Individual Details

Guy III de Laval

( - Bet 1130 and 1142)

According to Wikipedia:

Guy III de Laval 1 (died between 1130 and 1142), is the son of Guy II of Laval and Denise de Mortain, daughter of Robert de Mortain , count of Mortain and half-brother of William the Conqueror through his mother Arlette de Falaise . He succeeded his father as Lord of Laval (Mayenne) around 1105. Note that there is sometimes confusion in the books between Guy III of Laval , and his son Guy IV of Laval.

Family [ edit | modify the code ]

He married Emma , which could be an illegitimate daughter of King Henry I st of England . They have as children:
Guy IV of Laval
Hamon (1194), who went to the Holy Land in 1158
Jeanne (or Emma), abbess of Ronceay .History [ edit | modify the code ]
He participated in the First Crusade [ change | modify the code ]

For the Art of checking dates 2 , it was barely in possession of the land of Laval when the First Crusade is published. Guy III, his brothers Gervais, Yves, Bonnor, Hamon and Jean hear the call of Pierre l'Ermite 3 . They take the cross in the church of Saint-Julien in Le Mans .
He left the following year with them for the Holy Land . It is noted in all the enterprises of the Crusaders until the capture of Jerusalem . After this operation, he resumed the road to France. Guy III returned from there alone, either because his brothers had lost their lives there, or because they had settled in the new kingdom of Jerusalem. As he passed through Rome , he saw the newly elected Pope Paschal II , who, on the basis of the reputation he had acquired, gave him a distinguished welcome.
Archdeacon Claude Robert , in his Gallia Christiana article by Pierre de Laval , archbishop of Reims, says that Pascal II ordered that Guy's name would henceforth be assigned to the owner of the land in Laval.
L'Anjou [ edit | modify the code ]

The xii th  century marks the integration of the barony of Laval in Anjou and the Plantagenets . From 1110, Elie I of Maine , who became Count of Maine , reestablished the preponderance of Anjou. It is then probable that the family of Laval enter into the submission of the Counts of Anjou . According to Jean de Bourdigné 4 , Guy III de Laval appears in the suite of Count Foulques V of Anjou when the latter gathered his troops in 1118 to deliver the faithful held prisoner in Alençon by the King of England.
Regional conflicts [ edit | modify the code ]

Lisiard de Sablé begins with a bitter war against the young lord of Laval , Guy III de Laval, we do not know about what, and, to protect his castle of Sablé, built one in the lands of the priory of Saint-Loup , with a strong house for Hugue Normand, his faithful.
It was a long time after, in 1123 , that he paid the indemnity promised to the religious. Gilles Ménage understood that this regulation was contemporary with the construction of the castle: it is several years later, olim , says the text, which makes it possible to place the war against Guy de Laval, adhuc juvenis , before the one that will follow, where the two lords found themselves in league against the king of England.
Against the King of England [ edit | modify the code ]

Elie I of Maine , count of Maine, having died, the count of Anjou, Foulque V of Anjou hastened to take possession of this county, by virtue of the rights that he claimed to have of the head of his wife, only daughter of Helie in 1110. Henry I st of England , King of England and Duke of Normandy, between those he had on Maine as dependence of his duchy. A war ensued, in which Guy de Laval III sided with Fulk V of Anjou , Count of Anjou, and takes his party against Henry I stof England, King of England. Successes balanced on both sides by setbacks follow one another first; but the war at the end ends to the advantage of the Count of Anjou who keeps Maine, recognizing himself as a feudatory of the English monarch. (1115).
New reasons do not take long to bring about new disputes between them, in which the King of France, Louis VI , who had a vassal-king more powerful than himself in his estates, sided with the Count of Anjou. In November 1118 , Lisiard de Sablé was following the count at the siege of Alençon , and on December 18 commanded the avant-garde, assisted by Guy IV de Laval, Robert de Semilly , Gautier de Mayenne , Hugues of Mathefelon and Thibault, his son, of Maurice de Craon , at the battle of Sées.
Fight against Geoffrey Plantagenet [ change | modify the code ]

In 1129, Foulque V d'Anjou , count of Anjou, leaving for a second trip to the Holy Land , left the custody of his counties of Anjou and Maine to Geoffroy Plantagenêt .
From the departure of his father, several lords from Poitou, the barons of Sablé and Laval, and other vassals of Anjou united against him. He was confronted with a coalition of his vassals led by Lisiard de Sablé 5 , 6 .
Geoffroy suddenly comes to besiege Guy III of Laval in his castle of Meslay . He knocks down the walls of the square there, breaks down the doors, and having reached the dungeon, destroys it, then completely razes the castle 7 .
Conan III of Brittany and Vitré [ edit | modify the code ]

