Catherine Weston

Children:

11124. Sir Richard Fitz Gilbert de Clare was born in 1092 in Clare, Suffolk, England; died on 15 Apr 1136 in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, Wales.
Adeliza de Clare was born in ~1093 in Risbridge, Suffolk, England; died on 1 Nov 1163 in St Osyth Priory, Essex, England.
Agnes Clare was born in ~1091 in Clare, Suffolk, England; died in 1115 in England.
11132. Sir Gilbert de Clare, Knight, 1st Earl of Pembroke was born in ~ 1100 in Tonbridge, Kent, England; died on 6 Jan 1148 in Tintern Abbey, Chapel Hill, Monmouthshire, England.

22250.

Sir Ranulf Meschin, Knight, 1st Earl of Chester was born in 0___ 1070 in (Bayeux, Normandy, France); died in 0Jan 1129 in Cheshire, England; was buried in Chester Abbey, Cheshire, England.

Notes:

Biography

Family and origins

Ranulf le Meschin's father and mother represented two different families of viscounts in Normandy, and both of them were strongly tied to Henry, son of William the Conqueror.[1] His father was Ranulf de Briquessart, and likely for this reason the former Ranulf was styled le Meschin, "the younger".[2] Ranulf's father was viscount of the Bessin, the area around Bayeux.[3] Besides Odo, bishop of Bayeux, Ranulf the elder was the most powerful magnate in the Bessin region of Normandy.[4] Ranulf le Meschin's great-grandmother may even have been from the ducal family of Normandy, as le Meschin's paternal great-grandfather viscount Anschitil is known to have married a daughter of Duke Richard III.[5]

Ranulf le Meschin's mother, Margaret, was the daughter of Richard le Goz, Viscount of Avranches.[1] Richard's father Thurstan Goz had become viscount of the Hiâemois between 1017 and 1025,[6] while Richard himself became viscount of the Avranchin in either 1055 or 1056.[7] Her brother (Richard Goz's son) was Hugh d'Avranches "Lupus" ("the Wolf"), viscount of the Avranchin and Earl of Chester (from c. 1070).[8] Ranulf was thus, in addition to being heir to the Bessin, the nephew of one of Norman England's most powerful and prestigious families.[9]

We know from an entry in the Durham Liber Vitae, c. 1098 x 1120, that Ranulf le Meschin had an older brother named Richard (who died in youth), and a younger brother named William.[10] He had a sister called Agnes, who later married Robert de Grandmesnil (died 1136).[2]

Early career

Historian C. Warren Hollister thought that Ranulf's father Ranulf de Briquessart was one of the early close companions of Prince Henry, the future Henry I.[4] Hollister called Ranulf the Elder "a friend from Henry's youthful days in western Normandy",[11] and argued that the homeland of the two Ranulfs had been under Henry's overlordship since 1088, despite both ducal and royal authority lying with Henry's two brothers.[12] Hollister further suggested that Ranulf le Meschin may have had a role in persuading Robert Curthose to free Henry from captivity in 1089.[13]

The date of Ranulf senior's death, and succession of Ranulf junior, is unclear, but the former's last and the latter's earliest appearance in extant historical records coincides, dating to 24 April 1089 in charter of Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, to Bayeux Cathedral.[14] Ranulf le Meschin appears as "Ranulf son of Ranulf the viscount".[14]

In the foundation charter of Chester Abbey granted by his uncle Hugh Lupus, earl of Chester, and purportedly issued in 1093, Ranulf le Meschin is listed as a witness.[15] His attestation to this grant is written Signum Ranulfi nepotis comitis, "signature of Ranulf nephew of the earl".[16] However, the editor of the Chester comital charters, Geoffrey Barraclough, thought this charter was forged in the period of Earl Ranulf II.[17] Between 1098 and 1101 (probably in 1098) Ranulf became a major English landowner in his own right when he became the third husband of Lucy, heiress of the honour of Bolingbroke in Lincolnshire.[18] This acquisition also brought him the lordship of Appleby in Westmorland, previously held by Lucy's second husband Ivo Taillebois.[2]

Marriage to a great heiress came only with royal patronage, which in turn meant that Ranulf had to be respected and trusted by the king. Ranulf was probably, like his father, among the earliest and most loyal of Henry's followers, and was noted as such by Orderic Vitalis.[19] Ranulf was however not recorded often at the court of Henry I, and did not form part of the king's closest group of administrative advisers.[20] He witnessed charters only occasionally, though this became more frequent after he became earl.[21] In 1106 he is found serving as one of several justiciars at York hearing a case about the lordship of Ripon.[22] In 1116 he is recorded in a similar context.[2]

Ranulf was, however, one of the king's military companions. When, soon after Whitsun 1101 Henry heard news of a planned invasion of England by his brother Robert Curthose, he sought promises from his subjects to defend the kingdom.[23] A letter to the men of Lincolnshire names Ranulf as one of four figures entrusted with collecting these oaths.[24] Ranulf was one of the magnates who accompanied King Henry on his invasion of Duke Robert's Norman territory in 1106.[25] Ranulf served under Henry as an officer of the royal household when the latter was on campaign; Ranulf was in fact one of his three commanders at the Battle of Tinchebrai.[26] The first line of Henry's force was led by Ranulf, the second (with the king) by Robert of Meulan, and third by William de Warrene, with another thousand knights from Brittany and Maine led by Helias, Count of Maine.[27] Ranulf's line consisted of the men of Bayeux, Avranches and Coutances.[28]

Lord of Cumberland

The gatehouse of Wetheral Priory, founded by Ranulf c. 1106.
A charter issued in 1124 by David I, King of the Scots, to Robert I de Brus cited Ranulf's lordship of Carlisle and Cumberland as a model for Robert's new lordship in Annandale.[29] This is significant because Robert is known from other sources to have acted with semi-regal authority in this region.[2] A source from 1212 attests that the jurors of Cumberland remembered Ranulf as quondam dominus Cumberland ("sometime Lord of Cumberland").[30] Ranulf possessed the power and in some respects the dignity of a semi-independent earl in the region, though he lacked the formal status of being called such. A contemporary illustration of this authority comes from the records of Wetheral Priory, where Ranulf is found addressing his own sheriff, "Richer" (probably Richard de Boivill, baron of Kirklinton).[31] Indeed, no royal activity occurred in Cumberland or Westmorland during Ranulf's time in charge there, testimony to the fullness of his powers in the region.[32]

Ivo Taillebois, when he married Ranulf's future wife Lucy, had acquired her Lincolnshire lands but sometime after 1086 he acquired estates in Kendal and elsewhere in Westmorland. Adjacent lands in Westmorland and Lancashire that had previously been controlled by Earl Tostig Godwinson were probably carved up between Roger the Poitevin and Ivo in the 1080s, a territorial division at least partially responsible for the later boundary between the two counties.[33] Norman lordship in the heartland of Cumberland can be dated from chronicle sources to around 1092, the year King William Rufus seized the region from its previous ruler, Dolfin.[34] There is inconclusive evidence that settlers from Ivo's Lincolnshire lands had come into Cumberland as a result.[35]

Between 1094 and 1098 Lucy was married to Roger fitz Gerold de Roumare, and it is probable that this marriage was the king's way of transferring authority in the region to Roger fitz Gerold.[36] Only from 1106 however, well into the reign of Henry I, do we have certain evidence that this authority had come to Ranulf.[2] The "traditional view", held by the historian William Kapelle, was that Ranulf's authority in the region did not come about until 1106 or after, as a reward for participation in the Battle of Tinchebrai.[37] Another historian, Richard Sharpe, has recently attacked this view and argued that it probably came in or soon after 1098. Sharpe stressed that Lucy was the mechanism by which this authority changed hands, and pointed out that Ranulf had been married to Lucy years before Tinchebrai and can be found months before Tinchebrai taking evidence from county jurors at York (which may have been responsible for Cumbria at this point).[38]

Ranulf likewise distributed land to the church, founding a Benedictine monastic house at Wetheral.[39] This he established as a daughter-house of St Mary's Abbey, York, a house that in turn had been generously endowed by Ivo Taillebois.[30] This had occurred by 1112, the year of the death of Abbot Stephen of St Mary's, named in the foundation deed.[40] In later times at least, the priory of Wetheral was dedicated to St Mary and the Holy Trinity, as well as another saint named Constantine.[41] Ranulf gave Wetheral, among other things, his two churches at Appleby, St Lawrences (Burgate) and St Michaels (Bongate).[42]

As an incoming regional magnate Ranulf would be expected to distribute land to his own followers, and indeed the record of the jurors of Cumberland dating to 1212 claimed that Ranulf created two baronies in the region.[43] Ranulf's brother-in-law Robert de Trevers received the barony of Burgh-by-Sands, while the barony of Liddel went to Turgis Brandos.[30] He appears to have attempted to give the large compact barony of Gilsland to his brother William, but failed to dislodge the native lord, the eponymous "Gille" son of Boite; later the lordship of Allerdale (including Copeland), even larger than Gilsland stretching along the coast from the River Ellen to the River Esk, was given to William.[44] Kirklinton may have been given to Richard de Boivill, Ranulf's sheriff.[2]

Earl of Chester

Chester Cathedral today, originally Chester Abbey, where Ranulf's body was buried.
1120 was a fateful year for both Henry I and Ranulf. Richard, earl of Chester, like Henry's son and heir William Adeling, died in the White Ship Disaster near Barfleur on 25 November.[2] Only four days before the disaster, Ranulf and his cousin Richard had witnessed a charter together at Cerisy.[2]

Henry probably could not wait long to replace Richard, as the Welsh were resurgent under the charismatic leadership of Gruffudd ap Cynan. According to the Historia Regum, Richard's death prompted the Welsh to raid Cheshire, looting, killing, and burning two castles.[45] Perhaps because of his recognised military ability and social strength, because he was loyal and because he was the closest male relation to Earl Richard, Henry recognized Ranulf as Richard's successor to the county of Chester.[46]

In 1123, Henry sent Ranulf to Normandy with a large number of knights and with his bastard son, Robert, Earl of Gloucester, to strengthen the garrisons there.[47] Ranulf commanded the king's garrison at âEvreux and governed the county of âEvreux during the 1123-1124 war with William Clito, Robert Curthose's son and heir.[48] In March 1124 Ranulf assisted in the capture of Waleran, Count of Meulan.[49] Scouts informed Ranulf that Waleran's forces were planning an expedition to Vatteville, and Ranulf planned an to intercept them, a plan carried out by Henry de Pommeroy, Odo Borleng and William de Pont-Authou, with 300 knights.[50] A battle followed, perhaps at Rougemontier (or Bourgthâeroulde), in which Waleran was captured.[51]

Although Ranulf bore the title "earl of Chester", the honour (i.e., group of estates) which formed the holdings of the earl of Chester were scattered throughout England, and during the rule of his predecessors included the cantref of Tegeingl in Perfeddwlad in north-western Wales.[52] Around 1100, only a quarter of the value of the honour actually lay in Cheshire, which was one of England's poorest and least developed counties.[53] The estates elsewhere were probably given to the earls in compensation for Cheshire's poverty, in order to strengthen its vulnerable position on the Anglo-Welsh border.[54] The possibility of conquest and booty in Wales should have supplemented the lordship's wealth and attractiveness, but for much of Henry's reign the English king tried to keep the neighboring Welsh princes under his peace.[55]

Ranulf's accession may have involved him giving up many of his other lands, including much of his wife's Lincolnshire lands as well as his lands in Cumbria, though direct evidence for this beyond convenient timing is lacking.[56] That Cumberland was given up at this point is likely, as King Henry visited Carlisle in December 1122, where, according to the Historia Regum, he ordered the strengthening of the castle.[57]

Hollister believed that Ranulf offered the Bolingbroke lands to Henry in exchange for Henry's bestowal of the earldom.[13] The historian A. T. Thacker believed that Henry I forced Ranulf to give up most of the Bolingbroke lands through fear that Ranulf would become too powerful, dominating both Cheshire and the richer county of Lincoln.[58] Sharpe, however, suggested that Ranulf may have had to sell a great deal of land in order to pay the king for the county of Chester, though it could not have covered the whole fee, as Ranulf's son Ranulf de Gernon, when he succeeded his father to Chester in 1129, owed the king ¹1000 "from his father's debt for the land of Earl Hugh".[59] Hollister thought this debt was merely the normal feudal relief expected to be paid on a large honour, and suggested that Ranulf's partial non-payment, or Henry's forgiveness for non-payment, was a form of royal patronage.[60]

Ranulf died in January 1129, and was buried in Chester Abbey.[2] He was survived by his wife and countess, Lucy, and succeeded by his son Ranulf de Gernon.[2] A daughter, Alicia, married Richard de Clare, a lord in the Anglo-Welsh marches.[2] One of his offspring, his fifth son, participated in the Siege of Lisbon, and for this aid was granted the Lordship of Azambuja by King Afonso I of Portugal.[2]

That his career had some claim on the popular imagination may be inferred from lines in William Langland's Piers Plowman (c. 1362–c. 1386) in which Sloth, the lazy priest, confesses: "I kan [know] not parfitly [perfectly] my Paternoster as the preest it singeth,/ But I kan rymes of Robyn Hood and Randolf Erl of Chestre."[61]

end

Ranulf married Lucy of Bolingbroke. Lucy died in 1138. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

22251.

Lucy of Bolingbroke died in 1138.

Children:

Sir Ranulf de Gernon, II, Knight, 4th Earl of Chester was born in 0___ 1099 in Guernon Castle, Calvados, France; died on 16 Dec 1153 in Cheshire, England.
11125. Alice de Gernon

22260.

Edward of Salisbury was born in BY 1045 in Normandy, France; died in Denbighshire, Wales.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Salisbury, Wiltshire, England
Occupation: 0___ 1081; Vicecomitem (sheriff)

Notes:

Birth: unknown
Haute-Normandie, France
Death: unknown
Denbighshire, Wales

Born by 1045, he seems, by virtue of his wide land holdings, to have been well placed among the followers of William the Conqueror. He was called "vicecomitem" [sheriff] of Wiltshire in a charter dated 1081.

Family links:
Children:
Walter Fitz Edward (1091 - 1147)*

*Calculated relationship

Burial:
Unknown

Created by: Darrel Salisbury
Record added: Aug 06, 2014
Find A Grave Memorial# 133948641

end

Edward married Maud Fitz Hurbert. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

22261.

Petronilla de Grandmesnil

Children:

11130. Sir Walter of Salisbury was born in 0___ 1087 in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England; died in 0___ 1147 in Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England; was buried in Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England.
Maud of Salisbury

22266.

Sir Robert de Beaumont, Knight, 1st Earl of Leicester was born in ~ 1049 in Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France (son of Roger de Beaumont and Adeline of Meulan); died on 5 Jun 1118.

Other Events and Attributes:

Military: Battle of Hastings, 1066

Notes:

Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester (Sometime between 1040 & 1050 – 5 June 1118), also known as Robert of Meulan, count of Meulan, was a powerful Norman nobleman, one of the Companions of William the Conqueror during the Norman Conquest of England, and was revered as one of the wisest men of his age. Chroniclers spoke highly of his eloquence, his learning, and three kings of England valued his counsel.

Biography

He was born between 1040-1050, the eldest son of Roger de Beaumont (1015-1094) by his wife Adeline of Meulan (died 1081), a daughter of Waleran III, Count de Meulan, and was an older brother of Henry de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Warwick (c. 1050-1119)

Robert de Beaumont was one of only about 15 of the Proven Companions of William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and was leader of the infantry on the right wing of the Norman army, as evidenced in the following near contemporary account by William of Poitiers:

"A certain Norman, Robert, son of Roger of Beaumont, being nephew and heir to Henry, Count of Meulan, through Henry's sister Adeline, found himself that day in battle for the first time. He was as yet but a young man and he performed feats of valour worthy of perpetual remembrance. At the head of a troop which he commanded on the right wing he attacked with the utmost bravery and success".[1]

His service earned him the grant of more than 91 English manors confiscated from the defeated English, as listed in the Domesday Book of 1086.

When his mother died in 1081, Robert inherited the title of Count of Meulan in Normandy, and the title, Viscount Ivry and Lord of Norton. He paid homage to King Philip I of France for these estates and sat as a French Peer in the Parliament held at Poissy.

He and his brother Henry were members of the Royal hunting party in the New Forest in Hampshire when King William II Rufus (1087-1100) was shot dead accidentally by an arrow on 2 August 1100. He pledged allegiance to William II's brother, King Henry I (1100-1135), who created him Earl of Leicester in 1107.

On the death of William Rufus, William, Count of âEvreux and Ralph de Conches made an incursion into Robert's Norman estates, on the pretence they had suffered injury through some advice that Robert had given to the king; their raid was successful and they collected a vast booty.

During the English phase of the Investiture Controversy, he was excommunicated by Pope Paschal II on 26 March 1105 for advising King Henry to continue selecting the bishops of his realm in opposition to the canons of the church. Sometime in 1106, Henry succeeded in having Anselm, the exiled archbishop of Canterbury, revoke this excommunication. Anselm's (somewhat presumptuous) act was ultimately ratified by Paschal.

According to Henry of Huntingdon, Robert died of shame after "a certain earl carried off the lady he had espoused, either by some intrigue or by force and stratagem." He was the last surviving Norman nobleman to have fought in the Battle of Hastings.[2]

Family

In 1096 he married Elizabeth (or Isabel) de Vermandois, daughter of Hugh Magnus (1053-1101) a younger son of the French king and Adelaide, Countess of Vermandois (1050-1120). After his death Elizabeth remarried in 1118 to William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey. He had the following progeny:

Waleran IV de Beaumont, Count of Meulan, 1st Earl of Worcester (b. 1104), eldest twin and heir.
Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester & Earl of Hereford (b. 1104), twin
Hugh de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Bedford (b. circa 1106)
Emma de Beaumont (born 1102)
Adeline de Beaumont, married twice:
Hugh IV of Montfort-sur-Risle;
Richard de Granville of Bideford (d. 1147)
Aubree de Beaumont, married Hugh II of Chãateauneuf-Thimerais.
Agnes de Beaumont, a nun
Maud de Beaumont, married William Lovel. (b. c. 1102)
Isabel de Beaumont, a mistress of King Henry I. Married twice:
Gilbert de Clare, 1st Earl of Pembroke;
Hervâe de Montmorency, Constable of Ireland

Sources

icon Normandy portal
Edward T. Beaumont, J.P. The Beaumonts in History. A.D. 850-1850. Oxford.
References[edit]
Jump up ^ Wm. of Poitiers, per Douglas (1959), p.227
Jump up ^ Edward T. Beaumont, J.P. The Beaumonts in History. A.D. 850-1850. Oxford.

end

Robert married Lady Isabel de Vermandois, Countess of Leicester in ~ 1096. Isabel (daughter of Hugues de France, Count of Vermandois and Adelaide of Vermandois) was born on 13 Dec 1081 in Basse-Normandie, France; died on 17 Feb 1131 in France; was buried in Lewes Priory, Southover, Sussex, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

22267.

Notes:

Birth: 1081
Basse-Normandie, France
Death: Feb. 17, 1131, France

Countess of Leicester, Countess of Surrey

Third daughter of Hugh Magnus and Adelaide of Vermandois, granddaughter of King Henry I of France and Anne of Kiev, Herbert IV, Count of Vermandois, and Adele of Valois. She was the heiress of the county of Vermandois and descendant of Charlemagne.

Wife of Sir Robert de Beaumont, Count of Meulan, the son of Roger de Beaumont and Adeline of Meulan; Isabel became the Countess of Leicester. They married about 1096 and had three sons and at least five daughters:
* Emma b 1101, probably died young
* Waleran IV de Beaumont, Count of Meulan, twin
* Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester, twin
* Hugh de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Bedford
* Adeline, wife of Hugh Montfort & Richard de Granville
* Aubree, wife of Hugh II of Chãateauneuf-en-Thimerais
* Maud, wife of William Lovel
* Isabel, mistress of King Henry I, wife of Gilbert de Clare and mother of Richard Strongbow & wife of Hervâe de Montmorency

Secondly, the wife of William de Warenne, son of William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey and his first wife Gundred; Isabel became the Countess of Surrey. They married in 1118 and had three sons and two daughters:
* William de Warenne, 3rd Earl of Surrey
Ralph de Warenne
* Reginald de Warenne
* Gundrada de Warenne, wife of Roger de Beaumont& William de Lancaster
* Ada de Warenne, wife of Henry of Scotland, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon, mother King Malcolm IV and King William I 'the Lion'

Sir Robert de Beaumont, described as being "the wisest man in his time between London and Jerusalem", and aged over fifty was determined to marry Isabel, aged about eleven. Bishop Ivo dismissed their request based on their being within a few degrees of kindred. Isabel's father was able to sway Bishop Ivo, and saw his daughter married by April of 1096 when he left on a crusade.

In 1115, Isabel was either carried away or willingly abducted by William de Warrene, revealing they had been lovers for some time. They were unable to marry until the death of Sir Robert, which occurred in 1118.

The Beaumont sons were on opposite sides of support for King Stephen and Queen Matilda, but were not enemies.

Sources vary on her death, reported as 1131 to outliving William who died in 1138.

Family links:
Parents:
Hugues de France (1057 - 1102)

Spouses:
Robert de Beaumont (1049 - 1118)
William II de Warenne (1065 - 1138)

Children:
Waleran de Beaumont (1104 - 1166)*
Robert de Beaumont (1104 - 1168)*
Reginald de Warenne (1113 - 1179)*
William de Warenne (1118 - 1148)*
Ada De Warenne De Huntingdon (1120 - 1178)*

Sibling:
Isabel Of Vermandois Beaumont de Warenne (1081 - 1131)
Raoul I de Vermandois (1094 - 1152)*

*Calculated relationship

Burial:
Lewes Priory
Lewes
Lewes District
East Sussex, England

end

Children:

Eleanor Beaumont was born in 1100 in Cheshire, England; died in 1157 in Cheshire, England.
11133. Isabel de Beaumont was born in ~1101 in Leicester, Leicestershire, England; died after 1172 in Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire, Wales.
Waleran de Beaumont, IV was born in 1104 in (Meulan, France); died on 9 Apr 1166 in Preaux, France.
Sir Robert de Beaumont, Knight, 2nd Earl of Leicester was born in 1104 in (Meulan, France); died on 5 Apr 1168 in Brackley, Northamptonshire, England.

22268.

Donnchad Enna Mac Murchada was born in 1085 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland (son of Murchad Macdairmata Murchada and Sadb Ingen Mac Bricc); died on 8 Dec 1115 in Wexford, Ireland.

Donnchad married Orlaith Ingen O'Brien, Queen of Leinster. Orlaith (daughter of Gilla Michil O'Brien and Luchdelb Hui Garbita) was born in 0___ 1080 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland; died in 0___ 1113 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

22269.

Orlaith Ingen O'Brien, Queen of Leinster was born in 0___ 1080 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland (daughter of Gilla Michil O'Brien and Luchdelb Hui Garbita); died in 0___ 1113 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland.

Children:

11134. Dermot Dairmait Mac Murchada, King of Leinster was born in 1110 in Dublin, Ireland; died on 1 May 1171 in Ireland.

22290.

Domnall Mâor Ua Briain, King of Thomond was born in (~ 1150) in Ireland; died in 1194 in Clare, Ireland; was buried in The Cathedral of Saint Mary Blessed Virgin, Limerick, Ireland.

Notes:

Domnall Mâor Ua Briain, or Domnall Mâor mac Toirrdelbaig Uâi Briain, was King of Thomond in Ireland from 1168 to 1194 and a claimant to the title King of Munster. He was also styled King of Limerick, a title belonging to the O'Brien dynasty since Brian Boru's annexation of the Norse city in the 10th century.

History

Domnall Mâor ("Donall the Great"), a great-great-great grandson of Brian Boru, was the third son of King Tairdelbhach of Munster, who reigned 1142 to 1167. He ascended to the throne in 1168 after the death of his eldest brother, Muirchertach, who had succeeded their father as king. Muirchertach was killed at the instigation of his cousin Conchobar mac Muirchertach Ua Briain. His other brother Brian of Slieve Bloom was blinded in 1169. The same year, Domnall entered into conflict with the High King of Ireland, Ruaidrâi Ua Conchobair and was forced to pay him a tribute of 300 cows.

In 1171, he submitted to King Henry II of England at Cashel, but he continued to fight successfully against the Norman incursion into south-west Ireland for many years. In 1175, having demolished the Cambro-Normans at the Battle of Thurles, he consolidated his power by blinding two of his cousins, Dermot mac Taig Ua Briain and Mathgamain mac Toirdhelbeach Ua Briain, in Limerick. He was, however, driven from Thomond by Ua Conchobair, the High King, the same year. In 1176, he drove the Normans from Limerick and in 1178 finally drove out the Uâi Fidgenti (AI), the ancient rulers of the modern County Limerick region.

The Cathedral of Saint Mary Blessed Virgin, Limerick, founded by Donall O'Brien and also where he is buried.
In 1184, part of his lands were enfeoffed to Philip de Braose, Lord Deputy of Ireland. Supported by Robert Fitz-Stephen and Miles de Cogan, the Lord Deputy set out to take possession of Limerick, but on approaching the city, turned back in a panic. In 1185 when Prince John of England intervened in Ireland, Domnall Mâor demolished the Normans again when John was plundering along the valley of the River Suir. The same year he also blinded the last Dermot brother. In 1188, he helped the men of Connacht under Conchobar Maenmaige Ua Conchobhair to overcome Jean de Courcy in the Curlew Mountains. In 1193, the Normans devastated Clare in reprisal and plundered Domnall's possessions in Ossory.

He established Holy Cross Abbey in 1180 and Kilcooly Abbey in 1184, both under the Cistercian order.[1]

According to the Annals of Ulster, he was the last king of Munster, dying in 1194. He is buried in the apse of St. Mary's Cathedral, Limerick, a church he first organised. His tomb is covered with a carved sepulchre stone near the church's main altar.

Family

Domnall Mor married Orlacan, daughter of Diarmait Mac Murchada and Mâor Nâi Tuathail. He left several sons who fought amongst themselves and with their cousin Muichertach, son of Brian of Slieve Bloom, for the succession in Thomond.

Muirchertach Finn (King of Thomond, 1194-1198, restored 1202 or 1203-1208 or 1210, blinded 1208 or 1210, died 1239)
Conchobar Ruadh (King of Thomond, 1198-1202 or 1203, killed 1202 or 1203)
Donnchadh Cairprech (King of Thomond, 1208 or 1210–1242)

an unknown daughter, who married Richard Mâor de Burgh, 1st Baron of Connaught

See also

O'Brien dynasty
Sources[edit]
Jump up ^ Archdiocese of Cashel Website Archived April 15, 2009, at the Wayback Machine..

endof biography

Domnall married Orlacan Nâi Murchada in 1171. Orlacan (daughter of Dermot Dairmait Mac Murchada, King of Leinster and Mor Tauthail Moringen Murchertaig O'Toole, Queen of Ireland) was born in 1154 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland; died in 1200 in Ireland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

22291.

Orlacan Nâi Murchada was born in 1154 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland (daughter of Dermot Dairmait Mac Murchada, King of Leinster and Mor Tauthail Moringen Murchertaig O'Toole, Queen of Ireland); died in 1200 in Ireland.

Notes:

F Urlachen Mac MURCHADAPrint Family Tree
Born in 1154 - Dublin, Ireland
Deceased in 1200 - Ireland , age at death: 46 years old

Parents
Dermot Dairmait Mac (King of Leinster) MURCHADA, born in 1110 - Dublin, Ireland, Deceased 1 May 1171 - Ireland age at death: 61 years old
Married in 1140, Wexford, Ireland, to
Mor Tauthail Moringen Murchertaig (Queen of Ireland) O'TOOLE, born in 1114 - Wexford, Ireland, Deceased 1 May 1191 - Wexford, Ireland age at death: 77 years old

Spouses, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren
Married in 1171 to Domnall Mor (Ua) (King of Leinster) O'BRIEN, born in 1137 - Ireland, Deceased in 1194 - Clare, Ireland age at death: 57 years old (Parents : M Toirrdelbach Macdairmata O'BRIEN 1100-1167 & F Sadb Mac GILLAPATRICK 1127-1162) with
F Mor O'BRIEN 1172-1218 married in 1185, Ireland, to William De (Lord of Connaught) BURGH 1158-1204 with
M Richard Mor "The Great", De (1st Earl of Ulster) BURGH 1202-1242 married 21 April 1225 to Gille Egidia De LACY 1202-1239 with :
M Walter De ( 1st Earl of Ulster, 2nd Lord of Cornaught) BURGH 1232-1271
M Domnall Cairbreach (King of Munster) O'BRIEN 1175-1242 married in 1194 to Sabia O'KENNEDY 1177- with
M Connor Conchobar Suidaine (King of Thormond) O'BRIEN 1195-1258 married to Mor CAISIN 1205- with :
F Annor O'BRIEN 1234-1300

Connor Conchobar Suidaine (King of Thormond) O'BRIEN 1195-1258 married to Mor MacNAMARA 1197-1918 with :
M Teige Caol O'BRIEN 1215-1259

Siblings
F Eva Aoife Mac (Countess Pembroke) MURCHADA 1141-1188 Married 26 August 1171, Waterford, Waterford, Ireland, to Richard (Strongbow) De ( 2nd Earl Pembroke, Lord Marshall) CLARE 1125-1176

Paternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M Donnchad Enna Mac MURCHADA 1085-1115 married
F Orlaith Ingen (Queen of Leinster) O'BRIEN 1080-1113
M Dermot Dairmait Mac (King of Leinster) MURCHADA 1110-1171
married (1140)
2 children

Maternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M Mouirchertach (King of Ui Muiredaig) O'TOOLE 1089-1164 married (1109)
F Cacht Ingen (Princess of Loigsig, Queen of Muiredaig O'Toole) O'MORDA 1094-1149
F Mor Tauthail Moringen Murchertaig (Queen of Ireland) O'TOOLE 1114-1191
married (1140)
2 children

Sources
Individual:
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=10186
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=10186

Family Tree Preview
Ancestry Chart Descendancy Chart
_____| 16_ Diarmait Macmail Na Mbo (177th High King of Ireland) MURCHADA 974-1072
_____| 8_ Murchad Macdairmata MURCHADA 1032-1070
_____| 4_ Donnchad Enna Mac MURCHADA 1085-1115
/ \ _____| 18_ Muirchertach Mac BRICC 1005-1051
|2_ Dermot Dairmait Mac (King of Leinster) MURCHADA 1110-1171
| \ _____| 20_ Echmarcach O'BRIEN 1009-
| \ _____| 10_ Gilla Michil O'BRIEN 1055-1068
| \ _____| 22_ Cearnachan GAIRBITA 1040-
|--1_ Urlachen Mac MURCHADA 1154-1200
| _____| 24_ Donn-Cuan O'TOOLE 1030-1076
| _____| 12_ Gilla-Comgaill II (King of Ui Muriedaig) O'TOOLE 1055-1127
| _____| 6_ Mouirchertach (King of Ui Muiredaig) O'TOOLE 1089-1164
| / \
|3_ Mor Tauthail Moringen Murchertaig (Queen of Ireland) O'TOOLE 1114-1191
\ _____| 28_ Amargen (King of Loigsi) O'MORDA 1032-1097
\ _____| 14_ Loigsech (King of Loigsi) O'MORDA
\ _____| 30_ Finn (King) O'CAELLAIDE 1030-1098

end of profile

Children:

11145. Mor O'Brien was born in 1172 in (Ireland); died in 1216.
Domnall Cairbreach O'Brien, King of Munster was born in 1175 in Munster, Ireland; died in 1242.

6032.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: ~1144

Notes:

William de Braose
4th Lord of Bramber

Grosmont Castle

Born: probably 1140/50

Died: 9th August 1211 at Corbeuil

At his peak, William was Lord of Bramber, Gower, Abergavenny, Brecknock, Builth, Radnor, Kington, Limerick and the three castles of Skenfrith, Grosmont (right) and Whitecastle.

He inherited Bramber, Builth and Radnor from his father; Brecknock and Abergavenny through his mother. He was the strongest of the Marcher Lords involved in constant war with the Welsh and other lords. He was particularly hated by the Welsh for the massacre of three Welsh princes, their families and their men, which took place during a feast at his castle of Abergavenny in 1175. He was sometimes known as the "Ogre of Abergavenny". One of the Normans' foremost warriors, he fought alongside King Richard at Chalus in 1199 (when Richard received his fatal wound).

William immediately transferred his loyalty to Prince John and supported his claim to the throne. John's entry to England was via William's port of Shoreham in Sussex.

John extended William's landholdings. He received Limerick, without the city, in 1201 and was also given custody of Glamorgan, Monmouth and Gwynllwg in return for large payments.

William captured Arthur, Count of Brittany at Mirebeau in 1202 and was in charge of his imprisonment for King John. He was well rewarded in February 1203 with the grant of Gower. He may have had knowledge of the murder of Arthur and been bribed to silence by John with the city of Limerick in July. His honours reached their peak when he was made Sheriff of Herefordshire by John for 1206-7. He had held this office under Richard from 1192 to 1199.

His fall began almost immediately. William was stripped of his office as bailiff of Glamorgan and other custodies by King John in 1206/7. Later he was deprived of all his lands and, sought by John in Ireland, he returned to Wales and joined the Welsh Prince Llywelyn in rebellion. He fled to France in 1210 via Shoreham "in the habit of a beggar" and died in exile near Paris. Despite his stated intention to be interred at St. John's, Brecon, he was buried in the Abbey of St. Victoire, Paris by Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, another of John's chief opponents who was also taking refuge there. His wife and son William were starved to death in captivity at either Windsor or Corfe Castle.

Note: The arms shown above are attributed to this William by Matthew Paris (see Aspilogia II , MP IV No7)

Father: William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber, Sheriff of Herefordshire

Mother: Bertha de Pãitres

Married to Maud de St Valery ("before 1170" - Powicke's Loretta)

Child 1: William de Braose
Child 2: Maud (Susan) = Gruffyd ap Rhys
Child 3: Giles, Bishop of Hereford
Child 4: Roger
Child 5: Philip
Child 6: Bertha = William de Beauchamp
Child 7: Thomas
Child 8: Walter
Child 9: John = Amabil de Limesi
Child 10: Margaret = Walter de Lacy
Child 11: Henry
Child 12: Annora = Hugh de Mortimer
Child 13: Loretta = Robert de Beaumont, 4th Earl of Leicester
Child 14: Reginald de Braose
Child 15: Flandrina, Abbess of Godstow
Child 16: Bernard

This ordering of the children follows the Braose genealogy given in the 13th century MS
(British Library, Cotton Julius D, x) on the history of the Lords of Brecon.

Matthew Boulter has written a dissertation on the career of this William de Braose which he has kindly made available to readers of this site.

end of biography

M William (de Braose) BRUCEPrint Family Tree
Born in 1153 - Bramber, Sussex, England
Deceased 9 August 1211 - Corbeil, Marne, Champagne-Ardenne, France , age at death: 58 years old
Buried in 1211 - Seine-et-Marne, Île-de-France, France

Parents
William (de Braose) BRUCE, born in 1100 - Bramber, Sussex, England, Deceased 21 October 1190 - London, England age at death: 90 years old
Married in 1148, Herefordshire, England, to
Bertha De PITRES, born in 1107 - Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England, Deceased - Bramber, Sussex, England

Spouses, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren
Married in 1174, Bramber, Sussex, England, to Maud (Matilda) De St VALERY, born in 1155 - Bramber, Sussex, England, Deceased in 1210 - Windsor, Berkshire, England age at death: 55 years old (Parents : M Bernard De St VALERY 1117-1190 & F Alanor (Eleanor) De DOMMART 1128-) with
F Matilda Maud (de Braose) 1160-1209 married in 1189 to Gruffydd Ap (Prince of South Wales) RHYS 1148-1201 with
M Owain Ap GRUFFYDD ca 1176-1235 married in 1212 to Angharad Verch MAREDYDD 1190-1230 with :
M Maredydd Ap (Lord Cardigan Uch Ayron) OWAIN ca 1204-1265
F Lleucu Verch GRUFFYDD 1202-1250 married in 1232, Carmarthenshire, Wales, to Madog (Foel - Ap Cadwgon) GRIFFITH 1206-1250 with :
F Elen (Verch Madog) GRIFFITH 1236-1280
M Dafydd (Ap Madog) GRIFFITH 1240-1309
M Cadwgon (Ddu - Ap Madog) GRIFFITH ca 1245-
M William (The Younger) de Braose) BRUCE 1175-1210 married in 1196, Kent, England, to Matilda De CLARE 1175-1213 with
F Matilda (de Braose) BRUCE ca 1195-1274 married before 1215, England, to Henry De TRACY 1197-1274 with :
F Eva De TRACY ca 1222-1274
M John (de Braose) (Lord of Bramber) BRUCE 1197-1232 married in 1219, Bramber, Sussex, England, to Margaret (Verch Llywelyn) (Lady) TUDOR 1202-1264 with :
M William BRUCE 1224-1290
M Richard (de Braose) BRUCE 1232-1292
F Laurette (de Braose) BRUCE ca 1176-1266 married to Robert "Fitz-Parnell" HARCOURT ca 1156- with
M X Harcourt ca 1190- married to ? ? with :
M X Harcourt 1220-

Siblings
F Bertha (de Braose) BRUCE ca 1145- Married before 1180, Wales, to Gilbert De (Baron) MONMOUTH 1140-1190
Bertha (de Braose) BRUCE ca 1145- Married before 1182, Bramber, Sussex, England, to Walter De BEAUCHAMP ca 1160-1235
F Matilda Maud (de Braose) ca 1146- Married in 1168, England, to John De BRAMPTON ca 1136-1179
F Margaret (de Braose) (Lady Meath) BRUCE ca 1149- Married 19 November 1200, Ewyas Harold, Herefordshire, England, to Walter De (Sir - Lord Meath) LACY ca 1150-1241
F Sybil (de Braose) BRUCE /1151-1227 Married to Philip (le Boteler) BUTLER 1157-1174
M Reginald (de Braose) BRUCE 1182-1227 Married 19 March 1202, Bramber, Sussex, England, to Grecian Alice De BRIWERE 1186-1226

Paternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M Philip (de Braose) BRUCE 1073-1134 married (1104)
F Aenor De TOTNES 1084-1102
M William (de Braose) BRUCE 1100-1190
married (1148)
6 children
F Maud (de Braose) BRUCE 1109-1200
married (1130)
2 children

Maternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M Miles (Fitzwalter) De (1st Earl of Hereford) PITRES 1092-1143 married (1121)
F Sybil (de Neufmarche) NEWMARCH 1092-1142
F Bertha De PITRES 1107-
married (1148)
6 children
M Roger De (Sheriff of Gloucestershire) PITRES ca 1115-1155
married (1138)
1 child
F Margaret De PITRES ca 1126-1187
married
1 child
F Lucy De PITRES 1136-1219/
married (1157)
1 child

Notes
Individual Note
Source: Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Ancestry.com Operations Inc - 1,7249::0 1,7249::10774604
Source: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Dictionary of National Biography, Volumes 1-20, 22 - Ancestry.com - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. This collection was indexed by Ancestry World Archives Project contributors.Original data - Stephen, Sir Leslie, ed. Dictionary of National Biography, 1921–1922. London, England: Oxf - 1,1981::0 1,1981::11096
Source: Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - Web: International, Find A Grave Index - Ancestry.com - Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. - 1,70699::0 1,70699::994752
Source: Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - International, Find A Grave Index for Select Locations, 1300s-Current - Ancestry.com - Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. - 1,60541::0 1,60541::10270

Death
Age: 58

Sources
Individual: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=9164
Birth:
- Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Ancestry.com Operations Inc - 1,7249::0 - 1,7249::10774604
- Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - Web: International, Find A Grave Index - Ancestry.com - Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. - 1,70699::0 - 1,70699::994752
- Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - International, Find A Grave Index for Select Locations, 1300s-Current - Ancestry.com - Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. - 1,60541::0 - 1,60541::10270
Death:
- Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Ancestry.com Operations Inc - 1,7249::0 - 1,7249::10774604
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Dictionary of National Biography, Volumes 1-20, 22 - Ancestry.com - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. This collection was indexed by Ancestry World Archives Project contributors.Original data - Stephen, Sir Leslie, ed. Dictionary of National Biography, 1921–1922. London, England: Oxf - 1,1981::0 - 1,1981::11096
- Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - Web: International, Find A Grave Index - Ancestry.com - Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. - 1,70699::0 - 1,70699::994752
- Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - International, Find A Grave Index for Select Locations, 1300s-Current - Ancestry.com - Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. - 1,60541::0 - 1,60541::10270
Burial:
- Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - Web: International, Find A Grave Index - Ancestry.com - Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. - 1,70699::0 - 1,70699::994752
- Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - International, Find A Grave Index for Select Locations, 1300s-Current - Ancestry.com - Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. - 1,60541::0 - 1,60541::10270
Search the matching civil records

Family Tree Preview
Ancestry Chart Descendancy Chart Printable Family Tree
_____| 16_ Robert BRUCE 1030-1094
_____| 8_ William de (Braose) BRUCE 1049-1093
_____| 4_ Philip (de Braose) BRUCE 1073-1134
/ \ _____| 18_ Waldron De St CLARE 1015-1047
|2_ William (de Braose) BRUCE 1100-1190
| \ _____| 20_ Alured De TOTNES 1015-1080
| \ _____| 10_ Juhel De TOTNES 1049-1123
| \ _____| 22_ Arnoul De PICQUIGNY 1020-1055
|--1_ William (de Braose) BRUCE 1153-1211
| _____| 24_ Roger De PITRES 1036-1080
| _____| 12_ Walter de (Fitzroger) (High Sheriff of Gloucestershre) PÎTRES 1055-1129
| _____| 6_ Miles (Fitzwalter) De (1st Earl of Hereford) PITRES 1092-1143
| / \ _____| 26_ Drugo (Dru) de (Baalun) BALLON 1037-
|3_ Bertha De PITRES 1107-
\ _____| 28_ Geoffrey (de Neufmarche) NEWMARCH 1025-1072
\ _____| 14_ Bernard (de Neufmarche) (Lord of Brecknockshire) NEWMARCH 1050-1093
\ _____| 30_ Osborn (Fitzrichard) le SCROPE /1054-1100

end of report

Buried:
Abbey of Saint Victor...

William married Maud de St. Valery, Lady of the Haie before 1170 in Bramber, Sussex, England. Maud was born in ~ 1155; died in 0___ 1210 in Corfe Castle, Dorset, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

6033.

Maud de St. Valery, Lady of the Haie was born in ~ 1155; died in 0___ 1210 in Corfe Castle, Dorset, England.

Notes:

Died: 1210 in Windsor castle.

Maud (Matilda) de Braose was also known as the Lady of la Haie and to the Welsh as Moll Walbee. Married to William de Braose, the "Ogre of Abergavenny", she was a significant warrior in her own right. Her long defence of Pain's Castle when it was besieged by the Welsh earned it the name "Matilda's Castle". The local people saw her as a supernatural character. She was said to have built Hay Castle (above) single handed in one night, carrying the stones in her apron.
Maud's stoneWhen one fell out and lodged in her slipper she picked it out and flung it to land in St Meilig's churchyard, three miles away across the River Wye at Llowes. The nine foot high standing stone (left) can still be seen inside the church.

The final fall of her husband may owe a lot to her hasty reply to King John when he requested her son William as a hostage in 1208. She refused on the grounds that John had murdered his nephew Arthur whom he should have protected. The dispute between John and the de Braoses led to Maud dying of starvation in one of the King's castles along with her son, while her husband, stripped of all his lands, died the following year in exile in France.

Father: Bernard de St Valery (d.ca. 1190) (see note)

Mother: ???

Married to William de Braose, Lord of Brecknock, Bergavenny etc.

Child 1: William de Braose
Child 2: Maud (Susan) = Gruffyd ap Rhys
Child 3: Giles, Bishop of Hereford
Child 4: Roger
Child 5: Philip
Child 6: Bertha = William de Beauchamp
Child 7: Thomas
Child 8: Walter
Child 9: John = Amabil de Limesi
Child 10: Margaret = Walter de Lacy
Child 11: Henry
Child 12: Annora = Hugh de Mortimer
Child 13: Loretta = Robert de Beaumont, 4th Earl of Leicester
Child 14: Reginald de Braose
Child 15: Flandrina, Abbess of Godstow
Child 16: Bernard

This ordering of the children follows the Braose genealogy given in the 13th century MS
(British Library, Cotton Julius D, x) on the history of the Lords of Brecon.

Note.
Matilda's parentage was uncertain for a long time. Many writers have suggested that she may have been a daughter of Reginald de St Valery. I recently discovered a reference to her in L'Histoire des Ducs de Normandie et des Rois d'Angleterre, ed. Francisque Michel (Paris, 1840), written in the 13th century which describes her as a "daughter of Bernard de St Valery". This appears to have finally settled the matter.

(See a copy of the post to soc.genealogy.medieval which gives more detail.)

end of biography

Maud de Braose, Lady of Bramber (c. 1155 – 1210) was an English noble, the spouse of William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber, a powerful Marcher baron and court favourite of King John of England. She would later incur the wrath and enmity of the King who caused her to be starved to death in the dungeon of Corfe Castle along with her eldest son.[1]

She features in many Welsh myths and legends; and is also known to history as Matilda de Braose, Moll Wallbee, and Lady of La Haie.

Family and marriage[edit]
She was born Maud de St. Valery (Maud de Saint-Valâery) in France in about 1155, the child of Bernard de St. Valâery[2][3] of Hinton Waldrist in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire)[4] and his first wife, Matilda. Her paternal grandfather was Reginald de St. Valâery (died c.1162).

She had many siblings and half-siblings, including Thomas de St. Valâery (died 1219), who was a son of Bernard by his second wife Eleanor de Domnart. Thomas married Adele de Ponthieu, by whom he had a daughter, Annora, who in her turn married Robert III, Count of Dreux, by whom she had issue. Thomas fought on the French side, at the Battle of Bouvines on 27 July 1214.[5]

Sometime around 1166, Maud married William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber, son of William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber and Bertha of Hereford de Pitres. He also held the lordships of Gower, Hay, Brecon, Radnor, Builth, Abergavenny, Kington, Painscastle, Skenfrith, Grosmont, White Castle and Briouze in Normandy. When King John of England ascended the throne in 1199, Braose became a court favourite and was also awarded the lordship of Limerick, Ireland. Maud had a marriage portion, Tetbury from her father's estate.

Maud supported her husband's military ambitions and he put her in charge of Hay Castle and surrounding territory. She is often referred to in history as the Lady of Hay. In 1198, Maud defended Painscastle in Elfael against a massive Welsh attack led by Gwenwynwyn, Prince of Powys. She successfully held off Gwenwynwyn's forces for three weeks until English reinforcements arrived. Over three thousand Welsh were killed. Painscastle was known as Matilda's Castle by the locals.[6]

Maud and William are reputed to have had 16 children.[7] The best documented of these are listed below.

Issue[edit]
Maud de Braose (died 29 December 1210), married Gruffydd ap Rhys II, by whom she had two sons, Rhys and Owain.[8]
William de Braose (died 1210). Starved to death with his mother in either Windsor or Corfe Castle. He married Maud de Clare, daughter of Richard de Clare, 3rd Earl of Hertford, by whom he had issue, including John de Braose.[9]
Margaret de Braose (died after 1255), married Walter de Lacy, Lord of Meath, son of Hugh de Lacy, Lord of Meath and Rohese of Monmouth.[9]
Reginald de Braose (died between 5 May 1227 and 9 June 1228), married firstly, Grace, daughter of William Briwere, and secondly, in 1215, Gwladus Ddu, daughter of Welsh Prince Llewelyn the Great. He had issue by his first wife, including William de Braose, who married Eva Marshal.[1]
Giles de Braose, Bishop of Hereford (died 13 November 1215)[1]
John de Braose[7] (died before 27 May 1205), married Amabil de Limesi.[9]
Loretta de Braose, married Robert de Beaumont, 4th Earl of Leicester. She died without issue.[7]
Annora de Braose, married Hugh de Mortimer and later became a recluse at Iffley.[7]
Flandrina de Braose, Abbess of Godstow,[10] (elected 1242, deposed 1248).[11]
Enmity of King John[edit]

King John of England:
A fanciful illustration from 1902 of Maud de Braose's enemy
In 1208, William de Braose quarrelled with his friend and patron King John. The reason is not known but it is alleged that Maud made indiscreet comments regarding the murder of King John's nephew Arthur of Brittany. There was also a large sum of money (five thousand marks) de Braose owed the King. Whatever the reason, John demanded Maud's son William be sent to him as a hostage for her husband's loyalty. Maud refused, and stated loudly within earshot of the King's officers that "she would not deliver her children to a king who had murdered his own nephew."[12] The King quickly led troops to the Welsh border and seized all of the castles that belonged to William de Braose. Maud and her eldest son William fled to Ireland, where they found refuge at Trim Castle with the de Lacys, the family of her daughter Margaret. In 1210, King John sent an expedition to Ireland. Maud and her son escaped but were apprehended in Galloway by Donnchadh, Earl of Carrick.[13] After being briefly held at Carrickfergus Castle,[14] they were dispatched to England.

Imprisonment at Corfe Castle[edit]
Maud and her son William were first imprisoned at Windsor Castle, but were shortly afterwards transferred to Corfe Castle in Dorset where they were placed inside the dungeon. Maud and William both starved to death.[14] Her husband died a year later in exile in France where he had gone disguised as a beggar to escape King John's wrath after the latter had declared him an outlaw, following his alliance with Llywelyn the Great, whom he had assisted in open rebellion against the King, an act which John regarded as treason. He was buried in the Abbey of St. Victor, Paris.

Corfe Castle; within whose dungeon Maud de Braose and her son William were starved to death
Maud's daughter Margaret de Lacy founded a religious house, the Hospital of St. John, in Aconbury, Herefordshire in her memory.[15] On 10 October 1216, eight days before his death, King John conceded three carucates of land in the royal forest of Aconbury to Margaret for the construction of the religious house. He sent the instructions to her husband Walter de Lacy, who held the post of Sheriff of Hereford, by letters patent.[16]

Maud de Braose features in many Welsh folklore myths and legends. There is one legend which says that Maud built the castle of Hay-on-Wye single handed in one night, carrying the stones in her apron.[17] She was also said to have been extremely tall and often donned armour while leading troops into battle.[18]

The legend about her building Hay Castle probably derives from the time she added the gateway arch to a tower which was built in the 1180s.[19]

In contemporary records, she was described as beautiful, very wise, doughty, and vigorous. She kept up the war against the Welsh and conquered much from them.[15]

The manner in which Maud and her son William met their deaths so outraged the English nobility that Magna Carta, which King John was forced to sign in 1215, contains clause 39; it reads:

No man shall be taken, imprisoned, outlawed, banished or in any way destroyed, nor will we proceed against or prosecute him, except by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land.

end of biography

Died:
The dispute between John and the de Braoses led to Maud dying of starvation in one of the King's castles along with her son, while her husband, stripped of all his lands, died the following year in exile in France.

Children:

Maud de Braose was born in 1160 in (Bramber, Sussex, England); died on 29 Dec 1210.
Eleanor de Braose was born in (Bramber, Sussex, England).
11147. Margaret de Braose, Lady of Trim was born in 1177 in (Bramber, Sussex, England); died after 1255 in Corfe Castle, Dorset, England.
Sir John de Braose was born in 1197-1198 in (Bramber, Sussex, England); died on 18 Jul 1232 in Bramber, Sussex, England.

5562.

Notes:

Roger de Clare, 2nd Earl of Hertford, 5th Lord of Clare, 5th lord of Tonbridge, 5th Lord of Cardigan (1116–1173) was a powerful Norman noble during the 12th century England. He succeeded to the Earldom of Hertford and Honor of Clare, Tonbridge and Cardigan when his brother Gilbert died without issue.[1]

Life

Roger was a son of Richard Fitz Gilbert de Clare and Alice de Gernon.[2] In 1153, he appears with his cousin, Richard Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke, as one of the signatories to the Treaty of Wallingford, in which Stephen recognises Prince Henry as his successor. He is found signing charters at Canterbury and Dover in 1156. Next year, according to Powell, he received from Henry II a grant of whatever lands he could conquer in South Wales. This is probably only an expansion of the statement of the Welsh chronicles that in this year (about 1 June) he entered Cardigan and 'stored' the castles of Humfrey, Aberdovey, Dineir, and Rhystud. Rhys ap Gruffydd, the prince of South Wales, appears to have complained to Henry II of these encroachments ; but being unable to obtain redress from the king of England sent his nephew Einion ab Anarawd to attack Humfirey and the other Norman fortresses. The 'Annales Cambriµ seem to assign these events to the year 1159 ; and the 'Brut' adds that Prince Rhys burnt all the French castles in Cardigan.[1]

In 1158 or 1160, Clare advanced with an army to the relief of Carmarthen Castle, then besieged by Rhys, and pitched his camp at Dinweilir. Not daring to attack the Welsh prince, the English army offered peace and retired home. In 1163, Rhys again invaded the conquests of Clare, who, we learn incidentally, has at some earlier period caused Einion, the capturer of Humfrey Castle, to be murdered by domestic treachery.[1]In 1164 he assisted with the Constitutions of Clarendon. From his munificence to the Church and his numerous acts of piety, Roger was called the "Good Earl of Hertford".[a] He was the founder of Little Marcis Nunnery prior to 1163.[3]

A second time all Cardigan was wrested from the Norman hands ; and things now wore so threatening an aspect that Henry II led an army into Wales in 1165, although, according to one Welsh account, Rhys had made his peace with the king in 1164, and had even visited him in England. The causes assigned by the Welsh chronicle for this fresh outbreak of hostility are that Henry failed to keep his promises — presumably of restitution — and secondly that Roger, earl of Clare, was honourably receiving Walter, the murderer of Rhys's nephew Einion. For the third time we now read that Cardigan was overrun and the Norman castles burnt; but it is possible that the events assigned by the 'Annales Cambrµ' to the year 1165 are the same as those assigned by the 'Brut y Tywysogion' to 1163.[1]

In the intervening years, Clare had been abroad, and is found signing charters at Le Mans, probably about Christmas 1160, and again at Rouen in 1161 (Eyton, pp. 52, 53). In July 1163 he was summoned by Becket to do homage in his capacity of steward to the archbishops of Canterbury for the castle of Tunbridge. In his refusal, which he based on the grounds that he held the castle of the king and not of the archbishop, he was supported by Henry II (Ralph de Diceto, i. 311; Gervase of Canterbury, i. 174, ii. 391). Next year he was one of the ‘recognisers’ of the constitutions of Clarendon (Select Charters, p. 138). Early in 1170 he was appointed one of a band of commissioners for Kent, Surrey, and other arts of southern England (Gerv. Cant. i. 216). His last known signature seems to belong to June or July 1171, and is dated abroad from Chevaillâee.[1]He appears to have died in 1173, and certainly before July or August 1174, when we find Richard, earl of Clare, his son, coming to the king at Northampton.[1]

Family

Roger married Maud de St. Hilary, daughter of James de St. Hilary and Aveline.[4] Together they had seven children:

Mabel de Clare, d. 1204, m. (c. 1175), Nigel de Mowbray.
Richard de Clare, b. c. 1153, Tonbridge Castle, Kent, England, d. 28 November 1217, 3rd Earl of Hertford
James de Clare
Eveline (Aveline) de Clare, d. 4 June 1225, m. [1] (c. 1204), Geoffrey IV Fitz Piers (Fitz Peter), 1st Earl of Essex.[5] m. [2] Sir William Munchensy, (b. c. 1184), son of Warin de Munchensy and Agnes Fitz John.
Roger de Clare, d. 1241, Middleton, Norfolk, England.
John de Clare
Henry de Clare

Birth:
Photos, map & history for Tonbridge Castle ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonbridge_Castle

Roger married Matilda St. Hilary before 1173. Matilda was born in 1136 in (Normandy, France); died on 24 Dec 1195. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

5563.

Matilda St. Hilary was born in 1136 in (Normandy, France); died on 24 Dec 1195.

Notes:

Matilda de St. Hilaire was born circa 1136 to James de St. Hilary (c1105-c1154) and Aveline de Hesding (c1107-) and died 24 December 1195 of unspecified causes. She married Roger de Clare, 3rd Earl of Hertford (1116-1173) before 1173 JL . She married William of Aubigny (c1139-1193) after 1173 JL .
Contents[show]

Children

Offspring of Roger de Clare, 3rd Earl of Hertford and Maud de St. Hilary (c1136-1195)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Richard de Clare, 4th Earl of Hertford (c1153-1218) 1153 30 December 1218 Amice FitzRobert, Countess of Gloucester (c1160-1220)

Mabel de Clare (1160-1204)
James de Clare (c1162-?)
Eveline de Clare (c1164-1225)
Roger de Clare (1168-1241)
John de Clare (c1170-?)
Henry de Clare (c1172-?)
,
Children

Offspring of William of Aubigny and Maud de St. Hilary (c1136-1195)
Name Birth Death Joined with
William of Aubigny (c1175-1221) 1175 Arundel, England, United Kingdom 1 February 1221 Rome, Italy Mabel of Chester (c1173-?)

Avice of Aubigny (c1176-?)
Mathilde of Aubigny

Footnotes (including sources)
‡ General
http://www.thepeerage.com/p10673.htm#i106721

Children:

Hawise Clare was born in ~1154 in Tonbridge Castle, Tonbridge, Kent, England; died after 1215.
6077. Aveline de Clare was born in ~1166 in (Tonbridge Castle, Kent, England); died on 4 Jun 1225.

12156.

Other Events and Attributes:

Occupation: Ambassador to France
Military: 17 Oct 1173; Battle of Fornham

Notes:

Roger Bigod (c.?1144/1150 - 1221) was the son of Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk and his first wife, Juliana de Vere. Although his father died 1176 or 1177, Roger did not succeed to the earldom of Norfolk until 1189 for his claim had been disputed by his stepmother for her sons by Earl Hugh in the reign of Henry II. Richard I confirmed him in his earldom and other honours, and also sent him as an ambassador to France in the same year. Roger inherited his father's office as royal steward. He took part in the negotiations for the release of Richard from prison, and after the king's return to England became a justiciar.

During the Revolt of 1173-74, Roger remained loyal to the king while his father sided with the king's rebellious sons. Roger fought at the Battle of Fornham on 17 October 1173, where the royalist force defeated a rebel force led by Robert de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Leicester.[1]

In most of the years of the reign of King John, the earl was frequently with the king or on royal business. Yet Roger was to be one of the leaders of the baronial party which obtained John's assent to Magna Carta, and his name and that of his son and heir Hugh II appear among the twenty-five barons who were to ensure the king's adherence to the terms of that document. The pair were excommunicated by the pope in December 1215, and did not make peace with the regents of John's son Henry III until 1217.

Around Christmas 1181, Roger married Ida, apparently Ida de Tosny (or Ida de Toesny),[2] and by her had a number of children including:

Hugh Bigod, 3rd Earl of Norfolk who married in 1206/ 1207, Maud, a daughter of William Marshal
William Bigod
Ralph Bigod
Roger Bigod
Margery, married William de Hastings
Mary Bigod, married Ralph fitz Robert[3]

Many historians, including Marc Morris have speculated that the couple had a third daughter, Alice, who married Aubrey de Vere IV, Earl of Oxford as his second wife. If so, the marriage would have been well within the bounds of consanguinity, for the couple would have been quite closely related, a daughter of the second earl of Norfolk being first cousin once removed to the second earl of Oxford.

Roger Bigod in fiction

Roger Bigod and his wife Ida de Tosny are the main characters in Elizabeth Chadwick's The Time of Singing (Sphere, 2008), published in the USA as For the King's Favor. They appear as minor characters in other of her books set at the same time, notably To Defy a King, which concerns the marriage of their son Hugh to Maud, a daughter of William Marshal

References

Jump up ^ Bartlett, Robert C. (2000). England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings: 1075–1225. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 257–258. ISBN 0-19-822741-8.
Jump up ^ For Ida's ancestry, see "Some corrections and additions to the Complete Peerage: Volume 9: Summary" and Marc Morris's The Bigod Earls of Norfolk in the Thirteenth Century
Jump up ^ S. D. Church, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Liber Vitae Ecclesiae Dunelmensis, Vol. 13
Morris, Marc. The Bigod Earls of Norfolk in the Thirteenth Century (2005)
Cawley, Charles, Medieval Lands Project on Roger Bigod, 2nd Earl of Norfolk, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy, retrieved August 2012,[better source needed]

*

more ...

Four years after William's birth, in 1181, Ida de Tosny was married to Roger Bigod, 2nd Earl of Norfolk, by whom she had a number of children.

12157.

Lady Ida de Tosny, Countess of Norfolk was born in <1160 in Flamstead, Hertfordshire, England (daughter of Sir Ralph de Tosny, V, Knight, Earl and Margaret de Beaumont); died after 1185.

Notes:

Ida de Tosny, Countess of Norfolk was very likely a daughter of Ralph V de Tosny (died 1162) and his wife Margaret (born circa 1125 and living in 1185), a daughter of Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester.[1]

Relationship to Henry II

Ida de Tosny was a royal ward and mistress of King Henry II, by whom she was mother of one of his illegitimate sons, William Longespâee, 3rd Earl of Salisbury, (b c. 1176-March 7, 1226). For many years, until the discovery of a charter of William mentioning "Comitissa Ida, mater mea" (Countess Ida, my mother),[2] it was assumed that Rosamund Clifford, a previous mistress of Henry's, was the mother, but painstaking genealogical detective work [3] has since shown otherwise. Ida was not the first English royal ward to be taken as a royal mistress. Isabel de Beaumont (Elizabeth de Beaumont), daughter of Robert de Beaumont, who fought at the Battle of Hastings with the Conqueror, was the ward of King Henry I and the mistress of one of his sons.[4]

Marriage

Around Christmas 1181, Ida de Tosny was given in marriage to Roger Bigod, 2nd Earl of Norfolk by Henry II, together with the manors of Acle, Halvergate and South Walsham, which had been confiscated from his inheritance after his father's death (Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk).[5] Ida and Roger had a number of children including:

Hugh Bigod, 3rd Earl of Norfolk who married in 1206 or 1207, Maud Marshal, a daughter of William Marshal
William Bigod
Ralph Bigod
Roger Bigod
Margery Bigod, married William de Hastings
Mary Bigod, married Ralph fitz Robert

Many historians, including Marc Morris have speculated that the couple had a third daughter, Alice, who married Aubrey de Vere IV, 2nd Earl of Oxford as his second wife. If so, the marriage would have been well within the bounds of consanguinity, for the couple would have been quite closely related, a daughter of the second earl of Norfolk being first cousin once removed to the second earl of Oxford.

Ida de Tosney in fiction

Ida de Tosny and her husband Roger are the main characters in Elizabeth Chadwick's The Time of Singing (Sphere, 2008), published in the USA as For the King's Favor. They appear as minor characters in other of her books set at the same time, notably To Defy a King, which concerns the marriage of their son Hugh to Maud, a daughter of William Marshal

*

more ...

Ida de Tosny was a royal ward who became the mistress of King Henry II. The first evidence of contemporary information about Ida came to light in 1979 with the publication in the of two charters found in the Bradenstoke Priory Cartulary where he mentions "Comitissa Ida, mater mea" (Countess Ida, my mother), until then, it was assumed that Rosamund Clifford, a previous and more famous mistress of King Henry II's, was William's mother.

Notes:

Married:
around Christmas...

Children:

6078. Sir Hugh Bigod, Knight, 3rd Earl of Norfolk was born in ~ 1182 in Thetford, Norfolk, England; died on 18 Feb 1225 in (Norfolk, England); was buried in Thetford Priory, Thetford, Norfolk, England.
Margaret Bigod was born in 1182 in Thetford, Norfolk, England; died on 31 Mar 1237 in Ashill, Swaffham, Norfolk, England.

2782.

Notes:

William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke (1146 or 1147 - 14 May 1219), also called William the Marshal (Norman French: Williame le Mareschal), was an Anglo-Norman soldier and statesman.[1] He served five English kings – The "Young King" Henry, Henry II, Richard I, John, and Henry III.

Knighted in 1166, he spent his younger years as a knight errant and a successful tournament fighter; Stephen Langton eulogized him as the "best knight that ever lived."[2] In 1189, he received the title of Earl of Pembroke through marriage during the second creation of the Pembroke Earldom. In 1216, he was appointed protector for the nine-year-old Henry III, and regent of the kingdom.

Before him, his father's family held an hereditary title of Marshal to the king, which by his father's time had become recognized as a chief or master Marshalcy, involving management over other Marshals and functionaries. William became known as 'the Marshal', although by his time much of the function was actually delegated to more specialized representatives (as happened with other functions in the King's household). Because he was an Earl, and also known as the Marshal, the term "Earl Marshal" was commonly used and this later became an established hereditary title in the English Peerage.

Early life

Tomb effigy of William Marshal in Temple Church, London
William's father, John Marshal, supported King Stephen when he took the throne in 1135, but in about 1139 he changed sides to back the Empress Matilda in the civil war of succession between her and Stephen which led to the collapse of England into "the Anarchy".[4]

When King Stephen besieged Newbury Castle in 1152, according to William's biographer, he used the young William as a hostage to ensure that John kept his promise to surrender the castle. John, however, used the time allotted to reinforce the castle and alert Matilda's forces. When Stephen ordered John to surrender immediately or William would be hanged, John replied that he should go ahead saying, "I still have the hammer and the anvil with which to forge still more and better sons!" Subsequently there was a bluff made to launch William from a pierriáere, a type of trebuchet towards the castle. Fortunately for the child, Stephen could not bring himself to harm young William.[5] William remained a crown hostage for many months, only being released following the peace that resulted from the terms agreed at Winchester on 6 November 1153 that ended the civil war.

Knight-Errant

As a younger son of a minor nobleman, William had no lands or fortune to inherit, and had to make his own way in life. Around the age of twelve, when his father's career was faltering, he was sent to Normandy to be brought up in the household of William de Tancarville, a great magnate and cousin of young William's mother. Here he began his training as a knight. This would have included basic biblical stories and prayers written in Latin, as well as exposure to French romances, which conferred the basic precepts of chivalry to the budding knight.[6] In addition, while in Tancarville’s household, it is likely that Marshal also learned important and lasting practical lessons concerning the politics of courtly life. According to his thirteenth-century biography, L'Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal, Marshal had a number of adversaries in court who machinated to his disadvantage—these individuals likely would have been threatened by the boy’s close relationship with the magnate.[7] He was knighted in 1166 on campaign in Upper Normandy, then being invaded from Flanders. His first experience in battle came with mixed reviews. According to L'Histoire, everyone who witnessed the young knight in action agreed that he had acquitted himself well in combat. However, as medieval historian David Crouch explains, “War in the twelfth century was not fought wholly for honour. Profit was there to be made…”[8] On this front, Marshal was not so successful, as he was unable to parlay his combat victories into profit from either ransom or seized booty. As described in L'Histoire, the Earl of Essex, who was expecting the customary tribute from his valorous knight following battle, jokingly remarked: “Oh? But Marshal, what are you saying? You had forty or sixty of them — yet you refuse me so small a thing!”[9] In 1167 he was taken by William de Tancarville to his first tournament where he found his true mâetier. Quitting the Tancarville household he then served in the household of his mother's brother, Patrick, Earl of Salisbury. In 1168 his uncle was killed in an ambush by Guy de Lusignan. William was injured and captured in the same skirmish. It is known that William received a wound to his thigh and that someone in his captor's household took pity on the young knight. He received a loaf of bread in which were concealed several lengths of clean linen bandages with which he could dress his wounds. This act of kindness by an unknown person perhaps saved Marshal's life as infection setting into the wound could have killed him. After a period of time, he was ransomed by Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was apparently impressed by tales of his bravery.

Thereafter he found he could make a good living out of winning tournaments, dangerous, often deadly, staged battles in which money and valuable prizes could be won by capturing and ransoming opponents, their horses and armour. His record is legendary: on his deathbed he recalled besting 500 knights during his tourneying career.[10]

Royal favour

13th-century depiction by Matthew Paris of the Earl of Pembroke's coat of arms[11]
Upon his return during the course of 1185 William rejoined the court of King Henry II, and now served the father as a loyal captain through the many difficulties of his final years. The returns of royal favour were almost immediate. The king gave William the large royal estate of Cartmel in Cumbria, and the keeping of Heloise, the heiress of the northern barony of Lancaster. It may be that the king expected him to take the opportunity to marry her and become a northern baron, but William seems to have had grander ambitions for his marriage. In 1188 faced with an attempt by Philip II to seize the disputed region of Berry, Henry II summoned the Marshal to his side. The letter by which he did this survives, and makes some sarcastic comments about William's complaints that he had not been properly rewarded to date for his service to the king. Henry therefore promised him the marriage and lands of Dionisia, lady of Chãateauroux in Berry. In the resulting campaign, the king fell out with his heir Richard, count of Poitou, who consequently allied with Philip II against his father. In 1189, while covering the flight of Henry II from Le Mans to Chinon, William unhorsed the undutiful Richard in a skirmish. William could have killed the prince but killed his horse instead, to make that point clear. He is said to have been the only man ever to unhorse Richard. Nonetheless after Henry's death, Marshal was welcomed at court by his former adversary, now King Richard I, who was wise to include a man whose legendary loyalty and military accomplishments were too useful to ignore, especially in a king who was intending to go on Crusade.[1]

During the old king's last days he had promised the Marshal the hand and estates of Isabel de Clare (c.1172–1220), but had not completed the arrangements. King Richard however, confirmed the offer and so in August 1189, at the age of 43, the Marshal married the 17-year-old daughter of Richard de Clare (Strongbow). Her father had been Earl of Pembroke, and Marshal acquired large estates and claims in England, Wales, Normandy and Ireland. Some estates however were excluded from the deal. Marshal did not obtain Pembroke and the title of earl, which his father-in-law had enjoyed, until 1199, as it had been taken into the king's hand in 1154. However, the marriage transformed the landless knight from a minor family into one of the richest men in the kingdom, a sign of his power and prestige at court. They had five sons and five daughters, and have numerous descendants.[1] William made numerous improvements to his wife's lands, including extensive additions to Pembroke Castle and Chepstow Castle.[citation needed]

William was included in the council of regency which the King appointed on his departure for the Third Crusade in 1190. He took the side of John, the king's brother, when the latter expelled the justiciar, William Longchamp, from the kingdom, but he soon discovered that the interests of John were different from those of Richard. Hence in 1193 he joined with the loyalists in making war upon him. In spring 1194, during the course of the hostilities in England and before King Richard's return, William Marshal's elder brother John Marshal (who was serving as seneschal) was killed while defending Marlborough for the king's brother John. Richard allowed Marshal to succeed his brother in the hereditary marshalship, and his paternal honour of Hamstead Marshall. The Marshal served the king in his wars in Normandy against Philip II. On Richard's death-bed the king designated Marshal as custodian of Rouen and of the royal treasure during the interregnum.[1]

King John and Magna Carta

A 13th-century depiction of the Second Battle of Lincoln, which occurred at Lincoln Castle on 20 May 1217; the illustration shows the death of Thomas du Perche, the Comte de la Perche

William supported King John when he became king in 1199, arguing against those who maintained the claims of Arthur of Brittany, the teenage son of John's elder brother Geoffrey Plantagenet. William was heavily engaged with the defence of Normandy against the growing pressure of the Capetian armies between 1200 and 1203. He sailed with King John when he abandoned the duchy in December 1203. He and the king had a falling out in the aftermath of the loss of the duchy, when he was sent with the earl of Leicester as ambassadors to negotiate a truce with King Philip II of France in 1204. The Marshal took the opportunity to negotiate the continued possession of his Norman lands.

Before commencing negotiations with King Philip, William had been generously permitted to do homage to the King of France by King John so he might keep his possessions in Normandy; land which must have been of sentimental value due to the time spent there in his youth and adolescence. However, once official negotiations began, Philip demanded that such homage be paid exclusively to him, which King John had not consented to.[12] When William paid homage to King Philip, John took offence and there was a major row at court which led to cool relations between the two men. This became outright hostility in 1207 when John began to move against several major Irish magnates, including William. Though he left for Leinster in 1207 William was recalled and humiliated at court in the autumn of 1208, while John's justiciar in Ireland Meilyr fitz Henry invaded his lands, burning the town of New Ross.

Meilyr's defeat by Countess Isabel led to her husband's return to Leinster. He was once again in conflict with King John in his war with the Braose and Lacy families in 1210, but managed to survive. He stayed in Ireland until 1213, during which time he had Carlow Castle erected[13] and restructured his honour of Leinster. Taken back into favour in 1212, he was summoned in 1213 to return to the English court. Despite their differences, William remained loyal throughout the hostilities between John and his barons which culminated on 15 June 1215 at Runnymede with the sealing of Magna Carta. William was one of the few English earls to remain loyal to the king through the First Barons' War. It was William whom King John trusted on his deathbed to make sure John's nine-year-old son Henry would get the throne. It was William who took responsibility for the king's funeral and burial at Worcester Cathedral.[1]

On 11 November 1216 at Gloucester, upon the death of King John, William Marshal was named by the king's council (the chief barons who had remained loyal to King John in the First Barons' War) to serve as protector of the nine-year-old King Henry III, and regent of the kingdom. In spite of his advanced age (around 70) he prosecuted the war against Prince Louis and the rebel barons with remarkable energy. In the battle of Lincoln he charged and fought at the head of the young King's army, leading them to victory. He was preparing to besiege Louis in London when the war was terminated by the naval victory of Hubert de Burgh in the straits of Dover. [1]

William was criticised for the generosity of the terms he accorded to Louis and the rebels in September 1217; but his desire for an expeditious settlement was dictated by sound statesmanship. Self-restraint and compromise were the keynote of Marshal's policy, hoping to secure peace and stability for his young liege. Both before and after the peace of 1217 he reissued Magna Carta, in which he is a signatory as one of the witnessing barons.

Death and legacy

William Marshal was interred in Temple Church, London
Marshal's health finally failed him early in 1219. In March 1219 he realised that he was dying, so he summoned his eldest son, also William, and his household knights, and left the Tower of London for his estate at Caversham in Berkshire, near Reading, where he called a meeting of the barons, Henry III, the Papal legate Pandulf Verraccio, the royal justiciar (Hubert de Burgh), and Peter des Roches (Bishop of Winchester and the young King's guardian). William rejected the Bishop's claim to the regency and entrusted the regency to the care of the papal legate; he apparently did not trust the Bishop or any of the other magnates that he had gathered to this meeting. Fulfilling the vow he had made while on crusade, he was invested into the order of the Knights Templar on his deathbed. He died on 14 May 1219 at Caversham, and was buried in the Temple Church in London, where his tomb can still be seen.[1]

Descendants of William Marshal and Isabel de Clare

William Marshal, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (1190–6 April 1231), married (1) Alice de Bâethune, daughter of Earl of Albemarle; (2) 23 April 1224 Eleanor Plantagenet, daughter of King John of England. They had no children.
Richard Marshal, 3rd Earl of Pembroke (1191–16 April 1234), married Gervase le Dinant. He died in captivity. They had no children.
Maud Marshal (1194–27 March 1248), married (1) Hugh Bigod, 3rd Earl of Norfolk, they had four children; (2) William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey, they had two children; (3) Walter de Dunstanville.
Gilbert Marshal, 4th Earl of Pembroke (1197–27 June 1241), married (1) Marjorie of Scotland, youngest daughter of King William I of Scotland; by an unknown mistress he had one illegitimate daughter:
Isabel Marshal, married to Rhys ap Maeldon Fychan.
Walter Marshal, 5th Earl of Pembroke (c. 1199 – November 1245), married Margaret de Quincy, Countess of Lincoln, granddaughter of Hugh de Kevelioc, 3rd Earl of Chester. No children.
Isabel Marshal (9 October 1200 – 17 January 1240), married (1) Gilbert de Clare, 5th Earl of Hertford, whose daughter Isabel de Clare married Robert Bruce, 5th Lord of Annandale, the grandfather of Robert the Bruce; (2) Richard Plantagenet, Earl of Cornwall
Sibyl Marshal (c. 1201–27 April 1245), married William de Ferrers, 5th Earl of Derby–they had seven daughters.
Agnes Ferrers (died 11 May 1290), married William de Vesci.

Isabel Ferrers (died before 26 November 1260)
Maud Ferrers (died 12 March 1298), married (1) Simon de Kyme, and (2) William de Vivonia (de Forz), and (3) Amaury IX of Rochechouart.
Sibyl Ferrers, married Sir Francis or Franco de Bohun.
Joan Ferrers (died 1267)
Agatha Ferrers (died May 1306), married Hugh Mortimer, of Chelmarsh.
Eleanor Ferrers (died 16 October 1274), married to:

Eva Marshal (1203–1246), married William de Braose, Lord of Abergavenny

Isabella de Braose (b.1222), married Prince Dafydd ap Llywelyn. She died childless.
Maud de Braose (1224–1301), in 1247, she married Roger Mortimer, 1st Baron Mortimer and they had descendants.
Eva de Braose (1227 – 28 July 1255), married Sir William de Cantelou and had descendants.
Eleanor de Braose (c.1228–1251). On an unknown date after August 1241, she married Sir Humphrey de Bohun and had descendants.

Anselm Marshal, 6th Earl of Pembroke (c. 1208–22 December 1245), married Maud de Bohun, daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, 2nd Earl of Hereford. They had no children.
Joan Marshal (1210–1234), married Warin de Munchensi (d. 1255), Lord of Swanscombe
Joan de Munchensi (1230–20 September 1307) married William of Valence, the fourth son of King John's widow, Isabella of Angoulãeme, and her second husband, Hugh X of Lusignan, Count of La Marche. Valence was half-brother to Henry III and Edward I's uncle.

The fate of the Marshal family

During the civil wars in Ireland, William had taken two manors that the Bishop of Ferns claimed but could not get back. Some years after William's death, that bishop is said[14] to have laid a curse on the family that William's sons would have no children, and the great Marshal estates would be scattered. Each of William's sons did become earl of Pembroke and marshal of England, and each died without legitimate issue. William's vast holdings were then divided among the husbands of his five daughters. The title of "Marshal" went to the husband of the oldest daughter, Hugh Bigod, 3rd Earl of Norfolk, and later passed to the Mowbray dukes of Norfolk and then to the Howard dukes of Norfolk, becoming "Earl Marshal" along the way. The title of "Earl of Pembroke" passed to William of Valence, the husband of Joan Marshal's daughter, Joan de Munchensi; he became the first of the de Valence line of earls of Pembroke.

Through his daughter Isabel, William is ancestor to the both the Bruce and Stewart kings of Scots. Through his granddaughter Maud de Braose, William is ancestor to the last Plantagenet kings, Edward IV through Richard III, and all English monarchs from Henry VIII and afterward.

Died:
Caversham is a suburb in the Borough of Reading...

Map, history & source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caversham,_Berkshire

Buried:
at Temple Church...

The Temple Church is a late 12th-century church in the City of London located between Fleet Street and the River Thames, built by the Knights Templar as their English headquarters. During the reign of King John (1199-1216) it served as the royal treasury, supported by the role of the Knights Templars as proto-international bankers. It is jointly owned by the Inner Temple and Middle Temple[1] Inns of Court, bases of the English legal profession. It is famous for being a round church, a common design feature for Knights Templar churches, and for its 13th and 14th century stone effigies. It was heavily damaged by German bombing during World War II and has since been greatly restored and rebuilt. The area around the Temple Church is known as the Temple and nearby formerly in the middle of Fleet Street stood the Temple Bar, an ornamental processional gateway. Nearby is the Temple Underground station.

Photo, history & source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Church

2783.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Death: 1220, Pembrokeshire, Wales

Notes:

F Isabel De CLAREPrint Family Tree
Born in 1172 - Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales
Deceased 14 October 1217 - Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales , age at death: 45 years old
Buried in 1217 - Monmouth, Monmouthshire, Wales

Parents
Richard (Strongbow) De ( 2nd Earl Pembroke, Lord Marshall) CLARE, born in 1125 - Tonbridge, Kent, England, Deceased 20 April 1176 - Dublin, Ireland age at death: 51 years old , buried in 1176 - Dublin, Ireland
Married 26 August 1171, Waterford, Waterford, Ireland, to
Eva Aoife Mac (Countess Pembroke) MURCHADA, born 26 April 1141 - Dublin, Ireland, Deceased in 1188 - Waterford, Ireland age at death: 47 years old , buried - Tintern, Monmouthshire, Wales

Spouses, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren
Married in August 1189, London, England, to William (SIR - Knight Templar)(Earl Pembroke) MARSHALL, born 12 May 1146 - Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, Deceased 14 May 1219 - Reading, Berkshire, England age at death: 73 years old , buried in 1219 - London, England (Parents : M John (Fitzgilbert) (Earl of Pembroke, Marshall of England) MARSHALL 1105-1165 & F Sibilla De SALISBURY 1109-1155) with
F Maud (Countess of Norfolk Countess of Surrey) MARSHALL 1192-1248 married to William (de Warenne) WARREN 1166-1240 with
M John De (SIR - Earl of Surrey) WARREN 1231-1304 married before 1244, England, to Alice (Le Brun) De (Countess of Surrey) LUSIGNAN 1224-1291 with :
F Eleanor (Plantagenet) De WARREN 1244-1282
M William De (SIR) WARREN 1256-1286

John De (SIR - Earl of Surrey) WARREN 1231-1304 married in 1247, Surrey, England, to Isabel De Surrey 1234-
Maud (Countess of Norfolk Countess of Surrey) MARSHALL 1192-1248 married to Hugh (Magna Charta Baron - EARL of NORFOLK) BIGOD 1175-1225 with
F Isabel BIGOD ca 1215-1239 married before 1235, Shere, Surrey, England, to John (Fitzgeoffrey) (SIR - Lord of Shere) (Justiciar of England) FITZPIERS 1215-1258 with :
F Aveline (Fitzjohn) FITZPIERS ca 1235-1274
F Maud (Fitzjohn) (Countess of WARWICK) FITZPIERS 1237-1301
F Eve (Baroness of Abergavenny) MARSHALL 1194-1246 married 2 May 1230, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, to William "Black William" (de Braose) BRUCE 1204-1230 with
M William (de Braose) BRUCE 1210-1292 married to Maud De Fay 1180-1249 with :
F Eleanor (de Braose) BRUCE 1230-
F Isabella (de Braose) BRUCE 1220/- married to Dafydd (Ap Llywelyn) (Prince of WALES) TUDOR 1208-1246
F Eva (de Braose) BRUCE 1220-1255 married 25 July 1238, Calne, Wiltshire, England, to William De CANTILUPE 1216-1254 with :
F Joane CANTILUPE 1240-1271
F Sybilla De Cantilupe ca 1240-
F Millicent (Cauntelo) De CANTILUPE ca 1250-/1299
F Maud (de Braose) (BARONESS WIGMORE) BRUCE 1226-1300 married in 1247, King's Stanley, Gloucestershire, England, to Roger De (SIR) MORTIMER 1231-1282 with :
F Isabella De MORTIMER 1248-1274
M Edmund De (Sir - 7th Lord) MORTIMER 1252-1303
F Isolde De MORTIMER 1267-1338
Eve (Baroness of Abergavenny) MARSHALL 1194-1246 married in 1230, England, to Milo (de Saint Maur) (SIR) SEYMOUR ca 1200-1245 with
M Richard SEYMOUR 1230-1271 married in 1250 to Isabel (Lady) MARSHALL 1238-1268 with :
M Roger (de Saint Maur) SEYMOUR 1258-1300
F Katherine SEYMOUR ca 1265-ca 1335
M Gilbert MARSHALL 1196-1241 married to Marjorie Of SCOTLAND 1204-1244 with
F Isabel (Lady) MARSHALL 1238-1268 married in 1250 to Richard SEYMOUR 1230-1271 with :
M Roger (de Saint Maur) SEYMOUR 1258-1300
F Katherine SEYMOUR ca 1265-ca 1335
M William (4th Earl of Pembroke/ChiefJusticar of Ireland) MARSHALL 1198-1231 married 23 April 1224, Hampshire, England, to Eleanor (Princess of England) PLANTAGENET ca 1205-1275 with
F Isabel Marshall 1225/-1239
M X MARSHALL ca 1230- married to ? ? with :
M X MARSHALL ca 1260-
F Isabel (Fitzgilbert) (Countess MARSHALL) MARSHALL 1200-1239 married 9 October 1217, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, England, to Gilbert III De (Earl of Gloucester - Hertford) CLARE, MAGNA CARTA BARON ca 1180-1230 with
M Richard De (Earl of Herts - Gloucs) CLARE 1222-1262 married 25 January 1238, Lincolnshire, England, to Maud De (Countess of Gloucester) LACY 1223-1289 with :
M Gilbert IV De (Earl of Herts - Gloucs) CLARE 1243-1295
M Thomas De (Lord of Thomand, Connaught, Chancellor of Ireland) CLARE 1245-1287
F Rohesia De CLARE 1252-1316
F Isabel De (Lady Annabelle - 3rd Countess of Pembroke) CLARE 1226-1264 married in May 1240, Scotland, to Robert "the Competitor" De (SIR - 5th Lord of Annandale) BRUCE 1210-1295 with :
M Robert De (Lord Annadale) BRUCE 1243-1304
F Mary Clarissa De BRUCE 1255-1283
Isabel (Fitzgilbert) (Countess MARSHALL) MARSHALL 1200-1239 married 30 March 1231, Bucks, Pennsylvania, USA, to Richard (Earl of CORNWALL) CORNWALL 1209-1272 with
M Richard (SIR) (PLANTAGENET) CORNWALL 1234-1272 married before 1280, Cornwall, England, to Joan SAINT OWEN 1234-1308 with :
M Edmund De (PLANTAGENET) CORNWALL 1280-1354
F Sibyl MARSHALL ca 1201-1245 married 14 May 1219, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, to William De (SIR - 5th Earl of Derby,) (Sheriff of Leicester) FERRERS 1190-1254 with
F Maud De FERRERS ca 1215-1298 married in 1248 to William (Fortibus) De (SIR) VIVONNE 1215-1259 with :
F Joan de ** (Countess of Chewton) VIVONNE 1235-1314
F Margaret (Joan) De (to Wynter) FERRERS ca 1220-1267 married 5 December 1242, England, to Roger De Quincy ca 1215-1242/
Margaret (Joan) De (to Wynter) FERRERS ca 1220-1267 married before 1245, England, to John De MOHUN ca 1220-1255 with :
M John De MOHUN ca 1243-1279

Margaret (Joan) De (to Wynter) FERRERS ca 1220-1267 married about 1256, Derbyshire, England, to Roger (SIR ) (MIDLANDS) WYNTER ca 1220- with :
M Robert ** (Bedfordshire) WYNTER /1260-
M Roger de ** (Suffolk - ??) WYNTER /1267-ca 1327
M ** (Connection speculative) WYNTER /1268-
F Isabel De FERRERS 1223-1252 married after 1247, England, to Reginald De MOHUN 1202-1256 with :
F Isabel De MOHUN 1248-1280
F Agatha De FERRERS ca 1225- married to Hugh De MORTIMER 1219-1274 with :
M Robert De MORTIMER 1251-1287
F Mary De MORTIMER 1260-1290
M William De (SIR) FERRERS 1235-1287 married in 1262, Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire, England, to Anne le De SPENCER 1240/-1280 with :
M ? ?
F Anne De (to GREY) FERRERS 1268-1324
M William De (SIR - to Wynter via VERDON) FERRERS 1272-1325
M Robert De (6th Earl of Derby) (to NEVILLE) FERRERS ca 1239-1279 married 26 June 1269, Staffordshire, England, to Alianore De BOHUN 1240-1314 with :
M John De (SIR - Baron of Chartley) FERRERS 1271-1312
F Joane MARSHALL 1202-1234 married to Warin Munchensy 1192-1255 with
F Joan MUNCHENSY 1222-1307 married to William (de Lusignan) (Earl of Pembroke) VALENCE 1225-1296 with :
F Margaret De (Baroness de la ROCHE) VALENCE 1254-1315
F Isabel De VALENCE ca 1262-1305

Siblings
M Richard III De (SIR) CLARE, MAGNA CARTA BARON ca 1153-1217 Married in 1180, England, to Amicie De CAEN 1160-1225
F Joan De ( Baroness of Gamage) CLARE 1175-1222/ Married in 1196, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, to Godfrey De (Sir) ( Lord of Gamage) GAMAGE 1176-1253

Paternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M Gilbert De (1st Earl Pembroke) CLARE 1100-1148 married (1130)
F Isabel De (Countess Pembroke and Buckingham) BEAUMONT 1086-1147
M Richard (Strongbow) De ( 2nd Earl Pembroke, Lord Marshall) CLARE 1125-1176
married (1171)
3 children

F Isabel De (Countess Pembroke and Buckingham) BEAUMONT 1086-1147
married (1098)M Henry I (Beauclerc) (KING OF ENGLAND) NORMANDY 1068-1135
F Constance Maude FITZROY 1098-
married (1120)
1 child

Maternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M Dermot Dairmait Mac (King of Leinster) MURCHADA 1110-1171 married (1140)
F Mor Tauthail Moringen Murchertaig (Queen of Ireland) O'TOOLE 1114-1191
F Eva Aoife Mac (Countess Pembroke) MURCHADA 1141-1188
married (1171)
3 children
F Urlachen Mac MURCHADA 1154-1200
married (1171)
2 children

Notes
Individual Note
Source: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2003.Original data - Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Heritage Consulting.Original data: Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: - 1,7249::0
http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=millind&h=10154284&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt Birth date: 1172 Birth place: Pembroke, Wales Death date: 1220 Death place: Pembroke, Wales 1,7249::10154284
Source: Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - Web: International, Find A Grave Index - Ancestry.com - Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. - 1,70699::0 1,70699::438790
Source: Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - UK and Ireland, Find A Grave Index, 1300s-Current - Ancestry.com - Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. - 1,60526::0 1,60526::219175

Death
Age: 48

Sources
Individual:
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=8010
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=8010
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=8010
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=8010
Birth, death:
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2003.Original data - Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Heritage Consulting.Original data: Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: - 1,7249::0
Note http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=millind&h=10154284&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt - Birth date: 1172 Birth place: Pembroke, Wales Death date: 1220 Death place: Pembroke, Wales - 1,7249::10154284
- Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - Web: International, Find A Grave Index - Ancestry.com - Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. - 1,70699::0 - 1,70699::438790
- Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - UK and Ireland, Find A Grave Index, 1300s-Current - Ancestry.com - Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. - 1,60526::0 - 1,60526::219175
Burial:
- Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - Web: International, Find A Grave Index - Ancestry.com - Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. - 1,70699::0 - 1,70699::438790
- Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - UK and Ireland, Find A Grave Index, 1300s-Current - Ancestry.com - Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. - 1,60526::0 - 1,60526::219175

Family Tree Preview
Ancestry Chart Descendancy Chart
_____| 16_ Richard (Fitzgilbert) De CLARE 1030-1089
_____| 8_ Gilbert (Fitzrichard) De (Some say - Lord of Chepstow) CLARE 1065-1114
_____| 4_ Gilbert De (1st Earl Pembroke) CLARE 1100-1148
/ \ _____| 18_ Hugh De CLERMONT 1030-1101
|2_ Richard (Strongbow) De ( 2nd Earl Pembroke, Lord Marshall) CLARE 1125-1176
| \ _____| 20_ Roger De (SIR - Barbatus le Barber) BEAUMONT 1022-1094
| \ _____| 10_ Robert De (SIR - 1st Earl Leics - Count Melun) BEAUMONT 1046-1118
| \ _____| 22_ Hugh (The Great) (Count of Vermandois) CAPET 1053-1102
|--1_ Isabel De CLARE 1172-1217
| _____| 24_ Murchad Macdairmata MURCHADA 1032-1070
| _____| 12_ Donnchad Enna Mac MURCHADA 1085-1115
| _____| 6_ Dermot Dairmait Mac (King of Leinster) MURCHADA 1110-1171
| / \ _____| 26_ Gilla Michil O'BRIEN 1055-1068
|3_ Eva Aoife Mac (Countess Pembroke) MURCHADA 1141-1188
\ _____| 28_ Gilla-Comgaill II (King of Ui Muriedaig) O'TOOLE 1055-1127
\ _____| 14_ Mouirchertach (King of Ui Muiredaig) O'TOOLE 1089-1164
\ _____| 30_ Loigsech (King of Loigsi) O'MORDA

end of biography

Isabel de Clare, suo jure Countess of Pembroke and Striguil (1172-1220) was a Cambro-Norman-Irish noblewoman, go to this link for further clarification ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambro-Norman, and one of the wealthiest heiresses in Wales and Ireland. She was the wife of William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, who served four successive kings as Lord Marshal of England. Her marriage had been arranged by King Richard I.

Daniel Maclise's painting of the marriage of Isabel's parents, Strongbow and Aoife of Leinster in August 1170, the day after the capture of Waterford.
Isabel was born in 1172 in Pembrokeshire, Wales, the eldest child of Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (1130 – 20 April 1176), known to history as "Strongbow", and Aoife of Leinster, who was the daughter of Dermot MacMurrough, the deposed King of Leinster and Mor Ui Thuathail. The latter was a daughter of Muirchertach Ua Tuathail and Cacht Nâi Morda. The marriage of Strongbow and Aoife took place in August 1170, the day after the capture of Waterford by the Cambro-Norman forces led by Strongbow.

Isabel's paternal grandparents were Gilbert de Clare, 1st Earl of Pembroke and Isabel de Beaumont. She had a younger brother Gilbert de Striguil who, being a minor, was not formally invested with either the earldom of Pembroke or of Striguil. It is unlikely that his father could have passed on the title to Pembroke as he himself did not possess it. When Gilbert died in 1185, Isabel became Countess of Pembroke in her own right (suo jure) until her death in 1220. In this way, she could be said to be the first successor to the earldom of Pembroke since her grandfather Gilbert, the first earl. By this reckoning, Isabel ought to be called the second countess, not the fourth countess of Pembroke. In any event, the title Earl was re-created for her husband. She also had an illegitimate half-sister Basile de Clare, who married three times. Basile's husbands were: Robert de Quincy; Raymond Fitzgerald, Constable of Leinster: Geoffrey FitzRobert, Baron of Kells.

Isabel was described as having been "the good, the fair, the wise, the courteous lady of high degree".[2] She allegedly spoke French, Irish and Latin.[3] After her brother Gilbert's death, Isabel became one of the wealthiest heiresses in the kingdom, owning besides the titles of Pembroke and Striguil, much land in Wales and Ireland.[4] She inherited the numerous castles on the inlet of Milford Haven, guarding the South Channel, including Pembroke Castle.[5] She was a legal ward of King Henry II, who carefully watched over her inheritance.[6]

Marriage

The new King Richard I arranged her marriage in August 1189 to William Marshal, regarded by many as the greatest knight and soldier in the realm. Henry II had promised Marshal he would be given Isabel as his bride, and his son and successor Richard upheld the promise one month after his accession to the throne. At the time of her marriage, Isabel was residing in the Tower of London in the protective custody of the Justiciar of England, Ranulf de Glanville.[7] Following the wedding, which was celebrated in London "with due pomp and ceremony",[8] they spent their honeymoon at Stoke d'Abernon in Surrey which belonged to Enguerrand d'Abernon.[9]

Marriage to Isabel elevated William Marshal from the status as a landless knight into one of the richest men in the kingdom. He would serve as Lord Marshal of England, four kings in all: Henry II, Richard I, John, and Henry III. Although Marshal did not become the jure uxoris 1st Earl of Pembroke, Earl of Striguil until 1199, he nevertheless assumed overlordship of Leinster in Ireland, Pembroke Castle, Chepstow Castle, as well as Isabel's other castles in Wales such as the keep of Haverford, Tenby, Lewhaden, Narberth, Stackpole.[10]

Shortly after their marriage, Marshal and Isabel arrived in Ireland, at Old Ros, a settlement located in the territory which belonged to her grandfather, Dermot MacMurrough. A motte was hastily constructed, a medieval borough quickly grew around it, and afterwards the Marshals founded the port town by the river which subsequently became known as New Ross. The Chronicles of Ros, which are housed in the British Museum, described Isabel and Marshal's arrival in Ireland and records that Isabella set about building a lovely city on the banks of the Barrow.

In 1192, Isabel and her husband assumed the task of managing their vast lands; starting with the rebuilding of Kilkenny Castle and the town, both of which had been damaged by the O'Brien clan in 1173. Later they commissioned the construction of several abbeys in the vicinity.[11]

The marriage was happy, despite the vast difference in age between them. William Marshal and Isabel produced a total of five sons and five daughters.[12]

end of biography

Buried:
Tintern Abbey (Welsh: Abaty Tyndyrn, About this sound pronunciation in Welsh (help·info)) was founded by Walter de Clare, Lord of Chepstow, on 9 May 1131. It is situated adjacent to the village of Tintern in Monmouthshire, on the Welsh bank of the River Wye, which forms the border between Monmouthshire in Wales and Gloucestershire in England. It was only the second Cistercian foundation in Britain, and the first in Wales. Falling into ruin after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century, the remains were celebrated in poetry and often painted by visitors from the 18th century onwards. In 1984 Cadw took over responsibility for the site.

Photos, history & source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintern_Abbey

Children:

Sir William Marshal, Knight, 2nd Earl of Pembroke was born in 1190-1198 in Normandy; died on 6 Apr 1231 in London, Middlesex, England.
6079. Lady Maud Marshal, Countess of Norfolk was born in ~1193 in Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales; died on 27 Mar 1248 in Tintern Abbey, Chapel Hill, Monmouthshire, Wales.
3013. Lady Isabel Marshal, Countess Marshall was born on 9 Oct 1200 in Pembroke Castle, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales; died on 17 Jan 1240 in Berkhamsted Castle, Berkhamsted, Hertforshire, England.
Sybil Marshal was born in ~ 1201 in (Pembroke Castle, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales); died in 0Apr 1245.
Lady Eva Marshal, Countess of Abergavenny was born in 1203 in Pembroke Castle, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales; died in 1246.
Joan Marshal was born in 1210 in Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales; died in 1234 in Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales.
Isabel Ferrers was born in 1218 in Derby, Derbyshire, England; died before 23 NOVE 1260 in Torre (Tor) Mohun, Devonshire, England.

22304.

Sir William de Brus, 3rd Lord of Annandale was born in (Annan) Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland (son of Sir Robert de Brus, 2nd Lord of Annandale and Euphemia de Crosebi); died on 16 Jul 1212.

Notes:

William de Brus, 3rd Lord of Annandale (died 16 July 1212), was the second but eldest surviving son of Robert de Brus, 2nd Lord of Annandale.

His elder brother, Robert III de Brus, predeceased their father, never holding the lordship of Annandale. William de Brus thus succeeded his father when the latter died in 1194.

William de Brus possessed large estates in the north of England. He obtained from King John, the grant of a weekly market at Hartlepool, and granted lands to the canons of Gisburn.[1] Very little else is known about William's activities. He makes a few appearances in the English government records and witnessed a charter of King William of Scotland.

He married a woman called Beatrice de Teyden, and had by her at least two sons and one daughter:

Robert (his successor)
William
Agatha married Ralph Tailboys
Notes[edit]
Jump up ^ Burke, Sir Bernard, CB., LL.D., Ulster King of Arms, The Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire, London, 1883, p.80.

References

Burke, Messrs., John and John Bernard, The Royal Families of England, Scotland, and Wales, with Their Descendants, &c., London, 1848: vol.1, pedigree XXXIV.
Northcliffe, Charles B., of Langon, MA., editor, The Visitation of Yorkshire, 1563/4 by William Flower, Norroy King of Arms, London, 1881, p. 40.
Duncan, A. A. M., ‘Brus , Robert (II) de, lord of Annandale (d. 1194?)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 14 Nov 2006

William married Beatrice de Teyden. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

22305.

Beatrice de Teyden

Children:

11152. Sir Robert de Brus, 4th Lord of Annandale was born in ~1195 in (Annan, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland); died in 1226; was buried in Sawtrey Abbey, Cambridgeshire, England.
William de Brus
Agatha de Brus was born in ~ 1105 in Skelton Castle, Yorkshire, England.

5550.

Notes:

David of Scotland (Medieval Gaelic: Dabâid) (1152 – 17 June 1219) was a Scottish prince and 8th Earl of Huntingdon. He was, until 1198, heir to the Scottish throne.

Life

He was the youngest surviving son of Henry of Scotland, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon and Ada de Warenne, a daughter of William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey, and Elizabeth of Vermandois. His paternal grandfather was David I of Scotland. Huntingdon was granted to him after his elder brother William I of Scotland ascended the throne. David's son John succeeded him to the earldom.

In 1190 his brother gave him 'superiority' over Dundee and its port. The same year he endowed Lindores Abbey in Fife and a church dedicated to St Mary in Dundee.[1]

In the litigation for succession to the crown of Scotland in 1290–1292, the great-great-grandson Floris V, Count of Holland of David's sister, Ada, claimed that David had renounced his hereditary rights to the throne of Scotland. He therefore declared that his claim to the throne had priority over David's descendants. However, no explanation or firm evidence for the supposed renunciation could be provided.

Marriage and issue

On 26 August 1190 David married Matilda of Chester (1171 – 6 January 1233), daughter of Hugh de Kevelioc, 3rd Earl of Chester. He was almost thirty years Matilda's senior. The marriage was recorded by Benedict of Peterborough.[2]

David and Matilda had seven children:

Margaret of Huntingdon (c. 1194 – c. 1228), married Alan, Lord of Galloway, by whom she had two daughters, including Dervorguilla of Galloway.
Robert of Huntingdon (died young)
Ada of Huntingdon, married Sir Henry de Hastings, by whom she had one son, Henry de Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings.
Matilda (Maud) of Huntingdon (-aft.1219, unmarried)
Isobel of Huntingdon (1199–1251), married firstly, Henry De Percy and had issue and secondly, Robert Bruce, 4th Lord of Annandale, by whom she had two sons, including Robert de Brus, 5th Lord of Annandale.
John of Scotland, Earl of Huntingdon (1207 – 6 June 1237), married Elen ferch Llywelyn. He succeeded his uncle Ranulf as Earl of Chester in 1232, but died childless.
Henry of Huntingdon (died young)[3][4]

Earl David also had three illegitimate children:[5]

Henry of Stirling
Henry of Brechin
Ada, married Malise, son of Ferchar, Earl of Strathearn

After the extinction of the senior line of the Scottish royal house in 1290, when the legitimate line of William the Lion of Scotland ended, David's descendants were the prime candidates for the throne. The two most notable claimants to the throne, Robert Bruce, 5th Lord of Annandale (grandfather of King Robert I of Scotland) and John of Scotland were his descendants through David's daughters Isobel and Margaret, respectively.

end of this biography

5551.

Notes:

Matilda of Chester,[1][2] Countess of Huntingdon (1171 – 6 January 1233)[2][3] was an Anglo-Norman noblewoman, sometimes known as Maud and sometimes known with the surname de Kevelioc. She was a daughter of Hugh de Kevelioc, 5th Earl of Chester, and the wife of David of Scotland, Earl of Huntingdon. Through her daughter, Isobel, she was an ancestress of Robert the Bruce.

Family

Lady Maude was born in 1171, the eldest child of Hugh de Kevelioc (aka Hugh de Meschines), 5th Earl of Chester and Bertrade de Montfort, a cousin of King Henry II of England. Her paternal grandparents were Ranulf de Gernon and Maud (Matilda) of Gloucester, the granddaughter of King Henry I of England, and her maternal grandparents were Simon III de Montfort, Count of âEvreux and Mahaut.

Lady Matilda's five siblings were:

Ranulf de Blondeville, 6th Earl of Chester
Richard[4] (died young)
Mabel of Chester, Countess of Arundel
Agnes (Alice) of Chester, Countess of Derby
Hawise of Chester, Countess of Lincoln.
She also had a sister, Amice (or Amicia) of Chester, who may have been illegitimate.[2]

Matilda's father died in 1181 when she was ten years of age. He had served in King Henry's Irish campaigns after his estates had been restored to him in 1177. They had been confiscated by the King as a result of his taking part in the baronial Revolt of 1173–1174. His son Ranulf succeeded him as Earl of Chester, and Matilda became a co-heiress of her brother.

Dervorguilla of Galloway, a granddaughter of Matilda of Chester

Marriage and issue

On 26 August 1190, she married David of Scotland, 8th Earl of Huntingdon, a Scottish prince, son of Henry of Scotland, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon, and a younger brother of Malcolm IV of Scotland and William I of Scotland. He was almost thirty years Matilda's senior. The marriage was recorded by Benedict of Peterborough.[5]

David and Matilda had seven children:

Margaret of Huntingdon (c. 1194 – after 1 June 1233), married Alan, Lord of Galloway, by whom she had two daughters, including Dervorguilla of Galloway.
Robert of Huntingdon (died young)
Ada of Huntingdon, married Sir Henry de Hastings, by whom she had one son, Henry de Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings.
Matilda (Maud) of Huntingdon (-aft.1219, unmarried)
Isobel of Huntingdon (1199–1251), married Robert Bruce, 4th Lord of Annandale, by whom she had two sons, including Robert de Brus, 5th Lord of Annandale.
John of Scotland, Earl of Huntingdon (1207 – 6 June 1237), married Elen ferch Llywelyn. He succeeded his uncle Ranulf as Earl of Chester in 1232, but died childless.
Henry of Huntingdon (died young)[2][6]
Her husband David had four illegitimate children by various mistresses.[5]

On her brother Ranulf's death in October 1232 Matilda inherited a share in his estates with her other 3 sisters, and his Earldom of Chester suo jure. Less than a month later with the consent of the King, Matilda gave an inter vivos gift of the Earldom to her son John the Scot who became Earl of Chester by right of his mother.[7] He was formally invested by King Henry III as Earl of Chester[2] on 21 November 1232.[8] He became Earl of Chester in his own right on the death of his mother six weeks later.

Matilda died on 6 January 1233 at the age of about sixty-two. Her husband had died in 1219. In 1290, upon the death of Margaret, Maid of Norway, which caused the extinction of the legitimate line of William I, the descendants of David and Matilda became the prime competitors for the crown of Scotland. Through their daughter, Isobel, they were the direct ancestors of the renowned Scottish King, Robert the Bruce.

References

Jump up ^ Cokayne, G.E. et al, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13 volumes in 14 (1910-1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), volume III
^ Jump up to: a b c d e Charles Cawley. "England, earls created 1067-1122". Medieval Lands.
Jump up ^ Alison Weir, Britain's Royal Family: A Complete Genealogy (London, U.K.: The Bodley Head, 1999)
Jump up ^ That Richard is a son of Earl Hugh, Matilda's father, is recorded in the Domesday Descendants.
^ Jump up to: a b Charles Cawley. "Kings of Scotland". Medieval Lands.
Jump up ^ "thePeerage.com - Person Page 10777". Thepeerage.com. Retrieved 2008-11-08.
Jump up ^ Burke, John, A general and heraldic dictionary of the peerages of England, Ireland, and Scotland
Jump up ^ Earl of Chester

*

Children:

Margaret of Huntingdon, Lady of Galloway was born in ~ 1194 in Galloway, Wigtownshire, Scotland; died in 0___ 1223.
11153. Isabella of Huntingdon was born in 1199; died in 1251.
Sir John of Scotland, 9th Earl of Huntingdon was born in 1207; died on 6 Jun 1237.
Ada of Huntingdon was born in ~1200 in Huntingdon, Huntingdonshire, England; died in ~1242 in Cheshire, England.

6024.

Notes:

Richard de Clare, 3rd Earl of Hertford, 6th Lord of Clare, 6th lord of Tonbridge, 5th Lord of Cardigan (c.?1153–1217), was a powerful Norman nobleman with vast lands in England and Wales.

Career

Richard was the son of Roger de Clare, 2nd Earl of Hertford and Maud, daughter of James de St. Hillary.[1] More commonly known as the Earl of Clare, he had the majority of the Giffard estates from his ancestor, Rohese.[2] He was present at the coronations of King Richard I at Westminster, 3 September 1189, and King John on 27 May 1199. He was also present at the homage of King William of Scotland as English Earl of Huntingdon at Lincoln.[citation needed]

Marriage

He married (c. 1172) Amice FitzWilliam, 4th Countess of Gloucester (c. 1160–1220), second daughter, and co-heiress, of William Fitz Robert, 2nd Earl of Gloucester, and Hawise de Beaumont. Sometime before 1198, Earl Richard and his wife Amice were ordered to separate by the Pope on grounds of consanguinity. They separated for a time because of this order but apparently reconciled their marriage with the Pope later on.[citation needed]

Magna Carta

He sided with the Barons against King John, even though he had previously sworn peace with the King at Northampton, and his castle of Tonbridge was taken. He played a leading part in the negotiations for Magna Carta, being one of the twenty five sureties. On 9 November 1215, he was one of the commissioners on the part of the Barons to negotiate the peace with the King. In 1215, his lands in counties Cambridge, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex were granted to Robert de Betun. He and his son were among the Barons excommunicated by the Pope in 1215. His own arms were: Or, three chevronels gules.[citation needed]

Family

Richard and Amice had children:

Gilbert de Clare (ca. 1180 – 25 October 1230), 4th Earl of Hertford and 5th Earl of Gloucester, (or 1st Earl of Gloucester of new creation). Married in 1217 Isabel Marshal.
Maud de Clare (ca. 1184–1213), married in 1206,[citation needed] Sir William de Braose, son of William de Braose and Maud de St. Valery.
Richard de Clare (ca. 1184 – 4 Mar 1228, London)[citation needed]
Mathilde, married Rhys Gryg son of Rhys ap Gruffydd, ruler of the kingdom of Deheubarth.

References

icon Normandy portal
Jump up ^ George Edward Cokayne, The Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant Extinct or Dormant, eds. H. A. Doubleday; Howard de Walden, Vol. V (London: The St. Catherine Press, Ltd., 1926), p. 736
Jump up ^ I. J. Sanders, English Baronies: A Study of Their Origin and Descent 1086–1327) (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1963), pp. 34, 62

end of biography

Birth:
Hsitory, Images, Drawing, Map & Source for Tonbridge Castle ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonbridge_Castle

6025.

Children:

3012. Sir Gilbert de Clare, Knight, 4th Earl of Hertford was born in 0___ 1180 in Hertford, Hertfordshire, England; died on 25 Oct 1230 in Brittany, France; was buried in Tewkesbury Abbey, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, England GL20 5RZ.
Mathilde de Clare was born in (Hertford, Hertfordshire, England).
Hawise de Clare

11072.

Richard Comyn, Lord of Tynedale was born in 1115-1123 in Altyre, Moray, Scotland; died in ~1179 in Altyre, Moray, Scotland.

Other Events and Attributes:

Occupation: Justiciar of Lothian

Notes:

Richard Comyn (d. c 1179) was a Scottish noble, the nephew of William Comyn.[1]

Richard was probably born between 1115 and 1123. In 1144, William Comyn gave him Northallerton Castle, which he had built a few years earlier. Shortly after, he received the castle and honour of Richmond as part of his uncle's settlement to renounce to Durham bishopric.[1] In 1145, Richard was married to Hextilda, the daughter of Uchtred, Lord of Tynedale, and his wife Bethoc ingen Domnaill Bain, the supposed daughter of King Donald III of Scotland, although the chronology is suspect.

In Scotland, he acquired the position of Justiciar of Lothian: he witnessed 6 charters for King Malcolm IV and 33 for King William I. He was captured with King William in 1174 and was a hostage for him in the Treaty of Falaise. He gave, with Hextida's consent, lands to the monks at Hexham, Kelso and Holyrood. He died between 1179 and 1182. Hextilda remarried to Mâael Coluim, Earl of Atholl (also called Malcolm).

Children

Richard had four sons by Hextilda:

John, dead between 1152 and 1159, and buried at Kelso Abbey.
William, jure uxoris Earl of Buchan.
Odinel (also called Odo), a priest, witness to Richard's charters to religious houses in 1162 and 1166.
Simon, mentioned in the 1166 charter to the Augustinians in Holyrood.
and three daughters:

Idonea
Ada
Christien

His daughters were witnesses to a donation made by Mâael Coluim, Earl of Atholl and their mother Hextilda to the Church of St Cuthbert in Durham.

end of biography

11073.

Hextilda of Tynedale was born in 1112-1122 in (East Lothian, Scotland) (daughter of Uctred FitzWaltheof and Bethoc Dunkeld); died in 1149-1189.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: 1122, Tynedale, Moray, Scotland
Alt Death: ~1182, East Lothian, Scotland

Notes:

Hextilda de Comyn (Tynedale)
Birthdate: circa 1122 (60)
Birthplace: Tynedale, East Lothian, Scotland
Death: circa 1182 (52-68)
Moulin, East Lothian, Scotland
Place of Burial: Moulin, East Lothian, Scotland
Immediate Family:
Daughter of Uchtred FitzWaltheof, Lord of Tynedale and Bethâoc ingen Domnaill
Wife of Richard de Comyn, Justiciar of Lothian, Lord of Tyndale and Malcolm, 2nd Earl of Atholl
Mother of William Comyn, earl of Buchan; Margaret Comyn, Countess of Atholl; FNU Comyn; John Comyn; Idonea Fitzgilbert and 10 others
Sister of Uchtred fitz Uchtred; John Johnston and Robert de Tyndale
Managed by: Private User
Last Updated: June 3, 2016

Immediate Family

Richard de Comyn, Justiciar of L...
husband

William Comyn, earl of Buchan
son

Margaret Comyn, Countess of Atholl
daughter

FNU Comyn
daughter

John Comyn
son

Idonea Fitzgilbert
daughter

Odo (Odinell) Comyn
son

Simon Comyn
son

David Comyn
son

Philip de Compton
son

Peter Compton/Comyn
son

Osbert Compton/Comyn
son
About Hextilda of Tynedale
HEXTILDA of Tynedale

http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/SCOTTISH%20NOBILITY.htm#RichardComynMHextilda
http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/SCOTLAND.htm#HextildaM1RichardComynM2Malcolm2Atholl
DONALD (- died in prison Rescobie, Forfarshire 1099, buried Dunkeld Abbey, later transferred to Isle of Iona). Brother of King Malcolm, and elected by the Scots to succeed his brother in 1093 as DONALD III "Bane", King of Scotland 1093-1097 [278]. m ---. The name of Donald's wife is not known. Cawley’s Medlands King Donald III & his wife had one child, Hextilda's mother:

BETHOC (-[1150/70][288]). The sources are contradictory regarding the supposed child of King Donald. The proofs relating to the claim to the Scottish throne in 1291 made by "däni Johannis Comyn" name "Gothrik" as the son of "Dovenald filius Duncani filii Erici", and trace John Comyn´s descent from him[289]. However, in the Great Roll, John Comyn traced his descent from Bethoc, daughter and heiress of Donald[290].

Altogether the chronology for Bethoc is stretched almost to beyond credibility. Her supposed father King Donald Bane must have been born before 1040, and yet his daughter is supposed to have been living more than 100 years later, and her supposed second husband living in the last quarter of the 12th century. It is suggested that this supposed descent of Hextilda, wife of Richard Comyn, from King Donald Bane should be treated with caution.

m firstly ([1085]) UHTRED Lord of Tynedale, son of [293]WALTHEOF ---. The 1130 Pipe Roll records "Uctred fil Walleof" in Northumberland[294]. Bethoc´s first marriage is confirmed by a charter of King Henry III dated 1261 which confirmed to John Comyn the land inherited from Hextildis, wife of Richard Comyn and daughter of Uhtred son of Waltheof[291].

m secondly RADULF, son of DUNEGALL Lord of Nithsdale (-[1185]).] Her second marriage is referred to by Young but he does not cite the corresponding primary source, which has not yet been identified[292]. Cawley’s Medlands

Bethoc & her first husband Uhtred, Lord of Tynedale, had one child, Hextilda:

HEXTILDA of Tynedale. The proofs relating to the claim to the Scottish throne in 1291 made by "däni Johannis Comyn" name "Hextilde" as daughter and heiress of "Gothrik", son of "Dovenald filius Duncani filii Erici", and "Willelmo" as her son and heir[295].

m firstly ([1144/50]) RICHARD Comyn, son of --- Cumin [Comyn] & his wife --- (-[1179]). “R. Cumin” donated property to Hexham Priory, with the consent of “uxoris meµ Hextildis”, by undated charter which names “fratrem meum Walterum”[296]. "Ric Cymyn" donated "ecclesiam de Lyntunruderie" to Kelso monastery, for the souls of "Henrici comitis dni mei et…Johis filii mei quorum corpa apud eos tumulant", by charter dated to [1160], witnessed by "Hextild sponsa mea, Od filio meo…"[297]. "Ricardus Cumin" donated [Slapfeld] to Holyrood Abbey, with the consent of "Hestild uxoris mee et heredum meorum", by charter dated to [1166] witnessed by "…Odinello et Simone filiis meis…"[298].

m secondly (after 1179) as his second wife, her second cousin, MALCOLM Earl of Atholl, son of MADDAD Earl of Atholl & his first wife --- (-[1186/Aug 1198]).]Her second marriage is confirmed by the undated charter under which “Hextildis comitissa de Eththetela” donated property to Rievall Abbey, for the soul of “domini mei Richardi Cumin”[299]. "Malcolmus comes de Athoil" donated "ecclesiam de Dul" to St Andrew´s priory by undated charter witnessed by "Dunecano comite de Fif, Hextilda comitissa sponsa mea…Henrico et Dunecano filiis meis…"[300]. The Liber Vitµ of Durham lists (in order) "Hextild, Willelmus, Odenellus, Simon, Ricardus Cumin…", and in a later passage "Malcolmus filius Mal. et comes Athodlie, Hextilda filia Ucthredi uxor eius…"[301]. Cawley’s Medlands

___

RICHARD Comyn, son of --- Cumin [Comyn] (-[1179]). He was granted land in Tynedale, in south-west Northumberland, on his marriage, and acquired land in Peeblesshire and Roxburghshire. “R. Cumin” donated property to Hexham Priory, with the consent of “uxoris meµ Hextildis”, by undated charter which names “fratrem meum Walterum”[642]. William "the Lion" King of Scotland appointed him Justiciar of Scotland before 1173, and was one of the hostages for the performance of the Treaty of Falaise in Dec 1174[643].

m ([1144/50]) as her first husband, HEXTILDA of Tynedale, daughter of UHTRED Lord of Tynedale & his wife Bethoc of Scotland.

“R. Cumin” donated property to Hexham Priory, with the consent of “uxoris meµ Hextildis”, by undated charter which names “fratrem meum Walterum”[644]. Hextilda married secondly (after 1179), as his second wife, her second cousin, Malcolm Earl of Atholl. “Hextildis comitissa de Eththetela” donated property to Rievall Abbey, for the soul of “domini mei Richardi Cumin”, by undated charter[645].

Richard Comyn & his wife had three children:

1. JOHN Comyn (-before 1152, bur Kelso Abbey[646]).

2. WILLIAM Comyn (-1233[647]). He expanded the family's landed interests with acquisitions around Glasgow. He was appointed Sheriff of Forfar and in [1205] Justiciar of Scotia[648]. He succeeded as Earl of Buchan, de iure uxoris. The Liber Pluscardensis records the death in 1233 of "Willelmus Cumyn comes de Buchane" who founded "ecclesiam de Deer"[649]. m firstly SARAH FitzHugh, younger daughter and co-heiress of ROBERT FitzHugh & his wife ---. m secondly (1210 or before) MARGARET Ctss of Buchan, daughter of FERGUS Earl of Buchan & his wife --- (-[8 Apr 1242/1244]). Earl William & his first wife had [five] children:

a) RICHARD Comyn (-[1244/49]).

- see below.

b) WALTER Comyn (-Nov 1258). He was granted the lordship of Badenoch in 1229[650]. He succeeded as Earl of Menteith, de iure uxoris. m ([30 Jun 1233/9 Jan 1234]) as her first husband, ISABEL Ctss of Menteith, daughter of MAURICE Earl of Menteith & his wife --- (-[Jan 1264/1272]). The Chronicle of John of Fordun (Continuator - Annals) records that, after the death of "Walter Comyn…Earl of Menteith", his wife "married a low-born English knight…John Russel", after which she was accused of killing her first husband[651].

c) JEAN Comyn . m WILLIAM Earl of Ross, son of FERQUHARD MacTaggart Earl of Ross & his wife --- (-Earl's Allan May 1274).

d) [JOHN Comyn (-killed in battle in France 1242[652]). No information has been found on the parentage of John Comyn. It is probable that he was another son or grandson of William Comyn Earl of Buchan. He succeeded as Earl of Angus, de iure uxoris. m as her first husband, MAUD Ctss of Angus, daughter of MALCOLM Earl of Angus & his wife Mary Berkeley.]

e) DAVID Comyn . m ISABEL de Valoignes, daughter of ---. David & his wife had one child:

i) WILLIAM Comyn of Kilbride (-[1283]). m as her first husband, EUPHEMIA, daughter of ---. She married secondly ([1289]) Andrew de Moray[653]. William & his wife had two children:

(a) EDMUND Comyn (-killed in battle Bannockburn 23 Jun 1314). m MARIA, daughter of ---. Edmund & his wife had two children:

(1) EUPHEMIA Comyn . m WILLIAM La Beche .

(2) MARIA Comyn .

(b) JOHN Comyn (-before 1315).

William Comyn & his second wife had --- children:

f) ALEXANDER Comyn (-[1 Jan/5 Apr] 1290). He succeeded his mother in [1244] as Earl of Buchan.

- EARLS of BUCHAN.

g) WILLIAM Comyn .

h) FERGUS Comyn .

i) IDONEA Comyn . m GILBERT de la Hay .

j) AGNES Comyn . m PHILIP de Fedarg . He was the founder of the family of Meldrum of Meldrum[654].

k) ELIZABETH Comyn (-1267). m as his first wife, WILLIAM Earl of Mar, son of DUNCAN Earl of Mar & his wife --- (-1281 before 25 Jul).

3. IDONEA Comyn . m ADAM FitzGilbert .

Richard Comyn

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Richard Comyn (d. c 1179) was a Scottish noble, the son of William Comyn and Maud Bassett.

Richard was probably born between 1115 and 1123. In 1144 William Comyn gave him Northallerton Castle, which he had built a few years earlier. The following year, Richard was married to Hextilda, the daughter of Uchtred, Lord of Tynedale, and his wife Bethoc ingen Domnaill Bain, the daughter of King Donald III of Scotland.

In Scotland, he acquired the position of Justiciar of Lothian: he witnessed 6 charters for King Malcolm IV and 33 for King William I. He was captured with King William in 1174 and was a hostage for him in the Treaty of Falaise. He gave, with Hextida's consent, lands to the monks at Hexham, Kelso and Holyrood. He died between 1179 and 1182. Hextilda remarried to Mâael Coluim, Earl of Atholl (also called Malcolm).

[edit]Children

Richard had four sons by Hextilda:

John, dead between 1152 and 1159, and buried at Kelso Abbey.

William, jure uxoris Earl of Buchan.

Odinel (also called Odo), a priest, witness to Richard's charters to religious houses in 1162 and 1166.

Simon, mentioned in the 1166 charter to the Augustinians in Holyrood.

and three daughters:

Idonea

Ada

Christien

His daughters were witnesses to a donation made by Mâael Coluim, Earl of Atholl and their mother Hextilda to the Church of St Cuthbert in Durham.

[edit]References

Young, Alan, Robert the Bruce's Rivals: The Comyns, 1213-1314, (East Linton, 1997), pp15-19.

Family Genealogies website

CP I:504.

Surtees Society 2: 84-5.

Morton Cartulary.

Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Line 121A-25.

See "My Lines"

( http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cousin/html/p64.htm#i8193 )

from Compiler: R. B. Stewart, Evans, GA

( http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cousin/html/index.htm )

Name: Hextilda Fitzuchtred
Given Name: Hextilda

Surname: Fitzuchtred

Suffix: of Tynedale 1 2 3

Name: Hextilda Fitzuchtred Of Tynedale

Given Name: Hextilda Fitzuchtred

Surname: Of Tynedale

Sex: F

Birth: Abt 1126 in Tynedale, Moray, Scotland

Death: Aft 1189 2 3

Change Date: 3 Jul 2007 at 15:33

Note:

[alden.john.et.al.39K.by.gregory.strong.1564109.FTW]

Wallop Family Pedigree (a four volume work that was publish not long after the turn of the century. It is available on microfilm from the LDS Church.)

Father: Uchtred Fitzwaldeve

Mother: Bethoc Of Scotland b: Abt 1100 in Tynedale, Moray, Scotland

Marriage 1 Richard (Of Northallerton & Badenoch) Comyn b: in Badenoch, Invernesshire, Scotland

Married: Abt 1145 4 2 5 3

Change Date: 3 Jul 2007

Children

William Comyn b: Abt 1163 in Buchan, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Sources:

Media: Book

Abbrev: Ancestral Roots of Certain Americian Colonists, 7th Edition

Title: Ancestral Roots of Certain Americian Colonists, 7th Edition

Author: Frederick Lewis Weis, additions by Walter Lee Shippard Jr

Publication: 1999

Repository:

Name: Not Given

Page: line 121A p 108

Quality: 3

Abbrev: large-G675.FTW

Title: large-G675.FTW

Date: 1 Aug 2002

Repository:

Name: Not Given

Media: Internet Database (Rootsweb)

Abbrev: Strong Ancestors

Title: Strong Ancestors

Author: Gregory Strong

Publication: Aug 2001

actuarius@mn.mediaone.net

http://awt.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=:1564109

Date: 1 Aug 2002

Repository:

Name: Not Given

Media: Book

Abbrev: Ancestral Roots of Certain Americian Colonists, 7th Edition

Title: Ancestral Roots of Certain Americian Colonists, 7th Edition

Author: Frederick Lewis Weis, additions by Walter Lee Shippard Jr

Publication: 1999

Repository:

Name: Not Given

Page: line 121A p 108

Abbrev: large-G675.FTW

Title: large-G675.FTW

Date: 1 Aug 2002

Repository:

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Tynedale-4
Hextilda Fitzuchtred Comyn formerly Tynedale aka Countess of Atholl
Born 1122 in Tynedale, Scotlandmap Daughter of Huctred W. Tynedale and Bethoc (Dunkeld) MacDuncan Sister of John FitzUchtred and Robert Tynedale FitzUchtred Wife of Malcolm Atholl — married [date unknown] [location unknown] Wife of Richard Comyn — married [date unknown] [location unknown] Mother of Unknown (Atholl) Lundin, Henry (Atholl) of Atholl, William Comyn of Tynedal and Margaret (Comyn) Atholl Died 1182 in East Lothian, Scotlandmap Profile managers: Eugene Quigley private message [send private message], Jacques Charles Pictet private message [send private message], Adam McQuery private message [send private message], Katherine Patterson private message [send private message], and David Robinson private message [send private message] Last profile change on 10 January 2014 13:04: Eugene Quigley edited the data for Hextilda Comyn. (Merged Hextilda of Tynedale into Hextilda Tynedale) [Thank Eugene for this] This page has been accessed 448 times. Nominate for Profile of the Week by posting the link http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Tynedale-4 in our G+ Community. Vote by clicking the +1 button above. Contents [hide]

1 Birth 2 Name 3 Note 4 Sources 5 Contributors 5.1 Source 5.2 Sources 5.3 Source 5.4 Source 5.5 Sources 6 Biography 7 Sources
Birth

Birth:
Date: ABT 1122 Place: Tynedale, Scotland
Removed ABT from Birth Date and marked as uncertain.

Name

Name: Hextilda
Couldn't find any valid last name at birth. Note

Note: @N455@ @N455@ NOTE AR7 121A-25
Sources

Source: #S2295565934
Page: Ancestry Family Trees Note: Data:
Text: http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=23901104&pid=2004390753
Source S2295565934 Repository: #R2295565933 Title: Ancestry Family Trees Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. Note: This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. Repository R2295565933 Name: Ancestry.com Address: http://www.Ancestry.com Note:
Source: S572556085 Repository: #R2190409259 Title: Ancestry Family Trees Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. Note: This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. Page: Ancestry Family Trees Note: Data: Text: http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=225892&pid=5060

Repository: R2190409259 Name: Ancestry.com Address: 360 West 4800 North, Provo, UT 84604 Note:
Contributors

WikiTree profile Tynedale-6 created through the import of FISCUS Family Tree.ged on Jun 6, 2011 by Liisa Small. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Liisa and others. This person was created through the import of McQuery Family Tree.ged on 20 May 2011. The following data was included in the gedcom. You may wish to edit it for readability. This person was created through the import of Acrossthepond.ged on 21 February 2011. The following data was included in the gedcom. You may wish to edit it for readability. This person was created through the import of DR fam 9.ged on 14 September 2010. The following data was included in the gedcom. You may wish to edit it for readability.

This person was created through the import of McQuery Family Tree.ged on 20 May 2011. The following data was included in the gedcom. You may wish to edit it for readability. Source

Source: #S2295565934
Page: Ancestry Family Trees Note: Data:
Text: http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=23901104&pid=1933051150
Sources

Source S2295565934 Repository: #R2295565933 Title: Ancestry Family Trees Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. Note: This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created.
Repository R2295565933 Name: Ancestry.com Address: http://www.Ancestry.com Note:
This person was created through the import of Campbell-Charsha Family Tree.ged on 28 February 2011. The following data was included in the gedcom. You may wish to edit it for readability. Source

Source: #S-1982642492
Page: Ancestry Family Trees Note: Data:
Text: http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=3668081&pid=1637920240
This person was created through the import of Howland Mayflower-dude.ged on 12 September 2010. The following data was included in the gedcom. You may wish to edit it for readability. Source

Source: #S-2091054882
Page: Ancestry Family Trees Note: Data:
Text: http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18828741&pid=736232540
Source: #S-2091054882
Page: Ancestry Family Trees Note: Data:
Text: http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18828741&pid=736232540
Source: #S-2091054882
Page: Ancestry Family Trees Note: Data:
Text: http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18828741&pid=736232540
Source: #S-2091054882
Page: Ancestry Family Trees Note: Data:
Text: http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18828741&pid=736232540
Sources

Source S-2091054882 Repository: #R-2091054883 Title: Ancestry Family Trees Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. Note: This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created.
No REPO record found with id R-2091054883. Biography Sources

http://www.ourfamtree.org/browse.php/Hextilda-of-Tynedale/f5718

Children:

11162. William Comyn, Lord of Badenoch was born in 1163 in Buchan, Aberdeen, Scotland; died in 1233 in Buchan, Scotland.

22326.

Fergus, Earl of Buchan was born in (Buchan, Aberdeenshire, Scotland); died in 1214 in (Buchan, Aberdeenshire, Scotland).

Notes:

Fergus of Buchan was the last native Gaelic Mormaer of Buchan, and only the third to be known by name as Mormaer. Fergus appears to have had strong connections in Fife, and it is possible that his father (if he was his father) Colbâan was a Fifer. A charter issued by Fergus appears to have survived. The charter is a feudal charter granting lands to a subordinate. The charter had a few witnesses with French names, presumably a phenomenon related to his Comyn connections. Fergus had no male heirs, and married his only daughter Marjory to William Comyn, bringing Gaelic control of the Mormaership to an end. On Fergus' death, Buchan became the first native mormaerdom to pass into the hands of a foreign family

He died sometime before 1214, possibly much earlier.

Bibliography

Roberts, John L., Lost Kingdoms: Celtic Scotland in the Middle Ages, (Edinburgh, 1997), pp. 55–6
Young, Alan, "Buchan in the 13th century" in Alexander Grant & Keith J. Stringer (eds.) Medieval Scotland: Crown, Lordship and Community Essays Presented to G.W.S Barrow, (Edinburgh, 1993)

end of biography

Fergus married unnamed spouse. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

22327.
unnamed spouse
Children:

11163. Lady Margaret Colham of Buchan, Countess of Buchan was born in 1185 in Buchan, Aberdeenshire, Scotland; died in 1244 in Buchan, Aberdeen, Scotland.

24064.

Sir Nigel d'Aubigny, 3rd Baron of Thirsk was born in 0___ 1170 in Thirsk Castle, Thirsk, Yorkshire, England (son of Sir Roger d'Aubigny and Amice de Mowbray); died on 26 Nov 1129 in Normandy, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: 0___ 1080, Aubigny, Normandy, France

Notes:

Nigel de Daubeney
3rd Baron of Thirsk
1st Baron of Mowbray
Baron of Thirsk
Predecessor Robert de Stuteville, 2nd Baron of Thirsk[1]
Successor Roger de Mowbray, 4th Baron of Thirsk, 2nd Baron of Mowbray
Born 1070
Thirsk, Hambleton District, North Yorkshire, Kingdom of England
Died 21 November 1129
Thirsk, Hambleton District, North Yorkshire, Kingdom of England
Family House of Mowbray
Spouse Matilda de L'aigle
Gundred de Gournay
Issue
Roger de Mowbray, 4th Baron of Thirsk, 2nd Baron of Mowbray
Father Roger d’Aubigny
Mother Alice de Grandmesnil
Occupation Peerage of England

Nigel de Daubeney, 3rd Baron of Thirsk, 1st Baron of Mowbray (1070-1129), also known inaccurately as Nigel d'Aubigny, was a Norman Lord and English Baron who was the son of Roger d’Aubigny (1036-1104) and Alice de Grandmesnil (1055-1100). His father was a avid supporter of Henry I of England. He was born at Thirsk Castle in Thirsk, North Yorkshire, Kingdom of England. He was the founder of the noble House of Mowbray.

Life

He is described as "one of the most favoured of Henry’s 'new men'".[2] While he entered the king's service as a household knight and brother of the king's butler, William d'Aubigny, in the years following the Battle of Tinchebrai in 1106 Nigel was rewarded by Henry with marriage to an heiress who brought him lordship in Normandy and with the lands of several men, primarily that of Robert de Stuteville, 2nd Baron of Thirsk.[1] The Mowbray honour became one of the wealthiest estates in Norman England. From 1107 to about 1118, Nigel served as a royal official in Yorkshire and Northumberland. In the last decade of his life he was frequently traveling with Henry I, most likely as one of the king's trusted military and administrative advisors . He died in Normandy, possibly at the abbey of Bec.[3]

Family

He married twice. His first marriage was in 1107 to Matilda de L'aigle (1075-1129), daughter of Richer de L'aigle, Lord of L'aigle (1041-1085), who had divorced the disgraced and imprisoned Robert de Mowbray, 14th Earl of Northumbria (1059-1125). She brought to the marriage with Nigel her ex-husband's Lordship of Mowbray in western Normandy. They had no children. His second marriage was to Gundred de Gournay (1097-1155), daughter of Gerard de Gournay, Baron Of Gournay (1066-1104) in 1118 and had one son by that marriage, Roger. Cousin of Robert de Mowbray.

Nigel married Gundred de Gournay. Gundred was born in 1097; died in 1155. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24065.
Gundred de Gournay was born in 1097; died in 1155.
Children:

12032. Sir Roger de Mowbray, Knight Templar was born in 1120 in Thirsk, Yorkshire, England; died in 1188 in Palestine.

24066.

Sir Walter de Gand, Lord of Folkingham was born in ~1077 in Folkingham, Lincolnshire, England; died in 1139 in Folkingham, Lincolnshire, England; was buried in Bridlington, Yorkshire, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: 1087, Folkingham, Lincolnshire, England

Notes:

Walter "Lord of Folkingham" de Gant formerly Gant aka de Gaunt
Born 1087 in Folkingham, Bourne, Lincolnshire, England

ANCESTORS ancestors

Son of Gislebert (Gant) de Gand and Alice (Montfort) de Gant
Brother of Miss (Gant) de Grandmesnil, Emma (Gant) de Percy, Hugh (Gant) de Montfort, Henry (Gant) de Gant, Ralph (Gant) de Gant, Agnes (Gant) FitzNigel, Geoffrey (Gant) de Gant, Matilda (Gant) de Gant, Robert (Gant) de Gant and Gilbert (Gant) de Gant
Husband of Matilda (Bretagne) de Gaunt — married 1113 in Folkingham, Lincolnshire, England

DESCENDANTS descendants

Father of Maud (Gaunt) Welles, William (Lindsay) de Lindsay, Agnes (Gand) de Mohun, Alice (Gand) de Mowbray, Gilbert (Gant) Gaunt and Robert (Gaunt) de Gant
Died 1139 in Folkingham, Bourne, Lincolnshire, Englandmap
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Categories: Early Barony of Folkingham.

British Aristocracy

Walter (Gant) de Gant was a member of aristocracy in the British Isles.
Join: British Royals and Aristocrats Project
Discuss: BRITISH_ARISTO

He founded the priory at Bridlington circa 1114 and was a member of Henry I's Council in 1121/22 and Sep 1131. He was at Stephen's Easter court 1136, and fought at the battle of Standard in 1138. In addition to Gilbert, his son and successor, he had sons Robert, Baldwin, and Geoffrey. It should be noted that Ancestral Roots states that Walter married Maud/Matilda "by 1120", the latter date being given by Complete Peerage as the approximate date of birth of their heir, Gilbert. Chronologically, Agnes de Gaunt, shown as first child was likely not their daughter; Douglas Richardson believes Agnes is more likely to be either Walter's daughter by an earlier, unknown first wife, or Walter's sister, and that this issue needs further research.

Accompanied David, Earl of Huntington later (King David 1) Anglicizing the Lowlands in the early 1100's. In 1116 he witnessed an Inquisition for the See of Glasgow. THE PEERAGE.

Death and Burial

(Royal Ancestry) Richardson states that Walter de Gant died as monk at Bardney Abbey in 1139. But he was the founder of Bridlington Priory in East Riding, Yorkshire, and the Bridlington homepage has the following about his possible burial at Bridlington: There is a Founders Stone at the Priory and it was probably the cover of the tomb of Walter de Gant, who founded the priory in1113. In keeping with the custom of those days, as Founder of a church, his remains were buried before the high altar of the Priory which he founded and endowed. This probability is increased by the carved representation of a section of a church, showing three arches, thus associating it with the Founder. [1]

Sources

? http://www.bridlington.net/bridlington-priory/bridlington-priory-founders-stone/
Richardson, Royal Ancestry 2013 Vol. III p. 60-63
Sanders, English Baronies, p.46
See also: http://www.thepeerage.com/p65818.htm#i658173

http://www.thepeerage.com/p23116.htm#i231155
Geneajourney.com
Ancestry family trees
http://www.thepeerage.com/p65818.htm#i658172

end of this biography

M Walter De GAUNT (Lord Folkingham)Print Family Tree(Walter De GAUNT)

Born about 1077 - Folkingham, Lincolnshire, England
Deceased in 1139 - Folkingham, Lincolnshire, England , age at death: possibly 62 years old
Buried in 1139 - Bridlington, Yorkshire, England

Parents
Gilbert De (GAUNT) (Count GHENT) GAND, born in 1048 - Belgium, Deceased in 1094 - Bardney, Lincolnshire, England age at death: 46 years old , buried in 1095 - Bardney, West Lindsey District, Lincolnshire, England
Married in 1071, Lincolnshire, England, to
Alice De MONTFORT, born in 1050 - Montfort, Eure, Haute-Normandie, France, Deceased in 1091 - Folkingham, Lincolnshire, England age at death: 41 years old

Spouses, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren
Married to Maud Matilda De Penthievre, born in 1077 - Prenthieve, Bretagne, France, Deceased in 1132 - Somme, Picardie, France age at death: 55 years old with
F Alice De GAUNT ca 1097-ca 1176 married before 1115 to Ilbert Gilbert De (BARON) LACY 1098/-1163 with
M Hugh de (Lord Stanton) (1st EARL of ULSTER - 1) LACY 1115-1186 married in 1159 to Rose De CLARE 1115-1180 with :
F Heloise De LACY ca 1140-1210
M Walter De (Sir - Lord Meath) LACY ca 1150-1241
F ** De (Hugh ) LACY 1120- married in 1152, Ireland, to Meiler (Justicar of IRELAND) FITZROY ca 1118-1220
Alice De GAUNT ca 1097-ca 1176 married before 1146 to Roger De (SIR - Knights Templar DONATION - Warwickshire) Mowbray ca 1104-1180 with
M Nigel De MOWBRAY 1146-1191 married in 1172, Leicestershire, England, to Mabel De CLARE 1156-1203 with :
M William De (Lord Axholme Castle) MOWBRAY 1173-1223
F Agnes de (Gant) GAUNT ca 1104-/1155 married to William De (Earl of SOMERSET) MOHUN 1096-/1155 with
M William De MOHUN 1126-1176 married to Godeheut De Toeni ca 1142-/1186 with :
M William De (The Crusader) MOHUN 1156-1193
M (Ralph) ** MOHUN ca 1131-ca 1155 married to ? ? with :
M ? ?

Siblings
F Emma de (Gand) GAUNT 1071-1135 Married in 1087, Folkingham, Lincolnshire, England, to Alan de (The Great) (2nd Baron) PERCY 1067-1135
M Piers (Peter) De MONTFORT 1085- Married to ? ?

Paternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M Ralph De (GAUNT) GAND 1021-1058 married (1047)
F Gisele De Luxembourg 1009-1058
M Gilbert De (GAUNT) (Count GHENT) GAND 1048-1094
married (1071)
3 children
M Baudouin De (GAUNT) GAND 1050-1092
not married, Without posterity

Maternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M Hugh De MONTFORT 1025-1066 married
F Alice De Beauffou ca 1025-1115
F Alice De MONTFORT 1050-1091
married (1071)
3 children

Notes
Individual Note
Source: Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - Web: International, Find A Grave Index - Ancestry.com - Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. - 1,70699::0 1,70699::4118491

Death
Age: 59

Sources
Individual: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=10139
Birth, death, burial: Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - Web: International, Find A Grave Index - Ancestry.com - Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. - 1,70699::0 - 1,70699::4118491

Family Tree Preview
Ancestry Chart Descendancy Chart Printable Family Tree
_____| 8_ Adalbert De GAND 1004-1036
/
_____| 4_ Ralph De (GAUNT) GAND 1021-1058
/ \
/
|2_ Gilbert De (GAUNT) (Count GHENT) GAND 1048-1094
| \
|--1_ Walter De (Lord Folkingham) GAUNT ca 1077-1139
| _____| 24_ Thurstan Toussaint Bastembourg De MONTFORT 965-1023
| _____| 12_ Hugh (Barbatus) De MONTFORT 1002-1038
| _____| 6_ Hugh De MONTFORT 1025-1066
| / \ _____| 26_ Humphrey (d'Evielles) De (founder of the House of Beaumont) BEAUMONT 980-1044
|3_ Alice De MONTFORT 1050-1091
\

end of report

Walter married Maud "Matilda" le Bretagne in 1113 in Folkingham, Lincolnshire, England. Maud was born in 1077 in Prenthieve, Bretagne, France; died in 1132 in Somme, Picardie, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24067.

Maud "Matilda" le Bretagne was born in 1077 in Prenthieve, Bretagne, France; died in 1132 in Somme, Picardie, France.

Children:

12033. Alice de Gand was born in ~1120 in Yorkshire, England; died in <1176 in Masham, Yorkshire, England.

24068.

SIr Philip de Braose, Knight, 2nd Lord Bramber was born in 1073 in Bramber, West Sussex, England (son of Sir William de Braose, Knight, 1st Lord of Bramber and Agnes St. Clair); died in 1131-1139 in (Syria).

Notes:

Born 1065 at the latest.
Died between 1131 and 1139

Philip is recorded as consenting to his father's gifts to his canons at St Nicholas church at Bramber in 1073. He confirmed those gifts to the abbey of St Florent in 1096 after the death of his father.

Old Shoreham was part of Philip's demesne lands where St Nicolas church (right) had stood since Saxon times. Philip expanded trade in the area by founding the port of New Shoreham.

He became the first Braose Lord of Builth and Radnor, the family's initial holding in the Welsh Marches.

Orderic Vitalis (Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, Book IX, Chapter IV) relates that Philip submitted his fortress in Normandy to King William II in 1096 and supported the king against his brother Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy. But, like Robert, Philip may have left Normandy at this time and joined the First Crusade to the Holy Land, returning in 1103. There is evidence in charters that Philip journeyed to the Holy Land but the date of his visit is uncertain.

Philip's lands were confiscated by Henry I in 1110, due to his traitrous support of William, son of Robert Curthose, but they were returned in 1112.

Father: William de Braose, 1st Lord of Bramber

Mother: Eve de Boissey (probably)

There are charters where Robert de Harcourt's sons, Philip and Richard, refer to Philip de Braose as "patruus" - paternal uncle. This lends weight to the theory that Robert de Harcourt and Philip de Braose were both sons of Eve de Boissey. In another record dated 1103 (Pipe Roll Soc. Vol 71 no 544) it is stated that Philip de Braose was represented by "his brother Robert, the son of Anketill".

Philip's sealPhilip was married to Aanor, daughter of Judael (Johel) of Totnes.

Child 1: William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber

Child 2: Philip

Child 3: Basilia

Child 4: Gillian

Child 5: A daughter who married William de Tregoz, the father of Philip de Tregoz who was sheriff of Sussex in 1190. (see evidence here and here )

end of this biography

Philip de Braose, 2nd Lord of Bramber (c. 1070 – c. 1134) was an Anglo-Norman nobleman and Marcher Lord.

Lord of Bramber
Born c. 1070
Died c. 1134
possibly on crusade in the Levant
Noble family House of Braose
Spouse(s) Aenor de Totnes, daughter of Juhel of Totnes[1]
Issue
William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber, Philip de Braose junior, Basilia (daughter), Gilian (daughter)
Father William de Braose, 1st Lord of Bramber

Origins
Philip was born about 1070 to 1073, the son of William de Braose, 1st Lord of Bramber (d. circa 1093/96) by his wife Eve de Boissey or Agnes de St. Clare. William de Braose had participated in the Norman conquest of England. He had been rewarded with the feudal barony of Bramber in Sussex and smaller holdings in Dorset, Wiltshire, Berkshire and Surrey.[2]

Career

Philip as heir consolidated his paternal lands, and expanded them. In 1096 he confirmed his father's gifts to the Abbey of St. Florent. Philip de Braose conquered the Welsh borderlands at Builth and New Radnor and established new Norman lordships over them. At Builth, he constructed a Motte and Bailey fortification at the site where King Edward I later built Builth Castle in the 13th century.[3] He seems to have gone on the First Crusade in 1103. He supported King Henry I (1100–1135) against the claim to the English throne made by his elder brother Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, but then in 1110 he revolted against Henry, who then confiscated his estates. He regained his lordships and lands in 1112 and was thereafter able to retain them, but in 1130 settled them intact onto his eldest son William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber.

Marriage & progeny

He married Aenor de Totnes, sister and co-heiress of Alfred de Totnes (d.pre-1139), son of Juhel de Totnes (d.1123/30) feudal baron of Totnes (which he forfeited c.1087[4]) and of Barnstaple both in Devon.[5] In right of his wife Aenor, Philip acquired a moiety of the feudal barony of Barnstaple, the other moiety of which was held by Henry de Tracy (d.pre-1165), Aenor's brother-in-law.[6] He had the following progeny:

William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber, his eldest son and heir.
Philip de Braose junior
Basilia, a daughter.
Gillian, a daughter.
Before 1206 William III de Braose (d.1211) successfully claimed half of the barony of Totnes from Henry de Nonant, to which family it had been granted after its forfeiture by Juhel de Totnes.[7] However in 1208 William III's lands were confiscated by King John.[8]

Death

He died between 1131 and 1139, possibly in 1134 on crusade in the Levant.

References

Cokayne, G.E., ed V. Gibbs (1910). The Complete Peerage, Vol. 1. London: The St. Catherine Press Ltd. pp. 21/22.
Domesday Book
Taylor, Arnold. The Welsh Castles of Edward I. The Hambledon Press, 1986, p. 3
Sanders, Ivor, English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, p.89, Totnes
Sanders, Ivor, English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, p.104, Barnstaple
Sanders, Ivor, English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, p.104, Barnstaple
Sanders, p.90, Totnes
Sanders, p.105, Barnstaple

Died:
on a crusade...

Philip married Aanor de Totnes in 1104 in Barnstaple, Devonshire, England. Aanor was born in 1084 in Barnstaple, Devonshire, England; died in 1153 in Barnstaple, Devonshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24069.

Aanor de Totnes was born in 1084 in Barnstaple, Devonshire, England; died in 1153 in Barnstaple, Devonshire, England.

Children:

Maud Braose was born in ~1111 in Bramber, West Sussex, England; died before 20 Mar 1201.
12034. Sir William de Braose, Knight, 3rd Lord of Bramber was born in 1135 in (Bramber, Sussex, England); died on 21 Oct 1190 in London, England.

24070.

Sir Miles of Gloucester, Knight, 1st Earl of Hereford was born in 1092-1100 in Gloucestershire, England; died on 24 Dec 1143.

Other Events and Attributes:

Occupation: Constable of England
Occupation: High Sheriff of Gloucester

Notes:

Miles FitzWalter of Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford, Lord of Brecknock (died 24 December 1143) was High Sheriff of Gloucester and Constable of England.[a]

Biography

Miles was the son and heir of Walter of Gloucester, hereditary castellan of Gloucester and sheriff of Gloucester, by Berta, his wife.[1] Miles' grandfather, Roger de Pitres, had been sheriff from about 1071, then was succeeded by his brother Durand, the Domesday sheriff, before 1083.[2] Durand was succeeded by his nephew Walter of Gloucester, c.?1096, who was sheriff in 1097 and in 1105–1106.[2] Walter was in favour with Henry I, three of whose charters to him are extant.[3] Walter held the post of a Constable of England. Early in 1121 his son Miles was given the hand of Sibyl, daughter of Bernard de Neufmarchâe, the conqueror of Brecknock, with the reversion of her father's possessions.[3] In the Pipe Roll of 1130 Walter is found to have been succeeded by his son,[4] having died in or around 1126.[5]

Miles was (from 1128 at least) sheriff of Gloucestershire, a justice itinerant, and a justice of the forest,[6] and by 1130 was sheriff of Staffordshire.[5] He had also (though the fact has been doubted) been granted his father's office of constable by a special charter.[7] In conjunction with Pain Fitzjohn, sheriff of Herefordshire and Shropshire, he ruled the whole Welsh border "from the Severn to the sea".[8]

On his accession, King Stephen set himself to secure the allegiance of these two lords-marchers, who at length, on receiving a safe-conduct and obtaining all they asked for, did him homage.[8] It was at Reading that they met the king early in 1136.[b] Miles is next found attending the Easter court at Westminster as one of the royal constables,[9] and, shortly after, the Oxford council in the same capacity.[10] He was then despatched to the aid of the widow of Richard fitz Gilbert de Clare, who was beleaguered in her castle by the Welsh and whom he gallantly rescued.[11]

Meanwhile, Miles had married his son and heir, Roger, to Cecily, daughter of Pain Fitzjohn, who inherited the bulk of her father's possessions.[12] In the same year 1136 Miles transferred the original house of Augustinian canons at Llanthony Priory, Monmouthshire to a site on the south side of Gloucester, which they named Llanthony Secunda.[13][14]

Two years later (1138) Miles received, in his official capacity, King Stephen at Gloucester in May.[15] He has been said to have renounced his allegiance a few weeks later,[16] but careful investigation will show that he was with Stephen in August (1138) at the siege of Shrewsbury, and that his defection did not take place till 1139.[17]

In February 1139 Stephen gave Gloucester Abbey to Miles's kinsman Gilbert Foliot at his request.[18] In the summer of 1139, however, he joined his lord, Robert, Earl of Gloucester, in inviting Empress Matilda to England.[19] On her arrival Miles met her at Bristol, welcomed her to Gloucester, recognised her as his rightful sovereign, and became thenceforth her ardent supporter. She at once gave him St. Briavels Castle and the Forest of Dean.[17]

Miles's first achievement on behalf of Matilda was to relieve Brian Fitz Count who was blockaded in Wallingford Castle.[20] In November (1139) he again advanced from Gloucester and attacked and burnt Worcester.[21] He also captured the castles of Winchcombe, Cerne, and Hereford.[22] Meanwhile, he was deprived by Stephen of his office of constable.[23] He took part in the victory at Lincoln (2 February 1141),[24] and on the consequent triumph of the empress he accompanied her in her progress, and was one of her three chief followers on her entry (2 March) into Winchester.[25] He was with her at Reading when she advanced on London,[26] and on reaching St. Albans Matilda bestowed on him a house at Westminster.[27] He was among those who fled with her from London shortly after, and it was on his advice, when they reached Gloucester, that she ventured back to Oxford.[28] There, on 25 July 1141, she bestowed on him the town and castle of Hereford and made him earl of that shire,[29] as well as the forests of the Hay of Hereford and Trinela[30] in avowed consideration of his faithful service. With singular unanimity hostile chroniclers testify to his devotion to her cause.[22] He even boasted that she had lived at his expense throughout her stay in England.[31]

As "Earl Miles" he now accompanied her to Winchester,[32] and on the rout of her forces on 14 September 1141 he escaped, with the greatest difficulty, to Gloucester, where he arrived "exhausted, alone, and with scarcely a rag to his back".[33] Towards the end of the year he was in Bristol making a grant to Llanthony Priory in the presence of the Empress Matilda and the Robert, Earl of Gloucester.[34] In 1142 he is proved by charters to have been with the Empress at Oxford and to have received her permission to hold Abergavenny Castle of Brian Fitz Count.[35] It is probably to the summer of this year that he made a formal deed of alliance with the Earl of Gloucester, and as a hostage for the performance of which he gave the Earl his son Mahel.[17]

In 1143 his pressing want of money wherewith to pay his troops led him to demand large sums from the church lands. Robert de Bethune, Bishop of Hereford, withstood his demands, and, on the Earl invading his lands, excommunicated him and his followers, and laid the diocese under interdict.[36] The Earl's kinsman, Gilbert Foliot (Abbot of Gloucester),[37] appealed to the legate on his behalf against the bishop's severity.[38] On Christmas-eve of this year (1143) the Earl was slain while hunting by an arrow shot at a deer.[39] A dispute at once arose for possession of his body between the canons of Llanthony and the monks of Gloucester. The case was heard before the bishops of Worcester, Hereford, and St. David's, and was terminated by a compromise on 28 December. The Earl was then buried in the chapter-house at Llanthony.[40]

With his death in 1143, Miles was succeeded by his son and heir, Roger.[17] Roger died without an heir twelve years later in 1155 so the Earldom of Hereford became extinct, but the shrievalty of Hereford and Gloucester passed to his brother Walter. On the death of the latter and two other brothers without issue the family possessions passed to their sisters, Bertha through her marriage bringing Abergavenny to Braose, but Margaret, the eldest sister, taking the bulk (Liber Niger) to the Bohuns afterwards (1199), in recognition of their descent from Miles, earls of Hereford, and constables of England.[41]

Assessment

John of Salisbury classes him with Geoffrey de Mandeville and others who were non tam comites regni quam hostes publici. The charge is justified by his public policy; but the materials for appraising his personal character do not exist.[42]

Family

In 1121, Miles married Sibyl de Neufmarchâe, daughter of Bernard de Neufmarchâe, Lord of Brecon and Nest, granddaughter of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn.[43] Miles and Sybil's children where:

Margaret of Hereford,[5][44] married Humphrey II de Bohun, by whom she had issue.
Bertha of Hereford,[45] married William de Braose before 1150, by whom she had issue.
Roger Fitzmiles, 2nd Earl of Hereford.[46] Hereditary Sheriff of Gloucestershire until 1155.
Walter de Hereford[46] died after 1159 in the Holy Land. He was hereditary Sheriff of Gloucestershire in 1155–1157 and High Sheriff of Herefordshire in 1155–1159.
Henry Fitzmiles Henry of Hereford,[44] died 12 April 1165. He succeeded to the title of Baron Abergavenny in 1141/42.
William de Hereford.[44] He died before 1160 without issue.
Mahel de Hereford,[44] died October 1165 at Bronllys Castle, Breconshire, Wales, mortally hurt when a stone dropped from the tower during a fire; died without issue. Buried at Llanthony Priory.
Lucy of Gloucester,[47] married Herbert FitzHerbert of Winchester, Lord Chamberlain, by whom she had issue. Buried at Llanthony Priory.

Notes

Jump up ^ In some sources Miles's name is not translated from the Latin Milo
Jump up ^ "[This is known] from two charters there tested, one of which was printed by Madox (History of the Exchequer, p. 135), by which Stephen confirms to Miles, 'sicut baroni et justiciario meo', the shrievalty of Gloucestershire, the constableship of Gloucester Castle, and the 'honour' of Brecknock" (Round 1890, p. 438).
Jump up ^ Cokayne 1926, pp. 451–452.
^ Jump up to: a b Morris 1918, p. 154, n. 62.
^ Jump up to: a b Round 1890, p. 438 cites Duchy of Lancaster: Royal Charters.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 438 cites Rot. Pip.. 31 Hen. I.
^ Jump up to: a b c Walker 2012, "Gloucester, Miles of".
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 438.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 438 cites Dugdale MSS.
^ Jump up to: a b Round 1890, p. 438 cites Gesta Stephani, p. 17.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 438 cites Rymer, Fœdera, new ed. i. 16.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 438 cites Rich. Hexham, p. 149.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 13.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Duchy Charters.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Mon. Angl. vi. (1), 127, 132.
Jump up ^ Ward1995, p. 107.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. ii. 105.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439; Norgate 1887, p. 295.
^ Jump up to: a b c d Round 1890, p. 439.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439; Norgate 1887, pp. 493, 494.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439; Norgate 1887, pp. 294, 295.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 59.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 119.
^ Jump up to: a b Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 60.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 121.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 69.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 130; Will. Malm. p. 743.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Add. Cart. pp. 19, 576.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Duchy Charters, No. 16.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 132.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Fœdera, i. 14.
Jump up ^ Francis Beaufort Palmer (February 2007), Peerage Law in England, Lawbook Exchange, ISBN 9781584777489, 1584777486 See Appendix, p242; also Theophilus Jones (1805), A history of the county of Brecknock (A history of the county of Brecknock. ed.), Brecknock: Printed and sold by Wm. & Geo. North ... for the author; and sold by J. Booth ... London. p67
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 133.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 79
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 135.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Mon. Angl. vi. 137.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Duchy Charters, No. 17.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 102; Mon. Angl. vi. (1), 133.
Jump up ^ Knowles, Brooke & London 1972, p. 52–53.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Foliot, Letters, No. 3.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Symeon of Durham ii. 315; Gervase, i. 126; Gesta, pp. 16, 95, 103.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gloucester Cartulary, i. lxxv; Foliot, Letters, No. 65.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 440.
Jump up ^ Chisholm 1911, pp. 479.
Jump up ^ Roderick 1968, p. 5.
^ Jump up to: a b c d Lundy 2011, p. 10257 cite Cokayne 2000, p. 21
Jump up ^ Lundy 2011, p. 10257 cite Cokayne 2000a, p. 457
^ Jump up to: a b Lundy 2011, p. 10257 cite Cokayne 2000, p. 20
Jump up ^ Cawley 2012 cites Dugdale 1823, p. 615

References

Cawley, Charles (10 April 2012), English Earls 1067–1122: Miles of Gloucester (–1143), Medieval Lands database, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy
Dugdale, William, Sir (1823), ""Priory of Bergavenny or Abergavenny in Monmouthshire, Cartµ I"", Monasticon Anglicanum, 4 (Revised ed.), London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Browne, p. 615
Cokayne, George Edward (1926), Doubleday, H. A.; Walden, Howard de, eds., The Complete Peerage; or, a History of the House of Lords and all its members from the earliest times, 6, London: The St. Catherine Press
Knowles, David; Brooke, Christopher; London, Veria (1972), The Heads of Religious Houses: England and Wales 940–1216, Cambridge University Press, pp. 52–53, ISBN 0-521-08367-2
Lundy, Darryl (17 May 2011). "Miles of Gloucester". p. 10257 § 102564. Retrieved November 2012. Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
Cokayne, George E (2000), The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, 1 (new, reprint in 6 volumes ed.), Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, pp. 20, 21
Cokayne, George E (2000a), The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, 4 (new, reprint in 6 volumes ed.), Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, p. 457
Morris, W.A (April 1918), "The Office of Sheriff in the Early Norman Period", The English Historical Review, 33 (130): 145–175, doi:10.1093/ehr/xxxiii.cxxx.145
Norgate, Kate (1887), England under the Angevin Kings, 1, London: Macmillan
Roderick, A. J. (June 1968), "Marriage and Politics in Wales, 1066–1282", The Welsh History Review, 4 (1): 1–20
Ward, Jennifer C (1995), Women of the English nobility and gentry, 1066–1500, Manchester medieval sources series, Manchester: Manchester University Press, p. 107, ISBN 0-7190-4115-5, retrieved 25 October 2010
Walker, David (May 2012) [2004]. "Gloucester, Miles of, earl of Hereford (d. 1143)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/10820. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
B Thorpe, 1848–1849) (ed.), Continuation of Florence of Worcester
The Cartulary of Gloucester Abbey (Rolls series);
Round, John Horace (1892), Geoffrey de Mandeville
Domesday Book, (Record Commission);
Rymer, Thomas, Fœdera, (Record Commission), i (new ed.);
Pipe Roll, 31 Hen. I (Record Commission);
Cartulary of St. Peter's, Gloucester, (Rolls Ser.);
Symeon of Durham, Regum Historia, (Rolls Ser.);
"Gesta Stephani", Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, &c, (Rolls Ser.), ii;
Gervase of Canterbury, Chronica, (Rolls Ser.);
Florence of Worcester (1848–49), Thorpe, Benjamin, ed., Florentii Wigorniensis monachi Chronicon ex chronicis (2 volumes ed.), English Historical Society
William of Malmesbury, Chronicle of the Kings of England: From the Earliest Period to the Reign of King Stephen, English Historical Society;
Dugdale, Sir William, Westrum Monasticum, Bodleian Library;
Additional Charters, (British Museum);
Duchy of Lancaster Charters, Public Record Office;
Dugdale, William, Sir (1823), Monasticon Anglicanum
Madox, Thomas, History of the Exchequer;
Hearne, Thomas, ed. (1728), Liber Niger Scaccarii;
Foliot, Gilbert, "Letters", in Giles, John Allen, Patres Ecclesiµ Anglicanµ;
Crawley-Boevey, Arthur William, Cartulary of Flaxley Abbey;
Ellis, A. S. (1879–1880). "On the Landholders of Gloucestershire named in Domesday Book". Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society. 4 vol.: 86–198.
Walker, David (1958). "Miles of Gloucester, Earl of Hereford". Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society. 77: 66–84.

Miles married Lady Sibyl de Neufmarche, Countess of Hereford in 1121 in Gloucestershire, England. Sibyl (daughter of Bernard de Neufmarche, Lord of Brecknockshire and Nest Verch Osborn le Scrope) was born in ~1100 in Brecon Castle, Brecon, Wales; died on 24 Dec 1143 in Llanthony Secunda, Gloucestershire, England; was buried in Llanthony Secunda Priory, Gloucestershire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24071.

Lady Sibyl de Neufmarche, Countess of Hereford was born in ~1100 in Brecon Castle, Brecon, Wales (daughter of Bernard de Neufmarche, Lord of Brecknockshire and Nest Verch Osborn le Scrope); died on 24 Dec 1143 in Llanthony Secunda, Gloucestershire, England; was buried in Llanthony Secunda Priory, Gloucestershire, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Burial: Hempsted, Gloucestershire, England
Alt Birth: 1092, Aberhonddu, Breconshire, Wales

Notes:

Sibyl de Neufmarchâe, Countess of Hereford, suo jure Lady of Brecknock (c. 1100 – after 1143), was a Cambro-Norman noblewoman, heiress to one of the most substantial fiefs in the Welsh Marches. The great-granddaughter of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, king of Wales, Sibyl was also connected to the nobility of England and Normandy. Sibyl inherited the titles and lands of her father, Bernard de Neufmarchâe, Lord of Brecon, after her mother, Nest ferch Osbern, had declared her brother Mahel to have been illegitimate. Most of these estates passed to Sibyl's husband, Miles de Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford, as her dowry. Their marriage had been arranged personally by King Henry I of England in the spring of 1121. Sibyl, with her extensive lands, was central to the King's plans of consolidating Anglo-Norman power in south-east Wales by the merging of her estates with those of Miles, his loyal subject on whom he relied to implement Crown policy.

As an adult, Sibyl lived through King Stephen's turbulent reign, known to history as the Anarchy, in which her husband played a pivotal role. Following Miles' accidental death in 1143, Sibyl entered a religious life at Llanthony Secunda Priory, Gloucestershire, England, which she had endowed up to six years previously. Sibyl is buried at the priory, founded by Miles in 1136.

Family

Ancestry

A small, ruined castle of rough stone comprising two connected, castellated towers, partly covered in ivy, surrounded by much vegetation. Numerous arrowslits indicate the walls to be three to four storeys tall. The upward direction of the image suggests that the castle is at the top of a hill
Ruins of Brecon castle
Sibyl's birthplace and a part of her vast inheritance
Sibyl was born in about 1100 in Brecon Castle, Brecon, Wales, the only daughter of Marcher Lord Bernard de Neufmarchâe, Lord of Brecon, and Nest ferch Osbern.[1][2] Nest was the daughter of Osbern FitzRichard and Nest ferch Gruffydd.[2] Sybil's maternal great-grandparents were Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, king of Wales, and Ealdgyth (Edith of Mercia).[2][3] Ealdgyth, the daughter of ¥lfgar, Earl of Mercia, was briefly Queen consort of England by her second marriage to Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, who was killed at the Battle of Hastings.[4]

Sibyl's father, Bernard, was born at the castle of Le Neuf-Marchâe-en-Lions, on the frontier between Normandy and Beauvais.[5] Bernard was a knight who had fought under English kings William I, William Rufus and Henry I.[6] According to historian Lynn H Nelson, Bernard de Neufmarchâe was "the first of the original conquerors of Wales".[7] He led the Norman army at the Battle of Brecon in 1093, during which Rhys ap Tewdwr was killed.[6][8] Kingship in Wales ended with Rhys' death, and allowed Bernard to confirm his hold on Brycheiniog, becoming the first ruler of the lordship of Brecon.[8] The title and lands would remain in his family's possession until 1521.[9] The name Neufmarchâe, Novo Mercato in Latin, is anglicised into 'Newmarket' or 'Newmarch'.[10][a][11]

Inheritance

Sibyl had two brothers, Philip, who most likely died young, and Mahel. Nest had Mahel disinherited by swearing to King Henry I of England that Mahel had been fathered by another man. According to Giraldus Cambrensis, this was done out of vengeance when Mahel had multilated Nest's lover, a knight whose identity is not disclosed.[10] In the 19th century, Bernard Bolingbroke Woodward proposed that, after Bernard's death, Nest "disgraced herself with an intrigue" with one of his soldiers. Mahel, who had by this time inherited Bernard's estates, disapproved of the liaison to such an extent that he killed Nest's lover. Nest's revenge was to have Mahel disinherited by claiming that Bernard was not Mahel's father.[12] The maritagium (marriage charter) arranged by King Henry I in 1121 for the marriage between Sibyl and her future husband Miles, however, makes it clear that Bernard was still alive when it was written; showing Bernard Bolingbroke Woodward's version of the story to diverge from the known facts.[13] Author Jennifer C. Ward suggests that, although the marriage charter recorded that King Henry was acting at the request of Bernard, Nest, and the barons, it was probable he had put considerable pressure on the Neufmarchâes to disinherit Mahel in favour of Sibyl and, thereby, Miles.[14] Nevertheless, whatever the timing or reason, the outcome of Nest's declaration was that Sibyl (whom Nest acknowledged as Bernard's child) became the sole lawful heiress to the vast Lordship of Brecon, one of the most important and substantial fiefs in the Welsh Marches.[15] Henry's maritagium referred specifically to Sibyl's parents' lands as "comprising Talgarth, the forest of Ystradwy, the castle of Hay, the whole land of Brecknock, up to the boundaries of the land of Richard Fitz Pons,[b] namely up to Brecon and Much Cowarne, a vill in England";[16] the fees and services of several named individuals were also granted as part of the dowry.[16] This made her suo jure Lady of Brecknock on her father's death, and one of the wealthiest heiresses in south Wales.[17][18]

Marriage

Medieval illumination

King Henry I of England who granted Sibyl in marriage to Miles de Gloucester Sometime in April or May 1121, Sibyl married Miles (or Milo) FitzWalter de Gloucester,[19] who on his father's death in 1129, became sheriff of Gloucester,[20] and Constable of England.[21][22] The marriage was personally arranged by King Henry I, to whom Miles was a trusted royal official.[13][23] A charter written in Latin (the maritagium), which dates to 10 April/29 May 1121, records the arrangements for the marriage of Sibyl and Miles.[13][24] Historian C. Warren Hollister found the charter's wording telling, noting that "the king gave the daughter as if he were making a grant of land": "Know that I [King Henry I] have given and firmly granted to Miles of Gloucester Sibyl, daughter of Bernard de Neufmarchâe, together with all the lands of Bernard her father and of her mother after their deaths … ".[13][25] Her parents' lands would be conveyed to Miles after their deaths or earlier during "their life if they so wish".[13] Henry also commanded that the fief's tenants were to pay Miles liege homage as their lord.[13]

By arranging a series of matrimonial alliances, similar to that between Sibyl and Miles, King Henry I of England transformed "the map of territorial power in south-east Wales". Such arrangements were mutually advantageous. Hollister describes Miles' marriage to Sibyl as having been a "crucial breakthrough in his career". The new lords, in similar positions to Miles, were the King's own loyal vassals, on whom he could rely to implement royal policy.[25][26] Sibyl's father died sometime before 1128 (most probably in 1125), and Miles came into possession of her entire inheritance, which when merged with his own estates, formed one honour.[6][27]

Children

Together Sibyl and Miles had eight children:[original research?][28][not in citation given]

Margaret of Hereford (1122/1123- 6 April 1197), married Humphrey II de Bohun, by whom she had children. She received the office of constable of England and exercised lordship of Herefordshire as a widow until her death.[29]

Roger Fitzmiles, 2nd Earl of Hereford (before 1125- 22 September 1155). Roger's marriage settlement with Cecily FitzJohn (her first marriage), daughter of Payn FitzJohn and Sibyl de Lacy, was ratified by King Stephen in 1137.[18] The marriage was childless as were Cecily's subsequent marriages.

Walter de Hereford (died 1159/60), whether he married is unknown; however, Walter departed for Palestine on Michaelmas 1159, and died shortly afterwards without leaving legitimate issue[30][31]

Henry Fitzmiles (died c.1162), married a woman named Isabella, surname unknown; Henry died without legitimate issue.

Mahel de Hereford (died 1164), no record of marriage; died without legitimate issue.

William de Hereford (died 1166), no record of marriage; died without legitimate issue.

Bertha of Hereford (c.1130-), married William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber, by whom she had issue.

Lucy of Hereford, Lady of Blaen Llyfni and Bwlch y Dinas (died 1219/20), married Herbert FitzHerbert of Winchester, by whom she had issue.

The Anarchy

Medieval illumination
Stephen of Blois
whose chaotic reign in England became known as the Anarchy
After Henry I's death in 1135, the throne of England was seized by Stephen of Blois, a grandson of William I of England. Henry's daughter, Empress Matilda (Maud), also claimed the throne, and had the support of the Marcher Lords. On the death of her husband, the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry V, in 1125, Matilda had returned to England for the first time in 16 years. At the insistence of her father, the barons (including Stephen) swore to uphold Matilda's rights as his heir. Matilda married Geoffrey of Anjou in 1128. They lived together in France, having three sons; the eldest of whom was to become King Henry II of England.[32] Initially, Miles supported Stephen.[33] In about 1136, Stephen granted Sibyl's husband the entire honour of Gloucester and Brecknock, and appointed him Constable of Gloucester Castle,[34] whereby Miles became known as one of Stephen's "henchmen".[33]

Llanthony Priory had been established near Crucorney, in the Vale of Ewyas, in 1118; Wales' earliest Augustine monastery. Miles' father, Walter de Gloucester, had retired there by 1126.[23] The unrest that had been simmering in Wales during the last years of Henry's reign, boiled over in 1135 on his death. The area around the priory returned to Welsh rule, coming under such “hostile mollestation” from the Welsh that the non-Welsh canons decided to leave.[18][35][36][37] Miles established a new Priory for them in Gloucester, England, which they called Llanthony Secunda, in 1136.[38] Sometime after 1137, Sibyl, together with her husband, made a further endowment to Llanthony Secunda.[34]

Medieval illumination
Empress Matilda
whom Sibyl supported
in opposition to King Stephen
Miles transferred his allegiance to Empress Matilda, on her return to England in 1139.Matthew 2002, pp. 95, 96 According to Professor Edmund King, Miles' decision to support Matilda was guided by expediancy rather than principle, and the necessity of joining forces with Matilda's illegitimate half-brother, the powerful Robert, Earl of Gloucester, who was the overlord of some of Miles' fiefs.[17] Stephen stripped Miles of the title 'Constable of England' in punishment for having deserted him. On 25 July 1141, in gratitude for his support and military assistance and, according to historian R.H.C. Davis, possibly to compensate Miles for having appeared to have lost the constableship, Matilda invested him as 1st Earl of Hereford.[39] He also received St. Briavels Castle and the Forest of Dean. At the time Matilda was the de facto ruler of England, Stephen having been imprisoned at Bristol following his capture the previous February after the Battle of Lincoln. Sibyl was styled Countess of Hereford, until Miles' unexpected death over two years later. In 1141, Miles received the honour of Abergavenny from Brien FitzCount, the (likely illegitimate) son of Duke Alan IV of Brittany. This was in appreciation of the skilled military tactics Miles had deployed which had spared Brien's castle of Wallingford during King Stephen's besiegement in 1139/1140. Matilda gave her permission for the transfer.[40]

During the Anarchy, which the period of Stephen's reign as King of England was to become known, life was greatly disrupted in her husband's lands. Sibyl would have doubtless suffered as a result, especially after Miles' decision to support Matilda's claim to the throne and to oppose Stephen.[33] When Matilda was defeated at Winchester in late 1141, Miles was compelled to return to Gloucester in disgrace: "weary, half-naked and alone".[41] In November of that same year, Stephen was released from prison and restored to the English throne.[18]

Sibyl's distress would have been heightened in 1143 after the Bishop of Hereford, Robert de Bethune placed an interdict upon Hereford, blocked all the cathedral's entrances with thorns, and excommunicated Miles. In order to raise money to pay his troops and to assist Matilda financially, Miles had imposed a levy on all the churches in his earldom, an act which the bishop had regarded as unlawful.[23][42] When the bishop protested and threatened Miles with excommunication, Miles in response, sent his men to plunder the diocese of its resources.[23] In retaliation against Miles' earlier attacks on the royalist city of Worcester and the castles of Hereford and Wallingford, King Stephen bestowed the title "Earl of Hereford" on Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester; Miles, however, never surrendered the earldom nor the title to Robert de Beaumont.[42]

Widowhood and death

While on a deer-hunting expedition in his own Forest of Dean, Sibyl's husband was accidentally shot in the chest by an arrow which killed him on 24 December 1143.[41][43] He had been involved in legal proceedings against the bishop's jurisdiction when he died.[42] Their eldest son, Roger succeeded him in the earldom.[22] In protest against his father's excommunication, Roger remained an outspoken enemy of the Church until close to the end of his life when he entered a Gloucester monastery as a monk.[43][44] After her husband's death, Sibyl entered a religious life at Llanthony Secunda Priory, Gloucester,[38] which she had previously endowed.[34] Sibyl was buried in the same priory,[45] the dates of death and burial unrecorded.[citation needed]

Sibyl's legacy

Upon the childless death of Roger in 1155, the Earldom of Hereford fell into abeyance until 1199 when King John bestowed the title on Henry de Bohun, Sibyl's grandson through her eldest daughter, Margaret. As her sons all died without legitimate offspring, Sibyl's three daughters became co-heirs to the Brecon honour, with Bertha, the second daughter, passing Sibyl's inheritance on (through marriage) to the de Braoses, thereby making them one of the most powerful families in the Welsh Marches.[46][47]

The Brecknock lordship would eventually go to the de Bohuns, by way of Eleanor de Braose. Eleanor, a descendant of Sibyl's through Bertha of Hereford,[c] married Humphrey de Bohun, son of the 2nd Earl of Hereford. Eleanor and Humphrey's son, Humphrey de Bohun, succeeded his grandfather to the titles in 1275.[48]

Through the advantageous marriages of her daughters, Sibyl was an ancestress of many of England and Ireland's noblest families including among others, the de Bohun's, de Beauchamps, Mortimers, Fitzalans, de Burghs, de Lacy's, and Bonvilles. Four of her descendants, Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford, Elizabeth de Burgh, 4th Countess of Ulster, Eleanor de Bohun, and Mary de Bohun married into the English royal family, while another, Anne Mortimer was the grandmother of Yorkist kings Edward IV and Richard III. By way of Edward's daughter, Elizabeth of York, every monarch of England and, subsequently, the United Kingdom, from Henry VIII up to and including Elizabeth II, descended from Sibyl de Neufmarchâe, as did the various royal sovereigns of Europe who shared a common descent from Mary, Queen of Scots.[49]

Notes

Jump up ^ According to Gerald of Wales, when Bernard witnessed a charter issued by William I in 1086-87, he signed his name in Latin as Bernardus de Novo Mercato (Gerald of Wales, p.88)
Jump up ^ Richard Fitz Pons was Miles' brother-in-law, being the husband of his sister, Matilda (Cawley 2012a, "English Earls 1067-1122: Matilda"; Cawley 2012b, "Richard FitzPons" cites Round 1888, Part I, 12, p. 20).
Jump up ^ Cawley 2012d gives the lineage as:
Bertha daughter of Sibylle de Neufmarchâe married William [II] de Briouse (died after 1175))
William [III] de Briouse (died 1211)
Reynold de Briouse (died 1227)
William de Briouse (hanged 1230)
Eleanor de Briouse

end of biography

Children:

12035. Lady Bertha of Hereford was born in 1107 in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England; died in ~ 1180 in Bramber, Sussex, England.
Margaret of Hereford was born in 1122-1123 in England; died on 6 Apr 1197; was buried in Llanthony Secunda, Gloucestershire, England.
Lucy FitzMiles was born in ~1136 in Brecknockshire, Wales; died in ~1220.

24072.

Sir William d'Aubigny, Knight, 1st Earl of Arundel was born in ~ 1109 in (England) (son of Sir William "Pincerna" d'Aubigny, Lord of Buckingham and Maud Bigod); died on 12 Oct 1176; was buried in Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Occupation: Master butler of the Royal household for King Stephen

Notes:

William d'Aubigny, 1st Earl of Lincoln and 1st Earl of Arundel (c. 1109[citation needed] – 12 October 1176[1]), also known as William d'Albini, William de Albini and William de Albini II,[2] was an English nobleman. He was the son of William d'Aubigny "Pincerna"[a] of Old Buckenham Castle in Norfolk, and Maud Bigod, daughter of Roger Bigod of Norfolk.

Died 12 Oct 1176
Buried Wymondham Abbey
Spouse(s) Queen Adeliza

Issue

William d'Aubigny, 2nd Earl of Arundel
Reynor d'Aubigny
Henry d'Aubigny
Geoffrey d'Aubigny
Alice d'Aubigny
Olivia d'Aubigny
Agatha d'Aubigny
Father William d'Aubigny
Mother Maud Bigod
Occupation Master butler of the Royal household

Life and career

William fought loyally for King Stephen of England, who made him first Earl of Lincoln and then Earl of Arundel (more precisely, Earl of Sussex). In 1153 he helped arrange the truce between Stephen and Henry Plantagenet, known as the Treaty of Wallingford, which brought an end to The Anarchy. When the latter ascended the throne as Henry II, he confirmed William's earldom and gave him direct possession of Arundel Castle (instead of the possession in right of his wife (d.1151) he had previously had). He remained loyal to the king during the 1173 revolt of Henry the Young King, and helped defeat the rebellion.

In 1143, as Earl of Lincoln, he made two charters confirming a donation of land around Arundel in Sussex to the abbey of Affligem in Brabant (representing his wife Adeliza of Louvain), with William's brother, Olivier, present.

He was the builder of Castle Rising Castle at Castle Rising, Norfolk.

William is the first proven English supporter of the crusader Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem and before 1146 had granted them land at Wymondham and built a Leper Hospital near his castle in Norfolk.[3] His wife, Adeliza, was also a major benefactor to leper hospitals at Wilton, Wiltshire and Arundel[3] and his cousin, Roger de Mowbray and his family, were to become the most significant patrons of the Order's headquarters based at Burton Lazars Hospital.[4][5]

Marriage and issue

The younger William was an important member of Henry I of England's household. After Henry's death, William married his widow, Queen Adeliza in 1138. William and Adeliza were parents to the following children:

William d'Aubigny, 2nd Earl of Arundel (d. 24 December 1193)
Reynor d'Aubigny
Henry d'Aubigny
Geoffrey d'Aubigny
Alice d'Aubigny (d. 11 September 1188)
Olivia d'Aubigny
Agatha d'Aubigny

end of biography

William married Adeliza of Louvain. Adeliza was born in ~ 1103 in Leuven, Belgium; died on 23 Apr 1151 in Affligem Abbey, Brabant, Belgium; was buried in Affligem Abbey, Brabant, Belgium. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24073.

Adeliza of Louvain was born in ~ 1103 in Leuven, Belgium; died on 23 Apr 1151 in Affligem Abbey, Brabant, Belgium; was buried in Affligem Abbey, Brabant, Belgium.

Notes:

Adeliza of Louvain,[2] sometimes known in England as Adelicia of Louvain,[3] also called Adela and Aleidis; (c. 1103 – 23 April 1151) was Queen of England from 1121 to 1135, as the second wife of King Henry I.[4] She was the daughter of Godfrey I, Count of Louvain.

Henry was some 35 years older than his bride, who was about 18 when they married. He already had children, though no surviving son, from his first marriage to Matilda of Scotland, as well as several illegitimate ones. As his second marriage produced no children he was to leave his throne to his daughter the Empress Matilda. After his death Adeliza spent three years based in a convent, then married again and had seven children by William d'Aubigny, 1st Earl of Arundel. But a year before her death at the age of 48 she left her husband to move to a monastery in Flanders, where at least one of her brothers also lived.

Adeliza's marriage seems to have been successful, apart from the failure to produce a new heir. The flow of Henry's illegitimate children seems already to have ceased by the time of the marriage, and they spent most of their marriage together, which was by no means inevitable in royal marriages of the period. She seems to have been influential in the promotion of French poetry and other arts in the court, but to have played little part in politics.

Early life and family

Adeliza of Louvain was born in 1105 in Leuven, present-day Belgium.[5] She was renowned for her beauty, reflected in the epithet ‘the fair maiden of Brabant'. The chronicler Henry of Huntingdon also mentions Adeliza’s beauty in an interlude in his Historia Anglorum, stating, “A jewel grows pale on you, a crown does not shine. Put adornment aside, for nature provides your adornment...” [6]

Her father was Godfrey I, Count of Louvain (1095–1139), Landgrave of Brabant, and Duke of Lower Lotharingia (1106–1128), an ally of Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor. After the death of Adeliza’s mother, Ida of Chiny, Godfrey married Clementia of Burgundy, the mother of Baldwin VII, Count of Flanders who had fought with the French against the Normans in 1118.[7] Adeliza's brother, Joscelin of Louvain, married the heiress to the Percy fortune. He is often referred to as an “opportunist”.[8]

Queenship

Plans for Adeliza’s marriage to Henry I of England, may have begun when she was as young as sixteen, even before Henry’s only legitimate son, William Adelin, died on 25 November 1120 in the White Ship disaster. However, Henry’s need for a new male heir expedited the marriage plans and the couple wed on 24 January 1121. Apparently in addition to her beauty, Henry was also attracted to Adeliza as a wife because she was a descendant of Charlemagne.[7] It is thought that Henry’s only surviving legitimate child Empress Matilda, from his first wife Matilda of Scotland, may have been involved in arranging his second marriage, due to the fact that she was with him near the time that it was being negotiated.[7] Henry of Huntingdon mentions the royal couple in his Historia Anglorum, stating that the new queen accompanied Henry to London at Pentecost. Adeliza appears to have travelled extensively with Henry, probably to increase the chances of her conception.[9] Despite their close contact, however, Adeliza and Henry never produced a child.

Unlike Henry’s first wife Matilda, Adeliza appears to have played a very passive role in the administration of the kingdom. While Matilda issued some thirty-one charters and writs during her queenship, during Adeliza's fifteen-year marriage to Henry I she issued one, and she only attested 13 of Henry’s many charters, even though they were almost always together.[10]

Role as artistic patron

King Henry
Despite her limited involvement in politics, Adeliza seems to have played an active role as a patron of the arts and literature, and was influential in fostering the rise of French poetry in the English court. While English queens had been traditionally associated with artistic patronage for decades, and a number of them, including Edith of Wessex, Emma of Normandy and Matilda, had financed a number of works in different media, Adeliza primarily sponsored books written in French.[11] At the time, secular books in the French or Anglo-Norman vernacular were extremely popular, a trend given impetus by wealthy aristocratic women like Adeliza. Philippe de Thaon, an Anglo-Norman poet, dedicated his zoological treatise known as the Bestiary to the queen:

Philippe de Thaon Has distilled into a French treatise
The Bestiary, A book in Latin,
For the honour of a jewel Who is an outstandingly beautiful woman.
And she is courtly and wise, Of good customs and generous:
She is called ‘Aaliz’, Queen is she crowned,
She is the queen of England; May her soul never know trouble!
Listen to what we ?nd About her name in Hebrew:''
‘Aaliz’ is her name; ‘Praise of God’ is
In Hebrew truly ‘Aaliz’, laus of God.
I do not dare give further praise, Lest envy take me,
But so that she may be remembered And praised forever more
I wish to compose this book; May God be present at its beginning![12]

The Bestiary would have been amply illustrated, and was intended to be read page by page, not all at once, like a poem. Many other works that Adeliza commissioned were similar in structure to the Bestiary, including the now lost Life of King Henry by David.[13]

Widowhood and remarriage

When Henry died on 1 December 1135, Adeliza retired temporarily to the Benedictine convent of Wilton Abbey, near Salisbury. She was present at the dedication of Henry's tomb at Reading Abbey on the first anniversary of his death. At about that time, she founded a leper hospital dedicated to Saint Giles at Fugglestone St Peter, Wiltshire.

In 1138, three years after Henry I's death, Adeliza married William d'Aubigny, 1st Earl of Arundel, one of Henry I's advisors, and son of Guillaume d’Aubigny and Maud le Bigod.[1] Together, they lived at her castle of Arundel on the Sussex coast and had seven children.[14] Their names were (by order of birth), Alice, William, Olivia, Reynor, Geoffrey, Henry, and Agatha.[1][15]

Relationship with Matilda

Although not a great deal is known about Adeliza’s relationship with her stepdaughter, it is known she was present at the ceremony when Henry officially named Matilda as his heir presumptive, since the chronicler John of Worcester states that the Queen "swore [an oath] for the king's daughter." [16] After her second marriage, Adeliza received Matilda at her home in Arundel, along with Matilda’s half-brother Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester, in defiance of the wishes of her second husband who was a staunch supporter of King Stephen.[14] She later betrayed them and handed them over when King Stephen besieged the castle.[17] Trying to explain Adeliza's actions, John of Worcester suggests that "she feared the king’s majesty and worried that she might lose the great estate she held throughout England". He also mentions Adeliza's excuse to King Stephen: "She swore on oath that his enemies had not come to England on her account but that she had simply given them hospitality as persons of high dignity once close to her." [17]

Landholdings

Arundel Castle
Because of Henry I’s generosity, Adeliza was given the revenues of Rutland, Shropshire and a large district of London, with possession of the city of Chichester.[18] Henry also gave the manor of Aston to Adeliza "as his queen and wife". Landholdings that were part of Adeliza of Louvain’s dower include Waltham Abbey in Essex, an estate in south-east England, with areas in Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, and Middlesex. She had property in Devon. As a gift from Henry I, she was given a property in Ashleworth, a component of the royal estate of Berkeley. In 1126 the whole county of Shropshire was given to her, even though it is not listed in the Pipe Roll.

Adeliza gave her brother Joscelin a large estate in Sussex called Petworth that was dependent on her castle of Arundel.[19] Henry also gave Adeliza lands that had previously been Matilda’s including Waltham and Queenhithe. She had estates in Essex, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Middlesex, Gloucestershire, and Devon. Her husband then granted her exemption from tax for those lands. In additions to those gifts, she was given a portion of the royal estate at Berkeley, and the county of Shropshire.[20] After Matilda died, Adeliza continued to exercise jurisdiction over her lands, retaining some of her property until 1150. In 1136, she endowed Reading Abbey with one hundred shillings a year from the revenues of Queenhithe.[21] On the first anniversary of Henry I’s death, Adeliza gave the manor of Aston to the Abbey of Reading, and endowed them with lands “to provide for the convent and other religious pweaona [sic] coming to the abbey on the occasion of the anniversary of my lord King Henry.” She added the gift of a church a few years later.[22]

Later years

In the last years of her life, Adeliza appears to have faded into obscurity. In 1150, Adeliza left William to enter the monastery of Afflighem in Flanders. At least one of her brothers was also living at this monastery. The annals at the monastery are the only source to mention her death in 1151, and her burial site is unknown. Some traditions imply she was buried at the monastery, but a donation made by her brother Joscelin to Reading Abbey seems to suggest she was buried there with Henry I.[21]

end

Children:

12036. Sir William d'Aubigny, Knight, 2nd Earl of Arundel was born in 1138-1150; died on 24 Dec 1193; was buried in Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk, England.

24082.

Sir Aubrey de Vere, II was born in ~ 1085 in (Normandy, France) (son of Aubrey de Vere, I and Beatrice Ghent); died in 0May 1141 in (Thrapston, Northamptonshire, England).

Notes:

Aubrey de Vere (c. 1085 – May 1141) — also known as "Alberic[us] de Ver" and "Albericus regis camerarius" (the king's chamberlain)— was the second of that name in England after the Norman Conquest, being the eldest surviving son of Aubrey de Vere and his wife Beatrice.

Aubrey II served as one of the king's chamberlains and as a justiciar under kings Henry I and Stephen.[1] Henry I also appointed him as sheriff of London and Essex and co-sheriff with Richard Basset of eleven counties. In June 1133, that king awarded the office of master chamberlain to Aubrey and his heirs. A frequent witness of royal charters for Henry I and Stephen, he appears to have accompanied Henry to Normandy only once. The chronicler William of Malmesbury reports that in 1139, Aubrey was King Stephen's spokesman to the church council at Winchester, when the king had been summoned to answer for the seizure of castles held by Roger, Bishop of Salisbury and his nephews, the bishops of Ely and Lincoln.[2] In May 1141, during the English civil war, Aubrey was killed by a London mob and was buried in the family mausoleum at Colne Priory, Essex.

The stone tower at Hedingham, in Essex, was most likely begun by Aubrey and completed by his son and heir, Aubrey de Vere, 1st Earl of Oxford. In addition to his patronage of Colne Priory, the new master chamberlain either founded a cell of the Benedictine abbey St. Melanie in Rennes, Brittany, at Hatfield Broadoak or Hatfield Regis, Essex, or took on the primary patronage of that community soon after it was founded.

His eldest son, another Aubrey de Vere, was later created Earl of Oxford, and his descendants held that title and the office that in later centuries was known as Lord Great Chamberlain until the extinction of the Vere male line in 1703.[3]

His wife Adeliza, daughter of Gilbert fitz Richard of Clare, survived her husband for twenty-two years. For most of that time she was a corrodian at St. Osyth's Priory, Chich, Essex.[4]

Their known children are:

Aubrey de Vere, 1st Earl of Oxford (married 1. Beatrice, countess of Guisnes, 2. Eufemia, 3. Agnes of Essex)
Rohese de Vere, Countess of Essex (married 1. Geoffrey de Mandeville, 1st Earl of Essex, 2. Payn de Beauchamp)
Robert (married 1. Matilda de Furnell, 2. Margaret daughter of Baldwin Wake)
Alice "of Essex" (married 1. Robert of Essex, 2. Roger fitz Richard)
Geoffrey (married 1. widow of Warin fitz Gerold, 2. Isabel de Say)
Juliana Countess of Norfolk (married 1. Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk, 2. Walkelin Maminot)
William de Vere, Bishop of Hereford (1186-1198)
Gilbert, prior of the Knights Hospitaller in England (1195-1197)
a daughter (name unknown) who married Roger de Ramis.

end of biography

Aubrey married Adeliza de Clare in ~ 1105 in Suffolk, England. Adeliza (daughter of Sir Gilbert FitzRichard, Knight, 2nd Lord of Clare and Adeliza de Claremont) was born in ~1093 in Risbridge, Suffolk, England; died on 1 Nov 1163 in St Osyth Priory, Essex, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24083.

Adeliza de Clare was born in ~1093 in Risbridge, Suffolk, England (daughter of Sir Gilbert FitzRichard, Knight, 2nd Lord of Clare and Adeliza de Claremont); died on 1 Nov 1163 in St Osyth Priory, Essex, England.

