FOR MEDIEVAL NOBILITY, family was one of the primary sources of power. As heirs, nobles could draw upon the latent power associated with the lands and offices they would inherit. With membership in a cognatic kin group,

These ties allowed noble women and men to wield dynastic power in order to pursue political advantage, gain access to patronage, foster their prestige, and create marital alliances. Marital couples brought together not only two kin groups, with the inherited traits of their bloodlines, but also the governmental powers of their properties. Successful medieval marriages not only produced children to inherit, but also a companionate partnership in the exercise of lordship within the couple's lands. For the heiresses of Boulogne, their ancestress, Matilda II (1103–1152), provided the model of shared rule and a happy married life. In the following brief biographies, this chapter will sketch out the family lives, kin networks, and careers of Marie II, Ida II, and Matilda III, which will not only elucidate one source of these countesses’ power—their families—but also provide a background for the analysis of the rest of the book.

Marie II (1136–1182)

Marie, daughter of Matilda II of Boulogne and Stephen of Blois, count of Mortain, was born in late 1136, at the end of the first year of her parents’ rule of England (December 1135–1154). Her father was universally acknowledged to be a preudomme—affable, energetic, humble, and pious; her mother, eloquent, good, valorous, and capable. Marie was their fifth child, and her first years were spent in or near London surrounded by her siblings—Eustace, Baldwin, Matilda, and William—as well as her paternal uncle, Henry, bishop of Winchester. In 1139, King Stephen faced the first major rebellion against his rule, and he spent the next fourteen years fighting to secure his throne with the able partnership of his wife. The family also faced personal tragedy in the first couple of years of Marie's life—the deaths of her brother Baldwin (ca. 1136–1137) and her sister Matilda (late 1138–early 1139).