William the Carpenter
| William the Carpenter | |
|---|---|
| Born | France |
| Occupation | Viscount of Melun |
| Known for | Crusader |
| Relatives | Hugh I, Count of Vermandois, Philip I of France |
William the Carpenter (fl. 1087–1102), viscount of Melun, was a French nobleman who participated in the Reconquista in Spain and on the First Crusade. He was notorious for defecting from the army both in Spain and on the crusade, but he was also known for his strength in battle, whence he earned his nickname "the Carpenter." He returned to the Holy Land after the crusade, and nothing further is known of his life or death.
His specific origins are unclear; according to the seventeenth-century genealogist Père Anselme, he was the son of Ursio I, viscount of Melun, a town about 50 kilometres outside Paris in the Brie region of the French Vexin, which was later known as the Île-de-France. Anselme believed William succeeded his father in 1084, and was later succeeded by his own son, Ursio II. However, in the nineteenth century, Adolphe Duchalais showed that Anselme misread the charters he was using; all that is known for certain is that Ursio was viscount in 1085 and William was viscount in 1094. There is no definite record of an Ursio II, and after William there is no viscount known until Adam, who married the daughter of the previous, unnamed viscount in 1138. William was presumably related to Ursio but his specific relationship to him and the other viscounts is unknown.
According to twelfth-century chronicler Robert the Monk, William was "of royal stock" and was related to Hugh I, Count of Vermandois and Hugh's brother King Philip I of France.
According to twelfth-century monk Guibert of Nogent, William was "powerful in words, but less so in action...a man who set out to do things too great for him." William was a member of the French contingent which marched into Spain in 1087 to assist Alfonso VI of Castile with the siege of Tudela against the Almoravids. He may have been one of the leaders, along with Eudes I, Duke of Burgundy, who was the nephew of Alfonso's wife Constance. The French army never made it to Tudela and withdrew with little success. Guibert says that William "retreated like a wretch, leaving countless men stranded by his flight." William's actions in Spain may have been the inspiration for the character of Ganelon in the Chanson de Roland, which was possibly written in the early twelfth-century, based on similar events that had occurred during the reign of Charlemagne centuries earlier.
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