Heilwis d'Ostrevant

The Vexin House as a lineage, appeared at the end of the ix th  century, from the Count Raoul I st of Vexin . He died in 1080. The origin of this family is not known, but probably of high lineage, since the mother of the first known member would be a descendant of Louis the Pious .

The first count, Raoul I er is the son of a Heilwis, or Helvide, who remarries in second marriage to the count Roger I er of Laon . This Heilwis is traditionally identified with Heilwis of Frioul, daughter of Eberhard , Marquis of Frioul and of the Carolingian Gisèle . But this identification poses a chronological problem, because born before 850, she would have had at least two children from 895 , which is unlikely.

Another hypothesis has been put forward: Helwis, wife of Roger de Laon, would be the daughter of Hucbald de Gouy and Heilwis de Frioul. Her first husband would be Gautier de Laon , which would explain the appearance of the first name of Gautier among the counts of Vexin.

It is this hypothesis that was used in the reconstruction of this branch of the House of Vexin on Geni. The basis of this reconstruction is onomastics, which is “the study of the history and origin of proper names, especially personal names.” Leading experts Katherine Keats-Rohan and Christian Settipani et. al. have contributed both to this new aspect of genealogical study but also through their studies specifically to this part of “the big tree”. Their work for use in this reconstruction is extracted from https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maison_de_Vexin but refer for details to their original work Onomastique et Parenté dans l'Occident médiéval, Oxford, Linacre College, Unit for Prosopographical Research, coll. « Prosopographica et Genealogica / 3 », 2000, 310 p. (ISBN 1-900934-01-9)

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The entry for Heilwis in fmgMedlands is currently based on the traditional hypothesis and has yet to be updated to reflect the recent reconstruction based on onomastics.

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