Children:

12041. Rohese de Vere was born in ~1110; died after 1166.
Sir Aubrey de Vere, III, Knight, 1st Earl of Oxford was born in ~ 1115; died on 26 Dec 1194.
Juliane de Vere, Countess of Norfolk was born in ~ 1116 in Castle Hedingham, Essex, England; died in ~ 1199.
Sir Robert de Vere, Lord of Twywell was born in 1124 in Thrapston, Northamptonshire, England; died on 26 Dec 1194 in Thrapston, Northamptonshire, England.
Adeliza de Vere was born in ~1125 in Essex, England; died in 1185 in Saffron Walden, Essex, England.

12096.

Other Events and Attributes:

Occupation: Duke of Normandy

Notes:

More on Geoffrey's biography and history with photos ... http://bit.ly/1i49b9d

12097.

Notes:

Empress Matilda (c. 7 February 1102 – 10 September 1167), also known as the Empress Maude,[nb 1] was the claimant to the English throne during the civil war known as the Anarchy. The daughter of King Henry I of England, she moved to Germany as a child when she married the future Holy Roman Emperor Henry V. She travelled with her husband into Italy in 1116, was controversially crowned in St. Peter's Basilica, and acted as the imperial regent in Italy. Matilda and Henry had no children, and when Henry died in 1125, the crown was claimed by Lothair II, one of his political enemies.

Meanwhile, Matilda's younger brother, William Adelin, died in the White Ship disaster of 1120, leaving England facing a potential succession crisis. On Henry V's death, Matilda was recalled to Normandy by her father, who arranged for her to marry Geoffrey of Anjou to form an alliance to protect his southern borders. Henry I had no further legitimate children and nominated Matilda as his heir, making his court swear an oath of loyalty to her and her successors, but the decision was not popular in the Anglo-Norman court. Henry died in 1135 but Matilda and Geoffrey faced opposition from the Norman barons and were unable to pursue their claims. The throne was instead taken by Matilda's cousin Stephen of Blois, who enjoyed the backing of the English Church. Stephen took steps to solidify his new regime, but faced threats both from neighbouring powers and from opponents within his kingdom.

In 1139 Matilda crossed to England to take the kingdom by force, supported by her half-brother, Robert of Gloucester, and her uncle, King David I of Scotland, while Geoffrey focused on conquering Normandy. Matilda's forces captured Stephen at the Battle of Lincoln in 1141, but the Empress's attempt to be crowned at Westminster collapsed in the face of bitter opposition from the London crowds. As a result of this retreat, Matilda was never formally declared Queen of England, and was instead titled the Lady of the English. Robert was captured following the Rout of Winchester in 1141, and Matilda agreed to exchange him for Stephen. Matilda became trapped in Oxford Castle by Stephen's forces that winter, and was forced to escape across the frozen River Isis at night to avoid capture. The war degenerated into a stalemate, with Matilda controlling much of the south-west of England, and Stephen the south-east and the Midlands. Large parts of the rest of the country were in the hands of local, independent barons.

Matilda returned to Normandy, now in the hands of her husband, in 1148, leaving her eldest son to continue the campaign in England; he eventually succeeded to the throne as Henry II in 1154. She settled her court near Rouen and for the rest of her life concerned herself with the administration of Normandy, acting on Henry's behalf when necessary. Particularly in the early years of her son's reign, she provided political advice and attempted to mediate during the Becket controversy. She worked extensively with the Church, founding Cistercian monasteries, and was known for her piety. She was buried under the high altar at Bec Abbey after her death in 1167.

Notes:

Married:
The marriage was meant to seal a peace between England/Normandy and Anjou. She was eleven years older than Geoffrey, and very proud of her status as an Empress (as opposed to being a mere Countess). Their marriage was a stormy one with frequent long separations, but she bore him three sons and survived him.

Children:

12044. Henry II, King of England was born on 5 Mar 1133 in Le Mans, France; was christened on 25 Mar 1133 in Le Mans, France; died on 6 Jul 1189 in Chinon Castle, France; was buried on 7 Jul 1189 in Fontevraud Abbey, France.

24090.

Sir Ralph de Tosny, V, Knight, Earl was born in ~1140 in Flamstead, Hertfordshire, England (son of Sir Roger Toeni, Lord of Flamstead and Ida Hainaut); died in 1162 in Flamstead, Hertfordshire, England.

Notes:

Sir Ralph de Tony formerly Toeni aka de Conches, de Tosny
Born about 1140 in Flamstead, Hertfordshire

ANCESTORS ancestors

Son of Roger (Toeni) de Toeni and Ida (Hainault) de Toeni
Brother of Godehaut (Toeni) de Mohun, Roger (Toeni) de Toeni IV, Baldwin (Toeni) de Toeni, Geoffrey (Toeni) de Toeni and Goda (Toeni) de Ferrers

Husband of Marguerite (Beaumont) de Tosny — married after 1155 in Leicester, England

DESCENDANTS descendants

Father of Roger (Toeni) de Tony and Ida (Toeni) le Bigod
Died 1162 in Flamstead, Hertfordshire, Englandmap
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Categories: House of Tosny.

European Aristocracy
Ralph (Toeni) de Tony is a member of royalty, nobility or aristocracy in the British Isles.
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Contents
[hide]
1 Biography
2 Ralph V of Tosny
2.1 Marriage
3 Sources
4 Acknowledgements
Biography
Title of Ralph de Tony (Royal Ancestry):

Seigneur of Toeni (now Tosny) in Normandy
Ralph V of Tosny
RAOUL [V] de Tosny (-1162). The Chronicon Hanoniense names (in order) "Radulphum primum [filium Rogerum], Rogerum secundum et Balduinum tercium et Gaufridum quartum clericum" as the children of "[Rogerum] domino de Thoenio" & his wife[99]. Robert of Torigny records the death in 1162 of "Radulfus de Toene"[100].
m (after 1155) MARGUERITE de Beaumont, daughter of ROBERT [II] Earl of Leicester & his wife Amice de Gaèel ([1125]-after 1185). Robert of Torigny refers to the wife of "Radulfus de Toene" as "filia Roberti comitis Leccestriµ" but does not name her[101]. The 1163/64 Pipe Roll records "Margareta uxor Rad de Toeni" making payment "de Suppl de Welcumesto" in Essex/Hertfordshire[102]. The Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records “Margareta de Tony…lx annorum” and her land “in Welcumestowe". Raoul [V] & wife had [two] children:
ROGER [IV] de Tosny (-after 29 Dec 1208). Robert of Torigny records that "parvulo filio" succeeded in 1162 on the death of his father "Radulfus de Toene" but does not name him[104]. Seigneur de Tosny. The Red Book of the Exchequer, listing scutage payments in [1194/95], names "Rogerus de Tony" paying "xl s" in Sussex[105].
[RALPH de Tosny of Holkham, co Norfolk (-before 1184). The Red Book of the Exchequer refers to "Radulfus de Tonay ii m" in Sussex in [1167/68][106].] m ADA de Chaumont, daughter of ROBERT de Chaumont & his wife -- (-aft 1184). Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records property “in Holkham…de feodo Rogeri de Tony” held by “Ade de Tony…fuit Roberti de Chaumunt”, adding that she has “i filium Baldewinum…xv annorum et…v filias”. A charter dated 25 Sep 1188 confirms the foundation of Dodnash Priory, Suffolk by "Baldewin de Toeni et dna Alda mr sua".
Marriage
Husband: Ralph de TOENI
Wife: Margaret de BEAUMONT
Child: Roger de TOENI
Marriage: AFT 1155[1]
Sources
"Royal Ancestry" 2013 by Douglas Richardson Vol. I page 40
Illegitimate child of Henry II, by a mistress, Ida de Tony, daughter of Ralph de Tony (died 1162), by Margaret, daughter of Robert, 2nd Earl of Leicester. Ida later became the wife of Roger le Bigod, Earl of Norfolk (died 1221).

"Royal Ancestry" 2013 D. Richardson Vol. V p. 171-172
Orderic Vitalis, Vol. VI, Book XI, p. 55.
Gallia Christiana, XI, Instrumenta, V, col. 128.
Dugdale Monasticon VI.1, Christ Church, Aldgate, London, VI, p. 152. Actes Henri II, Tome I, CCCCXXIII, p. 550.
Hunter, J. (ed.) (1844) The Great Rolls of the Pipe for the second, third and fourth years of the reign of King Henry II 1155-1158 (London) ("Pipe Roll") 4 Hen II (1157), Norfolk and Suffolk, p. 125.
Gisleberti Chronicon Hanoniense, MGH SS XXI, pp. 505 and 506.
Testa de Nevill, Part I, p. 134.
Gisleberti Chronicon Hanoniense, MGH SS XXI, pp. 505 and 506.
Chronique de Robert de Torigny I, 1162, p. 339.
Chronique de Robert de Torigny I, 1162, p. 339.
Pipe Roll Society, Vol. VII (1886) The Great Roll of the Pipe for the 10th year of King * Henry II (London) ("Pipe Roll 10 Hen II (1163/64)"), p. 38.
Rotuli Dominabus, Rotuli VIII, Essex, p. 41.
Chronique de Robert de Torigny I, 1162, p. 339.
Red Book Exchequer, Part I, Anno VI regis Ricardi, ad redemptionem eius, scutagium ad XXs, p. 92.
Red Book Exchequer, Part I, Knights fees, p. 47.
Rotuli Dominabus, Rotuli V, Norffolk, p. 27.
Ancient Charters (Round), Part I, 53, p. 87.
Rotuli Dominabus, Rotuli V, Norffolk, p. 27.
Ancient Charters (Round), Part I, 53, p. 87.
Red Book Exchequer, Part II, Inquisitiones…Regis Johannis…anno regno XII et XIII…de servitiis militum, p. 499.
Rotuli Dominabus, Rotuli V, Norffolk, p. 27.
Gisleberti Chronicon Hanoniense, MGH SS XXI, pp. 505 and 506.
Magna Carta Ancestry, Fenwick Allied Ancestry, Sellers. Teacher Genealogist Bond 007. http://fmg.ac/
Jean Maunder Long Bio/Time, etc...
Geni. Sources and discussion.

end of biography

History of the House of Tosny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Tosny

Ralph married Margaret de Beaumont after 1155 in Leicester, Leicestershire, England. Margaret (daughter of Sir Robert de Beaumont, Knight, 2nd Earl of Leicester and Lady Amice de Montfort, Countess of Leicester) was born in 1125 in (Leicestershire, England); died after 1185. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24091.

Margaret de Beaumont was born in 1125 in (Leicestershire, England) (daughter of Sir Robert de Beaumont, Knight, 2nd Earl of Leicester and Lady Amice de Montfort, Countess of Leicester); died after 1185.

Children:

12157. Lady Ida de Tosny, Countess of Norfolk was born in <1160 in Flamstead, Hertfordshire, England; died after 1185.
Sir Roger Toeni, IV, Lord of Flamstead was born in 1156 in Flamstead, Hertfordshire, England; died before 1209.

24092.

Sir Patrick of Salisbury, Knight, 1st Earl of Salisbury was born in 1117-1122 in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England (son of Sir Walter of Salisbury and Sibilla de Chaworth); died on 27 Mar 1168 in Poitiers, France; was buried in St. Hilaire Abbey, Poitiers, Vienne, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

Occupation: Constable of Salisbury

Notes:

Patrick of Salisbury, 1st Earl of Salisbury (c. 1122 - 1168) was an Anglo-Norman nobleman, and the uncle of the famous William Marshal.

His parents were Walter of Salisbury and Sibilla de Chaworth.[1] Before 1141, Patrick was constable of Salisbury, a powerful local official but not a nobleman. That year, Patrick married his sister to John fitzGilbert the Marshal, who had been a local rival of his, and transferred his allegiance from King Stephen to the Empress Matilda. This political move gained him his earldom, and the friendship of John the Marshal. Patrick's nephew, William the Marshal would go on to become regent of England during the minority of Henry III. For a time William served as a household knight with Patrick during Patrick's time as governor of Poitou.

The Earl of Salisbury also minted his own coins, struck in the county town of Salisbury during the so-called "baronial issues" of 1135–1153. Only four examples have survived, three of which are in the Conte collection.

Patrick married twice,[2] his second wife being Ela, daughter of William III Talvas, Duke of Alenðcon and Ponthieu, whom he married in 1149. Ela was widow of William de Warenne, 3rd Earl of Surrey. Patrick and Ela had a son, William in about 1150[1] and three others, including Walter and Philip.[2]

He was killed at Poitiers, France on 27 March 1168 in an ambush by forces of Guy of Lusignan.[1]

Died:
in an ambush by forces of Guy of Lusignan.

Patrick married Lady Adelia de Talvaise, Countess of Montreuil in 0___ 1149. Adelia was born in 1118-1119 in Alencon, Orne, France; died on 4 Dec 1174 in Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24093.

Lady Adelia de Talvaise, Countess of Montreuil was born in 1118-1119 in Alencon, Orne, France; died on 4 Dec 1174 in Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England.

Notes:

Died:
Bradenstoke Priory is a medieval priory in the village of Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England. It is noted today for some of its structures having been used by William Randolph Hearst for the renovation of St Donat's Castle, near Llantwit Major, Wales, in the 1930s. ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradenstoke_Priory

Children:

12046. Sir William of Salisbury, Knight, 2nd Earl of Salisbury was born in ~ 1150 in (Salisbury, Wiltshire, England); died on 17 Apr 1196.
Walter of Salisbury was born in (Salisbury, Wiltshire, England).
Philip of Salisbury was born in (Salisbury, Wiltshire, England).

11132.

Notes:

Gilbert fitz Gilbert de Clare (c.?1100 – 6 January 1148), was created Earl of Pembroke in 1138. He was commonly known as Strongbow.[a]

Life

Born at Tonbridge, Gilbert de Clare was a son of Gilbert Fitz Richard de Clare and Alice de Claremont.[1] He started out without land and wealth of his own but was closely related to very powerful men, specifically his uncles Walter de Clare and Roger de Clare.[2]

In 1136 Gilbert fitz Gilbert led an expedition against Exmes and burned parts of the town, including the church of Notre Dame, but was interrupted by the forces of William III, Count of Ponthieu and escaped the resulting melee only after suffering heavy losses.[3] Gilbert was a Baron, that is, a tenant-in-chief in England, and inherited the estates of his paternal uncles, Roger and Walter, which included the baronies and castles of Bienfaite and Orbec in Normandy. He held the lordship of Nether Gwent and the castle of Striguil (later Chepstow). King Stephen created him Earl of Pembroke, and gave him the rape and castle of Pevensey.

After Stephen's defeat at Lincoln on 2 February 1141, Gilbert was among those who rallied to Empress Matilda when she recovered London in June, but he was at Canterbury when Stephen was recrowned late in 1141.[4] He then joined Geoffrey's plot against Stephen, but when that conspiracy collapsed, he again adhered to Stephen, being with him at the siege of Oxford late in 1142. In 1147 he rebelled when Stephen refused to give him the castles surrendered by his nephew Gilbert, 2nd Earl of Hertford, whereupon the King marched to his nearest castle and nearly captured him. However, the Earl appears to have made his peace with Stephen before his death the following year.[5]

Family

He married Isabel de Beaumont, before 1130, daughter of Sir Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester, Count of Meulan, and Elizabeth de Vermandois.[6] Isabel had previously been the mistress of King Henry I of England.[7]

By her Gilbert had:

Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke[b][8]
Basilia, who married (1) Raymond FitzGerald (Raymond le Gros) and (2) Geoffrey FitzRobert.[9]
a daughter who married William Bloet.[10]

end of biography

11133.

Children:

5566. Sir Richard de Clare, Knight, 2nd Earl Pembroke was born in 1125 in Tonbridge, Kent, England; died on 20 Apr 1176 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland.

11134.

Dermot Dairmait Mac Murchada, King of Leinster was born in 1110 in Dublin, Ireland (son of Donnchad Enna Mac Murchada and Orlaith Ingen O'Brien, Queen of Leinster); died on 1 May 1171 in Ireland.

Notes:

Dermot Dairmait Mac MURCHADA (King of Leinster)Print Family Tree(Dermot Dairmait Mac MURCHADA)

Born in 1110 - Dublin, Ireland
Deceased 1 May 1171 - Ireland , age at death: 61 years old

Parents
Donnchad Enna Mac MURCHADA, born in 1085 - Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, Deceased 8 December 1115 - Wexford, Ireland age at death: 30 years old
Married to
Orlaith Ingen (Queen of Leinster) O'BRIEN, born in 1080 - Dublin, Ireland, Deceased in 1113 - Dublin, Ireland age at death: 33 years old

Spouses, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren
Married in 1140, Wexford, Ireland, to Mor Tauthail Moringen Murchertaig (Queen of Ireland) O'TOOLE, born in 1114 - Wexford, Ireland, Deceased 1 May 1191 - Wexford, Ireland age at death: 77 years old (Parents : M Mouirchertach (King of Ui Muiredaig) O'TOOLE 1089-1164 & F Cacht Ingen (Princess of Loigsig, Queen of Muiredaig O'Toole) O'MORDA 1094-1149) with
F Eva Aoife Mac (Countess Pembroke) MURCHADA 1141-1188 married 26 August 1171, Waterford, Waterford, Ireland, to Richard (Strongbow) De ( 2nd Earl Pembroke, Lord Marshall) CLARE 1125-1176 with
M Richard III De (SIR) CLARE, MAGNA CARTA BARON ca 1153-1217 married in 1180, England, to Amicie De CAEN 1160-1225 with :
F Matilda De CLARE 1175-1213
M Gilbert III De (Earl of Gloucester - Hertford) CLARE, MAGNA CARTA BARON ca 1180-1230
F Maud Matilda De CLARE 1184-1213
F Isabel De CLARE 1172-1217 married in August 1189, London, England, to William (SIR - Knight Templar)(Earl Pembroke) MARSHALL 1146-1219 with :
F Maud (Countess of Norfolk Countess of Surrey) MARSHALL 1192-1248
F Eve (Baroness of Abergavenny) MARSHALL 1194-1246
M Gilbert MARSHALL 1196-1241
M William (4th Earl of Pembroke/ChiefJusticar of Ireland) MARSHALL 1198-1231
F Isabel (Fitzgilbert) (Countess MARSHALL) MARSHALL 1200-1239
F Sibyl MARSHALL ca 1201-1245
F Joane MARSHALL 1202-1234
F Joan De ( Baroness of Gamage) CLARE 1175-1222/ married in 1196, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, to Godfrey De (Sir) ( Lord of Gamage) GAMAGE 1176-1253 with :
M Payne De GAMAGE 1211-
F Elizabeth GAMAGE 1222-1272
F Urlachen Mac MURCHADA 1154-1200 married in 1171 to Domnall Mor (Ua) (King of Leinster) O'BRIEN 1137-1194 with
F Mor O'BRIEN 1172-1218 married in 1185, Ireland, to William De (Lord of Connaught) BURGH 1158-1204 with :
M Richard Mor "The Great", De (1st Earl of Ulster) BURGH 1202-1242
M Domnall Cairbreach (King of Munster) O'BRIEN 1175-1242 married in 1194 to Sabia O'KENNEDY 1177- with :
M Connor Conchobar Suidaine (King of Thormond) O'BRIEN 1195-1258

Paternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M Murchad Macdairmata MURCHADA 1032-1070 married
F Sadb Ingen Mac BRICC 1020-1070
M Donnchad Enna Mac MURCHADA 1085-1115
married
1 child

Maternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M Gilla Michil O'BRIEN 1055-1068 married
F Iuchdelb Hui GARBITA 1062-
F Orlaith Ingen (Queen of Leinster) O'BRIEN 1080-1113
married
1 child

Notes
Individual Note
Source: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Irish Landed Gentry - Ancestry.com - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2002.Original data - O'Hart, John. Irish Landed Gentry When Cromwell Came to Ireland. Dublin, Ireland: James Duffy and Sons, 1887.Original data: O'Hart, John. Irish Landed Gentry When Crom - 1,6308::0
http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=uki1-irish-landed_gnty&h=170&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt 1,6308::170
Source: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2003.Original data - Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Heritage Consulting.Original data: Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: - 1,7249::0
http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=millind&h=105913193&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt Birth date: 1100 Birth place: Leinster, Ireland Death date: 1 May 1171 Death place: Ferns, Wexford, Ire, Ireland 1,7249::105913193
Source: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Dictionary of National Biography, Volumes 1-20, 22 - Ancestry.com - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. This collection was indexed by Ancestry World Archives Project contributors.Original data - Stephen, Sir Leslie, ed. Dictionary of National Biography, 1921–1922. London, England: Oxf - 1,1981::0
http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=dictnatbiogv1&h=34636&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt Birth date: 1110 Birth place: Death date: 1171 Death place: Ferns 1,1981::34636

Sources
Individual:
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=10182
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=10182
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=10182
Birth, death:
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2003.Original data - Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Heritage Consulting.Original data: Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: - 1,7249::0
Note http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=millind&h=105913193&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt - Birth date: 1100 Birth place: Leinster, Ireland Death date: 1 May 1171 Death place: Ferns, Wexford, Ire, Ireland - 1,7249::105913193
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Dictionary of National Biography, Volumes 1-20, 22 - Ancestry.com - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. This collection was indexed by Ancestry World Archives Project contributors.Original data - Stephen, Sir Leslie, ed. Dictionary of National Biography, 1921–1922. London, England: Oxf - 1,1981::0
Note http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=dictnatbiogv1&h=34636&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt - Birth date: 1110 Birth place: Death date: 1171 Death place: Ferns - 1,1981::34636

Family Tree Preview
Ancestry Chart Descendancy Chart Printable Family Tree
_____| 16_ Donnchad Mâael Na Mbâo (O'CHEINNSELAIG) MURCHADA ca 960-1006
_____| 8_ Diarmait Macmail Na Mbo (177th High King of Ireland) MURCHADA 974-1072
_____| 4_ Murchad Macdairmata MURCHADA 1032-1070
/ \ _____| 18_ Donnchad (King of MUNSTER) O'BRIEN 982/-1064
|2_ Donnchad Enna Mac MURCHADA 1085-1115
| \ _____| 20_ Brecc (Na Dessi) Mac BRICC 950-1051
| \ _____| 10_ Muirchertach Mac BRICC 1005-1051
| \
|--1_ Dermot Dairmait Mac (King of Leinster) MURCHADA 1110-1171
| _____| 12_ Echmarcach O'BRIEN 1009-
| /
| _____| 6_ Gilla Michil O'BRIEN 1055-1068
| / \
|3_ Orlaith Ingen (Queen of Leinster) O'BRIEN 1080-1113
\
\ _____| 14_ Cearnachan GAIRBITA 1040-
\ /
\

end of report

11135.

Mor Tauthail Moringen Murchertaig O'Toole, Queen of Ireland was born in 1114 in Wexford, Ireland; died on 1 May 1191 in Wexford, Ireland.

Children:

5567. Lady Eva Aoife Mac Murchada, Countess Pembroke was born on 26 Apr 1141 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland; died in 0___ 1188 in Waterford, Ireland; was buried in Tintern, Monmouthshire, Wales.
Orlacan Nâi Murchada was born in 1154 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland; died in 1200 in Ireland.

24100.

Sir Robert FitzRoy, Knight, 1st Earl of Gloucester was born before 1100 in (France) (son of Henry I, King of England and unnamed partner); died on 31 Oct 1147.

Notes:

Robert Fitzroy, 1st Earl of Gloucester (before 1100 – 31 October 1147[1]) (alias Robert Rufus, Robert de Caen, Robert Consul[2][3]) was an illegitimate son of King Henry I of England. He was the half-brother of the Empress Matilda, and her chief military supporter during the civil war known as The Anarchy, in which she vied with Stephen of Blois for the throne of England.

Early life

Robert was probably the eldest of Henry's many illegitimate children.[1] He was born before his father's accession to the English throne, either during the reign of his grandfather William the Conqueror or his uncle William Rufus.[4] He is sometimes and erroneously designated as a son of Nest, daughter of Rhys ap Tewdwr, last king of Deheubarth, although his mother has been identified as a member of "the Gay or Gayt family of north Oxfordshire",[5] possibly a daughter of Rainald Gay (fl. 1086) of Hampton Gay and Northbrook Gay in Oxfordshire. Rainald had known issue Robert Gaay of Hampton (died c. 1138) and Stephen Gay of Northbrook (died after 1154). A number of Oxfordshire women feature as the mothers of Robert's siblings.[5][6]

He may have been a native of Caen[1][7] or he may have been only Constable and Governor of that city, jure uxoris.[2]

His father had contracted him in marriage to Mabel FitzHamon, daughter and heir of Robert Fitzhamon, but the marriage was not solemnized until June 1119 at Lisieux.[1][8] His wife brought him the substantial honours of Gloucester in England and Glamorgan in Wales, and the honours of Sainte-Scholasse-sur-Sarthe and âEvrecy in Normandy, as well as Creully. After the White Ship disaster late in 1120, and probably because of this marriage,[9] in 1121 or 1122 his father created him Earl of Gloucester.[10]

Family

Robert and his wife Mabel FitzHamon had seven children:[11]

William FitzRobert (111?–1183): succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of Gloucester
Roger FitzRobert (died 1179): Bishop of Worcester
Hamon FitzRobert (died 1159): killed at the siege of Toulouse.
Philip FitzRobert (died after 1147): lord of Cricklade
Matilda FitzRobert (died 1190): married in 1141 Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester.
Mabel FitzRobert: married Aubrey de Vere
Richard FitzRobert (1120/35-1175): succeeded his mother as Sire de Creully.
He also had four illegitimate children:

Richard FitzRobert (died 1142): Bishop of Bayeux [mother: Isabel de Douvres, sister of Richard de Douvres, bishop of Bayeux (1107–1133)]
Robert FitzRobert (died 1170): Castellan of Gloucester, married in 1147 Hawise de Reviers (daughter of Baldwin de Reviers, 1st Earl of Devon and his first wife Adelisa), had daughter Mabel FitzRobert (married firstly Jordan de Chambernon and secondly William de Soliers)
Mabel FitzRobert: married Gruffud, Lord of Senghenydd, son of Ifor Bach. This couple were ancestors of Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the U.S.A.[12]
Father of Thomas

Relationship with King Stephen

There is evidence in the contemporary source, the Gesta Stephani, that Robert was proposed by some as a candidate for the throne, but his illegitimacy ruled him out:

"Among others came Robert, Earl of Gloucester, son of King Henry, but a bastard, a man of proved talent and admirable wisdom. When he was advised, as the story went, to claim the throne on his father's death, deterred by sounder advice he by no means assented, saying it was fairer to yield it to his sister's son (the future Henry II of England), than presumptuously to arrogate it to himself."
This suggestion cannot have led to any idea that he and Stephen were rivals for the Crown, as Geoffrey of Monmouth in 1136 referred to Robert as one of the 'pillars' of the new King's rule.

The capture of King Stephen at the Battle of Lincoln on 2 February 1141 gave the Empress Matilda the upper hand in her battle for the throne, but by alienating the citizens of London she failed to be crowned Queen. Her forces were defeated at the Rout of Winchester on 14 September 1141, and Robert of Gloucester was captured nearby at Stockbridge.

The two prisoners, King Stephen and Robert of Gloucester, were then exchanged, but by freeing Stephen, the Empress Matilda had given up her best chance of becoming queen. She later returned to France, where she died in 1167, though her son succeeded Stephen as King Henry II in 1154.

Robert of Gloucester died in 1147 at Bristol Castle, where he had previously imprisoned King Stephen, and was buried at St James' Priory, Bristol, which he had founded.

In popular culture

Robert of Gloucester was a central character in the struggle during The Anarchy as portrayed in Ken Follet's 2003 novel The Pillars of the Earth and in the 2010 mini-series of the same name.

Robert is also a figure in many of the novels by Ellis Peters in the Cadfael Chronicles, where he is seen as a strong moderating force to his half-sister (see Saint Peter's Fair). His efforts to gain the crown for his sister by capturing King Stephen and her own actions in London are part of the plot in The Pilgrim of Hate. His capture by Stephen's wife Queen Mathilda is in the background of the plot of An Excellent Mystery. The exchange of the imprisoned Robert for the imprisoned Stephen is in the background of the plot of The Raven in the Foregate. Robert's travels to persuade his brother-in-law to aid his wife Empress Maud militarily in England is in the background of the novel The Rose Rent. His return to England when Empress Maud is trapped in Oxford Castle figures in The Hermit of Eyton Forest. Robert's return to England with his young nephew Henry, years later the king succeeding Stephen, is in the background of the plot of The Confession of Brother Haluin, as the battles begin anew with Robert's military guidance. Robert's success in the Battle of Wilton (1143) leads to the death of a fictional character, part of the plot of The Potter's Field. In the last novel, he is a father who can disagree with then forgive his son Philip (see the last novel, Brother Cadfael's Penance). In that last novel, Brother Cadfael speculates on the possibly different path for England if the first son of old King Henry, the illegitimate Robert of Gloucester, had been recognised and accepted. In Wales of that era, a son was not illegitimate if recognized by his father, and to many in the novels, Robert of Gloucester seemed the best of the contenders to succeed his father.

Footnotes

^ Jump up to: a b c d David Crouch, ‘Robert, first earl of Gloucester (b. before 1100, d. 1147)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006 accessed 1 Oct 2010
^ Jump up to: a b "Complete Peerage" Vol IV(1892), p38, "Gloucester", "Robert filius Regis" quoting Round "Consul is often used for Earl in the time of the first age of the Norman Kings"
Jump up ^ The Complete Peerage claims only that he is "described" as consul, as are most Earls of his time.
Jump up ^ William of Malmesbury
^ Jump up to: a b David Crouch, Historical Research, 1999
Jump up ^ C. Given-Wilson & A. Curteis. The Royal Bastards of Medieval England (London, 1984) (ISBN 0-415-02826-4), page 74
Jump up ^ Cawley, Charles, "Henry I", Medlands, Medieval Lands database, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy,[better source needed]
Jump up ^ "Complete Peerage", "Gloucester"
Jump up ^ "In the aftermath of the White Ship disaster of 1120, when his younger and legitimate half-brother, William, died, Robert shared in the largesse that the king distributed to reassert his political position. Robert was given the marriage of Mabel, the heir of Robert fitz Haimon, whose lands in the west country and Glamorgan had been in royal wardship since 1107. The marriage also brought Robert the Norman honours of Evrecy and St Scholasse-sur-Sarthe. Robert was raised to the rank of earl of Gloucester soon after, probably by the end of 1121." David Crouch, ‘Robert, first earl of Gloucester (b. before 1100, d. 1147)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006 accessed 1 Oct 2010
Jump up ^ CP citing Round for between May 1121 and the end of 1122, but see William of Malmesbury, ed Giles who cites 1119
Jump up ^ Cawley, Charles. Cawley, Charles, Medieval Lands: England, Earls Created 1067–1122, Chapter 11, Medieval Lands database, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy,[better source needed]
Jump up ^ Descent of Franklin Pierce from Henry I Beauclerc

Sources

J. Bradbury, Stephen and Matilda: The Civil War of 1139–53 (Stroud, 1996)
D. Crouch, "Robert of Gloucester's Mother and Sexual Politics in Norman Oxfordshire", Historical Research, 72 (1999) 323–332.
D. Crouch, 'Robert, earl of Gloucester and the daughter of Zelophehad,' Journal of Medieval History, 11 (1985), 227–43.
D. Crouch, The Reign of King Stephen, 1135–1154 (London, 2000).
C. Given-Wilson & A. Curteis. The Royal Bastards of Medieval England (London, 1984)
The Personnel of the Norman Cathedrals during the Ducal Period, 911–1204, ed. David S. Spear (London, 2006)
Earldom of Gloucester Charters, ed. R.B. Patterson (Oxford, 1973)
R.B. Patterson, 'William of Malmesbury's Robert of Gloucester: a re-evaluation of the Historia Novella,' American Historical Review, 70 (1965), 983–97.
K. Thompson, 'Affairs of State: the illegitimate children of Henry I,' Journal of Medieval History, 29 (2003), 129–151.
W.M.M. Picken, 'The Descent of the Devon Family of Willington from Robert Earl of Gloucester' in 'A Medieval Cornish Miscellany', Ed. O.J. Padel. (Phillimore, 2000)

Robert married Lady Mabel FitzHamon, Countess of Gloucester in 0___ 1107. Mabel (daughter of Sir Robert Fitzhamon, Knight, Lord of Glamorgan and Sybil de Montgomery) was born in 0___ 1090 in Gloucestershire, England; died on 29 Sep 1157 in Bristol, Gloucestershire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24101.

Lady Mabel FitzHamon, Countess of Gloucester was born in 0___ 1090 in Gloucestershire, England (daughter of Sir Robert Fitzhamon, Knight, Lord of Glamorgan and Sybil de Montgomery); died on 29 Sep 1157 in Bristol, Gloucestershire, England.

Notes:

Mabel FitzRobert, Countess of Gloucester (1090 – 29 September 1157[1]) was an Anglo-Norman noblewoman, and a wealthy heiress who brought the lordship of Gloucester, among other prestigious honours to her husband, Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester upon their marriage. He was the illegitimate son of King Henry I of England.

Her father was Robert Fitzhamon, Lord of Gloucester and Glamorgan. As she was the eldest daughter of four, and her younger sisters had become nuns, Mabel inherited all of his honours and properties upon his death in 1107.

As Countess of Gloucester, Mabel was significant politically and she exercised an important administrative role in the lordship.[2]

Family[edit]
Mabel was born in Gloucestershire, England c1090 or later, the eldest of the four daughters of Robert FitzHamon, Lord of Gloucester and Glamorgan, and his wife, Sybil de Montgomery. Her three younger sisters, Hawise, Cecile and Amice[3] all became nuns, making Mabel the sole heiress to her father's lordships and vast estates in England, Wales, and Normandy.

Her paternal grandfather was Hamon, Sheriff of Kent, and her maternal grandparents were Roger de Montgomery, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury and Mabel Talvas of Belleme.

In March 1107, her father died in Normandy, leaving his lordships and estates to Mabel. Her mother married secondly Jean, Sire de Raimes.[4]

Cardiff Castle in Wales, was one of the properties Mabel brought her husband, Robert upon their marriage

Marriage

In 1107, Mabel married Robert of Caen,(also called FitzRoy and FitzEdith), an illegitimate son of King Henry I (not by his mistress Sybil Corbet - other sources say Robert's mother was of the Gai family of Oxfordshire). Their marriage is recorded by Orderic Vitalis who also names her parents.[5] He would later become an important figure during the turbulent period in English history known as The Anarchy which occurred in the reign of King Stephen of England. Throughout the civil war, he was a loyal supporter of his half-sister Empress Matilda who would make him the chief commander of her army. He had originally sworn fealty to King Stephen, but after quarrelling with him in 1137, his English and Welsh possessions were forfeited, and thus he joined forces with Matilda.[6]

Countess of Gloucester

Mabel brought to her husband the honours of Gloucester in England, Glamorgan in Wales, Sainte-Scholasse-sur-Sarthe, Evrecy and Creully in Normandy. By right of his wife, he became the 2nd Lord of Glamorgan, and gained possession of her father's castle of Cardiff in Wales. In August 1122, he was created 1st Earl of Gloucester; henceforth, Mabel was styled as Countess of Gloucester.

As countess, Mabel exercised a prominent administrative role in the Gloucester lordship.[7] Her political importance was evident when she was made responsible for seeing that her husband upheld his side of the agreement in the treaty he made with Miles de Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford.[8] She also witnessed four of Robert's charters; as well as giving her personal consent for his foundation of the Abbey of Margam, whose endowment came from her own lands.[9] Later, after Robert's death, Mabel assumed control of the honour of Gloucester's Norman lands on behalf of her eldest son William.[10]

Issue

Together Robert and Mabel had at least eight children:

William Fitz Robert, 2nd Earl of Gloucester (23 November 1112- 23 November 1183), married Hawise de Beaumont by whom he had five children, including Isabella of Gloucester, the first wife of King John of England, and Amice FitzRobert, Countess of Gloucester.
Roger, Bishop of Worcester (died 9 August 1179)
Hamon FitzRobert, (died 1159), killed in the Siege of Toulouse.
Robert FitzRobert of Ilchester (died before 1157), married Hawise de Redvers, by whom he had a daughter Mabel who in her turn married Jordan de Cambernon.
Richard FitzRobert, Sire de Creully (died 1175), inherited the seigneury of Creully from Mabel, and became the ancestor of the Sires de Creully. He married the daughter of Hughes de Montfort by whom he had five children.
Philip FitzRobert, (died after 1147), Castellan of Cricklade. He took part in the Second Crusade.
Maud FitzRobert (died 29 July 1190), married Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester by whom she had three children.
Mabel FitzRobert, married Aubrey de Vere
Robert also sired an illegitimate son, Richard, Bishop of Bayeux by Isabel de Douvres.

Death

Mabel's husband died on 31 October 1147. Mabel herself died on 29 September 1157 in Bristol at the age of sixty-seven years.

References

Jump up ^ Charles Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earls of Gloucester 1122-1225
Jump up ^ Ward, p.106
Jump up ^ Cawley states in Medieval Lands that Amice might have married a count of Brittany, but no further details are known
Jump up ^ Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earl of Gloucester 1122-1225)
Jump up ^ Cawley
Jump up ^ Cawley
Jump up ^ Jennifer C. Ward (2006). Women in England in the Middle Ages. London: Hambledon Continuum. p.106. Google Books, retrieved 27-10-10 ISBN 1-85285-346-8
Jump up ^ Ward, p.106
Jump up ^ Ward, p.106
Jump up ^ Ward, p.106
Charles Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earls of Gloucester 1122-1225

Children:

12050. Sir William FitzRobert, Knight, 2nd Earl of Gloucester was born on 23 Nov 1116 in (Wales); died on 23 Nov 1183 in (Wales).
Lady Maud of Gloucester, Countess of Chester was born in (Gloucestershire, England); died on 29 Jul 1189.
Robert FitzRobert was born in 1110 in England; died in 1170 in England.

24102.

Sir Robert de Beaumont, Knight, 2nd Earl of Leicester was born in 1104 in (Meulan, France) (son of Sir Robert de Beaumont, Knight, 1st Earl of Leicester and Lady Isabel de Vermandois, Countess of Leicester); died on 5 Apr 1168 in Brackley, Northamptonshire, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Occupation: Justiciar of England, 1155-1168
Military: The Anarchy

Notes:

Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester (1104 - 5 April 1168) was Justiciar of England 1155-1168.

The surname "de Beaumont" is given him by genealogists. The only known contemporary surname applied to him is "Robert son of Count Robert". Henry Knighton, the fourteenth-century chronicler notes him as Robert "Le Bossu" (meaning "Robert the Hunchback" in French).

Early life and education

Robert was an English nobleman of Norman-French ancestry. He was the son of Robert de Beaumont, Count of Meulan and 1st Earl of Leicester, and Elizabeth de Vermandois, and the twin brother of Waleran de Beaumont. It is not known whether they were identical or fraternal twins, but the fact that they are remarked on by contemporaries as twins indicates that they were probably identical.

The two brothers, Robert and Waleran, were adopted into the royal household shortly after their father's death in June 1118 (upon which Robert inherited his father's second titles of Earl of Leicester). Their lands on either side of the Channel were committed to a group of guardians, led by their stepfather, William, Earl of Warenne or Surrey. They accompanied King Henry I to Normandy, to meet with Pope Callixtus II in 1119, when the king incited them to debate philosophy with the cardinals. Both twins were literate, and Abingdon Abbey later claimed to have been Robert's school, but though this is possible, its account is not entirely trustworthy. A surviving treatise on astronomy (British Library ms Royal E xxv) carries a dedication "to Earl Robert of Leicester, that man of affairs and profound learning, most accomplished in matters of law" who can only be this Robert. On his death he left his own psalter to the abbey he founded at Leicester, which was still in its library in the late fifteenth century. The existence of this indicates that like many noblemen of his day, Robert followed the canonical hours in his chapel.

Career at the Norman court

In 1120 Robert was declared of age and inherited most of his father's lands in England, while his twin brother took the French lands. However in 1121, royal favour brought Robert the great Norman honors of Breteuil and Pacy-sur-Eure, with his marriage to Amice de Gael, daughter of a Breton intruder the king had forced on the honor after the forfeiture of the Breteuil family in 1119. Robert spent a good deal of his time and resources over the next decade integrating the troublesome and independent barons of Breteuil into the greater complex of his estates. He did not join in his brother's great Norman rebellion against King Henry I in 1123–24. He appears fitfully at the royal court despite his brother's imprisonment until 1129. Thereafter the twins were frequently to be found together at Henry I's court.

Robert held lands throughout the country. In the 1120s and 1130s he tried to rationalise his estates in Leicestershire. Leicestershire estates of the See of Lincoln and the Earl of Chester were seized by force. This enhanced the integrity of Robert's block of estates in the central midlands, bounded by Nuneaton, Loughborough, Melton Mowbray and Market Harborough.

In 1135, the twins were present at King Henry's deathbed. Robert's actions in the succession period are unknown, but he clearly supported his brother's decision to join the court of the new king Stephen before Easter 1136. During the first two years of the reign Robert is found in Normandy fighting rival claimants for his honor of Breteuil. Military action allowed him to add the castle of Pont St-Pierre to his Norman estates in June 1136 at the expense of one of his rivals. From the end of 1137 Robert and his brother were increasingly caught up in the politics of the court of King Stephen in England, where Waleran secured an ascendancy which lasted till the beginning of 1141. Robert participated in his brother's political coup against the king's justiciar, Roger of Salisbury (the Bishop of Salisbury).

Civil war in England

The outbreak of civil war in England in September 1139 brought Robert into conflict with Earl Robert of Gloucester, the bastard son of Henry I and principal sponsor of the Empress Matilda. His port of Wareham and estates in Dorset were seized by Gloucester in the first campaign of the war. In that campaign the king awarded Robert the city and castle of Hereford as a bid to establish the earl as his lieutenant in Herefordshire, which was in revolt. It is disputed by scholars whether this was an award of a second county to Earl Robert. Probably in late 1139, Earl Robert refounded his father's collegiate church of St Mary de Castro in Leicester as a major Augustinian abbey on the meadows outside the town's north gate, annexing the college's considerable endowment to the abbey.

The battle of Lincoln on 2 February 1141 saw the capture and imprisonment of King Stephen. Although Count Waleran valiantly continued the royalist fight in England into the summer, he eventually capitulated to the Empress and crossed back to Normandy to make his peace with the Empress's husband, Geoffrey of Anjou. Earl Robert had been in Normandy since 1140 attempting to stem the Angevin invasion, and negotiated the terms of his brother's surrender. He quit Normandy soon after and his Norman estates were confiscated and used to reward Norman followers of the Empress. Earl Robert remained on his estates in England for the remainder of King Stephen's reign. Although he was a nominal supporter of the king, there seems to have been little contact between him and Stephen, who did not confirm the foundation of Leicester Abbey till 1153. Earl Robert's principal activity between 1141 and 1149 was his private war with Ranulf II, Earl of Chester. Though details are obscure it seems clear enough that he waged a dogged war with his rival that in the end secured him control of northern Leicestershire and the strategic Chester castle of Mountsorrel. When Earl Robert of Gloucester died in 1147, Robert of Leicester led the movement among the greater earls of England to negotiate private treaties to establish peace in their areas, a process hastened by the Empress's departure to Normandy, and complete by 1149. During this time the earl also exercised supervision over his twin brother's earldom of Worcester, and in 1151 he intervened to frustrate the king's attempts to seize the city.

Earl Robert and Henry Plantagenet

The arrival in England of Duke Henry, son of the Empress Mathilda, in January 1153 was a great opportunity for Earl Robert. He was probably in negotiation with Henry in that spring and reached an agreement by which he would defect to him by May 1153, when the duke restored his Norman estates to the earl. The duke celebrated his Pentecost court at Leicester in June 1153, and he and the earl were constantly in company till the peace settlement between the duke and the king at Winchester in November 1153. Earl Robert crossed with the duke to Normandy in January 1154 and resumed his Norman castles and honors. As part of the settlement his claim to be chief steward of England and Normandy was recognised by Henry.

Earl Robert began his career as chief justiciar of England probably as soon as Duke Henry succeeded as King Henry II in October 1154.[1] The office gave the earl supervision of the administration and legal process in England whether the king was present or absent in the realm. He appears in that capacity in numerous administrative acts, and had a junior colleague in the post in Richard de Luci, another former servant of King Stephen. The earl filled the office for nearly fourteen years until his death,[1] and earned the respect of the emerging Angevin bureaucracy in England. His opinion was quoted by learned clerics, and his own learning was highly commended.

He died on 5 April 1168,[1] probably at his Northamptonshire castle of Brackley, for his entrails were buried at the hospital in the town. He was received as a canon of Leicester on his deathbed, and buried to the north of the high altar of the great abbey he had founded and built. He left a written testament of which his son the third earl was an executor, as we learn in a reference dating to 1174.

Church patronage

Robert founded and patronised many religious establishments. He founded Leicester Abbey and Garendon Abbeyin Leicestershire, the Fontevraldine Nuneaton Priory in Warwickshire, Luffield Abbey in Buckinghamshire, and the hospital of Brackley, Northamptonshire. He refounded the collegiate church of St Mary de Castro, Leicester, as a dependency of Leicester abbey around 1164, after suppressing it in 1139. Around 1139 he refounded the collegiate church of Wareham as a priory of his abbey of Lyre, in Normandy. His principal Norman foundations were the priory of Le Dâesert in the forest of Breteuil and a major hospital in Breteuil itself. He was a generous benefactor of the Benedictine abbey of Lyre, the oldest monastic house in the honor of Breteuil. He also donated land in Old Dalby, Leicestershire to the Knights Hospitallers who used it to found Dalby Preceptory.

Family and children

He married after 1120 Amice de Montfort, daughter of Raoul II de Montfort, himself a son of Ralph de Gael, Earl of East Anglia. Both families had lost their English inheritances through rebellion in 1075. They had four children:

Hawise de Beaumont, who married William Fitz Robert, 2nd Earl of Gloucester and had descendants.
Robert de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Leicester who married Petronilla de Grandmesnil and had descendants.
Isabel, who married: Simon de St. Liz, Earl of Huntingdon and had descendants.
Margaret, who married Ralph V de Toeni and had descendants through their daughter, Ida de Tosny.

Occupation:
In medieval England and Scotland the Chief Justiciar (later known simply as the Justiciar) was roughly equivalent to a modern Prime Minister[citation needed] as the monarch's chief minister. Similar positions existed on the European Continent, particularly in Norman Italy. The term is the English form of the medieval Latin justiciarius or justitiarius ("man of justice", i.e. judge).

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justiciar

Military:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anarchy

Robert married Lady Amice de Montfort, Countess of Leicester after 1120 in Brittany, France. Amice was born in 1108 in Norfolk, England; died on 31 Aug 1168 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24103.

Lady Amice de Montfort, Countess of Leicester was born in 1108 in Norfolk, England; died on 31 Aug 1168 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England.

Notes:

Click this link to view 5 generations of her issue ... http://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/Gael-Descendants-3

Children:

Margaret de Beaumont was born in 1125 in (Leicestershire, England); died after 1185.
12051. Hawise de Beaumont was born in Leicestershire, England.
Sir Robert de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Leicester was born in 1135 in Beaumont, Normandy, France; died on 31 Aug 1190 in Durazzo, Albania.
Isabelle Beaumont was born in ~1130 in Leicester, Leicestershire, England; died after May 1188 in Leicestershire, England.

11128.

Gilbert Giffard, Royal Serjeant was born in ~ 1065 in (France); died in 0___ 1129 in Winterbourne Monkton, Marlborough, Wiltshire, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: 0___ 1075, Axbridge, Somerset, England

Notes:

Gilbert Giffard
Born about 1065 in England or France
Son of [father unknown] and [mother unknown]
[sibling(s) unknown]
[spouse(s) unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Father of John (Marshal) FitzGilbert and William (Giffard) Fitz Gilbert
Died before 1129 in Winterbourne Monkton, Marlborough, Wiltshire, England

DISPUTED PARENTAGE

Since his various parentages are all disputed, they have been removed. See the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy's Medieval Lands Index for more information. Also see discussion below.

Removed these profiles as parents: Rollo Cheddar, Geoffrey Le Mareschal, and Sibyl di Conversano . Please don't attach any parents without first discussing via post on G2G. (Darlene Athey Hill - 26 Sep 2015)

Biography

Gilbert Giffard was a tenant of Glastonbury manor in Winterbourne Monkton in Wiltshire, and held a position as a marshal to the King. That Gilbert was the name of the grandfather of William the Marshall was known because William's father was often referred to as John fitz (son of) Gilbert. That Gilbert, John's father, was already involved in the family's tradition of claiming a royal marshalcy was also indicated from a record in the time of King John, although the nature of that marshalcy in his generation is not well understood.[1] However the identification of Gilbert with records for a man normally called Gilbert Giffard (or Gibard) has become widespread since a publication of N. E. Stacy in 1999 concerning Gilbert's landlord.[2] He not only showed that Giffard had a tax exemption, such as his descendants did for their marshalcy, and that his lands were inherited by the Marshals, but also that Gilbert Giffard's son William Giffard or William fitz Gilbert, was presented to the church of Cheddar as "William Giffard, son of Gilbert the king's marshal".

Concerning his parentage, various theories exist but none are proven. Each tends to start with one known thing, and build from there:

Starting from the newest known information, the surname Giffard, Crouch for example notes that it was a common descriptive second name meaning "chubby cheeks" and says "It is highly unlikely that Gilbert Giffard was related to the Conqueror's leading follower, Walter Giffard, Earl of Buckingham; it is conceivable on the grounds of proximity, however, that he might have had a connection with the unrelated West Country barons, the Giffards of Brimpsfield." (Traditionally the Giffards of Brimpsfield and Bucks are often linked.[3] Some still suspect there is a link.[4]
Keats-Rohan has an entry for him in "Domesday People" (p.214) under "Gislebert Gibart", apparently an entry written without reference to Stacey. She adds that "The fee of Robert Gibart is mentioned in Hist. S. Petri Glocs. ii, 230."[5] In her later "Domesday Descendants" she cites Stacey and has him under "Marescal, Gilbert" (p.1029). She suggests he might be the son of "Robert marshal, who occurs in Domesday Wiltshire" (Domesday People p.391). However In footnote g, Appendix G, Complete Peerage says "Gilbert may have been son or grandson of an otherwise unknown Robert, who in 1086 held Cheddar, Somerset, under Roger de Courseulles (Domesday Book, vol i, fol 94; cf note 'h' infra). Robert the Marshal, who in 1086 held Lavington, Wilts, in chief (Idem, vol i, f. 73) has been suggested as the possible progenitor of the family (Davis, op. cit., pp xxvi - xxvii); but this is unlikely as in 1166 Lavington was held by Piers de la Mare (Red Book, p 248)." It therefore appears that Keats-Rohan was following up the lead of CP, seeking for evidence that Robert in Lavington having other land holdings that might correspond to those known for the later Marshall family, specifically in Cheddar. The Robert in Cheddar has an entry in Domesday People called "Robert Herecom" (p.389[6]). According to a summary of this line of thought by Chris Phillips, Keats-Rohan's various entries give "a slightly complicated picture, but maybe worth investigating further".[7]
Older works speculated based on the longer-known above-mentioned claim to a "chief marshalship" which King John said happened during the time of King Henry I. Gilbert and his son John faced counter claims from two other men, Robert de Venoiz, and William Hastings. And on this basis many authors have speculated that the three families shared a common ancestry. Robert de Venoiz in particular was apparently son and heir to a Norman named Geoffrey who was sometimes referred to as "Marshall" (although in his time this would not normally have been considered a name, just a description). This family's particular tradition of Marshalcy apparently went back to a marshalcy in Venoix in Normandy.[8] Various scenarios have been presented as fact, such as Gilbert being a son of Robert, or of Geoffrey, or that Gilbert married a lady of their family. (And similarly, the Hastings family have sometimes been linked in speculative pedigrees.) But in fact the record of King John does not strongly imply that before the time of Henry I there was one single "chief" marshal. It could well have been a decision made at that time. There were many hereditary "marshalls" in England and Normandy, as discussed by Round in his book on the subject. (The use of a the job as a surname also probably did not start until King Stephen's time.[9])
A very simple proposal found in the Complete Peerage is that Gilbert's father was also possibly named Gilbert. The reasoning being that the Gilbert of the Domesday book made around 1086 was many decades before the reign of Henry I, when Gilbert the father of John was still alive.[7] Other authorities seem to accept it is the same person though the generations are long.[10]
Gilbert had two sons:

John Fitz-Gilbert, who was accepted as being "chief" Marshal of England while his father still lived, in the time of King Henry I. Probably the first of his family to use the job title as a surname. Born about 1105.
William Giffard or Fitz-Gilbert, born about 1107. He became chancellor to Queen Mathilda.[11]
As an hereditary marshal of the King, Gilbert was a French speaking Norman (although some Normans married locally and could speak some English) and the old French title Le Mareschal (Latin Marescallus or Marescalcus) which has evolved into modern English "Marshal" was a term going back to Frankish times, originally referring to a function of "horse servant", which is what the word meant in the old language of the Franks. But by his lifetime, this job, like many other household positions, had evolved. According to a treatise of 1136 made for King Stephen, the Master Marshall ("John", Gilbert's son) had duties which "involved the keeping of certain royal records" and the management of "four other lesser marshals, both clerks and knights, assistants called sergeants, the knight ushers and common ushers of the royal hall, the usher of the king's chamber, the watchmen of court, the tent-keeper and the keeper of the king's hearth".[12]

In Gilbert's family, the evidence is relatively clear that the function became a surname, not in Gilbert's lifetime probably, but during the lifetime of his son John. Crouch (p.226) mentions that while surnames from hereditary offices were not an uncommon innovation in the 12th century, this family is a "rather early" example of a case where not only the heir of the Marshall, but several of John's sons, all used the office as a second name. Richard Brooks suggests that John was the first to use the word as a name, because he is specifically referred to as someone "named" the Marshall, and this was during a period when he had split with King Stephen and could not have been functioning as the King's Marshall.[9]

Gilbert's grandson, Sir William Marshal, knighted and named 1st Earl of Pembroke, made the office very important during the last decades of the 12th Century and first decades of the 13th. He served under four kings: Henry II, Richard "Lionheart," John "Lackland" and Henry III. As the regent for Henry III, Sir William Marshal became a powerful European statesman, raising his office still further beyond its humble origins. In William's time the Chief Marshal became "Earl Marshal". It is still the seventh of the eight "great officers of state" of the British monarchy, just below the Lord High Constable and above the Lord High Admiral. Since the 13th Century the office has been a hereditary position of the Earls (now Dukes) of Norfolk.[13]

Sources

Source S-2024265482 Royal and Noble Genealogical Data, database online, Brian Tompsett, Copyright 1994-2001, Version March 25, 2001, Royal and Noble Genealogical Data, Department of Computer Science, University of Hull, (Hull, United Kingdom, HU6 7RX, B.C.Tompsett@dcs.hull.ac.uk), NS073013
Richardson, Douglas, and Kimball G. Everingham. 2013. Royal ancestry: a study in colonial and medieval families. Salt Lake City, UT.: Douglas Richardson. Vol IV, page 33, cited by Mr. Marlyn Lewis, Our Royal, Titled, Noble, and Commoner Ancestors & Cousins, database online, Portland, Oregon.
Medieval Lands, database online, author Charles Cawley, (Foundation for Medieval Genealogy, 2006-2013), England, earls created 1138-1143, Chapter 10, Pembroke: B. Earls of Pembroke 1189-1245 (MARSHAL), Gilbert "the Marshal"
Dictionary of Medieval Knighthood and Chivalry, Bradford B. Broughton, (Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, Inc., 1986).
? Round, J. H. (1911), The King's Serjeants & Officers of State with their Coronation Services. p.88
? English Historical Review, Feb. 1999: Henry of Blois and the Lordship of Glastonbury (N. E. Stacy). This article is now cited by newer editions of David Crouch's "William Marshall" and has been discussed online by medieval genealogists such as John Ravilious, Chris Phillips and Douglas Richardson. For example: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/gen-medieval/2003-01/1042089376.
? For example in old editions of Burkes. https://books.google.be/books?id=uo9AAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA207
? http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/gen-medieval/2003-01/1042326346
? See online here. But the editors believe this is a 12th century document.
? So Keats-Rohan equated this Robert with the one in Shearston, with the same overlord as the Robert in Cheddar.
? 7.0 7.1 See the post of Chris Phillips: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/2003-01/1042105703
? Round, J. H. (1911), The King's Serjeants & Officers of State with their Coronation Services. p.90
? 9.0 9.1 Richard Brooks, The Knight who saved England.
? Ravilious on the generation length: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/gen-medieval/2003-01/1042297945
? See the post of John Ravilious: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/2003-01/1042089376
? David Crouch, "William Marshall" 2nd ed. 2002, Appendix 2.
? Earl_Marshal on Wikipedia

11129.

Mary Margarite De Venuz was born on 10 Mar 1085 in Calvados, Basse-Normandie, France; died in 0___ 1119 in Pembrokeshire, Wales.

Notes:

Mary Margarite De VenuzPrint Family Tree Mary /De Venuz/

Born 10 March 1085 - Calvados, Basse-Normandie, France
Deceased in 1119 - Pembrokeshire, Wales , age at death: 34 years old

Parents
Geoffrey De Venuz, born in 1066 - France, Deceased in 1157 - East Worldham, Hampshire, England age at death: 91 years old
Married to
? ?

Spouses, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren
Married in 1104, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, to Gilbert Giffard (Fitzgilbert) (Royal Serjeant and Marshall to Henry I) MARSHALL, born in 1075 - Axbridge, Somerset, England, Deceased in 1130 - Marlborough, Wiltshire, England age at death: 55 years old (Parents : M Robert (Curthose) De (Duke of NORMANDY) NORMANDY 1054-1134 & F Sybilla (Brindisi Of) CONVERSANO 1079-1103) with
M John (Fitzgilbert) (Earl of Pembroke, Marshall of England) MARSHALL 1105-1165 married, Wiltshire, England, to Aline Pipard
John (Fitzgilbert) (Earl of Pembroke, Marshall of England) MARSHALL 1105-1165 married in 1143, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, to Sibilla De SALISBURY 1109-1155 with
M John MARSHALL 1144-1194 married in 1165, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, to Alice De Port 1144-1180 with :
M John Marshall 1185-1235
M William (SIR - Knight Templar)(Earl Pembroke) MARSHALL 1146-1219 married in August 1189, London, England, to Isabel De CLARE 1172-1217 with :
F Maud (Countess of Norfolk Countess of Surrey) MARSHALL 1192-1248
F Eve (Baroness of Abergavenny) MARSHALL 1194-1246
M Gilbert MARSHALL 1196-1241
M William (4th Earl of Pembroke/ChiefJusticar of Ireland) MARSHALL 1198-1231
F Isabel (Fitzgilbert) (Countess MARSHALL) MARSHALL 1200-1239
F Sibyl MARSHALL ca 1201-1245
F Joane MARSHALL 1202-1234
F Margaret (Fitzgilbert) MARSHALL /1155-1242 married in 1181, Wiltshire, England, to Ralph De (Lord Dudley) SOMERY 1151-1210 with :
F Joan De SOMERY ca 1191-1276
M Roger De (SIR - Lord Dudley) SOMERY 1208-1273

Paternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M Ralf De Venuz 1040- married
F ? ?
M Geoffrey De Venuz 1066-1157
married
1 child

(hide)

Timeline
10 March 1085 : Birth - Calvados, Basse-Normandie, France
1104 : Marriage (with Gilbert Giffard (Fitzgilbert) (Royal Serjeant and Marshall to Henry I) MARSHALL) - Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales
1105 : Birth - Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales
1119 : Death - Pembrokeshire, Wales
19 July 1119 : Death - Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales

Sources
Individual:
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=9978
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=9978
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=9978
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=9978
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=9978
Search the matching civil records

Family Tree Preview
Ancestry Chart Descendancy Chart
_____| 4_ Ralf De Venuz 1040-
/
|2_ Geoffrey De Venuz 1066-1157
| \
|--1_ Mary Margarite De Venuz 1085-1119
|3_ ? ?

Family Tree owner : Dave BRADLEY (belfast8)

end of profile

Children:

5564. Baron John FitzGilbert was born on 26 Nov 1105 in (Wiltshire) England; died on 29 Sep 1165 in Rockley, Marlborough, Wiltshire, England; was buried in Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England.

11130.

Notes:

Birth: 1091
Salisbury
Wiltshire Unitary Authority
Wiltshire, England
Death: 1147
Bradenstoke
Wiltshire Unitary Authority
Wiltshire, England

Walter of Salisbury was born to Edward of Salisbury, Earl of Salisbury, Sheriff of Wiltshire and Maud Fitz Hurbert. He was also styled also Walter FitzEdward and Walter the Sheriff. He married Sybil de Chaworth daughter of Patrick De Chaworth and, Matilda de Hesdin. He founded the Priory of Bradenstoke, and was a benefactor to Salisbury Cathedral. His wife, Sybil, preceeded in death, and was buried near the chior in Bradenstoke Priory. Walter took the habit of a canon there, died in 1147, he is buried in the same grave as his wife.

Family links:
Parents:
Edward Of Salisbury

Spouse:
Sibilla de Chaworth (1100 - 1140)*

Children:
Hawise de Salisbury de Dreux (1118 - 1151)*
Patrick d' Evereux (1122 - 1168)*
Sybilla de Salisbury (1126 - 1176)*

*Calculated relationship

Burial:
Bradenstoke Priory
Bradenstoke
Wiltshire Unitary Authority
Wiltshire, England

Created by: Audrey DeCamp Hoffman
Record added: Apr 21, 2012
Find A Grave Memorial# 88928387

end

Buried:
at Bradenstoke Priory...

The priory was founded in 1142 as the Augustinian priory of Clack, and dedicated to Saint Mary.[1] It was well-sited on a high ridge near a holy well, with further springs nearby; there is some evidence that a chapel of the era of Henry I already existed at the holy well.[1]

The founder,[2] Walter FitzEdward de Salisbury, was the son of Edward de Salisbury,[3] a High Sheriff of Wiltshire; he gave lands for a priory as a daughter house of St. Mary's Abbey, Cirencester, according to its charter, "to serve God forever!".[4] After the death of his wife, he "took the tonsure and habit of the canons" and on his death in 1147, was buried in the Priory, near the choir.[4] His descendants, the Earls of Salisbury remained closely connected with the priory for many years.[1] In 1190 thirteen of the monks migrated to Cartmel Priory, Cumbria, which had been recently established by William Marshal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradenstoke_Priory

11131.

Sibilla de Chaworth was born in 0___ 1100 in Kempsford, Gloucestershire, England; died in 0___ 1140 in Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England; was buried in Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England.

Notes:

Birth: 1100
Kempsford
Cotswold District
Gloucestershire, England
Death: 1140
Bradenstoke
Wiltshire Unitary Authority
Wiltshire, England

Sibilla was the daughter of Patrick de Chaources and Matilda Hesdin.
She married Walter de Salisbury, son of Edward de Salisbury and Matilda Fitz Herbert. (Walter de Salisbury was born about 1087 in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England, died in 1147 in Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England.
Both Sibilla and Walter were buried together in the choir in Bradenstoke Priory, Bradenstoke, Wiltshire County, England.
They had at least three children: Patrick, Sibyl and Harvise (Hedwige)

Family links:
Spouse:
Walter Fitz Edward (1091 - 1147)

Children:
Hawise de Salisbury de Dreux (1118 - 1151)*
Patrick d' Evereux (1122 - 1168)*
Sybilla de Salisbury (1126 - 1176)*

*Calculated relationship

Burial:
Bradenstoke Priory
Bradenstoke
Wiltshire Unitary Authority
Wiltshire, England
Plot: Choir with her husband

Created by: Kat
Record added: May 15, 2012
Find A Grave Memorial# 90151726

end

Buried:
at Bradenstoke Priory...

The priory was founded in 1142 as the Augustinian priory of Clack, and dedicated to Saint Mary.[1] It was well-sited on a high ridge near a holy well, with further springs nearby; there is some evidence that a chapel of the era of Henry I already existed at the holy well.[1]

The founder,[2] Walter FitzEdward de Salisbury, was the son of Edward de Salisbury,[3] a High Sheriff of Wiltshire; he gave lands for a priory as a daughter house of St. Mary's Abbey, Cirencester, according to its charter, "to serve God forever!".[4] After the death of his wife, he "took the tonsure and habit of the canons" and on his death in 1147, was buried in the Priory, near the choir.[4] His descendants, the Earls of Salisbury remained closely connected with the priory for many years.[1] In 1190 thirteen of the monks migrated to Cartmel Priory, Cumbria, which had been recently established by William Marshal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradenstoke_Priory

Children:

Sir Patrick of Salisbury, Knight, 1st Earl of Salisbury was born in 1117-1122 in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England; died on 27 Mar 1168 in Poitiers, France; was buried in St. Hilaire Abbey, Poitiers, Vienne, France.
5565. Sibyl of Salisbury was born on 27 Nov 1126; died in 0___ 1176 in Old Sarum (Salisbury), Wiltshire, England.

24120.

Sir Robert Quincy, Lord of Buckley was born in ~1138 in Northamptonshire, England (son of Sir Saher Quincy, Lord of Bushby, Lord of Long Buckby and Matilda Senlis); died before 29 Sep 1198 in England.

Notes:

Robert "Lord of Buckley" de Quincy formerly Quincy
Born about 1138 in Northamptonshire, England
ANCESTORS ancestors
Son of Saher (Quincy) de Quincy and Matilda (Senlis) Clare
Brother of Walter FitzRobert [half], Maud (Senlis) Luvetot [half], Jueta (Quincy) Lancelin, Roger Quincy and Alice (Quincy) de Huntingfield
Husband of Orabella (Leuchars) de Quincy — married about 1153 [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Father of Saher (Quincy) de Quincy, Simon (Quincy) de Quincy and Maud (Quincy) de Prendergast
Died before 29 Sep 1198 in England

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Quincy-78 created 3 Apr 2011 | Last modified 9 Aug 2019 | Last tracked change:
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British Aristocracy
Robert (Quincy) de Quincy was a member of aristocracy in the British Isles.
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Biography
Robert's older brother, Saher II, inherited the English estates from SAHER I. Robert started appearing in Scottish records around 1165. His career was doubtless advanced by his second cousins Malcolm and WILLIAM THE LION (RIN 1913), successively kings of Scotland, and it was certainly KING WILLIAM who granted to him the site of the old castle of Forfar and a toft in Haddington. While his brother Saher II was serving HENRY II as a justice in Normandy, Robert was acting as Justiciar of Scotland, an office which he held from 1171 to 1178.

Royal favour may also have brought about his marriage, at a date unknown, to a notable heiress, ORABILE, daughter of NESS son of WILLIAM. Her father, a prominent but ill-documented figure, was apparently a first-generation Norman-Scot. ORABILE was heir to her father's lands, to the exclusion of his sons Constantine and Patrick, and thus brought to Robert estates at Gask and Deuglie, in Perthshire, at Leuchars, Lathrisk, Beath and elsewhere in Fife, and at Tranent, in Lothian. This fortunate marriage helped to raise Robert in a short time to a level of importance in Scotland greater than the relatively minor position which his brother Saher II held in English society. Twelfth-century Scotland was a land of opportunity and a vigorous younger son such as Robert de Quincy could make there a name which might become known well beyond the bounds of the small northern kingdom.

In 1190 Robert joined King Richard I on the Third Crusade, was constable of a force to take aid to Antioch in 1191 and in the same year was sent with HUGH III, DUKE OF BURGUNDY (RIN 3796) to Tyre to collect prisoners from PHILIP AUGUSTUS, KING OF FRANCE (RIN 3163). On his return from the crusade, Robert took part in Richard I's campaigns in Normandy in 1194 and 1196. On the death of his nephew Saher III, before 1192, Robert succeeded to the English estates of the family's main line and added these to his Scottish possession s.

By the time of his death, which took place before Michaelmas, 1197, he had proved himself as a knight of wide experience and had established his position as an Anglo-Scottish baron of some prominence. The marriage of Robert and OR ABILE was apparently ended by a separation. She later married Gilchrist, earl of Mar, while Robert married a lady named Eve, who may possibly have been of t he family of the lords of Galloway. The matrimonial complexities of this situation have caused a controversy which need not be entered upon here.

Became a "Soldier of the Cross." [The Roll of Battle Abbey]

First of the de Quincys to settle in Scotland. Was a Northamptonshire gentleman who attached himself to William the Lion, or his predecessor. Married Arabella, daughter of Nes, by whom on her father's death, he obtained Leuchers in Fife, and Duglyn among the Ochils. Died about 1190. Appears as a witness in some of the charters of Malcolm IV. [The Bruces and the Cumyns, p. 519]

Lord of Buckley and of Fawside; Crusader; m. Orabella, dau. of Ness; father of Saher de Quincy, b. 1155; d. c. 1198. [Ancestral Roots, p. 58]

Sources
Phillips, Weber, Kirk and Staggs Families of the Pacific Northwest, by Jim Weber, rootsweb.com
Nobility: Plantagenet Ancestry (William Harry Turton), Turton, William Harry, 1856-1938. (Main), ((Baltimore:MD, Genealogical Publishing Co., 1984), L.A. Public Library GS #Q942.54 H2nic; LC CALL NO.: CS418.T81968; LCCN: 68-54254 //r92), 929.7.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Quincy,_Saer_de_%28DNB00%29
http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISH%20NOBILITY%20MEDIEVAL2.htm#RobertQuincydied1217
http://www.geni.com/people/Robert-de-Quincey/6000000001744873862
http://www.mathematical.com/quinceyrobert1127.html
http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISH%20NOBILITY%20MEDIEVAL2.htm
Royal Ancestors of Magna Charta Barons," Carr P. Collins (Dallas, 1959), pp.208-09
http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=16746257&pid=2306

end of this biography

Robert married Orabella Leuchars in ~1153. Orabella was born in ~1135 in Leuchars, Fife, Scotland; died before June 1203 in Long Buckby, Northamptonshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24121.

Orabella Leuchars was born in ~1135 in Leuchars, Fife, Scotland; died before June 1203 in Long Buckby, Northamptonshire, England.

Notes:

Robert "Lord of Buckley" de Quincy formerly Quincy
Born about 1138 in Northamptonshire, England
ANCESTORS ancestors
Son of Saher (Quincy) de Quincy and Matilda (Senlis) Clare
Brother of Walter FitzRobert [half], Maud (Senlis) Luvetot [half], Jueta (Quincy) Lancelin, Roger Quincy and Alice (Quincy) de Huntingfield
Husband of Orabella (Leuchars) de Quincy — married about 1153 [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Father of Saher (Quincy) de Quincy, Simon (Quincy) de Quincy and Maud (Quincy) de Prendergast
Died before 29 Sep 1198 in England

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British Aristocracy
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Biography
Robert's older brother, Saher II, inherited the English estates from SAHER I. Robert started appearing in Scottish records around 1165. His career was doubtless advanced by his second cousins Malcolm and WILLIAM THE LION (RIN 1913), successively kings of Scotland, and it was certainly KING WILLIAM who granted to him the site of the old castle of Forfar and a toft in Haddington. While his brother Saher II was serving HENRY II as a justice in Normandy, Robert was acting as Justiciar of Scotland, an office which he held from 1171 to 1178.

Royal favour may also have brought about his marriage, at a date unknown, to a notable heiress, ORABILE, daughter of NESS son of WILLIAM. Her father, a prominent but ill-documented figure, was apparently a first-generation Norman-Scot. ORABILE was heir to her father's lands, to the exclusion of his sons Constantine and Patrick, and thus brought to Robert estates at Gask and Deuglie, in Perthshire, at Leuchars, Lathrisk, Beath and elsewhere in Fife, and at Tranent, in Lothian. This fortunate marriage helped to raise Robert in a short time to a level of importance in Scotland greater than the relatively minor position which his brother Saher II held in English society. Twelfth-century Scotland was a land of opportunity and a vigorous younger son such as Robert de Quincy could make there a name which might become known well beyond the bounds of the small northern kingdom.

In 1190 Robert joined King Richard I on the Third Crusade, was constable of a force to take aid to Antioch in 1191 and in the same year was sent with HUGH III, DUKE OF BURGUNDY (RIN 3796) to Tyre to collect prisoners from PHILIP AUGUSTUS, KING OF FRANCE (RIN 3163). On his return from the crusade, Robert took part in Richard I's campaigns in Normandy in 1194 and 1196. On the death of his nephew Saher III, before 1192, Robert succeeded to the English estates of the family's main line and added these to his Scottish possession s.

By the time of his death, which took place before Michaelmas, 1197, he had proved himself as a knight of wide experience and had established his position as an Anglo-Scottish baron of some prominence. The marriage of Robert and OR ABILE was apparently ended by a separation. She later married Gilchrist, earl of Mar, while Robert married a lady named Eve, who may possibly have been of t he family of the lords of Galloway. The matrimonial complexities of this situation have caused a controversy which need not be entered upon here.

Became a "Soldier of the Cross." [The Roll of Battle Abbey]

First of the de Quincys to settle in Scotland. Was a Northamptonshire gentleman who attached himself to William the Lion, or his predecessor. Married Arabella, daughter of Nes, by whom on her father's death, he obtained Leuchers in Fife, and Duglyn among the Ochils. Died about 1190. Appears as a witness in some of the charters of Malcolm IV. [The Bruces and the Cumyns, p. 519]

Lord of Buckley and of Fawside; Crusader; m. Orabella, dau. of Ness; father of Saher de Quincy, b. 1155; d. c. 1198. [Ancestral Roots, p. 58]

Sources
Phillips, Weber, Kirk and Staggs Families of the Pacific Northwest, by Jim Weber, rootsweb.com
Nobility: Plantagenet Ancestry (William Harry Turton), Turton, William Harry, 1856-1938. (Main), ((Baltimore:MD, Genealogical Publishing Co., 1984), L.A. Public Library GS #Q942.54 H2nic; LC CALL NO.: CS418.T81968; LCCN: 68-54254 //r92), 929.7.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Quincy,_Saer_de_%28DNB00%29
http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISH%20NOBILITY%20MEDIEVAL2.htm#RobertQuincydied1217
http://www.geni.com/people/Robert-de-Quincey/6000000001744873862
http://www.mathematical.com/quinceyrobert1127.html
http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISH%20NOBILITY%20MEDIEVAL2.htm
Royal Ancestors of Magna Charta Barons," Carr P. Collins (Dallas, 1959), pp.208-09
http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=16746257&pid=2306

end of this biography

Children:

12060. Sir Saer de Quincy, Knight, 1st Earl of Winchester was born in ~1155 in Winchester, Hampshire, England; died on 3 Nov 1219 in (Acre) Israel; was buried in Acre, Israel.

24122.

Sir Robert de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Leicester was born in 1135 in Beaumont, Normandy, France (son of Sir Robert de Beaumont, Knight, 2nd Earl of Leicester and Lady Amice de Montfort, Countess of Leicester); died on 31 Aug 1190 in Durazzo, Albania.

Other Events and Attributes:

Occupation: Crusader
Alt Birth: ~1120, Leicestershire, England

Notes:

Robert de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Leicester (died 1190) was an English nobleman, one of the principal followers of Henry the Young King in the Revolt of 1173–1174 against his father Henry II. He is also called Robert Blanchemains (meaning "White Hands" in French).

Life

He was the son of Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester, a staunch supporter of Henry II, and he inherited from his father large estates in England and Normandy.

When the revolt of the younger Henry broke out in April 1173, Robert went to his castle at Breteuil in Normandy. The rebels' aim was to take control of the duchy, but Henry II himself led an army to besiege the castle; Robert fled, and the Breteuil was taken on September 25 or 26.

Robert apparently went to Flanders, where he raised a large force of mercenaries, and landed at Walton, Suffolk, on 29 September 1173. He joined forces with Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk, and the two marched west, aiming to cut England in two across the Midlands and to relieve the king's siege of Robert's castle at Leicester. However, they were intercepted by the king's supporters and defeated at the Battle of Fornham near Fornham, near Bury St Edmunds, on 17 October. Robert, along with his wife and many others, was taken prisoner. Henry II took away the earl's lands and titles as well.

He remained in captivity until January 1177, well after most of the other prisoners had been released. The king was in a strong position and could afford to be merciful; not long after his release Robert's lands and titles were restored, but not his castles. All but two of his castles had been destroyed, and those two (Montsorrel in Leicestershire and Pacy in Normandy) remained in the king's hands.

Robert had little influence in the remaining years of Henry II's reign, but was restored to favour by Richard I. He carried one of the swords of state at Richard's coronation in 1189. In 1190 Robert went on the third crusade to Palestine, but he died at Dyrrachium on his return journey.

Family

Robert married Petronilla, who was a daughter of William de Grandmesnil and great-granddaughter and eventual heiress to the English lands of Domesday baron, Hugh de Grandmesnil. They had five children:

Robert, who succeeded his father as Earl of Leicester;
Roger, who became Bishop of St Andrews in 1189;
William, possibly the ancestor of the House of Hamilton;[1][2]
Amicia, who married Simon de Montfort, and whose son Simon subsequently became Earl of Leicester;
Margaret, who married Saer de Quincy, later 1st Earl of Winchester.

*

3rd Earl of Leicester Robert "Blanchmains" de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Leicester
Also Known As: "Robert de Harcourt", "Robert 'Blanchemains' de Beaumont", "Knight", "3rd Earl", "Robert (Sir) "The Crusader" de BEAUMONT", "Robert III 3rd Earl of Leicester BEAUMONT", "3rd Earl of Leicester Beaumont Robert III DE Beaumont"
Birthdate: circa 1120
Birthplace: Leicester, Leicestershire, England
Death: Died August 31, 1190 in (now Albania), Durazzo Provence, Greece
Cause of death: Died in Greece on his return journey from a pilgrimage to Palestine.
Place of Burial: England
Immediate Family:
Son of Sir Robert de Beaumont, Knight, Earl of Leicester, Justiciar of England and Amice de Gaèel, Heiress of Breteuil, Countess Of Leicester
Husband of Petronille (Pernel) De Grentmesnil
Father of Margaret de Quincy, of Groby; Roger de Breteuil, Bishop of St. Andrews; Robert "Fitz-Parnell" de Breteuil, 4th Earl of Leicester; Amicia de Beaumont, Countess of Leicester; Hawise de Beaumont, [A Nun] and 2 others
Brother of Isabel (Elizabeth) de Beaumont; Hawise de Beaumont, Countess of Gloucester; Margaret de Beaumont and Hawise de Berkeley
Occupation: Knight and 3rd Earl of Leicester, Crusader to the Holy Lands, de Winchester, 1st Earl of Leicester, 2nd Lord High Steward of England
Managed by: Terry Jackson (Switzer)
Last Updated: November 15, 2016

About Robert de Beaumont, Third Earl of Leicester
Robert de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Leicester

From Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_de_Beaumont,_3rd_Earl_of_Leicester

Robert de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Leicester (died 1190) was an English nobleman, one of the principal followers of Henry the Young King in the Revolt of 1173–1174 against his father Henry II. He is also called Robert Blanchemains (meaning "White Hands" in French).

He was the son of Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester, a staunch supporter of Henry II, and he inherited from his father large estates in England and Normandy.

When the revolt of the younger Henry broke out in April 1173, Robert went to his castle at Breteuil in Normandy. The rebels' aim was to take control of the duchy, but Henry II himself led an army to besiege the castle; Robert fled, and the Breteuil was taken on September 25 or 26.

Robert apparently went to Flanders, where he raised a large force of mercenaries, and landed at Walton, Suffolk, on 29 September 1173. He joined forces with Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk, and the two marched west, aiming to cut England in two across the Midlands and to relieve the king's siege of Robert's castle at Leicester. However, they were intercepted by the king's supporters and defeated in battle at Fornham, near Bury St Edmunds, on 17 October. Robert, along with his wife and many others, was taken prisoner. Henry II took away the earl's lands and titles as well.

He remained in captivity until January 1177, well after most of the other prisoners had been released. The king was in a strong position and could afford to be merciful; not long after his release Robert's lands and titles were restored, but not his castles. All but two of his castles had been destroyed, and those two (Montsorrel in Leicestershire and Pacy in Normandy) remained in the king's hands.

Robert had little influence in the remaining years of Henry II's reign, but was restored to favour by Richard I. He carried one of the swords of state at Richard's coronation in 1189. In 1190 Robert went on pilgrimage to Palestine, but he died in Greece on his return journey.

Family

Robert married Petronilla[1], who was either a granddaughter or great-granddaughter of Hugh de Grandmesnil. They had five children:

* Robert, who succeeded his father as Earl of Leicester;
* Roger, who became Bishop of St Andrews in 1189;
* William, who was a leper;
* Amicia, who married Simon III de Montfort, and whose son Simon subsequently became Earl of Leicester;
* Margaret, who married Saer de Quincy, later 1st Earl of Winchester.
-------------------------

http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/NORMAN%20NOBILITY.htm#RobertBeaumontLeicesterdied1118B

ROBERT de Beaumont "le Bossu" (1104-5 Apr 1168, bur [Sainte-Marie de Prâe]). Twin with Walâeran. He and his twin brother were brought up at the court of Henry I King of England[1733]. He succeeded his father in 1118 as Earl of Leicester. He supported King Stephen during the civil war with Empress Matilda. Henry Duke of Normandy restored property to "Rodberto filio comitis Legrec…Rodberti comitis" held by "patris sui…sicut comes Rodbertus de Mellend avus suus…Willelmus de Britolio", and granted him the property of "Willelmus de Pasci in Anglia et in Normannia" by charter dated to [Jan/Aug] 1153, witnessed by "…Guarino filio Geraldi, Henrico duo fratre…"[1734]. He became Steward of England and Normandy under King Henry II in 1154, and acted as Viceroy during the king's absence from England Dec 1158 to 25 Jan 1163 and again in 1165[1735]. Robert of Torigny records the death in 1168 of "Robertus comes Leecestriµ"[1736]. The necrology of the abbey of Saint-Denis records the death "Non Apr" of "Robertus comes Leecestrie"[1737]. The necrology of Saint-Nicaise de Meulan records the death of "Robertus comes Leicestrie", undated but among other deaths listed in early April[1738]. The necrology of Lyre monastery records the death "5 Apr" of "Robertus comes Legrecestriµ"[1739]. m (after 25 Nov 1120) AMICE de Gaèel, heiress of Breteuil, daughter of RAOUL Seigneur de Gaèel et de Montfort & his wife --- (-31 Aug [1168 or after]). She is named by Orderic Vitalis, who also names her father and specifies that her marriage was arranged by Henry I King of England after she had been betrothed to his deceased son Richard[1740]. She is said to have become a nun at Nuneaton after her husband's death[1741]. The necrology of the abbey of Saint-Denis records the death "II Kal Sep" of "Amicia comitissa Leecestre"[1742]. The necrology of Lyre monastery records the death "31 Aug" of "Robertus comes Leicestriµ, Amicia comitissa"[1743]. Earl Robert & his wife had four children:

a) ISABELLE de Beaumont (-after 1188). Robert of Torigny refers to the wife of "Symone comite Huntedoniµ" as "filia Roberti comitis Legecestriµ" but does not name her[1744]. "R. comes Legrecestrie" granted tithes to "Isabele comitisse de Norhamtone sororis mee" by charter dated to the middle of the reign of King Henry II[1745]. "I. comitissa Northamptonie" donated land at Groby to Nuneaton priory, for the souls of "patris mei et fratris mei R. comitis Legrecestrie" by charter dated to the middle of the reign of King Henry II[1746]. It is likely that Isabelle was the eldest child as she gave birth to her own first child in [1138]. Her second marriage is confirmed by charter dated 1187 under which “Gervasius Paganellus” donated property to Tykford Priory, with the consent of “uxoris meµ Isabellµ comitissµ de Norhamton”, which names “Fulcodius Paganellus avus meus et Radulfus Paganellus pater meus”, witnessed by “Simone comite Northamptoniµ, Isabella comitissa matre eius”[1747]. “G. Painel”, considering the proposal of “Radulfi Painel patris mei”, founded Dudley priory, for the salvation of “Isabellµ uxoris meµ et Roberti filii mei”, by undated charter (dated by Dugdale to "before 1161")[1748]. m firstly (before 1138) SIMON de Senlis, son of SIMON de Senlis Earl of Huntingdon and Northampton & his wife Matilda [Matilda] of Huntingdon (-Aug 1153, bur St Andrew's Priory). He was restored as Earl of Huntingdon and Northampton [before 1141]. m secondly GERVASE Paynell Baron of Dudley, Worcestershire, son of RALPH Paynell & his wife --- (-1194[1749]).

b) ROBERT de Beaumont "áes Blanchemains" (-Durazzo 1190). Robert of Torigny records the death in 1168 of "Robertus comes Leecestriµ" and the succession of "filium Robertum"[1750]. He succeeded his father in 1168 as Earl of Leicester. - see below.

c) HAVISE de Beaumont (-24 Apr or 25 May 1197). The Chronica de Fundatoribus et Fundatione of Tewkesbury Abbey records that “comes Willielmus” married “Hawisia filia comitis Leicestriµ”[1751]. The Obituary of Lyre records the death 25 May of “Hawis comitissa Gloecestrµ”[1752]. The Annals of Tewkesbury record the death “VIII Kal Mai” in 1197 of “Hawisa comitissa Glocestriµ”[1753]. The necrology of Lyre monastery records the death "25 May" of "Hawis comitissa Gloecestrµ"[1754]. m ([1150]) WILLIAM FitzRobert Earl of Gloucester, son of ROBERT Fitzroy Earl of Gloucester & his wife Mabel [Matilda or Sibylle] FitzRobert (23 Nov [1112]-23 Nov 1183, bur Keynsham Abbey, Somerset),

d) MARGUERITE de Beaumont ([1125]-after 1185). Robert of Torigny refers to the wife of "Radulfus de Toene" as "filia Roberti comitis Leccestriµ" but does not name her[1755]. The 1163/64 Pipe Roll records "Margareta uxor Rad de Toeni" making payment "de Suppl de Welcumesto" in Essex/Hertfordshire[1756]. The Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records “Margareta de Tony…lx annorum” and her land “in Welcumestowe"[1757]. m (after 1155) RAOUL [V] de Tosny, son of ROGER [III] Seigneur de Tosny & his wife Gertrude [Ida] de Hainaut (-1162).

Sources

[1734] Gurney (1858), Supplement, 63, p. 756.
[1735] Testa de Nevill, Part I, p. 19.
[1736] Red Book Exchequer, Part II, Inquisitiones…Regis Johannis…anno regno XII et XIII…de servitiis militum, p. 477.
[1737] Gurney (1845), p. 176, quoting Close Rolls, 16 John, p. 172.
[1738] Luard, H. R. (ed.) (1866) Annales Monastici Vol. III, Annales Prioratus de Dunstaplia, Annales Monasterii de Bermundeseia (London), Annales de Dunstaplia, p. 42.
[1739] Gurney (1845), p. 141, quoting Neustria Pia, p. 891, article Belozanne.
[1740] Gurney (1858), Supplement, 63, p. 756.
[1741] Gurney (1845), p. 146, quoting Vitis Calthorpiana, Harl. 970, MS British Museum.
[1742] Gurney (1845), p. 176, quoting Close Rolls, 16 John, p. 172.
[1743] Gurney (1845), p. 146, quoting Vitis Calthorpiana, Harl. 970, MS British Museum.
[1744] Patent Rolls Henry III 1215-1225 (1901), p. 37.
[1745] Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, 17/18 John, p. 596.
[1746] Maclean, J. (ed.) (1883) The Lives of the Berkeleys by John Smyth (Gloucester) ("Berkeleys Lives"), Vol. I, p. 98.
[1747] Testa de Nevill, Part I, p. 378.
[1748] Inquisitions Post Mortem, Vol. II, Edward I, 772, p. 468.
[1749] Sayles, G. O. (ed.) Select Cases in the Court of King´s Bench, Vol. III, Edw I (Selden Society, vol. LVIII, 1939), p. cxv (entry e), summary of content available at (25 Jun 2008). [Margaret Schooling]
[1750] Heley Chadwyck-Healey, C. E. and Landon, L. (1923) Somersetshire Pleas, Roll no. 1205, p. 97 footnote 1, citing Calendar of Charter Rolls, Vol. I, p. 305, and Hundred Rolls, Vol. II, p. 133. [Margaret Schooling]
[1751] Somersetshire Pleas (1923), Roll no. 1205, pp. 96-7, [41 end, Henry III Vol. 36 500 (O62)]. [Margaret Schooling]
[1752] Paris Notre-Dame, Tome I, XIII, p. 428.
[1753] Paris Notre-Dame, Tome I, XIII, p. 428.
[1754] Paris Notre-Dame, Tome I, XIII, p. 428.
[1755] Paris Notre-Dame, Tome I, XIII, p. 428.
[1756] Willelmi Gemmetencis Historiµ (Du Chesne, 1619), Liber VIII, XXXVII, p. 312.
[1757] Orderic Vitalis (Prâevost), Vol. III, Liber VIII, IX, p. 320.
Nickname: "Blanchmains" Ancestral File Number: 9Q8B-16 On Leiceste r, Earldom of [Burke's Peerage, p. 1671]:

The 3rd Earl of this creation, yet another Robert, rebelled against Henry II and the town of Leicester was captur ed and set fire to by the King in 1173, although the castle itself was not take n. The 3rd Earl was later captured by Henry II, however, and the King then pul led the castle down.

Copyrighted but use freely for your self and families Not to be sent to for profit company's

Father: Robert II Earl of Leicester de BEAUMONT b: 1104 in Leicester, Leicestershire, England Mother: Amice de MONTFORT b: 1108 in Montford de Gael, Brittany, France

Marriage 1 Petronilla (Pernel) GRENTEMESNIL b: ABT 1129 in Of, Leicestershire, England Married: ABT 1155 8 Sealing Spouse: 21 NOV 1972 in LANGE Children Has Children Margaret de BEAUMONT b: 1154 in Leicester, Leicestershire, England Has No Children Robert "Fitz-Parnell" HARCOURT b: ABT 1156 in Of, Bramber, Sussex, England Has No Children Roger HARCOURT b: ABT 1158 in Of Beaumont, France Has Children William Constable of Norwich Castle BEAUMONT b: ABT 1157 in Leicestershire, England Has No Children Amicia HARCOURT b: ABT 1160 in Of, Leicester, Leicestershire, England Has No Children Geoffrey de BEAUMONT b: ABT 1161 in Of, Leicester, Leicestershire, England Has No Children Mabel de BEAUMONT b: ABT 1162 in Of, Leicester, Leicestershire, England Has No Children Hawise de BEAUMONT b: ABT 1164 in Of, Leicester, Leicestershire, England Has No Children Pernel de BEAUMONT b: ABT 1166 in Of, Leicester, Leicestershire, England

Sources: Title: Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists, 7th Edition, by Frederick LewisWeis, additions by Walter Lee Shippard Jr., 1999 Note: Source Medium: Book

Page: 53-26 Title: The Magna Charta Sureties 1215, Frederick Lewis Weis, additions by Walter Lee Sheppard Jr, 5th Edition, 1999 Note: Source Medium: Book

Page: 74-1 Title: Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, 106th Edition, Charles Mosley Editor-in-Chief, 1999 Page: 1671 Footnote: 23 May 2002. Footnote: 28 May 2002. Footnote: 27 May 2002. Footnote: 16 Jul 2001. Title: The Plantagenet Ancestry, by William Henry Turton, 1968 Note: Source Medium: Book

Page: 53-26

ROBERT, Third Earl of Leicester

Died:
Died August 31, 1190 in (now Albania), Durazzo Provence, Greece
Cause of death: Died in Greece on his return journey from a pilgrimage to Palestine.

Robert married Petronilla de Grandmesnil before 1159. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24123.

Children:

12061. Margaret de Beaumont was born in ~1154 in Leicestershire, England; died on 12 Jan 1235 in Brackley, Northamptonshire, England.
Lady Amicia de Beaumont, Countess of Leicester was born in 0___ 1160 in Leicestershire, England; died on 3 Sep 1215 in Haute Bruyere, Rouen, Seine Et Maritime, France.

6048.

Notes:

Henry founded the Plantagenet Dynasty...

Henry II (5 March 1133 – 6 July 1189), also known as Henry Curtmantle (French: Court-manteau), Henry FitzEmpress or Henry Plantagenet, ruled as Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Count of Nantes, King of England and Lord of Ireland; at various times, he also controlled Wales, Scotland and Brittany. Henry was the son of Geoffrey of Anjou and Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England. He became actively involved by the age of 14 in his mother's efforts to claim the throne of England, then occupied by Stephen of Blois, and was made Duke of Normandy at 17. He inherited Anjou in 1151 and shortly afterwards married Eleanor of Aquitaine, whose marriage to Louis VII of France had recently been annulled. Stephen agreed to a peace treaty after Henry's military expedition to England in 1153, and Henry inherited the kingdom on Stephen's death a year later.

Henry was an energetic and sometimes ruthless ruler, driven by a desire to restore the lands and privileges of his grandfather Henry I. During the early years of his reign the younger Henry restored the royal administration in England, re-established hegemony over Wales and gained full control over his lands in Anjou, Maine and Touraine. Henry's desire to reform the relationship with the Church led to conflict with his former friend Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. This controversy lasted for much of the 1160s and resulted in Becket's murder in 1170. Henry soon came into conflict with Louis VII and the two rulers fought what has been termed a "cold war" over several decades. Henry expanded his empire, often at Louis' expense, taking Brittany and pushing east into central France and south into Toulouse; despite numerous peace conferences and treaties, no lasting agreement was reached. By 1172, he controlled England, large parts of Wales, the eastern half of Ireland and the western half of France, an area that would later come to be called the Angevin Empire.

Henry and Eleanor had eight children. As they grew up, tensions over the future inheritance of the empire began to emerge, encouraged by Louis and his son King Philip II. In 1173 Henry's heir apparent, "Young Henry", rebelled in protest; he was joined by his brothers Richard and Geoffrey and by their mother, Eleanor. France, Scotland, Brittany, Flanders, and Boulogne allied themselves with the rebels. The Great Revolt was only defeated by Henry's vigorous military action and talented local commanders, many of them "new men" appointed for their loyalty and administrative skills. Young Henry and Geoffrey revolted again in 1183, resulting in Young Henry's death. The Norman invasion of Ireland provided lands for his youngest son John, but Henry struggled to find ways to satisfy all his sons' desires for land and immediate power. Philip successfully played on Richard's fears that Henry would make John king, and a final rebellion broke out in 1189. Decisively defeated by Philip and Richard and suffering from a bleeding ulcer, Henry retreated to Chinon castle in Anjou, where he died.

Henry's empire quickly collapsed during the reign of his youngest son John. Many of the changes Henry introduced during his long rule, however, had long-term consequences. Henry's legal changes are generally considered to have laid the basis for the English Common Law, while his intervention in Brittany, Wales and Scotland shaped the development of their societies and governmental systems. Historical interpretations of Henry's reign have changed considerably over time. In the 18th century, scholars argued that Henry was a driving force in the creation of a genuinely English monarchy and, ultimately, a unified Britain. During the Victorian expansion of the British Empire, historians were keenly interested in the formation of Henry's own empire, but they also expressed concern over his private life and treatment of Becket. Late-20th-century historians have combined British and French historical accounts of Henry, challenging earlier Anglo-centric interpretations of his reign.

Who could forget Peter O'Toole's magnificient protrayal of Henry II in the 1968 movie production of "The Lion in Winter" and Katherine Hepburn's Eleanor of Aquitaine? ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion_in_Winter_(1968_film)

end of biography

Source: 'The World Book Encyclopedia', 1968, p H178. 'Royalty for Commoners', Roderick W. Stuart, 1993, p 37-38. Reigned 1154-1189.

He ruled an empire that stretched from the Tweed to the Pyrenees. In spite of frequent hostitilties with the French King his own family and rebellious Barons (culminating in the great revolt of 1173-74) and his quarrel with Thomas Becket, Henry maintained control over his possessions until shortly before his death. His judicial and administrative reforms which increased Royal control and influence at the expense of the Barons were of great constitutional importance. Introduced trial by Jury. Duke of Normandy. Henry II 'Curt Mantel,' Duke of Normandy, Count of Maine and Anjou, King Of England became king in 1154.

At the height of his power, Henry ruled England and almost all western France. His marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, the most famous woman of the age, brought the duchy of Aquitaine under his control. Henry also claimed to rule Scotland, Wales, and eastern Ireland. Henry II carried on his grandfather's policy of limiting the power of the nobles. He also tried to make the Roman Catholic Church in England submit to his authority. This policy brought him into conflict with Thomas a Becket, Achbishop of Canterbury. Four of the king's knights murdered Becket while he was at vespers in his cathedral. Henry made Anglo-Saxon common law, rather than the revised Roman law, the supreme law of the land. He introduced trial by jury and circuit courts. In his later years, Henry's sons often rebelled against him. Two of them, Richard the Lion-Hearted and John, became the next two kings of England.

REF: "Falls the Shadow" Sharon Kay Penman: William the Conqueror requested a large number of Jews to move to England after his conquest. They spoke Norman & did well under his reign. They continued to thrive under William's grandson Henry II.

REF: British Monarchy Official Website: Henry II (reigned 1154-89)

ruled over an empire which stretched from the Scottish border to the Pyrenees. Married to Eleanor, the heiress of Aquitaine, the king spent only 13 years of his reign in England; the other 21 years were spent on the continent in his territories in what is now France. By 1158, Henry had restored to the crown some of the lands and royal power lost by Stephen. For example, locally chosen sheriffs were changed into royally appointed agents charged with enforcing the law and collecting taxes in the counties. Personally interested in government and law, Henry strengthened royal justice, making use of juries and re-introduced the sending of justices (judges) on regular tours of the country to try cases for the Crown. His legal reforms have led him to be seen as the founder of English Common Law. Henry's disagreements with his Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, over Church/State relations ended in Becket's murder in 1170. Family disputes almost wrecked the king's achievements and he died in 1189 at war with his sons.

Reigned 25 Oct 1154-1189. Invested As Duke Of Nomandy By His Parents In 1150.

Ruled An Empire That Stretched From The Tweed To The Pyrenees.

Numerous Quarrels With French King, & His Own Family.

Quarreled With Thomas Becket.

Beat Rebellious Barons (Culminating In The Great Revolt Of 1173-74).

Retained Control Of His Possessions Until Shortly Before His Death.

Important Judicial & Admin. Reforms Incr. Power Of King At The Expense Of Barons

Introduced Trial By Jury.

Count Of Anjou & Aquitaine.

Died:
Images and commentary for Chinon Castle ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Chinon

Buried:
Click on this link to view images of Fontevraud Abbey ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontevraud_Abbey

6049.

Notes:

Eleanor of Aquitaine (French: Aliâenor, âElâeonore, Latin: Alienora; 1122 – 1 April 1204) was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in western Europe during the High Middle Ages and a member of the Ramnulfid dynasty of rulers in southwestern France. She inherited the Duchy of Aquitaine from her father, William X, in 1137, and later became queen consort of France (1137–1152) and of England (1154–1189). She was the patron of literary figures such as Wace, Benoãit de Sainte-Maure, and Bernart de Ventadorn. She was a leader of the Second Crusade and of armies several times in her life.

As Duchess of Aquitaine, Eleanor was the most eligible bride in Europe. Three months after she became duchess, she married King Louis VII of France, son of her guardian, King Louis VI. As Queen of France, she participated in the unsuccessful Second Crusade. Soon after, Eleanor sought an annulment of her marriage,[1] but her request was rejected by Pope Eugene III.[2] However, after the birth of her second daughter Alix, Louis agreed to an annulment given that their union had not produced a son after fifteen years of marriage.[3] The marriage was annulled on 11 March 1152 on the grounds of consanguinity within the fourth degree. Their daughters were declared legitimate and custody was awarded to Louis, while Eleanor's lands were restored to her.

As soon as the annulment was granted, Eleanor became engaged to Henry, Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, who became King Henry II of England in 1154. Henry was her third cousin (cousin of the third degree), and eleven years younger. The couple married on 18 May 1152 (Whit Sunday), eight weeks after the annulment of Eleanor's first marriage, in a cathedral in Poitiers, France. Over the next thirteen years, she bore Henry eight children: five sons, three of whom would become kings; and three daughters. However, Henry and Eleanor eventually became estranged. Henry imprisoned her in 1173 for supporting her son Henry's revolt against her husband. She was not released until 6 July 1189, when Henry died and their son ascended the English throne as Richard I.

Now queen dowager, Eleanor acted as regent while Richard went on the Third Crusade, where on his return he was captured and held prisoner. Eleanor lived well into the reign of her youngest son, John. By the time of her death, she had outlived all her children except for John and Eleanor.

Film, radio and television

Eleanor has featured in a number of screen versions of the Ivanhoe and Robin Hood stories. She has been played by Martita Hunt in The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952), Jill Esmond in the British TV adventure series The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955–1960), Phyllis Neilson-Terry in the British TV adventure series Ivanhoe (1958), Yvonne Mitchell in the BBC TV drama series The Legend of Robin Hood (1975), Siãan Phillips in the TV series Ivanhoe (1997), and Tusse Silberg in the TV series The New Adventures of Robin Hood (1997). She was portrayed by Lynda Bellingham in the BBC series Robin Hood. Most recently, she was portrayed by Eileen Atkins in Robin Hood (2010).

In the 1964 film, "Becket" (1964), Eleanor is briefly played by Pamela Brown to Peter O'Toole's first performance as a young Henry II.

In the 1968 film, The Lion in Winter, Eleanor is played by Katharine Hepburn, while Henry is again portrayed by O'Toole. The film is about the difficult relationship between them and the struggle of their three sons Richard, Geoffrey, and John for their father's favour and the succession. A 2003 TV film, The Lion in Winter (2003 film), starred Glenn Close as Eleanor and Patrick Stewart as Henry.

She was portrayed by Mary Clare in the silent film, Becket (1923), by Prudence Hyman in Richard the Lionheart (1962), and twice by Jane Lapotaire; in the BBC TV drama series, The Devil's Crown (1978), and again in Mike Walker's BBC Radio 4 series, Plantagenet (2010). In the 2010 film, Robin Hood, starring Russell Crowe, Eleanor is played by Eileen Atkins. In the 2014 film, Richard the Lionheart: Rebellion, Eleanor is played by Debbie Rochon.

More on Queen Eleanor ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine

Click this link to view an image collage of Mirabell Castle ... http://bit.ly/1p8kovL

Click on this link to view images of Fontevraud Abbey ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontevraud_Abbey

Henry II held his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine , prisoner at Old Sarum. In the 1190s, the plain between Old Sarum and Wilton was one of five specially designated by Richard I for the holding of English tournaments

Old Sarum is the site of the earliest settlement of Salisbury in England. Located on a hill about 2 miles (3 km) north of modern Salisbury near the A345 road , the settlement appears in some of the earliest records in the country.

Buried:
The abbey was originally the site of the graves of King Henry II of England, his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, their son King Richard I of England, their daughter Joan, their grandson Raymond VII of Toulouse, and Isabella of Angoulãeme, wife of Henry and Eleanor's son King John. However, there is no remaining corporal presence of Henry, Eleanor, Richard, or the others on the site. Their remains were possibly destroyed during the French Revolution.

Click on this link to view images of Fontevraud Abbey ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontevraud_Abbey

Notes:

Married:
thier marriage turned sour after Henry's affair with Rosamund Clifford...

Children:

Richard of England, I, King of England was born on 8 Sep 1157 in Beaumont Palace, Oxford, England; died on 6 Apr 1199 in Limousin, France; was buried in Fontevraud Abbey, France.
12243. Eleanor of England, Queen of Castile was born on 13 Oct 1162 in Domfront Castle, Normandy, France; died on 31 Oct 1214 in Burgos, Spain; was buried in Burgos, Spain.
12070. John I, King of England was born on 24 Dec 1166 in Beaumont Palace, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England; died on 19 Oct 1216 in Newark Castle, Nottinghamshire, England; was buried on 19 Oct 1216 in Worcester Cathedral, Worcester, Warwickshire, England.

24142.

Philip Butler was born in 1157 in Steeple Langford, Wiltshire, England; died in 1174 in Caernarvonshire, Wales.

Philip married Sybil de Braose. Sybil (daughter of Sir William de Braose, Knight, 3rd Lord of Bramber and Lady Bertha of Hereford) was born before 1151 in Bramber, Sussex, England; died on 5 Feb 1227 in Derbyshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24143.

Sybil de Braose was born before 1151 in Bramber, Sussex, England (daughter of Sir William de Braose, Knight, 3rd Lord of Bramber and Lady Bertha of Hereford); died on 5 Feb 1227 in Derbyshire, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: ~1149
Alt Birth: 1157, East Sussex, England

Notes:

Birth: 1157
East Sussex, England
Death: 1228
Derbyshire, England

Family links:
Parents:
William De Braose (1135 - 1179)
Bertha Hereford de Braose (1130 - ____)

Spouse:
William De Ferrers (1140 - 1190)

Siblings:
Bertha de Braose de Beauchamp (1151 - 1200)*
William III de Braose (1153 - 1211)*
Sybil de Braose de Ferrers (1157 - 1228)

*Calculated relationship

Burial:
Unknown

Created by: Deb
Record added: Dec 11, 2016
Find A Grave Memorial# 173766873

*

Children:

12199. Clemence Butler was born in 1175; died in 1231.

24194.

Henry I, King of England was born in 1068-1070 in Selby, Yorkshire, England; was christened on 5 Aug 1100 in Selby, Yorkshire, England (son of William the Conqueror, King of England, Duke of Normandy and Matilda of Flanders, Queen of England); died on 1 Dec 1135 in Saint-Denis-en-Lyons, Normandy, France; was buried on 4 Jan 1136 in Reading Abbey, Reading, Berkshire, England.

Notes:

more...

History & issue of Henry I, King of England ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_I_of_England

Family and children

Legitimate

House of Normandy
Bayeux Tapestry WillelmDux.jpg
William the Conqueror invades England
William I[show]
William II[show]
Henry I[show]
Stephen[show]
Monarchy of the United Kingdom
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Henry I of England.

Henry and his first wife, Matilda, had at least two legitimate children:

Matilda, born in 1102, died 1167.[89]
William Adelin, born in 1103, died 1120.[89]
Possibly Richard, who, if he existed, died young.[100]
Henry and his second wife, Adeliza, had no children.

Illegitimate

Henry had a number of illegitimate children by various mistresses.[nb 32]

Sons

Robert of Gloucester, born in the 1090s.[332]
Richard, born to Ansfride, brought up by Robert Bloet, the Bishop of Lincoln.[333]
Reginald de Dunstanville, Earl of Cornwall, born in the 1110s or early 1120s, possibly to Sibyl Corbet.[334]
Robert the King's son, born to Ede, daughter of Forne.[335]
Gilbert, possibly born to an unnamed sister or daughter of Walter of Gand.[336]
William de Tracy, possibly born in the 1090s.[336]
Henry the King's son, possibly born to Nest ferch Rhys.[335][nb 33]
Fulk the King's son, possibly born to Ansfride.[335]
William, the brother of Sybilla de Normandy, probably the brother of Reginald de Dunstanville.[337]

Daughters

Matilda FitzRoy, Countess of Perche.[338]
Matilda FitzRoy, Duchess of Brittany.[338]
Juliana, wife of Eustace of Breteuil, possibly born to Ansfrida.[339]
Mabel, wife of William Gouet.[340]
Constance, Vicountess of Beaumont-sur-Sarthe.[341]
Aline, wife of Matthew de Montmorency.[342]
Isabel, daughter of Isabel de Beaumont, Countess of Pembroke.[342]
Sybilla de Normandy, Queen of Scotland, probably born before 1100.[342][nb 34]
Matilda Fitzroy, Abbess of Montvilliers.[342]
Gundrada de Dunstanville.[342]
Possibly Rohese, wife of Henry de la Pomerai.[342][nb 35]
Emma, wife of Guy of Laval.[343]
Adeliza, the King's daughter.[343]
The wife of Fergus of Galloway.[343]
Possibly Sibyl of Falaise.[343][nb 36]

Born: ABT Sep 1068, Selby, Yorkshire, England
Acceded: 6 Aug 1100, Westminster Abbey, London, England
Died: 1 Dec 1135, St Denis-le-Fermont, near Gisors
Buried: Reading Abbey, Berkshire, England

Notes: Reigned 1100-1135. Duke of Normandy 1106-1135.

His reign is notable for important legal and administrative reforms, and for the final resolution of the investiture controversy. Abroad, he waged several campaigns in order to consolidate and expand his continental possessions. Was so hated by his brothers that they vowed to disinherit him. In 1106 he captured Robert and held him til he died. He proved to be a hard but just ruler. One of his lovers, Nest, Princess of Deheubarth, was known as the most beautiful woman in Wales; she had many lovers.

He apparently died from over eating Lampreys. During a Christmas court at Windsor Castle in 1126 that Henry I, who had no legitimate male heir, tried to force his barons to accept his daughter Matilda as his successor.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles reported that "...there he caused archbishops and bishops and abbots and earls all the thegns that were there to swear to give England and Normandy after his death into the hand of his daughter". Swear they did, but they were not happy about it. None of those present were interested in being among the first to owe allegiance to a woman. The stage was set for the 19-year-long bloody struggle for the throne that rent England apart after Henry's death. Ironically, the final resolution to that civil war, the peace treaty between King Stephen and Matilda's son Henry of Anjou, was ratified on Christmas Day at Westminster in 1153.

*

Birth:
History, maps & photos of Selby, England ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selby

Buried:
Reading Abbey is a large, ruined abbey in the centre of the town of Reading, in the English county of Berkshire. It was founded by Henry I in 1121 "for the salvation of my soul, and the souls of King William, my father, and of King William, my brother, and Queen Maud, my wife, and all my ancestors and successors".

For more history & images of Reading Abbey, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Abbey

Henry married Matilda of Scotland, Queen of England on 11 Nov 1100 in Westminster Abbey, 20 Deans Yd, London SW1P 3PA, United Kingdom. Matilda (daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland, King of Scots and Margaret of Wessex, Queen of Scotland) was born in 1080 in Dumfermline, Scotland; died on 1 May 1118 in Westminster Palace, Westminster, London, Middlesex, England; was buried in Westminster Abbey, 20 Deans Yd, London SW1P 3PA, United Kingdom. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24195.

Matilda of Scotland, Queen of England was born in 1080 in Dumfermline, Scotland (daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland, King of Scots and Margaret of Wessex, Queen of Scotland); died on 1 May 1118 in Westminster Palace, Westminster, London, Middlesex, England; was buried in Westminster Abbey, 20 Deans Yd, London SW1P 3PA, United Kingdom.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Normandy, France

Notes:

Matilda of Scotland (c. 1080 – 1 May 1118), originally christened Edith,[1] was Queen of England as the first wife of King Henry I.

Matilda was the daughter of the English princess Saint Margaret and the Scottish king Malcolm III. At the age of about six Matilda was sent with her sister to be educated in a convent in southern England, where her aunt Cristina was abbess. It is not clear if she spent much time in Scotland thereafter. In 1093, when she was about 13, she was engaged to an English nobleman when her father and brother Edward were killed in a minor raid into England, and her mother died soon after; her fiance then abandoned the proposed marriage. In Scotland a messy succession conflict followed between Matilda's uncle Donald III, her half-brother Duncan II and brother Edgar until 1097. Matilda's whereabouts during this no doubt difficult period are uncertain.

But after the suspicious death of William II of England in 1100 and accession of his brother Henry I, Matilda's prospects improved. Henry moved quickly to propose to her. It is said that he already knew and admired her, and she may indeed have spent time at the English court. Edgar was now secure on the Scottish throne, offering the prospect of better relations between the two countries, and Matilda also had the considerable advantage of Anglo-Saxon royal blood, which the Norman dynasty largely lacked.[2] There was a difficulty about the marriage; a special church council was called to be satisfied that Matilda had not taken vows as a nun, which her emphatic testimony managed to convince them of.

Matilda and Henry married in late 1100. They had two children who reached adulthood and two more who died young. Matilda led a literary and musical court, but was also pious. She embarked on building projects for the church, and took a role in government when her husband was away; many surviving charters are signed by her. Matilda lived to see her daughter Matilda become Holy Roman Empress but died two years before the drowning of her son William. Henry remarried, but had no further legitimate children, which caused a succession crisis known as The Anarchy. Matilda is buried in Westminster Abbey and was fondly remembered by her subjects as "Matilda the Good Queen" and "Matilda of Blessed Memory". There was an attempt to have her canonized, which was not pursued.

Early life

Matilda was born around 1080 in Dunfermline, the daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland and Saint Margaret. She was christened (baptised) Edith, and Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, stood as godfather at the ceremony. The English queen Matilda of Flanders was also present at the baptismal font and served as her godmother. Baby Matilda pulled at Queen Matilda's headdress, which was seen as an omen that the younger Matilda would be queen one day.[3]

The Life of St Margaret, Queen of Scotland was later written for Matilda possibly by Turgot of Durham. It refers to Matilda's childhood and her relationship with her mother. In it, Margaret is described as a strict but loving mother. She did not spare the rod when it came to raising her children in virtue, which the author presupposed was the reason for the good behaviour Matilda and her siblings displayed, and Margaret also stressed the importance of piety.[4]

When she was about six years old, Matilda of Scotland (or Edith as she was then probably still called) and her sister Mary were sent to Romsey Abbey, near Southampton in southern England, where their aunt Cristina was abbess. During her stay at Romsey and, some time before 1093, at Wilton Abbey, both institutions known for learning,[5] the Scottish princess was much sought-after as a bride; refusing proposals from William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey, and Alan Rufus, Lord of Richmond. Hâeriman of Tournai claimed that William Rufus considered marrying her. Her education went beyond the standard feminine pursuits. This was not surprising as her mother was a great lover of books. Her daughters learned English, French, and some Latin, and were sufficiently literate to read St. Augustine and the Bible.[6]

In 1093, her parents betrothed her to Alan Rufus, Lord of Richmond, one of her numerous suitors. However, before the marriage took place, her father entered into a dispute with William Rufus. In response, he marauded the English king's lands where he was surprised by Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumbria and killed along with his son, Edward. Upon hearing of her husband and son's death, Margaret, already ill, died on 16 November. Edith was now an orphan. She was abandoned by her betrothed who ran off with a daughter of Harold Godwinson, Gunhild of Wessex. However, he died before they could be married.[7]

She had left the monastery by 1093, when Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote to the Bishop of Salisbury ordering that the daughter of the King of Scotland be returned to the monastery that she had left. She did not return to Wilton and until 1100, is largely unaccounted for in chronicles.[8]

Marriage

After William II's death in the New Forest in August 1100, his brother, Henry, immediately seized the royal treasury and crown. His next task was to marry and Henry's choice was Matilda. Because Matilda had spent most of her life in a convent, there was some controversy over whether she was a nun and thus canonically ineligible for marriage. Henry sought permission for the marriage from Archbishop Anselm, who returned to England in September 1100 after a long exile. Professing himself unwilling to decide so weighty a matter on his own, Anselm called a council of bishops in order to determine the canonical legality of the proposed marriage. Matilda testified that she had never taken holy vows, insisting that her parents had sent her and her sister to England for educational purposes, and her aunt Cristina had veiled her to protect her "from the lust of the Normans." Matilda claimed she had pulled the veil off and stamped on it, and her aunt beat and scolded her for this act. The council concluded that Matilda was not a nun, never had been and her parents had not intended that she become one, giving their permission for the marriage.

Matilda and Henry seem to have known one another for some time before their marriage — William of Malmesbury states that Henry had "long been attached" to her, and Orderic Vitalis says that Henry had "long adored" her character. It is possible that Matilda had spent some time at William Rufus's court and that the pair had met there. It is also possible Henry was introduced to his bride by his teacher Bishop Osmund. Whatever the case, it is clear that the two at least knew each other prior to their wedding. Additionally, the chronicler William of Malmesbury suggests that the new king loved his bride.[9]

Matilda's mother was the sister of Edgar the ¥theling, proclaimed but uncrowned King of England after Harold, and, through her mother, Matilda was descended from Edmund Ironside and thus from the royal family of Wessex, which in the 10th century had become the royal family of a united England. This was extremely important because although Henry had been born in England, he needed a bride with ties to the ancient Wessex line to increase his popularity with the English and to reconcile the Normans and Anglo-Saxons.[10] In their children, the two factions would be united, further unifying the new regime. Another benefit was that England and Scotland became politically closer; three of Matilda's brothers became kings of Scotland in succession and were unusually friendly towards England during this period of unbroken peace between the two nations: Alexander married one of Henry I's illegitimate daughters and David lived at Henry's court for some time before his accession.[11]

Matilda had a small dower but it did incorporate some lordship rights. Most of her dower estates were granted from lands previously held by Edith of Wessex. Additionally, Henry made numerous grants on his wife including substantial property in London. Generosity aside, this was a political move in order to win over the unruly Londoners who were vehement supporters of the Wessex kings.[12]

Queen

The seal of Matilda
After Matilda and Henry were married on 11 November 1100 at Westminster Abbey by Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury, she was crowned as "Matilda," a hallowed Norman name. By courtiers, however, she and her husband were soon nicknamed 'Godric and Godiva'.[13] These two names were typical English names from before The Conquest and mocked their more rustic style, especially when compared to the flamboyance of William II.

She gave birth to a daughter, Matilda, born in February 1102, and a son, William, called "Adelin", in November 1103. As queen, she resided primarily at Westminster, but accompanied her husband on his travels around England, and, circa 1106–1107, probably visited Normandy with him. Matilda was the designated head of Henry's curia and acted as regent during his frequent absences.[14]

During the English investiture controversy (1103-07), she acted as intercessor between her husband and archbishop Anselm. She wrote several letters during Anselm's absence, first asking him for advice and to return, but later increasingly to mediate.[15]

Works

Matilda had great interest in architecture and instigated the building of many Norman-style buildings, including Waltham Abbey and Holy Trinity Aldgate.[16] She also had the first arched bridge in England built, at Stratford-le-Bow, as well as a bathhouse with piped-in water and public lavatories at Queenhithe.[17]

Her court was filled with musicians and poets; she commissioned a monk, possibly Thurgot, to write a biography of her mother, Saint Margaret. She was an active queen and, like her mother, was renowned for her devotion to religion and the poor. William of Malmesbury describes her as attending church barefoot at Lent, and washing the feet and kissing the hands of the sick. Matilda exhibited a particular interest in leprosy, founding at least two leper hospitals, including the institution that later became the parish church of St Giles-in-the-Fields.[18] She also administered extensive dower properties and was known as a patron of the arts, especially music.

Death

After Matilda died on 1 May 1118 at Westminster Palace, she was buried at Westminster Abbey. The death of her son, William Adelin, in the tragic disaster of the White Ship (November 1120) and Henry's failure to produce a legitimate son from his second marriage led to the succession crisis of The Anarchy.

Legacy

After her death, she was remembered by her subjects as "Matilda the Good Queen" and "Matilda of Blessed Memory", and for a time sainthood was sought for her, though she was never canonized. Matilda is also thought to be the identity of the "Fair Lady" mentioned at the end of each verse in the nursery rhyme London Bridge Is Falling Down. The post-Norman conquest English monarchs to the present day are related to the Anglo-Saxon House of Wessex monarchs via Matilda of Scotland as she was the great-granddaughter of King Edmund Ironside, see House of Wessex family tree.

Issue

Matilda and Henry had issue

Euphemia (July/August 1101), died young
Matilda of England (c. February 1102 – 10 September 1167), Holy Roman Empress, Countess consort of Anjou, called Lady of the English
William Adelin, (5 August 1103 – 25 November 1120), sometimes called Duke of Normandy, who married Matilda (d.1154), daughter of Fulk V, Count of Anjou.
Elizabeth (August/September 1104), died young

Appearance and character

"It causes pleasure to see the queen whom no woman equals in beauty of body or face, hiding her body, nevertheless, in a veil of loose clothing. Here alone, with new modesty, wishes to conceal it, but what gleams with its own light cannot be hidden and the sun, penetrating his clouds, hurls his rays." She also had "fluent, honeyed speech." From a poem of Marbodius of Rennes.

Children:

12097. Matilda of England, Queen of England was born on 7 Feb 1102 in London, Middlesex, England; was christened on 7 Apr 1141; died on 10 Sep 1167 in Notre Dame, Rouen, Seine-Maritime, France; was buried on 10 Sep 1169 in Bec Abbey, Le Bec-Hellouin, Eure, France.

24256.

Patrick de Chaworth was born about 1093 in Kempsford, England (son of Patrick de Chaworth and Matilda Hesdin); died before 1155.

Patrick married Wilburga de Mundabliel(England). Wilburga died in (England). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24257.
Wilburga de Mundabliel died in (England).
Children:

12128. Payne de Chaworth was born about 1123 in Kempsford, England.

24288.

William de Beauchamp was born in ~1130 in Elmley Castle, Worcester, England (son of William Beauchamp and Maud Braose); died in ~1197.

William married Joan St Valery. Joan was born in ~1134; died in 1192. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24289.

Joan St Valery was born in ~1134; died in 1192.

Children:

12144. William Beauchamp was born in ~1154 in Elmley Castle, Worcester, England.
Andrew Beauchamp was born in ~1160 in Standlake, Oxfordshire, England; died after 1214.

12034.

Other Events and Attributes:

Occupation: Sheriff of Hereford
Alt Birth: 1100, Bramber, Sussex, England
Alt Birth: ~1112, Monmouthshire, Wales
Alt Death: ~1192, Woebley, Herefordshire, England

Notes:

William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber (fl. 1135–1179) was a 12th-century Marcher lord who secured a foundation for the dominant position later held by the Braose family in the Welsh Marches. In addition to the family's English holdings in Sussex and Devon, William had inherited Radnor and Builth, in Wales, from his father Philip. By his marriage he increased the Braose Welsh holdings to include Brecon and Abergavenny.

William remained loyal to King Stephen during the 12th-century period of civil war. He became a trusted royal servant during the subsequent reign of Henry II, accompanying the king on campaigns in France and Ireland. He served as sheriff of Herefordshire from 1173 until 1175. The family's power reached its peak under his son William during the reigns of King Richard I and King John.

William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber
Lord of Bramber
Died after 1179
Noble family House of Braose
Spouse(s) Bertha, daughter of Miles of Gloucester and Sibyl de Neufmarchâe
Issue
William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber
Father Philip de Braose
Mother Aenor de Totnes, daughter of Juhel of Totnes

Lands and family

William was the eldest son of Philip de Braose, lord of Bramber.[1] His mother was Aenor, daughter of Juhel of Totnes.[1] He was the third in the line of the Anglo-Norman Braose family founded by his grandfather, the first William de Braose.[1] After his father died in the 1130s William inherited lordships, land and castles in Sussex, with his caput at Bramber. He also held Totnes in Devon and Radnor and Builth in the Welsh Marches.[2] He confirmed the grants of his father and grandfather to the abbey of St Florent in Anjou and made further grants to the abbey's dependent priory at Sele in Sussex.[3] In about 1155, he also inherited through his mother's family one half of the honour of Barnstaple in Devon, paying a fee of 1000 marks for the privilege.[2] William became an internationally recognised figure. When Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury was asked by Pope Adrian IV to inquire into the background of a certain Walter, canon of St Ruf, his reply, dated to 1154/9 read:

The facts which you demand need but little enquiry; for they shine so brightly in themselves that they cannot be hid; so great is the brilliance of his noble birth and the glory of all his kin. For Walter, as we know for a fact, was the son of a distinguished knight and born of a noble mother in lawful wedlock, and he is closely related by blood to the noble William de Braose.[4]

William had married Bertha, daughter of Miles of Gloucester and Sibyl de Neufmarchâe, by 1150.[1] When each of Bertha's four brothers (Walter de Hereford, Henry FitzMiles (or Henry de Hereford), Mahel de Hereford and William de Hereford) died leaving no issue, William's marriage became unexpectedly valuable. He gained control of the lordships of Brecon and Abergavenny after 1166 when the last brother died.[1] These additional land holdings greatly expanded the territorial power and income of the Braose family. They now held a vast block of territory in the Welsh Marches as well as their extensive interests in Sussex and Devon. William's daughters were able to make good marriages, notably Sibyl to William de Ferrers, Earl of Derby.[5] Maud was married to John de Brompton of Shropshire.[6] William's son and heir, another William de Braose, became a major player in national politics under King John.[7]

Royal service

Empress Maud, the only legitimate living child of Henry I, landed in England in 1139 in an attempt to press her claim to the monarchy. She was soon besieged by King Stephen's forces at Arundel castle. Stephen allowed Maud a safe conduct to Bristol and provided her with an escort, which included William de Braose,[8] suggesting that he was an adherent of King Stephen. William was present as a witness when three charters were issued by Stephen at Lewes dated to the years 1148–53,[9] therefore it appears that he remained loyal to the king until the Treaty of Wallingford ended the hostilities.

William was in Sussex in 1153,[nb 1] but he followed Duke Henry, soon to become King Henry II, to Normandy in 1154.[nb 2] William was frequently with the new king. He was one of the military leaders who supported Henry at Rhuddlan in 1157.[12] He witnessed one of the king's charters at Romsey in 1158,[13] and he is recorded at the king's court in Wiltshire in 1164 when the Constitutions of Clarendon were enacted.[14] He accompanied the king on expedition to France, witnessing at Leons[nb 3] in 1161 and Chinon in 1162. William is also documented on the Irish campaign at Dublin in 1171 and Wexford 1172.[15] William's younger brother, Philip, also accompanied the king to Ireland, and remained with the garrison at Wexford. In 1177 Philip was granted the kingdom of Limerick by Henry but failed to take possession after the citizens set fire to the town.[16]

When Henry was facing war with his sons in 1173, William was appointed as sheriff of Herefordshire at Easter. He maintained the King's interests in Herefordshire until 1175.[1]

Later life and death

King Henry withdrew his favour from the family after William's son organised the murder of Seisyll ap Dyfnwal and other Welsh princes at Abergavenny in 1176.[17] There is little subsequent record of William in public life, and it is likely that he retired to his estates in Sussex. William died after 1179 and was succeeded by his son, William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber,[1] who gained the favour of both King Richard I and King John and became a dominant force in the Welsh Marches during their reigns.[18]

end of biography

William de Braose, 3rd lord of Bramber was a Marcher lord, active during the 12th century period of anarchy and the subsequent reign of Henry II. He served as sheriff of Herefordshire from 1173 to 1175.

William was the eldest son of Philip de Braose, lord of Bramber. His mother was Aenor, daughter of Juhel of Totnes. He was the third in the line of the Anglo-Norman Braose family. After his father died in the 1130s William held lordships, land and castles in Sussex, with his caput at Bramber, also at Totnes in Devon and Radnor and Builth in the Welsh Marches. He confirmed the grants of his father and grandfather to the abbey of St Florent in Anjou and made further grants to the abbey's dependent priory at Sele in Sussex. About 1155, he also inherited through his mother's family one half of the honour of Barnstaple in Devon, paying a fee of 1000 marks for the privilege.

William became an internationally recognised figure. When Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury was asked by Pope Adrian IV to inquire into the background of a certain Walter, canon of St Ruf, his reply, dated to 1154/9 read:

"The facts which you demand need but little enquiry; for they shine so brightly in themselves that they cannot be hid; so great is the brilliance of his noble birth and the glory of all his kin. For Walter, as we know for a fact, was the son of a distinguished knight and born of a noble mother in lawful wedlock, and he is closely related by blood to the noble William de Braose."

William had married Bertha, daughter of Miles of Gloucester by 1150. When each of Bertha's four brothers died leaving no issue William's marriage became unexpectedly valuable. He gained control of the lordships of Brecon and Abergavenny after 1166 when the last brother died. These additional land holdings greatly expanded the territorial power and income of the Braose family. They now held a vast block of territory in the Middle March as well as their extensive interests in Sussex and Devon. William's daughters were able to make good marriages, notably Sibyl to William de Ferrers, Earl of Derby. William's son and heir, became a major player in national politics under King John.

Empress Maud landed in England in 1139 in an attempt to press her claim to the monarchy. She was soon besieged by King Stephen's forces at Arundel castle. Stephen allowed Maud a safe conduct to Bristol, and provided her with an escort which included William de Braose. Thus, at the start of this conflict, William was an adherent of King Stephen. He witnessed three charters with Stephen at Lewes dated by Davis as 1148/53 so it appears that he remained loyal to the king until the Treaty of Wallingford which ended the hostilities.

William was in Sussex in 1153, but he followed Duke Henry, soon to become King Henry II, across to Normandy in 1154. William was frequently with the new king. He was one of the great men in the army at Rhuddlan in 1157. He witnessed one of the king's charters at Romsey in 1158 and he is recorded at the king's court in Wiltshire in 1164 when the Constitutions of Clarendon were enacted. He accompanied the king on expedition to France, witnessing at Leons, in 1161 and Chinon in 1162. William is also documented on the Irish campaign at Dublin in 1171 and Wexford 1172.

When Henry was facing war with his sons in 1173, William was appointed as sheriff of Hereford at Easter. He maintained the King's interests in Herefordshire until 1175. King Henry withdrew his favour from the family after William's son organised the murder of Seisyll ap Dyfnwal and other Welsh princes at Abergavenny in 1175. There is little record of William in public life after this and it is likely that he retired to his estates in Sussex. It is at this time that the extensions were made to St. Mary's, Shoreham. (Pictured at top)

(The above is an adaptation of the article I wrote for Wikipedia. Sources for the information given can be found there.)

Father: Philip de Braose

Mother: Aanor

Married to Bertha, daughter of Miles of Gloucester, Earl of Hereford

Child 1: William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber

Child 2: Maud = John de Brompton

Child 3: Sibilla = (1)William de Ferrers =(2)Adam de Port

Child 4: John

Child 5: Roger

Roger is a witness to a charter of his brother William. (Dugdales "Monasticon" iv, p616)

(Some sources give a daughter Bertha who married a Beauchamp. I believe this Bertha is a daughter of William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber. See her page for references.)

end of biography

William (de Braose) BRUCEPrint Family Tree William de /Braose/ , William de /Braose/

Born in 1100 - Bramber, Sussex, England
Deceased 21 October 1190 - London, England , age at death: 90 years old

Parents

Philip (de Braose) BRUCE, born in 1073 - Bramber, Sussex, England, Deceased in 1134 - Bramber, Sussex, England age at death: 61 years old
Married in 1104, Barnstaple, Devon, England, to
Aenor De TOTNES, born in 1084 - Barnstaple, Devon, England, Deceased in 1102 - Bramber, Sussex, England age at death: 18 years old

Spouses, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren

Married in 1148, Herefordshire, England, to Bertha De PITRES, born in 1107 - Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England, Deceased - Bramber, Sussex, England (Parents : M Miles (Fitzwalter) De (1st Earl of Hereford) PITRES 1092-1143 & F Sybil (de Neufmarche) NEWMARCH 1092-1142) with
F Bertha (de Braose) BRUCE ca 1145- married before 1180, Wales, to Gilbert De (Baron) MONMOUTH 1140-1190 with
M John De (SIR - Lord of Monmouth) MONMOUTH ca 1180- married in 1202, Monmouth, Monmouthshire, Wales, to Cecily Waleran FitzWalter 1182-1222 with :
F Joan Margaret De MONMOUTH ca 1201-1247
M William De Monmouth

John De (SIR - Lord of Monmouth) MONMOUTH ca 1180- married in April 1223, Monmouthshire, Wales, to Agnes de ** MUSCEGROS ca 1190- with :
M Richard (de Wyesham) De MONMOUTH 1223/-
M Walter De MONMOUTH 1223/-
M John De (5th Lord of Monmouth) MONMOUTH 1225-1274

Bertha (de Braose) BRUCE ca 1145- married before 1182, Bramber, Sussex, England, to Walter De BEAUCHAMP ca 1160-1235 with
M James De BEAUCHAMP 1182-1233
M Watchline De BEAUCHAMP 1184-1236 married to Joane De MORTIMER 1194-1268 with :
M William De BEAUCHAMP 1210-1267
F Matilda Maud (de Braose) ca 1146- married in 1168, England, to John De BRAMPTON ca 1136-1179 with
M Brian De BRAMPTON 1168-1197 married in 1195, England, to Alice De Neufmenell 1172- with :
M Brian De Brampton 1194-1262
F Margaret (de Braose) (Lady Meath) BRUCE ca 1149- married 19 November 1200, Ewyas Harold, Herefordshire, England, to Walter De (Sir - Lord Meath) LACY ca 1150-1241 with
F Petronilla De LACY 1195-1288 married to Ralph VI De (Lord Flamstead) TOENI 1190-1239 with :
F Constance De TOENI ca 1220-1263
M Roger Michaelmas De (Lord of Flamstead) TOENI 1235-1264
F Gille Egidia De LACY 1202-1239 married 21 April 1225 to Richard Mor "The Great", De (1st Earl of Ulster) BURGH 1202-1242 with :
M Walter De ( 1st Earl of Ulster, 2nd Lord of Cornaught) BURGH 1232-1271
M Gilbert (Of Meath) De LACY 1206-1230 married in 1225, Norfolk, England, to Isabel BIGOD 1212-1250 with :
F Margery De LACY ca 1232-1256
F Sybil (de Braose) BRUCE /1151-1227 married to Philip (le Boteler) BUTLER 1157-1174 with
F Clemence (le Boteler) BUTLER 1175-1231 married in 1188, England, to John (Lackland) (KING OF ENGLAND) PLANTAGENET 1166-1216 with :
F Joan (Princess of WALES) PLANTAGENET 1190-1236

Clemence (le Boteler) BUTLER 1175-1231 married in 1205 to Nicholas De (SIR - Baron of Alton, Lord of Farnham) VERDUN 1175- with :
F Rohese De VERDUN 1204-1246
M William (de Braose) BRUCE 1153-1211 married in 1174, Bramber, Sussex, England, to Maud (Matilda) De St VALERY 1155-1210 with
F Matilda Maud (de Braose) 1160-1209 married in 1189 to Gruffydd Ap (Prince of South Wales) RHYS 1148-1201 with :
M Owain Ap GRUFFYDD ca 1176-1235
F Lleucu Verch GRUFFYDD 1202-1250
M William (The Younger) de Braose) BRUCE 1175-1210 married in 1196, Kent, England, to Matilda De CLARE 1175-1213 with :
F Matilda (de Braose) BRUCE ca 1195-1274
M John (de Braose) (Lord of Bramber) BRUCE 1197-1232
F Laurette (de Braose) BRUCE ca 1176-1266 married to Robert "Fitz-Parnell" HARCOURT ca 1156- with :
M X Harcourt ca 1190-
M Reginald (de Braose) BRUCE 1182-1227 married 19 March 1202, Bramber, Sussex, England, to Grecian Alice De BRIWERE 1186-1226 with
F Matilda (de Braose) BRUCE ca 1200-1249 married in 1219, Carmarthenshire, Wales, to Rhys (Mechyll) Ap (Gryg ) RHYS 1174-1244 with :
M Ieuan Ap RHYS ca 1220-
F Gwenllian Verch RHYS ca 1225-1268
M William "Black William" (de Braose) BRUCE 1204-1230 married 2 May 1230, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, to Eve (Baroness of Abergavenny) MARSHALL 1194-1246 with :
M William (de Braose) BRUCE 1210-1292
F Isabella (de Braose) BRUCE 1220/-
F Eva (de Braose) BRUCE 1220-1255
F Maud (de Braose) (BARONESS WIGMORE) BRUCE 1226-1300

Siblings

F Maud (de Braose) BRUCE 1109-1200 Married about 1130, Wales, to William De BEAUCHAMP 1105-1170

Paternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M William de (Braose) BRUCE 1049-1093 married (1072)
F Agnes De SAINT CLARE 1034-1080
M Philip (de Braose) BRUCE 1073-1134
married (1104)
2 children

Maternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M Juhel De TOTNES 1049-1123 married (1083)
F ** De PICQUIGNY 1060-1145
F Aenor De TOTNES 1084-1102
married (1104)
2 children

Timeline
1100 : Birth - Bramber, Sussex, England
1112 : Birth - Bramber, Sussex, England

Sources: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2003.Original data - Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Heritage Consulting.Original data: Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: - 1,7249::0
Note http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=millind&h=1077681&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt - Birth date: 1126 Birth place: Briouze, Normandy, France Death date: 1192-3 Death place: - 1,7249::1077681
1126 : Birth - Briouze, Orne, Basse-Normandie, France
Sources: Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Ancestry.com Operations Inc - 1,7249::0 - 1,7249::1077681
1148 : Marriage (with Bertha De PITRES) - Herefordshire, England
before 1190 : LORD of BRAMBER
21 October 1190 : Death - London, England
1192 : Death - England
Sources: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2003.Original data - Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Heritage Consulting.Original data: Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: - 1,7249::0
Note http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=millind&h=1077681&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt - Birth date: 1126 Birth place: Briouze, Normandy, France Death date: 1192-3 Death place: - 1,7249::1077681
1192 : Death
Age: 66
Sources: Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Ancestry.com Operations Inc - 1,7249::0 - 1,7249::1077681

Notes
Individual Note
Source: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2003.Original data - Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Heritage Consulting.Original data: Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: - 1,7249::0
http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=millind&h=1077681&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt Birth date: 1126 Birth place: Briouze, Normandy, France Death date: 1192-3 Death place: 1,7249::1077681
Source: Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Ancestry.com Operations Inc - 1,7249::0 1,7249::1077681

Sources
Individual: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=8845

Family Tree Preview
Ancestry Chart Descendancy Chart Printable Family Tree
_____| 16_ Rognvald Wolfs (of Orkey) BRUCE /1000-1046
_____| 8_ Robert BRUCE 1030-1094
_____| 4_ William de (Braose) BRUCE 1049-1093
/ \ _____| 18_ Alan III De (Count of Brittany) RENNES 1000-1040
|2_ Philip (de Braose) BRUCE 1073-1134
| \ _____| 20_ Mauger (de St Claire) (Seigneur) NORMANDY ca 990-1017
| \ _____| 10_ Waldron De St CLARE 1015-1047
| \ _____| 22_ Richard De NORMANDY 1001-1028
|--1_ William (de Braose) BRUCE 1100-1190
| _____| 12_ Alured De TOTNES 1015-1080
| /
| _____| 6_ Juhel De TOTNES 1049-1123
| / \
|3_ Aenor De TOTNES 1084-1102
\
\ _____| 14_ Arnoul De PICQUIGNY 1020-1055
\ /
\

end of profile

Name: William DE BRAOSE
Sex: M
Birth: 1105 in Bramber, Sussex, England
ALIA: William de BRAOSE Lord of Bramber
Title: Lord of Bramber
Death: BET 1192 AND 1193 in Bramber, Sussex, England
Note:
Dec 08 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_de_Braose,_3rd_Lord_of_Bramber -

William de Braose, Third Lord of Bramber (born 1112 in Brecon) (d. ca. 1192) was the eldest son of Philip de Braose, Second Lord of Bramber.

Family and early career
William was born into a second generation English Norman dynasty holding Lordships and land in Sussex at Bramber, also at Totnes in Devon and Radnor and Builth in the Welsh Marches of Wales. He maintained his Sussex lands and titles and extended St Mary's, Shoreham and contributed to a priory at Sele, West Sussex. His mother was Aenor Fitz Judhel of Totnes.

He also inherited one half of the honour of Barnstaple in Devon, paying a fee of 1000 marks for the privilege.

William married Bertha de Pitres, also known as Bertha de Hereford, daughter of Miles of Gloucester, Earl of Hereford. Through this marriage, William acquired lordships of Brecon and Abergavenny in 1166 because Bertha's four brothers all died young without heirs.

These vast land holdings greatly expanded the territorial power and income of the de Braose dynasty. They now held the Middle March with extensive interests in Sussex and Devon.

William's younger brother Phillip accompanied King Henry II to Ireland, receiving in 1172 the honour of Limerick.

Marcher titles
In 1174, William became sheriff of Hereford. He died in about 1192 and was succeeded as Lord of Bramber by his son, William. He had also fathered two daughters, Maud and Sibilla, who married well and possibly a later son, named John.

Nov 09 from http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hwbradley/aqwg825.htm#13602 -

William de BRAOSE Lord of Bramber [Parents] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 was born 1105 in Bramber, Sussex, England. He died 8 1192/1193 in Bramber, Sussex, England. William married Bertha of HEREFORD on 1146 in Bramber, Sussex, England.

Bertha of HEREFORD [Parents] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 was born 1128 in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England. She married William de BRAOSE Lord of Bramber on 1146 in Bramber, Sussex, England.

They had the following children:

F i Bertha de BRAOSE was born 1147.
M ii William de BRAOSE Baron de Braose was born 1149 and died 9 Aug 1211.
F iii Mabel de BRAOSE was born 1151 and died 1203.
F iv Sybil de BRAOSE was born 1153 and died after 5 Feb 1228.
M v John de BRAOSE 1 was born 1160 in Bramber, Sussex, England.

1Weis, Frederick Lewis, Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America before 1700 (7th ed., Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1992.), 177-5, 194-5, 222-28, Los Angeles Public Library, Gen 974 W426 1992.

2Cokayne, George Edward, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, or Dormant (London: St. Catherine Press, 1910.), 11:321, Los Angeles Public Library, 929.721 C682.

3Cokayne, G., CP, 1:21-22, 14:6.

4Sanders, Ivor John, English Baronies: A Study of Their Origin and Descent, 1086-1327 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960.), pp. 7, 21, 105, Los Angeles Public Library, 929.722 S215.

5Keats-Rohan, K.S.B., Domesday Descendants: A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066-1166 (Rochester, New York: The Boydell Press, 2002.), pp. 346-7, Library of Congress, DA177 .K4 2002.

6Cokayne, G., CP, 1:21e.

7Curfman, Robert Joseph, "The Yale Descent from Braiose & Clare through Pigott of Buckinghamshire," The American Genealogist 56:1 (Jan 1980), pp. 1-2, Los Angeles Public Library.

8Sanders, I., English Baronies, p. 7.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bertha of HEREFORD

1Weis, Frederick Lewis, Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America before 1700 (7th ed., Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1992.), 177-5, 194-5, 222-28, Los Angeles Public Library, Gen 974 W426 1992.

2Cokayne, George Edward, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, or Dormant (London: St. Catherine Press, 1910.), 1:21-2, 11:321, Los Angeles Public Library, 929.721 C682.

3Sanders, Ivor John, English Baronies: A Study of Their Origin and Descent, 1086-1327 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960.), pp. 7, 21, Los Angeles Public Library, 929.722 S215.

4Keats-Rohan, K.S.B., Domesday Descendants: A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066-1166 (Rochester, New York: The Boydell Press, 2002.), pp. 346-7, Library of Congress, DA177 .K4 2002.

5Curfman, Robert Joseph, "The Yale Descent from Braiose & Clare through Pigott of Buckinghamshire," The American Genealogist 56:1 (Jan 1980), p. 2, Los Angeles Public Library.

Father: Philip DE BRAOSE b: 1074 in Briouze-Saint-Gervais, Orne, Basse-Nomandie, France
Mother: Aenor DE TOTENEIS b: 1084 in Totnes, Devon, England

Marriage 1 BERTHA b: 1128 in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England
Married: 1146 in Bramber, Sussex, England
Children
Has Children William DE BRAOSE b: 1149 in Bramber, Sussex, England
Has Children Mabel DE BRAOSE b: 1151 in Bramber, Sussex, England
Has Children Sybil DE BRAOSE b: 1153 in Bramber, Sussex, England
Has Children Bertha DE BRAOSE b: 1147 in Bramber, Sussex, England

end of biography

Notes
He held in addition to his patrimony the lordship of half of Barnstaple, acquired through his mother, coheir to the barony. In 1158 he had offered the king a fine of 1000 marks for twenty-eight knights' fees as his mother's share of her inheritance, and when he died he still owed ¹430. William (II)'s marriage brought him the lordships of Brecon and Abergavenny on the southern Welsh marches as his wife's share after the deaths of her two brothers. William (II) de Briouze concentrated his energies on his Welsh marcher lands, serving Henry II as sheriff of Herefordshire, 1173?5. The marriage of his daughter Sibyl to William de Ferrers, earl of Derby (d. 1190), indicates the status that the Briouze family enjoyed.

William was very fortunate in his marriage to Berta. All of her brothers died young without heirs so she brought a number of important lordships to the de Braoses in 1166. These included Brecon and Abergavenny. William became Sheriff of Hereford in 1174. His interest in Sussex was maintained as he confirmed the grants of his father and grandfather for the maintenance of Sele Priory and extended St. Mary's, Shoreham.

Child 1: William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber
Child 2: Maud = John de Brompton
Child 3: Sibilla = (1)William de Ferrers =(2)Adam de Port
Child 4: John
Child 5: Roger Roger is a witness to a charter of his brother William. (Dugdales "Monasticon" iv, 616 per Elwes)

From c1173 to 1230 successive fathers, sons, and younger brothers called de Briouze were feudal lords of Abergavenny. William de Briouze, the first of them, who derived his name from his lordship of Briouze in Normandy, married the sister and coheir of the 2nd Earl of Hereford (also daughter of 1st Earl) mentioned above, which seems to account for his coming into possession of a lordship in that part of the Welsh marches. [1]

OWNERS of the LORDSHIP of ABERGAVENNY (X) 1173?

William de Briouze (e), Lord of Briouze in Normandy, and of Bramber, Sussex, son and heir of Philip de Briouze, by Aenor, daughter and heir of Juhel son of Alvred, Lord of Barnstaple and Totnes. He married, in or before 1150, Bertha, 2nd sister and coheir of William of Hereford being daughter of Miles of Gloucester, 1st Earl of Gloucester (sic. Earl of Hereford). Sheriff of Hereford, Easter 1173-75, at which earlier date probably he already possessed the Lordship of Over Gwent. He was living in 1179. [2]

(e) Briouze-Saint-Gervais (formerly Braiose), arrond. of Argentan, dept. of Orne. His descendants spelt the name Brewes. In some 25 early references to this name, not in charter latin, it appears as Breouse, Breuse, or Brewys (the last of which still exists as a surname), but never as Braose, the form adopted in peerages, for which it seems doubtful if there be any good authority.

Note: The above text "1st Earl of Gloucester", which was part of a correction in CP XIV:6, is a mistake; Miles was Earl of Hereford.

Sources

? Burke's Peerage
? Complete Peerage I:21-2, XIV:6,
1. The Plantagenet Ancestry, Eng. 116, p. 78
2. The Complete Peerage, G.E.C., Eng. v, v. 1, p. 21, 22, v. 4, p. 193, 194, v. 6, p. 451-54
3. The Genealogist, Eng. Pub. AF, os, v. 4, p. 139-41, 235
4. Arch. Cambr., Wales Pub. A, 4s, v. 14, p. 177, 6s, v. 10, p. 340
5. Burke's Extinct Peerage, 1883 & 1886, Eng. P-1, p. 72
6. Dict. of Nat'l Biog., Eng. Pub. A, v. 6, p. 229-31
7. Dugdale's Baronage of Engl, Eng. AL, v. 1, p. 414, 416
8. Wells & Allied Families, B8G4, p. 177
9. Sussex Arch. Collections, Suss. 1, v. 5, p. 5, 148
10. The Ligon Family, B15A183, v. 1, p. 108

!RESEARCH NOTE: There is no indication in any of the above quoted sources that there was a Giles or Roger belonging to this family. Also there is some doubt whether the above Reginald has been mistaken for the Reginald who married Grace de Briwere who is actually grandson of the above couple.

In the case of child #1, Bertha, there is also some quandry as to whether she belongs to this couple or to William,

child #2, and whether she married William Beauchamp or Walter de Beauchamp.

There are also some indications that this Bertha is the daughter of the above couple who married Adam de Port. Because of the sealing action previously taken, their names will be left on this compilation until better evidence is made available.

END OF COMMENTARY

12035.

Notes:

Bertha of Hereford, also known as Bertha de Pitres (born c.1130), was the daughter of Miles de Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford, and a wealthy heiress, Sibyl de Neufmarchâe. She was the wife of William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber to whom she brought many castles and Lordships, including Brecknock, Abergavenny, and Hay.

Family

Bertha was born in England in about 1130. She was a daughter of Miles, Earl of Hereford (1097- 24 December 1143) and Sibyl de Neufmarchâe.[1] She had two sisters, Margaret of Hereford,[2] who married Humphrey II de Bohun, by whom she had issue,[3] and Lucy of Hereford, who married Herbert FitzHerbert of Winchester, by whom she had issue.[citation needed] Her brothers, included Roger Fitzmiles, 2nd Earl of Hereford, Walter de Hereford, Henry Fitzmiles, William de Hereford, and Mahel de Hereford.[4]

Her paternal grandparents were Walter FitzRoger de Pitres,Sheriff of Gloucester and Bertha de Balun of Bateden,[5] a descendant of Hamelin de Balun,[citation needed] and her maternal grandparents were Bernard de Neufmarchâe, Lord of Brecon, and Nesta ferch Osbern.[6] The latter was a daughter of Osbern FitzRichard of Richard's Castle, and Nesta ferch Gruffydd.[7] Bertha was a direct descendant, in the maternal line, of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn (1007- 5 August 1063) and Edith (Aldgyth), daughter of Elfgar, Earl of Mercia.[citation needed]

Her father Miles served as Constable to King Stephen of England. He later served in the same capacity to Empress Matilda after he'd transferred his allegiance. In 1141, she made him Earl of Hereford in gratitude for his loyalty. On 24 December 1143, he was killed whilst on a hunting expedition in the Forest of Dean.[8]

Marriage and issue

Abergavenny Castle in Monmouthshire, Wales, was one of the castles Bertha of Hereford brought to her husband William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber
In 1150, she married William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber (1112–1192), son of Philip de Braose, 2nd Lord of Bramber and Aenor, daughter of Judael of Totnes. William and Bertha had three daughters and two sons, including William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber.

In 1173, her brothers all having died without issue, she brought the Lordships and castles of Brecknock and Abergavenny, to her husband.[8] Hay Castle had already passed to her from her mother, Sibyl of Neufmarche in 1165, whence it became part of the de Braose holdings.

In 1174, her husband became Sheriff of Hereford.

Her children include

William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber, (1144/1153- 11 August 1211, Corbeil),[9][10] married Maud de St. Valery, daughter of Bernard de St. Valery, by whom he had 16 children.
Roger de Braose[11]
Bertha de Braose[12] (born 1151), married c.1175, Walter de Beauchamp (died 1235), son of William de Beauchamp and Joan de Walerie, by whom she had issue, including Walcherine de Beauchamp who married Joan Mortimer.
Sibyl de Braose (died after 5 February 1227),[13] married William de Ferrers, 3rd Earl of Derby (1136- 21 October 1190 at Acre on crusade), son of Robert de Ferrers, 2nd Earl of Derby and Margaret Peverel, by whom she had issue.
Maud de Braose, married John de Brompton, by whom she had issue.[citation needed]

Legacy

Bertha died on an unknown date. She was the ancestress of many noble English families which included the de Braoses, de Beauchamps, de Bohuns and de Ferrers; as well as the Irish families of de Lacy and de Burgh.[14][not in citation given]

end of biography

Children:

Joan Braose was born in ~1130 in Bramber Castle, West Sussex, England; died in 1170 in Shenton, Leicestershire, England.
Sybil de Braose was born before 1151 in Bramber, Sussex, England; died on 5 Feb 1227 in Derbyshire, England.
Mabel de Braose was born in 1151 in Bramber, Sussex, England; died in 1203 in (Axholme, Lincolnshire, England).
12145. Bertha Braose was born in 1151 in Bramber, Sussex, England; died in ~1175.
Sir William de Braose, III, Knight, 4th Lord of Bramber was born in 1153 in Bramber, Sussex, England; died on 9 Aug 1211 in Corbeil, Marne, Champagne-Ardenne, France; was buried in 1211 in Paris, France.
12204. Sir Reginald de Braose, Knight was born in 1162 in (Bramber, West Sussex, England); died in BY 1228; was buried in Saint John's, Brecon, Wales.

24292.

Hugh de Mortimer was born before 1117 in Wigmore, Herefordshire, England; died on 26 Feb 1181 in Wigmore, Herefordshire, England.

Hugh married Matilda Le Meschin. Matilda (daughter of Sir William FitzRanulph, Lord of Copeland and Cecily Rumilly) was born in 1126 in Harringworth, Northamptonshire, England; died in 1190. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24293.

Matilda Le Meschin was born in 1126 in Harringworth, Northamptonshire, England (daughter of Sir William FitzRanulph, Lord of Copeland and Cecily Rumilly); died in 1190.

Children:

12146. Sir Roger de Mortimer was born before 1153; died before 24 Jun 1214 in Wigmore Castle, Wigmore, Herefordshire, England.

24294.

Walchelin de Ferriers died in 0___ 1201.

Notes:

Walchelin de Ferrieres (or Walkelin de Ferrers) (died 1201) was a Norman baron and principal captain of King Richard I of England.

The Ferriers family hailed from the southern marches of Normandy and had previously protected the duchy from the hostility of the counts of Maine and Anjou. With the union of the domains of Anjou and Normandy in 1144, and the investment of Geoffrey V Plantagenet as duke of Normandy, most of this land lost its strategic importance.

Walchelin was the son of Henry de Ferrieres, a nephew of Robert de Ferrers, 1st Earl of Derby. His father Henry was son of either Enguenulf or William. Like his father, Walchelin held the castles of Ferriáeres-Saint-Hilaire and Chambray for the service of 5 knights. He had 42 and 3/4 in his service, enfeoffed in his lands. In England, Walchelin held the manors of Oakham in Rutland and Lechlade in Gloucestershire. He is known to have held this land since at least 1172.

During the Third Crusade, he and his son and heir, Henry, served in the force of Richard I of England. A John de Ferrieres, believed to be a nephew, was also present. Walchelin had stayed with the King in Sicily. It is apparent that Walchelin was close in the counsel of the king. He and his knights arrived at Saint-Jean d'Acre sometime in April or June 1191. Some months previously, his second cousin, William de Ferrers, 3rd Earl of Derby had been killed at the siege.

After the conclusion of the siege, Richard of England and Hugh III of Burgundy marched their forces south to the city of Jaffa. Along the road, several skirmishes broke out between the marching crusaders and the Saracen army marching parallel under Saladin. On 7 September 1191, the great battle of Arsuf was fought. Richard had made Walchelin a commander of one of the elite bodies of knights according to the chronicle attributed to Geoffrey de Vinsauf.

Later, in 1194, Richard was imprisoned in Germany. Walchelin brought the treasure of Normandy to Speyer and gave himself as a hostage (along with many others) to the Western Emperor Henry VI. He was freed from captivity around 1197. His sons Henry and Hugh managed his estates during the years he spent in prison. Sometime prior to his death, the younger son, Hugh was granted lordship of the manor of Lechlade.

Walchelin died in 1201 and was succeeded by his son, Henry. Henry sided with John of England over King Philip II of France until December 1203 when John left Normandy, never to return. At this point, Henry did Philip homage for his Norman lands. Hugh had left England and the care of Lechlade and Oakham went to their sister, Isabella, who was married to Roger de Mortimer of Wigmore. After her death, the land was escheated to the crown as Terra Normanorum.

Walchelin married unnamed spouse. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24295.

unnamed spouse

Children:

12147. Isabel de Ferrers was born on 21 Feb 1166 in Oakham Castle, Rutland, England; died before 29 Apr 1252 in St John Hospital, Lechlade, Gloucestershire, England.

24300.

Sir Roger de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Warwick was born in 1102 (son of Sir Henry de Beaumont, Knight, 1st Earl of Warwick and Margaret of Perche); died on 12 Jun 1153.

Notes:

Roger de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Warwick (1102 – 12 June 1153) was the elder son of Henry de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Warwick and Marguerite, daughter of Geoffrey II of Perche and Beatrix of Montdidier. He was also known as Roger de Newburg.

He was generally considered to have been a devout and pious man; a chronicle of the period, the Gesta Regis Stephani, speaks of him as a "man of gentle disposition". The borough of Warwick remembers him as the founder of the Hospital of S. Michael for lepers which he endowed with the tithes of Wedgnock, and other property; he also endowed the House of the Templars beyond the bridge. In the reign of Stephen he founded a priory dedicated to S. Cenydd at Llangennith, Co. Glamorgan and he attached it as a cell to the Abbey of S. Taurinus at Evreux in Normandy.

Family and children

He married 1130 Gundred de Warenne, daughter of William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey and Elizabeth de Vermandois and had children:

William de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Warwick.
Waleran de Beaumont, 4th Earl of Warwick (1153 – 12 December 1204).
Henry de Beaumont, was Dean of Salisbury in 1205.
Agnes de Beaumont, married Geoffrey de Clinton, Chamberlain to the King and son of Geoffrey de Clinton, the founder of Kenilworth Castle and Priory.
Margaret de Beaumont.
Gundred de Beaumont (c.1135–1200), married: Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk; Roger de Glanville.

end

Roger married Gundred de Warenne in 1130-1137. Gundred (daughter of Sir William de Warenne, Knight, 2nd Earl of Surrey and Lady Isabel de Vermandois, Countess of Leicester) was born in 1120 in Sussex, England; died in 1170 in Kendale, Cumberland, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24301.

Notes:

Gundreda de Lancaster formerly Warenne aka de Beaumont, de Warenne
Born about 1120 in Sussex, England

ANCESTORS ancestors

Daughter of William (Warenne) de Warenne and Isabel (Capet) de Warenne
Sister of Aubree (Beaumont) Chãateauneuf-en-Thimerais [half], Adeline (Beaumont) de Montfort [half], Eleanor Beaumont [half], Isabel (Beaumont) de Clare [half], Emma (Beaumont) de Beaumont [half], Robert (Beaumont) de Beaumont [half], Waleran (Beaumont) de Beaumont [half], Hugh (Beaumont) de Beaumont [half], Havoise Beaumont [half], Mathilde (Beaumont) Louvel [half], William (Warenne) de Warenne, Ada (Warenne) of Huntingdon, Ralph Warenne and Reginald (Warenne) de Warenne

Wife of Roger (Beaumont) de Beaumont — married about 1137 [location unknown]

Wife of William FitzGilbert (Lancaster) de Lancaster — married about 1155 [location unknown]

DESCENDANTS descendants

Mother of Agnes (Beaumont) de Clinton, Margaret (Beaumont) de Beaumont, Gundred Beaumont, William (Beaumont) de Beaumont, Henry (Beaumont) de Newburgh, Waleran (Beaumont) de Beaumont, William (Lancaster) de Lancaster, Agnes Lancaster and Avice (Lancaster) de Morville

Died 1170 in Kendale, Cumbria, Englandmap
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Profile last modified 6 Oct 2017 | Created 18 Feb 2011
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Categories: Estimated Birth Date.

European Aristocracy
Gundreda (Warenne) de Lancaster is a member of royalty, nobility or aristocracy in the British Isles.
Join: British Isles Royals and Aristocrats 742-1499 Project
Discuss: EUROARISTO

The Birth Date is a rough estimate. See the text for details.

Biography

Her lineage is provided in Medieval Lands[1] and she is stated to be the daughter of William de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, and Isabelle de Vermandois, widow of Robert de Beaumont, Comte de Meulan, Earl of Leicester, and was the daughter of daughter of Hugues de France, Comte de Vermandois et de Valois (Capet dynasty) and his wife Adelais, Countess de Vermandois (Carolingian dynasty). Her date of birth is not provided in source but her parents married shortly after 1117 (death of Robert de Beaumont, Comte de Meulan, Earl of Leicester)[2] and is her date of birth is assumed to be about 1120.

She married twice:[3]

Firstly to Roger de Beaumont, Earl of Warwick. There is little on record regarding the date of this marriage but it is assumed that she was young at the marriage. Their first child, William, is thought to have been born c. 1139 and thus the marriage is assumed to be c. 1137. Robert de Beaumont died in 1153 and Gundred remarried.

Secondly, stated to be between June 1153 and 1156, to William de Lancaster, as his second wife. Note that there is some dispute regarding whether she, or a daughter, married William de Lancaster. Wikitree has adopted the position taken on MedLands and bases this on a Charter from Henry II which records that “primus Willielmum de Lancaster, baronem de Kendale, qui prius vocabatur de Tailboys” married “Gundredam comitissam Warwic” and that she was the mother of his son William.

Her date of death is not provided in source although she clearly died after 1166. It has been presumed to be about 1170.

Sources
? Medieval Lands - Gundred de Warenne
? Medieval Lands - Gundred de Warenne this source suggests the marriage took place in 1118
? Medieval Lands - Gundred de Warenne
Publications:

Medieval Lands - EARLS of WARWICK 1088-1263 (BEAUMONT)
Medieval Lands - Gundred de Warenne
Medieval Lands - William de Lancaster
Beaumonts in History; Edward Beaumont; Chapter 3, page 37. Note pdf download.
Royal Ancestry by Douglas Richardson Vol. V page 274
Royal Ancestry by Douglas Richardson Vol. V. p. 319

On 25 May 2017 at 08:05 GMT Andrew Lancaster wrote:

Not mentioned on the named source, Wikipedia and clearly this profile is some type of confusion about Warenne-17
On 23 Sep 2015 at 03:19 GMT Rev Daniel Washburn Jones wrote:

De Warrenne-16 and Warenne-17 appear to represent the same person because: same person, merge needed ... more merges will be needed, the William husbands and the Agnes children, but everything else matches
On 8 Oct 2014 at 20:28 GMT Darlene (Athey) Athey-Hill wrote:

De Warenne-253 and Warenne-17 appear to represent the same person because: This is definitely the same person. Please do NOT reject the match. You just need to resolve the date of birth, which according to my sources is circa 1124. Same mother & father, same husband. A rejected match means they do NOT represent the same people. If you don't want to resolve the dates right now, then leave it a week or two while you look into it. Otherwise you can make it an unmerged match.
Thanks, Darlene - Co-Leader, European Aristocrats Project

On 8 Oct 2014 at 20:02 GMT Tim Perry wrote:

De Warenne-253 and Warenne-17 do not represent the same person because: Big difference in birth and death dates. This needs to be resolved before a merge can be considered.
end of this biography and notes

Gundred de Warenne,[22] who married first Roger de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Warwick[23] and second William, lord of Kendal, and is most remembered for expelling king Stephen's garrison from Warwick Castle.

end of note

Children:

Gundreda de Beaumont was born in ~ 1135; died in 0___ 1200.
12150. Sir Waleran de Newburgh, Knight, 4th Earl of Warwick was born in 1153 in Warwickshire, England; died on 12 Dec 1204.

24302.

Robert Harcourt was born in ~1150 in Leicestershire, England (son of Ivo Harcourt and Joan Braose); died in 1202.

Robert married Isabel Camville. Isabel was born in ~1170 in Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, England; died after 1208. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24303.

Isabel Camville was born in ~1170 in Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, England; died after 1208.

Children:

12151. Alice de Harcourt was born in ~1175 in Oxfordshire, England; died after Sep 1212.

11124.

Notes:

Richard fitz Gilbert de Clare (died 15 April 1136) 3rd Lord of Clare, was an Anglo-Norman nobleman. A marcher lord in Wales, he was also the founder of Tonbridge Priory in Kent.

Life

Richard was the eldest son of Gilbert Fitz Richard de Clare and Adeliza de Claremont.[1] Upon his father's death, he inherited his lands in England and Wales.

He is commonly said to have been created Earl of Hertford by either Henry I or Stephen, but no contemporary reference to him, including the record of his death, calls him by any title, while a cartulary states that a tenant had held "de Gilleberto, filio Richardi, et de Ricardo, filio ejus, et postea, de Comite Gilleberto, filio Richardi" ("of Gilbert Fitz Richard, and his son Richard, and then of Earl Gilbert Fitz Richard"), again failing to call Richard 'Earl' while giving that title to his son. Thus his supposed creation as earl is without merit, although his status and wealth made him a great magnate in England.[1] There is an old photo document on the wikipedia page for Tonbridge priory which states that the priory was founded by Richard de Clare EARL of (B.. illegible) and Hertfordshire.

Directly following the death of Henry I, hostilities increased significantly in Wales and a rebellion broke out.[2] Robert was a strong supporter of King Stephen and in the first two years of his reign Robert attested a total of twenty-nine of that king's charters.[3] He was with King Stephen when he formalized a treaty with King David I of Scotland and was a royal steward at Stephen's great Easter court in 1136.[3] He was also with Stephen at the siege of Exeter that summer and was in attendance on the king on his return from Normandy. At this point, Richard apparently demanded more land in Wales, which Stephen was not willing to give him.[3]

In 1136, Richard had been away from his lordship in the early part of the year. He returned to the borders of Wales via Hereford in the company of Brian Fitz Count, but on their separating, Richard ignored warnings of the danger and pressed on toward Ceredigion with only a small force.[4] He had not gone far when, on 15 April, he was ambushed and killed by the men of Gwent under Iorwerth ab Owain and his brother Morgan, grandsons of Caradog ap Gruffydd, in a woody tract called "the ill-way of Coed Grano", near Llanthony Abbey, north of Abergavenny.[5] Today the spot is marked by the 'garreg dial' (the stone of revenge).[6] He was buried in Tonbridge Priory,[7] which he founded.[1]

Aftermath

The news of Richard's death induced Owain Gwynedd, son of Gruffudd ap Cynan, king of Gwynedd to invade his lordship. In alliance with Gruffydd ap Rhys of Deheubarth, he won a crushing victory over the Normans at the Battle of Crug Mawr, just outside Cardigan. The town of Cardigan was taken and burnt, and Richard's widow, Alice, took refuge in Cardigan Castle, which was successfully defended by Robert fitz Martin. She was rescued by Miles of Gloucester, who led an expedition to bring her to safety in England

Family

Richard married Alice, sister of Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester,[1] by her having:

Gilbert Fitz Richard de Clare, d. 1153 (without issue), 1st Earl of Hertford.[8]
Roger de Clare, d. 1173, 2nd Earl of Hertford.[8]
Alice de Clare (Adelize de Tonbridge), m. (1) about 1133, Sir William de Percy, Lord of Topcliffe, son of Alan de Percy and Emma de Gant; (2) Cadwaladr ap Gruffydd, brother of Owain Gwynedd
Robert Fitz Richard de Clare, perhaps died in childhood
Rohese de Clare, m. Gilbert de Gant, Earl of Lincoln.[9]

end

Richard married Alice de Gernon. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

11125.

Alice de Gernon (daughter of Sir Ranulf Meschin, Knight, 1st Earl of Chester and Lucy of Bolingbroke).

Children:

5562. Sir Roger de Clare, Knight, 3rd Earl of Hertford was born in 0___ 1116 in Tonbridge Castle, Kent, England; died in 0___ 1173 in Oxfordshire, England.
Alice de Clare was born in Tonbridge Castle, Kent, England.
Rohese de Clare was born in Tonbridge Castle, Kent, England.

24312.

Sir Hugh Bigod, Knight, 1st Earl of Norfolk was born in 0___ 1095 in Belvoir Castle, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England (son of Sir Roger Bigod, Knight and Adeliza de Tosny); died in 0___ 1177 in Israel.

Notes:

Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk (109-1177) was the second son of Roger Bigod (also known as Roger Bigot) (d. 1107), sheriff of Norfolk and royal advisor, and Adeliza, daughter of Robert de Tosny.

Early Years

After the death of his elder brother William, who perished without issue in the sinking of the White Ship on 26 November 1120, Hugh was allowed to inherit his brother's office of royal steward and many estates in East Anglia. He also succeeded his aunt Albreda, heiress of her brother Berengar de Tosny, with lands in Yorkshire and in Normandy.[1] Hugh became Constable of Norwich Castle in 1122.

During King Stephen's reign

Hugh initially supported Stephen of Blois as king of England. On the death of Henry I in 1135, his nephew Stephen usurped the throne, despite the oath Stephen and the barons had sworn to accept Henry's daughter Empress Matilda as his successor. It was Bigod who asserted that, in his last days, Henry I had named Stephen to become king at the expense of his daughter Matilda.[2] Civil war resulted when, in 1139 Matilda, commanded the military strength necessary to challenge Stephen within his own realm.

King Stephen had the initial support of the English barons, but in 1136 he was stricken with sickness and the report of his death was quickly spread abroad. Hugh Bigod seized and held Norwich castle. Stephen, quickly recovering, laid siege to the city and Hugh was compelled to surrender.[3] In February 1141 Bigod fought on Stephen's side in the First Battle of Lincoln, after which the Earl deserted the captured king. In July of that year he was granted the earldom of Norfolk by the Empress Matilda but he appears to have assumed a position of armed neutrality during the civil war, rather than actively siding with the supporters of the empress.[4]

He supported his first wife's brother-in-law, Geoffrey de Mandeville, 1st Earl of Essex, during his rebellion against King Stephen in 1143-44.[5] During the disagreement between King Stephen and Archbishop Theobald in 1148, Hugh Bigod sided with the archbishop and received him in his stronghold, Castle of Framlingham, but joined with others in negotiating a reconciliation between the king and archbishop.

Rise of King Henry II

Five years later, in 1153, when Henry, Duke of Normandy, soon to be King Henry II (r. 1154–89), landed in England to assert his claim to the throne, Bigod held out in Ipswich against Stephen's forces, while Henry II, on the other side, laid siege to Stamford. Both places fell to Stephen. In the critical state of his fortunes, however, Stephen was in no position to punish the rebel earl. Negotiations between the two parties resulted in Henry's recognition as Stephen's heir and Hugh eluded retaliation.

On Henry II's accession in December 1154, Bigod received confirmation of the possession of his earldom and office of royal steward by a charter issued apparently in January of the next year. The first years of the new reign were spent in restoring order to the shattered kingdom, and in breaking the power of the independent barons, which had grown out of control during King Stephen's reign.

It was not before long that Bigod became agitated under the rule of law initiated by Henry. He grew restless with measures such as the scutage, a fee paid by vassals in lieu of military service, which became the central feature of Henry II's military system of operation by 1159. The Earl showed signs of resistance, but was at once put down. In 1157 Henry II marched into the eastern counties and received the earl's submission.

After this incident Hugh Bigod makes no significant appearances in the chronicles for some time; he is named among those who had been excommunicated by Becket, in consequence of his retention of lands belonging to the monastery of Pentney in Norfolk.

The revolt of 1173
Main article: Revolt of 1173–1174

In 1173 the young Crown Prince Henry (also known as Henry the Young King), raised a revolt against his father, Henry II. This gave Hugh Bigod yet another chance for rebellion, along with the league of the English barons and the kings of France and Scotland in his favour. He at once became a leader in the cause, perhaps eager to revive the feudal power, which Henry II had curtailed. In addition to the fact that the inevitable conflict, as far as England was concerned, centred round his possessions. The custody of Norwich Castle was promised by the young prince as his reward.

The king's energy and good fortune were equal to the occasion. While he held in check his rebel vassals in France, the loyal barons in England defeated his enemies there. Robert de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Leicester (d.1190) landed at Walton, in Suffolk, on 29 September 1173 and marched to Framlingham, joining forces with Hugh. Together they besieged and took the castle of Hagenet in Suffolk on 13 October, held by Randal de Broc for the crown. But the Earl of Leicester was defeated and taken prisoner setting out from Framlingham at the Battle of Fornham, near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, by the justiciar, Richard de Luci and other barons. These then turned their arms against Earl Hugh, who, not being strong enough to fight, opened negotiations with his assailants. It is said he bought them off, and at the same time secured a safe passage home for the Flemings in his service.

Final days

Though defeated and compelled to surrender his castles, Bigod kept his lands and his earldom, and lived at peace with Henry II until his death reportedly in 1177 in Palestine.[6]

It should be noted, however, that on 1 March 1177, his son Roger Bigod appealed to the king on a dispute with his stepmother. Hugh being dead at the time of Roger's appeal, the date of his father's death is fixed 'ante caput jejunii', (i.e. before 9 March). If, then, he died in Palestine, his death must have taken place in the preceding year, 1176, to allow time for the arrival of the news in England. Henry II took advantage of Roger's appeal to seize upon the late Earl's treasure. Earl Hugh had possessed vast estates, which he inherited, and was also the recipient of the third penny of judicial fines levied in the county of Norfolk by right of his earldom.

Marriage and family

Bigod married firstly to Juliane de Vere (died c. 1199). She was the daughter of Aubrey de Vere II and Adeliza de Clare, the daughter of Gilbert Fitz Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Clare. The marriage was dissolved before 1156. They had one son:

Roger Bigod, 2nd Earl of Norfolk (born c. 1144-5). He married Ida de Tosny, had issue.
Bigod married secondly Gundreda (c.1135-1200), daughter of Roger de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Warwick. They had two children:

Hugh Bigod (b. c. 1156)
William Hugh Bigod (b. 1168)

end

Died:
State of Palestine

Hugh married Juliane de Vere, Countess of Norfolk. Juliane (daughter of Sir Aubrey de Vere, II and Adeliza de Clare) was born in ~ 1116 in Castle Hedingham, Essex, England; died in ~ 1199. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24313.

Juliane de Vere, Countess of Norfolk was born in ~ 1116 in Castle Hedingham, Essex, England (daughter of Sir Aubrey de Vere, II and Adeliza de Clare); died in ~ 1199.

Children:

12156. Sir Roger Bigod, 2nd Earl of Norfolk was born in 1144-1150 in Norfolk, England; died in 0___ 1221 in (Norfolk, England); was buried in Thetford, Norfolk, England.

5564.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: ~ 1105
Alt Death: 0___ 1165

Notes:

John FitzGilbert the Marshal of the Horses (c. 1105 – 1165) was a minor Anglo-Norman nobleman during the reign of King Stephen, and fought in the 12th century civil war on the side of Empress Matilda. Since at least 1130 and probably earlier, he had been the royal marshal to King Henry I. When Henry died, John FitzGilbert swore for Stephen and was granted the castles of Marlborough and Ludgershall, Wiltshire during this time. Along with Hamstead Marshal, this gave him control of the valley of the River Kennet in Wiltshire. Around 1139, John changed sides and swore for the Empress Matilda. In September 1141, Matilda fled the siege of Winchester and took refuge in the Marshal's castle at Ludgershall. While covering her retreat from Winchester, John Marshal was forced to take refuge at Wherwell Abbey. The attackers set fire to the building, and John lost an eye to dripping lead from the melting roof.

In 1152, John had a celebrated confrontation with King Stephen, who had besieged him at Newbury Castle. After John had broken an agreement to surrender, Stephen threatened to kill his son, whom John had given as a hostage. John refused, saying he could make more sons, but Stephen apparently took pity on the young boy and did not kill him. The boy grew up to be William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, a legendary figure in medieval lore, and one of the most powerful men in England.

The office of Lord Marshal, which originally related to the keeping of the King's horses, and later, the head of his household troops, was won as a hereditary title by John, and was passed to his eldest son, and later claimed by William. John also had a daughter, Margaret Marshal, who married Ralph de Somery, son of John de Somery and Hawise de Paynell.

Family

John was the son of Gilbert, Royal Serjeant and Marshal to Henry I, and his wife Margaret. After his father died in 1129 John inherited the title of the king's marshal. John married Aline Pipard whose father Walter Pipard had been a friend of John's father. John arranged an annulment of his marriage to Aline Pipard in order to marry Sibyl of Salisbury, the sister of Patrick of Salisbury, who had been a local rival of his, and a supporter of King Stephen, up to that point. John had two sons by Aline - Gilbert (d. 1166) and Walter (d. bef.1165). Walter predeceased his father and Gilbert died shortly after inheriting his father's lands.

John's eldest son by Sibyl of Salisbury, also called John Marshal (1145-1194), inherited the title of Marshal, which he held until his death. The title was then granted by King Richard the Lionheart to his second son by Sybilla, William (1147-1219), who made the name and title famous. Though he had started out as a younger son without inheritance, by the time he actually inherited the title his reputation as a soldier and statesman was unmatched across Western Europe. John Marshal had four sons in total by his second wife. As well as John and William, there was Henry (1150-1206), who went on to become Bishop of Exeter, and Ancel, who served as a knight in the household of his kinsman, Rotrou, Count of Perche. There were also two daughters Sybilla and Margaret.

References

Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Lines 55-28, 66-27, 81-28, 122A-29
Barlow, Frank. The Feudal Kingdom of England 1042-1216 London: Longman Group Limited, 1961. ISBN 0-582-48237-2
William Marshal, Knighthood, War and Chivalry 1147-1219 Longman 2002 ISBN 0-582-77222-2

end of biography

Biography

John Fitz-Gilbert, also called John Marshal, was the son of Gilbert Giffard, who was like John an hereditary marshal of the household of King Henry I. John and his father Gilbert, it was noted several generations later by King John, had successfully claimed the right to being "chief" marshall against competing claims from Robert de Venoix and William de Hasings.[1] By the time of John's children, the surname was being used as an early example of a surname, not only by his son and heir, but also by his younger sons.

John's career coincided with a dark 19-year period in Anglo-Norman history, called "The Anarchy" (1135-1164). It was an interregnum following King Henry I's death with no clear male heir (his legitimate son had been lost at sea in 1620). Henry I's illegitimate son, Stephen, seized the throne, opposed by Henry's daughter-in-law, Empress Matilda, fighting for her (legitimate) son's rights (he became King Henry II in 1164). The Anglo-Norman nobility nearly wrecked the country in a lengthy civil war.[2]

John's marriage to Aline Pipard was a casualty of this conflict. From 1135 to 1140 John loyally served King Stephen as Marshal of England, managing the Army's supplies and accompanying the King when he secured Normandy to his cause. John received three important castles in Wiltshire as his reward. With Hamstead Marshal, this gave him control of Wiltshire's strategic Kennet River valley. He was bitterly opposed by Patrick de Salisbury (also in Wiltshire), who supported Empress Matilda.[3].

In February 1141, Stephen's army was defeated at Lincoln and the King taken prisoner, temporarily. John, who may have opposed Stephen's questionable military strategy, decided to change sides. Later that year, with great bravery, he helped Empress Matilda escape an ambush in Wiltshire, loosing an eye and being left for dead in the process. At the same time he came to a political/family agreement with his local enemy, the Patrick of Salisbury, by arranging to annul his first marriage to his distant cousin Aline Pipard (for "consanguinity" an often-used excuse by Medieval nobles at a time when divorce was impossible) and marry Patrick's spinster sister, Sybil.[4]

Aline's sons' rights were maintained but they both died within a year of their father, leaving John's lands, and the "Marshal of England" office, to John's third son (first son by Sibyl), John Marshal, who exercised it under King Henry II until his death in 1192. King Richard (Lionheart) then passed the office to his younger brother, William, who had gone to Normandy as squire to his cousin William de Tancarville, High Chamberlain of Normandy. Though William had started out as a fourth son without any inheritance, by the time he became the Marshal of England, his reputation as a soldier and statesman was unmatched. He expanded the powers of the Marshal's office and was later Regent for Henry III when he inherited the throne as a boy[5].

John Fitz-Gilbert Marshal was a ruthless Anglo-Norman baron with considerable daring, energy, and ambition. His abilities as a soldier and his love of military stratagy were well recorded as was his political savvy. Despite what some detractors wrote, he was also quite loyal by contemporary standards. During the Anarchy he only changed sides once, remaining faithful to Matilda and her son after 1141 and defending them skillfully and at his own peril. His son William inherited his father's skills, reportedly rescuing Queen Eleanor (of Aquitaine), Henry II's wife, after an ambush near Lusignan Castle in France in 1167. After his brother's death without issue opened the way for him to become Marshal of England, he also showed great political skills, including helping implement the Magna Carta of 1215 between King John and the Barons. Between them, this father and son, from a relatively-minor Norman house, marked their century and influenced the course of English history.[6]

Burial: Bradenstoke Priory, Wiltshire

John FitzGilbert the Marshal (Marechal) (c. 1105 - 1165) was a minor Anglo-Norman nobleman during the reign of King Stephen, and fought in the 12th century civil war on the side of the Empress Matilda. Since at least 1130 and probably earlier, he had been the royal marshal to King Henry I. When Henry died, John FitzGilbert swore for Stephen and was granted the castles of Marlborough and Ludgershall, in Wiltshire. Along with Hamstead Marshal, this gave him control of the valley of the River Kennet in Wiltshire.

Around 1139, John changed sides and swore for the Empress Matilda. In September 1141, Matilda fled the siege of Winchester and took refuge in the Marshal's castle at Ludgershall. While covering her retreat from Winchester, John Marshal was forced to take refuge at Wherwell Abbey. The attackers set fire to the building, and John lost an eye to dripping lead from the melting roof.

In 1152, John had a legendary confrontation with King Stephen, who had besieged him at Newbury Castle. After John had broken an agreement to surrender, Stephen threatened to kill his son, whom John had given as a hostage. John refused, saying he could make more sons, but Stephen apparently took pity on the young boy and did not kill him. The boy grew up to be William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, a legendary figure in medieval lore, and one of the most powerful men in England.

The office of Lord Marshal, was an a hereditary title held by John's father, Gilbert Giffard, King's Marshal [7] and was passed to John, his eldest son, and then to John's eldest son also named John, who died in 1192. John's younger brother William (later Regent of England) then inherited the title.

John the son of Gilbert, also had a daughter, Margaret Marshal, who married Ralph de Somery, son of John de Somery and Hawise de Paynell.

John was the son of Gilbert Giffard (Royal Serjeant and Marshal to Henry I). In 1141, John arranged an annulment of his marriage to Aline Pipard in order to marry Sibyl of Salisbury, the sister of Patrick of Salisbury, [8] who had been a local rival of his, and a supporter of King Stephen, up to that point. John had two sons by Aline - Gilbert and Walter. Walter predeceased his father and Gilbert died shortly after inheriting his father's lands.

John's eldest son by Sybilla of Salisbury, also called John Marshal (died 1194), inherited the title of Marshal, which he held until his death. The title was then granted by King Richard the Lionheart to John's second son by Sybilla, William, who made the name and title famous. Though William had started out as a younger son without inheritance, by the time he actually inherited the title of Marshal his reputation as a soldier and statesman was unmatched across Western Europe. John Marshal had four sons in total by his second wife. As well as John and William, there was Henry, who went on to become Bishop of Exeter, and Ancel, who served as a knight in the household of his kinsman, Rotrou, Count of Perche.
Title of "Marshal"

"Mareschal" is "Marshal" in from old French, the common language of the Anglo-Norman nobility of Medieval England. The title, which in Carolingian times had meant "horse servant". The position evolved into an official position and was imported from Normandy to England. John's father, Gilbert Fitz-Robert, was a marshal of King Henry I.

Marshal was the title of the person in the king's household who maintained discipline at court; supplied receipts for payments, gifts and liveries from the king. He was over all servants of the court connected with the royal sports; over the king's bodyguard, and in charge of the horses. He was required to witness writs. It was an hereditary office. The Marshal took part in the ceremony of coronation. His sign of office was a baton bestowed by the king. [9]
The Marshal, under the Royal Constable, was responsible for keeping order at the royal court, making billeting arrangements, tallying the household's expenditures, monitoring knights performing military service for the King, and insuring the imprisonment of debtors. Under John's son William, who was often simply called "The Marshal" the office became "Earl Marshal" and is still the seventh of the eight "great Officers of State" of the British monarchy, just below the Lord High Constable and above the Lord High Admiral.[10]

Sources

? Round, J. H. (1911), The King's Serjeants & Officers of State with their Coronation Services. https://archive.org/stream/kingsserjeantsof00rounuoft#page/88/mode/2up
? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anarchy
? http://www.geni.com/people/Aline-de-Pipard/6000000004382755262?through=6000000001353952871 and "John Fitz-Gilbert, the Marshal," © 1999 by Catherine Armstrong, at: http://www.castlewales.com/jf_gilbt.html
? See preceding note.
? "John Fitz-Gilbert, the Marshal," © 1999 by Catherine Armstrong, at: http://www.castlewales.com/jf_gilbt.html
? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Marshal,_1st_Earl_of_Pembroke and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshal_(Marshal_of_England)
? Medieval Lands
? Medieval Lands
? Dictionary of Medieval Knighthood and Chivalry page 326
? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Marshal#Lords_Marshal_of_England.2C_1135.E2.80.931397
http://www.castlewales.com/jf_gilbt.html - excellent narrative; well researched short biography, (c) 1999 by Catherine Armstrong.
http://www.geni.com/people/John-FitzGilbert-The-Marshal-of-England/6000000006265484751?through=6000000002459854209
Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Lines 55-28, 66-27, 81-28, 122A-29
Barlow, Frank, The Feudal Kingdom of England 1042-1216 (London: Longman Group Limited, 1961). ISBN 0-582-48237-2
William Marshal, Knighthood, War and Chivalry 1147-1219, Longman, 2002, ISBN 0 582 77222 2
Richardson, Douglas, and Kimball G. Everingham. 2013. Royal ancestry: a study in colonial and medieval families. Salt Lake City, UT.: Douglas Richardson. Vol IV, page 34-35, cited by Mr. Marlyn Lewis, Our Royal, Titled, Noble, and Commoner Ancestors & Cousins, database online, Portland, Oregon.
Medieval Lands, database online, author Charles Cawley, (Foundation for Medieval Genealogy, 2006-2013), England, earls created 1138-1143, Chapter 10, Pembroke: B. Earls of Pembroke 1189-1245 (MARSHAL), 1. John FitzGilbert "the Marshal"

See also:

Dictionary of Medieval Knighthood and Chivalry, Bradford B. Broughton, (Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, Inc., 1986).

end of biography

Buried:
Bradenstoke Priory is a medieval priory in the village of Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England. It is noted today for some of its structures having been used by William Randolph Hearst for the renovation of St Donat's Castle, near Llantwit Major, Wales, in the 1930s. ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradenstoke_Priory

5565.

Sibyl of Salisbury was born on 27 Nov 1126 (daughter of Sir Walter of Salisbury and Sibilla de Chaworth); died in 0___ 1176 in Old Sarum (Salisbury), Wiltshire, England.

Children:

2782. Sir William Marshal, Templar Knight, 1st Earl Pembroke was born in 1146-1147 in (Berkshire, England); died on 14 Apr 1219 in Caversham, Berkshire, England; was buried in Temple Church, London, Middlesex, England.
FNU Marshal was born in ~ 1150.
Sir Anselm Marshal, 6th Earl of Pembroke was born in ~1150 in Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales; died on 22 Dec 1245.

5566.

5567.

Children:

Sir Richard de Clare, Knight, 3rd Earl of Hertford was born in ~ 1153 in Tonbridge Castle, Kent, England; died on 28 Nov 1217.
2783. Lady Isabel de Clare, 4th Countess of Pembroke was born in 1172 in Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales; died on 14 Oct 1217 in Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales; was buried in Tintern Abbey, Tintern, Monmouthshire, Wales.

12036.

Notes:

William d'Aubigny, 2nd Earl of Arundel (b. [1138-1150], d. 24 December 1193), also called William de Albini III,[1] was the son of William d'Aubigny, 1st Earl of Arundel and Adeliza of Louvain, widow of Henry I of England.[2]

He married Matilda St Hilary de Harcouèet and among their children was William d'Aubigny, 3rd Earl of Arundel. The Duke of Norfolk's Archives Assistant Librarian Sara Rodger wrote that William "did have three sons, William who succeeded him as Earl in 1196, and Alan and Geoffrey, of whom we know nothing." His daughter, Matilda d'Aubigny, married William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey. In 1176/7 he was created Earl of Sussex and in 1190 he inherited the earldom of Arundel. He is buried at Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk, England.[3]

References

Jump up ^ Brown, R. Allen (1988). Castle Rising Castle. London, UK: English Heritage. p. 15. ISBN 185074159X.
Jump up ^ Aubigny, William d' [William de Albini; known as William d'Aubigny Pincerna], first earl of Arundel (d. 1176), magnate by Graeme White, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Jump up ^ http://thepeerage.com/p10676.htm#i106760

end

William married Matilda St. Hilary in 1173. Matilda was born in 1136 in (Normandy, France); died on 24 Dec 1195. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

12037.

Matilda St. Hilary was born in 1136 in (Normandy, France); died on 24 Dec 1195.

Notes:

Matilda de St. Hilaire was born circa 1136 to James de St. Hilary (c1105-c1154) and Aveline de Hesding (c1107-) and died 24 December 1195 of unspecified causes. She married Roger de Clare, 3rd Earl of Hertford (1116-1173) before 1173 JL . She married William of Aubigny (c1139-1193) after 1173 JL .
Contents[show]

Children

Offspring of Roger de Clare, 3rd Earl of Hertford and Maud de St. Hilary (c1136-1195)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Richard de Clare, 4th Earl of Hertford (c1153-1218) 1153 30 December 1218 Amice FitzRobert, Countess of Gloucester (c1160-1220)

Mabel de Clare (1160-1204)
James de Clare (c1162-?)
Eveline de Clare (c1164-1225)
Roger de Clare (1168-1241)
John de Clare (c1170-?)
Henry de Clare (c1172-?)
,
Children

Offspring of William of Aubigny and Maud de St. Hilary (c1136-1195)
Name Birth Death Joined with
William of Aubigny (c1175-1221) 1175 Arundel, England, United Kingdom 1 February 1221 Rome, Italy Mabel of Chester (c1173-?)

Avice of Aubigny (c1176-?)
Mathilde of Aubigny

Footnotes (including sources)
‡ General
http://www.thepeerage.com/p10673.htm#i106721

Children:

6018. Sir William d'Aubigny, Knight, 3rd Earl of Arundel was born before 1180 in Arundel, Sussex, England; died on 1 Feb 1221 in Rome, Italy; was buried in Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk, England.
Matilda d'Aubigny

12070.

Notes:

John (24 December 1166 - 19 October 1216), also known as John Lackland (Norman French: Johan sanz Terre),[1] was King of England from 6 April 1199 until his death in 1216.

Following the battle of Bouvines, John lost the duchy of Normandy to King Philip II of France, which resulted in the collapse of most of the Angevin Empire and contributed to the subsequent growth in power of the Capetian dynasty during the 13th century.

The baronial revolt at the end of John's reign led to the sealing of the Magna Carta, a document sometimes considered to be an early step in the evolution of the constitution of the United Kingdom.

more on King John ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John,_King_of_England

More images of King John ...

https://www.google.com/search?q=john+lackland+coat+of+arms&rlz=1C1KMZB_enUS591US591&espv=2&biw=1440&bih=810&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiNnKWp6aPPAhULXB4KHb1qCnQQsAQIKw&dpr=1#imgrc=F8SAOkDV1jsAEM%3A

end of comment

Baronial Order of Magna Charta:

The Baronial Order of Magna Charta ("BOMC") is a scholarly, charitable, and lineage society founded in 1898. The BOMC was originally named the Baronial Order of Runnemede, but the name was subsequently changed to better reflect the organization's purposes relating to the Magna Charta and the promulgation of "freedom of man under the rule of law." view its membership list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baronial_Order_of_Magna_Charta

These 25 barons were Sureties for the concessions made by John, King of England, d. 18 Oct 1216.

1. William d'Albini, Lord of Belvoir Castle, d. 1236.
((26th, 27th great grandfather of the grandchildren of Vernia Swindell "Ma" Byars; http://thehennesseefamily.com/relationship.php?altprimarypersonID=&savedpersonID=&secondpersonID=I704&maxrels=6&disallowspouses=0&generations=30&tree=hennessee&primarypersonID=I37347

2. Roger Bigod, (43132) Earl of Norfolk and Suffolk, d. 1220.
(26th great grandfather of the grandchildren of Perry Green "Pop" Byars: http://thehennesseefamily.com/relationship.php?altprimarypersonID=&savedpersonID=&secondpersonID=I3&maxrels=6&disallowspouses=1&generations=30&tree=hennessee&primarypersonID=I43132

3. Hugh Bigod, (43271) heir to the earldoms of Norfolk and Suffolk, d. 1225.
(25th great grandfather of the grandchildren of Perry Green "Pop" Byars: http://thehennesseefamily.com/relationship.php?altprimarypersonID=&savedpersonID=I3&secondpersonID=&maxrels=6&disallowspouses=1&generations=30&tree=hennessee&primarypersonID=I43271

4. Henry de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, (46127) d. 1220.
(26th, 27th great grandfather of the grandchildren of Vernia Swindell "Ma" Byars; http://thehennesseefamily.com/relationship.php?altprimarypersonID=&savedpersonID=&secondpersonID=I704&maxrels=6&disallowspouses=0&generations=30&tree=hennessee&primarypersonID=I37347

5. Richard de Clare, Earl of Hertford, (46129) d. 1217.
(25th, 26th & 27th great grandfather of the grandchildren of Vernia Swindell "Ma" Byars: http://thehennesseefamily.com/relationship.php?altprimarypersonID=&savedpersonID=I3&secondpersonID=&maxrels=6&disallowspouses=1&generations=30&tree=hennessee&primarypersonID=I46129

6. Gilbert de Clare, heir to the earldom of Hertford, (45550) d. 1230.
(24th, 26th & 27th great grandfather of the grandchildren of Vernia Swindell "Ma" Byars; http://thehennesseefamily.com/relationship.php?altprimarypersonID=&savedpersonID=&secondpersonID=I704&maxrels=6&disallowspouses=0&generations=30&tree=hennessee&primarypersonID=I37347
25th & 27th great grandfather of the grandchildren of Perry Green "Pop" Byars; http://thehennesseefamily.com/relationship.php?altprimarypersonID=&savedpersonID=I3&secondpersonID=&maxrels=6&disallowspouses=1&generations=30&tree=hennessee&primarypersonID=I46162

John FitzRobert, Lord of Warkworth Castle, Northumberland, d. 1240.

