Boso
BosoBoso appears in an act of king Conrad of Burgundy on 7 October 949 ["Boso comes firmavit" Manteyer (1908), 201, n. 1]. Boso gave the abbey of Saint-Amand, near Saint-Paul-Trois Châteaux, to the monks of Cluny, confirmed by king Conrad of Burgundy on 15 September 958 [Cart. Cluny, 2: 146 (#1052)]. He appears as "Boso Arelatensis Comes" in a charter of king Conrad of Burgundy for Montmajour dated 8 December 963 [RHF 9: 700]. Boso was still living in March 965, when he appeared with counts Roubaud and Guillaume ["... in Arelate civitate, publice, in conspectu Bosoni comitis, filii Rothboldi quondam, ... et comiti excellentissimi, ... consentiente ejus filio, Rothboldo, et fratre ejus, Wilelmo comite, ..." Cart. S.-Victor de Marseille, 1: 40-1 (#29)].
Date of birth: Unknown.
Place of birth: Unknown.
Date of death: After March 965.
Place of
death: Unknown.
See above.
Father: Roubaud.
An otherwise unknown Roubaud appears as the
(deceased) father of Boso in the March 965 act ["... in
conspectu Bosoni comitis, filii Rothboldi quondam, ..."
Cart. S.-Victor de Marseille, 1: 40-1 (#29), see above].
Mother: Unknown.
See the Commentary section.
Spouse: Constance,
fl. May 961.
Constance appears as the wife of Boso in an
act of May 961 at Arles ["... in Arelate civitate ... in
mense maii, anno XXIV regnante Conrado rege Alamannorum vel
Provinciarum ... Boso comes et uxor sua Constantia firmaverunt.
Illorum filii similiter Willelmus comes. Rotbaldus comes"
Manteyer (1908), 201, n. 1 (with date May 961), 225 n. 1 (with
date May 963), both times citing Chantelou, Hist. de
Montmajour, 37-8; Conrad began to reign in 937, suggesting
that 961 is correct].
See the Commentary section for a supposed earlier wife.
Children:
Boso and Constance appear together
with their sons Guillaume and Roubaud in a charter of May 961 at
Arles (see above). Roubaud at least also appears as his son in
the March 965 act ["... consentiente ejus [Bosoni]
filio, Rothboldo, et fratre ejus, Wilelmo comite, ..."
Cart. S.-Victor de Marseille, 1: 40-1 (#29), see above; note that
"fratre ejus" seems to have an ambiguous
antecedent]. A charter of 29 August 993 refers to Guillaume and
Roubaud as brothers ["ego Guillelmus comes et uxor mea
Adalaiz e[t] germanus meus Rodbaldus et filius meus Guillelmus
..." Manteyer (1908), 254 n. 5, citing Cart. Psalmody].
Guillaume I (II) "le Libératuer", d. aft. 29 August 993, marquis of Provence;
m. (1) Arsinde.
m. (2) Adélaïde
alias Blanche, daughter of Foulques II,
count of Anjou.
Roubaud (I), fl. 961-after 993,
marquis of Provence, 993×4 - ?;
m. Emilde.
Roubaud succeeded his brother Guillaume as
marquis of Provence. The identification of Roubaud, son of Boso
and Constance, is complicated by the fact that some would
identify a single Roubaud appearing in records from 961 to 1008
[e.g., Manteyer (1908), 266-8; Stasser (1997), 52], while others
would separate him into two individuals Roubaud I (fl. 961-aft.
993) and Roubaud II (fl. 1002-8), father and son [e.g., Vajay
(1980), 613 n. 56, 760 n. 73-4; Settipani (2004), 55]. In the
former case Emilde/Ermengarde is identified as a single person,
wife of Roubaud, and in the latter case Emilde is identified as
the wife of Roubaud I and Ermengarde as the wife of Roubaud II.
However, there does not seem to be any evidence showing the
existence of two Roubauds, who, if they existed separately, are
apparently not directly documented as father and son. Also, I do
not see the records as ruling out a third possibility that a
single Roubaud was married successively to two women named Emilde
and Ermengarde [after 993: "ego Rotbaldus marchio, et
conjux mea, Eimildis ..." Cart. Cluny 3: 199 (#1987);
1002: "ego in Christi nomine Rotbaldus comes et conjux
mea Ermengarda ..." Manteyer (1908), 267 n. 1, citing
Chantelou, 72-3; 1004: "Rodbaldus inclitus comes
firmavit. Ermengarda comitissa firmavit." ibid., citing
Cart. Saint-Pons #11; 1005: "Rodballus, gratia Dei
comes, firmavit ... Ermengardis, uxor Rodballi comitis, manu
propria firmavit." Cart. S.-Victor de Marseille, 1: 21
(#15); 1008: "Signum Rotbaldi comitis"
Manteyer (1908), 268, citing Chantelou 121-2].
