Thomas de Marle the son of Enguerrand I and his repudiated wife, Adele de Marle

Marle, Aisne

Marle is a commune in the Aisne department in Picardy in northern France.-Population:...

, became the second of the Lords of Coucy.

He is described as a "raging wolf" (abbot Suger of St. Denis) and fought against his father, whom he hated. Nevertheless, they both participated in the first crusade

First Crusade

The First Crusade was a military expedition by Western Christianity to regain the Holy Lands taken in the Muslim conquest of the Levant, ultimately resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem...

. Legend has it that as they in a party of six and without armor were surprised by a band of Muslim warriors, they shredded their cloak trimmed with squirrel fur (vair) into six pieces for banners and slew the attackers. This event is commemorated in their coat-of-arms that shows "barry of six, vair

Vair

Vair is the heraldic representation of patches of squirrel fur in an alternating pattern of blue and white. As a tincture, vair is considered a fur and is therefore exempted from the Rule of tincture . Variations of vair are laid out in different patterns, each with their own name...

 and gules

Gules

In heraldry, gules is the tincture with the colour red, and belongs to the class of dark tinctures called "colours". In engraving, it is sometimes depicted as a region of vertical lines or else marked with gu. as an abbreviation....

".

In 1116 he succeeded his father as Lord of Coucy. He was violent and lawless and caused trouble for the Church (he was excommunicated at one time), the king, and the towns. In the end, he made donations to the Church and died in bed in 1130. His rule was succeeded by his son Enguerrand II.

Brutality

Marle was described by church officials at the time as excessively brutal. Both Abbot

Abbot

The word abbot, meaning father, is a title given to the head of a monastery in various traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not actually the head of a monastery...

 Suger of St. Denis and Guibert of Nogent

Guibert of Nogent

Guibert of Nogent was a Benedictine historian, theologian and author of autobiographical memoirs. Guibert was relatively unknown in his own time, going virtually unmentioned by his contemporaries...

 attested to this brutality noting how Marle hung prisoners up by their testicles and were thus torn off by their own body weight.
Guibert wrote:

So unheard-of in our times was his cruelty that men who are considered cruel seem more humane in killing cattle than he in killing men. For he did not merely kill them outright with the sword and for definite offenses, as is usual, but by butchery after horrible tortures. When he was compelling prisoners of any condition to ransom themselves, he hung them up by their testicles, and as these often tore off from the weight of the body, the vitals
soon burst out. Sometimes he did this with his own hands. Others were suspended by their thumbs or by the male organ itself, and were weighted down with a stone placed on their shoulders. He himself walked below them, and when he could not extort from them what they did not have, he beat them madly with cudgels until they promised what satisfied him, or perished under this punishment.

Ecclesiastical scholars have since disputed these descriptions on account of how the Coucys had rebelled against the archbishop whom had granted them land and subsequently attacked nearby churches.

Family

Thomas married as his first wife Ida of Hainaut, daughter of Baldwin II, Count of Hainaut

Baldwin II, Count of Hainaut

Baldwin II of Mons was count of Hainaut from 1071 to his death. He was the younger son of Baldwin VI, Count of Flanders and Richilde, Countess of Mons and Hainaut.-History:...

 and Ida de Louvain
Thomas & his first wife had two children:

• Ida (Basilia) de Coucy . Married 1) Alard III de Chimay and 2) Bernard d'Orbais, son of Siger d´Orbais
• Beatrix de Coucy married Evrard III de Breteuil, son of Valeran II Sire de Breteuil.

He took as his wife Melisende de Crécy, daughter of Guy de Crécy.
Thomas and Melisende had four children:

• Enguerrand II Lord of Coucy and Marle.
• Robert Lord of Boves (died at Acre in 1191) married Beatrix de Saint-Pol, daughter of Hugo II, count of Saint-Pol and his second wife Marguerite de Clermont.
• Melisende de Coucy married 1) Adelme Châtelain d´Amiens, son of Adam Châtelain d´Amiens and 2) Hugh IV de Gournay, son of Gerard de Gournay and Edith de Warenne.
• Mathilde de Coucy married Guy Châtelain d´Amiens, son of Adam Châtelain d´Amiens.