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- BIOGRAPHY
Robert, known as 'le Bourguignon', was born about 1023, the son of Renaud I, comte de Nevers, and Alys/Hawise de France, comtesse d'Auxerre.
While his older brother Guillaume I succeeded as his father's heir, Robert and his younger brothers Henri and Guido were sent into the service of Geoffrey II Martel, comte d'Anjou, the second husband of their great-aunt Agnes de Bourgogne. He was first mentioned in the retinue of the comte d'Anjou in the first half of the 1040s. Probably about 1051 the count invested him with the castle of Craon, at the border of Maine; its previous lord had rebelled against the count. About 1068 Robert married Avoie dite Blanche du Maine, daughter and heiress of Geoffroy de Sablé. They had three children of whom Robert dit Vestrol and Renaud would have progeny. Through his marriage to Blanche, the heiress of the castle of Sablé, he came into the possession of another important border stronghold of Anjou. Because of this and because of his family ties to the Angevin counts and to the royal family, he founded a prominent position for his family in Anjou. He secured his influence in Maine with the marriage of his niece Ermengarde de Nevers to Hubert, vicomte du Maine et Beaumont.
Robert's second marriage, to a lady called Berthe (Blanche), did not result in progeny. He took part in the First Crusade, in which he died after 1098.
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