Hawise de Fergant NOT Mother of Alan de la Zouch

Terry, do you think you should remove his mother ,without more in depth research? I mean it's all over the Internet saying she she is his mother. Weather they are correct I have no idea. but whoever entered it into his or her tree must have found it somewhere. Maybe you should check with that person before doing anything drastic! Just a thought! Judy

Hi Terry. Since I was one of the ones who did have Hawisa as Alan la Zouche's mother, altho that's where I stopped. Others went back further then I. Anyway check ,Wikipedia out. It says Baron Zouche , de la Zouche, was indeed the son of Vicomte Geoffrey I de Porhoet and Hawisa of Brittany. note: Alan la Zouche , de la Zouche was also known as Alan de Porhoet and Alan la Coche. This Alan married Adeline ( Alice) de Belmeis. He obtained Ashby in Leicestershire ( called after him Ashby-de-la-Zouche), by marriage. O' course there's much, much, more but I'm not typing the whole thing up. I couldn't remember where I had found it and I knew I must have either printed it out or written it down, or else I wouldn't have been able to put it in my tree. Anyway , couldn't find what I did with it. It's somewhere here. So I re looked it up. Wikipedia is one of the places I found it. Is this a help? Judy

Terry it listed references:
Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages
Burke's Dormant and Extinct Peerages. London 1883
Also said it was last modified Dec, 2010.
Will keep hunting for my other info. I stack everything in piles near the computer then son moves everything on me because he doesn't like it there. Once I find it it will be properly filed Judy.

Judy

Thanks Judith, in the light of this I'll leave it at least for the present... the point of bringing it up in this public discussion was so that any managers could do as you have done.

Terry I am sure the others , who have gone back much further then I have way more info then I do. I think I have other references . I just have to locate them. Judy

That his mother's name was Hawise is probable - but it was a rather popular name back then, and she wasn't Hawise de Fergant.

His current parentage and birthdate are WAY wrong - he's the third son of Geoffroy, vicomte de Porhoët, and he was probably of age by 1149, when he co-witnessed a charter (drafted by/for his oldest brother Eudes) with his brother Joscelin.

His oldest brother was Eudes/Eudo/Odo, first (known) Comte de Porhoët and lifetime Duke of Brittany in right of his wife Bethe, widow of the previous Duke (Alain "le Noir" de Penthievre de Richmond) - the Duchy reverted to Alain's son on Eudes' death in 1170. (Eudo was probably of age by 1130, and became Duke of Brittany in 1148.)

The second brother was Joscelin de Porhoët, and not a lot is known about him except that he was probably of age by 1149 (co-witnessed a charter) and was involved in the drawing-up of two more in 1153. He is referred to as a "viscount", but whether this was connected to the Porhoët titles or a courtesy title isn't clear.

There was a younger brother as well, named Etienne, who didn't get involved in any charters before 1164, so determining his age is a bit difficult.

Moreover, there was a sister, Amicie, who married Guillaume I de Montfort (who died in 1157 leaving at least two sons, so she must have been born by c. 1135).

And just to complicate matters, Geoffroy de Porhoët had a brother Alain, who married the heiress of Rohan, became viscount of Rohan, and had a string of successors, all named Alain. (The family was much too fond of that name!)

Most of this information has been teased out of surviving French charters (written in Latin) - when dealing with families of French origin it is *never* wise to neglect French sources.

He was never "Earl" of Brittany either - the Bretons did not use that title, preferring "Duke" (when they didn't insist on "King").

This bit of disinformation may derive from the fact that his uncle Eudes/Eudo http://www.geni.com/people/Eudes-II-comte-de-Porhoët-duc-de-Bretagn... married Bertha, daughter of Conan III "le Gros"Conan III, duke of Brittany of Brittany Bertha, Duchess of Brittany and obtained a life interest in the duchy (it reverted to Bertha's son Conan IV, Duke of Brittany by her first marriage, to yet another Alain - de Penthievre, Earl of Richmond Alan IV, 1st Earl of Cornwall and Richmond - on Eudes' death).

The deal with Hawise Fergant is that she was married to Baldwin VII of Flanders in 1105, when she was nine and he was twelve. Under those conditions, the marriage could be annulled at physical maturity if one or both parties found it displeasing. Apparently somebody did, because it was dissolved in 1110 - and neither of them ever remarried. (Probably Hawise entered a convent, since that was the only other practical career alternative for women back then.)

We're getting that branch of the tree cleaned up, but it takes time and careful verification so as not to introduce new mistakes in getting rid of the old ones.

We appreciate you taking the lead on this, Maven. It's looking better already.

Oh, Maven if you've been working on this area I'll be eternally grateful... real life is taking over rather these days but I saw your post last night and thought I really should take a look but.... so thank you very much.

Thread Necrology...because this question has come up *again*.

Specifics regarding Baldwin of Flanders and Hawise (de) Fergant: married sometime between 1105 and 1110 (formal ceremony and consummation in Flanders in 1110). Annulment filed 1111, final decree granted 1115 by Pope Paschal II. No children. Baldwin got himself killed in 1119, before he had had a chance to contract another marriage. Hawise Fergant was last heard from back in Brittany in 1118, cosigning a charter with her mother and brother (Duke Conan), and described only as the Duke's sister.

Specifics regarding Geoffrey de Porhoet and his Hawise: probably married c. 1105, first son Eudes born in Brittany c. 1109 or earlier (was of age to sign a charter in 1130), two more sons born in the 1110s, a daughter and a fourth son born in the early 1120s. (Since Eudes *did* inherit and *did* marry extremely well - twice - there is very little doubt that he was legitimate.)

Likelihood of the same woman being in two different places at the same time, with two different husbands: effectively zero.

By the way, I just ran a count of women named "Hawise" listed on Geni and born before 1200. There were about 270 of them. Some were probably duplicates, but that's still a *lot* of Hawises.

Perhaps its' time for Hawise to regain its popularity.