7. Robert FitzWalter, Lord of Dunmow Castle, Essex, d. 1234.
28th great grandfather of the grandchildren of Perry Green "Pop" Byars http://thehennesseefamily.com/relationship.php?altprimarypersonID=&savedpersonID=I3&secondpersonID=&maxrels=6&disallowspouses=1&generations=30&tree=hennessee&primarypersonID=I46162

William de Fortibus, Earl of Albemarle, d. 1241, no great-grandchildren.
William Hardell, Mayor of the City of London, d. after 1216, no known issue.
William de Huntingfield, Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, d. 1220.
John de Lacie, Lord of Pontefract Castle, d. 1240.
William de Lanvallei, Lord of Standway Castle, Essex, d. 1217.
William Malet, Sheriff of Somerset and Dorset, d. about 1217.
Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex and Gloucester, d. 1216, d.s.p..

William Marshall jr, heir to the earldom of Pembroke, d. 1231, (43947) d.s.p..
A cousin to the grandchildren of Vernia Swindell "Ma" Byars & Perry Green "Pop" Byars: http://thehennesseefamily.com/relationship.php?altprimarypersonID=&savedpersonID=I3&secondpersonID=&maxrels=6&disallowspouses=1&generations=30&tree=hennessee&primarypersonID=I43947

Roger de Montbegon, Lord of Hornby Castle, Lancashire, d. 1226, d.s.p..
Richard de Montfichet, Baron, d. after 1258, d.s.p..

8.. William de Mowbray, Lord of Axholme Castle, Lincolnshire, (46138) d. 1223
(24th & 26th great grandfather to the grandchildren of Vernia Swindell "Ma" Byars: http://thehennesseefamily.com/relationship.php?altprimarypersonID=&savedpersonID=&secondpersonID=I3&maxrels=6&disallowspouses=1&generations=30&tree=hennessee&primarypersonID=I46138

Richard de Percy, Baron, Yorkshire, d. 1244, d.s.p..

9.Saire de Quincey, Earl of Winchester, (46162) d. 1219.
(25th & 27th great grandfather to the grandchildren of Vernia Swindell "Ma" Byars; http://thehennesseefamily.com/relationship.php?altprimarypersonID=&savedpersonID=&secondpersonID=I704&maxrels=6&disallowspouses=0&generations=30&tree=hennessee&primarypersonID=I37347
27th great grandfather of the grandchildren of Perry Green "Pop" Byars: http://thehennesseefamily.com/relationship.php?altprimarypersonID=&savedpersonID=I3&secondpersonID=&maxrels=6&disallowspouses=1&generations=30&tree=hennessee&primarypersonID=I46162

10. Robert de Roos, Lord of Hamlake Castle, Yorkshire, (46148)d. 1226.
(25th, 26th & 27th great grandfather to the grandchildren of Vernia Swindell "Ma" Byars: http://thehennesseefamily.com/relationship.php?altprimarypersonID=&savedpersonID=&secondpersonID=I3&maxrels=12&disallowspouses=1&generations=30&tree=hennessee&primarypersonID=I46148

Geoffrey de Saye, Baron, d. 1230.

11. Robert de Vere, heir to the earldom of Oxford, d. 1221.
(25th, 27th great grandfather to the grandchildren of Vernia Swindell "Ma" Byars; http://thehennesseefamily.com/relationship.php?altprimarypersonID=&savedpersonID=&secondpersonID=I704&maxrels=6&disallowspouses=0&generations=30&tree=hennessee&primarypersonID=I37347
27th great grandfather of the grandchildren of Perry Green "Pop" Byars; http://thehennesseefamily.com/relationship.php?altprimarypersonID=&savedpersonID=&secondpersonID=I3&maxrels=12&disallowspouses=1&generations=30&tree=hennessee&primarypersonID=I46155

Eustace de Vesci, Lord of Alnwick Castle, Northumberland, d. 1216 d.s.p..

end of report

Birth:
Beaumont Palace, built outside the north gate of Oxford, was intended by Henry I about 1130 to serve as a royal palace conveniently close to the royal hunting-lodge at Woodstock (now part of the park of Blenheim Palace). Its former presence is recorded in Beaumont Street, Oxford. Set into a pillar on the north side of the street, near Walton Street, is a stone with the inscription: "Near to this site stood the King's Houses later known as Beaumont Palace. King Richard I was born here in 1157 and King John in 1167". The "King's House" was the range of the palace that contained the king's lodgings.

Henry passed Easter 1133 in the nova aula, his "new hall" at Beaumont in great pomp, celebrating the birth of his grandson, the future Henry II.[1] Edward I was the last king to sojourn in Beaumont officially as a palace, and in 1275 he granted it to an Italian lawyer, Francesco Accorsi, who had undertaken diplomatic missions for him.[2] When Edward II was put to flight at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, he is said to have invoked the Virgin Mary and vowed to found a monastery for the Carmelites (the White Friars) if he might escape safely. In fulfilment of his vow he remanded Beaumont Palace to the Carmelites in 1318.

In 1318, the Palace was the scene for the beginnings of the John Deydras affair, in which a royal pretender, arguing that he was the rightful king of England, claimed the Palace for his own. John Deydras was ultimately executed for sedition.[3]

When the White Friars were disbanded at the Reformation, most of the structure was dismantled and the building stone reused in Christ Church and St John's College.[4] An engraving of 1785[5] shows the remains of Beaumont Palace, the last of which were destroyed in the laying out of Beaumont Street in 1829.[6]

Drawings, Sketches & Source ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaumont_Palace

Died:
Newark Castle, in Newark, in the English county of Nottinghamshire was founded in the mid 12th century by Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln. Originally a timber castle, it was rebuilt in stone towards the end of the century. Dismantled in the 17th century after the English Civil War, the castle was restored in the 19th century, first by Anthony Salvin in the 1840s and then by the corporation of Newark who bought the site in 1889. The Gilstrap Heritage Centre is a free-admission museum in the castle grounds about the history of the town of Newark.

Images & Source ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newark_Castle,_Nottinghamshire

Buried:
Worcester Cathedral, before the English Reformation known as Worcester Priory, is an Anglican cathedral in Worcester, England; situated on a bank overlooking the River Severn. It is the seat of the Bishop of Worcester. Its official name is The Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Mary the Virgin of Worcester. Built between 1084 and 1504, Worcester Cathedral represents every style of English architecture from Norman to Perpendicular Gothic.

It is famous for its Norman crypt and unique chapter house, its unusual Transitional Gothic bays, its fine woodwork and its "exquisite" central tower,[1] which is of particularly fine proportions.

Images, History & Source ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worcester_Cathedral

John married Clemence Butler in 1188 in England. Clemence (daughter of Philip Butler and Sybil de Braose) was born in 1175; died in 1231. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

12071.

Clemence Butler was born in 1175 (daughter of Philip Butler and Sybil de Braose); died in 1231.

Children:

6035. Joan Plantagenet, Lady of Wales was born in ~ 1191 in (France); died on 2 Feb 1237.

24410.

Sir William Brewer, Baron of Horsley was born in ~1145 in Devon, England; died on 24 Nov 1226 in Belper, Derbyshire, England.

Notes:

William "Baron of Horsley" Brewer formerly Briwere aka Briwerre
Born about 1145 in Devon, England
ANCESTORS ancestors
Son of Henry (Briwere) de Briwere and Mrs Henry DeBriwere (Walton) de Briwere
Brother of Unknown (Briwere) De Briwere [half]
Husband of Beatrice (Vaux) Briwere — married [date unknown] [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Father of Margaret Briwere, Anne (Briwere) Giffard, Isabel (Briwere) Wake, Grace (Briwere) de Briwerre, Alice (Briwere) de Paynell, Joan (Briwere) de Percy and William (Briwere) de Briwere Jr.
Died 24 Nov 1226 in Belper, Derbyshire, England
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Biography

Anyone looking for an instance of the exemplary royal servant of the middle ages could hardly do better than to examine the life of William Brewer. Aptly described by one modern writer as a ?die-hard Angevin?, his career, spanning fifty years, was a model of loyalty and usefulness. He served four Angevin kings, among them King John, who is reported to have attributed to Brewer the ability to know his master's mind; it was John, above all, who made Brewer extraordinarily wealthy, and by the time of his death he was the master of some sixty knights' fees focused in the southwest, with a newly created caput at Bridgwater, Somerset.[1]

In 1190 the Manor of King's Somborne was granted to William Briwere, a loyal servant of the Plantaganet kings, who made him one of the most powerful men in the realm, and rewarded him handsomely. Among other offices he was at various times sheriff of Hampshire and of other counties, (including Nottingham while Richard Coeur-de Lion was on a Crusade: this makes him Robin Hood's notorious adversary). He also signed Magna Carta. Though much disliked and an extortioner, his family married well: one of his descendants married Henry of Lancaster: their daughter, Blanche, who inherited the Manor in 1362, married John of Gaunt; the Manor then passed to their son, Henry Bolingbroke, who in 1399 became King Henry IV. The Manor remained a royal possession till the time of Charles I.

In 1200 William Brewer received from King John a licence to fortify a castle at Ashley: Ashley church had stood for over half a century already, so William's bailey was built around it. Subsequently the King stayed there to hunt in the Forest of Bere. In 1201 Brewer (sic) founded a Priory of Augustinian Canons at Mottisfont; his son gave them the church of King's Somborne: from 1207 till the dissolution of the Monastery the Priory appointed the vicars of King's Somborne, and no doubt the priests to serve at the altars and chantry. His brother John presented Little Somborne to the Priory, and there is unreliable evidence that a third brother, Peter de Rivaulx, was a monk there of some sanctity, known as 'the Monk in the Wall'.[2]

Alternate Spelling
Briwerre[3]
Occupation
Sheriff of Nottingham[3]
Sources
? ODNB
? HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ST PETER & ST PAUL, KINGS SOMBORNE
? 3.0 3.1 Memoirs Illustrative of the Histories and Antiquities of the County and City of York p. 292 of 410. Accessed 2016 December 14, amb
Memoirs Illustrative of the Histories and Antiquities of the County and City of York
The Visitations of the County of Devon: Comprising the Herald's Visitations of 1531, 1564, & 1620, Volume 1, edited by John Lambrick Vivian p. 279
ancestry.com
Source: S27185 Title: fitzrandtocharlemange.FTW Repository: Call Number: Media: Other
Phillips, Weber, Kirk and Staggs Families of the Pacific Northwest, by Jim Weber, rootsweb.com
ancestry.com tree

end of biography

William married Beatrice Vaux. Beatrice was born in ~1149; died on 24 Mar 1217 in Stoke, Devonshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24411.

Beatrice Vaux was born in ~1149; died on 24 Mar 1217 in Stoke, Devonshire, England.

Children:

12205. Grace Brewer was born in 1186 in Bramber, Sussex, England; died in 1226 in Bramber, Sussex, England.
Joan Briwere was born in 1190 in Stoke, Devonshire, England; died in 1233 in Sandown, Surrey, England.

24484.

Sancho III, King of Castile was born in 0___ 1134 in Toledo, Spain; died on 31 Aug 1158 in Toledo, Spain; was buried in Cathedral of Toledo, Toledo, Spain.

Notes:

Sancho III (1134 – 31 August 1158), called the Desired (el Deseado),[1] was King of Castile and Toledo for one year, from 1157 to 1158. He was the son of Alfonso VII of Leâon and Castile and his wife Berenguela of Barcelona, and was succeeded by his son Alfonso VIII. During the Reconquista, in which he took an active part, he founded the Order of Calatrava.[2] His nickname due to his position as the first child of his parents, born after eight years of childless marriage.

Life

He was the eldest son of King Alfonso VII of Leâon and Castile and Berengaria of Barcelona.[3] During his father's reign, he appears as "king of Nâajera" as early as 1149. His father's will partitioned the kingdom between his two sons: Sancho inherited the kingdoms of Castile and Toledo, and Ferdinand inherited Leâon.[4] The two brothers had just signed a treaty when Sancho suddenly died in the summer of 1158, being buried at Toledo.[5]

He had married, in 1151, Blanche of Navarre, daughter of Garcâia Ramâirez of Navarre, and had two sons:

Alfonso VIII of Castile, his successor
infante Garcâia, who died at birth in 1156, apparently also resulting in the death of Queen Blanche.
There may also have been an older son who died in infancy.

Sancho married Blanche of Navarre, Queen of Castile on 30 Jan 1151 in Calahorra, Spain. Blanche was born after 1133 in Laguardia, Spain; died on 12 Aug 1156; was buried in Burgos, Spain. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

24485.

Blanche of Navarre, Queen of Castile was born after 1133 in Laguardia, Spain; died on 12 Aug 1156; was buried in Burgos, Spain.

Notes:

Buried:
in the Monasterio de Santa Maria la Real de Las Huelgas...

Children:

12242. Alfonso VIII, King of Castile was born on 11 Nov 1155 in Soria, Spain; died on 5 Oct 1214 in Avila, Spain; was buried in Burgos, Spain.

Generation: 16

44292.

Waltheof Huntington, Earl of Northumbria (son of Siward Bjornsson, Earl of Northumbia and Aelfflaed); died on 31 May 1076 in St. Giles Hill, Winchester, England; was buried in Crowland, Crowland Abbey, Peterborough, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: 1046, Northumberland, England

Notes:

Waltheof, 1st Earl of Northumbria (d. 31 May 1076) was the last of the Anglo-Saxon earls and the only English aristocrat to be executed during the reign of William I.

Earl of Northumbria
Reign 1072–1076
Predecessor Cospatrick of Northumbria
Successor William Walcher
Died 31 May 1076
St. Giles's Hill, Winchester
Buried Croyland Abbey
Spouse(s) Judith of Lens
Father Siward, Earl of Northumbria
Mother Aelfflaed

Early life

Waltheof was the second son of Siward, Earl of Northumbria. His mother was Aelfflaed, daughter of Ealdred, Earl of Bernicia, son of Uhtred, Earl of Northumbria. In 1054, Waltheof’s brother, Osbearn, who was much older than he, was killed in battle, making Waltheof his father’s heir. Siward himself died in 1055, and Waltheof being far too young to succeed as Earl of Northumbria, King Edward appointed Tostig Godwinson to the earldom.

Waltheof was said to be devout and charitable and was probably educated for a monastic life. Around 1065, however, he became an earl, governing Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire. Following the Battle of Hastings he submitted to William and was allowed to keep his pre-Conquest title and possessions. He remained at William’s court until 1068.
First revolt

When Sweyn II invaded Northern England in 1069, Waltheof and Edgar Aetheling joined the Danes and took part in the attack on York. He would again make a fresh submission to William after the departure of the invaders in 1070. He was restored to his earldom, and went on to marry William's niece, Judith of Lens. In 1072, he was appointed Earl of Northampton.

The Domesday Book mentions Waltheof ("Walleff"): "'In Hallam ("Halun"), one manor with its sixteen hamlets, there are twenty-nine carucates [~14 km²] to be taxed. There Earl Waltheof had an "Aula" [hall or court]. There may have been about twenty ploughs. This land Roger de Busli holds of the Countess Judith." (Hallam, or Hallamshire, is now part of the city of Sheffield)

In 1072, William expelled Gospatric from the earldom of Northumbria. Gospatric was Waltheof’s cousin and had taken part in the attack on York with him, but like Waltheof, had been pardoned by William. Gospatric fled into exile and William appointed Waltheof as the new earl.

Waltheof had many enemies in the north. Amongst them were members of a family who had killed Waltheof’s maternal great-grandfather, Uchtred the Bold, and his grandfather Ealdred. This was part of a long-running blood feud. In 1074, Waltheof moved against the family by sending his retainers to ambush them, succeeding in killing the two eldest of four brothers.
Second revolt and death

In 1075 Waltheof joined the Revolt of the Earls against William. His motives for taking part in the revolt are unclear, as is the depth of his involvement. However he repented, confessing his guilt first to Archbishop Lanfranc and then in person to William, who was at the time in Normandy. He returned to England with William but was arrested, brought twice before the king's court and sentenced to death.

He spent almost a year in confinement before being beheaded on 31 May 1076 at St. Giles's Hill, near Winchester. He was said to have spent the months of his captivity in prayer and fasting. Many people believed in his innocence and were surprised when the execution was carried out. His body was initially thrown into a ditch, but was later retrieved and buried in the chapter house of Crowland Abbey in Lincolnshire.
Cult of martyrdom
statue traditionally identified as Waltheof, at Croyland Abbey, west front of ruined nave, 4th tier

In 1092, after a fire in the chapter house, the abbot had Waltheof’s body moved to a prominent place in the abbey church. When the coffin was opened, it is reported that the corpse was found to be intact with the severed head re-joined to the trunk.[1] This was regarded as a miracle, and the abbey, which had a financial interest in the matter began to publicise it. As a result, pilgrims began to visit Waltheof’s tomb. He was commemorated on 31 August.[2][3]

After a few years healing miracles were reputed to occur in the vicinity of Waltheof’s tomb, often involving the restoration of the pilgrim’s lost sight.

Waltheof also became the subject of popular media, heroic but inaccurate accounts of his life being preserved in the Vita et Passio Waldevi comitis, a Middle English Waltheof saga, since lost, and the Anglo-Norman Waldef.
Family and children

In 1070 Waltheof married Judith de Lens, daughter of Lambert II, Count of Lens and Adelaide of Normandy, Countess of Aumale. They had three children, the eldest of whom, Maud, brought the earldom of Huntingdon to her second husband, David I of Scotland, and another, Adelise, married the Anglo-Norman noble Raoul III of Tosny.

One of Waltheof's grandsons was Waltheof (d. 1159), abbot of Melrose.
In popular culture

Waltheof was portrayed by actor Marcus Gilbert in the TV drama Blood Royal: William the Conqueror (1990).
Waltheof is the subject of Juliet Dymoke's 1970 historical novel Of the Ring of Earls
Waltheof is a major character in Elizabeth Chadwick's 2002 historical novel The Winter Mantle

end of biography

Buried:
Images & History of Crowland Abbey: https://www.crowlandabbey.org.uk/

Waltheof married Judith of Lens, Countess of Northumberland after Jan 1070. Judith (daughter of Lambert II, Count of Lens and Countess Adelaide of Normandy) was born in 1054-1055 in Lens, France; died in ~1090 in Fotheringay, Northamptonshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44293.

Judith of Lens, Countess of Northumberland was born in 1054-1055 in Lens, France (daughter of Lambert II, Count of Lens and Countess Adelaide of Normandy); died in ~1090 in Fotheringay, Northamptonshire, England.

Notes:

Countess Judith (born in Normandy between 1054 and 1055, died after 1086), was a niece of William the Conqueror. She was a daughter of his sister Adelaide of Normandy, Countess of Aumale and Lambert II, Count of Lens.
Life

In 1070, Judith married Earl Waltheof of Huntingdon and Northumbria. They had three children. Their eldest daughter, Maud, brought the earldom of Huntingdon to her second husband, David I of Scotland. Their daughter, Adelise, married Raoul III de Conches whose sister, Godehilde, married Baldwin I of Jerusalem.

In 1075, Waltheof joined the Revolt of the Earls against William. It was the last serious act of resistance against the Norman conquest of England. Judith betrayed Waltheof to her uncle, who had Waltheof beheaded on 31 May 1076.

After Waltheof's execution Judith was betrothed by William to Simon I of St. Liz, 1st Earl of Northampton. Judith refused to marry Simon and she fled the country to avoid William's anger. William then temporarily confiscated all of Judith's English estates. Finally, Simon married Judith's daughter, Maud, in or before 1090.

Judith founded Elstow Abbey in Bedfordshire around 1078. She also founded churches at Kempston and Hitchin.

She had land-holdings in 10 counties in the Midlands and East Anglia. Her holdings included land at:

Earls Barton, Northamptonshire
Great Doddington, Northamptonshire
Grendon, Northamptonshire
Ashby Folville, Leicestershire
Lowesby, Leicestershire
Merton, Oxfordshire
Piddington, Oxfordshire
Potton, Bedfordshire
Sawtry, Huntingdonshire

The parish of Sawtry Judith in Huntingdonshire is named after the Countess.
From the Domesday Book

In POTONE Hugh holds ½ virgate of land from the Countess. Land for 1 plough; it is there, with 1 smallholder. The value is and was 5s; before 1066, 2s. Earl Tosti held this land in Potton, his manor.

Countess Judith holds POTONE herself. It answers for 10 hides. Land for 12 ploughs. In lordship 3½ hides; 3 ploughs there. 18 villagers and 2 Freemen with 8 ploughs; a ninth possible. 13 smallholders and 3 slaves. 1 mill, 5s; meadow for 12 ploughs; pasture for the village livestock. In total, value ¹12; when acquired 100s; before 1066 ¹13. King Edward held this manor; it was Earl Tosti's. There were 4 Freemen who had 1 hide and 1 virgate; they could grant to whom they would.

In (Cockayne) HATLEY Countess Judith holds 3 hides and 2½ virgates as one manor. Land for 6½ ploughs. In lordship 1 hide and ½ virgate; 2 ploughs there. 8 villagers with 4½ ploughs; woodland, 4 pigs. Value ¹6 5s; when acquired 100s; before 1066 ¹6. Earl Tosti held this manor. It lies in Potton, the Countess' own manor. A Freeman had 1 virgate; he could grant and sell, and withdraw to another lord.

Ranulf brother of Ilger holds EVERTON from the Countess. It answers for 5 hides. Land for 5 ploughs; 2 ploughs there; 3 possible. 4 villagers; 5 smallholders. Meadow for 1 plough. Value ¹3; when acquired 100s; as much before 1066. Earl Tosti held this manor. It lay in Potton, the Countess' own manor.

end of biography

Children:

22201. Maud of Huntingdon, Queen Consort of Scotland was born in ~1074 in Northumberland, England; died in 1130-1131 in Scone, Perthshire, Scotland; was buried in Scone Abbey, Perthshire, Scotland.
22146. Uctred FitzWaltheof was born after 1070 in Tynedale, Scotland; died in 1152 in Johnstone, Dumfries-shire, Scotland.

44294.

Donald Dunkeld, III, King of Scots was born in 1034 in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland (son of Duncan I of Scotland, King of Alba and Suthen, Queen of Scotland); died in 1097 in Rescobie, Angus, Scotland.

Notes:

BIOGRAPHY

Donald Bane (Gaelic for the White or the Fair)

During the reign of his brother, Malcolm the Third, Donald lived a quiet life in the Hebrides. Malcolm intended for his son Edward to succeed him but when he died, Edward was in Northumbria, fighting.(the Battle of the Alnwick) Donald raised his own army when he heard of his brother's death and headed for Edinburgh, laying siege to the castle with Malcolm's other children inside. How they escaped isn't clear. They fled to England, to be sheltered by their uncle EDGAR THE ATHELING.

Donald began to reverse the reforms in religion and politics Malcolm had made. In 1094, Malcolm's son, Duncan led an army of GOSPATRICK'S Northumbrians and Normans, supplied by England's king WILLIAM RUFUS, northward. Eventually, Donald was forced back to his Hebrides stronghold. Duncan took the throne, only to face an uprising by the men of Mearns. He was killed at the Battle of Monthechin on the twelfth of November, 1094.

Donald was again king in Scotland. Being an old man of sixty odd years, and having no sons, he agreed to share power with his nephew Edmund, which displeased greatly Edmund's older brother Edgar. Edgar went to William Rufus and his uncle the Atheling with his grievances. There was some troublesome delay in raising another army, but Edgar finally went north. Donald was captured, blinded, and imprisoned October 1097. There's no explanation to why he wasn't executed at the time. He died in confinement in 1099. His co-king Edmund, deposed with him was allowed to become a monk at Montecute Abbey.

Wearing the crown of Scotland was a dangerous thing. But soon, the dark and bloody throne would become more stable. For a little while.

For more on Donald, read Andrew McDonald's Outlaws of Medieval Scotland, and Richard Oran's The Canmores; Kings and Queens of the Scots.

(written for wikitree by Catherine Evans)

Alias
Alias: Donaldbane
Alias: Domnall Ban
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_III_of_Scotland
http://www.theroyfamily.com/p44016.htm

end of this biography

Donald married Hextilda FitzAndlaw(Perthshire, Scotland). Hextilda was born in 1029 in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland; died on 16 Nov 1093 in (Rescobie, Angus) Scotland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44295.

Hextilda FitzAndlaw was born in 1029 in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland; died on 16 Nov 1093 in (Rescobie, Angus) Scotland.

Children:

22147. Bethoc Dunkeld was born in 1098 in Tynedale, Moray, Scotland; died in 1160 in Perth, Scotland.

22192.

Fergus of Galloway was born before 1100 in (Galloway, Scotland); died on 12 May 1161 in (Galloway, Scotland).

Notes:

Fergus of Galloway (died 12 May 1161) was a twelfth-century Lord of Galloway. Although his familial origins are unknown, it is possible that he was of Norse-Gaelic ancestry. Fergus first appears on record in 1136, when he witnessed a charter of David I, King of Scotland. There is considerable evidence indicating that Fergus was married to a bastard daughter of Henry I, King of England. Although her identity is unknown it is possible that she was the mother of Fergus' three children.

Fergus forged a marital alliance with Ólâafr Guºr²ºarson, King of the Isles, through the marriage of the latter to Fergus' daughter, Affraic. As a consequence of this union, the leading branch of the Crovan dynasty descended from Fergus. When Ólâafr was assassinated by a rival branch of the dynasty, Galloway itself was attacked before Fergus' grandson, Guºr²ºr Ólâafsson, was able to seize control of Isles. Both Fergus and his grandson appear to have overseen military operations in Ireland, before the latter was overthrown by Somairle mac Gilla Brigte, Lord of Argyll. The fact that there is no record of Fergus lending Guºr²ºr support could be evidence of a slackening of Fergus' authority. Contemporary sources certainly report that Galloway was wracked by inter-dynastic strife during the decade.

Fergus' fall from power came in 1160, after Malcolm IV, King of Scotland settled a dispute amongst his leading magnates and launched three military campaigns into Galloway. The reasons for the Scottish invasion are unknown. On one hand, it is possible that Fergus had precipitated events by preying upon Scottish territories. In the aftermath of the attack, the king came to terms with Somairle which could be evidence that he had either been allied with Fergus against the Scots or that he had aided in Fergus' destruction. Whatever the case, Fergus himself was driven from power, and forced to retire to the abbey of Holyrood. He died the next year. The Lordship of Galloway appears to have been partitioned between his sons, Gilla Brigte and Uhtred, and Scottish influence further penetrated into Galloway.

Origins[edit]

Fergus' name as it appears on folio 35v of British Library MS Cotton Julius A VII (the Chronicle of Mann): "Fergus de Galwedia".[2]
Fergus' familial origins are unknown.[3] He is not accorded a patronym in contemporary sources,[4] and his later descendants are traced no further than him in their charters.[5][note 1] The fact that he tends to be styled "of Galloway" in contemporary sources suggests that he was the head of the most important family in the region. Such appears to have been the case with Fergus' contemporary Freskin, a significant settler in Moray, who was styled de Moravia.[15]

One source that may possibly cast light on Fergus' familial origins is Roman de Fergus,[16] a mediaeval Arthurian romance, mainly set in southern Scotland,[17] which tells the tale of a knight who may represent Fergus himself.[18] The name of the knight's father in this source is a form of the name borne by Fergus' neighbouring contemporary Somairle mac Gilla Brigte, Lord of Argyll (died 1164), and could be evidence that Fergus' father bore the same name.[19] Conversely, the name of the knight's father could suggest that this character represents the historical Somairle himself, rather than the father of Fergus.[20] Whatever the case, the romance itself appears to be a literary pastiche or parody of the compositions of Chrâetien de Troyes;[21] and besides the coincidence of names, the romance itself has little to commend it to the historical Fergus himself.[22]

Despite the uncertainty surrounding his origins, it is possible that Fergus was of Norse-Gaelic and native Gallovdian ancestry.[23] Traditionally, the Gallovidians appear to have looked towards the Isles instead of Scotland, and the core of his family's lands seems to have centred in valley of the river Dee and the coastal area around Whithorn, regions of substantial Scandinavian settlement.[24] Whatever the case, the fact that Fergus died as an old man in 1161 suggests that he was born before 1100.[25]

Early career

One of the mounds in Lochfergus, a now-drained lochan near Kirkcudbright, where Fergus may have had a fortress.[26]

Fergus first appears on record in about 1136×1141, when he and his son, Uhtred (died 1174), witnessed the grant of the lands of Partick to the church of St Kentigern at Glasgow.[27][note 2] The exact extent of the twelfth-century Lordship of Galloway is unclear.[35] Surviving acta of Fergus and Uhtred reveal a concentration of endowments in central Galloway, between the rivers Urr and Fleet. Subsequent grants of lands by later descendants of Fergus in the Dee valley could represent the expansion of territory from this original core.[36] There is evidence indicating the Fergus' domain extended into western Galloway as well. His descendants were certainly associated with the castle of Cruggleton and dealt with lands in the vicinity.[37] In 1140, during the return journey of Mâael Mâaedoc Ua Morgair, Archbishop of Armagh (died 1148) from Clairvaux to Ulster, Mâael Mâaedoc made landfall at Cruggleton, as evidenced by Vita Sancti Malachiae, composed by Bernard of Clairvaux (died 1153).[38] Although this source associates the castle with the Scots, it seems unlikely that Scottish royal authority extended to the Gallovidian coast, and the statement could therefore be a result of confusion with Mâael Mâaedoc's previous stay at the castle of Carlisle, then controlled by David I, King of Scotland (died 1153). In fact, Mâael Mâaedoc's visit to Cruggleton may have involved the local lord of the region,[37] conceivably Fergus himself.[39] The mid twelfth-century lordship, therefore, seems to have been centred in the region of Wigtown Bay and the mouth of the river Dee.[37]

The ruinous coastal castle of Cruggleton from a distance. This fortress may have been a power centre of Fergus.
The fact that Gilla Brigte, who may well have been Fergus' eldest child, later appears to have drawn his power from west of the river Cree could be evidence that this man's mother was a member of a prominent family from this region. Such an alliance could also explain Fergus' apparent westward expansion.[40] Whatever the case, the fact that the Diocese of Whithorn was revived in about 1128, possibly at the hands of Fergus himself, could indicate that he purposely established an episcopal see that encompassed the entirety of his domain.[41] The apparent extension of Fergus' authority into western Galloway may have been facilitated by the disintegration of the expansive nearby Kingdom of the Isles. Upon the death of the reigning Guºr²ºr Crovan, King of the Isles (died 1095), the Isles plunged into chaos, enduring periods of vicious dynastic kin-strife, overwhelming Norwegian overlordship, and Irish intrusion as well. By the end of the first quarter of the twelfth century, however, Guºr²ºr Crovan's youngest son, Ólâafr (died 1153), seems to have been reinserted into the Isles by Henry I, King of England (died 1135). This restoration of the Crovan dynasty appears to have formed part of the English Crown's extension of influence into the Irish Sea region.[42] Another aspect of this expansion was the establishment of the aforesaid David, a younger brother of the reigning Alexander I, King of Scotland (died 1124), as Henry I's vassal.[43]

Allied to the English

Seal of Alexander I, King of Scotland, apparent brother-in-law of Fergus.
There is a considerable amount of evidence indicating that Fergus married a daughter of Henry I.[44] For example, there is abundant documentary evidence suggesting that all three of Fergus' children—Uhtred, Gilla Brigte, and Affraic—were descended from this king.[45] Specifically, Uhtred was called a cousin of Henry I's maternal-grandson, Henry II, King of England (died 1189), by Roger de Hoveden (died 1201/1202).[46] Although sources specifically concerning Gilla Brigte fail to make a similar claim, potentially indicating that he had a different mother than Uhtred,[47] Gilla Brigte's son, Donnchad, Earl of Carrick (died 1250), was certainly regarded as a kinsman of Henry II's son and successor, John, King of England (died 1216).[48] In regard to Affraic, Robert de Torigni, Abbot of Mont Saint-Michel (died 1186) remarked that her son, Guºr²ºr Ólâafsson, King of the Isles (died 1187), was related to Henry II through the latter's mother, Matilda (died 1167),[49] one of Henry I's daughters.[50]

Henry I, King of England as depicted in British Library MS Royal 14 C VII.
Henry I appears to have had about twenty-four illegitimate children.[51] Although the name and identity of Fergus' wife is unknown,[3] she would seem to have been one of Henry I's numerous bastard daughters through which the king forged marital alliances with neighbouring princes along the periphery of his Anglo-Norman realm.[52] The date of Uhtred's aforesaid attestation suggests that he was born in about 1123/1124 at the latest, whilst the fact that Guºr²ºr was old enough to render homage to the Norwegian king in 1153 suggests that Affraic herself was born no latter than about 1122. Such birth dates suggest that Fergus' marriage dates to a period when the Engish Crown consolidated authority in the north-west and extended its influence into the Irish Sea. From the perspective of the English, an alliance between Henry I and Fergus would have secured an understanding with the man who controlled an important part of the north western flank of the Anglo-Norman realm.[53] In fact, one of Henry I's bastard daughters, Sybilla (died 1122), was wed to the reigning Alexander, seemingly not long after the latter's accession.[54] Fergus' own apparent marriage, therefore, appears to evidence not only his pre-eminent status in Galloway itself, but the degree of political sovereignty he possessed as its ruler.[55] The unions of Alexander and Fergus evidence Henry I's intent of extending English authority north of the Solway Firth.[56]

David and Scottish consolidation

David I, King of Scotland as he is depicted in a mid twelfth-century royal charter.
The early twelfth century saw the rise of Alexander's aforesaid younger brother, David.[57] The latter's close connections with the English likely contributed to his eventual acquisition of a substantial part of southern Scotland from Alexander.[58] In about 1113, David married Maud de Senlis (died 1131), a wealthy English widow, and through her came into possession of extensive lordship that came to be known as the Honour of Huntingdon.[59] As the mid-part of the century approached, the balance of power along the northern part of the Anglo-Norman realm began to shift in favour of David.[57][note 3] In 1120, Henry I's only legitimate son died along with Richard d'Avranches, Earl of Chester in the White Ship disaster. The latter's lordship in the Welsh March was a critical region of Henry I's realm, and the English king responded by transplanting Ranulf le Meschin from his lordship of Carlisle to Richard d'Avranches' former lordship along the Welsh frontier.[61]

Upon Alexander's death in 1124, David succeeded to the throne.[62] The latter's subsequent endowment of Annandale to Robert de Brus (died 1142) appears to have not only signalled the Scottish Crown's intention of consolidating control of the region, but served as a declaration of the kingdom's claims to Cumbria.[63] Fergus' marriage to Henry I's daughter, which appears to date to about this period, may have been arranged with such developments in mind. If so, the union could have been orchestrated as a means to not only compensate for Ranulf's removal, but to counter the dramatic rise of David and the resultant imbalance of power his ascent created.[64] With Ranulf thus vacated from the north, Henry I had filled the power vacuum with various so-called "new men".[57] One such incomer may have been the aforesaid Robert de Brus, a Norman who had previously received extensive lands from the English Crown.[65] In fact, it is possible that it was in the wake of Ranulf's removal that Robert de Brus originally received the lordship of Annandale. If so, the latter may have been inserted into the region by Henry I, or perhaps through collaborative effort between Henry I and his then-vassal David as a means of securing the Anglo-Scottish border.[66][note 4] The apparent rise of Fergus at about this time may have also played a part in the infeftment of Annandale.[68]

Marginal illustration in British Library MS Royal 14 C II (Chronica) of the standard after which the Battle of the Standard is named.
Henry I himself was married to David's older sister, Edith (died 1118), a union which closely bound him to the Scottish royal house.[69] For as long as Henry I lived, relations between him and David remained harmonious. When the former died in 1135, however, the peace between the neighbouring realms was shattered when his nephew, Stephen of Blois, Count of Boulogne and Mortain (died 1154), successfully seized the throne.[70] Before the end of the year, the Scots surged forth and seized Carlisle and Cumberland before peace was restored. Relations broke down the following year, and the Scots again invaded in 1137, seizing Northumberland, and pushed forth towards York.[71] The contemporary accounts of the English chroniclers Richard Hexham (died 1155×67)[72] and Ailred, Abbot of Rievaulx (died 1167) single out Gallovidian soldiers for their excessive atrocities in David's campaign.[73] Disaster struck the Scots in 1138 at the Battle of the Standard, when David's forces were utterly overcome by the English near Northallerton.[74]

Although Gallovidians clearly took part in David's campaigning, there is no specific evidence connecting Fergus to the operations until after operations ceased.[75] It is possible that Fergus' aforesaid attestation of 1136 could have had bearing on Gallovidian participation in the king's campaigning.[76] If Fergus' wife was indeed a bastard of Henry I, Fergus himself had a stake in the unfolding English succession crisis, as she would have been a half-sister of Stephen's opponent, the aforesaid Matilda,[77] whom Henry I had nominated as his royal successor.[52] Explicit confirmation of Fergus' involvement may exist in the terms of the subsequent peace treaty, as Richard Hexham recorded that one of the hostages that was handed over to the English for surety was the son of an earl named Fergus.[78] The fact that there was no Scottish earl of that name suggests that, unless Richard Hexham was mistaken, it was Fergus himself who was referred to. Whatever the case, after this date there is no further evidence of Fergus' involvement in Anglo-Scottish affairs.[79]

Ecclesiastical activities

Divisions within the Lordship of Galloway (coloured green) and surrounding lordships in the twelfth century.[80][note 5] The Diocese of Whithorn encompassed all Gallovidan regions except Desnes Ioan, which fell under the Scottish Diocese of Glasgow, and appears to have been only incorporated into the lordship during the tenure of Fergus' sons.
In about 1128, the Diocese of Whithorn was revived after three centuries had passed since the consecration of the last diocesan bishop.[81] The revival itself is revealed by a papal mandate dated December 1128,[82] and the record of the oath of the bishop-elect, Gilla Aldan (died ×1154), to Thurstan, Archbishop of York (died 1140) between about 1128 and 1140.[83] It is uncertain who was the driving force behind the revival. David's known ecclesiastical activities could suggest that he was responsible. On the other hand, the extent of David's authority in Galloway is questionable. As for Fergus himself, there is no conclusive proof that he controlled the lordship at this point in time,[84] or that he himself established the see.[85]

The fact that Gilla Aldan was likely of native origin—as opposed to David's apparent preference for Anglo-Norman clergy—and the fact that Gilla Aldan professed obedience to the Archbishop of York—an ecclesiast whom David was attempting to exclude from influencing the Scottish Church—would both appear to indicate Gilla Aldan was a non-Scottish appointment.[86] If Fergus was indeed responsible for Whithorn's revival, it would have almost certainly aided his royal aspirations since securing ecclesiastical independence could have been part of the process of ensuring political independence.[87] Gilla Aldan's successor was Christian, a man who was consecrated in 1154 by Hugh d'Amiens, Archbishop of Rouen (died 1164), who in turn may have been acting as a proxy for Roger de Pont l'Evãeque, Archbishop-elect of York (died 1181).[88]

Fergus and his family were remarkable ecclesiastical patrons, working with Augustinians, Benedictines, Cistercians, and Premonstratensians.[89] Surviving charter evidence reveals that Fergus granted the lands of Dunrod, St Mary's Isle (upon which the aforesaid priory was at some point erected), and nearby Galtway to the Augustinian abbey of Holyrood.[90] A fifteenth-century list of properties belonging to the Knights Hospitaller reveals that Fergus had granted this order of the lands of Galtway (within the mediaeval parishes of Balmaclellan and Dalry) at some point in his career.[32] This transaction appears to further evidence Fergus' alignment with the English Crown.[57]

Confirmation charter noting Fergus' grant of lands of Dunrod to the Scottish abbey of Holyrood.[91] Fergus' name appears on the sixth line.
The necrology of the abbey of Newhouse states that Fergus was the founder of a Premonstratensian house at Whithorn.[92] Both he and Christian, Bishop of Whithorn (died 1186) are stated by the necrology of the abbey of Prâemontrâe to have founded a monastery at Whithorn.[93] Christian's tenure as bishop (1154–1186), and Fergus' reign as lord (×1160), suggest that the priory of Whithorn was founded at some point between about 1154 and 1160.[94] According to the annals of Maurice of Prato, this house was transformed into a Premonstratensian house by Christian in about 1177.[95] These sources, therefore, appear to reveal that Fergus was responsible for the establishment of a possibly Augustinian house at Whithorn, whilst Christian was responsible for its later refoundation as a Premonstratensian institution.[96] Such a switch was not an unknown occurrence in England or on the Continent.[97]

The ruinous remains of the Cistercian abbey of Dundrennan, perhaps founded or co-founded by Fergus. It is possible that monastery was founded partly as an act of penitence for Gallovidian atrocities committed in 1138 during the Scottish Crown's invasion of northern England.

Either Fergus or David, or perhaps both Fergus and David, may have been responsible for the foundation of the abbey of Dundrennan, a Cistercian house situated well within the confines of Fergus' lordship.[98] John Fordun (died 1363×) and Walter Bower (died 1449) accord its foundation solely to David,[99] although the near contemporary John Hexham (died ×1209) failed to note the house amongst David's known foundations.[100] The fact that Walter Daniel (fl. 1150–1167), a Cistercian monk from the community at Rievaulx, was highly critical of Galloway and its inhabitants may be evidence that Fergus was unlikely to have been the sole founder.[101] David's own close connections with the Cistercians could suggest that the monastery owed its formation, as a daughter house of Rievaulx, to cooperation between David and Fergus.[102]

The abbey of Dundrennan appears to have been founded in about 1142,[103] which in turn places its formation at a time when David had extended his power in the south west.[102] Such a date also places the foundation at about the time Mâael Mâaedoc was in the region, which in turn may hint at his own involvement.[104] Whatever the case, if Fergus and David were involved in the abbey's endowment, the fact that it was colonised by Cistercians from Rievaulx suggests that it was somewhat of a penitential foundation in regard to the infamous Gallovidian contribution at the Battle of the Standard four years previously.[105] Furthermore, the fact that Thurstan himself had been responsible for the English resistance meant that Fergus had warred against his own spiritual overlord, and had almost certainly endured ecclesiastical repercussions as a result.[106] In the eyes of the Cistercians, Fergus and David were both responsible for failing to curb atrocities committed during the campaign, and Fergus himself was held accountable by Walter Daniel's Vita Ailredi for thousands of deaths.[107]

Soulseat Loch, sometimes called the Green Lake,[108] where the abbey of Soulseat once stood. The abbey could be identical to "Viride Stagnum" ("green lake"),[109] where Mâael Mâaedoc founded a monastery.
Another religious house possibly founded by Fergus was the abbey of Soulseat, a Premonstratensian house seated near Stranraer.[110] Walter Bower and the aforesaid necrologies certainly state as such.[111] However, the fact that this house appears to be identical to "Viride Stagnum", recorded in the contemporary Vita Sancti Malachiae, appears to be evidence that Soulseat originated as a Cistercian house founded by Mâael Mâaedoc himself.[112] If Mâael Mâaedoc and Fergus met during the former's apparent stay in Cruggleton, it is conceivable that Fergus granted him the lands upon which he founded a religious house at Soulseat.[113] If Mâael Mâaedoc indeed founded a Cistercian house on this site, it clearly was converted to a Premonstratensian monastery not long afterwards.[114]

The ruinous remains of the Augustinian abbey of Holyrood, where Fergus retired in 1160.
Although the late mediaeval Hystoria Fundacionis Prioratus Insule de Traile claims that Fergus founded the priory of St Mary's Isle, the fantastical foundation claims preserved by this source are not corroborated by contemporary sources.[115] According to a confirmation charter dating to within the decade after Fergus' death, Fergus granted the house to the abbey of Holyrood.[116] A confirmation charter of William I, King of Scotland (died 1214) reveals that the priory of St Mary's Isle may have been in existence by the time of Fergus's grandson, Roland fitz Uhtred, Lord of Galloway (died 1200),[117] although the first recorded prior appears in the thirteenth century.[118] Fergus' supposed links with this house, therefore, are dubious.[119] Although Walter Bower declared that Fergus was responsible for the foundation of the abbey of Tongland, his great-grandson, Alan fitz Roland, Lord of Galloway (died 1234), appears to have founded it in the thirteenth century.[120] The erroneous attribution of Fergus to this house may be the result of an attempt to enhance the antiquity of its establishment by linking it with the progenitor of Alan's family.[121]

It is a wild country [Galloway] where the inhabitants are like beasts, and altogether barbarous. ... Rievaulx made a foundation in this savagery, which now, by the help of God, who gives the increase to a new plantation, bears much fruit.

“”
— the perceived contrast between the Gallovdian culture and the reformed religious foundations introduced by Fergus as depicted by Vita Ailredi.[122]
The inspiration behind Fergus' ecclesiastical patronage is uncertain. On one hand, it is conceivable that he was imitating or competing with the extensive patronage of the Scottish monarchy. On the other hand, familial connections with the rulers of England and the Isles could have played a part in his ecclesiastical interests. Contact with influential ecclesiasts like Mâael Mâaedoc and Ailred could have also inspired Fergus' benefactions.[123][note 6]

Furthermore, the introduction of Augustinians and Premonstratensians into Galloway may have been part of a process of revitalising the newly reformed diocese.[127] The construction of ecclesiastical buildings, much like castles, was often a means by which mediaeval rulers displayed their pre-eminent status, which in turn could explain Fergus' ecclesiastical activities.[128] In effect, his religious foundations may evince attempts to assert his authority in the region.[129] While the foundation of an episcopal see seems to have been a means by which Fergus sought to reinforce his independence from the Scots, his remarkable support of reformed religious orders may have been a way in which he attempted to legitimise his regal aspirations.[130]

Unravelling of the Isles

Alliance with Ólâafr Guºr²ºarson

A king gaming piece of the so-called Lewis chessmen. Some of the pieces may have arrived in the Isles as a result of Guºr²ºr's dealings in Norway.[131]
Early in his career, Fergus bound himself to the Isles in the form of a marital alliance between Affraic and the reigning King of the Isles, the aforesaid Ólâafr.[132] Although the union itself is not dated in contemporary sources,[133] the aforesaid Scandinavian sojourn of the couple's son suggests that the marriage was arranged in the 1130s or 1140s. The alliance forged between Ólâafr and Fergus gave the former's family valuable familial-connections with the English Crown, one of the most powerful monarchies in western Europe.[134] As for Fergus, the union bound Galloway more tightly to a neighbouring kingdom from which an invasion had been launched during the overlordsship of Magnâus Ólâafsson, King of Norway (died 1103).[135] The alliance with Ólâafr also ensured Fergus the protection of one of Britain's most formidable fleets, and further gave him a valuable ally outwith the orbit of the Scottish Crown.[136]

One possible reason for Fergus' apparent lack of further participation in Anglo-Scottish affairs may have been due to events in the Isles.[137] Although the Chronicle of Mann portrays Ólâafr's reign as one of tranquillity,[138] a more accurate evaluation of his reign may be that he adeptly managed to navigate an uncertain political climate.[139] In regard to Fergus, the acquisition of the Dublin kingship in 1142, by the Islesman Ottar mac meic Ottair (died 1148), may well have represented a threat to the authority of Ólâafr, and the prospects of Fergus' aforesaid grandson.[140] By the mid part of the twelfth century, however, the ageing Ólâafr's realm may well have began to buckle under the strain,[141] as perhaps evidenced by the depredations wrought on the Scottish mainland by Ólâafr's leading ecclesiast, Wimund, Bishop of the Isles.[142] Confirmation of Ólâafr's concern over the royal succession may well be preserved by the chronicle,[141] which states that Guºr²ºr journeyed to the court of Ingi Haraldsson, King of Norway (died 1161) in 1152, where Guºr²ºr rendered homage to the Norwegian king, and seemingly secured recognition of the royal inheritance of the Isles.[143]

A queen gaming piece of the so-called Lewis chessmen. Almost nothing is known of queenship in the Isles.[144]
The following year marked a watershed in the history for the Kingdom of the Isles with the successive deaths of David and Ólâafr.[145] The latter was slain by three Dublin-based sons of his exiled brother, after which these men—the Haraldsonnar—partitioned Mann amongst themselves.[146] Once in control, the chronicle reveals that the Haraldsonnar fortified themselves against forces loyal to the kingdom's legitimate heir by launching a pre-emptive strike against Fergus. Although the invasion of Galloway was repulsed with heavy casualties, once the Haraldsonnar returned to Mann the chronicle records that they slaughtered and expelled all resident Gallovidians that they could find. This ruthless reaction evidently reveals an attempt to uproot local factions adhering to Affraic and her son.[147] Whatever the case, within months of his father's assassination, Guºr²ºr executed his vengeance. Enstrengthened with Norwegian military support, Guºr²ºr overcame his three kin-slaying cousins, and successfully secured the kingship for himself.[148]

Rise of Somairle mac Gilla Brigte

Detail from Maughold IV, a Manx runestone displaying a contemporary sailing vessel. The power of the kings of the Isles laid in their armed galley-fleets.[149]
Midway through the twelfth-century, Muirchertach Mac Lochlainn, King of Cenâel nEâogain (died 1166) pressed forth his claim to the high-kingship of Ireland, an office then held by the elderly Toirrdelbach Ua Conchobair, King of Connacht (died 1156).[150] In 1154, the forces of Toirrdelbach and Muirchertach met in a major maritime conflict off the Inishowen coast.[151] According to the Annals of the Four Masters, Muirchertach's maritime forces were mercenaries drawn from Galloway, Arran, Kintyre, Mann, and "the territories of Scotland".[152] This record appears to be evidence that Guºr²ºr, Fergus, and perhaps Somairle, provided ships to Muirchertach's cause.[153] Although Toirrdelbach's forces obtained a narrow victory, his northern maritime power seems to have been virtually nullified by the severity of the contest,[154] and Muirchertach soon after marched on Dublin,[155] gained overlordship over the Dubliners, and effectively secured himself the high-kingship of Ireland for himself.[156]

The defeat of forces drawn from the Isles, and Muirchertach's subsequent spread of power into Dublin, may have had severe repercussions concerning Guºr²ºr's career.[157] In 1155 or 1156 Somairle, an apparent relative of Ottar precipitated a coup against Guºr²ºr, presenting his son, Dubgall, as a replacement to Guºr²ºr's rule.[158] Late in 1156, Somairle and Guºr²ºr clashed and divided the Kingdom of the Isles between themselves. Two years later the former drove the latter from the kingship and into exile.[159]

A rook gaming piece of the so-called Lewis chessmen.
It is uncertain why Fergus failed to support his grandson against Somairle.[160] The record of the capture of Domnall mac Mâael Coluim at Whithorn in 1156, as recorded by the Chronicle of Holyrood,[161] and the chronicle of John Fordun (died 1384), may have bearing on Fergus.[162] Domnall appears to have been a son of Mâael Coluim mac Alasdair, who was in turn a claimant to the Scottish throne and somehow related to Somairle.[163] Following David's death in 1153, Somairle and Mâael Coluim had risen in revolt against a newly inaugurated Malcolm without much success.[164] Domnall's later capture in western Galloway, therefore, could be evidence that the Meic Mâael Coluim claimants had attempted to forcefully carve out a power base in western Galloway. However, the fact that the chronicle makes no mention of such conflict in Galloway, coupled with the fact that Whithorn was a spiritual centre rather than a secular power centre, could suggest that Domnall was in the region under less violent circumstances. If so, it is conceivable that Fergus could have originally forged an understanding with the Meic Mâael Coluim before pressure from his sons forced him to desert Domnall's cause. The fact that the latter's capture preceded Somairle's coup could suggest that, although Domnall may have been in the midst of securing Gallovidian support, once Somairle's designs against Guºr²ºr became apparent, the Gallovdians handed over Somairle's kinsman to the Scots.[165][note 7]

Scottish subjection of Galloway

Malcolm IV, King of Scotland as he is depicted in a mid twelfth-century royal charter.
There is evidence to suggest that Fergus struggled to maintain control of his lordship during the decade. Such a crisis could well have kept him from intervening in the Isles on Guºr²ºr's behalf. As with the latter, the failure of Muirchertach's aforesaid mercenary fleet could have contributed to a loss of Fergus' own authority.[160] Disarray in the lordship is evidenced by Vita Ailredi, which reveals that the region was wracked by inter-dynastic strife during this period.[167]

In 1160, Malcolm returned to Scotland having spent months campaigning in the service of the English on the Continent. After successfully dealing with a considerable number of disaffected magnates at Perth,[168] the Chronicle of Holyrood and Chronicle of Melrose reveal that he launched three military expeditions into Galloway.[169] The circumstances surrounding these invasions is unclear,[170] although what is clear is that Fergus submitted to the Scots before the end of the year.[171][note 8] Specifically, according to the chronicle of John Fordun, once the Scots subdued the Gallovidians, the conquerors forced Fergus to retire to the abbey of Holyrood, and hand over his son, Uhtred, as a royal hostage.[173] The Chronicle of Holyrood[174] and the fifteenth-century Ordinale of Holyrood corroborate Fergus' monastic retirement,[175] with the former source further recording Fergus' grant of the lands of Dunrod to the abbey.[174][note 9]

Seal of Richard de Morville, Constable of Scotland (died 1189/1190).[177] The Morvilles were one of numerous knightly families used by the Scottish Crown to encircle Fergus' lordship.[178][note 10]
On one hand, it is possible that Fergus himself had precipitated Malcolm's reaction by raiding into the territory between the rivers Urr and Nith.[180] The fact that the Chronicle of Holyrood describes Malcolm's Gallovidian opponents as "federate enemies", and makes no mention of his sons, suggests that Fergus was supported by other accomplices.[181] In fact, it is possible that Malcolm had encountered an alliance between Fergus and Somairle.[182] Evidence of such a coalition may exist in the dating clause of a royal charter that notes a formal agreement between Somairle and Malcolm that Christmas.[183] Additionally, the fact that several churches near Kirkcudbright belonged to Iona, an ancient ecclesiastical centre that Somairle attempted to revive during his reign in the Isles, could suggest some sort of concord between the rulers.[184] If Somairle and Fergus had indeed been allies, the fall of the latter, coupled with the further advancement of Scottish authority into the Solway region, may have finally brought Somairle to terms with the Scots.[185] An alternate possibility is that the charter clause could be evidence that Somairle supported Malcolm in his suppression and destruction of Fergus.[166] The aforesaid kin-strife noted by Vita Ailredi could be evidence that Fergus' sons assisted in his overthrow, or at least did little to arrest it.[186]

Death and aftermath

The remains of Mote of Urr, the earthen remains of a twelfth-century motte-and-bailey. The motte may have been the site of a castle of Walter de Berkeley, Chamberlain of Scotland, an Anglo-Norman settled in Galloway by Uhtred in the 1160s.[187]
Fergus did not live long after retiring, and died on 12 May 1161, as evidenced by the Chronicle of Holyrood.[188] Surviving sources reveal that he overshadowed his sons during his lifetime, with Uhtred witnessing only three charters and Gilla Brigte none at all. The latter's apparent exclusion from affairs of state could be relevant to the subsequent animosity between the siblings, as well as the difficulties Fergus faced with the men late in his career.[189] Upon Fergus' death, the lordship appears to have been split between the brothers. Although there is no specific evidence for Gilla Brigte's share, later transactions involving Uhtred reveal that the latter held lands in the lower Dee valley, seemingly centred in an area around Kirkcudbright. The fact that this region appears to have formed the core of Fergus' holdings could be evidence that Uhtred was the senior successor. Conceivably, Uhtred's allotment consisted of the lordship's territory east of the river Cree, whilst Gilla Brigte's share was everything east of this waterway.[190]

Charter of David to Robert de Brus concerning Annandale.[191] The settlement of such men in southern Scotland may have been a means of countering the rise of Fergus.
In the wake of Malcolm's destruction of Fergus, the Scottish Crown moved to further incorporate Galloway into the Scottish realm. Uhtred appears to have been granted the territory between the rivers Nith and Urr,[192] whilst Gilla Brigte may have been wed to a daughter or sister of Donnchad, Earl of Fife (died 1204), the kingdom's foremost Gaelic magnate.[193] Scottish authority penetrated into the lordship through the installation of royal officials,[194] and Scottish power was perhaps further projected into Galloway by a royal castle at Dumfries.[195] Surviving royal acta dating to after the fall of Fergus indicate that, from the perspective of the Scottish Crown, the Lordship of Galloway had been integrated into the Kingdom of Scotland, and was subject to the overlordship of Malcolm

Fergus married Affraic, an illegitimate daughter(Galloway, Scotland). Affraic, (daughter of Henry I, King of England and unnamed partner) was born in (Scotland). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

22193.

Affraic, an illegitimate daughter was born in (Scotland) (daughter of Henry I, King of England and unnamed partner).

Children:

11096. Uhtred of Galloway, Lord of Galloway was born in ~ 1120 in (Galloway, Scotland); died on 22 Sep 1174 in (Galloway, Scotland).

22198.

Sir William de Lancaster, I, Baron of Kendal was born in ~1100 in England; died in ~ 1170 in England.

Notes:

William de Lancaster I, or William Fitz Gilbert, was a nobleman of the 12th century in Northwest England. According to a document some generations later, he was also referred to as William de Tailboys (de Taillebois) when younger, and then became "William de Lancaster, baron of Kendal", although there is some uncertainty amongst most commentators concerning the exact meaning of the term "baron" in this case. He is the first person of whom there is any record to bear the name of Lancaster and pass it on to his descendants as a family name. He died in about 1170.

Titles and positions

Earliest holdings

Despite his surname, William and his relatives appear in contemporary documents relating mainly to what is now the modern county of Cumbria, not Lancashire, especially Copeland in western Cumberland, Furness in the Lake District, The Barony of Kendal, which became part of Westmorland, and various areas such as Barton between Kendal and Ullswater, also in Westmorland. Much of this area was not yet permanently part of England.

Although only part of this area was within the later English county of Lancaster or Lancashire, this entity had not yet come to be clearly defined. So the title of "de Lancaster", by which William is remembered, could have referred not only to the church city of Lancaster, to the south of this area, but to an area under its control. In 1900, William Farrer claimed that "all of the southern half of Westmorland, not only the Kirkby Lonsdale Ward of Westmorland, but also the Kendal Ward, were linked with Northern Lancashire from a very early time" and formed a single district for fiscal administrative purposes.[1]

The two apparently lost records which are said to have mentioned William's father Gilbert also apparently connected him to Cumbria, specifically to the area of Furness.[2]

The following are areas associated with him, for example ...

Muncaster in Cumberland. According to William Farrer, in his 1902 edition of Lancashire Pipe Rolls and early charters,wrote:

It appears that he was possessed of the lordship of Mulcaster (now Muncaster), over the Penningtons of Pennington in Furness, and under Robert de Romille, lord of Egremont and Skipton, who held it in right of his wife, Cecilia, daughter and heiress of William de Meschines.[3]

According to Farrer, this title would have been one of those granted by Roger de Mowbray, son of Nigel de Albini, having come into his hands after the decease without male heirs of Ivo de Taillebois. He also believed that this grant to William de Lancaster came to be annulled.

Workington, Lamplugh and Middleton. The manors of Workington and Lamplugh in Cumberland were given by William de Lancaster, in exchange for Middleton in Westmorland, to an apparently close relative, Gospatric, son of Orme, brother-in-law of Waldeve, Lord of Allerdale.[4]

Hensingham. The Register of St Bees shows that both William son of Gilbert de Lancastre, and William's son William had land in this area. William's was at a place called Swartof or Suarthow, "probably the rising ground between Whitehaven and Hensingham, known locally as Swartha Brow". The appears to have come from his father Gilbert. His brother Roger apparently held land at Walton, just outside modern Hensingham, and had a son named Robert. Roger and William also named a brother called Robert.[5]

Ulverston. Farrer argued that this may have been held by William and perhaps his father Gilbert, before it was granted by Stephen, Count of Boulogne and Mortain, to Furness Abbey in 1127.[6] The possible connection of William's father Gilbert to Furness will be discussed further below.

Enfeoffment from King Stephen

King Stephen's reign in England lasted from 1135 to 1154, but only during a small part of this did he control this region. For the majority of his reign all or most of this area was under the rule of David I of Scotland.

During the period when Stephen was in control "we possess distinct and clear evidence that Stephen, as king, enfeoffed a knight of the lands of Warton in Kentdale and the wide territory of Garstang, in Lancashire, to hold for the service of one knight. This was William de Lancaster, son of Gilbert by Godith his wife, described in the Inquest of service made in 1212 as "Willelmus filius Gilberti primus," that is, the first to be enfeoffed of that fee."[7]

Enfeoffment from Roger de Mowbray

At a similar time, during the period 1145-1154, a major enfeoffment by Roger de Mowbray put William in control, or perhaps just confirmed his control, of what would become the Barony of Kendal, plus Warton, Garstang, and Wyresdale in Lancashire, as well as Horton in Ribblesdale and "Londsdale". The latter two are sometimes apparently being interpreted as indicating possession for some time of at least part of what would become the Wapentake of Ewcross in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

The Scottish period

During the Scottish occupation, Hugh de Morville became the overlord of much of this area, a position he kept when the area later returned to English control. Farrer and Curwen remark:

William de Lancaster no longer held anything in Kentdale of Roger de Mowbray; but he appears to have held his lands in Westmarieland and Kentdale of Morevill by rendering Noutgeld of ¹14 6s. 3d. per annum, and some 16 carucates of land in nine vills in Kentdale as farmer under Morevill. In 1166 William de Lancaster I held only two knight's fees, of the new feoffment of Roger de Mowbray in Sedbergh, Thornton, Burton in Lonsdale, and the other places in Yorkshire previously named, which his descendants held long after of the fee of Mowbray by the same service. The Mowbray connexion with Kentdale had come to an end upon the accession of Henry II, who placed Hugh de Morevill in possession of Westmarieland in return, possibly, for past services and in pursuance of the policy of planting his favourites in regions of great strategic importance. Probably the change of paramount lord had little, if any, effect on the position of William de Lancaster in Kentdale.[7]

In Cumberland further west, according to several websites, William was castellan in the castle of Egremont under William fitz Duncan.[citation needed]

The Barony of Kendal?

William de Lancaster is often described as having been a Baron of Kendal. In fact this is not so clear what kind of lordship existed over Kendal, given the lack of clarity of records in this period. The word barony developed specific meanings during the Middle Ages, namely feudal baron and baron by writ. William Farrer wrote, in the Introduction to his Records of Kendal:

After a careful review of the evidence which has been sketched above, the author is of opinion that no barony or reputed barony of Kentdale existed prior to the grants of 1189–90; and that neither William de Lancaster, son of Gilbert, nor William de Lancaster II, his son and successor, can be rightly described as "baron" of Kentdale.[7]

Whether or not "Barony" is the clearest word, what became the Barony of Kendal is generally accepted as having come together under Ivo de Taillebois (d. 1094) in the time of William Rufus, some generations before William. And, as will be discussed below, at least in later generations William was depicted by his family as having been a Taillebois. A continuity is therefore often asserted between what Ivo held, and what William later held, despite the fact that William had no known hereditary claim on Kendal, and Ivo had no male heirs. (This is also the reason for the frequent assertion that William held the entire wapentake of Ewcross, even though it seems that the family of Roger de Mowbray kept hold of at least Burton in Kendal. William held two parts of it, mentioned above, while Ivo had held another, Clapham. The rest is speculation.)

According to Farrer, the Barony of Kendal became a real barony only in the time of William's grand daughter Hawise, who married Gilbert son of Roger fitz Reinfrid. Both he and his son William de Lancaster III, both successors of William de Lancaster I (and possibly of Ivo de Taillebois) were certainly Barons of Kendal.

Concerning other specific holdings and ranks

Furness and the Royal forests. According to a later grant to Gilbert Fitz Reinfrid, William must have held some position over the whole forest of Westmarieland (the Northern or Appleby Barony of Westmorland), Kendal and Furness. His claims in Furness may have gone beyond just the forest, but this appears to have put him in conflict with the claims of the Furness Abbey, and this conflict continued over many generations. His family may have had links there before him. Some websites report that his father Gilbert was known as "Gilbert of Furness". (This apparently comes from a 17th-century note by Benjamin Ayloffe, mentioned below.)

Lancaster Castle. According to Dugdale, the eminent English antiquarian, he was governor of Lancaster Castle in the reign of Henry II, about 1180. Little is known about how William came to hold the honour of Lancaster and use the surname, but it is sometimes suggested that it implies connections to royalty, perhaps coming from his apparent marriage to Gundred de Warrenne (or was this just yet another reward for some forgotten service, perhaps against the Scots?).

Seneschal. According to a note written by the 17th century antiquarian Benjamin Ayloffe, which is reproduced in the introduction of Walford Dakin Selby's collection of Lancashire and Cheshire Records, p.xxix, William was Seneschallus Hospitii Regis, or steward of the king's household. The same note also states that William's father was the kings "Receiver for the County of Lancaster".[8]

Ancestry

William's father was named Gilbert, and his mother was Godith. They are both mentioned clearly in a benefaction of William to St Mary de Prâe and William was often referred to as William the son of Gilbert (fitz Gilbert).

William was also said to have descended from both Ivo de Taillebois and Eldred of Workington, who were contemporaries of William Rufus. But the exact nature of the relationship is unclear and indeed controversial. There may be a connection through daughters or illegitimate sons of these two men. A discussion of the main proposals follows:-

Ivo de Taillebois and Eldred both in the male line. A once widespread understand was that Ivo was father of Eldred, who was father of Ketel who was father of Gilbert. This now seems to be wrong, or at least has gone out of favour and has been adapted in various ways (for example removing Ketel from this chain). The two authorities for a direct line of father-son descent from Ivo to Eldred to Ketel to Gilbert to William de Lancaster were records made much later in Cockersand Abbey and St Mary's Abbey in Yorkshire.[9] But monastic genealogies concerning their benefactors are generally considered difficult to rely upon.[10]

One of the concerns with this account is chronological, because it requires too many generations in a short period, both in order to make Ivo father of his contemporary Eldred, and also to make Ketel the father of his contemporary, Gilbert. Other concerns arise from because of complexities that this gives for explaining inheritances. For example, it implies that William de Lancaster was heir to Ketel fitz Eldred, but Ketel is commonly thought to have had another heir. And there is also no record of Eldred being an heir to Ivo. Also, it is highly unusual that in this account, the descendants of a Norman noble (Ivo) all use Anglo Saxon names (Eldred, Ketel, etc.).

Eldred in the male line, if not Taillebois. Nevertheless, concerning the connection to Eldred, in a Curia Regis Roll item dated 1212 (R., 55, m. 6), Helewise and her husband Gilbert Fitz Reinfrid make claims based upon the fact that "Ketel filius Eutret" was an "antecessor" of Helewise. This could mean he was an ancestor, but it could also perhaps merely mean he was a predecessor more generally.

But evidence was found in the twentieth century which gave clear problems for this theory. One charter to St Leonard's York William refers to Ketel, the son of "Elred", as his avunculus, which would literally mean "maternal uncle" (but the word was not always used precisely, the more general meaning of "uncle" might have been intended). And a 1357 charter printed by Reverend F. W. Ragg in 1910 repeats the claim that Ketel son of "Aldred" was the avunculus of William son of Gilbert.[11] These records appear to make it impossible for Ketel to be the father of Gilbert.

The possibility remains, and is for example proposed by Frederick Ragg who first noted this avunculus relationship, that Gilbert is the son of Eldred, and therefore a brother of Ketel, so still in the same male line. (Under this proposal, avunculus is being used to mean simply "uncle", and not in an exact way.)[12] So a male line ancestry from Eldred is not considered impossible, even if it retains difficulties, for example concerning how to explain the connection to the Taillebois family, and also the heirship of Eldred's family.

Taillebois through his father, if not Eldred. According to the annalist Peter of Blois, Ivo's "only daughter, who had been nobly espoused, died before her father; for that evil shoots should not fix deep roots in the world, the accursed lineage of that wicked man perished by the axe of the Almighty, which cut off all his issue." The only known heiress of Ivo was a daughter named Beatrix. Her sons by her one definitely known husband, Ribald of Middleham, did however on occasions apparently use the surname Taillebois also.

Apart from the above-mentioned monastic genealogies however, a connection to Ivo de Taillebois is partly proposed based upon a similarity of land holdings between William and Ivo de Taillebois, and a record in the Coucher Book of Furness Abbey, concord number CCVI, wherein Helewise, granddaughter and heir of William is party. In the genealogical notice it is claimed that William had been known as William de Tailboys, before receiving the right to be called "Willelmum de Lancastre, Baronem de Kendale".[13] This is the only relatively contemporary evidence for this assertion however, and other facts in this document are questioned by Farrer and Curwen, as discussed above, because they say that William was probably not Baron of Kendal, but rather an under-lord there.[7]

Whether or not Ivo himself was in the male line of William's ancestry, there was a Tailboys family present in Westmorland during the 12th century, for example in Cliburn, and these were presumably relatives of William de Lancaster. This family used the personal name Ivo at least once, and may have been related to Ivo and Beatrix.[14]

Eldred in the female line. Compatible with the above, though in contrast to the earlier proposal of Ragg (that Ketel is paternal uncle to William, and brother to Gilbert), it has been proposed by G. Washington and G. A. Moriarty that Ketel is maternal uncle to William, and brother to Gilbert's wife Godith. This proposal had the added attractions of making the use of Anglo-Saxon names more explicable, and of matching the most precise meaning of "avunculus". Washington wrote:

William de Lancaster's father, Gilbert, was a Norman knight, as evidenced by the French Christian names given to all his recorded children; whilst William's mother, Godith, was clearly the sister of Ketel son of Eldred and thus of native English stock (it will be recalled that Ketel was called William de Lancaster's avunculus, a term which strictly speaking means 'maternal uncle'). It is even possible, as Mr. Moriarty surmises, that Ketel's wife, Christian or Christina, may have been a Taillebois by birth; for, according to Peter of Blois, Ivo himself 'had an only daughter, nobly espoused' (see the Duchess of Cleveland's Battle Abbey Roll, III, 345), and certainly William de Lancaster's granddaughter, Helewise, along with her husband Gilbert fitz Renfrid, later confirmed some of Ivo's grants to the abbey of St. Mary at York.[15]
Taillebois in the female line. Keats-Rohan accepts this proposal of Moriarty and Washington that Godith and Ketel were siblings, but also maintains support for an older idea that their mother is of Ivo's one known daughter, Beatrix, through a marriage (of which no contemporary record exists) to Eldred. This would, as in the explanation of Moriarty and Washington, make Ketel maternal uncle to William, and Gilbert a French Taillebois, however Keats-Rohan offers no ancestry for him.[16]

Descendants and relatives

William married Gundreda, perhaps his second wife, who is sometimes said to be the daughter of William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey and Elizabeth of Vermandois. In this case she was the widow of Roger, the Earl of Warwick. But William Farrer believes that it is much more likely that this Gundreda was a daughter to the Roger and the elder Gundreda.[17] Note that King Stephen's son, William, married Gundred's niece, Isabel de Warenne, Countess of Surrey. This implies a very close relationship with the King's party.

William had issue:

Avicia, who married Richard de Morville, constable of Scotland (and had possibly married earlier to William de Peveral)
William, who became William de Lancaster II, and whose legitimate heir Helewise de Lancaster married Gilbert son of Roger Fitz Reinfrid. Many modern Lancasters, especially in Cumbria, appear to descend from his two illegitimate sons, Gilbert and Jordan.
Jordan, who died young, and is mentioned in a benefaction to St Mary de Prâe in Leicester. In the same benefaction, William II is also mentioned, apparently an adult.
Agnes who married Alexander de Windsore[18]
Sigrid, married to William the clerk of Garstang.[18]
Perhaps Warine de Lancaster, royal falconer, and ancestor of a family known as "de Lea". The charters concerning Forton in the Cockersand Chartulary say, firstly that William de Lancaster II confirmed a grant made by his father to Warine, father of Henry de Lea, and secondly, in Hugh de Morville's confirmation that this William de Lancaster I was "his uncle" (awnculi sui). The record appears to allow that William might have been either Henry's uncle or Warine's. If he was Warine's uncle then the theory is that Warine was the son of an otherwise unknown brother of William de Lancaster I named Gilbert.
Gilbert fitz Reinfrid and Helewise's son William also took up the name de Lancaster, becoming William de Lancaster III. He died without male heirs, heavily indebted, apparently due to payments demanded after he was captured at Rochester during the First Barons' War, and ransomed off by his father.

William de Lancaster III's half brother Roger de Lancaster of Rydal inherited some of the Lancaster importance. It is thought that Roger was a son of Gilbert Fitz Reinfrid, but not of Helewise de Lancaster. Roger is widely thought to be the ancestor of the Lancasters of Howgill and Rydal in Westmorland. (In fact the line starts with one John de Lancaster of Howgill, whose connection to Roger de Lancaster and his son, John de Lancaster of Grisedale and Stanstead, is unclear except for the fact that he took over Rydal and Grasmere from the latter John.[19])

The Lancasters of Sockbridge, Crake Trees, Brampton, Dacre, and several other manors in Westmorland and Cumberland, were apparently descended from William de Lancaster II's illegitimate son Gilbert de Lancaster.[11] Many or perhaps all of the old Lancaster families found throughout Cumbria seem to descend from Gilbert and his brother Jordan.[19]

The de Lea family eventually lost power in the time of Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster, a member of the Plantagenet royal family, with whom they had become allied during his rebellion.

Another Lancaster family, in Rainhill in Lancashire, also seems to have claimed descent, given that they used the same coat of arms as Gilbert Fitz Reinfrid and his sons (argent, two bars gules, with a canton of the second, and a "lion of England", either white or gold, in the canton). However the exact nature of the link, if any, is unknown.[20]

end of this biography

William FitzGilbert (Lancaster) de Lancaster (abt. 1100 - aft. 1166)

William FitzGilbert (William I) de Lancaster formerly Lancaster aka de Taillebois
Born about 1100 in England

ANCESTORS ancestors

Son of Gilbert (Lancaster) de Furnesio and Godith (Workington) de Furnesio
Brother of Roger fitz Gilbert [half], Gilbert (Lancaster) de Lancaster, Jordan (Lancaster) de Lancaster [half], Siegrid (De Lancaster) Lancaster and Warin (De Lancaster) de Lancaster
Husband of Gundreda (Warenne) de Lancaster — married about 1155 [location unknown]

DESCENDANTS descendants

Father of Jordan (Lancaster) de Lancaster, Siegrid (Lancaster) de Garstang, William (Lancaster) de Lancaster, Agnes Lancaster and Avice (Lancaster) de Morville

Died after 1166 in Englandmap

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Profile last modified 19 Apr 2018 | Created 5 Jul 2011 | Last significant change:
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13:20: Andrew Lancaster edited the Biography for William I (Lancaster) de Lancaster. [Thank Andrew for this]
This page has been accessed 3,753 times.

European Aristocracy
William I (Lancaster) de Lancaster is a member of royalty, nobility or aristocracy in the British Isles.
Join: British Isles Royals and Aristocrats 742-1499 Project
Discuss: EUROARISTO
Contents
[hide]
1 Biography
1.1 Name
1.2 Family
1.3 Links
2 Sources
2.1 Footnotes
3 Acknowledgments

Biography

William's father Gilbert appears to have been a member of the "French" community holding offices for the Norman dynasty in the far northwest of England, bordering Scotland. Gilbert seems to have been associated with the area of Furness, which came to be part of Lancashire and was probably already administered together with northern Lancashire.[1]
Other members of his close family, such as his mother Godith and his uncle Ketel fitz Eldred appear to have been Anglo Saxon nobles.[2][3][1] Ketel was described in charters close to the period as William's avunculus, meaning uncle, and strictly meaning "maternal uncle".[4]
During the 12th century "we possess distinct and clear evidence that Stephen, as king, enfeoffed a knight of the lands of Warton in Kentdale and the wide territory of Garstang, in Lancashire, to hold for the service of one knight. This was William de Lancaster, son of Gilbert by Godith his wife, described in the Inquest of service made in 1212 as "Willelmus filius Gilberti primus," that is, the first to be enfeoffed of that fee."[5]
During the period when the Scots controlled Cumbria, it appears William stayed in the area holding lands and offices.[1] However according to the Cumberland antiquarian Denton, William was a great commander for Henry II during the reestablishment of English power in the area.[6]
"1145-1154, a major enfeoffment by Roger de Mowbray put William in control, or perhaps just confirmed his control, of what would become the Barony of Kendal, plus Warton, Garstang, and Wyresdale in Lancashire, as well as Horton in Ribblesdale and "Londsdale"."[1]
He died about 1170, or not too long before then.[5][7]
Name
In his own lifetime, and in later generations, William was often referred to as "William fitz Gilbert" (son of Gilbert).
Because his son was also named William, he also came to be known as "William de Lancaster I".
One questionable record posted at a monastery in a later generation says that says that when young, William was also called William de Taillebois.[8]
Family
The Victoria History of the County of Lancaster proposes two sons (one died young) and 3 daughters have been proposed.[9] It names William, stated by Charter of King Henry II to be a son of his second wife, a son, Jordan, that died in the lifetime of his father, Avice, noticed here as Hawise, Agnes, not noticed in MedLands, and Siegrid, not noticed in MedLands.

Mother unknown:[10]
Hawise (Avice) (d. aft 1188/89)
m.1 (unproven, maybe another woman) William Peveril[11]
m.2 (or 1) Richard de Moreville;[9][7]
Jordan (d. before 1156/60, before his father)[12]
m. aft. Jun 1153/1156 Gundred de Warenne[13] They are stated to have had one child:
William II de Lancaster (1154/6 - 1184)[14] m. Helwise de Stuteville[15] They had one legitimate daughter, also named Helwise, who married Gilbert fitz Roger fitz Reinfrid and was the mother of William III de Lancaster and his sisters.
She may also be the mother of the other two children:

Agnes; [9] Not noticed in MedLands, married to Alexander de Windsore, who had with her in frank marriage the manors of Heversham, Grayrigg, and Morland, co. Westmorland ;
Siegrid; [9] Not noticed in MedLands, married to William the clerk of Garstang, who had with her lands and a mill in Garstang in frank marriage, and was father of Paulin de Garstang, named with his father in an agreement made between 1194 and 1199 by the abbot and monks of Wyresdale.
Links
Wikipedia: William de Lancaster I
Sources
Royal Ancestry by Douglas Richardson Vol. V page 274
Royal Ancestry by Douglas Richardson Vol. V. p. 319
Farrer, William & Brownbill, J. The Victoria History of the County of Lancaster (Archibald Constable and Co. Limited, London, 1906) Vol. 1, Page 360
Footnotes
? 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Wikipedia biography of William de Lancaster I
? Keats-Rohan, Domesday Descendants. See the pedigree of Taillebois, p.42 and the entry for Willelm filius Gilberti de Lancastria on p.339.
? George Washington, (1962) "The parentage of William de Lancaster, lord of Kendal," in Transactions of the Cumberland & Westmorland Antiq. & Arch. Soc. n.s. 62, pages 95-97. [1]
? F. W. Ragg (1910) "De Lancaster", Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, pages 395–493. [2]
? 5.0 5.1 'Introduction', in Records Relating To the Barony of Kendale: Volume 1, ed. William Farrer and John F Curwen (Kendal, 1923), pp. vii-xvii. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/kendale-barony/vol1/vii-xvii [accessed 18 March 2016].
? Denton, Accompt p.29
? 7.0 7.1 In the 16th of Henry II (1169/70) the Pipe Rolls under Lancaster show that " Morevill promised Henry II 200 marks for a writ of right of the lands which he claimed in marriage with his said wife" , the daughter of William de Lancaster. See Pipe Rolls p.53 and 'Introduction', in Records Relating To the Barony of Kendale: Volume 1, ed. William Farrer and John F Curwen (Kendal, 1923), pp. vii-xvii. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/kendale-barony/vol1/vii-xvii [accessed 16 August 2016].
? Dugdale Monasticon V, Furness Abbey, Lancashire, X p. 249.
? 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Farrer, William & Brownbill, J. The Victoria History of the County of Lancaster (Archibald Constable and Co. Limited, London, 1906) Vol. 1, Page 360
? Medieval Lands: No direct proof for other marriages than Gundred. But if Hawise (possibly m. William Peverel and/or possibly m. Richard de Moreville) was dau., and if William's wife Gundred the countess was Gundred de Warenne, then another wife is likely.
? “Avisia de Lancastria, uxor Willielmi Peverel” donated property to Derley Priory - undated charter. Dugdale Monasticon VI, Derley Priory, Derbyshire, XIX, p. 361. No source links the wife of Peverel with any member of the family of William de Lancaster. Complete Peerage believes she was a daughter of Roger de Montgomery, Lord of Lancaster. See discussion by Douglas Richardson.
? Farrer (1902), Lancashire Chartulary, p. 394
? Her 2nd husband. Her first was Roger de Beaumont Earl of Warwick (d. Jun 1153). Primary sources: Dugdale Monasticon V, Furness Abbey, Lancashire, X, p. 249, names “Gundredam comitissam Warwic” as wife of William and mother of his son William. Another charter concerning Lonsdale mentions Margaret, the daughter of the Countess ("filia Comitesse") as a deceased close relative (along with his parents and his own deceased son Jordan). (Farrer (1902), Lancashire Chartulary, Notes, p. 394.) One of the witnesses is "Gundr fil Comitisse" (daughter of the Countess) and William Farrer suggested this might be the wife of William de Lancaster - a daughter of Countess Gundred rather than the countess herself - as the latter must have been "well advanced in years" at time of the marriage and past child-bearing.
? Named as a son of Gundred in much later charter: Dugdale Monasticon V, Furness Abbey, Lancashire, X p. 249.
? Helewise (Hawise, Avice etc) de Stuteville, daughter of Robert de Stuteville and Helwise.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Catherine Rivera for creating WikiTree profile De Talebois-2 through the import of Duckett Family.ged on Apr 4, 2013.
Click to the Changes page for the details of edits by Catherine and others.

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William (Lancaster) de Lancaster
William (Lancaster) de Lancaster III

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On 27 Dec 2017 at 23:11 GMT Frankie Johnson wrote:

My 25th x's ggf.
On 30 Oct 2017 at 04:24 GMT Eileen Bradley wrote:

305 Mother too young or not born (Workington-13,Lancaster-222)
On 7 Sep 2017 at 20:50 GMT Robert Wood wrote:

It's not likely that William FitzGilbert Lancaster b.abt 1124 fathered William Lancaster b. 1130.
On 30 May 2016 at 10:57 GMT Andrew Lancaster wrote:

Note: 3 daughters named Agnes, two married to men with the same name and the other with at least the same surname. Looks like merges are needed there.
On 29 May 2016 at 10:38 GMT Andrew Lancaster wrote:

Some of the children are being wrongly connected to Ada de Warrenne as mother instead of Gundrada.
On 29 May 2016 at 09:50 GMT Andrew Lancaster wrote:

Avice the daughter: should we not follow complete peerage as in the footnotes, in doubting whether this is one person who married both Peverel and Morville? The Peveral wife seems to be the least certain, although indeed I note Richardson doubts the parents of both Avices: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/2005-12/1134418550
On 23 Sep 2015 at 03:31 GMT Rev Daniel Washburn Jones wrote:

De Talebois-2 and Lancaster-222 appear to represent the same person because: same person, needs to be merged please
On 22 Sep 2014 at 08:50 GMT Andrew Lancaster wrote:

De Taillebois-32 and Lancaster-222 appear to represent the same person because: These are clearly the same person. William I de Lancaster's grand-daughter said in a charter that he was originally named William de Taillebois. See Wikipedia concerning William de Lancaster.
On 18 Sep 2014 at 04:56 GMT Maryann (Thompson) Hurt wrote:

Hi Catherine, this profile has a green/public privacy level. Would you change it to white/open please?

end of this biography

22199.

Notes:

Gundreda de Lancaster formerly Warenne aka de Beaumont, de Warenne
Born about 1120 in Sussex, England

ANCESTORS ancestors

Daughter of William (Warenne) de Warenne and Isabel (Capet) de Warenne
Sister of Aubree (Beaumont) Chãateauneuf-en-Thimerais [half], Adeline (Beaumont) de Montfort [half], Eleanor Beaumont [half], Isabel (Beaumont) de Clare [half], Emma (Beaumont) de Beaumont [half], Robert (Beaumont) de Beaumont [half], Waleran (Beaumont) de Beaumont [half], Hugh (Beaumont) de Beaumont [half], Havoise Beaumont [half], Mathilde (Beaumont) Louvel [half], William (Warenne) de Warenne, Ada (Warenne) of Huntingdon, Ralph Warenne and Reginald (Warenne) de Warenne

Wife of Roger (Beaumont) de Beaumont — married about 1137 [location unknown]

Wife of William FitzGilbert (Lancaster) de Lancaster — married about 1155 [location unknown]

DESCENDANTS descendants

Mother of Agnes (Beaumont) de Clinton, Margaret (Beaumont) de Beaumont, Gundred Beaumont, William (Beaumont) de Beaumont, Henry (Beaumont) de Newburgh, Waleran (Beaumont) de Beaumont, William (Lancaster) de Lancaster, Agnes Lancaster and Avice (Lancaster) de Morville

Died 1170 in Kendale, Cumbria, Englandmap
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Profile last modified 6 Oct 2017 | Created 18 Feb 2011
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Categories: Estimated Birth Date.

European Aristocracy
Gundreda (Warenne) de Lancaster is a member of royalty, nobility or aristocracy in the British Isles.
Join: British Isles Royals and Aristocrats 742-1499 Project
Discuss: EUROARISTO

The Birth Date is a rough estimate. See the text for details.

Biography

Her lineage is provided in Medieval Lands[1] and she is stated to be the daughter of William de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, and Isabelle de Vermandois, widow of Robert de Beaumont, Comte de Meulan, Earl of Leicester, and was the daughter of daughter of Hugues de France, Comte de Vermandois et de Valois (Capet dynasty) and his wife Adelais, Countess de Vermandois (Carolingian dynasty). Her date of birth is not provided in source but her parents married shortly after 1117 (death of Robert de Beaumont, Comte de Meulan, Earl of Leicester)[2] and is her date of birth is assumed to be about 1120.

She married twice:[3]

Firstly to Roger de Beaumont, Earl of Warwick. There is little on record regarding the date of this marriage but it is assumed that she was young at the marriage. Their first child, William, is thought to have been born c. 1139 and thus the marriage is assumed to be c. 1137. Robert de Beaumont died in 1153 and Gundred remarried.

Secondly, stated to be between June 1153 and 1156, to William de Lancaster, as his second wife. Note that there is some dispute regarding whether she, or a daughter, married William de Lancaster. Wikitree has adopted the position taken on MedLands and bases this on a Charter from Henry II which records that “primus Willielmum de Lancaster, baronem de Kendale, qui prius vocabatur de Tailboys” married “Gundredam comitissam Warwic” and that she was the mother of his son William.

Her date of death is not provided in source although she clearly died after 1166. It has been presumed to be about 1170.

Sources
? Medieval Lands - Gundred de Warenne
? Medieval Lands - Gundred de Warenne this source suggests the marriage took place in 1118
? Medieval Lands - Gundred de Warenne
Publications:

Medieval Lands - EARLS of WARWICK 1088-1263 (BEAUMONT)
Medieval Lands - Gundred de Warenne
Medieval Lands - William de Lancaster
Beaumonts in History; Edward Beaumont; Chapter 3, page 37. Note pdf download.
Royal Ancestry by Douglas Richardson Vol. V page 274
Royal Ancestry by Douglas Richardson Vol. V. p. 319

On 25 May 2017 at 08:05 GMT Andrew Lancaster wrote:

Not mentioned on the named source, Wikipedia and clearly this profile is some type of confusion about Warenne-17
On 23 Sep 2015 at 03:19 GMT Rev Daniel Washburn Jones wrote:

De Warrenne-16 and Warenne-17 appear to represent the same person because: same person, merge needed ... more merges will be needed, the William husbands and the Agnes children, but everything else matches
On 8 Oct 2014 at 20:28 GMT Darlene (Athey) Athey-Hill wrote:

De Warenne-253 and Warenne-17 appear to represent the same person because: This is definitely the same person. Please do NOT reject the match. You just need to resolve the date of birth, which according to my sources is circa 1124. Same mother & father, same husband. A rejected match means they do NOT represent the same people. If you don't want to resolve the dates right now, then leave it a week or two while you look into it. Otherwise you can make it an unmerged match.
Thanks, Darlene - Co-Leader, European Aristocrats Project

On 8 Oct 2014 at 20:02 GMT Tim Perry wrote:

De Warenne-253 and Warenne-17 do not represent the same person because: Big difference in birth and death dates. This needs to be resolved before a merge can be considered.
end of this biography and notes

Gundred de Warenne,[22] who married first Roger de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Warwick[23] and second William, lord of Kendal, and is most remembered for expelling king Stephen's garrison from Warwick Castle.

end of note

Children:

11099. Avice Lancaster was born in ~1155 in Westmorland, England; died on 1 Jan 1191 in Kirkoswald, Cumberland, England.

22200.

Notes:

David I or Dauâid mac Maâil Choluim (Modern: Daibhidh I mac [Mhaoil] Chaluim;[1] c. 1085 – 24 May 1153) was a 12th-century ruler who was Prince of the Cumbrians (1113–1124) and later King of the Scots (1124–1153). The youngest son of Mâael Coluim III (Malcolm III) and Margaret of Wessex, David spent most of his childhood in Scotland, but was exiled to England temporarily in 1093. Perhaps after 1100, he became a dependent at the court of King Henry I. There he was influenced by the Norman and Anglo-French culture of the court.

When David's brother Alexander I of Scotland died in 1124, David chose, with the backing of Henry I, to take the Kingdom of Scotland (Alba) for himself. He was forced to engage in warfare against his rival and nephew, Mâael Coluim mac Alaxandair. Subduing the latter seems to have taken David ten years, a struggle that involved the destruction of Óengus, Mormaer of Moray. David's victory allowed expansion of control over more distant regions theoretically part of his Kingdom. After the death of his former patron Henry I, David supported the claims of Henry's daughter and his own niece, the former Empress-consort, Matilda, to the throne of England. In the process, he came into conflict with King Stephen and was able to expand his power in northern England, despite his defeat at the Battle of the Standard in 1138.

The term "Davidian Revolution" is used by many scholars to summarise the changes which took place in Scotland during his reign. These included his foundation of burghs and regional markets, implementation of the ideals of Gregorian Reform, foundation of monasteries, Normanisation of the Scottish government, and the introduction of feudalism through immigrant French and Anglo-French knights.

Read more ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_I_of_Scotland

22201.

Notes:

Maud or Matilda (c.1074—1130/31) was the queen consort of King David I of Scotland. She was the great-niece of William the Conqueror and the granddaughter of Earl Siward.

Biography

Maud was the daughter of the Waltheof, the Anglo-Saxon Earl of Huntingdon and Northampton, and his Norman wife Judith of Lens. Her father was the last of the major Anglo-Saxon earls to remain powerful after the Norman conquest of England in 1066, and the son of Siward, Earl of Northumbria. Her mother was the niece of William the Conqueror.

She was married to Simon de Senlis (or St Liz) in about 1090.[1] Earlier, William had tried to get Maud's mother, Judith, to marry Simon. He received the honour of Huntingdon (whose lands stretched across much of eastern England) probably in right of his wife from William Rufus before the end of the year 1090.[2][3]

She had three known children by him:[2]

Matilda of St Liz (Maud) (d. 1140); she married Robert Fitz Richard of Tonbridge; she married secondly Saer De Quincy.
Simon of St Liz (d. 1153)
Saint Waltheof of Melrose (c.1100 – 1159/60)
Her first husband died some time after 1111 and Maud next married David, the brother-in-law of Henry I of England, in 1113.[1][3] Through the marriage, David gained control over his wife's vast estates in England, in addition to his own lands in Cumbria and Strathclyde.[3] They had four children (two sons and two daughters):[1]

Malcolm (born in 1113 or later, died young)
Henry (c.1114 – 1152)
Claricia (died unmarried)
Hodierna (died young and unmarried)
In 1124, David became King of Scots. Maud's two sons by different fathers, Simon and Henry, would later vie for the Earldom of Huntingdon.[3]

She died in 1130 or 1131 and was buried at Scone Abbey in Perthshire, but she appears in a charter of dubious origin dated 1147.[1]

Depictions in fiction

Maud of Huntingdon appears as a character in Elizabeth Chadwick's novel The Winter Mantle (2003), as well as Alan Moore's novel Voice of the Fire (1995) and Nigel Tranter's novel David the Prince (1980).

References

^ Jump up to: a b c d Weir, Alison (1995). Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy, Revised Edition. London: Random House. ISBN 0-7126-7448-9. p. 192
^ Jump up to: a b Matthew Strickland, "Senlis, Simon (I) de", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/25091
^ Jump up to: a b c d G. W. S. Barrow, "David I (c.1085–1153)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2006 ; Maud (d. 1131): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/49353

Buried:
Scone Abbey (originally Scone Priory) was a house of Augustinian canons located in Scone, Perthshire (Gowrie), Scotland. Dates given for the establishment of Scone Priory have ranged from 1114 A.D. to 1122 A.D. However, historians have long believed that Scone was before that time the center of the early medieval Christian cult of the Culdees (Câeli Dâe in medieval Irish meaning "Companions of God"). Very little is known about the Culdees but it is thought that a cult may have been worshiping at Scone from as early as 700 A.D. Archaeological surveys taken in 2007 suggest that Scone was a site of real significance even prior to 841 A.D., when Kenneth MacAlpin brought the Stone of Destiny, Scotland's most prized relic and coronation stone, to Scone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scone_Abbey

Children:

11100. Henry of Scotland was born in 1114 in (Scotland); died on 12 Jun 1152; was buried in Kelso Abbey, Scotland.

22202.

Notes:

William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey (died 11 May 1138) was the son of William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey and his first wife Gundred. He was more often referred to as Earl Warenne or Earl of Warenne than as Earl of Surrey.[1]

Life

His father, the 1st Earl, was one of the Conqueror's most trusted and most rewarded barons who, at his death in 1088, was the 3rd or 4th richest magnate in England.[2] In 1088 William II inherited his father's lands in England and his Norman estates including the castles of Mortemer and Bellencombre in Haute-Normandy. But William II was not as disposed to serve the king as his father was.[2] In January 1091, William assisted Hugh of Grantmesnil (d.1094) in his defense of Courcy against the forces of Robert de Belleme and Duke Robert of Normandy.[3] In 1093 he attempted to marry Matilda (or Edith), daughter of king Malcolm III of Scotland.[4] She instead married Henry I of England, and this may have been the cause of William's great dislike of Henry I, which motivated him in the following years.[5]

When Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy invaded England 1101 William joined him.[6] But when Curthose promptly surrendered to Henry I, William lost his English lands and titles and was exiled to Normandy.[6] There he complained to Curthose that he had expended great effort on the duke's behalf and in return lost all of his English possessions. Curthose's return to England in 1103 was apparently made to convince his brother, the king, to restore William's earldom. This was successful, though Curthose had to give up his 3000 mark annual pension he had received after the 1101 invasion, after which William's lands and titles were restored to him.[5]

To further insure William's loyalty Henry considered marrying him to one of his many illegitimate daughters. Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury forbade the marriage based on the couple being related in the 4th generation on one side, and in the 6th generation on the other.[7] William was one of the commanders on Henry's side (against Robert Curthose) at the Battle of Tinchebray in 1106. Afterwards, with his loyalty thus proven, he became more prominent in Henry's court.[1]

In 1110, Curthose's son William Clito escaped along with Helias of Saint-Saens, and afterwards Warenne received the forfeited Saint-Saens lands, which were very near his own in upper Normandy. In this way king Henry further assured his loyalty, for the successful return of Clito would mean at the very least Warenne's loss of this new territory.[1][8] He fought for Henry I at the Battle of Bremule in 1119.[1][9] William, the second Earl of Surrey was present at Henry's deathbed in 1135.[1][10] After the king's death disturbances broke out in Normandy and William was sent to guard Rouen and the Pays de Caux.[1][11]

William's death is recorded as 11-May-1138 in the register of Lewes Priory and he was buried at his father's feet at the Chapter house there.[12] His wife, the countess Elizabeth, survived him, dying before July 1147.[12]

Family

In 1118 William finally acquired the royal-blooded bride he desired when he married Elizabeth de Vermandois.[13] She was a daughter of count Hugh of Vermandois, a granddaughter of Henry I, King of France, and was the widow of Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester.[14]

By Elizabeth his wife he had three sons and two daughters:

William de Warenne, 3rd Earl of Surrey[15][16]
Reginald de Warenne, who inherited his father's property in upper Normandy, including the castles of Bellencombre and Mortemer.[16] He married Adeline or Alice, daughter of William, lord of Wormgay in Norfolk, by whom he had a son William (founder of the priory of Wormegay),[16] whose daughter and sole heir, Beatrice married first Doun, lord Bardolf, and secondly Hubert de Burgh.[17][18] Reginald was one of the persecutors of Archbishop Thomas in 1170.
Ralph de Warenne[19]
Gundred de Warenne,[19] who married first Roger de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Warwick[20] and second William, lord of Kendal, and is most remembered for expelling king Stephen's garrison from Warwick Castle.
Ada de Warenne, who married Henry of Scotland, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon, the mother of two Scottish kings,[21] she made many grants to the priory of Lewes.[22]
Ancestry[edit]
[show]Ancestors of William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey
References[edit]
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, Vol. XII/1 (The St. Catherine Press, London, 1953) p. 495
^ Jump up to: a b C. Warren Hollister, 'The Taming of a Turbulent Earl: Henry I and William of Warenne', Historical Reflections, Vol. 3 (1976), p. 87
Jump up ^ The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. Marjorie Chibnall, Vol. 2 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990)p. 692
Jump up ^ C. Warren Hollister, Henry I (Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2003)p. 340
^ Jump up to: a b C. Warren Hollister, 'The Taming of a Turbulent Earl: Henry I and William of Warenne', Historical Reflections. Vol. 3 (1976) p. 87
^ Jump up to: a b The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. Marjorie Chibnall, Vol. 2 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990), p.785
Jump up ^ Edmund Chester Waters, 'Gundrada de Warenne', Archaeological Journal, Vol. XLI (1884), p. 303
Jump up ^ C. Warren Hollister, 'The Taming of a Turbulent Earl: Henry I and William of Warenne', Historical Reflections, Vol. 3 (1976) p. 89
Jump up ^ Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, trans. Thomas Forester, Vol. III (Henry G. Bohn, London, 1854) pp. 481-2
Jump up ^ Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, trans. Thomas Forester, Vol. IV (Henry G. Bohn, London, 1856) p. 150
Jump up ^ C. Warren Hollister, Henry I (Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2003)p. 375
^ Jump up to: a b G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, Vol. XII/1 (The St. Catherine Press, London, 1953) p. 496
Jump up ^ C. Warren Hollister, 'The Taming of a Turbulent Earl: Henry I and William of Warenne', Historical Reflections, Vol. 3 (1976) p. 90 n. 36
Jump up ^ Detlev Schwennicke, Europèaische Stammtafeln: Stammtafeln zur Geschichte der Europèaischen Staaten, Neue Folge, Band III Teilband 1, Herzogs und Grafenhèauser des Heiligen Rèomischen Reiches Andere Europèaiche Fèurstenhèauser (Marburg, Germany: Verlag von J. A. Stargardt, 1984), Tafel 55
Jump up ^ G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, Vol. XII/1 (The St. Catherine Press, London, 1953) p. 500
^ Jump up to: a b c Early Yorkshire Charters, Vol. VIII - The Honour of Warenne (The Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1949) pp. 27-8
Jump up ^ G.E.Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, Vol. VII (The St. Catherine Press, 1929), p. 142, footnote (a)
Jump up ^ Early Yorkshire Charters, Vol. VIII - The Honour of Warenne (The Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1949) pp. 33-4
^ Jump up to: a b Early Yorkshire Charters, Vol. VIII - The Honour of Warenne (The Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1949) pp. 10-11
Jump up ^ Elisabeth van Houts, 'The Warenne View of the Past 1066-1203', Anglo-Norman Studies XXVI, Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2003, ed. John Gillingham (Boydell Press, Woodbridge. 2004), p. 109 n. 49
Jump up ^ The Scots Peerage, Founded on Wood's Edition of Sir Robert Douglas's Peerage of Scotland, ed. Sir James Balfour Paul, Lord Lyon King of Arms, Vol. I (Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1904, p. 4
Jump up ^ Early Yorkshire Charters, ed: William Farrer, Charles Travis Clay, Volume VIII - The Honour of Warenne (The Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1949), p. 11

External links

"Warenne, William de (d.1138)". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. M. Chibnall, vol. 2, p. 264 (Oxford, 1990)

22203.

Notes:

Birth: 1081
Basse-Normandie, France
Death: Feb. 17, 1131, France

Countess of Leicester, Countess of Surrey

Third daughter of Hugh Magnus and Adelaide of Vermandois, granddaughter of King Henry I of France and Anne of Kiev, Herbert IV, Count of Vermandois, and Adele of Valois. She was the heiress of the county of Vermandois and descendant of Charlemagne.

Wife of Sir Robert de Beaumont, Count of Meulan, the son of Roger de Beaumont and Adeline of Meulan; Isabel became the Countess of Leicester. They married about 1096 and had three sons and at least five daughters:
* Emma b 1101, probably died young
* Waleran IV de Beaumont, Count of Meulan, twin
* Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester, twin
* Hugh de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Bedford
* Adeline, wife of Hugh Montfort & Richard de Granville
* Aubree, wife of Hugh II of Chãateauneuf-en-Thimerais
* Maud, wife of William Lovel
* Isabel, mistress of King Henry I, wife of Gilbert de Clare and mother of Richard Strongbow & wife of Hervâe de Montmorency

Secondly, the wife of William de Warenne, son of William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey and his first wife Gundred; Isabel became the Countess of Surrey. They married in 1118 and had three sons and two daughters:
* William de Warenne, 3rd Earl of Surrey
Ralph de Warenne
* Reginald de Warenne
* Gundrada de Warenne, wife of Roger de Beaumont& William de Lancaster
* Ada de Warenne, wife of Henry of Scotland, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon, mother King Malcolm IV and King William I 'the Lion'

Sir Robert de Beaumont, described as being "the wisest man in his time between London and Jerusalem", and aged over fifty was determined to marry Isabel, aged about eleven. Bishop Ivo dismissed their request based on their being within a few degrees of kindred. Isabel's father was able to sway Bishop Ivo, and saw his daughter married by April of 1096 when he left on a crusade.

In 1115, Isabel was either carried away or willingly abducted by William de Warrene, revealing they had been lovers for some time. They were unable to marry until the death of Sir Robert, which occurred in 1118.

The Beaumont sons were on opposite sides of support for King Stephen and Queen Matilda, but were not enemies.

Sources vary on her death, reported as 1131 to outliving William who died in 1138.

Family links:
Parents:
Hugues de France (1057 - 1102)

Spouses:
Robert de Beaumont (1049 - 1118)
William II de Warenne (1065 - 1138)

Children:
Waleran de Beaumont (1104 - 1166)*
Robert de Beaumont (1104 - 1168)*
Reginald de Warenne (1113 - 1179)*
William de Warenne (1118 - 1148)*
Ada De Warenne De Huntingdon (1120 - 1178)*

Sibling:
Isabel Of Vermandois Beaumont de Warenne (1081 - 1131)
Raoul I de Vermandois (1094 - 1152)*

*Calculated relationship

Burial:
Lewes Priory
Lewes
Lewes District
East Sussex, England

end

Children:

Sir William de Warenne, Knight, 3rd Earl of Surrey was born in 0Jun 1118 in East Sussex, England; died on 6 Jan 1148 in Turkey.
11101. Ada de Warenne was born in ~ 1120 in Surry, England; died in 1178 in England.
24301. Gundred de Warenne was born in 1120 in Sussex, England; died in 1170 in Kendale, Cumberland, England.

22204.

Notes:

Ranulf II (also known as Ranulf de Gernon) (1099–1153) was an Anglo-Norman potentate who inherited the honour of the palatine county of Chester upon the death of his father Ranulf le Meschin, 3rd Earl of Chester. He was descended from the Counts of Bessin in Normandy.

In 1136 David I of Scotland invaded England as far as Durham but was forced by Stephen of England to negotiate treaties that involved granting Ranulf's lands to Scotland. Ranulf allied himself to Matilda to further his cause. He took Lincoln Castle in 1141, which was retaken by Stephen in a siege in which Ranulf was forced to flee for his life. Ranulf enlisted the help of Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester to retake the castle and succeeded when King Stephen surrendered to him at Lincoln. While Matilda ruled England, Stephen's queen Matilda of Boulogne managed to defeat Ranulf and his allies at Winchester, which eventually resulted in Stephen being able to resume the throne.

Biography

Early life

Ranulf was born in Normandy at the Chãateau Guernon, around 1100. He was the son of Ranulf le Meschin, 3rd Earl of Chester and Lucy of Bolingbroke, who were both significant landowners with considerable autonomy within the county palatine. His father had begun a new lineage of the earldom of Chester. Ranulf married Maud, daughter of Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester and inherited the earldom in 1128. Three years later he founded an abbey in North Wales, colonised by monks from the Norman Congregation of Savigny.

Loss of northern lands to Scotland

In late January 1136, during the first months of the reign of Stephen of England, his northern neighbour David I of Scotland crossed the border into England. He took Carlisle, Wark, Alnwick, Norham and Newcastle upon Tyne and struck towards Durham. On 5 February 1136, Stephen reached Durham with a large force of mercenaries from Flanders and forced David to negotiate a treaty by which the Scots were granted the towns of Carlisle and Doncaster, for the return of Wark, Alnwick, Norham and Newcastle.

Lost from England to Scotland along with Carlisle was much of Cumberland and the honour of Lancaster, lands that belonged to Earl Ranulf's father and had been surrendered by agreement to Henry I of England in return for the Earldom of Chester. Ranulf claimed that his father had at that time been disinherited. When he heard of the concessions made to the Scottish King, Ranulf left Stephen's court in a rage.

In the second Treaty of Durham (1139), Stephen was even more generous to David, granting the Earldom of Northumbria (Carlisle, Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire north of the Ribble) to his son Prince Henry. Ranulf was prepared to revolt in order to win back his lordship of the north.

Capture of Lincoln

Main article: Battle of Lincoln (1141)
By this time Matilda, named as the future Queen by her father Henry I, had gathered enough strength to contest Stephen's usurpation, supported by her husband Geoffrey of Anjou and her half-brother Robert of Gloucester. Prince Henry was to attend the English court that Michaelmas and Ranulf planned to overwhelm him on his return to Scotland. Stephen’s queen Matilda of Boulogne heard about the plot and persuaded Stephen to escort Henry back to Scotland. Ranulf then used subterfuge to seize Lincoln Castle. He and his half-brother William de Roumare sent their wives to visit the constable’s wife there and then arrived (dressed in ordinary clothes and escorted by three knights), apparently to fetch the ladies. They then seized the weapons in the castle, admitted their own men and ejected the royal garrison.[2]

Stephen eventually made a pact with the Ranulf and his half-brother and left Lincolnshire, returning to London before Christmas 1140, after making William de Roumare Earl of Lincoln and awarding Ranulf with administrative and military powers over Lincolnshire and the town and castle of Derby. The citizens of Lincoln sent Stephen a message complaining about the treatment they were receiving from Ranulf and asking the King to capture the brothers. The King immediately marched on Lincoln. One of his key pretexts was that according to the settlement, Lincoln Castle was to revert to royal ownership and that the half-brothers had reneged on this. He arrived on 6 January 1141 and found the place scantily garrisoned: the citizens of Lincoln admitted him into the city and he immediately laid siege to the castle, captured seventeen knights and began to batter down the garrison with his siege engines.

Ranulf managed to escape to his earldom, collect his Cheshire and Welsh retainers and appeal to his father-in-law Robert of Gloucester, whose daughter Maud was still besieged in Lincoln, possibly as a deliberate ploy to encourage her father's assistance. In return for Robert's aid, Ranulf agreed to promise fidelity to the Empress Matilda.

Lincoln castle
To Robert and the other supporters of the Empress this was good news, as Ranulf was a major magnate. Robert swiftly raised an army and set out for Lincoln, joining forces with Ranulf on the way. Stephen held a council of war at which his advisors counselled that he leave a force and depart to safety, but Stephen disregarded the odds and decided to fight, but was obliged to surrender to Robert. Ranulf took advantage of disarray amongst the king’s followers and in the weeks after the fighting managed to take the Earl of Richmond’s northern castles and capture him when he tried to ambush Ranulf. Richmond was put in chains and tortured until he submitted to Ranulf and did him homage.

Stephen had been effectively deposed and Matilda ruled in his place. In September 1141, Robert of Gloucester and Matilda besieged Winchester. The queen responded quickly and rushed to Winchester with her own army, commanded by the professional soldier William of Ypres. The queen’s forces surrounded the army of the empress, commanded by Robert, who was captured as a result of deciding to fight his way out of the situation. The magnates following the empress were forced to flee or be taken captive. Earl Ranulf managed to escape and fled back to Chester. Later that year Robert was exchanged for Stephen, who resumed the throne.

Defection to Stephen

In 1144 Stephen attacked Ranulf again by laying siege to Lincoln Castle. He made preparations for a long siege but abandoned the attempt when eighty of his men were killed whilst working on a siege tower that fell and knocked them into a trench, suffocating them all.

In 1145 (or early 1146) Ranulf switched allegiance from the Empress Matilda to Stephen. Since 1141 King David had been allied to Matilda, so Ranulf could now take up his quarrel with David of Scotland regarding his northern lands. It is probable that Ranulf's brother-in-law Phillip, (the son of Earl Robert), acted as an intermediary as Phillip had defected to the king. Ranulf came to Stephen at Stamford, repented his previous crimes and was restored to favour. He was allowed to retain Lincoln Castle until he could recover his Norman lands. Ranulf demonstrated his good will by helping Stephen to capture Bedford from Miles de Beauchamp and bringing 300 knights to the siege of Wallingford.

Stephen welcomed Ranulf’s support but some of the king's supporters, (especially William de Clerfeith, Gilbert de Gant, Alan, 1st Earl of Richmond, William Peverel the Younger, William d'Aubigny, 1st Earl of Arundel and John, Count of Eu), did not. Many of the magnates were alarmed when it was discovered that Ranulf wanted the king to take part in a campaign against the Welsh. Ranulf's opponents counselled the king that the earl might be planning treachery, since he had offered no hostages or security and could easily be ambushed in Wales. Stephen contrived a quarrel with Ranulf at Northampton, provoked by an advisor who told the earl that the king would not assist him unless he restored all the property he had taken and rendered hostages. The earl refused these terms. He was accused of treason and was arrested and imprisoned in chains until his friends succeeded in coming to terms with the King on 28 August 1146. It was then agreed that the earl should be released, provided he surrendered all the royal lands and castles he had seized (Lincoln included), gave hostages and took a solemn oath not to resist the king in future.

Ranulf, arrested in contravention of the oath which the king had sworn to him at Stamford, revolted as soon as he regained his liberty and "burst into a blind fury of rebellion, scarcely discriminating between friend or foe”. He came with his army to Lincoln to recover the city but failed to break into its north gate and his chief lieutenant was slain in the fighting. Ranulf also tried to recover the castle at Coventry, by building a counter castle. The King came with a relief force to Coventry and although wounded in the fighting, drove Ranulf off and seized his hostages, including his nephew Gilbert fitz Richard de Clare, Earl of Hertford, whom Stephen refused to release unless Gilbert surrendered his own castles. Gilbert, while agreeing to the condition, revolted as soon as he was at liberty. This action pushed the Clares into a conflict from which they had previously remained aloof.

Agreement with King David

In May 1149 the young Henry FitzEmpress met the king of Scotland and Ranulf at Carlisle, where Ranulf resolved his territorial disputes with Scotland and an agreement was reached to attack York. Stephen hurried north with a large force and his opponents dispersed before they could reach the city. The southern portion of the honour of Lancaster (the land between the Ribble and the Mersey) was conceded to Ranulf, who in return resigned his claim on Carlisle. Hence the Angevin cause secured the loyalty of Ranulf.

Henry, whilst trying to escape south after the aborted attack on York, was forced to avoid the ambushes of Eustace, King Stephen’s son. Ranulf assisted Henry, creating a diversion by attacking Lincoln, thus drawing Stephen to Lincoln and allowing Henry to escape.

Treaty with Robert, Earl of Leicester

The Earl’s territory in Leicestershire and Warwickshire brought him face to face with Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester, whose family (including his cousin Roger de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Warwick and his brother Waleran de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Worcester) controlled a large part of the south Midlands. The two earls concluded an elaborate treaty between 1149 and 1153. The Bishops of Chester and Leicester were both entrusted with pledges that were to be surrendered if either party infringed the agreement.

Death

In 1153 Henry — by then Stephen's accepted heir — granted Staffordshire to Ranulf. That year, whilst Ranulf was a guest at the house of William Peverel the Younger, his host attempted to kill him with poisoned wine. Three of his men who had drunk the wine died, while Ranulf suffered agonizing pain. A few months later Henry became king and exiled Peverel from England as punishment. Ranulf succumbed to the poison on 16 December 1153: his son Hugh inherited his lands as held in 1135 (when Stephen took the throne), while other honours bestowed upon Ranulf were revoked.[citation needed]

References

Jump up ^ Fox-Davies. Art of Heraldry. Quarterly Arms of Thomas Hussey. fig 261. Q 21.
Jump up ^ Ordericus Vitalis

Died:
Succumbed to poisoning...

22205.

Notes:

Maud of Gloucester, Countess of Chester (died 29 July 1189), also known as Matilda, was an Anglo-Norman noblewoman and the daughter of Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester, an illegitimate son of King Henry I of England and Mabel, daughter of Robert fitz Hamon.[1] Her husband was Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester (died Dec. 16, 1153).[2]

Family[edit]
Lady Maud FitzRobert was born on an unknown date, the daughter of Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester and Mabel FitzHamon of Gloucester. She had seven siblings including William Fitz Robert, 2nd Earl of Gloucester and Roger, Bishop of Worcester. She also had an illegitimate half-brother, Richard, Bishop of Bayeux, whom her father sired by Isabel de Douvres.

Her paternal grandparents were King Henry I of England and his mistress, Sybil Corbet. Her maternal grandparents were Robert FitzHamon, Lord of Gloucester and Glamorgan, and Sybil de Montgomery, daughter of Roger de Montgomery, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury and Mabel Talvas of Belleme.

Lincoln Castle where Maud was besieged by the forces of King Stephen in 1141

Marriage and issue

Sometime before 1141, possibly as early as 1135, Matilda married Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester, and was accorded the title of Countess of Chester. Her husband had considerable autonomy in his palatine earldom.

In January 1141, Earl Ranulf and Countess Matilda were at Lincoln Castle when it was besieged by the forces of King Stephen of England. The following month, a relief army loyal to Empress Matilda and led by her father Robert earl of Gloucester defeated and captured the king in the fierce fighting, later known as the First Battle of Lincoln. In return for his help in repelling the king's troops, the countess's father compelled her husband to swear fealty to Empress Matilda, who was Earl Robert's half-sister.

On August 29, 1146, Earl Ranulf was seized by King Stephen at court in Northampton. Stephen later granted him the castle and city of Lincoln sometime after 1151.[3]

Children

Hugh de Kevelioc, 5th Earl of Chester (1147- 30 June 1181), married Bertrade de Montfort of âEvreux, by whom he had five children, including Ranulf de Blondeville, 6th Earl of Chester, Maud of Chester, and Hawise of Chester, 1st Countess of Lincoln.
possibly Richard of Chester (died 1170/1175), buried in Coventry.
Beatrice of Chester, married Raoul de Malpas
possibly Ranulf of Chester, fought in the siege of Lisbon, granted the lordship of Azambuja by Afonso I of Portugal.
Ranulf had an illegitimate son, Robert FitzCount (died before 1166), by an unknown mistress. His date of birth was not recorded. Robert married Agnes fitz Neal as her second husband.

One account contains an unsubstantiated rumor that Countess Maud poisoned her husband with the assistance of William Peverel of Nottingham, but there is no evidence that she did so; Earl Ranulf confirmed her grant to one of her servants, probably on his deathbed.[4] She served as her minor son's guardian for nine years.

She was an important patron of Repton Priory in Derbyshire.[5] She also made grants to Belvoir Priory.

The Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records property Wadinton de feodo comitis Cestrie, held by Maud, Countess of Chester.[3] Although she was said to be about 50 years of age in that document, she was probably closer to 60 in that year.

Maud died on 29 July 1189, although the Annals of Tewkesbury records her death in 1190.[3]

References

Notes
Jump up ^ Complete Peerage, v. III, p. 167.
Jump up ^ Charles Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earls of Chester 1120-1232 (Family of Ranulf "le Meschin")
^ Jump up to: a b c Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earls of Chester 1120-1232 (Family of Ranulf "le Meschin")
Jump up ^ Susan Johns, "Wives and Widows of the Earls of Chester, 1100-1252", Haskins Soc. Journal (1995), p. 125.
Jump up ^ http://www.thePeerage,com/p.10472.htm#104718

Children:

11102. Sir Hugh de Kevelioc, Knight, 5th Earl of Chester was born in 0___ 1147 in Kevelioc, Monmouth, Wales; died on 30 Jun 1181 in Leek, Staffordshire, England.

22206.

Notes:

Simon (Simon III) "le Chauve, Comte d'âEvreux" de Montfort formerly Montfort
Born about 1123 in Montfort-sur-Ris, Eure, France
ANCESTORS ancestors
Son of Amauri (Montfort) de Montfort and Agnes (Garlande) de Montfort
Brother of Luciana (Montfort) Montlhâery [half], Amaury (Montfort) de Montfort and Agnes Elizabeth (Montfort) de Beaumont
Husband of Maud (Evreux) de Montfort — married 1148 in Montfort, L'Amauri, Ile-de-France, France
DESCENDANTS descendants
Father of Simon (Montfort) de Montfort, Amauri (Montfort) de Montfort and Bertrade (Montfort) de Montfort
Died about 12 Mar 1181 in Eure, Normandy, France

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Categories: House of Montfort-l'Amaury.

European Aristocracy
Simon III (Montfort) de Montfort was a member of aristocracy in Europe.
Join: European Royals and Aristocrats Project
Discuss: EUROARISTO
Contents
[hide]
1 Biography
1.1 Marriage
2 Sources
2.1 Notes
3 Acknowledgments
Biography
"Simon de Monfort, Count of Evreux and Seigneur of Montfort, brother and heir [of Amauri] (a). Being a vassal both of the King of France and of the King of England (as Duke of Normandy), his postion was embarrassing when his two suzerains were at war in 1159. He adhered to England and handed over his castles at Rochefort, Montfort, and Epernon to Henry II, which forced Louis to make a truce by cutting his communications between Paris, Orleans, and Etampes. In 1173 Simon joined the revolt of the "young King", but was captured when the Count of Flanders took the castle of Aumale. In 1177 he attested the treaty of Ivry, and was with Henry II at Verneuil. He m. Maud, whose parentage is unknown. He d. 12 or 13 Mar 1180/1, and was buried in Evreux Cathedral. He left two sons, Amauri, who succeeded him as Count of Evreux in Normandy (b), and Simon, who succeeded him in the lordships of Montfort and Rochefort, also a daughter Bertrade (d).

"(a) He must have been a son of the second marriage of his father if his brother was. Moreover, Simon had Rochefort, which came through the second wife, and it was apparently from him that his sister Agnes received as dowry her mother's other lordship of Gournay-sur-Marne.

"(b) He m. Mabel, elder daughter and coheir of William, 2nd Earl of Gloucester. His son Amauri exchanged the Comte of Evreux for the Earldom of Gloucester, and dsp.

"(d) She m. Hugh, Earl of Chester.

"Note: Turton has Simon III and Simon IV de Montfort as one person with 2 wives." (Above is per Jim Weber on rootsweb.com)

Marriage
Husband: Simon de MONTFORT
Wife: Amicia Harcourt
Child: Almarie de MONTFORT
Child: Simon 'the Crusader' de MONTFORT
Child: Guy de MONTFORT
Child: Pernel de MONTFORT
Marriage:
Date: ABT 1169
Place: Of, LEI, England
Also had Amaury VI, Guido, Robert, Simon Earl of Leicester, 1206-1265, and dts.
Simon was born in 1128. Simon De Montfort ... He passed away in 1181. [1]

Do you have information about De Montfort? Please contribute to his biography. Everything on WikiTree is a collaborative work-in-progress.

Sources
? Entered by Terry Wright, Mar 1, 2013
Phillips, Weber, Kirk and Staggs Families of the Pacific Northwest, by Jim Weber, rootsweb.com
Source: S004330 Title: Millennium File Author: Heritage Consulting Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2003.Original data - Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Heritage Consulting.Original data: Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA Repository: Ancestry.com
Source: S2 Title: Pedigree Resource File CD 49 Abbreviation: Pedigree Resource File CD 49 Publication: (Salt Lake City, UT: Intellectual Reserve, Inc., 2002)
Notes
From http://www.geneajourney.com
d. Being a vassal of both the King of France and King of England, his position was uneasy when both were at war with each other in 1159. He adhered to England and handed over his castles of Rochefort, Montfort, and Epernon to Henry II, which forced Louis to make a truce. In 1173, Simon joined the revolt of the "young King", but was captured when the Count of Flanders took the castle of Aumale. In 1177 he attested the treaty of Ivry and was with Henry II at Verneuil. He married Maud, whose parentage is unknown, and they had two sons, Amauri and Simon, and a daughter, Bertrade.

end of profile

22207.

Lady Maud Evreux, Comtesse d'Evreux was born in 1129 in Normandie, France; died in 1169 in Leicestershire, England.

Children:

11103. Lady Bertrade de Montfort, Comtess d'Evreux was born in 1155 in Chester, Cheshire, England; died on 31 Mar 1227 in Evreux, Normandy, France.

44386.

Notes:

more...

History & issue of Henry I, King of England ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_I_of_England

Family and children

Legitimate

House of Normandy
Bayeux Tapestry WillelmDux.jpg
William the Conqueror invades England
William I[show]
William II[show]
Henry I[show]
Stephen[show]
Monarchy of the United Kingdom
v t e
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Henry I of England.

Henry and his first wife, Matilda, had at least two legitimate children:

Matilda, born in 1102, died 1167.[89]
William Adelin, born in 1103, died 1120.[89]
Possibly Richard, who, if he existed, died young.[100]
Henry and his second wife, Adeliza, had no children.

Illegitimate

Henry had a number of illegitimate children by various mistresses.[nb 32]

Sons

Robert of Gloucester, born in the 1090s.[332]
Richard, born to Ansfride, brought up by Robert Bloet, the Bishop of Lincoln.[333]
Reginald de Dunstanville, Earl of Cornwall, born in the 1110s or early 1120s, possibly to Sibyl Corbet.[334]
Robert the King's son, born to Ede, daughter of Forne.[335]
Gilbert, possibly born to an unnamed sister or daughter of Walter of Gand.[336]
William de Tracy, possibly born in the 1090s.[336]
Henry the King's son, possibly born to Nest ferch Rhys.[335][nb 33]
Fulk the King's son, possibly born to Ansfride.[335]
William, the brother of Sybilla de Normandy, probably the brother of Reginald de Dunstanville.[337]

Daughters

Matilda FitzRoy, Countess of Perche.[338]
Matilda FitzRoy, Duchess of Brittany.[338]
Juliana, wife of Eustace of Breteuil, possibly born to Ansfrida.[339]
Mabel, wife of William Gouet.[340]
Constance, Vicountess of Beaumont-sur-Sarthe.[341]
Aline, wife of Matthew de Montmorency.[342]
Isabel, daughter of Isabel de Beaumont, Countess of Pembroke.[342]
Sybilla de Normandy, Queen of Scotland, probably born before 1100.[342][nb 34]
Matilda Fitzroy, Abbess of Montvilliers.[342]
Gundrada de Dunstanville.[342]
Possibly Rohese, wife of Henry de la Pomerai.[342][nb 35]
Emma, wife of Guy of Laval.[343]
Adeliza, the King's daughter.[343]
The wife of Fergus of Galloway.[343]
Possibly Sibyl of Falaise.[343][nb 36]

Born: ABT Sep 1068, Selby, Yorkshire, England
Acceded: 6 Aug 1100, Westminster Abbey, London, England
Died: 1 Dec 1135, St Denis-le-Fermont, near Gisors
Buried: Reading Abbey, Berkshire, England

Notes: Reigned 1100-1135. Duke of Normandy 1106-1135.

His reign is notable for important legal and administrative reforms, and for the final resolution of the investiture controversy. Abroad, he waged several campaigns in order to consolidate and expand his continental possessions. Was so hated by his brothers that they vowed to disinherit him. In 1106 he captured Robert and held him til he died. He proved to be a hard but just ruler. One of his lovers, Nest, Princess of Deheubarth, was known as the most beautiful woman in Wales; she had many lovers.

He apparently died from over eating Lampreys. During a Christmas court at Windsor Castle in 1126 that Henry I, who had no legitimate male heir, tried to force his barons to accept his daughter Matilda as his successor.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles reported that "...there he caused archbishops and bishops and abbots and earls all the thegns that were there to swear to give England and Normandy after his death into the hand of his daughter". Swear they did, but they were not happy about it. None of those present were interested in being among the first to owe allegiance to a woman. The stage was set for the 19-year-long bloody struggle for the throne that rent England apart after Henry's death. Ironically, the final resolution to that civil war, the peace treaty between King Stephen and Matilda's son Henry of Anjou, was ratified on Christmas Day at Westminster in 1153.

*

Birth:
History, maps & photos of Selby, England ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selby

Buried:
Reading Abbey is a large, ruined abbey in the centre of the town of Reading, in the English county of Berkshire. It was founded by Henry I in 1121 "for the salvation of my soul, and the souls of King William, my father, and of King William, my brother, and Queen Maud, my wife, and all my ancestors and successors".

For more history & images of Reading Abbey, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Abbey

Henry married unnamed partner. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44387.
unnamed partner
Children:

22193. Affraic, an illegitimate daughter was born in (Scotland).

44400.

Malcolm III of Scotland, King of Scots was born in 0Mar 1031 in Scotland (son of Duncan I of Scotland, King of Alba and Suthen, Queen of Scotland); died on 13 Nov 1093 in Alnwick, Northumberland, England.

Notes:

Malcolm III (Gaelic: Mâael Coluim mac Donnchada; c. 26 March 1031 – 13 November 1093) was King of Scots from 1058 to 1093. He was later nicknamed "Canmore" ("ceann máor", Gaelic for "Great Chief": "ceann" denotes "leader", "head" (of state) and "máor" denotes "pre-eminent", "great", and "big").[1][2] Malcolm's long reign of 35 years preceded the beginning of the Scoto-Norman age.

Malcolm's kingdom did not extend over the full territory of modern Scotland: the north and west of Scotland remained under Scandinavian, Norse-Gael, and Gaelic rule, and the territories under the rule of the Kings of Scots did not extend much beyond the limits established by Malcolm II until the 12th century. Malcolm III fought a series of wars against the Kingdom of England, which may have had as its objective the conquest of the English earldom of Northumbria. These wars did not result in any significant advances southward. Malcolm's primary achievement was to continue a lineage that ruled Scotland for many years,[3] although his role as founder of a dynasty has more to do with the propaganda of his youngest son David I and his descendants than with history.[4]

Malcolm's second wife, St. Margaret of Scotland, is Scotland's only royal saint. Malcolm himself had no reputation for piety; with the notable exception of Dunfermline Abbey in Fife he is not definitely associated with major religious establishments or ecclesiastical reforms.

King of Alba (Scots)
Reign 1058–1093
Coronation 25 April 1058?, Scone, Perth and Kinross
Predecessor Lulach
Successor Donald III
Born c. 26 March 1031
Scotland
Died 13 November 1093
Alnwick, Northumberland, England
Burial Tynemouth Castle and Priory, then in Dunfermline Abbey
Spouse Ingibiorg Finnsdottir
St. Margaret of Scotland
Issue Duncan II, King of Scots
Edward, Prince of Scotland
Edmund
Ethelred
Edgar, King of Scots
Alexander I, King of Scots
David I, King of Scots
Matilda, Queen of England
Mary, Countess of Boulogne
House Dunkeld
Father Duncan I, King of Scots
Mother Suthen

Background
Main article: Scotland in the High Middle Ages
Malcolm's father Duncan I became king in late 1034, on the death of Malcolm II, Duncan's maternal grandfather and Malcolm's great-grandfather. According to John of Fordun, whose account is the original source of part at least of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, Malcolm's mother was a niece of Siward, Earl of Northumbria,[5][6] but an earlier king-list gives her the Gaelic name Suthen.[7] Other sources claim that either a daughter or niece would have been too young to fit the timeline, thus the likely relative would have been Siward's own sister Sybil, which may have translated into Gaelic as Suthen.

Duncan's reign was not successful and he was killed in battle with the men of Moray, led by Macbeth, on 15 August 1040. Duncan was young at the time of his death,[8] and Malcolm and his brother Donalbane were children.[9] Malcolm's family attempted to overthrow Macbeth in 1045, but Malcolm's grandfather Crâinâan of Dunkeld was killed in the attempt.[10]

Soon after the death of Duncan his two young sons were sent away for greater safety—exactly where is the subject of debate. According to one version, Malcolm (then aged about nine) was sent to England,[11] and his younger brother Donalbane was sent to the Isles.[12][13] Based on Fordun's account, it was assumed that Malcolm passed most of Macbeth's seventeen-year reign in the Kingdom of England at the court of Edward the Confessor.[14][15] Today's British Royal family can trace their family history back to Malcolm III via his daughter Matilda.

According to an alternative version, Malcolm's mother took both sons into exile at the court of Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Earl of Orkney, an enemy of Macbeth's family, and perhaps Duncan's kinsman by marriage.[16]

An English invasion in 1054, with Siward, Earl of Northumbria in command, had as its goal the installation of one "Mâael Coluim, son of the king of the Cumbrians". This Mâael Coluim has traditionally been identified with the later Malcolm III.[17] This interpretation derives from the Chronicle attributed to the 14th-century chronicler of Scotland, John of Fordun, as well as from earlier sources such as William of Malmesbury.[18] The latter reported that Macbeth was killed in the battle by Siward, but it is known that Macbeth outlived Siward by two years.[19] A. A. M. Duncan argued in 2002 that, using the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry as their source, later writers innocently misidentified "Mâael Coluim" with the later Scottish king of the same name.[20] Duncan's argument has been supported by several subsequent historians specialising in the era, such as Richard Oram, Dauvit Broun and Alex Woolf.[21] It has also been suggested that Mâael Coluim may have been a son of Owain Foel, British king of Strathclyde[22] perhaps by a daughter of Malcolm II, King of Scotland.[23]

In 1057 various chroniclers report the death of Macbeth at Malcolm's hand, on 15 August 1057 at Lumphanan in Aberdeenshire.[24][25] Macbeth was succeeded by his stepson Lulach, who was crowned at Scone, probably on 8 September 1057. Lulach was killed by Malcolm, "by treachery",[26] near Huntly on 23 April 1058. After this, Malcolm became king, perhaps being inaugurated on 25 April 1058, although only John of Fordun reports this.[27]

Malcolm and Ingibiorg

Late medieval depiction of Malcolm with MacDuff, from an MS (Corpus Christi MS 171) of Walter Bower's Scotichronicon
If Orderic Vitalis is to be relied upon, one of Malcolm's earliest actions as king was to travel to the court of Edward the Confessor in 1059 to arrange a marriage with Edward's kinswoman Margaret, who had arrived in England two years before from Hungary.[28] If a marriage agreement was made in 1059, it was not kept, and this may explain the Scots invasion of Northumbria in 1061 when Lindisfarne was plundered.[29] Equally, Malcolm's raids in Northumbria may have been related to the disputed "Kingdom of the Cumbrians", reestablished by Earl Siward in 1054, which was under Malcolm's control by 1070.[30]

The Orkneyinga saga reports that Malcolm married the widow of Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Ingibiorg, a daughter of Finn Arnesson.[31] Although Ingibiorg is generally assumed to have died shortly before 1070, it is possible that she died much earlier, around 1058.[32] The Orkneyinga Saga records that Malcolm and Ingibiorg had a son, Duncan II (Donnchad mac Maâil Coluim), who was later king.[33] Some Medieval commentators, following William of Malmesbury, claimed that Duncan was illegitimate, but this claim is propaganda reflecting the need of Malcolm's descendants by Margaret to undermine the claims of Duncan's descendants, the Meic Uilleim.[34] Malcolm's son Domnall, whose death is reported in 1085, is not mentioned by the author of the Orkneyinga Saga. He is assumed to have been born to Ingibiorg.[35]

Malcolm's marriage to Ingibiorg secured him peace in the north and west. The Heimskringla tells that her father Finn had been an adviser to Harald Hardraade and, after falling out with Harald, was then made an Earl by Sweyn Estridsson, King of Denmark, which may have been another recommendation for the match.[36] Malcolm enjoyed a peaceful relationship with the Earldom of Orkney, ruled jointly by his stepsons, Paul and Erlend Thorfinnsson. The Orkneyinga Saga reports strife with Norway but this is probably misplaced as it associates this with Magnus Barefoot, who became king of Norway only in 1093, the year of Malcolm's death.[37]

Malcolm and Margaret

Malcolm and Margaret as depicted in a 16th-century armorial. Anachronistically, Malcolm's surcoat is embroidered with the royal arms of Scotland, which probably did not come into use until the time of William the Lion. Margaret's kirtle displays the supposed arms of her great-uncle Edward the Confessor, which were in fact invented in the 13th century, though they were based on a design which appeared on coins from his reign
Although he had given sanctuary to Tostig Godwinson when the Northumbrians drove him out, Malcolm was not directly involved in the ill-fated invasion of England by Harald Hardraade and Tostig in 1066, which ended in defeat and death at the battle of Stamford Bridge.[38] In 1068, he granted asylum to a group of English exiles fleeing from William of Normandy, among them Agatha, widow of Edward the Confessor's nephew Edward the Exile, and her children: Edgar ¥theling and his sisters Margaret and Cristina. They were accompanied by Gospatric, Earl of Northumbria. The exiles were disappointed, however, if they had expected immediate assistance from the Scots.[39]

In 1069 the exiles returned to England, to join a spreading revolt in the north. Even though Gospatric and Siward's son Waltheof submitted by the end of the year, the arrival of a Danish army under Sweyn Estridsson seemed to ensure that William's position remained weak. Malcolm decided on war, and took his army south into Cumbria and across the Pennines, wasting Teesdale and Cleveland then marching north, loaded with loot, to Wearmouth. There Malcolm met Edgar and his family, who were invited to return with him, but did not. As Sweyn had by now been bought off with a large Danegeld, Malcolm took his army home. In reprisal, William sent Gospatric to raid Scotland through Cumbria. In return, the Scots fleet raided the Northumbrian coast where Gospatric's possessions were concentrated.[40] Late in the year, perhaps shipwrecked on their way to a European exile, Edgar and his family again arrived in Scotland, this time to remain. By the end of 1070, Malcolm had married Edgar's sister Margaret of Wessex, the future Saint Margaret of Scotland.[41]

The naming of their children represented a break with the traditional Scots regal names such as Malcolm, Cinâaed and Áed. The point of naming Margaret's sons—Edward after her father Edward the Exile, Edmund for her grandfather Edmund Ironside, Ethelred for her great-grandfather Ethelred the Unready and Edgar for her great-great-grandfather Edgar and her brother, briefly the elected king, Edgar ¥theling—was unlikely to be missed in England, where William of Normandy's grasp on power was far from secure.[42] Whether the adoption of the classical Alexander for the future Alexander I of Scotland (either for Pope Alexander II or for Alexander the Great) and the biblical David for the future David I of Scotland represented a recognition that William of Normandy would not be easily removed, or was due to the repetition of Anglo-Saxon royal name—another Edmund had preceded Edgar—is not known.[43] Margaret also gave Malcolm two daughters, Edith, who married Henry I of England, and Mary, who married Eustace III of Boulogne.

In 1072, with the Harrying of the North completed and his position again secure, William of Normandy came north with an army and a fleet. Malcolm met William at Abernethy and, in the words of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle "became his man" and handed over his eldest son Duncan as a hostage and arranged peace between William and Edgar.[44] Accepting the overlordship of the king of the English was no novelty, as previous kings had done so without result. The same was true of Malcolm; his agreement with the English king was followed by further raids into Northumbria, which led to further trouble in the earldom and the killing of Bishop William Walcher at Gateshead. In 1080, William sent his son Robert Curthose north with an army while his brother Odo punished the Northumbrians. Malcolm again made peace, and this time kept it for over a decade.[45]

Malcolm faced little recorded internal opposition, with the exception of Lulach's son Mâael Snechtai. In an unusual entry, for the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle contains little on Scotland, it says that in 1078:

Malcholom [Mâael Coluim] seized the mother of Mµlslµhtan [Mâael Snechtai] ... and all his treasures, and his cattle; and he himself escaped with difficulty.[46]

Whatever provoked this strife, Mâael Snechtai survived until 1085.[47]

Malcolm and William Rufus

William Rufus, "the Red", king of the English (1087–1100)
When William Rufus became king of England after his father's death, Malcolm did not intervene in the rebellions by supporters of Robert Curthose which followed. In 1091, William Rufus confiscated Edgar ¥theling's lands in England, and Edgar fled north to Scotland. In May, Malcolm marched south, not to raid and take slaves and plunder, but to besiege Newcastle, built by Robert Curthose in 1080. This appears to have been an attempt to advance the frontier south from the River Tweed to the River Tees. The threat was enough to bring the English king back from Normandy, where he had been fighting Robert Curthose. In September, learning of William Rufus's approaching army, Malcolm withdrew north and the English followed. Unlike in 1072, Malcolm was prepared to fight, but a peace was arranged by Edgar ¥theling and Robert Curthose whereby Malcolm again acknowledged the overlordship of the English king.[48]

In 1092, the peace began to break down. Based on the idea that the Scots controlled much of modern Cumbria, it had been supposed that William Rufus's new castle at Carlisle and his settlement of English peasants in the surrounds was the cause. It is unlikely that Malcolm controlled Cumbria, and the dispute instead concerned the estates granted to Malcolm by William Rufus's father in 1072 for his maintenance when visiting England. Malcolm sent messengers to discuss the question and William Rufus agreed to a meeting. Malcolm travelled south to Gloucester, stopping at Wilton Abbey to visit his daughter Edith and sister-in-law Cristina. Malcolm arrived there on 24 August 1093 to find that William Rufus refused to negotiate, insisting that the dispute be judged by the English barons. This Malcolm refused to accept, and returned immediately to Scotland.[49]

It does not appear that William Rufus intended to provoke a war,[50] but, as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports, war came:

For this reason therefore they parted with great dissatisfaction, and the King Malcolm returned to Scotland. And soon after he came home, he gathered his army, and came harrowing into England with more hostility than behoved him ....[51]

Malcolm was accompanied by Edward, his eldest son by Margaret and probable heir-designate (or tâanaiste), and by Edgar.[52] Even by the standards of the time, the ravaging of Northumbria by the Scots was seen as harsh.[53]

Death

Memorial cross said to mark the spot where King Malcolm III of Scotland was killed while besieging Alnwick Castle in 1093.
While marching north again, Malcolm was ambushed by Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumbria, whose lands he had devastated, near Alnwick on 13 November 1093. There he was killed by Arkil Morel, steward of Bamburgh Castle. The conflict became known as the Battle of Alnwick.[54] Edward was mortally wounded in the same fight. Margaret, it is said, died soon after receiving the news of their deaths from Edgar.[55] The Annals of Ulster say:

Mael Coluim son of Donnchad, over-king of Scotland, and Edward his son, were killed by the French [i.e. Normans] in Inber Alda in England. His queen, Margaret, moreover, died of sorrow for him within nine days.[56]

Malcolm's body was taken to Tynemouth Priory for burial. The king's body was sent north for reburial, in the reign of his son Alexander, at Dunfermline Abbey, or possibly Iona.[57]

On 19 June 1250, following the canonisation of Malcolm's wife Margaret by Pope Innocent IV, Margaret's remains were disinterred and placed in a reliquary. Tradition has it that as the reliquary was carried to the high altar of Dunfermline Abbey, past Malcolm's grave, it became too heavy to move. As a result, Malcolm's remains were also disinterred, and buried next to Margaret beside the altar.[58]

Issue

Malcolm and Ingibiorg had three sons:

Duncan II of Scotland, succeeded his father as King of Scotland
Donald, died ca.1094
Malcolm, died ca.1085
Malcolm and Margaret had eight children, six sons and two daughters:

Edward, killed 1093
Edmund of Scotland
Ethelred, abbot of Dunkeld
King Edgar of Scotland
King Alexander I of Scotland
King David I of Scotland
Edith of Scotland, also called Matilda, married King Henry I of England
Mary of Scotland, married Eustace III of Boulogne

end of biography

Malcolm married Margaret of Wessex, Queen of Scotland in ~1069 in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. Margaret (daughter of Edward the Exile and Agatha) was born in ~1045 in Wessex, England; died on 16 Nov 1093 in Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland; was buried in Dunfermline Abbey, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44401.

Margaret of Wessex, Queen of Scotland was born in ~1045 in Wessex, England (daughter of Edward the Exile and Agatha); died on 16 Nov 1093 in Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland; was buried in Dunfermline Abbey, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland.

Notes:

Saint Margaret "Queen of Scotland" Ceannmore formerly Wessex aka Canmore, Mac Donnachadh, Dunkeld
Born 1045 in Wessex, England
ANCESTORS ancestors
Daughter of Edward (Wessex) of Wessex and Agatha (Unknown) Wessex
Sister of Cristina (of England) Wessex, Edgar (Wessex) Atheling and Aethlreda (Wessex) ¥theling
Wife of Malcolm (Dunkeld) of Scotland — married about 1069 in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland
DESCENDANTS descendants
Mother of Heth MacCrinan (Dunkeld) Earl of Fife, Edward (Dunkeld) of Scotland, Edmund Dunkeld, Aethelred (Dunkeld) Canmore, Edgar (Dunkeld) King of Scotland, Alexander mac Maâil Coluim (Dunkeld) of Scotland, Eadgith (Dunkeld) of Scotland, Mary (Dunkeld) Scotland and David (Dunkeld) of Scotland
Died 16 Nov 1093 in Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Mid-Lothian, Scotland

Profile managers: Terry Wright Find Relationship private message [send private message], Scotland Project WikiTree Find Relationship private message [send private message], Wendy Hampton Find Relationship private message [send private message], and Nichole Gump private message [send private message]
Wessex-26 created 2 Jan 2011 | Last modified 13 May 2019
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Margaret (Wessex) Ceannmore is a member of the House of Wessex.
Contents
[hide]
1 Biography
1.1 Early Life
1.2 Family
1.3 Death
1.4 Canonisation
2 Sources
Biography
Saint Margaret of Scotland also known as Margaret of Wessex

b. abt. 1045; Margaret may have been born in Hungary,[1] "Aldred Bishop of Worcester, ambassador of King Edward 'the Confessor', proposed to the emperor to send envoys to Hungary to bring back Edward and have him conducted to England."[2]
d. 16 November 1093
Early Life
Margaret's parents were Edward "the Exile" (1016 – Aug 1057) son of Edmund Ironside, and his wife, Agatha, who was related to Gisela, wife of St. Stephen of Hungary,[3] Agatha's origins are disputed.[4]

Her father returned to England in 1057 and died two days later. After the conquest of England by the Normans, she was returning with her mother Agatha to return to the Continent when a storm drove their ship to Scotland, where the king, Malcolm III received them.[3]

Family
Margaret married at Dunfermline Abbey, in 1070, Malcolm III "Caennmor/Bighead" King of Scotland as his second wife.[2] Issue:

Edward, killed at Alnwick defending father;
Ethelred, Earl of Fife, and Abbot of Dunkeld before its erection into a bishopric, and still under Columbite rule, who gave lands of Ardmore to the Culdees of Loch Leven. Buried at St Andrews;
Edmund, who once shared throne with uncle, Donald-bain; became a monk after Donald's deposition in the Cluniae Priory of Montague in Somersetshire, and died there in the odour of sanctity. —Sir James Balfour;
Edgar, who told his mother about his father's and brother's death at Dunfermline (Turgot, confessor and biographer);
Alexander I, surnamed Fierce, had the earldom of Innergoury - given by uncle (Donald-bain) at his baptism;
David I, the Saint;
Matilda m. Henry I, King of England;
Mary m. Eustace, Count de Bulloigne, (bros. Godfrey, King of Jerusalem). issue: "Matilda" m. Stephen, King of England; from Mary also descended the Dukes de Bulloigne, including the celebrated Turenne, General of Louis XIV;[5]
Death
Already ill when her son, Edmund, told her that her husband and eldest son died on 13 November 1093, Margaret died in Edinburgh Castle three days after them on 16 Nov 1093, some say of a broken heart.[2]

(Royal Ancestry) (Malcolm's) widow, Margaret, died at Edinburgh Castle 16 Nov. 1093, and was buried before the high altar in the church of the Holy Trinity at Dunfermline, Fife.

(Wikipedia) In 1250 her body and that of her husband were exhumed and placed in a new shrine in the Abbey. In 1560 Mary Queen of Scots had Margaret's head removed to Edinburgh Castle as a relic to assist her in childbirth. In 1597 the head ended up with the Jesuits at the Scots' College, Douai, France, but was lost during the French Revolution. Philip II of Spain had the other remains of Margaret and her husband Malcolm transferred to the Escorial in Madrid (royal mausoleum), but they cannot now be found. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Margaret_of_Scotland)

Canonisation
Maragaret was canonised in the year 1250, by Pope Innocent IV. In 1969, her veneration day was changed to the date of her death--16 Nov. 1093. She was already ill when her son, Edmund, told her of her husband and eldest son's death. Margaret died in Edinburgh Castle nine days later, some say of a broken heart.[2]

(Royal Ancestry) She was canonized by Pope Innocent IV in 1250.

Sources
Royal Ancestry 2013 Vol. IV p. 576-578
? If she was bornin Hungary, there should be a source that she was born at Castle Reka, Mecseknaddasd, Hungary in 1054
? 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Charles Cawley, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy (FMG), KINGS of WESSEX 802-944, KINGS of ENGLAND 944-1066, Medieval Lands, 2006-15, accessed 20 July 2015.
? 3.0 3.1 Huddleston, Gilbert. "St. Margaret of Scotland." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 20 July 2015 .
? Wikipedia: Edward the Exile, accessed 20 July 2015.
? Douglas, D. (1899). Scottish kings: A revised chronology of Scottish history, 1005-1625. Edinburgh. archive.org.
See also:

Post, W.E. (1999). Saints, Signs and Symbols, (2nd, ed. pp.47). Essex: Hart-Talbot Printers, Ltd.
Wikipedia contributors, "Saint Margaret of Scotland," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Saint_Margaret_of_Scotland&oldid=788950538 (accessed August 1, 2017).

end of this biography

Saint Margaret of Scotland (c. 1045 - 16 November 1093), also known as Margaret of Wessex, was an English princess and a Scottish queen. Margaret was sometimes called "The Pearl of Scotland".[1] Born in exile in the Kingdom of Hungary, she was the sister of Edgar ¥theling, the shortly reigned and uncrowned Anglo-Saxon King of England. Margaret and her family returned to the Kingdom of England in 1057, but fled to the Kingdom of Scotland following the Norman conquest of England in 1066. By the end of 1070, Margaret had married King Malcolm III of Scotland, becoming Queen of Scots. She was a very pious Roman Catholic, and among many charitable works she established a ferry across the Firth of Forth in Scotland for pilgrims travelling to St Andrews in Fife, which gave the towns of South Queensferry and North Queensferry their names. Margaret was the mother of three kings of Scotland, or four, if Edmund of Scotland, who ruled with his uncle, Donald III, is counted, and of a queen consort of England. According to the Vita S. Margaritae (Scotorum) Reginae (Life of St. Margaret, Queen (of the Scots)), attributed to Turgot of Durham, she died at Edinburgh Castle in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1093, merely days after receiving the news of her husband's death in battle. In 1250 Pope Innocent IV canonized her, and her remains were reinterred in a shrine in Dunfermline Abbey in Fife, Scotland. Her relics were dispersed after the Scottish Reformation and subsequently lost. Mary, Queen of Scots at one time owned her head, which was subsequently preserved by Jesuits in the Scottish College, Douai, France, from where it was subsequently lost during the French Revolution.

Queen consort of Scotland
Tenure 1070-93
Born c.?1045
Kingdom of Hungary
Died 16 November 1093
Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Kingdom of Scotland
Burial Dunfermline Abbey, Fife, Kingdom of Scotland
Spouse Malcolm III, King of Scotland
Issue
more... Edmund, Bishop of Dunkeld
Ethelred
Edgar, King of Scotland
Alexander I, King of Scotland
David I, King of Scotland
Matilda, Queen of England
Mary, Countess of Boulogne
House Wessex
Father Edward the Exile
Mother Agatha

Early life

Margaret from a medieval family tree.
Margaret was the daughter of the English prince Edward the Exile, and granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, King of England.[1] After the Danish conquest of England in 1016, King Canute the Great had the infant Edward exiled to the continent. He was taken first to the court of the Swedish king, Olof Skèotkonung, and then to Kiev. As an adult, he travelled to Hungary, where in 1046 he supported the successful bid of King Andrew I for the Hungarian crown. King Andrew I was then also known as "Andrew the Catholic" for his extreme aversion to pagans and great loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church. The provenance of Margaret's mother, Agatha, is disputed, but Margaret was born in Hungary c. 1045. Her brother Edgar the ¥theling and sister Cristina were also born in Hungary around this time. Margaret grew up in a very religious environment in the Hungarian court.

Return to England

Still a child, she came to England with the rest of her family when her father, Edward the Exile, was recalled in 1057 as a possible successor to her great-uncle, the childless King Edward the Confessor. Whether from natural or sinister causes, her father died immediately after landing, and Margaret continued to reside at the English court where her brother, Edgar ¥theling, was considered a possible successor to the English throne.[1] When Edward the Confessor died in January 1066, Harold Godwinson was selected as king, possibly because Edgar was considered too young. After Harold's defeat at the Battle of Hastings later that year, Edgar was proclaimed King of England, but when the Normans advanced on London, the Witenagemot presented Edgar to William the Conqueror, who took him to Normandy before returning him to England in 1068, when Edgar, Margaret, Cristina, and their mother Agatha fled north to Northumbria, England.

Journey to Scotland

According to tradition, the widowed Agatha decided to leave Northumbria, England with her children and return to the continent. However, a storm drove their ship north to the Kingdom of Scotland in 1068, where they sought the protection of King Malcolm III. The locus where it is believed that they landed is known today as St Margaret's Hope, near the village of North Queensferry, Fife, Scotland. Margaret's arrival in Scotland, after the failed revolt of the Northumbrian earls, has been heavily romanticized, though Symeon of Durham implied that her first meeting of Malcolm III may not have been until 1070, after William the Conqueror's Harrying of the North.

King Malcolm III was a widower with two sons, Donald and Duncan. He would have been attracted to marrying one of the few remaining members of the Anglo-Saxon royal family. The marriage of Malcolm and Margaret occurred in 1070. Subsequently, Malcolm executed several invasions of Northumberland to support the claim of his new brother-in-law Edgar and to increase his own power. These, however, had little effect save the devastation of the County.[2]

Progeny

Margaret and Malcolm had eight children, six sons and two daughters:

Edward (c. 1071 — 13 November 1093), killed along with his father Malcolm III in the Battle of Alnwick
Edmund of Scotland (c.1071 – post 1097)
Ethelred of Scotland, Abbot of Dunkeld, Perth and Kinross, Scotland
Edgar of Scotland (c.1074 — 11 January 1107), King of Scotland, regnat 1097-1107
Alexander I of Scotland (c.1078 — 23 April 1124), King of Scotland, regnat 1107-24
Edith of Scotland (c. 1080 – 1 May 1118), also named "Matilda", married King Henry I of England, Queen Consort of England
Mary of Scotland (1082-1116), married Eustace III of Boulogne
David I of Scotland (c.1083 – 24 May 1153), King of Scotland, regnat 1124-53

Piety

Malcolm greeting Margaret at her arrival in Scotland; detail of a mural by Victorian artist William Hole
Margaret's biographer Turgot of Durham, Bishop of St. Andrew's, credits her with having a civilizing influence on her husband Malcolm by reading him narratives from the Bible. She instigated religious reform, striving to conform the worship and practices of the Church in Scotland to those of Rome. This she did on the inspiration and with the guidance of Lanfranc, a future Archbishop of Canterbury.[3] She also worked to conform the practices of the Scottish Church to those of the continental Church, which she experienced in her childhood. Due to these achievements, she was considered an exemplar of the "just ruler", and moreover influenced her husband and children, especially her youngest son, the future King David I of Scotland, to be just and holy rulers.

"The chroniclers all agree in depicting Queen Margaret as a strong, pure, noble character, who had very great influence over her husband, and through him over Scottish history, especially in its ecclesiastical aspects. Her religion, which was genuine and intense, was of the newest Roman style; and to her are attributed a number of reforms by which the Church [in] Scotland was considerably modified from the insular and primitive type which down to her time it had exhibited. Among those expressly mentioned are a change in the manner of observing Lent, which thenceforward began as elsewhere on Ash Wednesday and not as previously on the following Monday, and the abolition of the old practice of observing Saturday (Sabbath), not Sunday, as the day of rest from labour (see Skene's Celtic Scotland, book ii chap. 8)."[4] The later editions of the Encyclopµdia Britannica, however, as an example, the Eleventh Edition, remove Skene's opinion that Scottish Catholics formerly rested from work on Saturday, something for which there is no historical evidence. Skene's Celtic Scotland, vol. ii, chap. 8, pp. 348–350, quotes from a contemporary document regarding Margaret's life, but his source says nothing at all of Saturday Sabbath observance, but rather says St. Margaret exhorted the Scots to cease their tendency "to neglect the due observance of the Lord's day."

She attended to charitable works, serving orphans and the poor every day before she ate and washing the feet of the poor in imitation of Christ. She rose at midnight every night to attend the liturgy. She successfully invited the Benedictine Order to establish a monastery in Dunfermline, Fife in 1072, and established ferries at Queensferry and North Berwick to assist pilgrims journeying from south of the Firth of Forth to St. Andrew's in Fife. She used a cave on the banks of the Tower Burn in Dunfermline as a place of devotion and prayer. St. Margaret's Cave, now covered beneath a municipal car park, is open to the public.[5] Among other deeds, Margaret also instigated the restoration of Iona Abbey in Scotland.[6] She is also known to have interceded for the release of fellow English exiles who had been forced into serfdom by the Norman conquest of England.[7]

Margaret was as pious privately as she was publicly. She spent much of her time in prayer, devotional reading, and ecclesiastical embroidery. This apparently had considerable effect on the more uncouth Malcolm, who was illiterate: he so admired her piety that he had her books decorated in gold and silver. One of these, a pocket gospel book with portraits of the Evangelists, is in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England.[8]

Malcolm was apparently largely ignorant of the long-term effects of Margaret's endeavours, not being especially religious himself. He was content for her to pursue her reforms as she desired, which was a testament to the strength of and affection in their marriage.[6]

Death

Her husband Malcolm III, and their eldest son Edward, were killed in the Battle of Alnwick against the English on 13 November 1093. Her son Edgar was left with the task of informing his mother of their deaths. Margaret was not yet 50 years old, but a life of constant austerity and fasting had taken its toll.[3] Already ill, Margaret died on 16 November 1093, three days after the deaths of her husband and eldest son. She was buried before the high altar in Dunfermline Abbey in Fife, Scotland. In 1250, the year of her canonization, her body and that of her husband were exhumed and placed in a new shrine in the Abbey. In 1560 Mary Queen of Scots had Margaret's head removed to Edinburgh Castle as a relic to assist her in childbirth. In 1597 Margaret's head ended up with the Jesuits at the Scottish College, Douai, France, but was lost during the French Revolution. King Philip of Spain had the other remains of Margaret and Malcolm III transferred to the Escorial palace in Madrid, Spain, but their present location has not been discovered.[9]

Veneration

Site of the ruined Shrine of St. Margaret at Dunfermline Abbey, Fife, Scotland

St Margaret's Chapel in Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland

St Margaret's Church in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland
Canonization and feast day[edit]
Pope Innocent IV canonized St. Margaret in 1250 in recognition of her personal holiness, fidelity to the Roman Catholic Church, work for ecclesiastical reform, and charity. On 19 June 1250, after her canonisation, her remains were transferred to a chapel in the eastern apse of Dunfermline Abbey in Fife, Scotland.[10] In 1693 Pope Innocent XII moved her feast day to 10 June in recognition of the birthdate of the son of James VII of Scotland and II of England.[11] In the revision of the General Roman Calendar in 1969, 16 November became free and the Church transferred her feast day to 16 November, the date of her death, on which it always had been observed in Scotland.[12] However, some traditionalist Catholics continue to celebrate her feast day on 10 June.

She is also venerated as a saint in the Anglican Church.

Institutions bearing her name

Several churches throughout the world are dedicated in honour of St Margaret. One of the oldest is St Margaret's Chapel in Edinburgh Castle in Edinburgh, Scotland, which her son King David I founded. The Chapel was long thought to have been the oratory of Margaret herself, but is now thought to have been established in the 12th century. The oldest edifice in Edinburgh, it was restored in the 19th century and refurbished in the 1990s. Numerous other institutions are named for her as well.

end of this biography

Notes:

Married:
She is part of the English royal family fleeing the Normans after 1066.

Children:

24195. Matilda of Scotland, Queen of England was born in 1080 in Dumfermline, Scotland; died on 1 May 1118 in Westminster Palace, Westminster, London, Middlesex, England; was buried in Westminster Abbey, 20 Deans Yd, London SW1P 3PA, United Kingdom.
Mary of Scotland was born in 1082 in Dumfermline, Scotland; died in 1116.
22200. David I of Scotland, King of the Scots was born in ~1085 in Dumfermline, Scotland; died on 24 May 1154 in Carlisle, Scotland; was buried in Dunfermline Abbey, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland.

44404.

Sir William de Warenne, Knight, 1st Earl of Surrey was born in ~1035 in Bellencombre, Normandie, France; died on 20 Jun 1088 in Pevensey, Sussex, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Possessions: Lewes Castle, East Sussex, England
Military: 1066; fought at the Battle of Hastings

Notes:

William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, Seigneur de Varennes (died 1088), was a Norman nobleman created Earl of Surrey under William II Rufus. He was one of the few who was documented to have been with William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. At the time of the Domesday Survey, he held extensive lands in 13 counties including the Rape of Lewes in Sussex, now East Sussex.

Early career[

William was a younger son of Ranulf I de Warenne and his 1st wife Beatrice (whose mother was probably a sister of duchess Gunnor, wife of duke Richard I).[a] Likewise, Orderic Vitalis describes William as Roger's consanguineus, literally 'cousin', more generically a term of close kinship, but not typically used to describe brothers, and Roger de Mortimer appears to have been a generation older than William de Warenne, his purported brother.[2] Charters report several earlier men associated with Warenne. A Ranulf de Warenne appears in a charter dated between 1027 and 1035, and in one from about 1050 with a wife Beatrice, while in 1059, Ranulf and wife Emma appear along with their sons Ranulf and William. These occurrences have typically been taken to represent successive wives of a single Ranulf, with Beatrice being the mother of William and hence identical to the Gunnorid niece (Thomas Stapleton,[3] in spite of the 1059 charter explicitly naming Emma as his mother.[4] A reevaluation of the surviving charters led Katherine Keats-Rohan to suggest that, as he appears to have done elsewhere, Robert of Torigny has compressed two generations into one, with a Ranulf (I) and Beatrice being parents of Ranulf (II) de Warenne and of Roger de Mortimer (a Roger son of Ranulf de Warenne appears in a charter dated 1040/1053), and Ranulf (II) and Emma were then parents of Ranulf (III), the heir in Normandy, and William, as attested by the 1059 charter. Associations with Vascœuil led to identification of the Warenne progenitrix with a widow Beatrice, daughter of Tesselin, vicomte of Rouen, appearing there in 1054/60. As Robert of Torigny shows a vicomte of Rouen to have married a niece of Gunnor, this perhaps explains the tradition of a Gunnorid relationship.[5] On Robert's genealogies, see also Eleanor Searle,[6][7][8] William was from the hamlet of Varenne, near to Arques-la-Bataille, Duchy of Normandy, now in the canton of Bellencombre, Seine Maritime.[9][10][11] At the beginning of Duke William’s reign, Ranulf II was not a major landholder and, as a second son, William de Warenne did not stand to inherit the family’s small estates. During the rebellions of 1052-1054, the young William de Warenne proved himself a loyal adherent to the Duke and played a significant part in the Battle of Mortemer for which he was rewarded with lands confiscated from his uncle, Roger of Mortemer, including the Castle of Mortimer and most of the surrounding lands.[12] At about the same time he acquired lands at Bellencombre including the castle which became the center of William de Warenne’s holdings in Normandy[7]

Conquest of England

Coat of Arms of the de Warenne Earls of Surrey
William was among the Norman barons summoned to a council by Duke William when the decision was made to oppose King Harold II's accession to the throne of England.[7][13] He fought at the Battle of Hastings and was well rewarded with numerous holdings. The Domesday book records his lands stretched over thirteen counties and included the important Rape of Sussex, several manors in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, the significant manor of Conisbrough in Yorkshire and Castle Acre in Norfolk, which became his caput (see below).[7][8] He is one of the very few proven companions of William the Conqueror known to have fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.[14][15][16] He fought against rebels at the Isle of Ely in 1071, where he showed a special desire to hunt down Hereward the Wake who had killed his brother-in-law Frederick the year before.[17][18] Hereward is supposed to have unhorsed him with an arrow shot.[19]

Later career

Sometime between 1078 and 1082,[20] William and his wife Gundred traveled to Rome visiting monasteries along the way. In Burgundy they were unable to go any further due to a war between Emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII. They visited Cluny Abbey and were impressed with the monks and their dedication. William and Gundred decided to found a Cluniac priory on their own lands in England. William restored buildings for an abbey. They sent to Hugh, the abbot of Cluny, for monks to come to England at their monastery. At first Hugh was reluctant but he finally sent several monks, including Lazlo who was to be the first abbot. The house they founded was Lewes Priory, dedicated to St. Pancras,[21][22] the first Cluniac priory in England[23]

William was loyal to William II,[17] and it was probably in early 1088 that he was created Earl of Surrey.[24] He was mortally wounded at the First Siege of Pevensey Castle and died 24 June 1088 at Lewes, Sussex, and was buried next to his wife Gundred at the Chapterhouse of Lewes Priory.[25][26]

Family

He married first, before 1070, Gundred, daughter of William the Conqueror and Matilda his wife. This is shown in a charter of William referring to Gundrada (Gundred in Latin) as "Filae Meae" (my daughter),[27][28] sister of Gerbod the Fleming, 1st Earl of Chester. Ordericus Vitalis made many errors in his Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, which he wrote a hundred years after the Conquest. Ordericus Vitalis was a seventy-year-old man with an intense dislike for Normans, and continually made errors in his history (see Reverend Thomas Warren: History of the Warren Family); since then numerous English historians have tried to authenticate its account of Conqueror and his family, but have not succeeded. Gundred De Warren was buried at Lewes Castle. Her grave cover still exists as a marble slab of exactly the same design as that of her mother's grave cover, which is also in the same black decorated marble. DNA is likely to prove that Gundred and Matilda were mother and daughter. Such was the English dislike for the Normans, that they stole both William De Warren's and his wife's grave covers to place over graves of their own.[29][30][31]

William married secondly a sister of Richard Gouet, who survived him.[32]

Issue

By Gundred Surrey had:

William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey (d. 1138), who married Elisabeth (Isabelle) de Vermandois, widow of Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester.[33]
Edith de Warenne, who married firstly Gerard de Gournay, lord of Gournay-en-Bray, and secondly Drew de Monchy.[34]
Reynold de Warenne, who inherited lands from his mother in Flanders[34] and died c. 1106–08.[35]
An unnamed daughter, who married Ernise de Coulonces.[36]
Surrey, by his second wife, had no issue.

Possessions:
Lewes Castle stands at the highest point of Lewes, East Sussex, England on an artificial mound constructed with chalk blocks. It was originally called Bray Castle.

Images, history & source citation ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewes_Castle

William married Gundred of Flanders, Countess of Surrey before 1070. Gundred was born in Flanders, Belgium; died on 27 May 1085 in Castle Acre, Norfolk, England; was buried in Lewes Priory, Sussex, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44405.

Gundred of Flanders, Countess of Surrey was born in Flanders, Belgium; died on 27 May 1085 in Castle Acre, Norfolk, England; was buried in Lewes Priory, Sussex, England.

Notes:

Gundred or Gundreda (Latin: Gundrada) (died 27 May 1085)[1] was the Flemish-born wife of an early Norman baron, William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey. She and her husband established Lewes Priory in Sussex.

Life

Gundred was almost certainly born in Flanders, and was a sister of Gerbod the Fleming, 1st Earl of Chester.[2][3][4][5] She is explicitly so called by Orderic Vitalis,[6] as well as the chronicle of Hyde Abbey[7] She was also sister of Frederick of Oosterzele-Scheldewindeke, who was killed c.1070 by Hereward the Wake.[8] Legends based in part on late Lewes priory cartulary[a] suggested Gundred was a daughter of William the Conqueror by his spouse Matilda of Flanders,[9] but this is not accepted by most modern historians.[10][11] The early-19th-century writer Thomas Stapleton had argued she was a daughter of Matilda, born prior to her marriage to Duke William.[12] This sparked a debate consisting of a series of published papers culminating with those of Edmond Chester Waters and Edward Augustus Freeman who argued the theories could not be supported.[13][14][15] Regardless, some genealogical and historical sources continue to make the assertion that she was the Conqueror's daughter.[16][17][18][19]

Gundred married before 1070[20] William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey (d. 20 June 1088),[1] who rebuilt Lewes Castle, making it his chief residence. Sometime between 1078 and 1082,[21] Gundrada and her husband set out for Rome visiting monasteries along the way. In Burgundy they were unable to go any further due to a war between Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII. They visited Cluny Abbey and were impressed with the monks and their dedication. William and Gundred decided to found a Cluniac priory on their own lands in England. They sent to Hugh the abbot of Cluny for monks to come to England at their monastery. Hugh was reluctant yet eventually sent several monks including Lazlo who became the first abbot. The house they founded was Lewes Priory dedicated to St. Pancras.[22][23] Gundred died in childbirth 27 May 1085 at Castle Acre, Norfolk, one of her husband's estates, and was buried at the Chapter house of Lewes Priory.[1][23] He was later buried beside her.[24]

Tombstone

In the course of the centuries which followed, both tombstones disappeared from the priory but in 1774 William Burrell, Esq., an antiquary, discovered Gundred's in Isfield Church (seven miles from Lewes), over the remains of Edward Shirley, Esq., (d. 1550), and had it removed on October 2, 1775, to St. John's Church, Southover, where it was placed on display.[25]

In 1845, during excavations through the Priory grounds for the Brighton Lewes and Hastings Railway, the lead chests containing the remains of the Earl and his Countess were discovered and were deposited temporarily beneath Gundred's tombstone.[25] In 1847 a Norman Revival chapel was erected by public subscription, adjoining the present vestry and chancel. Prior to re-interring the remains in this chapel, both chests were opened to ascertain if there were any contents, which was found to be the case. New chests were made and used, and the ancient ones preserved and placed in two recessed arches in the southern wall. The Earl's chest has lost some lead. Gundred's chest remains in a good state of preservation. Across the upper part of the right arch is the name Gvndrada. Her tombstone is of black Tournai marble.[26]

Family

The children of William de Warenne and Gundred were:

William II de Warenne (d. 11 May 1138), buried in Lewes Priory.[2][27]
Reginald de Warenne, an adherent of Robert of Normandy.[2][24]
Edith de Warenne, married, 1stly, Gerard de Gournay, Lord of Gournay-en-Bray, 2ndly, Drew de Monchy.[2][24]

Controversy on parentage

Legends based in part on late Lewes Priory cartulary[a] suggested Gundred was a daughter of William the Conqueror by his spouse Matilda of Flanders,[19] but this is not accepted by most modern historians.[20][21] The early-19th-century writer Thomas Stapleton had argued she was a daughter of Matilda born prior to her marriage to Duke William.[22] This theory sparked a debate consisting of a series of published papers. It culminated with those of Edmond Chester Waters and Edward Augustus Freeman, who argued the theories could not be supported.[23][24][b] Nonetheless, some genealogical and historical sources continue to make the assertion that she was the Conqueror's daughter.[25][26][27][28]

Notes

Jump up ^ The reference here to late Lewes priory cartulary is to copies of charters that date centuries after the originals and specifically those which had been altered or forged to add the desired evidence she was the daughter of royalty. For more information on these forged charters see: English Historical Documents 1042-1189, ed. David C. Douglas, George W. Greenaway, Vol. II (Oxford University Press, New York, 1953), p. 605; L.C. Loyd, 'The Origin of the Family of Warenne' ‘’Yorks Archaeol. Journal’’, vol. xxxi, pp. 97-113; and C. T. Clay, ‘'Early Yorkshire Charters’’, vol. VIII (1949), pp. 59.-62.

References

^ Jump up to: a b c G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, vol. xii/1 (The St. Catherine Press, London, 1953), p. 494
^ Jump up to: a b c d Early Yorkshire Charters, ed: William Farrer, Charles Travis Clay, Volume VIII - The Honour of Warenne (The Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1949), pp. 40-46
Jump up ^ F. Anderson, Uxor Mea: The First Wife of the First William of Warenne, Sussex archaeological collections, Vol. 130 (Sussex Archaeological Society, 1992) pp. 107-8
Jump up ^ Elisabeth van Houts, 'Epitaph of Gundrada of Warenne', Nova de Veteribus, Mitel-und neulateinische Studien fur Paul Gerhard Schmidt (K.G. Saur, Munchen Leipzig, 2004), p. 372
Jump up ^ P. Anselme de Sainte-Marie, Histoire de la maison royale de France et des grands officiers de la Couronne, V.6 (Estienne Loyson, 1674), p. 26
Jump up ^ Ordericus Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, Translated by Thomas Forester, Vol. ii, (Henry G. Bohn, London, MDCCCLIV (1854), p. 49
Jump up ^ Hyde Abbey, Liber Monasterii de Hyda: Comprising a Chronicle of the affairs of England, (Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, London, 1866), p. xcvii. Note: the anonymous Hyde chronicler identified two of Gundred's brothers, Gerbod, Earl of Cheter and Frederick.
Jump up ^ Elisabeth van Houts, 'Frederick, Brother-in-Law of William of Warenne', Anglo-Saxon England, Vol. 28 (1999), pp. 218-220
Jump up ^ George Duckett, 'Observations on the Parentage of Gundreda, Countess of Warenne', The Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Journal, Vol. ix, Part xxxiii, 1885, pp. 421-437 Note: Sir George Duckett, Bart., was the leading proponent of the theory that Gundred was the daughter of William the Conqueror and Matilda
Jump up ^ G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, vol. xii/1 (The St. Catherine Press, London, 1953), p. 494 note (j)
Jump up ^ David C. Doulgas, William the Conqueror (University of California Press, 1964), p. 392
Jump up ^ Stapleton, Thomas, 'Observations in disproof of the pretended marriage of William de Warren, Earl of Surrey, with a daughter begotten of Matildis, daughter of Baldwin, Comte of Flanders, by William the Conqueror, and illustrative of the origin and early history of the family in Normandy', The Archaeological Journal 3 (1846):1-26 Note: despite the confusing title Stapleton's theory was that Gundred was a daughter of Matilda of Flanders by an earlier marriage.
Jump up ^ Edmond Chester Waters, 'Gundrada de Warenne', The Archaeological Journal, Vol. xli (London, 1884), pp. 300-312
Jump up ^ Edward A. Freeman, 'The Parentage of Gundrada, Wife of William of Warren', The English Historical Review, Vol. 3, No. 12 (Oct., 1888), pp. 680-701
Jump up ^ For an extensive discussion regarding the participants of this nineteenth-century debate see : Victoria Chandler, 'Gundrada de Warenne and the Victorian Gentlemen-Scholars', Southern History, Vol. 12 (1990), pp. 68-81
Jump up ^ American Biography; a New Cyclopedia, Vol. ix (The American Historial Society, New York, 1921)p. 276
Jump up ^ Colonial Families of the United States of America, ed. Nelson Osgood Rhoades, Vol. VII (Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, 1966). pp. 319, 347
Jump up ^ Rene Beckley, Ancient Walls of East Anglia (Terence Dalton, Ltd., Lavenham, Suffolk, 1979), p. 66
Jump up ^ Charles Cooper, A village in Sussex: the history of Kingston-near-Lewes (I.B. Taurus, London, 2006), p. 44
Jump up ^ Elisabeth van Houts, 'The Warenne View of the Past 1066-1203)', Anglo-Norman Studies XXIV, Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2003, Vol. 26 (The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 2004), p. 104 & n. 8
Jump up ^ Early Yorkshire Charters, ed: William Farrer, Charles Travis Clay, Volume VIII - The Honour of Warenne (The Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1949), p. 4
Jump up ^ B. Golding, 'The Coming of the Cluniacs', Anglo-Norman Studies III; Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1980, Vol. iii (Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 1981), pp. 65, 67
^ Jump up to: a b Early Yorkshire Charters, ed: William Farrer, Charles Travis Clay, Volume VIII - The Honour of Warenne (The Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1949), pp. 50-55
^ Jump up to: a b c G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, vol. xii/1 (The St. Catherine Press, London, 1953), p. 495 note (b)
^ Jump up to: a b Elisabeth van Houts, 'Epitaph of Gundrada of Warenne', Nova de Veteribus, Mitel-und neulateinische Studien fur Paul Gerhard Schmidt (K.G. Saur, Munchen Leipzig, 2004), p. 367
Jump up ^ Elisabeth van Houts, 'Epitaph of Gundrada of Warenne', Nova de Veteribus, Mitel-und neulateinische Studien fur Paul Gerhard Schmidt (K.G. Saur, Munchen Leipzig, 2004), pp. 366,368-9
Jump up ^ G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, vol. xii/1 (The St. Catherine Press, London, 1953), pp. 495-6

Additional references

Barlow, Frank, The Feudal Kingdom of England 1012 - 1216, London, 1955
Cokayne, George Edward, The Complete Peerage, Vol. iv, p. 670 Chart:Surrey or Warenne before 1135…
Keats-Rohan, K.S.B., Domesday People, a Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066-1166 (The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 1999), p. 480
Moriarty, George Andrews, The Plantagenet Ancestry (Mormon Pioneer Genealogy Society, Salt Lake City, UT, 1985), p. 184
Norgate, Kate (1890). "Gundrada de Warenne". In Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography. 23. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 338.
Schwennicke, Detlev, Europèaische Stammtafeln: Stammtafeln zur Geschichte der Europaischen Staaten, Neue Folge, Band III Teilband 4, Das Feudale Frankreich und Sien Einfluss auf des Mittelalters (Marburg, Germany: Verlag von J. A. Stargardt, 1989), Tafel 699
Weis, Frederick Lewis, The Magna Charta Sureties, 1215, ed: Walter Lee Sheppard, Jr., William R. Beall, 5th Edition (Genealogical Publishing Co., 1999), Line 158-1

External links

The Lewes Priory Trust Photo Gallery (copyrighted images)
The Gundrada Chapel, Southover Church, Lewes, East Sussex
Tomb of Gundred in 1787 The Gentleman's Magazine

*

Buried:
In the course of the centuries which followed, both tombstones disappeared from the priory but in 1774 William Burrell, Esq., an antiquary, discovered Gundred's in Isfield Church (seven miles from Lewes), over the remains of Edward Shirley, Esq., (d. 1550), and had it removed on October 2, 1775, to St. John's Church, Southover, where it was placed on display.[25]

In 1845, during excavations through the Priory grounds for the Brighton Lewes and Hastings Railway, the lead chests containing the remains of the Earl and his Countess were discovered and were deposited temporarily beneath Gundred's tombstone.[25] In 1847 a Norman Revival chapel was erected by public subscription, adjoining the present vestry and chancel. Prior to re-interring the remains in this chapel, both chests were opened to ascertain if there were any contents, which was found to be the case. New chests were made and used, and the ancient ones preserved and placed in two recessed arches in the southern wall. The Earl's chest has lost some lead. Gundred's chest remains in a good state of preservation. Across the upper part of the right arch is the name Gvndrada. Her tombstone is of black Tournai marble.[26]

Children:

22202. Sir William de Warenne, Knight, 2nd Earl of Surrey was born in 1065 in East Sussex, England; died on 11 May 1138; was buried in Lewes Priory, Sussex, England.

44406.

Hugues de France, Count of Vermandois was born in 1057 in (Vermandois) France (son of Henri, I, King of France and Anna Agnesa Yaraslavna, Queen of France); died on 18 Oct 1102 in Tarsus, Turkey; was buried in Church of St Paul, Mersin, Mersin, Turkey.

Other Events and Attributes:

Military: Leader of the 1st Crusade

Notes:

Birth: 1057
Death: Oct. 18, 1102

Nobility. Son of Henri I of France and his second wife Anna Iaroslavna of Kiev. He married Adelais de Vermandois who bore him nine children.

Family links:
Parents:
King Henri (1008 - 1060)
Anna Agnesa Yaroslavna (1036 - 1075)

Spouse:
Adelaide, Countess of Vermandois*

Children:
Isabel Of Vermandois Beaumont de Warenne (1081 - 1131)*
Raoul I de Vermandois (1094 - 1152)*

Siblings:
Philip I of France (1052 - 1108)*
Hugh I Count of Vermandois (1057 - 1102)*
Hugues de France (1057 - 1102)

*Calculated relationship

Burial:
Church of St Paul
Mersin
Mersin, Turkey

Created by: Lutetia
Record added: Jan 13, 2013
Find A Grave Memorial# 103487897

end of profile

The PEDIGREE of
Hugh MAGNUS `the Great' de CREPI

Count of VERMANDOIS; Leader of 1st Crusade (Crusader); (inherited VERMANDOIS from his wife, whose brother Eudes, q.v., was disinherited)
Born: abt. 1057 Died: 18 Oct 1101 Tarsus d. from Battle wounds

HM George I's 15-Great Grandfather. HRE Ferdinand I's 13-Great Grandfather. U.S. President [WASHINGTON]'s 19-Great Grandfather. PM Churchill's 22-Great Grandfather. HM Margrethe II's 23-Great Grandfather. Gen. Pierpont Hamilton's 23-Great Grandfather. `Red Baron' Richthofen's 20-Great Grandfather. Poss. Agnes Harris's 16-Great Grandfather. `Osawatomie' Brown's 23-Great Grandfather.
Wife/Partner: Adelheid (Adelaide) (Countess) de VERMANDOIS
Children: Raoul I (Count) de VERMANDOIS ; Isabelle (de) VERMANDOIS ; Agnes de VERMANDOIS ; Mathilda (Mahaut) de VERMANDOIS ; Constance de VERMANDOIS ; Henri de Chaumont
Possible Child: Alice de VERMANDOIS
________ ________ ________ ________ _______ _______ _______ _______ ______ _____ _____
/ -- Robert I (King) of FRANCE + ==&=> [ 255 ,,x,&]
/ -- Hugh (I) `the Great' (Duke) of the FRANKS
/ \ -- Beatrice (poss. de VERMANDOIS) + ====> [ 255 ,,x,&]
/ -- Hugh (Hugues) CAPET (King) of FRANCE
/ \ -- Hedwige (Hedwig) of SAXONY + ==&=> [ 255 ,c,ptm,&]
/ -- Robert II CAPET (King) of FRANCE
/ \ -- Adelais of the CAROLINGIANS + ====> [ 255 ,c,pt,&]
/ -- Henry I CAPET (King) of FRANCE (1008 - 1060)
| \ / -- Boso (Bozon; II) of PROVENCE + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,pt,&]
| | / -- William (I; II; Marquis/Duke) of PROVENCE
| | | \ -- Constance of ARLES (de VIENNE) + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,ptQD,&]
| | / | or: Constantia (of unknown ancestry)
| \ -- Constance of ARLES (TOULOUSE) (980? - 1032 Meulan)
/ \ -- Adelaide (Aelips) `Blanche' d' ANJOU + ====> [ 255 ,c,&]
- Hugh MAGNUS `the Great' de CREPI
\ / -- Vladimir (I; Saint; Grand Prince) of KIEV + ====> [ 255 ,,R,&]
| / -- Jaroslav (Yaroslav Laroslav) I WLADIMIROWWITSCH
| | \ -- Rogneida (Rognieda) (Princess) von POLOTZK + ====> [ 3]
| | | or: Anna PORPHYROGENITA, q.v.
| / | OR: poss. (Miss) von SCHWABEN + ==&=> [ 255 ,gC,tm,&]
\ -- Anna (Agnesa) JAROSLAVNA (Princess) of KIEV
\ | or: prob. not Matilda of GERMANY (1st wife)
| / -- Olaf III (II; King; Skot-konig) of SWEDEN + ====> [ 255 ,g,&]
\ -- Ingegarda (Ingrid) OLAFSDOTTIR (1001? - 1050)
\ / -- Mieceslas III (Prince) of the OBOTRITES + ====> [ 255 ,c,pt,&]
\ -- Astrid (Ingegerda) (Princess) of the OBOTRITES
\ -- Sophia (Sweden)

His (poss.) Grandchildren: Eleonore de VERMANDOIS ; Isabelle de VERMANDOIS ; Eleonore de VERMANDOIS ; Alice of LEICESTER ; Ada (of Surrey) de WARENNE ; Reginald de WARREN ; Isabel (Elizabeth) de BEAUMONT ; Robert II `Bossu' de BEAUMONT (BELLOMONT; BLANCHMAIN) ; William (III) de WARENNE ; Waleran II de BEAUMONT (Count) de MEULAN ; Gundred de WARREN (WARENNE) ; Adelina (de) BEAUMONT ; Rainald de WARENNE ; Ella de WARREN ; (Miss) de WARENNE ; Matilda (Aubreye) de BEAUMONT ; Emma of BEAUMONT ; Eleanor BEAUMONT ; Manfred I (Marquess) of SALUZZO ; Anselmo (Marquis) de CEVA (del VASTO) ; Guglielmo del VASTO ; Sibel (Sibyl) of SAVONA del VASTO ; Agnes de BAUGENCY ; Mathilde de BEAUGENCY ; Adelheid de la FERTE-GAUCHER ; Bernard de ST. VALERY

[ Start ]
FabPed Genealogy Vers. 86 © Jamie, 1997-2018

end of pedigree

Birth:
Vermandois was a French county that appeared in the Merovingian period. Its name derives from that of an ancient tribe, the Viromandui. In the 10th century, it was organised around two castellan domains: St Quentin (Aisne) and Pâeronne (Somme). In today's times, the Vermandois county would fall in the Picardy region of northern France.

Pepin I of Vermandois, the earliest of its hereditary counts, was descended in direct male line from the emperor Charlemagne. More famous was his grandson Herbert II (902–943), who considerably increased the territorial power of the house of Vermandois, and kept the lawful king of France, the unlucky Charles the Simple, prisoner for six years. Herbert II was son of Herbert I, lord of Pâeronne and St Quentin, who was killed in 902 by an assassin in the pay of Baldwin II, Count of Flanders. His successors, Albert I, Herbert III, Albert II, Otto and Herbert IV, were not as historically significant.

In 1077, the last count of the first house of Vermandois, Herbert IV, received the county of Valois through his wife. His son Eudes (II) the Insane was disinherited by the council of the Barons of France. He was lord of Saint-Simon through his wife, and the county was given to his sister Adela, whose first husband was Hugh the Great, the brother of King Philip I of France. Hugh was one of the leaders of the First Crusade, and died in 1102 at Tarsus in Cilicia. The eldest son of Hugh and Adela was count Raoul I (c. 1120–1152), who married Petronilla of Aquitaine, sister of the queen, Eleanor, and had by her three children: Raoul (Rudolph) II, the Leper (count from 1152–1167); Isabelle, who possessed from 1167 to 1183 the counties of Vermandois, Valois and Amiens conjointly with her husband, Philip, Count of Flanders; and Eleanor. By the terms of a treaty concluded in 1186 with the king, Philip Augustus, the count of Flanders kept the county of Vermandois until his death, in 1191. At this date, a new arrangement gave Eleanor (d. 1213) a life interest in the eastern part of Vermandois, together with the title of countess of St Quentin, and the king entered immediately into possession of Peronne and its dependencies.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermandois

Died:
from battle wounds...

Hugues married Adelaide of Vermandois. Adelaide was born in 1060-1062 in Valois, France; died on 28 Sep 1120 in Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44407.

Adelaide of Vermandois was born in 1060-1062 in Valois, France; died on 28 Sep 1120 in Normandy, France.

Children:

22267. Lady Isabel de Vermandois, Countess of Leicester was born on 13 Dec 1081 in Basse-Normandie, France; died on 17 Feb 1131 in France; was buried in Lewes Priory, Southover, Sussex, England.

22250.

Sir Ranulf Meschin, Knight, 1st Earl of Chester was born in 0___ 1070 in (Bayeux, Normandy, France); died in 0Jan 1129 in Cheshire, England; was buried in Chester Abbey, Cheshire, England.

Notes:

Biography

Family and origins

Ranulf le Meschin's father and mother represented two different families of viscounts in Normandy, and both of them were strongly tied to Henry, son of William the Conqueror.[1] His father was Ranulf de Briquessart, and likely for this reason the former Ranulf was styled le Meschin, "the younger".[2] Ranulf's father was viscount of the Bessin, the area around Bayeux.[3] Besides Odo, bishop of Bayeux, Ranulf the elder was the most powerful magnate in the Bessin region of Normandy.[4] Ranulf le Meschin's great-grandmother may even have been from the ducal family of Normandy, as le Meschin's paternal great-grandfather viscount Anschitil is known to have married a daughter of Duke Richard III.[5]

Ranulf le Meschin's mother, Margaret, was the daughter of Richard le Goz, Viscount of Avranches.[1] Richard's father Thurstan Goz had become viscount of the Hiâemois between 1017 and 1025,[6] while Richard himself became viscount of the Avranchin in either 1055 or 1056.[7] Her brother (Richard Goz's son) was Hugh d'Avranches "Lupus" ("the Wolf"), viscount of the Avranchin and Earl of Chester (from c. 1070).[8] Ranulf was thus, in addition to being heir to the Bessin, the nephew of one of Norman England's most powerful and prestigious families.[9]

We know from an entry in the Durham Liber Vitae, c. 1098 x 1120, that Ranulf le Meschin had an older brother named Richard (who died in youth), and a younger brother named William.[10] He had a sister called Agnes, who later married Robert de Grandmesnil (died 1136).[2]

Early career

Historian C. Warren Hollister thought that Ranulf's father Ranulf de Briquessart was one of the early close companions of Prince Henry, the future Henry I.[4] Hollister called Ranulf the Elder "a friend from Henry's youthful days in western Normandy",[11] and argued that the homeland of the two Ranulfs had been under Henry's overlordship since 1088, despite both ducal and royal authority lying with Henry's two brothers.[12] Hollister further suggested that Ranulf le Meschin may have had a role in persuading Robert Curthose to free Henry from captivity in 1089.[13]

The date of Ranulf senior's death, and succession of Ranulf junior, is unclear, but the former's last and the latter's earliest appearance in extant historical records coincides, dating to 24 April 1089 in charter of Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, to Bayeux Cathedral.[14] Ranulf le Meschin appears as "Ranulf son of Ranulf the viscount".[14]

In the foundation charter of Chester Abbey granted by his uncle Hugh Lupus, earl of Chester, and purportedly issued in 1093, Ranulf le Meschin is listed as a witness.[15] His attestation to this grant is written Signum Ranulfi nepotis comitis, "signature of Ranulf nephew of the earl".[16] However, the editor of the Chester comital charters, Geoffrey Barraclough, thought this charter was forged in the period of Earl Ranulf II.[17] Between 1098 and 1101 (probably in 1098) Ranulf became a major English landowner in his own right when he became the third husband of Lucy, heiress of the honour of Bolingbroke in Lincolnshire.[18] This acquisition also brought him the lordship of Appleby in Westmorland, previously held by Lucy's second husband Ivo Taillebois.[2]

Marriage to a great heiress came only with royal patronage, which in turn meant that Ranulf had to be respected and trusted by the king. Ranulf was probably, like his father, among the earliest and most loyal of Henry's followers, and was noted as such by Orderic Vitalis.[19] Ranulf was however not recorded often at the court of Henry I, and did not form part of the king's closest group of administrative advisers.[20] He witnessed charters only occasionally, though this became more frequent after he became earl.[21] In 1106 he is found serving as one of several justiciars at York hearing a case about the lordship of Ripon.[22] In 1116 he is recorded in a similar context.[2]

Ranulf was, however, one of the king's military companions. When, soon after Whitsun 1101 Henry heard news of a planned invasion of England by his brother Robert Curthose, he sought promises from his subjects to defend the kingdom.[23] A letter to the men of Lincolnshire names Ranulf as one of four figures entrusted with collecting these oaths.[24] Ranulf was one of the magnates who accompanied King Henry on his invasion of Duke Robert's Norman territory in 1106.[25] Ranulf served under Henry as an officer of the royal household when the latter was on campaign; Ranulf was in fact one of his three commanders at the Battle of Tinchebrai.[26] The first line of Henry's force was led by Ranulf, the second (with the king) by Robert of Meulan, and third by William de Warrene, with another thousand knights from Brittany and Maine led by Helias, Count of Maine.[27] Ranulf's line consisted of the men of Bayeux, Avranches and Coutances.[28]

Lord of Cumberland

The gatehouse of Wetheral Priory, founded by Ranulf c. 1106.
A charter issued in 1124 by David I, King of the Scots, to Robert I de Brus cited Ranulf's lordship of Carlisle and Cumberland as a model for Robert's new lordship in Annandale.[29] This is significant because Robert is known from other sources to have acted with semi-regal authority in this region.[2] A source from 1212 attests that the jurors of Cumberland remembered Ranulf as quondam dominus Cumberland ("sometime Lord of Cumberland").[30] Ranulf possessed the power and in some respects the dignity of a semi-independent earl in the region, though he lacked the formal status of being called such. A contemporary illustration of this authority comes from the records of Wetheral Priory, where Ranulf is found addressing his own sheriff, "Richer" (probably Richard de Boivill, baron of Kirklinton).[31] Indeed, no royal activity occurred in Cumberland or Westmorland during Ranulf's time in charge there, testimony to the fullness of his powers in the region.[32]

Ivo Taillebois, when he married Ranulf's future wife Lucy, had acquired her Lincolnshire lands but sometime after 1086 he acquired estates in Kendal and elsewhere in Westmorland. Adjacent lands in Westmorland and Lancashire that had previously been controlled by Earl Tostig Godwinson were probably carved up between Roger the Poitevin and Ivo in the 1080s, a territorial division at least partially responsible for the later boundary between the two counties.[33] Norman lordship in the heartland of Cumberland can be dated from chronicle sources to around 1092, the year King William Rufus seized the region from its previous ruler, Dolfin.[34] There is inconclusive evidence that settlers from Ivo's Lincolnshire lands had come into Cumberland as a result.[35]

Between 1094 and 1098 Lucy was married to Roger fitz Gerold de Roumare, and it is probable that this marriage was the king's way of transferring authority in the region to Roger fitz Gerold.[36] Only from 1106 however, well into the reign of Henry I, do we have certain evidence that this authority had come to Ranulf.[2] The "traditional view", held by the historian William Kapelle, was that Ranulf's authority in the region did not come about until 1106 or after, as a reward for participation in the Battle of Tinchebrai.[37] Another historian, Richard Sharpe, has recently attacked this view and argued that it probably came in or soon after 1098. Sharpe stressed that Lucy was the mechanism by which this authority changed hands, and pointed out that Ranulf had been married to Lucy years before Tinchebrai and can be found months before Tinchebrai taking evidence from county jurors at York (which may have been responsible for Cumbria at this point).[38]

Ranulf likewise distributed land to the church, founding a Benedictine monastic house at Wetheral.[39] This he established as a daughter-house of St Mary's Abbey, York, a house that in turn had been generously endowed by Ivo Taillebois.[30] This had occurred by 1112, the year of the death of Abbot Stephen of St Mary's, named in the foundation deed.[40] In later times at least, the priory of Wetheral was dedicated to St Mary and the Holy Trinity, as well as another saint named Constantine.[41] Ranulf gave Wetheral, among other things, his two churches at Appleby, St Lawrences (Burgate) and St Michaels (Bongate).[42]

As an incoming regional magnate Ranulf would be expected to distribute land to his own followers, and indeed the record of the jurors of Cumberland dating to 1212 claimed that Ranulf created two baronies in the region.[43] Ranulf's brother-in-law Robert de Trevers received the barony of Burgh-by-Sands, while the barony of Liddel went to Turgis Brandos.[30] He appears to have attempted to give the large compact barony of Gilsland to his brother William, but failed to dislodge the native lord, the eponymous "Gille" son of Boite; later the lordship of Allerdale (including Copeland), even larger than Gilsland stretching along the coast from the River Ellen to the River Esk, was given to William.[44] Kirklinton may have been given to Richard de Boivill, Ranulf's sheriff.[2]

Earl of Chester

Chester Cathedral today, originally Chester Abbey, where Ranulf's body was buried.
1120 was a fateful year for both Henry I and Ranulf. Richard, earl of Chester, like Henry's son and heir William Adeling, died in the White Ship Disaster near Barfleur on 25 November.[2] Only four days before the disaster, Ranulf and his cousin Richard had witnessed a charter together at Cerisy.[2]

Henry probably could not wait long to replace Richard, as the Welsh were resurgent under the charismatic leadership of Gruffudd ap Cynan. According to the Historia Regum, Richard's death prompted the Welsh to raid Cheshire, looting, killing, and burning two castles.[45] Perhaps because of his recognised military ability and social strength, because he was loyal and because he was the closest male relation to Earl Richard, Henry recognized Ranulf as Richard's successor to the county of Chester.[46]

In 1123, Henry sent Ranulf to Normandy with a large number of knights and with his bastard son, Robert, Earl of Gloucester, to strengthen the garrisons there.[47] Ranulf commanded the king's garrison at âEvreux and governed the county of âEvreux during the 1123-1124 war with William Clito, Robert Curthose's son and heir.[48] In March 1124 Ranulf assisted in the capture of Waleran, Count of Meulan.[49] Scouts informed Ranulf that Waleran's forces were planning an expedition to Vatteville, and Ranulf planned an to intercept them, a plan carried out by Henry de Pommeroy, Odo Borleng and William de Pont-Authou, with 300 knights.[50] A battle followed, perhaps at Rougemontier (or Bourgthâeroulde), in which Waleran was captured.[51]

Although Ranulf bore the title "earl of Chester", the honour (i.e., group of estates) which formed the holdings of the earl of Chester were scattered throughout England, and during the rule of his predecessors included the cantref of Tegeingl in Perfeddwlad in north-western Wales.[52] Around 1100, only a quarter of the value of the honour actually lay in Cheshire, which was one of England's poorest and least developed counties.[53] The estates elsewhere were probably given to the earls in compensation for Cheshire's poverty, in order to strengthen its vulnerable position on the Anglo-Welsh border.[54] The possibility of conquest and booty in Wales should have supplemented the lordship's wealth and attractiveness, but for much of Henry's reign the English king tried to keep the neighboring Welsh princes under his peace.[55]

Ranulf's accession may have involved him giving up many of his other lands, including much of his wife's Lincolnshire lands as well as his lands in Cumbria, though direct evidence for this beyond convenient timing is lacking.[56] That Cumberland was given up at this point is likely, as King Henry visited Carlisle in December 1122, where, according to the Historia Regum, he ordered the strengthening of the castle.[57]

Hollister believed that Ranulf offered the Bolingbroke lands to Henry in exchange for Henry's bestowal of the earldom.[13] The historian A. T. Thacker believed that Henry I forced Ranulf to give up most of the Bolingbroke lands through fear that Ranulf would become too powerful, dominating both Cheshire and the richer county of Lincoln.[58] Sharpe, however, suggested that Ranulf may have had to sell a great deal of land in order to pay the king for the county of Chester, though it could not have covered the whole fee, as Ranulf's son Ranulf de Gernon, when he succeeded his father to Chester in 1129, owed the king ¹1000 "from his father's debt for the land of Earl Hugh".[59] Hollister thought this debt was merely the normal feudal relief expected to be paid on a large honour, and suggested that Ranulf's partial non-payment, or Henry's forgiveness for non-payment, was a form of royal patronage.[60]

Ranulf died in January 1129, and was buried in Chester Abbey.[2] He was survived by his wife and countess, Lucy, and succeeded by his son Ranulf de Gernon.[2] A daughter, Alicia, married Richard de Clare, a lord in the Anglo-Welsh marches.[2] One of his offspring, his fifth son, participated in the Siege of Lisbon, and for this aid was granted the Lordship of Azambuja by King Afonso I of Portugal.[2]

That his career had some claim on the popular imagination may be inferred from lines in William Langland's Piers Plowman (c. 1362–c. 1386) in which Sloth, the lazy priest, confesses: "I kan [know] not parfitly [perfectly] my Paternoster as the preest it singeth,/ But I kan rymes of Robyn Hood and Randolf Erl of Chestre."[61]

end

Ranulf married Lucy of Bolingbroke. Lucy died in 1138. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

22251.

