôtre Dame Cathedral. His widow Constance, married (2nd) ... (as his 1st wife) RANULPH III, Earl of Chester ... which marriage was annulled in 1199, presumably on grounds on consanguinity. They ha dno issue. She married ... (as his 1st wife) Guy de Thouars ... younger son of Geoffroi IV. ... They had two daughters, Alice ... and Katherine. ... Constance, Duchess of Brittany, died testate at Nantes ... and was eventually buried at Villeneuve. Guy de Thouars served as regent of Brittany on behalf of his daughter, Alice, from 1203 to 1213. He married (2nd) Eustache de Mauléon, widow of Guillaume V, Vicomte of Aunay, and daughter of Pierre d'Argenton. They had two sons, Pierre [seigneur of Chemillé, Mortagne, and Brissac] and Thomas. In Oct. 1203 Guy was granted the castles of Chemillé and Brissac by King Philippe Auguste of France. In 1204 he led the Breton invasion of southern Normandy. He died at Chemillé 13 April 1213, and was eventually buried at Villeneuve. His widow, Eustache, married (3rd) Renaud de Maulévrier. She was living in 1244.

only daughter and heir. In 1166, when aged 5 or less, she was betrothed to Geoffrey, 3rd surviving son of HENRY II; the marriage took place in 1181. In September-October 1183 or 1184 she issued at QuimperIé a charter for the abbey of Ste. Croix there, and in 1184 at Redon Geoffrey and Constance issued contemporaneous charters founding a chaplaincy in Rouen Cathedral for the soul of the young King Henry and endowing it with a rent from the mills of Guingamp. On 19 August 1197 a year after Geoffrey's death, she executed a charter at Rennes confirming certain gifts to the abbey of St. Melaine there. Some time in 1187 she married Ranulf, EARL OF CHESTER, but she was averse to the marriage and does not seem willingly to have consorted with him. By a charter dated at Nantes in 1192 she granted to the Bishop and chapter of St. Malo, with the consent and goodwill of her son Arthur, a weekly market at St. Malo, and by another of the same year at Nantes she gave the isle of "Bremen" to the abbey of Buzay. At Rennes in 1193 she issued a charter for the abbey of St. Melaine there, and on 15 March 1194/5 she was at Angers, where she executed one for the hospital of St. John in that City. In 1196 she was captured at Pontorson by her husband, the Earl of Chester, who imprisoned her in his castle of St. James de Beuvron, a step which led to an insurrection in Brittany, which was suppressed by Richard I. Constance seems to have recovered her liberty by the summer of 1198, when she confirmed the peace made between Andrew de Vité and William de la Guerche by a charter which probably passed at Ploërmel. Next year she repudiated her marriage with Earl Ranulf and married GUY DE THOUARS. The remainder of Constance's. life seems to have been spent in peace. In June 1201 she executed a charter at Nantes for the Templars; and in the same year she founded the abbey of Villeneuve in the diocese of Nantes, including among the endowments a rent of £10 sterling charged on the Earldom of Richmond and payable annually at the time of the fair of Boston, Lincs.
Constance married, 1stly, Geoffrey, 4th son of HENRY II, by ELEANOR of Aquitaine, born 23 September 1158; on his marriage in 1181 he was recognised as DUKE OF BRITTANY and EARL OF RICHMOND; he had previously in May 1169 received the homage of the Breton barons at Rennes. He left England for Brittany in 1179, and the only later occasion on which he seems to have been in England was in 1184, the probable date of a charter which he executed at Winchester confirming to Kirkstead Abbey land in Gayton le Wold, Lincs, which Duke Conan had given. On 30 March 1184 at Rennes he confirmed an agreement between the priory of St. Cyr and Geoffrey de la Guerche. At Rennes in 1185, in conjunction with Constance, he issued his celebrated assize regulating the succession to lands in Brittany held by barony or military tenure, and at Nantes in 1186 a charter for the abbey of Buzay. He was killed in a tournament at Paris on 19 August 1186, and buried in the quire of the cathedral there. Constance married, 2ndly, Ranulf, EARL OF CHESTER. She married 3rdly, Guy DE THOUARS, brother of Almery, VICOMTE OF THOUARS. She died 4 or 5 September 1201, at Nantes, and was buried at Villeneuve. In 1201, after her death, Guy de Thouars was administering the honor of Richmond, the King ratifying leases granted by him, and in 1202 he had licence to sell his wood of Richmond, half the proceeds to go to the King and half to himself; on 2 April 1203 the King ratified the yearly farm to be paid by him for the honor. Later in that year he joined Philip Augustus, and his English lands were confiscated, grants being made from them in September 1203; this terminated his connection with Richmond. In 1204 he invaded Normandy at the head of the Bretons. In Brittany after Constance's death he occupied the position of regent until 1213, when Piers de Braine married his daughter Alice and was made Duke. He then disappears from history, and the date of his death is not certainly known; he was ultimately buried at Villeneuve at the same time as his wife and daughter. [Complete Peerage X:794-7, (transcribed by Dave Utzinger)]