Robert II of Vitré 8 , having been driven out by Conan III of Brittany , Duke of Brittany, finds an asylum with Guy III of Laval, his first cousin, who lends him his castles and fortresses: the castle of La Gravelle and Launay , for to be able to make attempts from there on Vitré , which the count had seized.
Conan is not long in detaching Guy III from the interests of his parent by giving him the viscounty of Rennes , of which he had just stripped Robert 9 .
Robert, losing the alliance of Guy III de Laval, finds another more powerful and more faithful in the person of the Count of Anjou. The lord of Guerche , his brother-in-law, and Thibault de Mathefelon , his son-in-law, also helped him with their people and their troops; and with this help, he ended in 1143 an eight-year war with a victory, of which the recovery of his land at Vitré was the fruit.
Guy III de Laval died in 1144, and was no longer viscount of Rennes.
Religion [ edit | modify the code ]

Like Renaud Ier de Craon , Guy III is associated with the work of Robert d'Arbrissel . Barely back from Palestine, he founded 10 in his forest of Olivet , in honor of Marie de Magdala , the priory of Plessis , which he gave to the monks of the abbey of Roë . This priory took from the year of its foundation the name of Plessis-Milcent in 1100.
Guy III made that the church of Saint-Melaine de Laval became a priory dependent on the Abbaye Toussaint d'Angers 11 , and also founded the priory of Changé near Laval.
Guy de Laval was buried in the abbey of Marmoutier .
See also [ edit | modify the code ]

Laval familyNotes and references [ edit | modify the code ]

↑ Genealogy of Guy III de Laval on the Medieval Lands website  [ archive ]
↑ Historical chronology of the lords, then counts of Laval , 1784 , t. II, p.  864-875.
↑ Pierre l'Ermite and perhaps Pope Urbain II came to preach the Crusade in Laval. A paper published in the xix th  century assures us of the coming of Peter the Hermit in the country of Laval. (Cart. Du Ronceray, published by M. Marchegay, exhibit Ccclxxxv
^ Jehan de Bourdigné, Chronicles of Anjou and Maine , Quatrebarbes edition, Angers, 1842, volume I, chapter 44.
↑ Lisiard, Lord of Sablé, de la Suze , de Briollay by his marriage, found himself so powerful that he dared to join the coalition of the Counts of Thouars , Parthenay , the Lords of Blaison , Laval and others, against Geoffroy Plantagenet , Chronicle of the Counts of Anjou, p.  262 .
↑ We also find in the leaguers besides Guy IV de Laval, the viscount of Thouars, the lords of Mirebeau, Parthenay, Sablé, Amboise, and 2 other vassals of Anjou
↑ Jean, monk of the Abbey of Marmoutier indicates that: However, by a movement of humanity, he saved the lives of the knights who had defended him, and took them from the hands of the victorious soldier, ready to slaughter them. Guy then having come to throw himself at the count's feet, succeeded in bending him and obtaining his pardon. . This testimony is repeated in The Art of verifying dates .
↑ son of André I st Vitre and Agnes Mortain
↑ Charles Maucourt de Bourjolly notes this disloyalty of Guy III, indicating that the great lords have always embraced opportunities to increase their fortune. . It was the second time that the lords of Laval had shown it to those of Vitré.
↑ According to the historian André René Le Paige , and reproduced in Étienne-Louis Couanier de Launay , Histoire de Laval 818-1855 , Godbert,1856 [ detail of editions ]
↑ It is certain from the confessions of 1407 and 1444 that this foundation was made by a lord of Laval and it is probable for Couanier de Launay that this lord was Guy III of Laval. The establishment in France of the Canons Regular of Saint-Augustin dates from around 1092; Toussaint Abbey received them only in 1108. Guy III lived precisely from 1095 to 1044. Jacques Le Blanc de La Vignolleindicates as founder Guy III or Guy IV. It seems to Couanier de Launay that this act should not delay long after the installation of the canons regular in Angers and therefore should be attributed to the first of these lords.

Events

DeathBet 1130 and 1142

Families

SpouseEmma ( - )
ChildGuy IV de Laval ( - 1180)
FatherGuy II de Laval ( - 1105)
MotherDenise de Mortain ( - )