Conjectured mother (possible): NN, daughter of Guillaume,
count of Mâcon, duke of Aquitaine.
[Taylor (1997), 219, 222; Settipani (2004), 65-6] This conjecture
would plausibly account for the presence of the names Boso and
Guillaume in Roubaud's family, but is not supported by any direct
evidence. Settipani conjectures that this woman was named
"Doda", but without any clear basis [Settipani (2004),
66 (table, name in brackets)].
Conjectured earlier
wife (improbable):
Bertha, daughter of Boso, margrave of Tuscany.
Referring to the time just after the death of king Hugo of Italy
(10 April 947), Liudprand states that his niece Bertha, widow of
count Boso of Arles, married a certain Raymond (generally
identified with the count of Rouergue of that name) ["...
brevi rex Hugo viam est carnis universae ingressus, Bertae nepti
suae, Bosonis Arelatensis comitis viduae, pecunia derelicta. Quam
etiam brevi spatio intercedente, memoratus Raimundus,
inpurissimae gentis princeps inpurior, sibi maritam effecerat;
..." Liudprand, Antapodosis, v, 31, Dümmler
(1877), 117]. Bertha's husband Boso is usually identified with
the count Boso who died in 935, son of duke Richard of Burgundy
[Manteyer (1908), 151-9]. Jean-Pierre Poly argued against this
identification, on the grounds that Bertha was supposedly still
unmarried in 936, based on a statement of Liudprand ["Haec
cum prolem non haberet virilem, quattuor habuit natas, Bertam,
Willam, Richildam et Gislam." Liudprand, Antapodosis,
iv, 11, Dümmler (1877), 84; Poly (1976), 32 n. 10]. Against this
interpretation of Liudprand we have the fact that Bertha's
apparently younger sister Willa had a son Adalberto, who was apparently more than just a boy when he was
named as joint-king of Italy in 950.
Instead of the Boso who died in 935, Poly would identify Bertha's first husband with the Boso, count of Arles who heads this page [Poly (1976), 32 & n. 10]. The obvious obstacle to doing this is that the latter was clearly alive long after 947. Despite this problem, Poly argued that the word vidua did not necessarily desgnate a widow in texts of the era, but could also concern a woman abandoned by her husband. The one example offered, concerning Adélaïde alias Blanche, who after her divorce by king Louis V was married to Boso's son Guillaume, involved not the word vidua (widow) but the similar word viduata (widowhood) ["Regina sese viduatam dolens, et verita majoris incommodi injuriam, Wilelmum Arelatensem adiit, eique nupsit." Richer, Historia, iii, 95 (2: 116)]. However, the argument is unconvincing. A description of the mental state of the queen's "widowhood" is not analogous with a specific statement that a woman was the widow of a certain man. In the latter case, it is reasonable to expect that the former spouse of the "widow" was deceased. In the absence of more compelling examples of the alternate use of the word vidua, it must be considered improbable that Bertha's first husband was the Boso who lived in the 960's.
Conjectured daughter:
Constance, d. aft.
1013;
m. Boniface de Reillane.
This is an onomastic conjecture based on
the rare name Constance [Vajay (1980), 756]. Settipani places
Constance one generation further down, as a daughter of Boso's
son Guillaume [Settipani (2004), 62, 66].
Cart. Cluny = A. Bernard & A. Bruel, Recueil des chartes de l'abbaye de Cluny, 6 vols., (Paris, 1876-1903).
Cart. S.-Victor de Marseille = M. Guérard, ed., Cartulaire de l'abbaye de Saint-Victor de Marseille, 2 vols. (Paris, 1857).
Dümmler (1877) = Ernst Dümmler, ed., Liudprandi episcopi Cremonensis opera omnia (MGH SRG, Hannover, 1877).
Manteyer (1908) = Georges de Manteyer, La Provence du premier au douzième siècle (Paris, 1908).
Poly (1976) = Jean-Pierre Poly, La Provence et la société féodale (879-1166), Contribution à l'étude des structures dite féodales dans le Midi (Paris, 1976).
RHF = Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France.
Settipani (2004) = Christian Settipani, La Noblesse du Midi Carolingien (Prosopographia et Genealogica 5, 2004).
Stasser (1997) = Thierry Stasser, "Adélaïde d'Anjou, sa famille, ses unions, sa descendance - Etat de las question", Le Moyen Age 103,1 (1997): 9-52.
Taylor (1997) = Nathaniel L. Taylor, "Saint William, King David, and Makhir: A Controversial Medieval Descent", The American Genealogist 72 (1997): 205-23.
Vajay (1980) = Szabolcs de Vajay, "Comtesses d'origine occitane dans la Marche d'Espagne aux 10e et 11e siècles", Hidalguia 28 (1980): 585-616, 755-788.
Compiled by Stewart Baldwin
First uploaded 29 May 2012.