On Wednesday, May 4, 2016 at 5:05:28 AM UTC-7, Peter Jenkins wrote: > > Gisela de Béarn (1225-1278) daughter of Count Centulle of Bearn and > Beatrix of Carcassone I don't think this person existed, as described. In the 13th century there were viscounts of Bearn, but not counts. They did sometimes call themselves counts, but the name Centule was not used by the viscounts at this time, the title having passed to a different family. I wonder if this isn't a false rendering of the 11th century viscount Centule (V), who married first Gisla (? of Gascony) and second, Beatrix, granddaughter of Roger, Count of Carcasonne, heiress of Bigorre. (By the way, I am not convinced that Gisla/Guisla found in the south is directly equivalent to Gisela and not the name often represented as Willa.) Indeed, one version I have found online follows the Viscounts down to Gaston IV, son of this Centule V. In reality, the son of this Gaston IV was Centule VI, who died without issue, and the title passed through the younger Centule's sister to a different family. The pedigree, though, rechristens this son Count Centule III, making him father of Gaston III, father of Centule (called IV), father of Gisela. Gaston III, though, was the name of the father of the above Viscount Centule (V). It looks like someone needed to fill in some space and so just duplicated several generations to span the gap, introducing the same Centule V of the 11th century back into the pedigree as this father of Gisela. > I have found numerous pages where it is stated she married Diwisch II of > STERNBERG in Bohemia. But only web pages. I have not found them in all of Google Books, not even in sloppy pseudo-genealogies there. I failed to find anything that would lead to a real source as opposed to the internet genealogy echo chamber. > This seems unlikely to me on the basis of geography and no affiliation > between her region of Bearn in the Pyrenees Mountains in far Southern > France and his of Bohemia. There are plenty of reasons to reject this, but such long-distance connections did occasionally happen. In the 12th century the daughter of Polish duke married the king of Leon/Castile and the Count of Provence and was then engaged to the Count of Toulouse. taf

On 5/05/2016 4:54 AM, taf via wrote: > (By the way, I am not convinced that Gisla/Guisla found in the south > is directly equivalent to Gisela and not the name often represented as > Willa.) The name Guilia occurs - notably in the family of the lords of Lluca - and is sometimes rendered as Gisla/Guisla. After they were separated for consanguinity Centule of Bearn's first wife Gisla became a Cluniac nun in Burgundy, where the name Willa was clearly different from Gisla. Do you know what she was called there? Peter Stewart

On 5/05/2016 8:36 AM, Peter Stewart via wrote: > > On 5/05/2016 4:54 AM, taf via wrote: >> (By the way, I am not convinced that Gisla/Guisla found in the south >> is directly equivalent to Gisela and not the name often represented as >> Willa.) > The name Guilia occurs - notably in the family of the lords of Lluca - > and is sometimes rendered as Gisla/Guisla. > > After they were separated for consanguinity Centule of Bearn's first > wife Gisla became a Cluniac nun in Burgundy, where the name Willa was > clearly different from Gisla. Do you know what she was called there? I can't find a contemporary reference to her in Burgundy, but in the mid-12th century she was recalled by Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, as "maximae nobilitatis et singularis conversationis soror, Gisla nomine" - he would probably have called her Guilla instead if that had been her name (not that this counters the suggestion by Todd above, since she may not have been a southerner in the first place and as far as I know her name was not rendered Guisla in Béarn). Peter Stewart