{geni:occupation} Duquesa da Britânia, Duchesse, de Bretagne, Comtesse, de Richmond

{geni:about_me} Constance of Penthièvre (Breton: Konstanza Penture, or Konstanza Breizh; 1161 – 5 September 1201) was hereditary Duchess of Brittany between 1171 and 1196. Constance was the only child of Conan IV, Duke of Brittany and Earl of Richmond, by his wife Margaret of Huntingdon, later called Countess of Hereford, a granddaughter of David I of Scotland.

Contents [hide]

1 As Duchess

2 Death and Burial

3 Media

4 See also

[edit] As Duchess

As part of a diplomatic settlement in 1181, twenty-year-old Constance was forced into marriage with Geoffrey Plantagenet, the fourth son of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine. With Geoffery she had three children: Eleanor, Fair Maid of Brittany (1184-1241), Matilda/Maud of Brittany (1185-bef 1189) and Arthur (b 1186-1203), the latter born after Geoffrey's death. As de jure uxoris Duke, Geoffrey excluded Constance from exercising authority in government. In 1186, in a riding accident in Paris, Geoffrey was stamped to death during a tournament. Constance thereafter became the effective ruler of Brittany.

However, Henry II of England arranged for Constance to marry Ranulph de Meschines, 4th Earl of Chester on 3 February 1188. In 1191 King Richard I of England officially proclaimed his nephew, Constance's son Arthur of Brittany, as his heir in a treaty signed with Philip II of France. To promote her son's position and inheritance, Constance abdicated in his favor in 1194.

Constance's marriage with Ranulph deteriorated, with Ranulph imprisoning Constance in 1196. With Constance imprisoned in England, rebellions were sparked across Brittany on her behalf. Ranulph bowed to growing pressure and had the Duchess released in 1198.

Back in Brittany, Constance had her marriage annulled. Later in 1198 at Angiers, Constance took Guy of Thouars as her 'second' husband. Throughout these years, Constance advised her son towards a French alliance, pursuing the policy of her late husband Geoffrey II.

When Richard I died in 1199, Phillip II agreed to recognize Arthur as count of Anjou, Maine, and Poitou, in exchange for Arthur swearing fealty to Phillip II, becoming a direct vassel of France. However 13-year-old Arthur was captured while besieging Mirabeau, and the following year he was transferred to Rouen, under the charge of William de Braose, and then vanished mysteriously in April 1203.

During the conflict, Constance's eldest daughter Eleanor was captured and imprisoned at Corfe Castle in Dorset, where she remained imprisoned until her death.

Constance bore her third husband twin daughters; Alix of Thouars, who married Peter de Dreux, first Breton ruler of the House of Dreux; and Katherine of Thouars (1201-c. 1240) who married Andre III of Bretagne, Sire of Vitre.

[edit] Death and Burial

Constance died, age 40, on 5 September 1201 at Nantes. She was buried at Villeneuve Abbey in Nantes.

Constance's cause of death is debated. Some historians believe she died of leprosy. Others believe she died from complications of childbirth, shortly after birthing twin girls. Still others believe that she had leprosy, leading to a difficult delivery, and ultimately to her death shortly after the birth of the twins, thus both leprosy and childbirth being the causes of death. That Constance was birthing twins, at the age of forty, in the unsanitary conditions of the age, should be taken greatly into account in this debate. As the exact date of the twins birth is not currently known, and may never be known, there may never be a resolution to this question.

[edit] Media

Constance is a character in the play King John by William Shakespeare, in which she has several very eloquent speeches on grief and death. On screen, she has been portrayed by Julia Neilson in the silent short King John (1899), which recreates John's death scene at the end of the play, Sonia Dresdel in the BBC Sunday Night Theatre version (1952), and Claire Bloom in the BBC Shakespeare version (1984). She was also played by Paula Williams (as a girl) and Nina Francis (as an adult) in the BBC TV drama series The Devil's Crown (1978).

[edit] See also

Dukes of Brittany family tree

Peerage of England

Preceded by

Conan IV Countess of Richmond

1171–1201 Succeeded by

Arthur I

Duchess of Brittany

1171–1194

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constance,_Duchess_of_Brittany"

--------------------

Constance, Duchess of Brittany

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

onstance of Penthièvre (Breton: Konstanza Penture, or Konstanza Breizh; 12 June 1161 – 5 September 1201) was hereditary Duchess of Brittany between 1171 and 1196. Constance was the only child of Conan IV, Duke of Brittany and Earl of Richmond, by his wife Margaret of Huntingdon, later called Countess of Hereford, a granddaughter of David I of Scotland.

