Medieval France
(ca. 1145–1206). Daughter of Count Thibaut IV of Blois (III of Champagne), Adèle became the third queen of Louis VII in 1160. In 1165, she bore him a long-desired heir, the future Philip II, thereby ensuring the survival of the Capetian dynasty and providing it Carolingian blood, a fact later exploited by royal propaganda. Adèle and her brothers, Henri I (count of Champagne, r. 1152–81) and Thibaut V (count of Blois, r. 1152–91, and royal seneschal)—who married Louis’s daughters by Eleanor of Aquitaine—together with Guillaume (bishop of Chartres, r.
1165–68, and archbishop of Sens, r. 1168–75, and Reims, r. 1175–1202) constituted an influential party at the royal court. Adèle and Guillaume shared the regency for Philip II while he was on the Third Crusade (1190–91), but little else is known about her public or private life.
Theodore Evergates
[See also: CAPETIAN DYNASTY; CHAMPAGNE; LOUIS VII; PHILIP II AUGUSTUS]
Baldwin, John W. The Government of Philip Augustus: Foundations of French Royal Power in the Middle Ages. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.
Facinger, Marion F. “A Study of Medieval Queenship: Capetian France, 987–1237.” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 5(1968):3–47.
Lewis, Andrew W. Royal Succession in Capetian France: Studies on Familial Order and the State. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981.
Pacaut, Marcel. Louis VII et son royaume. Paris: SEVPEN, 1964.
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