Peter, Count of Alençon

Peter of Alencon

Peter I of Alencon (b. 1251 in Holy Land - d. April 6, 1284 in Salerno, Italy) was the son of Louis IX of France and Margaret of Provence.^[1][2] He became Count of Alençon in 1269 and in 1284, Count of Blois and Chartres, and Seigneur de Guise in 1272 and 1284. He was also Count of Perche.^[3]

He was born in the Holy Land while his father headed the Seventh Crusade. He did not live through the battles in Egypt because since his birth, Louis had already negotiated peace with the new Sultan of Egypt and was responsible for reorganizing the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Back in France, he lived in Paris until 1269 when his father gave him appanage the County of Alençon.

He accompanied his father to Tunis during Eighth Crusade (1270), but this expedition was a fiasco, because of the dysentery epidemic that decimated the army of crusaders. His father and his brother Jean Tristan succumbed to the disease.

Back in France Peter married in 1272 Joan of Châtillon, which brought him the lands Blois, Chartres and Guise. They had two sons who did not live:

• Louis (1276-7)
• Philip (1278–79)^[4]

In 1282, after the Sicilian Vespers, he went in Naples to rescue his uncle Charles I of Naples. He waged war on behalf of Charles, but died in Salerno in 1284. His body was taken to Paris, where he was buried, with his heart interred at the now-demolished church of the Couvent des Jacobins, also in Paris. After his death without surviving son, his portion of Alençon returned to the Crown. His widow did not remarry and sold Chartres in 1286 to King Philip IV the Fair. On her death Guise and Blois passed to her cousin Hugh of the House of Châtillon.

Tombs of Peter’s sons

Ancestry

Ancestors of Peter, Count of Alençon

16. Louis VII of France               8. Philip II of France                       17. Adèle of Champagne               4. Louis VIII of France                             18. Baldwin V, Count of Hainaut               9. Isabelle of Hainaut                       19. Margaret I, Countess of Flanders               2. Louis IX of France                                   20. Sancho III of Castile               10. Alfonso VIII of Castile                       21. Blanca Garcés of Navarre               5. Blanche of Castile                             22. Henry II of England               11. Eleanor of England                       23. Eleanor of Aquitaine               1. Peter, Count of Perche and Alençon                                         24. Alfonso II of Aragon               12. Alfonso II, Count of Provence                       25. Sancha of Castile               6. Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Provence                             26. Renier de Sabran               13. Garsenda of Forcalquier                       27. Garsenda of Forcalquier               3. Margaret of Provence                                   28. Humbert III, Count of Savoy               14. Thomas I, Count of Savoy                       29. Beatrice of Viennois               7. Beatrice of Savoy                             30. William I of Geneva               15. Marguerite of Geneva                       31. Beatrix of Faucigny

Sources

1. Chronique anonyme des rois de France
2. Gesta Philippi Tertia Francorum Regis
3. Peter’s family
4. Kerrebrouck (2000), p. 142