ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book examines the history of the house of Ardennes-Bouillon, Godfrey's maternal forebears, focusing on the eleventh century. It suggests that its most prominent members were active in Lotharingia and further afield in the Western Empire. Most significantly, the family had meaningful connections to the reform papacy between the 1050s and 1070s. The book focuses on Godfrey's career in the West. It also focuses on the possible course of his life before he emerged in contemporary sources when, in 1076, at the age of about sixteen, he succeeded his uncle Godfrey the Hunchback to the lands and holdings of the house of Ardennes-Bouillon. The book discusses Godfrey's response to the appeal for the First Crusade, and explores the ways in which his response may have been shaped by his formative experiences and by dynastic precedents.