Lucy of Bolingbroke died in 1138.

Children:

22204. Sir Ranulf de Gernon, II, Knight, 4th Earl of Chester was born in 0___ 1099 in Guernon Castle, Calvados, France; died on 16 Dec 1153 in Cheshire, England.
11125. Alice de Gernon

24100.

Sir Robert FitzRoy, Knight, 1st Earl of Gloucester was born before 1100 in (France) (son of Henry I, King of England and unnamed partner); died on 31 Oct 1147.

Notes:

Robert Fitzroy, 1st Earl of Gloucester (before 1100 – 31 October 1147[1]) (alias Robert Rufus, Robert de Caen, Robert Consul[2][3]) was an illegitimate son of King Henry I of England. He was the half-brother of the Empress Matilda, and her chief military supporter during the civil war known as The Anarchy, in which she vied with Stephen of Blois for the throne of England.

Early life

Robert was probably the eldest of Henry's many illegitimate children.[1] He was born before his father's accession to the English throne, either during the reign of his grandfather William the Conqueror or his uncle William Rufus.[4] He is sometimes and erroneously designated as a son of Nest, daughter of Rhys ap Tewdwr, last king of Deheubarth, although his mother has been identified as a member of "the Gay or Gayt family of north Oxfordshire",[5] possibly a daughter of Rainald Gay (fl. 1086) of Hampton Gay and Northbrook Gay in Oxfordshire. Rainald had known issue Robert Gaay of Hampton (died c. 1138) and Stephen Gay of Northbrook (died after 1154). A number of Oxfordshire women feature as the mothers of Robert's siblings.[5][6]

He may have been a native of Caen[1][7] or he may have been only Constable and Governor of that city, jure uxoris.[2]

His father had contracted him in marriage to Mabel FitzHamon, daughter and heir of Robert Fitzhamon, but the marriage was not solemnized until June 1119 at Lisieux.[1][8] His wife brought him the substantial honours of Gloucester in England and Glamorgan in Wales, and the honours of Sainte-Scholasse-sur-Sarthe and âEvrecy in Normandy, as well as Creully. After the White Ship disaster late in 1120, and probably because of this marriage,[9] in 1121 or 1122 his father created him Earl of Gloucester.[10]

Family

Robert and his wife Mabel FitzHamon had seven children:[11]

William FitzRobert (111?–1183): succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of Gloucester
Roger FitzRobert (died 1179): Bishop of Worcester
Hamon FitzRobert (died 1159): killed at the siege of Toulouse.
Philip FitzRobert (died after 1147): lord of Cricklade
Matilda FitzRobert (died 1190): married in 1141 Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester.
Mabel FitzRobert: married Aubrey de Vere
Richard FitzRobert (1120/35-1175): succeeded his mother as Sire de Creully.
He also had four illegitimate children:

Richard FitzRobert (died 1142): Bishop of Bayeux [mother: Isabel de Douvres, sister of Richard de Douvres, bishop of Bayeux (1107–1133)]
Robert FitzRobert (died 1170): Castellan of Gloucester, married in 1147 Hawise de Reviers (daughter of Baldwin de Reviers, 1st Earl of Devon and his first wife Adelisa), had daughter Mabel FitzRobert (married firstly Jordan de Chambernon and secondly William de Soliers)
Mabel FitzRobert: married Gruffud, Lord of Senghenydd, son of Ifor Bach. This couple were ancestors of Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the U.S.A.[12]
Father of Thomas

Relationship with King Stephen

There is evidence in the contemporary source, the Gesta Stephani, that Robert was proposed by some as a candidate for the throne, but his illegitimacy ruled him out:

"Among others came Robert, Earl of Gloucester, son of King Henry, but a bastard, a man of proved talent and admirable wisdom. When he was advised, as the story went, to claim the throne on his father's death, deterred by sounder advice he by no means assented, saying it was fairer to yield it to his sister's son (the future Henry II of England), than presumptuously to arrogate it to himself."
This suggestion cannot have led to any idea that he and Stephen were rivals for the Crown, as Geoffrey of Monmouth in 1136 referred to Robert as one of the 'pillars' of the new King's rule.

The capture of King Stephen at the Battle of Lincoln on 2 February 1141 gave the Empress Matilda the upper hand in her battle for the throne, but by alienating the citizens of London she failed to be crowned Queen. Her forces were defeated at the Rout of Winchester on 14 September 1141, and Robert of Gloucester was captured nearby at Stockbridge.

The two prisoners, King Stephen and Robert of Gloucester, were then exchanged, but by freeing Stephen, the Empress Matilda had given up her best chance of becoming queen. She later returned to France, where she died in 1167, though her son succeeded Stephen as King Henry II in 1154.

Robert of Gloucester died in 1147 at Bristol Castle, where he had previously imprisoned King Stephen, and was buried at St James' Priory, Bristol, which he had founded.

In popular culture

Robert of Gloucester was a central character in the struggle during The Anarchy as portrayed in Ken Follet's 2003 novel The Pillars of the Earth and in the 2010 mini-series of the same name.

Robert is also a figure in many of the novels by Ellis Peters in the Cadfael Chronicles, where he is seen as a strong moderating force to his half-sister (see Saint Peter's Fair). His efforts to gain the crown for his sister by capturing King Stephen and her own actions in London are part of the plot in The Pilgrim of Hate. His capture by Stephen's wife Queen Mathilda is in the background of the plot of An Excellent Mystery. The exchange of the imprisoned Robert for the imprisoned Stephen is in the background of the plot of The Raven in the Foregate. Robert's travels to persuade his brother-in-law to aid his wife Empress Maud militarily in England is in the background of the novel The Rose Rent. His return to England when Empress Maud is trapped in Oxford Castle figures in The Hermit of Eyton Forest. Robert's return to England with his young nephew Henry, years later the king succeeding Stephen, is in the background of the plot of The Confession of Brother Haluin, as the battles begin anew with Robert's military guidance. Robert's success in the Battle of Wilton (1143) leads to the death of a fictional character, part of the plot of The Potter's Field. In the last novel, he is a father who can disagree with then forgive his son Philip (see the last novel, Brother Cadfael's Penance). In that last novel, Brother Cadfael speculates on the possibly different path for England if the first son of old King Henry, the illegitimate Robert of Gloucester, had been recognised and accepted. In Wales of that era, a son was not illegitimate if recognized by his father, and to many in the novels, Robert of Gloucester seemed the best of the contenders to succeed his father.

Footnotes

^ Jump up to: a b c d David Crouch, ‘Robert, first earl of Gloucester (b. before 1100, d. 1147)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006 accessed 1 Oct 2010
^ Jump up to: a b "Complete Peerage" Vol IV(1892), p38, "Gloucester", "Robert filius Regis" quoting Round "Consul is often used for Earl in the time of the first age of the Norman Kings"
Jump up ^ The Complete Peerage claims only that he is "described" as consul, as are most Earls of his time.
Jump up ^ William of Malmesbury
^ Jump up to: a b David Crouch, Historical Research, 1999
Jump up ^ C. Given-Wilson & A. Curteis. The Royal Bastards of Medieval England (London, 1984) (ISBN 0-415-02826-4), page 74
Jump up ^ Cawley, Charles, "Henry I", Medlands, Medieval Lands database, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy,[better source needed]
Jump up ^ "Complete Peerage", "Gloucester"
Jump up ^ "In the aftermath of the White Ship disaster of 1120, when his younger and legitimate half-brother, William, died, Robert shared in the largesse that the king distributed to reassert his political position. Robert was given the marriage of Mabel, the heir of Robert fitz Haimon, whose lands in the west country and Glamorgan had been in royal wardship since 1107. The marriage also brought Robert the Norman honours of Evrecy and St Scholasse-sur-Sarthe. Robert was raised to the rank of earl of Gloucester soon after, probably by the end of 1121." David Crouch, ‘Robert, first earl of Gloucester (b. before 1100, d. 1147)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006 accessed 1 Oct 2010
Jump up ^ CP citing Round for between May 1121 and the end of 1122, but see William of Malmesbury, ed Giles who cites 1119
Jump up ^ Cawley, Charles. Cawley, Charles, Medieval Lands: England, Earls Created 1067–1122, Chapter 11, Medieval Lands database, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy,[better source needed]
Jump up ^ Descent of Franklin Pierce from Henry I Beauclerc

Sources

J. Bradbury, Stephen and Matilda: The Civil War of 1139–53 (Stroud, 1996)
D. Crouch, "Robert of Gloucester's Mother and Sexual Politics in Norman Oxfordshire", Historical Research, 72 (1999) 323–332.
D. Crouch, 'Robert, earl of Gloucester and the daughter of Zelophehad,' Journal of Medieval History, 11 (1985), 227–43.
D. Crouch, The Reign of King Stephen, 1135–1154 (London, 2000).
C. Given-Wilson & A. Curteis. The Royal Bastards of Medieval England (London, 1984)
The Personnel of the Norman Cathedrals during the Ducal Period, 911–1204, ed. David S. Spear (London, 2006)
Earldom of Gloucester Charters, ed. R.B. Patterson (Oxford, 1973)
R.B. Patterson, 'William of Malmesbury's Robert of Gloucester: a re-evaluation of the Historia Novella,' American Historical Review, 70 (1965), 983–97.
K. Thompson, 'Affairs of State: the illegitimate children of Henry I,' Journal of Medieval History, 29 (2003), 129–151.
W.M.M. Picken, 'The Descent of the Devon Family of Willington from Robert Earl of Gloucester' in 'A Medieval Cornish Miscellany', Ed. O.J. Padel. (Phillimore, 2000)

24101.

Notes:

Mabel FitzRobert, Countess of Gloucester (1090 – 29 September 1157[1]) was an Anglo-Norman noblewoman, and a wealthy heiress who brought the lordship of Gloucester, among other prestigious honours to her husband, Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester upon their marriage. He was the illegitimate son of King Henry I of England.

Her father was Robert Fitzhamon, Lord of Gloucester and Glamorgan. As she was the eldest daughter of four, and her younger sisters had become nuns, Mabel inherited all of his honours and properties upon his death in 1107.

As Countess of Gloucester, Mabel was significant politically and she exercised an important administrative role in the lordship.[2]

Family[edit]
Mabel was born in Gloucestershire, England c1090 or later, the eldest of the four daughters of Robert FitzHamon, Lord of Gloucester and Glamorgan, and his wife, Sybil de Montgomery. Her three younger sisters, Hawise, Cecile and Amice[3] all became nuns, making Mabel the sole heiress to her father's lordships and vast estates in England, Wales, and Normandy.

Her paternal grandfather was Hamon, Sheriff of Kent, and her maternal grandparents were Roger de Montgomery, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury and Mabel Talvas of Belleme.

In March 1107, her father died in Normandy, leaving his lordships and estates to Mabel. Her mother married secondly Jean, Sire de Raimes.[4]

Cardiff Castle in Wales, was one of the properties Mabel brought her husband, Robert upon their marriage

Marriage

In 1107, Mabel married Robert of Caen,(also called FitzRoy and FitzEdith), an illegitimate son of King Henry I (not by his mistress Sybil Corbet - other sources say Robert's mother was of the Gai family of Oxfordshire). Their marriage is recorded by Orderic Vitalis who also names her parents.[5] He would later become an important figure during the turbulent period in English history known as The Anarchy which occurred in the reign of King Stephen of England. Throughout the civil war, he was a loyal supporter of his half-sister Empress Matilda who would make him the chief commander of her army. He had originally sworn fealty to King Stephen, but after quarrelling with him in 1137, his English and Welsh possessions were forfeited, and thus he joined forces with Matilda.[6]

Countess of Gloucester

Mabel brought to her husband the honours of Gloucester in England, Glamorgan in Wales, Sainte-Scholasse-sur-Sarthe, Evrecy and Creully in Normandy. By right of his wife, he became the 2nd Lord of Glamorgan, and gained possession of her father's castle of Cardiff in Wales. In August 1122, he was created 1st Earl of Gloucester; henceforth, Mabel was styled as Countess of Gloucester.

As countess, Mabel exercised a prominent administrative role in the Gloucester lordship.[7] Her political importance was evident when she was made responsible for seeing that her husband upheld his side of the agreement in the treaty he made with Miles de Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford.[8] She also witnessed four of Robert's charters; as well as giving her personal consent for his foundation of the Abbey of Margam, whose endowment came from her own lands.[9] Later, after Robert's death, Mabel assumed control of the honour of Gloucester's Norman lands on behalf of her eldest son William.[10]

Issue

Together Robert and Mabel had at least eight children:

William Fitz Robert, 2nd Earl of Gloucester (23 November 1112- 23 November 1183), married Hawise de Beaumont by whom he had five children, including Isabella of Gloucester, the first wife of King John of England, and Amice FitzRobert, Countess of Gloucester.
Roger, Bishop of Worcester (died 9 August 1179)
Hamon FitzRobert, (died 1159), killed in the Siege of Toulouse.
Robert FitzRobert of Ilchester (died before 1157), married Hawise de Redvers, by whom he had a daughter Mabel who in her turn married Jordan de Cambernon.
Richard FitzRobert, Sire de Creully (died 1175), inherited the seigneury of Creully from Mabel, and became the ancestor of the Sires de Creully. He married the daughter of Hughes de Montfort by whom he had five children.
Philip FitzRobert, (died after 1147), Castellan of Cricklade. He took part in the Second Crusade.
Maud FitzRobert (died 29 July 1190), married Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester by whom she had three children.
Mabel FitzRobert, married Aubrey de Vere
Robert also sired an illegitimate son, Richard, Bishop of Bayeux by Isabel de Douvres.

Death

Mabel's husband died on 31 October 1147. Mabel herself died on 29 September 1157 in Bristol at the age of sixty-seven years.

References

Jump up ^ Charles Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earls of Gloucester 1122-1225
Jump up ^ Ward, p.106
Jump up ^ Cawley states in Medieval Lands that Amice might have married a count of Brittany, but no further details are known
Jump up ^ Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earl of Gloucester 1122-1225)
Jump up ^ Cawley
Jump up ^ Cawley
Jump up ^ Jennifer C. Ward (2006). Women in England in the Middle Ages. London: Hambledon Continuum. p.106. Google Books, retrieved 27-10-10 ISBN 1-85285-346-8
Jump up ^ Ward, p.106
Jump up ^ Ward, p.106
Jump up ^ Ward, p.106
Charles Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earls of Gloucester 1122-1225

Children:

Sir William FitzRobert, Knight, 2nd Earl of Gloucester was born on 23 Nov 1116 in (Wales); died on 23 Nov 1183 in (Wales).
22205. Lady Maud of Gloucester, Countess of Chester was born in (Gloucestershire, England); died on 29 Jul 1189.
Robert FitzRobert was born in 1110 in England; died in 1170 in England.

44412.

Sir Amaury de Montfort, III, Knight, Count of Evreux was born in 1070 in (Epernon, France) (son of Simon I de Montfort and Agnes d'Evereux); died in ~ 1137.

Notes:

Amaury III de Montfort († 1137) was a French nobleman, the seigneur de Montfort-l'Amaury, âEpernon, and Houdan in the Île-de-France (1098–c.?1137) and count of âEvreux in Normandy, (1118 to c.?1137).

Life[edit]
Amaury was the son of Simon I, seigneur de Montfort, and his wife Agnáes d'âEvreux, daughter of Richard, Count of âEvreux.[1] In 1098, William Rufus was campaigning in France and had just crossed into the French Vexin and one of the first castles attacked was that of Houdan which Amaury III defended.[2] But Amaury quickly surrendered and joined William's army.[2] He then aided William II against his brother Simon II de Montfort's castles of Montfort-l'Amaury and âEpernon.[3] But Simon and the other castellans successfully defended themselves against the forces of William Rufus until a truce was called and William returned to England.[4] When Simon II died c.?1104, Amaury succeeded him as seigneur de Montfort.[1]

When his maternal uncle William, Count of âEvreux died in 1118, he left no direct heirs so Henry I of England seized his lands.[5] Amaury was Henry's most detested enemy.[6] His sister was the notorious Bertrade de Montfort,[a] his nephew was Fulk V of Anjou, and his kinsman King Louis VI of France was related to him by marriage.[6] Amaury had induced his nephew Fulk V to attack Henry's territories in the past[7] while the French and English kings were at odds again.[8] Amaury was the last person he wanted holding a countship in the center of Normandy.[6] After complaining to Louis VI the French king granted the countship of âEvreux to Amaury.[5] For six months Henry kept Amaury out of âEvreux and denied him the county by keeping the castle garrisoned with his own troops until his constable, William Pointel, turned the castle over to his longtime friend Amaury while Henry was in Rouen.[6] Finally Henry offered Amaury the countship of âEvreux if he would surrender the castle.[9] Amaury refused and the rebellion continued with Amaury now encouraging more Normans to defy Henry.[10]

In 1119 Henry besieged the castle of âEvreux anew, but Theobald II, Count of Champagne, Henry's nephew, negotiated a truce between them.[3] Amaury surrendered the castle to the King and on doing so was confirmed as count of âEvreux by Henry.[3] The following year Amaury fought at the battle of Bourgtheroulde supporting William Clito against Henry I but was captured fleeing the field by William de Grandcourt.[3] Rather than turn over his prisoner to Henry, however, William decided to go into exile with Amaury.[3] Amaury made peace with the King later that same year and for the rest of Henry's reign remained on good terms with him.[3]

Marriages and children

He married firstly, Richilde de Hainaut, daughter of Baudouin II, comte de Hainaut but repudiated her in 1118.[1]

In 1118 he remarried, to Agnáes de Garlande, daughter of Anseau de Garlande, Count de Rochefort and N.N. de Rochefort-en-Yvelines.[1] Their children were :

Amaury IV († 1140), count of âEvreux, seigneur de Montfort[1]
Simon III († 1181), count of âEvreux,seigneur de Montfort[1], whose daughter Bertrade married Hugh de Kevelioc, 5th Earl of Chester.
Agnáes († 1181), Dame de Gournay-sur-Marne, married Waleran de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Worcester († 1166)[1]

Amaury married Agnes de Garlande in ~1120 in (France). Agnes was born in ~1105 in Yvelines, Ile-de-France, France; died in 1143 in Seine-et-Marne, Ile-de-France, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44413.

Agnes de Garlande was born in ~1105 in Yvelines, Ile-de-France, France; died in 1143 in Seine-et-Marne, Ile-de-France, France.

Children:

22206. Sir Simon de Montfort, III, Comte d'Evreux was born in 1117-1123 in Montfort-sur-Ris, Eure, France; died on 13 Mar 1181 in Eure, Normandy, France.
Agnes de Montfort was born in ~1123 in Montfort, Eure, Haute-Normandie, France; died on 15 Dec 1181 in Gournay Sur Marne, Seine-et-Marne, Ile-de-France, France.

44532.

Roger de Beaumont was born in ~ 1015 in (Normandy, France); died on 29 Nov 1094; was buried in Les Preaux, Normandy, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

Burial: Abbey of Saint-Pierre de Prâeaux, France
Possessions: Beaumont-le-Roger, Normandy, France
Possessions: Pont-Audemer, Normandy, France
Military: Battle of Hasings, 1066

Notes:

Roger de Beaumont (c. 1015 – 29 November 1094), feudal lord (French: seigneur) of Beaumont-le-Roger and of Pont-Audemer in Normandy, was a powerful Norman nobleman and close advisor to William the Conqueror.

Origins

He was a son of Humphrey de Vieilles (who was a great-nephew of the Duchess Gunnora of Normandy) by his wife Albreda de la Haye Auberie. Roger de Beaumont was thus a second cousin once removed of William the Conqueror. His Norman feudal lordship had its caput and castle at Beaumont-le-Roger, a settlement situated on the upper reaches of the River Risle, in Normandy, about 46 km SW of Rouen, the capital of the Duchy. He was also feudal lord of Pont-Audemer, a settlement built around the first bridge to cross the River Risle upstream of its estuary, shared with the River Seine.

Physical appearance[edit]
Roger was nicknamed La Barbe (Latinised to Barbatus) (i.e. "The Bearded") because he wore a moustache and beard while the Normans usually were clean shaven. This peculiarity is believed to be recognized in the thirty-second panel of the Bayeux Tapestry where he is depicted sitting at a feast near Hastings, well before the battle, at the right hand of Duke William, who in turn was seated at the right hand of his brother Bishop Odo of Bayeux, who is shown blessing the food at a feast.

Career

Planchâe described him as "the noblest, the wealthiest, and the most valiant seigneur of Normandy, and the greatest and most trusted friend of the Danish (i.e. Norman) family". The explanation for his exalted position appears to be that as an older cousin who had never rebelled against the young Duke, he was part of the kinship group of noblemen that William relied upon in governing Normandy and fighting-off frequent rebellion and invasions. The historian Frank McLynn observed that William relied heavily on relatives on his mother's side, namely his half-brothers Bishop Odo and Robert, and brothers-in-law, and on relatives descended from the Duchess Gunnora's sisters, since his own paternal kin had proved unreliable.

Wace, the 12th century historian, wrote that: "At the time of the invasion of England, Roger was summoned to the great council at Lillebonne, on account of his wisdom; but he did not join in the expedition as he was too far advanced in years". Although Roger could not fight, he did not hesitate in contributing a large share of the cost, and provided at his own expense sixty vessels for the conveyance of the troops across the channel. Furthermore, his eldest son and heir fought bravely at Hastings as noted in several contemporary records. As a result, Roger's elder sons were rewarded generously with lands in England, and both eventually were made English earls by the sons of the Conqueror. Wace's statement may therefore cast doubt on the possibility of Roger being depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry feasting at Hastings. However it is possible that he crossed the Channel so he could continue to act as a valued member of the Duke's council, perhaps giving advice on military tactics, yet stayed well behind the line of battle at headquarters.

Marriage & progeny

He married circa 1048 or earlier Adeline of Meulan (c. 1014-1020 - 8 April 1081), who was buried at the Abbaye du Bec, the daughter of Waleran III, Count de Meulan by Oda de Conteville, and sister and heiress of a childless Count of Meulan. Meulan eventually passed to their elder son who became Count of Meulan in 1081. Their surviving children were:

Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester, Count of Meulan (c.1049-1118), the eldest son and heir. He succeeded his father in the major part of his lands, and was one of the few proven Companions of William the Conqueror who fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
Henry de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Warwick (c.1050-1119). He was overshadowed by his elder brother, but was granted by his father one of his lesser lordships in Normandy, the lordship of Le Neubourg, about 12 km NE of Beaumont-le-Roger, from which his own family adopted the surname Anglicised to "de Newburgh". He established a more enduring line of Beaumont earls than his elder brother, Earls of Warwick seated at Warwick Castle.
William de Beaumont (not mentioned in most sources).
Alberâee de Beaumont (died 1112), Abbess of Eton.

Death & burial

He was buried at Les Prâeaux.

end

Roger married Adeline of Meulan in ~ 1048. Adeline (daughter of Waleran of Meulan, III, Count of Meulan and Oda de Conteville) was born in ~ 1014 in Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France; died on 8 Apr 1081; was buried in Abbaye du Bec, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44533.

Adeline of Meulan was born in ~ 1014 in Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France (daughter of Waleran of Meulan, III, Count of Meulan and Oda de Conteville); died on 8 Apr 1081; was buried in Abbaye du Bec, France.

Children:

22266. Sir Robert de Beaumont, Knight, 1st Earl of Leicester was born in ~ 1049 in Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France; died on 5 Jun 1118.
Sir Henry de Beaumont, Knight, 1st Earl of Warwick was born in ~ 1050 in Normandy, France; died on 20 Jun 1119; was buried in Les Preaux, Normandy, France.

44536.

Murchad Macdairmata Murchada was born in 1032 in (Ireland) (son of Diarmait Macmail Na Mbo Murchada, King of Ireland and Dearbforgail Ingen O'Brien); died in 1070 in (Ireland).

Murchad married Sadb Ingen Mac Bricc(Ireland). Sadb was born in 1085 in (Ireland); died in 1115 in (Ireland). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44537.

Sadb Ingen Mac Bricc was born in 1085 in (Ireland); died in 1115 in (Ireland).

Children:

22268. Donnchad Enna Mac Murchada was born in 1085 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland; died on 8 Dec 1115 in Wexford, Ireland.

44538. Gilla Michil O'Brien was born in 0___ 1055; died in 0___ 1068.
Gilla married Luchdelb Hui Garbita. Luchdelb was born in 0___ 1062. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44539.

Luchdelb Hui Garbita was born in 0___ 1062.

Children:

22269. Orlaith Ingen O'Brien, Queen of Leinster was born in 0___ 1080 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland; died in 0___ 1113 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland.

11134.

Dermot Dairmait Mac Murchada, King of Leinster was born in 1110 in Dublin, Ireland (son of Donnchad Enna Mac Murchada and Orlaith Ingen O'Brien, Queen of Leinster); died on 1 May 1171 in Ireland.

Notes:

Dermot Dairmait Mac MURCHADA (King of Leinster)Print Family Tree(Dermot Dairmait Mac MURCHADA)

Born in 1110 - Dublin, Ireland
Deceased 1 May 1171 - Ireland , age at death: 61 years old

Parents
Donnchad Enna Mac MURCHADA, born in 1085 - Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, Deceased 8 December 1115 - Wexford, Ireland age at death: 30 years old
Married to
Orlaith Ingen (Queen of Leinster) O'BRIEN, born in 1080 - Dublin, Ireland, Deceased in 1113 - Dublin, Ireland age at death: 33 years old

Spouses, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren
Married in 1140, Wexford, Ireland, to Mor Tauthail Moringen Murchertaig (Queen of Ireland) O'TOOLE, born in 1114 - Wexford, Ireland, Deceased 1 May 1191 - Wexford, Ireland age at death: 77 years old (Parents : M Mouirchertach (King of Ui Muiredaig) O'TOOLE 1089-1164 & F Cacht Ingen (Princess of Loigsig, Queen of Muiredaig O'Toole) O'MORDA 1094-1149) with
F Eva Aoife Mac (Countess Pembroke) MURCHADA 1141-1188 married 26 August 1171, Waterford, Waterford, Ireland, to Richard (Strongbow) De ( 2nd Earl Pembroke, Lord Marshall) CLARE 1125-1176 with
M Richard III De (SIR) CLARE, MAGNA CARTA BARON ca 1153-1217 married in 1180, England, to Amicie De CAEN 1160-1225 with :
F Matilda De CLARE 1175-1213
M Gilbert III De (Earl of Gloucester - Hertford) CLARE, MAGNA CARTA BARON ca 1180-1230
F Maud Matilda De CLARE 1184-1213
F Isabel De CLARE 1172-1217 married in August 1189, London, England, to William (SIR - Knight Templar)(Earl Pembroke) MARSHALL 1146-1219 with :
F Maud (Countess of Norfolk Countess of Surrey) MARSHALL 1192-1248
F Eve (Baroness of Abergavenny) MARSHALL 1194-1246
M Gilbert MARSHALL 1196-1241
M William (4th Earl of Pembroke/ChiefJusticar of Ireland) MARSHALL 1198-1231
F Isabel (Fitzgilbert) (Countess MARSHALL) MARSHALL 1200-1239
F Sibyl MARSHALL ca 1201-1245
F Joane MARSHALL 1202-1234
F Joan De ( Baroness of Gamage) CLARE 1175-1222/ married in 1196, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, to Godfrey De (Sir) ( Lord of Gamage) GAMAGE 1176-1253 with :
M Payne De GAMAGE 1211-
F Elizabeth GAMAGE 1222-1272
F Urlachen Mac MURCHADA 1154-1200 married in 1171 to Domnall Mor (Ua) (King of Leinster) O'BRIEN 1137-1194 with
F Mor O'BRIEN 1172-1218 married in 1185, Ireland, to William De (Lord of Connaught) BURGH 1158-1204 with :
M Richard Mor "The Great", De (1st Earl of Ulster) BURGH 1202-1242
M Domnall Cairbreach (King of Munster) O'BRIEN 1175-1242 married in 1194 to Sabia O'KENNEDY 1177- with :
M Connor Conchobar Suidaine (King of Thormond) O'BRIEN 1195-1258

Paternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M Murchad Macdairmata MURCHADA 1032-1070 married
F Sadb Ingen Mac BRICC 1020-1070
M Donnchad Enna Mac MURCHADA 1085-1115
married
1 child

Maternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M Gilla Michil O'BRIEN 1055-1068 married
F Iuchdelb Hui GARBITA 1062-
F Orlaith Ingen (Queen of Leinster) O'BRIEN 1080-1113
married
1 child

Notes
Individual Note
Source: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Irish Landed Gentry - Ancestry.com - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2002.Original data - O'Hart, John. Irish Landed Gentry When Cromwell Came to Ireland. Dublin, Ireland: James Duffy and Sons, 1887.Original data: O'Hart, John. Irish Landed Gentry When Crom - 1,6308::0
http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=uki1-irish-landed_gnty&h=170&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt 1,6308::170
Source: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2003.Original data - Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Heritage Consulting.Original data: Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: - 1,7249::0
http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=millind&h=105913193&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt Birth date: 1100 Birth place: Leinster, Ireland Death date: 1 May 1171 Death place: Ferns, Wexford, Ire, Ireland 1,7249::105913193
Source: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Dictionary of National Biography, Volumes 1-20, 22 - Ancestry.com - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. This collection was indexed by Ancestry World Archives Project contributors.Original data - Stephen, Sir Leslie, ed. Dictionary of National Biography, 1921–1922. London, England: Oxf - 1,1981::0
http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=dictnatbiogv1&h=34636&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt Birth date: 1110 Birth place: Death date: 1171 Death place: Ferns 1,1981::34636

Sources
Individual:
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=10182
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=10182
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=10182
Birth, death:
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2003.Original data - Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Heritage Consulting.Original data: Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: - 1,7249::0
Note http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=millind&h=105913193&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt - Birth date: 1100 Birth place: Leinster, Ireland Death date: 1 May 1171 Death place: Ferns, Wexford, Ire, Ireland - 1,7249::105913193
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Dictionary of National Biography, Volumes 1-20, 22 - Ancestry.com - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. This collection was indexed by Ancestry World Archives Project contributors.Original data - Stephen, Sir Leslie, ed. Dictionary of National Biography, 1921–1922. London, England: Oxf - 1,1981::0
Note http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=dictnatbiogv1&h=34636&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt - Birth date: 1110 Birth place: Death date: 1171 Death place: Ferns - 1,1981::34636

Family Tree Preview
Ancestry Chart Descendancy Chart Printable Family Tree
_____| 16_ Donnchad Mâael Na Mbâo (O'CHEINNSELAIG) MURCHADA ca 960-1006
_____| 8_ Diarmait Macmail Na Mbo (177th High King of Ireland) MURCHADA 974-1072
_____| 4_ Murchad Macdairmata MURCHADA 1032-1070
/ \ _____| 18_ Donnchad (King of MUNSTER) O'BRIEN 982/-1064
|2_ Donnchad Enna Mac MURCHADA 1085-1115
| \ _____| 20_ Brecc (Na Dessi) Mac BRICC 950-1051
| \ _____| 10_ Muirchertach Mac BRICC 1005-1051
| \
|--1_ Dermot Dairmait Mac (King of Leinster) MURCHADA 1110-1171
| _____| 12_ Echmarcach O'BRIEN 1009-
| /
| _____| 6_ Gilla Michil O'BRIEN 1055-1068
| / \
|3_ Orlaith Ingen (Queen of Leinster) O'BRIEN 1080-1113
\
\ _____| 14_ Cearnachan GAIRBITA 1040-
\ /
\

end of report

11135.

Mor Tauthail Moringen Murchertaig O'Toole, Queen of Ireland was born in 1114 in Wexford, Ireland; died on 1 May 1191 in Wexford, Ireland.

Children:

5567. Lady Eva Aoife Mac Murchada, Countess Pembroke was born on 26 Apr 1141 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland; died in 0___ 1188 in Waterford, Ireland; was buried in Tintern, Monmouthshire, Wales.
22291. Orlacan Nâi Murchada was born in 1154 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland; died in 1200 in Ireland.

12034.

Other Events and Attributes:

Occupation: Sheriff of Hereford
Alt Birth: 1100, Bramber, Sussex, England
Alt Birth: ~1112, Monmouthshire, Wales
Alt Death: ~1192, Woebley, Herefordshire, England

Notes:

William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber (fl. 1135–1179) was a 12th-century Marcher lord who secured a foundation for the dominant position later held by the Braose family in the Welsh Marches. In addition to the family's English holdings in Sussex and Devon, William had inherited Radnor and Builth, in Wales, from his father Philip. By his marriage he increased the Braose Welsh holdings to include Brecon and Abergavenny.

William remained loyal to King Stephen during the 12th-century period of civil war. He became a trusted royal servant during the subsequent reign of Henry II, accompanying the king on campaigns in France and Ireland. He served as sheriff of Herefordshire from 1173 until 1175. The family's power reached its peak under his son William during the reigns of King Richard I and King John.

William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber
Lord of Bramber
Died after 1179
Noble family House of Braose
Spouse(s) Bertha, daughter of Miles of Gloucester and Sibyl de Neufmarchâe
Issue
William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber
Father Philip de Braose
Mother Aenor de Totnes, daughter of Juhel of Totnes

Lands and family

William was the eldest son of Philip de Braose, lord of Bramber.[1] His mother was Aenor, daughter of Juhel of Totnes.[1] He was the third in the line of the Anglo-Norman Braose family founded by his grandfather, the first William de Braose.[1] After his father died in the 1130s William inherited lordships, land and castles in Sussex, with his caput at Bramber. He also held Totnes in Devon and Radnor and Builth in the Welsh Marches.[2] He confirmed the grants of his father and grandfather to the abbey of St Florent in Anjou and made further grants to the abbey's dependent priory at Sele in Sussex.[3] In about 1155, he also inherited through his mother's family one half of the honour of Barnstaple in Devon, paying a fee of 1000 marks for the privilege.[2] William became an internationally recognised figure. When Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury was asked by Pope Adrian IV to inquire into the background of a certain Walter, canon of St Ruf, his reply, dated to 1154/9 read:

The facts which you demand need but little enquiry; for they shine so brightly in themselves that they cannot be hid; so great is the brilliance of his noble birth and the glory of all his kin. For Walter, as we know for a fact, was the son of a distinguished knight and born of a noble mother in lawful wedlock, and he is closely related by blood to the noble William de Braose.[4]

William had married Bertha, daughter of Miles of Gloucester and Sibyl de Neufmarchâe, by 1150.[1] When each of Bertha's four brothers (Walter de Hereford, Henry FitzMiles (or Henry de Hereford), Mahel de Hereford and William de Hereford) died leaving no issue, William's marriage became unexpectedly valuable. He gained control of the lordships of Brecon and Abergavenny after 1166 when the last brother died.[1] These additional land holdings greatly expanded the territorial power and income of the Braose family. They now held a vast block of territory in the Welsh Marches as well as their extensive interests in Sussex and Devon. William's daughters were able to make good marriages, notably Sibyl to William de Ferrers, Earl of Derby.[5] Maud was married to John de Brompton of Shropshire.[6] William's son and heir, another William de Braose, became a major player in national politics under King John.[7]

Royal service

Empress Maud, the only legitimate living child of Henry I, landed in England in 1139 in an attempt to press her claim to the monarchy. She was soon besieged by King Stephen's forces at Arundel castle. Stephen allowed Maud a safe conduct to Bristol and provided her with an escort, which included William de Braose,[8] suggesting that he was an adherent of King Stephen. William was present as a witness when three charters were issued by Stephen at Lewes dated to the years 1148–53,[9] therefore it appears that he remained loyal to the king until the Treaty of Wallingford ended the hostilities.

William was in Sussex in 1153,[nb 1] but he followed Duke Henry, soon to become King Henry II, to Normandy in 1154.[nb 2] William was frequently with the new king. He was one of the military leaders who supported Henry at Rhuddlan in 1157.[12] He witnessed one of the king's charters at Romsey in 1158,[13] and he is recorded at the king's court in Wiltshire in 1164 when the Constitutions of Clarendon were enacted.[14] He accompanied the king on expedition to France, witnessing at Leons[nb 3] in 1161 and Chinon in 1162. William is also documented on the Irish campaign at Dublin in 1171 and Wexford 1172.[15] William's younger brother, Philip, also accompanied the king to Ireland, and remained with the garrison at Wexford. In 1177 Philip was granted the kingdom of Limerick by Henry but failed to take possession after the citizens set fire to the town.[16]

When Henry was facing war with his sons in 1173, William was appointed as sheriff of Herefordshire at Easter. He maintained the King's interests in Herefordshire until 1175.[1]

Later life and death

King Henry withdrew his favour from the family after William's son organised the murder of Seisyll ap Dyfnwal and other Welsh princes at Abergavenny in 1176.[17] There is little subsequent record of William in public life, and it is likely that he retired to his estates in Sussex. William died after 1179 and was succeeded by his son, William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber,[1] who gained the favour of both King Richard I and King John and became a dominant force in the Welsh Marches during their reigns.[18]

end of biography

William de Braose, 3rd lord of Bramber was a Marcher lord, active during the 12th century period of anarchy and the subsequent reign of Henry II. He served as sheriff of Herefordshire from 1173 to 1175.

William was the eldest son of Philip de Braose, lord of Bramber. His mother was Aenor, daughter of Juhel of Totnes. He was the third in the line of the Anglo-Norman Braose family. After his father died in the 1130s William held lordships, land and castles in Sussex, with his caput at Bramber, also at Totnes in Devon and Radnor and Builth in the Welsh Marches. He confirmed the grants of his father and grandfather to the abbey of St Florent in Anjou and made further grants to the abbey's dependent priory at Sele in Sussex. About 1155, he also inherited through his mother's family one half of the honour of Barnstaple in Devon, paying a fee of 1000 marks for the privilege.

William became an internationally recognised figure. When Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury was asked by Pope Adrian IV to inquire into the background of a certain Walter, canon of St Ruf, his reply, dated to 1154/9 read:

"The facts which you demand need but little enquiry; for they shine so brightly in themselves that they cannot be hid; so great is the brilliance of his noble birth and the glory of all his kin. For Walter, as we know for a fact, was the son of a distinguished knight and born of a noble mother in lawful wedlock, and he is closely related by blood to the noble William de Braose."

William had married Bertha, daughter of Miles of Gloucester by 1150. When each of Bertha's four brothers died leaving no issue William's marriage became unexpectedly valuable. He gained control of the lordships of Brecon and Abergavenny after 1166 when the last brother died. These additional land holdings greatly expanded the territorial power and income of the Braose family. They now held a vast block of territory in the Middle March as well as their extensive interests in Sussex and Devon. William's daughters were able to make good marriages, notably Sibyl to William de Ferrers, Earl of Derby. William's son and heir, became a major player in national politics under King John.

Empress Maud landed in England in 1139 in an attempt to press her claim to the monarchy. She was soon besieged by King Stephen's forces at Arundel castle. Stephen allowed Maud a safe conduct to Bristol, and provided her with an escort which included William de Braose. Thus, at the start of this conflict, William was an adherent of King Stephen. He witnessed three charters with Stephen at Lewes dated by Davis as 1148/53 so it appears that he remained loyal to the king until the Treaty of Wallingford which ended the hostilities.

William was in Sussex in 1153, but he followed Duke Henry, soon to become King Henry II, across to Normandy in 1154. William was frequently with the new king. He was one of the great men in the army at Rhuddlan in 1157. He witnessed one of the king's charters at Romsey in 1158 and he is recorded at the king's court in Wiltshire in 1164 when the Constitutions of Clarendon were enacted. He accompanied the king on expedition to France, witnessing at Leons, in 1161 and Chinon in 1162. William is also documented on the Irish campaign at Dublin in 1171 and Wexford 1172.

When Henry was facing war with his sons in 1173, William was appointed as sheriff of Hereford at Easter. He maintained the King's interests in Herefordshire until 1175. King Henry withdrew his favour from the family after William's son organised the murder of Seisyll ap Dyfnwal and other Welsh princes at Abergavenny in 1175. There is little record of William in public life after this and it is likely that he retired to his estates in Sussex. It is at this time that the extensions were made to St. Mary's, Shoreham. (Pictured at top)

(The above is an adaptation of the article I wrote for Wikipedia. Sources for the information given can be found there.)

Father: Philip de Braose

Mother: Aanor

Married to Bertha, daughter of Miles of Gloucester, Earl of Hereford

Child 1: William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber

Child 2: Maud = John de Brompton

Child 3: Sibilla = (1)William de Ferrers =(2)Adam de Port

Child 4: John

Child 5: Roger

Roger is a witness to a charter of his brother William. (Dugdales "Monasticon" iv, p616)

(Some sources give a daughter Bertha who married a Beauchamp. I believe this Bertha is a daughter of William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber. See her page for references.)

end of biography

William (de Braose) BRUCEPrint Family Tree William de /Braose/ , William de /Braose/

Born in 1100 - Bramber, Sussex, England
Deceased 21 October 1190 - London, England , age at death: 90 years old

Parents

Philip (de Braose) BRUCE, born in 1073 - Bramber, Sussex, England, Deceased in 1134 - Bramber, Sussex, England age at death: 61 years old
Married in 1104, Barnstaple, Devon, England, to
Aenor De TOTNES, born in 1084 - Barnstaple, Devon, England, Deceased in 1102 - Bramber, Sussex, England age at death: 18 years old

Spouses, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren

Married in 1148, Herefordshire, England, to Bertha De PITRES, born in 1107 - Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England, Deceased - Bramber, Sussex, England (Parents : M Miles (Fitzwalter) De (1st Earl of Hereford) PITRES 1092-1143 & F Sybil (de Neufmarche) NEWMARCH 1092-1142) with
F Bertha (de Braose) BRUCE ca 1145- married before 1180, Wales, to Gilbert De (Baron) MONMOUTH 1140-1190 with
M John De (SIR - Lord of Monmouth) MONMOUTH ca 1180- married in 1202, Monmouth, Monmouthshire, Wales, to Cecily Waleran FitzWalter 1182-1222 with :
F Joan Margaret De MONMOUTH ca 1201-1247
M William De Monmouth

John De (SIR - Lord of Monmouth) MONMOUTH ca 1180- married in April 1223, Monmouthshire, Wales, to Agnes de ** MUSCEGROS ca 1190- with :
M Richard (de Wyesham) De MONMOUTH 1223/-
M Walter De MONMOUTH 1223/-
M John De (5th Lord of Monmouth) MONMOUTH 1225-1274

Bertha (de Braose) BRUCE ca 1145- married before 1182, Bramber, Sussex, England, to Walter De BEAUCHAMP ca 1160-1235 with
M James De BEAUCHAMP 1182-1233
M Watchline De BEAUCHAMP 1184-1236 married to Joane De MORTIMER 1194-1268 with :
M William De BEAUCHAMP 1210-1267
F Matilda Maud (de Braose) ca 1146- married in 1168, England, to John De BRAMPTON ca 1136-1179 with
M Brian De BRAMPTON 1168-1197 married in 1195, England, to Alice De Neufmenell 1172- with :
M Brian De Brampton 1194-1262
F Margaret (de Braose) (Lady Meath) BRUCE ca 1149- married 19 November 1200, Ewyas Harold, Herefordshire, England, to Walter De (Sir - Lord Meath) LACY ca 1150-1241 with
F Petronilla De LACY 1195-1288 married to Ralph VI De (Lord Flamstead) TOENI 1190-1239 with :
F Constance De TOENI ca 1220-1263
M Roger Michaelmas De (Lord of Flamstead) TOENI 1235-1264
F Gille Egidia De LACY 1202-1239 married 21 April 1225 to Richard Mor "The Great", De (1st Earl of Ulster) BURGH 1202-1242 with :
M Walter De ( 1st Earl of Ulster, 2nd Lord of Cornaught) BURGH 1232-1271
M Gilbert (Of Meath) De LACY 1206-1230 married in 1225, Norfolk, England, to Isabel BIGOD 1212-1250 with :
F Margery De LACY ca 1232-1256
F Sybil (de Braose) BRUCE /1151-1227 married to Philip (le Boteler) BUTLER 1157-1174 with
F Clemence (le Boteler) BUTLER 1175-1231 married in 1188, England, to John (Lackland) (KING OF ENGLAND) PLANTAGENET 1166-1216 with :
F Joan (Princess of WALES) PLANTAGENET 1190-1236

Clemence (le Boteler) BUTLER 1175-1231 married in 1205 to Nicholas De (SIR - Baron of Alton, Lord of Farnham) VERDUN 1175- with :
F Rohese De VERDUN 1204-1246
M William (de Braose) BRUCE 1153-1211 married in 1174, Bramber, Sussex, England, to Maud (Matilda) De St VALERY 1155-1210 with
F Matilda Maud (de Braose) 1160-1209 married in 1189 to Gruffydd Ap (Prince of South Wales) RHYS 1148-1201 with :
M Owain Ap GRUFFYDD ca 1176-1235
F Lleucu Verch GRUFFYDD 1202-1250
M William (The Younger) de Braose) BRUCE 1175-1210 married in 1196, Kent, England, to Matilda De CLARE 1175-1213 with :
F Matilda (de Braose) BRUCE ca 1195-1274
M John (de Braose) (Lord of Bramber) BRUCE 1197-1232
F Laurette (de Braose) BRUCE ca 1176-1266 married to Robert "Fitz-Parnell" HARCOURT ca 1156- with :
M X Harcourt ca 1190-
M Reginald (de Braose) BRUCE 1182-1227 married 19 March 1202, Bramber, Sussex, England, to Grecian Alice De BRIWERE 1186-1226 with
F Matilda (de Braose) BRUCE ca 1200-1249 married in 1219, Carmarthenshire, Wales, to Rhys (Mechyll) Ap (Gryg ) RHYS 1174-1244 with :
M Ieuan Ap RHYS ca 1220-
F Gwenllian Verch RHYS ca 1225-1268
M William "Black William" (de Braose) BRUCE 1204-1230 married 2 May 1230, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, to Eve (Baroness of Abergavenny) MARSHALL 1194-1246 with :
M William (de Braose) BRUCE 1210-1292
F Isabella (de Braose) BRUCE 1220/-
F Eva (de Braose) BRUCE 1220-1255
F Maud (de Braose) (BARONESS WIGMORE) BRUCE 1226-1300

Siblings

F Maud (de Braose) BRUCE 1109-1200 Married about 1130, Wales, to William De BEAUCHAMP 1105-1170

Paternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M William de (Braose) BRUCE 1049-1093 married (1072)
F Agnes De SAINT CLARE 1034-1080
M Philip (de Braose) BRUCE 1073-1134
married (1104)
2 children

Maternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M Juhel De TOTNES 1049-1123 married (1083)
F ** De PICQUIGNY 1060-1145
F Aenor De TOTNES 1084-1102
married (1104)
2 children

Timeline
1100 : Birth - Bramber, Sussex, England
1112 : Birth - Bramber, Sussex, England

Sources: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2003.Original data - Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Heritage Consulting.Original data: Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: - 1,7249::0
Note http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=millind&h=1077681&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt - Birth date: 1126 Birth place: Briouze, Normandy, France Death date: 1192-3 Death place: - 1,7249::1077681
1126 : Birth - Briouze, Orne, Basse-Normandie, France
Sources: Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Ancestry.com Operations Inc - 1,7249::0 - 1,7249::1077681
1148 : Marriage (with Bertha De PITRES) - Herefordshire, England
before 1190 : LORD of BRAMBER
21 October 1190 : Death - London, England
1192 : Death - England
Sources: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2003.Original data - Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Heritage Consulting.Original data: Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: - 1,7249::0
Note http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=millind&h=1077681&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt - Birth date: 1126 Birth place: Briouze, Normandy, France Death date: 1192-3 Death place: - 1,7249::1077681
1192 : Death
Age: 66
Sources: Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Ancestry.com Operations Inc - 1,7249::0 - 1,7249::1077681

Notes
Individual Note
Source: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2003.Original data - Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Heritage Consulting.Original data: Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: - 1,7249::0
http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=millind&h=1077681&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt Birth date: 1126 Birth place: Briouze, Normandy, France Death date: 1192-3 Death place: 1,7249::1077681
Source: Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Ancestry.com Operations Inc - 1,7249::0 1,7249::1077681

Sources
Individual: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=8845

Family Tree Preview
Ancestry Chart Descendancy Chart Printable Family Tree
_____| 16_ Rognvald Wolfs (of Orkey) BRUCE /1000-1046
_____| 8_ Robert BRUCE 1030-1094
_____| 4_ William de (Braose) BRUCE 1049-1093
/ \ _____| 18_ Alan III De (Count of Brittany) RENNES 1000-1040
|2_ Philip (de Braose) BRUCE 1073-1134
| \ _____| 20_ Mauger (de St Claire) (Seigneur) NORMANDY ca 990-1017
| \ _____| 10_ Waldron De St CLARE 1015-1047
| \ _____| 22_ Richard De NORMANDY 1001-1028
|--1_ William (de Braose) BRUCE 1100-1190
| _____| 12_ Alured De TOTNES 1015-1080
| /
| _____| 6_ Juhel De TOTNES 1049-1123
| / \
|3_ Aenor De TOTNES 1084-1102
\
\ _____| 14_ Arnoul De PICQUIGNY 1020-1055
\ /
\

end of profile

Name: William DE BRAOSE
Sex: M
Birth: 1105 in Bramber, Sussex, England
ALIA: William de BRAOSE Lord of Bramber
Title: Lord of Bramber
Death: BET 1192 AND 1193 in Bramber, Sussex, England
Note:
Dec 08 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_de_Braose,_3rd_Lord_of_Bramber -

William de Braose, Third Lord of Bramber (born 1112 in Brecon) (d. ca. 1192) was the eldest son of Philip de Braose, Second Lord of Bramber.

Family and early career
William was born into a second generation English Norman dynasty holding Lordships and land in Sussex at Bramber, also at Totnes in Devon and Radnor and Builth in the Welsh Marches of Wales. He maintained his Sussex lands and titles and extended St Mary's, Shoreham and contributed to a priory at Sele, West Sussex. His mother was Aenor Fitz Judhel of Totnes.

He also inherited one half of the honour of Barnstaple in Devon, paying a fee of 1000 marks for the privilege.

William married Bertha de Pitres, also known as Bertha de Hereford, daughter of Miles of Gloucester, Earl of Hereford. Through this marriage, William acquired lordships of Brecon and Abergavenny in 1166 because Bertha's four brothers all died young without heirs.

These vast land holdings greatly expanded the territorial power and income of the de Braose dynasty. They now held the Middle March with extensive interests in Sussex and Devon.

William's younger brother Phillip accompanied King Henry II to Ireland, receiving in 1172 the honour of Limerick.

Marcher titles
In 1174, William became sheriff of Hereford. He died in about 1192 and was succeeded as Lord of Bramber by his son, William. He had also fathered two daughters, Maud and Sibilla, who married well and possibly a later son, named John.

Nov 09 from http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hwbradley/aqwg825.htm#13602 -

William de BRAOSE Lord of Bramber [Parents] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 was born 1105 in Bramber, Sussex, England. He died 8 1192/1193 in Bramber, Sussex, England. William married Bertha of HEREFORD on 1146 in Bramber, Sussex, England.

Bertha of HEREFORD [Parents] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 was born 1128 in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England. She married William de BRAOSE Lord of Bramber on 1146 in Bramber, Sussex, England.

They had the following children:

F i Bertha de BRAOSE was born 1147.
M ii William de BRAOSE Baron de Braose was born 1149 and died 9 Aug 1211.
F iii Mabel de BRAOSE was born 1151 and died 1203.
F iv Sybil de BRAOSE was born 1153 and died after 5 Feb 1228.
M v John de BRAOSE 1 was born 1160 in Bramber, Sussex, England.

1Weis, Frederick Lewis, Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America before 1700 (7th ed., Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1992.), 177-5, 194-5, 222-28, Los Angeles Public Library, Gen 974 W426 1992.

2Cokayne, George Edward, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, or Dormant (London: St. Catherine Press, 1910.), 11:321, Los Angeles Public Library, 929.721 C682.

3Cokayne, G., CP, 1:21-22, 14:6.

4Sanders, Ivor John, English Baronies: A Study of Their Origin and Descent, 1086-1327 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960.), pp. 7, 21, 105, Los Angeles Public Library, 929.722 S215.

5Keats-Rohan, K.S.B., Domesday Descendants: A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066-1166 (Rochester, New York: The Boydell Press, 2002.), pp. 346-7, Library of Congress, DA177 .K4 2002.

6Cokayne, G., CP, 1:21e.

7Curfman, Robert Joseph, "The Yale Descent from Braiose & Clare through Pigott of Buckinghamshire," The American Genealogist 56:1 (Jan 1980), pp. 1-2, Los Angeles Public Library.

8Sanders, I., English Baronies, p. 7.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bertha of HEREFORD

1Weis, Frederick Lewis, Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America before 1700 (7th ed., Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1992.), 177-5, 194-5, 222-28, Los Angeles Public Library, Gen 974 W426 1992.

2Cokayne, George Edward, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, or Dormant (London: St. Catherine Press, 1910.), 1:21-2, 11:321, Los Angeles Public Library, 929.721 C682.

3Sanders, Ivor John, English Baronies: A Study of Their Origin and Descent, 1086-1327 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960.), pp. 7, 21, Los Angeles Public Library, 929.722 S215.

4Keats-Rohan, K.S.B., Domesday Descendants: A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066-1166 (Rochester, New York: The Boydell Press, 2002.), pp. 346-7, Library of Congress, DA177 .K4 2002.

5Curfman, Robert Joseph, "The Yale Descent from Braiose & Clare through Pigott of Buckinghamshire," The American Genealogist 56:1 (Jan 1980), p. 2, Los Angeles Public Library.

Father: Philip DE BRAOSE b: 1074 in Briouze-Saint-Gervais, Orne, Basse-Nomandie, France
Mother: Aenor DE TOTENEIS b: 1084 in Totnes, Devon, England

Marriage 1 BERTHA b: 1128 in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England
Married: 1146 in Bramber, Sussex, England
Children
Has Children William DE BRAOSE b: 1149 in Bramber, Sussex, England
Has Children Mabel DE BRAOSE b: 1151 in Bramber, Sussex, England
Has Children Sybil DE BRAOSE b: 1153 in Bramber, Sussex, England
Has Children Bertha DE BRAOSE b: 1147 in Bramber, Sussex, England

end of biography

Notes
He held in addition to his patrimony the lordship of half of Barnstaple, acquired through his mother, coheir to the barony. In 1158 he had offered the king a fine of 1000 marks for twenty-eight knights' fees as his mother's share of her inheritance, and when he died he still owed ¹430. William (II)'s marriage brought him the lordships of Brecon and Abergavenny on the southern Welsh marches as his wife's share after the deaths of her two brothers. William (II) de Briouze concentrated his energies on his Welsh marcher lands, serving Henry II as sheriff of Herefordshire, 1173?5. The marriage of his daughter Sibyl to William de Ferrers, earl of Derby (d. 1190), indicates the status that the Briouze family enjoyed.

William was very fortunate in his marriage to Berta. All of her brothers died young without heirs so she brought a number of important lordships to the de Braoses in 1166. These included Brecon and Abergavenny. William became Sheriff of Hereford in 1174. His interest in Sussex was maintained as he confirmed the grants of his father and grandfather for the maintenance of Sele Priory and extended St. Mary's, Shoreham.

Child 1: William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber
Child 2: Maud = John de Brompton
Child 3: Sibilla = (1)William de Ferrers =(2)Adam de Port
Child 4: John
Child 5: Roger Roger is a witness to a charter of his brother William. (Dugdales "Monasticon" iv, 616 per Elwes)

From c1173 to 1230 successive fathers, sons, and younger brothers called de Briouze were feudal lords of Abergavenny. William de Briouze, the first of them, who derived his name from his lordship of Briouze in Normandy, married the sister and coheir of the 2nd Earl of Hereford (also daughter of 1st Earl) mentioned above, which seems to account for his coming into possession of a lordship in that part of the Welsh marches. [1]

OWNERS of the LORDSHIP of ABERGAVENNY (X) 1173?

William de Briouze (e), Lord of Briouze in Normandy, and of Bramber, Sussex, son and heir of Philip de Briouze, by Aenor, daughter and heir of Juhel son of Alvred, Lord of Barnstaple and Totnes. He married, in or before 1150, Bertha, 2nd sister and coheir of William of Hereford being daughter of Miles of Gloucester, 1st Earl of Gloucester (sic. Earl of Hereford). Sheriff of Hereford, Easter 1173-75, at which earlier date probably he already possessed the Lordship of Over Gwent. He was living in 1179. [2]

(e) Briouze-Saint-Gervais (formerly Braiose), arrond. of Argentan, dept. of Orne. His descendants spelt the name Brewes. In some 25 early references to this name, not in charter latin, it appears as Breouse, Breuse, or Brewys (the last of which still exists as a surname), but never as Braose, the form adopted in peerages, for which it seems doubtful if there be any good authority.

Note: The above text "1st Earl of Gloucester", which was part of a correction in CP XIV:6, is a mistake; Miles was Earl of Hereford.

Sources

? Burke's Peerage
? Complete Peerage I:21-2, XIV:6,
1. The Plantagenet Ancestry, Eng. 116, p. 78
2. The Complete Peerage, G.E.C., Eng. v, v. 1, p. 21, 22, v. 4, p. 193, 194, v. 6, p. 451-54
3. The Genealogist, Eng. Pub. AF, os, v. 4, p. 139-41, 235
4. Arch. Cambr., Wales Pub. A, 4s, v. 14, p. 177, 6s, v. 10, p. 340
5. Burke's Extinct Peerage, 1883 & 1886, Eng. P-1, p. 72
6. Dict. of Nat'l Biog., Eng. Pub. A, v. 6, p. 229-31
7. Dugdale's Baronage of Engl, Eng. AL, v. 1, p. 414, 416
8. Wells & Allied Families, B8G4, p. 177
9. Sussex Arch. Collections, Suss. 1, v. 5, p. 5, 148
10. The Ligon Family, B15A183, v. 1, p. 108

!RESEARCH NOTE: There is no indication in any of the above quoted sources that there was a Giles or Roger belonging to this family. Also there is some doubt whether the above Reginald has been mistaken for the Reginald who married Grace de Briwere who is actually grandson of the above couple.

In the case of child #1, Bertha, there is also some quandry as to whether she belongs to this couple or to William,

child #2, and whether she married William Beauchamp or Walter de Beauchamp.

There are also some indications that this Bertha is the daughter of the above couple who married Adam de Port. Because of the sealing action previously taken, their names will be left on this compilation until better evidence is made available.

END OF COMMENTARY

12035.

Notes:

Bertha of Hereford, also known as Bertha de Pitres (born c.1130), was the daughter of Miles de Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford, and a wealthy heiress, Sibyl de Neufmarchâe. She was the wife of William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber to whom she brought many castles and Lordships, including Brecknock, Abergavenny, and Hay.

Family

Bertha was born in England in about 1130. She was a daughter of Miles, Earl of Hereford (1097- 24 December 1143) and Sibyl de Neufmarchâe.[1] She had two sisters, Margaret of Hereford,[2] who married Humphrey II de Bohun, by whom she had issue,[3] and Lucy of Hereford, who married Herbert FitzHerbert of Winchester, by whom she had issue.[citation needed] Her brothers, included Roger Fitzmiles, 2nd Earl of Hereford, Walter de Hereford, Henry Fitzmiles, William de Hereford, and Mahel de Hereford.[4]

Her paternal grandparents were Walter FitzRoger de Pitres,Sheriff of Gloucester and Bertha de Balun of Bateden,[5] a descendant of Hamelin de Balun,[citation needed] and her maternal grandparents were Bernard de Neufmarchâe, Lord of Brecon, and Nesta ferch Osbern.[6] The latter was a daughter of Osbern FitzRichard of Richard's Castle, and Nesta ferch Gruffydd.[7] Bertha was a direct descendant, in the maternal line, of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn (1007- 5 August 1063) and Edith (Aldgyth), daughter of Elfgar, Earl of Mercia.[citation needed]

Her father Miles served as Constable to King Stephen of England. He later served in the same capacity to Empress Matilda after he'd transferred his allegiance. In 1141, she made him Earl of Hereford in gratitude for his loyalty. On 24 December 1143, he was killed whilst on a hunting expedition in the Forest of Dean.[8]

Marriage and issue

Abergavenny Castle in Monmouthshire, Wales, was one of the castles Bertha of Hereford brought to her husband William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber
In 1150, she married William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber (1112–1192), son of Philip de Braose, 2nd Lord of Bramber and Aenor, daughter of Judael of Totnes. William and Bertha had three daughters and two sons, including William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber.

In 1173, her brothers all having died without issue, she brought the Lordships and castles of Brecknock and Abergavenny, to her husband.[8] Hay Castle had already passed to her from her mother, Sibyl of Neufmarche in 1165, whence it became part of the de Braose holdings.

In 1174, her husband became Sheriff of Hereford.

Her children include

William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber, (1144/1153- 11 August 1211, Corbeil),[9][10] married Maud de St. Valery, daughter of Bernard de St. Valery, by whom he had 16 children.
Roger de Braose[11]
Bertha de Braose[12] (born 1151), married c.1175, Walter de Beauchamp (died 1235), son of William de Beauchamp and Joan de Walerie, by whom she had issue, including Walcherine de Beauchamp who married Joan Mortimer.
Sibyl de Braose (died after 5 February 1227),[13] married William de Ferrers, 3rd Earl of Derby (1136- 21 October 1190 at Acre on crusade), son of Robert de Ferrers, 2nd Earl of Derby and Margaret Peverel, by whom she had issue.
Maud de Braose, married John de Brompton, by whom she had issue.[citation needed]

Legacy

Bertha died on an unknown date. She was the ancestress of many noble English families which included the de Braoses, de Beauchamps, de Bohuns and de Ferrers; as well as the Irish families of de Lacy and de Burgh.[14][not in citation given]

end of biography

Children:

Joan Braose was born in ~1130 in Bramber Castle, West Sussex, England; died in 1170 in Shenton, Leicestershire, England.
24143. Sybil de Braose was born before 1151 in Bramber, Sussex, England; died on 5 Feb 1227 in Derbyshire, England.
Mabel de Braose was born in 1151 in Bramber, Sussex, England; died in 1203 in (Axholme, Lincolnshire, England).
Bertha Braose was born in 1151 in Bramber, Sussex, England; died in ~1175.
6032. Sir William de Braose, III, Knight, 4th Lord of Bramber was born in 1153 in Bramber, Sussex, England; died on 9 Aug 1211 in Corbeil, Marne, Champagne-Ardenne, France; was buried in 1211 in Paris, France.
Sir Reginald de Braose, Knight was born in 1162 in (Bramber, West Sussex, England); died in BY 1228; was buried in Saint John's, Brecon, Wales.

11124.

Notes:

Richard fitz Gilbert de Clare (died 15 April 1136) 3rd Lord of Clare, was an Anglo-Norman nobleman. A marcher lord in Wales, he was also the founder of Tonbridge Priory in Kent.

Life

Richard was the eldest son of Gilbert Fitz Richard de Clare and Adeliza de Claremont.[1] Upon his father's death, he inherited his lands in England and Wales.

He is commonly said to have been created Earl of Hertford by either Henry I or Stephen, but no contemporary reference to him, including the record of his death, calls him by any title, while a cartulary states that a tenant had held "de Gilleberto, filio Richardi, et de Ricardo, filio ejus, et postea, de Comite Gilleberto, filio Richardi" ("of Gilbert Fitz Richard, and his son Richard, and then of Earl Gilbert Fitz Richard"), again failing to call Richard 'Earl' while giving that title to his son. Thus his supposed creation as earl is without merit, although his status and wealth made him a great magnate in England.[1] There is an old photo document on the wikipedia page for Tonbridge priory which states that the priory was founded by Richard de Clare EARL of (B.. illegible) and Hertfordshire.

Directly following the death of Henry I, hostilities increased significantly in Wales and a rebellion broke out.[2] Robert was a strong supporter of King Stephen and in the first two years of his reign Robert attested a total of twenty-nine of that king's charters.[3] He was with King Stephen when he formalized a treaty with King David I of Scotland and was a royal steward at Stephen's great Easter court in 1136.[3] He was also with Stephen at the siege of Exeter that summer and was in attendance on the king on his return from Normandy. At this point, Richard apparently demanded more land in Wales, which Stephen was not willing to give him.[3]

In 1136, Richard had been away from his lordship in the early part of the year. He returned to the borders of Wales via Hereford in the company of Brian Fitz Count, but on their separating, Richard ignored warnings of the danger and pressed on toward Ceredigion with only a small force.[4] He had not gone far when, on 15 April, he was ambushed and killed by the men of Gwent under Iorwerth ab Owain and his brother Morgan, grandsons of Caradog ap Gruffydd, in a woody tract called "the ill-way of Coed Grano", near Llanthony Abbey, north of Abergavenny.[5] Today the spot is marked by the 'garreg dial' (the stone of revenge).[6] He was buried in Tonbridge Priory,[7] which he founded.[1]

Aftermath

The news of Richard's death induced Owain Gwynedd, son of Gruffudd ap Cynan, king of Gwynedd to invade his lordship. In alliance with Gruffydd ap Rhys of Deheubarth, he won a crushing victory over the Normans at the Battle of Crug Mawr, just outside Cardigan. The town of Cardigan was taken and burnt, and Richard's widow, Alice, took refuge in Cardigan Castle, which was successfully defended by Robert fitz Martin. She was rescued by Miles of Gloucester, who led an expedition to bring her to safety in England

Family

Richard married Alice, sister of Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester,[1] by her having:

Gilbert Fitz Richard de Clare, d. 1153 (without issue), 1st Earl of Hertford.[8]
Roger de Clare, d. 1173, 2nd Earl of Hertford.[8]
Alice de Clare (Adelize de Tonbridge), m. (1) about 1133, Sir William de Percy, Lord of Topcliffe, son of Alan de Percy and Emma de Gant; (2) Cadwaladr ap Gruffydd, brother of Owain Gwynedd
Robert Fitz Richard de Clare, perhaps died in childhood
Rohese de Clare, m. Gilbert de Gant, Earl of Lincoln.[9]

end

Richard married Alice de Gernon. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

11125.

Alice de Gernon (daughter of Sir Ranulf Meschin, Knight, 1st Earl of Chester and Lucy of Bolingbroke).

Children:

5562. Sir Roger de Clare, Knight, 3rd Earl of Hertford was born in 0___ 1116 in Tonbridge Castle, Kent, England; died in 0___ 1173 in Oxfordshire, England.
Alice de Clare was born in Tonbridge Castle, Kent, England.
Rohese de Clare was born in Tonbridge Castle, Kent, England.

24312.

Notes:

Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk (109-1177) was the second son of Roger Bigod (also known as Roger Bigot) (d. 1107), sheriff of Norfolk and royal advisor, and Adeliza, daughter of Robert de Tosny.

Early Years

After the death of his elder brother William, who perished without issue in the sinking of the White Ship on 26 November 1120, Hugh was allowed to inherit his brother's office of royal steward and many estates in East Anglia. He also succeeded his aunt Albreda, heiress of her brother Berengar de Tosny, with lands in Yorkshire and in Normandy.[1] Hugh became Constable of Norwich Castle in 1122.

During King Stephen's reign

Hugh initially supported Stephen of Blois as king of England. On the death of Henry I in 1135, his nephew Stephen usurped the throne, despite the oath Stephen and the barons had sworn to accept Henry's daughter Empress Matilda as his successor. It was Bigod who asserted that, in his last days, Henry I had named Stephen to become king at the expense of his daughter Matilda.[2] Civil war resulted when, in 1139 Matilda, commanded the military strength necessary to challenge Stephen within his own realm.

King Stephen had the initial support of the English barons, but in 1136 he was stricken with sickness and the report of his death was quickly spread abroad. Hugh Bigod seized and held Norwich castle. Stephen, quickly recovering, laid siege to the city and Hugh was compelled to surrender.[3] In February 1141 Bigod fought on Stephen's side in the First Battle of Lincoln, after which the Earl deserted the captured king. In July of that year he was granted the earldom of Norfolk by the Empress Matilda but he appears to have assumed a position of armed neutrality during the civil war, rather than actively siding with the supporters of the empress.[4]

He supported his first wife's brother-in-law, Geoffrey de Mandeville, 1st Earl of Essex, during his rebellion against King Stephen in 1143-44.[5] During the disagreement between King Stephen and Archbishop Theobald in 1148, Hugh Bigod sided with the archbishop and received him in his stronghold, Castle of Framlingham, but joined with others in negotiating a reconciliation between the king and archbishop.

Rise of King Henry II

Five years later, in 1153, when Henry, Duke of Normandy, soon to be King Henry II (r. 1154–89), landed in England to assert his claim to the throne, Bigod held out in Ipswich against Stephen's forces, while Henry II, on the other side, laid siege to Stamford. Both places fell to Stephen. In the critical state of his fortunes, however, Stephen was in no position to punish the rebel earl. Negotiations between the two parties resulted in Henry's recognition as Stephen's heir and Hugh eluded retaliation.

On Henry II's accession in December 1154, Bigod received confirmation of the possession of his earldom and office of royal steward by a charter issued apparently in January of the next year. The first years of the new reign were spent in restoring order to the shattered kingdom, and in breaking the power of the independent barons, which had grown out of control during King Stephen's reign.

It was not before long that Bigod became agitated under the rule of law initiated by Henry. He grew restless with measures such as the scutage, a fee paid by vassals in lieu of military service, which became the central feature of Henry II's military system of operation by 1159. The Earl showed signs of resistance, but was at once put down. In 1157 Henry II marched into the eastern counties and received the earl's submission.

After this incident Hugh Bigod makes no significant appearances in the chronicles for some time; he is named among those who had been excommunicated by Becket, in consequence of his retention of lands belonging to the monastery of Pentney in Norfolk.

The revolt of 1173
Main article: Revolt of 1173–1174

In 1173 the young Crown Prince Henry (also known as Henry the Young King), raised a revolt against his father, Henry II. This gave Hugh Bigod yet another chance for rebellion, along with the league of the English barons and the kings of France and Scotland in his favour. He at once became a leader in the cause, perhaps eager to revive the feudal power, which Henry II had curtailed. In addition to the fact that the inevitable conflict, as far as England was concerned, centred round his possessions. The custody of Norwich Castle was promised by the young prince as his reward.

The king's energy and good fortune were equal to the occasion. While he held in check his rebel vassals in France, the loyal barons in England defeated his enemies there. Robert de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Leicester (d.1190) landed at Walton, in Suffolk, on 29 September 1173 and marched to Framlingham, joining forces with Hugh. Together they besieged and took the castle of Hagenet in Suffolk on 13 October, held by Randal de Broc for the crown. But the Earl of Leicester was defeated and taken prisoner setting out from Framlingham at the Battle of Fornham, near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, by the justiciar, Richard de Luci and other barons. These then turned their arms against Earl Hugh, who, not being strong enough to fight, opened negotiations with his assailants. It is said he bought them off, and at the same time secured a safe passage home for the Flemings in his service.

Final days

Though defeated and compelled to surrender his castles, Bigod kept his lands and his earldom, and lived at peace with Henry II until his death reportedly in 1177 in Palestine.[6]

It should be noted, however, that on 1 March 1177, his son Roger Bigod appealed to the king on a dispute with his stepmother. Hugh being dead at the time of Roger's appeal, the date of his father's death is fixed 'ante caput jejunii', (i.e. before 9 March). If, then, he died in Palestine, his death must have taken place in the preceding year, 1176, to allow time for the arrival of the news in England. Henry II took advantage of Roger's appeal to seize upon the late Earl's treasure. Earl Hugh had possessed vast estates, which he inherited, and was also the recipient of the third penny of judicial fines levied in the county of Norfolk by right of his earldom.

Marriage and family

Bigod married firstly to Juliane de Vere (died c. 1199). She was the daughter of Aubrey de Vere II and Adeliza de Clare, the daughter of Gilbert Fitz Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Clare. The marriage was dissolved before 1156. They had one son:

Roger Bigod, 2nd Earl of Norfolk (born c. 1144-5). He married Ida de Tosny, had issue.
Bigod married secondly Gundreda (c.1135-1200), daughter of Roger de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Warwick. They had two children:

Hugh Bigod (b. c. 1156)
William Hugh Bigod (b. 1168)

end

Died:
State of Palestine

24313.

Juliane de Vere, Countess of Norfolk was born in ~ 1116 in Castle Hedingham, Essex, England (daughter of Sir Aubrey de Vere, II and Adeliza de Clare); died in ~ 1199.

Children:

12156. Sir Roger Bigod, 2nd Earl of Norfolk was born in 1144-1150 in Norfolk, England; died in 0___ 1221 in (Norfolk, England); was buried in Thetford, Norfolk, England.

24090.

Notes:

Sir Ralph de Tony formerly Toeni aka de Conches, de Tosny
Born about 1140 in Flamstead, Hertfordshire

ANCESTORS ancestors

Son of Roger (Toeni) de Toeni and Ida (Hainault) de Toeni
Brother of Godehaut (Toeni) de Mohun, Roger (Toeni) de Toeni IV, Baldwin (Toeni) de Toeni, Geoffrey (Toeni) de Toeni and Goda (Toeni) de Ferrers

Husband of Marguerite (Beaumont) de Tosny — married after 1155 in Leicester, England

DESCENDANTS descendants

Father of Roger (Toeni) de Tony and Ida (Toeni) le Bigod
Died 1162 in Flamstead, Hertfordshire, Englandmap
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Categories: House of Tosny.

European Aristocracy
Ralph (Toeni) de Tony is a member of royalty, nobility or aristocracy in the British Isles.
Join: British Isles Royals and Aristocrats 742-1499 Project
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Contents
[hide]
1 Biography
2 Ralph V of Tosny
2.1 Marriage
3 Sources
4 Acknowledgements
Biography
Title of Ralph de Tony (Royal Ancestry):

Seigneur of Toeni (now Tosny) in Normandy
Ralph V of Tosny
RAOUL [V] de Tosny (-1162). The Chronicon Hanoniense names (in order) "Radulphum primum [filium Rogerum], Rogerum secundum et Balduinum tercium et Gaufridum quartum clericum" as the children of "[Rogerum] domino de Thoenio" & his wife[99]. Robert of Torigny records the death in 1162 of "Radulfus de Toene"[100].
m (after 1155) MARGUERITE de Beaumont, daughter of ROBERT [II] Earl of Leicester & his wife Amice de Gaèel ([1125]-after 1185). Robert of Torigny refers to the wife of "Radulfus de Toene" as "filia Roberti comitis Leccestriµ" but does not name her[101]. The 1163/64 Pipe Roll records "Margareta uxor Rad de Toeni" making payment "de Suppl de Welcumesto" in Essex/Hertfordshire[102]. The Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records “Margareta de Tony…lx annorum” and her land “in Welcumestowe". Raoul [V] & wife had [two] children:
ROGER [IV] de Tosny (-after 29 Dec 1208). Robert of Torigny records that "parvulo filio" succeeded in 1162 on the death of his father "Radulfus de Toene" but does not name him[104]. Seigneur de Tosny. The Red Book of the Exchequer, listing scutage payments in [1194/95], names "Rogerus de Tony" paying "xl s" in Sussex[105].
[RALPH de Tosny of Holkham, co Norfolk (-before 1184). The Red Book of the Exchequer refers to "Radulfus de Tonay ii m" in Sussex in [1167/68][106].] m ADA de Chaumont, daughter of ROBERT de Chaumont & his wife -- (-aft 1184). Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records property “in Holkham…de feodo Rogeri de Tony” held by “Ade de Tony…fuit Roberti de Chaumunt”, adding that she has “i filium Baldewinum…xv annorum et…v filias”. A charter dated 25 Sep 1188 confirms the foundation of Dodnash Priory, Suffolk by "Baldewin de Toeni et dna Alda mr sua".
Marriage
Husband: Ralph de TOENI
Wife: Margaret de BEAUMONT
Child: Roger de TOENI
Marriage: AFT 1155[1]
Sources
"Royal Ancestry" 2013 by Douglas Richardson Vol. I page 40
Illegitimate child of Henry II, by a mistress, Ida de Tony, daughter of Ralph de Tony (died 1162), by Margaret, daughter of Robert, 2nd Earl of Leicester. Ida later became the wife of Roger le Bigod, Earl of Norfolk (died 1221).

"Royal Ancestry" 2013 D. Richardson Vol. V p. 171-172
Orderic Vitalis, Vol. VI, Book XI, p. 55.
Gallia Christiana, XI, Instrumenta, V, col. 128.
Dugdale Monasticon VI.1, Christ Church, Aldgate, London, VI, p. 152. Actes Henri II, Tome I, CCCCXXIII, p. 550.
Hunter, J. (ed.) (1844) The Great Rolls of the Pipe for the second, third and fourth years of the reign of King Henry II 1155-1158 (London) ("Pipe Roll") 4 Hen II (1157), Norfolk and Suffolk, p. 125.
Gisleberti Chronicon Hanoniense, MGH SS XXI, pp. 505 and 506.
Testa de Nevill, Part I, p. 134.
Gisleberti Chronicon Hanoniense, MGH SS XXI, pp. 505 and 506.
Chronique de Robert de Torigny I, 1162, p. 339.
Chronique de Robert de Torigny I, 1162, p. 339.
Pipe Roll Society, Vol. VII (1886) The Great Roll of the Pipe for the 10th year of King * Henry II (London) ("Pipe Roll 10 Hen II (1163/64)"), p. 38.
Rotuli Dominabus, Rotuli VIII, Essex, p. 41.
Chronique de Robert de Torigny I, 1162, p. 339.
Red Book Exchequer, Part I, Anno VI regis Ricardi, ad redemptionem eius, scutagium ad XXs, p. 92.
Red Book Exchequer, Part I, Knights fees, p. 47.
Rotuli Dominabus, Rotuli V, Norffolk, p. 27.
Ancient Charters (Round), Part I, 53, p. 87.
Rotuli Dominabus, Rotuli V, Norffolk, p. 27.
Ancient Charters (Round), Part I, 53, p. 87.
Red Book Exchequer, Part II, Inquisitiones…Regis Johannis…anno regno XII et XIII…de servitiis militum, p. 499.
Rotuli Dominabus, Rotuli V, Norffolk, p. 27.
Gisleberti Chronicon Hanoniense, MGH SS XXI, pp. 505 and 506.
Magna Carta Ancestry, Fenwick Allied Ancestry, Sellers. Teacher Genealogist Bond 007. http://fmg.ac/
Jean Maunder Long Bio/Time, etc...
Geni. Sources and discussion.

end of biography

History of the House of Tosny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Tosny

24091.

Children:

12157. Lady Ida de Tosny, Countess of Norfolk was born in <1160 in Flamstead, Hertfordshire, England; died after 1185.
Sir Roger Toeni, IV, Lord of Flamstead was born in 1156 in Flamstead, Hertfordshire, England; died before 1209.

5564.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: ~ 1105
Alt Death: 0___ 1165

Notes:

John FitzGilbert the Marshal of the Horses (c. 1105 – 1165) was a minor Anglo-Norman nobleman during the reign of King Stephen, and fought in the 12th century civil war on the side of Empress Matilda. Since at least 1130 and probably earlier, he had been the royal marshal to King Henry I. When Henry died, John FitzGilbert swore for Stephen and was granted the castles of Marlborough and Ludgershall, Wiltshire during this time. Along with Hamstead Marshal, this gave him control of the valley of the River Kennet in Wiltshire. Around 1139, John changed sides and swore for the Empress Matilda. In September 1141, Matilda fled the siege of Winchester and took refuge in the Marshal's castle at Ludgershall. While covering her retreat from Winchester, John Marshal was forced to take refuge at Wherwell Abbey. The attackers set fire to the building, and John lost an eye to dripping lead from the melting roof.

In 1152, John had a celebrated confrontation with King Stephen, who had besieged him at Newbury Castle. After John had broken an agreement to surrender, Stephen threatened to kill his son, whom John had given as a hostage. John refused, saying he could make more sons, but Stephen apparently took pity on the young boy and did not kill him. The boy grew up to be William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, a legendary figure in medieval lore, and one of the most powerful men in England.

The office of Lord Marshal, which originally related to the keeping of the King's horses, and later, the head of his household troops, was won as a hereditary title by John, and was passed to his eldest son, and later claimed by William. John also had a daughter, Margaret Marshal, who married Ralph de Somery, son of John de Somery and Hawise de Paynell.

Family

John was the son of Gilbert, Royal Serjeant and Marshal to Henry I, and his wife Margaret. After his father died in 1129 John inherited the title of the king's marshal. John married Aline Pipard whose father Walter Pipard had been a friend of John's father. John arranged an annulment of his marriage to Aline Pipard in order to marry Sibyl of Salisbury, the sister of Patrick of Salisbury, who had been a local rival of his, and a supporter of King Stephen, up to that point. John had two sons by Aline - Gilbert (d. 1166) and Walter (d. bef.1165). Walter predeceased his father and Gilbert died shortly after inheriting his father's lands.

John's eldest son by Sibyl of Salisbury, also called John Marshal (1145-1194), inherited the title of Marshal, which he held until his death. The title was then granted by King Richard the Lionheart to his second son by Sybilla, William (1147-1219), who made the name and title famous. Though he had started out as a younger son without inheritance, by the time he actually inherited the title his reputation as a soldier and statesman was unmatched across Western Europe. John Marshal had four sons in total by his second wife. As well as John and William, there was Henry (1150-1206), who went on to become Bishop of Exeter, and Ancel, who served as a knight in the household of his kinsman, Rotrou, Count of Perche. There were also two daughters Sybilla and Margaret.

References

Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Lines 55-28, 66-27, 81-28, 122A-29
Barlow, Frank. The Feudal Kingdom of England 1042-1216 London: Longman Group Limited, 1961. ISBN 0-582-48237-2
William Marshal, Knighthood, War and Chivalry 1147-1219 Longman 2002 ISBN 0-582-77222-2

end of biography

Biography

John Fitz-Gilbert, also called John Marshal, was the son of Gilbert Giffard, who was like John an hereditary marshal of the household of King Henry I. John and his father Gilbert, it was noted several generations later by King John, had successfully claimed the right to being "chief" marshall against competing claims from Robert de Venoix and William de Hasings.[1] By the time of John's children, the surname was being used as an early example of a surname, not only by his son and heir, but also by his younger sons.

John's career coincided with a dark 19-year period in Anglo-Norman history, called "The Anarchy" (1135-1164). It was an interregnum following King Henry I's death with no clear male heir (his legitimate son had been lost at sea in 1620). Henry I's illegitimate son, Stephen, seized the throne, opposed by Henry's daughter-in-law, Empress Matilda, fighting for her (legitimate) son's rights (he became King Henry II in 1164). The Anglo-Norman nobility nearly wrecked the country in a lengthy civil war.[2]

John's marriage to Aline Pipard was a casualty of this conflict. From 1135 to 1140 John loyally served King Stephen as Marshal of England, managing the Army's supplies and accompanying the King when he secured Normandy to his cause. John received three important castles in Wiltshire as his reward. With Hamstead Marshal, this gave him control of Wiltshire's strategic Kennet River valley. He was bitterly opposed by Patrick de Salisbury (also in Wiltshire), who supported Empress Matilda.[3].

In February 1141, Stephen's army was defeated at Lincoln and the King taken prisoner, temporarily. John, who may have opposed Stephen's questionable military strategy, decided to change sides. Later that year, with great bravery, he helped Empress Matilda escape an ambush in Wiltshire, loosing an eye and being left for dead in the process. At the same time he came to a political/family agreement with his local enemy, the Patrick of Salisbury, by arranging to annul his first marriage to his distant cousin Aline Pipard (for "consanguinity" an often-used excuse by Medieval nobles at a time when divorce was impossible) and marry Patrick's spinster sister, Sybil.[4]

Aline's sons' rights were maintained but they both died within a year of their father, leaving John's lands, and the "Marshal of England" office, to John's third son (first son by Sibyl), John Marshal, who exercised it under King Henry II until his death in 1192. King Richard (Lionheart) then passed the office to his younger brother, William, who had gone to Normandy as squire to his cousin William de Tancarville, High Chamberlain of Normandy. Though William had started out as a fourth son without any inheritance, by the time he became the Marshal of England, his reputation as a soldier and statesman was unmatched. He expanded the powers of the Marshal's office and was later Regent for Henry III when he inherited the throne as a boy[5].

John Fitz-Gilbert Marshal was a ruthless Anglo-Norman baron with considerable daring, energy, and ambition. His abilities as a soldier and his love of military stratagy were well recorded as was his political savvy. Despite what some detractors wrote, he was also quite loyal by contemporary standards. During the Anarchy he only changed sides once, remaining faithful to Matilda and her son after 1141 and defending them skillfully and at his own peril. His son William inherited his father's skills, reportedly rescuing Queen Eleanor (of Aquitaine), Henry II's wife, after an ambush near Lusignan Castle in France in 1167. After his brother's death without issue opened the way for him to become Marshal of England, he also showed great political skills, including helping implement the Magna Carta of 1215 between King John and the Barons. Between them, this father and son, from a relatively-minor Norman house, marked their century and influenced the course of English history.[6]

Burial: Bradenstoke Priory, Wiltshire

John FitzGilbert the Marshal (Marechal) (c. 1105 - 1165) was a minor Anglo-Norman nobleman during the reign of King Stephen, and fought in the 12th century civil war on the side of the Empress Matilda. Since at least 1130 and probably earlier, he had been the royal marshal to King Henry I. When Henry died, John FitzGilbert swore for Stephen and was granted the castles of Marlborough and Ludgershall, in Wiltshire. Along with Hamstead Marshal, this gave him control of the valley of the River Kennet in Wiltshire.

Around 1139, John changed sides and swore for the Empress Matilda. In September 1141, Matilda fled the siege of Winchester and took refuge in the Marshal's castle at Ludgershall. While covering her retreat from Winchester, John Marshal was forced to take refuge at Wherwell Abbey. The attackers set fire to the building, and John lost an eye to dripping lead from the melting roof.

In 1152, John had a legendary confrontation with King Stephen, who had besieged him at Newbury Castle. After John had broken an agreement to surrender, Stephen threatened to kill his son, whom John had given as a hostage. John refused, saying he could make more sons, but Stephen apparently took pity on the young boy and did not kill him. The boy grew up to be William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, a legendary figure in medieval lore, and one of the most powerful men in England.

The office of Lord Marshal, was an a hereditary title held by John's father, Gilbert Giffard, King's Marshal [7] and was passed to John, his eldest son, and then to John's eldest son also named John, who died in 1192. John's younger brother William (later Regent of England) then inherited the title.

John the son of Gilbert, also had a daughter, Margaret Marshal, who married Ralph de Somery, son of John de Somery and Hawise de Paynell.

John was the son of Gilbert Giffard (Royal Serjeant and Marshal to Henry I). In 1141, John arranged an annulment of his marriage to Aline Pipard in order to marry Sibyl of Salisbury, the sister of Patrick of Salisbury, [8] who had been a local rival of his, and a supporter of King Stephen, up to that point. John had two sons by Aline - Gilbert and Walter. Walter predeceased his father and Gilbert died shortly after inheriting his father's lands.

John's eldest son by Sybilla of Salisbury, also called John Marshal (died 1194), inherited the title of Marshal, which he held until his death. The title was then granted by King Richard the Lionheart to John's second son by Sybilla, William, who made the name and title famous. Though William had started out as a younger son without inheritance, by the time he actually inherited the title of Marshal his reputation as a soldier and statesman was unmatched across Western Europe. John Marshal had four sons in total by his second wife. As well as John and William, there was Henry, who went on to become Bishop of Exeter, and Ancel, who served as a knight in the household of his kinsman, Rotrou, Count of Perche.
Title of "Marshal"

"Mareschal" is "Marshal" in from old French, the common language of the Anglo-Norman nobility of Medieval England. The title, which in Carolingian times had meant "horse servant". The position evolved into an official position and was imported from Normandy to England. John's father, Gilbert Fitz-Robert, was a marshal of King Henry I.

Marshal was the title of the person in the king's household who maintained discipline at court; supplied receipts for payments, gifts and liveries from the king. He was over all servants of the court connected with the royal sports; over the king's bodyguard, and in charge of the horses. He was required to witness writs. It was an hereditary office. The Marshal took part in the ceremony of coronation. His sign of office was a baton bestowed by the king. [9]
The Marshal, under the Royal Constable, was responsible for keeping order at the royal court, making billeting arrangements, tallying the household's expenditures, monitoring knights performing military service for the King, and insuring the imprisonment of debtors. Under John's son William, who was often simply called "The Marshal" the office became "Earl Marshal" and is still the seventh of the eight "great Officers of State" of the British monarchy, just below the Lord High Constable and above the Lord High Admiral.[10]

Sources

? Round, J. H. (1911), The King's Serjeants & Officers of State with their Coronation Services. https://archive.org/stream/kingsserjeantsof00rounuoft#page/88/mode/2up
? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anarchy
? http://www.geni.com/people/Aline-de-Pipard/6000000004382755262?through=6000000001353952871 and "John Fitz-Gilbert, the Marshal," © 1999 by Catherine Armstrong, at: http://www.castlewales.com/jf_gilbt.html
? See preceding note.
? "John Fitz-Gilbert, the Marshal," © 1999 by Catherine Armstrong, at: http://www.castlewales.com/jf_gilbt.html
? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Marshal,_1st_Earl_of_Pembroke and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshal_(Marshal_of_England)
? Medieval Lands
? Medieval Lands
? Dictionary of Medieval Knighthood and Chivalry page 326
? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Marshal#Lords_Marshal_of_England.2C_1135.E2.80.931397
http://www.castlewales.com/jf_gilbt.html - excellent narrative; well researched short biography, (c) 1999 by Catherine Armstrong.
http://www.geni.com/people/John-FitzGilbert-The-Marshal-of-England/6000000006265484751?through=6000000002459854209
Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Lines 55-28, 66-27, 81-28, 122A-29
Barlow, Frank, The Feudal Kingdom of England 1042-1216 (London: Longman Group Limited, 1961). ISBN 0-582-48237-2
William Marshal, Knighthood, War and Chivalry 1147-1219, Longman, 2002, ISBN 0 582 77222 2
Richardson, Douglas, and Kimball G. Everingham. 2013. Royal ancestry: a study in colonial and medieval families. Salt Lake City, UT.: Douglas Richardson. Vol IV, page 34-35, cited by Mr. Marlyn Lewis, Our Royal, Titled, Noble, and Commoner Ancestors & Cousins, database online, Portland, Oregon.
Medieval Lands, database online, author Charles Cawley, (Foundation for Medieval Genealogy, 2006-2013), England, earls created 1138-1143, Chapter 10, Pembroke: B. Earls of Pembroke 1189-1245 (MARSHAL), 1. John FitzGilbert "the Marshal"

See also:

Dictionary of Medieval Knighthood and Chivalry, Bradford B. Broughton, (Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, Inc., 1986).

end of biography

Buried:
Bradenstoke Priory is a medieval priory in the village of Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England. It is noted today for some of its structures having been used by William Randolph Hearst for the renovation of St Donat's Castle, near Llantwit Major, Wales, in the 1930s. ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradenstoke_Priory

5565.

Sibyl of Salisbury was born on 27 Nov 1126 (daughter of Sir Walter of Salisbury and Sibilla de Chaworth); died in 0___ 1176 in Old Sarum (Salisbury), Wiltshire, England.

Children:

2782. Sir William Marshal, Templar Knight, 1st Earl Pembroke was born in 1146-1147 in (Berkshire, England); died on 14 Apr 1219 in Caversham, Berkshire, England; was buried in Temple Church, London, Middlesex, England.
FNU Marshal was born in ~ 1150.
Sir Anselm Marshal, 6th Earl of Pembroke was born in ~1150 in Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales; died on 22 Dec 1245.

5566.

5567.

Children:

6024. Sir Richard de Clare, Knight, 3rd Earl of Hertford was born in ~ 1153 in Tonbridge Castle, Kent, England; died on 28 Nov 1217.
2783. Lady Isabel de Clare, 4th Countess of Pembroke was born in 1172 in Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales; died on 14 Oct 1217 in Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales; was buried in Tintern Abbey, Tintern, Monmouthshire, Wales.

44608.

Sir Robert de Brus, 2nd Lord of Annandale was born in ~1138 in (Annan) Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland (son of SIr Robert de Brus, 1st Lord of Annandale and Agnes de Paynel); died in 1189-1194; was buried in Gisborough Priory, Cleveland, Yorkshire, England.

Notes:

Robert de Brus, 2nd Lord of Annandale
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert II de Brus
Spouse(s) Euphemia de Crosebi
Noble family Bruce
Father Robert de Brus, 1st Lord of Annandale
Mother Agnes
Died c.?1189 or 1194
Robert II de Brus, le Meschin (the Cadet) (fl. 1138, died c.?1189 or 1194), was a 12th-century Norman noble and 2nd Lord of Annandale. He was the son, perhaps the second son,[1] of Robert de Brus, 1st Lord of Annandale.

The elder de Brus' allegiances were compromised when David I invaded England in the later 1130s, and he had renounced his fealty to David before the Battle of the Standard in 1138. The younger Robert however remained loyal and took over his father's land in Scotland, whilst the English territories remained with the elder Robert and passed to the latter's elder son Adam. Bruce family tradition has it that Robert II was captured by his father at the battle and given over to King Stephen of England.

A legend tells that in the 1140s, Robert II was visited at Annan by St Malachy. St Malachy asked Robert to pardon a thief, but Robert hanged him anyway, and for this the River Annan destroyed part of his castle and the de Brus line received a curse from the holy man. Robert made Lochmaben the centre of his lordship and constructed a new caput there.

He married Euphemia de Crosebi or Crosbj of Aumale, daughter of Sir Adam de Crosebi or Crosbj. They had five known children:

Robert (d. 1191), eldest son.
William (d. 1212).
Bernard.
Agatha.
Euphemia.
Robert was buried at Gisborough Priory in the North Riding, Yorkshire, England, a monastery founded by his father Robert I de Brus. As his eldest son, Robert, predeceased him, he was succeeded by his second son William.

Footnotes

Jump up ^ Burke's The Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire 1883: 80
References[edit]
Burke, Messrs. John and John Bernard, The Royal Families of England, Scotland, and Wales, with their Descendants, etc., London, 1848: vol.1, pedigree XXXIV.
Flower, William, Norroy King of Arms, The Visitation of Yorkshire, 1563/4, (edited by Charles B. Northcliffe, M.A., of Langton) London, 1881, p.40.
Duncan, A.A.M., ‘Brus , Robert (I) de, lord of Annandale (d. 1142)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 , accessed 14 Nov 2006
Duncan, A. A. M., ‘Brus , Robert (II) de, lord of Annandale (d. 1194?)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 , accessed 14 Nov 2006
Oram, Richard, David: The King Who Made Scotland, (Gloucestershire, 2004)
The Robert the Bruce Commemoration Trust's, Genealogy, Crichton College of the University of Glasgow (Dept. of Scottish Studies)

Robert married Euphemia de Crosebi. Euphemia (daughter of Sir Adam de Crosebi and unnamed spouse) was born in (Aumale, France). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44609.

Euphemia de Crosebi was born in (Aumale, France) (daughter of Sir Adam de Crosebi and unnamed spouse).

Children:

Robert de Brus was born in (Annan) Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland; died in 1191.
22304. Sir William de Brus, 3rd Lord of Annandale was born in (Annan) Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland; died on 16 Jul 1212.

11100.

Notes:

Henry of Scotland (Eanric mac Dabâid, 1114 – 12 June 1152[1]) was heir apparent to the Kingdom of Alba. He was also the 3rd Earl of Northumberland and the 3rd Earl of Huntingdon. He was the son of King David I of Scotland and Queen Maud, 2nd Countess of Huntingdon.[2] Henry was named after his uncle, King Henry I of England, who had married his paternal aunt Edith.

Earldom

David, Henry's father, invaded England in 1136. His army was met by Stephen of Blois at Carlisle. Instead of battle, there was a negotiated settlement that included Henry performing homage to Stephen for Carlisle and the Earldom of Huntingdon.[3] Henry's journey to Stephen's court for Easter (1136) was met with resentment, including an accusation of treason,[4] which brought about his return at his father's insistence.[4]

After another invasion by his father, Henry was finally invested with the Earldom of Northumberland in 1139.[5] Later in the year, Henry met with Stephen at Nottingham, where he was also reinvested with Carlisle and Cumberland.[5] At which time Henry paid homage to Stephen for his Earldom.[5]

Henry's inclusion into King Stephen's inner circle was highlighted by his arranged marriage to Ada de Warenne.[6] This marriage secured Henry's place within Stephen's kingdom.[6] Following Stephen's capture by forces of Empress Matilda, Henry held the Earldom of Northumberland as a Scottish fief.[7]

On Henry's death, the Earldom passed to his half-brother Simon II de Senlis.

Family

In 1139, Henry married Ada de Warenne,[1] the daughter of William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey (died 1138), and Elizabeth of Vermandois, daughter of Hugh of Vermandois.

Ada of Huntingdon (1139–1206), married in 1161, Floris III, Count of Holland.[2]
Margaret of Huntingdon (1145–1201)
Married [1] in 1160 Conan IV, Duke of Brittany, (died 1171)[8]
Married [2] Humphrey III de Bohun, Lord of Trowbridge.
Married [3] Sir William fitz Patrick de Hertburn
Malcolm IV of Scotland.[2]
William I of Scotland.[2]
David of Scotland, 8th Earl of Huntingdon.[2]
Matilda of Huntingdon, born and died 1152.
Marjorie of Huntingdon, married Gille Crâist, Earl of Angus.

end of biography

11101.

Ada de Warenne was born in ~ 1120 in Surry, England (daughter of Sir William de Warenne, Knight, 2nd Earl of Surrey and Lady Isabel de Vermandois, Countess of Leicester); died in 1178 in England.

Notes:

Ada de Warenne (or Adeline de Varenne) (c. 1120 – 1178) was the Anglo-Norman wife of Henry of Scotland, Earl of Northumbria and Earl of Huntingdon. She was the daughter of William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey by Elizabeth of Vermandois, and a great-granddaughter of Henry I of France. She became mother to two Kings of Scots, Malcolm the Maiden and William the Lion.

Marriage and motherhood

Ada and Henry were married in England in 1139.[1] They had seven children:

Malcolm IV, King of Scots.
William the Lion, King of Scots
Margaret of Huntingdon married 1) Conan IV, Duke of Brittany and 2) Humphrey III de Bohun.[2]
David of Scotland, Earl of Huntingdon married Mathilda (Maud) of Chester. Through their daughter, Isobel, they were the direct ancestors of the renowned Scottish King, Robert the Bruce.
Matilda of Huntingdon, born and died 1152.
Marjorie of Huntingdon, married Gille Crâist, Earl of Angus.
Ada of Huntingdon, married Count Floris III of Holland.
As part of her marriage settlement, the new Countess Ada was granted the privileges of Haddington, amongst others in East Lothian. Previously the seat of a thanage Haddington is said to be the first Royal burgh in Scotland, created by Countess Ada's father-in-law, David I of Scotland, who held it along with the church and a mill.[3]

In close succession both her husband and King David died, in 1152 and 1153 respectively. Following the death of Henry, who was buried at Kelso Abbey, King David arranged for his grandson to succeed him, and at Scone on 27 May 1153, the twelve-year-old was declared Malcolm IV, King of Scots. Following his coronation, Malcolm installed his brother William as Earl of Northumbria (although this county was "restored" to King Henry II of England by Malcolm in 1157[4]), and the young dowager-Countess retired to her lands at Haddington.

On Thursday 9 December 1165[5] King Malcolm died at the age of 25 without issue. His mother had at that time been attempting to arrange a marriage between him and Constance, daughter of Conan III, Duke of Brittany, but Malcolm died before the wedding could be celebrated.[6]

Following his brother's death Ada's younger son William became King of Scots at the age of twenty two. William the Lion was to become the longest serving King of Scots until the Union of the Crowns in 1603.

Church patroness

Religious houses were established in Haddington at an early date. They came to include the Blackfriars (who came into Scotland in 1219) and most notably the Church of the Greyfriars, or Minorites (came into Scotland in the reign of Alexander II), which would become famous as "Lucerna Laudoniae"- The Lamp of Lothian, the toft of land upon which it stands being granted by King David I of Scotland to the Prior of St. Andrews (to whom the patronage of the church of Haddington belonged). David I also granted to the monks of Dunfermline "unam mansuram" in Haddington, as well as to the monks of Haddington a full toft "in burgo meo de Hadintun, free of all custom and service."[7]

Ada devoted her time to good works, improving the lot of the Church at Haddington, where she resided. Countess Ada gave lands to the south and west of the River Tyne near to the only crossing of the river for miles, to found a Convent of Cistercian Nuns ("white nuns"[8]) dedicated to St. Mary, in what was to become the separate Burgh of Nungate, the extant remains are still to be seen in the ruined parish church of St. Martin. The nunnery she endowed with the lands of Begbie, at Garvald and Keith Marischal amongst other temporal lands. Miller, however, states that she only "founded and richly endowed a nunnery at the Abbey of Haddington" and that "Haddington, as demesne of the Crown, reverted to her son William the Lion upon her death".[3]

Haddington seat

According to inscriptions within the town of Haddington, Countess Ada's residence was located near the present day County buildings and Sheriff Court. Countess Ada died in 1178[9] and is thought to be buried locally. Her remaining dower-lands were brought back into the Royal desmesne and William the Lion's wife, Ermengarde de Beaumont, is said to have taken to her bed in Countess Ada's house to bear the future Alexander II. Miller states that when the future King was born in Haddington in 1198 it took place "in the palace of Haddington".[10]

Ancestry

[show]Ancestors of Ada de Warenne

Notes

Jump up ^ Anderson, Alan O., Scottish Annals from English Chroniclers AD500 – 1286, London, 1908: 215.
Jump up ^ Richardson, Douglas, Magna Carta Ancestry, Baltimore, Md, 2005: 99. ISBN 0-8063-1759-0
^ Jump up to: a b Miller, James, The Lamp of Lothian, Haddington, 1900: 2
Jump up ^ Anderson, Alan O., Scottish Annals from English Chroniclers AD500 – 1286, London, 1908: 239.
Jump up ^ Anderson, Alan O., Scottish Annals from English Chroniclers AD500 – 1286, London, 1908: 243.
Jump up ^ Oram, The Canmores, p. 51.
Jump up ^ Miller, James, The Lamp of Lothian, Haddington, 1900: 173
Jump up ^ Anderson, Alan O., Scottish Annals from English Chroniclers AD500 – 1286, London, 1908: 327.
Jump up ^ Dunbar, Archibald Scottish Kings, 1899: 65.
Jump up ^ Miller, James, The Lamp of Lothian, Haddington, 1900: 4

References

The Royal Families of England, Scotland, and Wales, with their descendants, Sovereigns and Subjects, by Messrs. John and John Bernard Burke, London, 1851, vol.2, page xlvii and pedigree XXIX.
Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, edited by Joseph Jackson Howard, LL.D.,F.S.A., New Series, volume I, London, 1874, p. 337.
Scottish Kings – A Revised Chronology of Scottish History 1005–1625 by Sir Archibald H. Dunbar, Bt., Edinburgh, 1899, p. 65.
Oram, Richard, The Canmores: Kings & Queens of the Scots 1040–1290. Tempus, Stroud, 2002. ISBN 0-7524-2325-8
The Bretons, by Patrick Galliou and Michael Jones, Oxford, 1991, p. 191. ISBN 0-631-16406-5

Children:

William, I, King of the Scots was born in ~ 1143 in (Scotland); died on 4 Dec 1214 in Stirling, Scotland; was buried in Arbroath Abbey, Scotland.
Lady Margaret of Huntingdon, Duchess of Brittany was born in 1145 in Scotland; died in 1201 in North Riding, Yorkshire, England; was buried in Sawtry Abbey, Cambridgeshire, England.
5550. Sir David of Scotland, Earl of Huntingdon was born in 1152 in Huntingdonshire, England; died on 17 Jun 1219 in Northamptonshire, England; was buried in Sawtry Abbey, Cambridgeshire, England.

11102.

Notes:

Hugh de Kevelioc, 5th Earl of Chester (1147 – 30 June 1181) was the son of Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester and Maud of Gloucester, daughter of Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester (otherwise known as Robert de Caen, the illegitimate son of Henry I of England, making her Henry's granddaughter).

Early life

He is thought to have been born in Kevelioc in Monmouth. But he may have taken the name of the cwmwd of Cyfeiliog (in modern Powys) in the southern part of the Kingdom of Powys, Wales.

He was underage when his father's death in 1153 made him heir to his family's estates on both sides of the Channel. He joined the baronial Revolt of 1173–1174 against King Henry II of England, and was influential in convincing the Bretons to revolt. After being captured and imprisoned after the Battle of Alnwick, he finally got his estates restored in 1177, and served in King Henry's Irish campaigns.

Marriage

In 1169 he married Bertrade de Montfort of Evreux, daughter of Simon III de Montfort, who in turn was the son of Amaury III of Montfort. She was the cousin of King Henry, who gave her away in marriage. Their children were:[1][2]

Ranulf de Blondeville, 6th Earl of Chester
Matilda de Blondeville, aka Matilda (Maud) of Chester (1171–1233), married David of Scotland, 8th Earl of Huntingdon
Mabel of Chester, married William d'Aubigny, 3rd Earl of Arundel
Agnes of Chester (died 2 November 1247), married William de Ferrers, 4th Earl of Derby; ancestors of Joseph Priestley
Hawise of Chester (1180–1242), married Robert II de Quincy
Beatrix of Chester, married Lord William Belward of Malpas
Hugh also had another daughter, Amice of Chester, who married Ralph de Mainwaring and was the ancestress of that family. There is no record of Amice's mother or whether she was Hugh's wife or mistress. The question of Amice's legitimacy has been subject to a longstanding dispute.[3]

One letter from the Pope suggests that Llywelyn Fawr may have been married to an unnamed sister of Earl Ranulph of Chester in about 1192, but there appears to be no confirmation of this.[4] If this was the case it could have been either Mabel or Hawise, or perhaps Amice, and the marriage would have had to have been annulled before any subsequent marriages.

Death and succession

Hugh of Kevelioc died 30 June 1181 at Leek, Staffordshire, England. He was succeeded by his son, Ranulf.

11103.

Notes:

Bertrade d'Everaux de Montfort, Comtess d'Evreux
Also Known As: "Bertrade /De Evreux/", "Bertrade de âEvreux", "Bertrade II Montfort"
Birthdate: 1155
Birthplace: Chester, Cheshire, England
Death: Died March 31, 1227 in âEvreux, Eure, Haute-Normandie, France
Cause of death: after 31 March 1227
Immediate Family:
Daughter of Simon III "le Chauve" de Montfort, comte d'Evreux and Mathilde, comtesse d'Evreux
Wife of Hugh de Kevelioc, 3rd Earl of Chester
Mother of Beatrix Kevelioc Malpas; Matilda of Chester; Mabel of Chester; Ranulf de Blundeville, 4th Earl of Chester; Agnes de Meschines, Lady of Chartley and 4 others
Sister of Amaury V de Montfort, comte d'Evreux; Simon IV de Montfort, Seigneur de Montfort et de Rochefort and Robert I de MONTFORT
Occupation: Countess of Chester, Lady of Campden, Countess
Managed by: James Fred Patin, Jr.
Last Updated: September 7, 2016

About Bertrade d'Everaux de Montfort, Comtess d'Evreux
Bertrade was born in 1155 in Chester, England. Bertrade's father was Simon II Le Chauve De Montfort and her mother was Maud Countess Of Evreux . Her paternal grandparents were Amaury De Montfort and Agnes De Garlende. She had two brothers named Amauri and Simon. She was the youngest of the three children.

--------------------

She was married to Earl Hugh de Keveliock V (son of Ranulf de Guernan and Maud de Caen) in 1169. Earl Hugh de Keveliock V was born in 1147 in Kevelioc, Monmouth, England. He died on 30 Jun 1181 in Leeke, Stafford, England. Hugh II, 5th Earl of Chester, surnamed Keveliock or Cyveliok, because he was born 1147 at Kevelioc, Co. Merioneth, Wales. He succeeded his father in the Earldom of Chester. This nobleman joined in the rebellion with Robert, Earl of Leicester, and the King of Scots against King Henry II, and in support of that monarch's son, Prince Henry's pretentions to the crown. In which proceeding he was taken prisoner with the Earl of Leicester at Almwick, but obtained his freedom soon afterwards, upon the reconciliation of the king with the young prince. During troublesome times following his lands were taken from him, but they were restored when public tranquility was restored. He died at Leeks, Co. Stafford, in 1181, aged about 34. His lordship married Bertred, daughter of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Evereaux in Normandy. They were married 1169 when Bertred was just 14 years old. She died in 1227, aged about 71. They had a son, Randle III, who succeeded his father as Earl of Chester, but he died sine prole 1232. He had the Earldom of Lincoln from his great-grandmother Lucia, and he resigned this Earldom to his sister Hawise about 1230-1. She was the widow of Robert de Quincey, and their daughter Margaret married John de Lacy, to whom the Earldom of Lincoln was confirmed Nov. 22, 1232. He was Surety for Magna Charta and his daughter Maud married Richard de Clare, son of Gilbert son of Richard de Clare, last two Sureties, and from whom you descend through Robert Abell and John Whitney. Beside Randle III and Hawise, Hugh and Bertred had Mabil, married Hugh de Albini, died sine prole.He was the Earl of Chester. Also known as Hugh le Meschin; Earl of Chester, Vicomte d'Avranches in Normandy. He joined in the rebellion against King Henry II, was taken prisoner at Alnwick on July 13, 1174, and deprived of his Earldom. Though he was again in rebellion both in England and Normandy, his Earldom was restored January 1177 (Complete Peerage, Vol III:167).

--------------------

Post in soc.genealogy.medieval 13 September 2011 by Douglas Richardson on Bertrade de Montfort http://groups.google.com/group/soc.genealogy.medieval/browse_thread/thread/a0a635017b1391c2?hl=en

Complete Peerage, 3 (1913): 167 (sub Chester) has a rather brief account of the life of Hugh, 6th Earl of Chester (died 1181). Regarding the history of his widow, Bertrade of Montfort, the following scant detail is given:

"His widow died 1227, aged about 71." END OF QUOTE.

The source given by Complete Peerage for Bertrade de Montfort's death date is Annales Cestrienses, edited 1887, by R.C. Christie. As we can see, no month or day are given for the countess' death. While I'm virtually certain that Google Books previously had a full view copy of this source available online, when I checked just now, I only found copies of this work that had "no preview." As such, I'm unable to see exactly what Annales Cestrienses says about the death of Countess Bertrade.

[John Higgins adds, in a response: Look beyond Google Books, to the Internet Archive, where a full-view copy of Annales Cestrienses is available. The entry for the death of Countess Bertrada [sic] is on p. 55 (not 54 as indicated in the book's index). But all it says is that she died in 1227, giving no more specific date. So, it supports the information in CP but goes no further.]

Checking various other sources, however, I've managed to piece together a few details of Countess Bertrade's life as widow not provided by Complete Peerage:

Sometime in the period, 1188–99, she witnessed a charter of her son, Ranulph, Earl of Chester. In the period, 1190–1200, she reached agreement with the abbot and convent of Troarn in Normandy regarding the construction of a mill and fishpond on the boundary between her wood and theirs. Sometime before 1194–1203, she exchanged lands with the canons of Repton. Sometime in the period, 1200–10, she granted to Ralph Carbonel, of Halton, Lincolnshire, for his homage and service of half a knight’s fee which he held of the said countess in Halton. In 1223 Richard Duket and Simon de Sees brought a plea of novel disseisin against her touching a tenement in Harmston, Lincolnshire. In 1226 she presented to the church of Waddington, Lincolnshire. In 1227 she arraigned an assize of last presentation to the church of Waddington, Lincolnshire against the abbot of St. Sever.

The last item comes from Farrer, Honors & Knights’ Fees, 2 (1924): 103, which may be seen in snippet view at the following weblink: http://books.google.com/books?ei=MPVvTt2dFKniiAKA4tH0Bg&ct=result&id=...

The original source for this record is Calendar of the Patent Rolls, 1225–1232 (1903): 156, which may be viewed at the following weblink: http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/patentrolls/h3v2/body/Henry3vol2page0156.pdf

The item in question is dated 31 March 1227. Since the record indicates that Countess Bertrade was then alive, it may be assumed she died in 1227, sometime after 31 March.

Best always, Douglas Richardson, Salt Lake City, Utah

---------------------

Bertrade was our ancestor through two distinct descent lines--through her daughter Alice and through her daughter Mabel, each of whom was independently our ancestor.

See "My Lines"

( http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cousin/html/p389.htm#i6747 )

from Compiler: R. B. Stewart, Evans, GA

( http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cousin/html/index.htm )

Bertrade de Montfort was cousin of King Henry II by her grandfather's sister, Bertrade de Montfort, wife of Fulk IV, being great-grandmother of King Henry [George Edward Cokayne The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, or Dormant, I-XIII (in 6) (Thrupp, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2BU: Sutton Publishing Limited, 2000), III:167 - 14 when married in 1169 and in III:167, footnote (c)].
Bertrade married Hugh De /Keveliock/, son of Ranulph Des /Gernons/ and Maud /Fitzrobert/, in 1164 in Montfort, Normandy, France. (Hugh De /Keveliock/ was born in 1122 in Kevelioc, Merionethshire, Wales, died on 30 Jun 1181 in Leeke, Stafford, England and was buried in 1181 in Chester, Cheshire, England.)
Children: 1. Amicia Amice De Meschines b: 1177 in Monmouthshire, Wales 2. Beatrice De Kevieliock b: 1166 in Malpas, England 3. Mabel of Chester De Meschines b: ABT 1170 in Cheshire, England 4. Hawise of Chester De Kevelioc b: 1180 in Chester, Cheshire, England 5. Maud Matilda Kevelioc b: 1163 in Cheshire, England 6. Alice Of Chester b: 1180 in Chester, Cheshire, England 7. Agnes de Kevelioc De Meschines b: 1174 in Tutbury, Staffordshire, England
Bertrade II Meschines formerly Montfort aka Evreux, Countess of Chester
Born 1155 in Montfort Sur Risle, Eure, Normandy, Francemap Daughter of Simon III Montfort and Maud De Evreux Sister of Simon IV Montfort and Amauri de Montfort Wife of Hugh K. Meschines — married 1169 [location unknown] Mother of UNKNOWN Blundeville, UNKNOWN Chester, Unknown Chester, Maud Matilda Huntingdon, Amicia Mainwaring, Beatrix de Kevelioc de Malpas, Mabel FitzAlan, Ranulph Blondeville, Helga of Kevelioc De Meschin, Adeliz De Kevelioc, Agnes of Chester (Lady of Chartley) de Keveliock, Agnes Ferrers, Alice of Chester Meschines, Hawise Quincy, Lady de Meschines and Nichola de Meschines Died July 12, 1189 in âEvreux, Eure, Haute-Normandie, Francemap

Marriage
Husband: Hugh De Kevelioc Wife: Bertrade De Montfort Child: Amice Of Chester
Relationship to Father: Natural Relationship to Mother: Natural
Child: Agnes Of Chester
Relationship to Father: Natural Relationship to Mother: Natural
Child: Mabel Of Chester
Relationship to Father: Natural Relationship to Mother: Natural
Child: Ranulph De Blondeville
Relationship to Father: Natural Relationship to Mother: Natural
Child: Maud Of Chester
Relationship to Father: Natural Relationship to Mother: Natural
Child: Hawise Of Chester
Relationship to Father: Natural Relationship to Mother: Natural
Child: Unknown Of Chester
Relationship to Father: Natural Relationship to Mother: Natural
Marriage:
Date: 1169 Note: #N00150
Marriage:
Date: 1169 Place: , Montfort, Normandy, France
married Bertrade de Montfort of Evreux, daughter of Simon III de Montfort. She was the cousin of King Henry, who gave her away in marriage. Their children were:[1][2]
Ranulf de Blondeville, 6th Earl of Chester Matilda de Blondeville, aka Matilda (Maud) of Chester (1171ãa€“1233), married David of Scotland, 8th Earl of Huntingdon Mabel of Chester, married William d'Aubigny, 3rd Earl of Arundel Agnes of Chester (died 2 November 1247), married William de Ferrers, 4th Earl of Derby Hawise of Chester (1180ãa€“1242), married Robert II de Quincy Beatrix of Chester, married Lord William Belward of Malpas

Bertrade was born in 1155 in Chester, England. Bertrade's father was Simon II Le Chauve De Montfort and her mother was Maud Countess Of Evreux . Her paternal grandparents were Amaury De Montfort and Agnes De Garlende. She had two brothers named Amauri and Simon. She was the youngest of the three children.

She was married to Earl Hugh de Keveliock V (son of Ranulf de Guernan and Maud de Caen) in 1169. Earl Hugh de Keveliock V was born in 1147 in Kevelioc, Monmouth, England. He died on 30 Jun 1181 in Leeke, Stafford, England. Hugh II, 5th Earl of Chester, surnamed Keveliock or Cyveliok, because he was born 1147 at Kevelioc, Co. Merioneth, Wales. He succeeded his father in the Earldom of Chester. This nobleman joined in the rebellion with Robert, Earl of Leicester, and the King of Scots against King Henry II, and in support of that monarch's son, Prince Henry's pretentions to the crown. In which proceeding he was taken prisoner with the Earl of Leicester at Almwick, but obtained his freedom soon afterwards, upon the reconciliation of the king with the young prince. During troublesome times following his lands were taken from him, but they were restored when public tranquility was restored. He died at Leeks, Co. Stafford, in 1181, aged about 34. His lordship married Bertred, daughter of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Evereaux in Normandy. They were married 1169 when Bertred was just 14 years old. She died in 1227, aged about 71. They had a son, Randle III, who succeeded his father as Earl of Chester, but he died sine prole 1232. He had the Earldom of Lincoln from his great-grandmother Lucia, and he resigned this Earldom to his sister Hawise about 1230-1. She was the widow of Robert de Quincey, and their daughter Margaret married John de Lacy, to whom the Earldom of Lincoln was confirmed Nov. 22, 1232. He was Surety for Magna Charta and his daughter Maud married Richard de Clare, son of Gilbert son of Richard de Clare, last two Sureties, and from whom you descend through Robert Abell and John Whitney. Beside Randle III and Hawise, Hugh and Bertred had Mabil, married Hugh de Albini, died sine prole.He was the Earl of Chester. Also known as Hugh le Meschin; Earl of Chester, Vicomte d'Avranches in Normandy. He joined in the rebellion against King Henry II, was taken prisoner at Alnwick on July 13, 1174, and deprived of his Earldom. Though he was again in rebellion both in England and Normandy, his Earldom was restored January 1177 (Complete Peerage, Vol III:167).

Post in soc.genealogy.medieval 13 September 2011 by Douglas Richardson on Bertrade de Montfort http://groups.google.com/group/soc.genealogy.medieval/browse_thread/thread/a0a635017b1391c2?hl=en

Complete Peerage, 3 (1913): 167 (sub Chester) has a rather brief account of the life of Hugh, 6th Earl of Chester (died 1181). Regarding the history of his widow, Bertrade of Montfort, the following scant detail is given:

"His widow died 1227, aged about 71." END OF QUOTE.

The source given by Complete Peerage for Bertrade de Montfort's death date is Annales Cestrienses, edited 1887, by R.C. Christie. As we can see, no month or day are given for the countess' death. While I'm virtually certain that Google Books previously had a full view copy of this source available online, when I checked just now, I only found copies of this work that had "no preview." As such, I'm unable to see exactly what Annales Cestrienses says about the death of Countess Bertrade.

[John Higgins adds, in a response: Look beyond Google Books, to the Internet Archive, where a full-view copy of Annales Cestrienses is available. The entry for the death of Countess Bertrada [sic] is on p. 55 (not 54 as indicated in the book's index). But all it says is that she died in 1227, giving no more specific date. So, it supports the information in CP but goes no further.]

Checking various other sources, however, I've managed to piece together a few details of Countess Bertrade's life as widow not provided by Complete Peerage:

Sometime in the period, 1188–99, she witnessed a charter of her son, Ranulph, Earl of Chester. In the period, 1190–1200, she reached agreement with the abbot and convent of Troarn in Normandy regarding the construction of a mill and fishpond on the boundary between her wood and theirs. Sometime before 1194–1203, she exchanged lands with the canons of Repton. Sometime in the period, 1200–10, she granted to Ralph Carbonel, of Halton, Lincolnshire, for his homage and service of half a knight’s fee which he held of the said countess in Halton. In 1223 Richard Duket and Simon de Sees brought a plea of novel disseisin against her touching a tenement in Harmston, Lincolnshire. In 1226 she presented to the church of Waddington, Lincolnshire. In 1227 she arraigned an assize of last presentation to the church of Waddington, Lincolnshire against the abbot of St. Sever.

The last item comes from Farrer, Honors & Knights’ Fees, 2 (1924): 103, which may be seen in snippet view at the following weblink: http://books.google.com/books?ei=MPVvTt2dFKniiAKA4tH0Bg&ct=result&id=...

The original source for this record is Calendar of the Patent Rolls, 1225–1232 (1903): 156, which may be viewed at the following weblink: http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/patentrolls/h3v2/body/Henry3vol2page0156.pdf

The item in question is dated 31 March 1227. Since the record indicates that Countess Bertrade was then alive, it may be assumed she died in 1227, sometime after 31 March.

Best always, Douglas Richardson, Salt Lake City, Utah

Bertrade was our ancestor through two distinct descent lines--through her daughter Alice and through her daughter Mabel, each of whom was independently our ancestor.

See "My Lines"

( http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cousin/html/p389.htm#i6747 )

from Compiler: R. B. Stewart, Evans, GA

( http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cousin/html/index.htm ) -------------------- Bertrade de Montfort was cousin of King Henry II by her grandfather's sister, Bertrade de Montfort, wife of Fulk IV, being great-grandmother of King Henry [George Edward Cokayne The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, or Dormant, I-XIII (in 6) (Thrupp, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2BU: Sutton Publishing Limited, 2000), III:167 - 14 when married in 1169 and in III:167, footnote (c)]. -------------------- Bertrade married Hugh De /Keveliock/, son of Ranulph Des /Gernons/ and Maud /Fitzrobert/, in 1164 in Montfort, Normandy, France. (Hugh De /Keveliock/ was born in 1122 in Kevelioc, Merionethshire, Wales, died on 30 Jun 1181 in Leeke, Stafford, England and was buried in 1181 in Chester, Cheshire, England.) -------------------- Children: 1. Amicia Amice De Meschines b: 1177 in Monmouthshire, Wales 2. Beatrice De Kevieliock b: 1166 in Malpas, England 3. Mabel of Chester De Meschines b: ABT 1170 in Cheshire, England 4. Hawise of Chester De Kevelioc b: 1180 in Chester, Cheshire, England 5. Maud Matilda Kevelioc b: 1163 in Cheshire, England 6. Alice Of Chester b: 1180 in Chester, Cheshire, England 7. Agnes de Kevelioc De Meschines b: 1174 in Tutbury, Staffordshire, England --------------------

Bertrade II Meschines formerly Montfort aka Evreux, Countess of Chester Born 1155 in Montfort Sur Risle, Eure, Normandy, Francemap Daughter of Simon III Montfort and Maud De Evreux Sister of Simon IV Montfort and Amauri de Montfort Wife of Hugh K. Meschines — married 1169 [location unknown] Mother of UNKNOWN Blundeville, UNKNOWN Chester, Unknown Chester, Maud Matilda Huntingdon, Amicia Mainwaring, Beatrix de Kevelioc de Malpas, Mabel FitzAlan, Ranulph Blondeville, Helga of Kevelioc De Meschin, Adeliz De Kevelioc, Agnes of Chester (Lady of Chartley) de Keveliock, Agnes Ferrers, Alice of Chester Meschines, Hawise Quincy, Lady de Meschines and Nichola de Meschines Died July 12, 1189 in âEvreux, Eure, Haute-Normandie, Francemap

Marriage Husband: Hugh De Kevelioc Wife: Bertrade De Montfort Child: Amice Of Chester Relationship to Father: Natural Relationship to Mother: Natural Child: Agnes Of Chester Relationship to Father: Natural Relationship to Mother: Natural Child: Mabel Of Chester Relationship to Father: Natural Relationship to Mother: Natural Child: Ranulph De Blondeville Relationship to Father: Natural Relationship to Mother: Natural Child: Maud Of Chester Relationship to Father: Natural Relationship to Mother: Natural Child: Hawise Of Chester Relationship to Father: Natural Relationship to Mother: Natural Child: Unknown Of Chester Relationship to Father: Natural Relationship to Mother: Natural Marriage: Date: 1169 Note: #N00150 Marriage: Date: 1169 Place: , Montfort, Normandy, France

married Bertrade de Montfort of Evreux, daughter of Simon III de Montfort. She was the cousin of King Henry, who gave her away in marriage. Their children were:[1][2] Ranulf de Blondeville, 6th Earl of Chester Matilda de Blondeville, aka Matilda (Maud) of Chester (1171ãa€“1233), married David of Scotland, 8th Earl of Huntingdon Mabel of Chester, married William d'Aubigny, 3rd Earl of Arundel Agnes of Chester (died 2 November 1247), married William de Ferrers, 4th Earl of Derby Hawise of Chester (1180ãa€“1242), married Robert II de Quincy Beatrix of Chester, married Lord William Belward of Malpas

*

Bertrade de Montfort started out as a bargaining chip between Robert Curthose, Fulk IV, Count of Anjou, and William, Count of âEvreux. Fulk sought the beautiful Bertrade as his wife; he bargained with Duke Robert for control of Maine; in turn Robert bargained with William of âEvreux, her guardian, for lands he desired in exchange her hand in marriage.

She married Fulk IV, became the mother of Fulk V; leaving him for King Philip I of France.

She then convinced both to become friends.

Later the cunning woman plotted to have one of her own sons by Philip become king instead of his oldest son, Louis IV, who she attempted to poison.

Orderic Vitalis said of her ‘no good man praised [her] except for her beauty.’

See: Ordericus Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History, Forester, II (1875), 475-77; Jim Bradbury, The Capetians (2007), 118; Hollister, Henry I (2003), pp. 131, 226.

*

Children:

5551. Lady Matilda of Chester, Countess of Huntingdon was born in 1171; died on 6 Jan 1233 in (Scotland).
Agnes of Chester was born in 1174 in Chester, Cheshire, England; died on 2 Nov 1247 in Tutbury, Staffordshire, England.
Mabel of Chester was born in 1172 in Chester, Cheshire, England; died on 6 Jan 1232 in Arundel, Sussex, England.
Lady Hawise of Chester, 1st Countess of Chester was born in 1180 in Chester, Cheshire, England; died on 6 Jun 1241 in England.

12050.

Notes:

William Fitz Robert, 2nd Earl of Gloucester (died 1183) was the son and heir of Sir Robert de Caen, 1st Earl of Gloucester, and Mabel FitzRobert of Gloucester, daughter of Robert Fitzhamon.

Lineage

William FitzRobert was the son of Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester, an illegitimate son of King Henry I of England, during whose reign William was born. Thus William was a nephew of the Empress Maud and a cousin of King Stephen, the principal combatants of the English Anarchy period. It also meant that William is the great-grandson of the famed William the Conqueror.

Early career[edit]
In October 1141, William looked after the Baronial estates, when his father fell into the hands of partisans at Winchester. His father was exchanged for King Stephen, and during his father's absence in Normandy in 1144 he served as Governor of Wareham. In 1147, he overthrew Henry de Tracy at Castle Cary.

In 1154 he made an alliance with Roger de Clare, 3rd Earl of Hertford, by which they agreed to aid each other against all men except Henry II of England.

FitzRobert granted Neath, a town in Glamorgan, a charter. He was Lord of the manor of Glamorgan, as well as Caerleon, residing chiefly at Cardiff Castle. It was there that in 1158 he and his wife and son were captured by the Welsh Lord of Senghenydd, Ifor Bach ("Ivor the Little") and carried away into the woods, where they were held as prisoners until the Earl redressed Ivor's grievances.

Relationship with King Henry II

In 1173 the earl took the King's part against his sons, but thereafter he appears to have fallen under suspicion, for the following year he submitted to the King, and in 1175 surrendered to him Bristol Castle. Because his only son and heir Robert died in 1166, Earl William made John, the younger son of King Henry II, heir to his earldom, in conformity with the King's promise that John should marry one of the Earl's daughters, if the Church would allow it, they being related in the third degree.

Earl William was present in March 1177 when the King arbitrated between the Kings of Castile and Navarre, and in 1178, he witnessed Henry's charter to Waltham Abbey. But during the King's struggles with his sons, when he imprisoned a number of magnates of whose loyalty he was doubtful, Earl William was among them.

Family and children

He was married to Hawise de Beaumont of Leicester, daughter of Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester and Amica de Gael and had children:

Robert fitz William (1151, Cardiff, Glamorganshire – 1166, Cardiff, Glamorganshire).
Mabel fitz William, married Amaury V de Montfort, her son Amaury briefly being Earl of Gloucester
Amice fitz William, d. 1220. Married Richard de Clare, 3rd Earl of Hertford, their descendants eventually inherited the Earldom of Gloucester
Isabel, Countess of Gloucester. She was married three times:
Prince John
Geoffrey FitzGeoffrey de Mandeville, 2nd Earl of Essex, Earl of Gloucester
Hubert de Burgh, 1st Earl of Kent
The earl died in 1183; his wife Hawise survived him. Since their only son, Robert, predeceased his father, their daughters became co-heirs to the feudal barony of Gloucester.

Notes

William Lord of Glamorgan was also known as Robert de Wintona according to records found in English historical ledgers.

12051.

Hawise de Beaumont was born in Leicestershire, England (daughter of Sir Robert de Beaumont, Knight, 2nd Earl of Leicester and Lady Amice de Montfort, Countess of Leicester).

Children:

6025. Lady Amice FitzWilliam, 4th Countess of Gloucester was born in 0___ 1160 in Gloucestershire, England; died in 1220-1225.

22146.

Notes:

Biography

Uctred[1] or Huctred son of Waldef[2] or Huctred of Tynedale[3] (or Gothric[4]) or Uchtred FitzWaltheof[5] (FitzWaldeve)[6] of Tynedale[7]

b. after 1070[7]

Parents
Uctred was the son of Walleof[1] or Waldef.[2]

Disputed Parents
There is no evidence for the statement in the City of Sheffield that Uctred was the son of Waltheof who married Judith of Lens in 1070.[7] Waltheof, earl of Northumbria, and also anachronistically called earl of Huntingdon, (born circa 1050-died 1076), was the second son of the Dane, Siward, earl of Northumbria (d. 1055), and his first wife, ¥lfflµd, daughter of Earl Ealdred, son of Earl Uhtred, and he married Judith, the niece of William I, king of England and duke of Normandy,[8] Waltheof and Judith had two daughters:

Maud, born between 1070 and 1076, married 1) Simon (I) de Senlis, earl of Northampton and of Huntingdon and 2) David, later king of Scots;[8]
Alice, also known as Judith, born between 1070 and 1076, married Ralph de Tosny[8] or Adelise married Raoul III of Tosny;
Some sources state Waltheof and Judith had a third daughter.[7]

In 1086, Waltheof's widow, Judith, owned some 200 rural manors mainly scattered between Lincoln, Leicester, Northampton, Bedford, and Cambridge, with houses in several east midland towns.[8]

At the end of 1113 David, who was to become Davide I, king of Scotland, was given by Henry I, king of England, the rich, highly born heiress, Maud or Matilda de Senlis (d. 1131), the daughter of Waltheof, earl of Northumbria, and Judith (died in or after 1086), the widow of Simon (I) de Senlis (or St Liz, died 1111-3), who would have been approaching forty when she married David. Through this marriage, David acquired property stretching from south Yorkshire to Middlesex, but mainly in the shires of Northampton, Huntingdon, Cambridge, and Bedford, which formed what came to be known as the ‘honour of Huntingdon’. King Henry I also granted him an earldom, but to assign the names Huntingdon or Northampton to this estate before the mid-twelfth century is anachronistic. When the Senlis family and the Scottish royal house vied for control of the honour, which was never partitioned, the former preferred the title earl of Northampton (given by Stephen), while the Scots simply spoke of the honour of Huntingdon without using any territorial style.[9]

If Huctred was the son of Waltheof and Judith, he would have inherited these estates, not their daughters.

Marriage and Children
Uctred married Bethâoc circa 1085.[4] Bethâoc was the only child of Donald III [Domnall Bâan, Donalbane], king of Scots.[10]

Uctred married Bethâoc had children:

Hestilla or Hextilda, who married Richard Comyn/Cumyn,[2] circa 1105.[4] John Comyn (died 1302)[10] of Tynedale and Badenoch who was a Competitor on 3rd August 1291 for the throne of Scotland, was their great-great-grandson. John married Alianora, the sister of John Balliol, king of Scotland.[4]
https://archive.org/stream/scottishkingsre00dunbuoft#page/282/mode/2up

Records referring to "Uctred son of Walleof", "Uchtred son of Waldef" and "Huctred son of Waldef"
In 1130-1, at Northumberland, Uctred, son of Walleof, rendered an account for 20 marks of silver, three palfreys, and three coursers for the liberties of soc and sac which the king, Henry I of England [reigned 1100-1135], had granted him. He paid to the Treasury 5 marks of silver and still owes 15 marks of silver, three palfreys, and three coursers.[1]

'Uchtred filius Waldef was a juror in the Inquisitio per David Principem Cumbrensen de terris Ecclesiae Glasguensi pertinentibus facta which was witness by, among others, Cospatric frater Dalfin, Waldef frater suus. Cospatric filius Uctred, Uhctred filius Scot.[11] Laurie, in his notes regarding this charter, remarks that the writer of the charter added a list of witnesses that included the leading people associated with David when he was an earl, which he probably made up because there was no grant or act to attest; that the jurors, in the opinion of Dr Prescott were Cumbrenses judices, although he doesn't agree that Uchtred was as he doesn.[12]

On 8 February 1261/2, Henry III, king of England, confirmed to John Comyn the grant by David king of Scotland and his son, Earl Henry [died 1152, earl of Huntingdon from 1136, earl of Northumberland from 1139] , to Richard Comyn, John's great-grandfather, and his wife Histilla, and their heirs, lands in Tindale, viz Wallewie, Thornton, Staincroft and Hethingishale, which was the heritage of Histilla's father, Huctred, son of Waldef, just as King Henry's grandfather, King Henry [II], had previously confirmed the grant by charter to Richard and Hestilla.[2]

Research Notes
Robertson's statement "Uchred the son of Waltheof was slain in the time of Canute, and his brother Eadulf Cudel only succeeded to the hereditary dominions beyond the Tyne;"[13] does not refer to Histilla's father, Huctred, son of Waldef, because Cnut died in 1035.[14] Uhtred, earl of Bamburgh, son of Waltheof, was murdered in 1016 after which his brother, Eadulf Cudel, succeeded to the earldom.[15] Histilla and her first husband, Richard Comyn, were granted the heritage of her father Huctred, son of Waldef, by King Henry II, who reigned from 1154 until 1189. If Histilla was the daughter of Uchred who was slain in the time of Canute, she would have been 138 years old at the beginning of Henry II's reign.[2]

Line 121A Nos 23-25 in Weis' Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists,[16] calls him Huctred of Tyndale, son of Waldef citing The Scots Peerage, I:504-555 (a typo for 504-5 IMHO Thompson-14289 20:42, 13 September 2017 (EDT)],[3] which cites Bain's Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland both of which are referenced above.[2]

Sources
? 1.0 1.1 1.2 Joseph Bain, ed, Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland Preserved in Her Majesty's Public Record Office, London. (Edinburgh: H M General Register House, 1881), I:3, Digital Image Internet Archive (https://archive.org/stream/calendarofdocume01edin#page/2/mode/2up accessed 12 September 2017). No 13.
? 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Joseph Bain, ed, Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland, I:449, No 2287.
? 3.0 3.1 James Balfour Paul, ed., The Scots Peerage: Founded on Wood's Edition of Sir Robert Douglas's Peerage of Scotland, containing an Historical and Genealogical Account of the Nobility of that Kingdom, 9 vols (Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1907), I:504-5, Digital Image Internet Archive (https://archive.org/stream/scotspeeragefoun01paul#page/504/mode/2up accessed accessed 12 September 2017).
? 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Sir Archibald H Dunbar, Bart, Scottish Kings: A Revised Chronology of Scottish History 1005-1625 with Notices of the Principal Events Tables of Regnal Years, Pedigrees, Calendars, etc., (Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1899), 43, Digital Image Internet Archive (https://archive.org/stream/scottishkingsre00dunbuoft#page/42/mode/2up accessed 12 September 2017).
? Robertson, 1862
? Goldsborough, Feist & Feist, 2011
? 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Wikipedians, n.d.
? 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 C. P. Lewis, ‘Waltheof, earl of Northumbria (c.1050–1076)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 (http://www.oxforddnb.com.rp.nla.gov.au/view/article/28646, accessed 13 Sept 2017). Waltheof (c.1050–1076): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/28646.
? G. W. S. Barrow, ‘David I (c.1085–1153)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2006 (http://www.oxforddnb.com.rp.nla.gov.au/view/article/7208, accessed 14 Sept 2017).
? 10.0 10.1 A. A. M. Duncan, ‘Donald III (b. in or before 1040, d. 1099?)’, rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 (http://www.oxforddnb.com.rp.nla.gov.au/view/article/37366, accessed 13 Sept 2017). Donald III (b. in or before 1040, d. 1099?): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/37366.
? 46. Digital Image Internet Archive (https://archive.org/stream/earlyscottishcha00lawruoft#page/46/mode/2up/, accessed 13 Sept 2017). Charter L.
? 299, 304. Digital Image Internet Archive (https://archive.org/stream/earlyscottishcha00lawruoft#page/298/mode/2up/, accessed 13 Sept 2017). Charter L.
? Eben William Robertson, Scotland Under Her Early Kings: A History of the Kingdom to the Close of the Thirteenth Century, (Edmonston and Douglas, 1862), I:442; Digital Image Internet Archive, .
? M. K. Lawson, ‘Cnut (d. 1035)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2013 (http://www.oxforddnb.com.rp.nla.gov.au/view/article/4579, accessed 15 Sept 2017).
? William M. Aird, ‘Uhtred, earl of Bamburgh (d. 1016)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 (http://www.oxforddnb.com.rp.nla.gov.au/view/article/27981, accessed 15 Sept 2017).
? Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists who Came to America Before 1700: The Lineage of Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, Robert the Strong, and Some of Their Descendants, Genealogical Publishing Com, 1992 108
See also:

Goldsborough, E., Feist, P. & Feist, M.W., (2011). The House of Goldsborough: Goldsborough: From 6th Century England to Colonial America, (pp.261). Google Books
Robertson, Eben William. (1862). Scotland Under Her Early Kings: A History of the Kingdom to the Close of the Thirteenth Century, (Vol.1, pp.442). Edmonston and Douglas. Google eBook.
Wikipedians, (n.d.). City of Sheffield (Part 1 of 3, pp.66). Pedia Press. Google Books.

end of this biography

22147.

Bethoc Dunkeld was born in 1098 in Tynedale, Moray, Scotland (daughter of Donald Dunkeld, III, King of Scots and Hextilda FitzAndlaw); died in 1160 in Perth, Scotland.

Children:

11073. Hextilda of Tynedale was born in 1112-1122 in (East Lothian, Scotland); died in 1149-1189.

48128.

Sir Roger d'Aubigny was born in 1045 in Aubigny, Normandy, France (son of Sir Guillaume d'Aubigny, Seigneur de Saint-Martin-d'Aubigny and Lady Adeliza FitzOsulf, of Plessis, Heiress of Belvoir); died in 1084.

Notes:

Family Roger d'Aubigny & Amice de Grentemesnil

They had three sons named William, Nigel and Roger.

Personal Details
Male Roger d'Aubigny
Roger was born in 1045 in Aubigny, Normandy, France.1 He died at the age of 39 in 1084.

Female Amice de Grentemesnil
Amice was born in 1045.1
Birth Notes
B: Abt. 1045
She died at the age of 39 in 1084.1

Children
Male Lord of Buckingham William d'Aubigney
William was born in 1064 in St. Sauveur, France.2 He died at the age of 75 in 1139. He was buried in Priory Wymondham, England.3 4

Male Sir Nigel d'Aubigny
Nigel was born in 1080 in Aubigny, Calvados, Normandie, France.5 He died at the age of 49 on November 26th, 1129

Male Roger Pincerna
Roger was born in 1085.6
Birth Notes
B: Abt. 1085

1 http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=jdp-fam&id=I66857&style=TABLE
2 http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=tamer&id=I13194&style=TABLE
3 http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=tamer&id=I13199
4 http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=jdp-fam&id=I11548&style=TABLE
5 http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=arciek&id=I15658&style=TABLE
6 http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=jdp-fam&id=I6319

end

Roger married Amice de Mowbray. Amice was born in 1045 in Aubigny, Normandy, France; died in 1084 in Somme, Picardie, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48129.

Amice de Mowbray was born in 1045 in Aubigny, Normandy, France; died in 1084 in Somme, Picardie, France.

Notes:

Female Amice de Grentemesnil (Amice de Mowbray)

Amice was born in 1045
Birth Notes
B: Abt. 1045
Amice's father was Hugh de Grentemesnil and her mother was Adeliza de Beaumont. Her paternal grandparents were Robert de Grentmesnil and Hawise d'Eschafour; her maternal grandparents were Comte Yves Ivo de Beaumont II and Judith Adela de Gournay. She had three brothers and two sisters, named Robert, Ives, Ivo, Agnes and Rohese. She was the oldest of the six children. She died at the age of 39 in 1084.1
General Notes
sister of Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland,

A sister of Bishop Geoffrey de Montbray, was mother by Roger d'Aubigny (of Aubigny in the Cotentin) of two sons, Nigel and William, who were ardent supporters of Henry I, and were rewarded by him with great estates in England. William was made king's butler, and was father of William d'Aubigny (de Albini), first earl of Arundel; Nigel was rewarded with the escheated fief of Geoffrey de la Guerche, of which Melton (Mowbray) was the head, and with forfeited lands in Yorkshire. Nigel married, by dispensation, the wife of his cousin, the imprisoned earl, but afterwards divorced her, and by another wife was father of a son Roger, who took the name of Mowbray.
(Wikipedia)

Ancestor Pedigree Chart

Gervase le Breton - b.0960 in Bretagne, France
Robert de Grentmesnil - b.0990 in Grentemesnil, Calvados, Normandy, France d.17 Jun 1039 in Grentemesnil, Calvados, Normandy, France

Hugh de Grentemesnil - b.1030 in Grentemesnil, Calvados, Normandy, France d.22 Feb 1092 in Leicester Castle, Leicestershire, England
Ansfred Rollosson* - b.0907 in Tillieres, Normandy, France
Toustien le Goz - b.0935 in Bastembourg, Normandy, France d.0978 in Heismes, Normandy, France
Countess Helloe of Beulac* - b.0910 in Belac, Normandy, France d.1032 in Dammertin, France
Seigneur d'Echafour Giroie le Goz - b.0968 in Heismes, Normandy, France d.1020 in Eschafour, Normandy, France
Judith de Montanolier - b.0945 in Montanolier, Normandy, France
Hawise d'Eschafour - b.1007 in Eschafour, Normandy, France
Rollo Hrolf Thurstan Brico* - b.0887 in Maer, Nord-Trondelag, Norway
Seigneur de Montfort Touissant de Briquibec - b.0928 in Chateau Briquebec, Manche, Normandy, France d.0997 in Montfort-Sur-Risle, Normandy, France
Gerlotte De Blois* - b.0913 in Tilliers, Normandy
Gisela Bertrand de Montfort - b.0972 in Montfort-Sur-Risle, Normandy, France
Geoffrey Murdac - b.0900
Juliane Murdac - b.0930 in Manche, Normandy, France

Amice de Grentemesnil - b.1045 d.1084
Yves of Ham*
Yves Bellomontensis - d.1035
Gisela
Count Ivan Bellomontensis - b.0975 in Beaumont-sur-Oise, Normandy, France d.1022 in Beaumont-sur-Oise, Normandy, France

Comte Yves Ivo de Beaumont II - b.1005 in Beaumont, Sur-Oise, Normandy, France d.22 May 1059 in Beaumont-sur-Oise, Normandy, France
Guy de Chevreuse - b.1130 in Mauvoisin, Nord, France d.01 Sep 1192
Gisele Chevreuse - b.0980 in Beaumont, Sur-Oise, Normandy, France d.1039 in France

Adeliza de Beaumont - b.1035 in Beaumont, France d.11 Jul 1091 in Rouen, Normandy, France
Hugh de Gournay I* - b.0940 in Gournay, France
Hugh de Gournay II - b.0960 in Gournay, Normandy, France

Hugh de Gournay III - b.0985 in Gournay-sur-Marne, Normandy, France d.1074 in Gournay-sur-Marne, Normandy, France

Judith Adela de Gournay - b.1008 in Beaumont, Sur-Oise, Normandy, France d.08 Apr 1099
Girard Flaitel - b.0960 in Evereux, Normandie, France
Gerald de Flaitel - b.0985 in Longueville, Normandy, France

Basilie Basita Flaitel - b.1000 in Normandy, France d.16 Jan 1098
Robert de Normandie* - b.0965 in Normandie d.1037
Herleva D'Evereaux - b.1003
Havlive Rouen* - b.0968 in Normandy, France d.21 Feb 1034 in Evreux, Rouen, Seine-et-Maritime, France
*There are earlier generations for the ancestor(s) indicated. See their page(s) for details (click name)
Family Details of Amice's family with Roger d'Aubigny

1 http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=jdp-fam&id=I66857&style=TABLE
Further sources/citations:
http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=jdp-fam&id=I66857&style=TABLE, http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=arciek&id=I10096

end of commentary

Children:

Sir William "Pincerna" d'Aubigny, Lord of Buckingham was born in 1064 in Sauveur, France; died in 1139; was buried in Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk, England.
24064. Sir Nigel d'Aubigny, 3rd Baron of Thirsk was born in 0___ 1170 in Thirsk Castle, Thirsk, Yorkshire, England; died on 26 Nov 1129 in Normandy, France.
Roger de Mowbray was born in 1085.

48136.

Sir William de Braose, Knight, 1st Lord of Bramber was born in ~1049 in Briouze, Normandy, France; died in 1093-1096.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Hastings, East Sussex, England

Notes:

William de Braose arrived in England with William the Conqueror. His mother’s name was Gunnor. She became a nun at the Abbaye aux Dames in Caen, Normandy, which was established by the Conqueror’s queen, Matilda. Some of the property Gunnor gave to the abbey was associated with members of the the Ivry family - Albereda, Hugh and Roger. Emma d’Ivry was the mother of William the Conqueror’s most powerful favourite, William fitz Osbern.

These are the best clues we have as to William de Braose’s parentage. He was entrusted with a key Sussex position at Bramber and land in other English counties, besides Briouze, a strategic location in Normandy. It seems likely that he came from the extended family of the Dukes of Normandy but for genealogists his ancestry is still a frustrating loose end. William probably married the widow of Anchetil de Harcourt, Eve de Boissey, but even this detail remains inconclusive.

Images for Braose coats of arms:

https://www.google.com/search?q=braose+coat+of+arms&rlz=1C1KMZB_enUS591US591&espv=2&biw=1440&bih=834&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjU4oegvMHQAhVFbSYKHTtHB1gQsAQILQ&dpr=1

end of comment

Died 1093-6

Guillaume de Briouze is recorded in lists of those present at the Battle of Hastings. He became the first Lord of Bramber Rape by 1073 and built Bramber Castle. (Right - remains of the gatehouse) William made considerable grants to the abbey of Saint Florent, Saumur to endow the foundation of Sele Priory near Bramber and a priory at Briouze. He continued to fight alongside King William in the campaigns in Britain, Normandy and Maine.

The latest evidence for William is his presence at the consecration of his church at Briouze in 1093. In 1096 his son Philip was issuing charters. From this we can deduce that William died between 1093 and 1096.

Father: Uncertain.

Mother: Gunnor (See Round, Cal. Doc. Fra. p148)

Brydges edition of Collins' Peerage claims he was first married to Agnes, dau of Waldron de Saint Clare but no evidence for this can be found. It may be an example of Bruce - Braose confusion.
According to L C Perfect, a 13th century genealogy in the Bibliotháeque de Paris gives the name of his wife as Eve de Boissey, widow of Anchetil de Harcourt. There is a lot of evidence from contemporary charters which supports this view.

Child 1: Philip

*

Birth:
Briouze is a commune in the Orne department of Normandy in northwestern France. It is considered the capital of the pays d'Houlme at the western end of the Orne in the Norman bocage. The nearby Grand Hazâe marshland is a heritage-listed area (Natura 2000).

William de Braose, First Lord of Bramber (Guillaume de Briouze) was granted lands in England after the Norman conquest and used his wealth to build a priory in his home town.

The name Briouze probably comes from an older Norman form of the word "boue", or "mud".

Map & commentary ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briouze

Residence:
Images, maps & history of Hastings and the "Battle of 1066" ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastings

William married Agnes St. Clair. Agnes (daughter of Waldron St Clair and Helena Normandie) was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandy, France; died in ~1080. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48137.

Agnes St. Clair was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandy, France (daughter of Waldron St Clair and Helena Normandie); died in ~1080.

Notes:

Agnes de Braose formerly St Clair aka de St. Clair, de Brus
Born about 1053 in Manche, Normandy, France

Daughter of Waldron (St Clair) de Sinclair and Helena (Normandie) de Sinclair
Sister of William (St Clair) Sinclair and Mauger (St Clare) Sinclair
Wife of Robert (Brus) de Brus — married 1072 [location unknown]

DESCENDANTS descendants

Wife of William (Braose) de Braose — married about 1075 [location unknown

Mother of Adam (Brus) de Brus, Agatha or Alice (Bruce) Basset, Philip (Braose) de Braose, Unknown (Braose) de Harcourt, John (Braiose) de Braose, Philena (Braiose) de Braose, Hortense (Bruce) de Braose and Robert (Brus) de Brus
Died about 1080 in Bramber, Sussex, England
Profile managers: Katherine Patterson private message [send private message], Becky Bierbrodt private message [send private message], and Dale Burdick private message [send private message]
Profile last modified 30 Sep 2016 | Created 9 Jul 2014
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end of biography

Notes:

Residence (Family):
Bramber Castle is a Norman motte-and-bailey castle formerly the caput of the large feudal barony of Bramber long held by the Braose family. It is situated in the village of Bramber, West Sussex overlooking the River Adur.

Image, map and history of Bramber Castle ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bramber_Castle

More images and history of Bramber Castle & the Braose family ... http://steyningmuseum.org.uk/braose.htm

Children:

24068. SIr Philip de Braose, Knight, 2nd Lord Bramber was born in 1073 in Bramber, West Sussex, England; died in 1131-1139 in (Syria).

48142.

Bernard de Neufmarche, Lord of Brecknockshire was born in 0___ 1050 in Neufmarche, France; died in 0___ 1093 in Breconshire, Wales.

Bernard married Nest Verch Osborn le Scrope in 1088 in England. Nest was born before 1075 in Richards Castle, Herefordshire, England; died in 1121 in Aberhonwy, Breconshire, , Wale. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48143.

Nest Verch Osborn le Scrope was born before 1075 in Richards Castle, Herefordshire, England; died in 1121 in Aberhonwy, Breconshire, , Wale.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: 1079, Herefordshire, England

Notes:

Nesta "Agnes" de Neufmarchâe formerly Osbern aka FerchOsbern, FitzOsbern, le Scrope
Born before 1075 in Richards Castle, Herefordshire, , England,map
ANCESTORS ancestors
Daughter of Osbern (Scrope) le Scrope and Nest (Gruffydd) ferch Gruffydd
Sister of Simon (Scrope) le Scrope [half] and Hugh FitzOsbern
Wife of Bernard (Neufmarchâe) de Neufmarchâe — married 1088 [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Mother of Philip (Neufmarche) de Neufmarche, Sybil (Neufmarchâe) of Gloucester, Adam (Neufmarche) de Neufmarchâe and Mael (Neufmarche) de Neufmarche
Died 1121 in Aberhonwy, Breconshire, , Wales
Profile managers: Rev Daniel Washburn Jones private message [send private message], Darrell Parker private message [send private message], Becky Bierbrodt private message [send private message], and Jason Murphy private message [send private message]
Profile last modified 21 Oct 2018 | Created 6 Jun 2014
This page has been accessed 3,287 times.
British Aristocracy
Nesta (Osbern) de Neufmarchâe was a member of aristocracy in the British Isles.
Join: British Royals and Aristocrats Project
Discuss: BRITISH_ARISTO
Biography

Bernard married Nesta (Agnes), daughter and heir of Osbern fitz Richard, granddaughter of Welsh King Gruffudd ap Llywelyn. Through Nesta, Bernard acquired Bodenham & Berrington, Herefordshire.

Sources
Medieval Lands - NESTA

end of profile

Children:

24071. Lady Sibyl de Neufmarche, Countess of Hereford was born in ~1100 in Brecon Castle, Brecon, Wales; died on 24 Dec 1143 in Llanthony Secunda, Gloucestershire, England; was buried in Llanthony Secunda Priory, Gloucestershire, England.
12035. Lady Bertha of Hereford was born in 1107 in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England; died in ~ 1180 in Bramber, Sussex, England.

48144.

Sir William "Pincerna" d'Aubigny, Lord of Buckingham was born in 1064 in Sauveur, France (son of Sir Roger d'Aubigny and Amice de Mowbray); died in 1139; was buried in Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Occupation: Butler to King Henry I

Notes:

William d'Aubigny (died 1139[1]), also called William de Albini or William d'Albini and known as Pincerna,[a] was an Anglo-Norman nobleman. He was lord of the manor of Old Buckenham Castle in Norfolk, England.[1]

Life and career

William was the son of Roger d'Aubigny and his wife, Amice; one of their other children was Nigel d'Aubigny.[2] William served the household of Henry I of England as "Pincerna" (butler), and fought at the Battle of Tinchebrai.[1] He founded Wymondham Priory (later Wymondham Abbey) in 1107.[3]

Family

William married Maud Bigod, daughter of Roger Bigod of Norfolk in 1107. She brought an unusually high dowry to the match for a woman of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy who was not an heiress, 10 knights' fees.[4] They were the parents of the following children:[5]

William d'Aubigny (died 1176), became Earl of Arundel
Nele d'Aubigny or Nigel d'Aubigny
Oliver d'Aubigny
Roland d'Aubigny (attributed)
Oliva d'Aubigny, married Ralph de la Haye
Notes[edit]
Jump up ^ The title or nickname "Pincerna" referred to the master butler of the Royal household.

end

William de Albini, surnamed Pincerna, son of Roger de Albini and elder brother of Nigel de Albini, whose posterity assumed and attained such eminence under the name of Mowbray, accompanied the Conqueror into England and acquired extensive territorial possessions by royal grants in Norfolk and other counties.

Of these grants was the lordship of Bokenham, to be holden by the service of being Butler to the Kings of England on the day of their coronation, and in consequence we find this William styled in divers charters "Pincerna Henrici Regis Anglorum.

" William de Albini founded the abbey of Wymondham in Norfolk and gave to the monks of Rochester the tithes of the manor of Elham, as also one carucate of land in Achestede, with a wood called Acholte. He likewise bestowed upon the abbey of St. Etienne at Caen, in Normandy, all his lands lying in Stavell, which grant he made in the presence of King Henry and his barons.

He m. Maude, dau. of Roger Bigot, with whom he obtained ten knights' fees in Norfolk. At the obsequies of Maud, William de Albini gave to the monks of Wymondham the manor of Hapesburg, in pure alms, and made livery thereof to the said monks by a cross of silver, in which (says Dugdale) was placed certain venerable reliques, viz., "part of the wood of the cross whereon our Lord was crucified; part of the manger wherein he was laid at his birth; and part of the sepulchre of the Blessed Virgin; as also a gold ring, and a silver chalice for retaining the Holy Eucharist, admirably wrought in form of a sphere; unto which pious donation his three sons were witnesses, with several other persons."

The exact time of the decease of this great feudal baron is not ascertained, but it is known that he was buried before the high altar in the abbey of Wymondham, and that the monks were in the constant habit of praying for his soul by the name of "William de Albini, the king's butler."

[Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, England, 1883, p. 2, Albini, Earls of Arundel]

end

William married Maud Bigod in 1107. Maud (daughter of Sir Roger Bigod, Knight and Adeliza de Tosny) was born in (Belvoir Castle, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48145.

Maud Bigod was born in (Belvoir Castle, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England) (daughter of Sir Roger Bigod, Knight and Adeliza de Tosny).

Children:

24072. Sir William d'Aubigny, Knight, 1st Earl of Arundel was born in ~ 1109 in (England); died on 12 Oct 1176; was buried in Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk, England.

48164.

Aubrey de Vere, I was born on 16 Dec 1030 in Ver, Normandie, France; died in 1112-1113 in Abingdon Abbey, Berkshire, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: (~ 1045), (Normandy, France)

Notes:

Aubrey (Albericus) de Vere (died circa 1112-1113) was a tenant-in-chief in England of William the Conqueror in 1086, as well as a tenant of Geoffrey de Montbray, bishop of Coutances and of Count Alan, lord of Richmond. A much later source named his father as Alphonsus.[1]

Biography

His origins are obscure and various regions have been proposed for his birthplace, from Zeeland to Brittany. He may have been Norman, possibly from the region of Ver in the Cotentin peninsula of western Normandy, but the evidence is such that no certainty is possible.[2]

In Domesday Book, he is listed as "Aubrey the chamberlain" and "Aubrey the queen's chamberlain" as well as Aubrey de Vere. He and his wife held land in nine counties in 1086. Both were accused of some unauthorized land seizures.[3] Aubrey's estates were valued at approximately ¹300, putting him in roughly the middle ranks of the post-conquest barons of England in terms of landed wealth.[4] He served King Henry I in the first decade of his reign as a chamberlain and local justiciar in the counties of Berkshire and Northamptonshire.[5]

Sometime in or before 1104, Aubrey's eldest son Geoffrey fell ill and was tended at Abingdon Abbey in Berkshire by the royal physician, Abbot Faritius. The youth appeared to have recovered but suffered a relapse, died, and was buried at the abbey. His parents then founded a cell of Abingdon on land they donated for the purpose: Colne Priory, Essex. Within a year of the formal dedication in March 1111, Aubrey I joined that community and died soon. His youngest son William died not long after his father. Both were buried at the priory, establishing it as the Vere family mausoleum.[6] Aubrey de Vere II then succeeded to his father's estates.

Aubrey I was married by 1086. As his spouse's name is recorded as Beatrice in 1104 and Beatrice is named as the mother of his eldest son, she was almost certainly his wife in 1086.[7] Beatrice attended the formal ceremony for the founding of Earl's Colne Priory. Besides sons Geoffrey, Aubrey II, and William mentioned above, the couple's children included Roger and Robert.[8]

Estates

The principal estates held by Aubrey de Vere in 1086: Castle Hedingham, Beauchamp [Walter], Great Bentley, Great Canfield, Earls Colne, [White] Colne, and Dovercourt, Essex; Aldham, Belstead, Lavenham, and Waldingfield, Suffolk; Castle Camps, Hildersham, Silverley, and Wilbraham, Cambridgeshire. He possessed houses and acreage in Colchester and a house in Winchester. As tenant of Geoffrey bishop of Coutances, he held Kensington, Middlesex; Scaldwell and Wadenhoe, Northamptonshire. Of the barony of Count Alan of Brittany, he held the manors of Beauchamp Roding, Canfield, and West Wickham, Essex. His wife held Aldham, Essex, in her own right of Odo bishop of Bayeux. The couple both were accused by Domesday jurors of expansion into Little Maplestead, Essex. Aubrey's seizures or questionable right of possession to estates included Manuden, Essex; Great Hemingford, Huntingdonshire; and Swaffham, Cambridgeshire. (Counties given are those of Domesday Book.)

end

Aubrey married Beatrice Ghent in BY 1086. Beatrice was born in 1045 in France; died in 1090. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48165.

Beatrice Ghent was born in 1045 in France; died in 1090.

Children:

24082. Sir Aubrey de Vere, II was born in ~ 1085 in (Normandy, France); died in 0May 1141 in (Thrapston, Northamptonshire, England).

22248.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: > 1066, Clare, Suffolk, England
Alt Death: 1117

Notes:

Short Biography
"Gilbert de Tonebruge, who resided at Tonebruge and inherited all his father's lands in England, joined in the rebellion of Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland, but observing the king (William Rufus) upon the point of falling into an ambuscade, he relented, sought pardon, and saved his royal master. Subsequently, however, he was again in rebellion in the same reign and fortifying and losing his castle at Tunbridge.

"He m. in 1113, Adeliza, dau. of the Earl of Cleremont, and had issue, Richard, his successor, Gilbert, Walter, Hervey, and Baldwin. Gilbert de Tonebruge, who was a munificent benefactor to the church, was s. by his eldest son, Richard de Clare." [1]

Long Biography
Gilbert FitzRichard de Clare, aka Gilbert of Tonbridge

Earl Gilbert de Clare was born before 1066. He lived in Tonebridge and died in 1114/1117 in England. He was the son and eventual heir of Richard FitzGilbert of Clare, who had been with William the Conqueror during the conquest of England and Rochese Giffard. After Richard's death, his extensive properties in Normandy and England were divided between his two eldest sons. The Norman fiefs of Bienfaite and Orbec passed to Roger, while Gilbert inherited the English honors of Clare and Tonbridge. Earl Gilbert's inheritance made him one of the wealthiest magnates in early twelfth-century England.

Gilbert held Tonbridge Castle against William Rufus (who would become King William II), but was wounded and captured. {-Encycl. Brit., 1956, 5:754}. He was later reconciled, after King William I's death in 1088. He was involved in rebellion between 1088 and 1095. He may have been present at the suspicious death of William II in the New Forest in 1100.

Earl Gilbert married Adeliza de Clermont in 1113. Adeliza was born about 1065, lived in Northamptonshire, England. She was the daughter of Count Hugh de Clermont and Marguerita de Roucy. She died after 1117 in England.

Adeliza married second, Aubrey II de Vere. Aubrey was born about 1082 in Hedingham, Essex, England. He was the son of Alberic de Vere and Beatrix Gand. He died on 15 May 1141 in London, England and was buried in Coine Priory, Earls Coine, Essex, England.
Adeliza remarried a de Montmorency after his death.

He was granted lands and the Lordship of Cardigan by Henry I and built the second castle at Caerdigan, Pembrokeshire, Wales. Since 1096 the Clares had owned the castle of Striguil on the Severn, opposite Bristol; they also held Goodrich fortess nearby. A marriage brought it into the hands of William Marshall, who soon controlled the strongest castles on the peninsula. The keep has been transformed into a modern house. Of all the castles that finally came into William Marshall's possession, this was the most important to the area. Scholars believe there is evidence that it was originally built of wood. He founded the Cluniac priory at Stoke-by-Clare, Suffolk.

Parents
Father
Earl Richard "De Tonbridge" FitzGilbert (~1024 - ~1090) Count Hugh de Clermont (1030 - 1102)
Grand Parents
Count Gilbert "Crispin" de Brionne (~0979 - ~1040) Renauld de Clermont (~1010 - >1098)
Constance de Eu Ermengarde de Clermont (~1010 - )
Mother
Rochese Giffard (~1034 - >1133) Marguerita de Roucy (~1035 - >1103)
Grand Parents
Walter Giffard de Bolebec (~1010 - 1085/1102) Count Hildwan IV (~1010 - ~1063)
Agnes Ermentrude Fleitel (~1014 - ) Adela de Roucy (~1013 - 1063)
Children
Walter de Clare 1086 1149
Margaret de Clare 1090 1185 m. (ca. 1108), Sir William de Montfitchet, Lord of Stanstead Mountfitchet.
Adelize/Alice de Clare, born circa 1077-1092, died circa 1163, married circa 1105 Aubrey II de Vere, son of Aubrey I de Vere and Beatrice Gand. She had 9 children and in her widowhood was a corrodian at St. Osyth's, Chichester, Essex;
Baldwin Fitz Gilbert de Clare, Lord of Bourne born circa 1092, died 1154, married Adeline de Rollos;
Richard Fitz Gilbert de Clare, born circa 1094, died 1136, 1st Earl of Hertford;
Hervey de Clare, born circa 1096;
Gilbert Fitz Gilbert de Clare, born circa 1100, died 1148, 1st Earl of Pembroke;
Rohese de Clare, born circa 1105, died 1149, married circa 1130 Baderon of Monmouth;
Margaret de Clare born circa 1101, died 1185, married circa 1108 Sir William de Montfitchet, Lord of Stanstead Mountfitchet;
Abbot of Ely Lord of Clare

2nd Earl Clare, Lord of Tunbridge and Cardigan [1107-1111], and Marshall of England.

From "A Baronial Family in Medieval England: The Clares, 1217-1314", by Michael Altschul, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins press, 1965. The Clares came to England with the Conqueror. Like many other great families settled in England after the Conquest, they were related to the dukes of Normandy and had established themselves as important members of the Norman feudal aristocracy in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. The origin of the family can be traced to Godfrey, eldest of the illegitimate children of Duke Richard I (the Fearless), the Conqueror's great-grandfather. While the Duke granted Godfrey Brionne, he did not make him a count. Godfrey's comital title derives from the grant of the county of Eu made to him after 996 by his half-brother, Duke Richard II. After Godfrey's death, Eu was given to William, another of Duke Richard I's bastard sons, and Gilbert, Godfrey's son, was left with only the lordship of Brionne. However, under Duke Robert I, father of William the Conqueror, Gilbert assumed the title of count of Brionne while not relinquishing his claim to Eu. When Count William of Eu died shortly before 1040, Gilbert assumed the land and title, but he was assassinated in 1040 and his young sons, Richard and Baldwin, were forced to flee Normandy, finding safety at the court of Baldwin V, count of Flanders. When William the Conqueror married Count Baldwin's daughter, he restored Gilbert's sons to Normandy, although he did not invest them with either Brionne or Eu or a comital title. William granted the lordships of Bienfaite and Orbec to Richard fitz Gilbert, and Le Sap and Meules to Baldwin. While Gilbert's descendants later pressed a claim for Brionne, it was never restored. Richard and Baldwin fitz Gilbert took part in the Norman conquest of England, and both assumed important positions in the Conqueror's reign. Baldwin was made guardian of Exeter in 1068, and appears in the Domesday Book as sheriff of Devon, lord of Okehampton and numerous other estates in Devon, Dorset, and Somerset. His sons William and Richard were also sheriffs of Devon and participated in the abortive Norman penetration of Carmarthen in the early twelfth century.

However, the lasting position of the family in England must be credited to Baldwin's brother, Richard fitz Gilbert I. He was regent of England jointly with William de Warenne during the Conqueror's absence in 1075, and he served in various other important capacities for the King. King William rewarded his cousin well, granting him one of the largest fiefs in the territorial settlement. The lordship centered on Clare (obviously the origin of the Clare family name), Suffolk, which had been an important stronghold in Anglo-Saxon times. The bulk of Richard fitz Gilbert's estates lay in Suffolk, Essex, Surrey, and Kent, but comprised holdings in various other counties in the southern and eastern parts of the kingdom as well. In addition, King William arranged for Richard's marriage to Rohese, sister of Walter Giffard, later earl of Buckingham, and her dowry, consisting of lands in Huntingdon and Hertford, became absorbed in the family inheritance. After Richard's death, his extensive properties in Normandy and England were divided between his two eldest sons. The Norman fiefs of Bienfaite and Orbec passed to Roger, while Gilbert, inherited the English honors of Clare and Tonbridge.

Part II While Gilbert fitz Richard I found himself at odds with the Conqueror's successor, William Rufus, he and other members of the family enjoyed great favor with Rufus' successor King Henry I. Some have suggested that Henry's largesse was due to the fact that Walter Tirel, husband of Richard's daughter Adelize, shot the arrow which slew Rufus. Proof of this is lacking, but with certainty the wealth and position of the Clare family increased rapidly during Henry's reign. One of Rohese Giffards brothers (Walter) was made earl of Buckingham and another bishop of Winchester. Gilbert fitz Richard's brothers were also rewarded: Richard, a monk at Bec, was made abbot of Ely in 1100; Robert was granted the forfeited manors of Ralph Baynard in East Anglia; Walter, who founded Tintern Abbey in 1131, was given the great lordship of Netherwent with the castle of Striguil in the southern march, territories previously held by Roger, son of William fitz Osborn, earl of Hereford, who had forfeited them in 1075. In 1110 Gilbert was granted the lordship of Ceredigion (Cardigan) in southwestern Wales, and immediately embarked upon an intensive campaign to subjagate the area.

After Gilbert fitz Richard I died in 1117, his children continued to profit from royal generosity and favorable connections. His daughters were all married to important barons; William de Montfichet, lord of Stansted in Essex, the marcher lord Baderon de Monmouth, and Aubrey de Vere, lord of Hedingham in Essex and father of the first Vere earl of Oxford. Of the five sons, little is known of two: Hervey, whom King Stephen sent on an expedition to Cardigan abt 1140, and Walter, who participated in the Second Crusade of 1147. Baldwin established himself as an important member of the lesser baronage by obtaining the Lincolnshire barony of Bourne through marriage. Richard fitz Gilbert II, the eldest and heir, was allowed to marry Adeliz, sister of Ranulf des Gernons, earl of Chester, thus acquiring lands in Lincoln and Northampton as her marriage portion. He tried to consolidate the gains made by his father in Cardigan, but was killed in an ambush in 1136 and the lordship was soon recovered by the Welsh. Of Gilbert fitz Richard I' sons, Gilbert was the only one to achieve any great prominence, being the founder of the great cadet branch of the family and the father of one of the most famous men in English history. Gilbert fitz Gilbert de Clare was high in the favor of Henry I, perhaps because his wife Isabell, daughter of Robert de Beaumont, count of Meulan and earl of Leicester, was one of Henry's favorite mistresses. When Gilbert's uncle Roger died without heirs, Henry granted Gilbert the lordships of Bienfaite and Orbec in Normandy. When another uncle, Walter, lord of Netherwent in South Wales, died without issue in 1138, King Richard? gave Gilbert this lordship in addition to the lordship of Pembroke, which had been forfeited by Arnulf of Montgomery in 1102. Gilbert was also created earl of Pembroke in 1138. At his death in 1148, he was succeeded by his son Richard fitz Gilbert, aka "Strongbow" who led the Norman invasion of Ireland and obtained the great lordship of Leinster in 1171.

Part III Thus, in just two generations, the cadet branch of the Clares became one of the most important families in England. Strongbow was Earl of Pembroke, Lord of Netherwent,and Lord of Leinster being the most powerful of the marcher and Anglo-Irish magnates under King Henry II. Strongbow d. in 1176 and son Gilbert d. abt. 1185, ending the male line. In 1189, the inheritance passed to Strongbow's dau. Isabel and her husband, William Marshal. Meanwhile, the senior side prospered. After Richard fitz Gilbert II d. in 1136, Clare, Tonbridge, and other estates passed to the eldest son Gilbert fitz Richard II, who was created Earl of Hertford by King Stephen. Gilbert d. probably unmarried in 1152, when his younger brother Roger inherited the estates and comital title. Roger resumed the campaign against the Welsh in Cardigan where, after 8 years, he was defeated in 1165. However, Roger did add some lands and nine knights' fees through his marriage to Maud, daughter and heir of the Norfolk baron James de St. Hillary. Roger d. in 1173 and his widow, Maud, conveyed the remainder of the inheritance to her next husband, William de Aubigny, earl of Arundel. The Clare estates along with the earldom passed to Roger's son, Richard, who for the next 4 decades until he d. in 1217, was the head of the great house of CLARE, adding immensely to the wealth, prestige, and landed endowment of his line.

Part IV: Roger's son Richard, hereinafter Richard de CLARE acquired half of the former honor of Giffard in 1189 when King Richard I, in need of money for the Third Crusade, agreed to divide the Giffard estates between Richard de CLARE and his cousin Isabel, Strongbow's dau. based on their claims to descendancy to Rohese Giffard. Richard de CLARE obtained Long Crendon in Buckingham, the caput of the Giffard honor in England, associated manors in Buckingham, ambridge, and bedfordshire, and 43 knights' fees, in addition to some former Giffard lands in Normandy. When Richard de CLARE's mother Maud d. in 1195, he obtained the honor of St. Hilary. Maud's 2nd husband, William de Aubigny, earl of Arundel, who had held St. Hilary jure uxoris, d. in 1193, and despite the fact he had a son and heir, the honor reverted to Maud and after her death escheated to the crown. Richard de CLARE offered ¹360 and acquired it. The honor later became absorbed into the honor of CLARE and lost its separate identity. Richard de CLARE's most important act, however, was his m. to Amicia, 2nd dau. and eventual sole heir to William earl of Gloucester. The Gloucester inheritance included the earldom and honor of Gloucester with over 260 knights' fees in England, along with the important marcher lordships of Glamorgan and Gwynllwg. It was not easy though!! William d. 1183, leaving 3 daughters. The eldest, Mabel, m. Amaury de Montfort, count of Evreux, while the second, Amicia m. Richard de CLARE. King Henry II meanwhile arranged the m. of the youngest Isabel, to his son John, count of Mortain, in 1189. When John became King in 1199, he divorced Isabel to m. Isabelle of Angoulãeme, but, he kept the 1st Isabel in his custody. Then in 1200, John created Mabel's son Amaury earl of Gloucester. In addition, Richard de CLARE and his son Gilbert were given a few estates and 10 fees of the honor of Gloucester of Kent; otherwise, John kept the bulk of the honor, with the great lordships of Glamorgan and Gwynllwg. Mabel's son Amaury d. without issue in 1213 Shortly thereafter, John gave the 1st Isabel in marriage to Geoffrey de Mandeville, earl of Essex, who was also created earl of Gloucester. When Geoffrey died, the inheritance was assigned to Hubert de Burgh, the justiciar. Hubert m. Countess Isabel shortly before her daeth in Oct. 1217, however, he did not retain the estates, since they passed to Amicia, now recognized as countess of Gloucester, and her husband Richard de CLARE, despite the fact Richard and Amicia had been separated since 1200.

Part V: Richard outlived Isabel by several weeks and by 28 Nov 1217, he was dead, leaving Gilbert, aged 38, as the sole heir to the Clare and Gloucester estates and title. Gilbert de CLARE assumed the title of earl of Gloucester and Hertford and was charged ¹350 relief for the honors of Clare, Gloucester, St. Hilary and his half of the old Giffard barony. He controlled some 456 knights fees, far more than any other, and it did not include some 50 fees in Glamorgan and Gwynllwg. By a remarkable series of fortuitous marriages and quick deaths, the Clares were left in 1217 in possession of an inheritance which in terms of social prestige, potential revenues, knights' fees, and a lasting position of great importance among the marcher lords of Wales. They were probably the most successful family in developing their lands and power during the 12th century and in many ways the most powerful noble family in 13th century England. By 1317, however, the male line of Clares became extinct and the inheritance was partitioned. Between 1217 and 1317 there were four Clare generations. Gilbert de CLARE, b. abt 1180 had a brother Richard/Roger and a sister Matilda. Richard accompanied Henry III's brother, Richard of Cornwall, to Gascony in 1225-26 and was never heard from again. Matilda was married to William de Braose (d. 1210 when he and his mother were starved to death by King John), eldest son of the great marcher baron William de Braose (d. 1211), lord of Brecknock, Abergavenny, Builth, Radnor, and Gower, who was exiled by King John. Matilda returned to her father and later (1219) sued Reginald de Braose, second son of William, for the family lands, succeeding only in recovering Gower and the Sussex baronry of Bramber. Gilbert de CLARE, earl of Gloucester and Hertford from 1217 to 1230, m. Oct. 1214 his cousin Isabel, daughter and eventual co-heiress of William Marshal (d 1219), earl of Pembroke. Gilbert and Isabel had three sons and two daughters, with the eldest son and heir Richard, b. 4 Aug 1222, thus only 8 when his father died. In 1243, Richard de CLARE came of age and assumed the estates and titles of his father until he d. 15 July 1262. His brother William, b. 1228 held lands of Earl Richard in Hampshire and Norfolk for the service of a knight's fee. In June 1258, during a baronial reform program, William was granted custody of Winchester castle. A month later he died, reportedly by poison administered by the Earl Richard's seneschal- a steward or major-domo. Walter de Scoteny, in supposed collaboration with Henry III's Poitevin half-brothers, who strongly opposed the baronial program and Earl Richard's participation in it. Earl Gilbert's daughters were very well placed. Amicia, b. 1220, was betrothed in 1226 to Baldwin de Reviers, grandson and heir to William de Reviers, earl of Devon (d 1217). Baldwin was only a year or two older than Amicia and Earl Gilbert offered 2,000 marks to the King for the marriage and custody of some Reviers estates during Baldwin's minority. The marriage must have been consummated around 1235, since Baldwin's son and heir (Baldwin) was b. the next year. After Baldwin d. in 1245, Amicia (d 1283) controlled the lands of her son (d. 1262) and was given permission to marry a minor English baron, Robert de Guines/Gynes, uncle of Arnold III, Count of Guines. Earl Gilbert's other daughter, Isabel b. 1226, m. 1240 the Scots baron Robert Bruce, lord of Annandale (d 1295), and by him was the grandmother of the hero of Bannockburn. Her marriage was probably arranged by her mother Isabel and uncle, Gilbert Marshal who gave her the Sussex manor of Ripe as a marriage portion. Isabel Marshal outlived Earl Gilbert de CLARE by ten years, during which time she was busy. In 1231 she m. Richard of Cornwall, to the displeasure of Richard's brother King Henry III, who was trying to arrange another match for Richard. She d 1240, after 4 children by Richard, only one of which lived past infancy. According to the Tewkesbury chronicle, she wished to be buried next to her 1st husband, but Richard of Cornwall had her buried at Beaulieu Abbey in Hampshire, although as a pious gesture he allowed her heart to be sent to Tewkesbury.

MARSHALL to the ROYAL HOUSEHOLD, Royal Serjeant and Marshal to Henry I, LORD OF STRIGUL

Gilbert FitzRichard d. 1114/7 was son and eventual heir of Richard FitzGilbert of Clare and heiress Rohese Giffard. He succeeded to his father's possessions in England in 1091; his brother, Roger Fitz Richard, inherited his father's lands in Normandy. Earl Gilbert's inheritance made him one of the wealthiest magnates in early twelfth-century England.

Gilbert may have been present at the suspicious death of William II in the New Forest in 1100. He was granted lands and the Lordship of Cardigan by Henry I, including Cardigan Castle. He founded the Cluniac priory at Stoke-by-Clare, Suffolk.

Earl Gilbert de Clare - was born before 1066, lived in Tonebridge and died in 1114/1117 in England . He was the son of Earl Richard "De Tonbridge" FitzGilbert and Rochese Giffard.

Present at the murder of William II in 1100. Received lands in Wales from Henry I, including Cardigan Castle in Wales.

Built a Castle at Caerdigan, Pembrokeshire, Wales. A marriage brought it into the hands of William Marshall, who soon controlled the strongest castles on the peninsula. The keep has been transformed into a modern house. Of all the castles that finally came into William Marshall's possession, this was the most important to the area. Scholars believe there is evidence that it was originally built of wood.

Sources
? Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, London, 1883, p. 119, Clare, Lords of Clare, Earls of Hertford, Earls of Gloucester
See also:

Douglas Richardson, Royal Ancestry" (2013), II;171-2.
Wikipedia: Gilbert fitz Richard
Clare family.
Americans of Royal Descent.
G.E.C.: Complete Peerage, III: 242-43
J.H. Round, Feudal Eng. p. 523, 473
Dict. of Nat'l Biog.
"Ancestral roots of certain American colonists who came to America before 1700", Frederick Lewis Weis, 1992, seventh edition.
"Europaische Stammtafeln", Isenburg.
"Plantagenet Ancestry", Turton.
Gary Boyd Roberts, "Ancestors of American Presidents".
Gary Boyd Roberts, "The Royal Descents of 500 Immigrants", (1993).
"Magna Charta Sureties, 1215", F. L. Weis, 4th Ed.
Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia
'The Thomas Book'
Farrer, William & Brownbill, J. The Victoria History of the County of Lancaster (Archibald Constable and Co. Limited, London, 1906), Vol. 1, Page 300.

end of this biography

Gilbert Fitz Richard (c.?1066–c.?1117), was styled de Clare, de Tonbridge, and Lord of Clare. He was a powerful Anglo-Norman baron who was granted the Lordship of Cardigan, in Wales c.?1107-1111.

Life

Gilbert, born before 1066, was the second son and an heir of Richard Fitz Gilbert of Clare and Rohese Giffard.[1] He succeeded to his father's possessions in England in 1088 when his father retired to a monastery;[2] his brother, Roger Fitz Richard, inherited his father's lands in Normandy.[3] That same year he, along with his brother Roger, fortified his castle at Tonbridge against the forces of William Rufus. But his castle was stormed, Gilbert was wounded and taken prisoner.[4] However he and his brother were in attendance on king William Rufus at his death in August 1100.[4] He was with Henry I at his Christmas court at Westminster in 1101.[4]

It has been hinted, by modern historians, that Gilbert, as a part of a baronial conspiracy, played some part in the suspicious death of William II.[5] Frank Barlow points out that no proof has been found he had any part in the king's death or that a conspiracy even existed.[5]

In 1110, King Henry I took Cardigan from Owain ap Cadwgan, son of Cadwgan ap Bleddyn as punishment for a number of crimes including that of the abduction of Nest, wife of Gerald de Windsor.[6] In turn Henry gave the Lordship of Cardigan, including Cardigan Castle to Gilbert Fitz Richard.[7] He founded the Clunic priory at Stoke-by-Clare, Suffolk.[7] Gilbert died in or before 1117.[7][8]

Family

About 1088,[9] Gilbert married Adeliza/Alice de Claremont, daughter of Hugh, Count of Clermont, and Margaret de Roucy.[8] Gilbert and Adeliza had at least eight children:

Richard Fitz Gilbert de Clare, d. 1136.[10]
Gilbert Fitz Gilbert de Clare, d. 1148, 1st Earl of Pembroke.[10]
Baldwin Fitz Gilbert de Clare, d. 1154, m. Adeline de Rollos.[11]
Adelize/Alice de Clare, d. 1163, m. (ca. 1105), Aubrey II de Vere, son of Aubrey I de Vere and Beatrice.[12] She had 9 children and in her widowhood was a corrodian at St. Osyth's, Chich, Essex.
Hervey de Clare, Lord of Montmorency.[13]
Walter de Clare, d. 1149.[14]
Margaret de Clare, d. 1185, m. (ca. 1108), Sir William de Montfitchet, Lord of Stansted Mountfitchet.[15]
Rohese de Clare, d. 1149, m. (ca. 1130), Baderon of Monmouth[16]

end of this biography

Gilbert married Adeliza de Claremont. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

22249.

Children:

11124. Sir Richard Fitz Gilbert de Clare was born in 1092 in Clare, Suffolk, England; died on 15 Apr 1136 in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, Wales.
24083. Adeliza de Clare was born in ~1093 in Risbridge, Suffolk, England; died on 1 Nov 1163 in St Osyth Priory, Essex, England.
Agnes Clare was born in ~1091 in Clare, Suffolk, England; died in 1115 in England.
11132. Sir Gilbert de Clare, Knight, 1st Earl of Pembroke was born in ~ 1100 in Tonbridge, Kent, England; died on 6 Jan 1148 in Tintern Abbey, Chapel Hill, Monmouthshire, England.

24194.

Notes:

more...

History & issue of Henry I, King of England ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_I_of_England

Family and children

Legitimate

House of Normandy
Bayeux Tapestry WillelmDux.jpg
William the Conqueror invades England
William I[show]
William II[show]
Henry I[show]
Stephen[show]
Monarchy of the United Kingdom
v t e
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Henry I of England.

Henry and his first wife, Matilda, had at least two legitimate children:

Matilda, born in 1102, died 1167.[89]
William Adelin, born in 1103, died 1120.[89]
Possibly Richard, who, if he existed, died young.[100]
Henry and his second wife, Adeliza, had no children.

Illegitimate

Henry had a number of illegitimate children by various mistresses.[nb 32]

Sons

Robert of Gloucester, born in the 1090s.[332]
Richard, born to Ansfride, brought up by Robert Bloet, the Bishop of Lincoln.[333]
Reginald de Dunstanville, Earl of Cornwall, born in the 1110s or early 1120s, possibly to Sibyl Corbet.[334]
Robert the King's son, born to Ede, daughter of Forne.[335]
Gilbert, possibly born to an unnamed sister or daughter of Walter of Gand.[336]
William de Tracy, possibly born in the 1090s.[336]
Henry the King's son, possibly born to Nest ferch Rhys.[335][nb 33]
Fulk the King's son, possibly born to Ansfride.[335]
William, the brother of Sybilla de Normandy, probably the brother of Reginald de Dunstanville.[337]

Daughters

Matilda FitzRoy, Countess of Perche.[338]
Matilda FitzRoy, Duchess of Brittany.[338]
Juliana, wife of Eustace of Breteuil, possibly born to Ansfrida.[339]
Mabel, wife of William Gouet.[340]
Constance, Vicountess of Beaumont-sur-Sarthe.[341]
Aline, wife of Matthew de Montmorency.[342]
Isabel, daughter of Isabel de Beaumont, Countess of Pembroke.[342]
Sybilla de Normandy, Queen of Scotland, probably born before 1100.[342][nb 34]
Matilda Fitzroy, Abbess of Montvilliers.[342]
Gundrada de Dunstanville.[342]
Possibly Rohese, wife of Henry de la Pomerai.[342][nb 35]
Emma, wife of Guy of Laval.[343]
Adeliza, the King's daughter.[343]
The wife of Fergus of Galloway.[343]
Possibly Sibyl of Falaise.[343][nb 36]

Born: ABT Sep 1068, Selby, Yorkshire, England
Acceded: 6 Aug 1100, Westminster Abbey, London, England
Died: 1 Dec 1135, St Denis-le-Fermont, near Gisors
Buried: Reading Abbey, Berkshire, England

Notes: Reigned 1100-1135. Duke of Normandy 1106-1135.

His reign is notable for important legal and administrative reforms, and for the final resolution of the investiture controversy. Abroad, he waged several campaigns in order to consolidate and expand his continental possessions. Was so hated by his brothers that they vowed to disinherit him. In 1106 he captured Robert and held him til he died. He proved to be a hard but just ruler. One of his lovers, Nest, Princess of Deheubarth, was known as the most beautiful woman in Wales; she had many lovers.

He apparently died from over eating Lampreys. During a Christmas court at Windsor Castle in 1126 that Henry I, who had no legitimate male heir, tried to force his barons to accept his daughter Matilda as his successor.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles reported that "...there he caused archbishops and bishops and abbots and earls all the thegns that were there to swear to give England and Normandy after his death into the hand of his daughter". Swear they did, but they were not happy about it. None of those present were interested in being among the first to owe allegiance to a woman. The stage was set for the 19-year-long bloody struggle for the throne that rent England apart after Henry's death. Ironically, the final resolution to that civil war, the peace treaty between King Stephen and Matilda's son Henry of Anjou, was ratified on Christmas Day at Westminster in 1153.

*

Birth:
History, maps & photos of Selby, England ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selby

Buried:
Reading Abbey is a large, ruined abbey in the centre of the town of Reading, in the English county of Berkshire. It was founded by Henry I in 1121 "for the salvation of my soul, and the souls of King William, my father, and of King William, my brother, and Queen Maud, my wife, and all my ancestors and successors".

For more history & images of Reading Abbey, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Abbey

24195.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Normandy, France

Notes:

Matilda of Scotland (c. 1080 – 1 May 1118), originally christened Edith,[1] was Queen of England as the first wife of King Henry I.

Matilda was the daughter of the English princess Saint Margaret and the Scottish king Malcolm III. At the age of about six Matilda was sent with her sister to be educated in a convent in southern England, where her aunt Cristina was abbess. It is not clear if she spent much time in Scotland thereafter. In 1093, when she was about 13, she was engaged to an English nobleman when her father and brother Edward were killed in a minor raid into England, and her mother died soon after; her fiance then abandoned the proposed marriage. In Scotland a messy succession conflict followed between Matilda's uncle Donald III, her half-brother Duncan II and brother Edgar until 1097. Matilda's whereabouts during this no doubt difficult period are uncertain.

But after the suspicious death of William II of England in 1100 and accession of his brother Henry I, Matilda's prospects improved. Henry moved quickly to propose to her. It is said that he already knew and admired her, and she may indeed have spent time at the English court. Edgar was now secure on the Scottish throne, offering the prospect of better relations between the two countries, and Matilda also had the considerable advantage of Anglo-Saxon royal blood, which the Norman dynasty largely lacked.[2] There was a difficulty about the marriage; a special church council was called to be satisfied that Matilda had not taken vows as a nun, which her emphatic testimony managed to convince them of.

