Family tree Homs » Thomas de Coucy (± 1073-± 1130)

Personal data Thomas de Coucy 

• He was born about 1073 TO ABT 1073 in Coucy.
• He was christened in Coucy, Count Amiens.
• Baptized (at 8 years of age or later) by the priesthood authority of the LDS church on November 2, 1991.
• Occupations:
• .
• .
• .

  {geni:job_title} Baron, de Coucy, de Marle, Sieur, de Boves, de la Fère, de Crépy, de Vervins, Comte, d'Amiens

• He died about 1131 TO ABT 1130 in Amiens,Somme,Picardy,France.
• He is buried in Nogent-sous-Coucy.
• A child of Enguerrand I de Coucy and Ada de Marle
• This information was last updated on December 30, 2011.

Household of Thomas de Coucy

He is married to Mélisende de Corbeil.

They got married about 1108 TO ABT 1109 at Boves, Somme, France.

Child(ren):

1. Enguerrand II de Coucy  ± 1110-± 1148 
2. Mahaut Boves  ± 1105-???? 

Notes about Thomas de Coucy

Seal to Parents: @I264825@

Name Suffix: Sire

Name Suffix: Sire

#Générale##Générale#Profession : Sire de Coucy et de Marles, Comte d'Amiens.
Il part en croisade en 1095, fort jeune, et s'illustre dansla prise de Jérusalemet la bataille de Rames.
Décès : bandit, il meurt en prison.

ABT
Union annulée par le Roi, par édit, pour raison deconsanguinité vers 1104.

ABT
Mariage : entre 1105 et 1112

{geni:occupation} Baron, de Coucy, de Marle, Sieur, de Boves, de la Fère, de Crépy, de Vervins, Comte, d'Amiens, Went on the 1st Crusade, seigneur de Marle

{geni:about_me} OCCU Sire de Coucy" Out of this vicious family situation came that 'raging wolf' (in the words of another famous abbot, Suger of St. Denis), the most notorious and savage of the Coucys, Thomas de Marle,

son of the repudiated Adele. Bitterly hating the father who had cast his paternity in doubt, Thomas grew up to take part in the ceaseless war originally launched against Enguerrand I by the discarded

husband of Sybil. These private wars were fought by the knights with furious gusto and a single strategy, which consisted in trying to ruin the enemy by killing or maiming as many of his peasants and

destroying as many crops, vineyards, tools, barns, and other possessions as possible, thereby reducing his sources of revenue. As a result, the chief victim of the belligerents was their respective

peasantry. Abbot Guibert claimed that in the 'mad war' of Enguerrand against the Lorrainer, captured men had their eyes put out and feet cut off with results that could still be seen in the district

in his time. The private wars were the curse of Europe which the crusades, it has been thought, were subconsciously invented to relieve by providing a vent for aggression. When the great summons of

1095 came to take the cross and save the Holy Sepulcher on the First Crusade, both Enguerrand I and his son Thomas joined the march, carrying their feud toJerusalem and back with mutual hate

undiminished. From an exploit during the crusade the Coucy coat-of-arms derived, although whether the protagonist was Enguerrand or Thomas is disputed. One or the other with five companions, on

being surprised by a party of Moslems when out of armor, took off his scarlet cloak trimmed with vair (squirrel fur), tore it into six pieces to make banners for recognition, and thus equipped, so the

story goes, fell upon the Moslems and annihilated them. In commemoration a shield was adopted bearing the device of six horizontal bands, pointed, of red on white, or in heraldic terms, 'Barry of six,

vair and gules' (gules meaning red).As his mother's heir to the territories of Marle and La Fere,Thomas added them to the Coucy domain to which he succeeded in 1116. Untamed, he pursued a career of

enmity and brigandage, directed in varying combinations against Church, town, and King, 'the Devil aiding him,' according to Abbot Suger. He seized manors from convents, tortured prisoners (reportedly

hanging men up by their testicles until these tore off from the weight of the body), personally cut the throats of thirty rebellious bourgeois, transformed his castles into 'a nest of dragons and a cave

of thieves,' and was excommunicated by the Church, which ungrdled him -- in absentia -- of the knightly belt and ordered the anathema to be read against him every Sunday in every parish in Picardy.

King Louis VI assembled a force for war upon Thomas and succeeded in divesting him of stolen lands and castles. In the end, Thomas was not proof against that hope of salvation and fear of hell which

brought the Church so many rich legacies through the centuries. He left a generous bequest to the Abbey of Nogent, founded another abbey at Premontre nearby, and died in bed in 1130. He had been

married three times. Abbot Guibert thought him 'the wickedest man of his generation. 'What formed a man like Thomas de Marle was not necessarily aggressive genes or father-hatred, which can occur in

any century, but a habit of violence that flourished because of a lack of any organ of effective restraint."

REGN @N4921@

DATE 24 NOV 1997

from "Our Folk" by Albert D Hart, Jr.

Name Suffix: [SEIGNEUR DE MAR
Ancestral File Number: 9G49-74

Name Suffix: [SEIGNEUR DE MAR
Ancestral File Number: 9G49-74

Despite the hatred and animosity between Thomas de Marle with his father, Enguerrand of Coucy, young Thomas joined with him on the 1st crusade to the Holy Land (1095-1104).

After his return from the Crusades, and becoming heir to his mother's lands of Marle and LeFere, Thomas de Marle of Coucy went on a rampage of death and destruction, seizing manors, convents, and running rampant until King Louis VI of France assembled a force for war upon Thomas, and succeeded divesting him stolen lands and castles. between 1104 and 1108

Coucy
http://trees.ancestry.com/rd?f=image&guid=13a250e7-124b-47af-8b40-8b55d99de51a&tid=10145763&pid=-294008687

Coucy
http://trees.ancestry.com/rd?f=image&guid=13a250e7-124b-47af-8b40-8b55d99de51a&tid=10145763&pid=-294008687

Although Thomas died a hundred years after Coucy was built into one ofthe biggest bastions in Europe, he left perhaps the wickedest reputationof any Lord or Noble I can recall reading about.

He did not like his father who had left his mother - yet both went on thefirst Crusade in 1096. At the death of his father in 1116 he succeededalso to his mothers lands "de Marla"

He treated his peasants and the surrounding areas so badly he wasexcommunicated. He had two daughters by his first wife, Yda of Hainault,and then married a Dame de Montaigu. Melisende, mother of Melisende whomarried Hugh IV de Gournay, was his third wife. Depite such war-likeactivities in the area he died in his bed in 1130. [SOURCE: DistantMirror by Barbara Tuckman and notes by Alan Nineham.] [Brøderbund WFTVol. 3, Ed. 1, Tree #6402]

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Timeline Thomas de Coucy

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