Alix of Brittany, Dame de Pontarcy, Countess of Blois (6 June 1243 – 2 August 1288), was a Breton noblewoman and a member of the House of Dreux as the eldest daughter of John I, Duke of Brittany and Blanche of Navarre. She married John I, Count of Blois. Alix was known for founding religious houses including the Monastery of La Guiche, where she was later buried.
Sometime after a contract was signed on 11 December 1254, she married John I, Count of Blois of the House of Châtillon.[1] Thereafter she was styled Countess of Blois. She brought as her dowry her titles of Pontarcy and de Brie-Comte-Robert, which had been named after her ancestor Robert I of Dreux.[citation needed] The marriage produced one child, a daughter Jeanne, who was heiress to her father's title and estates. In 1270, her husband was appointed Lieutenant General of France.
Alix and John founded several religious houses including the Monastery of La Guiche near Blois in 1277. She became a widow on 28 June 1279. In 1287, the year before her own death, Alix travelled to Palestine. From there she journeyed on to Syria, where she commissioned the erection of two barbican towers at Ptolemais.[2]
Death
Alix died on 2 August 1288 and was buried in the Monastery of La Guiche which she had founded.[citation needed] Her father, Duke John had died just two years earlier. Her daughter, Jeanne, who was the suo jureCountess of Blois had married Peter, Count of Perche and Alençon, a son of King Louis IX of France and Margaret of Provence. However, as her two sons by that marriage both died in early infancy, Alix's line became extinct upon her death.