Matilda and Henry married in late 1100. They had two children who reached adulthood and two more who died young. Matilda led a literary and musical court, but was also pious. She embarked on building projects for the church, and took a role in government when her husband was away; many surviving charters are signed by her. Matilda lived to see her daughter Matilda become Holy Roman Empress but died two years before the drowning of her son William. Henry remarried, but had no further legitimate children, which caused a succession crisis known as The Anarchy. Matilda is buried in Westminster Abbey and was fondly remembered by her subjects as "Matilda the Good Queen" and "Matilda of Blessed Memory". There was an attempt to have her canonized, which was not pursued.

Early life

Matilda was born around 1080 in Dunfermline, the daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland and Saint Margaret. She was christened (baptised) Edith, and Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, stood as godfather at the ceremony. The English queen Matilda of Flanders was also present at the baptismal font and served as her godmother. Baby Matilda pulled at Queen Matilda's headdress, which was seen as an omen that the younger Matilda would be queen one day.[3]

The Life of St Margaret, Queen of Scotland was later written for Matilda possibly by Turgot of Durham. It refers to Matilda's childhood and her relationship with her mother. In it, Margaret is described as a strict but loving mother. She did not spare the rod when it came to raising her children in virtue, which the author presupposed was the reason for the good behaviour Matilda and her siblings displayed, and Margaret also stressed the importance of piety.[4]

When she was about six years old, Matilda of Scotland (or Edith as she was then probably still called) and her sister Mary were sent to Romsey Abbey, near Southampton in southern England, where their aunt Cristina was abbess. During her stay at Romsey and, some time before 1093, at Wilton Abbey, both institutions known for learning,[5] the Scottish princess was much sought-after as a bride; refusing proposals from William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey, and Alan Rufus, Lord of Richmond. Hâeriman of Tournai claimed that William Rufus considered marrying her. Her education went beyond the standard feminine pursuits. This was not surprising as her mother was a great lover of books. Her daughters learned English, French, and some Latin, and were sufficiently literate to read St. Augustine and the Bible.[6]

In 1093, her parents betrothed her to Alan Rufus, Lord of Richmond, one of her numerous suitors. However, before the marriage took place, her father entered into a dispute with William Rufus. In response, he marauded the English king's lands where he was surprised by Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumbria and killed along with his son, Edward. Upon hearing of her husband and son's death, Margaret, already ill, died on 16 November. Edith was now an orphan. She was abandoned by her betrothed who ran off with a daughter of Harold Godwinson, Gunhild of Wessex. However, he died before they could be married.[7]

She had left the monastery by 1093, when Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote to the Bishop of Salisbury ordering that the daughter of the King of Scotland be returned to the monastery that she had left. She did not return to Wilton and until 1100, is largely unaccounted for in chronicles.[8]

Marriage

After William II's death in the New Forest in August 1100, his brother, Henry, immediately seized the royal treasury and crown. His next task was to marry and Henry's choice was Matilda. Because Matilda had spent most of her life in a convent, there was some controversy over whether she was a nun and thus canonically ineligible for marriage. Henry sought permission for the marriage from Archbishop Anselm, who returned to England in September 1100 after a long exile. Professing himself unwilling to decide so weighty a matter on his own, Anselm called a council of bishops in order to determine the canonical legality of the proposed marriage. Matilda testified that she had never taken holy vows, insisting that her parents had sent her and her sister to England for educational purposes, and her aunt Cristina had veiled her to protect her "from the lust of the Normans." Matilda claimed she had pulled the veil off and stamped on it, and her aunt beat and scolded her for this act. The council concluded that Matilda was not a nun, never had been and her parents had not intended that she become one, giving their permission for the marriage.

Matilda and Henry seem to have known one another for some time before their marriage — William of Malmesbury states that Henry had "long been attached" to her, and Orderic Vitalis says that Henry had "long adored" her character. It is possible that Matilda had spent some time at William Rufus's court and that the pair had met there. It is also possible Henry was introduced to his bride by his teacher Bishop Osmund. Whatever the case, it is clear that the two at least knew each other prior to their wedding. Additionally, the chronicler William of Malmesbury suggests that the new king loved his bride.[9]

Matilda's mother was the sister of Edgar the ¥theling, proclaimed but uncrowned King of England after Harold, and, through her mother, Matilda was descended from Edmund Ironside and thus from the royal family of Wessex, which in the 10th century had become the royal family of a united England. This was extremely important because although Henry had been born in England, he needed a bride with ties to the ancient Wessex line to increase his popularity with the English and to reconcile the Normans and Anglo-Saxons.[10] In their children, the two factions would be united, further unifying the new regime. Another benefit was that England and Scotland became politically closer; three of Matilda's brothers became kings of Scotland in succession and were unusually friendly towards England during this period of unbroken peace between the two nations: Alexander married one of Henry I's illegitimate daughters and David lived at Henry's court for some time before his accession.[11]

Matilda had a small dower but it did incorporate some lordship rights. Most of her dower estates were granted from lands previously held by Edith of Wessex. Additionally, Henry made numerous grants on his wife including substantial property in London. Generosity aside, this was a political move in order to win over the unruly Londoners who were vehement supporters of the Wessex kings.[12]

Queen

The seal of Matilda
After Matilda and Henry were married on 11 November 1100 at Westminster Abbey by Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury, she was crowned as "Matilda," a hallowed Norman name. By courtiers, however, she and her husband were soon nicknamed 'Godric and Godiva'.[13] These two names were typical English names from before The Conquest and mocked their more rustic style, especially when compared to the flamboyance of William II.

She gave birth to a daughter, Matilda, born in February 1102, and a son, William, called "Adelin", in November 1103. As queen, she resided primarily at Westminster, but accompanied her husband on his travels around England, and, circa 1106–1107, probably visited Normandy with him. Matilda was the designated head of Henry's curia and acted as regent during his frequent absences.[14]

During the English investiture controversy (1103-07), she acted as intercessor between her husband and archbishop Anselm. She wrote several letters during Anselm's absence, first asking him for advice and to return, but later increasingly to mediate.[15]

Works

Matilda had great interest in architecture and instigated the building of many Norman-style buildings, including Waltham Abbey and Holy Trinity Aldgate.[16] She also had the first arched bridge in England built, at Stratford-le-Bow, as well as a bathhouse with piped-in water and public lavatories at Queenhithe.[17]

Her court was filled with musicians and poets; she commissioned a monk, possibly Thurgot, to write a biography of her mother, Saint Margaret. She was an active queen and, like her mother, was renowned for her devotion to religion and the poor. William of Malmesbury describes her as attending church barefoot at Lent, and washing the feet and kissing the hands of the sick. Matilda exhibited a particular interest in leprosy, founding at least two leper hospitals, including the institution that later became the parish church of St Giles-in-the-Fields.[18] She also administered extensive dower properties and was known as a patron of the arts, especially music.

Death

After Matilda died on 1 May 1118 at Westminster Palace, she was buried at Westminster Abbey. The death of her son, William Adelin, in the tragic disaster of the White Ship (November 1120) and Henry's failure to produce a legitimate son from his second marriage led to the succession crisis of The Anarchy.

Legacy

After her death, she was remembered by her subjects as "Matilda the Good Queen" and "Matilda of Blessed Memory", and for a time sainthood was sought for her, though she was never canonized. Matilda is also thought to be the identity of the "Fair Lady" mentioned at the end of each verse in the nursery rhyme London Bridge Is Falling Down. The post-Norman conquest English monarchs to the present day are related to the Anglo-Saxon House of Wessex monarchs via Matilda of Scotland as she was the great-granddaughter of King Edmund Ironside, see House of Wessex family tree.

Issue

Matilda and Henry had issue

Euphemia (July/August 1101), died young
Matilda of England (c. February 1102 – 10 September 1167), Holy Roman Empress, Countess consort of Anjou, called Lady of the English
William Adelin, (5 August 1103 – 25 November 1120), sometimes called Duke of Normandy, who married Matilda (d.1154), daughter of Fulk V, Count of Anjou.
Elizabeth (August/September 1104), died young

Appearance and character

"It causes pleasure to see the queen whom no woman equals in beauty of body or face, hiding her body, nevertheless, in a veil of loose clothing. Here alone, with new modesty, wishes to conceal it, but what gleams with its own light cannot be hidden and the sun, penetrating his clouds, hurls his rays." She also had "fluent, honeyed speech." From a poem of Marbodius of Rennes.

Children:

12097. Matilda of England, Queen of England was born on 7 Feb 1102 in London, Middlesex, England; was christened on 7 Apr 1141; died on 10 Sep 1167 in Notre Dame, Rouen, Seine-Maritime, France; was buried on 10 Sep 1169 in Bec Abbey, Le Bec-Hellouin, Eure, France.

48180.

Sir Roger Toeni, Lord of Flamstead was born in ~1104 in Hertfordshire, England; died after 1162 in Flamstead, Hertfordshire, England.

Notes:

Roger "Lord of Flamstead" de Toeni formerly Toeni aka de Conches, de Tosny
Born about 1104 in Hertfordshire, England

ANCESTORS ancestors

Son of Radulph (Toeni) de Tony and Adelise (Huntingdon) de Tony
Brother of Godechilde (Toeni) de Neufbourg, Simon Toeni, Robert Toeni, Isabel Toeni, Hugh Toeni and Margaret (Toeni) de Clifford
Husband of Ida (Hainault) de Toeni — married before 1135 [location unknown]

DESCENDANTS descendants

Father of Godehaut (Toeni) de Mohun, Roger (Toeni) de Toeni IV, Baldwin (Toeni) de Toeni, Geoffrey (Toeni) de Toeni, Goda (Toeni) de Ferrers and Ralph (Toeni) de Tony
Died before 1162 in Flamstead, Hertford, Englandmap
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Categories: House of Tosny.

European Aristocracy

Roger (Toeni) de Toeni is a member of royalty, nobility or aristocracy in the British Isles.
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Contents

1 Biography
1.1 Chronology for Roger de Toeni and Ida of Hainault
1.2 Early Life
1.3 Family
1.4 Roger III & wife had four children
1.4.1 Raoul [V] & his wife had [two] children
1.5 Ralph & his wife had one child
2 Roger de Tosney 1104-1158
3 Sources
Biography
Title of Roger de Tony (Royal Ancestry):

Seigneur of Conches and Nogent-le-Roi (in France)

Chronology for Roger de Toeni and Ida of Hainault
... [1]

8/2/1100: Henry I crowned.
~1104 Roger born in England, s/o Sir Ralph IV de Tony and Alice of Northumberland.[2][3]
8/3/1108 Louis VI crowned King of France.
~1110: Ida born in Hainaut, d/o Baldwin III Count of Hainaut and Yolende of Gueldre.
1126: Roger’s father died; mother remarried.
1129-35: Confirmation of gifts made by Robert de Brus to canons of Guisborough, co. York … signatories .. king, … Roger de Toeni, … (S) English Historical Review, V34, 1919, P561.
1130 Roger founds Conches abbey, “Rogerus de Totteneio filius Radulphi junioris” made donation. (S) FMG.[4]
1130s Roger de Tosny wages war against neighbor Hugh de Chateauneuf who attacked Nogent.
1131-33 Henry I forces occupy Conches when Roger de Toeny, with William Talvas, don't show up court.[5]
1132: Hughes II[6] fights Roger Tosny against William Monvoisin, seigneur de Rosny.
By 1135: Confirmation of various grant of alms made to monaster of St. Ouen, Conches, by Roger de Toesni the elder and others.[7]
1135: Roger de Tosny supports Geoffrey of Anjou in conflict w/ king of France.[8]
22 Dec 1135: Stephen crowned.
1135-54: Roger de Tany tenant of honour of Boulogne.[9]
May 1136: Roger de Tosny sized ducal castle of Vaudreuil, widening local conflict. Roger driven out by earl of Mellent.[10]
5/12/1136: Roger excutes reprisals agains Count of Mellant for buring of Acuigni the previous day.
Jun 1136: Theobald, count of Blois, began to prosecute war against Roger de Tosny ; while Earls of Mellent and Leicester [Beaumont brothers] pillaged his lands. [11]
Oct 1136: Roger de Conches ravages diocese of Lisieux, pillaging abbey of Croix-Saint-Leufroi, and burning church of St. Stephen at Vauvai. Robert of Gloucester captured Roger de Tosny.
Imprisoned.[12]
May 1137 Stephen of England liberats Roger de Conches.
8/1/1137 Louis VII succeeds as king of France.
1138: Baldwin, count of Hainault, rides 150 miles across northern France to support Roger and Ida in war with Earl of Leicester.
9/7/1138 Roger de Toeni burns down Bretueil.
1138 Roger reconciles with the earls of Leicester and Mellent, and King Stephen. Settlement: Margaret, dau of Earl Robert Beaument, m. Roger’s son [Ralph].
1140 Vincent abbey gives a palfrey to Roger Tossny and two ounces of gold to Ida, wife of latter, in exchange for donations in England.[13]
1140: Raoul du Fresne and bros. Girelme, witness charter of Roger de Tosny.
By 1142: Pont St-Pierre given back to Roger de Tosny [previously held by Robert of Leicester].
1142: Roger's confirmation to Lyre abbey at Pont St-Pierre. (S) Beaumont Twins, Crouch, 2008, P55.
1144: Roger de Conches named as a lord in Normandy of Count of Anjou's army
1145: Robert de Mesnil witness charter of Roger de Tosny associated with Mesnil-Vicomte.
1147: Roger de Tosny, fils de Raoul le Jeune, decharge l’abbe Vincent de l’obligation de reparer ou de refaire la chaussee de l’etang de Fontaine.[14]
19 Dec 1154: Henry II crowned.
1155: Roger de Conches granted charter in case of forteiture of citizens of Plessis-Mahiel; witnessed by Robert de Mesnil.
1156: Roger gave abbey of Bernay 5 acres of land and vine at Tosny.
1157: Rogo de Toeni in Norfolk and Suffolk, ‘in Holcha’. (S) FMG.[15]
1157-62: Roger granted charter to Bec concerning Norfolk manor of East Wretham “to all his men either French or Normans and English.”
9/29/1158: Roger living.
1160: Louis VII takes possession of Nogent from Roger [returns it later that year.]
1162: Roger de Tony, lord of Flamsted, Herts, dies.[3]
1165: Henry II King of England confirms property of Conches abbey.[16]
Family notes: Conches about 4 leagues southwest of Everux.
Early Life
Roger /de TOENI (DE CONCHES)/ [17][18][3]
Taking de TOENI as the last name from de TOENI (DE CONCHES).

Roger 'The Spaniard' de Toeni[19]

p. Ralph de TOENI m. Alice (Adeliza) Huntingdon 1104-aft 29 Sep 1158[20][21]
Roger de TOENI
Simon de TOENI
Isabel de TOENI
Hugh de TOENI
Family
m (before 9 Aug 1138) GERTRUDE [Ida] de Hainaut dau of BAUDOUIN III count of Hainaut & Yolande van Geldern.[22][23]
The Testa de Nevill includes a writ of King John dated 1212 which records that Henry I King of England had granted "xx libratas terre in Bercolt" in Norfolk to "Rogero de Tooni…in maritagio cum filia comitis de Henou"[98].

Roger III & wife had four children
RAOUL [V] de Tosny (-1162). Chronicon Hanoniense names (in order) "Radulphum primum [filium Rogerum], Rogerum secundum et Balduinum tercium et Gaufridum quartum clericum" as the children of "[Rogerum] domino de Thoenio" & his wife[99]. Robert of Torigny records the death in 1162 of "Radulfus de Toene"[100]. m (after 1155) MARGUERITE de Beaumont, daughter of ROBERT [II] Earl of Leicester & his wife Amice de Gaèel ([1125]-after 1185). Robert of Torigny refers to the wife of "Radulfus de Toene" as "filia Roberti comitis Leccestriµ" but does not name her[101]. The 1163/64 Pipe Roll records "Margareta uxor Rad de Toeni" making payment "de Suppl de Welcumesto" in Essex/Hertfordshire[102]. The Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records “Margareta de Tony…lx annorum” and her land “in Welcumestowe"[103].
Raoul [V] & his wife had [two] children
ROGER [IV] de Tosny (-after 29 Dec 1208). Robert of Torigny records that "parvulo filio" succeeded in 1162 on the death of his father "Radulfus de Toene" but does not name him[104]. Seigneur de Tosny. The Red Book of the Exchequer, listing scutage payments in [1194/95], names "Rogerus de Tony" paying "xl s" in Sussex[105].
[RALPH de Tosny of Holkham, co Norfolk (-before 1184). The Red Book of the Exchequer refers to "Radulfus de Tonay ii m" in Sussex in [1167/68][106].] m ADA de Chaumont, daughter of ROBERT de Chaumont & his wife --- (-after 1184). The Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records property “in Holkham…de feodo Rogeri de Tony” held by “Ade de Tony…fuit Roberti de Chaumunt”, adding that she has “i filium Baldewinum…xv annorum et…v filias”[107]. A charter dated 25 Sep 1188 confirms the foundation of Dodnash Priory, Suffolk by "Baldewin de Toeni et dna Alda mr sua"[108].

Ralph & his wife had one child
BALDWIN de Tosny ([1169]-after 1210). The Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records property “in Holkham…de feodo Rogeri de Tony” held by “Ade de Tony…fuit Roberti de Chaumunt”, adding that she has “i filium Baldewinum…xv annorum et…v filias”[109]. A charter dated 25 Sep 1188 confirms the foundation of Dodnash Priory, Suffolk by "Baldewin de Toeni et dna Alda mr sua"[110]. m --- Bardolf, daughter of THOMAS BARDOLF of Bradwell, Essex & his wife ---. The Red Book of the Exchequer records that "Willelmus frater regis H[enrici]" gave land at "Bradewelle" in Essex to "Thomas Bardulf" who gave three parts thereof with "tres filiabus suis in maritagio…Roberto de Sancto Remigio et Willelmo Bacun et Baldewino de Tony", which "Baldewinus de Thony" still held in [1210/12][111]. Baldwin & his wife had one child:
ROGER
5 dau. Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records property “in Holkham…de feodo Rogeri de Tony” held by “Ade de Tony…fuit Roberti de Chaumunt”, adding that she has “i filium Baldewinum…xv annorum et…v filias”[112].
ROGER de Tosny . Chronicon Hanoniense names (in order) "Radulphum primum [filium Rogerum], Rogerum secundum et Balduinum tercium et Gaufridum quartum clericum" as the children of "[Rogerum] domino de Thoenio" & his wife[113].
BAUDOUIN de Tosny (-1170). Chronicon Hanoniense names (in order) "Radulphum primum [filium Rogerum], Rogerum secundum et Balduinum tercium et Gaufridum quartum clericum" as the children of "[Rogerum] domino de Thoenio" & his wife[114]. He had descendants in Hainaut[115].
GEOFFROY de Tosny . Chronicon Hanoniense names (in order) "Radulphum primum [filium Rogerum], Rogerum secundum et Balduinum tercium et Gaufridum quartum clericum" as the children of "[Rogerum] domino de Thoenio" & his wife[116]. Monk.
Roger de Tosney 1104-1158
ROGER [III] de Tosny, son of RAOUL [IV] Seigneur de Tosny & his wife Adelisa of Huntingdon ([1104]-after 29 Sep 1158). His parentage is recorded by Orderic Vitalis[91]. Henry I King of England confirmed the foundation of Conches by "Rogerius senior de Toenio et filius eius Radulphus senex et Radulphus juvenis filius prµdicti Radulphi senis et Rogerius filius Radulphi juvenis", quoting the donation by "Rogerus de Totteneio filius Radulphi junioris", dated to [1130][92]. In prison 1136/37. “Aliz de Toeni” donated "ecclesiam de Welcomstowe" to “ecclesiµ S. Trinitatis Lond.”, for the soul of “…et pro incolumitate filiorum meorum Rogeri de Toeni et Simonis et filiµ meµ Isabellµ", by undated charter[93]. Henry II King of England confirmed the property of Conches abbey, including donations by "Rogeris senior de Toenio et filius eius Radulfus senex et Radulphus juvenis filius predicti Radulphi senex et Roger filius Radulphi juvenis", by charter dated 1165 or [1167/73][94].

Henry II King of England confirmed the property of Conches abbey, including donations by "Rogeris senior de Toenio et filius eius Radulfus senex et Radulphus juvenis filius predicti Radulphi senex et Roger filius Radulphi juvenis", by charter dated 1165 or [1167/73][95]. The 1157 Pipe Roll records "Rogo de Toeni" in Norfolk and Suffolk, "in Holcha"[96]. m (before 9 Aug 1138) GERTRUDE [Ida] de Hainaut, daughter of BAUDOUIN III Comte de Hainaut & his wife Yolande van Geldern. The Chronicon Hanoniense refers to one of the daughters of "Balduinus comes Hanoniensis" & his wife as wife of "domino de Thoenio", in a later passage naming their children "Radulphum primum [filium Rogerum], Rogerum secundum et Balduinum tercium et Gaufridum quartum clericum"[97]. The Testa de Nevill includes a writ of King John dated 1212 which records that Henry I King of England had granted "xx libratas terre in Bercolt" in Norfolk to "Rogero de Tooni…in maritagio cum filia comitis de Henou"[98]. The primary source which confirms her name has not yet been identified.

Roger [III] & his wife had four children: 1. RAOUL [V] de Tosny (-1162). The Chronicon Hanoniense names (in order) "Radulphum primum [filium Rogerum], Rogerum secundum et Balduinum tercium et Gaufridum quartum clericum" as the children of "[Rogerum] domino de Thoenio" & his wife[99]. Robert of Torigny records the death in 1162 of "Radulfus de Toene"[100].

m (after 1155) MARGUERITE de Beaumont, daughter of ROBERT [II] Earl of Leicester & his wife Amice de Gaèel ([1125]-after 1185). Robert of Torigny refers to the wife of "Radulfus de Toene" as "filia Roberti comitis Leccestriµ" but does not name her[101]. The 1163/64 Pipe Roll records "Margareta uxor Rad de Toeni" making payment "de Suppl de Welcumesto" in Essex/Hertfordshire[102]. The Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records “Margareta de Tony…lx annorum” and her land “in Welcumestowe"[103]. Raoul [V] & his wife had [two] children:

a) ROGER [IV] de Tosny (-after 29 Dec 1208). Robert of Torigny records that "parvulo filio" succeeded in 1162 on the death of his father "Radulfus de Toene" but does not name him[104]. Seigneur de Tosny. The Red Book of the Exchequer, listing scutage payments in [1194/95], names "Rogerus de Tony" paying "xl s" in Sussex[105]. - see below. b) [RALPH de Tosny of Holkham, co Norfolk (-before 1184). The Red Book of the Exchequer refers to "Radulfus de Tonay ii m" in Sussex in [1167/68][106].] m ADA de Chaumont, daughter of ROBERT de Chaumont & his wife --- (-after 1184). The Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records property “in Holkham…de feodo Rogeri de Tony” held by “Ade de Tony…fuit Roberti de Chaumunt”, adding that she has “i filium Baldewinum…xv annorum et…v filias”[107]. A charter dated 25 Sep 1188 confirms the foundation of Dodnash Priory, Suffolk by "Baldewin de Toeni et dna Alda mr sua"[108]. Ralph & his wife had one child: i) BALDWIN de Tosny ([1169]-after 1210). The Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records property “in Holkham…de feodo Rogeri de Tony” held by “Ade de Tony…fuit Roberti de Chaumunt”, adding that she has “i filium Baldewinum…xv annorum et…v filias”[109]. A charter dated 25 Sep 1188 confirms the foundation of Dodnash Priory, Suffolk by "Baldewin de Toeni et dna Alda mr sua"[110]. m --- Bardolf, daughter of THOMAS BARDOLF of Bradwell, Essex & his wife ---. The Red Book of the Exchequer records that "Willelmus frater regis H[enrici]" gave land at "Bradewelle" in Essex to "Thomas Bardulf" who gave three parts thereof with "tres filiabus suis in maritagio…Roberto de Sancto Remigio et Willelmo Bacun et Baldewino de Tony", which "Baldewinus de Thony" still held in [1210/12][111]. Baldwin & his wife had one child: (a) ROGER . ii) five daughters . The Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records property “in Holkham…de feodo Rogeri de Tony” held by “Ade de Tony…fuit Roberti de Chaumunt”, adding that she has “i filium Baldewinum…xv annorum et…v filias”[112]. 2. ROGER de Tosny . The Chronicon Hanoniense names (in order) "Radulphum primum [filium Rogerum], Rogerum secundum et Balduinum tercium et Gaufridum quartum clericum" as the children of "[Rogerum] domino de Thoenio" & his wife[113]. 3. BAUDOUIN de Tosny (-1170). The Chronicon Hanoniense names (in order) "Radulphum primum [filium Rogerum], Rogerum secundum et Balduinum tercium et Gaufridum quartum clericum" as the children of "[Rogerum] domino de Thoenio" & his wife[114]. He had descendants in Hainaut[115]. 4. GEOFFROY de Tosny . The Chronicon Hanoniense names (in order) "Radulphum primum [filium Rogerum], Rogerum secundum et Balduinum tercium et Gaufridum quartum clericum" as the children of "[Rogerum] domino de Thoenio" & his wife[116]. Monk.

Sources
Royal Ancestry 2013 D. Richardson Vol. V p. 170-171
?
Parochial and Family History of the Parish of Blisland, Maclean, 1868, P65. Norman Frontier, Power, 2004, P295.
Dictionnaire Historique de Toutes Les Communes, Charpillon, 1868 & 1879. Ecclesiastical History of England, Vitalis, 1856.
[91] Orderic Vitalis, Vol. VI, Book XI, p. 55.
[92] Gallia Christiana, XI, Instrumenta, V, col. 128.
[93] Dugdale Monasticon VI.1, Christ Church, Aldgate, London, VI, p. 152.
[94] Actes Henri II, Tome I, CCCCXXIII, p. 550.
[95] Actes Henri II, Tome I, CCCCXXIII, p. 550.
[96] Hunter, J. (ed.) (1844) The Great Rolls of the Pipe for the second, third and fourth years of the reign of King Henry II 1155-1158 (London) ("Pipe Roll") 4 Hen II (1157), Norfolk and Suffolk, p. 125.
[97] Gisleberti Chronicon Hanoniense, MGH SS XXI, pp. 505 and 506.
[98] Testa de Nevill, Part I, p. 134.
[99] Gisleberti Chronicon Hanoniense, MGH SS XXI, pp. 505 and 506.
[100] Chronique de Robert de Torigny I, 1162, p. 339.
[101] Chronique de Robert de Torigny I, 1162, p. 339.
[102] Pipe Roll Society, Vol. VII (1886) The Great Roll of the Pipe for the 10th year of King Henry II (London) ("Pipe Roll 10 Hen II (1163/64)"), p. 38.
[103] Rotuli Dominabus, Rotuli VIII, Essex, p. 41.
[104] Chronique de Robert de Torigny I, 1162, p. 339.
[105] Red Book Exchequer, Part I, Anno VI regis Ricardi, ad redemptionem eius, scutagium ad XXs, p. 92.
[106] Red Book Exchequer, Part I, Knights fees, p. 47.
[107] Rotuli Dominabus, Rotuli V, Norffolk, p. 27.
[108] Ancient Charters (Round), Part I, 53, p. 87.
[109] Rotuli Dominabus, Rotuli V, Norffolk, p. 27.
[110] Ancient Charters (Round), Part I, 53, p. 87.
[111] Red Book Exchequer, Part II, Inquisitiones…Regis Johannis…anno regno XII et XIII…de servitiis militum, p. 499.
[112] Rotuli Dominabus, Rotuli V, Norffolk, p. 27.
[113] Gisleberti Chronicon Hanoniense, MGH SS XXI, pp. 505 and 506.
? Acrossthepond.ged on 21 Feb 2011. User: AA428DBB1CB84E3B845C44BBBBCF47ABEC7F. Note: Birth: ABT 1104 Flamsted, Hertfordshire
? 3.0 3.1 3.2 De TOENI-68 on Jun 20, 2011 by Michael Stephenson. hofundssonAnces.ged
? Henry I confirmed foundation of Conches by "Rogerius senior de Toenio et filius eius Radulphus senex et Radulphus juvenis filius prµdicti Radulphi senis et Rogerius filius Radulphi juvenis", quoting the donation by "Rogerus de Totteneio filius Radulphi junioris", dated to 1130.
? (S) History of Normandy, V4, P562.
? son of Gervais
? signatories : king and Queen Adelaide, Hugh archbishop of rouen, Auding bishop of Evreux, William earl of Warenne, Amaury count of Everux, Hugh [king’s sewer], … (S) English Historical Review, V34, 1919, P561.
? (S) Norman Frontier, Power, 2004, P382.
? (S) Families, Friends, Allies : Boulogne, Tanner, 2004, P340.
? (S) Reign of King Stephen, Longman, 2000, P60.
? (S) Reign of King Stephen, Longman, 2000, P61.
? “Aliz de Toeni” donated "ecclesiam de Welcomstowe" to “ecclesiµ S. Trinitatis Lond.”, for the soul of “…et pro incolumitate filiorum meorum Rogeri de Toeni et Simonis et filiµ meµ Isabellµ", by undated charter[93].
? (S) Prosopographie des Abbes Benedictins, Gazeau, 2007, P71.
? (S) Prosopographie des Abbes Benedictins, Gazeau, 2007, P71.
? 1157 Pipe Roll records "Rogo de Toeni" in Norfolk and Suffolk, "in Holcha"[96].
? including donations by "Rogeris senior de Toenio et filius eius Radulfus senex et Radulphus juvenis filius predicti Radulphi senex et Roger filius Radulphi juvenis", by charter dated 1165 or [1167/73][94]. Henry II King of England confirmed the property of Conches abbey, including donations by "Rogeris senior de Toenio et filius eius Radulfus senex et Radulphus juvenis filius predicti Radulphi senex et Roger filius Radulphi juvenis", by charter dated 1165 or [1167/73][95].
? De TOENI-68 on Jun 20, 2011 by Michael Stephenson. Pedigree Resource File CD 49: (Salt Lake City, UT: Intellectual Reserve, Inc., 2002)
? De TOENI-68 on Jun 20, 2011 by Michael Stephenson. Ancestral File. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SAINTS Publication: June 1998
? #S96
? Orderic Vitalis.
? Alias: RAOUL [IV] Seigneur de Tosny & Adelisa of Huntingdon
? Issue: Chronicon Hanoniense refers to one of the daughters of "Balduinus comes Hanoniensis" & his wife as wife of "domino de Thoenio", in a later passage naming their children "Radulphum primum [filium Rogerum], Rogerum secundum et Balduinum tercium et Gaufridum quartum clericum"[97].
? ~1130: Child of Roger and Ida: Ralph de Tony born in England.

end of biography

Roger married Ida Hainaut before 1135. Ida was born in ~1109 in Hainaut, Belgium; died on 9 Aug 1138. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48181.

Ida Hainaut was born in ~1109 in Hainaut, Belgium; died on 9 Aug 1138.

Children:

Godehaut Toeni was born in ~1130 in Derbyshire, England; died before 1186.
24090. Sir Ralph de Tosny, V, Knight, Earl was born in ~1140 in Flamstead, Hertfordshire, England; died in 1162 in Flamstead, Hertfordshire, England.

24102.

Other Events and Attributes:

Occupation: Justiciar of England, 1155-1168
Military: The Anarchy

Notes:

Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester (1104 - 5 April 1168) was Justiciar of England 1155-1168.

The surname "de Beaumont" is given him by genealogists. The only known contemporary surname applied to him is "Robert son of Count Robert". Henry Knighton, the fourteenth-century chronicler notes him as Robert "Le Bossu" (meaning "Robert the Hunchback" in French).

Early life and education

Robert was an English nobleman of Norman-French ancestry. He was the son of Robert de Beaumont, Count of Meulan and 1st Earl of Leicester, and Elizabeth de Vermandois, and the twin brother of Waleran de Beaumont. It is not known whether they were identical or fraternal twins, but the fact that they are remarked on by contemporaries as twins indicates that they were probably identical.

The two brothers, Robert and Waleran, were adopted into the royal household shortly after their father's death in June 1118 (upon which Robert inherited his father's second titles of Earl of Leicester). Their lands on either side of the Channel were committed to a group of guardians, led by their stepfather, William, Earl of Warenne or Surrey. They accompanied King Henry I to Normandy, to meet with Pope Callixtus II in 1119, when the king incited them to debate philosophy with the cardinals. Both twins were literate, and Abingdon Abbey later claimed to have been Robert's school, but though this is possible, its account is not entirely trustworthy. A surviving treatise on astronomy (British Library ms Royal E xxv) carries a dedication "to Earl Robert of Leicester, that man of affairs and profound learning, most accomplished in matters of law" who can only be this Robert. On his death he left his own psalter to the abbey he founded at Leicester, which was still in its library in the late fifteenth century. The existence of this indicates that like many noblemen of his day, Robert followed the canonical hours in his chapel.

Career at the Norman court

In 1120 Robert was declared of age and inherited most of his father's lands in England, while his twin brother took the French lands. However in 1121, royal favour brought Robert the great Norman honors of Breteuil and Pacy-sur-Eure, with his marriage to Amice de Gael, daughter of a Breton intruder the king had forced on the honor after the forfeiture of the Breteuil family in 1119. Robert spent a good deal of his time and resources over the next decade integrating the troublesome and independent barons of Breteuil into the greater complex of his estates. He did not join in his brother's great Norman rebellion against King Henry I in 1123–24. He appears fitfully at the royal court despite his brother's imprisonment until 1129. Thereafter the twins were frequently to be found together at Henry I's court.

Robert held lands throughout the country. In the 1120s and 1130s he tried to rationalise his estates in Leicestershire. Leicestershire estates of the See of Lincoln and the Earl of Chester were seized by force. This enhanced the integrity of Robert's block of estates in the central midlands, bounded by Nuneaton, Loughborough, Melton Mowbray and Market Harborough.

In 1135, the twins were present at King Henry's deathbed. Robert's actions in the succession period are unknown, but he clearly supported his brother's decision to join the court of the new king Stephen before Easter 1136. During the first two years of the reign Robert is found in Normandy fighting rival claimants for his honor of Breteuil. Military action allowed him to add the castle of Pont St-Pierre to his Norman estates in June 1136 at the expense of one of his rivals. From the end of 1137 Robert and his brother were increasingly caught up in the politics of the court of King Stephen in England, where Waleran secured an ascendancy which lasted till the beginning of 1141. Robert participated in his brother's political coup against the king's justiciar, Roger of Salisbury (the Bishop of Salisbury).

Civil war in England

The outbreak of civil war in England in September 1139 brought Robert into conflict with Earl Robert of Gloucester, the bastard son of Henry I and principal sponsor of the Empress Matilda. His port of Wareham and estates in Dorset were seized by Gloucester in the first campaign of the war. In that campaign the king awarded Robert the city and castle of Hereford as a bid to establish the earl as his lieutenant in Herefordshire, which was in revolt. It is disputed by scholars whether this was an award of a second county to Earl Robert. Probably in late 1139, Earl Robert refounded his father's collegiate church of St Mary de Castro in Leicester as a major Augustinian abbey on the meadows outside the town's north gate, annexing the college's considerable endowment to the abbey.

The battle of Lincoln on 2 February 1141 saw the capture and imprisonment of King Stephen. Although Count Waleran valiantly continued the royalist fight in England into the summer, he eventually capitulated to the Empress and crossed back to Normandy to make his peace with the Empress's husband, Geoffrey of Anjou. Earl Robert had been in Normandy since 1140 attempting to stem the Angevin invasion, and negotiated the terms of his brother's surrender. He quit Normandy soon after and his Norman estates were confiscated and used to reward Norman followers of the Empress. Earl Robert remained on his estates in England for the remainder of King Stephen's reign. Although he was a nominal supporter of the king, there seems to have been little contact between him and Stephen, who did not confirm the foundation of Leicester Abbey till 1153. Earl Robert's principal activity between 1141 and 1149 was his private war with Ranulf II, Earl of Chester. Though details are obscure it seems clear enough that he waged a dogged war with his rival that in the end secured him control of northern Leicestershire and the strategic Chester castle of Mountsorrel. When Earl Robert of Gloucester died in 1147, Robert of Leicester led the movement among the greater earls of England to negotiate private treaties to establish peace in their areas, a process hastened by the Empress's departure to Normandy, and complete by 1149. During this time the earl also exercised supervision over his twin brother's earldom of Worcester, and in 1151 he intervened to frustrate the king's attempts to seize the city.

Earl Robert and Henry Plantagenet

The arrival in England of Duke Henry, son of the Empress Mathilda, in January 1153 was a great opportunity for Earl Robert. He was probably in negotiation with Henry in that spring and reached an agreement by which he would defect to him by May 1153, when the duke restored his Norman estates to the earl. The duke celebrated his Pentecost court at Leicester in June 1153, and he and the earl were constantly in company till the peace settlement between the duke and the king at Winchester in November 1153. Earl Robert crossed with the duke to Normandy in January 1154 and resumed his Norman castles and honors. As part of the settlement his claim to be chief steward of England and Normandy was recognised by Henry.

Earl Robert began his career as chief justiciar of England probably as soon as Duke Henry succeeded as King Henry II in October 1154.[1] The office gave the earl supervision of the administration and legal process in England whether the king was present or absent in the realm. He appears in that capacity in numerous administrative acts, and had a junior colleague in the post in Richard de Luci, another former servant of King Stephen. The earl filled the office for nearly fourteen years until his death,[1] and earned the respect of the emerging Angevin bureaucracy in England. His opinion was quoted by learned clerics, and his own learning was highly commended.

He died on 5 April 1168,[1] probably at his Northamptonshire castle of Brackley, for his entrails were buried at the hospital in the town. He was received as a canon of Leicester on his deathbed, and buried to the north of the high altar of the great abbey he had founded and built. He left a written testament of which his son the third earl was an executor, as we learn in a reference dating to 1174.

Church patronage

Robert founded and patronised many religious establishments. He founded Leicester Abbey and Garendon Abbeyin Leicestershire, the Fontevraldine Nuneaton Priory in Warwickshire, Luffield Abbey in Buckinghamshire, and the hospital of Brackley, Northamptonshire. He refounded the collegiate church of St Mary de Castro, Leicester, as a dependency of Leicester abbey around 1164, after suppressing it in 1139. Around 1139 he refounded the collegiate church of Wareham as a priory of his abbey of Lyre, in Normandy. His principal Norman foundations were the priory of Le Dâesert in the forest of Breteuil and a major hospital in Breteuil itself. He was a generous benefactor of the Benedictine abbey of Lyre, the oldest monastic house in the honor of Breteuil. He also donated land in Old Dalby, Leicestershire to the Knights Hospitallers who used it to found Dalby Preceptory.

Family and children

He married after 1120 Amice de Montfort, daughter of Raoul II de Montfort, himself a son of Ralph de Gael, Earl of East Anglia. Both families had lost their English inheritances through rebellion in 1075. They had four children:

Hawise de Beaumont, who married William Fitz Robert, 2nd Earl of Gloucester and had descendants.
Robert de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Leicester who married Petronilla de Grandmesnil and had descendants.
Isabel, who married: Simon de St. Liz, Earl of Huntingdon and had descendants.
Margaret, who married Ralph V de Toeni and had descendants through their daughter, Ida de Tosny.

Occupation:
In medieval England and Scotland the Chief Justiciar (later known simply as the Justiciar) was roughly equivalent to a modern Prime Minister[citation needed] as the monarch's chief minister. Similar positions existed on the European Continent, particularly in Norman Italy. The term is the English form of the medieval Latin justiciarius or justitiarius ("man of justice", i.e. judge).

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justiciar

Military:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anarchy

24103.

Lady Amice de Montfort, Countess of Leicester was born in 1108 in Norfolk, England; died on 31 Aug 1168 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England.

Notes:

Click this link to view 5 generations of her issue ... http://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/Gael-Descendants-3

Children:

24091. Margaret de Beaumont was born in 1125 in (Leicestershire, England); died after 1185.
Hawise de Beaumont was born in Leicestershire, England.
24122. Sir Robert de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Leicester was born in 1135 in Beaumont, Normandy, France; died on 31 Aug 1190 in Durazzo, Albania.
Isabelle Beaumont was born in ~1130 in Leicester, Leicestershire, England; died after May 1188 in Leicestershire, England.

11130.

Notes:

Birth: 1091
Salisbury
Wiltshire Unitary Authority
Wiltshire, England
Death: 1147
Bradenstoke
Wiltshire Unitary Authority
Wiltshire, England

Walter of Salisbury was born to Edward of Salisbury, Earl of Salisbury, Sheriff of Wiltshire and Maud Fitz Hurbert. He was also styled also Walter FitzEdward and Walter the Sheriff. He married Sybil de Chaworth daughter of Patrick De Chaworth and, Matilda de Hesdin. He founded the Priory of Bradenstoke, and was a benefactor to Salisbury Cathedral. His wife, Sybil, preceeded in death, and was buried near the chior in Bradenstoke Priory. Walter took the habit of a canon there, died in 1147, he is buried in the same grave as his wife.

Family links:
Parents:
Edward Of Salisbury

Spouse:
Sibilla de Chaworth (1100 - 1140)*

Children:
Hawise de Salisbury de Dreux (1118 - 1151)*
Patrick d' Evereux (1122 - 1168)*
Sybilla de Salisbury (1126 - 1176)*

*Calculated relationship

Burial:
Bradenstoke Priory
Bradenstoke
Wiltshire Unitary Authority
Wiltshire, England

Created by: Audrey DeCamp Hoffman
Record added: Apr 21, 2012
Find A Grave Memorial# 88928387

end

Buried:
at Bradenstoke Priory...

The priory was founded in 1142 as the Augustinian priory of Clack, and dedicated to Saint Mary.[1] It was well-sited on a high ridge near a holy well, with further springs nearby; there is some evidence that a chapel of the era of Henry I already existed at the holy well.[1]

The founder,[2] Walter FitzEdward de Salisbury, was the son of Edward de Salisbury,[3] a High Sheriff of Wiltshire; he gave lands for a priory as a daughter house of St. Mary's Abbey, Cirencester, according to its charter, "to serve God forever!".[4] After the death of his wife, he "took the tonsure and habit of the canons" and on his death in 1147, was buried in the Priory, near the choir.[4] His descendants, the Earls of Salisbury remained closely connected with the priory for many years.[1] In 1190 thirteen of the monks migrated to Cartmel Priory, Cumbria, which had been recently established by William Marshal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradenstoke_Priory

11131.

Sibilla de Chaworth was born in 0___ 1100 in Kempsford, Gloucestershire, England; died in 0___ 1140 in Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England; was buried in Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England.

Notes:

Birth: 1100
Kempsford
Cotswold District
Gloucestershire, England
Death: 1140
Bradenstoke
Wiltshire Unitary Authority
Wiltshire, England

Sibilla was the daughter of Patrick de Chaources and Matilda Hesdin.
She married Walter de Salisbury, son of Edward de Salisbury and Matilda Fitz Herbert. (Walter de Salisbury was born about 1087 in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England, died in 1147 in Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England.
Both Sibilla and Walter were buried together in the choir in Bradenstoke Priory, Bradenstoke, Wiltshire County, England.
They had at least three children: Patrick, Sibyl and Harvise (Hedwige)

Family links:
Spouse:
Walter Fitz Edward (1091 - 1147)

Children:
Hawise de Salisbury de Dreux (1118 - 1151)*
Patrick d' Evereux (1122 - 1168)*
Sybilla de Salisbury (1126 - 1176)*

*Calculated relationship

Burial:
Bradenstoke Priory
Bradenstoke
Wiltshire Unitary Authority
Wiltshire, England
Plot: Choir with her husband

Created by: Kat
Record added: May 15, 2012
Find A Grave Memorial# 90151726

end

Buried:
at Bradenstoke Priory...

The priory was founded in 1142 as the Augustinian priory of Clack, and dedicated to Saint Mary.[1] It was well-sited on a high ridge near a holy well, with further springs nearby; there is some evidence that a chapel of the era of Henry I already existed at the holy well.[1]

The founder,[2] Walter FitzEdward de Salisbury, was the son of Edward de Salisbury,[3] a High Sheriff of Wiltshire; he gave lands for a priory as a daughter house of St. Mary's Abbey, Cirencester, according to its charter, "to serve God forever!".[4] After the death of his wife, he "took the tonsure and habit of the canons" and on his death in 1147, was buried in the Priory, near the choir.[4] His descendants, the Earls of Salisbury remained closely connected with the priory for many years.[1] In 1190 thirteen of the monks migrated to Cartmel Priory, Cumbria, which had been recently established by William Marshal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradenstoke_Priory

Children:

24092. Sir Patrick of Salisbury, Knight, 1st Earl of Salisbury was born in 1117-1122 in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England; died on 27 Mar 1168 in Poitiers, France; was buried in St. Hilaire Abbey, Poitiers, Vienne, France.
5565. Sibyl of Salisbury was born on 27 Nov 1126; died in 0___ 1176 in Old Sarum (Salisbury), Wiltshire, England.

22266.

Sir Robert de Beaumont, Knight, 1st Earl of Leicester was born in ~ 1049 in Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France (son of Roger de Beaumont and Adeline of Meulan); died on 5 Jun 1118.

Other Events and Attributes:

Military: Battle of Hastings, 1066

Notes:

Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester (Sometime between 1040 & 1050 – 5 June 1118), also known as Robert of Meulan, count of Meulan, was a powerful Norman nobleman, one of the Companions of William the Conqueror during the Norman Conquest of England, and was revered as one of the wisest men of his age. Chroniclers spoke highly of his eloquence, his learning, and three kings of England valued his counsel.

Biography

He was born between 1040-1050, the eldest son of Roger de Beaumont (1015-1094) by his wife Adeline of Meulan (died 1081), a daughter of Waleran III, Count de Meulan, and was an older brother of Henry de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Warwick (c. 1050-1119)

Robert de Beaumont was one of only about 15 of the Proven Companions of William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and was leader of the infantry on the right wing of the Norman army, as evidenced in the following near contemporary account by William of Poitiers:

"A certain Norman, Robert, son of Roger of Beaumont, being nephew and heir to Henry, Count of Meulan, through Henry's sister Adeline, found himself that day in battle for the first time. He was as yet but a young man and he performed feats of valour worthy of perpetual remembrance. At the head of a troop which he commanded on the right wing he attacked with the utmost bravery and success".[1]

His service earned him the grant of more than 91 English manors confiscated from the defeated English, as listed in the Domesday Book of 1086.

When his mother died in 1081, Robert inherited the title of Count of Meulan in Normandy, and the title, Viscount Ivry and Lord of Norton. He paid homage to King Philip I of France for these estates and sat as a French Peer in the Parliament held at Poissy.

He and his brother Henry were members of the Royal hunting party in the New Forest in Hampshire when King William II Rufus (1087-1100) was shot dead accidentally by an arrow on 2 August 1100. He pledged allegiance to William II's brother, King Henry I (1100-1135), who created him Earl of Leicester in 1107.

On the death of William Rufus, William, Count of âEvreux and Ralph de Conches made an incursion into Robert's Norman estates, on the pretence they had suffered injury through some advice that Robert had given to the king; their raid was successful and they collected a vast booty.

During the English phase of the Investiture Controversy, he was excommunicated by Pope Paschal II on 26 March 1105 for advising King Henry to continue selecting the bishops of his realm in opposition to the canons of the church. Sometime in 1106, Henry succeeded in having Anselm, the exiled archbishop of Canterbury, revoke this excommunication. Anselm's (somewhat presumptuous) act was ultimately ratified by Paschal.

According to Henry of Huntingdon, Robert died of shame after "a certain earl carried off the lady he had espoused, either by some intrigue or by force and stratagem." He was the last surviving Norman nobleman to have fought in the Battle of Hastings.[2]

Family

In 1096 he married Elizabeth (or Isabel) de Vermandois, daughter of Hugh Magnus (1053-1101) a younger son of the French king and Adelaide, Countess of Vermandois (1050-1120). After his death Elizabeth remarried in 1118 to William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey. He had the following progeny:

Waleran IV de Beaumont, Count of Meulan, 1st Earl of Worcester (b. 1104), eldest twin and heir.
Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester & Earl of Hereford (b. 1104), twin
Hugh de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Bedford (b. circa 1106)
Emma de Beaumont (born 1102)
Adeline de Beaumont, married twice:
Hugh IV of Montfort-sur-Risle;
Richard de Granville of Bideford (d. 1147)
Aubree de Beaumont, married Hugh II of Chãateauneuf-Thimerais.
Agnes de Beaumont, a nun
Maud de Beaumont, married William Lovel. (b. c. 1102)
Isabel de Beaumont, a mistress of King Henry I. Married twice:
Gilbert de Clare, 1st Earl of Pembroke;
Hervâe de Montmorency, Constable of Ireland

Sources

icon Normandy portal
Edward T. Beaumont, J.P. The Beaumonts in History. A.D. 850-1850. Oxford.
References[edit]
Jump up ^ Wm. of Poitiers, per Douglas (1959), p.227
Jump up ^ Edward T. Beaumont, J.P. The Beaumonts in History. A.D. 850-1850. Oxford.

end

22267.

Notes:

Birth: 1081
Basse-Normandie, France
Death: Feb. 17, 1131, France

Countess of Leicester, Countess of Surrey

Third daughter of Hugh Magnus and Adelaide of Vermandois, granddaughter of King Henry I of France and Anne of Kiev, Herbert IV, Count of Vermandois, and Adele of Valois. She was the heiress of the county of Vermandois and descendant of Charlemagne.

Wife of Sir Robert de Beaumont, Count of Meulan, the son of Roger de Beaumont and Adeline of Meulan; Isabel became the Countess of Leicester. They married about 1096 and had three sons and at least five daughters:
* Emma b 1101, probably died young
* Waleran IV de Beaumont, Count of Meulan, twin
* Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester, twin
* Hugh de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Bedford
* Adeline, wife of Hugh Montfort & Richard de Granville
* Aubree, wife of Hugh II of Chãateauneuf-en-Thimerais
* Maud, wife of William Lovel
* Isabel, mistress of King Henry I, wife of Gilbert de Clare and mother of Richard Strongbow & wife of Hervâe de Montmorency

Secondly, the wife of William de Warenne, son of William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey and his first wife Gundred; Isabel became the Countess of Surrey. They married in 1118 and had three sons and two daughters:
* William de Warenne, 3rd Earl of Surrey
Ralph de Warenne
* Reginald de Warenne
* Gundrada de Warenne, wife of Roger de Beaumont& William de Lancaster
* Ada de Warenne, wife of Henry of Scotland, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon, mother King Malcolm IV and King William I 'the Lion'

Sir Robert de Beaumont, described as being "the wisest man in his time between London and Jerusalem", and aged over fifty was determined to marry Isabel, aged about eleven. Bishop Ivo dismissed their request based on their being within a few degrees of kindred. Isabel's father was able to sway Bishop Ivo, and saw his daughter married by April of 1096 when he left on a crusade.

In 1115, Isabel was either carried away or willingly abducted by William de Warrene, revealing they had been lovers for some time. They were unable to marry until the death of Sir Robert, which occurred in 1118.

The Beaumont sons were on opposite sides of support for King Stephen and Queen Matilda, but were not enemies.

Sources vary on her death, reported as 1131 to outliving William who died in 1138.

Family links:
Parents:
Hugues de France (1057 - 1102)

Spouses:
Robert de Beaumont (1049 - 1118)
William II de Warenne (1065 - 1138)

Children:
Waleran de Beaumont (1104 - 1166)*
Robert de Beaumont (1104 - 1168)*
Reginald de Warenne (1113 - 1179)*
William de Warenne (1118 - 1148)*
Ada De Warenne De Huntingdon (1120 - 1178)*

Sibling:
Isabel Of Vermandois Beaumont de Warenne (1081 - 1131)
Raoul I de Vermandois (1094 - 1152)*

*Calculated relationship

Burial:
Lewes Priory
Lewes
Lewes District
East Sussex, England

end

Children:

Eleanor Beaumont was born in 1100 in Cheshire, England; died in 1157 in Cheshire, England.
11133. Isabel de Beaumont was born in ~1101 in Leicester, Leicestershire, England; died after 1172 in Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire, Wales.
Waleran de Beaumont, IV was born in 1104 in (Meulan, France); died on 9 Apr 1166 in Preaux, France.
24102. Sir Robert de Beaumont, Knight, 2nd Earl of Leicester was born in 1104 in (Meulan, France); died on 5 Apr 1168 in Brackley, Northamptonshire, England.

22268.

Donnchad Enna Mac Murchada was born in 1085 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland (son of Murchad Macdairmata Murchada and Sadb Ingen Mac Bricc); died on 8 Dec 1115 in Wexford, Ireland.

22269.

Children:

11134. Dermot Dairmait Mac Murchada, King of Leinster was born in 1110 in Dublin, Ireland; died on 1 May 1171 in Ireland.

48200.

Notes:

more...

History & issue of Henry I, King of England ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_I_of_England

Family and children

Legitimate

House of Normandy
Bayeux Tapestry WillelmDux.jpg
William the Conqueror invades England
William I[show]
William II[show]
Henry I[show]
Stephen[show]
Monarchy of the United Kingdom
v t e
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Henry I of England.

Henry and his first wife, Matilda, had at least two legitimate children:

Matilda, born in 1102, died 1167.[89]
William Adelin, born in 1103, died 1120.[89]
Possibly Richard, who, if he existed, died young.[100]
Henry and his second wife, Adeliza, had no children.

Illegitimate

Henry had a number of illegitimate children by various mistresses.[nb 32]

Sons

Robert of Gloucester, born in the 1090s.[332]
Richard, born to Ansfride, brought up by Robert Bloet, the Bishop of Lincoln.[333]
Reginald de Dunstanville, Earl of Cornwall, born in the 1110s or early 1120s, possibly to Sibyl Corbet.[334]
Robert the King's son, born to Ede, daughter of Forne.[335]
Gilbert, possibly born to an unnamed sister or daughter of Walter of Gand.[336]
William de Tracy, possibly born in the 1090s.[336]
Henry the King's son, possibly born to Nest ferch Rhys.[335][nb 33]
Fulk the King's son, possibly born to Ansfride.[335]
William, the brother of Sybilla de Normandy, probably the brother of Reginald de Dunstanville.[337]

Daughters

Matilda FitzRoy, Countess of Perche.[338]
Matilda FitzRoy, Duchess of Brittany.[338]
Juliana, wife of Eustace of Breteuil, possibly born to Ansfrida.[339]
Mabel, wife of William Gouet.[340]
Constance, Vicountess of Beaumont-sur-Sarthe.[341]
Aline, wife of Matthew de Montmorency.[342]
Isabel, daughter of Isabel de Beaumont, Countess of Pembroke.[342]
Sybilla de Normandy, Queen of Scotland, probably born before 1100.[342][nb 34]
Matilda Fitzroy, Abbess of Montvilliers.[342]
Gundrada de Dunstanville.[342]
Possibly Rohese, wife of Henry de la Pomerai.[342][nb 35]
Emma, wife of Guy of Laval.[343]
Adeliza, the King's daughter.[343]
The wife of Fergus of Galloway.[343]
Possibly Sibyl of Falaise.[343][nb 36]

Born: ABT Sep 1068, Selby, Yorkshire, England
Acceded: 6 Aug 1100, Westminster Abbey, London, England
Died: 1 Dec 1135, St Denis-le-Fermont, near Gisors
Buried: Reading Abbey, Berkshire, England

Notes: Reigned 1100-1135. Duke of Normandy 1106-1135.

His reign is notable for important legal and administrative reforms, and for the final resolution of the investiture controversy. Abroad, he waged several campaigns in order to consolidate and expand his continental possessions. Was so hated by his brothers that they vowed to disinherit him. In 1106 he captured Robert and held him til he died. He proved to be a hard but just ruler. One of his lovers, Nest, Princess of Deheubarth, was known as the most beautiful woman in Wales; she had many lovers.

He apparently died from over eating Lampreys. During a Christmas court at Windsor Castle in 1126 that Henry I, who had no legitimate male heir, tried to force his barons to accept his daughter Matilda as his successor.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles reported that "...there he caused archbishops and bishops and abbots and earls all the thegns that were there to swear to give England and Normandy after his death into the hand of his daughter". Swear they did, but they were not happy about it. None of those present were interested in being among the first to owe allegiance to a woman. The stage was set for the 19-year-long bloody struggle for the throne that rent England apart after Henry's death. Ironically, the final resolution to that civil war, the peace treaty between King Stephen and Matilda's son Henry of Anjou, was ratified on Christmas Day at Westminster in 1153.

*

Birth:
History, maps & photos of Selby, England ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selby

Buried:
Reading Abbey is a large, ruined abbey in the centre of the town of Reading, in the English county of Berkshire. It was founded by Henry I in 1121 "for the salvation of my soul, and the souls of King William, my father, and of King William, my brother, and Queen Maud, my wife, and all my ancestors and successors".

For more history & images of Reading Abbey, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Abbey

Henry married unnamed partner. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48201.
unnamed partner
Children:

24100. Sir Robert FitzRoy, Knight, 1st Earl of Gloucester was born before 1100 in (France); died on 31 Oct 1147.

48202.

Sir Robert Fitzhamon, Knight, Lord of Glamorgan was born in 1045-1055; died in 0Mar 1107 in Falaise, Calvados, Normandie, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Gloucestershire, England

Notes:

Robert Fitzhamon (died March 1107), or Robert FitzHamon, Seigneur de Creully in the Calvados region and Torigny in the Manche region of Normandy, was the first Norman feudal baron of Gloucester and the Norman conqueror of Glamorgan, southern Wales. He became Lord of Glamorgan in 1075.

As a kinsman of the Conqueror and one of the few Anglo-Norman barons to remain loyal to the two successive kings William Rufus and Henry I of England, he was a prominent figure in England and Normandy.

Not much is known about his earlier life, or his precise relationship to William I of England.

Parentage and ancestry

Robert FitzHamon (born c. 1045-1055, d. March 1107 Falaise, Normandy) was, as the prefix Fitz (fils de, "son of") suggests, the son of Hamo Dapifer the Sheriff of Kent and grandson of Hamon Dentatus ('The Betoothed or Toothy', i.e., probably buck-toothed). His grandfather held the lordships of Torigny, Creully, Mâezy, and Evrecy in Normandy, but following his death at the Battle of Val-áes-Dunes in 1047, the family might have lost these lordships.

Career in England and Wales[edit]
Few details of Robert's career prior to 1087 are available. Robert probably did not fight at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and does not appear in the Domesday Book of 1086, although some of his relatives are listed therein. He first comes to prominence in surviving records as a supporter of King William Rufus (1087-1100) during the Rebellion of 1088. After the revolt was defeated he was granted as a reward by King William Rufus the feudal barony of Gloucester[3] consisting of over two hundred manors in Gloucestershire and other counties. Some of these had belonged to the late Queen Matilda, consort of William the Conqueror and mother of William Rufus, and had been seized by her from the great Saxon thane Brictric son of Algar, apparently as a punishment for his having refused her romantic advances in his youth.[4] They had been destined as the inheritance of Rufus's younger brother Henry (the future King Henry I); nevertheless Fitzhamon remained on good terms with Henry.

Conquest of Glamorgan

The chronology of Fitzhamon's conquest of Glamorgan is uncertain, but it probably took place in the decades after he received the feudal barony of Gloucester.

The Twelve Knights of Glamorgan

One explanation is the legend of the Twelve Knights of Glamorgan, which dates from the 16th century, in which the Welsh Prince Iestyn ap Gwrgan (Jestin), prince or Lord of Glamorgan, supposedly called in the assistance of Robert Fitzhamon. Fitzhamon defeated the prince of South Wales Rhys ap Tewdwr in battle in 1090. With his Norman knights as reward he then took possession of Glamorgan, and "the French came into Dyfed and Ceredigion, which they have still retained, and fortified the castles, and seized upon all the land of the Britons." Iestyn did not profit long by his involvement with the Normans. He was soon defeated and his lands taken in 1091.

Whether there is any truth in the legend or not Robert Fitzhamon seems to have seized control of the lowlands of Glamorgan and Gwynllwg sometime from around 1089 to 1094. His key strongholds were Cardiff Castle, which already may have been built, on the site of an old Roman fort, new castles at Newport, and at Kenfig. His descendants would inherit these castles and lands.

Rhys's daughter Nest became the mistress of King Henry I of England and allegedly was mother of Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester who married Mabel, Fitzhamon's daughter and heiress and thus had legitimacy both among the Welsh and the Norman barons.[5] (Robert of Caen's mother is however unknown to historians and genealogists).

Founder of Tewkesbury Abbey (1092)

He also refounded Tewkesbury Abbey in 1092. The abbey's dimensions are almost the same as Westminster Abbey. The first abbot was Giraldus, Abbot of Cranborne (d. 1110) who died before the abbey was consecrated in October 1121. The abbey was apparently built under the influence of his wife Sybil de Montgomery. [3], said to be a beautiful and religious woman like her sisters.

Fitzhamon and His Kings

Legend has it that Robert had ominous dreams in the days before Rufus' fatal hunting expedition, which postponed but did not prevent the outing. He was one of the first to gather in tears around Rufus' corpse, and he used his cloak to cover the late king's body on its journey to be buried in Winchester. How much of these stories are the invention of later days is unknown.

In any case Fitzhamon proved as loyal to Henry I as he had been to his predecessor, remaining on Henry's side in the several open conflicts with Henry's brother Robert Curthose. He was one of the three barons who negotiated the 1101 truce between Henry I and Robert Curthose.

In 1105 he went to Normandy and was captured while fighting near his ancestral estates near Bayeux. This was one of the reasons Henry crossed the channel with a substantial force later that year. Fitzhamon was freed, and joined Henry's campaign, which proceeded to besiege Falaise. There Fitzhamon was severely injured in the head; although he lived two more years he was never the same mentally. He was buried in the Chapter House at Tewkesbury Abbey, which he had founded and considerably enriched during his lifetime.

Marriage and progeny

Fitzhamon married Sybil de Montgomery around 1087 to 1090, apparently the youngest daughter of Roger of Montgomery, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury by his first wife Mabel Talvas, daughter of William I Talvas. She survived her husband and is said to have entered a convent with two of her daughters. By his wife he is said to have had four daughters including:

Mabel FitzHamon, eldest daughter, who inherited his great estates and in about 1107 married Robert de Caen, 1st Earl of Gloucester, a natural son of King Henry I (1100-1135). Fitzhamon's huge land-holdings in several counties formed the feudal barony of Gloucester[6] which was inherited by his son-in-law Robert de Caen, who in 1122 was created 1st Earl of Gloucester.[7] Fitzhamon is sometimes called Earl of Gloucester, but was never so created formally. Robert Fitzhamon's great-granddaughter Isabel of Gloucester married King John (1199-1216).
Isabella (or Hawisa) FitzHamon, said to have married a count from Brittany, but no further details exist.
1860 Depiction at Kilkhampton[edit]

1860 imaginary depiction of Robert FitzHamon (d.1107) (left) and his younger brother Richard I de Grenville (d.post 1142) (right), Church of St James the Great, Kilkhampton, Cornwall
An imaginary depiction of Robert FitzHamon (d.1107) and his younger brother Richard I de Grenville (d.post 1142)[8]) is contained within one of the two Granville windows by Clayton and Bell[9] erected in 1860 by descendants of the latter within the Granville Chapel of the Church of St James the Great, Kilkhampton, Cornwall. The seat of the Grenville family ("Granville" after 1661 when elevated to the Earldom of Bath[10]) was Stowe within the parish of Kilkhampton. Below the left-hand figure is inscribed: "Rob. FitzHamon Earl of Corboyle", with attributed arms under showing: Azure, a lion rampant guardant or impaling Azure, a lion rampant or a bordure of the last. The right hand figure is of Richard de Granville, the younger brother of Robert FitzHamon and one of the Twelve Knights of Glamorgan who followed his brother in effecting the conquest of Glamorgan. He holds in his hands the church of his foundation of Neath Abbey, Glamorgan. Below is inscribed: "Ric. de Granville Earl of Corboyle" with attributed arms under showing: Gules, three clarions or (the arms of the Grenvilles' later overlord and Robert FitzHamon's heir in the feudal barony of Gloucester,[11] Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, which arms were later adopted by the Grenvilles[12]) with an inescutcheon of pretence of Gules, three lions passant argent. The Granvilles claimed in the 17th century to have been the heirs male of Robert FitzHamon (who left only a daughter as his sole heiress) in his supposed Earldom of Corboil.[13] The windows were erected in 1860 by the heirs of the Grenville family: George Granville Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland KG (1786-1861); John Alexander Thynne, 4th Marquess of Bath (1831–1896); George Granville Francis Egerton, 2nd Earl of Ellesmere (1823–1862); Lord John Thynne (1798-1881), DD, Canon of Westminster, a younger son of Thomas Thynne, 2nd Marquess of Bath (1765-1837), KG.[14]

References

C. Warren Hollister, Henry I
Lynn Nelson, The Normans in South Wales, 1070-1171 (see especially pp. 94–110 in chapter 5)
Cardiff Castle
Norman invasion of South Wales
Tour of the Abbey
Lord of Bristol refers to Robert Fitzhamon as Lord of Bristol, which town and castle became important to his son-in-law.
Robert of Caen, son-in-law is said here to be grandson of a Welsh prince but most other sources say that his mother was an unnamed woman of Caen.
Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Lines: 63-26, 124A-26, 125-26, 185-1.

Notes

Jump up ^ Sir Charles Isham's "Registrum Theokusburiµ" gives a full-page illustration of these noble brothers, "par nobile fratrum," as Dr. Hayman calls them, in which they are termed "duo duces Marciorum et primi fundatores Theokusburiµ" i.e., two Earls of the Marches and first founders of Tewkesbury. Each knight is in armour, and bears in his hand a model of a church. Both are supporting a shield (affixed to a pomegranate tree) bearing the arms of the Abbey, which the blazoning on their own coats repeats.(Massâe, H. J. L. J., The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire (Bell's Cathedrals)) original illustration as shown on folio 8 verso, Bodleian Library Manuscript: Top. Gloucester, d. 2, Founders' and benefectors' book of Tewkesbury Abbey [1]
Jump up ^ Bodleian Library Manuscript: Top. Gloucester, d. 2, Founders' and benefectors' book of Tewkesbury Abbey [2]
Jump up ^ Sanders, I.J., English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, p.6, Barony of Gloucester
Jump up ^ According to the account by the Continuator of Wace and others, quoted in Thorn, Caroline & Frank, (eds.) Domesday Book, (Morris, John, gen.ed.) Vol. 9, Devon, Parts 1 & 2, Phillimore Press, Chichester, 1985, part 2 (notes), 24,21, quoting "Freeman, E.A., The History of the Norman Conquest of England, 6 vols., Oxford, 1867–1879, vol. 4, Appendix, note 0"
Jump up ^ Four Ancient Books of Wales: Introduction: Chapter VI. Manau Gododin and the Picts
Jump up ^ Sanders, p.6
Jump up ^ Sanders, p.6
Jump up ^ Round, J. Horace, Family Origins and Other Studies, London, 1930, The Granvilles and the Monks, pp.130-169, p.137
Jump up ^ Church Guidebook, St James the Great Kilkhampton, 2012, p.11
Jump up ^ Round, J. Horace, Family Origins and Other Studies, London, 1930, The Granvilles and the Monks, pp.130-169
Jump up ^ Sanders, I.J., English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, p.6, Barony of Gloucester
Jump up ^ Round, J. Horace, Family Origins and Other Studies, London, 1930, The Granvilles and the Monks, pp.130-169
Jump up ^ Round, J. Horace, Family Origins and Other Studies, London, 1930, The Granvilles and the Monks, pp.130-169
Jump up ^ Per brass plaque below easternmost window

Robert married Sybil de Montgomery. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48203.

Children:

24101. Lady Mabel FitzHamon, Countess of Gloucester was born in 0___ 1090 in Gloucestershire, England; died on 29 Sep 1157 in Bristol, Gloucestershire, England.

22260.

Edward of Salisbury was born in BY 1045 in Normandy, France; died in Denbighshire, Wales.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Salisbury, Wiltshire, England
Occupation: 0___ 1081; Vicecomitem (sheriff)

Notes:

Birth: unknown
Haute-Normandie, France
Death: unknown
Denbighshire, Wales

Born by 1045, he seems, by virtue of his wide land holdings, to have been well placed among the followers of William the Conqueror. He was called "vicecomitem" [sheriff] of Wiltshire in a charter dated 1081.

Family links:
Children:
Walter Fitz Edward (1091 - 1147)*

*Calculated relationship

Burial:
Unknown

Created by: Darrel Salisbury
Record added: Aug 06, 2014
Find A Grave Memorial# 133948641

end

Edward married Maud Fitz Hurbert. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

22261.

Children:

11130. Sir Walter of Salisbury was born in 0___ 1087 in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England; died in 0___ 1147 in Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England; was buried in Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England.
Maud of Salisbury

48240.

Sir Saher Quincy, Lord of Bushby, Lord of Long Buckby was born in ~1098 in Daventry, Northamptonshire, England; died in ~1158 in Winchester, Hampshire, Englan.

Notes:

Saher (Saer) "Lord of Bushby, Lord of Long Buckby" de Quincy formerly Quincy
Born about 1098 in Daventry, Northamptonshire, England
ANCESTORS ancestors
Son of Richard (Quincy) de Quincy and [mother unknown]
[sibling(s) unknown]
Husband of Matilda (Senlis) Clare — married after 1134 [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Father of Jueta (Quincy) Lancelin, Robert (Quincy) de Quincy, Roger Quincy and Alice (Quincy) de Huntingfield
Died about 1158 in Winchester, Hampshire, England

Profile managers: Bob Fields Find Relationship private message [send private message] and Ellen Blackwell private message [send private message]
Quincy-40 created 25 Sep 2010 | Last modified 9 Aug 2019 | Last tracked change:
9 Aug 2019
06:34: Darlene (Athey) Athey-Hill posted a message on the page for Saher (Quincy) de Quincy (abt.1098-abt.1158). [Thank Darlene for this]
This page has been accessed 6,423 times.
Contents
[hide]
1 Biography
1.1 Marriage
1.2 Notes
2 Sources
Biography
Research by Dr. Sidney Painter (Sidney Painter, "The House of Quency, 1136-1264", Medievalia et Humanistica, 11 (1957) 3-9; reprinted in his book Feudalism and Liberty) and The Complete Peerage has shown that the Quincy family was established in Cuinchy, France, near Bethune on the border of Artois and Flanders, before coming to England. The family name (also written Quency and Quincey) is believed to derive from their early home in France. "The pioneer Quincy in England was Saher I, who early records indicate was the tenant of Ansel de Chokes at Long Buckby in Northamptonshire after 1124. (Cuinchy is a short distance from Chocques, the original home of Saher's overlord, Anselm de Chokes. He was a tenant of the latter circa 1124-29.) In 1155-56 Henry II confirmed Saher I's right to Long Buckby. According to Saher IV de Quincy in 1208, Saher I also held the Advowson of Wimpole in Cambridge after 1154. Saher I died between 1156 and 1158.

Marriage
"Shortly after 1136, Saher married Maud St. Liz (St. Lis or Senlis), widow of Robert Fitz Richard de Clare, by whom she was the ancestor of the FitzWalters. This indicates a close relationship between the Quincy, Clare, and FitzWalter families, all of whom produced Magna Charta Sureties (q.v.p. 56 and 91).

Maud's father was Simon de St. Liz (d. abt. 1111), Earl of Huntingdon and Northampton, Crusader of about 1105 and 1111. In 1113, his wife Maud (Matilda) married David I of Scotland, and became the ancestor of succeeding Kings of Scotland, who were thus were closely related to the Quincys. This Maud was the daughter of Waltheof, Earl of Huntindon, Northampton, and Northumberland and Judith of Lens, daughter of Lambert de Boulogne, Count of Lens, and Adelaide (Adeliza or Alice), biological sister of William the Conqueror. Lambert was the son of Eustace I, Count of Boulogne, a descendent of Charlemagne, and his wife Mahaut (or Matilda) of Louvain."

Saher I and Maud de St. Liz had two sons: Saher II and Robert I. Saher II was highly regarded by Henry II, and performed important duties for that monarch. He died in 1190, and his male line became extinct with the death of his son Saher III de Quincy in 1192.

Robert, the younger son, went to Scotland quite young and married Scottish heiress, Orable ( Orabilis), daughter of Nes (or Ness), son of William, Lord of Leuchars, and through her obtained considerable lands in Scotland. But the couplele divorced and Robert remarried Eve, probably of the Scottish House of Galloway. Orable remarried Gilchrist, Third Earl of Mar, and died before June 30, 1210.

Robert was in high favor with Richard the Lion-hearted, whom he accompanied on the Crusade of 1190-1192. Robert died before Michaelmas 1197. After his death this second wife Eve married Walter de Chamberlain of Scotland. "Robert and Orable had two sons, Saher IV de Quincy and Robert II de Quincy. This Robert II married Hawise, sister and coheiress of Ranulph Blundeville, last Earl of Chester and Vicomte d'Avranches of the d'Avranches-Bayeux family, who also had been created Earl of Lincoln in 1217 (q.v.p. 198). Hawise and Robert II had a daughter Margaret who before June 21, 1221 married John de Lacy, Constable of Chester, Magna Charta Surety, and Crusader (q.v.p. 126). In 1231 Ranulph "resigned" his Earldom of Lincoln to Hawise. As her husband Robert II de Quincy died about then, Hawise in 1232 transferred her Earldom of Lincoln, with the King's approval, to her son-in-law John de Lacy, who thus became the first de Lacy Earl of Lincoln (q.v.p. 126 and 197).

Cawley (2006) lists the following:

Saher I de Quincy (d. 1156/8]) m.2 (after 1136 as second husband) Matilda de Senlis, widow of Robert FitzRichard de Clare, dau.of SIMON de Senlis, Earl of Huntingdon and Northampton and Matilda "Maud" of Huntingdon (d. bef. 1163). Issue: 3:

Saher II (1138-1190/2).
m. (1163 as second husband), ASCELINE Peverel, widow of GEOFFREY de Waterville [Wateville], dau. of ROBERT [Pain] Peverel & [Adelisia. (-before 1190). Issue: 1 son, SAHER [III] (-[1190/92]).
ROBERT (1140-after 1200 m. (1160/70 as first husband - separated), ORABILIS, dau. of NES of Mar (-before 30 Jun 1203). Issue: 1 son, Saher IV de Quincy (1165/70- 3 Nov 1219 Damietta, bur Acre). He was created Earl of Winchester before 10 Feb 1207.
JUETA [Judith]
m ROBERT, son of LANCELIN
Notes
Quincy/Quency family may have derived its name from Cuinchy, Pas-de-Calais, on the border between the counties of Artois and Flanders[1].

Saher de Quincy (died [1156/58]) first recorded in the 1120s in England. He evidently soon rose to prominence, judging by his marriage Maud de Senlis of Huntingdon.

The origin of the family is unknown. The key presumably lies in the unusual first name "Saher". This suggests several possibilities. There is some similarity to the Portuguese or Galician "Soeiro", numerous references to which are found among the Portuguese nobility from the late 11th/early 12th centuries. Alternatively there could be a connection with the Near East: "saher" means "dawn" in modern Arabic, and "Saher" is one of the Jewish surnames listed by Zubatsky & Berent[2].

Saher's younger son, Robert, settled in Scotland, presumably because of his family relationship with William "the Lion" King of Scotland: His mother was one of the older half-sisters of the king's father.

Robert's son, Saher, was still serving King William in 1200 but entered service of John King of England soon after. He must have had contacts with England before that time as he married his English wife before 1190. Saher settled permanently in England in early 1204 and was created Earl of Winchester, presumably as a reward for loyal service to the English king, some time during 1206 or early 1207. The earldom reverted to the crown on the death, without male issue, of Roger de Quincy in 1264. It revived in 1322 in favor of Hugh Le Despencer (senior), one of the favorites of Edward II, but forfeited when he was hanged in 1326. It was revived again in 1472 by Edward IV in favor of Louis de Bruges, a Flemish nobleman, as a reward for welcoming the king when he fled England during the brief restoration of Henry IV in 1471. Louis's son and successor, Jean de Bruges, resigned the earldom of Winchester to Henry VII in 1500.

In the reign of Henry II, Saier de Quincy had a grant from the crown of the manor of Bushby, co. Northampton, formerly the property of Anselme de Conchis. He m. Maud de St. Liz, and had two sons, Robert and Saier de Quincy. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 447, Quincy, Earls of Winchester]

Sources
? Keats-Rohan, K. S. B. (2002) Domesday Descendants: A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066-1166. II. Pipe Rolls to Cartµ Baronum (Boydell) (“Domesday Descendants”), p. 652.
? Zubatsky, D. and Berent I. (1993) Sourcebook for Jewish Genealogies and Family Histories.
Royal Ancestry by Douglas Richardson Vol. I. p. 280
Gen-Medieval on Rootsweb: 23 Nov 2006 posting of tps@eject.co.za re: [MARKHAM-UK] Fulk de Lizours
Phillips, Weber, Kirk and Staggs Families of the Pacific Northwest, by Jim Weber, rootsweb.com - https://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=jweber&id=I01843
Wikipedia: Saer de Quincy, 1st Earl of Winchester
http://www.robertsewell.ca/dequincy.html
Geni.com.[1][3]
Anglo-Norman: Origins of Some Anglo-Norman Families (Lewis C. Loyd), Loyd, Lewis C., ((Baltimore:MD, Harleian Society, 1992)), p. 84 (Reliability: 3).
Nobility: Plantagenet Ancestry (William Harry Turton), Turton, William Harry, 1856-1938. (Main), ((Baltimore:MD, Genealogical Publishing Co., 1984), L.A. Public Library GS #Q942.54 H2nic; LC CALL NO.: CS418.T81968; LCCN: 68-54254 //r92), 929.7..

end of this biography

Saher married Matilda Senlis after 1134. Matilda (daughter of Sir Simon Senlis, 1st Earl of Northampton and Maud of Huntingdon, Queen Consort of Scotland) was born in ~1093 in Huntingdonshire, England; died in 1140 in Leicestershire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48241.

Matilda Senlis was born in ~1093 in Huntingdonshire, England (daughter of Sir Simon Senlis, 1st Earl of Northampton and Maud of Huntingdon, Queen Consort of Scotland); died in 1140 in Leicestershire, England.

Notes:

Matilda "Maud" Clare formerly Senlis aka de Senlis, de St. Liz, de Quincy
Born about 1093 in Huntingdonshire, England
ANCESTORS ancestors
Daughter of Simon (Senlis) de Senlis I and Maud (Huntingdon) of Scotland
Sister of Hugh (Senlis) de St Liz, Waltheof (Senlis) St Liz, Simon (Senlis) de St Liz, Unknown Prince of Scotland [half], Malcolm (Huntingdon) Canmore, Henry (Dunkeld) of Scotland [half], Claricia Huntington [half] and Hodierna (Dunkeld) of Huntingdon [half]
Wife of Robert (Clare) de Clare — married 1119 in Buckley, Northamptonshire, , England
Wife of Saher (Quincy) de Quincy — married after 1134 [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Mother of Walter FitzRobert, Maud (Senlis) Luvetot, Jueta (Quincy) Lancelin, Robert (Quincy) de Quincy, Roger Quincy and Alice (Quincy) de Huntingfield
Died 1140 in Leicestershire, England

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Senlis-8 created 25 Sep 2010 | Last modified 1 May 2019
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British Aristocracy
Matilda (Senlis) Clare was a member of aristocracy in the British Isles.
Join: British Royals and Aristocrats Project
Discuss: EUROARISTO
Sources
Royal Ancestry by Douglas Richardson Vol. I. p. 280
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=jweber&id=I05615
Magna Charta Sureties 1215, Frederick Lewis Weis, additions by Walter Lee Sheppard Jr, 5th Edition, 1999, Page: 157-1
Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists, 7th Edition, by Frederick Lewis Weis, additions by Walter Lee Shippard Jr., 1999, Page: 53-27
http://www.ourfamilyhistories.org/getperson.php?personID=I5156&tree=00
http://www.celtic-casimir.com/webtree/6/15436.htm
http://www.mathematical.com/senlismaud1096.html
Anglo-Norman: Origins of Some Anglo-Norman Families (Lewis C. Loyd), Loyd, Lewis C., ((Baltimore:MD, Harleian Society, 1992)), p. 84 (Reliability: 3).
Nobility: Plantagenet Ancestry (William Harry Turton), Turton, William Harry, 1856-1938. (Main), ((Baltimore:MD, Genealogical Publishing Co., 1984), L.A. Public Library GS #Q942.54 H2nic; LC CALL NO.: CS418.T81968; LCCN: 68-54254 //r92), 929.7..
Genealogical Research of Kirk Larson.
http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=16746257&pid=2310

Medieval Lands: Earls of Winchester 1207-1264 (Quincy)

end of this biography

Children:

24120. Sir Robert Quincy, Lord of Buckley was born in ~1138 in Northamptonshire, England; died before 29 Sep 1198 in England.
Sir Simon Senlis, II, 4th Earl of Northampton was born in ~1098 in Northamptonshire, England; died on ~ August 1153 in Huntington, Huntingdonshire, England.

12096.

Other Events and Attributes:

Occupation: Duke of Normandy

Notes:

More on Geoffrey's biography and history with photos ... http://bit.ly/1i49b9d

12097.

Notes:

Empress Matilda (c. 7 February 1102 – 10 September 1167), also known as the Empress Maude,[nb 1] was the claimant to the English throne during the civil war known as the Anarchy. The daughter of King Henry I of England, she moved to Germany as a child when she married the future Holy Roman Emperor Henry V. She travelled with her husband into Italy in 1116, was controversially crowned in St. Peter's Basilica, and acted as the imperial regent in Italy. Matilda and Henry had no children, and when Henry died in 1125, the crown was claimed by Lothair II, one of his political enemies.

Meanwhile, Matilda's younger brother, William Adelin, died in the White Ship disaster of 1120, leaving England facing a potential succession crisis. On Henry V's death, Matilda was recalled to Normandy by her father, who arranged for her to marry Geoffrey of Anjou to form an alliance to protect his southern borders. Henry I had no further legitimate children and nominated Matilda as his heir, making his court swear an oath of loyalty to her and her successors, but the decision was not popular in the Anglo-Norman court. Henry died in 1135 but Matilda and Geoffrey faced opposition from the Norman barons and were unable to pursue their claims. The throne was instead taken by Matilda's cousin Stephen of Blois, who enjoyed the backing of the English Church. Stephen took steps to solidify his new regime, but faced threats both from neighbouring powers and from opponents within his kingdom.

In 1139 Matilda crossed to England to take the kingdom by force, supported by her half-brother, Robert of Gloucester, and her uncle, King David I of Scotland, while Geoffrey focused on conquering Normandy. Matilda's forces captured Stephen at the Battle of Lincoln in 1141, but the Empress's attempt to be crowned at Westminster collapsed in the face of bitter opposition from the London crowds. As a result of this retreat, Matilda was never formally declared Queen of England, and was instead titled the Lady of the English. Robert was captured following the Rout of Winchester in 1141, and Matilda agreed to exchange him for Stephen. Matilda became trapped in Oxford Castle by Stephen's forces that winter, and was forced to escape across the frozen River Isis at night to avoid capture. The war degenerated into a stalemate, with Matilda controlling much of the south-west of England, and Stephen the south-east and the Midlands. Large parts of the rest of the country were in the hands of local, independent barons.

Matilda returned to Normandy, now in the hands of her husband, in 1148, leaving her eldest son to continue the campaign in England; he eventually succeeded to the throne as Henry II in 1154. She settled her court near Rouen and for the rest of her life concerned herself with the administration of Normandy, acting on Henry's behalf when necessary. Particularly in the early years of her son's reign, she provided political advice and attempted to mediate during the Becket controversy. She worked extensively with the Church, founding Cistercian monasteries, and was known for her piety. She was buried under the high altar at Bec Abbey after her death in 1167.

Notes:

Married:
The marriage was meant to seal a peace between England/Normandy and Anjou. She was eleven years older than Geoffrey, and very proud of her status as an Empress (as opposed to being a mere Countess). Their marriage was a stormy one with frequent long separations, but she bore him three sons and survived him.

Children:

6048. Henry II, King of England was born on 5 Mar 1133 in Le Mans, France; was christened on 25 Mar 1133 in Le Mans, France; died on 6 Jul 1189 in Chinon Castle, France; was buried on 7 Jul 1189 in Fontevraud Abbey, France.

48388.

William the Conqueror, King of England, Duke of Normandy was born on 14 Oct 1024 in Chateau de Falaise, Falaise, Normandy, France; was christened in 1066 in Dives-sur-Mer, Normandie, France (son of Duke Robert de Normandie, II and Harriette de Falaise, Countess of Montaigne); died on 9 Sep 1087 in Rouen, Normandy, France; was buried in Saint-Etienne de Caen, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Hastings, England
Military: Victor over the English in the Battle of Hastings, 1066
Burial: 10 Sep 1087, St. Stephen Abbey, Caen, Calvados, France

Notes:

William I the Conqueror of England and Normandy, Duke of Normandy, King of England, was born 9 September 1027 in Falaise, France to Robert II, Duke of Normandy (c1000-1035) and Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050) and died 1087 in Rouen, France of unspecified causes. He married Matilda of Flanders (c1031-1083) 1051 JL . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]

William I, King of England, Duke of Normandy was a mediµval monarch. He ruled as the Duke of Normandy from 1035 to 1087 and as King of England from 1066 to 1087. As Duke of Normandy, William was known as William II, and, as King of England, as William I. He is commonly refered to as William the Conqueror (Guillaume le Conquâerant) or William the Bastard (Guillaume le Bãatard).

The name "William the Bastard", a name used by his enemies arose from the fact that his mother was a Tanner's daughter who agreed to be his father Robert II's mistress. She demanded that their relationship not be secret, and had a position in court. After the affair was over, she married a Viscount. William retained the favour of his father and when Robert II left for the Holy Land, he forced his lords to pledge fealty to William. Robert II never returned from the Holy land and the oath was quickly forgotten, and intrigue surrounded the boy Duke. William's guardian Gilbert of Brionne was murdered, as was his tutor, as was his uncle Osbern- killed while protecting William from kidnappers found in his bedroom. William was sent away from home for his protection, and it was common practice for William's uncle Walter to awaken him in the night to move him to a new location.

By age fifteen, William was knighted, and by twenty he went to war against his cousin Guy of Normandy to defend his title of Duke of Normandy. With the help of King Henri I of France, he subdued his enemies who were forced to swear allegiance to William.

William asked for the hand of Matilda, daughter of Count Baldwin V of Flanders, but Matilda would have none of it. Purportedly, she was in love with the English ambassador to Flanders, a Saxon named Brihtric, who declined her advances. As for William, she told his emissary that she was far too high-born (being descended from King Alfred the Great of England) to consider marrying a bastard. When that was repeated to him, William, all of 5'10", rode from Normandy to Bruges, found Matilda on her way to church, dragged her off her horse (some said by her long braids), threw her down in the street in front of her flabbergasted attendants, and then rode off. Another version states that William rode to Matilda's father's house in Lille, threw her to the ground in her room (again, by the braids), and hit her (or violently shook her) before leaving.

William convinced Matilda to relent, but the pope opposed the marriage because they were distant cousins. For a period of time all of Normandy was excommunicated along with their duke because William disregarded the pope's advice and married Matilda. In return for the construction of two abbeys, the excommunication of Normandy was lifted.

In 1051, William visited his cousin Edward the Confessor, king of England. Edward was childless, and William's account is that the king made him his heir. According to supporters of William, Edward sent his brother in law Harold Godwinson to see William in 1063. Other accounts say that Harold was shipwrecked. All accounts agree that William refused to let Harold depart until he swore on holy relics that he would uphold William's claim to the throne of England, and agreed to marry his daughter (then an infant) Agatha. After winning his release, Harold reneged on both promises.

In support of his claim to the English crown, William invaded England in 1066, leading an army of Normans to victory over the Anglo-Saxon forces of Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, and suppressed subsequent English revolts| in what has become known as the Norman Conquest.

His reign brought Norman culture to England, which had an enormous impact on the subsequent course of England in the Middle Ages. In addition to political changes, his reign also saw changes to English law, a programme of building and fortification, changes in the English language and the introduction of continental European feudalism into England.

For additional details beyond William's family history, see more here.

Residence at Falaise
In Falaise France, is a series of statues that pays tribute to the six Norman Dukes from Rollo to William Conqueror. The castle here was the principal residence of the Norman Knights.

Chãateau Guillaume-le-Conquâerant Place Guillaume le Conquâerant / 14700 Falaise / Tel: 02 31 41 61 44

History of Norman Dukes
Homepage - Falaise Castle of William the Conqueror - In French.

Children

Offspring of William I of England and Matilda of Flanders (c1031-1083)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Robert III, Duke of Normandy (c1051-1134) 1051 (Normandy) 10 February 1134 (Cardiff Castle+ Glamorganshire+ Wales) Sybilla of Conversano (-1103)

Richard of Normandy (c1054) 1054 Normandy 1081 New Forest, Hampshire
Adeliza of Normandy (c1055) 1055 Normandy 1065
Cecilia of Normandy (c1055) 1055 Normandy, France 30 July 1126 Caen, Calvados, France
William II of England (c1056-1100) 1056 Normandy, France 2 August 1100 New Forest, England, United Kingdom
Adela of Normandy (c1062) 1062 Normandy, France 8 March 1138 Marcigny, Saãone-et-Loire, France Stephen II, Count of Blois (c1045-1102)

Agatha of Normandy (c1064) 1064 1079
Constance of Normandy (c1066-1090) 1066 1090 Alain Fergent de Bretagne (c1060-1119)

Henry I of England (1068-1135) 13 June 1068 Selby, Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom 1 December 1135 St. Denis-le-Fermont near Gisors, Picardy, Lyons-la-Forãet, Eure, France Ansfrid (1070-?)
Matilda of Scotland (c1080-1118)
Sybil Corbet (1077-?)
Edith
Gieva de Tracy
Nest ferch Rhys (c1073-aft1136)
Isabel de Beaumont
Adeliza of Leuven (1103-1151)

Common ancestors of William I of England (1027-1087) and Matilda of Flanders (c1031-1083)

Fulk II, Count of Anjou (?-958)
Gerberge of Maine (?-?)
Noteworthy descendants include

Henry II of England (1133-1189)
William I of England (1027-1087)

Footnotes (including sources)
‡ General
wikipedia:en:William the Conqueror
Burke's Guide to the Royal Family, London, 1973 , Reference: 193, 310

end of biography

Click here to view William the Conqueror's biography... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_I_of_England

Click here to read about the historic Norman Conquest by William ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Conquest

Click here to view his 9-generation pedigree ... http://www.ourfamilyhistories.org/ahnentafel.php?personID=I3527&tree=00&parentset=0&generations=9

William the Conqueror is the 26th & 27th great grandfather of the grandchildren of Vernia Swindell Byars (1894-1985)

end of comment

Click this link to view lots of pictures of William I & a video from the, "Bayeux Tapestry"; http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/William_I_of_England_(1027-1087)/pictures

How Did the Normans Change England?

The Normans were more than just the people who conquered England.

They were dynamic and passionate people who changed English history forever.

Apr 10, 2023 • By Greg Beyer, BA History and Linguistics, Diploma in Journalism ... https://www.thecollector.com/how-did-the-normans-change-england/

Residence:
Victor over the English in the Battle of 1066

Military:
a seminal moment in English history...

Died:
at the Priory of St. Gervase...

Buried:
The Abbey of Saint-âEtienne, also known as Abbaye aux Hommes ("Men's Abbey"), is a former Benedictine monastery in the French city of Caen, Normandy, dedicated to Saint Stephen. It was founded in 1063[1] by William the Conqueror and is one of the most important Romanesque buildings in Normandy.

Photos, history & source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_of_Saint-%C3%89tienne,_Caen

William married Matilda of Flanders, Queen of England in 1053 in Normandie, France. Matilda was born about 1031 in Flanders, Belgium; died on 2 Nov 1083 in Caen, Calvados, Normandie, France; was buried in Abbaye aux Dames, Caen, Normandie, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48389.

Matilda of Flanders, Queen of England was born about 1031 in Flanders, Belgium; died on 2 Nov 1083 in Caen, Calvados, Normandie, France; was buried in Abbaye aux Dames, Caen, Normandie, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

_HEIG: 5' 0"

Notes:

Matilda of Flanders (French: Mathilde; Dutch: Machteld) (c. 1031 – 2 November 1083) was Queen of England and Duchess of Normandy by marriage to William the Conqueror, and sometime Regent of these realms during his absence. She was the mother of ten children who survived to adulthood, including two kings, William II and Henry I.

As a niece and granddaughter of kings of France, Matilda was of grander birth than William, who was illegitimate, and, according to some suspiciously romantic tales, she initially refused his proposal on this account. Her descent from the Anglo-Saxon royal House of Wessex was also to become a useful card. Like many royal marriages of the period, it breached the rules of consanguinity, then at their most restrictive (to seven generations or degrees of relatedness); Matilda and William were third-cousins, once removed. She was about 20 when they married in 1051/2; William was four years older,24, and had been Duke of Normandy since he was about eight (in 1035).

The marriage appears to have been successful, and William is not recorded to have had any bastards. Matilda was about 35, and had already produced most of her children, when William embarked on the Norman conquest of England, sailing in his flagship Mora, which Matilda had given him. She governed the Duchy of Normandy in his absence, joining him in England only after more than a year, and subsequently returning to Normandy, where she spent most of the remainder of her life, while William was mostly in his new kingdom. She was about 52 when she died in Normandy in 1083.

Apart from governing Normandy and supporting her brother's interests in Flanders, Matilda took a close interest in the education of her children, who were unusually well educated for contemporary royalty. The boys were tutored by the Italian Lanfranc, who was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1070, while the girls learned Latin in Sainte-Trinitâe Abbey in Caen, founded by William and Matilda as part of the papal dispensation allowing their marriage.

Marriage

Matilda, or Maud, was the daughter of Baldwin V, Count of Flanders, and Adela, herself daughter of King Robert II of France.[1]

According to legend, when the Norman duke William the Bastard (later called the Conqueror) sent his representative to ask for Matilda's hand in marriage, she told the representative that she was far too high-born to consider marrying a bastard.[a] After hearing this response, William rode from Normandy to Bruges, found Matilda on her way to church, dragged her off her horse by her long braids, threw her down in the street in front of her flabbergasted attendants and rode off.

Another version of the story states that William rode to Matilda's father's house in Lille, threw her to the ground in her room (again, by her braids) and hit her (or violently battered her) before leaving. Naturally, Baldwin took offence at this; but, before they could draw swords, Matilda settled the matter[2] by refusing to marry anyone but William;[3] even a papal ban by Pope Leo IX at the Council of Reims on the grounds of consanguinity did not dissuade her. William and Matilda were married after a delay in c.?1051–2.[4] A papal dispensation was finally awarded in 1059 by Pope Nicholas II.[5] Lanfranc, at the time prior of Bec Abbey, negotiated the arrangement in Rome and it came only after William and Matilda agreed to found two churches as penance.[6]

Rumored romances

There were rumours that Matilda had been in love variously with the English ambassador to Flanders and with the great Saxon thegn Brictric, son of Algar, who (according to the account by the Continuator of Wace and others[7]) in his youth declined her advances. Whatever the truth of the matter, years later when she was acting as regent for her husband William in England, she is said to have used her authority to confiscate Brictric's lands and throw him into prison, where he died.[8]

Duchess of Normandy

When William was preparing to invade England, Matilda outfitted a ship, the Mora, out of her own funds and gave it to him.[9] Additionally, William gave Normandy to his wife during his absence. Matilda successfully guided the duchy through this period in the name of her fourteen-year-old son; no major uprisings or unrest occurred.[10]

Even after William conquered England and became its king, it took her more than a year to visit the kingdom.[11] Despite having been crowned queen, she spent most of her time in Normandy, governing the duchy, supporting her brother's interests in Flanders, and sponsoring ecclesiastic houses there. Only one of her children was born in England; Henry was born in Yorkshire when Matilda accompanied her husband in the Harrying of the North.[12]

Queen

Statue of Matilda of Flanders, one of the twenty Reines de France et Femmes illustres in the Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris, by Carle Elshoecht (1850)

Tomb of Matilda of Flanders at Abbaye aux Dames, Caen

Tomb of William of Normandy at Abbaye-aux-Hommes, Caen
Matilda was crowned queen on 11 May 1068 in Westminster during the feast of Pentecost, in a ceremony presided over by the archbishop of York. Three new phrases were incorporated to cement the importance of English consorts, stating that the Queen was divinely placed by God, shares in royal power, and blesses her people by her power and virtue.[13][14]

For many years it was thought that she had some involvement in the creation of the Bayeux Tapestry (commonly called La Tapisserie de la Reine Mathilde in French), but historians no longer believe that; it seems to have been commissioned by William's half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and made by English artists in Kent.[15]

Matilda bore William nine or ten children. He was believed to have been faithful to her and never produced a child outside their marriage. Despite her royal duties, Matilda was deeply invested in her children's well-being. All were known for being remarkably educated. Her daughters were educated and taught to read Latin at Sainte-Trinitâe in Caen founded by Matilda and William in response to the recognition of their marriage.[16] For her sons, she secured Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury of whom she was an ardent supporter. Both she and William approved of the Archbishop's desire to revitalise the Church.[17]

She stood as godmother for Matilda of Scotland, who would become Queen of England after marrying Matilda's son Henry I. During the christening, the baby pulled Queen Matilda's headdress down on top of herself, which was seen as an omen that the younger Matilda would be queen some day as well.[18]

Matilda fell ill during the summer of 1083 and died in November 1083. Her husband was present for her final confession.[19] William died four years later in 1087.

Contrary to the common belief that she was buried at St. Stephen's, also called l'Abbaye-aux-Hommes in Caen, Normandy, where William was eventually buried, she is entombed in Caen at l'Abbaye aux Dames, which is the community of Sainte-Trinitâe. Of particular interest is the 11th-century slab, a sleek black stone decorated with her epitaph, marking her grave at the rear of the church. In contrast, the grave marker for William's tomb was replaced as recently as the beginning of the 19th century.

Height

Over time Matilda's tomb was desecrated and her original coffin destroyed. Her remains were placed in a sealed box and reburied under the original black slab.[20] In 1959 Matilda's incomplete skeleton was examined and her femur and tibia were measured to determine her height using anthropometric methods. Her height was 5 feet (1.52m), a normal height for the time.[21] However, as a result of this examination she was misreported as being 4 feet 2 inches (1.27m)[22] leading to the myth that she was extremely small.

Family and children

Matilda and William had four sons and at least five daughters.[23] The birth order of the boys is clear, but no source gives the relative order of birth of the daughters.[23]

Robert, born between 1051 and 1054, died 10 February 1134.[24] Duke of Normandy, married Sybil of Conversano, daughter of Geoffrey of Conversano.[25]
Richard, born c. 1054, died around 1075.[24]
William Rufus, born between 1056 and 1060, died 2 August 1100.[24] King of England, killed in the New Forest.
Henry, born late 1068, died 1 December 1135.[24] King of England, married Edith of Scotland, daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland. His second wife was Adeliza of Louvain.[26]
Agatha, betrothed to Harold II of England, Alfonso VI of Castile, and possibly Herbert I, Count of Maine, but died unmarried.[b][27]
Adeliza (or Adelida,[28] Adelaide[26]), died before 1113, reportedly betrothed to Harold II of England, probably a nun of St Lâeger at Prâeaux.[28]
Cecilia (or Cecily), born c. 1056, died 1127. Abbess of Holy Trinity, Caen.[27]
Matilda,[28] "daughter of the King", born around 1061, died perhaps about 1086,[26] or else much later (according to Trevor Foulds's suggestion that she was identical to Matilda d'Aincourt[29]).
Constance, died 1090, married Alan IV Fergent, Duke of Brittany.[27]
Adela, died 1137, married Stephen, Count of Blois.[27] Mother of King Stephen of England.
There is no evidence of any illegitimate children born to William.[30]

William was furious when he discovered she sent large sums of money to their exiled son Robert.[31] She effected a truce between them at Easter 1080.

Buried:
(or Sainte Trinitâe) for women which was founded by Matilda around four years later (1063)...

Notes:

Married:
The problem has been and maybe still is that William the Conqueror and Matilda (dau. of Baldwin V of Flanders & Adelaide of France) had relatively great difficulty is obtaining a papal dispensation for their marriage. It was not immediately obvious that there was any impediment that needed a dispensation. This problem of what the relationship between Matilda and William was that required a dispensation generated a vigorous debate earlier this century. Weis or Weis's source (as you report it) goes for a theory that makes Matilda and William cousins of sorts.

Children:

Adela of Normandy was born in ~ 1067 in Normandy, France; died on 8 Mar 1137 in Marcigny-sur-Loire, France.
24194. Henry I, King of England was born in 1068-1070 in Selby, Yorkshire, England; was christened on 5 Aug 1100 in Selby, Yorkshire, England; died on 1 Dec 1135 in Saint-Denis-en-Lyons, Normandy, France; was buried on 4 Jan 1136 in Reading Abbey, Reading, Berkshire, England.

48512.

Patrick de Chaworth was born about 1052 in Chaworth, Nottinghamshire, England (son of Hugh de Chaworth and unnamed spouse).

Patrick married Matilda Hesdin about 1079 in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48513.

Matilda Hesdin

Children:

24256. Patrick de Chaworth was born about 1093 in Kempsford, England; died before 1155.
Sibyl de Chaworth was born about 1082 in Kempsford, Gloucestershire, Englan.

48576.

William Beauchamp was born in 1105 in Elmley Castle, Worcester, England; died in 1170.

Notes:

William (William I) de Beauchamp of Elmley formerly Beauchamp
Born 1105 in Elmley Castle, Worcestershire
ANCESTORS ancestors
Son of Walter (Beauchamp) de Beauchamp and Emeline (Abitot) de Beauchamp
Brother of Matilda (Beauchamp) de Beauchamp, Emma (Beauchamp) Gulden and Stephen (Beauchamp) de Beauchamp
Husband of Maud (Braose) de Beauchamp — married 1128 [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Father of Emma (Beauchamp) de Sudeley, William (Beauchamp) de Beauchamp and Maud (Beauchamp) Marmion
Died 1170 in Elmley Castle, Worcestershire
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Biography
William de Beauchamp, who, for all his zeal in the cause of the Empress Maud, was dispossessed of the castle of Worcester by King Stephen, to which, and all his other honours and estates, however, he was restored by King Henry II; and in that monarch's reign, besides the sheriffalty of Worcestershire, which he enjoyed by inheritance, he was sheriff of Warwickshire (2nd Henry II), sheriff of Gloucestershire (from 3rd to the 9th Henry II), sheriff of Herefordshire (from the 8th to the 16th Henry II, 1167-70, inclusive). Upon the levy of the assessment towards the marriage portion of one of King Henry's daus., this powerful feudal lord certified his knight's fees to amount to fifteen. He m. Maud, dau. of William Lord Braose, of Gower, and was s. at his decease by his son, William de Beauchamp. [Ref: Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 29, Beauchamp, Earls of Warwick]

Sources
1. Clutterbuck's Hist of Hrtfrd, vol 1 p. 358 (GS #Q942.58 H2c)
2. Nash's Hist of Wrcstr, vol 2 p. 263 (GS #Q942.47H2n)
3. Wurts' Magna Charta vol 1-2 p. 204 (GS #942 D22w)
4. Dugdale's Baronage p. 226 (GS #Q942 D22dw)
5. Hist and Gen Acc't of Fam of Greeville 1766, p. 27-28 (GS #929.242 G869e)
6. The Battle Abbey Roll vol 1 p. 129 (GS #942 D2bb)
7. Peerage of the British Isles 1883 p. 129 (GS #942 D22bug)
8. Plantagenet Ancestry p. 117 (GS #Q940 D2t)
9. Baker's Hist of Nrthmp, vol 2, 218-219 (GS #Q942.55 H2ba)
10. The Heraldry of Wrcstr, vol 1 p. 37-38 (GS #942.47 D24g)
11. Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists, 7th Edition, by Frederick Lewis Weis, additions by Walter Lee Shippard Jr., 1999, pp 222-28
12. http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISHNOBILITYMEDIEVAL3.htm#WilliamBeauchampdied1197A

William married Maud Braose. Maud (daughter of SIr Philip de Braose, Knight, 2nd Lord Bramber and Aanor de Totnes) was born in ~1111 in Bramber, West Sussex, England; died before 20 Mar 1201. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48577.

Maud Braose was born in ~1111 in Bramber, West Sussex, England (daughter of SIr Philip de Braose, Knight, 2nd Lord Bramber and Aanor de Totnes); died before 20 Mar 1201.

Notes:

Maud de Beauchamp formerly Braose aka de Braose
Born about 1111 in Bramber, Sussex, England
HIDE ANCESTORS
Daughter of Philip (Braose) de Braose and Aenor (Totnes) de Braose
Sister of William (Braose) de Braose, Gildon (Braiose) de Braose, Philip (Braose) de Braose and Miss de Braose
Wife of William (Beauchamp) de Beauchamp of Elmley — married 1128 [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Mother of Emma (Beauchamp) de Sudeley, William (Beauchamp) de Beauchamp and Maud (Beauchamp) Marmion
Died before 20 Mar 1201 in Elmley Castle, Worcestershire
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European Aristocracy
Maud (Braose) de Beauchamp is a member of royalty, nobility or aristocracy in the British Isles.
Join: British Isles Royals and Aristocrats 742-1499 Project
Discuss: EUROARISTO
Biography

Family 1

William de Beauchamp, Baron Elmley b. c 1105, d. a 1170
Children

Matilda Beauchamp+ d. a 1181
Emme Beauchamp+
William de Beauchamp+ b. c 1130, d. b 1211

Family 2

John de Brampton b. c 1136, d. a 1179
Children

Margery de Brampton
Brian Brampton+ b. c 1168
Maud de Braose [1]married William de Beauchamp, Baron Elmley, son of Walter de Beauchamp, Lord Elmley, Sheriff of Worcestershire and Emeline d' Arbitot. Maud de Braose was born at of Gower, Wales.[2] She married John de Brampton, son of Brian de Brampton and Mathilda verch John. Maud de Braose married Roger Mortimer, son of Hugh de Mortimer.

Sources
? Unknown author, Wallop Family, p. 69.
? Some Early English Pedigrees, by Vernon M. Norr, p. 34.
Phillips, Weber, Kirk and Staggs Families of the Pacific Northwest, by Jim Weber, on Rootsweb.com

Children:

24288. William de Beauchamp was born in ~1130 in Elmley Castle, Worcester, England; died in ~1197.
Maud Beauchamp was born in ~1139 in Worcestershire, England; died in 1181.

24068.

Notes:

Born 1065 at the latest.
Died between 1131 and 1139

Philip is recorded as consenting to his father's gifts to his canons at St Nicholas church at Bramber in 1073. He confirmed those gifts to the abbey of St Florent in 1096 after the death of his father.

Old Shoreham was part of Philip's demesne lands where St Nicolas church (right) had stood since Saxon times. Philip expanded trade in the area by founding the port of New Shoreham.

He became the first Braose Lord of Builth and Radnor, the family's initial holding in the Welsh Marches.

Orderic Vitalis (Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, Book IX, Chapter IV) relates that Philip submitted his fortress in Normandy to King William II in 1096 and supported the king against his brother Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy. But, like Robert, Philip may have left Normandy at this time and joined the First Crusade to the Holy Land, returning in 1103. There is evidence in charters that Philip journeyed to the Holy Land but the date of his visit is uncertain.

Philip's lands were confiscated by Henry I in 1110, due to his traitrous support of William, son of Robert Curthose, but they were returned in 1112.

Father: William de Braose, 1st Lord of Bramber

Mother: Eve de Boissey (probably)

There are charters where Robert de Harcourt's sons, Philip and Richard, refer to Philip de Braose as "patruus" - paternal uncle. This lends weight to the theory that Robert de Harcourt and Philip de Braose were both sons of Eve de Boissey. In another record dated 1103 (Pipe Roll Soc. Vol 71 no 544) it is stated that Philip de Braose was represented by "his brother Robert, the son of Anketill".

Philip's sealPhilip was married to Aanor, daughter of Judael (Johel) of Totnes.

Child 1: William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber

Child 2: Philip

Child 3: Basilia

Child 4: Gillian

Child 5: A daughter who married William de Tregoz, the father of Philip de Tregoz who was sheriff of Sussex in 1190. (see evidence here and here )

end of this biography

Philip de Braose, 2nd Lord of Bramber (c. 1070 – c. 1134) was an Anglo-Norman nobleman and Marcher Lord.

Lord of Bramber
Born c. 1070
Died c. 1134
possibly on crusade in the Levant
Noble family House of Braose
Spouse(s) Aenor de Totnes, daughter of Juhel of Totnes[1]
Issue
William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber, Philip de Braose junior, Basilia (daughter), Gilian (daughter)
Father William de Braose, 1st Lord of Bramber

Origins
Philip was born about 1070 to 1073, the son of William de Braose, 1st Lord of Bramber (d. circa 1093/96) by his wife Eve de Boissey or Agnes de St. Clare. William de Braose had participated in the Norman conquest of England. He had been rewarded with the feudal barony of Bramber in Sussex and smaller holdings in Dorset, Wiltshire, Berkshire and Surrey.[2]

Career

Philip as heir consolidated his paternal lands, and expanded them. In 1096 he confirmed his father's gifts to the Abbey of St. Florent. Philip de Braose conquered the Welsh borderlands at Builth and New Radnor and established new Norman lordships over them. At Builth, he constructed a Motte and Bailey fortification at the site where King Edward I later built Builth Castle in the 13th century.[3] He seems to have gone on the First Crusade in 1103. He supported King Henry I (1100–1135) against the claim to the English throne made by his elder brother Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, but then in 1110 he revolted against Henry, who then confiscated his estates. He regained his lordships and lands in 1112 and was thereafter able to retain them, but in 1130 settled them intact onto his eldest son William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber.

Marriage & progeny

He married Aenor de Totnes, sister and co-heiress of Alfred de Totnes (d.pre-1139), son of Juhel de Totnes (d.1123/30) feudal baron of Totnes (which he forfeited c.1087[4]) and of Barnstaple both in Devon.[5] In right of his wife Aenor, Philip acquired a moiety of the feudal barony of Barnstaple, the other moiety of which was held by Henry de Tracy (d.pre-1165), Aenor's brother-in-law.[6] He had the following progeny:

William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber, his eldest son and heir.
Philip de Braose junior
Basilia, a daughter.
Gillian, a daughter.
Before 1206 William III de Braose (d.1211) successfully claimed half of the barony of Totnes from Henry de Nonant, to which family it had been granted after its forfeiture by Juhel de Totnes.[7] However in 1208 William III's lands were confiscated by King John.[8]

Death

He died between 1131 and 1139, possibly in 1134 on crusade in the Levant.

References

Cokayne, G.E., ed V. Gibbs (1910). The Complete Peerage, Vol. 1. London: The St. Catherine Press Ltd. pp. 21/22.
Domesday Book
Taylor, Arnold. The Welsh Castles of Edward I. The Hambledon Press, 1986, p. 3
Sanders, Ivor, English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, p.89, Totnes
Sanders, Ivor, English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, p.104, Barnstaple
Sanders, Ivor, English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, p.104, Barnstaple
Sanders, p.90, Totnes
Sanders, p.105, Barnstaple

Died:
on a crusade...

24069.

Aanor de Totnes was born in 1084 in Barnstaple, Devonshire, England; died in 1153 in Barnstaple, Devonshire, England.

Children:

Maud Braose was born in ~1111 in Bramber, West Sussex, England; died before 20 Mar 1201.
12034. Sir William de Braose, Knight, 3rd Lord of Bramber was born in 1135 in (Bramber, Sussex, England); died on 21 Oct 1190 in London, England.

24070.

Sir Miles of Gloucester, Knight, 1st Earl of Hereford was born in 1092-1100 in Gloucestershire, England; died on 24 Dec 1143.

Other Events and Attributes:

Occupation: Constable of England
Occupation: High Sheriff of Gloucester

Notes:

Miles FitzWalter of Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford, Lord of Brecknock (died 24 December 1143) was High Sheriff of Gloucester and Constable of England.[a]

Biography

Miles was the son and heir of Walter of Gloucester, hereditary castellan of Gloucester and sheriff of Gloucester, by Berta, his wife.[1] Miles' grandfather, Roger de Pitres, had been sheriff from about 1071, then was succeeded by his brother Durand, the Domesday sheriff, before 1083.[2] Durand was succeeded by his nephew Walter of Gloucester, c.?1096, who was sheriff in 1097 and in 1105–1106.[2] Walter was in favour with Henry I, three of whose charters to him are extant.[3] Walter held the post of a Constable of England. Early in 1121 his son Miles was given the hand of Sibyl, daughter of Bernard de Neufmarchâe, the conqueror of Brecknock, with the reversion of her father's possessions.[3] In the Pipe Roll of 1130 Walter is found to have been succeeded by his son,[4] having died in or around 1126.[5]

Miles was (from 1128 at least) sheriff of Gloucestershire, a justice itinerant, and a justice of the forest,[6] and by 1130 was sheriff of Staffordshire.[5] He had also (though the fact has been doubted) been granted his father's office of constable by a special charter.[7] In conjunction with Pain Fitzjohn, sheriff of Herefordshire and Shropshire, he ruled the whole Welsh border "from the Severn to the sea".[8]

On his accession, King Stephen set himself to secure the allegiance of these two lords-marchers, who at length, on receiving a safe-conduct and obtaining all they asked for, did him homage.[8] It was at Reading that they met the king early in 1136.[b] Miles is next found attending the Easter court at Westminster as one of the royal constables,[9] and, shortly after, the Oxford council in the same capacity.[10] He was then despatched to the aid of the widow of Richard fitz Gilbert de Clare, who was beleaguered in her castle by the Welsh and whom he gallantly rescued.[11]

Meanwhile, Miles had married his son and heir, Roger, to Cecily, daughter of Pain Fitzjohn, who inherited the bulk of her father's possessions.[12] In the same year 1136 Miles transferred the original house of Augustinian canons at Llanthony Priory, Monmouthshire to a site on the south side of Gloucester, which they named Llanthony Secunda.[13][14]

Two years later (1138) Miles received, in his official capacity, King Stephen at Gloucester in May.[15] He has been said to have renounced his allegiance a few weeks later,[16] but careful investigation will show that he was with Stephen in August (1138) at the siege of Shrewsbury, and that his defection did not take place till 1139.[17]

In February 1139 Stephen gave Gloucester Abbey to Miles's kinsman Gilbert Foliot at his request.[18] In the summer of 1139, however, he joined his lord, Robert, Earl of Gloucester, in inviting Empress Matilda to England.[19] On her arrival Miles met her at Bristol, welcomed her to Gloucester, recognised her as his rightful sovereign, and became thenceforth her ardent supporter. She at once gave him St. Briavels Castle and the Forest of Dean.[17]

Miles's first achievement on behalf of Matilda was to relieve Brian Fitz Count who was blockaded in Wallingford Castle.[20] In November (1139) he again advanced from Gloucester and attacked and burnt Worcester.[21] He also captured the castles of Winchcombe, Cerne, and Hereford.[22] Meanwhile, he was deprived by Stephen of his office of constable.[23] He took part in the victory at Lincoln (2 February 1141),[24] and on the consequent triumph of the empress he accompanied her in her progress, and was one of her three chief followers on her entry (2 March) into Winchester.[25] He was with her at Reading when she advanced on London,[26] and on reaching St. Albans Matilda bestowed on him a house at Westminster.[27] He was among those who fled with her from London shortly after, and it was on his advice, when they reached Gloucester, that she ventured back to Oxford.[28] There, on 25 July 1141, she bestowed on him the town and castle of Hereford and made him earl of that shire,[29] as well as the forests of the Hay of Hereford and Trinela[30] in avowed consideration of his faithful service. With singular unanimity hostile chroniclers testify to his devotion to her cause.[22] He even boasted that she had lived at his expense throughout her stay in England.[31]

As "Earl Miles" he now accompanied her to Winchester,[32] and on the rout of her forces on 14 September 1141 he escaped, with the greatest difficulty, to Gloucester, where he arrived "exhausted, alone, and with scarcely a rag to his back".[33] Towards the end of the year he was in Bristol making a grant to Llanthony Priory in the presence of the Empress Matilda and the Robert, Earl of Gloucester.[34] In 1142 he is proved by charters to have been with the Empress at Oxford and to have received her permission to hold Abergavenny Castle of Brian Fitz Count.[35] It is probably to the summer of this year that he made a formal deed of alliance with the Earl of Gloucester, and as a hostage for the performance of which he gave the Earl his son Mahel.[17]

In 1143 his pressing want of money wherewith to pay his troops led him to demand large sums from the church lands. Robert de Bethune, Bishop of Hereford, withstood his demands, and, on the Earl invading his lands, excommunicated him and his followers, and laid the diocese under interdict.[36] The Earl's kinsman, Gilbert Foliot (Abbot of Gloucester),[37] appealed to the legate on his behalf against the bishop's severity.[38] On Christmas-eve of this year (1143) the Earl was slain while hunting by an arrow shot at a deer.[39] A dispute at once arose for possession of his body between the canons of Llanthony and the monks of Gloucester. The case was heard before the bishops of Worcester, Hereford, and St. David's, and was terminated by a compromise on 28 December. The Earl was then buried in the chapter-house at Llanthony.[40]

With his death in 1143, Miles was succeeded by his son and heir, Roger.[17] Roger died without an heir twelve years later in 1155 so the Earldom of Hereford became extinct, but the shrievalty of Hereford and Gloucester passed to his brother Walter. On the death of the latter and two other brothers without issue the family possessions passed to their sisters, Bertha through her marriage bringing Abergavenny to Braose, but Margaret, the eldest sister, taking the bulk (Liber Niger) to the Bohuns afterwards (1199), in recognition of their descent from Miles, earls of Hereford, and constables of England.[41]

Assessment

John of Salisbury classes him with Geoffrey de Mandeville and others who were non tam comites regni quam hostes publici. The charge is justified by his public policy; but the materials for appraising his personal character do not exist.[42]

Family

In 1121, Miles married Sibyl de Neufmarchâe, daughter of Bernard de Neufmarchâe, Lord of Brecon and Nest, granddaughter of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn.[43] Miles and Sybil's children where:

Margaret of Hereford,[5][44] married Humphrey II de Bohun, by whom she had issue.
Bertha of Hereford,[45] married William de Braose before 1150, by whom she had issue.
Roger Fitzmiles, 2nd Earl of Hereford.[46] Hereditary Sheriff of Gloucestershire until 1155.
Walter de Hereford[46] died after 1159 in the Holy Land. He was hereditary Sheriff of Gloucestershire in 1155–1157 and High Sheriff of Herefordshire in 1155–1159.
Henry Fitzmiles Henry of Hereford,[44] died 12 April 1165. He succeeded to the title of Baron Abergavenny in 1141/42.
William de Hereford.[44] He died before 1160 without issue.
Mahel de Hereford,[44] died October 1165 at Bronllys Castle, Breconshire, Wales, mortally hurt when a stone dropped from the tower during a fire; died without issue. Buried at Llanthony Priory.
Lucy of Gloucester,[47] married Herbert FitzHerbert of Winchester, Lord Chamberlain, by whom she had issue. Buried at Llanthony Priory.

Notes

Jump up ^ In some sources Miles's name is not translated from the Latin Milo
Jump up ^ "[This is known] from two charters there tested, one of which was printed by Madox (History of the Exchequer, p. 135), by which Stephen confirms to Miles, 'sicut baroni et justiciario meo', the shrievalty of Gloucestershire, the constableship of Gloucester Castle, and the 'honour' of Brecknock" (Round 1890, p. 438).
Jump up ^ Cokayne 1926, pp. 451–452.
^ Jump up to: a b Morris 1918, p. 154, n. 62.
^ Jump up to: a b Round 1890, p. 438 cites Duchy of Lancaster: Royal Charters.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 438 cites Rot. Pip.. 31 Hen. I.
^ Jump up to: a b c Walker 2012, "Gloucester, Miles of".
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 438.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 438 cites Dugdale MSS.
^ Jump up to: a b Round 1890, p. 438 cites Gesta Stephani, p. 17.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 438 cites Rymer, Fœdera, new ed. i. 16.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 438 cites Rich. Hexham, p. 149.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 13.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Duchy Charters.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Mon. Angl. vi. (1), 127, 132.
Jump up ^ Ward1995, p. 107.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. ii. 105.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439; Norgate 1887, p. 295.
^ Jump up to: a b c d Round 1890, p. 439.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439; Norgate 1887, pp. 493, 494.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439; Norgate 1887, pp. 294, 295.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 59.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 119.
^ Jump up to: a b Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 60.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 121.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 69.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 130; Will. Malm. p. 743.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Add. Cart. pp. 19, 576.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Duchy Charters, No. 16.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 132.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Fœdera, i. 14.
Jump up ^ Francis Beaufort Palmer (February 2007), Peerage Law in England, Lawbook Exchange, ISBN 9781584777489, 1584777486 See Appendix, p242; also Theophilus Jones (1805), A history of the county of Brecknock (A history of the county of Brecknock. ed.), Brecknock: Printed and sold by Wm. & Geo. North ... for the author; and sold by J. Booth ... London. p67
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 133.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 79
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 135.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Mon. Angl. vi. 137.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Duchy Charters, No. 17.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 102; Mon. Angl. vi. (1), 133.
Jump up ^ Knowles, Brooke & London 1972, p. 52–53.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Foliot, Letters, No. 3.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Symeon of Durham ii. 315; Gervase, i. 126; Gesta, pp. 16, 95, 103.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gloucester Cartulary, i. lxxv; Foliot, Letters, No. 65.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 440.
Jump up ^ Chisholm 1911, pp. 479.
Jump up ^ Roderick 1968, p. 5.
^ Jump up to: a b c d Lundy 2011, p. 10257 cite Cokayne 2000, p. 21
Jump up ^ Lundy 2011, p. 10257 cite Cokayne 2000a, p. 457
^ Jump up to: a b Lundy 2011, p. 10257 cite Cokayne 2000, p. 20
Jump up ^ Cawley 2012 cites Dugdale 1823, p. 615

References

Cawley, Charles (10 April 2012), English Earls 1067–1122: Miles of Gloucester (–1143), Medieval Lands database, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy
Dugdale, William, Sir (1823), ""Priory of Bergavenny or Abergavenny in Monmouthshire, Cartµ I"", Monasticon Anglicanum, 4 (Revised ed.), London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Browne, p. 615
Cokayne, George Edward (1926), Doubleday, H. A.; Walden, Howard de, eds., The Complete Peerage; or, a History of the House of Lords and all its members from the earliest times, 6, London: The St. Catherine Press
Knowles, David; Brooke, Christopher; London, Veria (1972), The Heads of Religious Houses: England and Wales 940–1216, Cambridge University Press, pp. 52–53, ISBN 0-521-08367-2
Lundy, Darryl (17 May 2011). "Miles of Gloucester". p. 10257 § 102564. Retrieved November 2012. Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
Cokayne, George E (2000), The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, 1 (new, reprint in 6 volumes ed.), Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, pp. 20, 21
Cokayne, George E (2000a), The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, 4 (new, reprint in 6 volumes ed.), Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, p. 457
Morris, W.A (April 1918), "The Office of Sheriff in the Early Norman Period", The English Historical Review, 33 (130): 145–175, doi:10.1093/ehr/xxxiii.cxxx.145
Norgate, Kate (1887), England under the Angevin Kings, 1, London: Macmillan
Roderick, A. J. (June 1968), "Marriage and Politics in Wales, 1066–1282", The Welsh History Review, 4 (1): 1–20
Ward, Jennifer C (1995), Women of the English nobility and gentry, 1066–1500, Manchester medieval sources series, Manchester: Manchester University Press, p. 107, ISBN 0-7190-4115-5, retrieved 25 October 2010
Walker, David (May 2012) [2004]. "Gloucester, Miles of, earl of Hereford (d. 1143)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/10820. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
B Thorpe, 1848–1849) (ed.), Continuation of Florence of Worcester
The Cartulary of Gloucester Abbey (Rolls series);
Round, John Horace (1892), Geoffrey de Mandeville
Domesday Book, (Record Commission);
Rymer, Thomas, Fœdera, (Record Commission), i (new ed.);
Pipe Roll, 31 Hen. I (Record Commission);
Cartulary of St. Peter's, Gloucester, (Rolls Ser.);
Symeon of Durham, Regum Historia, (Rolls Ser.);
"Gesta Stephani", Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, &c, (Rolls Ser.), ii;
Gervase of Canterbury, Chronica, (Rolls Ser.);
Florence of Worcester (1848–49), Thorpe, Benjamin, ed., Florentii Wigorniensis monachi Chronicon ex chronicis (2 volumes ed.), English Historical Society
William of Malmesbury, Chronicle of the Kings of England: From the Earliest Period to the Reign of King Stephen, English Historical Society;
Dugdale, Sir William, Westrum Monasticum, Bodleian Library;
Additional Charters, (British Museum);
Duchy of Lancaster Charters, Public Record Office;
Dugdale, William, Sir (1823), Monasticon Anglicanum
Madox, Thomas, History of the Exchequer;
Hearne, Thomas, ed. (1728), Liber Niger Scaccarii;
Foliot, Gilbert, "Letters", in Giles, John Allen, Patres Ecclesiµ Anglicanµ;
Crawley-Boevey, Arthur William, Cartulary of Flaxley Abbey;
Ellis, A. S. (1879–1880). "On the Landholders of Gloucestershire named in Domesday Book". Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society. 4 vol.: 86–198.
Walker, David (1958). "Miles of Gloucester, Earl of Hereford". Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society. 77: 66–84.

24071.

Other Events and Attributes:

Burial: Hempsted, Gloucestershire, England
Alt Birth: 1092, Aberhonddu, Breconshire, Wales

Notes:

Sibyl de Neufmarchâe, Countess of Hereford, suo jure Lady of Brecknock (c. 1100 – after 1143), was a Cambro-Norman noblewoman, heiress to one of the most substantial fiefs in the Welsh Marches. The great-granddaughter of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, king of Wales, Sibyl was also connected to the nobility of England and Normandy. Sibyl inherited the titles and lands of her father, Bernard de Neufmarchâe, Lord of Brecon, after her mother, Nest ferch Osbern, had declared her brother Mahel to have been illegitimate. Most of these estates passed to Sibyl's husband, Miles de Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford, as her dowry. Their marriage had been arranged personally by King Henry I of England in the spring of 1121. Sibyl, with her extensive lands, was central to the King's plans of consolidating Anglo-Norman power in south-east Wales by the merging of her estates with those of Miles, his loyal subject on whom he relied to implement Crown policy.

As an adult, Sibyl lived through King Stephen's turbulent reign, known to history as the Anarchy, in which her husband played a pivotal role. Following Miles' accidental death in 1143, Sibyl entered a religious life at Llanthony Secunda Priory, Gloucestershire, England, which she had endowed up to six years previously. Sibyl is buried at the priory, founded by Miles in 1136.

Family

Ancestry

A small, ruined castle of rough stone comprising two connected, castellated towers, partly covered in ivy, surrounded by much vegetation. Numerous arrowslits indicate the walls to be three to four storeys tall. The upward direction of the image suggests that the castle is at the top of a hill
Ruins of Brecon castle
Sibyl's birthplace and a part of her vast inheritance
Sibyl was born in about 1100 in Brecon Castle, Brecon, Wales, the only daughter of Marcher Lord Bernard de Neufmarchâe, Lord of Brecon, and Nest ferch Osbern.[1][2] Nest was the daughter of Osbern FitzRichard and Nest ferch Gruffydd.[2] Sybil's maternal great-grandparents were Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, king of Wales, and Ealdgyth (Edith of Mercia).[2][3] Ealdgyth, the daughter of ¥lfgar, Earl of Mercia, was briefly Queen consort of England by her second marriage to Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, who was killed at the Battle of Hastings.[4]

Sibyl's father, Bernard, was born at the castle of Le Neuf-Marchâe-en-Lions, on the frontier between Normandy and Beauvais.[5] Bernard was a knight who had fought under English kings William I, William Rufus and Henry I.[6] According to historian Lynn H Nelson, Bernard de Neufmarchâe was "the first of the original conquerors of Wales".[7] He led the Norman army at the Battle of Brecon in 1093, during which Rhys ap Tewdwr was killed.[6][8] Kingship in Wales ended with Rhys' death, and allowed Bernard to confirm his hold on Brycheiniog, becoming the first ruler of the lordship of Brecon.[8] The title and lands would remain in his family's possession until 1521.[9] The name Neufmarchâe, Novo Mercato in Latin, is anglicised into 'Newmarket' or 'Newmarch'.[10][a][11]

Inheritance

Sibyl had two brothers, Philip, who most likely died young, and Mahel. Nest had Mahel disinherited by swearing to King Henry I of England that Mahel had been fathered by another man. According to Giraldus Cambrensis, this was done out of vengeance when Mahel had multilated Nest's lover, a knight whose identity is not disclosed.[10] In the 19th century, Bernard Bolingbroke Woodward proposed that, after Bernard's death, Nest "disgraced herself with an intrigue" with one of his soldiers. Mahel, who had by this time inherited Bernard's estates, disapproved of the liaison to such an extent that he killed Nest's lover. Nest's revenge was to have Mahel disinherited by claiming that Bernard was not Mahel's father.[12] The maritagium (marriage charter) arranged by King Henry I in 1121 for the marriage between Sibyl and her future husband Miles, however, makes it clear that Bernard was still alive when it was written; showing Bernard Bolingbroke Woodward's version of the story to diverge from the known facts.[13] Author Jennifer C. Ward suggests that, although the marriage charter recorded that King Henry was acting at the request of Bernard, Nest, and the barons, it was probable he had put considerable pressure on the Neufmarchâes to disinherit Mahel in favour of Sibyl and, thereby, Miles.[14] Nevertheless, whatever the timing or reason, the outcome of Nest's declaration was that Sibyl (whom Nest acknowledged as Bernard's child) became the sole lawful heiress to the vast Lordship of Brecon, one of the most important and substantial fiefs in the Welsh Marches.[15] Henry's maritagium referred specifically to Sibyl's parents' lands as "comprising Talgarth, the forest of Ystradwy, the castle of Hay, the whole land of Brecknock, up to the boundaries of the land of Richard Fitz Pons,[b] namely up to Brecon and Much Cowarne, a vill in England";[16] the fees and services of several named individuals were also granted as part of the dowry.[16] This made her suo jure Lady of Brecknock on her father's death, and one of the wealthiest heiresses in south Wales.[17][18]

Marriage

Medieval illumination

King Henry I of England who granted Sibyl in marriage to Miles de Gloucester Sometime in April or May 1121, Sibyl married Miles (or Milo) FitzWalter de Gloucester,[19] who on his father's death in 1129, became sheriff of Gloucester,[20] and Constable of England.[21][22] The marriage was personally arranged by King Henry I, to whom Miles was a trusted royal official.[13][23] A charter written in Latin (the maritagium), which dates to 10 April/29 May 1121, records the arrangements for the marriage of Sibyl and Miles.[13][24] Historian C. Warren Hollister found the charter's wording telling, noting that "the king gave the daughter as if he were making a grant of land": "Know that I [King Henry I] have given and firmly granted to Miles of Gloucester Sibyl, daughter of Bernard de Neufmarchâe, together with all the lands of Bernard her father and of her mother after their deaths … ".[13][25] Her parents' lands would be conveyed to Miles after their deaths or earlier during "their life if they so wish".[13] Henry also commanded that the fief's tenants were to pay Miles liege homage as their lord.[13]

By arranging a series of matrimonial alliances, similar to that between Sibyl and Miles, King Henry I of England transformed "the map of territorial power in south-east Wales". Such arrangements were mutually advantageous. Hollister describes Miles' marriage to Sibyl as having been a "crucial breakthrough in his career". The new lords, in similar positions to Miles, were the King's own loyal vassals, on whom he could rely to implement royal policy.[25][26] Sibyl's father died sometime before 1128 (most probably in 1125), and Miles came into possession of her entire inheritance, which when merged with his own estates, formed one honour.[6][27]

Children

Together Sibyl and Miles had eight children:[original research?][28][not in citation given]

Margaret of Hereford (1122/1123- 6 April 1197), married Humphrey II de Bohun, by whom she had children. She received the office of constable of England and exercised lordship of Herefordshire as a widow until her death.[29]

Roger Fitzmiles, 2nd Earl of Hereford (before 1125- 22 September 1155). Roger's marriage settlement with Cecily FitzJohn (her first marriage), daughter of Payn FitzJohn and Sibyl de Lacy, was ratified by King Stephen in 1137.[18] The marriage was childless as were Cecily's subsequent marriages.

Walter de Hereford (died 1159/60), whether he married is unknown; however, Walter departed for Palestine on Michaelmas 1159, and died shortly afterwards without leaving legitimate issue[30][31]

Henry Fitzmiles (died c.1162), married a woman named Isabella, surname unknown; Henry died without legitimate issue.

Mahel de Hereford (died 1164), no record of marriage; died without legitimate issue.

William de Hereford (died 1166), no record of marriage; died without legitimate issue.

Bertha of Hereford (c.1130-), married William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber, by whom she had issue.

Lucy of Hereford, Lady of Blaen Llyfni and Bwlch y Dinas (died 1219/20), married Herbert FitzHerbert of Winchester, by whom she had issue.

The Anarchy

Medieval illumination
Stephen of Blois
whose chaotic reign in England became known as the Anarchy
After Henry I's death in 1135, the throne of England was seized by Stephen of Blois, a grandson of William I of England. Henry's daughter, Empress Matilda (Maud), also claimed the throne, and had the support of the Marcher Lords. On the death of her husband, the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry V, in 1125, Matilda had returned to England for the first time in 16 years. At the insistence of her father, the barons (including Stephen) swore to uphold Matilda's rights as his heir. Matilda married Geoffrey of Anjou in 1128. They lived together in France, having three sons; the eldest of whom was to become King Henry II of England.[32] Initially, Miles supported Stephen.[33] In about 1136, Stephen granted Sibyl's husband the entire honour of Gloucester and Brecknock, and appointed him Constable of Gloucester Castle,[34] whereby Miles became known as one of Stephen's "henchmen".[33]

Llanthony Priory had been established near Crucorney, in the Vale of Ewyas, in 1118; Wales' earliest Augustine monastery. Miles' father, Walter de Gloucester, had retired there by 1126.[23] The unrest that had been simmering in Wales during the last years of Henry's reign, boiled over in 1135 on his death. The area around the priory returned to Welsh rule, coming under such “hostile mollestation” from the Welsh that the non-Welsh canons decided to leave.[18][35][36][37] Miles established a new Priory for them in Gloucester, England, which they called Llanthony Secunda, in 1136.[38] Sometime after 1137, Sibyl, together with her husband, made a further endowment to Llanthony Secunda.[34]

Medieval illumination
Empress Matilda
whom Sibyl supported
in opposition to King Stephen
Miles transferred his allegiance to Empress Matilda, on her return to England in 1139.Matthew 2002, pp. 95, 96 According to Professor Edmund King, Miles' decision to support Matilda was guided by expediancy rather than principle, and the necessity of joining forces with Matilda's illegitimate half-brother, the powerful Robert, Earl of Gloucester, who was the overlord of some of Miles' fiefs.[17] Stephen stripped Miles of the title 'Constable of England' in punishment for having deserted him. On 25 July 1141, in gratitude for his support and military assistance and, according to historian R.H.C. Davis, possibly to compensate Miles for having appeared to have lost the constableship, Matilda invested him as 1st Earl of Hereford.[39] He also received St. Briavels Castle and the Forest of Dean. At the time Matilda was the de facto ruler of England, Stephen having been imprisoned at Bristol following his capture the previous February after the Battle of Lincoln. Sibyl was styled Countess of Hereford, until Miles' unexpected death over two years later. In 1141, Miles received the honour of Abergavenny from Brien FitzCount, the (likely illegitimate) son of Duke Alan IV of Brittany. This was in appreciation of the skilled military tactics Miles had deployed which had spared Brien's castle of Wallingford during King Stephen's besiegement in 1139/1140. Matilda gave her permission for the transfer.[40]

During the Anarchy, which the period of Stephen's reign as King of England was to become known, life was greatly disrupted in her husband's lands. Sibyl would have doubtless suffered as a result, especially after Miles' decision to support Matilda's claim to the throne and to oppose Stephen.[33] When Matilda was defeated at Winchester in late 1141, Miles was compelled to return to Gloucester in disgrace: "weary, half-naked and alone".[41] In November of that same year, Stephen was released from prison and restored to the English throne.[18]

Sibyl's distress would have been heightened in 1143 after the Bishop of Hereford, Robert de Bethune placed an interdict upon Hereford, blocked all the cathedral's entrances with thorns, and excommunicated Miles. In order to raise money to pay his troops and to assist Matilda financially, Miles had imposed a levy on all the churches in his earldom, an act which the bishop had regarded as unlawful.[23][42] When the bishop protested and threatened Miles with excommunication, Miles in response, sent his men to plunder the diocese of its resources.[23] In retaliation against Miles' earlier attacks on the royalist city of Worcester and the castles of Hereford and Wallingford, King Stephen bestowed the title "Earl of Hereford" on Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester; Miles, however, never surrendered the earldom nor the title to Robert de Beaumont.[42]

Widowhood and death

While on a deer-hunting expedition in his own Forest of Dean, Sibyl's husband was accidentally shot in the chest by an arrow which killed him on 24 December 1143.[41][43] He had been involved in legal proceedings against the bishop's jurisdiction when he died.[42] Their eldest son, Roger succeeded him in the earldom.[22] In protest against his father's excommunication, Roger remained an outspoken enemy of the Church until close to the end of his life when he entered a Gloucester monastery as a monk.[43][44] After her husband's death, Sibyl entered a religious life at Llanthony Secunda Priory, Gloucester,[38] which she had previously endowed.[34] Sibyl was buried in the same priory,[45] the dates of death and burial unrecorded.[citation needed]

Sibyl's legacy

Upon the childless death of Roger in 1155, the Earldom of Hereford fell into abeyance until 1199 when King John bestowed the title on Henry de Bohun, Sibyl's grandson through her eldest daughter, Margaret. As her sons all died without legitimate offspring, Sibyl's three daughters became co-heirs to the Brecon honour, with Bertha, the second daughter, passing Sibyl's inheritance on (through marriage) to the de Braoses, thereby making them one of the most powerful families in the Welsh Marches.[46][47]

The Brecknock lordship would eventually go to the de Bohuns, by way of Eleanor de Braose. Eleanor, a descendant of Sibyl's through Bertha of Hereford,[c] married Humphrey de Bohun, son of the 2nd Earl of Hereford. Eleanor and Humphrey's son, Humphrey de Bohun, succeeded his grandfather to the titles in 1275.[48]

Through the advantageous marriages of her daughters, Sibyl was an ancestress of many of England and Ireland's noblest families including among others, the de Bohun's, de Beauchamps, Mortimers, Fitzalans, de Burghs, de Lacy's, and Bonvilles. Four of her descendants, Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford, Elizabeth de Burgh, 4th Countess of Ulster, Eleanor de Bohun, and Mary de Bohun married into the English royal family, while another, Anne Mortimer was the grandmother of Yorkist kings Edward IV and Richard III. By way of Edward's daughter, Elizabeth of York, every monarch of England and, subsequently, the United Kingdom, from Henry VIII up to and including Elizabeth II, descended from Sibyl de Neufmarchâe, as did the various royal sovereigns of Europe who shared a common descent from Mary, Queen of Scots.[49]

Notes

Jump up ^ According to Gerald of Wales, when Bernard witnessed a charter issued by William I in 1086-87, he signed his name in Latin as Bernardus de Novo Mercato (Gerald of Wales, p.88)
Jump up ^ Richard Fitz Pons was Miles' brother-in-law, being the husband of his sister, Matilda (Cawley 2012a, "English Earls 1067-1122: Matilda"; Cawley 2012b, "Richard FitzPons" cites Round 1888, Part I, 12, p. 20).
Jump up ^ Cawley 2012d gives the lineage as:
Bertha daughter of Sibylle de Neufmarchâe married William [II] de Briouse (died after 1175))
William [III] de Briouse (died 1211)
Reynold de Briouse (died 1227)
William de Briouse (hanged 1230)
Eleanor de Briouse

end of biography

Children:

12035. Lady Bertha of Hereford was born in 1107 in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England; died in ~ 1180 in Bramber, Sussex, England.
Margaret of Hereford was born in 1122-1123 in England; died on 6 Apr 1197; was buried in Llanthony Secunda, Gloucestershire, England.
Lucy FitzMiles was born in ~1136 in Brecknockshire, Wales; died in ~1220.

48586.

Sir William FitzRanulph, Lord of Copeland was born in ~1078 in Normandie, France (son of Sir Ranulph Meschines, Vicomte de Bayeux and Margaret Avranches); died before 1135 in Cumberland, England.

William married Cecily Rumilly in 1110. Cecily was born in ~1092 in Skipton, North Yorkshire, England; died before 1155. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48587.

Cecily Rumilly was born in ~1092 in Skipton, North Yorkshire, England; died before 1155.

Children:

24293. Matilda Le Meschin was born in 1126 in Harringworth, Northamptonshire, England; died in 1190.

48600.

Sir Henry de Beaumont, Knight, 1st Earl of Warwick was born in ~ 1050 in Normandy, France (son of Roger de Beaumont and Adeline of Meulan); died on 20 Jun 1119; was buried in Les Preaux, Normandy, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

Possessions: LLANRHIDIAN, WALES; Llanrhidian, Wales
Possessions: PENRHYS, WALES; Penrhys, Wales
Possessions: SWANSEA, WALES; Swansea, Wales

Notes:

Henry de Beaumont, (alias de Newburgh), 1st Earl of Warwick (died 20 June 1119) was a Norman nobleman who rose to great prominence in England.

Origins

Henry was a younger son of Roger de Beaumont by Adeline of Meulan, daughter of Waleran III, Count of Meulan, and Oda de Conteville.

Granted lordship of Le Neubourg[edit]
He was given by his father the modest lordship of Le Neubourg, in central Normandy, 12 km NE of his father's caput of Beaumont-le-Roger on the River Risle. From this lordship he adopted for himself and his descendants the surname Anglicised to "de Newburgh", frequently Latinised to de Novo Burgo (meaning "from the new borough/town").

Career

Henry was said, by Orderic Vitalis the Norman monk historian, to have been with William the Conqueror on his 1068 campaign in the Midlands when he was supposedly given charge of Warwick Castle, but there is no supporting evidence for this late source. Little is in fact known of his career before 1088. However he took a leading role in reconciling the Conqueror with his eldest son Robert Curthose in 1081 so he stood high in the Conqueror's favour. In 1088 he was a royal agent in the arrest and trial of the traitorous bishop of Durham, William de Saint-Calais.

Created 1st Earl of Warwick

In due course he acquired a much greater land-holding in England when, in reward for help in suppressing the Rebellion of 1088, King William II made him Earl of Warwick in 1088. The lands of the earldom were put together from several sources. The bulk was provided by the majority of the lands in Warwickshire and elsewhere recorded as those of his elder brother Robert, Count of Meulan in the Domesday Survey of 1086. He also received large royal estates in Rutland and the royal forest of Sutton, which became Sutton Chase. The complicated arrangement to endow his earldom is unprecedented, and must have been the result of a three way arrangement between his father, his brother and the king.

Supporter of Henry I

Henry became the companion and friend of King Henry I, William II's successor. When in 1100 a division took place amongst the barons, who had gathered together in the aftermath of the king's sudden death to choose a successor to William II, it was mainly owing to his advice that Henry, the conqueror's fourth son, was selected. However, in the following year most of the barons were openly or secretly disloyal and favoured the attempt of Duke Robert to gain the Crown. Henry de Beaumont and his brother were amongst the few that remained faithful to the King.

Acquires lordship of Gower

He acquired the lordship of Gower in Wales around 1107 from the favour of King Henry and built a castle at Swansea, which was unsuccessfully attacked by the Welsh in 1113; he also captured the Gower Peninsula in south west Glamorgan. He or his barons built other castles at Penrhys, Llanrhidian and Swansea in 1120, together with the others at Oystermouth and Loughor, the only remains of the latter are a mound and a keep.[1][2][2]

Marriage & progeny

He married before 1100 Margaret, daughter of Geoffrey II of Perche and Beatrix of Montdidier, daughter of Hilduin IV, Count of Montdidier, and had the following children:

Roger de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Warwick (c.1102-1153), who succeeded him as Earl of Warwick.
Robert de Neubourg (d.1159), who inherited Henry's Norman lands and was Steward of Normandy. His eldest son Henry de Neubourgh (c. 1130 - 1214) inherited his lands in Normandy, while his younger son Roger de Newburgh (c. 1135 - 1192) inherited his lands in Dorset.
Rotrou (died 27 November 1183), who was Bishop of âEvreux subsequently Archbishop of Rouen, and Chief Justiciar and Steward of Normandy.
Geoffrey de Neubourg. He moved to England at the end of 1137 and resided thereafter with his eldest brother Earl Roger of Warwick. He made a number of appearances in Earl Roger's charters as "Geoffrey the earl's brother." When Roger died in 1153 and was succeeded by his son, Earl William, "Geoffrey the earl's uncle" continued to live in the Warwick household. He appears as a ducal justice in Normandy in his later years. See Haskins Society Journal 13 (2004): 50.
Henry de Neubourg, otherwise known as "Henry of Gower", who re-conquered the family's Welsh estates in around 1136, holding the lordship of Gower throughout the reign of King Stephen.

Death & burial

He entered the abbey of St Peter of Les Prâeaux before his death and died as a monk there on 20 June 1119. An eighteenth-century woodcut of his tomb in the chapter house, with those of his brother and father beside him, survives, though the abbey is long ruined.

end

Henry married Margaret of Perche before 1100. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48601.
Margaret of Perche
Children:

24300. Sir Roger de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Warwick was born in 1102; died on 12 Jun 1153.

48604.

Ivo Harcourt was born in ~1130; died in 1185.

Ivo married Joan Braose. Joan (daughter of Sir William de Braose, Knight, 3rd Lord of Bramber and Lady Bertha of Hereford) was born in ~1130 in Bramber Castle, West Sussex, England; died in 1170 in Shenton, Leicestershire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48605.

Joan Braose was born in ~1130 in Bramber Castle, West Sussex, England (daughter of Sir William de Braose, Knight, 3rd Lord of Bramber and Lady Bertha of Hereford); died in 1170 in Shenton, Leicestershire, England.

Notes:

Joan (Agnes) Harcourt formerly Braose aka de Braose
Born about 1130 in Bramber Castle, Sussex, England
HIDE ANCESTORS
Daughter of William (Braose) de Braose and Bertha (FitzMiles) de Braose
Sister of Susan (Braose) de Braose [half], William (Braose) de Briouze, Maud (Braose) de Brampton, Sybil (Braose) de Port, Bertha (Braose) de Braose and Roger (Braose) de Braose
Wife of Ivo (Harcourt) de Harcourt — married [date unknown] [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Mother of Robert (Harcourt) de Harcourt and Margaret (Harcourt) de Holland
Died 1170 in Shenton, Leicestershire, England
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Biography
Name
Name: Agnes /de Braose/
Source: #S5
Page: Ancestry Family Trees
Data:
Text: http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=6835128&pid=-970448434
Note: #N1614
Birth
Birth:
Date: say 1135
Name
Name: Agnes Alive /DE BRAOSE/[1]
Birth
Birth:
Date: 1130
Place: Market Bosworth, Leicestershire, England[2]
Death
Death:
Date: 1170
Place: Shenton, Leicestershire, England[3]
Notes
Note N1614
Sources
? Source: #S1 Page: Database online. Data: Text: Record for Margaret Harcourt
? Source: #S1 Page: Database online. Data: Text: Record for Margaret Harcourt
? Source: #S1 Page: Database online. Data: Text: Record for Margaret Harcourt
Source S5
Title: Ancestry Family Trees
Publication: Name: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members.;
Source: S1 Author: Ancestry.com Title: Public Member Trees Publication: Name: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.; Location: Provo, UT, USA; Date: 2006; Repository: #R1
Repository: R1 Name: www.ancestry.com Address: E-Mail Address: Phone Number:
Source: S2375940657 Repository: #R2375940656 Title: Ancestry Family Trees Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. Note: This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. Page: Ancestry Family Trees Note: Data: Text: http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=27624422&pid=1146
Repository: R2375940656 Name: Ancestry.com Address: http://www.Ancestry.com Note:
Acknowledgments
This person was created through the import of Acrossthepond.ged on 21 February 2011.
This person was created through the import of LJ Pellman Consolidated Family_2011-03-21.ged on 21 March 2011.
WikiTree profile De Braose-144 created through the import of Ancestor's that we lost, the Decendants they left behind_2011-08-28_01 (2).ged on Sep 12, 2011 by Willette Bryant. See the Braose-144 Changes page for the details of edits by Willette and others.
WikiTree profile Harcourt-130 created through the import of heinakuu2011-6.ged on Jul 5, 2011 by Johanna Amnelin. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Johanna and others.
WikiTree profile Braoise-1 created through the import of The BTM Tree.ged on Jun 26, 2011 by Carolyn Trenholm. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Carolyn and others.

Children:

24302. Robert Harcourt was born in ~1150 in Leicestershire, England; died in 1202.

48624.

Sir Roger Bigod, Knight was born in ~1060 in Manche, Normandy, France; died on 9 Sep 1107 in (Norfolkshire, England); was buried in Norwich, England.

Notes:

Roger Bigod (died 1107) was a Norman knight who travelled to England in the Norman Conquest. He held great power in East Anglia, and five of his descendants were earls of Norfolk. He was also known as Roger Bigot, appearing as such as a witness to the Charter of Liberties of Henry I of England.

Biography

Roger came from a fairly obscure family of poor knights in Normandy. Robert le Bigot, certainly a relation of Roger's, possibly his father, acquired an important position in the household of William, Duke of Normandy (later William I of England), due, the story goes, to his disclosure to the duke of a plot by the duke's cousin William Werlenc.[1]

Both Roger and Robert may have fought at the Battle of Hastings, and afterwards they were rewarded with a substantial estate in East Anglia. The Domesday Book lists Roger as holding six lordships in Essex, 117 in Suffolk and 187 in Norfolk.

Bigod's (Bigot) base was in Thetford, Norfolk, then the see of the bishop, where he founded a priory later donated to the abbey at Cluny. In 1101 he further consolidated his power when Henry I granted him licence to build a castle at Framlingham, which became the family seat of power until their downfall in 1307. Another of his castles was Bungay Castle, also in Suffolk.

In 1069 he, Robert Malet and Ralph de Gael (then Earl of Norfolk), defeated Sweyn Estrithson (Sweyn II) of Denmark near Ipswich. After Ralph de Gael's fall in 1074, Roger was appointed sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, and acquired many of the dispossessed earl's estates. For this reason he is sometimes counted as Earl of Norfolk, but he probably was never actually created earl. (His son Hugh acquired the title earl of Norfolk in 1141.) He acquired further estates through his influence in local law courts as sheriff and great lord of the region.

In the Rebellion of 1088 he joined other barons in England against William II, whom they hoped to depose in favour of Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy. He seems to have lost his lands after the rebellion had failed, but regained them after reconciling with the king.

In 1100, Robert Bigod (Bigot) was one of the witnesses recorded on the Charter of Liberties, King Henry I's coronation promises later to influence the Magna Carta of 1215.

In 1101 there was another attempt to bring in Robert of Normandy by removing King Henry, but this time Roger Bigod stayed loyal to the king.

He died on 9 September 1107 and is buried in Norwich. Upon his death there was a dispute over his burial place between the Bishop of Norwich, Herbert Losinga, and the monks at Thetford Priory, founded by Bigod. The monks claimed Roger's body, along with those of his family and successors, had been left to them by Roger for burial in the priory in Roger's foundation charter (as was common practice at the time). The bishop of Norwich stole the body in the middle of the night and had him buried in the new cathedral he had built in Norwich.

For some time he was thought to have two wives, Adelaide/Adeliza and Alice/Adeliza de Tosny. It is now believed these were the same woman, Adeliza (Alice) de Tosny (Toeni, Toeny). She was the sister and coheiress of William de Tosny, Lord of Belvoir.

He was succeeded by his eldest son, William Bigod, and, after William drowned in the sinking of the White Ship, by his second son, Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk. He also had three daughters: Gunnor, who married Robert fitz Swein of Essex, Lord of Rayleigh; Cecily, who married William d'Aubigny "Brito"; and Maud, who married William d'Aubigny "Pincerna", and was mother to William d'Aubigny, 1st Earl of Arundel.[2]

end

Roger married Adeliza de Tosny. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48625.

Adeliza de Tosny

Children:

24312. Sir Hugh Bigod, Knight, 1st Earl of Norfolk was born in 0___ 1095 in Belvoir Castle, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England; died in 0___ 1177 in Israel.
Maud Bigod was born in (Belvoir Castle, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England).

24082.

Sir Aubrey de Vere, II was born in ~ 1085 in (Normandy, France) (son of Aubrey de Vere, I and Beatrice Ghent); died in 0May 1141 in (Thrapston, Northamptonshire, England).

Notes:

Aubrey de Vere (c. 1085 – May 1141) — also known as "Alberic[us] de Ver" and "Albericus regis camerarius" (the king's chamberlain)— was the second of that name in England after the Norman Conquest, being the eldest surviving son of Aubrey de Vere and his wife Beatrice.

Aubrey II served as one of the king's chamberlains and as a justiciar under kings Henry I and Stephen.[1] Henry I also appointed him as sheriff of London and Essex and co-sheriff with Richard Basset of eleven counties. In June 1133, that king awarded the office of master chamberlain to Aubrey and his heirs. A frequent witness of royal charters for Henry I and Stephen, he appears to have accompanied Henry to Normandy only once. The chronicler William of Malmesbury reports that in 1139, Aubrey was King Stephen's spokesman to the church council at Winchester, when the king had been summoned to answer for the seizure of castles held by Roger, Bishop of Salisbury and his nephews, the bishops of Ely and Lincoln.[2] In May 1141, during the English civil war, Aubrey was killed by a London mob and was buried in the family mausoleum at Colne Priory, Essex.

The stone tower at Hedingham, in Essex, was most likely begun by Aubrey and completed by his son and heir, Aubrey de Vere, 1st Earl of Oxford. In addition to his patronage of Colne Priory, the new master chamberlain either founded a cell of the Benedictine abbey St. Melanie in Rennes, Brittany, at Hatfield Broadoak or Hatfield Regis, Essex, or took on the primary patronage of that community soon after it was founded.

His eldest son, another Aubrey de Vere, was later created Earl of Oxford, and his descendants held that title and the office that in later centuries was known as Lord Great Chamberlain until the extinction of the Vere male line in 1703.[3]

His wife Adeliza, daughter of Gilbert fitz Richard of Clare, survived her husband for twenty-two years. For most of that time she was a corrodian at St. Osyth's Priory, Chich, Essex.[4]

Their known children are:

Aubrey de Vere, 1st Earl of Oxford (married 1. Beatrice, countess of Guisnes, 2. Eufemia, 3. Agnes of Essex)
Rohese de Vere, Countess of Essex (married 1. Geoffrey de Mandeville, 1st Earl of Essex, 2. Payn de Beauchamp)
Robert (married 1. Matilda de Furnell, 2. Margaret daughter of Baldwin Wake)
Alice "of Essex" (married 1. Robert of Essex, 2. Roger fitz Richard)
Geoffrey (married 1. widow of Warin fitz Gerold, 2. Isabel de Say)
Juliana Countess of Norfolk (married 1. Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk, 2. Walkelin Maminot)
William de Vere, Bishop of Hereford (1186-1198)
Gilbert, prior of the Knights Hospitaller in England (1195-1197)
a daughter (name unknown) who married Roger de Ramis.

end of biography

24083.

Children:

Rohese de Vere was born in ~1110; died after 1166.
Sir Aubrey de Vere, III, Knight, 1st Earl of Oxford was born in ~ 1115; died on 26 Dec 1194.
24313. Juliane de Vere, Countess of Norfolk was born in ~ 1116 in Castle Hedingham, Essex, England; died in ~ 1199.
Sir Robert de Vere, Lord of Twywell was born in 1124 in Thrapston, Northamptonshire, England; died on 26 Dec 1194 in Thrapston, Northamptonshire, England.
Adeliza de Vere was born in ~1125 in Essex, England; died in 1185 in Saffron Walden, Essex, England.

11128.

Gilbert Giffard, Royal Serjeant was born in ~ 1065 in (France); died in 0___ 1129 in Winterbourne Monkton, Marlborough, Wiltshire, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: 0___ 1075, Axbridge, Somerset, England

Notes:

Gilbert Giffard
Born about 1065 in England or France
Son of [father unknown] and [mother unknown]
[sibling(s) unknown]
[spouse(s) unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Father of John (Marshal) FitzGilbert and William (Giffard) Fitz Gilbert
Died before 1129 in Winterbourne Monkton, Marlborough, Wiltshire, England

DISPUTED PARENTAGE

Since his various parentages are all disputed, they have been removed. See the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy's Medieval Lands Index for more information. Also see discussion below.

Removed these profiles as parents: Rollo Cheddar, Geoffrey Le Mareschal, and Sibyl di Conversano . Please don't attach any parents without first discussing via post on G2G. (Darlene Athey Hill - 26 Sep 2015)

Biography

Gilbert Giffard was a tenant of Glastonbury manor in Winterbourne Monkton in Wiltshire, and held a position as a marshal to the King. That Gilbert was the name of the grandfather of William the Marshall was known because William's father was often referred to as John fitz (son of) Gilbert. That Gilbert, John's father, was already involved in the family's tradition of claiming a royal marshalcy was also indicated from a record in the time of King John, although the nature of that marshalcy in his generation is not well understood.[1] However the identification of Gilbert with records for a man normally called Gilbert Giffard (or Gibard) has become widespread since a publication of N. E. Stacy in 1999 concerning Gilbert's landlord.[2] He not only showed that Giffard had a tax exemption, such as his descendants did for their marshalcy, and that his lands were inherited by the Marshals, but also that Gilbert Giffard's son William Giffard or William fitz Gilbert, was presented to the church of Cheddar as "William Giffard, son of Gilbert the king's marshal".

Concerning his parentage, various theories exist but none are proven. Each tends to start with one known thing, and build from there:

Starting from the newest known information, the surname Giffard, Crouch for example notes that it was a common descriptive second name meaning "chubby cheeks" and says "It is highly unlikely that Gilbert Giffard was related to the Conqueror's leading follower, Walter Giffard, Earl of Buckingham; it is conceivable on the grounds of proximity, however, that he might have had a connection with the unrelated West Country barons, the Giffards of Brimpsfield." (Traditionally the Giffards of Brimpsfield and Bucks are often linked.[3] Some still suspect there is a link.[4]
Keats-Rohan has an entry for him in "Domesday People" (p.214) under "Gislebert Gibart", apparently an entry written without reference to Stacey. She adds that "The fee of Robert Gibart is mentioned in Hist. S. Petri Glocs. ii, 230."[5] In her later "Domesday Descendants" she cites Stacey and has him under "Marescal, Gilbert" (p.1029). She suggests he might be the son of "Robert marshal, who occurs in Domesday Wiltshire" (Domesday People p.391). However In footnote g, Appendix G, Complete Peerage says "Gilbert may have been son or grandson of an otherwise unknown Robert, who in 1086 held Cheddar, Somerset, under Roger de Courseulles (Domesday Book, vol i, fol 94; cf note 'h' infra). Robert the Marshal, who in 1086 held Lavington, Wilts, in chief (Idem, vol i, f. 73) has been suggested as the possible progenitor of the family (Davis, op. cit., pp xxvi - xxvii); but this is unlikely as in 1166 Lavington was held by Piers de la Mare (Red Book, p 248)." It therefore appears that Keats-Rohan was following up the lead of CP, seeking for evidence that Robert in Lavington having other land holdings that might correspond to those known for the later Marshall family, specifically in Cheddar. The Robert in Cheddar has an entry in Domesday People called "Robert Herecom" (p.389[6]). According to a summary of this line of thought by Chris Phillips, Keats-Rohan's various entries give "a slightly complicated picture, but maybe worth investigating further".[7]
Older works speculated based on the longer-known above-mentioned claim to a "chief marshalship" which King John said happened during the time of King Henry I. Gilbert and his son John faced counter claims from two other men, Robert de Venoiz, and William Hastings. And on this basis many authors have speculated that the three families shared a common ancestry. Robert de Venoiz in particular was apparently son and heir to a Norman named Geoffrey who was sometimes referred to as "Marshall" (although in his time this would not normally have been considered a name, just a description). This family's particular tradition of Marshalcy apparently went back to a marshalcy in Venoix in Normandy.[8] Various scenarios have been presented as fact, such as Gilbert being a son of Robert, or of Geoffrey, or that Gilbert married a lady of their family. (And similarly, the Hastings family have sometimes been linked in speculative pedigrees.) But in fact the record of King John does not strongly imply that before the time of Henry I there was one single "chief" marshal. It could well have been a decision made at that time. There were many hereditary "marshalls" in England and Normandy, as discussed by Round in his book on the subject. (The use of a the job as a surname also probably did not start until King Stephen's time.[9])
A very simple proposal found in the Complete Peerage is that Gilbert's father was also possibly named Gilbert. The reasoning being that the Gilbert of the Domesday book made around 1086 was many decades before the reign of Henry I, when Gilbert the father of John was still alive.[7] Other authorities seem to accept it is the same person though the generations are long.[10]
Gilbert had two sons:

John Fitz-Gilbert, who was accepted as being "chief" Marshal of England while his father still lived, in the time of King Henry I. Probably the first of his family to use the job title as a surname. Born about 1105.
William Giffard or Fitz-Gilbert, born about 1107. He became chancellor to Queen Mathilda.[11]
As an hereditary marshal of the King, Gilbert was a French speaking Norman (although some Normans married locally and could speak some English) and the old French title Le Mareschal (Latin Marescallus or Marescalcus) which has evolved into modern English "Marshal" was a term going back to Frankish times, originally referring to a function of "horse servant", which is what the word meant in the old language of the Franks. But by his lifetime, this job, like many other household positions, had evolved. According to a treatise of 1136 made for King Stephen, the Master Marshall ("John", Gilbert's son) had duties which "involved the keeping of certain royal records" and the management of "four other lesser marshals, both clerks and knights, assistants called sergeants, the knight ushers and common ushers of the royal hall, the usher of the king's chamber, the watchmen of court, the tent-keeper and the keeper of the king's hearth".[12]

In Gilbert's family, the evidence is relatively clear that the function became a surname, not in Gilbert's lifetime probably, but during the lifetime of his son John. Crouch (p.226) mentions that while surnames from hereditary offices were not an uncommon innovation in the 12th century, this family is a "rather early" example of a case where not only the heir of the Marshall, but several of John's sons, all used the office as a second name. Richard Brooks suggests that John was the first to use the word as a name, because he is specifically referred to as someone "named" the Marshall, and this was during a period when he had split with King Stephen and could not have been functioning as the King's Marshall.[9]

Gilbert's grandson, Sir William Marshal, knighted and named 1st Earl of Pembroke, made the office very important during the last decades of the 12th Century and first decades of the 13th. He served under four kings: Henry II, Richard "Lionheart," John "Lackland" and Henry III. As the regent for Henry III, Sir William Marshal became a powerful European statesman, raising his office still further beyond its humble origins. In William's time the Chief Marshal became "Earl Marshal". It is still the seventh of the eight "great officers of state" of the British monarchy, just below the Lord High Constable and above the Lord High Admiral. Since the 13th Century the office has been a hereditary position of the Earls (now Dukes) of Norfolk.[13]

Sources

Source S-2024265482 Royal and Noble Genealogical Data, database online, Brian Tompsett, Copyright 1994-2001, Version March 25, 2001, Royal and Noble Genealogical Data, Department of Computer Science, University of Hull, (Hull, United Kingdom, HU6 7RX, B.C.Tompsett@dcs.hull.ac.uk), NS073013
Richardson, Douglas, and Kimball G. Everingham. 2013. Royal ancestry: a study in colonial and medieval families. Salt Lake City, UT.: Douglas Richardson. Vol IV, page 33, cited by Mr. Marlyn Lewis, Our Royal, Titled, Noble, and Commoner Ancestors & Cousins, database online, Portland, Oregon.
Medieval Lands, database online, author Charles Cawley, (Foundation for Medieval Genealogy, 2006-2013), England, earls created 1138-1143, Chapter 10, Pembroke: B. Earls of Pembroke 1189-1245 (MARSHAL), Gilbert "the Marshal"
Dictionary of Medieval Knighthood and Chivalry, Bradford B. Broughton, (Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, Inc., 1986).
? Round, J. H. (1911), The King's Serjeants & Officers of State with their Coronation Services. p.88
? English Historical Review, Feb. 1999: Henry of Blois and the Lordship of Glastonbury (N. E. Stacy). This article is now cited by newer editions of David Crouch's "William Marshall" and has been discussed online by medieval genealogists such as John Ravilious, Chris Phillips and Douglas Richardson. For example: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/gen-medieval/2003-01/1042089376.
? For example in old editions of Burkes. https://books.google.be/books?id=uo9AAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA207
? http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/gen-medieval/2003-01/1042326346
? See online here. But the editors believe this is a 12th century document.
? So Keats-Rohan equated this Robert with the one in Shearston, with the same overlord as the Robert in Cheddar.
? 7.0 7.1 See the post of Chris Phillips: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/2003-01/1042105703
? Round, J. H. (1911), The King's Serjeants & Officers of State with their Coronation Services. p.90
? 9.0 9.1 Richard Brooks, The Knight who saved England.
? Ravilious on the generation length: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/gen-medieval/2003-01/1042297945
? See the post of John Ravilious: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/2003-01/1042089376
? David Crouch, "William Marshall" 2nd ed. 2002, Appendix 2.
? Earl_Marshal on Wikipedia

11129.

Mary Margarite De Venuz was born on 10 Mar 1085 in Calvados, Basse-Normandie, France; died in 0___ 1119 in Pembrokeshire, Wales.

Notes:

Mary Margarite De VenuzPrint Family Tree Mary /De Venuz/

Born 10 March 1085 - Calvados, Basse-Normandie, France
Deceased in 1119 - Pembrokeshire, Wales , age at death: 34 years old

Parents
Geoffrey De Venuz, born in 1066 - France, Deceased in 1157 - East Worldham, Hampshire, England age at death: 91 years old
Married to
? ?

Spouses, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren
Married in 1104, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, to Gilbert Giffard (Fitzgilbert) (Royal Serjeant and Marshall to Henry I) MARSHALL, born in 1075 - Axbridge, Somerset, England, Deceased in 1130 - Marlborough, Wiltshire, England age at death: 55 years old (Parents : M Robert (Curthose) De (Duke of NORMANDY) NORMANDY 1054-1134 & F Sybilla (Brindisi Of) CONVERSANO 1079-1103) with
M John (Fitzgilbert) (Earl of Pembroke, Marshall of England) MARSHALL 1105-1165 married, Wiltshire, England, to Aline Pipard
John (Fitzgilbert) (Earl of Pembroke, Marshall of England) MARSHALL 1105-1165 married in 1143, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, to Sibilla De SALISBURY 1109-1155 with
M John MARSHALL 1144-1194 married in 1165, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, to Alice De Port 1144-1180 with :
M John Marshall 1185-1235
M William (SIR - Knight Templar)(Earl Pembroke) MARSHALL 1146-1219 married in August 1189, London, England, to Isabel De CLARE 1172-1217 with :
F Maud (Countess of Norfolk Countess of Surrey) MARSHALL 1192-1248
F Eve (Baroness of Abergavenny) MARSHALL 1194-1246
M Gilbert MARSHALL 1196-1241
M William (4th Earl of Pembroke/ChiefJusticar of Ireland) MARSHALL 1198-1231
F Isabel (Fitzgilbert) (Countess MARSHALL) MARSHALL 1200-1239
F Sibyl MARSHALL ca 1201-1245
F Joane MARSHALL 1202-1234
F Margaret (Fitzgilbert) MARSHALL /1155-1242 married in 1181, Wiltshire, England, to Ralph De (Lord Dudley) SOMERY 1151-1210 with :
F Joan De SOMERY ca 1191-1276
M Roger De (SIR - Lord Dudley) SOMERY 1208-1273

Paternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M Ralf De Venuz 1040- married
F ? ?
M Geoffrey De Venuz 1066-1157
married
1 child

(hide)

Timeline
10 March 1085 : Birth - Calvados, Basse-Normandie, France
1104 : Marriage (with Gilbert Giffard (Fitzgilbert) (Royal Serjeant and Marshall to Henry I) MARSHALL) - Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales
1105 : Birth - Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales
1119 : Death - Pembrokeshire, Wales
19 July 1119 : Death - Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales

Sources
Individual:
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=9978
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=9978
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=9978
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=9978
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=9978
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Ancestry Chart Descendancy Chart
_____| 4_ Ralf De Venuz 1040-
/
|2_ Geoffrey De Venuz 1066-1157
| \
|--1_ Mary Margarite De Venuz 1085-1119
|3_ ? ?

Family Tree owner : Dave BRADLEY (belfast8)

end of profile

Children:

5564. Baron John FitzGilbert was born on 26 Nov 1105 in (Wiltshire) England; died on 29 Sep 1165 in Rockley, Marlborough, Wiltshire, England; was buried in Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England.

11132.

Notes:

Gilbert fitz Gilbert de Clare (c.?1100 – 6 January 1148), was created Earl of Pembroke in 1138. He was commonly known as Strongbow.[a]

Life

Born at Tonbridge, Gilbert de Clare was a son of Gilbert Fitz Richard de Clare and Alice de Claremont.[1] He started out without land and wealth of his own but was closely related to very powerful men, specifically his uncles Walter de Clare and Roger de Clare.[2]

In 1136 Gilbert fitz Gilbert led an expedition against Exmes and burned parts of the town, including the church of Notre Dame, but was interrupted by the forces of William III, Count of Ponthieu and escaped the resulting melee only after suffering heavy losses.[3] Gilbert was a Baron, that is, a tenant-in-chief in England, and inherited the estates of his paternal uncles, Roger and Walter, which included the baronies and castles of Bienfaite and Orbec in Normandy. He held the lordship of Nether Gwent and the castle of Striguil (later Chepstow). King Stephen created him Earl of Pembroke, and gave him the rape and castle of Pevensey.

After Stephen's defeat at Lincoln on 2 February 1141, Gilbert was among those who rallied to Empress Matilda when she recovered London in June, but he was at Canterbury when Stephen was recrowned late in 1141.[4] He then joined Geoffrey's plot against Stephen, but when that conspiracy collapsed, he again adhered to Stephen, being with him at the siege of Oxford late in 1142. In 1147 he rebelled when Stephen refused to give him the castles surrendered by his nephew Gilbert, 2nd Earl of Hertford, whereupon the King marched to his nearest castle and nearly captured him. However, the Earl appears to have made his peace with Stephen before his death the following year.[5]

Family

He married Isabel de Beaumont, before 1130, daughter of Sir Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester, Count of Meulan, and Elizabeth de Vermandois.[6] Isabel had previously been the mistress of King Henry I of England.[7]

By her Gilbert had:

Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke[b][8]
Basilia, who married (1) Raymond FitzGerald (Raymond le Gros) and (2) Geoffrey FitzRobert.[9]
a daughter who married William Bloet.[10]

end of biography

11133.

Children:

5566. Sir Richard de Clare, Knight, 2nd Earl Pembroke was born in 1125 in Tonbridge, Kent, England; died on 20 Apr 1176 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland.

24072.

Other Events and Attributes:

Occupation: Master butler of the Royal household for King Stephen

Notes:

William d'Aubigny, 1st Earl of Lincoln and 1st Earl of Arundel (c. 1109[citation needed] – 12 October 1176[1]), also known as William d'Albini, William de Albini and William de Albini II,[2] was an English nobleman. He was the son of William d'Aubigny "Pincerna"[a] of Old Buckenham Castle in Norfolk, and Maud Bigod, daughter of Roger Bigod of Norfolk.

Died 12 Oct 1176
Buried Wymondham Abbey
Spouse(s) Queen Adeliza

Issue

William d'Aubigny, 2nd Earl of Arundel
Reynor d'Aubigny
Henry d'Aubigny
Geoffrey d'Aubigny
Alice d'Aubigny
Olivia d'Aubigny
Agatha d'Aubigny
Father William d'Aubigny
Mother Maud Bigod
Occupation Master butler of the Royal household

Life and career

William fought loyally for King Stephen of England, who made him first Earl of Lincoln and then Earl of Arundel (more precisely, Earl of Sussex). In 1153 he helped arrange the truce between Stephen and Henry Plantagenet, known as the Treaty of Wallingford, which brought an end to The Anarchy. When the latter ascended the throne as Henry II, he confirmed William's earldom and gave him direct possession of Arundel Castle (instead of the possession in right of his wife (d.1151) he had previously had). He remained loyal to the king during the 1173 revolt of Henry the Young King, and helped defeat the rebellion.

In 1143, as Earl of Lincoln, he made two charters confirming a donation of land around Arundel in Sussex to the abbey of Affligem in Brabant (representing his wife Adeliza of Louvain), with William's brother, Olivier, present.

He was the builder of Castle Rising Castle at Castle Rising, Norfolk.

William is the first proven English supporter of the crusader Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem and before 1146 had granted them land at Wymondham and built a Leper Hospital near his castle in Norfolk.[3] His wife, Adeliza, was also a major benefactor to leper hospitals at Wilton, Wiltshire and Arundel[3] and his cousin, Roger de Mowbray and his family, were to become the most significant patrons of the Order's headquarters based at Burton Lazars Hospital.[4][5]

Marriage and issue

The younger William was an important member of Henry I of England's household. After Henry's death, William married his widow, Queen Adeliza in 1138. William and Adeliza were parents to the following children:

William d'Aubigny, 2nd Earl of Arundel (d. 24 December 1193)
Reynor d'Aubigny
Henry d'Aubigny
Geoffrey d'Aubigny
Alice d'Aubigny (d. 11 September 1188)
Olivia d'Aubigny
Agatha d'Aubigny

end of biography

24073.

Adeliza of Louvain was born in ~ 1103 in Leuven, Belgium; died on 23 Apr 1151 in Affligem Abbey, Brabant, Belgium; was buried in Affligem Abbey, Brabant, Belgium.

Notes:

Adeliza of Louvain,[2] sometimes known in England as Adelicia of Louvain,[3] also called Adela and Aleidis; (c. 1103 – 23 April 1151) was Queen of England from 1121 to 1135, as the second wife of King Henry I.[4] She was the daughter of Godfrey I, Count of Louvain.

Henry was some 35 years older than his bride, who was about 18 when they married. He already had children, though no surviving son, from his first marriage to Matilda of Scotland, as well as several illegitimate ones. As his second marriage produced no children he was to leave his throne to his daughter the Empress Matilda. After his death Adeliza spent three years based in a convent, then married again and had seven children by William d'Aubigny, 1st Earl of Arundel. But a year before her death at the age of 48 she left her husband to move to a monastery in Flanders, where at least one of her brothers also lived.

Adeliza's marriage seems to have been successful, apart from the failure to produce a new heir. The flow of Henry's illegitimate children seems already to have ceased by the time of the marriage, and they spent most of their marriage together, which was by no means inevitable in royal marriages of the period. She seems to have been influential in the promotion of French poetry and other arts in the court, but to have played little part in politics.

Early life and family

Adeliza of Louvain was born in 1105 in Leuven, present-day Belgium.[5] She was renowned for her beauty, reflected in the epithet ‘the fair maiden of Brabant'. The chronicler Henry of Huntingdon also mentions Adeliza’s beauty in an interlude in his Historia Anglorum, stating, “A jewel grows pale on you, a crown does not shine. Put adornment aside, for nature provides your adornment...” [6]

Her father was Godfrey I, Count of Louvain (1095–1139), Landgrave of Brabant, and Duke of Lower Lotharingia (1106–1128), an ally of Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor. After the death of Adeliza’s mother, Ida of Chiny, Godfrey married Clementia of Burgundy, the mother of Baldwin VII, Count of Flanders who had fought with the French against the Normans in 1118.[7] Adeliza's brother, Joscelin of Louvain, married the heiress to the Percy fortune. He is often referred to as an “opportunist”.[8]

Queenship

Plans for Adeliza’s marriage to Henry I of England, may have begun when she was as young as sixteen, even before Henry’s only legitimate son, William Adelin, died on 25 November 1120 in the White Ship disaster. However, Henry’s need for a new male heir expedited the marriage plans and the couple wed on 24 January 1121. Apparently in addition to her beauty, Henry was also attracted to Adeliza as a wife because she was a descendant of Charlemagne.[7] It is thought that Henry’s only surviving legitimate child Empress Matilda, from his first wife Matilda of Scotland, may have been involved in arranging his second marriage, due to the fact that she was with him near the time that it was being negotiated.[7] Henry of Huntingdon mentions the royal couple in his Historia Anglorum, stating that the new queen accompanied Henry to London at Pentecost. Adeliza appears to have travelled extensively with Henry, probably to increase the chances of her conception.[9] Despite their close contact, however, Adeliza and Henry never produced a child.

Unlike Henry’s first wife Matilda, Adeliza appears to have played a very passive role in the administration of the kingdom. While Matilda issued some thirty-one charters and writs during her queenship, during Adeliza's fifteen-year marriage to Henry I she issued one, and she only attested 13 of Henry’s many charters, even though they were almost always together.[10]

Role as artistic patron

King Henry
Despite her limited involvement in politics, Adeliza seems to have played an active role as a patron of the arts and literature, and was influential in fostering the rise of French poetry in the English court. While English queens had been traditionally associated with artistic patronage for decades, and a number of them, including Edith of Wessex, Emma of Normandy and Matilda, had financed a number of works in different media, Adeliza primarily sponsored books written in French.[11] At the time, secular books in the French or Anglo-Norman vernacular were extremely popular, a trend given impetus by wealthy aristocratic women like Adeliza. Philippe de Thaon, an Anglo-Norman poet, dedicated his zoological treatise known as the Bestiary to the queen:

Philippe de Thaon Has distilled into a French treatise
The Bestiary, A book in Latin,
For the honour of a jewel Who is an outstandingly beautiful woman.
And she is courtly and wise, Of good customs and generous:
She is called ‘Aaliz’, Queen is she crowned,
She is the queen of England; May her soul never know trouble!
Listen to what we ?nd About her name in Hebrew:''
‘Aaliz’ is her name; ‘Praise of God’ is
In Hebrew truly ‘Aaliz’, laus of God.
I do not dare give further praise, Lest envy take me,
But so that she may be remembered And praised forever more
I wish to compose this book; May God be present at its beginning![12]

The Bestiary would have been amply illustrated, and was intended to be read page by page, not all at once, like a poem. Many other works that Adeliza commissioned were similar in structure to the Bestiary, including the now lost Life of King Henry by David.[13]

Widowhood and remarriage

When Henry died on 1 December 1135, Adeliza retired temporarily to the Benedictine convent of Wilton Abbey, near Salisbury. She was present at the dedication of Henry's tomb at Reading Abbey on the first anniversary of his death. At about that time, she founded a leper hospital dedicated to Saint Giles at Fugglestone St Peter, Wiltshire.

In 1138, three years after Henry I's death, Adeliza married William d'Aubigny, 1st Earl of Arundel, one of Henry I's advisors, and son of Guillaume d’Aubigny and Maud le Bigod.[1] Together, they lived at her castle of Arundel on the Sussex coast and had seven children.[14] Their names were (by order of birth), Alice, William, Olivia, Reynor, Geoffrey, Henry, and Agatha.[1][15]

Relationship with Matilda

Although not a great deal is known about Adeliza’s relationship with her stepdaughter, it is known she was present at the ceremony when Henry officially named Matilda as his heir presumptive, since the chronicler John of Worcester states that the Queen "swore [an oath] for the king's daughter." [16] After her second marriage, Adeliza received Matilda at her home in Arundel, along with Matilda’s half-brother Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester, in defiance of the wishes of her second husband who was a staunch supporter of King Stephen.[14] She later betrayed them and handed them over when King Stephen besieged the castle.[17] Trying to explain Adeliza's actions, John of Worcester suggests that "she feared the king’s majesty and worried that she might lose the great estate she held throughout England". He also mentions Adeliza's excuse to King Stephen: "She swore on oath that his enemies had not come to England on her account but that she had simply given them hospitality as persons of high dignity once close to her." [17]

Landholdings

Arundel Castle
Because of Henry I’s generosity, Adeliza was given the revenues of Rutland, Shropshire and a large district of London, with possession of the city of Chichester.[18] Henry also gave the manor of Aston to Adeliza "as his queen and wife". Landholdings that were part of Adeliza of Louvain’s dower include Waltham Abbey in Essex, an estate in south-east England, with areas in Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, and Middlesex. She had property in Devon. As a gift from Henry I, she was given a property in Ashleworth, a component of the royal estate of Berkeley. In 1126 the whole county of Shropshire was given to her, even though it is not listed in the Pipe Roll.

Adeliza gave her brother Joscelin a large estate in Sussex called Petworth that was dependent on her castle of Arundel.[19] Henry also gave Adeliza lands that had previously been Matilda’s including Waltham and Queenhithe. She had estates in Essex, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Middlesex, Gloucestershire, and Devon. Her husband then granted her exemption from tax for those lands. In additions to those gifts, she was given a portion of the royal estate at Berkeley, and the county of Shropshire.[20] After Matilda died, Adeliza continued to exercise jurisdiction over her lands, retaining some of her property until 1150. In 1136, she endowed Reading Abbey with one hundred shillings a year from the revenues of Queenhithe.[21] On the first anniversary of Henry I’s death, Adeliza gave the manor of Aston to the Abbey of Reading, and endowed them with lands “to provide for the convent and other religious pweaona [sic] coming to the abbey on the occasion of the anniversary of my lord King Henry.” She added the gift of a church a few years later.[22]

Later years

In the last years of her life, Adeliza appears to have faded into obscurity. In 1150, Adeliza left William to enter the monastery of Afflighem in Flanders. At least one of her brothers was also living at this monastery. The annals at the monastery are the only source to mention her death in 1151, and her burial site is unknown. Some traditions imply she was buried at the monastery, but a donation made by her brother Joscelin to Reading Abbey seems to suggest she was buried there with Henry I.[21]

end

Children:

12036. Sir William d'Aubigny, Knight, 2nd Earl of Arundel was born in 1138-1150; died on 24 Dec 1193; was buried in Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk, England.

6048.

Notes:

Henry founded the Plantagenet Dynasty...

Henry II (5 March 1133 – 6 July 1189), also known as Henry Curtmantle (French: Court-manteau), Henry FitzEmpress or Henry Plantagenet, ruled as Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Count of Nantes, King of England and Lord of Ireland; at various times, he also controlled Wales, Scotland and Brittany. Henry was the son of Geoffrey of Anjou and Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England. He became actively involved by the age of 14 in his mother's efforts to claim the throne of England, then occupied by Stephen of Blois, and was made Duke of Normandy at 17. He inherited Anjou in 1151 and shortly afterwards married Eleanor of Aquitaine, whose marriage to Louis VII of France had recently been annulled. Stephen agreed to a peace treaty after Henry's military expedition to England in 1153, and Henry inherited the kingdom on Stephen's death a year later.

Henry was an energetic and sometimes ruthless ruler, driven by a desire to restore the lands and privileges of his grandfather Henry I. During the early years of his reign the younger Henry restored the royal administration in England, re-established hegemony over Wales and gained full control over his lands in Anjou, Maine and Touraine. Henry's desire to reform the relationship with the Church led to conflict with his former friend Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. This controversy lasted for much of the 1160s and resulted in Becket's murder in 1170. Henry soon came into conflict with Louis VII and the two rulers fought what has been termed a "cold war" over several decades. Henry expanded his empire, often at Louis' expense, taking Brittany and pushing east into central France and south into Toulouse; despite numerous peace conferences and treaties, no lasting agreement was reached. By 1172, he controlled England, large parts of Wales, the eastern half of Ireland and the western half of France, an area that would later come to be called the Angevin Empire.

Henry and Eleanor had eight children. As they grew up, tensions over the future inheritance of the empire began to emerge, encouraged by Louis and his son King Philip II. In 1173 Henry's heir apparent, "Young Henry", rebelled in protest; he was joined by his brothers Richard and Geoffrey and by their mother, Eleanor. France, Scotland, Brittany, Flanders, and Boulogne allied themselves with the rebels. The Great Revolt was only defeated by Henry's vigorous military action and talented local commanders, many of them "new men" appointed for their loyalty and administrative skills. Young Henry and Geoffrey revolted again in 1183, resulting in Young Henry's death. The Norman invasion of Ireland provided lands for his youngest son John, but Henry struggled to find ways to satisfy all his sons' desires for land and immediate power. Philip successfully played on Richard's fears that Henry would make John king, and a final rebellion broke out in 1189. Decisively defeated by Philip and Richard and suffering from a bleeding ulcer, Henry retreated to Chinon castle in Anjou, where he died.

Henry's empire quickly collapsed during the reign of his youngest son John. Many of the changes Henry introduced during his long rule, however, had long-term consequences. Henry's legal changes are generally considered to have laid the basis for the English Common Law, while his intervention in Brittany, Wales and Scotland shaped the development of their societies and governmental systems. Historical interpretations of Henry's reign have changed considerably over time. In the 18th century, scholars argued that Henry was a driving force in the creation of a genuinely English monarchy and, ultimately, a unified Britain. During the Victorian expansion of the British Empire, historians were keenly interested in the formation of Henry's own empire, but they also expressed concern over his private life and treatment of Becket. Late-20th-century historians have combined British and French historical accounts of Henry, challenging earlier Anglo-centric interpretations of his reign.

Who could forget Peter O'Toole's magnificient protrayal of Henry II in the 1968 movie production of "The Lion in Winter" and Katherine Hepburn's Eleanor of Aquitaine? ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion_in_Winter_(1968_film)

end of biography

Source: 'The World Book Encyclopedia', 1968, p H178. 'Royalty for Commoners', Roderick W. Stuart, 1993, p 37-38. Reigned 1154-1189.

He ruled an empire that stretched from the Tweed to the Pyrenees. In spite of frequent hostitilties with the French King his own family and rebellious Barons (culminating in the great revolt of 1173-74) and his quarrel with Thomas Becket, Henry maintained control over his possessions until shortly before his death. His judicial and administrative reforms which increased Royal control and influence at the expense of the Barons were of great constitutional importance. Introduced trial by Jury. Duke of Normandy. Henry II 'Curt Mantel,' Duke of Normandy, Count of Maine and Anjou, King Of England became king in 1154.

At the height of his power, Henry ruled England and almost all western France. His marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, the most famous woman of the age, brought the duchy of Aquitaine under his control. Henry also claimed to rule Scotland, Wales, and eastern Ireland. Henry II carried on his grandfather's policy of limiting the power of the nobles. He also tried to make the Roman Catholic Church in England submit to his authority. This policy brought him into conflict with Thomas a Becket, Achbishop of Canterbury. Four of the king's knights murdered Becket while he was at vespers in his cathedral. Henry made Anglo-Saxon common law, rather than the revised Roman law, the supreme law of the land. He introduced trial by jury and circuit courts. In his later years, Henry's sons often rebelled against him. Two of them, Richard the Lion-Hearted and John, became the next two kings of England.

REF: "Falls the Shadow" Sharon Kay Penman: William the Conqueror requested a large number of Jews to move to England after his conquest. They spoke Norman & did well under his reign. They continued to thrive under William's grandson Henry II.

REF: British Monarchy Official Website: Henry II (reigned 1154-89)

ruled over an empire which stretched from the Scottish border to the Pyrenees. Married to Eleanor, the heiress of Aquitaine, the king spent only 13 years of his reign in England; the other 21 years were spent on the continent in his territories in what is now France. By 1158, Henry had restored to the crown some of the lands and royal power lost by Stephen. For example, locally chosen sheriffs were changed into royally appointed agents charged with enforcing the law and collecting taxes in the counties. Personally interested in government and law, Henry strengthened royal justice, making use of juries and re-introduced the sending of justices (judges) on regular tours of the country to try cases for the Crown. His legal reforms have led him to be seen as the founder of English Common Law. Henry's disagreements with his Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, over Church/State relations ended in Becket's murder in 1170. Family disputes almost wrecked the king's achievements and he died in 1189 at war with his sons.

Reigned 25 Oct 1154-1189. Invested As Duke Of Nomandy By His Parents In 1150.

Ruled An Empire That Stretched From The Tweed To The Pyrenees.

Numerous Quarrels With French King, & His Own Family.

Quarreled With Thomas Becket.

Beat Rebellious Barons (Culminating In The Great Revolt Of 1173-74).

Retained Control Of His Possessions Until Shortly Before His Death.

Important Judicial & Admin. Reforms Incr. Power Of King At The Expense Of Barons

Introduced Trial By Jury.

Count Of Anjou & Aquitaine.

Died:
Images and commentary for Chinon Castle ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Chinon

Buried:
Click on this link to view images of Fontevraud Abbey ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontevraud_Abbey

6049.

Notes:

Eleanor of Aquitaine (French: Aliâenor, âElâeonore, Latin: Alienora; 1122 – 1 April 1204) was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in western Europe during the High Middle Ages and a member of the Ramnulfid dynasty of rulers in southwestern France. She inherited the Duchy of Aquitaine from her father, William X, in 1137, and later became queen consort of France (1137–1152) and of England (1154–1189). She was the patron of literary figures such as Wace, Benoãit de Sainte-Maure, and Bernart de Ventadorn. She was a leader of the Second Crusade and of armies several times in her life.

As Duchess of Aquitaine, Eleanor was the most eligible bride in Europe. Three months after she became duchess, she married King Louis VII of France, son of her guardian, King Louis VI. As Queen of France, she participated in the unsuccessful Second Crusade. Soon after, Eleanor sought an annulment of her marriage,[1] but her request was rejected by Pope Eugene III.[2] However, after the birth of her second daughter Alix, Louis agreed to an annulment given that their union had not produced a son after fifteen years of marriage.[3] The marriage was annulled on 11 March 1152 on the grounds of consanguinity within the fourth degree. Their daughters were declared legitimate and custody was awarded to Louis, while Eleanor's lands were restored to her.

As soon as the annulment was granted, Eleanor became engaged to Henry, Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, who became King Henry II of England in 1154. Henry was her third cousin (cousin of the third degree), and eleven years younger. The couple married on 18 May 1152 (Whit Sunday), eight weeks after the annulment of Eleanor's first marriage, in a cathedral in Poitiers, France. Over the next thirteen years, she bore Henry eight children: five sons, three of whom would become kings; and three daughters. However, Henry and Eleanor eventually became estranged. Henry imprisoned her in 1173 for supporting her son Henry's revolt against her husband. She was not released until 6 July 1189, when Henry died and their son ascended the English throne as Richard I.

Now queen dowager, Eleanor acted as regent while Richard went on the Third Crusade, where on his return he was captured and held prisoner. Eleanor lived well into the reign of her youngest son, John. By the time of her death, she had outlived all her children except for John and Eleanor.

Film, radio and television

Eleanor has featured in a number of screen versions of the Ivanhoe and Robin Hood stories. She has been played by Martita Hunt in The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952), Jill Esmond in the British TV adventure series The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955–1960), Phyllis Neilson-Terry in the British TV adventure series Ivanhoe (1958), Yvonne Mitchell in the BBC TV drama series The Legend of Robin Hood (1975), Siãan Phillips in the TV series Ivanhoe (1997), and Tusse Silberg in the TV series The New Adventures of Robin Hood (1997). She was portrayed by Lynda Bellingham in the BBC series Robin Hood. Most recently, she was portrayed by Eileen Atkins in Robin Hood (2010).

In the 1964 film, "Becket" (1964), Eleanor is briefly played by Pamela Brown to Peter O'Toole's first performance as a young Henry II.

In the 1968 film, The Lion in Winter, Eleanor is played by Katharine Hepburn, while Henry is again portrayed by O'Toole. The film is about the difficult relationship between them and the struggle of their three sons Richard, Geoffrey, and John for their father's favour and the succession. A 2003 TV film, The Lion in Winter (2003 film), starred Glenn Close as Eleanor and Patrick Stewart as Henry.

She was portrayed by Mary Clare in the silent film, Becket (1923), by Prudence Hyman in Richard the Lionheart (1962), and twice by Jane Lapotaire; in the BBC TV drama series, The Devil's Crown (1978), and again in Mike Walker's BBC Radio 4 series, Plantagenet (2010). In the 2010 film, Robin Hood, starring Russell Crowe, Eleanor is played by Eileen Atkins. In the 2014 film, Richard the Lionheart: Rebellion, Eleanor is played by Debbie Rochon.

More on Queen Eleanor ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine

Click this link to view an image collage of Mirabell Castle ... http://bit.ly/1p8kovL

Click on this link to view images of Fontevraud Abbey ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontevraud_Abbey

Henry II held his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine , prisoner at Old Sarum. In the 1190s, the plain between Old Sarum and Wilton was one of five specially designated by Richard I for the holding of English tournaments

Old Sarum is the site of the earliest settlement of Salisbury in England. Located on a hill about 2 miles (3 km) north of modern Salisbury near the A345 road , the settlement appears in some of the earliest records in the country.

