After the death of her husband in 996, Bertha's second cousin Robert, the eldest son of King Hugh Capet of France, wished to marry her. He had recently repudiated his first wife, Susanna, who was many years his senior. The union was opposed by King Hugh, who feared that political problems could be caused by religious authorities due to their consanguinity. The marriage nevertheless went ahead around the time of Hugh's death in October 996, which left Robert as sole king. Pope Gregory V and his successor Pope Sylvester II pronounced anathemas against Robert for his "incestuous" marriage and the pair were forced to separate, but Robert several times attempted to rejoin her.[3]
References
^ abStefan Weinfurter, The Salian Century: Main Currents in an Age of Transition, transl. Barbara M. Bowlus, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 46.
^Burgundy and Provence 879-1032, Constance Brittain Bourchard, The New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. III, ed. Timothy Reuter (Cambridge University Press, 1999), 342.
^Bourchard, Constance (1981). "Consanguinity and Noble Marriages in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries". Speculum. 56: 276–77. ISSN0038-7134.