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Another fifteen generations back from Edward Longshanks, we’re descended from Charlemagne. Yes, I hear you cry, and so are a whole lot of other people, of course. Many, many more than know or care. Or perhaps should. Half the population of Europe, some say. Thirty-eighth Great Grandpa Charles (the Great) had several wives (of record) and at least eighteen kids and lived a very long time ago (the 8th century). But since the Plantagenets traced their royalty to him through a bewildering tangle of lines, we too can claim Carolingian descent, for what that’s worth, with the same level of confidence.

I no longer recall whence I borrowed this specific line of descent. Despite some embarrassing errors,* it’s pretty solid back through the first Count Geoffroy of Anjou, and I’ve put those ancestors into the People index linked at the bottom of each page. The top half-dozen generations, back to Charlemagne, are both so debatable and so heavily debated that I’ve earned a headache trying to straighten them out.
Charlemagne Our Carolingian line from the Plantagenets through the dukes of Normandy includes our very prominent 29GGF William the Bastard.** It brings up some colorful ancestors, but I find this Angevin line particularly fascinating: it goes through William’s granddaughter Matilda Empress and the famously good-looking second husband whom she despised. And it includes the brilliant Foulques III Nerra, and his great-grandson Foulques V, King of Jerusalem in consequence of the First Crusade.

We have fuller write-ups on most of the most recent of these distinguished folks (the ones under translucent buttons). To go there, click on a name. More as I collect it and get around to putting it in…
*E.g., “Courtmantel” was Henry I, Grandma Matilda’s father, not her son Henry II.
**Oh yes: we’re polite and call him the Conquerer, though his contemporaries, even his family, didn’t.
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