Buried:
The abbey was originally the site of the graves of King Henry II of England, his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, their son King Richard I of England, their daughter Joan, their grandson Raymond VII of Toulouse, and Isabella of Angoulãeme, wife of Henry and Eleanor's son King John. However, there is no remaining corporal presence of Henry, Eleanor, Richard, or the others on the site. Their remains were possibly destroyed during the French Revolution.

Click on this link to view images of Fontevraud Abbey ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontevraud_Abbey

Notes:

Married:
thier marriage turned sour after Henry's affair with Rosamund Clifford...

Children:

Richard of England, I, King of England was born on 8 Sep 1157 in Beaumont Palace, Oxford, England; died on 6 Apr 1199 in Limousin, France; was buried in Fontevraud Abbey, France.
Eleanor of England, Queen of Castile was born on 13 Oct 1162 in Domfront Castle, Normandy, France; died on 31 Oct 1214 in Burgos, Spain; was buried in Burgos, Spain.
12070. John I, King of England was born on 24 Dec 1166 in Beaumont Palace, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England; died on 19 Oct 1216 in Newark Castle, Nottinghamshire, England; was buried on 19 Oct 1216 in Worcester Cathedral, Worcester, Warwickshire, England.

24142.

Philip Butler was born in 1157 in Steeple Langford, Wiltshire, England; died in 1174 in Caernarvonshire, Wales.

24143.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: ~1149
Alt Birth: 1157, East Sussex, England

Notes:

Birth: 1157
East Sussex, England
Death: 1228
Derbyshire, England

Family links:
Parents:
William De Braose (1135 - 1179)
Bertha Hereford de Braose (1130 - ____)

Spouse:
William De Ferrers (1140 - 1190)

Siblings:
Bertha de Braose de Beauchamp (1151 - 1200)*
William III de Braose (1153 - 1211)*
Sybil de Braose de Ferrers (1157 - 1228)

*Calculated relationship

Burial:
Unknown

Created by: Deb
Record added: Dec 11, 2016
Find A Grave Memorial# 173766873

*

Children:

12071. Clemence Butler was born in 1175; died in 1231.

Generation: 17

88584.

Siward Bjornsson, Earl of Northumbia was born in (1000-1010) in Denmark; died on 26 Mar 1055 in St Olave's Church, York, England; was buried in York, Yorkshire, England.

Notes:

Siward or Sigurd (/'su?w?rd/ or more recently /'si?w?rd/;[1] Old English: Sigeweard)[2] was an important earl of 11th-century northern England. The Old Norse nickname Digri and its Latin translation Grossus ("the stout") are given to him by near-contemporary texts.[3] Siward was probably of Scandinavian origin, perhaps a relative of Earl Ulf, and emerged as a powerful regional strongman in England during the reign of Cnut ("Canute the Great", 1016–1035). Cnut was a Scandinavian ruler who conquered England in the 1010s, and Siward was one of the many Scandinavians who came to England in the aftermath of that conquest. Siward subsequently rose to become sub-ruler of most of northern England. From 1033 at the latest Siward was in control of southern Northumbria, that is, present-day Yorkshire, governing as earl on Cnut's behalf.

He entrenched his position in northern England by marrying ¥lfflµd, the daughter of Ealdred, Earl of Bamburgh. After killing Ealdred's successor Eadulf in 1041, Siward gained control of all Northumbria. He exerted his power in support of Cnut's successors, kings Harthacnut and Edward, assisting them with vital military aid and counsel. He probably gained control of the middle shires of Northampton and Huntingdon by the 1050s, and there is some evidence that he spread Northumbrian control into Cumberland. In the early 1050s Earl Siward turned against the Scottish ruler Mac Bethad mac Findlaâich ("Macbeth"). Despite the death of his son Osbjorn, Siward defeated Mac Bethad in battle in 1054. More than half a millennium later the Scotland adventure earned him a place in William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Siward died in 1055, leaving one son, Waltheof, who would eventually succeed to Northumbria. St Olave's church in York and nearby Heslington Hill are associated with Siward.

read more...

Died:
"Siward, the stalwart earl, being stricken by dysentery, felt that death was near, and said, "How shameful it is that I, who could not die in so many battles, should have been saved for the ignominious death of a cow! At least clothe me in my impenetrable breastplate, gird me with my sword, place my helmet on my head, my shield in my left hand, my gilded battle-axe in my right, that I, the bravest of soldiers, may die like a soldier."

He spoke, and armed as he had requested, he gave up his spirit with honour".

— A description of Siward's death, taken from the Historia Anglorum of Henry of Huntingdon.

Buried:
at St Olave's Church, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Olave%27s_Church,_York

Siward married Aelfflaed(Northumbria, England). Aelfflaed (daughter of Ealdred, Earl of Bernicia and unnamed spouse) was born in ~1010 in (Northumbria, England); died in 1060 in Northumbria, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

88585.

Aelfflaed was born in ~1010 in (Northumbria, England) (daughter of Ealdred, Earl of Bernicia and unnamed spouse); died in 1060 in Northumbria, England.

Children:

44292. Waltheof Huntington, Earl of Northumbria died on 31 May 1076 in St. Giles Hill, Winchester, England; was buried in Crowland, Crowland Abbey, Peterborough, England.

88586.

Lambert II, Count of Lens was born in Lens, France; died in 1054 in (France).

Lambert married Countess Adelaide of Normandy(Normandie, France). Adelaide (daughter of Duke Robert de Normandie, II and Harriette de Falaise, Countess of Montaigne) was born in ~1030 in Normandie, France; died before 1090 in (Normandie, France). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

88587.

Countess Adelaide of Normandy was born in ~1030 in Normandie, France (daughter of Duke Robert de Normandie, II and Harriette de Falaise, Countess of Montaigne); died before 1090 in (Normandie, France).

Notes:

Adelaide of Normandy (or Adeliza) (c. 1030 – bef. 1090) was the sister of William the Conqueror and was Countess of Aumale in her own right.

Life

Born c. 1030,[1] Adelaide was an illegitimate daughter of the Norman duke Robert the Magnificent. Robert's likewise illegitimate son and successor, William the Conqueror, was Adelaide's brother or half-brother.[a]

Adelaide's first marriage to Enguerrand II, Count of Ponthieu potentially gave William a powerful ally in upper Normandy.[2] But at the Council of Reims in 1049, when the marriage of William with Matilda of Flanders was prohibited based on consanguinity, so were those of Eustace II, Count of Boulogne and Enguerrand of Ponthieu, who was already married to Adelaide.[3] Adelaide's marriage was apparently annulled c.1049/50 and another marriage was arranged for her, this time to Lambert II, Count of Lens, younger son of Eustace I, Count of Boulogne forming a new marital alliance between Normandy and Boulogne.[4] Lambert was killed in 1054 at Lille, aiding Baldwin V, Count of Flanders against Emperor Henry III.[5] Now widowed, Adelaide resided at Aumale, probably part of her dower from her first husband, Enguerrand, or part of a settlement after the capture of Guy of Ponthieu, her brother-in-law.[b][4] As a dowager Adelaide began a semi-religious retirement and became involved with the church at Auchy presenting them with a number of gifts.[4] In 1060 she was called upon again to form another marital alliance, this time to a younger man Odo, Count of Champagne.[6] Odo seems to have been something of a disappointment as he appears on only one of the Conqueror's charters and received no land in England; his wife being a tenant-in-chief in her own right.[6]

In 1082, William and his wife, Matilda, gave to the abbey of the Holy Trinity in Caen the town of Le Homme in the Cotentin with a provision to the Countess of Albamarla (Aumale), his sister, for a life tenancy.[7] In 1086, as Comitissa de Albatnarla,[7] as she was listed in the Domesday Book, was shown as having numerous holdings in both Suffolk and Essex,[8] one of the very few Norman noblewomen to have held lands in England at Domesday as a tenant-in-chief.[9] She was also given the lordship of Holderness which was held after her death by her 3rd husband, Odo, the by then disinherited Count of Champagne; the lordship then passed to their son, Stephen.[7] Adelaide died before 1090.[10]
Family

Adelaide married three times; first to Enguerrand II, Count of Ponthieu (died 1053)[11] by whom she had issue:

Adelaide, living 1096.[7]

She married secondly Lambert II, Count of Lens (died 1054),[10] they had a daughter:

Judith of Lens, m. Waltheof Earl of Huntingdon and Northumbria.[12]

Adelaide married thirdly in 1060 Odo, Count of Champagne (d. aft. 1096),[13] by whom she had a son:

Stephen, Count of Aumale.[13]

end of biography

Children:

44293. Judith of Lens, Countess of Northumberland was born in 1054-1055 in Lens, France; died in ~1090 in Fotheringay, Northamptonshire, England.

88588.

Duncan I of Scotland, King of Alba was born in ~1001 in (Dunkeld, Scotland) (son of Crinan of Dunkeld, Abbot of Dunkeld and Bethoc); died on 14 Aug 1040 in Elgin, Scotland.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: 1007, (Dunkeld) Scotland

Notes:

Donnchad mac Crinain (Modern Gaelic: Donnchadh mac Cráionain;[2] anglicised as Duncan I, and nicknamed An t-Ilgarach, "the Diseased" or "the Sick";[3] ca. 1001 – 14 August 1040)[1] was king of Scotland (Alba) from 1034 to 1040. He is the historical basis of the "King Duncan" in Shakespeare's play Macbeth.

Life

He was a son of Crâinâan, hereditary lay abbot of Dunkeld, and Bethâoc, daughter of king Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda (Malcolm II).

Unlike the "King Duncan" of Shakespeare's Macbeth, the historical Duncan appears to have been a young man. He followed his grandfather Malcolm as king after the latter's death on 25 November 1034, without apparent opposition. He may have been Malcolm's acknowledged successor or Táanaiste as the succession appears to have been uneventful.[4] Earlier histories, following John of Fordun, supposed that Duncan had been king of Strathclyde in his grandfather's lifetime, between 1018 and 1034, ruling the former Kingdom of Strathclyde as an appanage. Modern historians discount this idea.[5]

An earlier source, a variant of the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba (CK-I), gives Duncan's wife the Gaelic name Suthen.[6] Whatever his wife's name may have been, Duncan had at least two sons. The eldest, Malcolm III (Mâael Coluim mac Donnchada) was king from 1058 to 1093, the second Donald III (Domnall Bâan, or "Donalbane") was king afterwards. Mâael Muire, Earl of Atholl is a possible third son of Duncan, although this is uncertain.[7]

The early period of Duncan's reign was apparently uneventful, perhaps a consequence of his youth. Macbeth (Mac Bethad mac Findlâaich) is recorded as having been his dux, today rendered as "duke" and meaning nothing more than the rank between prince and marquess, but then still having the Roman meaning of "war leader". In context — "dukes of Francia" had half a century before replaced the Carolingian kings of the Franks and in England the over-mighty Godwin of Wessex was called a dux — this suggests that Macbeth may have been the power behind the throne.[8]

In 1039, Duncan led a large Scots army south to besiege Durham, but the expedition ended in disaster. Duncan survived, but the following year he led an army north into Moray, Macbeth's domain, apparently on a punitive expedition against Moray.[9] There he was killed in action, at Bothnagowan, now Pitgaveny, near Elgin, by the men of Moray led by Macbeth, probably on 14 August 1040.[10] He is thought to have been buried at Elgin[11] before later relocation to the Isle of Iona.
Depictions in fiction

Duncan is depicted as an elderly King in the play Macbeth (1606) by William Shakespeare. He is killed in his sleep by the protagonist, Macbeth.

In the historical novel Macbeth the King (1978) by Nigel Tranter, Duncan is portrayed as a schemer who is fearful of Macbeth as a possible rival for the throne. He tries to assassinate Macbeth by poisoning and then when this fails, attacks his home with an army. In self-defence Macbeth meets him in battle and kills him in personal combat.

In the animated television series Gargoyles he is depicted as a weak and conniving king who assassinates those who he believes threaten his rule.[12] He even tries to assassinate Macbeth, forcing Demona to ally with the Moray nobleman, with Duncan's resulting death coming from attempting to strike an enchanted orb of energy that one of the Weird Sisters gave to Macbeth to take Duncan down.

Died:
during the Battle of Pitgaveny by Macbeth

Duncan married Suthen, Queen of Scotland in ~1030 in (Northumbria, England). Suthen was born in ~1020 in Northumbria, England; died in 1050 in Scotland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

88589.

Suthen, Queen of Scotland was born in ~1020 in Northumbria, England; died in 1050 in Scotland.

Notes:

Biography
This is the Final Profile ID for Suthen, wife of Duncan I of Scotland.
Suthen/Sybil is being consolidated in this profile. Due to her unknown parentage, her LNAB has been determined as UNKNOWN.
Take care when merging.

There is confusion surrounding the origins of Sybill/Suthen. Conflicting theories claim she is either a: cousin, sister, or daughter of Siward, Earl of Northumbria. Therefore, her LNAB is "UNKNOWN".
Siward had 2 known children: Waltheof of Bamburg and (unproven) Osbeorne (d.27 Jul 1054).
"[SIBYLLA] . The Chronicle of John of Fordun states the mother of Malcolm and Donald Bane, Duncan's sons, was "the cousin of Earl Siward". This info is not in any earlier source and should be considered dubious" (Medieval Lands)
Please see G2G discussion for more:
http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/137645/what-is-the-lnab-for-suthen-sybil-of-scotland-

Vitals
Name: Suthen
Alias: Sybill, Sybilla
b. ____
d. ____
Disputed Origins
The parents listed for this individual are speculative and may not be based on sound genealogical research. Sources to prove or disprove this ancestry are needed. Please contact the Profile Manager or leave information on the bulletin board.

Sybill's relation to Siward, Earl of Northumbria, as well as Bjorn is unknown. She has been referred to as Siward's cousin, sister, and daughter.

John of Fordun:
Duncan's wife was the cousin of Earl Siward.[1]
Foundation for Medieval Genealogy [2] states:
information is dubious ... "In one earlier king list, King Malcolm III's mother is named "Suthen"".
more recent sources suggest:[citation needed]
Earl Siward and Sybilla are siblings.
Sybilla was daughter of Bjorn Bearsson and sister of Sigurd "Digera" Bjornsson, Earl of Northumbria
Marriage and Issue
m. c.1030 Duncan of Scotland.[3] Issue:
Malcolm III
Donald III
Maelmuire.[4]
Sources
? Fordun, J. (1872) Chronicle of a Scottish Nation. Felix J.H. Skene, Trans. & William F. Skene, Ed. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas. www.archive.org
? fmg.ac
? Ashley, M. (2008). A Brief History of British Kings and Queens, (pp.106-107). Philadelphia, PA: Running Press Book Publishers. Print.
? Alan Anderson's EARLY SOURCES OF SCOTTISH HISTORY, AD 500-1286; Weir, A. (n.d.) BRITAIN'S ROYAL FAMILIES (revised edition).
http://www.clanmacfarlanegenealogy.info/genealogy/TNGWebsite/getperson.php?personID=I4519&tree=CC

end of this biography

Children:

44400. Malcolm III of Scotland, King of Scots was born in 0Mar 1031 in Scotland; died on 13 Nov 1093 in Alnwick, Northumberland, England.
44294. Donald Dunkeld, III, King of Scots was born in 1034 in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland; died in 1097 in Rescobie, Angus, Scotland.

44386.

Notes:

more...

History & issue of Henry I, King of England ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_I_of_England

Family and children

Legitimate

House of Normandy
Bayeux Tapestry WillelmDux.jpg
William the Conqueror invades England
William I[show]
William II[show]
Henry I[show]
Stephen[show]
Monarchy of the United Kingdom
v t e
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Henry I of England.

Henry and his first wife, Matilda, had at least two legitimate children:

Matilda, born in 1102, died 1167.[89]
William Adelin, born in 1103, died 1120.[89]
Possibly Richard, who, if he existed, died young.[100]
Henry and his second wife, Adeliza, had no children.

Illegitimate

Henry had a number of illegitimate children by various mistresses.[nb 32]

Sons

Robert of Gloucester, born in the 1090s.[332]
Richard, born to Ansfride, brought up by Robert Bloet, the Bishop of Lincoln.[333]
Reginald de Dunstanville, Earl of Cornwall, born in the 1110s or early 1120s, possibly to Sibyl Corbet.[334]
Robert the King's son, born to Ede, daughter of Forne.[335]
Gilbert, possibly born to an unnamed sister or daughter of Walter of Gand.[336]
William de Tracy, possibly born in the 1090s.[336]
Henry the King's son, possibly born to Nest ferch Rhys.[335][nb 33]
Fulk the King's son, possibly born to Ansfride.[335]
William, the brother of Sybilla de Normandy, probably the brother of Reginald de Dunstanville.[337]

Daughters

Matilda FitzRoy, Countess of Perche.[338]
Matilda FitzRoy, Duchess of Brittany.[338]
Juliana, wife of Eustace of Breteuil, possibly born to Ansfrida.[339]
Mabel, wife of William Gouet.[340]
Constance, Vicountess of Beaumont-sur-Sarthe.[341]
Aline, wife of Matthew de Montmorency.[342]
Isabel, daughter of Isabel de Beaumont, Countess of Pembroke.[342]
Sybilla de Normandy, Queen of Scotland, probably born before 1100.[342][nb 34]
Matilda Fitzroy, Abbess of Montvilliers.[342]
Gundrada de Dunstanville.[342]
Possibly Rohese, wife of Henry de la Pomerai.[342][nb 35]
Emma, wife of Guy of Laval.[343]
Adeliza, the King's daughter.[343]
The wife of Fergus of Galloway.[343]
Possibly Sibyl of Falaise.[343][nb 36]

Born: ABT Sep 1068, Selby, Yorkshire, England
Acceded: 6 Aug 1100, Westminster Abbey, London, England
Died: 1 Dec 1135, St Denis-le-Fermont, near Gisors
Buried: Reading Abbey, Berkshire, England

Notes: Reigned 1100-1135. Duke of Normandy 1106-1135.

His reign is notable for important legal and administrative reforms, and for the final resolution of the investiture controversy. Abroad, he waged several campaigns in order to consolidate and expand his continental possessions. Was so hated by his brothers that they vowed to disinherit him. In 1106 he captured Robert and held him til he died. He proved to be a hard but just ruler. One of his lovers, Nest, Princess of Deheubarth, was known as the most beautiful woman in Wales; she had many lovers.

He apparently died from over eating Lampreys. During a Christmas court at Windsor Castle in 1126 that Henry I, who had no legitimate male heir, tried to force his barons to accept his daughter Matilda as his successor.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles reported that "...there he caused archbishops and bishops and abbots and earls all the thegns that were there to swear to give England and Normandy after his death into the hand of his daughter". Swear they did, but they were not happy about it. None of those present were interested in being among the first to owe allegiance to a woman. The stage was set for the 19-year-long bloody struggle for the throne that rent England apart after Henry's death. Ironically, the final resolution to that civil war, the peace treaty between King Stephen and Matilda's son Henry of Anjou, was ratified on Christmas Day at Westminster in 1153.

*

Birth:
History, maps & photos of Selby, England ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selby

Buried:
Reading Abbey is a large, ruined abbey in the centre of the town of Reading, in the English county of Berkshire. It was founded by Henry I in 1121 "for the salvation of my soul, and the souls of King William, my father, and of King William, my brother, and Queen Maud, my wife, and all my ancestors and successors".

For more history & images of Reading Abbey, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Abbey

Henry married unnamed partner. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44387.
unnamed partner
Children:

22193. Affraic, an illegitimate daughter was born in (Scotland).

22202.

Notes:

William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey (died 11 May 1138) was the son of William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey and his first wife Gundred. He was more often referred to as Earl Warenne or Earl of Warenne than as Earl of Surrey.[1]

Life

His father, the 1st Earl, was one of the Conqueror's most trusted and most rewarded barons who, at his death in 1088, was the 3rd or 4th richest magnate in England.[2] In 1088 William II inherited his father's lands in England and his Norman estates including the castles of Mortemer and Bellencombre in Haute-Normandy. But William II was not as disposed to serve the king as his father was.[2] In January 1091, William assisted Hugh of Grantmesnil (d.1094) in his defense of Courcy against the forces of Robert de Belleme and Duke Robert of Normandy.[3] In 1093 he attempted to marry Matilda (or Edith), daughter of king Malcolm III of Scotland.[4] She instead married Henry I of England, and this may have been the cause of William's great dislike of Henry I, which motivated him in the following years.[5]

When Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy invaded England 1101 William joined him.[6] But when Curthose promptly surrendered to Henry I, William lost his English lands and titles and was exiled to Normandy.[6] There he complained to Curthose that he had expended great effort on the duke's behalf and in return lost all of his English possessions. Curthose's return to England in 1103 was apparently made to convince his brother, the king, to restore William's earldom. This was successful, though Curthose had to give up his 3000 mark annual pension he had received after the 1101 invasion, after which William's lands and titles were restored to him.[5]

To further insure William's loyalty Henry considered marrying him to one of his many illegitimate daughters. Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury forbade the marriage based on the couple being related in the 4th generation on one side, and in the 6th generation on the other.[7] William was one of the commanders on Henry's side (against Robert Curthose) at the Battle of Tinchebray in 1106. Afterwards, with his loyalty thus proven, he became more prominent in Henry's court.[1]

In 1110, Curthose's son William Clito escaped along with Helias of Saint-Saens, and afterwards Warenne received the forfeited Saint-Saens lands, which were very near his own in upper Normandy. In this way king Henry further assured his loyalty, for the successful return of Clito would mean at the very least Warenne's loss of this new territory.[1][8] He fought for Henry I at the Battle of Bremule in 1119.[1][9] William, the second Earl of Surrey was present at Henry's deathbed in 1135.[1][10] After the king's death disturbances broke out in Normandy and William was sent to guard Rouen and the Pays de Caux.[1][11]

William's death is recorded as 11-May-1138 in the register of Lewes Priory and he was buried at his father's feet at the Chapter house there.[12] His wife, the countess Elizabeth, survived him, dying before July 1147.[12]

Family

In 1118 William finally acquired the royal-blooded bride he desired when he married Elizabeth de Vermandois.[13] She was a daughter of count Hugh of Vermandois, a granddaughter of Henry I, King of France, and was the widow of Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester.[14]

By Elizabeth his wife he had three sons and two daughters:

William de Warenne, 3rd Earl of Surrey[15][16]
Reginald de Warenne, who inherited his father's property in upper Normandy, including the castles of Bellencombre and Mortemer.[16] He married Adeline or Alice, daughter of William, lord of Wormgay in Norfolk, by whom he had a son William (founder of the priory of Wormegay),[16] whose daughter and sole heir, Beatrice married first Doun, lord Bardolf, and secondly Hubert de Burgh.[17][18] Reginald was one of the persecutors of Archbishop Thomas in 1170.
Ralph de Warenne[19]
Gundred de Warenne,[19] who married first Roger de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Warwick[20] and second William, lord of Kendal, and is most remembered for expelling king Stephen's garrison from Warwick Castle.
Ada de Warenne, who married Henry of Scotland, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon, the mother of two Scottish kings,[21] she made many grants to the priory of Lewes.[22]
Ancestry[edit]
[show]Ancestors of William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey
References[edit]
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, Vol. XII/1 (The St. Catherine Press, London, 1953) p. 495
^ Jump up to: a b C. Warren Hollister, 'The Taming of a Turbulent Earl: Henry I and William of Warenne', Historical Reflections, Vol. 3 (1976), p. 87
Jump up ^ The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. Marjorie Chibnall, Vol. 2 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990)p. 692
Jump up ^ C. Warren Hollister, Henry I (Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2003)p. 340
^ Jump up to: a b C. Warren Hollister, 'The Taming of a Turbulent Earl: Henry I and William of Warenne', Historical Reflections. Vol. 3 (1976) p. 87
^ Jump up to: a b The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. Marjorie Chibnall, Vol. 2 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990), p.785
Jump up ^ Edmund Chester Waters, 'Gundrada de Warenne', Archaeological Journal, Vol. XLI (1884), p. 303
Jump up ^ C. Warren Hollister, 'The Taming of a Turbulent Earl: Henry I and William of Warenne', Historical Reflections, Vol. 3 (1976) p. 89
Jump up ^ Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, trans. Thomas Forester, Vol. III (Henry G. Bohn, London, 1854) pp. 481-2
Jump up ^ Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, trans. Thomas Forester, Vol. IV (Henry G. Bohn, London, 1856) p. 150
Jump up ^ C. Warren Hollister, Henry I (Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2003)p. 375
^ Jump up to: a b G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, Vol. XII/1 (The St. Catherine Press, London, 1953) p. 496
Jump up ^ C. Warren Hollister, 'The Taming of a Turbulent Earl: Henry I and William of Warenne', Historical Reflections, Vol. 3 (1976) p. 90 n. 36
Jump up ^ Detlev Schwennicke, Europèaische Stammtafeln: Stammtafeln zur Geschichte der Europèaischen Staaten, Neue Folge, Band III Teilband 1, Herzogs und Grafenhèauser des Heiligen Rèomischen Reiches Andere Europèaiche Fèurstenhèauser (Marburg, Germany: Verlag von J. A. Stargardt, 1984), Tafel 55
Jump up ^ G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, Vol. XII/1 (The St. Catherine Press, London, 1953) p. 500
^ Jump up to: a b c Early Yorkshire Charters, Vol. VIII - The Honour of Warenne (The Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1949) pp. 27-8
Jump up ^ G.E.Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, Vol. VII (The St. Catherine Press, 1929), p. 142, footnote (a)
Jump up ^ Early Yorkshire Charters, Vol. VIII - The Honour of Warenne (The Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1949) pp. 33-4
^ Jump up to: a b Early Yorkshire Charters, Vol. VIII - The Honour of Warenne (The Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1949) pp. 10-11
Jump up ^ Elisabeth van Houts, 'The Warenne View of the Past 1066-1203', Anglo-Norman Studies XXVI, Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2003, ed. John Gillingham (Boydell Press, Woodbridge. 2004), p. 109 n. 49
Jump up ^ The Scots Peerage, Founded on Wood's Edition of Sir Robert Douglas's Peerage of Scotland, ed. Sir James Balfour Paul, Lord Lyon King of Arms, Vol. I (Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1904, p. 4
Jump up ^ Early Yorkshire Charters, ed: William Farrer, Charles Travis Clay, Volume VIII - The Honour of Warenne (The Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1949), p. 11

External links

"Warenne, William de (d.1138)". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. M. Chibnall, vol. 2, p. 264 (Oxford, 1990)

22203.

Notes:

Birth: 1081
Basse-Normandie, France
Death: Feb. 17, 1131, France

Countess of Leicester, Countess of Surrey

Third daughter of Hugh Magnus and Adelaide of Vermandois, granddaughter of King Henry I of France and Anne of Kiev, Herbert IV, Count of Vermandois, and Adele of Valois. She was the heiress of the county of Vermandois and descendant of Charlemagne.

Wife of Sir Robert de Beaumont, Count of Meulan, the son of Roger de Beaumont and Adeline of Meulan; Isabel became the Countess of Leicester. They married about 1096 and had three sons and at least five daughters:
* Emma b 1101, probably died young
* Waleran IV de Beaumont, Count of Meulan, twin
* Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester, twin
* Hugh de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Bedford
* Adeline, wife of Hugh Montfort & Richard de Granville
* Aubree, wife of Hugh II of Chãateauneuf-en-Thimerais
* Maud, wife of William Lovel
* Isabel, mistress of King Henry I, wife of Gilbert de Clare and mother of Richard Strongbow & wife of Hervâe de Montmorency

Secondly, the wife of William de Warenne, son of William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey and his first wife Gundred; Isabel became the Countess of Surrey. They married in 1118 and had three sons and two daughters:
* William de Warenne, 3rd Earl of Surrey
Ralph de Warenne
* Reginald de Warenne
* Gundrada de Warenne, wife of Roger de Beaumont& William de Lancaster
* Ada de Warenne, wife of Henry of Scotland, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon, mother King Malcolm IV and King William I 'the Lion'

Sir Robert de Beaumont, described as being "the wisest man in his time between London and Jerusalem", and aged over fifty was determined to marry Isabel, aged about eleven. Bishop Ivo dismissed their request based on their being within a few degrees of kindred. Isabel's father was able to sway Bishop Ivo, and saw his daughter married by April of 1096 when he left on a crusade.

In 1115, Isabel was either carried away or willingly abducted by William de Warrene, revealing they had been lovers for some time. They were unable to marry until the death of Sir Robert, which occurred in 1118.

The Beaumont sons were on opposite sides of support for King Stephen and Queen Matilda, but were not enemies.

Sources vary on her death, reported as 1131 to outliving William who died in 1138.

Family links:
Parents:
Hugues de France (1057 - 1102)

Spouses:
Robert de Beaumont (1049 - 1118)
William II de Warenne (1065 - 1138)

Children:
Waleran de Beaumont (1104 - 1166)*
Robert de Beaumont (1104 - 1168)*
Reginald de Warenne (1113 - 1179)*
William de Warenne (1118 - 1148)*
Ada De Warenne De Huntingdon (1120 - 1178)*

Sibling:
Isabel Of Vermandois Beaumont de Warenne (1081 - 1131)
Raoul I de Vermandois (1094 - 1152)*

*Calculated relationship

Burial:
Lewes Priory
Lewes
Lewes District
East Sussex, England

end

Children:

Sir William de Warenne, Knight, 3rd Earl of Surrey was born in 0Jun 1118 in East Sussex, England; died on 6 Jan 1148 in Turkey.
11101. Ada de Warenne was born in ~ 1120 in Surry, England; died in 1178 in England.
22199. Gundred de Warenne was born in 1120 in Sussex, England; died in 1170 in Kendale, Cumberland, England.

44400.

Notes:

Malcolm III (Gaelic: Mâael Coluim mac Donnchada; c. 26 March 1031 – 13 November 1093) was King of Scots from 1058 to 1093. He was later nicknamed "Canmore" ("ceann máor", Gaelic for "Great Chief": "ceann" denotes "leader", "head" (of state) and "máor" denotes "pre-eminent", "great", and "big").[1][2] Malcolm's long reign of 35 years preceded the beginning of the Scoto-Norman age.

Malcolm's kingdom did not extend over the full territory of modern Scotland: the north and west of Scotland remained under Scandinavian, Norse-Gael, and Gaelic rule, and the territories under the rule of the Kings of Scots did not extend much beyond the limits established by Malcolm II until the 12th century. Malcolm III fought a series of wars against the Kingdom of England, which may have had as its objective the conquest of the English earldom of Northumbria. These wars did not result in any significant advances southward. Malcolm's primary achievement was to continue a lineage that ruled Scotland for many years,[3] although his role as founder of a dynasty has more to do with the propaganda of his youngest son David I and his descendants than with history.[4]

Malcolm's second wife, St. Margaret of Scotland, is Scotland's only royal saint. Malcolm himself had no reputation for piety; with the notable exception of Dunfermline Abbey in Fife he is not definitely associated with major religious establishments or ecclesiastical reforms.

King of Alba (Scots)
Reign 1058–1093
Coronation 25 April 1058?, Scone, Perth and Kinross
Predecessor Lulach
Successor Donald III
Born c. 26 March 1031
Scotland
Died 13 November 1093
Alnwick, Northumberland, England
Burial Tynemouth Castle and Priory, then in Dunfermline Abbey
Spouse Ingibiorg Finnsdottir
St. Margaret of Scotland
Issue Duncan II, King of Scots
Edward, Prince of Scotland
Edmund
Ethelred
Edgar, King of Scots
Alexander I, King of Scots
David I, King of Scots
Matilda, Queen of England
Mary, Countess of Boulogne
House Dunkeld
Father Duncan I, King of Scots
Mother Suthen

Background
Main article: Scotland in the High Middle Ages
Malcolm's father Duncan I became king in late 1034, on the death of Malcolm II, Duncan's maternal grandfather and Malcolm's great-grandfather. According to John of Fordun, whose account is the original source of part at least of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, Malcolm's mother was a niece of Siward, Earl of Northumbria,[5][6] but an earlier king-list gives her the Gaelic name Suthen.[7] Other sources claim that either a daughter or niece would have been too young to fit the timeline, thus the likely relative would have been Siward's own sister Sybil, which may have translated into Gaelic as Suthen.

Duncan's reign was not successful and he was killed in battle with the men of Moray, led by Macbeth, on 15 August 1040. Duncan was young at the time of his death,[8] and Malcolm and his brother Donalbane were children.[9] Malcolm's family attempted to overthrow Macbeth in 1045, but Malcolm's grandfather Crâinâan of Dunkeld was killed in the attempt.[10]

Soon after the death of Duncan his two young sons were sent away for greater safety—exactly where is the subject of debate. According to one version, Malcolm (then aged about nine) was sent to England,[11] and his younger brother Donalbane was sent to the Isles.[12][13] Based on Fordun's account, it was assumed that Malcolm passed most of Macbeth's seventeen-year reign in the Kingdom of England at the court of Edward the Confessor.[14][15] Today's British Royal family can trace their family history back to Malcolm III via his daughter Matilda.

According to an alternative version, Malcolm's mother took both sons into exile at the court of Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Earl of Orkney, an enemy of Macbeth's family, and perhaps Duncan's kinsman by marriage.[16]

An English invasion in 1054, with Siward, Earl of Northumbria in command, had as its goal the installation of one "Mâael Coluim, son of the king of the Cumbrians". This Mâael Coluim has traditionally been identified with the later Malcolm III.[17] This interpretation derives from the Chronicle attributed to the 14th-century chronicler of Scotland, John of Fordun, as well as from earlier sources such as William of Malmesbury.[18] The latter reported that Macbeth was killed in the battle by Siward, but it is known that Macbeth outlived Siward by two years.[19] A. A. M. Duncan argued in 2002 that, using the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry as their source, later writers innocently misidentified "Mâael Coluim" with the later Scottish king of the same name.[20] Duncan's argument has been supported by several subsequent historians specialising in the era, such as Richard Oram, Dauvit Broun and Alex Woolf.[21] It has also been suggested that Mâael Coluim may have been a son of Owain Foel, British king of Strathclyde[22] perhaps by a daughter of Malcolm II, King of Scotland.[23]

In 1057 various chroniclers report the death of Macbeth at Malcolm's hand, on 15 August 1057 at Lumphanan in Aberdeenshire.[24][25] Macbeth was succeeded by his stepson Lulach, who was crowned at Scone, probably on 8 September 1057. Lulach was killed by Malcolm, "by treachery",[26] near Huntly on 23 April 1058. After this, Malcolm became king, perhaps being inaugurated on 25 April 1058, although only John of Fordun reports this.[27]

Malcolm and Ingibiorg

Late medieval depiction of Malcolm with MacDuff, from an MS (Corpus Christi MS 171) of Walter Bower's Scotichronicon
If Orderic Vitalis is to be relied upon, one of Malcolm's earliest actions as king was to travel to the court of Edward the Confessor in 1059 to arrange a marriage with Edward's kinswoman Margaret, who had arrived in England two years before from Hungary.[28] If a marriage agreement was made in 1059, it was not kept, and this may explain the Scots invasion of Northumbria in 1061 when Lindisfarne was plundered.[29] Equally, Malcolm's raids in Northumbria may have been related to the disputed "Kingdom of the Cumbrians", reestablished by Earl Siward in 1054, which was under Malcolm's control by 1070.[30]

The Orkneyinga saga reports that Malcolm married the widow of Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Ingibiorg, a daughter of Finn Arnesson.[31] Although Ingibiorg is generally assumed to have died shortly before 1070, it is possible that she died much earlier, around 1058.[32] The Orkneyinga Saga records that Malcolm and Ingibiorg had a son, Duncan II (Donnchad mac Maâil Coluim), who was later king.[33] Some Medieval commentators, following William of Malmesbury, claimed that Duncan was illegitimate, but this claim is propaganda reflecting the need of Malcolm's descendants by Margaret to undermine the claims of Duncan's descendants, the Meic Uilleim.[34] Malcolm's son Domnall, whose death is reported in 1085, is not mentioned by the author of the Orkneyinga Saga. He is assumed to have been born to Ingibiorg.[35]

Malcolm's marriage to Ingibiorg secured him peace in the north and west. The Heimskringla tells that her father Finn had been an adviser to Harald Hardraade and, after falling out with Harald, was then made an Earl by Sweyn Estridsson, King of Denmark, which may have been another recommendation for the match.[36] Malcolm enjoyed a peaceful relationship with the Earldom of Orkney, ruled jointly by his stepsons, Paul and Erlend Thorfinnsson. The Orkneyinga Saga reports strife with Norway but this is probably misplaced as it associates this with Magnus Barefoot, who became king of Norway only in 1093, the year of Malcolm's death.[37]

Malcolm and Margaret

Malcolm and Margaret as depicted in a 16th-century armorial. Anachronistically, Malcolm's surcoat is embroidered with the royal arms of Scotland, which probably did not come into use until the time of William the Lion. Margaret's kirtle displays the supposed arms of her great-uncle Edward the Confessor, which were in fact invented in the 13th century, though they were based on a design which appeared on coins from his reign
Although he had given sanctuary to Tostig Godwinson when the Northumbrians drove him out, Malcolm was not directly involved in the ill-fated invasion of England by Harald Hardraade and Tostig in 1066, which ended in defeat and death at the battle of Stamford Bridge.[38] In 1068, he granted asylum to a group of English exiles fleeing from William of Normandy, among them Agatha, widow of Edward the Confessor's nephew Edward the Exile, and her children: Edgar ¥theling and his sisters Margaret and Cristina. They were accompanied by Gospatric, Earl of Northumbria. The exiles were disappointed, however, if they had expected immediate assistance from the Scots.[39]

In 1069 the exiles returned to England, to join a spreading revolt in the north. Even though Gospatric and Siward's son Waltheof submitted by the end of the year, the arrival of a Danish army under Sweyn Estridsson seemed to ensure that William's position remained weak. Malcolm decided on war, and took his army south into Cumbria and across the Pennines, wasting Teesdale and Cleveland then marching north, loaded with loot, to Wearmouth. There Malcolm met Edgar and his family, who were invited to return with him, but did not. As Sweyn had by now been bought off with a large Danegeld, Malcolm took his army home. In reprisal, William sent Gospatric to raid Scotland through Cumbria. In return, the Scots fleet raided the Northumbrian coast where Gospatric's possessions were concentrated.[40] Late in the year, perhaps shipwrecked on their way to a European exile, Edgar and his family again arrived in Scotland, this time to remain. By the end of 1070, Malcolm had married Edgar's sister Margaret of Wessex, the future Saint Margaret of Scotland.[41]

The naming of their children represented a break with the traditional Scots regal names such as Malcolm, Cinâaed and Áed. The point of naming Margaret's sons—Edward after her father Edward the Exile, Edmund for her grandfather Edmund Ironside, Ethelred for her great-grandfather Ethelred the Unready and Edgar for her great-great-grandfather Edgar and her brother, briefly the elected king, Edgar ¥theling—was unlikely to be missed in England, where William of Normandy's grasp on power was far from secure.[42] Whether the adoption of the classical Alexander for the future Alexander I of Scotland (either for Pope Alexander II or for Alexander the Great) and the biblical David for the future David I of Scotland represented a recognition that William of Normandy would not be easily removed, or was due to the repetition of Anglo-Saxon royal name—another Edmund had preceded Edgar—is not known.[43] Margaret also gave Malcolm two daughters, Edith, who married Henry I of England, and Mary, who married Eustace III of Boulogne.

In 1072, with the Harrying of the North completed and his position again secure, William of Normandy came north with an army and a fleet. Malcolm met William at Abernethy and, in the words of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle "became his man" and handed over his eldest son Duncan as a hostage and arranged peace between William and Edgar.[44] Accepting the overlordship of the king of the English was no novelty, as previous kings had done so without result. The same was true of Malcolm; his agreement with the English king was followed by further raids into Northumbria, which led to further trouble in the earldom and the killing of Bishop William Walcher at Gateshead. In 1080, William sent his son Robert Curthose north with an army while his brother Odo punished the Northumbrians. Malcolm again made peace, and this time kept it for over a decade.[45]

Malcolm faced little recorded internal opposition, with the exception of Lulach's son Mâael Snechtai. In an unusual entry, for the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle contains little on Scotland, it says that in 1078:

Malcholom [Mâael Coluim] seized the mother of Mµlslµhtan [Mâael Snechtai] ... and all his treasures, and his cattle; and he himself escaped with difficulty.[46]

Whatever provoked this strife, Mâael Snechtai survived until 1085.[47]

Malcolm and William Rufus

William Rufus, "the Red", king of the English (1087–1100)
When William Rufus became king of England after his father's death, Malcolm did not intervene in the rebellions by supporters of Robert Curthose which followed. In 1091, William Rufus confiscated Edgar ¥theling's lands in England, and Edgar fled north to Scotland. In May, Malcolm marched south, not to raid and take slaves and plunder, but to besiege Newcastle, built by Robert Curthose in 1080. This appears to have been an attempt to advance the frontier south from the River Tweed to the River Tees. The threat was enough to bring the English king back from Normandy, where he had been fighting Robert Curthose. In September, learning of William Rufus's approaching army, Malcolm withdrew north and the English followed. Unlike in 1072, Malcolm was prepared to fight, but a peace was arranged by Edgar ¥theling and Robert Curthose whereby Malcolm again acknowledged the overlordship of the English king.[48]

In 1092, the peace began to break down. Based on the idea that the Scots controlled much of modern Cumbria, it had been supposed that William Rufus's new castle at Carlisle and his settlement of English peasants in the surrounds was the cause. It is unlikely that Malcolm controlled Cumbria, and the dispute instead concerned the estates granted to Malcolm by William Rufus's father in 1072 for his maintenance when visiting England. Malcolm sent messengers to discuss the question and William Rufus agreed to a meeting. Malcolm travelled south to Gloucester, stopping at Wilton Abbey to visit his daughter Edith and sister-in-law Cristina. Malcolm arrived there on 24 August 1093 to find that William Rufus refused to negotiate, insisting that the dispute be judged by the English barons. This Malcolm refused to accept, and returned immediately to Scotland.[49]

It does not appear that William Rufus intended to provoke a war,[50] but, as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports, war came:

For this reason therefore they parted with great dissatisfaction, and the King Malcolm returned to Scotland. And soon after he came home, he gathered his army, and came harrowing into England with more hostility than behoved him ....[51]

Malcolm was accompanied by Edward, his eldest son by Margaret and probable heir-designate (or tâanaiste), and by Edgar.[52] Even by the standards of the time, the ravaging of Northumbria by the Scots was seen as harsh.[53]

Death

Memorial cross said to mark the spot where King Malcolm III of Scotland was killed while besieging Alnwick Castle in 1093.
While marching north again, Malcolm was ambushed by Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumbria, whose lands he had devastated, near Alnwick on 13 November 1093. There he was killed by Arkil Morel, steward of Bamburgh Castle. The conflict became known as the Battle of Alnwick.[54] Edward was mortally wounded in the same fight. Margaret, it is said, died soon after receiving the news of their deaths from Edgar.[55] The Annals of Ulster say:

Mael Coluim son of Donnchad, over-king of Scotland, and Edward his son, were killed by the French [i.e. Normans] in Inber Alda in England. His queen, Margaret, moreover, died of sorrow for him within nine days.[56]

Malcolm's body was taken to Tynemouth Priory for burial. The king's body was sent north for reburial, in the reign of his son Alexander, at Dunfermline Abbey, or possibly Iona.[57]

On 19 June 1250, following the canonisation of Malcolm's wife Margaret by Pope Innocent IV, Margaret's remains were disinterred and placed in a reliquary. Tradition has it that as the reliquary was carried to the high altar of Dunfermline Abbey, past Malcolm's grave, it became too heavy to move. As a result, Malcolm's remains were also disinterred, and buried next to Margaret beside the altar.[58]

Issue

Malcolm and Ingibiorg had three sons:

Duncan II of Scotland, succeeded his father as King of Scotland
Donald, died ca.1094
Malcolm, died ca.1085
Malcolm and Margaret had eight children, six sons and two daughters:

Edward, killed 1093
Edmund of Scotland
Ethelred, abbot of Dunkeld
King Edgar of Scotland
King Alexander I of Scotland
King David I of Scotland
Edith of Scotland, also called Matilda, married King Henry I of England
Mary of Scotland, married Eustace III of Boulogne

end of biography

44401.

Notes:

Saint Margaret "Queen of Scotland" Ceannmore formerly Wessex aka Canmore, Mac Donnachadh, Dunkeld
Born 1045 in Wessex, England
ANCESTORS ancestors
Daughter of Edward (Wessex) of Wessex and Agatha (Unknown) Wessex
Sister of Cristina (of England) Wessex, Edgar (Wessex) Atheling and Aethlreda (Wessex) ¥theling
Wife of Malcolm (Dunkeld) of Scotland — married about 1069 in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland
DESCENDANTS descendants
Mother of Heth MacCrinan (Dunkeld) Earl of Fife, Edward (Dunkeld) of Scotland, Edmund Dunkeld, Aethelred (Dunkeld) Canmore, Edgar (Dunkeld) King of Scotland, Alexander mac Maâil Coluim (Dunkeld) of Scotland, Eadgith (Dunkeld) of Scotland, Mary (Dunkeld) Scotland and David (Dunkeld) of Scotland
Died 16 Nov 1093 in Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Mid-Lothian, Scotland

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Contents
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1 Biography
1.1 Early Life
1.2 Family
1.3 Death
1.4 Canonisation
2 Sources
Biography
Saint Margaret of Scotland also known as Margaret of Wessex

b. abt. 1045; Margaret may have been born in Hungary,[1] "Aldred Bishop of Worcester, ambassador of King Edward 'the Confessor', proposed to the emperor to send envoys to Hungary to bring back Edward and have him conducted to England."[2]
d. 16 November 1093
Early Life
Margaret's parents were Edward "the Exile" (1016 – Aug 1057) son of Edmund Ironside, and his wife, Agatha, who was related to Gisela, wife of St. Stephen of Hungary,[3] Agatha's origins are disputed.[4]

Her father returned to England in 1057 and died two days later. After the conquest of England by the Normans, she was returning with her mother Agatha to return to the Continent when a storm drove their ship to Scotland, where the king, Malcolm III received them.[3]

Family
Margaret married at Dunfermline Abbey, in 1070, Malcolm III "Caennmor/Bighead" King of Scotland as his second wife.[2] Issue:

Edward, killed at Alnwick defending father;
Ethelred, Earl of Fife, and Abbot of Dunkeld before its erection into a bishopric, and still under Columbite rule, who gave lands of Ardmore to the Culdees of Loch Leven. Buried at St Andrews;
Edmund, who once shared throne with uncle, Donald-bain; became a monk after Donald's deposition in the Cluniae Priory of Montague in Somersetshire, and died there in the odour of sanctity. —Sir James Balfour;
Edgar, who told his mother about his father's and brother's death at Dunfermline (Turgot, confessor and biographer);
Alexander I, surnamed Fierce, had the earldom of Innergoury - given by uncle (Donald-bain) at his baptism;
David I, the Saint;
Matilda m. Henry I, King of England;
Mary m. Eustace, Count de Bulloigne, (bros. Godfrey, King of Jerusalem). issue: "Matilda" m. Stephen, King of England; from Mary also descended the Dukes de Bulloigne, including the celebrated Turenne, General of Louis XIV;[5]
Death
Already ill when her son, Edmund, told her that her husband and eldest son died on 13 November 1093, Margaret died in Edinburgh Castle three days after them on 16 Nov 1093, some say of a broken heart.[2]

(Royal Ancestry) (Malcolm's) widow, Margaret, died at Edinburgh Castle 16 Nov. 1093, and was buried before the high altar in the church of the Holy Trinity at Dunfermline, Fife.

(Wikipedia) In 1250 her body and that of her husband were exhumed and placed in a new shrine in the Abbey. In 1560 Mary Queen of Scots had Margaret's head removed to Edinburgh Castle as a relic to assist her in childbirth. In 1597 the head ended up with the Jesuits at the Scots' College, Douai, France, but was lost during the French Revolution. Philip II of Spain had the other remains of Margaret and her husband Malcolm transferred to the Escorial in Madrid (royal mausoleum), but they cannot now be found. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Margaret_of_Scotland)

Canonisation
Maragaret was canonised in the year 1250, by Pope Innocent IV. In 1969, her veneration day was changed to the date of her death--16 Nov. 1093. She was already ill when her son, Edmund, told her of her husband and eldest son's death. Margaret died in Edinburgh Castle nine days later, some say of a broken heart.[2]

(Royal Ancestry) She was canonized by Pope Innocent IV in 1250.

Sources
Royal Ancestry 2013 Vol. IV p. 576-578
? If she was bornin Hungary, there should be a source that she was born at Castle Reka, Mecseknaddasd, Hungary in 1054
? 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Charles Cawley, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy (FMG), KINGS of WESSEX 802-944, KINGS of ENGLAND 944-1066, Medieval Lands, 2006-15, accessed 20 July 2015.
? 3.0 3.1 Huddleston, Gilbert. "St. Margaret of Scotland." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 20 July 2015 .
? Wikipedia: Edward the Exile, accessed 20 July 2015.
? Douglas, D. (1899). Scottish kings: A revised chronology of Scottish history, 1005-1625. Edinburgh. archive.org.
See also:

Post, W.E. (1999). Saints, Signs and Symbols, (2nd, ed. pp.47). Essex: Hart-Talbot Printers, Ltd.
Wikipedia contributors, "Saint Margaret of Scotland," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Saint_Margaret_of_Scotland&oldid=788950538 (accessed August 1, 2017).

end of this biography

Saint Margaret of Scotland (c. 1045 - 16 November 1093), also known as Margaret of Wessex, was an English princess and a Scottish queen. Margaret was sometimes called "The Pearl of Scotland".[1] Born in exile in the Kingdom of Hungary, she was the sister of Edgar ¥theling, the shortly reigned and uncrowned Anglo-Saxon King of England. Margaret and her family returned to the Kingdom of England in 1057, but fled to the Kingdom of Scotland following the Norman conquest of England in 1066. By the end of 1070, Margaret had married King Malcolm III of Scotland, becoming Queen of Scots. She was a very pious Roman Catholic, and among many charitable works she established a ferry across the Firth of Forth in Scotland for pilgrims travelling to St Andrews in Fife, which gave the towns of South Queensferry and North Queensferry their names. Margaret was the mother of three kings of Scotland, or four, if Edmund of Scotland, who ruled with his uncle, Donald III, is counted, and of a queen consort of England. According to the Vita S. Margaritae (Scotorum) Reginae (Life of St. Margaret, Queen (of the Scots)), attributed to Turgot of Durham, she died at Edinburgh Castle in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1093, merely days after receiving the news of her husband's death in battle. In 1250 Pope Innocent IV canonized her, and her remains were reinterred in a shrine in Dunfermline Abbey in Fife, Scotland. Her relics were dispersed after the Scottish Reformation and subsequently lost. Mary, Queen of Scots at one time owned her head, which was subsequently preserved by Jesuits in the Scottish College, Douai, France, from where it was subsequently lost during the French Revolution.

Queen consort of Scotland
Tenure 1070-93
Born c.?1045
Kingdom of Hungary
Died 16 November 1093
Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Kingdom of Scotland
Burial Dunfermline Abbey, Fife, Kingdom of Scotland
Spouse Malcolm III, King of Scotland
Issue
more... Edmund, Bishop of Dunkeld
Ethelred
Edgar, King of Scotland
Alexander I, King of Scotland
David I, King of Scotland
Matilda, Queen of England
Mary, Countess of Boulogne
House Wessex
Father Edward the Exile
Mother Agatha

Early life

Margaret from a medieval family tree.
Margaret was the daughter of the English prince Edward the Exile, and granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, King of England.[1] After the Danish conquest of England in 1016, King Canute the Great had the infant Edward exiled to the continent. He was taken first to the court of the Swedish king, Olof Skèotkonung, and then to Kiev. As an adult, he travelled to Hungary, where in 1046 he supported the successful bid of King Andrew I for the Hungarian crown. King Andrew I was then also known as "Andrew the Catholic" for his extreme aversion to pagans and great loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church. The provenance of Margaret's mother, Agatha, is disputed, but Margaret was born in Hungary c. 1045. Her brother Edgar the ¥theling and sister Cristina were also born in Hungary around this time. Margaret grew up in a very religious environment in the Hungarian court.

Return to England

Still a child, she came to England with the rest of her family when her father, Edward the Exile, was recalled in 1057 as a possible successor to her great-uncle, the childless King Edward the Confessor. Whether from natural or sinister causes, her father died immediately after landing, and Margaret continued to reside at the English court where her brother, Edgar ¥theling, was considered a possible successor to the English throne.[1] When Edward the Confessor died in January 1066, Harold Godwinson was selected as king, possibly because Edgar was considered too young. After Harold's defeat at the Battle of Hastings later that year, Edgar was proclaimed King of England, but when the Normans advanced on London, the Witenagemot presented Edgar to William the Conqueror, who took him to Normandy before returning him to England in 1068, when Edgar, Margaret, Cristina, and their mother Agatha fled north to Northumbria, England.

Journey to Scotland

According to tradition, the widowed Agatha decided to leave Northumbria, England with her children and return to the continent. However, a storm drove their ship north to the Kingdom of Scotland in 1068, where they sought the protection of King Malcolm III. The locus where it is believed that they landed is known today as St Margaret's Hope, near the village of North Queensferry, Fife, Scotland. Margaret's arrival in Scotland, after the failed revolt of the Northumbrian earls, has been heavily romanticized, though Symeon of Durham implied that her first meeting of Malcolm III may not have been until 1070, after William the Conqueror's Harrying of the North.

King Malcolm III was a widower with two sons, Donald and Duncan. He would have been attracted to marrying one of the few remaining members of the Anglo-Saxon royal family. The marriage of Malcolm and Margaret occurred in 1070. Subsequently, Malcolm executed several invasions of Northumberland to support the claim of his new brother-in-law Edgar and to increase his own power. These, however, had little effect save the devastation of the County.[2]

Progeny

Margaret and Malcolm had eight children, six sons and two daughters:

Edward (c. 1071 — 13 November 1093), killed along with his father Malcolm III in the Battle of Alnwick
Edmund of Scotland (c.1071 – post 1097)
Ethelred of Scotland, Abbot of Dunkeld, Perth and Kinross, Scotland
Edgar of Scotland (c.1074 — 11 January 1107), King of Scotland, regnat 1097-1107
Alexander I of Scotland (c.1078 — 23 April 1124), King of Scotland, regnat 1107-24
Edith of Scotland (c. 1080 – 1 May 1118), also named "Matilda", married King Henry I of England, Queen Consort of England
Mary of Scotland (1082-1116), married Eustace III of Boulogne
David I of Scotland (c.1083 – 24 May 1153), King of Scotland, regnat 1124-53

Piety

Malcolm greeting Margaret at her arrival in Scotland; detail of a mural by Victorian artist William Hole
Margaret's biographer Turgot of Durham, Bishop of St. Andrew's, credits her with having a civilizing influence on her husband Malcolm by reading him narratives from the Bible. She instigated religious reform, striving to conform the worship and practices of the Church in Scotland to those of Rome. This she did on the inspiration and with the guidance of Lanfranc, a future Archbishop of Canterbury.[3] She also worked to conform the practices of the Scottish Church to those of the continental Church, which she experienced in her childhood. Due to these achievements, she was considered an exemplar of the "just ruler", and moreover influenced her husband and children, especially her youngest son, the future King David I of Scotland, to be just and holy rulers.

"The chroniclers all agree in depicting Queen Margaret as a strong, pure, noble character, who had very great influence over her husband, and through him over Scottish history, especially in its ecclesiastical aspects. Her religion, which was genuine and intense, was of the newest Roman style; and to her are attributed a number of reforms by which the Church [in] Scotland was considerably modified from the insular and primitive type which down to her time it had exhibited. Among those expressly mentioned are a change in the manner of observing Lent, which thenceforward began as elsewhere on Ash Wednesday and not as previously on the following Monday, and the abolition of the old practice of observing Saturday (Sabbath), not Sunday, as the day of rest from labour (see Skene's Celtic Scotland, book ii chap. 8)."[4] The later editions of the Encyclopµdia Britannica, however, as an example, the Eleventh Edition, remove Skene's opinion that Scottish Catholics formerly rested from work on Saturday, something for which there is no historical evidence. Skene's Celtic Scotland, vol. ii, chap. 8, pp. 348–350, quotes from a contemporary document regarding Margaret's life, but his source says nothing at all of Saturday Sabbath observance, but rather says St. Margaret exhorted the Scots to cease their tendency "to neglect the due observance of the Lord's day."

She attended to charitable works, serving orphans and the poor every day before she ate and washing the feet of the poor in imitation of Christ. She rose at midnight every night to attend the liturgy. She successfully invited the Benedictine Order to establish a monastery in Dunfermline, Fife in 1072, and established ferries at Queensferry and North Berwick to assist pilgrims journeying from south of the Firth of Forth to St. Andrew's in Fife. She used a cave on the banks of the Tower Burn in Dunfermline as a place of devotion and prayer. St. Margaret's Cave, now covered beneath a municipal car park, is open to the public.[5] Among other deeds, Margaret also instigated the restoration of Iona Abbey in Scotland.[6] She is also known to have interceded for the release of fellow English exiles who had been forced into serfdom by the Norman conquest of England.[7]

Margaret was as pious privately as she was publicly. She spent much of her time in prayer, devotional reading, and ecclesiastical embroidery. This apparently had considerable effect on the more uncouth Malcolm, who was illiterate: he so admired her piety that he had her books decorated in gold and silver. One of these, a pocket gospel book with portraits of the Evangelists, is in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England.[8]

Malcolm was apparently largely ignorant of the long-term effects of Margaret's endeavours, not being especially religious himself. He was content for her to pursue her reforms as she desired, which was a testament to the strength of and affection in their marriage.[6]

Death

Her husband Malcolm III, and their eldest son Edward, were killed in the Battle of Alnwick against the English on 13 November 1093. Her son Edgar was left with the task of informing his mother of their deaths. Margaret was not yet 50 years old, but a life of constant austerity and fasting had taken its toll.[3] Already ill, Margaret died on 16 November 1093, three days after the deaths of her husband and eldest son. She was buried before the high altar in Dunfermline Abbey in Fife, Scotland. In 1250, the year of her canonization, her body and that of her husband were exhumed and placed in a new shrine in the Abbey. In 1560 Mary Queen of Scots had Margaret's head removed to Edinburgh Castle as a relic to assist her in childbirth. In 1597 Margaret's head ended up with the Jesuits at the Scottish College, Douai, France, but was lost during the French Revolution. King Philip of Spain had the other remains of Margaret and Malcolm III transferred to the Escorial palace in Madrid, Spain, but their present location has not been discovered.[9]

Veneration

Site of the ruined Shrine of St. Margaret at Dunfermline Abbey, Fife, Scotland

St Margaret's Chapel in Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland

St Margaret's Church in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland
Canonization and feast day[edit]
Pope Innocent IV canonized St. Margaret in 1250 in recognition of her personal holiness, fidelity to the Roman Catholic Church, work for ecclesiastical reform, and charity. On 19 June 1250, after her canonisation, her remains were transferred to a chapel in the eastern apse of Dunfermline Abbey in Fife, Scotland.[10] In 1693 Pope Innocent XII moved her feast day to 10 June in recognition of the birthdate of the son of James VII of Scotland and II of England.[11] In the revision of the General Roman Calendar in 1969, 16 November became free and the Church transferred her feast day to 16 November, the date of her death, on which it always had been observed in Scotland.[12] However, some traditionalist Catholics continue to celebrate her feast day on 10 June.

She is also venerated as a saint in the Anglican Church.

Institutions bearing her name

Several churches throughout the world are dedicated in honour of St Margaret. One of the oldest is St Margaret's Chapel in Edinburgh Castle in Edinburgh, Scotland, which her son King David I founded. The Chapel was long thought to have been the oratory of Margaret herself, but is now thought to have been established in the 12th century. The oldest edifice in Edinburgh, it was restored in the 19th century and refurbished in the 1990s. Numerous other institutions are named for her as well.

end of this biography

Notes:

Married:
She is part of the English royal family fleeing the Normans after 1066.

Children:

24195. Matilda of Scotland, Queen of England was born in 1080 in Dumfermline, Scotland; died on 1 May 1118 in Westminster Palace, Westminster, London, Middlesex, England; was buried in Westminster Abbey, 20 Deans Yd, London SW1P 3PA, United Kingdom.
Mary of Scotland was born in 1082 in Dumfermline, Scotland; died in 1116.
22200. David I of Scotland, King of the Scots was born in ~1085 in Dumfermline, Scotland; died on 24 May 1154 in Carlisle, Scotland; was buried in Dunfermline Abbey, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland.

44292.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: 1046, Northumberland, England

Notes:

Waltheof, 1st Earl of Northumbria (d. 31 May 1076) was the last of the Anglo-Saxon earls and the only English aristocrat to be executed during the reign of William I.

Earl of Northumbria
Reign 1072–1076
Predecessor Cospatrick of Northumbria
Successor William Walcher
Died 31 May 1076
St. Giles's Hill, Winchester
Buried Croyland Abbey
Spouse(s) Judith of Lens
Father Siward, Earl of Northumbria
Mother Aelfflaed

Early life

Waltheof was the second son of Siward, Earl of Northumbria. His mother was Aelfflaed, daughter of Ealdred, Earl of Bernicia, son of Uhtred, Earl of Northumbria. In 1054, Waltheof’s brother, Osbearn, who was much older than he, was killed in battle, making Waltheof his father’s heir. Siward himself died in 1055, and Waltheof being far too young to succeed as Earl of Northumbria, King Edward appointed Tostig Godwinson to the earldom.

Waltheof was said to be devout and charitable and was probably educated for a monastic life. Around 1065, however, he became an earl, governing Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire. Following the Battle of Hastings he submitted to William and was allowed to keep his pre-Conquest title and possessions. He remained at William’s court until 1068.
First revolt

When Sweyn II invaded Northern England in 1069, Waltheof and Edgar Aetheling joined the Danes and took part in the attack on York. He would again make a fresh submission to William after the departure of the invaders in 1070. He was restored to his earldom, and went on to marry William's niece, Judith of Lens. In 1072, he was appointed Earl of Northampton.

The Domesday Book mentions Waltheof ("Walleff"): "'In Hallam ("Halun"), one manor with its sixteen hamlets, there are twenty-nine carucates [~14 km²] to be taxed. There Earl Waltheof had an "Aula" [hall or court]. There may have been about twenty ploughs. This land Roger de Busli holds of the Countess Judith." (Hallam, or Hallamshire, is now part of the city of Sheffield)

In 1072, William expelled Gospatric from the earldom of Northumbria. Gospatric was Waltheof’s cousin and had taken part in the attack on York with him, but like Waltheof, had been pardoned by William. Gospatric fled into exile and William appointed Waltheof as the new earl.

Waltheof had many enemies in the north. Amongst them were members of a family who had killed Waltheof’s maternal great-grandfather, Uchtred the Bold, and his grandfather Ealdred. This was part of a long-running blood feud. In 1074, Waltheof moved against the family by sending his retainers to ambush them, succeeding in killing the two eldest of four brothers.
Second revolt and death

In 1075 Waltheof joined the Revolt of the Earls against William. His motives for taking part in the revolt are unclear, as is the depth of his involvement. However he repented, confessing his guilt first to Archbishop Lanfranc and then in person to William, who was at the time in Normandy. He returned to England with William but was arrested, brought twice before the king's court and sentenced to death.

He spent almost a year in confinement before being beheaded on 31 May 1076 at St. Giles's Hill, near Winchester. He was said to have spent the months of his captivity in prayer and fasting. Many people believed in his innocence and were surprised when the execution was carried out. His body was initially thrown into a ditch, but was later retrieved and buried in the chapter house of Crowland Abbey in Lincolnshire.
Cult of martyrdom
statue traditionally identified as Waltheof, at Croyland Abbey, west front of ruined nave, 4th tier

In 1092, after a fire in the chapter house, the abbot had Waltheof’s body moved to a prominent place in the abbey church. When the coffin was opened, it is reported that the corpse was found to be intact with the severed head re-joined to the trunk.[1] This was regarded as a miracle, and the abbey, which had a financial interest in the matter began to publicise it. As a result, pilgrims began to visit Waltheof’s tomb. He was commemorated on 31 August.[2][3]

After a few years healing miracles were reputed to occur in the vicinity of Waltheof’s tomb, often involving the restoration of the pilgrim’s lost sight.

Waltheof also became the subject of popular media, heroic but inaccurate accounts of his life being preserved in the Vita et Passio Waldevi comitis, a Middle English Waltheof saga, since lost, and the Anglo-Norman Waldef.
Family and children

In 1070 Waltheof married Judith de Lens, daughter of Lambert II, Count of Lens and Adelaide of Normandy, Countess of Aumale. They had three children, the eldest of whom, Maud, brought the earldom of Huntingdon to her second husband, David I of Scotland, and another, Adelise, married the Anglo-Norman noble Raoul III of Tosny.

One of Waltheof's grandsons was Waltheof (d. 1159), abbot of Melrose.
In popular culture

Waltheof was portrayed by actor Marcus Gilbert in the TV drama Blood Royal: William the Conqueror (1990).
Waltheof is the subject of Juliet Dymoke's 1970 historical novel Of the Ring of Earls
Waltheof is a major character in Elizabeth Chadwick's 2002 historical novel The Winter Mantle

end of biography

Buried:
Images & History of Crowland Abbey: https://www.crowlandabbey.org.uk/

44293.

Notes:

Countess Judith (born in Normandy between 1054 and 1055, died after 1086), was a niece of William the Conqueror. She was a daughter of his sister Adelaide of Normandy, Countess of Aumale and Lambert II, Count of Lens.
Life

In 1070, Judith married Earl Waltheof of Huntingdon and Northumbria. They had three children. Their eldest daughter, Maud, brought the earldom of Huntingdon to her second husband, David I of Scotland. Their daughter, Adelise, married Raoul III de Conches whose sister, Godehilde, married Baldwin I of Jerusalem.

In 1075, Waltheof joined the Revolt of the Earls against William. It was the last serious act of resistance against the Norman conquest of England. Judith betrayed Waltheof to her uncle, who had Waltheof beheaded on 31 May 1076.

After Waltheof's execution Judith was betrothed by William to Simon I of St. Liz, 1st Earl of Northampton. Judith refused to marry Simon and she fled the country to avoid William's anger. William then temporarily confiscated all of Judith's English estates. Finally, Simon married Judith's daughter, Maud, in or before 1090.

Judith founded Elstow Abbey in Bedfordshire around 1078. She also founded churches at Kempston and Hitchin.

She had land-holdings in 10 counties in the Midlands and East Anglia. Her holdings included land at:

Earls Barton, Northamptonshire
Great Doddington, Northamptonshire
Grendon, Northamptonshire
Ashby Folville, Leicestershire
Lowesby, Leicestershire
Merton, Oxfordshire
Piddington, Oxfordshire
Potton, Bedfordshire
Sawtry, Huntingdonshire

The parish of Sawtry Judith in Huntingdonshire is named after the Countess.
From the Domesday Book

In POTONE Hugh holds ½ virgate of land from the Countess. Land for 1 plough; it is there, with 1 smallholder. The value is and was 5s; before 1066, 2s. Earl Tosti held this land in Potton, his manor.

Countess Judith holds POTONE herself. It answers for 10 hides. Land for 12 ploughs. In lordship 3½ hides; 3 ploughs there. 18 villagers and 2 Freemen with 8 ploughs; a ninth possible. 13 smallholders and 3 slaves. 1 mill, 5s; meadow for 12 ploughs; pasture for the village livestock. In total, value ¹12; when acquired 100s; before 1066 ¹13. King Edward held this manor; it was Earl Tosti's. There were 4 Freemen who had 1 hide and 1 virgate; they could grant to whom they would.

In (Cockayne) HATLEY Countess Judith holds 3 hides and 2½ virgates as one manor. Land for 6½ ploughs. In lordship 1 hide and ½ virgate; 2 ploughs there. 8 villagers with 4½ ploughs; woodland, 4 pigs. Value ¹6 5s; when acquired 100s; before 1066 ¹6. Earl Tosti held this manor. It lies in Potton, the Countess' own manor. A Freeman had 1 virgate; he could grant and sell, and withdraw to another lord.

Ranulf brother of Ilger holds EVERTON from the Countess. It answers for 5 hides. Land for 5 ploughs; 2 ploughs there; 3 possible. 4 villagers; 5 smallholders. Meadow for 1 plough. Value ¹3; when acquired 100s; as much before 1066. Earl Tosti held this manor. It lay in Potton, the Countess' own manor.

end of biography

Children:

22201. Maud of Huntingdon, Queen Consort of Scotland was born in ~1074 in Northumberland, England; died in 1130-1131 in Scone, Perthshire, Scotland; was buried in Scone Abbey, Perthshire, Scotland.
22146. Uctred FitzWaltheof was born after 1070 in Tynedale, Scotland; died in 1152 in Johnstone, Dumfries-shire, Scotland.

44404.

Sir William de Warenne, Knight, 1st Earl of Surrey was born in ~1035 in Bellencombre, Normandie, France; died on 20 Jun 1088 in Pevensey, Sussex, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Possessions: Lewes Castle, East Sussex, England
Military: 1066; fought at the Battle of Hastings

Notes:

William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, Seigneur de Varennes (died 1088), was a Norman nobleman created Earl of Surrey under William II Rufus. He was one of the few who was documented to have been with William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. At the time of the Domesday Survey, he held extensive lands in 13 counties including the Rape of Lewes in Sussex, now East Sussex.

Early career[

William was a younger son of Ranulf I de Warenne and his 1st wife Beatrice (whose mother was probably a sister of duchess Gunnor, wife of duke Richard I).[a] Likewise, Orderic Vitalis describes William as Roger's consanguineus, literally 'cousin', more generically a term of close kinship, but not typically used to describe brothers, and Roger de Mortimer appears to have been a generation older than William de Warenne, his purported brother.[2] Charters report several earlier men associated with Warenne. A Ranulf de Warenne appears in a charter dated between 1027 and 1035, and in one from about 1050 with a wife Beatrice, while in 1059, Ranulf and wife Emma appear along with their sons Ranulf and William. These occurrences have typically been taken to represent successive wives of a single Ranulf, with Beatrice being the mother of William and hence identical to the Gunnorid niece (Thomas Stapleton,[3] in spite of the 1059 charter explicitly naming Emma as his mother.[4] A reevaluation of the surviving charters led Katherine Keats-Rohan to suggest that, as he appears to have done elsewhere, Robert of Torigny has compressed two generations into one, with a Ranulf (I) and Beatrice being parents of Ranulf (II) de Warenne and of Roger de Mortimer (a Roger son of Ranulf de Warenne appears in a charter dated 1040/1053), and Ranulf (II) and Emma were then parents of Ranulf (III), the heir in Normandy, and William, as attested by the 1059 charter. Associations with Vascœuil led to identification of the Warenne progenitrix with a widow Beatrice, daughter of Tesselin, vicomte of Rouen, appearing there in 1054/60. As Robert of Torigny shows a vicomte of Rouen to have married a niece of Gunnor, this perhaps explains the tradition of a Gunnorid relationship.[5] On Robert's genealogies, see also Eleanor Searle,[6][7][8] William was from the hamlet of Varenne, near to Arques-la-Bataille, Duchy of Normandy, now in the canton of Bellencombre, Seine Maritime.[9][10][11] At the beginning of Duke William’s reign, Ranulf II was not a major landholder and, as a second son, William de Warenne did not stand to inherit the family’s small estates. During the rebellions of 1052-1054, the young William de Warenne proved himself a loyal adherent to the Duke and played a significant part in the Battle of Mortemer for which he was rewarded with lands confiscated from his uncle, Roger of Mortemer, including the Castle of Mortimer and most of the surrounding lands.[12] At about the same time he acquired lands at Bellencombre including the castle which became the center of William de Warenne’s holdings in Normandy[7]

Conquest of England

Coat of Arms of the de Warenne Earls of Surrey
William was among the Norman barons summoned to a council by Duke William when the decision was made to oppose King Harold II's accession to the throne of England.[7][13] He fought at the Battle of Hastings and was well rewarded with numerous holdings. The Domesday book records his lands stretched over thirteen counties and included the important Rape of Sussex, several manors in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, the significant manor of Conisbrough in Yorkshire and Castle Acre in Norfolk, which became his caput (see below).[7][8] He is one of the very few proven companions of William the Conqueror known to have fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.[14][15][16] He fought against rebels at the Isle of Ely in 1071, where he showed a special desire to hunt down Hereward the Wake who had killed his brother-in-law Frederick the year before.[17][18] Hereward is supposed to have unhorsed him with an arrow shot.[19]

Later career

Sometime between 1078 and 1082,[20] William and his wife Gundred traveled to Rome visiting monasteries along the way. In Burgundy they were unable to go any further due to a war between Emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII. They visited Cluny Abbey and were impressed with the monks and their dedication. William and Gundred decided to found a Cluniac priory on their own lands in England. William restored buildings for an abbey. They sent to Hugh, the abbot of Cluny, for monks to come to England at their monastery. At first Hugh was reluctant but he finally sent several monks, including Lazlo who was to be the first abbot. The house they founded was Lewes Priory, dedicated to St. Pancras,[21][22] the first Cluniac priory in England[23]

William was loyal to William II,[17] and it was probably in early 1088 that he was created Earl of Surrey.[24] He was mortally wounded at the First Siege of Pevensey Castle and died 24 June 1088 at Lewes, Sussex, and was buried next to his wife Gundred at the Chapterhouse of Lewes Priory.[25][26]

Family

He married first, before 1070, Gundred, daughter of William the Conqueror and Matilda his wife. This is shown in a charter of William referring to Gundrada (Gundred in Latin) as "Filae Meae" (my daughter),[27][28] sister of Gerbod the Fleming, 1st Earl of Chester. Ordericus Vitalis made many errors in his Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, which he wrote a hundred years after the Conquest. Ordericus Vitalis was a seventy-year-old man with an intense dislike for Normans, and continually made errors in his history (see Reverend Thomas Warren: History of the Warren Family); since then numerous English historians have tried to authenticate its account of Conqueror and his family, but have not succeeded. Gundred De Warren was buried at Lewes Castle. Her grave cover still exists as a marble slab of exactly the same design as that of her mother's grave cover, which is also in the same black decorated marble. DNA is likely to prove that Gundred and Matilda were mother and daughter. Such was the English dislike for the Normans, that they stole both William De Warren's and his wife's grave covers to place over graves of their own.[29][30][31]

William married secondly a sister of Richard Gouet, who survived him.[32]

Issue

By Gundred Surrey had:

William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey (d. 1138), who married Elisabeth (Isabelle) de Vermandois, widow of Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester.[33]
Edith de Warenne, who married firstly Gerard de Gournay, lord of Gournay-en-Bray, and secondly Drew de Monchy.[34]
Reynold de Warenne, who inherited lands from his mother in Flanders[34] and died c. 1106–08.[35]
An unnamed daughter, who married Ernise de Coulonces.[36]
Surrey, by his second wife, had no issue.

Possessions:
Lewes Castle stands at the highest point of Lewes, East Sussex, England on an artificial mound constructed with chalk blocks. It was originally called Bray Castle.

Images, history & source citation ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewes_Castle

44405.

Gundred of Flanders, Countess of Surrey was born in Flanders, Belgium; died on 27 May 1085 in Castle Acre, Norfolk, England; was buried in Lewes Priory, Sussex, England.

Notes:

Gundred or Gundreda (Latin: Gundrada) (died 27 May 1085)[1] was the Flemish-born wife of an early Norman baron, William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey. She and her husband established Lewes Priory in Sussex.

Life

Gundred was almost certainly born in Flanders, and was a sister of Gerbod the Fleming, 1st Earl of Chester.[2][3][4][5] She is explicitly so called by Orderic Vitalis,[6] as well as the chronicle of Hyde Abbey[7] She was also sister of Frederick of Oosterzele-Scheldewindeke, who was killed c.1070 by Hereward the Wake.[8] Legends based in part on late Lewes priory cartulary[a] suggested Gundred was a daughter of William the Conqueror by his spouse Matilda of Flanders,[9] but this is not accepted by most modern historians.[10][11] The early-19th-century writer Thomas Stapleton had argued she was a daughter of Matilda, born prior to her marriage to Duke William.[12] This sparked a debate consisting of a series of published papers culminating with those of Edmond Chester Waters and Edward Augustus Freeman who argued the theories could not be supported.[13][14][15] Regardless, some genealogical and historical sources continue to make the assertion that she was the Conqueror's daughter.[16][17][18][19]

Gundred married before 1070[20] William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey (d. 20 June 1088),[1] who rebuilt Lewes Castle, making it his chief residence. Sometime between 1078 and 1082,[21] Gundrada and her husband set out for Rome visiting monasteries along the way. In Burgundy they were unable to go any further due to a war between Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII. They visited Cluny Abbey and were impressed with the monks and their dedication. William and Gundred decided to found a Cluniac priory on their own lands in England. They sent to Hugh the abbot of Cluny for monks to come to England at their monastery. Hugh was reluctant yet eventually sent several monks including Lazlo who became the first abbot. The house they founded was Lewes Priory dedicated to St. Pancras.[22][23] Gundred died in childbirth 27 May 1085 at Castle Acre, Norfolk, one of her husband's estates, and was buried at the Chapter house of Lewes Priory.[1][23] He was later buried beside her.[24]

Tombstone

In the course of the centuries which followed, both tombstones disappeared from the priory but in 1774 William Burrell, Esq., an antiquary, discovered Gundred's in Isfield Church (seven miles from Lewes), over the remains of Edward Shirley, Esq., (d. 1550), and had it removed on October 2, 1775, to St. John's Church, Southover, where it was placed on display.[25]

In 1845, during excavations through the Priory grounds for the Brighton Lewes and Hastings Railway, the lead chests containing the remains of the Earl and his Countess were discovered and were deposited temporarily beneath Gundred's tombstone.[25] In 1847 a Norman Revival chapel was erected by public subscription, adjoining the present vestry and chancel. Prior to re-interring the remains in this chapel, both chests were opened to ascertain if there were any contents, which was found to be the case. New chests were made and used, and the ancient ones preserved and placed in two recessed arches in the southern wall. The Earl's chest has lost some lead. Gundred's chest remains in a good state of preservation. Across the upper part of the right arch is the name Gvndrada. Her tombstone is of black Tournai marble.[26]

Family

The children of William de Warenne and Gundred were:

William II de Warenne (d. 11 May 1138), buried in Lewes Priory.[2][27]
Reginald de Warenne, an adherent of Robert of Normandy.[2][24]
Edith de Warenne, married, 1stly, Gerard de Gournay, Lord of Gournay-en-Bray, 2ndly, Drew de Monchy.[2][24]

Controversy on parentage

Legends based in part on late Lewes Priory cartulary[a] suggested Gundred was a daughter of William the Conqueror by his spouse Matilda of Flanders,[19] but this is not accepted by most modern historians.[20][21] The early-19th-century writer Thomas Stapleton had argued she was a daughter of Matilda born prior to her marriage to Duke William.[22] This theory sparked a debate consisting of a series of published papers. It culminated with those of Edmond Chester Waters and Edward Augustus Freeman, who argued the theories could not be supported.[23][24][b] Nonetheless, some genealogical and historical sources continue to make the assertion that she was the Conqueror's daughter.[25][26][27][28]

Notes

Jump up ^ The reference here to late Lewes priory cartulary is to copies of charters that date centuries after the originals and specifically those which had been altered or forged to add the desired evidence she was the daughter of royalty. For more information on these forged charters see: English Historical Documents 1042-1189, ed. David C. Douglas, George W. Greenaway, Vol. II (Oxford University Press, New York, 1953), p. 605; L.C. Loyd, 'The Origin of the Family of Warenne' ‘’Yorks Archaeol. Journal’’, vol. xxxi, pp. 97-113; and C. T. Clay, ‘'Early Yorkshire Charters’’, vol. VIII (1949), pp. 59.-62.

References

^ Jump up to: a b c G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, vol. xii/1 (The St. Catherine Press, London, 1953), p. 494
^ Jump up to: a b c d Early Yorkshire Charters, ed: William Farrer, Charles Travis Clay, Volume VIII - The Honour of Warenne (The Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1949), pp. 40-46
Jump up ^ F. Anderson, Uxor Mea: The First Wife of the First William of Warenne, Sussex archaeological collections, Vol. 130 (Sussex Archaeological Society, 1992) pp. 107-8
Jump up ^ Elisabeth van Houts, 'Epitaph of Gundrada of Warenne', Nova de Veteribus, Mitel-und neulateinische Studien fur Paul Gerhard Schmidt (K.G. Saur, Munchen Leipzig, 2004), p. 372
Jump up ^ P. Anselme de Sainte-Marie, Histoire de la maison royale de France et des grands officiers de la Couronne, V.6 (Estienne Loyson, 1674), p. 26
Jump up ^ Ordericus Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, Translated by Thomas Forester, Vol. ii, (Henry G. Bohn, London, MDCCCLIV (1854), p. 49
Jump up ^ Hyde Abbey, Liber Monasterii de Hyda: Comprising a Chronicle of the affairs of England, (Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, London, 1866), p. xcvii. Note: the anonymous Hyde chronicler identified two of Gundred's brothers, Gerbod, Earl of Cheter and Frederick.
Jump up ^ Elisabeth van Houts, 'Frederick, Brother-in-Law of William of Warenne', Anglo-Saxon England, Vol. 28 (1999), pp. 218-220
Jump up ^ George Duckett, 'Observations on the Parentage of Gundreda, Countess of Warenne', The Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Journal, Vol. ix, Part xxxiii, 1885, pp. 421-437 Note: Sir George Duckett, Bart., was the leading proponent of the theory that Gundred was the daughter of William the Conqueror and Matilda
Jump up ^ G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, vol. xii/1 (The St. Catherine Press, London, 1953), p. 494 note (j)
Jump up ^ David C. Doulgas, William the Conqueror (University of California Press, 1964), p. 392
Jump up ^ Stapleton, Thomas, 'Observations in disproof of the pretended marriage of William de Warren, Earl of Surrey, with a daughter begotten of Matildis, daughter of Baldwin, Comte of Flanders, by William the Conqueror, and illustrative of the origin and early history of the family in Normandy', The Archaeological Journal 3 (1846):1-26 Note: despite the confusing title Stapleton's theory was that Gundred was a daughter of Matilda of Flanders by an earlier marriage.
Jump up ^ Edmond Chester Waters, 'Gundrada de Warenne', The Archaeological Journal, Vol. xli (London, 1884), pp. 300-312
Jump up ^ Edward A. Freeman, 'The Parentage of Gundrada, Wife of William of Warren', The English Historical Review, Vol. 3, No. 12 (Oct., 1888), pp. 680-701
Jump up ^ For an extensive discussion regarding the participants of this nineteenth-century debate see : Victoria Chandler, 'Gundrada de Warenne and the Victorian Gentlemen-Scholars', Southern History, Vol. 12 (1990), pp. 68-81
Jump up ^ American Biography; a New Cyclopedia, Vol. ix (The American Historial Society, New York, 1921)p. 276
Jump up ^ Colonial Families of the United States of America, ed. Nelson Osgood Rhoades, Vol. VII (Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, 1966). pp. 319, 347
Jump up ^ Rene Beckley, Ancient Walls of East Anglia (Terence Dalton, Ltd., Lavenham, Suffolk, 1979), p. 66
Jump up ^ Charles Cooper, A village in Sussex: the history of Kingston-near-Lewes (I.B. Taurus, London, 2006), p. 44
Jump up ^ Elisabeth van Houts, 'The Warenne View of the Past 1066-1203)', Anglo-Norman Studies XXIV, Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2003, Vol. 26 (The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 2004), p. 104 & n. 8
Jump up ^ Early Yorkshire Charters, ed: William Farrer, Charles Travis Clay, Volume VIII - The Honour of Warenne (The Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1949), p. 4
Jump up ^ B. Golding, 'The Coming of the Cluniacs', Anglo-Norman Studies III; Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1980, Vol. iii (Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 1981), pp. 65, 67
^ Jump up to: a b Early Yorkshire Charters, ed: William Farrer, Charles Travis Clay, Volume VIII - The Honour of Warenne (The Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1949), pp. 50-55
^ Jump up to: a b c G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, vol. xii/1 (The St. Catherine Press, London, 1953), p. 495 note (b)
^ Jump up to: a b Elisabeth van Houts, 'Epitaph of Gundrada of Warenne', Nova de Veteribus, Mitel-und neulateinische Studien fur Paul Gerhard Schmidt (K.G. Saur, Munchen Leipzig, 2004), p. 367
Jump up ^ Elisabeth van Houts, 'Epitaph of Gundrada of Warenne', Nova de Veteribus, Mitel-und neulateinische Studien fur Paul Gerhard Schmidt (K.G. Saur, Munchen Leipzig, 2004), pp. 366,368-9
Jump up ^ G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, vol. xii/1 (The St. Catherine Press, London, 1953), pp. 495-6

Additional references

Barlow, Frank, The Feudal Kingdom of England 1012 - 1216, London, 1955
Cokayne, George Edward, The Complete Peerage, Vol. iv, p. 670 Chart:Surrey or Warenne before 1135…
Keats-Rohan, K.S.B., Domesday People, a Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066-1166 (The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 1999), p. 480
Moriarty, George Andrews, The Plantagenet Ancestry (Mormon Pioneer Genealogy Society, Salt Lake City, UT, 1985), p. 184
Norgate, Kate (1890). "Gundrada de Warenne". In Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography. 23. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 338.
Schwennicke, Detlev, Europèaische Stammtafeln: Stammtafeln zur Geschichte der Europaischen Staaten, Neue Folge, Band III Teilband 4, Das Feudale Frankreich und Sien Einfluss auf des Mittelalters (Marburg, Germany: Verlag von J. A. Stargardt, 1989), Tafel 699
Weis, Frederick Lewis, The Magna Charta Sureties, 1215, ed: Walter Lee Sheppard, Jr., William R. Beall, 5th Edition (Genealogical Publishing Co., 1999), Line 158-1

External links

The Lewes Priory Trust Photo Gallery (copyrighted images)
The Gundrada Chapel, Southover Church, Lewes, East Sussex
Tomb of Gundred in 1787 The Gentleman's Magazine

*

Buried:
In the course of the centuries which followed, both tombstones disappeared from the priory but in 1774 William Burrell, Esq., an antiquary, discovered Gundred's in Isfield Church (seven miles from Lewes), over the remains of Edward Shirley, Esq., (d. 1550), and had it removed on October 2, 1775, to St. John's Church, Southover, where it was placed on display.[25]

In 1845, during excavations through the Priory grounds for the Brighton Lewes and Hastings Railway, the lead chests containing the remains of the Earl and his Countess were discovered and were deposited temporarily beneath Gundred's tombstone.[25] In 1847 a Norman Revival chapel was erected by public subscription, adjoining the present vestry and chancel. Prior to re-interring the remains in this chapel, both chests were opened to ascertain if there were any contents, which was found to be the case. New chests were made and used, and the ancient ones preserved and placed in two recessed arches in the southern wall. The Earl's chest has lost some lead. Gundred's chest remains in a good state of preservation. Across the upper part of the right arch is the name Gvndrada. Her tombstone is of black Tournai marble.[26]

Children:

22202. Sir William de Warenne, Knight, 2nd Earl of Surrey was born in 1065 in East Sussex, England; died on 11 May 1138; was buried in Lewes Priory, Sussex, England.

44406.

Other Events and Attributes:

Military: Leader of the 1st Crusade

Notes:

Birth: 1057
Death: Oct. 18, 1102

Nobility. Son of Henri I of France and his second wife Anna Iaroslavna of Kiev. He married Adelais de Vermandois who bore him nine children.

Family links:
Parents:
King Henri (1008 - 1060)
Anna Agnesa Yaroslavna (1036 - 1075)

Spouse:
Adelaide, Countess of Vermandois*

Children:
Isabel Of Vermandois Beaumont de Warenne (1081 - 1131)*
Raoul I de Vermandois (1094 - 1152)*

Siblings:
Philip I of France (1052 - 1108)*
Hugh I Count of Vermandois (1057 - 1102)*
Hugues de France (1057 - 1102)

*Calculated relationship

Burial:
Church of St Paul
Mersin
Mersin, Turkey

Created by: Lutetia
Record added: Jan 13, 2013
Find A Grave Memorial# 103487897

end of profile

The PEDIGREE of
Hugh MAGNUS `the Great' de CREPI

Count of VERMANDOIS; Leader of 1st Crusade (Crusader); (inherited VERMANDOIS from his wife, whose brother Eudes, q.v., was disinherited)
Born: abt. 1057 Died: 18 Oct 1101 Tarsus d. from Battle wounds

HM George I's 15-Great Grandfather. HRE Ferdinand I's 13-Great Grandfather. U.S. President [WASHINGTON]'s 19-Great Grandfather. PM Churchill's 22-Great Grandfather. HM Margrethe II's 23-Great Grandfather. Gen. Pierpont Hamilton's 23-Great Grandfather. `Red Baron' Richthofen's 20-Great Grandfather. Poss. Agnes Harris's 16-Great Grandfather. `Osawatomie' Brown's 23-Great Grandfather.
Wife/Partner: Adelheid (Adelaide) (Countess) de VERMANDOIS
Children: Raoul I (Count) de VERMANDOIS ; Isabelle (de) VERMANDOIS ; Agnes de VERMANDOIS ; Mathilda (Mahaut) de VERMANDOIS ; Constance de VERMANDOIS ; Henri de Chaumont
Possible Child: Alice de VERMANDOIS
________ ________ ________ ________ _______ _______ _______ _______ ______ _____ _____
/ -- Robert I (King) of FRANCE + ==&=> [ 255 ,,x,&]
/ -- Hugh (I) `the Great' (Duke) of the FRANKS
/ \ -- Beatrice (poss. de VERMANDOIS) + ====> [ 255 ,,x,&]
/ -- Hugh (Hugues) CAPET (King) of FRANCE
/ \ -- Hedwige (Hedwig) of SAXONY + ==&=> [ 255 ,c,ptm,&]
/ -- Robert II CAPET (King) of FRANCE
/ \ -- Adelais of the CAROLINGIANS + ====> [ 255 ,c,pt,&]
/ -- Henry I CAPET (King) of FRANCE (1008 - 1060)
| \ / -- Boso (Bozon; II) of PROVENCE + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,pt,&]
| | / -- William (I; II; Marquis/Duke) of PROVENCE
| | | \ -- Constance of ARLES (de VIENNE) + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,ptQD,&]
| | / | or: Constantia (of unknown ancestry)
| \ -- Constance of ARLES (TOULOUSE) (980? - 1032 Meulan)
/ \ -- Adelaide (Aelips) `Blanche' d' ANJOU + ====> [ 255 ,c,&]
- Hugh MAGNUS `the Great' de CREPI
\ / -- Vladimir (I; Saint; Grand Prince) of KIEV + ====> [ 255 ,,R,&]
| / -- Jaroslav (Yaroslav Laroslav) I WLADIMIROWWITSCH
| | \ -- Rogneida (Rognieda) (Princess) von POLOTZK + ====> [ 3]
| | | or: Anna PORPHYROGENITA, q.v.
| / | OR: poss. (Miss) von SCHWABEN + ==&=> [ 255 ,gC,tm,&]
\ -- Anna (Agnesa) JAROSLAVNA (Princess) of KIEV
\ | or: prob. not Matilda of GERMANY (1st wife)
| / -- Olaf III (II; King; Skot-konig) of SWEDEN + ====> [ 255 ,g,&]
\ -- Ingegarda (Ingrid) OLAFSDOTTIR (1001? - 1050)
\ / -- Mieceslas III (Prince) of the OBOTRITES + ====> [ 255 ,c,pt,&]
\ -- Astrid (Ingegerda) (Princess) of the OBOTRITES
\ -- Sophia (Sweden)

His (poss.) Grandchildren: Eleonore de VERMANDOIS ; Isabelle de VERMANDOIS ; Eleonore de VERMANDOIS ; Alice of LEICESTER ; Ada (of Surrey) de WARENNE ; Reginald de WARREN ; Isabel (Elizabeth) de BEAUMONT ; Robert II `Bossu' de BEAUMONT (BELLOMONT; BLANCHMAIN) ; William (III) de WARENNE ; Waleran II de BEAUMONT (Count) de MEULAN ; Gundred de WARREN (WARENNE) ; Adelina (de) BEAUMONT ; Rainald de WARENNE ; Ella de WARREN ; (Miss) de WARENNE ; Matilda (Aubreye) de BEAUMONT ; Emma of BEAUMONT ; Eleanor BEAUMONT ; Manfred I (Marquess) of SALUZZO ; Anselmo (Marquis) de CEVA (del VASTO) ; Guglielmo del VASTO ; Sibel (Sibyl) of SAVONA del VASTO ; Agnes de BAUGENCY ; Mathilde de BEAUGENCY ; Adelheid de la FERTE-GAUCHER ; Bernard de ST. VALERY

[ Start ]
FabPed Genealogy Vers. 86 © Jamie, 1997-2018

end of pedigree

Birth:
Vermandois was a French county that appeared in the Merovingian period. Its name derives from that of an ancient tribe, the Viromandui. In the 10th century, it was organised around two castellan domains: St Quentin (Aisne) and Pâeronne (Somme). In today's times, the Vermandois county would fall in the Picardy region of northern France.

Pepin I of Vermandois, the earliest of its hereditary counts, was descended in direct male line from the emperor Charlemagne. More famous was his grandson Herbert II (902–943), who considerably increased the territorial power of the house of Vermandois, and kept the lawful king of France, the unlucky Charles the Simple, prisoner for six years. Herbert II was son of Herbert I, lord of Pâeronne and St Quentin, who was killed in 902 by an assassin in the pay of Baldwin II, Count of Flanders. His successors, Albert I, Herbert III, Albert II, Otto and Herbert IV, were not as historically significant.

In 1077, the last count of the first house of Vermandois, Herbert IV, received the county of Valois through his wife. His son Eudes (II) the Insane was disinherited by the council of the Barons of France. He was lord of Saint-Simon through his wife, and the county was given to his sister Adela, whose first husband was Hugh the Great, the brother of King Philip I of France. Hugh was one of the leaders of the First Crusade, and died in 1102 at Tarsus in Cilicia. The eldest son of Hugh and Adela was count Raoul I (c. 1120–1152), who married Petronilla of Aquitaine, sister of the queen, Eleanor, and had by her three children: Raoul (Rudolph) II, the Leper (count from 1152–1167); Isabelle, who possessed from 1167 to 1183 the counties of Vermandois, Valois and Amiens conjointly with her husband, Philip, Count of Flanders; and Eleanor. By the terms of a treaty concluded in 1186 with the king, Philip Augustus, the count of Flanders kept the county of Vermandois until his death, in 1191. At this date, a new arrangement gave Eleanor (d. 1213) a life interest in the eastern part of Vermandois, together with the title of countess of St Quentin, and the king entered immediately into possession of Peronne and its dependencies.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermandois

Died:
from battle wounds...

Hugues married Adelaide of Vermandois. Adelaide was born in 1060-1062 in Valois, France; died on 28 Sep 1120 in Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44407.

Adelaide of Vermandois was born in 1060-1062 in Valois, France; died on 28 Sep 1120 in Normandy, France.

Children:

22267. Lady Isabel de Vermandois, Countess of Leicester was born on 13 Dec 1081 in Basse-Normandie, France; died on 17 Feb 1131 in France; was buried in Lewes Priory, Southover, Sussex, England.

22250.

Sir Ranulf Meschin, Knight, 1st Earl of Chester was born in 0___ 1070 in (Bayeux, Normandy, France); died in 0Jan 1129 in Cheshire, England; was buried in Chester Abbey, Cheshire, England.

Notes:

Biography

Family and origins

Ranulf le Meschin's father and mother represented two different families of viscounts in Normandy, and both of them were strongly tied to Henry, son of William the Conqueror.[1] His father was Ranulf de Briquessart, and likely for this reason the former Ranulf was styled le Meschin, "the younger".[2] Ranulf's father was viscount of the Bessin, the area around Bayeux.[3] Besides Odo, bishop of Bayeux, Ranulf the elder was the most powerful magnate in the Bessin region of Normandy.[4] Ranulf le Meschin's great-grandmother may even have been from the ducal family of Normandy, as le Meschin's paternal great-grandfather viscount Anschitil is known to have married a daughter of Duke Richard III.[5]

Ranulf le Meschin's mother, Margaret, was the daughter of Richard le Goz, Viscount of Avranches.[1] Richard's father Thurstan Goz had become viscount of the Hiâemois between 1017 and 1025,[6] while Richard himself became viscount of the Avranchin in either 1055 or 1056.[7] Her brother (Richard Goz's son) was Hugh d'Avranches "Lupus" ("the Wolf"), viscount of the Avranchin and Earl of Chester (from c. 1070).[8] Ranulf was thus, in addition to being heir to the Bessin, the nephew of one of Norman England's most powerful and prestigious families.[9]

We know from an entry in the Durham Liber Vitae, c. 1098 x 1120, that Ranulf le Meschin had an older brother named Richard (who died in youth), and a younger brother named William.[10] He had a sister called Agnes, who later married Robert de Grandmesnil (died 1136).[2]

Early career

Historian C. Warren Hollister thought that Ranulf's father Ranulf de Briquessart was one of the early close companions of Prince Henry, the future Henry I.[4] Hollister called Ranulf the Elder "a friend from Henry's youthful days in western Normandy",[11] and argued that the homeland of the two Ranulfs had been under Henry's overlordship since 1088, despite both ducal and royal authority lying with Henry's two brothers.[12] Hollister further suggested that Ranulf le Meschin may have had a role in persuading Robert Curthose to free Henry from captivity in 1089.[13]

The date of Ranulf senior's death, and succession of Ranulf junior, is unclear, but the former's last and the latter's earliest appearance in extant historical records coincides, dating to 24 April 1089 in charter of Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, to Bayeux Cathedral.[14] Ranulf le Meschin appears as "Ranulf son of Ranulf the viscount".[14]

In the foundation charter of Chester Abbey granted by his uncle Hugh Lupus, earl of Chester, and purportedly issued in 1093, Ranulf le Meschin is listed as a witness.[15] His attestation to this grant is written Signum Ranulfi nepotis comitis, "signature of Ranulf nephew of the earl".[16] However, the editor of the Chester comital charters, Geoffrey Barraclough, thought this charter was forged in the period of Earl Ranulf II.[17] Between 1098 and 1101 (probably in 1098) Ranulf became a major English landowner in his own right when he became the third husband of Lucy, heiress of the honour of Bolingbroke in Lincolnshire.[18] This acquisition also brought him the lordship of Appleby in Westmorland, previously held by Lucy's second husband Ivo Taillebois.[2]

Marriage to a great heiress came only with royal patronage, which in turn meant that Ranulf had to be respected and trusted by the king. Ranulf was probably, like his father, among the earliest and most loyal of Henry's followers, and was noted as such by Orderic Vitalis.[19] Ranulf was however not recorded often at the court of Henry I, and did not form part of the king's closest group of administrative advisers.[20] He witnessed charters only occasionally, though this became more frequent after he became earl.[21] In 1106 he is found serving as one of several justiciars at York hearing a case about the lordship of Ripon.[22] In 1116 he is recorded in a similar context.[2]

Ranulf was, however, one of the king's military companions. When, soon after Whitsun 1101 Henry heard news of a planned invasion of England by his brother Robert Curthose, he sought promises from his subjects to defend the kingdom.[23] A letter to the men of Lincolnshire names Ranulf as one of four figures entrusted with collecting these oaths.[24] Ranulf was one of the magnates who accompanied King Henry on his invasion of Duke Robert's Norman territory in 1106.[25] Ranulf served under Henry as an officer of the royal household when the latter was on campaign; Ranulf was in fact one of his three commanders at the Battle of Tinchebrai.[26] The first line of Henry's force was led by Ranulf, the second (with the king) by Robert of Meulan, and third by William de Warrene, with another thousand knights from Brittany and Maine led by Helias, Count of Maine.[27] Ranulf's line consisted of the men of Bayeux, Avranches and Coutances.[28]

Lord of Cumberland

The gatehouse of Wetheral Priory, founded by Ranulf c. 1106.
A charter issued in 1124 by David I, King of the Scots, to Robert I de Brus cited Ranulf's lordship of Carlisle and Cumberland as a model for Robert's new lordship in Annandale.[29] This is significant because Robert is known from other sources to have acted with semi-regal authority in this region.[2] A source from 1212 attests that the jurors of Cumberland remembered Ranulf as quondam dominus Cumberland ("sometime Lord of Cumberland").[30] Ranulf possessed the power and in some respects the dignity of a semi-independent earl in the region, though he lacked the formal status of being called such. A contemporary illustration of this authority comes from the records of Wetheral Priory, where Ranulf is found addressing his own sheriff, "Richer" (probably Richard de Boivill, baron of Kirklinton).[31] Indeed, no royal activity occurred in Cumberland or Westmorland during Ranulf's time in charge there, testimony to the fullness of his powers in the region.[32]

Ivo Taillebois, when he married Ranulf's future wife Lucy, had acquired her Lincolnshire lands but sometime after 1086 he acquired estates in Kendal and elsewhere in Westmorland. Adjacent lands in Westmorland and Lancashire that had previously been controlled by Earl Tostig Godwinson were probably carved up between Roger the Poitevin and Ivo in the 1080s, a territorial division at least partially responsible for the later boundary between the two counties.[33] Norman lordship in the heartland of Cumberland can be dated from chronicle sources to around 1092, the year King William Rufus seized the region from its previous ruler, Dolfin.[34] There is inconclusive evidence that settlers from Ivo's Lincolnshire lands had come into Cumberland as a result.[35]

Between 1094 and 1098 Lucy was married to Roger fitz Gerold de Roumare, and it is probable that this marriage was the king's way of transferring authority in the region to Roger fitz Gerold.[36] Only from 1106 however, well into the reign of Henry I, do we have certain evidence that this authority had come to Ranulf.[2] The "traditional view", held by the historian William Kapelle, was that Ranulf's authority in the region did not come about until 1106 or after, as a reward for participation in the Battle of Tinchebrai.[37] Another historian, Richard Sharpe, has recently attacked this view and argued that it probably came in or soon after 1098. Sharpe stressed that Lucy was the mechanism by which this authority changed hands, and pointed out that Ranulf had been married to Lucy years before Tinchebrai and can be found months before Tinchebrai taking evidence from county jurors at York (which may have been responsible for Cumbria at this point).[38]

Ranulf likewise distributed land to the church, founding a Benedictine monastic house at Wetheral.[39] This he established as a daughter-house of St Mary's Abbey, York, a house that in turn had been generously endowed by Ivo Taillebois.[30] This had occurred by 1112, the year of the death of Abbot Stephen of St Mary's, named in the foundation deed.[40] In later times at least, the priory of Wetheral was dedicated to St Mary and the Holy Trinity, as well as another saint named Constantine.[41] Ranulf gave Wetheral, among other things, his two churches at Appleby, St Lawrences (Burgate) and St Michaels (Bongate).[42]

As an incoming regional magnate Ranulf would be expected to distribute land to his own followers, and indeed the record of the jurors of Cumberland dating to 1212 claimed that Ranulf created two baronies in the region.[43] Ranulf's brother-in-law Robert de Trevers received the barony of Burgh-by-Sands, while the barony of Liddel went to Turgis Brandos.[30] He appears to have attempted to give the large compact barony of Gilsland to his brother William, but failed to dislodge the native lord, the eponymous "Gille" son of Boite; later the lordship of Allerdale (including Copeland), even larger than Gilsland stretching along the coast from the River Ellen to the River Esk, was given to William.[44] Kirklinton may have been given to Richard de Boivill, Ranulf's sheriff.[2]

Earl of Chester

Chester Cathedral today, originally Chester Abbey, where Ranulf's body was buried.
1120 was a fateful year for both Henry I and Ranulf. Richard, earl of Chester, like Henry's son and heir William Adeling, died in the White Ship Disaster near Barfleur on 25 November.[2] Only four days before the disaster, Ranulf and his cousin Richard had witnessed a charter together at Cerisy.[2]

Henry probably could not wait long to replace Richard, as the Welsh were resurgent under the charismatic leadership of Gruffudd ap Cynan. According to the Historia Regum, Richard's death prompted the Welsh to raid Cheshire, looting, killing, and burning two castles.[45] Perhaps because of his recognised military ability and social strength, because he was loyal and because he was the closest male relation to Earl Richard, Henry recognized Ranulf as Richard's successor to the county of Chester.[46]

In 1123, Henry sent Ranulf to Normandy with a large number of knights and with his bastard son, Robert, Earl of Gloucester, to strengthen the garrisons there.[47] Ranulf commanded the king's garrison at âEvreux and governed the county of âEvreux during the 1123-1124 war with William Clito, Robert Curthose's son and heir.[48] In March 1124 Ranulf assisted in the capture of Waleran, Count of Meulan.[49] Scouts informed Ranulf that Waleran's forces were planning an expedition to Vatteville, and Ranulf planned an to intercept them, a plan carried out by Henry de Pommeroy, Odo Borleng and William de Pont-Authou, with 300 knights.[50] A battle followed, perhaps at Rougemontier (or Bourgthâeroulde), in which Waleran was captured.[51]

Although Ranulf bore the title "earl of Chester", the honour (i.e., group of estates) which formed the holdings of the earl of Chester were scattered throughout England, and during the rule of his predecessors included the cantref of Tegeingl in Perfeddwlad in north-western Wales.[52] Around 1100, only a quarter of the value of the honour actually lay in Cheshire, which was one of England's poorest and least developed counties.[53] The estates elsewhere were probably given to the earls in compensation for Cheshire's poverty, in order to strengthen its vulnerable position on the Anglo-Welsh border.[54] The possibility of conquest and booty in Wales should have supplemented the lordship's wealth and attractiveness, but for much of Henry's reign the English king tried to keep the neighboring Welsh princes under his peace.[55]

Ranulf's accession may have involved him giving up many of his other lands, including much of his wife's Lincolnshire lands as well as his lands in Cumbria, though direct evidence for this beyond convenient timing is lacking.[56] That Cumberland was given up at this point is likely, as King Henry visited Carlisle in December 1122, where, according to the Historia Regum, he ordered the strengthening of the castle.[57]

Hollister believed that Ranulf offered the Bolingbroke lands to Henry in exchange for Henry's bestowal of the earldom.[13] The historian A. T. Thacker believed that Henry I forced Ranulf to give up most of the Bolingbroke lands through fear that Ranulf would become too powerful, dominating both Cheshire and the richer county of Lincoln.[58] Sharpe, however, suggested that Ranulf may have had to sell a great deal of land in order to pay the king for the county of Chester, though it could not have covered the whole fee, as Ranulf's son Ranulf de Gernon, when he succeeded his father to Chester in 1129, owed the king ¹1000 "from his father's debt for the land of Earl Hugh".[59] Hollister thought this debt was merely the normal feudal relief expected to be paid on a large honour, and suggested that Ranulf's partial non-payment, or Henry's forgiveness for non-payment, was a form of royal patronage.[60]

Ranulf died in January 1129, and was buried in Chester Abbey.[2] He was survived by his wife and countess, Lucy, and succeeded by his son Ranulf de Gernon.[2] A daughter, Alicia, married Richard de Clare, a lord in the Anglo-Welsh marches.[2] One of his offspring, his fifth son, participated in the Siege of Lisbon, and for this aid was granted the Lordship of Azambuja by King Afonso I of Portugal.[2]

That his career had some claim on the popular imagination may be inferred from lines in William Langland's Piers Plowman (c. 1362–c. 1386) in which Sloth, the lazy priest, confesses: "I kan [know] not parfitly [perfectly] my Paternoster as the preest it singeth,/ But I kan rymes of Robyn Hood and Randolf Erl of Chestre."[61]

end

Ranulf married Lucy of Bolingbroke. Lucy died in 1138. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

22251.

Lucy of Bolingbroke died in 1138.

Children:

22204. Sir Ranulf de Gernon, II, Knight, 4th Earl of Chester was born in 0___ 1099 in Guernon Castle, Calvados, France; died on 16 Dec 1153 in Cheshire, England.
11125. Alice de Gernon

24100.

Sir Robert FitzRoy, Knight, 1st Earl of Gloucester was born before 1100 in (France) (son of Henry I, King of England and unnamed partner); died on 31 Oct 1147.

Notes:

Robert Fitzroy, 1st Earl of Gloucester (before 1100 – 31 October 1147[1]) (alias Robert Rufus, Robert de Caen, Robert Consul[2][3]) was an illegitimate son of King Henry I of England. He was the half-brother of the Empress Matilda, and her chief military supporter during the civil war known as The Anarchy, in which she vied with Stephen of Blois for the throne of England.

Early life

Robert was probably the eldest of Henry's many illegitimate children.[1] He was born before his father's accession to the English throne, either during the reign of his grandfather William the Conqueror or his uncle William Rufus.[4] He is sometimes and erroneously designated as a son of Nest, daughter of Rhys ap Tewdwr, last king of Deheubarth, although his mother has been identified as a member of "the Gay or Gayt family of north Oxfordshire",[5] possibly a daughter of Rainald Gay (fl. 1086) of Hampton Gay and Northbrook Gay in Oxfordshire. Rainald had known issue Robert Gaay of Hampton (died c. 1138) and Stephen Gay of Northbrook (died after 1154). A number of Oxfordshire women feature as the mothers of Robert's siblings.[5][6]

He may have been a native of Caen[1][7] or he may have been only Constable and Governor of that city, jure uxoris.[2]

His father had contracted him in marriage to Mabel FitzHamon, daughter and heir of Robert Fitzhamon, but the marriage was not solemnized until June 1119 at Lisieux.[1][8] His wife brought him the substantial honours of Gloucester in England and Glamorgan in Wales, and the honours of Sainte-Scholasse-sur-Sarthe and âEvrecy in Normandy, as well as Creully. After the White Ship disaster late in 1120, and probably because of this marriage,[9] in 1121 or 1122 his father created him Earl of Gloucester.[10]

Family

Robert and his wife Mabel FitzHamon had seven children:[11]

William FitzRobert (111?–1183): succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of Gloucester
Roger FitzRobert (died 1179): Bishop of Worcester
Hamon FitzRobert (died 1159): killed at the siege of Toulouse.
Philip FitzRobert (died after 1147): lord of Cricklade
Matilda FitzRobert (died 1190): married in 1141 Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester.
Mabel FitzRobert: married Aubrey de Vere
Richard FitzRobert (1120/35-1175): succeeded his mother as Sire de Creully.
He also had four illegitimate children:

Richard FitzRobert (died 1142): Bishop of Bayeux [mother: Isabel de Douvres, sister of Richard de Douvres, bishop of Bayeux (1107–1133)]
Robert FitzRobert (died 1170): Castellan of Gloucester, married in 1147 Hawise de Reviers (daughter of Baldwin de Reviers, 1st Earl of Devon and his first wife Adelisa), had daughter Mabel FitzRobert (married firstly Jordan de Chambernon and secondly William de Soliers)
Mabel FitzRobert: married Gruffud, Lord of Senghenydd, son of Ifor Bach. This couple were ancestors of Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the U.S.A.[12]
Father of Thomas

Relationship with King Stephen

There is evidence in the contemporary source, the Gesta Stephani, that Robert was proposed by some as a candidate for the throne, but his illegitimacy ruled him out:

"Among others came Robert, Earl of Gloucester, son of King Henry, but a bastard, a man of proved talent and admirable wisdom. When he was advised, as the story went, to claim the throne on his father's death, deterred by sounder advice he by no means assented, saying it was fairer to yield it to his sister's son (the future Henry II of England), than presumptuously to arrogate it to himself."
This suggestion cannot have led to any idea that he and Stephen were rivals for the Crown, as Geoffrey of Monmouth in 1136 referred to Robert as one of the 'pillars' of the new King's rule.

The capture of King Stephen at the Battle of Lincoln on 2 February 1141 gave the Empress Matilda the upper hand in her battle for the throne, but by alienating the citizens of London she failed to be crowned Queen. Her forces were defeated at the Rout of Winchester on 14 September 1141, and Robert of Gloucester was captured nearby at Stockbridge.

The two prisoners, King Stephen and Robert of Gloucester, were then exchanged, but by freeing Stephen, the Empress Matilda had given up her best chance of becoming queen. She later returned to France, where she died in 1167, though her son succeeded Stephen as King Henry II in 1154.

Robert of Gloucester died in 1147 at Bristol Castle, where he had previously imprisoned King Stephen, and was buried at St James' Priory, Bristol, which he had founded.

In popular culture

Robert of Gloucester was a central character in the struggle during The Anarchy as portrayed in Ken Follet's 2003 novel The Pillars of the Earth and in the 2010 mini-series of the same name.

Robert is also a figure in many of the novels by Ellis Peters in the Cadfael Chronicles, where he is seen as a strong moderating force to his half-sister (see Saint Peter's Fair). His efforts to gain the crown for his sister by capturing King Stephen and her own actions in London are part of the plot in The Pilgrim of Hate. His capture by Stephen's wife Queen Mathilda is in the background of the plot of An Excellent Mystery. The exchange of the imprisoned Robert for the imprisoned Stephen is in the background of the plot of The Raven in the Foregate. Robert's travels to persuade his brother-in-law to aid his wife Empress Maud militarily in England is in the background of the novel The Rose Rent. His return to England when Empress Maud is trapped in Oxford Castle figures in The Hermit of Eyton Forest. Robert's return to England with his young nephew Henry, years later the king succeeding Stephen, is in the background of the plot of The Confession of Brother Haluin, as the battles begin anew with Robert's military guidance. Robert's success in the Battle of Wilton (1143) leads to the death of a fictional character, part of the plot of The Potter's Field. In the last novel, he is a father who can disagree with then forgive his son Philip (see the last novel, Brother Cadfael's Penance). In that last novel, Brother Cadfael speculates on the possibly different path for England if the first son of old King Henry, the illegitimate Robert of Gloucester, had been recognised and accepted. In Wales of that era, a son was not illegitimate if recognized by his father, and to many in the novels, Robert of Gloucester seemed the best of the contenders to succeed his father.

Footnotes

^ Jump up to: a b c d David Crouch, ‘Robert, first earl of Gloucester (b. before 1100, d. 1147)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006 accessed 1 Oct 2010
^ Jump up to: a b "Complete Peerage" Vol IV(1892), p38, "Gloucester", "Robert filius Regis" quoting Round "Consul is often used for Earl in the time of the first age of the Norman Kings"
Jump up ^ The Complete Peerage claims only that he is "described" as consul, as are most Earls of his time.
Jump up ^ William of Malmesbury
^ Jump up to: a b David Crouch, Historical Research, 1999
Jump up ^ C. Given-Wilson & A. Curteis. The Royal Bastards of Medieval England (London, 1984) (ISBN 0-415-02826-4), page 74
Jump up ^ Cawley, Charles, "Henry I", Medlands, Medieval Lands database, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy,[better source needed]
Jump up ^ "Complete Peerage", "Gloucester"
Jump up ^ "In the aftermath of the White Ship disaster of 1120, when his younger and legitimate half-brother, William, died, Robert shared in the largesse that the king distributed to reassert his political position. Robert was given the marriage of Mabel, the heir of Robert fitz Haimon, whose lands in the west country and Glamorgan had been in royal wardship since 1107. The marriage also brought Robert the Norman honours of Evrecy and St Scholasse-sur-Sarthe. Robert was raised to the rank of earl of Gloucester soon after, probably by the end of 1121." David Crouch, ‘Robert, first earl of Gloucester (b. before 1100, d. 1147)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006 accessed 1 Oct 2010
Jump up ^ CP citing Round for between May 1121 and the end of 1122, but see William of Malmesbury, ed Giles who cites 1119
Jump up ^ Cawley, Charles. Cawley, Charles, Medieval Lands: England, Earls Created 1067–1122, Chapter 11, Medieval Lands database, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy,[better source needed]
Jump up ^ Descent of Franklin Pierce from Henry I Beauclerc

Sources

J. Bradbury, Stephen and Matilda: The Civil War of 1139–53 (Stroud, 1996)
D. Crouch, "Robert of Gloucester's Mother and Sexual Politics in Norman Oxfordshire", Historical Research, 72 (1999) 323–332.
D. Crouch, 'Robert, earl of Gloucester and the daughter of Zelophehad,' Journal of Medieval History, 11 (1985), 227–43.
D. Crouch, The Reign of King Stephen, 1135–1154 (London, 2000).
C. Given-Wilson & A. Curteis. The Royal Bastards of Medieval England (London, 1984)
The Personnel of the Norman Cathedrals during the Ducal Period, 911–1204, ed. David S. Spear (London, 2006)
Earldom of Gloucester Charters, ed. R.B. Patterson (Oxford, 1973)
R.B. Patterson, 'William of Malmesbury's Robert of Gloucester: a re-evaluation of the Historia Novella,' American Historical Review, 70 (1965), 983–97.
K. Thompson, 'Affairs of State: the illegitimate children of Henry I,' Journal of Medieval History, 29 (2003), 129–151.
W.M.M. Picken, 'The Descent of the Devon Family of Willington from Robert Earl of Gloucester' in 'A Medieval Cornish Miscellany', Ed. O.J. Padel. (Phillimore, 2000)

24101.

Notes:

Mabel FitzRobert, Countess of Gloucester (1090 – 29 September 1157[1]) was an Anglo-Norman noblewoman, and a wealthy heiress who brought the lordship of Gloucester, among other prestigious honours to her husband, Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester upon their marriage. He was the illegitimate son of King Henry I of England.

Her father was Robert Fitzhamon, Lord of Gloucester and Glamorgan. As she was the eldest daughter of four, and her younger sisters had become nuns, Mabel inherited all of his honours and properties upon his death in 1107.

As Countess of Gloucester, Mabel was significant politically and she exercised an important administrative role in the lordship.[2]

Family[edit]
Mabel was born in Gloucestershire, England c1090 or later, the eldest of the four daughters of Robert FitzHamon, Lord of Gloucester and Glamorgan, and his wife, Sybil de Montgomery. Her three younger sisters, Hawise, Cecile and Amice[3] all became nuns, making Mabel the sole heiress to her father's lordships and vast estates in England, Wales, and Normandy.

Her paternal grandfather was Hamon, Sheriff of Kent, and her maternal grandparents were Roger de Montgomery, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury and Mabel Talvas of Belleme.

In March 1107, her father died in Normandy, leaving his lordships and estates to Mabel. Her mother married secondly Jean, Sire de Raimes.[4]

Cardiff Castle in Wales, was one of the properties Mabel brought her husband, Robert upon their marriage

Marriage

In 1107, Mabel married Robert of Caen,(also called FitzRoy and FitzEdith), an illegitimate son of King Henry I (not by his mistress Sybil Corbet - other sources say Robert's mother was of the Gai family of Oxfordshire). Their marriage is recorded by Orderic Vitalis who also names her parents.[5] He would later become an important figure during the turbulent period in English history known as The Anarchy which occurred in the reign of King Stephen of England. Throughout the civil war, he was a loyal supporter of his half-sister Empress Matilda who would make him the chief commander of her army. He had originally sworn fealty to King Stephen, but after quarrelling with him in 1137, his English and Welsh possessions were forfeited, and thus he joined forces with Matilda.[6]

Countess of Gloucester

Mabel brought to her husband the honours of Gloucester in England, Glamorgan in Wales, Sainte-Scholasse-sur-Sarthe, Evrecy and Creully in Normandy. By right of his wife, he became the 2nd Lord of Glamorgan, and gained possession of her father's castle of Cardiff in Wales. In August 1122, he was created 1st Earl of Gloucester; henceforth, Mabel was styled as Countess of Gloucester.

As countess, Mabel exercised a prominent administrative role in the Gloucester lordship.[7] Her political importance was evident when she was made responsible for seeing that her husband upheld his side of the agreement in the treaty he made with Miles de Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford.[8] She also witnessed four of Robert's charters; as well as giving her personal consent for his foundation of the Abbey of Margam, whose endowment came from her own lands.[9] Later, after Robert's death, Mabel assumed control of the honour of Gloucester's Norman lands on behalf of her eldest son William.[10]

Issue

Together Robert and Mabel had at least eight children:

William Fitz Robert, 2nd Earl of Gloucester (23 November 1112- 23 November 1183), married Hawise de Beaumont by whom he had five children, including Isabella of Gloucester, the first wife of King John of England, and Amice FitzRobert, Countess of Gloucester.
Roger, Bishop of Worcester (died 9 August 1179)
Hamon FitzRobert, (died 1159), killed in the Siege of Toulouse.
Robert FitzRobert of Ilchester (died before 1157), married Hawise de Redvers, by whom he had a daughter Mabel who in her turn married Jordan de Cambernon.
Richard FitzRobert, Sire de Creully (died 1175), inherited the seigneury of Creully from Mabel, and became the ancestor of the Sires de Creully. He married the daughter of Hughes de Montfort by whom he had five children.
Philip FitzRobert, (died after 1147), Castellan of Cricklade. He took part in the Second Crusade.
Maud FitzRobert (died 29 July 1190), married Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester by whom she had three children.
Mabel FitzRobert, married Aubrey de Vere
Robert also sired an illegitimate son, Richard, Bishop of Bayeux by Isabel de Douvres.

Death

Mabel's husband died on 31 October 1147. Mabel herself died on 29 September 1157 in Bristol at the age of sixty-seven years.

References

Jump up ^ Charles Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earls of Gloucester 1122-1225
Jump up ^ Ward, p.106
Jump up ^ Cawley states in Medieval Lands that Amice might have married a count of Brittany, but no further details are known
Jump up ^ Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earl of Gloucester 1122-1225)
Jump up ^ Cawley
Jump up ^ Cawley
Jump up ^ Jennifer C. Ward (2006). Women in England in the Middle Ages. London: Hambledon Continuum. p.106. Google Books, retrieved 27-10-10 ISBN 1-85285-346-8
Jump up ^ Ward, p.106
Jump up ^ Ward, p.106
Jump up ^ Ward, p.106
Charles Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earls of Gloucester 1122-1225

Children:

12050. Sir William FitzRobert, Knight, 2nd Earl of Gloucester was born on 23 Nov 1116 in (Wales); died on 23 Nov 1183 in (Wales).
22205. Lady Maud of Gloucester, Countess of Chester was born in (Gloucestershire, England); died on 29 Jul 1189.
Robert FitzRobert was born in 1110 in England; died in 1170 in England.

44412.

Sir Amaury de Montfort, III, Knight, Count of Evreux was born in 1070 in (Epernon, France) (son of Simon I de Montfort and Agnes d'Evereux); died in ~ 1137.

Notes:

Amaury III de Montfort († 1137) was a French nobleman, the seigneur de Montfort-l'Amaury, âEpernon, and Houdan in the Île-de-France (1098–c.?1137) and count of âEvreux in Normandy, (1118 to c.?1137).

Life[edit]
Amaury was the son of Simon I, seigneur de Montfort, and his wife Agnáes d'âEvreux, daughter of Richard, Count of âEvreux.[1] In 1098, William Rufus was campaigning in France and had just crossed into the French Vexin and one of the first castles attacked was that of Houdan which Amaury III defended.[2] But Amaury quickly surrendered and joined William's army.[2] He then aided William II against his brother Simon II de Montfort's castles of Montfort-l'Amaury and âEpernon.[3] But Simon and the other castellans successfully defended themselves against the forces of William Rufus until a truce was called and William returned to England.[4] When Simon II died c.?1104, Amaury succeeded him as seigneur de Montfort.[1]

When his maternal uncle William, Count of âEvreux died in 1118, he left no direct heirs so Henry I of England seized his lands.[5] Amaury was Henry's most detested enemy.[6] His sister was the notorious Bertrade de Montfort,[a] his nephew was Fulk V of Anjou, and his kinsman King Louis VI of France was related to him by marriage.[6] Amaury had induced his nephew Fulk V to attack Henry's territories in the past[7] while the French and English kings were at odds again.[8] Amaury was the last person he wanted holding a countship in the center of Normandy.[6] After complaining to Louis VI the French king granted the countship of âEvreux to Amaury.[5] For six months Henry kept Amaury out of âEvreux and denied him the county by keeping the castle garrisoned with his own troops until his constable, William Pointel, turned the castle over to his longtime friend Amaury while Henry was in Rouen.[6] Finally Henry offered Amaury the countship of âEvreux if he would surrender the castle.[9] Amaury refused and the rebellion continued with Amaury now encouraging more Normans to defy Henry.[10]

In 1119 Henry besieged the castle of âEvreux anew, but Theobald II, Count of Champagne, Henry's nephew, negotiated a truce between them.[3] Amaury surrendered the castle to the King and on doing so was confirmed as count of âEvreux by Henry.[3] The following year Amaury fought at the battle of Bourgtheroulde supporting William Clito against Henry I but was captured fleeing the field by William de Grandcourt.[3] Rather than turn over his prisoner to Henry, however, William decided to go into exile with Amaury.[3] Amaury made peace with the King later that same year and for the rest of Henry's reign remained on good terms with him.[3]

Marriages and children

He married firstly, Richilde de Hainaut, daughter of Baudouin II, comte de Hainaut but repudiated her in 1118.[1]

In 1118 he remarried, to Agnáes de Garlande, daughter of Anseau de Garlande, Count de Rochefort and N.N. de Rochefort-en-Yvelines.[1] Their children were :

Amaury IV († 1140), count of âEvreux, seigneur de Montfort[1]
Simon III († 1181), count of âEvreux,seigneur de Montfort[1], whose daughter Bertrade married Hugh de Kevelioc, 5th Earl of Chester.
Agnáes († 1181), Dame de Gournay-sur-Marne, married Waleran de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Worcester († 1166)[1]

Amaury married Agnes de Garlande in ~1120 in (France). Agnes was born in ~1105 in Yvelines, Ile-de-France, France; died in 1143 in Seine-et-Marne, Ile-de-France, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44413.

Agnes de Garlande was born in ~1105 in Yvelines, Ile-de-France, France; died in 1143 in Seine-et-Marne, Ile-de-France, France.

Children:

22206. Sir Simon de Montfort, III, Comte d'Evreux was born in 1117-1123 in Montfort-sur-Ris, Eure, France; died on 13 Mar 1181 in Eure, Normandy, France.
Agnes de Montfort was born in ~1123 in Montfort, Eure, Haute-Normandie, France; died on 15 Dec 1181 in Gournay Sur Marne, Seine-et-Marne, Ile-de-France, France.

48388.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Hastings, England
Military: Victor over the English in the Battle of Hastings, 1066
Burial: 10 Sep 1087, St. Stephen Abbey, Caen, Calvados, France

Notes:

William I the Conqueror of England and Normandy, Duke of Normandy, King of England, was born 9 September 1027 in Falaise, France to Robert II, Duke of Normandy (c1000-1035) and Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050) and died 1087 in Rouen, France of unspecified causes. He married Matilda of Flanders (c1031-1083) 1051 JL . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]

William I, King of England, Duke of Normandy was a mediµval monarch. He ruled as the Duke of Normandy from 1035 to 1087 and as King of England from 1066 to 1087. As Duke of Normandy, William was known as William II, and, as King of England, as William I. He is commonly refered to as William the Conqueror (Guillaume le Conquâerant) or William the Bastard (Guillaume le Bãatard).

The name "William the Bastard", a name used by his enemies arose from the fact that his mother was a Tanner's daughter who agreed to be his father Robert II's mistress. She demanded that their relationship not be secret, and had a position in court. After the affair was over, she married a Viscount. William retained the favour of his father and when Robert II left for the Holy Land, he forced his lords to pledge fealty to William. Robert II never returned from the Holy land and the oath was quickly forgotten, and intrigue surrounded the boy Duke. William's guardian Gilbert of Brionne was murdered, as was his tutor, as was his uncle Osbern- killed while protecting William from kidnappers found in his bedroom. William was sent away from home for his protection, and it was common practice for William's uncle Walter to awaken him in the night to move him to a new location.

By age fifteen, William was knighted, and by twenty he went to war against his cousin Guy of Normandy to defend his title of Duke of Normandy. With the help of King Henri I of France, he subdued his enemies who were forced to swear allegiance to William.

William asked for the hand of Matilda, daughter of Count Baldwin V of Flanders, but Matilda would have none of it. Purportedly, she was in love with the English ambassador to Flanders, a Saxon named Brihtric, who declined her advances. As for William, she told his emissary that she was far too high-born (being descended from King Alfred the Great of England) to consider marrying a bastard. When that was repeated to him, William, all of 5'10", rode from Normandy to Bruges, found Matilda on her way to church, dragged her off her horse (some said by her long braids), threw her down in the street in front of her flabbergasted attendants, and then rode off. Another version states that William rode to Matilda's father's house in Lille, threw her to the ground in her room (again, by the braids), and hit her (or violently shook her) before leaving.

William convinced Matilda to relent, but the pope opposed the marriage because they were distant cousins. For a period of time all of Normandy was excommunicated along with their duke because William disregarded the pope's advice and married Matilda. In return for the construction of two abbeys, the excommunication of Normandy was lifted.

In 1051, William visited his cousin Edward the Confessor, king of England. Edward was childless, and William's account is that the king made him his heir. According to supporters of William, Edward sent his brother in law Harold Godwinson to see William in 1063. Other accounts say that Harold was shipwrecked. All accounts agree that William refused to let Harold depart until he swore on holy relics that he would uphold William's claim to the throne of England, and agreed to marry his daughter (then an infant) Agatha. After winning his release, Harold reneged on both promises.

In support of his claim to the English crown, William invaded England in 1066, leading an army of Normans to victory over the Anglo-Saxon forces of Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, and suppressed subsequent English revolts| in what has become known as the Norman Conquest.

His reign brought Norman culture to England, which had an enormous impact on the subsequent course of England in the Middle Ages. In addition to political changes, his reign also saw changes to English law, a programme of building and fortification, changes in the English language and the introduction of continental European feudalism into England.

For additional details beyond William's family history, see more here.

Residence at Falaise
In Falaise France, is a series of statues that pays tribute to the six Norman Dukes from Rollo to William Conqueror. The castle here was the principal residence of the Norman Knights.

Chãateau Guillaume-le-Conquâerant Place Guillaume le Conquâerant / 14700 Falaise / Tel: 02 31 41 61 44

History of Norman Dukes
Homepage - Falaise Castle of William the Conqueror - In French.

Children

Offspring of William I of England and Matilda of Flanders (c1031-1083)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Robert III, Duke of Normandy (c1051-1134) 1051 (Normandy) 10 February 1134 (Cardiff Castle+ Glamorganshire+ Wales) Sybilla of Conversano (-1103)

Richard of Normandy (c1054) 1054 Normandy 1081 New Forest, Hampshire
Adeliza of Normandy (c1055) 1055 Normandy 1065
Cecilia of Normandy (c1055) 1055 Normandy, France 30 July 1126 Caen, Calvados, France
William II of England (c1056-1100) 1056 Normandy, France 2 August 1100 New Forest, England, United Kingdom
Adela of Normandy (c1062) 1062 Normandy, France 8 March 1138 Marcigny, Saãone-et-Loire, France Stephen II, Count of Blois (c1045-1102)

Agatha of Normandy (c1064) 1064 1079
Constance of Normandy (c1066-1090) 1066 1090 Alain Fergent de Bretagne (c1060-1119)

Henry I of England (1068-1135) 13 June 1068 Selby, Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom 1 December 1135 St. Denis-le-Fermont near Gisors, Picardy, Lyons-la-Forãet, Eure, France Ansfrid (1070-?)
Matilda of Scotland (c1080-1118)
Sybil Corbet (1077-?)
Edith
Gieva de Tracy
Nest ferch Rhys (c1073-aft1136)
Isabel de Beaumont
Adeliza of Leuven (1103-1151)

Common ancestors of William I of England (1027-1087) and Matilda of Flanders (c1031-1083)

Fulk II, Count of Anjou (?-958)
Gerberge of Maine (?-?)
Noteworthy descendants include

Henry II of England (1133-1189)
William I of England (1027-1087)

Footnotes (including sources)
‡ General
wikipedia:en:William the Conqueror
Burke's Guide to the Royal Family, London, 1973 , Reference: 193, 310

end of biography

Click here to view William the Conqueror's biography... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_I_of_England

Click here to read about the historic Norman Conquest by William ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Conquest

Click here to view his 9-generation pedigree ... http://www.ourfamilyhistories.org/ahnentafel.php?personID=I3527&tree=00&parentset=0&generations=9

William the Conqueror is the 26th & 27th great grandfather of the grandchildren of Vernia Swindell Byars (1894-1985)

end of comment

Click this link to view lots of pictures of William I & a video from the, "Bayeux Tapestry"; http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/William_I_of_England_(1027-1087)/pictures

How Did the Normans Change England?

The Normans were more than just the people who conquered England.

They were dynamic and passionate people who changed English history forever.

Apr 10, 2023 • By Greg Beyer, BA History and Linguistics, Diploma in Journalism ... https://www.thecollector.com/how-did-the-normans-change-england/

Residence:
Victor over the English in the Battle of 1066

Military:
a seminal moment in English history...

Died:
at the Priory of St. Gervase...

Buried:
The Abbey of Saint-âEtienne, also known as Abbaye aux Hommes ("Men's Abbey"), is a former Benedictine monastery in the French city of Caen, Normandy, dedicated to Saint Stephen. It was founded in 1063[1] by William the Conqueror and is one of the most important Romanesque buildings in Normandy.

Photos, history & source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_of_Saint-%C3%89tienne,_Caen

48389.

Matilda of Flanders, Queen of England was born about 1031 in Flanders, Belgium; died on 2 Nov 1083 in Caen, Calvados, Normandie, France; was buried in Abbaye aux Dames, Caen, Normandie, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

_HEIG: 5' 0"

Notes:

Matilda of Flanders (French: Mathilde; Dutch: Machteld) (c. 1031 – 2 November 1083) was Queen of England and Duchess of Normandy by marriage to William the Conqueror, and sometime Regent of these realms during his absence. She was the mother of ten children who survived to adulthood, including two kings, William II and Henry I.

As a niece and granddaughter of kings of France, Matilda was of grander birth than William, who was illegitimate, and, according to some suspiciously romantic tales, she initially refused his proposal on this account. Her descent from the Anglo-Saxon royal House of Wessex was also to become a useful card. Like many royal marriages of the period, it breached the rules of consanguinity, then at their most restrictive (to seven generations or degrees of relatedness); Matilda and William were third-cousins, once removed. She was about 20 when they married in 1051/2; William was four years older,24, and had been Duke of Normandy since he was about eight (in 1035).

The marriage appears to have been successful, and William is not recorded to have had any bastards. Matilda was about 35, and had already produced most of her children, when William embarked on the Norman conquest of England, sailing in his flagship Mora, which Matilda had given him. She governed the Duchy of Normandy in his absence, joining him in England only after more than a year, and subsequently returning to Normandy, where she spent most of the remainder of her life, while William was mostly in his new kingdom. She was about 52 when she died in Normandy in 1083.

Apart from governing Normandy and supporting her brother's interests in Flanders, Matilda took a close interest in the education of her children, who were unusually well educated for contemporary royalty. The boys were tutored by the Italian Lanfranc, who was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1070, while the girls learned Latin in Sainte-Trinitâe Abbey in Caen, founded by William and Matilda as part of the papal dispensation allowing their marriage.

Marriage

Matilda, or Maud, was the daughter of Baldwin V, Count of Flanders, and Adela, herself daughter of King Robert II of France.[1]

According to legend, when the Norman duke William the Bastard (later called the Conqueror) sent his representative to ask for Matilda's hand in marriage, she told the representative that she was far too high-born to consider marrying a bastard.[a] After hearing this response, William rode from Normandy to Bruges, found Matilda on her way to church, dragged her off her horse by her long braids, threw her down in the street in front of her flabbergasted attendants and rode off.

Another version of the story states that William rode to Matilda's father's house in Lille, threw her to the ground in her room (again, by her braids) and hit her (or violently battered her) before leaving. Naturally, Baldwin took offence at this; but, before they could draw swords, Matilda settled the matter[2] by refusing to marry anyone but William;[3] even a papal ban by Pope Leo IX at the Council of Reims on the grounds of consanguinity did not dissuade her. William and Matilda were married after a delay in c.?1051–2.[4] A papal dispensation was finally awarded in 1059 by Pope Nicholas II.[5] Lanfranc, at the time prior of Bec Abbey, negotiated the arrangement in Rome and it came only after William and Matilda agreed to found two churches as penance.[6]

Rumored romances

There were rumours that Matilda had been in love variously with the English ambassador to Flanders and with the great Saxon thegn Brictric, son of Algar, who (according to the account by the Continuator of Wace and others[7]) in his youth declined her advances. Whatever the truth of the matter, years later when she was acting as regent for her husband William in England, she is said to have used her authority to confiscate Brictric's lands and throw him into prison, where he died.[8]

Duchess of Normandy

When William was preparing to invade England, Matilda outfitted a ship, the Mora, out of her own funds and gave it to him.[9] Additionally, William gave Normandy to his wife during his absence. Matilda successfully guided the duchy through this period in the name of her fourteen-year-old son; no major uprisings or unrest occurred.[10]

Even after William conquered England and became its king, it took her more than a year to visit the kingdom.[11] Despite having been crowned queen, she spent most of her time in Normandy, governing the duchy, supporting her brother's interests in Flanders, and sponsoring ecclesiastic houses there. Only one of her children was born in England; Henry was born in Yorkshire when Matilda accompanied her husband in the Harrying of the North.[12]

Queen

Statue of Matilda of Flanders, one of the twenty Reines de France et Femmes illustres in the Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris, by Carle Elshoecht (1850)

Tomb of Matilda of Flanders at Abbaye aux Dames, Caen

Tomb of William of Normandy at Abbaye-aux-Hommes, Caen
Matilda was crowned queen on 11 May 1068 in Westminster during the feast of Pentecost, in a ceremony presided over by the archbishop of York. Three new phrases were incorporated to cement the importance of English consorts, stating that the Queen was divinely placed by God, shares in royal power, and blesses her people by her power and virtue.[13][14]

For many years it was thought that she had some involvement in the creation of the Bayeux Tapestry (commonly called La Tapisserie de la Reine Mathilde in French), but historians no longer believe that; it seems to have been commissioned by William's half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and made by English artists in Kent.[15]

Matilda bore William nine or ten children. He was believed to have been faithful to her and never produced a child outside their marriage. Despite her royal duties, Matilda was deeply invested in her children's well-being. All were known for being remarkably educated. Her daughters were educated and taught to read Latin at Sainte-Trinitâe in Caen founded by Matilda and William in response to the recognition of their marriage.[16] For her sons, she secured Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury of whom she was an ardent supporter. Both she and William approved of the Archbishop's desire to revitalise the Church.[17]

She stood as godmother for Matilda of Scotland, who would become Queen of England after marrying Matilda's son Henry I. During the christening, the baby pulled Queen Matilda's headdress down on top of herself, which was seen as an omen that the younger Matilda would be queen some day as well.[18]

Matilda fell ill during the summer of 1083 and died in November 1083. Her husband was present for her final confession.[19] William died four years later in 1087.

Contrary to the common belief that she was buried at St. Stephen's, also called l'Abbaye-aux-Hommes in Caen, Normandy, where William was eventually buried, she is entombed in Caen at l'Abbaye aux Dames, which is the community of Sainte-Trinitâe. Of particular interest is the 11th-century slab, a sleek black stone decorated with her epitaph, marking her grave at the rear of the church. In contrast, the grave marker for William's tomb was replaced as recently as the beginning of the 19th century.

Height

Over time Matilda's tomb was desecrated and her original coffin destroyed. Her remains were placed in a sealed box and reburied under the original black slab.[20] In 1959 Matilda's incomplete skeleton was examined and her femur and tibia were measured to determine her height using anthropometric methods. Her height was 5 feet (1.52m), a normal height for the time.[21] However, as a result of this examination she was misreported as being 4 feet 2 inches (1.27m)[22] leading to the myth that she was extremely small.

Family and children

Matilda and William had four sons and at least five daughters.[23] The birth order of the boys is clear, but no source gives the relative order of birth of the daughters.[23]

Robert, born between 1051 and 1054, died 10 February 1134.[24] Duke of Normandy, married Sybil of Conversano, daughter of Geoffrey of Conversano.[25]
Richard, born c. 1054, died around 1075.[24]
William Rufus, born between 1056 and 1060, died 2 August 1100.[24] King of England, killed in the New Forest.
Henry, born late 1068, died 1 December 1135.[24] King of England, married Edith of Scotland, daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland. His second wife was Adeliza of Louvain.[26]
Agatha, betrothed to Harold II of England, Alfonso VI of Castile, and possibly Herbert I, Count of Maine, but died unmarried.[b][27]
Adeliza (or Adelida,[28] Adelaide[26]), died before 1113, reportedly betrothed to Harold II of England, probably a nun of St Lâeger at Prâeaux.[28]
Cecilia (or Cecily), born c. 1056, died 1127. Abbess of Holy Trinity, Caen.[27]
Matilda,[28] "daughter of the King", born around 1061, died perhaps about 1086,[26] or else much later (according to Trevor Foulds's suggestion that she was identical to Matilda d'Aincourt[29]).
Constance, died 1090, married Alan IV Fergent, Duke of Brittany.[27]
Adela, died 1137, married Stephen, Count of Blois.[27] Mother of King Stephen of England.
There is no evidence of any illegitimate children born to William.[30]

William was furious when he discovered she sent large sums of money to their exiled son Robert.[31] She effected a truce between them at Easter 1080.

Buried:
(or Sainte Trinitâe) for women which was founded by Matilda around four years later (1063)...

Notes:

Married:
The problem has been and maybe still is that William the Conqueror and Matilda (dau. of Baldwin V of Flanders & Adelaide of France) had relatively great difficulty is obtaining a papal dispensation for their marriage. It was not immediately obvious that there was any impediment that needed a dispensation. This problem of what the relationship between Matilda and William was that required a dispensation generated a vigorous debate earlier this century. Weis or Weis's source (as you report it) goes for a theory that makes Matilda and William cousins of sorts.

Children:

Adela of Normandy was born in ~ 1067 in Normandy, France; died on 8 Mar 1137 in Marcigny-sur-Loire, France.
48200. Henry I, King of England was born in 1068-1070 in Selby, Yorkshire, England; was christened on 5 Aug 1100 in Selby, Yorkshire, England; died on 1 Dec 1135 in Saint-Denis-en-Lyons, Normandy, France; was buried on 4 Jan 1136 in Reading Abbey, Reading, Berkshire, England.

88802.

Edward the Exile was born in 1016 in (Wessex) England (son of Edmund II, King of the English and Ealdgyth); died on 19 Apr 1057 in London, Middlesex, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Hungary

Notes:

Edward the Exile (1016 – 19 April 1057), also called Edward ¥theling, was the son of King Edmund Ironside and of Ealdgyth. He spent most of his life in exile in the Kingdom of Hungary following the defeat of his father by Canute the Great; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnut_the_Great.

Exile

After the Danish conquest of England in 1016, Canute had Edward, said to be only a few months old, and his brother, Edmund, sent to the Swedish court of Olof Skèotkonung[1][2] (who was either Canute's half-brother or stepbrother), supposedly with instructions to have the children murdered. Instead, the two boys were secretly sent either to Kiev,[3] where Olof's daughter Ingigerd was the Queen, or to Poland, where Canute's uncle Boleslaw I Chrobry was duke.[4] Later Edward made his way to Hungary, probably in the retinue of Ingigerd's son-in-law, Andrâas in 1046.

Return

On hearing the news of his being alive, Edward the Confessor recalled him to England in 1056 and made him his heir. Edward offered the last chance of an undisputed succession within the Saxon royal house. News of Edward's existence came at a time when the old Anglo-Saxon monarchy, restored after a long period of Danish domination, was heading for catastrophe. The Confessor, personally devout but politically weak and without children, was unable to make an effective stand against the steady advance of the powerful and ambitious sons of Godwin, Earl of Wessex. From across the Channel William, Duke of Normandy, also had an eye on the succession. Edward the Exile appeared at just the right time. Approved by both king and by the Witan, the Council of the Realm, he offered a way out of the impasse, a counter both to the Godwinsons and to William, and one with a legitimacy that could not be readily challenged.

In 1054 King Edward sent Ealdred, Bishop of Worcester, to the court of the German emperor to set in train negotiations with the king of Hungary for the return of Edward the Exile. Ealdred was not at first successful, and Earl Harold's journey to Flanders, and possibly on to Germany and Hungary, in 1056 was probably undertaken to further negotiations. The Exile finally arrived in England in 1057 with his wife and children, but died within a few days, on 19 April, without meeting the King. He was buried in Old St Paul's Cathedral.[5]

Family

Edward's wife was named Agatha, whose origins are disputed.[6] Their children were:

Edgar ¥theling (c. 1051 - c. 1126) - Elected King of England after the Battle of Hastings but submitted to William the Conqueror.
Saint Margaret of Scotland (c. 1045 - 16 November 1093) - Married King Malcolm III of Scotland.
Cristina (c. 1057 - c. 1093) - Abbess at Romsey Abbey.
Edward's grandchild Edith of Scotland, also called Matilda, married King Henry I of England, continuing the Anglo-Saxon line into the post-Conquest English monarchy.

Ancestors

Edward the Exile was a direct descendant of a line of Wessex kings dating back, at least on the pages of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, to the arrival of Cerdic of Wessex in 495AD, and from Alfred the Great in the English monarchs family tree.[7] Of his more immediate ancestors, all four of Edward's male-line ancestors shown in the diagram below were Kings of England before Cnut the Great took the crown and sent Edward into exile.[8]

Edward married Agatha. Agatha was born in >1030; died in <1070 in (England). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

88803.

Agatha was born in >1030; died in <1070 in (England).

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: Aft 1018
Alt Death: 13 Jul 1054, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Northumberland, England

Notes:

Biography of Agatha, Wife of Edward the Exile
Parentage: Agatha's parents are unknown. Who they might me be remains one the great genealogical puzzles as tantalizing clues were left by near contemporaries. However, all of these clues are open to interpretation and debate, and are at times contradictory. One should not take any published as proof that her parentage has been discovered or worked out.
Stewart Baldwin's The Henry Project discusses the various theories and their origins on his "Agatha" page. [1]
Wikipedia also covers the various theories regarding her possible parrentage, all of them cited, with links to many primary genealogical sources in WHO ARE AGATHA'S PARENTS?.
The controversy was most recently discussed in The Scottish Genealogist in 2002. [2].
WHAT IS CERTAIN is that she was the wife of Edward, of Wessex, and the mother of Saint Margaret of Scotland

One Biographical Theory
Agatha of Augsburg, Princess of Hungary Some authorities say that she is the daughter of Ludolph, Margrave of West Friesland and Gertrude von Stade (RN=28199). She Paget says she is daughter of Bruno, Bishop of Augsburg, brother of Emperor Henry II. Agatha of Augsburg, Princess of Hungary died after 1066.

Another Biographical Theory
Her parentage is disputed repeatedly; the most interesting theories are published in the New England Genealogical journals[3][4][5]

Another Biographical Theory
(Someone copied from Wikipedia article) Wikipedia: Agatha,_wife_of_Edward_the_Exile
There is doubt about her parentage.
Note on paternity of Agatha, wife of Edward The Exile (by Andrey Alexandrovich Frizyuk)
" Two main versions of Agatha's parentage have been proposed so far:
1. Szabolcs de Vajay in his paper "Agatha, Mother of St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland" (Duquesne Review, vol. 7, no. 2 (Spring 1962), pp. 71-80) expounded the theory that Agatha was a daughter of Liudolf, Margrave of West-Friesland (he was half-brother of Emperor Henry III), by Gertrude of Egisheim. This is based on statements of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Florence of Worcester's "Chronicon ex chronicis" that Agatha was a blood relative of the "Emperor Henry".
2. Rene Jette in his article "Is the Mystery of the Origins of Agatha, Wife of Edward the Exile, Finally Solved?" (New England Historical and Genealogical Register, no. 150 (October 1996): 417-432) pointed out some facts which were not explained by Szabolcs de Vajay's theory:
A. William of Malmesbury in "De Gestis Regis Anglorum" and several later chronicles state that Agatha was a Hungarian Queen's sister. Edward was a loyal supporter of Andras who accompanied him from Kiev to Hungary in 1046 and lived for many years at his court. Thus it's highly probable that "a Hungarian Queen" in question was Andras' wife, Anastasia Yaroslavna.
B. According to Szabolcs de Vajay, the marriage of Agatha and Edward took place in Kiev. This accords with statements of Geoffrey Gaimar and Roger of Howden that Edward took a Kievan wife "of noble parentage."
C. There are several etymological arguments. Agatha, for instance, is a Greek name quite unknown in Western Europe of that time. On the other hand, the name Agatha/Agafia was fairly common in the Rurikid family: all daughters of Yaroslav received Greek names, and we know that Yaroslav's Byzantine stepmother had an aunt named Agatha.
D. Also, the 11th-century fresco of St Sophia Cathedral in Kiev represents 5 living daughters/sisters of Yaroslav, all of marriageable age. One of them is Anastasia the Queen of Hungary, another Elisaveta the Queen of Norway, the third - Anna the Queen of France, the fourth - Dobronega the Queen of Poland, but who was the fifth?
It's interesting that the last wife of Vladimir I was apparently the first cousin of Emperor Henry III. Her daughter Dobronega could have been described as "filia germani imperatoris Henrici". What if Agatha was Dobronega's full sister? It seems to me that such a solution would explain all the evidence that we have in the best way."
See NEHGR 152. Forebears, XVI, #4, p 521 says daughter of Bruno, brother of HRE Henry II; Bruno d 1057, London.
Sources
? Baldwin. "Agatha", in The Henry Project (2010, accessed 2017).
? Lauder-Frost, Gregory M.S., FSA Scot., "Agatha - The Ancestry Dispute" in The Scottish Genealogist, Edinburgh, Sept 2002, vol.xlix no.3, p.71-2.
? David Faris and Douglas Richard"The Origin of Agatha-The Debate Continues: The Parents of Agatha, Wife of Edward The Exile" in New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 152, (April 1998).By
? Renâe Jettâe, "Is the Mystery of the Origins of Agatha, Wife of Edward the Exile, Finally Solved?", in New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 150 (October 1996), pp. 417-432
? G. Andrews Moriarty, "Agatha, wife of the Atheling Eadward", in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 106 (1952), pp. 52-60
Our main source for medieval genealogy in the EuroAristo Project is the FMG database which is MEDIEVAL LANDS :A prosopography of medieval European noble and royal families by Charles Cawley,© Foundation for Medieval Genealogy, 2000-2013. http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/index.htm http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/CONTENTS.htm

We are open to other sources as well but please cite them.
Source list:
Baldwin, Stewart. "Agatha: Wife of Eadweard the Exile", website The Henry Project: The Ancestors of King Henry II of England. (4 July 2010, http://sbaldw.home.mindspring.com/hproject/prov/agath000.htm ; accessed April 2017).
History of Scotland, George Buchanan--Scots Peerage Sir James Balfor--U.K. Extracted Probate Records---ancestry.com
Spottiswood, John. The History of the Church of Scotland, beginning the year of our Lord 203, and continued to the end of the reign of King James VI. (R. Norton, for R. Royston, London, 1668) Page 29

end of this biography

Children:

44401. Margaret of Wessex, Queen of Scotland was born in ~1045 in Wessex, England; died on 16 Nov 1093 in Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland; was buried in Dunfermline Abbey, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland.

88812.

Henri, I, King of France was born on 4 May 1008 in Reims, France; died on 4 Aug 1060 in Vitry-aux-Loges, Centre, France; was buried in Saint Denis Basilique, Paris, France.

Notes:

Henry I (4 May 1008 – 4 August 1060) was King of the Franks from 1031 to his death. The royal demesne of France reached its smallest size during his reign, and for this reason he is often seen as emblematic of the weakness of the early Capetians. This is not entirely agreed upon, however, as other historians regard him as a strong but realistic king, who was forced to conduct a policy mindful of the limitations of the French monarchy.

King of the Franks
Junior king
Senior king 14 May 1027 – 20 July 1031;
20 July 1031 – 4 August 1060
Coronation 14 May 1027, Cathedral of Reims
Predecessor Robert II
Successor Philip I
Born 4 May 1008
Reims, France
Died 4 August 1060 (aged 52)
Vitry-aux-Loges, France
Burial Saint Denis Basilica, Paris, France
Spouse Matilda of Frisia
Anne of Kiev
Issue Philip I
Emma of France
Robert of France
Hugh I, Count of Vermandois
House Capet
Father Robert II of France

Reign
A member of the House of Capet, Henry was born in Reims, the son of King Robert II (972–1031) and Constance of Arles (986–1034).[1] He was crowned King of France at the Cathedral of Reims on 14 May 1027,[2] in the Capetian tradition, while his father still lived. He had little influence and power until he became sole ruler on his father's death.

The reign of Henry I, like those of his predecessors, was marked by territorial struggles. Initially, he joined his brother Robert, with the support of their mother, in a revolt against his father (1025). His mother, however, supported Robert as heir to the old king, on whose death Henry was left to deal with his rebel sibling.[3] In 1032, he placated his brother by giving him the duchy of Burgundy[3] which his father had given him in 1016.[4]

In an early strategic move, Henry came to the rescue of his very young nephew-in-law, the newly appointed Duke William of Normandy (who would go on to become William the Conqueror), to suppress a revolt by William's vassals. In 1047, Henry secured the dukedom for William in their decisive victory over the vassals at the Battle of Val-áes-Dunes near Caen;[5] however, Henry would later support the barons against William until the former's death in 1060.[6]

In 1051, William married Matilda, the daughter of the count of Flanders, which Henry saw as a threat to his throne.[7] In 1054, and again in 1057, Henry invaded Normandy, but on both occasions he was defeated.[7]

Henry had three meetings with Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor—all at Ivois. In early 1043, he met him to discuss the marriage of the emperor with Agnes of Poitou, the daughter of Henry's vassal.[8] In October 1048, the two Henries met again and signed a treaty of friendship.[9] The final meeting took place in May 1056 and concerned disputes over Theobald III and County of Blois.[9] The debate over the duchy became so heated that Henry accused the emperor of breach of contract and subsequently left.[9] In 1058, Henry was selling bishoprics and abbacies, ignoring the accusations of simony and tyranny by the Papal legate Cardinal Humbert.[10] Despite his efforts, Henry I's twenty-nine-year reign saw feudal power in France reach its pinnacle.

King Henry I died on 4 August 1060 in Vitry-en-Brie, France, and was interred in Basilica of St Denis. He was succeeded by his son, Philip I of France, who was 7 at the time of his death; for six years Henry's queen Anne of Kiev ruled as regent. At the time of his death, he was besieging Thimert, which had been occupied by the Normans since 1058.[11]

Marriages
Henry I was betrothed to Matilda, the daughter of Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor, but she died prematurely in 1034.[12] Henry then married Matilda of Frisia, but she died in 1044,[13] following a Caesarean section. Casting further afield in search of a third wife, Henry married Anne of Kiev on 19 May 1051.[13] They had four children:

Philip I (23 May 1052 – 30 July 1108).[14]
Emma (1054 – 1109?).
Robert (c. 1055 – c. 1060).
Hugh "the Great" of Vermandois (1057–1102).[15]

end of biography

Henri married Anna Agnesa Yaraslavna, Queen of France. Anna (daughter of Yaroslav, I, Czar of Russia and Ingigerd Olofsdottir, Princess of Sweden) was born in 1036 in Kiev, Ukraine; died on 5 Sep 1075 in France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

88813.

Anna Agnesa Yaraslavna, Queen of France was born in 1036 in Kiev, Ukraine (daughter of Yaroslav, I, Czar of Russia and Ingigerd Olofsdottir, Princess of Sweden); died on 5 Sep 1075 in France.

Notes:

The PEDIGREE of
Anna (Agnesa) JAROSLAVNA (Princess) of KIEV

aka Anne of RUSSIA; (YAROSLAVNA Iaroslavna) KIJEWSKAIA; (Capet's 2nd wife)
Born: Kiev 1036 Died: aft. 1076 France

HM George I's 16-Great Grandmother. HRE Ferdinand I's 13-Great Grandmother. U.S. President [WASHINGTON]'s 19-Great Grandmother. PM Churchill's 23-Great Grandmother. HM Margrethe II's 24-Great Grandmother. Gen. Pierpont Hamilton's 24-Great Grandmother. `Red Baron' Richthofen's 21-Great Grandmother. Poss. Agnes Harris's 17-Great Grandmother. `Osawatomie' Brown's 24-Great Grandmother.
Husbands/Partners: Henry I CAPET (King) of FRANCE ; Raoul III de CREPY
Child: Philip I `the Amorous' (King) of FRANCE
Possible Child: Hugh MAGNUS `the Great' de CREPI
Alternative Mother of Possible Child: prob. not Matilda of GERMANY (1st wife)
________ ________ ________ ________ _______ _______ _______ _______ ______ _____ _____
/ -- Rurik (Grand Prince) of NOVGORAD + ====> [ 255 ,,p,&]
| | or: Ingwar (Rurik's son)
/ | OR: prob. not Rurik NOWGOROD [alt ped] + ====> [ 255 ,,p,&]
/ -- Igor I (Grand Prince) of KIEV (876? - 945?)
| \ | OR: prob. source: N1c1 y-Haplogroup + =====>
| \ -- Efanda of URMAN + ====> [ 1]
/ | OR: prob. not Marija of BULGARIA + ==&=> [ 255 ,,XQD,&]
/ -- Sviatoslav (Svatislav) I IGORJEWITSCH
/ \ -- Olga von PLESKAU (Grand Duchess) of KIEV + ====> [ 2]
/ -- Vladimir (I; Saint; Grand Prince) of KIEV
| \ / -- poss. Malk (Mal) de LUBECH + ====> [ 1]
| \ -- Malousha `the Slav' de LUBECH (944? - 1002?)
| \ | or: Fredslava (ARPAD ?), q.v.
/ \ -- Olga
/ -- Jaroslav (Yaroslav Laroslav) I WLADIMIROWWITSCH
| \ / -- poss. Randolph of POLOTSK + ====> [ 1]
| | / -- Rognwald (Rognvald) (Count) von POLOTZK
| \ -- Rogneida (Rognieda) (Princess) von POLOTZK
| | or: Anna PORPHYROGENITA, q.v.
/ | OR: poss. (Miss) von SCHWABEN + ==&=> [ 255 ,gC,tm,&]
- Anna (Agnesa) JAROSLAVNA (Princess) of KIEV
\ / -- Erik EDMUNDSSON of SWEDEN (Goten) + ====> [ 255 ,,p,&]
| / -- Bjorn (III) `the Old' (`a Haugi') ERIKSSON
| / -- Erik VII `Segersall' (King) of SWEDEN
| | \ | OR: Erik VII `Segersall' of SWEDEN [alt ped] + ====> [ 255 ,,p,&]
| / \ -- Ingeborg (? - 934+)
| / -- Olaf III (II; King; Skot-konig) of SWEDEN
| | \ / -- Skoglar-Toste (Skogul-Tosti) STORRADA
| | \ -- Sigrid (Sigrith) STORRADA (Queen) of DENMARK
| / | OR: prob. Gunhild MIEZKODOTTER av VENDEN + ====> [ 255 ,g,&]
\ -- Ingegarda (Ingrid) OLAFSDOTTIR (1001? - 1050)
\ / -- Mitsui II (Prince) of the OBOTRITES + ====> [ 255 ,,x,&]
| / -- Mieceslas III (Prince) of the OBOTRITES
| | \ -- poss. Sophia MIECESLAS + ====> [ 1]
| / | OR: poss. Margareta of SAXONY + ==&=> [ 255 ,c,pt,&]
\ -- Astrid (Ingegerda) (Princess) of the OBOTRITES
\ -- Sophia (Sweden)

Her (poss.) Grandchildren: Cecile de FRANCE ; Louis VI `the Fat' (King) of FRANCE ; Constance (Constansia) CAPET (Princess) of FRANCE ; Florent de FRANCE ; Raoul I (Count) de VERMANDOIS ; Isabelle (de) VERMANDOIS ; Agnes de VERMANDOIS ; Mathilda (Mahaut) de VERMANDOIS ; Constance de VERMANDOIS ; Alice de VERMANDOIS

[ Start ]
FabPed Genealogy Vers. 86 © Jamie, 1997-2018

Children:

44406. Hugues de France, Count of Vermandois was born in 1057 in (Vermandois) France; died on 18 Oct 1102 in Tarsus, Turkey; was buried in Church of St Paul, Mersin, Mersin, Turkey.

48200.

Notes:

more...

History & issue of Henry I, King of England ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_I_of_England

Family and children

Legitimate

House of Normandy
Bayeux Tapestry WillelmDux.jpg
William the Conqueror invades England
William I[show]
William II[show]
Henry I[show]
Stephen[show]
Monarchy of the United Kingdom
v t e
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Henry I of England.

Henry and his first wife, Matilda, had at least two legitimate children:

Matilda, born in 1102, died 1167.[89]
William Adelin, born in 1103, died 1120.[89]
Possibly Richard, who, if he existed, died young.[100]
Henry and his second wife, Adeliza, had no children.

Illegitimate

Henry had a number of illegitimate children by various mistresses.[nb 32]

Sons

Robert of Gloucester, born in the 1090s.[332]
Richard, born to Ansfride, brought up by Robert Bloet, the Bishop of Lincoln.[333]
Reginald de Dunstanville, Earl of Cornwall, born in the 1110s or early 1120s, possibly to Sibyl Corbet.[334]
Robert the King's son, born to Ede, daughter of Forne.[335]
Gilbert, possibly born to an unnamed sister or daughter of Walter of Gand.[336]
William de Tracy, possibly born in the 1090s.[336]
Henry the King's son, possibly born to Nest ferch Rhys.[335][nb 33]
Fulk the King's son, possibly born to Ansfride.[335]
William, the brother of Sybilla de Normandy, probably the brother of Reginald de Dunstanville.[337]

Daughters

Matilda FitzRoy, Countess of Perche.[338]
Matilda FitzRoy, Duchess of Brittany.[338]
Juliana, wife of Eustace of Breteuil, possibly born to Ansfrida.[339]
Mabel, wife of William Gouet.[340]
Constance, Vicountess of Beaumont-sur-Sarthe.[341]
Aline, wife of Matthew de Montmorency.[342]
Isabel, daughter of Isabel de Beaumont, Countess of Pembroke.[342]
Sybilla de Normandy, Queen of Scotland, probably born before 1100.[342][nb 34]
Matilda Fitzroy, Abbess of Montvilliers.[342]
Gundrada de Dunstanville.[342]
Possibly Rohese, wife of Henry de la Pomerai.[342][nb 35]
Emma, wife of Guy of Laval.[343]
Adeliza, the King's daughter.[343]
The wife of Fergus of Galloway.[343]
Possibly Sibyl of Falaise.[343][nb 36]

Born: ABT Sep 1068, Selby, Yorkshire, England
Acceded: 6 Aug 1100, Westminster Abbey, London, England
Died: 1 Dec 1135, St Denis-le-Fermont, near Gisors
Buried: Reading Abbey, Berkshire, England

Notes: Reigned 1100-1135. Duke of Normandy 1106-1135.

His reign is notable for important legal and administrative reforms, and for the final resolution of the investiture controversy. Abroad, he waged several campaigns in order to consolidate and expand his continental possessions. Was so hated by his brothers that they vowed to disinherit him. In 1106 he captured Robert and held him til he died. He proved to be a hard but just ruler. One of his lovers, Nest, Princess of Deheubarth, was known as the most beautiful woman in Wales; she had many lovers.

He apparently died from over eating Lampreys. During a Christmas court at Windsor Castle in 1126 that Henry I, who had no legitimate male heir, tried to force his barons to accept his daughter Matilda as his successor.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles reported that "...there he caused archbishops and bishops and abbots and earls all the thegns that were there to swear to give England and Normandy after his death into the hand of his daughter". Swear they did, but they were not happy about it. None of those present were interested in being among the first to owe allegiance to a woman. The stage was set for the 19-year-long bloody struggle for the throne that rent England apart after Henry's death. Ironically, the final resolution to that civil war, the peace treaty between King Stephen and Matilda's son Henry of Anjou, was ratified on Christmas Day at Westminster in 1153.

*

Birth:
History, maps & photos of Selby, England ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selby

Buried:
Reading Abbey is a large, ruined abbey in the centre of the town of Reading, in the English county of Berkshire. It was founded by Henry I in 1121 "for the salvation of my soul, and the souls of King William, my father, and of King William, my brother, and Queen Maud, my wife, and all my ancestors and successors".

For more history & images of Reading Abbey, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Abbey

Henry married unnamed partner. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48201.
unnamed partner
Children:

24100. Sir Robert FitzRoy, Knight, 1st Earl of Gloucester was born before 1100 in (France); died on 31 Oct 1147.

48202.

Sir Robert Fitzhamon, Knight, Lord of Glamorgan was born in 1045-1055; died in 0Mar 1107 in Falaise, Calvados, Normandie, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Gloucestershire, England

Notes:

Robert Fitzhamon (died March 1107), or Robert FitzHamon, Seigneur de Creully in the Calvados region and Torigny in the Manche region of Normandy, was the first Norman feudal baron of Gloucester and the Norman conqueror of Glamorgan, southern Wales. He became Lord of Glamorgan in 1075.

As a kinsman of the Conqueror and one of the few Anglo-Norman barons to remain loyal to the two successive kings William Rufus and Henry I of England, he was a prominent figure in England and Normandy.

Not much is known about his earlier life, or his precise relationship to William I of England.

Parentage and ancestry

Robert FitzHamon (born c. 1045-1055, d. March 1107 Falaise, Normandy) was, as the prefix Fitz (fils de, "son of") suggests, the son of Hamo Dapifer the Sheriff of Kent and grandson of Hamon Dentatus ('The Betoothed or Toothy', i.e., probably buck-toothed). His grandfather held the lordships of Torigny, Creully, Mâezy, and Evrecy in Normandy, but following his death at the Battle of Val-áes-Dunes in 1047, the family might have lost these lordships.

Career in England and Wales[edit]
Few details of Robert's career prior to 1087 are available. Robert probably did not fight at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and does not appear in the Domesday Book of 1086, although some of his relatives are listed therein. He first comes to prominence in surviving records as a supporter of King William Rufus (1087-1100) during the Rebellion of 1088. After the revolt was defeated he was granted as a reward by King William Rufus the feudal barony of Gloucester[3] consisting of over two hundred manors in Gloucestershire and other counties. Some of these had belonged to the late Queen Matilda, consort of William the Conqueror and mother of William Rufus, and had been seized by her from the great Saxon thane Brictric son of Algar, apparently as a punishment for his having refused her romantic advances in his youth.[4] They had been destined as the inheritance of Rufus's younger brother Henry (the future King Henry I); nevertheless Fitzhamon remained on good terms with Henry.

Conquest of Glamorgan

The chronology of Fitzhamon's conquest of Glamorgan is uncertain, but it probably took place in the decades after he received the feudal barony of Gloucester.

The Twelve Knights of Glamorgan

One explanation is the legend of the Twelve Knights of Glamorgan, which dates from the 16th century, in which the Welsh Prince Iestyn ap Gwrgan (Jestin), prince or Lord of Glamorgan, supposedly called in the assistance of Robert Fitzhamon. Fitzhamon defeated the prince of South Wales Rhys ap Tewdwr in battle in 1090. With his Norman knights as reward he then took possession of Glamorgan, and "the French came into Dyfed and Ceredigion, which they have still retained, and fortified the castles, and seized upon all the land of the Britons." Iestyn did not profit long by his involvement with the Normans. He was soon defeated and his lands taken in 1091.

Whether there is any truth in the legend or not Robert Fitzhamon seems to have seized control of the lowlands of Glamorgan and Gwynllwg sometime from around 1089 to 1094. His key strongholds were Cardiff Castle, which already may have been built, on the site of an old Roman fort, new castles at Newport, and at Kenfig. His descendants would inherit these castles and lands.

Rhys's daughter Nest became the mistress of King Henry I of England and allegedly was mother of Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester who married Mabel, Fitzhamon's daughter and heiress and thus had legitimacy both among the Welsh and the Norman barons.[5] (Robert of Caen's mother is however unknown to historians and genealogists).

Founder of Tewkesbury Abbey (1092)

He also refounded Tewkesbury Abbey in 1092. The abbey's dimensions are almost the same as Westminster Abbey. The first abbot was Giraldus, Abbot of Cranborne (d. 1110) who died before the abbey was consecrated in October 1121. The abbey was apparently built under the influence of his wife Sybil de Montgomery. [3], said to be a beautiful and religious woman like her sisters.

Fitzhamon and His Kings

Legend has it that Robert had ominous dreams in the days before Rufus' fatal hunting expedition, which postponed but did not prevent the outing. He was one of the first to gather in tears around Rufus' corpse, and he used his cloak to cover the late king's body on its journey to be buried in Winchester. How much of these stories are the invention of later days is unknown.

In any case Fitzhamon proved as loyal to Henry I as he had been to his predecessor, remaining on Henry's side in the several open conflicts with Henry's brother Robert Curthose. He was one of the three barons who negotiated the 1101 truce between Henry I and Robert Curthose.

In 1105 he went to Normandy and was captured while fighting near his ancestral estates near Bayeux. This was one of the reasons Henry crossed the channel with a substantial force later that year. Fitzhamon was freed, and joined Henry's campaign, which proceeded to besiege Falaise. There Fitzhamon was severely injured in the head; although he lived two more years he was never the same mentally. He was buried in the Chapter House at Tewkesbury Abbey, which he had founded and considerably enriched during his lifetime.

Marriage and progeny

Fitzhamon married Sybil de Montgomery around 1087 to 1090, apparently the youngest daughter of Roger of Montgomery, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury by his first wife Mabel Talvas, daughter of William I Talvas. She survived her husband and is said to have entered a convent with two of her daughters. By his wife he is said to have had four daughters including:

Mabel FitzHamon, eldest daughter, who inherited his great estates and in about 1107 married Robert de Caen, 1st Earl of Gloucester, a natural son of King Henry I (1100-1135). Fitzhamon's huge land-holdings in several counties formed the feudal barony of Gloucester[6] which was inherited by his son-in-law Robert de Caen, who in 1122 was created 1st Earl of Gloucester.[7] Fitzhamon is sometimes called Earl of Gloucester, but was never so created formally. Robert Fitzhamon's great-granddaughter Isabel of Gloucester married King John (1199-1216).
Isabella (or Hawisa) FitzHamon, said to have married a count from Brittany, but no further details exist.
1860 Depiction at Kilkhampton[edit]

1860 imaginary depiction of Robert FitzHamon (d.1107) (left) and his younger brother Richard I de Grenville (d.post 1142) (right), Church of St James the Great, Kilkhampton, Cornwall
An imaginary depiction of Robert FitzHamon (d.1107) and his younger brother Richard I de Grenville (d.post 1142)[8]) is contained within one of the two Granville windows by Clayton and Bell[9] erected in 1860 by descendants of the latter within the Granville Chapel of the Church of St James the Great, Kilkhampton, Cornwall. The seat of the Grenville family ("Granville" after 1661 when elevated to the Earldom of Bath[10]) was Stowe within the parish of Kilkhampton. Below the left-hand figure is inscribed: "Rob. FitzHamon Earl of Corboyle", with attributed arms under showing: Azure, a lion rampant guardant or impaling Azure, a lion rampant or a bordure of the last. The right hand figure is of Richard de Granville, the younger brother of Robert FitzHamon and one of the Twelve Knights of Glamorgan who followed his brother in effecting the conquest of Glamorgan. He holds in his hands the church of his foundation of Neath Abbey, Glamorgan. Below is inscribed: "Ric. de Granville Earl of Corboyle" with attributed arms under showing: Gules, three clarions or (the arms of the Grenvilles' later overlord and Robert FitzHamon's heir in the feudal barony of Gloucester,[11] Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, which arms were later adopted by the Grenvilles[12]) with an inescutcheon of pretence of Gules, three lions passant argent. The Granvilles claimed in the 17th century to have been the heirs male of Robert FitzHamon (who left only a daughter as his sole heiress) in his supposed Earldom of Corboil.[13] The windows were erected in 1860 by the heirs of the Grenville family: George Granville Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland KG (1786-1861); John Alexander Thynne, 4th Marquess of Bath (1831–1896); George Granville Francis Egerton, 2nd Earl of Ellesmere (1823–1862); Lord John Thynne (1798-1881), DD, Canon of Westminster, a younger son of Thomas Thynne, 2nd Marquess of Bath (1765-1837), KG.[14]

References

C. Warren Hollister, Henry I
Lynn Nelson, The Normans in South Wales, 1070-1171 (see especially pp. 94–110 in chapter 5)
Cardiff Castle
Norman invasion of South Wales
Tour of the Abbey
Lord of Bristol refers to Robert Fitzhamon as Lord of Bristol, which town and castle became important to his son-in-law.
Robert of Caen, son-in-law is said here to be grandson of a Welsh prince but most other sources say that his mother was an unnamed woman of Caen.
Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Lines: 63-26, 124A-26, 125-26, 185-1.

Notes

Jump up ^ Sir Charles Isham's "Registrum Theokusburiµ" gives a full-page illustration of these noble brothers, "par nobile fratrum," as Dr. Hayman calls them, in which they are termed "duo duces Marciorum et primi fundatores Theokusburiµ" i.e., two Earls of the Marches and first founders of Tewkesbury. Each knight is in armour, and bears in his hand a model of a church. Both are supporting a shield (affixed to a pomegranate tree) bearing the arms of the Abbey, which the blazoning on their own coats repeats.(Massâe, H. J. L. J., The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire (Bell's Cathedrals)) original illustration as shown on folio 8 verso, Bodleian Library Manuscript: Top. Gloucester, d. 2, Founders' and benefectors' book of Tewkesbury Abbey [1]
Jump up ^ Bodleian Library Manuscript: Top. Gloucester, d. 2, Founders' and benefectors' book of Tewkesbury Abbey [2]
Jump up ^ Sanders, I.J., English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, p.6, Barony of Gloucester
Jump up ^ According to the account by the Continuator of Wace and others, quoted in Thorn, Caroline & Frank, (eds.) Domesday Book, (Morris, John, gen.ed.) Vol. 9, Devon, Parts 1 & 2, Phillimore Press, Chichester, 1985, part 2 (notes), 24,21, quoting "Freeman, E.A., The History of the Norman Conquest of England, 6 vols., Oxford, 1867–1879, vol. 4, Appendix, note 0"
Jump up ^ Four Ancient Books of Wales: Introduction: Chapter VI. Manau Gododin and the Picts
Jump up ^ Sanders, p.6
Jump up ^ Sanders, p.6
Jump up ^ Round, J. Horace, Family Origins and Other Studies, London, 1930, The Granvilles and the Monks, pp.130-169, p.137
Jump up ^ Church Guidebook, St James the Great Kilkhampton, 2012, p.11
Jump up ^ Round, J. Horace, Family Origins and Other Studies, London, 1930, The Granvilles and the Monks, pp.130-169
Jump up ^ Sanders, I.J., English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, p.6, Barony of Gloucester
Jump up ^ Round, J. Horace, Family Origins and Other Studies, London, 1930, The Granvilles and the Monks, pp.130-169
Jump up ^ Round, J. Horace, Family Origins and Other Studies, London, 1930, The Granvilles and the Monks, pp.130-169
Jump up ^ Per brass plaque below easternmost window

Robert married Sybil de Montgomery. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48203.

Children:

24101. Lady Mabel FitzHamon, Countess of Gloucester was born in 0___ 1090 in Gloucestershire, England; died on 29 Sep 1157 in Bristol, Gloucestershire, England.

88824.

Simon I de Montfort was born in 1026 in Montfort l'Amaury, Ile de France, France; died on 25 Sep 1087 in Epernon, Normandie, France.

Simon married Agnes d'Evereux in ~1064. Agnes (daughter of Richard d'Evreux and Godeheut Barcelona) was born in 1041 in Evreux, Normandy, France; died in 1087 in Evreux, Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

88825.

Agnes d'Evereux was born in 1041 in Evreux, Normandy, France (daughter of Richard d'Evreux and Godeheut Barcelona); died in 1087 in Evreux, Normandy, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: 1030

Notes:

The PEDIGREE of
Agnes d' EVEREUX (EVEREUX; d' EVREUX)
Born: abt. 1030 Died: abt. 1087

HM George I's 15-Great Grandmother. HRE Ferdinand I's 13-Great Grandmother. U.S. President [WASHINGTON]'s 18-Great Grandmother. PM Churchill's 22-Great Grandmother. HM Margrethe II's 23-Great Grandmother. Gen. Pierpont Hamilton's 24-Great Grandmother. `Red Baron' Richthofen's 20-Great Grandmother. Poss. Agnes Harris's 16-Great Grandmother. `Osawatomie' Brown's 23-Great Grandmother.
Husband/Partner: Simon I (Sn.; de) MONTFORT
Children: Bertrade de MONTFORT (l' AMAURI) ; Amauri III (Amaury; IV) de MONTFORT
_________ _________ _________ ________ ________ ________ ________ ______ _____ _____
/ -- Guillaume (2nd Duke) of NORMANDY + ====> [ 255 ,c,pt,&]
/ -- Richard I `the Fearless' (Count) of NORMANDY
/ \ -- Sprota de BRETAGNE (concubine) + ====> [ 1]
/ -- Robert (Count) d' EVEREUX (VREUX)
| \ / -- Herbastus (Herfastus) (Sire) de CREPON + ====> [ 255 ,g,&]
| | | | or: (NN), a Dane
| | / | or: Forquelar of CIRQUES
| \ -- Gunnora (Gonnor) de CREPON (936? - 1031?)
| \ | OR: prob. not Gunnora DENMARK + ====> [ 255 ,gc,t,&]
| \ -- poss. Cynthia of OBATRIDES + ====> [ 255 ,,x,&]
/ | or: poss. Cyrid of SWEDEN
/ -- Richard (Count) de EVREUX (Rouen 986 - 1067)
/ \ -- Havlive (Herleva; or Gunnois) of NORMANDY
- Agnes d' EVEREUX (EVEREUX; d' EVREUX)
\ / -- Sunyer (Suniario) of BESALU + ====> [ 255 ,,mx,&]
| / -- Borell II (Count) of BARCELONA (946? - 992)
| / \ -- Richilde de ROUERGUE (ROUERGES) + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,mY,&]
| / -- Raymond Borrell (I; III) BERENGAR (972 - 1019)
| | \ / -- Raymond III (5th Count?) de TOULOUSE + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,ptm,&]
| | | / | (skip this generation?)
| | \ -- poss. Luitgarde de TOULOUSE (952? - 977+)
| | \ | OR: poss. Luitgarde de TOULOUSE [alt ped] + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,ptmY,&]
| / \ -- poss. Adelaide (Aelips) `Blanche' d' ANJOU (skip?) + ====> [ 255 ,c,&]
\ -- poss. Adelaide (Adela Adele) of BARCELONA
\ | or: prob. Godehildis (Gotelina)
| / -- Arnold I of CONSERANS + ====> [ 255 ,,xY,&]
| / -- Roger I de COMMINGES (935? - 1019?)
| | \ -- Arsenda (Heiress) de CARCASSONNE + ====> [ 255 ,c,mY,&]
| / | OR: Arsinde de ROUERGUE + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,mY,&]
\ -- Ermesinde de CARCASSONNE (972 - 1058)
\ / -- poss. father of Baldwin de PONS (skip?)
\ -- Adelaide de ROUERGUE (949? - 1011+)
\ | OR: Adelaide de MELGUEIL [alt ped] + ====> [ 255 ,,x,&]
\ -- prob. (Miss) de ROUERGUE + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,ptmY,&]
| (skip this generation?)

Her Grandchildren: Cecile de FRANCE ; Foulques (Fulk) V (9th Count) de ANJOU ; Florent de FRANCE ; Agnes d' Evreux de MONTFORT ; Simon III (II; Baron; de) MONTFORT ; Simon II (III) de MONTFORT

[ Start ]
FabPed Genealogy Vers. 86 © Jamie, 1997-2018

Agnes de Montfort formerly Evreux aka d'Evreux
Born 1041 in âEvreux, Eure, Haute-Normandie, France
ANCESTORS ancestors
Daughter of Richard (Evreux) d'Evreux and Godeheut (Barcelona) d'Evreux
Sister of Adelisa (Toeni) FitzOsbern [half], Radulph (Toeni) de Tony [half], Eliant Eliance (de Toeni) Toeni [half], Guillaume (Evreux) d'Evreux [half], Helbert Elbert (de Toeni) Toeni [half], Gazon (de Toeni) Toeni [half] and Unknown (de Toeni) Toeni [half]
Wife of Simon (Montfort) de Montfort — married about 1064 [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Mother of Richard (Montfort) de Montfort, Amauri (Montfort) de Montfort, Simon Montfort, Bertrade I de Montfort, Simon (Montfort) de Montfort and Amauri (Montfort) de Montfort
Died about 1087 in âEvreux, Eure, Haute-Normandie, France
Profile manager: Rev Daniel Washburn Jones private message [send private message]
Profile last modified 26 Mar 2019 | Created 12 Sep 2010
This page has been accessed 6,246 times.
European Aristocracy
Agnes (Evreux) de Montfort was a member of aristocracy in Europe.
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This person is the subject of a page on the website of Baldwin and Farmerie concerning the ancestry of Henry II.[1]

Stewart Baldwin describes her as "sister and heiress of her brother count William of âEvreux, Agnes brought the county of âEvreux into the possession of the Montfort family." Her father was Richard, count of âEvreux, and because Agnes was uterine sister of Ralph de Tosny, son of Roger de Tosny who died about 1040, Baldwin says Godehilde must be the name of her mother.

Sources
Wikipedia
? http://sbaldw.home.mindspring.com/hproject/prov/agnes000.htm
Normandy, nobility

end of profile

Children:

44412. Sir Amaury de Montfort, III, Knight, Count of Evreux was born in 1070 in (Epernon, France); died in ~ 1137.

89066.

Waleran of Meulan, III, Count of Meulan was born in ~ 990 in Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France; died on 8 Oct 1069 in Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France.

Notes:

Biography

Waleran Meulan (Wakran de Moulcon)
Birth: 0990 • Mellent, Normandy, France
Death: 08 Oct 1069 • Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France

Marriage & Family

Spouse: Oda de Conteville (994–1022)

Children:

Adeline de Maulâeon (de Beaumont)
Marie de Maulâeon (Talbot) (abt. 1005- )
Robert de Maulâeon (aft. 1013- )
Aremgarde de Maulâeon (Thouars) ( –1069)
Avelina de Maulâeon (1014 - 1081)
Hugh de Vernon(?)
Count Waleran

"...Count Waleran established an independent power base on a fortified island in the River Seine, around the year 1020."[1]
"Both he and his son, Count Hugh, maintained an independence from the Capetian king at Paris by a judicious if dangerous alliance with the dukes of Normandy downstream. This led to the marriage of Adeline, Count Hugh's sister, to the Norman magnate, Roger de Beaumont.[2]
"On Count Hugh's death in 1081 his nephew, Robert de Beaumont, acquired the county."[3]

Sources

Source: Web: Netherlands, GenealogieOnline Trees Index, 1000-2015: Name: Waleran De Meulan; Gender: m; Birth Date: 0990; Birth Place: Mellent, Normandy, France; Death Date: 8 Oct 1069; Death Place: Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France; Death Age: 79; Spouse: Oda De Conteville; Children: Aurengarde De Mauleon; URL: https://www.genealogieonline.nl/en/radford-family-tree/I964.php
Source: Waleran de Meulan, Comte de Meulan III. WeRelate.org. Last modified 19:52, 27 Sep 2016. Accessed: 21 Nov 2017. URL: https://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person:Waleran_De_Meulan_%281%29
Waleran de Meulan, Comte de Meulan III
b. est 0990, probably Meulan, Yvelines, France
d. 8 Oct 1069, probably Meulan, Yvelines, France
?Facts and Events
Name[4][5][6][7]
Waleran de Meulan, Comte de Meulan III
Alt Name[8][9]
Galeran de Meulan
Gender: Male
Birth[10][11]: est 0990, probably Meulan, Yvelines, France
Marriage: bef 1015 to Oda de Conteville
Marriage: to Adelais
Death[12][13][14][15]: 8 Oct 1069, probably Meulan, Yvelines, France
Reference Number?: Q2195516?
?References
? Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, 106th Edition, Charles Mosley Editor-in-Chief, 1999 (13), 2943.
? Weis, Frederick Lewis; Walter Lee Sheppard; and David Faris. Ancestral roots of certain American colonists, who came to America before 1700: the lineage of Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, Robert the Strong, and some of their descendants. (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Pub. Co., 7th Edition c1992), 50-24.
? The Plantagenet Ancestry, by William Henry Turton, 1968 (4), 100.
? Stuart, Roderick W. Royalty for Commoners. (Genealogical Publishing Company, 1992, 2nd ed.), p. 140.
Stuart, Roderick W. Royalty for Commoners. (Genealogical Publishing Company, 1992, 2nd ed.), p. 79.
? The Plantagenet Ancestry, by William Henry Turton, 1968 (4).
? 7.0 7.1 Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom, by G. E Cokayne, Sutton Publishing Ltd, 2000.
? Gilman, Mariah Hope. Ancestors of Mariah Hope Gilman. (http://superjordans-home.com/MariahsAncestors/Index.htm, Cited 16 February 2004.).
Waleran III de Meulan, Comte de Meulan, in Lundy, Darryl. The Peerage: A genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain as well as the royal families of Europe.
? 10.0 10.1 Counts of Meulan, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia."Waleran III, Count of Meulan (ca. 990–ca. 1069)"
? 11.0 11.1 Normandy, Nobility: GALERAN [III] de Meulan, in Cawley, Charles. Medieval Lands: A prosopography of medieval European noble and royal families.
? Source: County of Meulan. Wikipedia.org. Last edited: 18 Aug 2016. Accessed: 21 Nov 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_of_Meulan
? ibid.
? ibid.
? Reference: Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, 106th Edition, Charles Mosley Editor-in-Chief, 1999
? Reference: Weis, Frederick Lewis; Walter Lee Sheppard; and David Faris. Ancestral roots of certain American colonists, who came to America before 1700: the lineage of Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, Robert the Strong, and some of their descendants
? Reference: The Plantagenet Ancestry, by William Henry Turton, 1968 (4), 100.
? Reference: Ancestors of Mariah Hope Gilman.
? References: Royalty for Commoners.
? Reference: Normandy, Nobility: GALERAN [III] de Meulan
? Reference: Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom
? Reference: Counts of Meulan
? Reference: The Plantagenet Ancestry
? Reference: Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom
? Reference: Counts of Meulan
? Reference: Normandy, Nobility: GALERAN [III] de Meulan

Also see:

Place sources here:
County of Meulan @Wikipedia
The PEDIGREE of Waleran III (II) de MEULAN

end of biography

Waleran married Oda de Conteville in ~1007. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

89067.
Oda de Conteville
Children:

44533. Adeline of Meulan was born in ~ 1014 in Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France; died on 8 Apr 1081; was buried in Abbaye du Bec, France.

89072.

Diarmait Macmail Na Mbo Murchada, King of Ireland was born in 974 in Cork, Ireland (son of Donnchad Mâael Na Mbâo (O'CHEINNSELAIG) Murchada and Aife Ingen (Daughter Of) Gilla Patraic); died in 1072.

Diarmait married Dearbforgail Ingen O'Brien before 1006. Dearbforgail (daughter of Donnchad O'Brien, King of Munster and Druscilla Godwin) was born in 1005 in Dublin, Ireland; died in 1060 in Ireland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

89073.

Dearbforgail Ingen O'Brien was born in 1005 in Dublin, Ireland (daughter of Donnchad O'Brien, King of Munster and Druscilla Godwin); died in 1060 in Ireland.

Children:

44536. Murchad Macdairmata Murchada was born in 1032 in (Ireland); died in 1070 in (Ireland).

22268.

Donnchad Enna Mac Murchada was born in 1085 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland (son of Murchad Macdairmata Murchada and Sadb Ingen Mac Bricc); died on 8 Dec 1115 in Wexford, Ireland.

22269.

Children:

11134. Dermot Dairmait Mac Murchada, King of Leinster was born in 1110 in Dublin, Ireland; died on 1 May 1171 in Ireland.

24068.

Notes:

Born 1065 at the latest.
Died between 1131 and 1139

Philip is recorded as consenting to his father's gifts to his canons at St Nicholas church at Bramber in 1073. He confirmed those gifts to the abbey of St Florent in 1096 after the death of his father.

Old Shoreham was part of Philip's demesne lands where St Nicolas church (right) had stood since Saxon times. Philip expanded trade in the area by founding the port of New Shoreham.

He became the first Braose Lord of Builth and Radnor, the family's initial holding in the Welsh Marches.

Orderic Vitalis (Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, Book IX, Chapter IV) relates that Philip submitted his fortress in Normandy to King William II in 1096 and supported the king against his brother Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy. But, like Robert, Philip may have left Normandy at this time and joined the First Crusade to the Holy Land, returning in 1103. There is evidence in charters that Philip journeyed to the Holy Land but the date of his visit is uncertain.

Philip's lands were confiscated by Henry I in 1110, due to his traitrous support of William, son of Robert Curthose, but they were returned in 1112.

Father: William de Braose, 1st Lord of Bramber

Mother: Eve de Boissey (probably)

There are charters where Robert de Harcourt's sons, Philip and Richard, refer to Philip de Braose as "patruus" - paternal uncle. This lends weight to the theory that Robert de Harcourt and Philip de Braose were both sons of Eve de Boissey. In another record dated 1103 (Pipe Roll Soc. Vol 71 no 544) it is stated that Philip de Braose was represented by "his brother Robert, the son of Anketill".

Philip's sealPhilip was married to Aanor, daughter of Judael (Johel) of Totnes.

Child 1: William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber

Child 2: Philip

Child 3: Basilia

Child 4: Gillian

Child 5: A daughter who married William de Tregoz, the father of Philip de Tregoz who was sheriff of Sussex in 1190. (see evidence here and here )

end of this biography

Philip de Braose, 2nd Lord of Bramber (c. 1070 – c. 1134) was an Anglo-Norman nobleman and Marcher Lord.

Lord of Bramber
Born c. 1070
Died c. 1134
possibly on crusade in the Levant
Noble family House of Braose
Spouse(s) Aenor de Totnes, daughter of Juhel of Totnes[1]
Issue
William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber, Philip de Braose junior, Basilia (daughter), Gilian (daughter)
Father William de Braose, 1st Lord of Bramber

Origins
Philip was born about 1070 to 1073, the son of William de Braose, 1st Lord of Bramber (d. circa 1093/96) by his wife Eve de Boissey or Agnes de St. Clare. William de Braose had participated in the Norman conquest of England. He had been rewarded with the feudal barony of Bramber in Sussex and smaller holdings in Dorset, Wiltshire, Berkshire and Surrey.[2]

Career

Philip as heir consolidated his paternal lands, and expanded them. In 1096 he confirmed his father's gifts to the Abbey of St. Florent. Philip de Braose conquered the Welsh borderlands at Builth and New Radnor and established new Norman lordships over them. At Builth, he constructed a Motte and Bailey fortification at the site where King Edward I later built Builth Castle in the 13th century.[3] He seems to have gone on the First Crusade in 1103. He supported King Henry I (1100–1135) against the claim to the English throne made by his elder brother Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, but then in 1110 he revolted against Henry, who then confiscated his estates. He regained his lordships and lands in 1112 and was thereafter able to retain them, but in 1130 settled them intact onto his eldest son William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber.

Marriage & progeny

He married Aenor de Totnes, sister and co-heiress of Alfred de Totnes (d.pre-1139), son of Juhel de Totnes (d.1123/30) feudal baron of Totnes (which he forfeited c.1087[4]) and of Barnstaple both in Devon.[5] In right of his wife Aenor, Philip acquired a moiety of the feudal barony of Barnstaple, the other moiety of which was held by Henry de Tracy (d.pre-1165), Aenor's brother-in-law.[6] He had the following progeny:

William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber, his eldest son and heir.
Philip de Braose junior
Basilia, a daughter.
Gillian, a daughter.
Before 1206 William III de Braose (d.1211) successfully claimed half of the barony of Totnes from Henry de Nonant, to which family it had been granted after its forfeiture by Juhel de Totnes.[7] However in 1208 William III's lands were confiscated by King John.[8]

Death

He died between 1131 and 1139, possibly in 1134 on crusade in the Levant.

References

Cokayne, G.E., ed V. Gibbs (1910). The Complete Peerage, Vol. 1. London: The St. Catherine Press Ltd. pp. 21/22.
Domesday Book
Taylor, Arnold. The Welsh Castles of Edward I. The Hambledon Press, 1986, p. 3
Sanders, Ivor, English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, p.89, Totnes
Sanders, Ivor, English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, p.104, Barnstaple
Sanders, Ivor, English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, p.104, Barnstaple
Sanders, p.90, Totnes
Sanders, p.105, Barnstaple

Died:
on a crusade...

24069.

Aanor de Totnes was born in 1084 in Barnstaple, Devonshire, England; died in 1153 in Barnstaple, Devonshire, England.

Children:

48577. Maud Braose was born in ~1111 in Bramber, West Sussex, England; died before 20 Mar 1201.
12034. Sir William de Braose, Knight, 3rd Lord of Bramber was born in 1135 in (Bramber, Sussex, England); died on 21 Oct 1190 in London, England.

24070.

