• Stone, Don, "Medieval Genealogy Newsgroup: Descents from Charles Constantine?" (GEN-MEDIEVAL Mailing List, Feb 2017) (http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/2017-02/1486267144).

• Category: Research

• Author: Stone, Don
• Publisher: GEN-MEDIEVAL Mailing List, Feb 2017

• 

Both parts of Winter's summary are effectively creating 'alternative facts' based on next-to-nothing.

First, we don't have any evidence for what properties may or may not have been held at any time by Charles of Vienne's son Richard - we don't know if he even outlived his father, with whom he last occurs in January 962. We also don't know the circumstances of Guigues' sojourn in Rome in 1027 and there is no proof that the wife of Amadée of Maurienne, Alix (or Adela - she was actually called 'Adaelelgida' in the charter dated 22 October 1030), was a daughter of Guigues. This whole argument is a speculative house of cards.

Secondly, the given names of the proven sons of Guigues and Friburge were Humbert (bishop of Valence) and Guigues. Humbert is not the same name as Hucbert - these are based on the distinct initial elements Hun- and Hug- respectively. Anyone trying to make these into interchangeable forms of the same name should start by showing examples where the same individual was definitely called by both. Richard was arbitrarily added as a third son by Georges Manteyer, relying on a later cartulary version of a charter of Guigues and Friburge: this was subscribed by the couple (with the husband inconsistently named 'Wigo' and then 'Ugo' - "Ego, in Dei nomine, Wigo & uxor mea Fredeburga ... Sig. Ugoni, qui hanc donationem fieri & firmare rogavit. S. Fredeburgis uxoris ejus, que in omnibus consensit. S. Umberti episcopi. S. Richardi. S. Vagoni. S. Bosoni. S. Adraldi"). Bishop Humbert was their son. Manteyer assumed that 'Vago' was their son Guigues, without noting that the name Wago does occur and was distinct from Wigo (hypocorisms of names with the initial elements Wac- and Wig- respectively). When he first considered this list of subscribers, Manteyer thought that Humbert and all four of the men listed after him, or at least the next two, were probably sons of Guigues and Friburge. Later he assumed as certain that Richard was their son. There is no solid evidence to accept 'the onomastic argument that Fredeburga had a probable son Richard'.

Peter Stewart

• 
• Text: There is a possibility that Friburge (Fredeburga), wife of Guigues IV d’Albon, Sire de Vion, is a granddaughter of Charles Constantine. I have organized my comments as follows:
  
  I. Some background.
  II. Further information from various non-primary sources.
  III. Some comments and questions.
  IV. Bibliography.
  
  I. Some background.
  
  H. M. West Winter (1987) has a detailed discussion of Friburge (Fredeburga), his person number IX.52, viewed as probably the daughter of Richard of Vienne, son of Charles Constantine. Lines can be traced from her to the present, e.g., through Eleanor of Provence, queen of Henry III of England. Winter reports that de Manteyer (1925) made a prima facie identification of Friburge, wife of Guigues IV d’Albon, Sire de Vion, as daughter and heir of Richard of Vienne [on p. 65, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k63227705/f103.image; see quote in section II. below]. Bernard (1949, p. 125) reports Manteyer’s identification of Friburge without analyzing it. According to Winter, Bernard (1969, pp. 68-9) accepts this identification. Moriarty (1985, p. 258) gives Friburge as probably a daughter of Richard of Vienne, referencing Manteyer. Here is Winter’s two-part summary of the most salient facts supporting this identification:
  
  1) Fribourge, widow of Guigues IV Sire de Vion, died at a great age soon after 26 March 1027, having outlived her eldest son Humbert (Hucbert), Bishop of Grenoble, and her second son, Guigues V, Sire de Vion (d. by 1009). In October 1027 her grandson and heir, Guigues VI, Sire de Vion, went to Rome to press his right to ownership of properties which he claimed through his grandmother, Friburge, and which were identical to properties once owned by Richard of Vienne and which had been seized by an ancestor of the Comte de Maurienne (Savoie). The Pope partitioned the disputed properties and awarded one half to each claimant. But Guigues VI continued the dispute until 1030, when it was settled by the marriage (before 22 October) of his daughter Alix to Amadée, eldest son and heir of the Comte de Maurienne. As part of the marriage settlement, it is believed that Guigues VI relinquished his claim to the moitié of the properties which the Pope had awarded to the Comte de Maurienne. Perhaps as a condition of that settlement, the Pope created Guigues VI first Comte du Viennois (by 1034).
  
  2) The given names of two of her sons (Hucbert and [probably] Richard) are germane to the family of Richard of Vienne: Richard being his own name, as well as that of his maternal uncle, Richard Comte de Troyes; whilst Hucbert (Humbert) is that of his brother Hucbert de Vienne, as well as that of his great-grandfather, Hucbert Marquis de Transjurane.
  
  II. Further information from various non-primary sources.
  
  The French Wikipedia entry on the Family of Albon, https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famille_d%27Albon, says that there are two theories about the parentage of Fredeburga: (1) daughter of Richard of Vienne, as discussed above and recently supported by Mazard (2000), and (2) daughter of Aimon, who was possessed of Dauphin and is a probable nephew of Aimon, Bishop of Geneva. (Fredeburga is an ancestor of various counts of Albon who held Dauphin.) This second theory is credited to Jean-Pierre Poly.
  
