Birth of the duchy of Bourbon
In total,
twelve lords, four dames, nine dukes and one duchess succeeded as the head of
the duchy in nearly six hundred years, from the birth of the fiefdom, in around
950 A.D. to 1531. It is at that date that the duchy, which de facto became
an apanage in 1400, returned to the crown in its original state when the male
line became extinct.
The name
of the first known Bourbon ancestor, Aimard,
appears in 909 in a famous charter, the donation deed by which William of
Aquitaine founded the well-known Cluny
abbey in Southern Burgundy for a Benedictine congregation.
In 915, Aimard,
holder of a public office in Deneuvre* for the Duke of Aquitaine, imitated his
overlord in founding what would become the first of the five Cluniac priories: Souvigny. Mayeul and Odilon of Mercœur,
two famous Cluniac abbots met their death in Souvigny in 994 and 1049. Venerated
as saints in their lifetime, the pilgrimage which started in Souvigny at their
grave in the XIth c. brought fame and legitimacy to the Archambauds
of Bourbon (along with substantial revenues).
Aimard’s
son, Aimon I, can be considered the
first lord of Bourbon in around 950. He signed two deeds confirming the
Souvigny donation to Cluny from the castle. His descendants, the Archambauds, gave birth to a powerful dynasty for the next three hundred
years in Bourbon. They continuously and forcefully looked after their
territorial expansion whilst handling tactfully the susceptibilities of the
French kings. This diplomacy, combining loyalty to the crown and will of
independence, led the lords of Bourbon closer and closer to the royal power by
a subtle wedding policy (amongst other methods).
In a
blaze of glory, the heir to the fiefdom, Beatrice of Burgundy married Robert of
Clermont, Saint Louis’ sixth son, in 1276. The Bourbons thus became the
youngest branch of the Capetians, and the seigneury was elevated to the status
of a duchy in 1327 for their son Louis.
* Today Châtel-de-Neuvre, by the Allier river, about twenty kilometres to the South-West of Bourbon-l’Archambault.
© March 2023