As Duchess

As part of a diplomatic settlement in 1181, twenty-year-old Constance was forced into marriage with Geoffrey Plantagenet, the fourth son of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine. With Geoffery she had three children: Eleanor, Fair Maid of Brittany (1184-1241), Matilda/Maud of Brittany (1185-bef 1189) and Arthur (b 1186-1203), the latter born after Geoffrey's death. As de jure uxoris Duke, Geoffrey excluded Constance from exercising authority in government. In 1186, in a riding accident in Paris, Geoffrey was stamped to death during a tournament. Constance thereafter became the effective ruler of Brittany.

However, Henry II of England arranged for Constance to marry Ranulf de Blundeville, 4th Earl of Chester, on 3 February 1188. In 1191 King Richard I of England officially proclaimed his nephew, Constance's son Arthur of Brittany, as his heir in a treaty signed with Philip II of France. To promote her son's position and inheritance, Constance abdicated in his favor in 1194.

Constance's marriage with Ranulph deteriorated, with Ranulph imprisoning Constance in 1196. With Constance imprisoned in England, rebellions were sparked across Brittany on her behalf. Ranulph bowed to growing pressure and had the Duchess released in 1198.

Back in Brittany, Constance had her marriage annulled. Later in 1198 at Angers, Constance took Guy of Thouars as her 'second' husband. Throughout these years, Constance advised her son towards a French alliance, pursuing the policy of her late husband Geoffrey II.

When Richard I died in 1199, Phillip II agreed to recognize Arthur as count of Anjou, Maine, and Poitou, in exchange for Arthur swearing fealty to Phillip II, becoming a direct vassel of France. However 13-year-old Arthur was captured while besieging Mirabeau, and the following year he was transferred to Rouen, under the charge of William de Braose, and then vanished mysteriously in April 1203.

During the conflict, Constance's eldest daughter Eleanor was captured and imprisoned at Corfe Castle in Dorset, where she remained imprisoned until her death.

Constance bore her third husband twin daughters; Alix of Thouars, who married Peter de Dreux, first Breton ruler of the House of Dreux; and Katherine of Thouars (1201-c. 1240) who married Andre III of Bretagne, Sire of Vitre.

[edit]Death and Burial

Constance died, age 40, on 5 September 1201 at Nantes. She was buried at Villeneuve Abbey in Nantes.

Constance's cause of death is debated. Some historians believe she died of leprosy. Others believe she died from complications of childbirth, shortly after birthing twin girls. Still others believe that she had leprosy, leading to a difficult delivery, and ultimately to her death shortly after the birth of the twins, thus both leprosy and childbirth being the causes of death. That Constance was birthing twins, at the age of forty, in the unsanitary conditions of the age, should be taken greatly into account in this debate. As the exact date of the twins birth is not currently known, and may never be known, there may never be a resolution to this question.

[edit]Media

Constance is a character in the play King John by William Shakespeare, in which she has several very eloquent speeches on grief and death. On screen, she has been portrayed by Julia Neilson in the silent short King John (1899), which recreates John's death scene at the end of the play, Sonia Dresdel in the BBC Sunday Night Theatre version (1952), and Claire Bloom in the BBC Shakespeare version (1984). She was also played by Paula Williams (as a girl) and Nina Francis (as an adult) in the BBC TV drama series The Devil's Crown (1978).

[edit]See also

Dukes of Brittany family tree

1. Some sources believe Constance died in childbirth, others that she died of
smallpox. Unknown GEDCOM info: MH:N112 Unknown GEDCOM info: 1632AB60-8743-4D31-9F31-A503294B00EB

DUCHESS OF BRITTANY; 3RD COUNTESS OF RICHMOND 1171; PERSONALLY AVERSE TO 2ND
HUSBAND, SHE AVOIDED HIM AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE - IN 1196 RANULF CAPTURED HER AND
IMPRISONED HER IN HIS CASTLE OF ST. JAMES DE BEUVRON (AN ACTION WHICH LED TO
POPULAR INSURRECTIONS THROUGHOUT BRITTANY) - SHE RECOVERED HER LIBERTY BY
MID-1198 AND IN 1199 REPUDIATED THIS MARRIAGE

She was the sole heiress.

She was the sole heiress.

Do you have supplementary information, corrections or questions with regards to Constance de Bretagne Duchess?
The author of this publication would love to hear from you!

Timeline Constance de Bretagne Duchess

Click on the names for more info. Symbols used:  grandparents    parents    brothers/sisters    children