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Birth:          ABT 1105 Aquitaine
Death:          ABT 1159 

Notes
widow of Amauri de Thouars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_of_Aquitaine,_Queen_of_Aragon
Agnes (French: Agnès, Spanish: Inés; c.1105–c.1159)[1] was Queen of Aragon during 
her brief marriage to King Ramiro II, a former monk. The couple separated after the 
birth of their only child, Queen Petronilla, and retired to monasteries. Agnes chose the 
Abbey of Fontevraud, from where she continued to take part in the affairs of her sons 
from her first marriage to Aimery V, Viscount of Thouars.
First marriage[edit]

Agnes was the daughter of William IX, Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitiers, and 
Philippa, Countess of Toulouse. She was the namesake of her aunt Agnes, wife of 
King Peter I of Aragon and Navarre. Her first marriage, to Aimery V, the viscount of 
Thouars, was celebrated some time prior to 9 January 1117, when the couple 
confirmed the possessions of the abbey of Saint-Laon de Thouars.[2] Before Aimery's 
death in 1127, Agnes bore him three sons:[3]
1.William I (died 1151), succeeded his father[1]
2.Guy (died c. 1149), lord of Oiron[1]
3.Geoffrey IV (died 1173), succeeded William[1]

Second marriage[edit]

On 13 November 1135 in the cathedral of Jaca, the ancient capital of the Kingdom of 
Aragon, Agnes married King Ramiro II, a monk who had resigned the bishopric of Roda 
in order to succeed his childless brother Alfonso the Battler.[3] The anonymous 
contemporary author of the Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris attributes the initiative in 
Ramiro's marriage to the Aragonese:


They elected Alfonso's brother king. This man was a monk, and his name was Ramiro. 
They gave him the sister of the Count of Poitiers for a wife. Even though this was a 
great sin, the Aragonese did it, for they had lost their king and hoped that there would 
be an offspring from the royal family. . . King Ramiro went to his wife, and she 
conceived and gave birth to a daughter. . . He transferred the kingdom to his 
daughter and acknowledged his sins. He then did penance.[4]

Agnes' age (approximately thirty) and proven fertility in her prior marriage were 
probably the main reasons the Aragonese sought her out.[5] Agnes' brother, Duke 
William X, was also one of the few regional supporters of Antipope Anacletus II, who, 
as the weaker claimant to the papacy, might be persuaded to support Ramiro's 
irregular (and uncanonical) accession.[3] Agnes' dowry was a church at Loscertales.

In a document from the same month as his marriage, Ramiro declares that he "took a 
wife not out of carnal lust, but for the restoration of the blood and the lineage" 
(uxorem quoque non carnis libidine, set sanguinis ac proienici restauratione duxi).[1] 
Later medieval and early modern historians, embarrassed by the disregard for canon 
law, invented explanations to reconcile the marriage of a bishop with what was current 
in their own day. The fourteenth-century Chronicle of San Juan de la Peña records 
that messengers were sent to the pope to obtain the proper dispensation.[1] The 
Aragonese translation of the same chronicle places Ramiro's religious status in doubt 
("some chronicles say that he was not in holy orders", algunas cronónicas dizen que 
no era en sacres órdenes).[1] At the Second Lateran Council in 1139, the church, 
perhaps influenced by the case of Ramiro and Agnes, declared the marriages of 
clerics to be null and void. Prior to this, they were legitimate, but illegal, marriages.[1]

Queenship[edit]

The first known royal diploma in which Agnes appears as queen is an original dated 29 
January 1136.[3] By August Agnes had born a daughter, Petronilla. Agnes' last 
appearance in an Aragonese document is from October 1136: a joint donation with her 
husband of a mill and a horse at Loscertales to the monastery of San Pedro de 
Antefruenzo.[6] She and Ramiro may have separated shortly after this. Her brother 
died on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela on 3 April 1137. It was probably 
during his passage through Iberia that his consent to the proposed marriage of the 
infant Petronilla was obtained; there is no evidence that Agnes took any part in 
arranging the future of her daughter.[7][6]

In a series of acts between 11 August and 13 November 1137, Ramiro betrothed his 
daughter to the powerful Count Raymond Berengar IV of Barcelona, made his subjects 
swear an oath of allegiance to the count and then handed over the royal power to 
him.[7] The transfer of power done, Ramiro returned to religious life and Agnes retired 
to the Abbey of Fontevraud, where her mother had lived. She is recorded there 
between 1141 and 1147, and there she died around 1159.[8][6]

Parents
____ William (Guillaume) VII (IX) (ABT 22 Oct 1071 - 10 Feb 1127)
____ Philippa (Mathilde) (Maud) (ABT 1073 - 28 Nov 1118)

Siblings
____ William (Guillaume) VIII (X) (1099 - 19 Apr 1137)
OF AQUITAINE Agnes (Maud) (Matilda) (ABT 1105 - ABT 1159)

Marriage To SANCHEZ Ramiro II "the Monk" (24 Apr 1086 - 16 Aug 1157)
    m. 13 Nov 1135 Jaca, Aragon

Notes
his 2d

Parents
RAMIREZ Sancho I (Ramiro IV of Navarre) (ABT 1042 - 4 Jun 1094)
DE ROUCY Felicitas (Felicie) (ABT 1059 - 3 May 1123)

Children by SANCHEZ Ramiro II "the Monk" 24 Apr 1086 - 16 Aug 1157
OF ARAGON Petronilla (Petronel) I (1136 - 15 Oct 1173)

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