William VIII ( – 25 September 1086), born Guy-Geoffrey (''Gui-Geoffroi''), was

duke of Gascony The Duchy of Gascony or Duchy of Vasconia ( eu, Baskoniako dukerria; oc, ducat de Gasconha; french: duché de Gascogne, duché de Vasconie) was a duchy located in present-day southwestern France and northeastern Spain, an area encompassing the m ...

(1052–1086), and then

duke of Aquitaine The Duke of Aquitaine ( oc, Duc d'Aquitània, french: Duc d'Aquitaine, ) was the ruler of the medieval region of Aquitaine (not to be confused with modern-day Aquitaine) under the supremacy of Frankish, English, and later French kings. As su ...

and

count of Poitiers Among the people who have borne the title of Count of Poitiers (or ''Poitou'', in what is now France but in the Middle Ages became part of Aquitaine) are: *Bodilon * Warinus (638–677), son of Bodilon *Hatton (735-778) Carolingian Counts ...

(as William VI) between 1058 and 1086, succeeding his brother William VII (Pierre-Guillaume).

Life

Guy-Geoffroy was the youngest son of

William V of Aquitaine William the Great (french: Guillaume le Grand; 969 – 31 January 1030) was duke of Aquitaine (as ) and count of Poitou (as or III) from 990 until his death. Upon the death of the emperor Henry II, he was offered the kingdom of Ital ...

by his third wife Agnes of Burgundy. He was the brother-in-law of

Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor Henry III (28 October 1016 – 5 October 1056), called the Black or the Pious, was Holy Roman Emperor from 1046 until his death in 1056. A member of the Salian dynasty, he was the eldest son of Conrad II and Gisela of Swabia. Henry was raised by ...

who had married his sister, Agnes de Poitou. He became Duke of Gascony in 1052 during his older brother William VII's rule. Gascony had come to Aquitanian rule through William V's marriage to Prisca (a.k.a. Brisce) of Gascony, the sister of Duke

Sans VI Guilhem of Gascony Sancho VI William (Basque: ''Antso Gilen'', French: ''Sanche Guillaume'', Gascon: ''Sans Guilhem'', Spanish: ''Sancho Guillén'') (died 4 October 1032) was the Duke of Gascony from 1009 to his death. His reign is most notable for the renewal of Ga ...

. William VIII was one of the leaders of the allied army called to help

Ramiro I of Aragon Ramiro I (bef. 10078 May 1063) was the first King of Aragon from 1035 until his death, although he is sometimes described as a petty king. He would expand the nascent Kingdom of Aragon through his acquisition of territories, such as Sobrarbe and ...

in the Siege of Barbastro (1064). This expedition was the first campaign organized by the papacy, namely Pope Alexander II, against a Muslim town and stronghold in the Emirate of Zaragoza, and the precursor of the later

Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...

movement. Aragon and its allies conquered the city, killed and enslaved its inhabitants and collected an important booty. However, Aragon lost the city again in the following years. During William VIII's rule, the alliance with the southern kingdoms of modern Spain was a political priority as shown by the marriage of all his daughters to Iberian kings.

Marriage and children

William married three times and had at least five children. After he divorced his first two wives, the first due to infertility, he married a third time to a much younger woman who was also his cousin Robert I of Burgundy's daughter. This marriage produced a son, but William VIII had to visit Rome in the early 1070s to persuade the pope to recognize his children from his third marriage as legitimate. *First wife: of

Périgord Périgord ( , ; ; oc, Peiregòrd / ) is a natural region and former province of France, which corresponds roughly to the current Dordogne department, now forming the northern part of the administrative region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. It is div ...

, daughter of Count Aldabert II of Périgord (divorced November 1058), no children. She became a nun at Saintes. *Second wife: Matoeda (divorced May 1068) # Agnes, married

Alfonso VI of Castile Alphons (Latinized ''Alphonsus'', ''Adelphonsus'', or ''Adefonsus'') is a male given name recorded from the 8th century (Alfonso I of Asturias, r. 739–757) in the Christian successor states of the Visigothic kingdom in the Iberian peninsula. ...

*Third wife:

Hildegarde of Burgundy Hildegarde of Burgundy (–1104) was a French noble, Duchess consort of Gascony and Aquitaine by marriage to William VIII, Duke of Aquitaine. She was the only daughter of Robert I, Duke of Burgundy with his second wife, Ermengarde of Anjou. ...

(daughter of duke Robert I of Burgundy) # Agnes (died 1097), married

Peter I of Aragon Peter I ( es, Pedro, an, Pero, eu, Petri; 1068 - 1104) was King of Aragon and also Pamplona from 1094 until his death in 1104. Peter was the eldest son of Sancho Ramírez, from whom he inherited the crowns of Aragon and Pamplona, and Isabell ...

William IX of Aquitaine William IX ( oc, Guilhèm de Peitieus; ''Guilhem de Poitou'' french: Guillaume de Poitiers) (22 October 1071 – 10 February 1126), called the Troubadour, was the Duke of Aquitaine and Gascony and Count of Poitou (as William VII) between 1086 and ...

Life

Marriage and children

Notes

References

Sources

See also