The son of Hugh Capet, founder of the Capetian dynasty, and Adelaide of Aquitaine, Robert was educated at the episcopal school of Reims under Gerbert of Aurillac, later Pope Sylvester II. Soon after his own coronation (July 987), Hugh prudently arranged the election and coronation (December 987) of Robert, thus facilitating his son's eventual succession (October 996) as sole ruler. His excommunication as a result of his marriage within the prohibited degrees of relationship was eventually lifted after the repudiation of the childless Bertha in 1001. Constance of Arles, whom the King married two years later, was the mother of his successor, Henry I.

Robert's domain was not extensive; and, to increase his power, he vigorously and tenaciously pressed his claim to fiefs as they became vacant. Thus, when the duke of Burgundy died without an heir (1002), Robert went to war against a rival claimant. Only in 1015, however, did he finally succeed in subduing the rich duchy. (The gain was transitory, for in 1032 Henry I granted Burgundy to his brother, Robert, and it thereafter remained for centuries outside royal control.)

A patron of the Cluniac monastic movement, Robert apparently ruled firmly and judiciously in his own lands.




Robert was educated at Rheims under Gerbert (later Pope Silvester II). "As the ideal of mediaeval Christianity he won his
surname of `Pious' by his humility and charity, but he also possessed some of the qualities of a soldier and a statesman."
Crowned in 12-987, he became sole king on his father's death in 996. Marriage irregularities led to his excommunication by
Pope Gregory V.{-Encycl.Brit.,`56,19:347} "Ancestral Roots..." (Balt., 1992) 101-21 gives his birth year as 985.

References: [Weis1],[MRL],[AR7],[ES],[PlantagenetA],[RFC]