Rudolph III of Burgundy
King of Burgundy from 993 to 1032
Rudolph III (French: Rodolphe, German: Rudolf; c. 970 – 6 September 1032), called the Idle or the Pious, was the king of Burgundy from 993 until his death. He was the last ruler of an independent Kingdom of Burgundy, and the last legitimate male member of the Burgundian line of the Elder House of Welf.
Family
Rudolph was the son and heir of King Conrad I of Burgundy (925–993). His mother, Matilda (943–980), a member of the Frankish Carolingian dynasty, was the daughter of King Louis IV of France. Rudolph himself had four sisters: an elder half sister, Gisela, who married the Ottonian duke Henry II of Bavaria some time before 972, and became the mother of Emperor Henry II, and three full sisters: Bertha, who married, firstly, Count Odo I of Blois in 983, and, secondly, King Robert II of France in 996; Matilda, who possibly married Count Robert of Geneva; and Gerberga, who married Duke Herman II of Swabia in about 988. He also had a half-brother, Burchard, archbishop of Lyon.
Reign
Rudolph succeeded to the throne of the Kingdom of Arles upon his father's death on 19 October 993 and was crowned king in Lausanne. His reign was marked with turbulence when he made attempts to confiscate several Burgundian estates. Unable to placate the increasingly powerful nobility, he also had to deal with encroachments of power on the part of Count Otto-William of Burgundy.
“Rudolph III of Burgundy” enters the record as king of Burgundy from 993 to 1032. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Rudolph, Burgundy and King can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Rudolph III of Burgundy” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Rudolph, Burgundy and King provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q504792. VIAF identifies the subject as 42273092. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1032.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rudolph III of Burgundy” 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.