Ralph IV of Valois

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.^[1][2]

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".^[1] 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."^[3]