page_title: Ralph IV of Valois
hierarchical_section_title: Ralph IV of Valois
caption_attribution_description: Montdidier (Somme, France) - Le tombeau de Raoul de Crépy, dans l'église Saint-Pierre. . .
context_page_description: Ralph IV was a northern French nobleman who amassed an extensive array of lordships lying in a crescent around the Île-de-France from the border of the Duchy of Normandy in the northwest to Champagne in the southeast.
  Ralph was the count of seven counties: Valois from 1037/8, Bar-sur-Aube and Vitry from the 1040s, Montdidier from 1054, Vexin and Amiens from 1063 and Tardenois from an unknown date. He held suzerainty over a further seven counties: Corbie, Dammartin, Meulan, Montfort, Péronne, Soissons and Vermandois. In addition, he was the advocatus of five abbeys: Saint-Denis, Jumièges, Saint-Wandrille, Saint-Père-en-Vallée, and Saint-Arnoul.
  Initially an enemy of the reigning Capetian dynasty, Ralph became a staunch royal ally after 1041. He was one of the royal domain's most powerful neighbours. The historian John Cowdrey likens Ralph's lands to a "clamp ... set upon the northern part of the Capetian demesne". After the death of King Henry I in 1060, Ralph married the king's widow, Queen Anna Yaroslavna. He thus became an important advisor to the young king, Philip I, until his death.
context_section_description: Ralph IV (French: Raoul; born c. 1025, died 1074) was a northern French nobleman who amassed an extensive array of lordships lying in a crescent around the Île-de-France from the border of the Duchy of Normandy in the northwest to Champagne in the southeast.
  Ralph was the count of seven counties: Valois (Crépy) from 1037/8, Bar-sur-Aube and Vitry from the 1040s, Montdidier from 1054, Vexin (Mantes) and Amiens from 1063 and Tardenois from an unknown date. He held suzerainty over a further seven counties: Corbie, Dammartin, Meulan, Montfort, Péronne, Soissons and Vermandois. In addition, he was the advocatus (defender) of five abbeys: Saint-Denis, Jumièges, Saint-Wandrille, Saint-Père-en-Vallée, and Saint-Arnoul.
  Initially an enemy of the reigning Capetian dynasty, Ralph became a staunch royal ally after 1041. He was one of the royal domain's most powerful neighbours. The historian John Cowdrey likens Ralph's lands to a "clamp ... set upon the northern part of the Capetian demesne". After the death of King Henry I in 1060, Ralph married the king's widow, Queen Anna Yaroslavna. He thus became an important advisor to the young king, Philip I, until his death. Guibert of Nogent, a contemporary of Ralph, wrote, "How great he was can also be gathered from the single fact that he married the mother of King Philip after the death of her husband."
caption: Tomb of Ralph IV in the church of Saint-Pierre in Montdidier. His body was later moved to Crépy.
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