Godfrey the Captive
French nobleman
Godfrey the Captive (died 1002), also called the Prisoner, was the count of Bidgau and Methingau from 959 and the count of Verdun 963 to his death. In 969, he obtained the Margraviate of Antwerp and Ename. Between 974 and 998, he was also the count of Hainault and Mons.
He was the founder of the House of Ardennes-Verdun, a cadet branch of the House of Ardennes. He was always loyal to the Ottonians, to whom he was related through his maternal grandmother.
Life
Godfrey was the son of Gozlin, Count of Bidgau and Methingau, and Oda of Metz. He was the brother of Adalberon, Archbishop of Reims, who crowned Hugh Capet the king of France.
Godfrey is styled as Count by the grace of God of [1] in 963 and already count of Bidgau and Methingau through inheritance since 959. In 974, he became count of Mons, and Hainault jointly with Arnold, Count of Valenciennes, after the fall of Reginar III. Charles, Duke of Lower Lorraine, was a supporter of Reginar and defeated Godfrey and Arnold at Mons in 976, where the former was captured.
After his release, Godfrey was at the side of the Emperor Otto II fighting Lothair of France at Verdun in 985, but he was again taken captive, along with his son Frederick, and held several years.
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This entry incorporates text from “Godfrey the Captive” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.