Marie de Hainaut (1280 – Château de Murat, August/September 1354)), sometimes also known as Marie d’Avesnes, Duchess of Bourbon, daughter of Jean I, Count of Hainaut and Holland, and Philippa of Luxembourg, was the wife of Louis I of Bourbon. Her brothers are William I, Count of Hainaut and Holland, and Jean de Beaumont. Her sister was Alice, Countess of Norfolk. She married Louis I de Bourbon by contract in June 1310, celebrated in Pontoise on 22 September of the same year.
Marie de Avesnes was Lady consort of Bourbon, from 1310, Countess consort of Clermont, from 1317, Countess consort of La Marche, from 1322 and then first Duchess consort of Bourbon, from 1327, to 1341.
Three of her nieces, daughters of her brother William I (c. 1286 – 1337), Count of Aino, married to Joan of Valois, sister of the future King Philip VI of France, were Margaret II of Avesnes, Countess of Hainaut and Countess of Holland from 1345 to 1356, who married Louis IV called Bavarian (1282 – 1347), the Holy Roman Emperor, and Philippa of Hainaut, Queen of England, who married Edward III, whose marriage produced thirteen children, including five sons who reached adulthood and whose rivalries would finally trigger the Wars of the Roses. Her son Edward of Woodstock(Plantagenet), named after his birthplace, Prince of Wales and Aquitaine, known as the Black Prince of Wales, father of the future King Richard II and John of Gaunt (1340 – 1399, the suffix Gaunt (Ghent) derives from his birthplace Ghent in the county of Flanders), founder of the House of Lancaster, which provided the English king for the first time with his son Henry IV.
Maria, according to Chapter No. 78a of the Chronologia Johannes de Beke, was the daughter of the Count of Hainaut and Count of Holland and Zeeland John and his wife, Philippa of Luxembourg (1252-6 April 1311), who, again according to the Chronologia Johannes de Beke, was the daughter of Henry V of Luxembourg and Marguerite of Bar (1220-1275).
According to chapter No. 78a of the Chronology Johannes de Beke John I of Hainaut was the eldest male child of the titular Count of Hainaut, John of Avesnes (husband of Adelaide of Holland, as confirmed by paragraph 7 of the Genealogy Ducum Brabantiæ Heredum Franciæ) and his wife Adelaide of Holland, who, according to both chapter No. 66a of the Chronologia Johannes de Beke and paragraph 7 of the Genealogy Ducum Brabantiæ Heredum Franciæ, was the second or third-born daughter (first-born female) of the fifteenth (according to the Annales Egmundani, it was the thirteenth) Count of Holland, Fiorenzo IV and Matilde of Brabant.
In June 1310, a marriage contract was concluded between Maria and the heir to the Seigneury of Bourbon, Louis (1279-22 January 1341); according to both the Continuatio Chronici Guillelmi de Nangiaco and the Chronologia Johannes de Beke, on 22 September 1310, in Pontoise, Mary married Louis de Bourbon, who, according to both the Histoire du Bourbonnais et des Bourbons qui l’ont possédé, Volume 1, and the Histoire généalogique et chronologique de la maison royale de France was the eldest son of Robert’s Count of Clermont, and of the Countess of Charolais and heiress of the Bourbon Seigneury, Beatrice, who, according to the Histoire généalogique des ducs de Bourgogne de la maison de France, was the only daughter of the Count of Charolais, John of Burgundy and the Lady of Bourbon, Agnes.
In 1322, her husband Louis received the title of Count of La Marche from the King of France, Charles IV the Fair.
On 27 December 1327, Louis was created Duke of Bourbon and Peer of France by Charles IV, and Mary became duchess.
Her husband, Louis I, died in January 1341 and was buried in the church of the Friars Preachers in Paris, next to his father’s tomb. According to the obituary of the Chartreux de Vauvert, Louis (Ludovicus dux Bourboni) died on 10 February (IV Id Feb) 1342, while according to the obituary of the Sainte-Chapelle, Louis (Ludovici ducis de Bourbonio) died on 27 February (III Kal Mar) 1342.
Mary survived her husband for thirteen more years; she died in the Château de Murat, Murat at the end of August 1354 and was buried in the convent of Champaigue.
Source: Louis Marie Lanté b. 1789. Galerie Française de femmes célèbres 1827 (Gallery of famous French women).