  More details on these two theories are given at http://thierryhelene.bianco.free.fr/drupal/?q=node/124, a website of Hélène and Thierry Bianco, two French academics.
  
  Settipani and Van Kerrebrouck (1993, p. 381) give Charles Constantine two sons and a possible daughter (Constantina/Constance). For both of the sons, Richard (d. after Jan. 962) and Hugobert (d. after May 976), they say "à la destinée inconnue," and (in note 129) they are skeptical of various descents from Richard that have been proposed through these sons.
  
  Europäische Stammtafeln [= ES] (Schwennicke, 1978), Band III, Teilband 4 (1989), gives the wife of Guigo/Guigues de Vion [Vienne] as Fredeburga, sister of Geoffroi and sister-in-law of Théobald de Nyon.
  
  In MedLands, https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/BURGUNDY%20Kingdom.htm#_Toc444499362, Cawley cites a number of relevant charters. (Note that Cawley's Guigues I is Winter's Guigues IV, and thus Cawley's Giugues III is Winter's Guigues VI.) Cawley includes some proposed corrections to charter dates and to the pedigree in ES.
  
  Manteyer, cited above (1925, p. 65, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k63227705/f103.image), says, "L'acte du 7 septembre 996, de Guigues IV et de Frédéburge, portait les souscriptions de leurs fils Umbert, Richard et Guigues : ce nom de Richard est exceptionnel dans la Maison des sires de Vion. Il y rappelle celui du comte de Viennois Richard, fils de Charles-Constantin et péré du comte Rodolphe de 1009...." (Note: I have been told that Richard of Vienne was not a count.)
  
  III. Some comments and questions.
  
  Hélène and Thierry Bianco say that the first theory mentioned above (Manteyer's proposal that Fredeburga was the daughter of Richard of Vienne) is chronologically possible but not very strongly supported. In contrast, I suppose, to the onomastic argument that Fredeburga had a probable son Richard, they point out that the name Fredeburga is not otherwise found in the family of Charles Constantine.
  
  The second theory about Fredeburga's parentage, due to J.-P. Poly, can explain how Dauphin came to be held by the counts of Albon. But I wonder whether there is also an argument related to property favoring the first theory. Winter emphasizes that Guigues VI, Sire de Vion, went to Rome to press his right to ownership of properties which were once owned by Richard of Vienne, but he doesn't give the names of these properties. Is this something worth pursuing? If we could list the properties claimed by Guigues VI and show that they were indeed earlier owned by Richard of Vienne, wouldn't this strengthen the case for the first theory?
  
  On the other hand, perhaps this is one of those situations where we don't have enough information to make more definite statements.
  
  IV. Bibliography.
  
  "Famille d'Albon." https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famille_d%27Albon
  
  Bernard, Félix. 1949. Les origines féodales en Savoie et en Dauphiné: l’origine et les destinées des grandes familles féodales en Savoie et en Dauphiné au Moyen-Age. Grenoble: Guirimand.
  
  Bernard, Félix. 1969. Les origines féodales en Savoie-Dauphiné: la vie et les rapports sociaux d’alors. Grenoble: Guirimand.
  
  Bianco, Hélène and Thierry. "Les comtes d'Albon ont-ils des ancêtres?" http://thierryhelene.bianco.free.fr/drupal/?q=node/124
  
  Bournazel, Éric and Jean-Pierre Poly, eds. 1998. Les féodalités. Paris: Presses universitaires de France (Histoire générale des systèmes politiques).
  
  Cawley, Charles. MedLands. https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/BURGUNDY%20Kingdom.htm#_Toc444499362
  
  Manteyer, Georges de. 1925. “Les origines du Dauphiné de Viennois: la première race des comtes d'Albon (843-1228).” Bulletin de la Société d’études des Hautes-Alpes, 5th Series, pp. 50-119; notes on pp. 120-140. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k63227705/f86.image
  
  Mazard, Chantal. "À l'origine d'une principauté médiévale : le Dauphiné, Xe-XIe siècle. Le temps des châteaux et des seigneurs," in Dauphiné, France: de la principauté indépendante à la province (XIIe-XVIIIe siècle), textes réunis par Vital Chomel, Presses de l'université de Grenoble (collection La pierre et l'écrit), Grenoble, 2000 (ISBN 978-2-706119194).
  
  Moriarty, George Andrews. 1985. The Plantagenet Ancestry of King Edward III and Queen Philippa. Salt Lake City: Mormon Pioneer Genealogical Society. (The original manuscript is in Boston at the New England Historic Genealogical Society.)
  
  Schwennicke, Detlev. 1978–. Europäische Stammtafeln. Band I–. Marburg: J. A. Stargardt.
  
  Settipani, Christian, and Patrick Van Kerrebrouck. 1993. La préhistoire des Capétiens 481-987. Première partie: Mérovingiens, Carolingiens et Robertiens. Villeneuve d’Ascq (France): P. Van Kerrebrouck.
  
  Winter, H. M. West. 1987. The Descendants of Charlemagne (800 - 1400). Part One. “Brandenburg Updated.” Charlemont, Massachusetts.