The County of Ponthieu (French: Comté de Ponthieu, Latin: Comitatus Pontivi), centered on the mouth of the Somme, became a member of the Norman group of vassal states when Count Guy submitted to William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy after the battle of Mortemer.[1][2]
It eventually formed part of the dowry of Eleanor of Castile and passed to the English crown. Much fought-over in the Hundred Years' War, it eventually passed to the French royal domain, and the title Count of Ponthieu (comte de Ponthieu) became a courtesy title for the royal family.
William III Talvas (bef. 1105–20 June 1172), also Count of Alençon. During his lifetime, he ceded Ponthieu to his elder son Guy II; Alençon went to his younger son John I (d February 24, 1191) who was married to Beatrice of Anjou, first cousin of Henry II of England, Count of Anjou.
^Thomas Stapleton, 'Observations on the History of Adeliza, Sister of William the Conqueror', Archaeologia, Vol. 26 (J.B. Nichols & Sons, 1836), pp. 349–360
^George Edward Cokayne, The Complete Peerage; or, A History of the House of Lords and all its Members from the Earliest Times, Vol. XI, ed. Geoffrey H. White (The St. Catherine Press, Ltd., London, 1949), p. 695
Bates, David (2016). William the Conqueror. Yale University Press. ..Guy of Ponthieu, the brother and successor of Count Enguerrand II.
Dunbabin, Jean (2000). France in the Making 843–1180. Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-820846-4.
Musset, Lucien (2005). The Bayeux Tapestry. Boydell Press. Guy I of Ponthieu is a well-known figure who inherited the county after the death in battle of his brother, Enguerrand II, in 1053.
Pohl, Benjamin; van Houts, Elisabeth (2022). "History and Memory". In Pohl, Benjamin (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to the Age of William the Conqueror. Cambridge University Press. ..Enguerrand II's brother and successor, Count Guy I (1053–1100), intercepted Harold..