Adelaide-Blanche of Anjou

Adelaide-Blanche of Anjou[a](c. 940 –1026[1]) was, by her successive marriages, countess of Gévaudan and Forez, of Toulouse, of Provence, and of Burgundy, and queen of Aquitaine.

[3] Her family had become upwardly mobile to the point that, as a member of just the third generation from Ingelger, Adelaide-Blanche had married into the highest ranks of the older nobility of western Francia.

[6] In 982, as the widow of her second husband, Count Raymond III of Toulouse, she wed Louis, son of King Lothair of France.

[7] Adelaide found herself in a precarious situation with King Lothair, but was rescued by Count William I of Provence,[b] whom she subsequently married c. 984.

In 1010 King Robert II of France, along with Count Odo II of Blois, went to Rome to secure an annulment from Robert's second wife, Constance of Arles, Adelaide-Blanche's daughter by William I. Pope Sergius IV, a friend to the Angevin counts, upheld the marriage and additionally upheld Adelaide's struggle to maintain control of lands at Montmajour Abbey.

[11] A dispute over these lands arose by four brothers, sons of Nevolongus, who Pope Sergius threatened with excommunication if they did not withdraw their claim.

[11] The claim was withdrawn and the lands remained under the control of Adelaide-Blanche acting as regent for her son William II of Provence.