Sir Miles of Gloucester, Knight, 1st Earl of Hereford was born in 1092-1100 in Gloucestershire, England; died on 24 Dec 1143.

Other Events and Attributes:

Occupation: Constable of England
Occupation: High Sheriff of Gloucester

Notes:

Miles FitzWalter of Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford, Lord of Brecknock (died 24 December 1143) was High Sheriff of Gloucester and Constable of England.[a]

Biography

Miles was the son and heir of Walter of Gloucester, hereditary castellan of Gloucester and sheriff of Gloucester, by Berta, his wife.[1] Miles' grandfather, Roger de Pitres, had been sheriff from about 1071, then was succeeded by his brother Durand, the Domesday sheriff, before 1083.[2] Durand was succeeded by his nephew Walter of Gloucester, c.?1096, who was sheriff in 1097 and in 1105–1106.[2] Walter was in favour with Henry I, three of whose charters to him are extant.[3] Walter held the post of a Constable of England. Early in 1121 his son Miles was given the hand of Sibyl, daughter of Bernard de Neufmarchâe, the conqueror of Brecknock, with the reversion of her father's possessions.[3] In the Pipe Roll of 1130 Walter is found to have been succeeded by his son,[4] having died in or around 1126.[5]

Miles was (from 1128 at least) sheriff of Gloucestershire, a justice itinerant, and a justice of the forest,[6] and by 1130 was sheriff of Staffordshire.[5] He had also (though the fact has been doubted) been granted his father's office of constable by a special charter.[7] In conjunction with Pain Fitzjohn, sheriff of Herefordshire and Shropshire, he ruled the whole Welsh border "from the Severn to the sea".[8]

On his accession, King Stephen set himself to secure the allegiance of these two lords-marchers, who at length, on receiving a safe-conduct and obtaining all they asked for, did him homage.[8] It was at Reading that they met the king early in 1136.[b] Miles is next found attending the Easter court at Westminster as one of the royal constables,[9] and, shortly after, the Oxford council in the same capacity.[10] He was then despatched to the aid of the widow of Richard fitz Gilbert de Clare, who was beleaguered in her castle by the Welsh and whom he gallantly rescued.[11]

Meanwhile, Miles had married his son and heir, Roger, to Cecily, daughter of Pain Fitzjohn, who inherited the bulk of her father's possessions.[12] In the same year 1136 Miles transferred the original house of Augustinian canons at Llanthony Priory, Monmouthshire to a site on the south side of Gloucester, which they named Llanthony Secunda.[13][14]

Two years later (1138) Miles received, in his official capacity, King Stephen at Gloucester in May.[15] He has been said to have renounced his allegiance a few weeks later,[16] but careful investigation will show that he was with Stephen in August (1138) at the siege of Shrewsbury, and that his defection did not take place till 1139.[17]

In February 1139 Stephen gave Gloucester Abbey to Miles's kinsman Gilbert Foliot at his request.[18] In the summer of 1139, however, he joined his lord, Robert, Earl of Gloucester, in inviting Empress Matilda to England.[19] On her arrival Miles met her at Bristol, welcomed her to Gloucester, recognised her as his rightful sovereign, and became thenceforth her ardent supporter. She at once gave him St. Briavels Castle and the Forest of Dean.[17]

Miles's first achievement on behalf of Matilda was to relieve Brian Fitz Count who was blockaded in Wallingford Castle.[20] In November (1139) he again advanced from Gloucester and attacked and burnt Worcester.[21] He also captured the castles of Winchcombe, Cerne, and Hereford.[22] Meanwhile, he was deprived by Stephen of his office of constable.[23] He took part in the victory at Lincoln (2 February 1141),[24] and on the consequent triumph of the empress he accompanied her in her progress, and was one of her three chief followers on her entry (2 March) into Winchester.[25] He was with her at Reading when she advanced on London,[26] and on reaching St. Albans Matilda bestowed on him a house at Westminster.[27] He was among those who fled with her from London shortly after, and it was on his advice, when they reached Gloucester, that she ventured back to Oxford.[28] There, on 25 July 1141, she bestowed on him the town and castle of Hereford and made him earl of that shire,[29] as well as the forests of the Hay of Hereford and Trinela[30] in avowed consideration of his faithful service. With singular unanimity hostile chroniclers testify to his devotion to her cause.[22] He even boasted that she had lived at his expense throughout her stay in England.[31]

As "Earl Miles" he now accompanied her to Winchester,[32] and on the rout of her forces on 14 September 1141 he escaped, with the greatest difficulty, to Gloucester, where he arrived "exhausted, alone, and with scarcely a rag to his back".[33] Towards the end of the year he was in Bristol making a grant to Llanthony Priory in the presence of the Empress Matilda and the Robert, Earl of Gloucester.[34] In 1142 he is proved by charters to have been with the Empress at Oxford and to have received her permission to hold Abergavenny Castle of Brian Fitz Count.[35] It is probably to the summer of this year that he made a formal deed of alliance with the Earl of Gloucester, and as a hostage for the performance of which he gave the Earl his son Mahel.[17]

In 1143 his pressing want of money wherewith to pay his troops led him to demand large sums from the church lands. Robert de Bethune, Bishop of Hereford, withstood his demands, and, on the Earl invading his lands, excommunicated him and his followers, and laid the diocese under interdict.[36] The Earl's kinsman, Gilbert Foliot (Abbot of Gloucester),[37] appealed to the legate on his behalf against the bishop's severity.[38] On Christmas-eve of this year (1143) the Earl was slain while hunting by an arrow shot at a deer.[39] A dispute at once arose for possession of his body between the canons of Llanthony and the monks of Gloucester. The case was heard before the bishops of Worcester, Hereford, and St. David's, and was terminated by a compromise on 28 December. The Earl was then buried in the chapter-house at Llanthony.[40]

With his death in 1143, Miles was succeeded by his son and heir, Roger.[17] Roger died without an heir twelve years later in 1155 so the Earldom of Hereford became extinct, but the shrievalty of Hereford and Gloucester passed to his brother Walter. On the death of the latter and two other brothers without issue the family possessions passed to their sisters, Bertha through her marriage bringing Abergavenny to Braose, but Margaret, the eldest sister, taking the bulk (Liber Niger) to the Bohuns afterwards (1199), in recognition of their descent from Miles, earls of Hereford, and constables of England.[41]

Assessment

John of Salisbury classes him with Geoffrey de Mandeville and others who were non tam comites regni quam hostes publici. The charge is justified by his public policy; but the materials for appraising his personal character do not exist.[42]

Family

In 1121, Miles married Sibyl de Neufmarchâe, daughter of Bernard de Neufmarchâe, Lord of Brecon and Nest, granddaughter of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn.[43] Miles and Sybil's children where:

Margaret of Hereford,[5][44] married Humphrey II de Bohun, by whom she had issue.
Bertha of Hereford,[45] married William de Braose before 1150, by whom she had issue.
Roger Fitzmiles, 2nd Earl of Hereford.[46] Hereditary Sheriff of Gloucestershire until 1155.
Walter de Hereford[46] died after 1159 in the Holy Land. He was hereditary Sheriff of Gloucestershire in 1155–1157 and High Sheriff of Herefordshire in 1155–1159.
Henry Fitzmiles Henry of Hereford,[44] died 12 April 1165. He succeeded to the title of Baron Abergavenny in 1141/42.
William de Hereford.[44] He died before 1160 without issue.
Mahel de Hereford,[44] died October 1165 at Bronllys Castle, Breconshire, Wales, mortally hurt when a stone dropped from the tower during a fire; died without issue. Buried at Llanthony Priory.
Lucy of Gloucester,[47] married Herbert FitzHerbert of Winchester, Lord Chamberlain, by whom she had issue. Buried at Llanthony Priory.

Notes

Jump up ^ In some sources Miles's name is not translated from the Latin Milo
Jump up ^ "[This is known] from two charters there tested, one of which was printed by Madox (History of the Exchequer, p. 135), by which Stephen confirms to Miles, 'sicut baroni et justiciario meo', the shrievalty of Gloucestershire, the constableship of Gloucester Castle, and the 'honour' of Brecknock" (Round 1890, p. 438).
Jump up ^ Cokayne 1926, pp. 451–452.
^ Jump up to: a b Morris 1918, p. 154, n. 62.
^ Jump up to: a b Round 1890, p. 438 cites Duchy of Lancaster: Royal Charters.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 438 cites Rot. Pip.. 31 Hen. I.
^ Jump up to: a b c Walker 2012, "Gloucester, Miles of".
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 438.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 438 cites Dugdale MSS.
^ Jump up to: a b Round 1890, p. 438 cites Gesta Stephani, p. 17.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 438 cites Rymer, Fœdera, new ed. i. 16.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 438 cites Rich. Hexham, p. 149.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 13.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Duchy Charters.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Mon. Angl. vi. (1), 127, 132.
Jump up ^ Ward1995, p. 107.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. ii. 105.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439; Norgate 1887, p. 295.
^ Jump up to: a b c d Round 1890, p. 439.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439; Norgate 1887, pp. 493, 494.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439; Norgate 1887, pp. 294, 295.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 59.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 119.
^ Jump up to: a b Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 60.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 121.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 69.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 130; Will. Malm. p. 743.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Add. Cart. pp. 19, 576.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Duchy Charters, No. 16.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 132.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Fœdera, i. 14.
Jump up ^ Francis Beaufort Palmer (February 2007), Peerage Law in England, Lawbook Exchange, ISBN 9781584777489, 1584777486 See Appendix, p242; also Theophilus Jones (1805), A history of the county of Brecknock (A history of the county of Brecknock. ed.), Brecknock: Printed and sold by Wm. & Geo. North ... for the author; and sold by J. Booth ... London. p67
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 133.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 79
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 135.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Mon. Angl. vi. 137.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Duchy Charters, No. 17.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 102; Mon. Angl. vi. (1), 133.
Jump up ^ Knowles, Brooke & London 1972, p. 52–53.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Foliot, Letters, No. 3.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Symeon of Durham ii. 315; Gervase, i. 126; Gesta, pp. 16, 95, 103.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gloucester Cartulary, i. lxxv; Foliot, Letters, No. 65.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 440.
Jump up ^ Chisholm 1911, pp. 479.
Jump up ^ Roderick 1968, p. 5.
^ Jump up to: a b c d Lundy 2011, p. 10257 cite Cokayne 2000, p. 21
Jump up ^ Lundy 2011, p. 10257 cite Cokayne 2000a, p. 457
^ Jump up to: a b Lundy 2011, p. 10257 cite Cokayne 2000, p. 20
Jump up ^ Cawley 2012 cites Dugdale 1823, p. 615

References

Cawley, Charles (10 April 2012), English Earls 1067–1122: Miles of Gloucester (–1143), Medieval Lands database, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy
Dugdale, William, Sir (1823), ""Priory of Bergavenny or Abergavenny in Monmouthshire, Cartµ I"", Monasticon Anglicanum, 4 (Revised ed.), London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Browne, p. 615
Cokayne, George Edward (1926), Doubleday, H. A.; Walden, Howard de, eds., The Complete Peerage; or, a History of the House of Lords and all its members from the earliest times, 6, London: The St. Catherine Press
Knowles, David; Brooke, Christopher; London, Veria (1972), The Heads of Religious Houses: England and Wales 940–1216, Cambridge University Press, pp. 52–53, ISBN 0-521-08367-2
Lundy, Darryl (17 May 2011). "Miles of Gloucester". p. 10257 § 102564. Retrieved November 2012. Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
Cokayne, George E (2000), The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, 1 (new, reprint in 6 volumes ed.), Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, pp. 20, 21
Cokayne, George E (2000a), The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, 4 (new, reprint in 6 volumes ed.), Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, p. 457
Morris, W.A (April 1918), "The Office of Sheriff in the Early Norman Period", The English Historical Review, 33 (130): 145–175, doi:10.1093/ehr/xxxiii.cxxx.145
Norgate, Kate (1887), England under the Angevin Kings, 1, London: Macmillan
Roderick, A. J. (June 1968), "Marriage and Politics in Wales, 1066–1282", The Welsh History Review, 4 (1): 1–20
Ward, Jennifer C (1995), Women of the English nobility and gentry, 1066–1500, Manchester medieval sources series, Manchester: Manchester University Press, p. 107, ISBN 0-7190-4115-5, retrieved 25 October 2010
Walker, David (May 2012) [2004]. "Gloucester, Miles of, earl of Hereford (d. 1143)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/10820. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
B Thorpe, 1848–1849) (ed.), Continuation of Florence of Worcester
The Cartulary of Gloucester Abbey (Rolls series);
Round, John Horace (1892), Geoffrey de Mandeville
Domesday Book, (Record Commission);
Rymer, Thomas, Fœdera, (Record Commission), i (new ed.);
Pipe Roll, 31 Hen. I (Record Commission);
Cartulary of St. Peter's, Gloucester, (Rolls Ser.);
Symeon of Durham, Regum Historia, (Rolls Ser.);
"Gesta Stephani", Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, &c, (Rolls Ser.), ii;
Gervase of Canterbury, Chronica, (Rolls Ser.);
Florence of Worcester (1848–49), Thorpe, Benjamin, ed., Florentii Wigorniensis monachi Chronicon ex chronicis (2 volumes ed.), English Historical Society
William of Malmesbury, Chronicle of the Kings of England: From the Earliest Period to the Reign of King Stephen, English Historical Society;
Dugdale, Sir William, Westrum Monasticum, Bodleian Library;
Additional Charters, (British Museum);
Duchy of Lancaster Charters, Public Record Office;
Dugdale, William, Sir (1823), Monasticon Anglicanum
Madox, Thomas, History of the Exchequer;
Hearne, Thomas, ed. (1728), Liber Niger Scaccarii;
Foliot, Gilbert, "Letters", in Giles, John Allen, Patres Ecclesiµ Anglicanµ;
Crawley-Boevey, Arthur William, Cartulary of Flaxley Abbey;
Ellis, A. S. (1879–1880). "On the Landholders of Gloucestershire named in Domesday Book". Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society. 4 vol.: 86–198.
Walker, David (1958). "Miles of Gloucester, Earl of Hereford". Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society. 77: 66–84.

24071.

Other Events and Attributes:

Burial: Hempsted, Gloucestershire, England
Alt Birth: 1092, Aberhonddu, Breconshire, Wales

Notes:

Sibyl de Neufmarchâe, Countess of Hereford, suo jure Lady of Brecknock (c. 1100 – after 1143), was a Cambro-Norman noblewoman, heiress to one of the most substantial fiefs in the Welsh Marches. The great-granddaughter of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, king of Wales, Sibyl was also connected to the nobility of England and Normandy. Sibyl inherited the titles and lands of her father, Bernard de Neufmarchâe, Lord of Brecon, after her mother, Nest ferch Osbern, had declared her brother Mahel to have been illegitimate. Most of these estates passed to Sibyl's husband, Miles de Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford, as her dowry. Their marriage had been arranged personally by King Henry I of England in the spring of 1121. Sibyl, with her extensive lands, was central to the King's plans of consolidating Anglo-Norman power in south-east Wales by the merging of her estates with those of Miles, his loyal subject on whom he relied to implement Crown policy.

As an adult, Sibyl lived through King Stephen's turbulent reign, known to history as the Anarchy, in which her husband played a pivotal role. Following Miles' accidental death in 1143, Sibyl entered a religious life at Llanthony Secunda Priory, Gloucestershire, England, which she had endowed up to six years previously. Sibyl is buried at the priory, founded by Miles in 1136.

Family

Ancestry

A small, ruined castle of rough stone comprising two connected, castellated towers, partly covered in ivy, surrounded by much vegetation. Numerous arrowslits indicate the walls to be three to four storeys tall. The upward direction of the image suggests that the castle is at the top of a hill
Ruins of Brecon castle
Sibyl's birthplace and a part of her vast inheritance
Sibyl was born in about 1100 in Brecon Castle, Brecon, Wales, the only daughter of Marcher Lord Bernard de Neufmarchâe, Lord of Brecon, and Nest ferch Osbern.[1][2] Nest was the daughter of Osbern FitzRichard and Nest ferch Gruffydd.[2] Sybil's maternal great-grandparents were Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, king of Wales, and Ealdgyth (Edith of Mercia).[2][3] Ealdgyth, the daughter of ¥lfgar, Earl of Mercia, was briefly Queen consort of England by her second marriage to Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, who was killed at the Battle of Hastings.[4]

Sibyl's father, Bernard, was born at the castle of Le Neuf-Marchâe-en-Lions, on the frontier between Normandy and Beauvais.[5] Bernard was a knight who had fought under English kings William I, William Rufus and Henry I.[6] According to historian Lynn H Nelson, Bernard de Neufmarchâe was "the first of the original conquerors of Wales".[7] He led the Norman army at the Battle of Brecon in 1093, during which Rhys ap Tewdwr was killed.[6][8] Kingship in Wales ended with Rhys' death, and allowed Bernard to confirm his hold on Brycheiniog, becoming the first ruler of the lordship of Brecon.[8] The title and lands would remain in his family's possession until 1521.[9] The name Neufmarchâe, Novo Mercato in Latin, is anglicised into 'Newmarket' or 'Newmarch'.[10][a][11]

Inheritance

Sibyl had two brothers, Philip, who most likely died young, and Mahel. Nest had Mahel disinherited by swearing to King Henry I of England that Mahel had been fathered by another man. According to Giraldus Cambrensis, this was done out of vengeance when Mahel had multilated Nest's lover, a knight whose identity is not disclosed.[10] In the 19th century, Bernard Bolingbroke Woodward proposed that, after Bernard's death, Nest "disgraced herself with an intrigue" with one of his soldiers. Mahel, who had by this time inherited Bernard's estates, disapproved of the liaison to such an extent that he killed Nest's lover. Nest's revenge was to have Mahel disinherited by claiming that Bernard was not Mahel's father.[12] The maritagium (marriage charter) arranged by King Henry I in 1121 for the marriage between Sibyl and her future husband Miles, however, makes it clear that Bernard was still alive when it was written; showing Bernard Bolingbroke Woodward's version of the story to diverge from the known facts.[13] Author Jennifer C. Ward suggests that, although the marriage charter recorded that King Henry was acting at the request of Bernard, Nest, and the barons, it was probable he had put considerable pressure on the Neufmarchâes to disinherit Mahel in favour of Sibyl and, thereby, Miles.[14] Nevertheless, whatever the timing or reason, the outcome of Nest's declaration was that Sibyl (whom Nest acknowledged as Bernard's child) became the sole lawful heiress to the vast Lordship of Brecon, one of the most important and substantial fiefs in the Welsh Marches.[15] Henry's maritagium referred specifically to Sibyl's parents' lands as "comprising Talgarth, the forest of Ystradwy, the castle of Hay, the whole land of Brecknock, up to the boundaries of the land of Richard Fitz Pons,[b] namely up to Brecon and Much Cowarne, a vill in England";[16] the fees and services of several named individuals were also granted as part of the dowry.[16] This made her suo jure Lady of Brecknock on her father's death, and one of the wealthiest heiresses in south Wales.[17][18]

Marriage

Medieval illumination

King Henry I of England who granted Sibyl in marriage to Miles de Gloucester Sometime in April or May 1121, Sibyl married Miles (or Milo) FitzWalter de Gloucester,[19] who on his father's death in 1129, became sheriff of Gloucester,[20] and Constable of England.[21][22] The marriage was personally arranged by King Henry I, to whom Miles was a trusted royal official.[13][23] A charter written in Latin (the maritagium), which dates to 10 April/29 May 1121, records the arrangements for the marriage of Sibyl and Miles.[13][24] Historian C. Warren Hollister found the charter's wording telling, noting that "the king gave the daughter as if he were making a grant of land": "Know that I [King Henry I] have given and firmly granted to Miles of Gloucester Sibyl, daughter of Bernard de Neufmarchâe, together with all the lands of Bernard her father and of her mother after their deaths … ".[13][25] Her parents' lands would be conveyed to Miles after their deaths or earlier during "their life if they so wish".[13] Henry also commanded that the fief's tenants were to pay Miles liege homage as their lord.[13]

By arranging a series of matrimonial alliances, similar to that between Sibyl and Miles, King Henry I of England transformed "the map of territorial power in south-east Wales". Such arrangements were mutually advantageous. Hollister describes Miles' marriage to Sibyl as having been a "crucial breakthrough in his career". The new lords, in similar positions to Miles, were the King's own loyal vassals, on whom he could rely to implement royal policy.[25][26] Sibyl's father died sometime before 1128 (most probably in 1125), and Miles came into possession of her entire inheritance, which when merged with his own estates, formed one honour.[6][27]

Children

Together Sibyl and Miles had eight children:[original research?][28][not in citation given]

Margaret of Hereford (1122/1123- 6 April 1197), married Humphrey II de Bohun, by whom she had children. She received the office of constable of England and exercised lordship of Herefordshire as a widow until her death.[29]

Roger Fitzmiles, 2nd Earl of Hereford (before 1125- 22 September 1155). Roger's marriage settlement with Cecily FitzJohn (her first marriage), daughter of Payn FitzJohn and Sibyl de Lacy, was ratified by King Stephen in 1137.[18] The marriage was childless as were Cecily's subsequent marriages.

Walter de Hereford (died 1159/60), whether he married is unknown; however, Walter departed for Palestine on Michaelmas 1159, and died shortly afterwards without leaving legitimate issue[30][31]

Henry Fitzmiles (died c.1162), married a woman named Isabella, surname unknown; Henry died without legitimate issue.

Mahel de Hereford (died 1164), no record of marriage; died without legitimate issue.

William de Hereford (died 1166), no record of marriage; died without legitimate issue.

Bertha of Hereford (c.1130-), married William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber, by whom she had issue.

Lucy of Hereford, Lady of Blaen Llyfni and Bwlch y Dinas (died 1219/20), married Herbert FitzHerbert of Winchester, by whom she had issue.

The Anarchy

Medieval illumination
Stephen of Blois
whose chaotic reign in England became known as the Anarchy
After Henry I's death in 1135, the throne of England was seized by Stephen of Blois, a grandson of William I of England. Henry's daughter, Empress Matilda (Maud), also claimed the throne, and had the support of the Marcher Lords. On the death of her husband, the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry V, in 1125, Matilda had returned to England for the first time in 16 years. At the insistence of her father, the barons (including Stephen) swore to uphold Matilda's rights as his heir. Matilda married Geoffrey of Anjou in 1128. They lived together in France, having three sons; the eldest of whom was to become King Henry II of England.[32] Initially, Miles supported Stephen.[33] In about 1136, Stephen granted Sibyl's husband the entire honour of Gloucester and Brecknock, and appointed him Constable of Gloucester Castle,[34] whereby Miles became known as one of Stephen's "henchmen".[33]

Llanthony Priory had been established near Crucorney, in the Vale of Ewyas, in 1118; Wales' earliest Augustine monastery. Miles' father, Walter de Gloucester, had retired there by 1126.[23] The unrest that had been simmering in Wales during the last years of Henry's reign, boiled over in 1135 on his death. The area around the priory returned to Welsh rule, coming under such “hostile mollestation” from the Welsh that the non-Welsh canons decided to leave.[18][35][36][37] Miles established a new Priory for them in Gloucester, England, which they called Llanthony Secunda, in 1136.[38] Sometime after 1137, Sibyl, together with her husband, made a further endowment to Llanthony Secunda.[34]

Medieval illumination
Empress Matilda
whom Sibyl supported
in opposition to King Stephen
Miles transferred his allegiance to Empress Matilda, on her return to England in 1139.Matthew 2002, pp. 95, 96 According to Professor Edmund King, Miles' decision to support Matilda was guided by expediancy rather than principle, and the necessity of joining forces with Matilda's illegitimate half-brother, the powerful Robert, Earl of Gloucester, who was the overlord of some of Miles' fiefs.[17] Stephen stripped Miles of the title 'Constable of England' in punishment for having deserted him. On 25 July 1141, in gratitude for his support and military assistance and, according to historian R.H.C. Davis, possibly to compensate Miles for having appeared to have lost the constableship, Matilda invested him as 1st Earl of Hereford.[39] He also received St. Briavels Castle and the Forest of Dean. At the time Matilda was the de facto ruler of England, Stephen having been imprisoned at Bristol following his capture the previous February after the Battle of Lincoln. Sibyl was styled Countess of Hereford, until Miles' unexpected death over two years later. In 1141, Miles received the honour of Abergavenny from Brien FitzCount, the (likely illegitimate) son of Duke Alan IV of Brittany. This was in appreciation of the skilled military tactics Miles had deployed which had spared Brien's castle of Wallingford during King Stephen's besiegement in 1139/1140. Matilda gave her permission for the transfer.[40]

During the Anarchy, which the period of Stephen's reign as King of England was to become known, life was greatly disrupted in her husband's lands. Sibyl would have doubtless suffered as a result, especially after Miles' decision to support Matilda's claim to the throne and to oppose Stephen.[33] When Matilda was defeated at Winchester in late 1141, Miles was compelled to return to Gloucester in disgrace: "weary, half-naked and alone".[41] In November of that same year, Stephen was released from prison and restored to the English throne.[18]

Sibyl's distress would have been heightened in 1143 after the Bishop of Hereford, Robert de Bethune placed an interdict upon Hereford, blocked all the cathedral's entrances with thorns, and excommunicated Miles. In order to raise money to pay his troops and to assist Matilda financially, Miles had imposed a levy on all the churches in his earldom, an act which the bishop had regarded as unlawful.[23][42] When the bishop protested and threatened Miles with excommunication, Miles in response, sent his men to plunder the diocese of its resources.[23] In retaliation against Miles' earlier attacks on the royalist city of Worcester and the castles of Hereford and Wallingford, King Stephen bestowed the title "Earl of Hereford" on Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester; Miles, however, never surrendered the earldom nor the title to Robert de Beaumont.[42]

Widowhood and death

While on a deer-hunting expedition in his own Forest of Dean, Sibyl's husband was accidentally shot in the chest by an arrow which killed him on 24 December 1143.[41][43] He had been involved in legal proceedings against the bishop's jurisdiction when he died.[42] Their eldest son, Roger succeeded him in the earldom.[22] In protest against his father's excommunication, Roger remained an outspoken enemy of the Church until close to the end of his life when he entered a Gloucester monastery as a monk.[43][44] After her husband's death, Sibyl entered a religious life at Llanthony Secunda Priory, Gloucester,[38] which she had previously endowed.[34] Sibyl was buried in the same priory,[45] the dates of death and burial unrecorded.[citation needed]

Sibyl's legacy

Upon the childless death of Roger in 1155, the Earldom of Hereford fell into abeyance until 1199 when King John bestowed the title on Henry de Bohun, Sibyl's grandson through her eldest daughter, Margaret. As her sons all died without legitimate offspring, Sibyl's three daughters became co-heirs to the Brecon honour, with Bertha, the second daughter, passing Sibyl's inheritance on (through marriage) to the de Braoses, thereby making them one of the most powerful families in the Welsh Marches.[46][47]

The Brecknock lordship would eventually go to the de Bohuns, by way of Eleanor de Braose. Eleanor, a descendant of Sibyl's through Bertha of Hereford,[c] married Humphrey de Bohun, son of the 2nd Earl of Hereford. Eleanor and Humphrey's son, Humphrey de Bohun, succeeded his grandfather to the titles in 1275.[48]

Through the advantageous marriages of her daughters, Sibyl was an ancestress of many of England and Ireland's noblest families including among others, the de Bohun's, de Beauchamps, Mortimers, Fitzalans, de Burghs, de Lacy's, and Bonvilles. Four of her descendants, Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford, Elizabeth de Burgh, 4th Countess of Ulster, Eleanor de Bohun, and Mary de Bohun married into the English royal family, while another, Anne Mortimer was the grandmother of Yorkist kings Edward IV and Richard III. By way of Edward's daughter, Elizabeth of York, every monarch of England and, subsequently, the United Kingdom, from Henry VIII up to and including Elizabeth II, descended from Sibyl de Neufmarchâe, as did the various royal sovereigns of Europe who shared a common descent from Mary, Queen of Scots.[49]

Notes

Jump up ^ According to Gerald of Wales, when Bernard witnessed a charter issued by William I in 1086-87, he signed his name in Latin as Bernardus de Novo Mercato (Gerald of Wales, p.88)
Jump up ^ Richard Fitz Pons was Miles' brother-in-law, being the husband of his sister, Matilda (Cawley 2012a, "English Earls 1067-1122: Matilda"; Cawley 2012b, "Richard FitzPons" cites Round 1888, Part I, 12, p. 20).
Jump up ^ Cawley 2012d gives the lineage as:
Bertha daughter of Sibylle de Neufmarchâe married William [II] de Briouse (died after 1175))
William [III] de Briouse (died 1211)
Reynold de Briouse (died 1227)
William de Briouse (hanged 1230)
Eleanor de Briouse

end of biography

Children:

12035. Lady Bertha of Hereford was born in 1107 in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England; died in ~ 1180 in Bramber, Sussex, England.
Margaret of Hereford was born in 1122-1123 in England; died on 6 Apr 1197; was buried in Llanthony Secunda, Gloucestershire, England.
Lucy FitzMiles was born in ~1136 in Brecknockshire, Wales; died in ~1220.

22248.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: > 1066, Clare, Suffolk, England
Alt Death: 1117

Notes:

Short Biography
"Gilbert de Tonebruge, who resided at Tonebruge and inherited all his father's lands in England, joined in the rebellion of Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland, but observing the king (William Rufus) upon the point of falling into an ambuscade, he relented, sought pardon, and saved his royal master. Subsequently, however, he was again in rebellion in the same reign and fortifying and losing his castle at Tunbridge.

"He m. in 1113, Adeliza, dau. of the Earl of Cleremont, and had issue, Richard, his successor, Gilbert, Walter, Hervey, and Baldwin. Gilbert de Tonebruge, who was a munificent benefactor to the church, was s. by his eldest son, Richard de Clare." [1]

Long Biography
Gilbert FitzRichard de Clare, aka Gilbert of Tonbridge

Earl Gilbert de Clare was born before 1066. He lived in Tonebridge and died in 1114/1117 in England. He was the son and eventual heir of Richard FitzGilbert of Clare, who had been with William the Conqueror during the conquest of England and Rochese Giffard. After Richard's death, his extensive properties in Normandy and England were divided between his two eldest sons. The Norman fiefs of Bienfaite and Orbec passed to Roger, while Gilbert inherited the English honors of Clare and Tonbridge. Earl Gilbert's inheritance made him one of the wealthiest magnates in early twelfth-century England.

Gilbert held Tonbridge Castle against William Rufus (who would become King William II), but was wounded and captured. {-Encycl. Brit., 1956, 5:754}. He was later reconciled, after King William I's death in 1088. He was involved in rebellion between 1088 and 1095. He may have been present at the suspicious death of William II in the New Forest in 1100.

Earl Gilbert married Adeliza de Clermont in 1113. Adeliza was born about 1065, lived in Northamptonshire, England. She was the daughter of Count Hugh de Clermont and Marguerita de Roucy. She died after 1117 in England.

Adeliza married second, Aubrey II de Vere. Aubrey was born about 1082 in Hedingham, Essex, England. He was the son of Alberic de Vere and Beatrix Gand. He died on 15 May 1141 in London, England and was buried in Coine Priory, Earls Coine, Essex, England.
Adeliza remarried a de Montmorency after his death.

He was granted lands and the Lordship of Cardigan by Henry I and built the second castle at Caerdigan, Pembrokeshire, Wales. Since 1096 the Clares had owned the castle of Striguil on the Severn, opposite Bristol; they also held Goodrich fortess nearby. A marriage brought it into the hands of William Marshall, who soon controlled the strongest castles on the peninsula. The keep has been transformed into a modern house. Of all the castles that finally came into William Marshall's possession, this was the most important to the area. Scholars believe there is evidence that it was originally built of wood. He founded the Cluniac priory at Stoke-by-Clare, Suffolk.

Parents
Father
Earl Richard "De Tonbridge" FitzGilbert (~1024 - ~1090) Count Hugh de Clermont (1030 - 1102)
Grand Parents
Count Gilbert "Crispin" de Brionne (~0979 - ~1040) Renauld de Clermont (~1010 - >1098)
Constance de Eu Ermengarde de Clermont (~1010 - )
Mother
Rochese Giffard (~1034 - >1133) Marguerita de Roucy (~1035 - >1103)
Grand Parents
Walter Giffard de Bolebec (~1010 - 1085/1102) Count Hildwan IV (~1010 - ~1063)
Agnes Ermentrude Fleitel (~1014 - ) Adela de Roucy (~1013 - 1063)
Children
Walter de Clare 1086 1149
Margaret de Clare 1090 1185 m. (ca. 1108), Sir William de Montfitchet, Lord of Stanstead Mountfitchet.
Adelize/Alice de Clare, born circa 1077-1092, died circa 1163, married circa 1105 Aubrey II de Vere, son of Aubrey I de Vere and Beatrice Gand. She had 9 children and in her widowhood was a corrodian at St. Osyth's, Chichester, Essex;
Baldwin Fitz Gilbert de Clare, Lord of Bourne born circa 1092, died 1154, married Adeline de Rollos;
Richard Fitz Gilbert de Clare, born circa 1094, died 1136, 1st Earl of Hertford;
Hervey de Clare, born circa 1096;
Gilbert Fitz Gilbert de Clare, born circa 1100, died 1148, 1st Earl of Pembroke;
Rohese de Clare, born circa 1105, died 1149, married circa 1130 Baderon of Monmouth;
Margaret de Clare born circa 1101, died 1185, married circa 1108 Sir William de Montfitchet, Lord of Stanstead Mountfitchet;
Abbot of Ely Lord of Clare

2nd Earl Clare, Lord of Tunbridge and Cardigan [1107-1111], and Marshall of England.

From "A Baronial Family in Medieval England: The Clares, 1217-1314", by Michael Altschul, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins press, 1965. The Clares came to England with the Conqueror. Like many other great families settled in England after the Conquest, they were related to the dukes of Normandy and had established themselves as important members of the Norman feudal aristocracy in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. The origin of the family can be traced to Godfrey, eldest of the illegitimate children of Duke Richard I (the Fearless), the Conqueror's great-grandfather. While the Duke granted Godfrey Brionne, he did not make him a count. Godfrey's comital title derives from the grant of the county of Eu made to him after 996 by his half-brother, Duke Richard II. After Godfrey's death, Eu was given to William, another of Duke Richard I's bastard sons, and Gilbert, Godfrey's son, was left with only the lordship of Brionne. However, under Duke Robert I, father of William the Conqueror, Gilbert assumed the title of count of Brionne while not relinquishing his claim to Eu. When Count William of Eu died shortly before 1040, Gilbert assumed the land and title, but he was assassinated in 1040 and his young sons, Richard and Baldwin, were forced to flee Normandy, finding safety at the court of Baldwin V, count of Flanders. When William the Conqueror married Count Baldwin's daughter, he restored Gilbert's sons to Normandy, although he did not invest them with either Brionne or Eu or a comital title. William granted the lordships of Bienfaite and Orbec to Richard fitz Gilbert, and Le Sap and Meules to Baldwin. While Gilbert's descendants later pressed a claim for Brionne, it was never restored. Richard and Baldwin fitz Gilbert took part in the Norman conquest of England, and both assumed important positions in the Conqueror's reign. Baldwin was made guardian of Exeter in 1068, and appears in the Domesday Book as sheriff of Devon, lord of Okehampton and numerous other estates in Devon, Dorset, and Somerset. His sons William and Richard were also sheriffs of Devon and participated in the abortive Norman penetration of Carmarthen in the early twelfth century.

However, the lasting position of the family in England must be credited to Baldwin's brother, Richard fitz Gilbert I. He was regent of England jointly with William de Warenne during the Conqueror's absence in 1075, and he served in various other important capacities for the King. King William rewarded his cousin well, granting him one of the largest fiefs in the territorial settlement. The lordship centered on Clare (obviously the origin of the Clare family name), Suffolk, which had been an important stronghold in Anglo-Saxon times. The bulk of Richard fitz Gilbert's estates lay in Suffolk, Essex, Surrey, and Kent, but comprised holdings in various other counties in the southern and eastern parts of the kingdom as well. In addition, King William arranged for Richard's marriage to Rohese, sister of Walter Giffard, later earl of Buckingham, and her dowry, consisting of lands in Huntingdon and Hertford, became absorbed in the family inheritance. After Richard's death, his extensive properties in Normandy and England were divided between his two eldest sons. The Norman fiefs of Bienfaite and Orbec passed to Roger, while Gilbert, inherited the English honors of Clare and Tonbridge.

Part II While Gilbert fitz Richard I found himself at odds with the Conqueror's successor, William Rufus, he and other members of the family enjoyed great favor with Rufus' successor King Henry I. Some have suggested that Henry's largesse was due to the fact that Walter Tirel, husband of Richard's daughter Adelize, shot the arrow which slew Rufus. Proof of this is lacking, but with certainty the wealth and position of the Clare family increased rapidly during Henry's reign. One of Rohese Giffards brothers (Walter) was made earl of Buckingham and another bishop of Winchester. Gilbert fitz Richard's brothers were also rewarded: Richard, a monk at Bec, was made abbot of Ely in 1100; Robert was granted the forfeited manors of Ralph Baynard in East Anglia; Walter, who founded Tintern Abbey in 1131, was given the great lordship of Netherwent with the castle of Striguil in the southern march, territories previously held by Roger, son of William fitz Osborn, earl of Hereford, who had forfeited them in 1075. In 1110 Gilbert was granted the lordship of Ceredigion (Cardigan) in southwestern Wales, and immediately embarked upon an intensive campaign to subjagate the area.

After Gilbert fitz Richard I died in 1117, his children continued to profit from royal generosity and favorable connections. His daughters were all married to important barons; William de Montfichet, lord of Stansted in Essex, the marcher lord Baderon de Monmouth, and Aubrey de Vere, lord of Hedingham in Essex and father of the first Vere earl of Oxford. Of the five sons, little is known of two: Hervey, whom King Stephen sent on an expedition to Cardigan abt 1140, and Walter, who participated in the Second Crusade of 1147. Baldwin established himself as an important member of the lesser baronage by obtaining the Lincolnshire barony of Bourne through marriage. Richard fitz Gilbert II, the eldest and heir, was allowed to marry Adeliz, sister of Ranulf des Gernons, earl of Chester, thus acquiring lands in Lincoln and Northampton as her marriage portion. He tried to consolidate the gains made by his father in Cardigan, but was killed in an ambush in 1136 and the lordship was soon recovered by the Welsh. Of Gilbert fitz Richard I' sons, Gilbert was the only one to achieve any great prominence, being the founder of the great cadet branch of the family and the father of one of the most famous men in English history. Gilbert fitz Gilbert de Clare was high in the favor of Henry I, perhaps because his wife Isabell, daughter of Robert de Beaumont, count of Meulan and earl of Leicester, was one of Henry's favorite mistresses. When Gilbert's uncle Roger died without heirs, Henry granted Gilbert the lordships of Bienfaite and Orbec in Normandy. When another uncle, Walter, lord of Netherwent in South Wales, died without issue in 1138, King Richard? gave Gilbert this lordship in addition to the lordship of Pembroke, which had been forfeited by Arnulf of Montgomery in 1102. Gilbert was also created earl of Pembroke in 1138. At his death in 1148, he was succeeded by his son Richard fitz Gilbert, aka "Strongbow" who led the Norman invasion of Ireland and obtained the great lordship of Leinster in 1171.

Part III Thus, in just two generations, the cadet branch of the Clares became one of the most important families in England. Strongbow was Earl of Pembroke, Lord of Netherwent,and Lord of Leinster being the most powerful of the marcher and Anglo-Irish magnates under King Henry II. Strongbow d. in 1176 and son Gilbert d. abt. 1185, ending the male line. In 1189, the inheritance passed to Strongbow's dau. Isabel and her husband, William Marshal. Meanwhile, the senior side prospered. After Richard fitz Gilbert II d. in 1136, Clare, Tonbridge, and other estates passed to the eldest son Gilbert fitz Richard II, who was created Earl of Hertford by King Stephen. Gilbert d. probably unmarried in 1152, when his younger brother Roger inherited the estates and comital title. Roger resumed the campaign against the Welsh in Cardigan where, after 8 years, he was defeated in 1165. However, Roger did add some lands and nine knights' fees through his marriage to Maud, daughter and heir of the Norfolk baron James de St. Hillary. Roger d. in 1173 and his widow, Maud, conveyed the remainder of the inheritance to her next husband, William de Aubigny, earl of Arundel. The Clare estates along with the earldom passed to Roger's son, Richard, who for the next 4 decades until he d. in 1217, was the head of the great house of CLARE, adding immensely to the wealth, prestige, and landed endowment of his line.

Part IV: Roger's son Richard, hereinafter Richard de CLARE acquired half of the former honor of Giffard in 1189 when King Richard I, in need of money for the Third Crusade, agreed to divide the Giffard estates between Richard de CLARE and his cousin Isabel, Strongbow's dau. based on their claims to descendancy to Rohese Giffard. Richard de CLARE obtained Long Crendon in Buckingham, the caput of the Giffard honor in England, associated manors in Buckingham, ambridge, and bedfordshire, and 43 knights' fees, in addition to some former Giffard lands in Normandy. When Richard de CLARE's mother Maud d. in 1195, he obtained the honor of St. Hilary. Maud's 2nd husband, William de Aubigny, earl of Arundel, who had held St. Hilary jure uxoris, d. in 1193, and despite the fact he had a son and heir, the honor reverted to Maud and after her death escheated to the crown. Richard de CLARE offered ¹360 and acquired it. The honor later became absorbed into the honor of CLARE and lost its separate identity. Richard de CLARE's most important act, however, was his m. to Amicia, 2nd dau. and eventual sole heir to William earl of Gloucester. The Gloucester inheritance included the earldom and honor of Gloucester with over 260 knights' fees in England, along with the important marcher lordships of Glamorgan and Gwynllwg. It was not easy though!! William d. 1183, leaving 3 daughters. The eldest, Mabel, m. Amaury de Montfort, count of Evreux, while the second, Amicia m. Richard de CLARE. King Henry II meanwhile arranged the m. of the youngest Isabel, to his son John, count of Mortain, in 1189. When John became King in 1199, he divorced Isabel to m. Isabelle of Angoulãeme, but, he kept the 1st Isabel in his custody. Then in 1200, John created Mabel's son Amaury earl of Gloucester. In addition, Richard de CLARE and his son Gilbert were given a few estates and 10 fees of the honor of Gloucester of Kent; otherwise, John kept the bulk of the honor, with the great lordships of Glamorgan and Gwynllwg. Mabel's son Amaury d. without issue in 1213 Shortly thereafter, John gave the 1st Isabel in marriage to Geoffrey de Mandeville, earl of Essex, who was also created earl of Gloucester. When Geoffrey died, the inheritance was assigned to Hubert de Burgh, the justiciar. Hubert m. Countess Isabel shortly before her daeth in Oct. 1217, however, he did not retain the estates, since they passed to Amicia, now recognized as countess of Gloucester, and her husband Richard de CLARE, despite the fact Richard and Amicia had been separated since 1200.

Part V: Richard outlived Isabel by several weeks and by 28 Nov 1217, he was dead, leaving Gilbert, aged 38, as the sole heir to the Clare and Gloucester estates and title. Gilbert de CLARE assumed the title of earl of Gloucester and Hertford and was charged ¹350 relief for the honors of Clare, Gloucester, St. Hilary and his half of the old Giffard barony. He controlled some 456 knights fees, far more than any other, and it did not include some 50 fees in Glamorgan and Gwynllwg. By a remarkable series of fortuitous marriages and quick deaths, the Clares were left in 1217 in possession of an inheritance which in terms of social prestige, potential revenues, knights' fees, and a lasting position of great importance among the marcher lords of Wales. They were probably the most successful family in developing their lands and power during the 12th century and in many ways the most powerful noble family in 13th century England. By 1317, however, the male line of Clares became extinct and the inheritance was partitioned. Between 1217 and 1317 there were four Clare generations. Gilbert de CLARE, b. abt 1180 had a brother Richard/Roger and a sister Matilda. Richard accompanied Henry III's brother, Richard of Cornwall, to Gascony in 1225-26 and was never heard from again. Matilda was married to William de Braose (d. 1210 when he and his mother were starved to death by King John), eldest son of the great marcher baron William de Braose (d. 1211), lord of Brecknock, Abergavenny, Builth, Radnor, and Gower, who was exiled by King John. Matilda returned to her father and later (1219) sued Reginald de Braose, second son of William, for the family lands, succeeding only in recovering Gower and the Sussex baronry of Bramber. Gilbert de CLARE, earl of Gloucester and Hertford from 1217 to 1230, m. Oct. 1214 his cousin Isabel, daughter and eventual co-heiress of William Marshal (d 1219), earl of Pembroke. Gilbert and Isabel had three sons and two daughters, with the eldest son and heir Richard, b. 4 Aug 1222, thus only 8 when his father died. In 1243, Richard de CLARE came of age and assumed the estates and titles of his father until he d. 15 July 1262. His brother William, b. 1228 held lands of Earl Richard in Hampshire and Norfolk for the service of a knight's fee. In June 1258, during a baronial reform program, William was granted custody of Winchester castle. A month later he died, reportedly by poison administered by the Earl Richard's seneschal- a steward or major-domo. Walter de Scoteny, in supposed collaboration with Henry III's Poitevin half-brothers, who strongly opposed the baronial program and Earl Richard's participation in it. Earl Gilbert's daughters were very well placed. Amicia, b. 1220, was betrothed in 1226 to Baldwin de Reviers, grandson and heir to William de Reviers, earl of Devon (d 1217). Baldwin was only a year or two older than Amicia and Earl Gilbert offered 2,000 marks to the King for the marriage and custody of some Reviers estates during Baldwin's minority. The marriage must have been consummated around 1235, since Baldwin's son and heir (Baldwin) was b. the next year. After Baldwin d. in 1245, Amicia (d 1283) controlled the lands of her son (d. 1262) and was given permission to marry a minor English baron, Robert de Guines/Gynes, uncle of Arnold III, Count of Guines. Earl Gilbert's other daughter, Isabel b. 1226, m. 1240 the Scots baron Robert Bruce, lord of Annandale (d 1295), and by him was the grandmother of the hero of Bannockburn. Her marriage was probably arranged by her mother Isabel and uncle, Gilbert Marshal who gave her the Sussex manor of Ripe as a marriage portion. Isabel Marshal outlived Earl Gilbert de CLARE by ten years, during which time she was busy. In 1231 she m. Richard of Cornwall, to the displeasure of Richard's brother King Henry III, who was trying to arrange another match for Richard. She d 1240, after 4 children by Richard, only one of which lived past infancy. According to the Tewkesbury chronicle, she wished to be buried next to her 1st husband, but Richard of Cornwall had her buried at Beaulieu Abbey in Hampshire, although as a pious gesture he allowed her heart to be sent to Tewkesbury.

MARSHALL to the ROYAL HOUSEHOLD, Royal Serjeant and Marshal to Henry I, LORD OF STRIGUL

Gilbert FitzRichard d. 1114/7 was son and eventual heir of Richard FitzGilbert of Clare and heiress Rohese Giffard. He succeeded to his father's possessions in England in 1091; his brother, Roger Fitz Richard, inherited his father's lands in Normandy. Earl Gilbert's inheritance made him one of the wealthiest magnates in early twelfth-century England.

Gilbert may have been present at the suspicious death of William II in the New Forest in 1100. He was granted lands and the Lordship of Cardigan by Henry I, including Cardigan Castle. He founded the Cluniac priory at Stoke-by-Clare, Suffolk.

Earl Gilbert de Clare - was born before 1066, lived in Tonebridge and died in 1114/1117 in England . He was the son of Earl Richard "De Tonbridge" FitzGilbert and Rochese Giffard.

Present at the murder of William II in 1100. Received lands in Wales from Henry I, including Cardigan Castle in Wales.

Built a Castle at Caerdigan, Pembrokeshire, Wales. A marriage brought it into the hands of William Marshall, who soon controlled the strongest castles on the peninsula. The keep has been transformed into a modern house. Of all the castles that finally came into William Marshall's possession, this was the most important to the area. Scholars believe there is evidence that it was originally built of wood.

Sources
? Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, London, 1883, p. 119, Clare, Lords of Clare, Earls of Hertford, Earls of Gloucester
See also:

Douglas Richardson, Royal Ancestry" (2013), II;171-2.
Wikipedia: Gilbert fitz Richard
Clare family.
Americans of Royal Descent.
G.E.C.: Complete Peerage, III: 242-43
J.H. Round, Feudal Eng. p. 523, 473
Dict. of Nat'l Biog.
"Ancestral roots of certain American colonists who came to America before 1700", Frederick Lewis Weis, 1992, seventh edition.
"Europaische Stammtafeln", Isenburg.
"Plantagenet Ancestry", Turton.
Gary Boyd Roberts, "Ancestors of American Presidents".
Gary Boyd Roberts, "The Royal Descents of 500 Immigrants", (1993).
"Magna Charta Sureties, 1215", F. L. Weis, 4th Ed.
Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia
'The Thomas Book'
Farrer, William & Brownbill, J. The Victoria History of the County of Lancaster (Archibald Constable and Co. Limited, London, 1906), Vol. 1, Page 300.

end of this biography

Gilbert Fitz Richard (c.?1066–c.?1117), was styled de Clare, de Tonbridge, and Lord of Clare. He was a powerful Anglo-Norman baron who was granted the Lordship of Cardigan, in Wales c.?1107-1111.

Life

Gilbert, born before 1066, was the second son and an heir of Richard Fitz Gilbert of Clare and Rohese Giffard.[1] He succeeded to his father's possessions in England in 1088 when his father retired to a monastery;[2] his brother, Roger Fitz Richard, inherited his father's lands in Normandy.[3] That same year he, along with his brother Roger, fortified his castle at Tonbridge against the forces of William Rufus. But his castle was stormed, Gilbert was wounded and taken prisoner.[4] However he and his brother were in attendance on king William Rufus at his death in August 1100.[4] He was with Henry I at his Christmas court at Westminster in 1101.[4]

It has been hinted, by modern historians, that Gilbert, as a part of a baronial conspiracy, played some part in the suspicious death of William II.[5] Frank Barlow points out that no proof has been found he had any part in the king's death or that a conspiracy even existed.[5]

In 1110, King Henry I took Cardigan from Owain ap Cadwgan, son of Cadwgan ap Bleddyn as punishment for a number of crimes including that of the abduction of Nest, wife of Gerald de Windsor.[6] In turn Henry gave the Lordship of Cardigan, including Cardigan Castle to Gilbert Fitz Richard.[7] He founded the Clunic priory at Stoke-by-Clare, Suffolk.[7] Gilbert died in or before 1117.[7][8]

Family

About 1088,[9] Gilbert married Adeliza/Alice de Claremont, daughter of Hugh, Count of Clermont, and Margaret de Roucy.[8] Gilbert and Adeliza had at least eight children:

Richard Fitz Gilbert de Clare, d. 1136.[10]
Gilbert Fitz Gilbert de Clare, d. 1148, 1st Earl of Pembroke.[10]
Baldwin Fitz Gilbert de Clare, d. 1154, m. Adeline de Rollos.[11]
Adelize/Alice de Clare, d. 1163, m. (ca. 1105), Aubrey II de Vere, son of Aubrey I de Vere and Beatrice.[12] She had 9 children and in her widowhood was a corrodian at St. Osyth's, Chich, Essex.
Hervey de Clare, Lord of Montmorency.[13]
Walter de Clare, d. 1149.[14]
Margaret de Clare, d. 1185, m. (ca. 1108), Sir William de Montfitchet, Lord of Stansted Mountfitchet.[15]
Rohese de Clare, d. 1149, m. (ca. 1130), Baderon of Monmouth[16]

end of this biography

Gilbert married Adeliza de Claremont. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

22249.

Children:

11124. Sir Richard Fitz Gilbert de Clare was born in 1092 in Clare, Suffolk, England; died on 15 Apr 1136 in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, Wales.
24083. Adeliza de Clare was born in ~1093 in Risbridge, Suffolk, England; died on 1 Nov 1163 in St Osyth Priory, Essex, England.
Agnes Clare was born in ~1091 in Clare, Suffolk, England; died in 1115 in England.
11132. Sir Gilbert de Clare, Knight, 1st Earl of Pembroke was born in ~ 1100 in Tonbridge, Kent, England; died on 6 Jan 1148 in Tintern Abbey, Chapel Hill, Monmouthshire, England.

48624.

Sir Roger Bigod, Knight was born in ~1060 in Manche, Normandy, France; died on 9 Sep 1107 in (Norfolkshire, England); was buried in Norwich, England.

Notes:

Roger Bigod (died 1107) was a Norman knight who travelled to England in the Norman Conquest. He held great power in East Anglia, and five of his descendants were earls of Norfolk. He was also known as Roger Bigot, appearing as such as a witness to the Charter of Liberties of Henry I of England.

Biography

Roger came from a fairly obscure family of poor knights in Normandy. Robert le Bigot, certainly a relation of Roger's, possibly his father, acquired an important position in the household of William, Duke of Normandy (later William I of England), due, the story goes, to his disclosure to the duke of a plot by the duke's cousin William Werlenc.[1]

Both Roger and Robert may have fought at the Battle of Hastings, and afterwards they were rewarded with a substantial estate in East Anglia. The Domesday Book lists Roger as holding six lordships in Essex, 117 in Suffolk and 187 in Norfolk.

Bigod's (Bigot) base was in Thetford, Norfolk, then the see of the bishop, where he founded a priory later donated to the abbey at Cluny. In 1101 he further consolidated his power when Henry I granted him licence to build a castle at Framlingham, which became the family seat of power until their downfall in 1307. Another of his castles was Bungay Castle, also in Suffolk.

In 1069 he, Robert Malet and Ralph de Gael (then Earl of Norfolk), defeated Sweyn Estrithson (Sweyn II) of Denmark near Ipswich. After Ralph de Gael's fall in 1074, Roger was appointed sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, and acquired many of the dispossessed earl's estates. For this reason he is sometimes counted as Earl of Norfolk, but he probably was never actually created earl. (His son Hugh acquired the title earl of Norfolk in 1141.) He acquired further estates through his influence in local law courts as sheriff and great lord of the region.

In the Rebellion of 1088 he joined other barons in England against William II, whom they hoped to depose in favour of Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy. He seems to have lost his lands after the rebellion had failed, but regained them after reconciling with the king.

In 1100, Robert Bigod (Bigot) was one of the witnesses recorded on the Charter of Liberties, King Henry I's coronation promises later to influence the Magna Carta of 1215.

In 1101 there was another attempt to bring in Robert of Normandy by removing King Henry, but this time Roger Bigod stayed loyal to the king.

He died on 9 September 1107 and is buried in Norwich. Upon his death there was a dispute over his burial place between the Bishop of Norwich, Herbert Losinga, and the monks at Thetford Priory, founded by Bigod. The monks claimed Roger's body, along with those of his family and successors, had been left to them by Roger for burial in the priory in Roger's foundation charter (as was common practice at the time). The bishop of Norwich stole the body in the middle of the night and had him buried in the new cathedral he had built in Norwich.

For some time he was thought to have two wives, Adelaide/Adeliza and Alice/Adeliza de Tosny. It is now believed these were the same woman, Adeliza (Alice) de Tosny (Toeni, Toeny). She was the sister and coheiress of William de Tosny, Lord of Belvoir.

He was succeeded by his eldest son, William Bigod, and, after William drowned in the sinking of the White Ship, by his second son, Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk. He also had three daughters: Gunnor, who married Robert fitz Swein of Essex, Lord of Rayleigh; Cecily, who married William d'Aubigny "Brito"; and Maud, who married William d'Aubigny "Pincerna", and was mother to William d'Aubigny, 1st Earl of Arundel.[2]

end

Roger married Adeliza de Tosny. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48625.

Adeliza de Tosny

Children:

24312. Sir Hugh Bigod, Knight, 1st Earl of Norfolk was born in 0___ 1095 in Belvoir Castle, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England; died in 0___ 1177 in Israel.
48145. Maud Bigod was born in (Belvoir Castle, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England).

24082.

Sir Aubrey de Vere, II was born in ~ 1085 in (Normandy, France) (son of Aubrey de Vere, I and Beatrice Ghent); died in 0May 1141 in (Thrapston, Northamptonshire, England).

Notes:

Aubrey de Vere (c. 1085 – May 1141) — also known as "Alberic[us] de Ver" and "Albericus regis camerarius" (the king's chamberlain)— was the second of that name in England after the Norman Conquest, being the eldest surviving son of Aubrey de Vere and his wife Beatrice.

Aubrey II served as one of the king's chamberlains and as a justiciar under kings Henry I and Stephen.[1] Henry I also appointed him as sheriff of London and Essex and co-sheriff with Richard Basset of eleven counties. In June 1133, that king awarded the office of master chamberlain to Aubrey and his heirs. A frequent witness of royal charters for Henry I and Stephen, he appears to have accompanied Henry to Normandy only once. The chronicler William of Malmesbury reports that in 1139, Aubrey was King Stephen's spokesman to the church council at Winchester, when the king had been summoned to answer for the seizure of castles held by Roger, Bishop of Salisbury and his nephews, the bishops of Ely and Lincoln.[2] In May 1141, during the English civil war, Aubrey was killed by a London mob and was buried in the family mausoleum at Colne Priory, Essex.

The stone tower at Hedingham, in Essex, was most likely begun by Aubrey and completed by his son and heir, Aubrey de Vere, 1st Earl of Oxford. In addition to his patronage of Colne Priory, the new master chamberlain either founded a cell of the Benedictine abbey St. Melanie in Rennes, Brittany, at Hatfield Broadoak or Hatfield Regis, Essex, or took on the primary patronage of that community soon after it was founded.

His eldest son, another Aubrey de Vere, was later created Earl of Oxford, and his descendants held that title and the office that in later centuries was known as Lord Great Chamberlain until the extinction of the Vere male line in 1703.[3]

His wife Adeliza, daughter of Gilbert fitz Richard of Clare, survived her husband for twenty-two years. For most of that time she was a corrodian at St. Osyth's Priory, Chich, Essex.[4]

Their known children are:

Aubrey de Vere, 1st Earl of Oxford (married 1. Beatrice, countess of Guisnes, 2. Eufemia, 3. Agnes of Essex)
Rohese de Vere, Countess of Essex (married 1. Geoffrey de Mandeville, 1st Earl of Essex, 2. Payn de Beauchamp)
Robert (married 1. Matilda de Furnell, 2. Margaret daughter of Baldwin Wake)
Alice "of Essex" (married 1. Robert of Essex, 2. Roger fitz Richard)
Geoffrey (married 1. widow of Warin fitz Gerold, 2. Isabel de Say)
Juliana Countess of Norfolk (married 1. Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk, 2. Walkelin Maminot)
William de Vere, Bishop of Hereford (1186-1198)
Gilbert, prior of the Knights Hospitaller in England (1195-1197)
a daughter (name unknown) who married Roger de Ramis.

end of biography

24083.

Children:

Rohese de Vere was born in ~1110; died after 1166.
Sir Aubrey de Vere, III, Knight, 1st Earl of Oxford was born in ~ 1115; died on 26 Dec 1194.
24313. Juliane de Vere, Countess of Norfolk was born in ~ 1116 in Castle Hedingham, Essex, England; died in ~ 1199.
Sir Robert de Vere, Lord of Twywell was born in 1124 in Thrapston, Northamptonshire, England; died on 26 Dec 1194 in Thrapston, Northamptonshire, England.
Adeliza de Vere was born in ~1125 in Essex, England; died in 1185 in Saffron Walden, Essex, England.

48180.

Sir Roger Toeni, Lord of Flamstead was born in ~1104 in Hertfordshire, England; died after 1162 in Flamstead, Hertfordshire, England.

Notes:

Roger "Lord of Flamstead" de Toeni formerly Toeni aka de Conches, de Tosny
Born about 1104 in Hertfordshire, England

ANCESTORS ancestors

Son of Radulph (Toeni) de Tony and Adelise (Huntingdon) de Tony
Brother of Godechilde (Toeni) de Neufbourg, Simon Toeni, Robert Toeni, Isabel Toeni, Hugh Toeni and Margaret (Toeni) de Clifford
Husband of Ida (Hainault) de Toeni — married before 1135 [location unknown]

DESCENDANTS descendants

Father of Godehaut (Toeni) de Mohun, Roger (Toeni) de Toeni IV, Baldwin (Toeni) de Toeni, Geoffrey (Toeni) de Toeni, Goda (Toeni) de Ferrers and Ralph (Toeni) de Tony
Died before 1162 in Flamstead, Hertford, Englandmap
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Categories: House of Tosny.

European Aristocracy

Roger (Toeni) de Toeni is a member of royalty, nobility or aristocracy in the British Isles.
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Contents

1 Biography
1.1 Chronology for Roger de Toeni and Ida of Hainault
1.2 Early Life
1.3 Family
1.4 Roger III & wife had four children
1.4.1 Raoul [V] & his wife had [two] children
1.5 Ralph & his wife had one child
2 Roger de Tosney 1104-1158
3 Sources
Biography
Title of Roger de Tony (Royal Ancestry):

Seigneur of Conches and Nogent-le-Roi (in France)

Chronology for Roger de Toeni and Ida of Hainault
... [1]

8/2/1100: Henry I crowned.
~1104 Roger born in England, s/o Sir Ralph IV de Tony and Alice of Northumberland.[2][3]
8/3/1108 Louis VI crowned King of France.
~1110: Ida born in Hainaut, d/o Baldwin III Count of Hainaut and Yolende of Gueldre.
1126: Roger’s father died; mother remarried.
1129-35: Confirmation of gifts made by Robert de Brus to canons of Guisborough, co. York … signatories .. king, … Roger de Toeni, … (S) English Historical Review, V34, 1919, P561.
1130 Roger founds Conches abbey, “Rogerus de Totteneio filius Radulphi junioris” made donation. (S) FMG.[4]
1130s Roger de Tosny wages war against neighbor Hugh de Chateauneuf who attacked Nogent.
1131-33 Henry I forces occupy Conches when Roger de Toeny, with William Talvas, don't show up court.[5]
1132: Hughes II[6] fights Roger Tosny against William Monvoisin, seigneur de Rosny.
By 1135: Confirmation of various grant of alms made to monaster of St. Ouen, Conches, by Roger de Toesni the elder and others.[7]
1135: Roger de Tosny supports Geoffrey of Anjou in conflict w/ king of France.[8]
22 Dec 1135: Stephen crowned.
1135-54: Roger de Tany tenant of honour of Boulogne.[9]
May 1136: Roger de Tosny sized ducal castle of Vaudreuil, widening local conflict. Roger driven out by earl of Mellent.[10]
5/12/1136: Roger excutes reprisals agains Count of Mellant for buring of Acuigni the previous day.
Jun 1136: Theobald, count of Blois, began to prosecute war against Roger de Tosny ; while Earls of Mellent and Leicester [Beaumont brothers] pillaged his lands. [11]
Oct 1136: Roger de Conches ravages diocese of Lisieux, pillaging abbey of Croix-Saint-Leufroi, and burning church of St. Stephen at Vauvai. Robert of Gloucester captured Roger de Tosny.
Imprisoned.[12]
May 1137 Stephen of England liberats Roger de Conches.
8/1/1137 Louis VII succeeds as king of France.
1138: Baldwin, count of Hainault, rides 150 miles across northern France to support Roger and Ida in war with Earl of Leicester.
9/7/1138 Roger de Toeni burns down Bretueil.
1138 Roger reconciles with the earls of Leicester and Mellent, and King Stephen. Settlement: Margaret, dau of Earl Robert Beaument, m. Roger’s son [Ralph].
1140 Vincent abbey gives a palfrey to Roger Tossny and two ounces of gold to Ida, wife of latter, in exchange for donations in England.[13]
1140: Raoul du Fresne and bros. Girelme, witness charter of Roger de Tosny.
By 1142: Pont St-Pierre given back to Roger de Tosny [previously held by Robert of Leicester].
1142: Roger's confirmation to Lyre abbey at Pont St-Pierre. (S) Beaumont Twins, Crouch, 2008, P55.
1144: Roger de Conches named as a lord in Normandy of Count of Anjou's army
1145: Robert de Mesnil witness charter of Roger de Tosny associated with Mesnil-Vicomte.
1147: Roger de Tosny, fils de Raoul le Jeune, decharge l’abbe Vincent de l’obligation de reparer ou de refaire la chaussee de l’etang de Fontaine.[14]
19 Dec 1154: Henry II crowned.
1155: Roger de Conches granted charter in case of forteiture of citizens of Plessis-Mahiel; witnessed by Robert de Mesnil.
1156: Roger gave abbey of Bernay 5 acres of land and vine at Tosny.
1157: Rogo de Toeni in Norfolk and Suffolk, ‘in Holcha’. (S) FMG.[15]
1157-62: Roger granted charter to Bec concerning Norfolk manor of East Wretham “to all his men either French or Normans and English.”
9/29/1158: Roger living.
1160: Louis VII takes possession of Nogent from Roger [returns it later that year.]
1162: Roger de Tony, lord of Flamsted, Herts, dies.[3]
1165: Henry II King of England confirms property of Conches abbey.[16]
Family notes: Conches about 4 leagues southwest of Everux.
Early Life
Roger /de TOENI (DE CONCHES)/ [17][18][3]
Taking de TOENI as the last name from de TOENI (DE CONCHES).

Roger 'The Spaniard' de Toeni[19]

p. Ralph de TOENI m. Alice (Adeliza) Huntingdon 1104-aft 29 Sep 1158[20][21]
Roger de TOENI
Simon de TOENI
Isabel de TOENI
Hugh de TOENI
Family
m (before 9 Aug 1138) GERTRUDE [Ida] de Hainaut dau of BAUDOUIN III count of Hainaut & Yolande van Geldern.[22][23]
The Testa de Nevill includes a writ of King John dated 1212 which records that Henry I King of England had granted "xx libratas terre in Bercolt" in Norfolk to "Rogero de Tooni…in maritagio cum filia comitis de Henou"[98].

Roger III & wife had four children
RAOUL [V] de Tosny (-1162). Chronicon Hanoniense names (in order) "Radulphum primum [filium Rogerum], Rogerum secundum et Balduinum tercium et Gaufridum quartum clericum" as the children of "[Rogerum] domino de Thoenio" & his wife[99]. Robert of Torigny records the death in 1162 of "Radulfus de Toene"[100]. m (after 1155) MARGUERITE de Beaumont, daughter of ROBERT [II] Earl of Leicester & his wife Amice de Gaèel ([1125]-after 1185). Robert of Torigny refers to the wife of "Radulfus de Toene" as "filia Roberti comitis Leccestriµ" but does not name her[101]. The 1163/64 Pipe Roll records "Margareta uxor Rad de Toeni" making payment "de Suppl de Welcumesto" in Essex/Hertfordshire[102]. The Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records “Margareta de Tony…lx annorum” and her land “in Welcumestowe"[103].
Raoul [V] & his wife had [two] children
ROGER [IV] de Tosny (-after 29 Dec 1208). Robert of Torigny records that "parvulo filio" succeeded in 1162 on the death of his father "Radulfus de Toene" but does not name him[104]. Seigneur de Tosny. The Red Book of the Exchequer, listing scutage payments in [1194/95], names "Rogerus de Tony" paying "xl s" in Sussex[105].
[RALPH de Tosny of Holkham, co Norfolk (-before 1184). The Red Book of the Exchequer refers to "Radulfus de Tonay ii m" in Sussex in [1167/68][106].] m ADA de Chaumont, daughter of ROBERT de Chaumont & his wife --- (-after 1184). The Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records property “in Holkham…de feodo Rogeri de Tony” held by “Ade de Tony…fuit Roberti de Chaumunt”, adding that she has “i filium Baldewinum…xv annorum et…v filias”[107]. A charter dated 25 Sep 1188 confirms the foundation of Dodnash Priory, Suffolk by "Baldewin de Toeni et dna Alda mr sua"[108].

Ralph & his wife had one child
BALDWIN de Tosny ([1169]-after 1210). The Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records property “in Holkham…de feodo Rogeri de Tony” held by “Ade de Tony…fuit Roberti de Chaumunt”, adding that she has “i filium Baldewinum…xv annorum et…v filias”[109]. A charter dated 25 Sep 1188 confirms the foundation of Dodnash Priory, Suffolk by "Baldewin de Toeni et dna Alda mr sua"[110]. m --- Bardolf, daughter of THOMAS BARDOLF of Bradwell, Essex & his wife ---. The Red Book of the Exchequer records that "Willelmus frater regis H[enrici]" gave land at "Bradewelle" in Essex to "Thomas Bardulf" who gave three parts thereof with "tres filiabus suis in maritagio…Roberto de Sancto Remigio et Willelmo Bacun et Baldewino de Tony", which "Baldewinus de Thony" still held in [1210/12][111]. Baldwin & his wife had one child:
ROGER
5 dau. Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records property “in Holkham…de feodo Rogeri de Tony” held by “Ade de Tony…fuit Roberti de Chaumunt”, adding that she has “i filium Baldewinum…xv annorum et…v filias”[112].
ROGER de Tosny . Chronicon Hanoniense names (in order) "Radulphum primum [filium Rogerum], Rogerum secundum et Balduinum tercium et Gaufridum quartum clericum" as the children of "[Rogerum] domino de Thoenio" & his wife[113].
BAUDOUIN de Tosny (-1170). Chronicon Hanoniense names (in order) "Radulphum primum [filium Rogerum], Rogerum secundum et Balduinum tercium et Gaufridum quartum clericum" as the children of "[Rogerum] domino de Thoenio" & his wife[114]. He had descendants in Hainaut[115].
GEOFFROY de Tosny . Chronicon Hanoniense names (in order) "Radulphum primum [filium Rogerum], Rogerum secundum et Balduinum tercium et Gaufridum quartum clericum" as the children of "[Rogerum] domino de Thoenio" & his wife[116]. Monk.
Roger de Tosney 1104-1158
ROGER [III] de Tosny, son of RAOUL [IV] Seigneur de Tosny & his wife Adelisa of Huntingdon ([1104]-after 29 Sep 1158). His parentage is recorded by Orderic Vitalis[91]. Henry I King of England confirmed the foundation of Conches by "Rogerius senior de Toenio et filius eius Radulphus senex et Radulphus juvenis filius prµdicti Radulphi senis et Rogerius filius Radulphi juvenis", quoting the donation by "Rogerus de Totteneio filius Radulphi junioris", dated to [1130][92]. In prison 1136/37. “Aliz de Toeni” donated "ecclesiam de Welcomstowe" to “ecclesiµ S. Trinitatis Lond.”, for the soul of “…et pro incolumitate filiorum meorum Rogeri de Toeni et Simonis et filiµ meµ Isabellµ", by undated charter[93]. Henry II King of England confirmed the property of Conches abbey, including donations by "Rogeris senior de Toenio et filius eius Radulfus senex et Radulphus juvenis filius predicti Radulphi senex et Roger filius Radulphi juvenis", by charter dated 1165 or [1167/73][94].

Henry II King of England confirmed the property of Conches abbey, including donations by "Rogeris senior de Toenio et filius eius Radulfus senex et Radulphus juvenis filius predicti Radulphi senex et Roger filius Radulphi juvenis", by charter dated 1165 or [1167/73][95]. The 1157 Pipe Roll records "Rogo de Toeni" in Norfolk and Suffolk, "in Holcha"[96]. m (before 9 Aug 1138) GERTRUDE [Ida] de Hainaut, daughter of BAUDOUIN III Comte de Hainaut & his wife Yolande van Geldern. The Chronicon Hanoniense refers to one of the daughters of "Balduinus comes Hanoniensis" & his wife as wife of "domino de Thoenio", in a later passage naming their children "Radulphum primum [filium Rogerum], Rogerum secundum et Balduinum tercium et Gaufridum quartum clericum"[97]. The Testa de Nevill includes a writ of King John dated 1212 which records that Henry I King of England had granted "xx libratas terre in Bercolt" in Norfolk to "Rogero de Tooni…in maritagio cum filia comitis de Henou"[98]. The primary source which confirms her name has not yet been identified.

Roger [III] & his wife had four children: 1. RAOUL [V] de Tosny (-1162). The Chronicon Hanoniense names (in order) "Radulphum primum [filium Rogerum], Rogerum secundum et Balduinum tercium et Gaufridum quartum clericum" as the children of "[Rogerum] domino de Thoenio" & his wife[99]. Robert of Torigny records the death in 1162 of "Radulfus de Toene"[100].

m (after 1155) MARGUERITE de Beaumont, daughter of ROBERT [II] Earl of Leicester & his wife Amice de Gaèel ([1125]-after 1185). Robert of Torigny refers to the wife of "Radulfus de Toene" as "filia Roberti comitis Leccestriµ" but does not name her[101]. The 1163/64 Pipe Roll records "Margareta uxor Rad de Toeni" making payment "de Suppl de Welcumesto" in Essex/Hertfordshire[102]. The Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records “Margareta de Tony…lx annorum” and her land “in Welcumestowe"[103]. Raoul [V] & his wife had [two] children:

a) ROGER [IV] de Tosny (-after 29 Dec 1208). Robert of Torigny records that "parvulo filio" succeeded in 1162 on the death of his father "Radulfus de Toene" but does not name him[104]. Seigneur de Tosny. The Red Book of the Exchequer, listing scutage payments in [1194/95], names "Rogerus de Tony" paying "xl s" in Sussex[105]. - see below. b) [RALPH de Tosny of Holkham, co Norfolk (-before 1184). The Red Book of the Exchequer refers to "Radulfus de Tonay ii m" in Sussex in [1167/68][106].] m ADA de Chaumont, daughter of ROBERT de Chaumont & his wife --- (-after 1184). The Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records property “in Holkham…de feodo Rogeri de Tony” held by “Ade de Tony…fuit Roberti de Chaumunt”, adding that she has “i filium Baldewinum…xv annorum et…v filias”[107]. A charter dated 25 Sep 1188 confirms the foundation of Dodnash Priory, Suffolk by "Baldewin de Toeni et dna Alda mr sua"[108]. Ralph & his wife had one child: i) BALDWIN de Tosny ([1169]-after 1210). The Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records property “in Holkham…de feodo Rogeri de Tony” held by “Ade de Tony…fuit Roberti de Chaumunt”, adding that she has “i filium Baldewinum…xv annorum et…v filias”[109]. A charter dated 25 Sep 1188 confirms the foundation of Dodnash Priory, Suffolk by "Baldewin de Toeni et dna Alda mr sua"[110]. m --- Bardolf, daughter of THOMAS BARDOLF of Bradwell, Essex & his wife ---. The Red Book of the Exchequer records that "Willelmus frater regis H[enrici]" gave land at "Bradewelle" in Essex to "Thomas Bardulf" who gave three parts thereof with "tres filiabus suis in maritagio…Roberto de Sancto Remigio et Willelmo Bacun et Baldewino de Tony", which "Baldewinus de Thony" still held in [1210/12][111]. Baldwin & his wife had one child: (a) ROGER . ii) five daughters . The Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records property “in Holkham…de feodo Rogeri de Tony” held by “Ade de Tony…fuit Roberti de Chaumunt”, adding that she has “i filium Baldewinum…xv annorum et…v filias”[112]. 2. ROGER de Tosny . The Chronicon Hanoniense names (in order) "Radulphum primum [filium Rogerum], Rogerum secundum et Balduinum tercium et Gaufridum quartum clericum" as the children of "[Rogerum] domino de Thoenio" & his wife[113]. 3. BAUDOUIN de Tosny (-1170). The Chronicon Hanoniense names (in order) "Radulphum primum [filium Rogerum], Rogerum secundum et Balduinum tercium et Gaufridum quartum clericum" as the children of "[Rogerum] domino de Thoenio" & his wife[114]. He had descendants in Hainaut[115]. 4. GEOFFROY de Tosny . The Chronicon Hanoniense names (in order) "Radulphum primum [filium Rogerum], Rogerum secundum et Balduinum tercium et Gaufridum quartum clericum" as the children of "[Rogerum] domino de Thoenio" & his wife[116]. Monk.

Sources
Royal Ancestry 2013 D. Richardson Vol. V p. 170-171
?
Parochial and Family History of the Parish of Blisland, Maclean, 1868, P65. Norman Frontier, Power, 2004, P295.
Dictionnaire Historique de Toutes Les Communes, Charpillon, 1868 & 1879. Ecclesiastical History of England, Vitalis, 1856.
[91] Orderic Vitalis, Vol. VI, Book XI, p. 55.
[92] Gallia Christiana, XI, Instrumenta, V, col. 128.
[93] Dugdale Monasticon VI.1, Christ Church, Aldgate, London, VI, p. 152.
[94] Actes Henri II, Tome I, CCCCXXIII, p. 550.
[95] Actes Henri II, Tome I, CCCCXXIII, p. 550.
[96] Hunter, J. (ed.) (1844) The Great Rolls of the Pipe for the second, third and fourth years of the reign of King Henry II 1155-1158 (London) ("Pipe Roll") 4 Hen II (1157), Norfolk and Suffolk, p. 125.
[97] Gisleberti Chronicon Hanoniense, MGH SS XXI, pp. 505 and 506.
[98] Testa de Nevill, Part I, p. 134.
[99] Gisleberti Chronicon Hanoniense, MGH SS XXI, pp. 505 and 506.
[100] Chronique de Robert de Torigny I, 1162, p. 339.
[101] Chronique de Robert de Torigny I, 1162, p. 339.
[102] Pipe Roll Society, Vol. VII (1886) The Great Roll of the Pipe for the 10th year of King Henry II (London) ("Pipe Roll 10 Hen II (1163/64)"), p. 38.
[103] Rotuli Dominabus, Rotuli VIII, Essex, p. 41.
[104] Chronique de Robert de Torigny I, 1162, p. 339.
[105] Red Book Exchequer, Part I, Anno VI regis Ricardi, ad redemptionem eius, scutagium ad XXs, p. 92.
[106] Red Book Exchequer, Part I, Knights fees, p. 47.
[107] Rotuli Dominabus, Rotuli V, Norffolk, p. 27.
[108] Ancient Charters (Round), Part I, 53, p. 87.
[109] Rotuli Dominabus, Rotuli V, Norffolk, p. 27.
[110] Ancient Charters (Round), Part I, 53, p. 87.
[111] Red Book Exchequer, Part II, Inquisitiones…Regis Johannis…anno regno XII et XIII…de servitiis militum, p. 499.
[112] Rotuli Dominabus, Rotuli V, Norffolk, p. 27.
[113] Gisleberti Chronicon Hanoniense, MGH SS XXI, pp. 505 and 506.
? Acrossthepond.ged on 21 Feb 2011. User: AA428DBB1CB84E3B845C44BBBBCF47ABEC7F. Note: Birth: ABT 1104 Flamsted, Hertfordshire
? 3.0 3.1 3.2 De TOENI-68 on Jun 20, 2011 by Michael Stephenson. hofundssonAnces.ged
? Henry I confirmed foundation of Conches by "Rogerius senior de Toenio et filius eius Radulphus senex et Radulphus juvenis filius prµdicti Radulphi senis et Rogerius filius Radulphi juvenis", quoting the donation by "Rogerus de Totteneio filius Radulphi junioris", dated to 1130.
? (S) History of Normandy, V4, P562.
? son of Gervais
? signatories : king and Queen Adelaide, Hugh archbishop of rouen, Auding bishop of Evreux, William earl of Warenne, Amaury count of Everux, Hugh [king’s sewer], … (S) English Historical Review, V34, 1919, P561.
? (S) Norman Frontier, Power, 2004, P382.
? (S) Families, Friends, Allies : Boulogne, Tanner, 2004, P340.
? (S) Reign of King Stephen, Longman, 2000, P60.
? (S) Reign of King Stephen, Longman, 2000, P61.
? “Aliz de Toeni” donated "ecclesiam de Welcomstowe" to “ecclesiµ S. Trinitatis Lond.”, for the soul of “…et pro incolumitate filiorum meorum Rogeri de Toeni et Simonis et filiµ meµ Isabellµ", by undated charter[93].
? (S) Prosopographie des Abbes Benedictins, Gazeau, 2007, P71.
? (S) Prosopographie des Abbes Benedictins, Gazeau, 2007, P71.
? 1157 Pipe Roll records "Rogo de Toeni" in Norfolk and Suffolk, "in Holcha"[96].
? including donations by "Rogeris senior de Toenio et filius eius Radulfus senex et Radulphus juvenis filius predicti Radulphi senex et Roger filius Radulphi juvenis", by charter dated 1165 or [1167/73][94]. Henry II King of England confirmed the property of Conches abbey, including donations by "Rogeris senior de Toenio et filius eius Radulfus senex et Radulphus juvenis filius predicti Radulphi senex et Roger filius Radulphi juvenis", by charter dated 1165 or [1167/73][95].
? De TOENI-68 on Jun 20, 2011 by Michael Stephenson. Pedigree Resource File CD 49: (Salt Lake City, UT: Intellectual Reserve, Inc., 2002)
? De TOENI-68 on Jun 20, 2011 by Michael Stephenson. Ancestral File. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SAINTS Publication: June 1998
? #S96
? Orderic Vitalis.
? Alias: RAOUL [IV] Seigneur de Tosny & Adelisa of Huntingdon
? Issue: Chronicon Hanoniense refers to one of the daughters of "Balduinus comes Hanoniensis" & his wife as wife of "domino de Thoenio", in a later passage naming their children "Radulphum primum [filium Rogerum], Rogerum secundum et Balduinum tercium et Gaufridum quartum clericum"[97].
? ~1130: Child of Roger and Ida: Ralph de Tony born in England.

end of biography

Roger married Ida Hainaut before 1135. Ida was born in ~1109 in Hainaut, Belgium; died on 9 Aug 1138. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48181.

Ida Hainaut was born in ~1109 in Hainaut, Belgium; died on 9 Aug 1138.

Children:

Godehaut Toeni was born in ~1130 in Derbyshire, England; died before 1186.
24090. Sir Ralph de Tosny, V, Knight, Earl was born in ~1140 in Flamstead, Hertfordshire, England; died in 1162 in Flamstead, Hertfordshire, England.

24102.

Other Events and Attributes:

Occupation: Justiciar of England, 1155-1168
Military: The Anarchy

Notes:

Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester (1104 - 5 April 1168) was Justiciar of England 1155-1168.

The surname "de Beaumont" is given him by genealogists. The only known contemporary surname applied to him is "Robert son of Count Robert". Henry Knighton, the fourteenth-century chronicler notes him as Robert "Le Bossu" (meaning "Robert the Hunchback" in French).

Early life and education

Robert was an English nobleman of Norman-French ancestry. He was the son of Robert de Beaumont, Count of Meulan and 1st Earl of Leicester, and Elizabeth de Vermandois, and the twin brother of Waleran de Beaumont. It is not known whether they were identical or fraternal twins, but the fact that they are remarked on by contemporaries as twins indicates that they were probably identical.

The two brothers, Robert and Waleran, were adopted into the royal household shortly after their father's death in June 1118 (upon which Robert inherited his father's second titles of Earl of Leicester). Their lands on either side of the Channel were committed to a group of guardians, led by their stepfather, William, Earl of Warenne or Surrey. They accompanied King Henry I to Normandy, to meet with Pope Callixtus II in 1119, when the king incited them to debate philosophy with the cardinals. Both twins were literate, and Abingdon Abbey later claimed to have been Robert's school, but though this is possible, its account is not entirely trustworthy. A surviving treatise on astronomy (British Library ms Royal E xxv) carries a dedication "to Earl Robert of Leicester, that man of affairs and profound learning, most accomplished in matters of law" who can only be this Robert. On his death he left his own psalter to the abbey he founded at Leicester, which was still in its library in the late fifteenth century. The existence of this indicates that like many noblemen of his day, Robert followed the canonical hours in his chapel.

Career at the Norman court

In 1120 Robert was declared of age and inherited most of his father's lands in England, while his twin brother took the French lands. However in 1121, royal favour brought Robert the great Norman honors of Breteuil and Pacy-sur-Eure, with his marriage to Amice de Gael, daughter of a Breton intruder the king had forced on the honor after the forfeiture of the Breteuil family in 1119. Robert spent a good deal of his time and resources over the next decade integrating the troublesome and independent barons of Breteuil into the greater complex of his estates. He did not join in his brother's great Norman rebellion against King Henry I in 1123–24. He appears fitfully at the royal court despite his brother's imprisonment until 1129. Thereafter the twins were frequently to be found together at Henry I's court.

Robert held lands throughout the country. In the 1120s and 1130s he tried to rationalise his estates in Leicestershire. Leicestershire estates of the See of Lincoln and the Earl of Chester were seized by force. This enhanced the integrity of Robert's block of estates in the central midlands, bounded by Nuneaton, Loughborough, Melton Mowbray and Market Harborough.

In 1135, the twins were present at King Henry's deathbed. Robert's actions in the succession period are unknown, but he clearly supported his brother's decision to join the court of the new king Stephen before Easter 1136. During the first two years of the reign Robert is found in Normandy fighting rival claimants for his honor of Breteuil. Military action allowed him to add the castle of Pont St-Pierre to his Norman estates in June 1136 at the expense of one of his rivals. From the end of 1137 Robert and his brother were increasingly caught up in the politics of the court of King Stephen in England, where Waleran secured an ascendancy which lasted till the beginning of 1141. Robert participated in his brother's political coup against the king's justiciar, Roger of Salisbury (the Bishop of Salisbury).

Civil war in England

The outbreak of civil war in England in September 1139 brought Robert into conflict with Earl Robert of Gloucester, the bastard son of Henry I and principal sponsor of the Empress Matilda. His port of Wareham and estates in Dorset were seized by Gloucester in the first campaign of the war. In that campaign the king awarded Robert the city and castle of Hereford as a bid to establish the earl as his lieutenant in Herefordshire, which was in revolt. It is disputed by scholars whether this was an award of a second county to Earl Robert. Probably in late 1139, Earl Robert refounded his father's collegiate church of St Mary de Castro in Leicester as a major Augustinian abbey on the meadows outside the town's north gate, annexing the college's considerable endowment to the abbey.

The battle of Lincoln on 2 February 1141 saw the capture and imprisonment of King Stephen. Although Count Waleran valiantly continued the royalist fight in England into the summer, he eventually capitulated to the Empress and crossed back to Normandy to make his peace with the Empress's husband, Geoffrey of Anjou. Earl Robert had been in Normandy since 1140 attempting to stem the Angevin invasion, and negotiated the terms of his brother's surrender. He quit Normandy soon after and his Norman estates were confiscated and used to reward Norman followers of the Empress. Earl Robert remained on his estates in England for the remainder of King Stephen's reign. Although he was a nominal supporter of the king, there seems to have been little contact between him and Stephen, who did not confirm the foundation of Leicester Abbey till 1153. Earl Robert's principal activity between 1141 and 1149 was his private war with Ranulf II, Earl of Chester. Though details are obscure it seems clear enough that he waged a dogged war with his rival that in the end secured him control of northern Leicestershire and the strategic Chester castle of Mountsorrel. When Earl Robert of Gloucester died in 1147, Robert of Leicester led the movement among the greater earls of England to negotiate private treaties to establish peace in their areas, a process hastened by the Empress's departure to Normandy, and complete by 1149. During this time the earl also exercised supervision over his twin brother's earldom of Worcester, and in 1151 he intervened to frustrate the king's attempts to seize the city.

Earl Robert and Henry Plantagenet

The arrival in England of Duke Henry, son of the Empress Mathilda, in January 1153 was a great opportunity for Earl Robert. He was probably in negotiation with Henry in that spring and reached an agreement by which he would defect to him by May 1153, when the duke restored his Norman estates to the earl. The duke celebrated his Pentecost court at Leicester in June 1153, and he and the earl were constantly in company till the peace settlement between the duke and the king at Winchester in November 1153. Earl Robert crossed with the duke to Normandy in January 1154 and resumed his Norman castles and honors. As part of the settlement his claim to be chief steward of England and Normandy was recognised by Henry.

Earl Robert began his career as chief justiciar of England probably as soon as Duke Henry succeeded as King Henry II in October 1154.[1] The office gave the earl supervision of the administration and legal process in England whether the king was present or absent in the realm. He appears in that capacity in numerous administrative acts, and had a junior colleague in the post in Richard de Luci, another former servant of King Stephen. The earl filled the office for nearly fourteen years until his death,[1] and earned the respect of the emerging Angevin bureaucracy in England. His opinion was quoted by learned clerics, and his own learning was highly commended.

He died on 5 April 1168,[1] probably at his Northamptonshire castle of Brackley, for his entrails were buried at the hospital in the town. He was received as a canon of Leicester on his deathbed, and buried to the north of the high altar of the great abbey he had founded and built. He left a written testament of which his son the third earl was an executor, as we learn in a reference dating to 1174.

Church patronage

Robert founded and patronised many religious establishments. He founded Leicester Abbey and Garendon Abbeyin Leicestershire, the Fontevraldine Nuneaton Priory in Warwickshire, Luffield Abbey in Buckinghamshire, and the hospital of Brackley, Northamptonshire. He refounded the collegiate church of St Mary de Castro, Leicester, as a dependency of Leicester abbey around 1164, after suppressing it in 1139. Around 1139 he refounded the collegiate church of Wareham as a priory of his abbey of Lyre, in Normandy. His principal Norman foundations were the priory of Le Dâesert in the forest of Breteuil and a major hospital in Breteuil itself. He was a generous benefactor of the Benedictine abbey of Lyre, the oldest monastic house in the honor of Breteuil. He also donated land in Old Dalby, Leicestershire to the Knights Hospitallers who used it to found Dalby Preceptory.

Family and children

He married after 1120 Amice de Montfort, daughter of Raoul II de Montfort, himself a son of Ralph de Gael, Earl of East Anglia. Both families had lost their English inheritances through rebellion in 1075. They had four children:

Hawise de Beaumont, who married William Fitz Robert, 2nd Earl of Gloucester and had descendants.
Robert de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Leicester who married Petronilla de Grandmesnil and had descendants.
Isabel, who married: Simon de St. Liz, Earl of Huntingdon and had descendants.
Margaret, who married Ralph V de Toeni and had descendants through their daughter, Ida de Tosny.

Occupation:
In medieval England and Scotland the Chief Justiciar (later known simply as the Justiciar) was roughly equivalent to a modern Prime Minister[citation needed] as the monarch's chief minister. Similar positions existed on the European Continent, particularly in Norman Italy. The term is the English form of the medieval Latin justiciarius or justitiarius ("man of justice", i.e. judge).

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justiciar

Military:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anarchy

24103.

Lady Amice de Montfort, Countess of Leicester was born in 1108 in Norfolk, England; died on 31 Aug 1168 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England.

Notes:

Click this link to view 5 generations of her issue ... http://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/Gael-Descendants-3

Children:

24091. Margaret de Beaumont was born in 1125 in (Leicestershire, England); died after 1185.
12051. Hawise de Beaumont was born in Leicestershire, England.
Sir Robert de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Leicester was born in 1135 in Beaumont, Normandy, France; died on 31 Aug 1190 in Durazzo, Albania.
Isabelle Beaumont was born in ~1130 in Leicester, Leicestershire, England; died after May 1188 in Leicestershire, England.

11128.

Gilbert Giffard, Royal Serjeant was born in ~ 1065 in (France); died in 0___ 1129 in Winterbourne Monkton, Marlborough, Wiltshire, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: 0___ 1075, Axbridge, Somerset, England

Notes:

Gilbert Giffard
Born about 1065 in England or France
Son of [father unknown] and [mother unknown]
[sibling(s) unknown]
[spouse(s) unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Father of John (Marshal) FitzGilbert and William (Giffard) Fitz Gilbert
Died before 1129 in Winterbourne Monkton, Marlborough, Wiltshire, England

DISPUTED PARENTAGE

Since his various parentages are all disputed, they have been removed. See the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy's Medieval Lands Index for more information. Also see discussion below.

Removed these profiles as parents: Rollo Cheddar, Geoffrey Le Mareschal, and Sibyl di Conversano . Please don't attach any parents without first discussing via post on G2G. (Darlene Athey Hill - 26 Sep 2015)

Biography

Gilbert Giffard was a tenant of Glastonbury manor in Winterbourne Monkton in Wiltshire, and held a position as a marshal to the King. That Gilbert was the name of the grandfather of William the Marshall was known because William's father was often referred to as John fitz (son of) Gilbert. That Gilbert, John's father, was already involved in the family's tradition of claiming a royal marshalcy was also indicated from a record in the time of King John, although the nature of that marshalcy in his generation is not well understood.[1] However the identification of Gilbert with records for a man normally called Gilbert Giffard (or Gibard) has become widespread since a publication of N. E. Stacy in 1999 concerning Gilbert's landlord.[2] He not only showed that Giffard had a tax exemption, such as his descendants did for their marshalcy, and that his lands were inherited by the Marshals, but also that Gilbert Giffard's son William Giffard or William fitz Gilbert, was presented to the church of Cheddar as "William Giffard, son of Gilbert the king's marshal".

Concerning his parentage, various theories exist but none are proven. Each tends to start with one known thing, and build from there:

Starting from the newest known information, the surname Giffard, Crouch for example notes that it was a common descriptive second name meaning "chubby cheeks" and says "It is highly unlikely that Gilbert Giffard was related to the Conqueror's leading follower, Walter Giffard, Earl of Buckingham; it is conceivable on the grounds of proximity, however, that he might have had a connection with the unrelated West Country barons, the Giffards of Brimpsfield." (Traditionally the Giffards of Brimpsfield and Bucks are often linked.[3] Some still suspect there is a link.[4]
Keats-Rohan has an entry for him in "Domesday People" (p.214) under "Gislebert Gibart", apparently an entry written without reference to Stacey. She adds that "The fee of Robert Gibart is mentioned in Hist. S. Petri Glocs. ii, 230."[5] In her later "Domesday Descendants" she cites Stacey and has him under "Marescal, Gilbert" (p.1029). She suggests he might be the son of "Robert marshal, who occurs in Domesday Wiltshire" (Domesday People p.391). However In footnote g, Appendix G, Complete Peerage says "Gilbert may have been son or grandson of an otherwise unknown Robert, who in 1086 held Cheddar, Somerset, under Roger de Courseulles (Domesday Book, vol i, fol 94; cf note 'h' infra). Robert the Marshal, who in 1086 held Lavington, Wilts, in chief (Idem, vol i, f. 73) has been suggested as the possible progenitor of the family (Davis, op. cit., pp xxvi - xxvii); but this is unlikely as in 1166 Lavington was held by Piers de la Mare (Red Book, p 248)." It therefore appears that Keats-Rohan was following up the lead of CP, seeking for evidence that Robert in Lavington having other land holdings that might correspond to those known for the later Marshall family, specifically in Cheddar. The Robert in Cheddar has an entry in Domesday People called "Robert Herecom" (p.389[6]). According to a summary of this line of thought by Chris Phillips, Keats-Rohan's various entries give "a slightly complicated picture, but maybe worth investigating further".[7]
Older works speculated based on the longer-known above-mentioned claim to a "chief marshalship" which King John said happened during the time of King Henry I. Gilbert and his son John faced counter claims from two other men, Robert de Venoiz, and William Hastings. And on this basis many authors have speculated that the three families shared a common ancestry. Robert de Venoiz in particular was apparently son and heir to a Norman named Geoffrey who was sometimes referred to as "Marshall" (although in his time this would not normally have been considered a name, just a description). This family's particular tradition of Marshalcy apparently went back to a marshalcy in Venoix in Normandy.[8] Various scenarios have been presented as fact, such as Gilbert being a son of Robert, or of Geoffrey, or that Gilbert married a lady of their family. (And similarly, the Hastings family have sometimes been linked in speculative pedigrees.) But in fact the record of King John does not strongly imply that before the time of Henry I there was one single "chief" marshal. It could well have been a decision made at that time. There were many hereditary "marshalls" in England and Normandy, as discussed by Round in his book on the subject. (The use of a the job as a surname also probably did not start until King Stephen's time.[9])
A very simple proposal found in the Complete Peerage is that Gilbert's father was also possibly named Gilbert. The reasoning being that the Gilbert of the Domesday book made around 1086 was many decades before the reign of Henry I, when Gilbert the father of John was still alive.[7] Other authorities seem to accept it is the same person though the generations are long.[10]
Gilbert had two sons:

John Fitz-Gilbert, who was accepted as being "chief" Marshal of England while his father still lived, in the time of King Henry I. Probably the first of his family to use the job title as a surname. Born about 1105.
William Giffard or Fitz-Gilbert, born about 1107. He became chancellor to Queen Mathilda.[11]
As an hereditary marshal of the King, Gilbert was a French speaking Norman (although some Normans married locally and could speak some English) and the old French title Le Mareschal (Latin Marescallus or Marescalcus) which has evolved into modern English "Marshal" was a term going back to Frankish times, originally referring to a function of "horse servant", which is what the word meant in the old language of the Franks. But by his lifetime, this job, like many other household positions, had evolved. According to a treatise of 1136 made for King Stephen, the Master Marshall ("John", Gilbert's son) had duties which "involved the keeping of certain royal records" and the management of "four other lesser marshals, both clerks and knights, assistants called sergeants, the knight ushers and common ushers of the royal hall, the usher of the king's chamber, the watchmen of court, the tent-keeper and the keeper of the king's hearth".[12]

In Gilbert's family, the evidence is relatively clear that the function became a surname, not in Gilbert's lifetime probably, but during the lifetime of his son John. Crouch (p.226) mentions that while surnames from hereditary offices were not an uncommon innovation in the 12th century, this family is a "rather early" example of a case where not only the heir of the Marshall, but several of John's sons, all used the office as a second name. Richard Brooks suggests that John was the first to use the word as a name, because he is specifically referred to as someone "named" the Marshall, and this was during a period when he had split with King Stephen and could not have been functioning as the King's Marshall.[9]

Gilbert's grandson, Sir William Marshal, knighted and named 1st Earl of Pembroke, made the office very important during the last decades of the 12th Century and first decades of the 13th. He served under four kings: Henry II, Richard "Lionheart," John "Lackland" and Henry III. As the regent for Henry III, Sir William Marshal became a powerful European statesman, raising his office still further beyond its humble origins. In William's time the Chief Marshal became "Earl Marshal". It is still the seventh of the eight "great officers of state" of the British monarchy, just below the Lord High Constable and above the Lord High Admiral. Since the 13th Century the office has been a hereditary position of the Earls (now Dukes) of Norfolk.[13]

Sources

Source S-2024265482 Royal and Noble Genealogical Data, database online, Brian Tompsett, Copyright 1994-2001, Version March 25, 2001, Royal and Noble Genealogical Data, Department of Computer Science, University of Hull, (Hull, United Kingdom, HU6 7RX, B.C.Tompsett@dcs.hull.ac.uk), NS073013
Richardson, Douglas, and Kimball G. Everingham. 2013. Royal ancestry: a study in colonial and medieval families. Salt Lake City, UT.: Douglas Richardson. Vol IV, page 33, cited by Mr. Marlyn Lewis, Our Royal, Titled, Noble, and Commoner Ancestors & Cousins, database online, Portland, Oregon.
Medieval Lands, database online, author Charles Cawley, (Foundation for Medieval Genealogy, 2006-2013), England, earls created 1138-1143, Chapter 10, Pembroke: B. Earls of Pembroke 1189-1245 (MARSHAL), Gilbert "the Marshal"
Dictionary of Medieval Knighthood and Chivalry, Bradford B. Broughton, (Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, Inc., 1986).
? Round, J. H. (1911), The King's Serjeants & Officers of State with their Coronation Services. p.88
? English Historical Review, Feb. 1999: Henry of Blois and the Lordship of Glastonbury (N. E. Stacy). This article is now cited by newer editions of David Crouch's "William Marshall" and has been discussed online by medieval genealogists such as John Ravilious, Chris Phillips and Douglas Richardson. For example: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/gen-medieval/2003-01/1042089376.
? For example in old editions of Burkes. https://books.google.be/books?id=uo9AAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA207
? http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/gen-medieval/2003-01/1042326346
? See online here. But the editors believe this is a 12th century document.
? So Keats-Rohan equated this Robert with the one in Shearston, with the same overlord as the Robert in Cheddar.
? 7.0 7.1 See the post of Chris Phillips: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/2003-01/1042105703
? Round, J. H. (1911), The King's Serjeants & Officers of State with their Coronation Services. p.90
? 9.0 9.1 Richard Brooks, The Knight who saved England.
? Ravilious on the generation length: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/gen-medieval/2003-01/1042297945
? See the post of John Ravilious: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/2003-01/1042089376
? David Crouch, "William Marshall" 2nd ed. 2002, Appendix 2.
? Earl_Marshal on Wikipedia

11129.

Mary Margarite De Venuz was born on 10 Mar 1085 in Calvados, Basse-Normandie, France; died in 0___ 1119 in Pembrokeshire, Wales.

Notes:

Mary Margarite De VenuzPrint Family Tree Mary /De Venuz/

Born 10 March 1085 - Calvados, Basse-Normandie, France
Deceased in 1119 - Pembrokeshire, Wales , age at death: 34 years old

Parents
Geoffrey De Venuz, born in 1066 - France, Deceased in 1157 - East Worldham, Hampshire, England age at death: 91 years old
Married to
? ?

Spouses, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren
Married in 1104, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, to Gilbert Giffard (Fitzgilbert) (Royal Serjeant and Marshall to Henry I) MARSHALL, born in 1075 - Axbridge, Somerset, England, Deceased in 1130 - Marlborough, Wiltshire, England age at death: 55 years old (Parents : M Robert (Curthose) De (Duke of NORMANDY) NORMANDY 1054-1134 & F Sybilla (Brindisi Of) CONVERSANO 1079-1103) with
M John (Fitzgilbert) (Earl of Pembroke, Marshall of England) MARSHALL 1105-1165 married, Wiltshire, England, to Aline Pipard
John (Fitzgilbert) (Earl of Pembroke, Marshall of England) MARSHALL 1105-1165 married in 1143, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, to Sibilla De SALISBURY 1109-1155 with
M John MARSHALL 1144-1194 married in 1165, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, to Alice De Port 1144-1180 with :
M John Marshall 1185-1235
M William (SIR - Knight Templar)(Earl Pembroke) MARSHALL 1146-1219 married in August 1189, London, England, to Isabel De CLARE 1172-1217 with :
F Maud (Countess of Norfolk Countess of Surrey) MARSHALL 1192-1248
F Eve (Baroness of Abergavenny) MARSHALL 1194-1246
M Gilbert MARSHALL 1196-1241
M William (4th Earl of Pembroke/ChiefJusticar of Ireland) MARSHALL 1198-1231
F Isabel (Fitzgilbert) (Countess MARSHALL) MARSHALL 1200-1239
F Sibyl MARSHALL ca 1201-1245
F Joane MARSHALL 1202-1234
F Margaret (Fitzgilbert) MARSHALL /1155-1242 married in 1181, Wiltshire, England, to Ralph De (Lord Dudley) SOMERY 1151-1210 with :
F Joan De SOMERY ca 1191-1276
M Roger De (SIR - Lord Dudley) SOMERY 1208-1273

Paternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M Ralf De Venuz 1040- married
F ? ?
M Geoffrey De Venuz 1066-1157
married
1 child

(hide)

Timeline
10 March 1085 : Birth - Calvados, Basse-Normandie, France
1104 : Marriage (with Gilbert Giffard (Fitzgilbert) (Royal Serjeant and Marshall to Henry I) MARSHALL) - Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales
1105 : Birth - Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales
1119 : Death - Pembrokeshire, Wales
19 July 1119 : Death - Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales

Sources
Individual:
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=9978
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=9978
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=9978
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=9978
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=9978
Search the matching civil records

Family Tree Preview
Ancestry Chart Descendancy Chart
_____| 4_ Ralf De Venuz 1040-
/
|2_ Geoffrey De Venuz 1066-1157
| \
|--1_ Mary Margarite De Venuz 1085-1119
|3_ ? ?

Family Tree owner : Dave BRADLEY (belfast8)

end of profile

Children:

5564. Baron John FitzGilbert was born on 26 Nov 1105 in (Wiltshire) England; died on 29 Sep 1165 in Rockley, Marlborough, Wiltshire, England; was buried in Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England.

11130.

Notes:

Birth: 1091
Salisbury
Wiltshire Unitary Authority
Wiltshire, England
Death: 1147
Bradenstoke
Wiltshire Unitary Authority
Wiltshire, England

Walter of Salisbury was born to Edward of Salisbury, Earl of Salisbury, Sheriff of Wiltshire and Maud Fitz Hurbert. He was also styled also Walter FitzEdward and Walter the Sheriff. He married Sybil de Chaworth daughter of Patrick De Chaworth and, Matilda de Hesdin. He founded the Priory of Bradenstoke, and was a benefactor to Salisbury Cathedral. His wife, Sybil, preceeded in death, and was buried near the chior in Bradenstoke Priory. Walter took the habit of a canon there, died in 1147, he is buried in the same grave as his wife.

Family links:
Parents:
Edward Of Salisbury

Spouse:
Sibilla de Chaworth (1100 - 1140)*

Children:
Hawise de Salisbury de Dreux (1118 - 1151)*
Patrick d' Evereux (1122 - 1168)*
Sybilla de Salisbury (1126 - 1176)*

*Calculated relationship

Burial:
Bradenstoke Priory
Bradenstoke
Wiltshire Unitary Authority
Wiltshire, England

Created by: Audrey DeCamp Hoffman
Record added: Apr 21, 2012
Find A Grave Memorial# 88928387

end

Buried:
at Bradenstoke Priory...

The priory was founded in 1142 as the Augustinian priory of Clack, and dedicated to Saint Mary.[1] It was well-sited on a high ridge near a holy well, with further springs nearby; there is some evidence that a chapel of the era of Henry I already existed at the holy well.[1]

The founder,[2] Walter FitzEdward de Salisbury, was the son of Edward de Salisbury,[3] a High Sheriff of Wiltshire; he gave lands for a priory as a daughter house of St. Mary's Abbey, Cirencester, according to its charter, "to serve God forever!".[4] After the death of his wife, he "took the tonsure and habit of the canons" and on his death in 1147, was buried in the Priory, near the choir.[4] His descendants, the Earls of Salisbury remained closely connected with the priory for many years.[1] In 1190 thirteen of the monks migrated to Cartmel Priory, Cumbria, which had been recently established by William Marshal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradenstoke_Priory

11131.

Sibilla de Chaworth was born in 0___ 1100 in Kempsford, Gloucestershire, England; died in 0___ 1140 in Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England; was buried in Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England.

Notes:

Birth: 1100
Kempsford
Cotswold District
Gloucestershire, England
Death: 1140
Bradenstoke
Wiltshire Unitary Authority
Wiltshire, England

Sibilla was the daughter of Patrick de Chaources and Matilda Hesdin.
She married Walter de Salisbury, son of Edward de Salisbury and Matilda Fitz Herbert. (Walter de Salisbury was born about 1087 in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England, died in 1147 in Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England.
Both Sibilla and Walter were buried together in the choir in Bradenstoke Priory, Bradenstoke, Wiltshire County, England.
They had at least three children: Patrick, Sibyl and Harvise (Hedwige)

Family links:
Spouse:
Walter Fitz Edward (1091 - 1147)

Children:
Hawise de Salisbury de Dreux (1118 - 1151)*
Patrick d' Evereux (1122 - 1168)*
Sybilla de Salisbury (1126 - 1176)*

*Calculated relationship

Burial:
Bradenstoke Priory
Bradenstoke
Wiltshire Unitary Authority
Wiltshire, England
Plot: Choir with her husband

Created by: Kat
Record added: May 15, 2012
Find A Grave Memorial# 90151726

end

Buried:
at Bradenstoke Priory...

The priory was founded in 1142 as the Augustinian priory of Clack, and dedicated to Saint Mary.[1] It was well-sited on a high ridge near a holy well, with further springs nearby; there is some evidence that a chapel of the era of Henry I already existed at the holy well.[1]

The founder,[2] Walter FitzEdward de Salisbury, was the son of Edward de Salisbury,[3] a High Sheriff of Wiltshire; he gave lands for a priory as a daughter house of St. Mary's Abbey, Cirencester, according to its charter, "to serve God forever!".[4] After the death of his wife, he "took the tonsure and habit of the canons" and on his death in 1147, was buried in the Priory, near the choir.[4] His descendants, the Earls of Salisbury remained closely connected with the priory for many years.[1] In 1190 thirteen of the monks migrated to Cartmel Priory, Cumbria, which had been recently established by William Marshal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradenstoke_Priory

Children:

Sir Patrick of Salisbury, Knight, 1st Earl of Salisbury was born in 1117-1122 in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England; died on 27 Mar 1168 in Poitiers, France; was buried in St. Hilaire Abbey, Poitiers, Vienne, France.
5565. Sibyl of Salisbury was born on 27 Nov 1126; died in 0___ 1176 in Old Sarum (Salisbury), Wiltshire, England.

11132.

Notes:

Gilbert fitz Gilbert de Clare (c.?1100 – 6 January 1148), was created Earl of Pembroke in 1138. He was commonly known as Strongbow.[a]

Life

Born at Tonbridge, Gilbert de Clare was a son of Gilbert Fitz Richard de Clare and Alice de Claremont.[1] He started out without land and wealth of his own but was closely related to very powerful men, specifically his uncles Walter de Clare and Roger de Clare.[2]

In 1136 Gilbert fitz Gilbert led an expedition against Exmes and burned parts of the town, including the church of Notre Dame, but was interrupted by the forces of William III, Count of Ponthieu and escaped the resulting melee only after suffering heavy losses.[3] Gilbert was a Baron, that is, a tenant-in-chief in England, and inherited the estates of his paternal uncles, Roger and Walter, which included the baronies and castles of Bienfaite and Orbec in Normandy. He held the lordship of Nether Gwent and the castle of Striguil (later Chepstow). King Stephen created him Earl of Pembroke, and gave him the rape and castle of Pevensey.

After Stephen's defeat at Lincoln on 2 February 1141, Gilbert was among those who rallied to Empress Matilda when she recovered London in June, but he was at Canterbury when Stephen was recrowned late in 1141.[4] He then joined Geoffrey's plot against Stephen, but when that conspiracy collapsed, he again adhered to Stephen, being with him at the siege of Oxford late in 1142. In 1147 he rebelled when Stephen refused to give him the castles surrendered by his nephew Gilbert, 2nd Earl of Hertford, whereupon the King marched to his nearest castle and nearly captured him. However, the Earl appears to have made his peace with Stephen before his death the following year.[5]

Family

He married Isabel de Beaumont, before 1130, daughter of Sir Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester, Count of Meulan, and Elizabeth de Vermandois.[6] Isabel had previously been the mistress of King Henry I of England.[7]

By her Gilbert had:

Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke[b][8]
Basilia, who married (1) Raymond FitzGerald (Raymond le Gros) and (2) Geoffrey FitzRobert.[9]
a daughter who married William Bloet.[10]

end of biography

11133.

Children:

5566. Sir Richard de Clare, Knight, 2nd Earl Pembroke was born in 1125 in Tonbridge, Kent, England; died on 20 Apr 1176 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland.

11134.

Dermot Dairmait Mac Murchada, King of Leinster was born in 1110 in Dublin, Ireland (son of Donnchad Enna Mac Murchada and Orlaith Ingen O'Brien, Queen of Leinster); died on 1 May 1171 in Ireland.

Notes:

Dermot Dairmait Mac MURCHADA (King of Leinster)Print Family Tree(Dermot Dairmait Mac MURCHADA)

Born in 1110 - Dublin, Ireland
Deceased 1 May 1171 - Ireland , age at death: 61 years old

Parents
Donnchad Enna Mac MURCHADA, born in 1085 - Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, Deceased 8 December 1115 - Wexford, Ireland age at death: 30 years old
Married to
Orlaith Ingen (Queen of Leinster) O'BRIEN, born in 1080 - Dublin, Ireland, Deceased in 1113 - Dublin, Ireland age at death: 33 years old

Spouses, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren
Married in 1140, Wexford, Ireland, to Mor Tauthail Moringen Murchertaig (Queen of Ireland) O'TOOLE, born in 1114 - Wexford, Ireland, Deceased 1 May 1191 - Wexford, Ireland age at death: 77 years old (Parents : M Mouirchertach (King of Ui Muiredaig) O'TOOLE 1089-1164 & F Cacht Ingen (Princess of Loigsig, Queen of Muiredaig O'Toole) O'MORDA 1094-1149) with
F Eva Aoife Mac (Countess Pembroke) MURCHADA 1141-1188 married 26 August 1171, Waterford, Waterford, Ireland, to Richard (Strongbow) De ( 2nd Earl Pembroke, Lord Marshall) CLARE 1125-1176 with
M Richard III De (SIR) CLARE, MAGNA CARTA BARON ca 1153-1217 married in 1180, England, to Amicie De CAEN 1160-1225 with :
F Matilda De CLARE 1175-1213
M Gilbert III De (Earl of Gloucester - Hertford) CLARE, MAGNA CARTA BARON ca 1180-1230
F Maud Matilda De CLARE 1184-1213
F Isabel De CLARE 1172-1217 married in August 1189, London, England, to William (SIR - Knight Templar)(Earl Pembroke) MARSHALL 1146-1219 with :
F Maud (Countess of Norfolk Countess of Surrey) MARSHALL 1192-1248
F Eve (Baroness of Abergavenny) MARSHALL 1194-1246
M Gilbert MARSHALL 1196-1241
M William (4th Earl of Pembroke/ChiefJusticar of Ireland) MARSHALL 1198-1231
F Isabel (Fitzgilbert) (Countess MARSHALL) MARSHALL 1200-1239
F Sibyl MARSHALL ca 1201-1245
F Joane MARSHALL 1202-1234
F Joan De ( Baroness of Gamage) CLARE 1175-1222/ married in 1196, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, to Godfrey De (Sir) ( Lord of Gamage) GAMAGE 1176-1253 with :
M Payne De GAMAGE 1211-
F Elizabeth GAMAGE 1222-1272
F Urlachen Mac MURCHADA 1154-1200 married in 1171 to Domnall Mor (Ua) (King of Leinster) O'BRIEN 1137-1194 with
F Mor O'BRIEN 1172-1218 married in 1185, Ireland, to William De (Lord of Connaught) BURGH 1158-1204 with :
M Richard Mor "The Great", De (1st Earl of Ulster) BURGH 1202-1242
M Domnall Cairbreach (King of Munster) O'BRIEN 1175-1242 married in 1194 to Sabia O'KENNEDY 1177- with :
M Connor Conchobar Suidaine (King of Thormond) O'BRIEN 1195-1258

Paternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M Murchad Macdairmata MURCHADA 1032-1070 married
F Sadb Ingen Mac BRICC 1020-1070
M Donnchad Enna Mac MURCHADA 1085-1115
married
1 child

Maternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M Gilla Michil O'BRIEN 1055-1068 married
F Iuchdelb Hui GARBITA 1062-
F Orlaith Ingen (Queen of Leinster) O'BRIEN 1080-1113
married
1 child

Notes
Individual Note
Source: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Irish Landed Gentry - Ancestry.com - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2002.Original data - O'Hart, John. Irish Landed Gentry When Cromwell Came to Ireland. Dublin, Ireland: James Duffy and Sons, 1887.Original data: O'Hart, John. Irish Landed Gentry When Crom - 1,6308::0
http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=uki1-irish-landed_gnty&h=170&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt 1,6308::170
Source: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2003.Original data - Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Heritage Consulting.Original data: Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: - 1,7249::0
http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=millind&h=105913193&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt Birth date: 1100 Birth place: Leinster, Ireland Death date: 1 May 1171 Death place: Ferns, Wexford, Ire, Ireland 1,7249::105913193
Source: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Dictionary of National Biography, Volumes 1-20, 22 - Ancestry.com - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. This collection was indexed by Ancestry World Archives Project contributors.Original data - Stephen, Sir Leslie, ed. Dictionary of National Biography, 1921–1922. London, England: Oxf - 1,1981::0
http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=dictnatbiogv1&h=34636&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt Birth date: 1110 Birth place: Death date: 1171 Death place: Ferns 1,1981::34636

Sources
Individual:
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=10182
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=10182
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=10182
Birth, death:
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2003.Original data - Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Heritage Consulting.Original data: Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: - 1,7249::0
Note http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=millind&h=105913193&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt - Birth date: 1100 Birth place: Leinster, Ireland Death date: 1 May 1171 Death place: Ferns, Wexford, Ire, Ireland - 1,7249::105913193
- Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Dictionary of National Biography, Volumes 1-20, 22 - Ancestry.com - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. This collection was indexed by Ancestry World Archives Project contributors.Original data - Stephen, Sir Leslie, ed. Dictionary of National Biography, 1921–1922. London, England: Oxf - 1,1981::0
Note http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=dictnatbiogv1&h=34636&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt - Birth date: 1110 Birth place: Death date: 1171 Death place: Ferns - 1,1981::34636

Family Tree Preview
Ancestry Chart Descendancy Chart Printable Family Tree
_____| 16_ Donnchad Mâael Na Mbâo (O'CHEINNSELAIG) MURCHADA ca 960-1006
_____| 8_ Diarmait Macmail Na Mbo (177th High King of Ireland) MURCHADA 974-1072
_____| 4_ Murchad Macdairmata MURCHADA 1032-1070
/ \ _____| 18_ Donnchad (King of MUNSTER) O'BRIEN 982/-1064
|2_ Donnchad Enna Mac MURCHADA 1085-1115
| \ _____| 20_ Brecc (Na Dessi) Mac BRICC 950-1051
| \ _____| 10_ Muirchertach Mac BRICC 1005-1051
| \
|--1_ Dermot Dairmait Mac (King of Leinster) MURCHADA 1110-1171
| _____| 12_ Echmarcach O'BRIEN 1009-
| /
| _____| 6_ Gilla Michil O'BRIEN 1055-1068
| / \
|3_ Orlaith Ingen (Queen of Leinster) O'BRIEN 1080-1113
\
\ _____| 14_ Cearnachan GAIRBITA 1040-
\ /
\

end of report

11135.

Mor Tauthail Moringen Murchertaig O'Toole, Queen of Ireland was born in 1114 in Wexford, Ireland; died on 1 May 1191 in Wexford, Ireland.

Children:

5567. Lady Eva Aoife Mac Murchada, Countess Pembroke was born on 26 Apr 1141 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland; died in 0___ 1188 in Waterford, Ireland; was buried in Tintern, Monmouthshire, Wales.
Orlacan Nâi Murchada was born in 1154 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland; died in 1200 in Ireland.

89216.

SIr Robert de Brus, 1st Lord of Annandale was born in ~1070 (son of Robert Brus and Agnes St. Clair); died on 11 May 1142 in Yorkshire, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Scotland
Alt Birth: ~1093, Durham, England

Notes:

Robert I de Brus, 1st Lord of Annandale (c.?1070 – 1142) was an early 12th century Anglo-Norman baron and knight, the first of the Bruce dynasty to hold lands in Scotland. A monastic patron, he is remembered as the founder of Gisborough Priory in Yorkshire, in present-day Redcar and Cleveland, in 1119.[1]

Biography

Robert is given by some Victorian historians as a son of Adam de Brus, by his spouse Emma de Ramsay.[2][3]

Cockayne states that the family name is derived from Bruis, now Brix, in the arrondissement of Valognes.[4] Some modern historians contend that the name may have come from Brix, Manche, near Cherbourg in the Cotentin Peninsula, and that they came to England after King Henry I of England's conquest of Normandy (i.e.: at the same time as Alan fitz Flaad, the FitzAlan ancestor of the Stuart Royal Family, nowithstanding that they were Bretons).

What is known clearly is that this Robert de Brus is first mentioned during the period 1094 and 1100, as a witness to a charter of Hugh, Earl of Chester, granting the church of Flamborough, Yorkshire, to the church of Whitby. Possibly the Earl of Chester about 1100–1104 enfeoffed Robert of certain portions of his Cleveland fee in Lofthouse, Upleatham, Barwick, Ingleby, and other places. Between 1103–1106 Robert de Brus attested with Ralph de Paynel and 16 others a charter of William, Count of Mortain, to the abbey of Marmoutier. In 1109 at a Council of all England held at Nottingham, he attested the charter of King Henry 1st confirming to the church of Durham certain possessions which the men of Northumberland had claimed. During the period 1109–1114 he appears in early charters in possession of numerous other manors and lands in Yorkshire, and in the same period he attested a charter of Henry 1st issued at Woodstock, Oxfordshire. He appears in the Lindsey Survey made 1115–1118 in possession of even further lands. There is a strong presumption that King Henry 1st had given Robert his Yorkshire fee soon after the battle of Tinchebrai (28 September 1106). Robert was present at the great gathering of northern magnates at Durham in 1121, and sometime during the period 1124–1130 he was with the King at Brampton. About 1131 Robert de Brus was in the retinue of Henry 1st at Lions, in Eure. About the same time he attested with three of his personal knights a confirmation with Alan de Percy to the monks of Whitby.[5] It is said that Robert had been given some 80 manors in Yorkshire by King Henry. It is evident that Robert kept up his connexions with other Normans too. A member of the Feugeres family, of Feugeres, Calvados, arr.Bayeux, canton of Isigny, witnessed charters of this Robert de Brus circa 1135 in Yorkshire.[6]

Scotland

The friendship between Robert de Brus and David FitzMalcolm (after 1124 King David I of Scotland), who was present in France with King Henry and was granted much of the Cotentin Peninsula, may have commenced at least as early as 1120, at Henry's Court.[7] When David became king, he settled upon his military companion and friend the Lordship of Annandale, in 1124,[8] There is, however, scant evidence that this Robert ever took up residence on his Scottish estates.

After the death of King Henry, David refused to recognise Henry's successor, King Stephen. Instead David supported the claim of his niece and Stephen's cousin, Empress Matilda, to the English throne and taking advantage of the chaos in England due to the disputed succession there, he took the chance to realise his son's claim to Northumberland. These actions Robert de Brus of Annandale could not countenance and as a result he and King David parted company, with Robert bitterly renouncing his homage to David before taking the English side at the Battle of the Standard in 1138.[9] Before the battle, Robert had made an impassioned plea to David, calling to his remembrance how he and other Normans had by their influence in Scotland, as far back as 1107, obliged King Alexander to give a part of the Scottish Kingdom to his brother David. The appeal was in vain. Robert, and his eldest son Adam, joined the English army, while his younger son, Robert, with an eye on his Scottish inheritance, fought for David.[10]

Marriage

Robert is said to have married twice: (1) Agnes, daughter of Geoffrey Bainard, Sheriff of York and (2) Agnes, daughter and heiress of Fulk de Paynel of Carleton, North Yorkshire.[11][12] Farrer mentions both marriages and in particular points out that the superior of Carleton Manor was de Brus, and that Paynel held it of him.

It is unclear by which spouse his sons were but authorities usually give her as Agnes de Paynel.

Adam de Brus (1), eldest son and heir upon whom devolved, under feudal law, all the English estates.[13] he only survived his father by 12 months, having married Jueta, daughter and heiress of William de Arches. She outlived her husband by decades, dying just after 1202.[14]
Robert de Brus, the younger son, upon whom his father had settled the Scottish Lordship of Annandale, plus several wheat-producing ploughates at Skelton, Yorkshire, in his lifetime.[15]

Footnotes

Jump up ^ Sherlock, Stephen. "Gisborough Priory: Information for Teachers" English Heritage. 2001. 1 Oct 2008.
Jump up ^ Northcliffe of Langton, Charles B., M.A, editor, The Visitation of Yorkshire, 1563/4 taken by William Flower, Norroy King of Arms, London, 1881, p.40.
Jump up ^ Burke, Messrs., John & John Bernard, The Royal Families of England, Scotland, and Wales, with their Descendants, etc., London, 1848: vol.1, pedigree XXXIV.
Jump up ^ Cockayne, G.E., edited by the Hon. Vicary Gibbs, The Complete Peerage, vol.ii, London, 1912, p.358n.
Jump up ^ Farrer, William, D.Litt., editor, Early Yorkshire Charters. vol.ii, Edinburgh 1915, p.11.
Jump up ^ Loyd, Lewis C., Barrister-at-law, edited by Charles Travis Clay & David C. Douglas, The Origins of some Anglo-Norman Families, Harleian Society, Leeds, UK, 1951; reprinted Baltimore, Md., 1999 edition, p.43.
Jump up ^ Farrer, 1915, p.11.
Jump up ^ Donaldson, Gordon, Scottish Historical Documents, Edinburgh, 1970: 19, "David by the grace of God King of Scots, to all his barons, men, and friends, French and English, greeting. Know ye that I have given and granted to Robert de Brus Estrahanent (i.e: Annandale) and all the land from the boundary of Randolph Meschin; and I will and grant that he should hold and have that land and its castle well and honourably with all its customs," &c. This is a new charter and not a reconfirmation." ISBN 0-7011-1604-8
Jump up ^ Burton, John Hill, The History of Scotland, New revised edition, Edinburgh, 1876, vol.1, p.437
Jump up ^ Farrer, 1915, p.11-12.
Jump up ^ Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, 1904 (online version available) Duncan, ODNB
Jump up ^ Burke (1883) p.80
Jump up ^ Ritchie, R. L. Graeme, The Normans in Scotland, Edinburgh University Press, 1954, p.278.
Jump up ^ Farrer, 1915, p.12.
Jump up ^ Ritchie, 1954, p.278.

References

Duncan, A.A.M., 'de Brus, Robert (I), Lord of Annandale (d. 1142)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/3748. Retrieved 28 October 2008.
Oram, Richard, David: The King Who Made Scotland, (Gloucestershire, 2004)

end of this biography

Sir Robert "1st Lord of Annandale, Lord of Cleveland in Yorkshire" de Brus formerly Brus aka Bruce
Born about 1093 in Durham, England
HIDE ANCESTORS
Son of Robert (Brus) de Brus [uncertain] and Agnes (St Clair) de Braose [uncertain]
Brother of Adam (Brus) de Brus, Agatha or Alice (Bruce) Basset, Philip (Braose) de Braose [half], Unknown (Braose) de Harcourt [half], John (Braiose) de Braose [half], Philena (Braiose) de Braose [half] and Hortense (Bruce) de Braose [half]
Husband of Agnes Bainard — married [date unknown] [location unknown]
Husband of Agnes (Pagnel) de Brus — married about 1112 [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Father of Adam (Brus) de Brus, Agatha (Brus) de Taillebois and Robert (Brus) de Brus
Died 11 May 1142 in Yorkshire, England
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Biography

Brus [Bruce], Robert (I) de, lord of Annandale (d. 1142), baron and soldier, has been said without authority to be the son of a Robert (sometimes Adam) de Brus, who was alleged to have fought at Hastings.

The subject of this memoir came from Brix, south of Cherbourg, where he was an ally of Henry I, whose conquest of Normandy he presumably supported.

Perhaps soon after the battle of Tinchebrai (September 1106) Henry gave him some eighty Yorkshire manors, chiefly in Claro wapentake, then a further thirteen manors around Skelton, formerly of the count of Mortain, and c.1119 Hart and Hartness in co. Durham.

Brus's importance is shown by the addition, between 1114 and 1119, of the first of these holdings to the Yorkshire Domesday, while the second, the lordship of Skelton, formed one of a series of castellanies whereby Norman control of northern England was consolidated.

He attested several charters of Henry I, especially after 1106, and was with him at Lyons la Forãet in 1129, and at Woodstock (with David I also) at Easter 1130. But he undoubtedly spent much time in the north, where, for example, he was at a gathering of magnates at Durham in 1121, when the monks of Durham and St Albans fell out over Tynemouth."[1]

Marriage

m. Agnes UNKNOWN; or UKNOWN.
Prior to Blakely's doctoral theses in 2000, it was alleged that Agnes may have been a Paynell, or a Bainard. The latter theory was outright rejected by its originator, Farrer. And the former hinges on speculation surrounding a grant from a Yorkshire sheriff named, George Bainard.[2]

It's also the case that Robert's wife was not dubbed "Agnes," until the 13th century.[2]

Old Notes

Lord Robert was married twice.
(disputed) FMG suggests he first married Agnes Paynell, daughter to Fulk Paynell and his wife Beatrix ?. By this first marriage Robert had a son, Adam. According to FMG this Agnes died late in 1155.[3]
FMG mistakenly suggests Robert's second marriage was to another Agnes but this makes little sense as Agnes Paynell outlived him, dying in 1155. FMG names Robert as a second son.[3]
Wikipedia contributers switches the order of Robert's spouses and named Agnes Paynell as his second wife. They further switch the birth order to suggest Robert is likely the elder son which makes sense as he inherited his father's lands and title as Lord of Annandale. His other son, Adam de Brus, became Lord of Skelton.
FMG suggests Robert had a daughter, Agatha, but it is not known if she was from his first marriage or his second.[3]

Religion

c.1119: founded Augustinian priory of Guisborough in North Riding, Yorkshire, endowing it with some 30 carucates of land; first prior was his brother, William.[1]
gave church of Querqueville to St Mary's York for souls of Earl David (as he then was) and his parents.[1]
Burial
Believed to have beEn buried in Gisborough Priory, which he founded and which successive Brus family generations used for burials. Gisborough is located in Guisborough (each has different spelling), a modern borough of Redcar and Cleveland in North Yorkshire.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_de_Brus,_1st_Lord_of_Annandale
Blakely, R.M. (2000). The Brus Family in England and Scotland 1100 - c.1290, (pp.26-27). Durham Theses. Durham University. PDF.
Cawley, C. (2006). Medieval Lands v.3. Foundation for Medieval Genealogy. fmg.ac
Geneajourney.com
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB)
? 1.0 1.1 1.2 ODNB
? 2.0 2.1 Blakley, 2000
? 3.0 3.1 3.2 Cawley, 2006

end of this biography

Robert married Agnes de Paynel in ~1112. Agnes (daughter of Fulk de Paynel and Beatrice FitzWilliam) was born in ~1095 in Warwickshire, England; died in 1170 in Skelton, Yorkshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

89217.

Agnes de Paynel was born in ~1095 in Warwickshire, England (daughter of Fulk de Paynel and Beatrice FitzWilliam); died in 1170 in Skelton, Yorkshire, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Carleton, North Yorkshire, England

Notes:

Agnes de Brus formerly Pagnel aka de Paganel, de Paynell, Bruce
Born about 1095 in Warwickshire, England
ANCESTORS ancestors
Daughter of Fulk (Paynel) de Paynel [uncertain] and Beatrice (FitzWilliam) de Paganell [uncertain]
Sister of Ralph (Paynel) de Paganel and William (Paynell) de Paynell
Wife of Robert (Brus) de Brus — married about 1112 [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Mother of Adam (Brus) de Brus and Robert (Brus) de Brus
Died 1170 in Skelton, Yorkshire, , England
Profile managers: Katherine Patterson private message [send private message] and Ted Williams private message [send private message]
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Disputed Origins

"Little is known about the wife of the first Robert de Brus except that her name was Agnes, that she was linked with her husband in his grants to foundations at Guisborough, York and Whitby, and that she made a gift to Guisborough priory in her own right, of the manor of Carlton by Camblesforth.

This last grant has given rise to the theory that Agnes was the daughter of a Paynel, an idea which Farrer rightly rejected. Although Carlton was soke of the Paynel manor of Drax, it had been held by the king in 1086, formed part of the original Brus fief and was later held by Paynel of Brus not the other way round. It is therefore more likely that Carlton had been gifted to Agnes by her husband as part of her dower."[1]

Sources

Blakely, R.M. (2000). The Brus Family in England and Scotland 1100 - c.1290, (pp.26-27). Durham Theses. Durham University. PDF.

? Blakely, 2000

Children:

44608. Sir Robert de Brus, 2nd Lord of Annandale was born in ~1138 in (Annan) Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland; died in 1189-1194; was buried in Gisborough Priory, Cleveland, Yorkshire, England.
Sir Adam Brus, Lord of Skelton was born in ~1113 in Durham, England; died in 1143 in Gisborough, Yorkshire, England.

89218. Sir Adam de Crosebi
Adam married unnamed spouse. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]
89219.
unnamed spouse
Children:

44609. Euphemia de Crosebi was born in (Aumale, France).

22200.

Notes:

David I or Dauâid mac Maâil Choluim (Modern: Daibhidh I mac [Mhaoil] Chaluim;[1] c. 1085 – 24 May 1153) was a 12th-century ruler who was Prince of the Cumbrians (1113–1124) and later King of the Scots (1124–1153). The youngest son of Mâael Coluim III (Malcolm III) and Margaret of Wessex, David spent most of his childhood in Scotland, but was exiled to England temporarily in 1093. Perhaps after 1100, he became a dependent at the court of King Henry I. There he was influenced by the Norman and Anglo-French culture of the court.

When David's brother Alexander I of Scotland died in 1124, David chose, with the backing of Henry I, to take the Kingdom of Scotland (Alba) for himself. He was forced to engage in warfare against his rival and nephew, Mâael Coluim mac Alaxandair. Subduing the latter seems to have taken David ten years, a struggle that involved the destruction of Óengus, Mormaer of Moray. David's victory allowed expansion of control over more distant regions theoretically part of his Kingdom. After the death of his former patron Henry I, David supported the claims of Henry's daughter and his own niece, the former Empress-consort, Matilda, to the throne of England. In the process, he came into conflict with King Stephen and was able to expand his power in northern England, despite his defeat at the Battle of the Standard in 1138.

The term "Davidian Revolution" is used by many scholars to summarise the changes which took place in Scotland during his reign. These included his foundation of burghs and regional markets, implementation of the ideals of Gregorian Reform, foundation of monasteries, Normanisation of the Scottish government, and the introduction of feudalism through immigrant French and Anglo-French knights.

Read more ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_I_of_Scotland

22201.

Notes:

Maud or Matilda (c.1074—1130/31) was the queen consort of King David I of Scotland. She was the great-niece of William the Conqueror and the granddaughter of Earl Siward.

Biography

Maud was the daughter of the Waltheof, the Anglo-Saxon Earl of Huntingdon and Northampton, and his Norman wife Judith of Lens. Her father was the last of the major Anglo-Saxon earls to remain powerful after the Norman conquest of England in 1066, and the son of Siward, Earl of Northumbria. Her mother was the niece of William the Conqueror.

She was married to Simon de Senlis (or St Liz) in about 1090.[1] Earlier, William had tried to get Maud's mother, Judith, to marry Simon. He received the honour of Huntingdon (whose lands stretched across much of eastern England) probably in right of his wife from William Rufus before the end of the year 1090.[2][3]

She had three known children by him:[2]

Matilda of St Liz (Maud) (d. 1140); she married Robert Fitz Richard of Tonbridge; she married secondly Saer De Quincy.
Simon of St Liz (d. 1153)
Saint Waltheof of Melrose (c.1100 – 1159/60)
Her first husband died some time after 1111 and Maud next married David, the brother-in-law of Henry I of England, in 1113.[1][3] Through the marriage, David gained control over his wife's vast estates in England, in addition to his own lands in Cumbria and Strathclyde.[3] They had four children (two sons and two daughters):[1]

Malcolm (born in 1113 or later, died young)
Henry (c.1114 – 1152)
Claricia (died unmarried)
Hodierna (died young and unmarried)
In 1124, David became King of Scots. Maud's two sons by different fathers, Simon and Henry, would later vie for the Earldom of Huntingdon.[3]

She died in 1130 or 1131 and was buried at Scone Abbey in Perthshire, but she appears in a charter of dubious origin dated 1147.[1]

Depictions in fiction

Maud of Huntingdon appears as a character in Elizabeth Chadwick's novel The Winter Mantle (2003), as well as Alan Moore's novel Voice of the Fire (1995) and Nigel Tranter's novel David the Prince (1980).

References

^ Jump up to: a b c d Weir, Alison (1995). Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy, Revised Edition. London: Random House. ISBN 0-7126-7448-9. p. 192
^ Jump up to: a b Matthew Strickland, "Senlis, Simon (I) de", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/25091
^ Jump up to: a b c d G. W. S. Barrow, "David I (c.1085–1153)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2006 ; Maud (d. 1131): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/49353

Buried:
Scone Abbey (originally Scone Priory) was a house of Augustinian canons located in Scone, Perthshire (Gowrie), Scotland. Dates given for the establishment of Scone Priory have ranged from 1114 A.D. to 1122 A.D. However, historians have long believed that Scone was before that time the center of the early medieval Christian cult of the Culdees (Câeli Dâe in medieval Irish meaning "Companions of God"). Very little is known about the Culdees but it is thought that a cult may have been worshiping at Scone from as early as 700 A.D. Archaeological surveys taken in 2007 suggest that Scone was a site of real significance even prior to 841 A.D., when Kenneth MacAlpin brought the Stone of Destiny, Scotland's most prized relic and coronation stone, to Scone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scone_Abbey

Children:

11100. Henry of Scotland was born in 1114 in (Scotland); died on 12 Jun 1152; was buried in Kelso Abbey, Scotland.

22204.

Notes:

Ranulf II (also known as Ranulf de Gernon) (1099–1153) was an Anglo-Norman potentate who inherited the honour of the palatine county of Chester upon the death of his father Ranulf le Meschin, 3rd Earl of Chester. He was descended from the Counts of Bessin in Normandy.

In 1136 David I of Scotland invaded England as far as Durham but was forced by Stephen of England to negotiate treaties that involved granting Ranulf's lands to Scotland. Ranulf allied himself to Matilda to further his cause. He took Lincoln Castle in 1141, which was retaken by Stephen in a siege in which Ranulf was forced to flee for his life. Ranulf enlisted the help of Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester to retake the castle and succeeded when King Stephen surrendered to him at Lincoln. While Matilda ruled England, Stephen's queen Matilda of Boulogne managed to defeat Ranulf and his allies at Winchester, which eventually resulted in Stephen being able to resume the throne.

Biography

Early life

Ranulf was born in Normandy at the Chãateau Guernon, around 1100. He was the son of Ranulf le Meschin, 3rd Earl of Chester and Lucy of Bolingbroke, who were both significant landowners with considerable autonomy within the county palatine. His father had begun a new lineage of the earldom of Chester. Ranulf married Maud, daughter of Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester and inherited the earldom in 1128. Three years later he founded an abbey in North Wales, colonised by monks from the Norman Congregation of Savigny.

Loss of northern lands to Scotland

In late January 1136, during the first months of the reign of Stephen of England, his northern neighbour David I of Scotland crossed the border into England. He took Carlisle, Wark, Alnwick, Norham and Newcastle upon Tyne and struck towards Durham. On 5 February 1136, Stephen reached Durham with a large force of mercenaries from Flanders and forced David to negotiate a treaty by which the Scots were granted the towns of Carlisle and Doncaster, for the return of Wark, Alnwick, Norham and Newcastle.

Lost from England to Scotland along with Carlisle was much of Cumberland and the honour of Lancaster, lands that belonged to Earl Ranulf's father and had been surrendered by agreement to Henry I of England in return for the Earldom of Chester. Ranulf claimed that his father had at that time been disinherited. When he heard of the concessions made to the Scottish King, Ranulf left Stephen's court in a rage.

In the second Treaty of Durham (1139), Stephen was even more generous to David, granting the Earldom of Northumbria (Carlisle, Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire north of the Ribble) to his son Prince Henry. Ranulf was prepared to revolt in order to win back his lordship of the north.

Capture of Lincoln

Main article: Battle of Lincoln (1141)
By this time Matilda, named as the future Queen by her father Henry I, had gathered enough strength to contest Stephen's usurpation, supported by her husband Geoffrey of Anjou and her half-brother Robert of Gloucester. Prince Henry was to attend the English court that Michaelmas and Ranulf planned to overwhelm him on his return to Scotland. Stephen’s queen Matilda of Boulogne heard about the plot and persuaded Stephen to escort Henry back to Scotland. Ranulf then used subterfuge to seize Lincoln Castle. He and his half-brother William de Roumare sent their wives to visit the constable’s wife there and then arrived (dressed in ordinary clothes and escorted by three knights), apparently to fetch the ladies. They then seized the weapons in the castle, admitted their own men and ejected the royal garrison.[2]

Stephen eventually made a pact with the Ranulf and his half-brother and left Lincolnshire, returning to London before Christmas 1140, after making William de Roumare Earl of Lincoln and awarding Ranulf with administrative and military powers over Lincolnshire and the town and castle of Derby. The citizens of Lincoln sent Stephen a message complaining about the treatment they were receiving from Ranulf and asking the King to capture the brothers. The King immediately marched on Lincoln. One of his key pretexts was that according to the settlement, Lincoln Castle was to revert to royal ownership and that the half-brothers had reneged on this. He arrived on 6 January 1141 and found the place scantily garrisoned: the citizens of Lincoln admitted him into the city and he immediately laid siege to the castle, captured seventeen knights and began to batter down the garrison with his siege engines.

Ranulf managed to escape to his earldom, collect his Cheshire and Welsh retainers and appeal to his father-in-law Robert of Gloucester, whose daughter Maud was still besieged in Lincoln, possibly as a deliberate ploy to encourage her father's assistance. In return for Robert's aid, Ranulf agreed to promise fidelity to the Empress Matilda.

Lincoln castle
To Robert and the other supporters of the Empress this was good news, as Ranulf was a major magnate. Robert swiftly raised an army and set out for Lincoln, joining forces with Ranulf on the way. Stephen held a council of war at which his advisors counselled that he leave a force and depart to safety, but Stephen disregarded the odds and decided to fight, but was obliged to surrender to Robert. Ranulf took advantage of disarray amongst the king’s followers and in the weeks after the fighting managed to take the Earl of Richmond’s northern castles and capture him when he tried to ambush Ranulf. Richmond was put in chains and tortured until he submitted to Ranulf and did him homage.

Stephen had been effectively deposed and Matilda ruled in his place. In September 1141, Robert of Gloucester and Matilda besieged Winchester. The queen responded quickly and rushed to Winchester with her own army, commanded by the professional soldier William of Ypres. The queen’s forces surrounded the army of the empress, commanded by Robert, who was captured as a result of deciding to fight his way out of the situation. The magnates following the empress were forced to flee or be taken captive. Earl Ranulf managed to escape and fled back to Chester. Later that year Robert was exchanged for Stephen, who resumed the throne.

Defection to Stephen

In 1144 Stephen attacked Ranulf again by laying siege to Lincoln Castle. He made preparations for a long siege but abandoned the attempt when eighty of his men were killed whilst working on a siege tower that fell and knocked them into a trench, suffocating them all.

In 1145 (or early 1146) Ranulf switched allegiance from the Empress Matilda to Stephen. Since 1141 King David had been allied to Matilda, so Ranulf could now take up his quarrel with David of Scotland regarding his northern lands. It is probable that Ranulf's brother-in-law Phillip, (the son of Earl Robert), acted as an intermediary as Phillip had defected to the king. Ranulf came to Stephen at Stamford, repented his previous crimes and was restored to favour. He was allowed to retain Lincoln Castle until he could recover his Norman lands. Ranulf demonstrated his good will by helping Stephen to capture Bedford from Miles de Beauchamp and bringing 300 knights to the siege of Wallingford.

Stephen welcomed Ranulf’s support but some of the king's supporters, (especially William de Clerfeith, Gilbert de Gant, Alan, 1st Earl of Richmond, William Peverel the Younger, William d'Aubigny, 1st Earl of Arundel and John, Count of Eu), did not. Many of the magnates were alarmed when it was discovered that Ranulf wanted the king to take part in a campaign against the Welsh. Ranulf's opponents counselled the king that the earl might be planning treachery, since he had offered no hostages or security and could easily be ambushed in Wales. Stephen contrived a quarrel with Ranulf at Northampton, provoked by an advisor who told the earl that the king would not assist him unless he restored all the property he had taken and rendered hostages. The earl refused these terms. He was accused of treason and was arrested and imprisoned in chains until his friends succeeded in coming to terms with the King on 28 August 1146. It was then agreed that the earl should be released, provided he surrendered all the royal lands and castles he had seized (Lincoln included), gave hostages and took a solemn oath not to resist the king in future.

Ranulf, arrested in contravention of the oath which the king had sworn to him at Stamford, revolted as soon as he regained his liberty and "burst into a blind fury of rebellion, scarcely discriminating between friend or foe”. He came with his army to Lincoln to recover the city but failed to break into its north gate and his chief lieutenant was slain in the fighting. Ranulf also tried to recover the castle at Coventry, by building a counter castle. The King came with a relief force to Coventry and although wounded in the fighting, drove Ranulf off and seized his hostages, including his nephew Gilbert fitz Richard de Clare, Earl of Hertford, whom Stephen refused to release unless Gilbert surrendered his own castles. Gilbert, while agreeing to the condition, revolted as soon as he was at liberty. This action pushed the Clares into a conflict from which they had previously remained aloof.

Agreement with King David

In May 1149 the young Henry FitzEmpress met the king of Scotland and Ranulf at Carlisle, where Ranulf resolved his territorial disputes with Scotland and an agreement was reached to attack York. Stephen hurried north with a large force and his opponents dispersed before they could reach the city. The southern portion of the honour of Lancaster (the land between the Ribble and the Mersey) was conceded to Ranulf, who in return resigned his claim on Carlisle. Hence the Angevin cause secured the loyalty of Ranulf.

Henry, whilst trying to escape south after the aborted attack on York, was forced to avoid the ambushes of Eustace, King Stephen’s son. Ranulf assisted Henry, creating a diversion by attacking Lincoln, thus drawing Stephen to Lincoln and allowing Henry to escape.

Treaty with Robert, Earl of Leicester

The Earl’s territory in Leicestershire and Warwickshire brought him face to face with Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester, whose family (including his cousin Roger de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Warwick and his brother Waleran de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Worcester) controlled a large part of the south Midlands. The two earls concluded an elaborate treaty between 1149 and 1153. The Bishops of Chester and Leicester were both entrusted with pledges that were to be surrendered if either party infringed the agreement.

Death

In 1153 Henry — by then Stephen's accepted heir — granted Staffordshire to Ranulf. That year, whilst Ranulf was a guest at the house of William Peverel the Younger, his host attempted to kill him with poisoned wine. Three of his men who had drunk the wine died, while Ranulf suffered agonizing pain. A few months later Henry became king and exiled Peverel from England as punishment. Ranulf succumbed to the poison on 16 December 1153: his son Hugh inherited his lands as held in 1135 (when Stephen took the throne), while other honours bestowed upon Ranulf were revoked.[citation needed]

References

Jump up ^ Fox-Davies. Art of Heraldry. Quarterly Arms of Thomas Hussey. fig 261. Q 21.
Jump up ^ Ordericus Vitalis

Died:
Succumbed to poisoning...

22205.

Notes:

Maud of Gloucester, Countess of Chester (died 29 July 1189), also known as Matilda, was an Anglo-Norman noblewoman and the daughter of Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester, an illegitimate son of King Henry I of England and Mabel, daughter of Robert fitz Hamon.[1] Her husband was Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester (died Dec. 16, 1153).[2]

Family[edit]
Lady Maud FitzRobert was born on an unknown date, the daughter of Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester and Mabel FitzHamon of Gloucester. She had seven siblings including William Fitz Robert, 2nd Earl of Gloucester and Roger, Bishop of Worcester. She also had an illegitimate half-brother, Richard, Bishop of Bayeux, whom her father sired by Isabel de Douvres.

Her paternal grandparents were King Henry I of England and his mistress, Sybil Corbet. Her maternal grandparents were Robert FitzHamon, Lord of Gloucester and Glamorgan, and Sybil de Montgomery, daughter of Roger de Montgomery, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury and Mabel Talvas of Belleme.

Lincoln Castle where Maud was besieged by the forces of King Stephen in 1141

Marriage and issue

Sometime before 1141, possibly as early as 1135, Matilda married Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester, and was accorded the title of Countess of Chester. Her husband had considerable autonomy in his palatine earldom.

In January 1141, Earl Ranulf and Countess Matilda were at Lincoln Castle when it was besieged by the forces of King Stephen of England. The following month, a relief army loyal to Empress Matilda and led by her father Robert earl of Gloucester defeated and captured the king in the fierce fighting, later known as the First Battle of Lincoln. In return for his help in repelling the king's troops, the countess's father compelled her husband to swear fealty to Empress Matilda, who was Earl Robert's half-sister.

On August 29, 1146, Earl Ranulf was seized by King Stephen at court in Northampton. Stephen later granted him the castle and city of Lincoln sometime after 1151.[3]

Children

Hugh de Kevelioc, 5th Earl of Chester (1147- 30 June 1181), married Bertrade de Montfort of âEvreux, by whom he had five children, including Ranulf de Blondeville, 6th Earl of Chester, Maud of Chester, and Hawise of Chester, 1st Countess of Lincoln.
possibly Richard of Chester (died 1170/1175), buried in Coventry.
Beatrice of Chester, married Raoul de Malpas
possibly Ranulf of Chester, fought in the siege of Lisbon, granted the lordship of Azambuja by Afonso I of Portugal.
Ranulf had an illegitimate son, Robert FitzCount (died before 1166), by an unknown mistress. His date of birth was not recorded. Robert married Agnes fitz Neal as her second husband.

One account contains an unsubstantiated rumor that Countess Maud poisoned her husband with the assistance of William Peverel of Nottingham, but there is no evidence that she did so; Earl Ranulf confirmed her grant to one of her servants, probably on his deathbed.[4] She served as her minor son's guardian for nine years.

She was an important patron of Repton Priory in Derbyshire.[5] She also made grants to Belvoir Priory.

The Rotuli de Dominabus of 1185 records property Wadinton de feodo comitis Cestrie, held by Maud, Countess of Chester.[3] Although she was said to be about 50 years of age in that document, she was probably closer to 60 in that year.

Maud died on 29 July 1189, although the Annals of Tewkesbury records her death in 1190.[3]

References

Notes
Jump up ^ Complete Peerage, v. III, p. 167.
Jump up ^ Charles Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earls of Chester 1120-1232 (Family of Ranulf "le Meschin")
^ Jump up to: a b c Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earls of Chester 1120-1232 (Family of Ranulf "le Meschin")
Jump up ^ Susan Johns, "Wives and Widows of the Earls of Chester, 1100-1252", Haskins Soc. Journal (1995), p. 125.
Jump up ^ http://www.thePeerage,com/p.10472.htm#104718

Children:

11102. Sir Hugh de Kevelioc, Knight, 5th Earl of Chester was born in 0___ 1147 in Kevelioc, Monmouth, Wales; died on 30 Jun 1181 in Leek, Staffordshire, England.

22206.

Notes:

Simon (Simon III) "le Chauve, Comte d'âEvreux" de Montfort formerly Montfort
Born about 1123 in Montfort-sur-Ris, Eure, France
ANCESTORS ancestors
Son of Amauri (Montfort) de Montfort and Agnes (Garlande) de Montfort
Brother of Luciana (Montfort) Montlhâery [half], Amaury (Montfort) de Montfort and Agnes Elizabeth (Montfort) de Beaumont
Husband of Maud (Evreux) de Montfort — married 1148 in Montfort, L'Amauri, Ile-de-France, France
DESCENDANTS descendants
Father of Simon (Montfort) de Montfort, Amauri (Montfort) de Montfort and Bertrade (Montfort) de Montfort
Died about 12 Mar 1181 in Eure, Normandy, France

Profile managers: Darrell Parker private message [send private message] and Bjèorn Lohnert private message [send private message]
Profile last modified 5 Oct 2018 | Created 3 Apr 2011
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Categories: House of Montfort-l'Amaury.

European Aristocracy
Simon III (Montfort) de Montfort was a member of aristocracy in Europe.
Join: European Royals and Aristocrats Project
Discuss: EUROARISTO
Contents
[hide]
1 Biography
1.1 Marriage
2 Sources
2.1 Notes
3 Acknowledgments
Biography
"Simon de Monfort, Count of Evreux and Seigneur of Montfort, brother and heir [of Amauri] (a). Being a vassal both of the King of France and of the King of England (as Duke of Normandy), his postion was embarrassing when his two suzerains were at war in 1159. He adhered to England and handed over his castles at Rochefort, Montfort, and Epernon to Henry II, which forced Louis to make a truce by cutting his communications between Paris, Orleans, and Etampes. In 1173 Simon joined the revolt of the "young King", but was captured when the Count of Flanders took the castle of Aumale. In 1177 he attested the treaty of Ivry, and was with Henry II at Verneuil. He m. Maud, whose parentage is unknown. He d. 12 or 13 Mar 1180/1, and was buried in Evreux Cathedral. He left two sons, Amauri, who succeeded him as Count of Evreux in Normandy (b), and Simon, who succeeded him in the lordships of Montfort and Rochefort, also a daughter Bertrade (d).

"(a) He must have been a son of the second marriage of his father if his brother was. Moreover, Simon had Rochefort, which came through the second wife, and it was apparently from him that his sister Agnes received as dowry her mother's other lordship of Gournay-sur-Marne.

"(b) He m. Mabel, elder daughter and coheir of William, 2nd Earl of Gloucester. His son Amauri exchanged the Comte of Evreux for the Earldom of Gloucester, and dsp.

"(d) She m. Hugh, Earl of Chester.

"Note: Turton has Simon III and Simon IV de Montfort as one person with 2 wives." (Above is per Jim Weber on rootsweb.com)

Marriage
Husband: Simon de MONTFORT
Wife: Amicia Harcourt
Child: Almarie de MONTFORT
Child: Simon 'the Crusader' de MONTFORT
Child: Guy de MONTFORT
Child: Pernel de MONTFORT
Marriage:
Date: ABT 1169
Place: Of, LEI, England
Also had Amaury VI, Guido, Robert, Simon Earl of Leicester, 1206-1265, and dts.
Simon was born in 1128. Simon De Montfort ... He passed away in 1181. [1]

Do you have information about De Montfort? Please contribute to his biography. Everything on WikiTree is a collaborative work-in-progress.

Sources
? Entered by Terry Wright, Mar 1, 2013
Phillips, Weber, Kirk and Staggs Families of the Pacific Northwest, by Jim Weber, rootsweb.com
Source: S004330 Title: Millennium File Author: Heritage Consulting Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2003.Original data - Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Heritage Consulting.Original data: Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA Repository: Ancestry.com
Source: S2 Title: Pedigree Resource File CD 49 Abbreviation: Pedigree Resource File CD 49 Publication: (Salt Lake City, UT: Intellectual Reserve, Inc., 2002)
Notes
From http://www.geneajourney.com
d. Being a vassal of both the King of France and King of England, his position was uneasy when both were at war with each other in 1159. He adhered to England and handed over his castles of Rochefort, Montfort, and Epernon to Henry II, which forced Louis to make a truce. In 1173, Simon joined the revolt of the "young King", but was captured when the Count of Flanders took the castle of Aumale. In 1177 he attested the treaty of Ivry and was with Henry II at Verneuil. He married Maud, whose parentage is unknown, and they had two sons, Amauri and Simon, and a daughter, Bertrade.

end of profile

22207.

Lady Maud Evreux, Comtesse d'Evreux was born in 1129 in Normandie, France; died in 1169 in Leicestershire, England.

Children:

11103. Lady Bertrade de Montfort, Comtess d'Evreux was born in 1155 in Chester, Cheshire, England; died on 31 Mar 1227 in Evreux, Normandy, France.

44294.

Notes:

BIOGRAPHY

Donald Bane (Gaelic for the White or the Fair)

During the reign of his brother, Malcolm the Third, Donald lived a quiet life in the Hebrides. Malcolm intended for his son Edward to succeed him but when he died, Edward was in Northumbria, fighting.(the Battle of the Alnwick) Donald raised his own army when he heard of his brother's death and headed for Edinburgh, laying siege to the castle with Malcolm's other children inside. How they escaped isn't clear. They fled to England, to be sheltered by their uncle EDGAR THE ATHELING.

Donald began to reverse the reforms in religion and politics Malcolm had made. In 1094, Malcolm's son, Duncan led an army of GOSPATRICK'S Northumbrians and Normans, supplied by England's king WILLIAM RUFUS, northward. Eventually, Donald was forced back to his Hebrides stronghold. Duncan took the throne, only to face an uprising by the men of Mearns. He was killed at the Battle of Monthechin on the twelfth of November, 1094.

Donald was again king in Scotland. Being an old man of sixty odd years, and having no sons, he agreed to share power with his nephew Edmund, which displeased greatly Edmund's older brother Edgar. Edgar went to William Rufus and his uncle the Atheling with his grievances. There was some troublesome delay in raising another army, but Edgar finally went north. Donald was captured, blinded, and imprisoned October 1097. There's no explanation to why he wasn't executed at the time. He died in confinement in 1099. His co-king Edmund, deposed with him was allowed to become a monk at Montecute Abbey.

Wearing the crown of Scotland was a dangerous thing. But soon, the dark and bloody throne would become more stable. For a little while.

For more on Donald, read Andrew McDonald's Outlaws of Medieval Scotland, and Richard Oran's The Canmores; Kings and Queens of the Scots.

(written for wikitree by Catherine Evans)

Alias
Alias: Donaldbane
Alias: Domnall Ban
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_III_of_Scotland
http://www.theroyfamily.com/p44016.htm

end of this biography

Donald married Hextilda FitzAndlaw(Perthshire, Scotland). Hextilda was born in 1029 in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland; died on 16 Nov 1093 in (Rescobie, Angus) Scotland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44295.

Hextilda FitzAndlaw was born in 1029 in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland; died on 16 Nov 1093 in (Rescobie, Angus) Scotland.

Children:

22147. Bethoc Dunkeld was born in 1098 in Tynedale, Moray, Scotland; died in 1160 in Perth, Scotland.

96256.

Sir Guillaume d'Aubigny, Seigneur de Saint-Martin-d'Aubigny was born in ~1010 in Saint-Martin-d'Aubigny, Basse-Normandie, France; died in ~1068 in Le Plessis, Colombiers, Lower-Normandy, France.

Notes:

Guillaume d'Aubigny, seigneur de Saint-Martin-d'Aubigny
Also Known As: "William", "d'Albini"
Birthdate: 1010 (58)
Birthplace: Saint-Martin-d'Aubigny, Basse-Normandie, France
Death: 1068 (58)
Plessis, , Normandy, France
Immediate Family:
Son of Niel II (III) de Saint-Sauveur, vicomte de Cotentin and Adáele de Brionne, comtesse d'Eu
Husband of Adeliza FitzOsulf du Plessis, Heiress of Belvoir
Father of Hugues "Pincerna" Pincerna de Albini, [likely not son of Guillaume d'Aubigny]; Roger "Pincerna" d'Aubigny; Olivia d'Aubigny; Nigel d'Aubigny, of Cainhoe and Richard d'Aubigny, Abbot of St. Alban
Brother of Billeheude de Saint Sauveur; Mlle. de St. Sauveur; Emma de Saint Sauveur; Matilda de Saint Sauveur; Gerard de Saint Sauveur and 2 others
Occupation: Seigneur de Saint-Martin-d'Aubigny
Managed by: Pam Wilson
Last Updated: October 8, 2017

Adeliza FitzOsulf du Plessis, He...
wife

Hugues "Pincerna" Pincerna de Al...
son

Roger "Pincerna" d'Aubigny
son

Olivia d'Aubigny
daughter

Nigel d'Aubigny, of Cainhoe
son

Richard d'Aubigny, Abbot of St. ...
son

Niel II (III) de Saint-Sauveur, ...
father

Adáele de Brionne, comtesse d'Eu
mother

Billeheude de Saint Sauveur
sister

Mlle. de St. Sauveur
sister

Emma de Saint Sauveur
sister

Matilda de Saint Sauveur
sister
About Guillaume d'Aubigny, seigneur de Saint-Martin-d'Aubigny
William D'AUBIGNY

Born: ABT 1010, St. Martin d'Aubigny, Manche, Normandy, France

Died: ABT 1066

Notes: Aubigny, Alibini, etc., Earls of Arundel. Saint-Martin d'Aubigny: Manche, arr. Coutances, cant. Periers. The early history of the family will be found in The Complete Peerage, surname Mowbray, new ed., vol. ix, pp. 366-7. The details of their benefactions to the abbey of Lessay as confirmed by a charter of Henry II, 1185-1188, identify St-Martin d'Aubigny with the Aubigny which was the caput of their Norman honour; thus the "ecclesiam De Folgeriis" is Feugeres 2 1/2 kil. SE of Aubigny, the "feria Sancti Christofori" mentioned in conjunction with the "forum Albinneii" is St-Christophe-d'Aubigny, a parish now united to that of St-Martin, and "Marchesis" is Marchesieux, 5 kil. NE of Aubigny. There is no trace of a feudal castle at Aubigny itself, but Gerville found nearby at Le Mesnil-Vigot the remains of a considerable castle with a well-defined motte, then known as "le chateau De St-Clair".

Sources: The Origins of Some Anglo-Norman Families, by Lewis C Loyd, 1999

Page: 7. Title: Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, 106th Edition, Charles Mosley

Editor-in-Chief, 1999 Page: 2026

Father: Nigel De St. SAUVEUR

Mother: Adela D'EU

Married: Dau. De PLESSIS (sister of Grimald De Plessis) BEF 1048

Children:

1. Olivia D'AUBIGNY

2. Roger D'AUBIGNY

3. Aimee D'AUBIGNY

William Seigneur DE AUBIGNY

* Birth: 1015, Aubigny, Normandy, France
* Partnership with: Adeliza Belvoir DU PLESSIS
o Child: Roger DE AUBIGNY Birth: 1045, Normandy, France
Descendants of William Seigneur DE AUBIGNY

1 William Seigneur DE AUBIGNY

=Adeliza Belvoir DU PLESSIS
2 Roger DE AUBIGNY
=Adelina DE GRANDMESNIL
3 Nigel DE AUBIGNY
=Gundred DE GOURNAY
3 William DE AUBIGNY
=Maude BIGOT
SOURCES:

1. G.E.C.: Complete Peerage 9:366
Note:

!William d'Aubigny, Seigneur of Aubigny (subsequently Saint-Martind' Aubigny), Normandy; married by 1048 sister of Grimald de Plessis.[Burke's Peerage]
---------------------------------
Aubigny, Alibini, etc., Earls of Arundel
Saint-Martin d'Aubigny: Manche, arr. Coutances, cant. Periers.
The early history of the family will be found in The Complete Peerage, surname Mowbray, new ed., vol. ix, pp. 366-7. The details of their benefactions to the abbey of Lessay as confirmed by a charter of HenryII, 1185-1188, identify St-Martin d' Aubigny with the Aubigny which was the caput of their Norman honour; thus the "ecclesiam de Folgeriis" is Feugeres 2 1/2 kil. SE of Aubigny, the "feria Sancti Christofori" mentioned in conjunction with the "forum Albinneii" is St-Christophe- d'Aubigny, a parish now united to that of St-Martin, and "Marchesis" is Marchesieux, 5 kil. NE of Aubigny. There is no trace of a feudal castle at Aubigny itself, but Gerville found nearby at Le Mesnil-Vigot the remains of a considerable castle with a well-defined motte, then known as "le chateau de St-Clair". [Origins of SomeAnglo-Norman Families]
_____________________________________
!The following info was provided in a post-em by Curt Hofemann, curt_hofemann@yahoo.com:
A few more dribs & brabs:
Seigneur of Aubigny (Albiniacum) [Ref: CP IX:366, Holloway p20]
(in conjunction with son Roger) benefactor of the Abbey of Lessay [Ref: CP IX:366]
William d'Aubigny, first of the name, married the sister of Grimoult [Ref: McBride citing the Harleian Society, Vol 80, "Knights of Edward I" Vol 1 (A to E), with additions from Crispin and Macary, p6-7]
William d'Aubigny, of St. Martin d'Aubigny, who married the sister of Grimauld de Plessis, (some reconstructions make him older brother instead) [Ref: TAF 21 May 2002] Note: the village of Saint Martin d'Aubigny is 16 km. west of St-Lo and 15 km. north of Coutances, in Normandy. The other (unrelated) Aubigny/Albini line is from St. Aubin Aubignâe, a different town... Curt
married bef 1048: [Ref: Holloway p20], names: William D'AUBIGNEY & ___ PLESSIS [Ref: CP IX:366, Holloway p20]
Research note: As to the link to the Saint Sauvieur line, there is nothing to it - just a guess based on the names of William and Nigel occuring in both families. [Ref: TAF 21 May 2002] Would love to see an expansion/basis of this... Curt
!Note: Holloway = _The Genealogy of Mary Wentworth, Who Became the Wife of William Brewster_ by Naomi D. Holloway, LDS Film #1738313.

end of biography

D'Aubigny Genealogy

D'Aubigny
The D'Aubigny family came from the Norman village of Saint Martin d'Aubigny, 14 km. north of Coutances and 36 km. north west of Montbray. In medieval naming conventions, the surnames beginning with "DE" or "D'" are Latin for "OF." (Many surnames were derived from localities, with the DE being dropped as time went on. The most common form of this name today is "Albini.")
The D'Aubigny family has a proud heritage to Kings, Queens, and even United States Presidents like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Franklin Delano Roosevelt (who cherished his ancestry to this family).
The surname "D'Aubigny" was first found in Lincolnshire, where they were seated from very early times, and were granted lands by Duke William of Normandy, their liege Lord, for their distinguished assistance at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 A.D. They could have fought in the battle, or, more disappointingly, been butlers to William:
"I believe that it was the William, then Pincerna, and probably also Roger, his son, who were companions of the Conqueror in his expedition; Roger's eldest brother William being in disgrace in Normandy at the time, and not restored to favour, or allowed to enter England before the reign of Rufus, or it may have been Henry I."*
But it looks like they, fought, as well: Two D'Aubignys are included on the "Battle Abbey Rolls," which list the Norman combatants: GUILLAUME (WILLIAM) D'AUBIGNY and LE SIRE D'AUBIGNY (his son, ROGER). They list the commanders who accompanied William the Bastard of Falaise [later William I of England] at the Battle of Hastings. There are 375 commanders shown on the list, from a total force of about 5000 men. Subsequently, for their services, each commander was granted lordships of large areas of English countryside, albeit each being widely separated from another. To the victors went the spoils. (Various "copies" of these roll with considerable additions and thus differences exist.)
Our genealogy traces back to this butler named William (1015 - 1066), from whom the ancient Earls of Arundel descended. William married a woman named NN DE PLESSIS (b: 1024), "a sister of Grimoult du Plessis, the traitor of Valognes and Val-áes-Dunes, who died in his dungeon in 1047 (vol. i., pp. 25 and 31), and Wace may after all be right in styling him 'Le Botellier,'as it is probable that he held that office in the household of the Duke of Normandy)*
They had two sons (There may have been daughters, too, but in feudal times women, unless they were heiresses, were of small account; and often not recorded.) Anyway, William's two sons were:

CHILDREN OF WILLIAM D'AUBIGNY AND NN DE PLESSIS

NELE d'AUBIGNY, aka: NIGEL de ALBINI. Nigel's grants were in Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Warwickshire and Leicestershire. He was bow-bearer to the king in the reign of William II (Rufus) and was knighted by Henry I, who gave him the manor of Egmanton with parks in Sherwood Forest.
ROGER D'AUBIGNY (1040-1138), AKA: ROGER de ALBINI, married AMICE MOWBRAY or MONTBRAY (1055 - 1084). Children listed below.

Mowbray
Roger married a woman named AMICE MOWBRAY or MONTBRAY (1055 - 1084) She was also known as Amicie de Coutances, sister of Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances (according to Orderic Vital, he was "one of the bishops with attendant clerks and monks, whose duty it was to aid the war with their prayers and councils"). Amicia also had another brother, Roger de Montbray (Mowbray).
They were the children of ROGER MOWBRAY. The surname Mowbray stems from the small village of Montbray in Normandy. This lies about 10 km. north-east of the town of Villedieu-les-Poeles, which itself is 22 km northeast of Avranches on the bay of Mont Saint Michel. From this village came Geoffrey de Montbray who came to be Bishop of Coutances and accompanied Duke William of Normandy, their liege Lord, at the Conquest of England, after the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The Family Motto, translated: "Virtue stands by its own strength."
"By his wife, the sister of Grimoult (I have not yet lighted on her name), he had a son, the Roger d'Aubigny aforesaid, who married Amicia, or Avitia, sister of Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances, and of Roger de Montbrai, and is supposed by M. Le Prâevost to have been with his brothers-in-law in the battle."
Roger d'Aubigny, or De Albini, had issue by his wife Avitia de Montbrai, five sons:

CHILDREN OF ROGER D' AUBIGNY AND AMICE MOWBRAY

William, known as William de Albini "Pincerna" (i.e., Butler), ancestor of the Earls of Sussex, who married Maud, daughter of Roger le Bigod, and died 1139.
Richard, Abbot of St. Albans
Nigel, the third son, was heir of Robert de Montbrai, or Mowbray, his first cousin, whose wife he married during the lifetime of her husband by licence of Pope Paschal, and for some time treated her with respect out of regard for her noble parents; but on the death of her brother Gilbert de l'Aigle, having no issue by her, he craftily sought for a divorce on the ground of that very kinship which he exerted so much influence to induce the Pope to overlook, and then married Gundred, daughter of Gerrard de Gournay, by whom he had Roger, who assumed the name of Mowbray, and transmitted it to his descendants, Dukes of Norfolk and Earls Marshal of England; and Henri, ancestor of the line of Albini of Cainho."
Humphrey.
Ruafon, or Ralph.

Bigod
The D'Aubignys were granted lands by Duke William of Normandy, their liege Lord, for Roger's distinguished assistance at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 AD.

Roger's children, maternally from the house of Mowbray, came with the Conqueror and obtained large possessions of land. One of his sons was named WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY (1070 - 1139), born in Aubigny, Calvados, Normandy, France. He was a 'Pincerna', a butler to King William.
William D'Aubigni married MAUD BIGOD (b. 1080), daughter of ROGER BIGOD and ADELIZA DE GRENTMESNIL.
Here are their children:

CHILDREN OF WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY AND MAUD BIGOD

WILL IAM D'AUBIGNY "THE STRONGHAND," 1st Earl of Arundel (1102 - 3.10.1176) He married ADELAIDE DE LOUVAIN. Children listed below.
NIGEL D' AUBIGNY
OLIVER D' AUBIGNY.
OLIVIA D' AUBIGNY, born @ 1100, who married Ralphe de Haya.

De Louvain
Our ancestor was their son, EARL WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY "THE STRONGHAND," who was the Earl of Sussex, Earl of Lincoln, 1st Earl of Arundel, and the Lord of Stackhorn.
William the Stronghand was born @ 1102, in Buckenham, Nomandie, England. In 1136, he married the "Fair Maid of Brabant," ADELAIDE DE LOUVAIN (1102 - 1151), daughter of GRAF GOTTFRIED V (I) VON NIEDERLOTHRINGEN 'DER BèARTIGE' (AKA: Godfrey Barbutus, the Bearded of Louvaine, Duke of Louvaine & Brabant + Namur, Ida of Brabant. Godfrey, Duke of Lorraine; Godfried I Count of Leuven and Brabant; Duke of Low Lotharingen; Marquise of Antwerp. BRABANT) and IDA DE CHINEY, in 1138.

Also known as Adeliza de Brabant, she was born in 1102-1103 in Louvain, Belgium. Adeliza was queen consort of England from 1121 to 1135, the second wife of King Henry I of England.
She married Henry I 'Beauclerc', King of England, son of William I 'the Conqueror', King of England, and Matilda de Flandre, on the 29th of January, 1121, at Windsor Castle, Windsor, Berkshire, England. She is thought to have been aged somewhere between fifteen and eighteen; he was fifty three. It is believed that Henry's only reason for marrying again was his desire for a male heir. (Despite holding the record for the largest number of illegitimate children of any British monarch, Henry's only legitimate male heir had died in 1120.)
Adeliza was reputably quite pretty, and Louvain and England had a mutual enemy in Flanders; these were the likely reasons she was chosen. However, no children were born during the almost 15 years of the marriage. As of 30 January 1121, her married name was Queen Consort Adeliza of England.
Henry died on the 11th of December, 1135, in Gisors, St. denis, Seine-St. denis, France, and was buried on the 4th of January, 1136, in Reading Abbey, Reading, Berks, England. The cause of death was his bowels exploding -- either from food poisoning or from over-eating Lampreys.
After Henry died, Adeliza lived as a nun at Wilton, near Salisbury. As she was still young she came out of mourning some time before 1139, the third year of her widowhood, and married William, who had been one of Henry's chief advisors. (That's a tough union for a second husband to live up to! No matter what he gave her or did for her, how do you top THE KING???) She brought with her a queen's dowry, including the great castle of Arundel, and King Stephen created d'Aubigny Earl of Arundel. In feudal times, women were often bartered as wives. If they were heiresses they were married while still of tender years, and when their husbands died were often remarried three or even four times. After the way Henry died, William probably didn't eat much of her cooking. He was created 1st Earl of Arundel [England] circa 1138. In 1139 he gave shelter to the Empress Maud at Arundel Castle, but ever after adhered to King Stephen. He held the office of Lord of the Manor of Buckenham, Norfolk in 1139.
Seven of their children were to survive. Among the descendants of this marriage came two girls destined to become tragic queens; Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard.
The union lasted about a dozen years. But then: "His wife, the Queen Dowager, retired in 1150 to a nunnery in Afflighem in South Brabant. Adeliza spent her final years in Flanders in the convent. She died on the 23rd of April, 1151, at Affligem Abbey, Afflingham, Flandre, Belgium, and was buried there.

A romantic story has been invented to account for the lion rampant subsequently borne by William's descendants in the family coat of arms: "Having captivated the heart of the Queen Dowager of France by his gallant conduct in a tournament at Paris, she offered to marry him, an honour which he respectfully declined, having already given his word and faith to a lady in England, another Queen Dowager, no less a personage than Adeliza, widow of King Henry 1 of England. His refusal so angered the French Queen, that she laid a plot with her attendants to destroy him by inducing him to enter a cave in her garden, where a lion had been placed for that purpose; but the undaunted Earl, rolling his mantle round his arm, thrust his hand into the lion's mouth, tore out its tongue, and sent it to the Queen by one of her maids. 'In token of which noble and valiant act,' says Brooke, in his Catalogue of Nobility, 'this William assumed to bear for his arms a lion gold in a field gules, which his successors ever since continued.'"*
In 1153, William the Stronghand was influential in arranging the treaty where King Stephen retained the crown for life, but with Henry II as heir. In 1163/64, he was one of the embassy to Rome. In 1168, he was one of the embassy to Saxony. He was commander of the Royal army in Normandy, against the King's rebellious sons, where he distinguished himself with "swiftness and velocity" in August 1173. He fought in the battle near Bury St. Edmunds on 29 September 1173, where he assisted in the defeat of the Earl of Leicester who had, with his Flemings, invaded Suffolk.
The "Stronghand" died on the 12th of October, 1176, in Waverly Abbey, Surry, England, and is buried at Priory, Wymondham, Norfolk, England. His children:

KIDS OF WILLIAM D'AUBIGNY AND ADELAIDE DE LOUVAIN

RALPH (Reyner) AUBIGNY

WILLIAM d' AUBIGNY 2nd Earl of Arundel.
HENRY AUBIGNY
GEOFFREY AUBIGNY
ALICE d' AUBIGNY
AGATHA AUBIGNY
AGNES AUBIGNY of Arundel

Their son, EARL WILLIAM IV D' AUBIGNY "LE BRETON," (1139 - 24/25 Dec 1193), 2nd Earl of Arundel, was born in Arundel, Sussex, England. He married MAUD DE ST. HILARY, daughter of JAMES DE ST. HILARY and AVELINE (de St. Hillary), in 1174. (Maud de St. Hilary was born in 1132-1137 in of Burkenham, Field Dalling, Norfolk and died on 24 Dec 1195 in Norfolk, England.) The lion in the family crest was more probably first borne by him, in token of his descent from Adeliza, widow of Henry l, in whose reign we have the earliest evidence of golden lions being adopted as a personal decoration, if not strictly an heraldic bearing.

KIDS OF WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY AND MAUD DE ST. HILARY

William de Albini, 4th Earl of Arundel (dsp 1224 or 1233) - m. Mabel (dau of Hugh 'Keveliok' de Meschines, 3rd Earl of Chester)

Hugh de Albini, 5th Earl of Arundel (dsp 1243) - m. Isabel de Warren (dau of William (Plantagenet) de Warren, Earl of Warren and Surrey)
Mabel de Albini (a 1223) - m. Sir Robert de Tateshall
Isabel de Albini m. John FitzAlan, lord of Oswestry, Sheriff of Shropshire (b c1164, d 1239)
Nicola de Albini - m. Roger de Somerie, lord of Dudley
Cecilia de Albini - m. Roger de Montalt

Their son, EARL WILLIAM V D'AUBIGNY, 3rd Earl of Arundel, and Earl of Sussex, was born in 1165 in of Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire, and died before the 30th of March, 1221, in Cainell, near Rome, Italy. William d'Aubigny was earl of Sussex (1193-1221). "...the title of earl was most known by Arundel and Chichester, at which places his chief residence used to be, yet it was of the county of Sussex that he was really earl..."** William married MATILDA (MABEL) LE MESCHINES of Chester, daughter of EARL HUGH DE KEVELIOCK, 3rd Earl of Chester, and BERTRADE D'EVREUX, after 1207. (Matilda was born in 1171 and died in 1233.) During the signing of the Magna Charta, William was on way home from 5th Crusade, but his name was appended on the document, and later assembled with the other barons at Runnemede as guarantors or counselors of King John. His children:

KIDS OF WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY AND MATILDA LE MESCHINES

WILLIAM AUBIGNY

HUGH d' AUBIGNY
ISABEL d' AUBIGNY of Arundel
NICOLA d' AUBIGNY
MATILDA d' AUBIGNY

De Somery
They had two daughters: Matilda d' Aubigny and our ancestor, NICHOLE D'AUBIGNY. In 1225, Nichole married ROGER DE SOMERY BARON DUDLEY (b: 1208 in Dinas Powis, Wales; Death: 26 Aug 1273 in Staffordshire, England, son of Ralph de Somery and Margaret Marshal.) Nicole died in 1254, at Dudley Castle, Strafford, England, and Roger remarried, to AMABILIA de CHAUCOMBE, in 1254, and had another son: Roger de Somery. Nichole's children:

JOAN de SOMERY
MABEL de SOMERY
MAUD de SOMERY
MARGERY de SOMERY
MARGARET (Margery) de SOMERY

Le Strange
JOAN DE SOMERY was born circa 1233, in Camden, Gloucestershire, England. She married JOHN LE STRANGE, IV, (Birth: 1203 in Knokyn, Salop, England; Death: 26 Feb 1276 in Knockin, Warwick, England). They had a son named JOHN LE STRANGE, V, who became the 1st Baron Strange of Knokyn (ancestor of the Barons Strange, of Knockyn, and the Le Stranges, of Hunstanton, Norfolk). He was born circa 1253 in Ellesmere, Shropshire, England. He married MAUD DE MONTIBUS, daughter of Ebulo de Montibus, Lord of Ketton. He became Baron Strange of Knockyn in 1299. He died in 1310.
JOHN LE STRANGE, the 2nd Baron Strange of Knockyn, was born on the 18th of May, 1282, in Ellesmere, Shropshire, England. He married ISOLDA (or MAUD) DE WALTON, daughter of John de Walton of Walton D'Eiville. John died on the 6th of February, 1311/12, at the age of 29 years, 8 months and 19 days.
They had a daughter, ELIZABETH LE STRANGE. She married GRUFFUDD O'R RHUDDALLT AP MADOG FYCHAN AP MADOG. They had a son, GRUFFUDD FYCHAN AP GRUFFUDD O'R RHUDDALLT. (In Welsh conventions of patronymics, AB denotes "son of," and FERCH denotes "daughter of.")
Gruffud married ELEN FERCH THOMAS. She was the daughter of THOMAS AP LLEWELLYN and ELEANOR GOCH, and the great-aunt to Sir Owen Tudor, founder of the Tudor Dynasty in England (he was related to Katherine of France, the widow of Henry the Fifth, King of England).
They had two children:

CHILDREN OF GRUFFUDD FYCHAN AP GRUFFUDD O'R RHUDDALLT AND ELEN FERCH THOMAS

Lowri ferch Gruffyd Fychan. She married Robert Puleston. He was born Cir 1358, and died 1399
Owen Glendower, The Welsh Rebel hero.
Tudor (Twdr) ap Gruffyd Fychan. He married Maud, daughter of Ienaf ap Adda.

Puleston
LOWRI FERCH GRUFFUDD FYCHAN married ROBERT PULESTON, and you'd think things would start to improve with that name. They had a daughter, ANGARAHAD PULESTON. She completely lost her head over one EDWART (IORWERTH) TREVOR AP DAFYDD AB EDNYFED GA. But sanity finally reigned, and they named their daughter ROSE TREVOR. She married SIR OTEWELL WORSLEY. They had a daughter, MARGARET WORSLEY. She married ADRIAN WHETEHILL, and they had a son, SIR RICHARD WHETEHILL. He married ELIZABETH MUSTON and they had a daughter, MARGERY WHETEHILL.

Isaac
Margery married EDWARD ISAAC. The Isaac family was first found in Devon, where they were seated from very ancient times, some say well before the Norman Conquest and the arrival of Duke William at Hastings in 1066 A.D.
Margery and Edward had a daughter, MARY ISAAC (1552 in Well Court,Ickham,Kent,Eng). Mary married THOMAS APPLETON (1538 - 1603), in 1572, in Suffolk Co., England, and they had a daughter, JOHANNA APPLETON, who was born at the dawn of the 1600's in England. She married RICHARD GILDERSLEEVE (1601 - 1681) of Suffolk, England. They had a daughter named ELIZABETH GILDERSLEEVE (b. @1620), who married JEREMIAH WOOD (b. 1620) in Yorkshire. Jeremiah was a Puritan, and they were part of the Puritan emigration to the American Colonies.

KIDS OF RICHARD GILDERSLEEVE AND JOHANNA APPLETON

ELIZABETH GILDERSLEEVE, b: ABT 1620. Married JEREMIAH WOOD between 1642 - 1644.
RICHARD GILDERSLEEVE, JR., b: 1626, married a woman named DORCAS. He died in 1691.

GENEALOGY

WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY (1015 - 1066) married NN DE PLESSIS (b: 1024), and they begat...

ROGER D' AUBIGNY (1040-1138), who married AMICE and begat...

WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY (1070 - 1139), who married married MAUD BIGOD (b. 1080) and begat...

EARL WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY "THE STRONGHAND" (d. 1176), who married ADELAIDE DE LOUVAIN (1102 - 1151) and begat...

EARL WILLIAM IV D' AUBIGNY "LE BRETON" (1139 - 1193), who married MAUD DE ST. HILARY (1137 - 1195) and begat...

EARL WILLIAM V D'AUBIGNY (b. 1165), who married MATILDA (MABEL) LE MESCHINES (1171 - 1233) and begat...

NICHOLE D'AUBIGNY, who married ROGER DE SOMERY BARON DUDLEY (1208 - 1273) and begat...

JOAN DE SOMERY (1233 - 1282), who married JOHN LE STRANGE, IV, (1203 - 1276) and begat...

JOHN LE STRANGE (1253 - 1310), who married MAUD DE MONTIBUS and begat...

JOHN LE STRANGE (1282 - 1311), who married ISOLDA DE WALTON and begat...

ELIZABETH LE STRANGE, who married GRUFFUDD O'R RHUDDALLT AP MADOG FYCHAN AP MADOG...

GRUFFUDD FYCHAN AP GRUFFUDD O'R RHUDDALLT, who married ELEN FERCH THOMAS and begat...

LOWRI FERCH GRUFFUDD FYCHAN, who married ROBERT PULESTON and begat...

ANGARAHAD PULESTON, who married EDWART (IORWERTH) TREVOR AP DAFYDD AB EDNYFED GA, and begat...

ROSE TREVOR, who married SIR OTEWELL WORSLEY and begat...

MARGARET WORSLEY, who married ADRIAN WHETEHILL and begat...

SIR RICHARD WHETEHILL, who married ELIZABETH MUSTON and begat...

MARGERY WHETEHILL, who married EDWARD ISAAC and begat...

MARY (or AMY) ISAAC, who married THOMAS APPLETON (1538 - 1601) and begat...

SAMUEL APPLETON (1586 - 1670), who married JUDITH EVERHARD and begat...

JOHANNA APPLETON (1601 - ?), who married RICHARD GILDERSLEEVE (1601 - 1681) and begat...

ELIZABETH GILDERSLEEVE (1620 - ?), who married JEREMIAH WOOD (1620 - ) and begat...

JOSEPH WOOD, who married EUNICE JARVIS in 1680 and begat...

JOSEPH WOOD, JR. (1680 - ?) who married MARGRIET (MARGARET) WOOD and begat...

JONATHAN WOOD (1720 - ?) who married JOHANNA CROMPTON (1725 - ?) and begat...

MARTHA WOOD (1753 - 1822) who married WILLIAM HAUSE (1750 - 1818) and begat...

JOHN HAUSE (1773 - 1844) who married ESTHER KETCHAM (1779 - 1853) and begat...

AUGUSTUS HAUSE (1804 - 1875) who married JANE JONES (1802 - 1850) and begat...

LABAN HAUSE (1831 - 1906) who married MELISSA SANDERSON (1839 - 1921) and begat...

FRANK HAUSE (1867 - 1951) who married FLADELLA RAYMOND (1869 - 1961) and begat...

CARLISLE HAUSE (1891 - 1972) who married MARJORIE MARCHANT (1892 - 1939) who begat...

CARLETON MARCHANT HAUSE, SR. (1917 - 1983) who married JEANNE BRUNNER (1918 - 2000) and begat...

CARLETON MARCHANT HAUSE, JR. (b. 1939) who married MARTHA WENK (b. 1940) and begat...

JEFF (who married LORI ANN DOTSON), KATHY (who married HAL LARSEN), ERIC (who married MARY MOONSAMMY), and MICHELE HAUSE (who married JOHN SCOTT HOUSTON).

LITERATURE ON THE D'AUBIGNI FAMILY

*-WILLIAM DE ALBINI, The Conqueror and His Companions, by J.R. Planchâe, Somerset Herald. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1874.
**-"The Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom" - George Edward Cokayne (14 vol) I, p234, (a)
"Rolls of Arms - Henry III - Aspilogia II" - London & Tremlett / Sir Anthony Wagner

Guillaume married Lady Adeliza FitzOsulf, of Plessis, Heiress of Belvoir in >1048. Adeliza was born in ~1027 in Le Plessis, Colombiers, Lower-Normandy, France; died in ~1088 in Belvoir Castle, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England; was buried in St. Marys Priory, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

96257.

Lady Adeliza FitzOsulf, of Plessis, Heiress of Belvoir was born in ~1027 in Le Plessis, Colombiers, Lower-Normandy, France; died in ~1088 in Belvoir Castle, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England; was buried in St. Marys Priory, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England.

Notes:

Adâelaèis Adeliza FitzOsulf du Plessis, Hâeritiáere de Belvoir
Birthdate: circa 1027 (61)
Birthplace: Le Plessis, Colombiers, Lower-Normandy, France
Death: circa 1088 (53-69)
Belvoir Castle, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England
Place of Burial: St. Mary's Priory, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England
Immediate Family:
Daughter of Osulf "fil Frane" du Plessis, seigneur de Belvoir and NN wife of Osulf du Plessis
Wife of Guillaume d'Aubigny, seigneur de Saint-Martin-d'Aubigny and Robert de Toeni, Lord of Belvoir
Mother of Hugues "Pincerna" Pincerna de Albini, [likely not son of Guillaume d'Aubigny]; Roger "Pincerna" d'Aubigny; Olivia d'Aubigny; Nigel d'Aubigny, of Cainhoe; Richard d'Aubigny, Abbot of St. Alban and 6 others
Sister of Grimoult du Plessis
Managed by: Pam Wilson
Last Updated: December 31, 2015

About Adeliza FitzOsulf du Plessis, Heiress of Belvoir
The daughter of Osulf le Freyne du Plessis and sister of Grimault du Plessis, Adeliza married first, William (Guillaume) d'Aubigny, of Saint-Martin-d'Aubignâe (son of Neel Saint-Saveur, Vicomte de Cotentin/Coutances), and secondly, Robert I de Tosny/Todeni.

Children:

--Roger "Pincerna" d'Aubigny who married Amice de Mowbray

--Nigel/Nele d'Aubigny of Cainhoe who married Amice de Ferrers

--Richard d'Aubigny, Abbot of St. Alban

--William (Guillaume) de Tosny, Lord of Belvoir

--Geoffrey de Tosny

--Robert de Tosny

--Agnes de Tosny who married Hubert de Rye.

--Adeliza de Tosny who married Roger Bigod (two of her daughters married men named William d'Aubigny).

--Albrede m. de l'Isle

[--Berenger de Tosny ? Not listed in FMG database]

As heiress of the honour of Belvoir, Adeliza FitzOsulf de Plessis was instrumental in passing this title and its land down through her family, ironically not through her d'Aubigny children and heirs (who became Earls of Arundel) but through her de Tosny heirs who married into the Bigod family who married into the *other* d'Aubigny family which later became Earls of Belvoir.

[See "The Early Lords of Belvoir" by WA Carrington, Esq (1900) printed in The Journal of the British Archaeological Association, Volume 7, available online on Google Books: p. 299]

Summary: Belvoir was held before Domesday by William de Albini, son of Niel of St Saveur (Vicomte of Cotentin, Lord of the Isles of La Marche), by right of his wife Adeliza, dau of Osulf son of Fane in the time of Edward the Confessor. [Note: This was most likely Osulf II who was High Reeve or Ealdorman of Bamburgh in Northumberland until 1041 when Northumberland was reunified and who died in 1067]

Her second marriage was to Robert de Todeni who built the Castle of Belvoir and the St. Mary's Priory (1077) there. By Domesday, de Todeni held 80 manors in 13 counties, most of them in Lincoln and Leicester, and six of which had been held by Oself (his father in law).

Adeliza died before Robert, who died in 1088 and was buried at St. Mary's Priory in Belvoir.

According to Dugdale, Robert and Adeliza de Todeni had four sons: William, Berenger, Geoffrey and Robert, and a dau Agnes who married Hubert de Rye. Another source says they had a daughter Adeliza who married Roger Bigod.

Robert de Todeni was succeeded by his second son William as Lord of Belvoir. Then, interestingly, it was passed to William de Albini Brito, son of Adeliza by her first marriage.

It was afterwards held by Adeliza de Toeni wife of Roger Bigod. It appears from the Pipe Roll in the time of Henry I that Adeliza de Todeni/Bigod paid Henry I 200 marks for the Lordship of Belvoir (the inheritance of the Albinis).

Then, to add to the soap opera, Cecilia Bigod (daughter of Adeliza de Todeni and Roger Bigod) married William de Albini son of Roger son of William de Albini Brito (Adeliza I's son by her first marriage). Thus Belvoir stayed in the family either way.

NOTE: I use the French term hâeritiáere in the title to indicate that she was the inheritor or heiress of this land and title in her own right. I often do this when a woman brings her own inheritance of land and title into the marriage (called in sui generis in legal terms), to indicate that she inherited in her own right and did not just acquire a title by marriage. In the middle ages, many women were the carriers of important inheritances and therefore their marriages, often arranged by powerful men like trading cards, brought the men who "acquired" them great power and wealth.

http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISHNOBILITYMEDIEVAL3.htm

GUILLAUME d'Aubigny, son of ---. 1056. Seigneur d'Aubigny.

m (before 1048) ---, sister of GRIMAULT de Plessis, daughter of ---. The primary source which confirms her marriage has not yet been identified.

Guillaume & his wife had three children:

1. ROGER d'Aubigny . The primary source which confirms his parentage has not yet been identified. "…Rogerii de Albiniaco, filiique sui Rualoc…" are named as witnesses at the court of William I King of England in the charter dated to [1081] which records an agreement between the monks of Marmoutier and "Gaufridus Nervei filius"[1]. m AMICE, daughter of ---. Henry I King of England confirmed donations of property to the abbey of Holy Trinity, Lessay by "Roger de Albineio and Amicia his wife with the consent of their sons William and Nigel" by charter dated 1126[2]. “Wilielmus comes Sussexiµ” confirmed donations to Boxgrove Priory by his predecessors “Rogerus de Albineio, et Willelmus Pincerna…et Willielmi patris mei filii reginµ Aeliz, et Matildis matris meµ” to Boxgrove Priory by undated charter, which names “domina Avicia, uxor Rogeri de Albineio…et filiorum suorum Willielmi et Nigelli”[3].

2. NELE [Nigel] d'Aubigny of Cainhoe (-[1100]). The primary source which confirms his parentage has not yet been identified. m AMICE de Ferrers, daughter of HENRY de Ferrers & his wife Bertha ---. “Robertus comes junior de Ferariis” confirmed donations to Tutbury by “avus meus Henricus…Egenulfus patruus meus…Robertus pater meus”, naming “Nigellus de Albiniaco et Amicia filia avi mei”[35].

3. RICHARD . “Nigellus de Albeneyo” donated property to “domino Richardo fratri meo abbati de S. Albano” by undated charter dated to the reign of William I King of England[51]. Abbot of St Alban.

