Vermandois

Vermandois was the Picard county of northern France, born in Merovingian times from the land of the Viromandui and organized in the tenth century around the two lordships of St Quentin and Peronne. Its first hereditary count, Pepin, sprang in direct male line from Charlemagne, and his grandson Herbert II made the house great, swelling its lands and holding the lawful king of France, Charles the Simple, prisoner for six years. Later counts mattered less until the line failed: Herbert IV added Valois through his wife in 1077, the mad Eudes was disinherited, his sister Adela carried Vermandois to Hugh the Great, brother of the French king and a leader of the First Crusade, and their heirs quarreled it away. By treaty with Philip Augustus Flanders held the county till 1191 then the crown took Peronne, Eleanor kept a life interest till her death in 1213, and the old county entered the royal domain.