-----------------------------------

Of the wife of Robert de Tosny, FMG provides this account:

ROBERT [I] de Tosny (-1088). Europèaische Stammtafeln shows Robert de Tosny unaffiliated with the other members of this family. Although his ancestry is unknown, it is likely that he was a member of this family. He founded Marmoutier in 1063[1926]. Lord of Belvoir 1086. “Robertum de Belvedeir---et A[dela]. uxor eius” founded Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire by charter dated to [1076][1927]. After the death of his wife Adela, Robert de Belvoir donated “land in Sapertune” to Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire, with the consent of "his sons William and Geoffrey"[1928]. m ADELAIS, daughter of --- (-before 1088). “Robertum de Belvedeir---et A[dela]. uxor eius” founded Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire by charter dated to [1076][1929]. “Agnes de Toteneio” confirmed the donation to Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire by "pater meus Robertus de Toteneio et mater mea Adelais", by undated charter[1930]. Robert & his wife had [six] children:

a) GUILLAUME (-[1130]). After the death of his wife Adela, Robert de Belvoir donated “land in Sapertune” to Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire, with the consent of "his sons William and Geoffrey"[1931]. Lord of Belvoir.

b) GEOFFREY . After the death of his wife Adela, Robert de Belvoir donated “land in Sapertune” to Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire, with the consent of "his sons William and Geoffrey"[1932].

c) [ROBERT de Tosny . “Robertus de Toteneia” donated property to Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire, confirmed by "Willielmus de Albeneio frater meus et dominus", by undated charter, witnessed by "…Rogerus Bigot"[1933]. The identity of this Robert de Tosny is uncertain. The document cannot be contemporary as William de Albini was heir of Belvoir through his maternal grandmother Alice, who was the sister of this supposed Robert, so could not have been Robert de Tosny´s brother.]

d) ALICE . Her parentage is indicated by the 1130 Pipe Roll which records "Adeliz uxor Rogi Big…tra patris sui de Belueder" in Lincolnshire[1934]. It is also indicated by the charter dated 23 Apr [1430] under which her descendant “Thomas dominus de Ros, de Hamelake, de Trussebout et de Beavoir” confirmed the possessions of Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire made by "antecessores nostros…Robertum de Toteneio, Willielmum de Toteneyo filium suum, Agnetem de Toteneio filiam dicti Roberti de Toteneyo, Henricum de Rya filium Huberto de Rya, Agnetem de Toteneyo, Willielmum de Albeneio primum, Willielmum de Albeneio secundum, Willielmum de Albeneio tertium, Willielmum de Albeneio quartum, Ywynum de Albeneyo, Heliam de Albeneyo et uxores eorundem, Isabellam filiam domini Willielmi de Albeneio quµ fuit uxor domini de Ros, domini de Beauvoire et de Hamelake"[1935], the connection between Robert de Tosny Lord of Belvoir, father of Alice, being established through the marriage of her daughter Cecilia to William de Albini Brito. "Rogerius Bigot…et uxoris mee Adalicie" donated the church of Thetford to Cluny dated [1100][1936]. “Rogerus Bygot” founded Thetford Priory, with the advice of “…uxoris meµ Adeliciµ”, by undated charter dated to the reign of King Henry I[1937]. Living in 1136[1938]. m (before [1100]) as his second wife, ROGER Bigod, son of ROGER Bigod & his wife --- (-8 or 15 Sep 1107, bur Thetford[1939]).

e) AGNES de Tosny (-before 1127). “Agnes de Toteneio” confirmed the donation to Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire by "pater meus Robertus de Toteneio et mater mea Adelais", by undated charter[1940]. Henry I King of England confirmed the donation of "decimas de Hokeringhe, de Swanetuna, de Depham, de Bukestuna, de Mercheshale" by "Hubertus de Ria…Agnes de Belfo uxor eius…cum Ricardo filio suo" to Holy Trinity, Norwich, at the request of "Henrici filii et heredis ipsorum", by charter dated to [1127][1941]. Her second marriage is confirmed by the undated charter under which her son “Henricus de Rya” confirmed the donations to Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire by "Roberti avi mei et Agnetis matris meµ"[1942]. m firstly RALPH de Belfou, son of ---. m secondly HUBERT de Rie, son of HUBERT de Rie & his wife --- (-before 1127).

f) [ALBREDE . “H comes Norfulc” confirmed property to the monks of Kirkstall, for the soul of “Albrede de Insula amite mee”, by charter dated to [1154/76][1943]. If amita is translated strictly in this document, Albrede was the sister of Earl Hugh´s mother. However, it cannot be excluded that she was in fact his paternal aunt. m --- de l´Isle, son of ---.]

http://www.freewebs.com/stanhopefamily/THE FAMILY OF FRESNE

Adeliza du Plessis was the sister of Grimoult du Plessis, who lost his estates, situated mainly in Coutances, after siding against William the Bastard at Val des Dunes. The name Plessis was of topographical origin, signifying [O.F] a pallisade, and [Lat.] an enclosure, referring to the castle held by the family at Plessis-Grimoult. [The Priory of Plessis-Grimoult was endowed by the Beaumont/Harcourt family; almost invariably a sign that there was a familial connection between them and the founder's family - Mem. Soc. Ant. Norm., vol ii., 23, no. 238.] The original name of the family was Fresne, or, more anciently, Freyne, signifying an ash tree, a derivative of which is the surname Frame. [ G. F. Black, Surnames of Scotland; Their Origin, Meaning, and History, p. 278, 1946.] The father of Adeliza and Grimoult was titled Osulf le Fresne. Their holdings in Coutances abutted those of the family of the wife of the aforementioned Onfroi de Vieilles, who, as said, was of the family of Haye/Haie; of Haye-du-Puits, Manche, arr. Coutances. [The lord of this barony, at the date of the conquest, was Raoul, sâenâechal of the Earl of Mortaigne, and father of Robert de la Haie, a contemporary of Henry I. Raoul seems to have been the son of Hubert de Rye, to whom was entrusted the governorship of the castle and county of Nottingham, and who is frequently mentioned in Domesday Book.] In the Battle of Beaumont-le-Roger, in 1036, Onfroi de Vieilles fought against Roger de Toeni, and his close ally, Osulf du Fresne. Such military and political alliance usually stemmed from familial and consequent topographical connections. Later acts of the Abbey of Conches support this notion, with this Fresne family being noted as feudatories of the Anglo-Norman Toeni family, holding of them land centred around Mesnil-Hardray, canton Conches. In the same regard, Grimoult du Plessis was lord of le Freyne,

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Source http://a.decarne.free.fr/gencar/dat566.htm

Plessis (du), "Adele" or Adâeliza lady Belvoir Gender: Female

Naissance : vers 1027 Birth: about 1027

Note Note

Parents : Parents:

Páere: Plessis (du), "Osulf" Fil Frame seigneur de Belvoir Father: Plessis (du), "Osulf" Wire Frame lord of Belvoir

Famille: Family

Mariage: 1043 Marriage: 1043

Conjoint: Spouse:

Aubigny (d'), Guillaume seigneur des Iles Sexe: Masculin Aubigny (of), Guillaume Lord of the Isles Gender: Male

Naissance : vers 1020 áa Aubigny (14) Birth: about 1020 in Aubigny (14)

Dâecáes : 1066 Died: 1066

Parents : Parents:

Páere: Saint Sauveur (de), Nâeel vicomte de Cotentin Father: St. Saviour (de), Neel Viscount of Cotentin

Máere: Eu (d'), Adáele Mother: Eu (with), Adáele

Enfant(s) : Child (s):

Aubigny (d'), Roger Aubigny (of), Roger

Famille: Family

Mariage: 1067 Marriage: 1067

Conjoint: Spouse:

Toeny (de), Robert seigneur de Belvoir Sexe: Masculin Toeny (de), Robert Lord of Belvoir Gender: Male

Naissance : vers 1030 áa Belvoir Leicestershire (UK) Birth: about 1030 in Belvoir, Leicestershire (UK)

Dâecáes : 04 aoãut 1088 Died: August 4, 1088

La filiation avec ses parents est controversâee. The affiliation with its parents is controversial.

Parents : Parents:

Páere: Toeny (de), Robert seigneur de Conches Father: Toeny (de), Robert Lord of Conches

Enfant(s) : Child (s):

Toeny (de), Alice dame de Belvoir Toeny (of), Lady Alice Belvoir

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Source http://worldconnect.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=AHN&db=pusch&id=I098521

32. WILLIAM I (NOTES) CONTINTIN (L) DE AUBIGNY was born BET 1000 AND 1024 in AUBIGNI OR AUGBIGNY, NORMANDY, FRANCE, and died BET 1019 AND 1068. He was the son of 64. NIEL III NIGEL II (NOTES) (L) DE SAINT SAVEUR and 65. ADELA (NOTES) DE BRIONNE OR (L) D' EU.

33. ADELE (NOTES) DE PLESSIS (L) DE BELVOIR was born BET 1014 AND 1025 in PLESSIS, NORMANDY, FRANCE, and died 1051. She was the daughter of 66. GRIMOLT GRIMOULT OR GRIMOULD (L) DE PLESSIS and 67. VAL (L) DE DUNES.

Children of ADELE (NOTES) DE PLESSIS (L) DE BELVOIR and WILLIAM I (NOTES) CONTINTIN (L) DE AUBIGNY are: i. BALDWIN (NOTE) AUBIGNY MONTGOMERY (L) DE BOULERS was born BET 1050 AND 1080 in HAWORTH CASTLE, YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND. He married SIBYLLA (NOTES) FITZHENRY (L) DE NORMANDY, daughter of HENRY I GUNDRED "BEAUCLERC" KING OF (L) ENGLAND and SIBYL SYBILLA ADELA OR LUCY (NOTES) (L) CORBET. She was born BET 1075 AND 1104 in DOMFRONT, NORMANDY, FRANCE, and died BET 12 AND 13 JUL 1122 in ISLAND OF THE WOMAN, LOCK TAY, SCOTLAND. He married SIBYL (NOTES) (L) DE FALAISE, daughter of WILLIAM (NOTES) FITZROBERT (L) DE FALAISE and GEVA (L) DE BURCI. She was born BET 1074 AND 1088 in WORSPRING MANOR, SOMERSET, ENGLAND.
16. ii. ROGER D' AUBIGNY OR DE AUBIGNY OR (L) DE ALBINI was born BET 1036 AND 1055 in AUBIGNI OR AUBIGNY, NORMANDY, FRANCE, and died ABT 1084. He married CICELY (NOTES) CAIGNE (L) DE PORT. She was born ABT 1045. He married AMICIA AMICE (NOTES) DE MOWBRAY (L) D' AUBIGNY, daughter of GEOFFREY OR ROGER DE MONTBRAI (L) DE MOWBRAY. She was born BET 1040 AND 1055 in AUBIGNI OR AUBIGNY, NORMANDY, FRANCE, and died 1100. He married AMICE OR HALEWISE (NOTES) (L) GRENTMESNIL, daughter of HUGH (NOTE) SENESCHAL ENGLAND(L) DE GRENTEMESNIL and ADELIZA BEATRICE ALICE (NOTES) (L) DE BEAUMONT. She was born BET 1045 AND 1058, and died BET 1077 AND 1084.

iii. AIMEE (L) D' AUBIGNY OR DE ALBINI was born ABT 1050 in ST. MARTIN D' AUBIGNY, NORMANDY, FRANCE. She married RICHARD (L) DE TALBOT TALEBOT OR TALBOT, son of RICHARD OR LE SIRE (NOTES) (L) TALBOT OR TALEBOT. He was born BET 1050 AND 1055 in BADLESLANE, BEDFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND, and died 1129.
iv. WILLIAM II (L) BRITO D' AUBIGNY was born ABT 1034.
v. 0LIVA (NOTE)(L) DE AUBIGNY D' AUBIGNY D' ALBINI was born BET 1047 AND 1141 in AUBIGNI OR AUBIGNY, NORMANDY, FRANCE. She married RALPH OR RANULF (L) DE HAYA OR DE LA HAYE, son of RICHARD THURSTIN HALDUP (NOTES) (L) DE LA HAYE and ANNE (L) ?. He was born BET 1043 AND 1139, and died AFT 1123.
vi. MISS (L) DE AUBIGNY D' AUBIGNY HEIRESS STREATLEY was born BET 1050 AND 1066. She married PIROT OF (L) HAWKWELL GLEMAM SAWSTON. He was born BET 1050 AND 1066, and died AFT 1104.
Adeliza Belvoir DU PLESSIS

* Father: Grimoult DU PLESSIS
* Mother: Mitilda DE NORMANDY
* Birth: 1020, France
* Partnership with: William Seigneur DE AUBIGNY
o Child: Roger DE AUBIGNY Birth: 1045, Normandy, France
Ancestors of Adeliza Belvoir DU PLESSIS

/-Grimoult DU PLESSIS
Adeliza Belvoir DU PLESSIS

\-Mitilda DE NORMANDY
Descendants of Adeliza Belvoir DU PLESSIS

1 Adeliza Belvoir DU PLESSIS

=William Seigneur DE AUBIGNY
2 Roger DE AUBIGNY
=Adelina DE GRANDMESNIL
3 Nigel DE AUBIGNY
=Gundred DE GOURNAY
3 William DE AUBIGNY
=Maude BIGOT

end of biography

Children:

48128. Sir Roger d'Aubigny was born in 1045 in Aubigny, Normandy, France; died in 1084.

96274.

Waldron St Clair was born in ~1019 in Normandie, France (son of Mauger Normandie and Germaine Corbell); died in 1047 in (Normandy, France).

Waldron married Helena Normandie(Normandy, France). Helena (daughter of Richard Normandie) was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandie, France; died in ~1080. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

96275.

Helena Normandie was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandie, France (daughter of Richard Normandie); died in ~1080.

Children:

48137. Agnes St. Clair was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandy, France; died in ~1080.

48128.

Notes:

Family Roger d'Aubigny & Amice de Grentemesnil

They had three sons named William, Nigel and Roger.

Personal Details
Male Roger d'Aubigny
Roger was born in 1045 in Aubigny, Normandy, France.1 He died at the age of 39 in 1084.

Female Amice de Grentemesnil
Amice was born in 1045.1
Birth Notes
B: Abt. 1045
She died at the age of 39 in 1084.1

Children
Male Lord of Buckingham William d'Aubigney
William was born in 1064 in St. Sauveur, France.2 He died at the age of 75 in 1139. He was buried in Priory Wymondham, England.3 4

Male Sir Nigel d'Aubigny
Nigel was born in 1080 in Aubigny, Calvados, Normandie, France.5 He died at the age of 49 on November 26th, 1129

Male Roger Pincerna
Roger was born in 1085.6
Birth Notes
B: Abt. 1085

1 http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=jdp-fam&id=I66857&style=TABLE
2 http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=tamer&id=I13194&style=TABLE
3 http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=tamer&id=I13199
4 http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=jdp-fam&id=I11548&style=TABLE
5 http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=arciek&id=I15658&style=TABLE
6 http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=jdp-fam&id=I6319

end

Roger married Amice de Mowbray. Amice was born in 1045 in Aubigny, Normandy, France; died in 1084 in Somme, Picardie, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48129.

Amice de Mowbray was born in 1045 in Aubigny, Normandy, France; died in 1084 in Somme, Picardie, France.

Notes:

Female Amice de Grentemesnil (Amice de Mowbray)

Amice was born in 1045
Birth Notes
B: Abt. 1045
Amice's father was Hugh de Grentemesnil and her mother was Adeliza de Beaumont. Her paternal grandparents were Robert de Grentmesnil and Hawise d'Eschafour; her maternal grandparents were Comte Yves Ivo de Beaumont II and Judith Adela de Gournay. She had three brothers and two sisters, named Robert, Ives, Ivo, Agnes and Rohese. She was the oldest of the six children. She died at the age of 39 in 1084.1
General Notes
sister of Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland,

A sister of Bishop Geoffrey de Montbray, was mother by Roger d'Aubigny (of Aubigny in the Cotentin) of two sons, Nigel and William, who were ardent supporters of Henry I, and were rewarded by him with great estates in England. William was made king's butler, and was father of William d'Aubigny (de Albini), first earl of Arundel; Nigel was rewarded with the escheated fief of Geoffrey de la Guerche, of which Melton (Mowbray) was the head, and with forfeited lands in Yorkshire. Nigel married, by dispensation, the wife of his cousin, the imprisoned earl, but afterwards divorced her, and by another wife was father of a son Roger, who took the name of Mowbray.
(Wikipedia)

Ancestor Pedigree Chart

Gervase le Breton - b.0960 in Bretagne, France
Robert de Grentmesnil - b.0990 in Grentemesnil, Calvados, Normandy, France d.17 Jun 1039 in Grentemesnil, Calvados, Normandy, France

Hugh de Grentemesnil - b.1030 in Grentemesnil, Calvados, Normandy, France d.22 Feb 1092 in Leicester Castle, Leicestershire, England
Ansfred Rollosson* - b.0907 in Tillieres, Normandy, France
Toustien le Goz - b.0935 in Bastembourg, Normandy, France d.0978 in Heismes, Normandy, France
Countess Helloe of Beulac* - b.0910 in Belac, Normandy, France d.1032 in Dammertin, France
Seigneur d'Echafour Giroie le Goz - b.0968 in Heismes, Normandy, France d.1020 in Eschafour, Normandy, France
Judith de Montanolier - b.0945 in Montanolier, Normandy, France
Hawise d'Eschafour - b.1007 in Eschafour, Normandy, France
Rollo Hrolf Thurstan Brico* - b.0887 in Maer, Nord-Trondelag, Norway
Seigneur de Montfort Touissant de Briquibec - b.0928 in Chateau Briquebec, Manche, Normandy, France d.0997 in Montfort-Sur-Risle, Normandy, France
Gerlotte De Blois* - b.0913 in Tilliers, Normandy
Gisela Bertrand de Montfort - b.0972 in Montfort-Sur-Risle, Normandy, France
Geoffrey Murdac - b.0900
Juliane Murdac - b.0930 in Manche, Normandy, France

Amice de Grentemesnil - b.1045 d.1084
Yves of Ham*
Yves Bellomontensis - d.1035
Gisela
Count Ivan Bellomontensis - b.0975 in Beaumont-sur-Oise, Normandy, France d.1022 in Beaumont-sur-Oise, Normandy, France

Comte Yves Ivo de Beaumont II - b.1005 in Beaumont, Sur-Oise, Normandy, France d.22 May 1059 in Beaumont-sur-Oise, Normandy, France
Guy de Chevreuse - b.1130 in Mauvoisin, Nord, France d.01 Sep 1192
Gisele Chevreuse - b.0980 in Beaumont, Sur-Oise, Normandy, France d.1039 in France

Adeliza de Beaumont - b.1035 in Beaumont, France d.11 Jul 1091 in Rouen, Normandy, France
Hugh de Gournay I* - b.0940 in Gournay, France
Hugh de Gournay II - b.0960 in Gournay, Normandy, France

Hugh de Gournay III - b.0985 in Gournay-sur-Marne, Normandy, France d.1074 in Gournay-sur-Marne, Normandy, France

Judith Adela de Gournay - b.1008 in Beaumont, Sur-Oise, Normandy, France d.08 Apr 1099
Girard Flaitel - b.0960 in Evereux, Normandie, France
Gerald de Flaitel - b.0985 in Longueville, Normandy, France

Basilie Basita Flaitel - b.1000 in Normandy, France d.16 Jan 1098
Robert de Normandie* - b.0965 in Normandie d.1037
Herleva D'Evereaux - b.1003
Havlive Rouen* - b.0968 in Normandy, France d.21 Feb 1034 in Evreux, Rouen, Seine-et-Maritime, France
*There are earlier generations for the ancestor(s) indicated. See their page(s) for details (click name)
Family Details of Amice's family with Roger d'Aubigny

1 http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=jdp-fam&id=I66857&style=TABLE
Further sources/citations:
http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=jdp-fam&id=I66857&style=TABLE, http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=arciek&id=I10096

end of commentary

Children:

48144. Sir William "Pincerna" d'Aubigny, Lord of Buckingham was born in 1064 in Sauveur, France; died in 1139; was buried in Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk, England.
Sir Nigel d'Aubigny, 3rd Baron of Thirsk was born in 0___ 1170 in Thirsk Castle, Thirsk, Yorkshire, England; died on 26 Nov 1129 in Normandy, France.
Roger de Mowbray was born in 1085.

22266.

Sir Robert de Beaumont, Knight, 1st Earl of Leicester was born in ~ 1049 in Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France (son of Roger de Beaumont and Adeline of Meulan); died on 5 Jun 1118.

Other Events and Attributes:

Military: Battle of Hastings, 1066

Notes:

Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester (Sometime between 1040 & 1050 – 5 June 1118), also known as Robert of Meulan, count of Meulan, was a powerful Norman nobleman, one of the Companions of William the Conqueror during the Norman Conquest of England, and was revered as one of the wisest men of his age. Chroniclers spoke highly of his eloquence, his learning, and three kings of England valued his counsel.

Biography

He was born between 1040-1050, the eldest son of Roger de Beaumont (1015-1094) by his wife Adeline of Meulan (died 1081), a daughter of Waleran III, Count de Meulan, and was an older brother of Henry de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Warwick (c. 1050-1119)

Robert de Beaumont was one of only about 15 of the Proven Companions of William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and was leader of the infantry on the right wing of the Norman army, as evidenced in the following near contemporary account by William of Poitiers:

"A certain Norman, Robert, son of Roger of Beaumont, being nephew and heir to Henry, Count of Meulan, through Henry's sister Adeline, found himself that day in battle for the first time. He was as yet but a young man and he performed feats of valour worthy of perpetual remembrance. At the head of a troop which he commanded on the right wing he attacked with the utmost bravery and success".[1]

His service earned him the grant of more than 91 English manors confiscated from the defeated English, as listed in the Domesday Book of 1086.

When his mother died in 1081, Robert inherited the title of Count of Meulan in Normandy, and the title, Viscount Ivry and Lord of Norton. He paid homage to King Philip I of France for these estates and sat as a French Peer in the Parliament held at Poissy.

He and his brother Henry were members of the Royal hunting party in the New Forest in Hampshire when King William II Rufus (1087-1100) was shot dead accidentally by an arrow on 2 August 1100. He pledged allegiance to William II's brother, King Henry I (1100-1135), who created him Earl of Leicester in 1107.

On the death of William Rufus, William, Count of âEvreux and Ralph de Conches made an incursion into Robert's Norman estates, on the pretence they had suffered injury through some advice that Robert had given to the king; their raid was successful and they collected a vast booty.

During the English phase of the Investiture Controversy, he was excommunicated by Pope Paschal II on 26 March 1105 for advising King Henry to continue selecting the bishops of his realm in opposition to the canons of the church. Sometime in 1106, Henry succeeded in having Anselm, the exiled archbishop of Canterbury, revoke this excommunication. Anselm's (somewhat presumptuous) act was ultimately ratified by Paschal.

According to Henry of Huntingdon, Robert died of shame after "a certain earl carried off the lady he had espoused, either by some intrigue or by force and stratagem." He was the last surviving Norman nobleman to have fought in the Battle of Hastings.[2]

Family

In 1096 he married Elizabeth (or Isabel) de Vermandois, daughter of Hugh Magnus (1053-1101) a younger son of the French king and Adelaide, Countess of Vermandois (1050-1120). After his death Elizabeth remarried in 1118 to William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey. He had the following progeny:

Waleran IV de Beaumont, Count of Meulan, 1st Earl of Worcester (b. 1104), eldest twin and heir.
Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester & Earl of Hereford (b. 1104), twin
Hugh de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Bedford (b. circa 1106)
Emma de Beaumont (born 1102)
Adeline de Beaumont, married twice:
Hugh IV of Montfort-sur-Risle;
Richard de Granville of Bideford (d. 1147)
Aubree de Beaumont, married Hugh II of Chãateauneuf-Thimerais.
Agnes de Beaumont, a nun
Maud de Beaumont, married William Lovel. (b. c. 1102)
Isabel de Beaumont, a mistress of King Henry I. Married twice:
Gilbert de Clare, 1st Earl of Pembroke;
Hervâe de Montmorency, Constable of Ireland

Sources

icon Normandy portal
Edward T. Beaumont, J.P. The Beaumonts in History. A.D. 850-1850. Oxford.
References[edit]
Jump up ^ Wm. of Poitiers, per Douglas (1959), p.227
Jump up ^ Edward T. Beaumont, J.P. The Beaumonts in History. A.D. 850-1850. Oxford.

end

22267.

Notes:

Birth: 1081
Basse-Normandie, France
Death: Feb. 17, 1131, France

Countess of Leicester, Countess of Surrey

Third daughter of Hugh Magnus and Adelaide of Vermandois, granddaughter of King Henry I of France and Anne of Kiev, Herbert IV, Count of Vermandois, and Adele of Valois. She was the heiress of the county of Vermandois and descendant of Charlemagne.

Wife of Sir Robert de Beaumont, Count of Meulan, the son of Roger de Beaumont and Adeline of Meulan; Isabel became the Countess of Leicester. They married about 1096 and had three sons and at least five daughters:
* Emma b 1101, probably died young
* Waleran IV de Beaumont, Count of Meulan, twin
* Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester, twin
* Hugh de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Bedford
* Adeline, wife of Hugh Montfort & Richard de Granville
* Aubree, wife of Hugh II of Chãateauneuf-en-Thimerais
* Maud, wife of William Lovel
* Isabel, mistress of King Henry I, wife of Gilbert de Clare and mother of Richard Strongbow & wife of Hervâe de Montmorency

Secondly, the wife of William de Warenne, son of William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey and his first wife Gundred; Isabel became the Countess of Surrey. They married in 1118 and had three sons and two daughters:
* William de Warenne, 3rd Earl of Surrey
Ralph de Warenne
* Reginald de Warenne
* Gundrada de Warenne, wife of Roger de Beaumont& William de Lancaster
* Ada de Warenne, wife of Henry of Scotland, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon, mother King Malcolm IV and King William I 'the Lion'

Sir Robert de Beaumont, described as being "the wisest man in his time between London and Jerusalem", and aged over fifty was determined to marry Isabel, aged about eleven. Bishop Ivo dismissed their request based on their being within a few degrees of kindred. Isabel's father was able to sway Bishop Ivo, and saw his daughter married by April of 1096 when he left on a crusade.

In 1115, Isabel was either carried away or willingly abducted by William de Warrene, revealing they had been lovers for some time. They were unable to marry until the death of Sir Robert, which occurred in 1118.

The Beaumont sons were on opposite sides of support for King Stephen and Queen Matilda, but were not enemies.

Sources vary on her death, reported as 1131 to outliving William who died in 1138.

Family links:
Parents:
Hugues de France (1057 - 1102)

Spouses:
Robert de Beaumont (1049 - 1118)
William II de Warenne (1065 - 1138)

Children:
Waleran de Beaumont (1104 - 1166)*
Robert de Beaumont (1104 - 1168)*
Reginald de Warenne (1113 - 1179)*
William de Warenne (1118 - 1148)*
Ada De Warenne De Huntingdon (1120 - 1178)*

Sibling:
Isabel Of Vermandois Beaumont de Warenne (1081 - 1131)
Raoul I de Vermandois (1094 - 1152)*

*Calculated relationship

Burial:
Lewes Priory
Lewes
Lewes District
East Sussex, England

end

Children:

Eleanor Beaumont was born in 1100 in Cheshire, England; died in 1157 in Cheshire, England.
11133. Isabel de Beaumont was born in ~1101 in Leicester, Leicestershire, England; died after 1172 in Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire, Wales.
Waleran de Beaumont, IV was born in 1104 in (Meulan, France); died on 9 Apr 1166 in Preaux, France.
24102. Sir Robert de Beaumont, Knight, 2nd Earl of Leicester was born in 1104 in (Meulan, France); died on 5 Apr 1168 in Brackley, Northamptonshire, England.

22260.

Edward of Salisbury was born in BY 1045 in Normandy, France; died in Denbighshire, Wales.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Salisbury, Wiltshire, England
Occupation: 0___ 1081; Vicecomitem (sheriff)

Notes:

Birth: unknown
Haute-Normandie, France
Death: unknown
Denbighshire, Wales

Born by 1045, he seems, by virtue of his wide land holdings, to have been well placed among the followers of William the Conqueror. He was called "vicecomitem" [sheriff] of Wiltshire in a charter dated 1081.

Family links:
Children:
Walter Fitz Edward (1091 - 1147)*

*Calculated relationship

Burial:
Unknown

Created by: Darrel Salisbury
Record added: Aug 06, 2014
Find A Grave Memorial# 133948641

end

Edward married Maud Fitz Hurbert. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

22261.

Children:

11130. Sir Walter of Salisbury was born in 0___ 1087 in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England; died in 0___ 1147 in Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England; was buried in Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England.
Maud of Salisbury

44532.

Roger de Beaumont was born in ~ 1015 in (Normandy, France); died on 29 Nov 1094; was buried in Les Preaux, Normandy, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

Burial: Abbey of Saint-Pierre de Prâeaux, France
Possessions: Beaumont-le-Roger, Normandy, France
Possessions: Pont-Audemer, Normandy, France
Military: Battle of Hasings, 1066

Notes:

Roger de Beaumont (c. 1015 – 29 November 1094), feudal lord (French: seigneur) of Beaumont-le-Roger and of Pont-Audemer in Normandy, was a powerful Norman nobleman and close advisor to William the Conqueror.

Origins

He was a son of Humphrey de Vieilles (who was a great-nephew of the Duchess Gunnora of Normandy) by his wife Albreda de la Haye Auberie. Roger de Beaumont was thus a second cousin once removed of William the Conqueror. His Norman feudal lordship had its caput and castle at Beaumont-le-Roger, a settlement situated on the upper reaches of the River Risle, in Normandy, about 46 km SW of Rouen, the capital of the Duchy. He was also feudal lord of Pont-Audemer, a settlement built around the first bridge to cross the River Risle upstream of its estuary, shared with the River Seine.

Physical appearance[edit]
Roger was nicknamed La Barbe (Latinised to Barbatus) (i.e. "The Bearded") because he wore a moustache and beard while the Normans usually were clean shaven. This peculiarity is believed to be recognized in the thirty-second panel of the Bayeux Tapestry where he is depicted sitting at a feast near Hastings, well before the battle, at the right hand of Duke William, who in turn was seated at the right hand of his brother Bishop Odo of Bayeux, who is shown blessing the food at a feast.

Career

Planchâe described him as "the noblest, the wealthiest, and the most valiant seigneur of Normandy, and the greatest and most trusted friend of the Danish (i.e. Norman) family". The explanation for his exalted position appears to be that as an older cousin who had never rebelled against the young Duke, he was part of the kinship group of noblemen that William relied upon in governing Normandy and fighting-off frequent rebellion and invasions. The historian Frank McLynn observed that William relied heavily on relatives on his mother's side, namely his half-brothers Bishop Odo and Robert, and brothers-in-law, and on relatives descended from the Duchess Gunnora's sisters, since his own paternal kin had proved unreliable.

Wace, the 12th century historian, wrote that: "At the time of the invasion of England, Roger was summoned to the great council at Lillebonne, on account of his wisdom; but he did not join in the expedition as he was too far advanced in years". Although Roger could not fight, he did not hesitate in contributing a large share of the cost, and provided at his own expense sixty vessels for the conveyance of the troops across the channel. Furthermore, his eldest son and heir fought bravely at Hastings as noted in several contemporary records. As a result, Roger's elder sons were rewarded generously with lands in England, and both eventually were made English earls by the sons of the Conqueror. Wace's statement may therefore cast doubt on the possibility of Roger being depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry feasting at Hastings. However it is possible that he crossed the Channel so he could continue to act as a valued member of the Duke's council, perhaps giving advice on military tactics, yet stayed well behind the line of battle at headquarters.

Marriage & progeny

He married circa 1048 or earlier Adeline of Meulan (c. 1014-1020 - 8 April 1081), who was buried at the Abbaye du Bec, the daughter of Waleran III, Count de Meulan by Oda de Conteville, and sister and heiress of a childless Count of Meulan. Meulan eventually passed to their elder son who became Count of Meulan in 1081. Their surviving children were:

Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester, Count of Meulan (c.1049-1118), the eldest son and heir. He succeeded his father in the major part of his lands, and was one of the few proven Companions of William the Conqueror who fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
Henry de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Warwick (c.1050-1119). He was overshadowed by his elder brother, but was granted by his father one of his lesser lordships in Normandy, the lordship of Le Neubourg, about 12 km NE of Beaumont-le-Roger, from which his own family adopted the surname Anglicised to "de Newburgh". He established a more enduring line of Beaumont earls than his elder brother, Earls of Warwick seated at Warwick Castle.
William de Beaumont (not mentioned in most sources).
Alberâee de Beaumont (died 1112), Abbess of Eton.

Death & burial

He was buried at Les Prâeaux.

end

44533.

Children:

22266. Sir Robert de Beaumont, Knight, 1st Earl of Leicester was born in ~ 1049 in Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France; died on 5 Jun 1118.
48600. Sir Henry de Beaumont, Knight, 1st Earl of Warwick was born in ~ 1050 in Normandy, France; died on 20 Jun 1119; was buried in Les Preaux, Normandy, France.

44536.

Murchad Macdairmata Murchada was born in 1032 in (Ireland) (son of Diarmait Macmail Na Mbo Murchada, King of Ireland and Dearbforgail Ingen O'Brien); died in 1070 in (Ireland).

Murchad married Sadb Ingen Mac Bricc(Ireland). Sadb was born in 1085 in (Ireland); died in 1115 in (Ireland). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44537.

Sadb Ingen Mac Bricc was born in 1085 in (Ireland); died in 1115 in (Ireland).

Children:

22268. Donnchad Enna Mac Murchada was born in 1085 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland; died on 8 Dec 1115 in Wexford, Ireland.

44538. Gilla Michil O'Brien was born in 0___ 1055; died in 0___ 1068.
Gilla married Luchdelb Hui Garbita. Luchdelb was born in 0___ 1062. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44539.

Luchdelb Hui Garbita was born in 0___ 1062.

Children:

22269. Orlaith Ingen O'Brien, Queen of Leinster was born in 0___ 1080 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland; died in 0___ 1113 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland.

96482.

Sir Simon Senlis, 1st Earl of Northampton was born in ~1046 in Calvados, Normandie, France; died in ~1111 in Bourgogne, France.

Notes:

Simon "1st Earl of Northampton, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon" de Senlis I formerly Senlis aka de St. Liz
Born about 1046 in Calvados, Basse-Normandie, France
Son of Ranulph (Senlis) de Senlis and Judith (Unknown) de Senlis
[sibling(s) unknown]
Husband of Maud (Huntingdon) of Scotland — married 1090 (to Dec 1111) [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Father of Hugh (Senlis) de St Liz, Waltheof (Senlis) St Liz, Matilda (Senlis) Clare, Simon (Senlis) de St Liz and Malcolm (Huntingdon) Canmore
Died about 1111 in Priory of La Charitâe-sur-Loire, Bourgogne, France

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[categories]
British Aristocracy
Simon (Senlis) de Senlis I was a member of aristocracy in the British Isles.
Join: British Royals and Aristocrats Project
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Biography
1st Earl of Northampton, 1st Earl of Huntingdon; Crusader

"SIMON DE ST. LIZ, said to be a son of Ranulph the Rich, a Norman, appears to have come to England early in the reign of William II. Presumably in consequence of his marriage, he became EARL of HUNTINGDON and NORTHAMPTON after 1086 (for he is not named in Domesday Book) and in or before 1090, when he witnessed a charter to Bath Abbey as "Earl Simon." He witnessed another royal charter under the same designation a little later. He fought for William in Normandy in 1098, and was taken prisoner by Louis, son of the French King. On the accession of Henry I in 1100 he witnessed the charter of liberties issued by the King at his Coronation. He built the Castle of Northampton and founded or refounded the Priory of St. Andrew in that town, and made it dependent on the Cluniac house of La Charitâe-sur-Loire; this was probably in the time of William Rufus, but certainly before 1108, when he granted an ample charter to it in conjunction with Maud his wife. He was a benefactor also to Daventry Priory, and probably built St. Sepulchre's, Northampton, about this time. He went to Jerusalem cruce signatus, and returned safely, but setting out again he died on the way at the above named Priory of La Charitâe, and was buried there.

"He married, perhaps as early as 1090 when she would be aged about 18, Maud, eldest daughter of Waltheof, EARL OF HUNTINGDON and NORTHAMPTON, by Judith, niece of William I. He died, as aforesaid, at La Charitâe presumably in 1111 or shortly afterwards. His widow married DAVID I of Scotland. [Complete Peerage VI:640-1, (transcribed by Dave Utzinger)]

Simon Senlis/St. Liz: (b. before 1045, d. 1109, buried at the priory of La Charite-Sur-Loire). He probably went to England from Normandy about the end of the reign of William the Conqueror, and he was offered by the Conqueror the hand of William's niece, Judith of Lens, the widow of Earl Watheof of Huntingdon whom William beheaded in 1076 for treason, but Judith refused to marry him on account of his lameness. He then recieved the earldom of Northampton and Huntingdon from the king and eventually married Waltheof and Judith's daughter Maud (d. 1131), probably not earlier than 1098. In 1098 he was fighting on the side of King William Rufus in Normandy and was taken prisoner by Louis, son of the king of France. He was one of the witnesses to the coronation charter of King Henry I of England in 1100. Afterwards he went on the crusade and died in 1109.

Earl Simon built Northampton Castle and founded the priory of St. Andrew, Northampton, probably in 1108. By his wife Maud he had two sons: Simon (d.1153, Earl of Northampton, married Isabel de Beaumont, daughter of Robert de Beaumont, Earl of Gloucester who d. 1118 by whom he had a son Simon III who died without issue after having married Alice de Gant, daughter of Gilbert de Gant, Earl of Lincoln), and Waltheof III (d. 1159, Abbot of Melrose). His daughter Maud married Robert Fitz-Richard de Clare of Tonbridge and William d'Albini who died 1155/6.-AEDC

Burial
AFT 1111 Reinterred St. Neots, Vichy, France
Sources
Royal Ancestry 2013 D. Richardson Vol. I p. 278
Phillips, Weber, Kirk and Staggs Families of the Pacific Northwest, by Jim Weber, rootsweb.com
http://www.geni.com/people/Ranulph-I-de-Bayeux-Vicomte-du-Bessin/4615364525630058469
Reports and Papers of the Architectural and Archaeological Societies of the Counties of Lincoln and Northampton (Savill and Edwards, London, 1850) Vol. 1, Page 236

end of this biography

Died:
at the Priory of La Charitâe-sur-Loire

Map, History & Photo ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Charit%C3%A9-sur-Loire

Simon married Maud of Huntingdon, Queen Consort of Scotland in 1090. Maud (daughter of Waltheof Huntington, Earl of Northumbria and Judith of Lens, Countess of Northumberland) was born in ~1074 in Northumberland, England; died in 1130-1131 in Scone, Perthshire, Scotland; was buried in Scone Abbey, Perthshire, Scotland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

96483.

Notes:

Maud or Matilda (c.1074—1130/31) was the queen consort of King David I of Scotland. She was the great-niece of William the Conqueror and the granddaughter of Earl Siward.

Biography

Maud was the daughter of the Waltheof, the Anglo-Saxon Earl of Huntingdon and Northampton, and his Norman wife Judith of Lens. Her father was the last of the major Anglo-Saxon earls to remain powerful after the Norman conquest of England in 1066, and the son of Siward, Earl of Northumbria. Her mother was the niece of William the Conqueror.

She was married to Simon de Senlis (or St Liz) in about 1090.[1] Earlier, William had tried to get Maud's mother, Judith, to marry Simon. He received the honour of Huntingdon (whose lands stretched across much of eastern England) probably in right of his wife from William Rufus before the end of the year 1090.[2][3]

She had three known children by him:[2]

Matilda of St Liz (Maud) (d. 1140); she married Robert Fitz Richard of Tonbridge; she married secondly Saer De Quincy.
Simon of St Liz (d. 1153)
Saint Waltheof of Melrose (c.1100 – 1159/60)
Her first husband died some time after 1111 and Maud next married David, the brother-in-law of Henry I of England, in 1113.[1][3] Through the marriage, David gained control over his wife's vast estates in England, in addition to his own lands in Cumbria and Strathclyde.[3] They had four children (two sons and two daughters):[1]

Malcolm (born in 1113 or later, died young)
Henry (c.1114 – 1152)
Claricia (died unmarried)
Hodierna (died young and unmarried)
In 1124, David became King of Scots. Maud's two sons by different fathers, Simon and Henry, would later vie for the Earldom of Huntingdon.[3]

She died in 1130 or 1131 and was buried at Scone Abbey in Perthshire, but she appears in a charter of dubious origin dated 1147.[1]

Depictions in fiction

Maud of Huntingdon appears as a character in Elizabeth Chadwick's novel The Winter Mantle (2003), as well as Alan Moore's novel Voice of the Fire (1995) and Nigel Tranter's novel David the Prince (1980).

References

^ Jump up to: a b c d Weir, Alison (1995). Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy, Revised Edition. London: Random House. ISBN 0-7126-7448-9. p. 192
^ Jump up to: a b Matthew Strickland, "Senlis, Simon (I) de", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/25091
^ Jump up to: a b c d G. W. S. Barrow, "David I (c.1085–1153)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2006 ; Maud (d. 1131): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/49353

Buried:
Scone Abbey (originally Scone Priory) was a house of Augustinian canons located in Scone, Perthshire (Gowrie), Scotland. Dates given for the establishment of Scone Priory have ranged from 1114 A.D. to 1122 A.D. However, historians have long believed that Scone was before that time the center of the early medieval Christian cult of the Culdees (Câeli Dâe in medieval Irish meaning "Companions of God"). Very little is known about the Culdees but it is thought that a cult may have been worshiping at Scone from as early as 700 A.D. Archaeological surveys taken in 2007 suggest that Scone was a site of real significance even prior to 841 A.D., when Kenneth MacAlpin brought the Stone of Destiny, Scotland's most prized relic and coronation stone, to Scone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scone_Abbey

Children:

48241. Matilda Senlis was born in ~1093 in Huntingdonshire, England; died in 1140 in Leicestershire, England.

24194.

Notes:

more...

History & issue of Henry I, King of England ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_I_of_England

Family and children

Legitimate

House of Normandy
Bayeux Tapestry WillelmDux.jpg
William the Conqueror invades England
William I[show]
William II[show]
Henry I[show]
Stephen[show]
Monarchy of the United Kingdom
v t e
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Henry I of England.

Henry and his first wife, Matilda, had at least two legitimate children:

Matilda, born in 1102, died 1167.[89]
William Adelin, born in 1103, died 1120.[89]
Possibly Richard, who, if he existed, died young.[100]
Henry and his second wife, Adeliza, had no children.

Illegitimate

Henry had a number of illegitimate children by various mistresses.[nb 32]

Sons

Robert of Gloucester, born in the 1090s.[332]
Richard, born to Ansfride, brought up by Robert Bloet, the Bishop of Lincoln.[333]
Reginald de Dunstanville, Earl of Cornwall, born in the 1110s or early 1120s, possibly to Sibyl Corbet.[334]
Robert the King's son, born to Ede, daughter of Forne.[335]
Gilbert, possibly born to an unnamed sister or daughter of Walter of Gand.[336]
William de Tracy, possibly born in the 1090s.[336]
Henry the King's son, possibly born to Nest ferch Rhys.[335][nb 33]
Fulk the King's son, possibly born to Ansfride.[335]
William, the brother of Sybilla de Normandy, probably the brother of Reginald de Dunstanville.[337]

Daughters

Matilda FitzRoy, Countess of Perche.[338]
Matilda FitzRoy, Duchess of Brittany.[338]
Juliana, wife of Eustace of Breteuil, possibly born to Ansfrida.[339]
Mabel, wife of William Gouet.[340]
Constance, Vicountess of Beaumont-sur-Sarthe.[341]
Aline, wife of Matthew de Montmorency.[342]
Isabel, daughter of Isabel de Beaumont, Countess of Pembroke.[342]
Sybilla de Normandy, Queen of Scotland, probably born before 1100.[342][nb 34]
Matilda Fitzroy, Abbess of Montvilliers.[342]
Gundrada de Dunstanville.[342]
Possibly Rohese, wife of Henry de la Pomerai.[342][nb 35]
Emma, wife of Guy of Laval.[343]
Adeliza, the King's daughter.[343]
The wife of Fergus of Galloway.[343]
Possibly Sibyl of Falaise.[343][nb 36]

Born: ABT Sep 1068, Selby, Yorkshire, England
Acceded: 6 Aug 1100, Westminster Abbey, London, England
Died: 1 Dec 1135, St Denis-le-Fermont, near Gisors
Buried: Reading Abbey, Berkshire, England

Notes: Reigned 1100-1135. Duke of Normandy 1106-1135.

His reign is notable for important legal and administrative reforms, and for the final resolution of the investiture controversy. Abroad, he waged several campaigns in order to consolidate and expand his continental possessions. Was so hated by his brothers that they vowed to disinherit him. In 1106 he captured Robert and held him til he died. He proved to be a hard but just ruler. One of his lovers, Nest, Princess of Deheubarth, was known as the most beautiful woman in Wales; she had many lovers.

He apparently died from over eating Lampreys. During a Christmas court at Windsor Castle in 1126 that Henry I, who had no legitimate male heir, tried to force his barons to accept his daughter Matilda as his successor.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles reported that "...there he caused archbishops and bishops and abbots and earls all the thegns that were there to swear to give England and Normandy after his death into the hand of his daughter". Swear they did, but they were not happy about it. None of those present were interested in being among the first to owe allegiance to a woman. The stage was set for the 19-year-long bloody struggle for the throne that rent England apart after Henry's death. Ironically, the final resolution to that civil war, the peace treaty between King Stephen and Matilda's son Henry of Anjou, was ratified on Christmas Day at Westminster in 1153.

*

Birth:
History, maps & photos of Selby, England ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selby

Buried:
Reading Abbey is a large, ruined abbey in the centre of the town of Reading, in the English county of Berkshire. It was founded by Henry I in 1121 "for the salvation of my soul, and the souls of King William, my father, and of King William, my brother, and Queen Maud, my wife, and all my ancestors and successors".

For more history & images of Reading Abbey, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Abbey

24195.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Normandy, France

Notes:

Matilda of Scotland (c. 1080 – 1 May 1118), originally christened Edith,[1] was Queen of England as the first wife of King Henry I.

Matilda was the daughter of the English princess Saint Margaret and the Scottish king Malcolm III. At the age of about six Matilda was sent with her sister to be educated in a convent in southern England, where her aunt Cristina was abbess. It is not clear if she spent much time in Scotland thereafter. In 1093, when she was about 13, she was engaged to an English nobleman when her father and brother Edward were killed in a minor raid into England, and her mother died soon after; her fiance then abandoned the proposed marriage. In Scotland a messy succession conflict followed between Matilda's uncle Donald III, her half-brother Duncan II and brother Edgar until 1097. Matilda's whereabouts during this no doubt difficult period are uncertain.

But after the suspicious death of William II of England in 1100 and accession of his brother Henry I, Matilda's prospects improved. Henry moved quickly to propose to her. It is said that he already knew and admired her, and she may indeed have spent time at the English court. Edgar was now secure on the Scottish throne, offering the prospect of better relations between the two countries, and Matilda also had the considerable advantage of Anglo-Saxon royal blood, which the Norman dynasty largely lacked.[2] There was a difficulty about the marriage; a special church council was called to be satisfied that Matilda had not taken vows as a nun, which her emphatic testimony managed to convince them of.

Matilda and Henry married in late 1100. They had two children who reached adulthood and two more who died young. Matilda led a literary and musical court, but was also pious. She embarked on building projects for the church, and took a role in government when her husband was away; many surviving charters are signed by her. Matilda lived to see her daughter Matilda become Holy Roman Empress but died two years before the drowning of her son William. Henry remarried, but had no further legitimate children, which caused a succession crisis known as The Anarchy. Matilda is buried in Westminster Abbey and was fondly remembered by her subjects as "Matilda the Good Queen" and "Matilda of Blessed Memory". There was an attempt to have her canonized, which was not pursued.

Early life

Matilda was born around 1080 in Dunfermline, the daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland and Saint Margaret. She was christened (baptised) Edith, and Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, stood as godfather at the ceremony. The English queen Matilda of Flanders was also present at the baptismal font and served as her godmother. Baby Matilda pulled at Queen Matilda's headdress, which was seen as an omen that the younger Matilda would be queen one day.[3]

The Life of St Margaret, Queen of Scotland was later written for Matilda possibly by Turgot of Durham. It refers to Matilda's childhood and her relationship with her mother. In it, Margaret is described as a strict but loving mother. She did not spare the rod when it came to raising her children in virtue, which the author presupposed was the reason for the good behaviour Matilda and her siblings displayed, and Margaret also stressed the importance of piety.[4]

When she was about six years old, Matilda of Scotland (or Edith as she was then probably still called) and her sister Mary were sent to Romsey Abbey, near Southampton in southern England, where their aunt Cristina was abbess. During her stay at Romsey and, some time before 1093, at Wilton Abbey, both institutions known for learning,[5] the Scottish princess was much sought-after as a bride; refusing proposals from William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey, and Alan Rufus, Lord of Richmond. Hâeriman of Tournai claimed that William Rufus considered marrying her. Her education went beyond the standard feminine pursuits. This was not surprising as her mother was a great lover of books. Her daughters learned English, French, and some Latin, and were sufficiently literate to read St. Augustine and the Bible.[6]

In 1093, her parents betrothed her to Alan Rufus, Lord of Richmond, one of her numerous suitors. However, before the marriage took place, her father entered into a dispute with William Rufus. In response, he marauded the English king's lands where he was surprised by Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumbria and killed along with his son, Edward. Upon hearing of her husband and son's death, Margaret, already ill, died on 16 November. Edith was now an orphan. She was abandoned by her betrothed who ran off with a daughter of Harold Godwinson, Gunhild of Wessex. However, he died before they could be married.[7]

She had left the monastery by 1093, when Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote to the Bishop of Salisbury ordering that the daughter of the King of Scotland be returned to the monastery that she had left. She did not return to Wilton and until 1100, is largely unaccounted for in chronicles.[8]

Marriage

After William II's death in the New Forest in August 1100, his brother, Henry, immediately seized the royal treasury and crown. His next task was to marry and Henry's choice was Matilda. Because Matilda had spent most of her life in a convent, there was some controversy over whether she was a nun and thus canonically ineligible for marriage. Henry sought permission for the marriage from Archbishop Anselm, who returned to England in September 1100 after a long exile. Professing himself unwilling to decide so weighty a matter on his own, Anselm called a council of bishops in order to determine the canonical legality of the proposed marriage. Matilda testified that she had never taken holy vows, insisting that her parents had sent her and her sister to England for educational purposes, and her aunt Cristina had veiled her to protect her "from the lust of the Normans." Matilda claimed she had pulled the veil off and stamped on it, and her aunt beat and scolded her for this act. The council concluded that Matilda was not a nun, never had been and her parents had not intended that she become one, giving their permission for the marriage.

Matilda and Henry seem to have known one another for some time before their marriage — William of Malmesbury states that Henry had "long been attached" to her, and Orderic Vitalis says that Henry had "long adored" her character. It is possible that Matilda had spent some time at William Rufus's court and that the pair had met there. It is also possible Henry was introduced to his bride by his teacher Bishop Osmund. Whatever the case, it is clear that the two at least knew each other prior to their wedding. Additionally, the chronicler William of Malmesbury suggests that the new king loved his bride.[9]

Matilda's mother was the sister of Edgar the ¥theling, proclaimed but uncrowned King of England after Harold, and, through her mother, Matilda was descended from Edmund Ironside and thus from the royal family of Wessex, which in the 10th century had become the royal family of a united England. This was extremely important because although Henry had been born in England, he needed a bride with ties to the ancient Wessex line to increase his popularity with the English and to reconcile the Normans and Anglo-Saxons.[10] In their children, the two factions would be united, further unifying the new regime. Another benefit was that England and Scotland became politically closer; three of Matilda's brothers became kings of Scotland in succession and were unusually friendly towards England during this period of unbroken peace between the two nations: Alexander married one of Henry I's illegitimate daughters and David lived at Henry's court for some time before his accession.[11]

Matilda had a small dower but it did incorporate some lordship rights. Most of her dower estates were granted from lands previously held by Edith of Wessex. Additionally, Henry made numerous grants on his wife including substantial property in London. Generosity aside, this was a political move in order to win over the unruly Londoners who were vehement supporters of the Wessex kings.[12]

Queen

The seal of Matilda
After Matilda and Henry were married on 11 November 1100 at Westminster Abbey by Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury, she was crowned as "Matilda," a hallowed Norman name. By courtiers, however, she and her husband were soon nicknamed 'Godric and Godiva'.[13] These two names were typical English names from before The Conquest and mocked their more rustic style, especially when compared to the flamboyance of William II.

She gave birth to a daughter, Matilda, born in February 1102, and a son, William, called "Adelin", in November 1103. As queen, she resided primarily at Westminster, but accompanied her husband on his travels around England, and, circa 1106–1107, probably visited Normandy with him. Matilda was the designated head of Henry's curia and acted as regent during his frequent absences.[14]

During the English investiture controversy (1103-07), she acted as intercessor between her husband and archbishop Anselm. She wrote several letters during Anselm's absence, first asking him for advice and to return, but later increasingly to mediate.[15]

Works

Matilda had great interest in architecture and instigated the building of many Norman-style buildings, including Waltham Abbey and Holy Trinity Aldgate.[16] She also had the first arched bridge in England built, at Stratford-le-Bow, as well as a bathhouse with piped-in water and public lavatories at Queenhithe.[17]

Her court was filled with musicians and poets; she commissioned a monk, possibly Thurgot, to write a biography of her mother, Saint Margaret. She was an active queen and, like her mother, was renowned for her devotion to religion and the poor. William of Malmesbury describes her as attending church barefoot at Lent, and washing the feet and kissing the hands of the sick. Matilda exhibited a particular interest in leprosy, founding at least two leper hospitals, including the institution that later became the parish church of St Giles-in-the-Fields.[18] She also administered extensive dower properties and was known as a patron of the arts, especially music.

Death

After Matilda died on 1 May 1118 at Westminster Palace, she was buried at Westminster Abbey. The death of her son, William Adelin, in the tragic disaster of the White Ship (November 1120) and Henry's failure to produce a legitimate son from his second marriage led to the succession crisis of The Anarchy.

Legacy

After her death, she was remembered by her subjects as "Matilda the Good Queen" and "Matilda of Blessed Memory", and for a time sainthood was sought for her, though she was never canonized. Matilda is also thought to be the identity of the "Fair Lady" mentioned at the end of each verse in the nursery rhyme London Bridge Is Falling Down. The post-Norman conquest English monarchs to the present day are related to the Anglo-Saxon House of Wessex monarchs via Matilda of Scotland as she was the great-granddaughter of King Edmund Ironside, see House of Wessex family tree.

Issue

Matilda and Henry had issue

Euphemia (July/August 1101), died young
Matilda of England (c. February 1102 – 10 September 1167), Holy Roman Empress, Countess consort of Anjou, called Lady of the English
William Adelin, (5 August 1103 – 25 November 1120), sometimes called Duke of Normandy, who married Matilda (d.1154), daughter of Fulk V, Count of Anjou.
Elizabeth (August/September 1104), died young

Appearance and character

"It causes pleasure to see the queen whom no woman equals in beauty of body or face, hiding her body, nevertheless, in a veil of loose clothing. Here alone, with new modesty, wishes to conceal it, but what gleams with its own light cannot be hidden and the sun, penetrating his clouds, hurls his rays." She also had "fluent, honeyed speech." From a poem of Marbodius of Rennes.

Children:

12097. Matilda of England, Queen of England was born on 7 Feb 1102 in London, Middlesex, England; was christened on 7 Apr 1141; died on 10 Sep 1167 in Notre Dame, Rouen, Seine-Maritime, France; was buried on 10 Sep 1169 in Bec Abbey, Le Bec-Hellouin, Eure, France.

96776.

Duke Robert de Normandie, II was born in ~1005 in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, II and Judith de Bretagne); died on 22 Jul 1035 in Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey.

Notes:

Robert I the Magnificent of Normandy, Duke of Normany, was born 1000 in Normandy, France to Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027) and Judith of Brittany (982-1017) and died 22 July 1035 in Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey of unspecified causes. Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]

Robert, called "The Magnificent" (French, "le Magnifique") for his love of finery, and also called "The Devil" was the son of Duke Richard II of Normandy and Judith, daughter of Conan I, Duke of Brittany.

When his father died, his elder brother Richard succeeded, whilst he became Count of Hiâemois. When Richard died a year later, there were great suspicions that Robert had Richard murdered, hence his other nickname, "Robert le diable" (the devil). He is sometimes identified with the legendary Robert the Devil. Robert aided King Henry I of France against Henry's rebellious brother and mother, and for his help he was given the territory of the Vexin. He also intervened in the affairs of Flanders, supported Edward the Confessor, who was then in exile at Robert's court, and sponsored monastic reform in Normandy.

Children

Offspring of Robert I of Normandy and Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050)
Name Birth Death Joined with
William I of England (1027-1087) 9 September 1027 Falaise, France 1087 Rouen, France Matilda of Flanders (c1031-1083)

Robert married Harriette de Falaise, Countess of Montaigne. Harriette was born in 1003 in Falaise, Calvados, Normandie, France; died in ~1050 in Mortagne-au-Perche, Normandie, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

96777.

Harriette de Falaise, Countess of Montaigne was born in 1003 in Falaise, Calvados, Normandie, France; died in ~1050 in Mortagne-au-Perche, Normandie, France.

Notes:

Herleva[a] (c. 1003 – c. 1050) was a Norman woman of the 11th century, known for three sons: William I of England "the Conqueror", an illegitimate son fathered by Robert I, Duke of Normandy; and Odo of Bayeux and Robert, Count of Mortain, who were both fathered by her husband Herluin de Conteville. All three became prominent in William's realm.

Life

The background of Herleva and the circumstances of William's birth are shrouded in mystery. The written evidence dates from a generation or two later, and is not entirely consistent, but of all the Norman chroniclers only the Tours chronicler asserts that William's parents were subsequently joined in marriage.[b] The most commonly accepted version says that she was the daughter of a tanner named Fulbert from the town of Falaise, in Normandy. The meaning of filia pelletarii burgensis[6] is somewhat uncertain, and Fulbert may instead have been a furrier, embalmer, apothecary, or a person who laid out corpses for burial.[7]

Some argue that Herleva's father was not a tanner but rather a member of the burgher class.[8] The idea is supported by the appearance of her brothers in a later document as attestors for an under-age William. Also, the Count of Flanders later accepted Herleva as a proper guardian for his own daughter. Both of these would be nearly impossible if Herleva's father was a tanner, which would place his standing as little more than a peasant.

Orderic Vitalis described Herleva's father Fulbert as the Duke's Chamberlain (cubicularii ducis).[9]
Relationship with Robert the Magnificent

According to one legend, it all started when Robert, the young Duke of Normandy, saw Herleva from the roof of his castle tower.[10] The walkway on the roof still looks down on the dyeing trenches cut into stone in the courtyard below, which can be seen to this day from the tower ramparts above. The traditional way of dyeing leather or garments was to trample barefoot on the garments which were awash in the liquid dye in these trenches. Herleva, legend goes, seeing the Duke on his ramparts above, raised her skirts perhaps a bit more than necessary in order to attract the Duke's eye.[10] The latter was immediately smitten and ordered her brought in (as was customary for any woman that caught the Duke's eye) through the back door. Herleva refused, saying she would only enter the Duke's castle on horseback through the front gate, and not as an ordinary commoner. The Duke, filled with lust, could only agree. In a few days, Herleva, dressed in the finest her father could provide, and sitting on a white horse, rode proudly through the front gate, her head held high.[10][11] This gave Herleva a semi-official status as the Duke's concubine.[12] She later gave birth to his son, William, in 1027 or 1028.[13]

Some historians suggest Herleva was first the mistress of Gilbert of Brionne with whom she had a son, Richard. It was Gilbert who first saw Herleva and elevated her position and then Robert took her for his mistress.[14]
Marriage to Herluin de Conteville

Herleva later married Herluin de Conteville in 1031. Some accounts maintain that Robert always loved her, but the gap in their social status made marriage impossible, so, to give her a good life, he married her off to one of his favourite noblemen.[15]

Another source suggests that Herleva did not marry Herluin until after Robert died, because there is no record of Robert entering another relationship, whereas Herluin married another woman, Fredesendis, by the time he founded the abbey of Grestain.[16]

From her marriage to Herluin she had two sons: Odo, who later became Bishop of Bayeux, and Robert, who became Count of Mortain. Both became prominent during William's reign. They also had at least two daughters: Emma, who married Richard le Goz, Viscount of Avranches, and a daughter of unknown name who married William, lord of la Fertâe-Macâe.[17]
Death

According to Robert of Torigni, Herleva was buried at the abbey of Grestain, which was founded by Herluin and their son Robert around 1050. This would put Herleva in her forties around the time of her death. However, David C. Douglas suggests that Herleva probably died before Herluin founded the abbey because her name does not appear on the list of benefactors, whereas the name of Herluin's second wife, Fredesendis, does.[18]

end of biography

Children:

48388. William the Conqueror, King of England, Duke of Normandy was born on 14 Oct 1024 in Chateau de Falaise, Falaise, Normandy, France; was christened in 1066 in Dives-sur-Mer, Normandie, France; died on 9 Sep 1087 in Rouen, Normandy, France; was buried in Saint-Etienne de Caen, France.
Countess Adelaide of Normandy was born in ~1030 in Normandie, France; died before 1090 in (Normandie, France).

97024. Hugh de Chaworth was born about 1025 in St Symphoro, Lemans, Maine, France (son of Ernald de Chaources and unnamed spouse).
Hugh married unnamed spouse. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]
97025.
unnamed spouse
Children:

48512. Patrick de Chaworth was born about 1052 in Chaworth, Nottinghamshire, England.

48136.

Sir William de Braose, Knight, 1st Lord of Bramber was born in ~1049 in Briouze, Normandy, France; died in 1093-1096.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Hastings, East Sussex, England

Notes:

William de Braose arrived in England with William the Conqueror. His mother’s name was Gunnor. She became a nun at the Abbaye aux Dames in Caen, Normandy, which was established by the Conqueror’s queen, Matilda. Some of the property Gunnor gave to the abbey was associated with members of the the Ivry family - Albereda, Hugh and Roger. Emma d’Ivry was the mother of William the Conqueror’s most powerful favourite, William fitz Osbern.

These are the best clues we have as to William de Braose’s parentage. He was entrusted with a key Sussex position at Bramber and land in other English counties, besides Briouze, a strategic location in Normandy. It seems likely that he came from the extended family of the Dukes of Normandy but for genealogists his ancestry is still a frustrating loose end. William probably married the widow of Anchetil de Harcourt, Eve de Boissey, but even this detail remains inconclusive.

Images for Braose coats of arms:

https://www.google.com/search?q=braose+coat+of+arms&rlz=1C1KMZB_enUS591US591&espv=2&biw=1440&bih=834&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjU4oegvMHQAhVFbSYKHTtHB1gQsAQILQ&dpr=1

end of comment

Died 1093-6

Guillaume de Briouze is recorded in lists of those present at the Battle of Hastings. He became the first Lord of Bramber Rape by 1073 and built Bramber Castle. (Right - remains of the gatehouse) William made considerable grants to the abbey of Saint Florent, Saumur to endow the foundation of Sele Priory near Bramber and a priory at Briouze. He continued to fight alongside King William in the campaigns in Britain, Normandy and Maine.

The latest evidence for William is his presence at the consecration of his church at Briouze in 1093. In 1096 his son Philip was issuing charters. From this we can deduce that William died between 1093 and 1096.

Father: Uncertain.

Mother: Gunnor (See Round, Cal. Doc. Fra. p148)

Brydges edition of Collins' Peerage claims he was first married to Agnes, dau of Waldron de Saint Clare but no evidence for this can be found. It may be an example of Bruce - Braose confusion.
According to L C Perfect, a 13th century genealogy in the Bibliotháeque de Paris gives the name of his wife as Eve de Boissey, widow of Anchetil de Harcourt. There is a lot of evidence from contemporary charters which supports this view.

Child 1: Philip

*

Birth:
Briouze is a commune in the Orne department of Normandy in northwestern France. It is considered the capital of the pays d'Houlme at the western end of the Orne in the Norman bocage. The nearby Grand Hazâe marshland is a heritage-listed area (Natura 2000).

William de Braose, First Lord of Bramber (Guillaume de Briouze) was granted lands in England after the Norman conquest and used his wealth to build a priory in his home town.

The name Briouze probably comes from an older Norman form of the word "boue", or "mud".

Map & commentary ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briouze

Residence:
Images, maps & history of Hastings and the "Battle of 1066" ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastings

William married Agnes St. Clair. Agnes (daughter of Waldron St Clair and Helena Normandie) was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandy, France; died in ~1080. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48137.

Agnes St. Clair was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandy, France (daughter of Waldron St Clair and Helena Normandie); died in ~1080.

Notes:

Agnes de Braose formerly St Clair aka de St. Clair, de Brus
Born about 1053 in Manche, Normandy, France

Daughter of Waldron (St Clair) de Sinclair and Helena (Normandie) de Sinclair
Sister of William (St Clair) Sinclair and Mauger (St Clare) Sinclair
Wife of Robert (Brus) de Brus — married 1072 [location unknown]

DESCENDANTS descendants

Wife of William (Braose) de Braose — married about 1075 [location unknown

Mother of Adam (Brus) de Brus, Agatha or Alice (Bruce) Basset, Philip (Braose) de Braose, Unknown (Braose) de Harcourt, John (Braiose) de Braose, Philena (Braiose) de Braose, Hortense (Bruce) de Braose and Robert (Brus) de Brus
Died about 1080 in Bramber, Sussex, England
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end of biography

Notes:

Residence (Family):
Bramber Castle is a Norman motte-and-bailey castle formerly the caput of the large feudal barony of Bramber long held by the Braose family. It is situated in the village of Bramber, West Sussex overlooking the River Adur.

Image, map and history of Bramber Castle ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bramber_Castle

More images and history of Bramber Castle & the Braose family ... http://steyningmuseum.org.uk/braose.htm

Children:

24068. SIr Philip de Braose, Knight, 2nd Lord Bramber was born in 1073 in Bramber, West Sussex, England; died in 1131-1139 in (Syria).

48142.

Bernard de Neufmarche, Lord of Brecknockshire was born in 0___ 1050 in Neufmarche, France; died in 0___ 1093 in Breconshire, Wales.

48143.

Nest Verch Osborn le Scrope was born before 1075 in Richards Castle, Herefordshire, England; died in 1121 in Aberhonwy, Breconshire, , Wale.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: 1079, Herefordshire, England

Notes:

Nesta "Agnes" de Neufmarchâe formerly Osbern aka FerchOsbern, FitzOsbern, le Scrope
Born before 1075 in Richards Castle, Herefordshire, , England,map
ANCESTORS ancestors
Daughter of Osbern (Scrope) le Scrope and Nest (Gruffydd) ferch Gruffydd
Sister of Simon (Scrope) le Scrope [half] and Hugh FitzOsbern
Wife of Bernard (Neufmarchâe) de Neufmarchâe — married 1088 [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Mother of Philip (Neufmarche) de Neufmarche, Sybil (Neufmarchâe) of Gloucester, Adam (Neufmarche) de Neufmarchâe and Mael (Neufmarche) de Neufmarche
Died 1121 in Aberhonwy, Breconshire, , Wales
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British Aristocracy
Nesta (Osbern) de Neufmarchâe was a member of aristocracy in the British Isles.
Join: British Royals and Aristocrats Project
Discuss: BRITISH_ARISTO
Biography

Bernard married Nesta (Agnes), daughter and heir of Osbern fitz Richard, granddaughter of Welsh King Gruffudd ap Llywelyn. Through Nesta, Bernard acquired Bodenham & Berrington, Herefordshire.

Sources
Medieval Lands - NESTA

end of profile

Children:

24071. Lady Sibyl de Neufmarche, Countess of Hereford was born in ~1100 in Brecon Castle, Brecon, Wales; died on 24 Dec 1143 in Llanthony Secunda, Gloucestershire, England; was buried in Llanthony Secunda Priory, Gloucestershire, England.
12035. Lady Bertha of Hereford was born in 1107 in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England; died in ~ 1180 in Bramber, Sussex, England.

97172.

Sir Ranulph Meschines, Vicomte de Bayeux was born in ~1050 in Bayeux, France (son of Ranulf Bayeux and Adelize Normandie); died on 26 Aug 1116.

Notes:

Ranulph (Ranulf I) "Vicomte de Bayeux" le Meschin formerly Meschines aka de Briquessart, of the Bessin II
Born about 1050 in Bayeux, Calvados, Basse-Normandie, Francemap
ANCESTORS ancestors
Son of Ranulph (Bayeux) de Bayeux and Adelize (Normandie) de Bayeux
Brother of Warner (Chester) FitzRanulph and Hugh (Chester) of Chester
Husband of Lucien Alfgarsdotter — married [date unknown] [location unknown]
Husband of Margaret (Avranches) le Meschin — married 1069 [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Father of Richard (UNKNOWN) Meschines, Maud (Meschin) de Trevers, Ranulph (Meschines) le Briquessart, Geoffrey Meschines, Robert Meschines and William (FitzRanulph) le Meschin
Died [date unknown] [location unknown]
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Alternate date of death: 26 Aug 1116

Sources

Gen-Medieval - 22 Oct 2004 posting of Therav3@aol.com re: Descent from Richard III of Normandy to Jane Lowe (Grey of Sandiacre)
Phillips, Weber, Kirk and Staggs Families of the Pacific Northwest, by Jim Weber, rootsweb.com
See also:

1. Plantagenet Ancestry p. 85, 95 (GS #Q942 D2t)
2. Complete Peerage vol 7 p. 677, vol 4 Ch 4, vol 3 p. 166 (GS #942
D24c)
3. Visit of Cheshire, 1580 vol 18 p. 4 (GS #942 B3h)
4. Ormerod's Hist of Ches pt 1 p. 18 (GS #Folio 942.71 H2or)
5. Cheshire Pipe Rolls p. 19 (GS #942.7 B4Lc)
6. Baker's Nrthmp vol 1 p. 121 (GS #Q942.55 H2ba)
7. Nichols' Leics vol 1 pt 1 p. 18 (GS #Q942.54 H2nic)
8. Dict. of Nat'l Biog. vol 28 p. 161-2 (GS #Ref 920.042 D56 1n)

end of profile

Ranulph married Margaret Avranches in 1069. Margaret was born in ~1054 in Avranches, Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

97173.

Margaret Avranches was born in ~1054 in Avranches, Normandy, France.

Notes:

Biography
Margaret, the sister of Hugh the Fat, Earl of Chester, was the mother of Earl Ranulf I, the third Earl of Chester. [1]

Sources
? Darrel Wolcott, Ancient Wales Studies. The Malpas family in Cheshire
Harleian Society. The Visitation of Cheshire in the Year 1580, The Publicatons of The Harleian Society (London: The Society, 1882) Vol. 18, Page 4: "The Genealogy of the Earles of Chester. [Harl. 1424, fo. 3. Harl. 1505, fo. 2.]"
http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=2886322&pid=1747651480

end of profile

Children:

Sir Ranulph Meschines, 3rd Earl of Chester was born on ~26 Jun 1070 in Calvados, Normandie, France; died in 0Jan 1129 in Chester, Cheshire, England.
48586. Sir William FitzRanulph, Lord of Copeland was born in ~1078 in Normandie, France; died before 1135 in Cumberland, England.

12034.

Other Events and Attributes:

Occupation: Sheriff of Hereford
Alt Birth: 1100, Bramber, Sussex, England
Alt Birth: ~1112, Monmouthshire, Wales
Alt Death: ~1192, Woebley, Herefordshire, England

Notes:

William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber (fl. 1135–1179) was a 12th-century Marcher lord who secured a foundation for the dominant position later held by the Braose family in the Welsh Marches. In addition to the family's English holdings in Sussex and Devon, William had inherited Radnor and Builth, in Wales, from his father Philip. By his marriage he increased the Braose Welsh holdings to include Brecon and Abergavenny.

William remained loyal to King Stephen during the 12th-century period of civil war. He became a trusted royal servant during the subsequent reign of Henry II, accompanying the king on campaigns in France and Ireland. He served as sheriff of Herefordshire from 1173 until 1175. The family's power reached its peak under his son William during the reigns of King Richard I and King John.

William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber
Lord of Bramber
Died after 1179
Noble family House of Braose
Spouse(s) Bertha, daughter of Miles of Gloucester and Sibyl de Neufmarchâe
Issue
William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber
Father Philip de Braose
Mother Aenor de Totnes, daughter of Juhel of Totnes

Lands and family

William was the eldest son of Philip de Braose, lord of Bramber.[1] His mother was Aenor, daughter of Juhel of Totnes.[1] He was the third in the line of the Anglo-Norman Braose family founded by his grandfather, the first William de Braose.[1] After his father died in the 1130s William inherited lordships, land and castles in Sussex, with his caput at Bramber. He also held Totnes in Devon and Radnor and Builth in the Welsh Marches.[2] He confirmed the grants of his father and grandfather to the abbey of St Florent in Anjou and made further grants to the abbey's dependent priory at Sele in Sussex.[3] In about 1155, he also inherited through his mother's family one half of the honour of Barnstaple in Devon, paying a fee of 1000 marks for the privilege.[2] William became an internationally recognised figure. When Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury was asked by Pope Adrian IV to inquire into the background of a certain Walter, canon of St Ruf, his reply, dated to 1154/9 read:

The facts which you demand need but little enquiry; for they shine so brightly in themselves that they cannot be hid; so great is the brilliance of his noble birth and the glory of all his kin. For Walter, as we know for a fact, was the son of a distinguished knight and born of a noble mother in lawful wedlock, and he is closely related by blood to the noble William de Braose.[4]

William had married Bertha, daughter of Miles of Gloucester and Sibyl de Neufmarchâe, by 1150.[1] When each of Bertha's four brothers (Walter de Hereford, Henry FitzMiles (or Henry de Hereford), Mahel de Hereford and William de Hereford) died leaving no issue, William's marriage became unexpectedly valuable. He gained control of the lordships of Brecon and Abergavenny after 1166 when the last brother died.[1] These additional land holdings greatly expanded the territorial power and income of the Braose family. They now held a vast block of territory in the Welsh Marches as well as their extensive interests in Sussex and Devon. William's daughters were able to make good marriages, notably Sibyl to William de Ferrers, Earl of Derby.[5] Maud was married to John de Brompton of Shropshire.[6] William's son and heir, another William de Braose, became a major player in national politics under King John.[7]

Royal service

Empress Maud, the only legitimate living child of Henry I, landed in England in 1139 in an attempt to press her claim to the monarchy. She was soon besieged by King Stephen's forces at Arundel castle. Stephen allowed Maud a safe conduct to Bristol and provided her with an escort, which included William de Braose,[8] suggesting that he was an adherent of King Stephen. William was present as a witness when three charters were issued by Stephen at Lewes dated to the years 1148–53,[9] therefore it appears that he remained loyal to the king until the Treaty of Wallingford ended the hostilities.

William was in Sussex in 1153,[nb 1] but he followed Duke Henry, soon to become King Henry II, to Normandy in 1154.[nb 2] William was frequently with the new king. He was one of the military leaders who supported Henry at Rhuddlan in 1157.[12] He witnessed one of the king's charters at Romsey in 1158,[13] and he is recorded at the king's court in Wiltshire in 1164 when the Constitutions of Clarendon were enacted.[14] He accompanied the king on expedition to France, witnessing at Leons[nb 3] in 1161 and Chinon in 1162. William is also documented on the Irish campaign at Dublin in 1171 and Wexford 1172.[15] William's younger brother, Philip, also accompanied the king to Ireland, and remained with the garrison at Wexford. In 1177 Philip was granted the kingdom of Limerick by Henry but failed to take possession after the citizens set fire to the town.[16]

When Henry was facing war with his sons in 1173, William was appointed as sheriff of Herefordshire at Easter. He maintained the King's interests in Herefordshire until 1175.[1]

Later life and death

King Henry withdrew his favour from the family after William's son organised the murder of Seisyll ap Dyfnwal and other Welsh princes at Abergavenny in 1176.[17] There is little subsequent record of William in public life, and it is likely that he retired to his estates in Sussex. William died after 1179 and was succeeded by his son, William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber,[1] who gained the favour of both King Richard I and King John and became a dominant force in the Welsh Marches during their reigns.[18]

end of biography

William de Braose, 3rd lord of Bramber was a Marcher lord, active during the 12th century period of anarchy and the subsequent reign of Henry II. He served as sheriff of Herefordshire from 1173 to 1175.

William was the eldest son of Philip de Braose, lord of Bramber. His mother was Aenor, daughter of Juhel of Totnes. He was the third in the line of the Anglo-Norman Braose family. After his father died in the 1130s William held lordships, land and castles in Sussex, with his caput at Bramber, also at Totnes in Devon and Radnor and Builth in the Welsh Marches. He confirmed the grants of his father and grandfather to the abbey of St Florent in Anjou and made further grants to the abbey's dependent priory at Sele in Sussex. About 1155, he also inherited through his mother's family one half of the honour of Barnstaple in Devon, paying a fee of 1000 marks for the privilege.

William became an internationally recognised figure. When Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury was asked by Pope Adrian IV to inquire into the background of a certain Walter, canon of St Ruf, his reply, dated to 1154/9 read:

"The facts which you demand need but little enquiry; for they shine so brightly in themselves that they cannot be hid; so great is the brilliance of his noble birth and the glory of all his kin. For Walter, as we know for a fact, was the son of a distinguished knight and born of a noble mother in lawful wedlock, and he is closely related by blood to the noble William de Braose."

William had married Bertha, daughter of Miles of Gloucester by 1150. When each of Bertha's four brothers died leaving no issue William's marriage became unexpectedly valuable. He gained control of the lordships of Brecon and Abergavenny after 1166 when the last brother died. These additional land holdings greatly expanded the territorial power and income of the Braose family. They now held a vast block of territory in the Middle March as well as their extensive interests in Sussex and Devon. William's daughters were able to make good marriages, notably Sibyl to William de Ferrers, Earl of Derby. William's son and heir, became a major player in national politics under King John.

Empress Maud landed in England in 1139 in an attempt to press her claim to the monarchy. She was soon besieged by King Stephen's forces at Arundel castle. Stephen allowed Maud a safe conduct to Bristol, and provided her with an escort which included William de Braose. Thus, at the start of this conflict, William was an adherent of King Stephen. He witnessed three charters with Stephen at Lewes dated by Davis as 1148/53 so it appears that he remained loyal to the king until the Treaty of Wallingford which ended the hostilities.

William was in Sussex in 1153, but he followed Duke Henry, soon to become King Henry II, across to Normandy in 1154. William was frequently with the new king. He was one of the great men in the army at Rhuddlan in 1157. He witnessed one of the king's charters at Romsey in 1158 and he is recorded at the king's court in Wiltshire in 1164 when the Constitutions of Clarendon were enacted. He accompanied the king on expedition to France, witnessing at Leons, in 1161 and Chinon in 1162. William is also documented on the Irish campaign at Dublin in 1171 and Wexford 1172.

When Henry was facing war with his sons in 1173, William was appointed as sheriff of Hereford at Easter. He maintained the King's interests in Herefordshire until 1175. King Henry withdrew his favour from the family after William's son organised the murder of Seisyll ap Dyfnwal and other Welsh princes at Abergavenny in 1175. There is little record of William in public life after this and it is likely that he retired to his estates in Sussex. It is at this time that the extensions were made to St. Mary's, Shoreham. (Pictured at top)

(The above is an adaptation of the article I wrote for Wikipedia. Sources for the information given can be found there.)

Father: Philip de Braose

Mother: Aanor

Married to Bertha, daughter of Miles of Gloucester, Earl of Hereford

Child 1: William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber

Child 2: Maud = John de Brompton

Child 3: Sibilla = (1)William de Ferrers =(2)Adam de Port

Child 4: John

Child 5: Roger

Roger is a witness to a charter of his brother William. (Dugdales "Monasticon" iv, p616)

(Some sources give a daughter Bertha who married a Beauchamp. I believe this Bertha is a daughter of William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber. See her page for references.)

end of biography

William (de Braose) BRUCEPrint Family Tree William de /Braose/ , William de /Braose/

Born in 1100 - Bramber, Sussex, England
Deceased 21 October 1190 - London, England , age at death: 90 years old

Parents

Philip (de Braose) BRUCE, born in 1073 - Bramber, Sussex, England, Deceased in 1134 - Bramber, Sussex, England age at death: 61 years old
Married in 1104, Barnstaple, Devon, England, to
Aenor De TOTNES, born in 1084 - Barnstaple, Devon, England, Deceased in 1102 - Bramber, Sussex, England age at death: 18 years old

Spouses, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren

Married in 1148, Herefordshire, England, to Bertha De PITRES, born in 1107 - Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England, Deceased - Bramber, Sussex, England (Parents : M Miles (Fitzwalter) De (1st Earl of Hereford) PITRES 1092-1143 & F Sybil (de Neufmarche) NEWMARCH 1092-1142) with
F Bertha (de Braose) BRUCE ca 1145- married before 1180, Wales, to Gilbert De (Baron) MONMOUTH 1140-1190 with
M John De (SIR - Lord of Monmouth) MONMOUTH ca 1180- married in 1202, Monmouth, Monmouthshire, Wales, to Cecily Waleran FitzWalter 1182-1222 with :
F Joan Margaret De MONMOUTH ca 1201-1247
M William De Monmouth

John De (SIR - Lord of Monmouth) MONMOUTH ca 1180- married in April 1223, Monmouthshire, Wales, to Agnes de ** MUSCEGROS ca 1190- with :
M Richard (de Wyesham) De MONMOUTH 1223/-
M Walter De MONMOUTH 1223/-
M John De (5th Lord of Monmouth) MONMOUTH 1225-1274

Bertha (de Braose) BRUCE ca 1145- married before 1182, Bramber, Sussex, England, to Walter De BEAUCHAMP ca 1160-1235 with
M James De BEAUCHAMP 1182-1233
M Watchline De BEAUCHAMP 1184-1236 married to Joane De MORTIMER 1194-1268 with :
M William De BEAUCHAMP 1210-1267
F Matilda Maud (de Braose) ca 1146- married in 1168, England, to John De BRAMPTON ca 1136-1179 with
M Brian De BRAMPTON 1168-1197 married in 1195, England, to Alice De Neufmenell 1172- with :
M Brian De Brampton 1194-1262
F Margaret (de Braose) (Lady Meath) BRUCE ca 1149- married 19 November 1200, Ewyas Harold, Herefordshire, England, to Walter De (Sir - Lord Meath) LACY ca 1150-1241 with
F Petronilla De LACY 1195-1288 married to Ralph VI De (Lord Flamstead) TOENI 1190-1239 with :
F Constance De TOENI ca 1220-1263
M Roger Michaelmas De (Lord of Flamstead) TOENI 1235-1264
F Gille Egidia De LACY 1202-1239 married 21 April 1225 to Richard Mor "The Great", De (1st Earl of Ulster) BURGH 1202-1242 with :
M Walter De ( 1st Earl of Ulster, 2nd Lord of Cornaught) BURGH 1232-1271
M Gilbert (Of Meath) De LACY 1206-1230 married in 1225, Norfolk, England, to Isabel BIGOD 1212-1250 with :
F Margery De LACY ca 1232-1256
F Sybil (de Braose) BRUCE /1151-1227 married to Philip (le Boteler) BUTLER 1157-1174 with
F Clemence (le Boteler) BUTLER 1175-1231 married in 1188, England, to John (Lackland) (KING OF ENGLAND) PLANTAGENET 1166-1216 with :
F Joan (Princess of WALES) PLANTAGENET 1190-1236

Clemence (le Boteler) BUTLER 1175-1231 married in 1205 to Nicholas De (SIR - Baron of Alton, Lord of Farnham) VERDUN 1175- with :
F Rohese De VERDUN 1204-1246
M William (de Braose) BRUCE 1153-1211 married in 1174, Bramber, Sussex, England, to Maud (Matilda) De St VALERY 1155-1210 with
F Matilda Maud (de Braose) 1160-1209 married in 1189 to Gruffydd Ap (Prince of South Wales) RHYS 1148-1201 with :
M Owain Ap GRUFFYDD ca 1176-1235
F Lleucu Verch GRUFFYDD 1202-1250
M William (The Younger) de Braose) BRUCE 1175-1210 married in 1196, Kent, England, to Matilda De CLARE 1175-1213 with :
F Matilda (de Braose) BRUCE ca 1195-1274
M John (de Braose) (Lord of Bramber) BRUCE 1197-1232
F Laurette (de Braose) BRUCE ca 1176-1266 married to Robert "Fitz-Parnell" HARCOURT ca 1156- with :
M X Harcourt ca 1190-
M Reginald (de Braose) BRUCE 1182-1227 married 19 March 1202, Bramber, Sussex, England, to Grecian Alice De BRIWERE 1186-1226 with
F Matilda (de Braose) BRUCE ca 1200-1249 married in 1219, Carmarthenshire, Wales, to Rhys (Mechyll) Ap (Gryg ) RHYS 1174-1244 with :
M Ieuan Ap RHYS ca 1220-
F Gwenllian Verch RHYS ca 1225-1268
M William "Black William" (de Braose) BRUCE 1204-1230 married 2 May 1230, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, to Eve (Baroness of Abergavenny) MARSHALL 1194-1246 with :
M William (de Braose) BRUCE 1210-1292
F Isabella (de Braose) BRUCE 1220/-
F Eva (de Braose) BRUCE 1220-1255
F Maud (de Braose) (BARONESS WIGMORE) BRUCE 1226-1300

Siblings

F Maud (de Braose) BRUCE 1109-1200 Married about 1130, Wales, to William De BEAUCHAMP 1105-1170

Paternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M William de (Braose) BRUCE 1049-1093 married (1072)
F Agnes De SAINT CLARE 1034-1080
M Philip (de Braose) BRUCE 1073-1134
married (1104)
2 children

Maternal grand-parents, uncles and aunts
M Juhel De TOTNES 1049-1123 married (1083)
F ** De PICQUIGNY 1060-1145
F Aenor De TOTNES 1084-1102
married (1104)
2 children

Timeline
1100 : Birth - Bramber, Sussex, England
1112 : Birth - Bramber, Sussex, England

Sources: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2003.Original data - Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Heritage Consulting.Original data: Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: - 1,7249::0
Note http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=millind&h=1077681&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt - Birth date: 1126 Birth place: Briouze, Normandy, France Death date: 1192-3 Death place: - 1,7249::1077681
1126 : Birth - Briouze, Orne, Basse-Normandie, France
Sources: Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Ancestry.com Operations Inc - 1,7249::0 - 1,7249::1077681
1148 : Marriage (with Bertha De PITRES) - Herefordshire, England
before 1190 : LORD of BRAMBER
21 October 1190 : Death - London, England
1192 : Death - England
Sources: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2003.Original data - Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Heritage Consulting.Original data: Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: - 1,7249::0
Note http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=millind&h=1077681&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt - Birth date: 1126 Birth place: Briouze, Normandy, France Death date: 1192-3 Death place: - 1,7249::1077681
1192 : Death
Age: 66
Sources: Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Ancestry.com Operations Inc - 1,7249::0 - 1,7249::1077681

Notes
Individual Note
Source: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2003.Original data - Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Heritage Consulting.Original data: Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: - 1,7249::0
http://search.Ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=millind&h=1077681&ti=5544&indiv=try&gss=pt Birth date: 1126 Birth place: Briouze, Normandy, France Death date: 1192-3 Death place: 1,7249::1077681
Source: Ancestry.com - http://www.Ancestry.com - Millennium File - Heritage Consulting - Ancestry.com Operations Inc - 1,7249::0 1,7249::1077681

Sources
Individual: Ancestry.com.au - http://www.Ancestry.com.au - Ancestry Family Trees - Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. - This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. - Ancestry Family Trees - http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=18829447&pid=8845

Family Tree Preview
Ancestry Chart Descendancy Chart Printable Family Tree
_____| 16_ Rognvald Wolfs (of Orkey) BRUCE /1000-1046
_____| 8_ Robert BRUCE 1030-1094
_____| 4_ William de (Braose) BRUCE 1049-1093
/ \ _____| 18_ Alan III De (Count of Brittany) RENNES 1000-1040
|2_ Philip (de Braose) BRUCE 1073-1134
| \ _____| 20_ Mauger (de St Claire) (Seigneur) NORMANDY ca 990-1017
| \ _____| 10_ Waldron De St CLARE 1015-1047
| \ _____| 22_ Richard De NORMANDY 1001-1028
|--1_ William (de Braose) BRUCE 1100-1190
| _____| 12_ Alured De TOTNES 1015-1080
| /
| _____| 6_ Juhel De TOTNES 1049-1123
| / \
|3_ Aenor De TOTNES 1084-1102
\
\ _____| 14_ Arnoul De PICQUIGNY 1020-1055
\ /
\

end of profile

Name: William DE BRAOSE
Sex: M
Birth: 1105 in Bramber, Sussex, England
ALIA: William de BRAOSE Lord of Bramber
Title: Lord of Bramber
Death: BET 1192 AND 1193 in Bramber, Sussex, England
Note:
Dec 08 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_de_Braose,_3rd_Lord_of_Bramber -

William de Braose, Third Lord of Bramber (born 1112 in Brecon) (d. ca. 1192) was the eldest son of Philip de Braose, Second Lord of Bramber.

Family and early career
William was born into a second generation English Norman dynasty holding Lordships and land in Sussex at Bramber, also at Totnes in Devon and Radnor and Builth in the Welsh Marches of Wales. He maintained his Sussex lands and titles and extended St Mary's, Shoreham and contributed to a priory at Sele, West Sussex. His mother was Aenor Fitz Judhel of Totnes.

He also inherited one half of the honour of Barnstaple in Devon, paying a fee of 1000 marks for the privilege.

William married Bertha de Pitres, also known as Bertha de Hereford, daughter of Miles of Gloucester, Earl of Hereford. Through this marriage, William acquired lordships of Brecon and Abergavenny in 1166 because Bertha's four brothers all died young without heirs.

These vast land holdings greatly expanded the territorial power and income of the de Braose dynasty. They now held the Middle March with extensive interests in Sussex and Devon.

William's younger brother Phillip accompanied King Henry II to Ireland, receiving in 1172 the honour of Limerick.

Marcher titles
In 1174, William became sheriff of Hereford. He died in about 1192 and was succeeded as Lord of Bramber by his son, William. He had also fathered two daughters, Maud and Sibilla, who married well and possibly a later son, named John.

Nov 09 from http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hwbradley/aqwg825.htm#13602 -

William de BRAOSE Lord of Bramber [Parents] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 was born 1105 in Bramber, Sussex, England. He died 8 1192/1193 in Bramber, Sussex, England. William married Bertha of HEREFORD on 1146 in Bramber, Sussex, England.

Bertha of HEREFORD [Parents] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 was born 1128 in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England. She married William de BRAOSE Lord of Bramber on 1146 in Bramber, Sussex, England.

They had the following children:

F i Bertha de BRAOSE was born 1147.
M ii William de BRAOSE Baron de Braose was born 1149 and died 9 Aug 1211.
F iii Mabel de BRAOSE was born 1151 and died 1203.
F iv Sybil de BRAOSE was born 1153 and died after 5 Feb 1228.
M v John de BRAOSE 1 was born 1160 in Bramber, Sussex, England.

1Weis, Frederick Lewis, Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America before 1700 (7th ed., Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1992.), 177-5, 194-5, 222-28, Los Angeles Public Library, Gen 974 W426 1992.

2Cokayne, George Edward, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, or Dormant (London: St. Catherine Press, 1910.), 11:321, Los Angeles Public Library, 929.721 C682.

3Cokayne, G., CP, 1:21-22, 14:6.

4Sanders, Ivor John, English Baronies: A Study of Their Origin and Descent, 1086-1327 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960.), pp. 7, 21, 105, Los Angeles Public Library, 929.722 S215.

5Keats-Rohan, K.S.B., Domesday Descendants: A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066-1166 (Rochester, New York: The Boydell Press, 2002.), pp. 346-7, Library of Congress, DA177 .K4 2002.

6Cokayne, G., CP, 1:21e.

7Curfman, Robert Joseph, "The Yale Descent from Braiose & Clare through Pigott of Buckinghamshire," The American Genealogist 56:1 (Jan 1980), pp. 1-2, Los Angeles Public Library.

8Sanders, I., English Baronies, p. 7.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bertha of HEREFORD

1Weis, Frederick Lewis, Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America before 1700 (7th ed., Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1992.), 177-5, 194-5, 222-28, Los Angeles Public Library, Gen 974 W426 1992.

2Cokayne, George Edward, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, or Dormant (London: St. Catherine Press, 1910.), 1:21-2, 11:321, Los Angeles Public Library, 929.721 C682.

3Sanders, Ivor John, English Baronies: A Study of Their Origin and Descent, 1086-1327 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960.), pp. 7, 21, Los Angeles Public Library, 929.722 S215.

4Keats-Rohan, K.S.B., Domesday Descendants: A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066-1166 (Rochester, New York: The Boydell Press, 2002.), pp. 346-7, Library of Congress, DA177 .K4 2002.

5Curfman, Robert Joseph, "The Yale Descent from Braiose & Clare through Pigott of Buckinghamshire," The American Genealogist 56:1 (Jan 1980), p. 2, Los Angeles Public Library.

Father: Philip DE BRAOSE b: 1074 in Briouze-Saint-Gervais, Orne, Basse-Nomandie, France
Mother: Aenor DE TOTENEIS b: 1084 in Totnes, Devon, England

Marriage 1 BERTHA b: 1128 in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England
Married: 1146 in Bramber, Sussex, England
Children
Has Children William DE BRAOSE b: 1149 in Bramber, Sussex, England
Has Children Mabel DE BRAOSE b: 1151 in Bramber, Sussex, England
Has Children Sybil DE BRAOSE b: 1153 in Bramber, Sussex, England
Has Children Bertha DE BRAOSE b: 1147 in Bramber, Sussex, England

end of biography

Notes
He held in addition to his patrimony the lordship of half of Barnstaple, acquired through his mother, coheir to the barony. In 1158 he had offered the king a fine of 1000 marks for twenty-eight knights' fees as his mother's share of her inheritance, and when he died he still owed ¹430. William (II)'s marriage brought him the lordships of Brecon and Abergavenny on the southern Welsh marches as his wife's share after the deaths of her two brothers. William (II) de Briouze concentrated his energies on his Welsh marcher lands, serving Henry II as sheriff of Herefordshire, 1173?5. The marriage of his daughter Sibyl to William de Ferrers, earl of Derby (d. 1190), indicates the status that the Briouze family enjoyed.

William was very fortunate in his marriage to Berta. All of her brothers died young without heirs so she brought a number of important lordships to the de Braoses in 1166. These included Brecon and Abergavenny. William became Sheriff of Hereford in 1174. His interest in Sussex was maintained as he confirmed the grants of his father and grandfather for the maintenance of Sele Priory and extended St. Mary's, Shoreham.

Child 1: William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber
Child 2: Maud = John de Brompton
Child 3: Sibilla = (1)William de Ferrers =(2)Adam de Port
Child 4: John
Child 5: Roger Roger is a witness to a charter of his brother William. (Dugdales "Monasticon" iv, 616 per Elwes)

From c1173 to 1230 successive fathers, sons, and younger brothers called de Briouze were feudal lords of Abergavenny. William de Briouze, the first of them, who derived his name from his lordship of Briouze in Normandy, married the sister and coheir of the 2nd Earl of Hereford (also daughter of 1st Earl) mentioned above, which seems to account for his coming into possession of a lordship in that part of the Welsh marches. [1]

OWNERS of the LORDSHIP of ABERGAVENNY (X) 1173?

William de Briouze (e), Lord of Briouze in Normandy, and of Bramber, Sussex, son and heir of Philip de Briouze, by Aenor, daughter and heir of Juhel son of Alvred, Lord of Barnstaple and Totnes. He married, in or before 1150, Bertha, 2nd sister and coheir of William of Hereford being daughter of Miles of Gloucester, 1st Earl of Gloucester (sic. Earl of Hereford). Sheriff of Hereford, Easter 1173-75, at which earlier date probably he already possessed the Lordship of Over Gwent. He was living in 1179. [2]

(e) Briouze-Saint-Gervais (formerly Braiose), arrond. of Argentan, dept. of Orne. His descendants spelt the name Brewes. In some 25 early references to this name, not in charter latin, it appears as Breouse, Breuse, or Brewys (the last of which still exists as a surname), but never as Braose, the form adopted in peerages, for which it seems doubtful if there be any good authority.

Note: The above text "1st Earl of Gloucester", which was part of a correction in CP XIV:6, is a mistake; Miles was Earl of Hereford.

Sources

? Burke's Peerage
? Complete Peerage I:21-2, XIV:6,
1. The Plantagenet Ancestry, Eng. 116, p. 78
2. The Complete Peerage, G.E.C., Eng. v, v. 1, p. 21, 22, v. 4, p. 193, 194, v. 6, p. 451-54
3. The Genealogist, Eng. Pub. AF, os, v. 4, p. 139-41, 235
4. Arch. Cambr., Wales Pub. A, 4s, v. 14, p. 177, 6s, v. 10, p. 340
5. Burke's Extinct Peerage, 1883 & 1886, Eng. P-1, p. 72
6. Dict. of Nat'l Biog., Eng. Pub. A, v. 6, p. 229-31
7. Dugdale's Baronage of Engl, Eng. AL, v. 1, p. 414, 416
8. Wells & Allied Families, B8G4, p. 177
9. Sussex Arch. Collections, Suss. 1, v. 5, p. 5, 148
10. The Ligon Family, B15A183, v. 1, p. 108

!RESEARCH NOTE: There is no indication in any of the above quoted sources that there was a Giles or Roger belonging to this family. Also there is some doubt whether the above Reginald has been mistaken for the Reginald who married Grace de Briwere who is actually grandson of the above couple.

In the case of child #1, Bertha, there is also some quandry as to whether she belongs to this couple or to William,

child #2, and whether she married William Beauchamp or Walter de Beauchamp.

There are also some indications that this Bertha is the daughter of the above couple who married Adam de Port. Because of the sealing action previously taken, their names will be left on this compilation until better evidence is made available.

END OF COMMENTARY

12035.

Notes:

Bertha of Hereford, also known as Bertha de Pitres (born c.1130), was the daughter of Miles de Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford, and a wealthy heiress, Sibyl de Neufmarchâe. She was the wife of William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber to whom she brought many castles and Lordships, including Brecknock, Abergavenny, and Hay.

Family

Bertha was born in England in about 1130. She was a daughter of Miles, Earl of Hereford (1097- 24 December 1143) and Sibyl de Neufmarchâe.[1] She had two sisters, Margaret of Hereford,[2] who married Humphrey II de Bohun, by whom she had issue,[3] and Lucy of Hereford, who married Herbert FitzHerbert of Winchester, by whom she had issue.[citation needed] Her brothers, included Roger Fitzmiles, 2nd Earl of Hereford, Walter de Hereford, Henry Fitzmiles, William de Hereford, and Mahel de Hereford.[4]

Her paternal grandparents were Walter FitzRoger de Pitres,Sheriff of Gloucester and Bertha de Balun of Bateden,[5] a descendant of Hamelin de Balun,[citation needed] and her maternal grandparents were Bernard de Neufmarchâe, Lord of Brecon, and Nesta ferch Osbern.[6] The latter was a daughter of Osbern FitzRichard of Richard's Castle, and Nesta ferch Gruffydd.[7] Bertha was a direct descendant, in the maternal line, of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn (1007- 5 August 1063) and Edith (Aldgyth), daughter of Elfgar, Earl of Mercia.[citation needed]

Her father Miles served as Constable to King Stephen of England. He later served in the same capacity to Empress Matilda after he'd transferred his allegiance. In 1141, she made him Earl of Hereford in gratitude for his loyalty. On 24 December 1143, he was killed whilst on a hunting expedition in the Forest of Dean.[8]

Marriage and issue

Abergavenny Castle in Monmouthshire, Wales, was one of the castles Bertha of Hereford brought to her husband William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber
In 1150, she married William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber (1112–1192), son of Philip de Braose, 2nd Lord of Bramber and Aenor, daughter of Judael of Totnes. William and Bertha had three daughters and two sons, including William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber.

In 1173, her brothers all having died without issue, she brought the Lordships and castles of Brecknock and Abergavenny, to her husband.[8] Hay Castle had already passed to her from her mother, Sibyl of Neufmarche in 1165, whence it became part of the de Braose holdings.

In 1174, her husband became Sheriff of Hereford.

Her children include

William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber, (1144/1153- 11 August 1211, Corbeil),[9][10] married Maud de St. Valery, daughter of Bernard de St. Valery, by whom he had 16 children.
Roger de Braose[11]
Bertha de Braose[12] (born 1151), married c.1175, Walter de Beauchamp (died 1235), son of William de Beauchamp and Joan de Walerie, by whom she had issue, including Walcherine de Beauchamp who married Joan Mortimer.
Sibyl de Braose (died after 5 February 1227),[13] married William de Ferrers, 3rd Earl of Derby (1136- 21 October 1190 at Acre on crusade), son of Robert de Ferrers, 2nd Earl of Derby and Margaret Peverel, by whom she had issue.
Maud de Braose, married John de Brompton, by whom she had issue.[citation needed]

Legacy

Bertha died on an unknown date. She was the ancestress of many noble English families which included the de Braoses, de Beauchamps, de Bohuns and de Ferrers; as well as the Irish families of de Lacy and de Burgh.[14][not in citation given]

end of biography

Children:

48605. Joan Braose was born in ~1130 in Bramber Castle, West Sussex, England; died in 1170 in Shenton, Leicestershire, England.
24143. Sybil de Braose was born before 1151 in Bramber, Sussex, England; died on 5 Feb 1227 in Derbyshire, England.
Mabel de Braose was born in 1151 in Bramber, Sussex, England; died in 1203 in (Axholme, Lincolnshire, England).
Bertha Braose was born in 1151 in Bramber, Sussex, England; died in ~1175.
Sir William de Braose, III, Knight, 4th Lord of Bramber was born in 1153 in Bramber, Sussex, England; died on 9 Aug 1211 in Corbeil, Marne, Champagne-Ardenne, France; was buried in 1211 in Paris, France.
Sir Reginald de Braose, Knight was born in 1162 in (Bramber, West Sussex, England); died in BY 1228; was buried in Saint John's, Brecon, Wales.

48164.

Aubrey de Vere, I was born on 16 Dec 1030 in Ver, Normandie, France; died in 1112-1113 in Abingdon Abbey, Berkshire, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: (~ 1045), (Normandy, France)

Notes:

Aubrey (Albericus) de Vere (died circa 1112-1113) was a tenant-in-chief in England of William the Conqueror in 1086, as well as a tenant of Geoffrey de Montbray, bishop of Coutances and of Count Alan, lord of Richmond. A much later source named his father as Alphonsus.[1]

Biography

His origins are obscure and various regions have been proposed for his birthplace, from Zeeland to Brittany. He may have been Norman, possibly from the region of Ver in the Cotentin peninsula of western Normandy, but the evidence is such that no certainty is possible.[2]

In Domesday Book, he is listed as "Aubrey the chamberlain" and "Aubrey the queen's chamberlain" as well as Aubrey de Vere. He and his wife held land in nine counties in 1086. Both were accused of some unauthorized land seizures.[3] Aubrey's estates were valued at approximately ¹300, putting him in roughly the middle ranks of the post-conquest barons of England in terms of landed wealth.[4] He served King Henry I in the first decade of his reign as a chamberlain and local justiciar in the counties of Berkshire and Northamptonshire.[5]

Sometime in or before 1104, Aubrey's eldest son Geoffrey fell ill and was tended at Abingdon Abbey in Berkshire by the royal physician, Abbot Faritius. The youth appeared to have recovered but suffered a relapse, died, and was buried at the abbey. His parents then founded a cell of Abingdon on land they donated for the purpose: Colne Priory, Essex. Within a year of the formal dedication in March 1111, Aubrey I joined that community and died soon. His youngest son William died not long after his father. Both were buried at the priory, establishing it as the Vere family mausoleum.[6] Aubrey de Vere II then succeeded to his father's estates.

Aubrey I was married by 1086. As his spouse's name is recorded as Beatrice in 1104 and Beatrice is named as the mother of his eldest son, she was almost certainly his wife in 1086.[7] Beatrice attended the formal ceremony for the founding of Earl's Colne Priory. Besides sons Geoffrey, Aubrey II, and William mentioned above, the couple's children included Roger and Robert.[8]

Estates

The principal estates held by Aubrey de Vere in 1086: Castle Hedingham, Beauchamp [Walter], Great Bentley, Great Canfield, Earls Colne, [White] Colne, and Dovercourt, Essex; Aldham, Belstead, Lavenham, and Waldingfield, Suffolk; Castle Camps, Hildersham, Silverley, and Wilbraham, Cambridgeshire. He possessed houses and acreage in Colchester and a house in Winchester. As tenant of Geoffrey bishop of Coutances, he held Kensington, Middlesex; Scaldwell and Wadenhoe, Northamptonshire. Of the barony of Count Alan of Brittany, he held the manors of Beauchamp Roding, Canfield, and West Wickham, Essex. His wife held Aldham, Essex, in her own right of Odo bishop of Bayeux. The couple both were accused by Domesday jurors of expansion into Little Maplestead, Essex. Aubrey's seizures or questionable right of possession to estates included Manuden, Essex; Great Hemingford, Huntingdonshire; and Swaffham, Cambridgeshire. (Counties given are those of Domesday Book.)

end

Aubrey married Beatrice Ghent in BY 1086. Beatrice was born in 1045 in France; died in 1090. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48165.

Beatrice Ghent was born in 1045 in France; died in 1090.

Children:

24082. Sir Aubrey de Vere, II was born in ~ 1085 in (Normandy, France); died in 0May 1141 in (Thrapston, Northamptonshire, England).

48144.

Other Events and Attributes:

Occupation: Butler to King Henry I

Notes:

William d'Aubigny (died 1139[1]), also called William de Albini or William d'Albini and known as Pincerna,[a] was an Anglo-Norman nobleman. He was lord of the manor of Old Buckenham Castle in Norfolk, England.[1]

Life and career

William was the son of Roger d'Aubigny and his wife, Amice; one of their other children was Nigel d'Aubigny.[2] William served the household of Henry I of England as "Pincerna" (butler), and fought at the Battle of Tinchebrai.[1] He founded Wymondham Priory (later Wymondham Abbey) in 1107.[3]

Family

William married Maud Bigod, daughter of Roger Bigod of Norfolk in 1107. She brought an unusually high dowry to the match for a woman of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy who was not an heiress, 10 knights' fees.[4] They were the parents of the following children:[5]

William d'Aubigny (died 1176), became Earl of Arundel
Nele d'Aubigny or Nigel d'Aubigny
Oliver d'Aubigny
Roland d'Aubigny (attributed)
Oliva d'Aubigny, married Ralph de la Haye
Notes[edit]
Jump up ^ The title or nickname "Pincerna" referred to the master butler of the Royal household.

end

William de Albini, surnamed Pincerna, son of Roger de Albini and elder brother of Nigel de Albini, whose posterity assumed and attained such eminence under the name of Mowbray, accompanied the Conqueror into England and acquired extensive territorial possessions by royal grants in Norfolk and other counties.

Of these grants was the lordship of Bokenham, to be holden by the service of being Butler to the Kings of England on the day of their coronation, and in consequence we find this William styled in divers charters "Pincerna Henrici Regis Anglorum.

" William de Albini founded the abbey of Wymondham in Norfolk and gave to the monks of Rochester the tithes of the manor of Elham, as also one carucate of land in Achestede, with a wood called Acholte. He likewise bestowed upon the abbey of St. Etienne at Caen, in Normandy, all his lands lying in Stavell, which grant he made in the presence of King Henry and his barons.

He m. Maude, dau. of Roger Bigot, with whom he obtained ten knights' fees in Norfolk. At the obsequies of Maud, William de Albini gave to the monks of Wymondham the manor of Hapesburg, in pure alms, and made livery thereof to the said monks by a cross of silver, in which (says Dugdale) was placed certain venerable reliques, viz., "part of the wood of the cross whereon our Lord was crucified; part of the manger wherein he was laid at his birth; and part of the sepulchre of the Blessed Virgin; as also a gold ring, and a silver chalice for retaining the Holy Eucharist, admirably wrought in form of a sphere; unto which pious donation his three sons were witnesses, with several other persons."

The exact time of the decease of this great feudal baron is not ascertained, but it is known that he was buried before the high altar in the abbey of Wymondham, and that the monks were in the constant habit of praying for his soul by the name of "William de Albini, the king's butler."

[Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, England, 1883, p. 2, Albini, Earls of Arundel]

end

William married Maud Bigod in 1107. Maud (daughter of Sir Roger Bigod, Knight and Adeliza de Tosny) was born in (Belvoir Castle, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48145.

Maud Bigod was born in (Belvoir Castle, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England) (daughter of Sir Roger Bigod, Knight and Adeliza de Tosny).

Children:

24072. Sir William d'Aubigny, Knight, 1st Earl of Arundel was born in ~ 1109 in (England); died on 12 Oct 1176; was buried in Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk, England.

12096.

Other Events and Attributes:

Occupation: Duke of Normandy

Notes:

More on Geoffrey's biography and history with photos ... http://bit.ly/1i49b9d

12097.

Notes:

Empress Matilda (c. 7 February 1102 – 10 September 1167), also known as the Empress Maude,[nb 1] was the claimant to the English throne during the civil war known as the Anarchy. The daughter of King Henry I of England, she moved to Germany as a child when she married the future Holy Roman Emperor Henry V. She travelled with her husband into Italy in 1116, was controversially crowned in St. Peter's Basilica, and acted as the imperial regent in Italy. Matilda and Henry had no children, and when Henry died in 1125, the crown was claimed by Lothair II, one of his political enemies.

Meanwhile, Matilda's younger brother, William Adelin, died in the White Ship disaster of 1120, leaving England facing a potential succession crisis. On Henry V's death, Matilda was recalled to Normandy by her father, who arranged for her to marry Geoffrey of Anjou to form an alliance to protect his southern borders. Henry I had no further legitimate children and nominated Matilda as his heir, making his court swear an oath of loyalty to her and her successors, but the decision was not popular in the Anglo-Norman court. Henry died in 1135 but Matilda and Geoffrey faced opposition from the Norman barons and were unable to pursue their claims. The throne was instead taken by Matilda's cousin Stephen of Blois, who enjoyed the backing of the English Church. Stephen took steps to solidify his new regime, but faced threats both from neighbouring powers and from opponents within his kingdom.

In 1139 Matilda crossed to England to take the kingdom by force, supported by her half-brother, Robert of Gloucester, and her uncle, King David I of Scotland, while Geoffrey focused on conquering Normandy. Matilda's forces captured Stephen at the Battle of Lincoln in 1141, but the Empress's attempt to be crowned at Westminster collapsed in the face of bitter opposition from the London crowds. As a result of this retreat, Matilda was never formally declared Queen of England, and was instead titled the Lady of the English. Robert was captured following the Rout of Winchester in 1141, and Matilda agreed to exchange him for Stephen. Matilda became trapped in Oxford Castle by Stephen's forces that winter, and was forced to escape across the frozen River Isis at night to avoid capture. The war degenerated into a stalemate, with Matilda controlling much of the south-west of England, and Stephen the south-east and the Midlands. Large parts of the rest of the country were in the hands of local, independent barons.

Matilda returned to Normandy, now in the hands of her husband, in 1148, leaving her eldest son to continue the campaign in England; he eventually succeeded to the throne as Henry II in 1154. She settled her court near Rouen and for the rest of her life concerned herself with the administration of Normandy, acting on Henry's behalf when necessary. Particularly in the early years of her son's reign, she provided political advice and attempted to mediate during the Becket controversy. She worked extensively with the Church, founding Cistercian monasteries, and was known for her piety. She was buried under the high altar at Bec Abbey after her death in 1167.

Notes:

Married:
The marriage was meant to seal a peace between England/Normandy and Anjou. She was eleven years older than Geoffrey, and very proud of her status as an Empress (as opposed to being a mere Countess). Their marriage was a stormy one with frequent long separations, but she bore him three sons and survived him.

Children:

6048. Henry II, King of England was born on 5 Mar 1133 in Le Mans, France; was christened on 25 Mar 1133 in Le Mans, France; died on 6 Jul 1189 in Chinon Castle, France; was buried on 7 Jul 1189 in Fontevraud Abbey, France.

Generation: 18

177170.

Ealdred, Earl of Bernicia was born in ~990 in Bernicia, Northumbria, England (son of Untred, Earl of Northumbria and Ecgfrida of Durham); died in ~1038 in Risewood Forest, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: (1000)

Notes:

Ealdred was Earl of Bernicia from 1020/25 until his murder in 1038. He was the son of Uhtred, Earl of Northumbria, who was murdered by Thurbrand the Hold in 1016 with the connivance of Cnut. Ealdred's mother was Ecgfrida, daughter of Aldhun, bishop of Durham.

Ealdred succeeded his uncle Eadwulf Cudel as Earl of Bernicia in 1020/25, and some time probably in the mid 1020s he killed Thurbrand in revenge for his father's death. In 1038 Ealdred was murdered by Thurbrand's son, Carl. He was succeeded as Earl of Bernicia by his brother, another Eadwulf. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle asserts that in 1041 Eadwulf was "betrayed" by King Harthacnut.[1] The "betrayal" seems to have been carried out by Siward, Earl of Northumbria; since when the Libellus de Exordio and other sources write about the same event, they say that Siward attacked and killed Eadulf.[2] It was thus that Siward became earl of all Northumbria, perhaps the first person to do so since Uhtred the Bold.

Ealdred's daughter Ealdgyth was married to Ligulf, who was murdered in 1080.[3] Ealdred's daughter, Aelfflaed, was the first wife of Siward and her son (Ealdred's grandson) was Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria.
References

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle manuscripts C, D, s.a. 1041
Rollason (ed.), Libellus de Exordio, pp. 170–71

Aird, William M. (2004). "Ligulf (d. 1080)" ((subscription or UK public library membership required)). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/16791. Retrieved 20 January 2016.

Sources

Fletcher, Richard. Bloodfeud: Murder and Revenge in Anglo-Saxon England. Allen Lane 2002.

end of biography

Ealdred married unnamed spouse. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

177171.
unnamed spouse
Children:

88585. Aelfflaed was born in ~1010 in (Northumbria, England); died in 1060 in Northumbria, England.

96776.

Duke Robert de Normandie, II was born in ~1005 in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, II and Judith de Bretagne); died on 22 Jul 1035 in Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey.

Notes:

Robert I the Magnificent of Normandy, Duke of Normany, was born 1000 in Normandy, France to Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027) and Judith of Brittany (982-1017) and died 22 July 1035 in Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey of unspecified causes. Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]

Robert, called "The Magnificent" (French, "le Magnifique") for his love of finery, and also called "The Devil" was the son of Duke Richard II of Normandy and Judith, daughter of Conan I, Duke of Brittany.

When his father died, his elder brother Richard succeeded, whilst he became Count of Hiâemois. When Richard died a year later, there were great suspicions that Robert had Richard murdered, hence his other nickname, "Robert le diable" (the devil). He is sometimes identified with the legendary Robert the Devil. Robert aided King Henry I of France against Henry's rebellious brother and mother, and for his help he was given the territory of the Vexin. He also intervened in the affairs of Flanders, supported Edward the Confessor, who was then in exile at Robert's court, and sponsored monastic reform in Normandy.

Children

Offspring of Robert I of Normandy and Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050)
Name Birth Death Joined with
William I of England (1027-1087) 9 September 1027 Falaise, France 1087 Rouen, France Matilda of Flanders (c1031-1083)

96777.

Harriette de Falaise, Countess of Montaigne was born in 1003 in Falaise, Calvados, Normandie, France; died in ~1050 in Mortagne-au-Perche, Normandie, France.

Notes:

Herleva[a] (c. 1003 – c. 1050) was a Norman woman of the 11th century, known for three sons: William I of England "the Conqueror", an illegitimate son fathered by Robert I, Duke of Normandy; and Odo of Bayeux and Robert, Count of Mortain, who were both fathered by her husband Herluin de Conteville. All three became prominent in William's realm.

Life

The background of Herleva and the circumstances of William's birth are shrouded in mystery. The written evidence dates from a generation or two later, and is not entirely consistent, but of all the Norman chroniclers only the Tours chronicler asserts that William's parents were subsequently joined in marriage.[b] The most commonly accepted version says that she was the daughter of a tanner named Fulbert from the town of Falaise, in Normandy. The meaning of filia pelletarii burgensis[6] is somewhat uncertain, and Fulbert may instead have been a furrier, embalmer, apothecary, or a person who laid out corpses for burial.[7]

Some argue that Herleva's father was not a tanner but rather a member of the burgher class.[8] The idea is supported by the appearance of her brothers in a later document as attestors for an under-age William. Also, the Count of Flanders later accepted Herleva as a proper guardian for his own daughter. Both of these would be nearly impossible if Herleva's father was a tanner, which would place his standing as little more than a peasant.

Orderic Vitalis described Herleva's father Fulbert as the Duke's Chamberlain (cubicularii ducis).[9]
Relationship with Robert the Magnificent

According to one legend, it all started when Robert, the young Duke of Normandy, saw Herleva from the roof of his castle tower.[10] The walkway on the roof still looks down on the dyeing trenches cut into stone in the courtyard below, which can be seen to this day from the tower ramparts above. The traditional way of dyeing leather or garments was to trample barefoot on the garments which were awash in the liquid dye in these trenches. Herleva, legend goes, seeing the Duke on his ramparts above, raised her skirts perhaps a bit more than necessary in order to attract the Duke's eye.[10] The latter was immediately smitten and ordered her brought in (as was customary for any woman that caught the Duke's eye) through the back door. Herleva refused, saying she would only enter the Duke's castle on horseback through the front gate, and not as an ordinary commoner. The Duke, filled with lust, could only agree. In a few days, Herleva, dressed in the finest her father could provide, and sitting on a white horse, rode proudly through the front gate, her head held high.[10][11] This gave Herleva a semi-official status as the Duke's concubine.[12] She later gave birth to his son, William, in 1027 or 1028.[13]

Some historians suggest Herleva was first the mistress of Gilbert of Brionne with whom she had a son, Richard. It was Gilbert who first saw Herleva and elevated her position and then Robert took her for his mistress.[14]
Marriage to Herluin de Conteville

Herleva later married Herluin de Conteville in 1031. Some accounts maintain that Robert always loved her, but the gap in their social status made marriage impossible, so, to give her a good life, he married her off to one of his favourite noblemen.[15]

Another source suggests that Herleva did not marry Herluin until after Robert died, because there is no record of Robert entering another relationship, whereas Herluin married another woman, Fredesendis, by the time he founded the abbey of Grestain.[16]

From her marriage to Herluin she had two sons: Odo, who later became Bishop of Bayeux, and Robert, who became Count of Mortain. Both became prominent during William's reign. They also had at least two daughters: Emma, who married Richard le Goz, Viscount of Avranches, and a daughter of unknown name who married William, lord of la Fertâe-Macâe.[17]
Death

According to Robert of Torigni, Herleva was buried at the abbey of Grestain, which was founded by Herluin and their son Robert around 1050. This would put Herleva in her forties around the time of her death. However, David C. Douglas suggests that Herleva probably died before Herluin founded the abbey because her name does not appear on the list of benefactors, whereas the name of Herluin's second wife, Fredesendis, does.[18]

end of biography

Children:

48388. William the Conqueror, King of England, Duke of Normandy was born on 14 Oct 1024 in Chateau de Falaise, Falaise, Normandy, France; was christened in 1066 in Dives-sur-Mer, Normandie, France; died on 9 Sep 1087 in Rouen, Normandy, France; was buried in Saint-Etienne de Caen, France.
88587. Countess Adelaide of Normandy was born in ~1030 in Normandie, France; died before 1090 in (Normandie, France).

177176.

Crinan of Dunkeld, Abbot of Dunkeld was born in ~976; died in 1045 in Dunkeld, Perthshire, Scotland.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: ~980, Atholl, Perthshire, Scotland

Notes:

Crâinâan of Dunkeld (died 1045) was the hereditary abbot of the monastery of Dunkeld, and perhaps the Mormaer of Atholl. Crâinâan was progenitor of the House of Dunkeld, the dynasty which would rule Scotland until the later 13th century. He was the son-in-law of one king, and the father of another.

Family

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Crâinâan was married to Bethâoc, daughter of Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda (Malcolm II) (King of Scots, who reigned from 1005 to 1034). As Mâael Coluim had no surviving son, the strongest hereditary claim to the Scottish throne descended through Bethâoc. Crâinâan and Bethâoc's eldest son, Donnchad (Duncan I), who reigned from 1034 to 1040.

It is likely that Crâinâan had a second son Maldred, father of Gospatric of Northumbria.
Abbot of Dunkeld

The monastery of Saint Columba was founded on the north bank of the River Tay in the 6th century or early 7th century following the expedition of Columba into the land of the Picts. It may have continued to draw its hierarchy from the Cenâel Conaill of Donegal.[1] Iain Moncreiffe argued that Crinâan belonged to a Scottish sept of the Irish Cenâel Conaill royal dynasty.[2]

While the title of Hereditary Abbot (coarb in Gaelic) was a feudal position that was often exercised in name only, Crinâan does seem to have acted as Abbot in charge of the monastery in his time. He was thus a man of high position in both clerical and secular society.

The magnificent semi-ruined Dunkeld Cathedral, built in stages between 1260 and 1501, stands today on the grounds once occupied by the monastery. The Cathedral contains the only surviving remains of the previous monastic society: a course of red stone visible in the east choir wall that may have been re-used from an earlier building, and two stone ninth - or tenth-century cross-slabs in the Cathedral Museum.

In 1045, Crâinâan of Dunkeld rose in rebellion against Macbeth in support of his 14-year-old grandson, Malcolm III's claim to the throne.[3] Malcolm was the elder son of Crinan's son, the late King Duncan, who predeceased his father. However, Crâinâan, by then an elderly man, was killed in a battle at Dunkeld.
References

Woolf, Alex. "The Problem with Crâinâan", From Pictland to Alba, Edinburgh University Press, 2007
Sir Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk, The Highland Clans. Part II. 1982. p. 236

Knox, James. The topography of the basin of the Tay, Andrew Shorteed, Edinburgh, 1831

External Source

Cawley, Charles, Medieval Lands Project on Crinan, Medieval Lands database, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy,[self-published source][better source needed]
Clans and Families of Ireland and Scotland

end of biography

Crinan married Bethoc in 1000 in (Perthshire, Scotland). Bethoc (daughter of Malcolm II of Scotland, High King of Scotland and Aefgifu) was born in 984 in Perthshire, Scotland; died on 15 Sep 1049 in Dunkeld, Perthshire, Scotland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

177177.

Bethoc was born in 984 in Perthshire, Scotland (daughter of Malcolm II of Scotland, High King of Scotland and Aefgifu); died on 15 Sep 1049 in Dunkeld, Perthshire, Scotland.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Death: 1045

Notes:

British Aristocracy
Bethâoc MacAlpin was a member of aristocracy in the British Isles.
Join: British Royals and Aristocrats Project
Discuss: EUROARISTO
Contents
[hide]
1 Biography
1.1 Medieval Lands
1.1.1 Issue
1.2 Wikipedia, English
2 Research Notes
3 Sources
Biography
Bethâoc ingen Maâil Coluim meic Cinâaeda

Parents: Malcolm II of Scotland and his wife.
Spouse: Crâinâan of Dunkeld, Mormaer of Atholl
Children:
1. Duncan I, King of Scotland
2. Maldred of Allerdale
3. daughter(s)?
Medieval Lands
http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/SCOTLAND.htm#_Toc253996182
Bethâoc was the wife of Crâinâan: CRINAN "the Thane" (-killed in battle 1045). The primary source which confirms his parentage has not yet been identified. Abthane of Dule. Lay abbot of Dunkeld. Steward of the Western Isles. Mormaer of Atholl. He was killed fighting King Macbeth. The Annals of Ulster record that "Crâonâan abbot of Dâun Caillen" was killed in 1045 in "a battle between the Scots themselves"[204]. The Annals of Tigernach record that “Crâinan abbot of Dunkeld” was killed in 1045 in “a battle between the men of Scotland on one road”[205].

m ([1000]) BETHOC, daughter of MALCOLM II King of Scotland & his wife ---. The "Genealogy of King William the Lyon" dated 1175 names "Betoch filii Malcolmi" as parent of "Malcolmi filii Dunecani"[206]. The Chronicle of the Scots and Picts dated 1177 names "Cran Abbatis de Dunkelden et Bethok filia Malcolm mac Kynnet" as parents of King Duncan[207]. The Chronicle of John of Fordun records that King Malcolm II had "an only daughter…Beatrice who married Crynyne Abthane of Dul and Steward of the Isles…in some annals, by a blunder of the writer…abbot of Dul"[208].

Issue
Crinan & Bethoc had two children:

i) DUNCAN ([1001]-killed in battle either Bothganowan/Pitgaveny, near Elgin, or Burghead 14 Aug 1040, bur Isle of Iona). His parentage is confirmed by the Annals of Ulster which record the death of "Donnchad son of Crâinâan, king of Scotland" in 1040[209]. The Chronicle of John of Fordun names "Duncan" as son of "Crynyne Abthane of Dul and Steward of the Isles" and his wife[210]. He succeeded in 1018 as King of Strathclyde. He succeeded his maternal grandfather in 1034 as DUNCAN I King of Scotland.

ii) MALDRED (-killed in battle [1045]). His parentage is confirmed by Simeon of Durham who records the marriage of "Maldred the son of Crinan"[211]. Lord of Allerdale. Regent of Strathclyde 1034/35.

Wikipedia, English
Bethâoc ingen Maâil Coluim meic Cinâaeda was the eldest daughter of King Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda, King of Scots, who had no known sons.

The strongest hereditary claim of succession to the Scottish throne therefore passed through Bethâoc. Approximately 1000, Princess Bethâoc married Crâinâan, Abbot of Dunkeld. The first son of this marriage was Donnchad I, who ascended to the throne of Scotland in 1034. Early writers have asserted that Mâael Coluim also designated Donnchad as his successor under the rules of tanistry because there were other possible claimants to the throne.

Her sister Olith was married to Jarl Sigurd the Stout of Orkney, and the other sister Donada to Findlâaech, the Mormaer of Moireabh.

She is not to be confused with Bethâoc ingen Domnaill Bain meic Donnchada.

She gained the title of Heiress of Scone. As a result of her marriage, Bethoc of Scotland was styled as Lady of Atholl.

It is possible that Bethâoc had previously been married to Jarl Sigurd the Stout of Orkney, and to Findlâaech, the Mormaer of Moireabh. She is not to be confused with Bethâoc ingen Domnaill Bain meic Donnchada.

Research Notes
Citation needed for spare husband and surplus kids.

The name of Bethâoc's mother is not known.

Sources
Nigel Tranter has a pretty good book on the subject as well, "Macbeth the King" and it is far more readable than Dorothy Dunnett's. Tranter thinks that Thorfinn and Macbeth are halfbrothers, possibly sons of Malcolm II of
Scotland 's daughter Dovada. Duncan is their cousin son of Malcolm II's other daughter Bethoc.

It is possible that Bethâoc had previously been married to Jarl Sigurd the Stout of Orkney, and to Findlâaech, the Mormaer of Moireabh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethoc
Bethoc av Skottland, eller Bethâoc ingen Maâil Coluim meic Cinâaeda, var den eldste datteren til kong Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda (Malcolm II av Skottland) som ikke hadde noen s²nner.
Det sterkeste arvelige krav til êa etterf²lge som skottenes konge gikk derfor via Bethâoc. Omtrent rundt êar 1000 giftet prinsesse Bethâoc seg med Crâinâan av Dunkeld, lekmannsabbed og muligens mormaer. Den f²rste s²nnen av dette ekteskapet ble Donnchad mac Crâinâain (Duncan I av Skottland) som overtok den skotske tronen i 1034. Tidlige skribenter har ogsêa forfektet at Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda (Malcolm II av Skottland) selv hadde utsett Donnchad som sin etterf²lger under reglene om tanisteri ettersom det var andre mulige krav til tronen. Det er mulig at Bethâoc tidligere hadde vµrt gift med jarl Sigurd Lodvesson (kalt den digre eller staute) av Orkn²yene, og med Findlâaech, mormaer av Moireabh. Bethâoc mêa ikke forveksles med Bethâoc ingen Domnaill Bain meic Donnchada, en datter av Donald III av Skottland.
https://www.stirnet.com/genie/data/british/aa/alpin1.php
Anderson, Marjorie Ogilvy: Kings and Kingship in Early Scotland, 1973
Alison Weir, Britain's Royal Family: A Complete Genealogy (London, U.K.: The Bodley Head, 1999), page 177-178.
Richard Glanville-Brown, online , Richard Glanville-Brown (RR 2, Milton, Ontario, Canada), downloaded 17 August 2005.
The Oxford History of the British Monarchy ,
http://www.thepeerage.com/p10289.htm#i102883

end of this biography

Bethâoc ingen Maâil Coluim meic Cinâaeda was the elder daughter of Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda, King of Scots, and the mother of his successor, Duncan I.

Biography

Bethâoc was the eldest daughter of the Malcolm II of Scotland, who had no known surviving sons. She married Crâinâan, Abbot of Dunkeld. Their older son, Donnchad I, ascended to the throne of Scotland around 1034. Malcolm's youngest daughter married Sigurd Hlodvirsson, Earl of Orkney.[1] Early writers have asserted that Mâael Coluim also designated Donnchad as his successor under the rules of tanistry because there were other possible claimants to the throne.

In this period, the Scottish throne still passed in Picto-Gaelic matrilineal fashion, from brother to brother, uncle to nephew, and cousin to cousin.

Bethâoc
Spouse Crâinâan, Abbot of Dunkeld
Issue Duncan I, King of Alba
Maldred of Allerdale
House House of Alpin
Father Malcolm II, King of Alba

end of biography

Children:

88588. Duncan I of Scotland, King of Alba was born in ~1001 in (Dunkeld, Scotland); died on 14 Aug 1040 in Elgin, Scotland.
Maldred, King of Cumbria

48388.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Hastings, England
Military: Victor over the English in the Battle of Hastings, 1066
Burial: 10 Sep 1087, St. Stephen Abbey, Caen, Calvados, France

Notes:

William I the Conqueror of England and Normandy, Duke of Normandy, King of England, was born 9 September 1027 in Falaise, France to Robert II, Duke of Normandy (c1000-1035) and Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050) and died 1087 in Rouen, France of unspecified causes. He married Matilda of Flanders (c1031-1083) 1051 JL . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]

William I, King of England, Duke of Normandy was a mediµval monarch. He ruled as the Duke of Normandy from 1035 to 1087 and as King of England from 1066 to 1087. As Duke of Normandy, William was known as William II, and, as King of England, as William I. He is commonly refered to as William the Conqueror (Guillaume le Conquâerant) or William the Bastard (Guillaume le Bãatard).

The name "William the Bastard", a name used by his enemies arose from the fact that his mother was a Tanner's daughter who agreed to be his father Robert II's mistress. She demanded that their relationship not be secret, and had a position in court. After the affair was over, she married a Viscount. William retained the favour of his father and when Robert II left for the Holy Land, he forced his lords to pledge fealty to William. Robert II never returned from the Holy land and the oath was quickly forgotten, and intrigue surrounded the boy Duke. William's guardian Gilbert of Brionne was murdered, as was his tutor, as was his uncle Osbern- killed while protecting William from kidnappers found in his bedroom. William was sent away from home for his protection, and it was common practice for William's uncle Walter to awaken him in the night to move him to a new location.

By age fifteen, William was knighted, and by twenty he went to war against his cousin Guy of Normandy to defend his title of Duke of Normandy. With the help of King Henri I of France, he subdued his enemies who were forced to swear allegiance to William.

William asked for the hand of Matilda, daughter of Count Baldwin V of Flanders, but Matilda would have none of it. Purportedly, she was in love with the English ambassador to Flanders, a Saxon named Brihtric, who declined her advances. As for William, she told his emissary that she was far too high-born (being descended from King Alfred the Great of England) to consider marrying a bastard. When that was repeated to him, William, all of 5'10", rode from Normandy to Bruges, found Matilda on her way to church, dragged her off her horse (some said by her long braids), threw her down in the street in front of her flabbergasted attendants, and then rode off. Another version states that William rode to Matilda's father's house in Lille, threw her to the ground in her room (again, by the braids), and hit her (or violently shook her) before leaving.

William convinced Matilda to relent, but the pope opposed the marriage because they were distant cousins. For a period of time all of Normandy was excommunicated along with their duke because William disregarded the pope's advice and married Matilda. In return for the construction of two abbeys, the excommunication of Normandy was lifted.

In 1051, William visited his cousin Edward the Confessor, king of England. Edward was childless, and William's account is that the king made him his heir. According to supporters of William, Edward sent his brother in law Harold Godwinson to see William in 1063. Other accounts say that Harold was shipwrecked. All accounts agree that William refused to let Harold depart until he swore on holy relics that he would uphold William's claim to the throne of England, and agreed to marry his daughter (then an infant) Agatha. After winning his release, Harold reneged on both promises.

In support of his claim to the English crown, William invaded England in 1066, leading an army of Normans to victory over the Anglo-Saxon forces of Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, and suppressed subsequent English revolts| in what has become known as the Norman Conquest.

His reign brought Norman culture to England, which had an enormous impact on the subsequent course of England in the Middle Ages. In addition to political changes, his reign also saw changes to English law, a programme of building and fortification, changes in the English language and the introduction of continental European feudalism into England.

For additional details beyond William's family history, see more here.

Residence at Falaise
In Falaise France, is a series of statues that pays tribute to the six Norman Dukes from Rollo to William Conqueror. The castle here was the principal residence of the Norman Knights.

Chãateau Guillaume-le-Conquâerant Place Guillaume le Conquâerant / 14700 Falaise / Tel: 02 31 41 61 44

History of Norman Dukes
Homepage - Falaise Castle of William the Conqueror - In French.

Children

Offspring of William I of England and Matilda of Flanders (c1031-1083)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Robert III, Duke of Normandy (c1051-1134) 1051 (Normandy) 10 February 1134 (Cardiff Castle+ Glamorganshire+ Wales) Sybilla of Conversano (-1103)

Richard of Normandy (c1054) 1054 Normandy 1081 New Forest, Hampshire
Adeliza of Normandy (c1055) 1055 Normandy 1065
Cecilia of Normandy (c1055) 1055 Normandy, France 30 July 1126 Caen, Calvados, France
William II of England (c1056-1100) 1056 Normandy, France 2 August 1100 New Forest, England, United Kingdom
Adela of Normandy (c1062) 1062 Normandy, France 8 March 1138 Marcigny, Saãone-et-Loire, France Stephen II, Count of Blois (c1045-1102)

Agatha of Normandy (c1064) 1064 1079
Constance of Normandy (c1066-1090) 1066 1090 Alain Fergent de Bretagne (c1060-1119)

Henry I of England (1068-1135) 13 June 1068 Selby, Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom 1 December 1135 St. Denis-le-Fermont near Gisors, Picardy, Lyons-la-Forãet, Eure, France Ansfrid (1070-?)
Matilda of Scotland (c1080-1118)
Sybil Corbet (1077-?)
Edith
Gieva de Tracy
Nest ferch Rhys (c1073-aft1136)
Isabel de Beaumont
Adeliza of Leuven (1103-1151)

Common ancestors of William I of England (1027-1087) and Matilda of Flanders (c1031-1083)

Fulk II, Count of Anjou (?-958)
Gerberge of Maine (?-?)
Noteworthy descendants include

Henry II of England (1133-1189)
William I of England (1027-1087)

Footnotes (including sources)
‡ General
wikipedia:en:William the Conqueror
Burke's Guide to the Royal Family, London, 1973 , Reference: 193, 310

end of biography

Click here to view William the Conqueror's biography... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_I_of_England

Click here to read about the historic Norman Conquest by William ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Conquest

Click here to view his 9-generation pedigree ... http://www.ourfamilyhistories.org/ahnentafel.php?personID=I3527&tree=00&parentset=0&generations=9

William the Conqueror is the 26th & 27th great grandfather of the grandchildren of Vernia Swindell Byars (1894-1985)

end of comment

Click this link to view lots of pictures of William I & a video from the, "Bayeux Tapestry"; http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/William_I_of_England_(1027-1087)/pictures

How Did the Normans Change England?

The Normans were more than just the people who conquered England.

They were dynamic and passionate people who changed English history forever.

Apr 10, 2023 • By Greg Beyer, BA History and Linguistics, Diploma in Journalism ... https://www.thecollector.com/how-did-the-normans-change-england/

Residence:
Victor over the English in the Battle of 1066

Military:
a seminal moment in English history...

Died:
at the Priory of St. Gervase...

Buried:
The Abbey of Saint-âEtienne, also known as Abbaye aux Hommes ("Men's Abbey"), is a former Benedictine monastery in the French city of Caen, Normandy, dedicated to Saint Stephen. It was founded in 1063[1] by William the Conqueror and is one of the most important Romanesque buildings in Normandy.

Photos, history & source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_of_Saint-%C3%89tienne,_Caen

48389.

Matilda of Flanders, Queen of England was born about 1031 in Flanders, Belgium; died on 2 Nov 1083 in Caen, Calvados, Normandie, France; was buried in Abbaye aux Dames, Caen, Normandie, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

_HEIG: 5' 0"

Notes:

Matilda of Flanders (French: Mathilde; Dutch: Machteld) (c. 1031 – 2 November 1083) was Queen of England and Duchess of Normandy by marriage to William the Conqueror, and sometime Regent of these realms during his absence. She was the mother of ten children who survived to adulthood, including two kings, William II and Henry I.

As a niece and granddaughter of kings of France, Matilda was of grander birth than William, who was illegitimate, and, according to some suspiciously romantic tales, she initially refused his proposal on this account. Her descent from the Anglo-Saxon royal House of Wessex was also to become a useful card. Like many royal marriages of the period, it breached the rules of consanguinity, then at their most restrictive (to seven generations or degrees of relatedness); Matilda and William were third-cousins, once removed. She was about 20 when they married in 1051/2; William was four years older,24, and had been Duke of Normandy since he was about eight (in 1035).

The marriage appears to have been successful, and William is not recorded to have had any bastards. Matilda was about 35, and had already produced most of her children, when William embarked on the Norman conquest of England, sailing in his flagship Mora, which Matilda had given him. She governed the Duchy of Normandy in his absence, joining him in England only after more than a year, and subsequently returning to Normandy, where she spent most of the remainder of her life, while William was mostly in his new kingdom. She was about 52 when she died in Normandy in 1083.

Apart from governing Normandy and supporting her brother's interests in Flanders, Matilda took a close interest in the education of her children, who were unusually well educated for contemporary royalty. The boys were tutored by the Italian Lanfranc, who was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1070, while the girls learned Latin in Sainte-Trinitâe Abbey in Caen, founded by William and Matilda as part of the papal dispensation allowing their marriage.

Marriage

Matilda, or Maud, was the daughter of Baldwin V, Count of Flanders, and Adela, herself daughter of King Robert II of France.[1]

According to legend, when the Norman duke William the Bastard (later called the Conqueror) sent his representative to ask for Matilda's hand in marriage, she told the representative that she was far too high-born to consider marrying a bastard.[a] After hearing this response, William rode from Normandy to Bruges, found Matilda on her way to church, dragged her off her horse by her long braids, threw her down in the street in front of her flabbergasted attendants and rode off.

Another version of the story states that William rode to Matilda's father's house in Lille, threw her to the ground in her room (again, by her braids) and hit her (or violently battered her) before leaving. Naturally, Baldwin took offence at this; but, before they could draw swords, Matilda settled the matter[2] by refusing to marry anyone but William;[3] even a papal ban by Pope Leo IX at the Council of Reims on the grounds of consanguinity did not dissuade her. William and Matilda were married after a delay in c.?1051–2.[4] A papal dispensation was finally awarded in 1059 by Pope Nicholas II.[5] Lanfranc, at the time prior of Bec Abbey, negotiated the arrangement in Rome and it came only after William and Matilda agreed to found two churches as penance.[6]

Rumored romances

There were rumours that Matilda had been in love variously with the English ambassador to Flanders and with the great Saxon thegn Brictric, son of Algar, who (according to the account by the Continuator of Wace and others[7]) in his youth declined her advances. Whatever the truth of the matter, years later when she was acting as regent for her husband William in England, she is said to have used her authority to confiscate Brictric's lands and throw him into prison, where he died.[8]

Duchess of Normandy

When William was preparing to invade England, Matilda outfitted a ship, the Mora, out of her own funds and gave it to him.[9] Additionally, William gave Normandy to his wife during his absence. Matilda successfully guided the duchy through this period in the name of her fourteen-year-old son; no major uprisings or unrest occurred.[10]

Even after William conquered England and became its king, it took her more than a year to visit the kingdom.[11] Despite having been crowned queen, she spent most of her time in Normandy, governing the duchy, supporting her brother's interests in Flanders, and sponsoring ecclesiastic houses there. Only one of her children was born in England; Henry was born in Yorkshire when Matilda accompanied her husband in the Harrying of the North.[12]

Queen

Statue of Matilda of Flanders, one of the twenty Reines de France et Femmes illustres in the Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris, by Carle Elshoecht (1850)

Tomb of Matilda of Flanders at Abbaye aux Dames, Caen

Tomb of William of Normandy at Abbaye-aux-Hommes, Caen
Matilda was crowned queen on 11 May 1068 in Westminster during the feast of Pentecost, in a ceremony presided over by the archbishop of York. Three new phrases were incorporated to cement the importance of English consorts, stating that the Queen was divinely placed by God, shares in royal power, and blesses her people by her power and virtue.[13][14]

For many years it was thought that she had some involvement in the creation of the Bayeux Tapestry (commonly called La Tapisserie de la Reine Mathilde in French), but historians no longer believe that; it seems to have been commissioned by William's half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and made by English artists in Kent.[15]

Matilda bore William nine or ten children. He was believed to have been faithful to her and never produced a child outside their marriage. Despite her royal duties, Matilda was deeply invested in her children's well-being. All were known for being remarkably educated. Her daughters were educated and taught to read Latin at Sainte-Trinitâe in Caen founded by Matilda and William in response to the recognition of their marriage.[16] For her sons, she secured Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury of whom she was an ardent supporter. Both she and William approved of the Archbishop's desire to revitalise the Church.[17]

She stood as godmother for Matilda of Scotland, who would become Queen of England after marrying Matilda's son Henry I. During the christening, the baby pulled Queen Matilda's headdress down on top of herself, which was seen as an omen that the younger Matilda would be queen some day as well.[18]

Matilda fell ill during the summer of 1083 and died in November 1083. Her husband was present for her final confession.[19] William died four years later in 1087.

Contrary to the common belief that she was buried at St. Stephen's, also called l'Abbaye-aux-Hommes in Caen, Normandy, where William was eventually buried, she is entombed in Caen at l'Abbaye aux Dames, which is the community of Sainte-Trinitâe. Of particular interest is the 11th-century slab, a sleek black stone decorated with her epitaph, marking her grave at the rear of the church. In contrast, the grave marker for William's tomb was replaced as recently as the beginning of the 19th century.

Height

Over time Matilda's tomb was desecrated and her original coffin destroyed. Her remains were placed in a sealed box and reburied under the original black slab.[20] In 1959 Matilda's incomplete skeleton was examined and her femur and tibia were measured to determine her height using anthropometric methods. Her height was 5 feet (1.52m), a normal height for the time.[21] However, as a result of this examination she was misreported as being 4 feet 2 inches (1.27m)[22] leading to the myth that she was extremely small.

Family and children

Matilda and William had four sons and at least five daughters.[23] The birth order of the boys is clear, but no source gives the relative order of birth of the daughters.[23]

Robert, born between 1051 and 1054, died 10 February 1134.[24] Duke of Normandy, married Sybil of Conversano, daughter of Geoffrey of Conversano.[25]
Richard, born c. 1054, died around 1075.[24]
William Rufus, born between 1056 and 1060, died 2 August 1100.[24] King of England, killed in the New Forest.
Henry, born late 1068, died 1 December 1135.[24] King of England, married Edith of Scotland, daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland. His second wife was Adeliza of Louvain.[26]
Agatha, betrothed to Harold II of England, Alfonso VI of Castile, and possibly Herbert I, Count of Maine, but died unmarried.[b][27]
Adeliza (or Adelida,[28] Adelaide[26]), died before 1113, reportedly betrothed to Harold II of England, probably a nun of St Lâeger at Prâeaux.[28]
Cecilia (or Cecily), born c. 1056, died 1127. Abbess of Holy Trinity, Caen.[27]
Matilda,[28] "daughter of the King", born around 1061, died perhaps about 1086,[26] or else much later (according to Trevor Foulds's suggestion that she was identical to Matilda d'Aincourt[29]).
Constance, died 1090, married Alan IV Fergent, Duke of Brittany.[27]
Adela, died 1137, married Stephen, Count of Blois.[27] Mother of King Stephen of England.
There is no evidence of any illegitimate children born to William.[30]

William was furious when he discovered she sent large sums of money to their exiled son Robert.[31] She effected a truce between them at Easter 1080.

Buried:
(or Sainte Trinitâe) for women which was founded by Matilda around four years later (1063)...

Notes:

Married:
The problem has been and maybe still is that William the Conqueror and Matilda (dau. of Baldwin V of Flanders & Adelaide of France) had relatively great difficulty is obtaining a papal dispensation for their marriage. It was not immediately obvious that there was any impediment that needed a dispensation. This problem of what the relationship between Matilda and William was that required a dispensation generated a vigorous debate earlier this century. Weis or Weis's source (as you report it) goes for a theory that makes Matilda and William cousins of sorts.

Children:

Adela of Normandy was born in ~ 1067 in Normandy, France; died on 8 Mar 1137 in Marcigny-sur-Loire, France.
24194. Henry I, King of England was born in 1068-1070 in Selby, Yorkshire, England; was christened on 5 Aug 1100 in Selby, Yorkshire, England; died on 1 Dec 1135 in Saint-Denis-en-Lyons, Normandy, France; was buried on 4 Jan 1136 in Reading Abbey, Reading, Berkshire, England.

44404.

Sir William de Warenne, Knight, 1st Earl of Surrey was born in ~1035 in Bellencombre, Normandie, France; died on 20 Jun 1088 in Pevensey, Sussex, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Possessions: Lewes Castle, East Sussex, England
Military: 1066; fought at the Battle of Hastings

Notes:

William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, Seigneur de Varennes (died 1088), was a Norman nobleman created Earl of Surrey under William II Rufus. He was one of the few who was documented to have been with William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. At the time of the Domesday Survey, he held extensive lands in 13 counties including the Rape of Lewes in Sussex, now East Sussex.

Early career[

William was a younger son of Ranulf I de Warenne and his 1st wife Beatrice (whose mother was probably a sister of duchess Gunnor, wife of duke Richard I).[a] Likewise, Orderic Vitalis describes William as Roger's consanguineus, literally 'cousin', more generically a term of close kinship, but not typically used to describe brothers, and Roger de Mortimer appears to have been a generation older than William de Warenne, his purported brother.[2] Charters report several earlier men associated with Warenne. A Ranulf de Warenne appears in a charter dated between 1027 and 1035, and in one from about 1050 with a wife Beatrice, while in 1059, Ranulf and wife Emma appear along with their sons Ranulf and William. These occurrences have typically been taken to represent successive wives of a single Ranulf, with Beatrice being the mother of William and hence identical to the Gunnorid niece (Thomas Stapleton,[3] in spite of the 1059 charter explicitly naming Emma as his mother.[4] A reevaluation of the surviving charters led Katherine Keats-Rohan to suggest that, as he appears to have done elsewhere, Robert of Torigny has compressed two generations into one, with a Ranulf (I) and Beatrice being parents of Ranulf (II) de Warenne and of Roger de Mortimer (a Roger son of Ranulf de Warenne appears in a charter dated 1040/1053), and Ranulf (II) and Emma were then parents of Ranulf (III), the heir in Normandy, and William, as attested by the 1059 charter. Associations with Vascœuil led to identification of the Warenne progenitrix with a widow Beatrice, daughter of Tesselin, vicomte of Rouen, appearing there in 1054/60. As Robert of Torigny shows a vicomte of Rouen to have married a niece of Gunnor, this perhaps explains the tradition of a Gunnorid relationship.[5] On Robert's genealogies, see also Eleanor Searle,[6][7][8] William was from the hamlet of Varenne, near to Arques-la-Bataille, Duchy of Normandy, now in the canton of Bellencombre, Seine Maritime.[9][10][11] At the beginning of Duke William’s reign, Ranulf II was not a major landholder and, as a second son, William de Warenne did not stand to inherit the family’s small estates. During the rebellions of 1052-1054, the young William de Warenne proved himself a loyal adherent to the Duke and played a significant part in the Battle of Mortemer for which he was rewarded with lands confiscated from his uncle, Roger of Mortemer, including the Castle of Mortimer and most of the surrounding lands.[12] At about the same time he acquired lands at Bellencombre including the castle which became the center of William de Warenne’s holdings in Normandy[7]

Conquest of England

Coat of Arms of the de Warenne Earls of Surrey
William was among the Norman barons summoned to a council by Duke William when the decision was made to oppose King Harold II's accession to the throne of England.[7][13] He fought at the Battle of Hastings and was well rewarded with numerous holdings. The Domesday book records his lands stretched over thirteen counties and included the important Rape of Sussex, several manors in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, the significant manor of Conisbrough in Yorkshire and Castle Acre in Norfolk, which became his caput (see below).[7][8] He is one of the very few proven companions of William the Conqueror known to have fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.[14][15][16] He fought against rebels at the Isle of Ely in 1071, where he showed a special desire to hunt down Hereward the Wake who had killed his brother-in-law Frederick the year before.[17][18] Hereward is supposed to have unhorsed him with an arrow shot.[19]

Later career

Sometime between 1078 and 1082,[20] William and his wife Gundred traveled to Rome visiting monasteries along the way. In Burgundy they were unable to go any further due to a war between Emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII. They visited Cluny Abbey and were impressed with the monks and their dedication. William and Gundred decided to found a Cluniac priory on their own lands in England. William restored buildings for an abbey. They sent to Hugh, the abbot of Cluny, for monks to come to England at their monastery. At first Hugh was reluctant but he finally sent several monks, including Lazlo who was to be the first abbot. The house they founded was Lewes Priory, dedicated to St. Pancras,[21][22] the first Cluniac priory in England[23]

William was loyal to William II,[17] and it was probably in early 1088 that he was created Earl of Surrey.[24] He was mortally wounded at the First Siege of Pevensey Castle and died 24 June 1088 at Lewes, Sussex, and was buried next to his wife Gundred at the Chapterhouse of Lewes Priory.[25][26]

Family

He married first, before 1070, Gundred, daughter of William the Conqueror and Matilda his wife. This is shown in a charter of William referring to Gundrada (Gundred in Latin) as "Filae Meae" (my daughter),[27][28] sister of Gerbod the Fleming, 1st Earl of Chester. Ordericus Vitalis made many errors in his Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, which he wrote a hundred years after the Conquest. Ordericus Vitalis was a seventy-year-old man with an intense dislike for Normans, and continually made errors in his history (see Reverend Thomas Warren: History of the Warren Family); since then numerous English historians have tried to authenticate its account of Conqueror and his family, but have not succeeded. Gundred De Warren was buried at Lewes Castle. Her grave cover still exists as a marble slab of exactly the same design as that of her mother's grave cover, which is also in the same black decorated marble. DNA is likely to prove that Gundred and Matilda were mother and daughter. Such was the English dislike for the Normans, that they stole both William De Warren's and his wife's grave covers to place over graves of their own.[29][30][31]

William married secondly a sister of Richard Gouet, who survived him.[32]

Issue

By Gundred Surrey had:

William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey (d. 1138), who married Elisabeth (Isabelle) de Vermandois, widow of Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester.[33]
Edith de Warenne, who married firstly Gerard de Gournay, lord of Gournay-en-Bray, and secondly Drew de Monchy.[34]
Reynold de Warenne, who inherited lands from his mother in Flanders[34] and died c. 1106–08.[35]
An unnamed daughter, who married Ernise de Coulonces.[36]
Surrey, by his second wife, had no issue.

Possessions:
Lewes Castle stands at the highest point of Lewes, East Sussex, England on an artificial mound constructed with chalk blocks. It was originally called Bray Castle.

Images, history & source citation ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewes_Castle

44405.

Gundred of Flanders, Countess of Surrey was born in Flanders, Belgium; died on 27 May 1085 in Castle Acre, Norfolk, England; was buried in Lewes Priory, Sussex, England.

Notes:

Gundred or Gundreda (Latin: Gundrada) (died 27 May 1085)[1] was the Flemish-born wife of an early Norman baron, William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey. She and her husband established Lewes Priory in Sussex.

Life

Gundred was almost certainly born in Flanders, and was a sister of Gerbod the Fleming, 1st Earl of Chester.[2][3][4][5] She is explicitly so called by Orderic Vitalis,[6] as well as the chronicle of Hyde Abbey[7] She was also sister of Frederick of Oosterzele-Scheldewindeke, who was killed c.1070 by Hereward the Wake.[8] Legends based in part on late Lewes priory cartulary[a] suggested Gundred was a daughter of William the Conqueror by his spouse Matilda of Flanders,[9] but this is not accepted by most modern historians.[10][11] The early-19th-century writer Thomas Stapleton had argued she was a daughter of Matilda, born prior to her marriage to Duke William.[12] This sparked a debate consisting of a series of published papers culminating with those of Edmond Chester Waters and Edward Augustus Freeman who argued the theories could not be supported.[13][14][15] Regardless, some genealogical and historical sources continue to make the assertion that she was the Conqueror's daughter.[16][17][18][19]

Gundred married before 1070[20] William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey (d. 20 June 1088),[1] who rebuilt Lewes Castle, making it his chief residence. Sometime between 1078 and 1082,[21] Gundrada and her husband set out for Rome visiting monasteries along the way. In Burgundy they were unable to go any further due to a war between Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII. They visited Cluny Abbey and were impressed with the monks and their dedication. William and Gundred decided to found a Cluniac priory on their own lands in England. They sent to Hugh the abbot of Cluny for monks to come to England at their monastery. Hugh was reluctant yet eventually sent several monks including Lazlo who became the first abbot. The house they founded was Lewes Priory dedicated to St. Pancras.[22][23] Gundred died in childbirth 27 May 1085 at Castle Acre, Norfolk, one of her husband's estates, and was buried at the Chapter house of Lewes Priory.[1][23] He was later buried beside her.[24]

Tombstone

In the course of the centuries which followed, both tombstones disappeared from the priory but in 1774 William Burrell, Esq., an antiquary, discovered Gundred's in Isfield Church (seven miles from Lewes), over the remains of Edward Shirley, Esq., (d. 1550), and had it removed on October 2, 1775, to St. John's Church, Southover, where it was placed on display.[25]

In 1845, during excavations through the Priory grounds for the Brighton Lewes and Hastings Railway, the lead chests containing the remains of the Earl and his Countess were discovered and were deposited temporarily beneath Gundred's tombstone.[25] In 1847 a Norman Revival chapel was erected by public subscription, adjoining the present vestry and chancel. Prior to re-interring the remains in this chapel, both chests were opened to ascertain if there were any contents, which was found to be the case. New chests were made and used, and the ancient ones preserved and placed in two recessed arches in the southern wall. The Earl's chest has lost some lead. Gundred's chest remains in a good state of preservation. Across the upper part of the right arch is the name Gvndrada. Her tombstone is of black Tournai marble.[26]

Family

The children of William de Warenne and Gundred were:

William II de Warenne (d. 11 May 1138), buried in Lewes Priory.[2][27]
Reginald de Warenne, an adherent of Robert of Normandy.[2][24]
Edith de Warenne, married, 1stly, Gerard de Gournay, Lord of Gournay-en-Bray, 2ndly, Drew de Monchy.[2][24]

Controversy on parentage

Legends based in part on late Lewes Priory cartulary[a] suggested Gundred was a daughter of William the Conqueror by his spouse Matilda of Flanders,[19] but this is not accepted by most modern historians.[20][21] The early-19th-century writer Thomas Stapleton had argued she was a daughter of Matilda born prior to her marriage to Duke William.[22] This theory sparked a debate consisting of a series of published papers. It culminated with those of Edmond Chester Waters and Edward Augustus Freeman, who argued the theories could not be supported.[23][24][b] Nonetheless, some genealogical and historical sources continue to make the assertion that she was the Conqueror's daughter.[25][26][27][28]

Notes

Jump up ^ The reference here to late Lewes priory cartulary is to copies of charters that date centuries after the originals and specifically those which had been altered or forged to add the desired evidence she was the daughter of royalty. For more information on these forged charters see: English Historical Documents 1042-1189, ed. David C. Douglas, George W. Greenaway, Vol. II (Oxford University Press, New York, 1953), p. 605; L.C. Loyd, 'The Origin of the Family of Warenne' ‘’Yorks Archaeol. Journal’’, vol. xxxi, pp. 97-113; and C. T. Clay, ‘'Early Yorkshire Charters’’, vol. VIII (1949), pp. 59.-62.

References

^ Jump up to: a b c G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, vol. xii/1 (The St. Catherine Press, London, 1953), p. 494
^ Jump up to: a b c d Early Yorkshire Charters, ed: William Farrer, Charles Travis Clay, Volume VIII - The Honour of Warenne (The Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1949), pp. 40-46
Jump up ^ F. Anderson, Uxor Mea: The First Wife of the First William of Warenne, Sussex archaeological collections, Vol. 130 (Sussex Archaeological Society, 1992) pp. 107-8
Jump up ^ Elisabeth van Houts, 'Epitaph of Gundrada of Warenne', Nova de Veteribus, Mitel-und neulateinische Studien fur Paul Gerhard Schmidt (K.G. Saur, Munchen Leipzig, 2004), p. 372
Jump up ^ P. Anselme de Sainte-Marie, Histoire de la maison royale de France et des grands officiers de la Couronne, V.6 (Estienne Loyson, 1674), p. 26
Jump up ^ Ordericus Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, Translated by Thomas Forester, Vol. ii, (Henry G. Bohn, London, MDCCCLIV (1854), p. 49
Jump up ^ Hyde Abbey, Liber Monasterii de Hyda: Comprising a Chronicle of the affairs of England, (Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, London, 1866), p. xcvii. Note: the anonymous Hyde chronicler identified two of Gundred's brothers, Gerbod, Earl of Cheter and Frederick.
Jump up ^ Elisabeth van Houts, 'Frederick, Brother-in-Law of William of Warenne', Anglo-Saxon England, Vol. 28 (1999), pp. 218-220
Jump up ^ George Duckett, 'Observations on the Parentage of Gundreda, Countess of Warenne', The Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Journal, Vol. ix, Part xxxiii, 1885, pp. 421-437 Note: Sir George Duckett, Bart., was the leading proponent of the theory that Gundred was the daughter of William the Conqueror and Matilda
Jump up ^ G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, vol. xii/1 (The St. Catherine Press, London, 1953), p. 494 note (j)
Jump up ^ David C. Doulgas, William the Conqueror (University of California Press, 1964), p. 392
Jump up ^ Stapleton, Thomas, 'Observations in disproof of the pretended marriage of William de Warren, Earl of Surrey, with a daughter begotten of Matildis, daughter of Baldwin, Comte of Flanders, by William the Conqueror, and illustrative of the origin and early history of the family in Normandy', The Archaeological Journal 3 (1846):1-26 Note: despite the confusing title Stapleton's theory was that Gundred was a daughter of Matilda of Flanders by an earlier marriage.
Jump up ^ Edmond Chester Waters, 'Gundrada de Warenne', The Archaeological Journal, Vol. xli (London, 1884), pp. 300-312
Jump up ^ Edward A. Freeman, 'The Parentage of Gundrada, Wife of William of Warren', The English Historical Review, Vol. 3, No. 12 (Oct., 1888), pp. 680-701
Jump up ^ For an extensive discussion regarding the participants of this nineteenth-century debate see : Victoria Chandler, 'Gundrada de Warenne and the Victorian Gentlemen-Scholars', Southern History, Vol. 12 (1990), pp. 68-81
Jump up ^ American Biography; a New Cyclopedia, Vol. ix (The American Historial Society, New York, 1921)p. 276
Jump up ^ Colonial Families of the United States of America, ed. Nelson Osgood Rhoades, Vol. VII (Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, 1966). pp. 319, 347
Jump up ^ Rene Beckley, Ancient Walls of East Anglia (Terence Dalton, Ltd., Lavenham, Suffolk, 1979), p. 66
Jump up ^ Charles Cooper, A village in Sussex: the history of Kingston-near-Lewes (I.B. Taurus, London, 2006), p. 44
Jump up ^ Elisabeth van Houts, 'The Warenne View of the Past 1066-1203)', Anglo-Norman Studies XXIV, Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2003, Vol. 26 (The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 2004), p. 104 & n. 8
Jump up ^ Early Yorkshire Charters, ed: William Farrer, Charles Travis Clay, Volume VIII - The Honour of Warenne (The Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1949), p. 4
Jump up ^ B. Golding, 'The Coming of the Cluniacs', Anglo-Norman Studies III; Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1980, Vol. iii (Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 1981), pp. 65, 67
^ Jump up to: a b Early Yorkshire Charters, ed: William Farrer, Charles Travis Clay, Volume VIII - The Honour of Warenne (The Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1949), pp. 50-55
^ Jump up to: a b c G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, vol. xii/1 (The St. Catherine Press, London, 1953), p. 495 note (b)
^ Jump up to: a b Elisabeth van Houts, 'Epitaph of Gundrada of Warenne', Nova de Veteribus, Mitel-und neulateinische Studien fur Paul Gerhard Schmidt (K.G. Saur, Munchen Leipzig, 2004), p. 367
Jump up ^ Elisabeth van Houts, 'Epitaph of Gundrada of Warenne', Nova de Veteribus, Mitel-und neulateinische Studien fur Paul Gerhard Schmidt (K.G. Saur, Munchen Leipzig, 2004), pp. 366,368-9
Jump up ^ G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, vol. xii/1 (The St. Catherine Press, London, 1953), pp. 495-6

Additional references

Barlow, Frank, The Feudal Kingdom of England 1012 - 1216, London, 1955
Cokayne, George Edward, The Complete Peerage, Vol. iv, p. 670 Chart:Surrey or Warenne before 1135…
Keats-Rohan, K.S.B., Domesday People, a Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066-1166 (The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 1999), p. 480
Moriarty, George Andrews, The Plantagenet Ancestry (Mormon Pioneer Genealogy Society, Salt Lake City, UT, 1985), p. 184
Norgate, Kate (1890). "Gundrada de Warenne". In Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography. 23. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 338.
Schwennicke, Detlev, Europèaische Stammtafeln: Stammtafeln zur Geschichte der Europaischen Staaten, Neue Folge, Band III Teilband 4, Das Feudale Frankreich und Sien Einfluss auf des Mittelalters (Marburg, Germany: Verlag von J. A. Stargardt, 1989), Tafel 699
Weis, Frederick Lewis, The Magna Charta Sureties, 1215, ed: Walter Lee Sheppard, Jr., William R. Beall, 5th Edition (Genealogical Publishing Co., 1999), Line 158-1

External links

The Lewes Priory Trust Photo Gallery (copyrighted images)
The Gundrada Chapel, Southover Church, Lewes, East Sussex
Tomb of Gundred in 1787 The Gentleman's Magazine

*

Buried:
In the course of the centuries which followed, both tombstones disappeared from the priory but in 1774 William Burrell, Esq., an antiquary, discovered Gundred's in Isfield Church (seven miles from Lewes), over the remains of Edward Shirley, Esq., (d. 1550), and had it removed on October 2, 1775, to St. John's Church, Southover, where it was placed on display.[25]

In 1845, during excavations through the Priory grounds for the Brighton Lewes and Hastings Railway, the lead chests containing the remains of the Earl and his Countess were discovered and were deposited temporarily beneath Gundred's tombstone.[25] In 1847 a Norman Revival chapel was erected by public subscription, adjoining the present vestry and chancel. Prior to re-interring the remains in this chapel, both chests were opened to ascertain if there were any contents, which was found to be the case. New chests were made and used, and the ancient ones preserved and placed in two recessed arches in the southern wall. The Earl's chest has lost some lead. Gundred's chest remains in a good state of preservation. Across the upper part of the right arch is the name Gvndrada. Her tombstone is of black Tournai marble.[26]

Children:

22202. Sir William de Warenne, Knight, 2nd Earl of Surrey was born in 1065 in East Sussex, England; died on 11 May 1138; was buried in Lewes Priory, Sussex, England.

44406.

Other Events and Attributes:

Military: Leader of the 1st Crusade

Notes:

Birth: 1057
Death: Oct. 18, 1102

Nobility. Son of Henri I of France and his second wife Anna Iaroslavna of Kiev. He married Adelais de Vermandois who bore him nine children.

Family links:
Parents:
King Henri (1008 - 1060)
Anna Agnesa Yaroslavna (1036 - 1075)

Spouse:
Adelaide, Countess of Vermandois*

Children:
Isabel Of Vermandois Beaumont de Warenne (1081 - 1131)*
Raoul I de Vermandois (1094 - 1152)*

Siblings:
Philip I of France (1052 - 1108)*
Hugh I Count of Vermandois (1057 - 1102)*
Hugues de France (1057 - 1102)

*Calculated relationship

Burial:
Church of St Paul
Mersin
Mersin, Turkey

Created by: Lutetia
Record added: Jan 13, 2013
Find A Grave Memorial# 103487897

end of profile

The PEDIGREE of
Hugh MAGNUS `the Great' de CREPI

Count of VERMANDOIS; Leader of 1st Crusade (Crusader); (inherited VERMANDOIS from his wife, whose brother Eudes, q.v., was disinherited)
Born: abt. 1057 Died: 18 Oct 1101 Tarsus d. from Battle wounds

HM George I's 15-Great Grandfather. HRE Ferdinand I's 13-Great Grandfather. U.S. President [WASHINGTON]'s 19-Great Grandfather. PM Churchill's 22-Great Grandfather. HM Margrethe II's 23-Great Grandfather. Gen. Pierpont Hamilton's 23-Great Grandfather. `Red Baron' Richthofen's 20-Great Grandfather. Poss. Agnes Harris's 16-Great Grandfather. `Osawatomie' Brown's 23-Great Grandfather.
Wife/Partner: Adelheid (Adelaide) (Countess) de VERMANDOIS
Children: Raoul I (Count) de VERMANDOIS ; Isabelle (de) VERMANDOIS ; Agnes de VERMANDOIS ; Mathilda (Mahaut) de VERMANDOIS ; Constance de VERMANDOIS ; Henri de Chaumont
Possible Child: Alice de VERMANDOIS
________ ________ ________ ________ _______ _______ _______ _______ ______ _____ _____
/ -- Robert I (King) of FRANCE + ==&=> [ 255 ,,x,&]
/ -- Hugh (I) `the Great' (Duke) of the FRANKS
/ \ -- Beatrice (poss. de VERMANDOIS) + ====> [ 255 ,,x,&]
/ -- Hugh (Hugues) CAPET (King) of FRANCE
/ \ -- Hedwige (Hedwig) of SAXONY + ==&=> [ 255 ,c,ptm,&]
/ -- Robert II CAPET (King) of FRANCE
/ \ -- Adelais of the CAROLINGIANS + ====> [ 255 ,c,pt,&]
/ -- Henry I CAPET (King) of FRANCE (1008 - 1060)
| \ / -- Boso (Bozon; II) of PROVENCE + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,pt,&]
| | / -- William (I; II; Marquis/Duke) of PROVENCE
| | | \ -- Constance of ARLES (de VIENNE) + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,ptQD,&]
| | / | or: Constantia (of unknown ancestry)
| \ -- Constance of ARLES (TOULOUSE) (980? - 1032 Meulan)
/ \ -- Adelaide (Aelips) `Blanche' d' ANJOU + ====> [ 255 ,c,&]
- Hugh MAGNUS `the Great' de CREPI
\ / -- Vladimir (I; Saint; Grand Prince) of KIEV + ====> [ 255 ,,R,&]
| / -- Jaroslav (Yaroslav Laroslav) I WLADIMIROWWITSCH
| | \ -- Rogneida (Rognieda) (Princess) von POLOTZK + ====> [ 3]
| | | or: Anna PORPHYROGENITA, q.v.
| / | OR: poss. (Miss) von SCHWABEN + ==&=> [ 255 ,gC,tm,&]
\ -- Anna (Agnesa) JAROSLAVNA (Princess) of KIEV
\ | or: prob. not Matilda of GERMANY (1st wife)
| / -- Olaf III (II; King; Skot-konig) of SWEDEN + ====> [ 255 ,g,&]
\ -- Ingegarda (Ingrid) OLAFSDOTTIR (1001? - 1050)
\ / -- Mieceslas III (Prince) of the OBOTRITES + ====> [ 255 ,c,pt,&]
\ -- Astrid (Ingegerda) (Princess) of the OBOTRITES
\ -- Sophia (Sweden)

His (poss.) Grandchildren: Eleonore de VERMANDOIS ; Isabelle de VERMANDOIS ; Eleonore de VERMANDOIS ; Alice of LEICESTER ; Ada (of Surrey) de WARENNE ; Reginald de WARREN ; Isabel (Elizabeth) de BEAUMONT ; Robert II `Bossu' de BEAUMONT (BELLOMONT; BLANCHMAIN) ; William (III) de WARENNE ; Waleran II de BEAUMONT (Count) de MEULAN ; Gundred de WARREN (WARENNE) ; Adelina (de) BEAUMONT ; Rainald de WARENNE ; Ella de WARREN ; (Miss) de WARENNE ; Matilda (Aubreye) de BEAUMONT ; Emma of BEAUMONT ; Eleanor BEAUMONT ; Manfred I (Marquess) of SALUZZO ; Anselmo (Marquis) de CEVA (del VASTO) ; Guglielmo del VASTO ; Sibel (Sibyl) of SAVONA del VASTO ; Agnes de BAUGENCY ; Mathilde de BEAUGENCY ; Adelheid de la FERTE-GAUCHER ; Bernard de ST. VALERY

[ Start ]
FabPed Genealogy Vers. 86 © Jamie, 1997-2018

end of pedigree

Birth:
Vermandois was a French county that appeared in the Merovingian period. Its name derives from that of an ancient tribe, the Viromandui. In the 10th century, it was organised around two castellan domains: St Quentin (Aisne) and Pâeronne (Somme). In today's times, the Vermandois county would fall in the Picardy region of northern France.

Pepin I of Vermandois, the earliest of its hereditary counts, was descended in direct male line from the emperor Charlemagne. More famous was his grandson Herbert II (902–943), who considerably increased the territorial power of the house of Vermandois, and kept the lawful king of France, the unlucky Charles the Simple, prisoner for six years. Herbert II was son of Herbert I, lord of Pâeronne and St Quentin, who was killed in 902 by an assassin in the pay of Baldwin II, Count of Flanders. His successors, Albert I, Herbert III, Albert II, Otto and Herbert IV, were not as historically significant.

In 1077, the last count of the first house of Vermandois, Herbert IV, received the county of Valois through his wife. His son Eudes (II) the Insane was disinherited by the council of the Barons of France. He was lord of Saint-Simon through his wife, and the county was given to his sister Adela, whose first husband was Hugh the Great, the brother of King Philip I of France. Hugh was one of the leaders of the First Crusade, and died in 1102 at Tarsus in Cilicia. The eldest son of Hugh and Adela was count Raoul I (c. 1120–1152), who married Petronilla of Aquitaine, sister of the queen, Eleanor, and had by her three children: Raoul (Rudolph) II, the Leper (count from 1152–1167); Isabelle, who possessed from 1167 to 1183 the counties of Vermandois, Valois and Amiens conjointly with her husband, Philip, Count of Flanders; and Eleanor. By the terms of a treaty concluded in 1186 with the king, Philip Augustus, the count of Flanders kept the county of Vermandois until his death, in 1191. At this date, a new arrangement gave Eleanor (d. 1213) a life interest in the eastern part of Vermandois, together with the title of countess of St Quentin, and the king entered immediately into possession of Peronne and its dependencies.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermandois

Died:
from battle wounds...

Hugues married Adelaide of Vermandois. Adelaide was born in 1060-1062 in Valois, France; died on 28 Sep 1120 in Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44407.

Adelaide of Vermandois was born in 1060-1062 in Valois, France; died on 28 Sep 1120 in Normandy, France.

Children:

22267. Lady Isabel de Vermandois, Countess of Leicester was born on 13 Dec 1081 in Basse-Normandie, France; died on 17 Feb 1131 in France; was buried in Lewes Priory, Southover, Sussex, England.

88588.

Duncan I of Scotland, King of Alba was born in ~1001 in (Dunkeld, Scotland) (son of Crinan of Dunkeld, Abbot of Dunkeld and Bethoc); died on 14 Aug 1040 in Elgin, Scotland.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: 1007, (Dunkeld) Scotland

Notes:

Donnchad mac Crinain (Modern Gaelic: Donnchadh mac Cráionain;[2] anglicised as Duncan I, and nicknamed An t-Ilgarach, "the Diseased" or "the Sick";[3] ca. 1001 – 14 August 1040)[1] was king of Scotland (Alba) from 1034 to 1040. He is the historical basis of the "King Duncan" in Shakespeare's play Macbeth.

Life

He was a son of Crâinâan, hereditary lay abbot of Dunkeld, and Bethâoc, daughter of king Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda (Malcolm II).

Unlike the "King Duncan" of Shakespeare's Macbeth, the historical Duncan appears to have been a young man. He followed his grandfather Malcolm as king after the latter's death on 25 November 1034, without apparent opposition. He may have been Malcolm's acknowledged successor or Táanaiste as the succession appears to have been uneventful.[4] Earlier histories, following John of Fordun, supposed that Duncan had been king of Strathclyde in his grandfather's lifetime, between 1018 and 1034, ruling the former Kingdom of Strathclyde as an appanage. Modern historians discount this idea.[5]

An earlier source, a variant of the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba (CK-I), gives Duncan's wife the Gaelic name Suthen.[6] Whatever his wife's name may have been, Duncan had at least two sons. The eldest, Malcolm III (Mâael Coluim mac Donnchada) was king from 1058 to 1093, the second Donald III (Domnall Bâan, or "Donalbane") was king afterwards. Mâael Muire, Earl of Atholl is a possible third son of Duncan, although this is uncertain.[7]

The early period of Duncan's reign was apparently uneventful, perhaps a consequence of his youth. Macbeth (Mac Bethad mac Findlâaich) is recorded as having been his dux, today rendered as "duke" and meaning nothing more than the rank between prince and marquess, but then still having the Roman meaning of "war leader". In context — "dukes of Francia" had half a century before replaced the Carolingian kings of the Franks and in England the over-mighty Godwin of Wessex was called a dux — this suggests that Macbeth may have been the power behind the throne.[8]

In 1039, Duncan led a large Scots army south to besiege Durham, but the expedition ended in disaster. Duncan survived, but the following year he led an army north into Moray, Macbeth's domain, apparently on a punitive expedition against Moray.[9] There he was killed in action, at Bothnagowan, now Pitgaveny, near Elgin, by the men of Moray led by Macbeth, probably on 14 August 1040.[10] He is thought to have been buried at Elgin[11] before later relocation to the Isle of Iona.
Depictions in fiction

Duncan is depicted as an elderly King in the play Macbeth (1606) by William Shakespeare. He is killed in his sleep by the protagonist, Macbeth.

In the historical novel Macbeth the King (1978) by Nigel Tranter, Duncan is portrayed as a schemer who is fearful of Macbeth as a possible rival for the throne. He tries to assassinate Macbeth by poisoning and then when this fails, attacks his home with an army. In self-defence Macbeth meets him in battle and kills him in personal combat.

In the animated television series Gargoyles he is depicted as a weak and conniving king who assassinates those who he believes threaten his rule.[12] He even tries to assassinate Macbeth, forcing Demona to ally with the Moray nobleman, with Duncan's resulting death coming from attempting to strike an enchanted orb of energy that one of the Weird Sisters gave to Macbeth to take Duncan down.

Died:
during the Battle of Pitgaveny by Macbeth

Duncan married Suthen, Queen of Scotland in ~1030 in (Northumbria, England). Suthen was born in ~1020 in Northumbria, England; died in 1050 in Scotland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

88589.

Suthen, Queen of Scotland was born in ~1020 in Northumbria, England; died in 1050 in Scotland.

Notes:

Biography
This is the Final Profile ID for Suthen, wife of Duncan I of Scotland.
Suthen/Sybil is being consolidated in this profile. Due to her unknown parentage, her LNAB has been determined as UNKNOWN.
Take care when merging.

There is confusion surrounding the origins of Sybill/Suthen. Conflicting theories claim she is either a: cousin, sister, or daughter of Siward, Earl of Northumbria. Therefore, her LNAB is "UNKNOWN".
Siward had 2 known children: Waltheof of Bamburg and (unproven) Osbeorne (d.27 Jul 1054).
"[SIBYLLA] . The Chronicle of John of Fordun states the mother of Malcolm and Donald Bane, Duncan's sons, was "the cousin of Earl Siward". This info is not in any earlier source and should be considered dubious" (Medieval Lands)
Please see G2G discussion for more:
http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/137645/what-is-the-lnab-for-suthen-sybil-of-scotland-

Vitals
Name: Suthen
Alias: Sybill, Sybilla
b. ____
d. ____
Disputed Origins
The parents listed for this individual are speculative and may not be based on sound genealogical research. Sources to prove or disprove this ancestry are needed. Please contact the Profile Manager or leave information on the bulletin board.

Sybill's relation to Siward, Earl of Northumbria, as well as Bjorn is unknown. She has been referred to as Siward's cousin, sister, and daughter.

John of Fordun:
Duncan's wife was the cousin of Earl Siward.[1]
Foundation for Medieval Genealogy [2] states:
information is dubious ... "In one earlier king list, King Malcolm III's mother is named "Suthen"".
more recent sources suggest:[citation needed]
Earl Siward and Sybilla are siblings.
Sybilla was daughter of Bjorn Bearsson and sister of Sigurd "Digera" Bjornsson, Earl of Northumbria
Marriage and Issue
m. c.1030 Duncan of Scotland.[3] Issue:
Malcolm III
Donald III
Maelmuire.[4]
Sources
? Fordun, J. (1872) Chronicle of a Scottish Nation. Felix J.H. Skene, Trans. & William F. Skene, Ed. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas. www.archive.org
? fmg.ac
? Ashley, M. (2008). A Brief History of British Kings and Queens, (pp.106-107). Philadelphia, PA: Running Press Book Publishers. Print.
? Alan Anderson's EARLY SOURCES OF SCOTTISH HISTORY, AD 500-1286; Weir, A. (n.d.) BRITAIN'S ROYAL FAMILIES (revised edition).
http://www.clanmacfarlanegenealogy.info/genealogy/TNGWebsite/getperson.php?personID=I4519&tree=CC

end of this biography

Children:

44400. Malcolm III of Scotland, King of Scots was born in 0Mar 1031 in Scotland; died on 13 Nov 1093 in Alnwick, Northumberland, England.
44294. Donald Dunkeld, III, King of Scots was born in 1034 in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland; died in 1097 in Rescobie, Angus, Scotland.

88802.

Edward the Exile was born in 1016 in (Wessex) England (son of Edmund II, King of the English and Ealdgyth); died on 19 Apr 1057 in London, Middlesex, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Hungary

Notes:

Edward the Exile (1016 – 19 April 1057), also called Edward ¥theling, was the son of King Edmund Ironside and of Ealdgyth. He spent most of his life in exile in the Kingdom of Hungary following the defeat of his father by Canute the Great; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnut_the_Great.

Exile

After the Danish conquest of England in 1016, Canute had Edward, said to be only a few months old, and his brother, Edmund, sent to the Swedish court of Olof Skèotkonung[1][2] (who was either Canute's half-brother or stepbrother), supposedly with instructions to have the children murdered. Instead, the two boys were secretly sent either to Kiev,[3] where Olof's daughter Ingigerd was the Queen, or to Poland, where Canute's uncle Boleslaw I Chrobry was duke.[4] Later Edward made his way to Hungary, probably in the retinue of Ingigerd's son-in-law, Andrâas in 1046.

Return

On hearing the news of his being alive, Edward the Confessor recalled him to England in 1056 and made him his heir. Edward offered the last chance of an undisputed succession within the Saxon royal house. News of Edward's existence came at a time when the old Anglo-Saxon monarchy, restored after a long period of Danish domination, was heading for catastrophe. The Confessor, personally devout but politically weak and without children, was unable to make an effective stand against the steady advance of the powerful and ambitious sons of Godwin, Earl of Wessex. From across the Channel William, Duke of Normandy, also had an eye on the succession. Edward the Exile appeared at just the right time. Approved by both king and by the Witan, the Council of the Realm, he offered a way out of the impasse, a counter both to the Godwinsons and to William, and one with a legitimacy that could not be readily challenged.

In 1054 King Edward sent Ealdred, Bishop of Worcester, to the court of the German emperor to set in train negotiations with the king of Hungary for the return of Edward the Exile. Ealdred was not at first successful, and Earl Harold's journey to Flanders, and possibly on to Germany and Hungary, in 1056 was probably undertaken to further negotiations. The Exile finally arrived in England in 1057 with his wife and children, but died within a few days, on 19 April, without meeting the King. He was buried in Old St Paul's Cathedral.[5]

Family

Edward's wife was named Agatha, whose origins are disputed.[6] Their children were:

Edgar ¥theling (c. 1051 - c. 1126) - Elected King of England after the Battle of Hastings but submitted to William the Conqueror.
Saint Margaret of Scotland (c. 1045 - 16 November 1093) - Married King Malcolm III of Scotland.
Cristina (c. 1057 - c. 1093) - Abbess at Romsey Abbey.
Edward's grandchild Edith of Scotland, also called Matilda, married King Henry I of England, continuing the Anglo-Saxon line into the post-Conquest English monarchy.

Ancestors

Edward the Exile was a direct descendant of a line of Wessex kings dating back, at least on the pages of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, to the arrival of Cerdic of Wessex in 495AD, and from Alfred the Great in the English monarchs family tree.[7] Of his more immediate ancestors, all four of Edward's male-line ancestors shown in the diagram below were Kings of England before Cnut the Great took the crown and sent Edward into exile.[8]

Edward married Agatha. Agatha was born in >1030; died in <1070 in (England). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

88803.

Agatha was born in >1030; died in <1070 in (England).

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: Aft 1018
Alt Death: 13 Jul 1054, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Northumberland, England

Notes:

Biography of Agatha, Wife of Edward the Exile
Parentage: Agatha's parents are unknown. Who they might me be remains one the great genealogical puzzles as tantalizing clues were left by near contemporaries. However, all of these clues are open to interpretation and debate, and are at times contradictory. One should not take any published as proof that her parentage has been discovered or worked out.
Stewart Baldwin's The Henry Project discusses the various theories and their origins on his "Agatha" page. [1]
Wikipedia also covers the various theories regarding her possible parrentage, all of them cited, with links to many primary genealogical sources in WHO ARE AGATHA'S PARENTS?.
The controversy was most recently discussed in The Scottish Genealogist in 2002. [2].
WHAT IS CERTAIN is that she was the wife of Edward, of Wessex, and the mother of Saint Margaret of Scotland

One Biographical Theory
Agatha of Augsburg, Princess of Hungary Some authorities say that she is the daughter of Ludolph, Margrave of West Friesland and Gertrude von Stade (RN=28199). She Paget says she is daughter of Bruno, Bishop of Augsburg, brother of Emperor Henry II. Agatha of Augsburg, Princess of Hungary died after 1066.

Another Biographical Theory
Her parentage is disputed repeatedly; the most interesting theories are published in the New England Genealogical journals[3][4][5]

Another Biographical Theory
(Someone copied from Wikipedia article) Wikipedia: Agatha,_wife_of_Edward_the_Exile
There is doubt about her parentage.
Note on paternity of Agatha, wife of Edward The Exile (by Andrey Alexandrovich Frizyuk)
" Two main versions of Agatha's parentage have been proposed so far:
1. Szabolcs de Vajay in his paper "Agatha, Mother of St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland" (Duquesne Review, vol. 7, no. 2 (Spring 1962), pp. 71-80) expounded the theory that Agatha was a daughter of Liudolf, Margrave of West-Friesland (he was half-brother of Emperor Henry III), by Gertrude of Egisheim. This is based on statements of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Florence of Worcester's "Chronicon ex chronicis" that Agatha was a blood relative of the "Emperor Henry".
2. Rene Jette in his article "Is the Mystery of the Origins of Agatha, Wife of Edward the Exile, Finally Solved?" (New England Historical and Genealogical Register, no. 150 (October 1996): 417-432) pointed out some facts which were not explained by Szabolcs de Vajay's theory:
A. William of Malmesbury in "De Gestis Regis Anglorum" and several later chronicles state that Agatha was a Hungarian Queen's sister. Edward was a loyal supporter of Andras who accompanied him from Kiev to Hungary in 1046 and lived for many years at his court. Thus it's highly probable that "a Hungarian Queen" in question was Andras' wife, Anastasia Yaroslavna.
B. According to Szabolcs de Vajay, the marriage of Agatha and Edward took place in Kiev. This accords with statements of Geoffrey Gaimar and Roger of Howden that Edward took a Kievan wife "of noble parentage."
C. There are several etymological arguments. Agatha, for instance, is a Greek name quite unknown in Western Europe of that time. On the other hand, the name Agatha/Agafia was fairly common in the Rurikid family: all daughters of Yaroslav received Greek names, and we know that Yaroslav's Byzantine stepmother had an aunt named Agatha.
D. Also, the 11th-century fresco of St Sophia Cathedral in Kiev represents 5 living daughters/sisters of Yaroslav, all of marriageable age. One of them is Anastasia the Queen of Hungary, another Elisaveta the Queen of Norway, the third - Anna the Queen of France, the fourth - Dobronega the Queen of Poland, but who was the fifth?
It's interesting that the last wife of Vladimir I was apparently the first cousin of Emperor Henry III. Her daughter Dobronega could have been described as "filia germani imperatoris Henrici". What if Agatha was Dobronega's full sister? It seems to me that such a solution would explain all the evidence that we have in the best way."
See NEHGR 152. Forebears, XVI, #4, p 521 says daughter of Bruno, brother of HRE Henry II; Bruno d 1057, London.
Sources
? Baldwin. "Agatha", in The Henry Project (2010, accessed 2017).
? Lauder-Frost, Gregory M.S., FSA Scot., "Agatha - The Ancestry Dispute" in The Scottish Genealogist, Edinburgh, Sept 2002, vol.xlix no.3, p.71-2.
? David Faris and Douglas Richard"The Origin of Agatha-The Debate Continues: The Parents of Agatha, Wife of Edward The Exile" in New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 152, (April 1998).By
? Renâe Jettâe, "Is the Mystery of the Origins of Agatha, Wife of Edward the Exile, Finally Solved?", in New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 150 (October 1996), pp. 417-432
? G. Andrews Moriarty, "Agatha, wife of the Atheling Eadward", in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 106 (1952), pp. 52-60
Our main source for medieval genealogy in the EuroAristo Project is the FMG database which is MEDIEVAL LANDS :A prosopography of medieval European noble and royal families by Charles Cawley,© Foundation for Medieval Genealogy, 2000-2013. http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/index.htm http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/CONTENTS.htm

We are open to other sources as well but please cite them.
Source list:
Baldwin, Stewart. "Agatha: Wife of Eadweard the Exile", website The Henry Project: The Ancestors of King Henry II of England. (4 July 2010, http://sbaldw.home.mindspring.com/hproject/prov/agath000.htm ; accessed April 2017).
History of Scotland, George Buchanan--Scots Peerage Sir James Balfor--U.K. Extracted Probate Records---ancestry.com
Spottiswood, John. The History of the Church of Scotland, beginning the year of our Lord 203, and continued to the end of the reign of King James VI. (R. Norton, for R. Royston, London, 1668) Page 29

end of this biography

Children:

44401. Margaret of Wessex, Queen of Scotland was born in ~1045 in Wessex, England; died on 16 Nov 1093 in Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland; was buried in Dunfermline Abbey, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland.

88584.

Siward Bjornsson, Earl of Northumbia was born in (1000-1010) in Denmark; died on 26 Mar 1055 in St Olave's Church, York, England; was buried in York, Yorkshire, England.

Notes:

Siward or Sigurd (/'su?w?rd/ or more recently /'si?w?rd/;[1] Old English: Sigeweard)[2] was an important earl of 11th-century northern England. The Old Norse nickname Digri and its Latin translation Grossus ("the stout") are given to him by near-contemporary texts.[3] Siward was probably of Scandinavian origin, perhaps a relative of Earl Ulf, and emerged as a powerful regional strongman in England during the reign of Cnut ("Canute the Great", 1016–1035). Cnut was a Scandinavian ruler who conquered England in the 1010s, and Siward was one of the many Scandinavians who came to England in the aftermath of that conquest. Siward subsequently rose to become sub-ruler of most of northern England. From 1033 at the latest Siward was in control of southern Northumbria, that is, present-day Yorkshire, governing as earl on Cnut's behalf.

He entrenched his position in northern England by marrying ¥lfflµd, the daughter of Ealdred, Earl of Bamburgh. After killing Ealdred's successor Eadulf in 1041, Siward gained control of all Northumbria. He exerted his power in support of Cnut's successors, kings Harthacnut and Edward, assisting them with vital military aid and counsel. He probably gained control of the middle shires of Northampton and Huntingdon by the 1050s, and there is some evidence that he spread Northumbrian control into Cumberland. In the early 1050s Earl Siward turned against the Scottish ruler Mac Bethad mac Findlaâich ("Macbeth"). Despite the death of his son Osbjorn, Siward defeated Mac Bethad in battle in 1054. More than half a millennium later the Scotland adventure earned him a place in William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Siward died in 1055, leaving one son, Waltheof, who would eventually succeed to Northumbria. St Olave's church in York and nearby Heslington Hill are associated with Siward.

read more...

Died:
"Siward, the stalwart earl, being stricken by dysentery, felt that death was near, and said, "How shameful it is that I, who could not die in so many battles, should have been saved for the ignominious death of a cow! At least clothe me in my impenetrable breastplate, gird me with my sword, place my helmet on my head, my shield in my left hand, my gilded battle-axe in my right, that I, the bravest of soldiers, may die like a soldier."

He spoke, and armed as he had requested, he gave up his spirit with honour".

— A description of Siward's death, taken from the Historia Anglorum of Henry of Huntingdon.

Buried:
at St Olave's Church, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Olave%27s_Church,_York

88585.

Aelfflaed was born in ~1010 in (Northumbria, England) (daughter of Ealdred, Earl of Bernicia and unnamed spouse); died in 1060 in Northumbria, England.

Children:

44292. Waltheof Huntington, Earl of Northumbria died on 31 May 1076 in St. Giles Hill, Winchester, England; was buried in Crowland, Crowland Abbey, Peterborough, England.

88586.

Lambert II, Count of Lens was born in Lens, France; died in 1054 in (France).

88587.

Notes:

Adelaide of Normandy (or Adeliza) (c. 1030 – bef. 1090) was the sister of William the Conqueror and was Countess of Aumale in her own right.

Life

Born c. 1030,[1] Adelaide was an illegitimate daughter of the Norman duke Robert the Magnificent. Robert's likewise illegitimate son and successor, William the Conqueror, was Adelaide's brother or half-brother.[a]

Adelaide's first marriage to Enguerrand II, Count of Ponthieu potentially gave William a powerful ally in upper Normandy.[2] But at the Council of Reims in 1049, when the marriage of William with Matilda of Flanders was prohibited based on consanguinity, so were those of Eustace II, Count of Boulogne and Enguerrand of Ponthieu, who was already married to Adelaide.[3] Adelaide's marriage was apparently annulled c.1049/50 and another marriage was arranged for her, this time to Lambert II, Count of Lens, younger son of Eustace I, Count of Boulogne forming a new marital alliance between Normandy and Boulogne.[4] Lambert was killed in 1054 at Lille, aiding Baldwin V, Count of Flanders against Emperor Henry III.[5] Now widowed, Adelaide resided at Aumale, probably part of her dower from her first husband, Enguerrand, or part of a settlement after the capture of Guy of Ponthieu, her brother-in-law.[b][4] As a dowager Adelaide began a semi-religious retirement and became involved with the church at Auchy presenting them with a number of gifts.[4] In 1060 she was called upon again to form another marital alliance, this time to a younger man Odo, Count of Champagne.[6] Odo seems to have been something of a disappointment as he appears on only one of the Conqueror's charters and received no land in England; his wife being a tenant-in-chief in her own right.[6]

In 1082, William and his wife, Matilda, gave to the abbey of the Holy Trinity in Caen the town of Le Homme in the Cotentin with a provision to the Countess of Albamarla (Aumale), his sister, for a life tenancy.[7] In 1086, as Comitissa de Albatnarla,[7] as she was listed in the Domesday Book, was shown as having numerous holdings in both Suffolk and Essex,[8] one of the very few Norman noblewomen to have held lands in England at Domesday as a tenant-in-chief.[9] She was also given the lordship of Holderness which was held after her death by her 3rd husband, Odo, the by then disinherited Count of Champagne; the lordship then passed to their son, Stephen.[7] Adelaide died before 1090.[10]
Family

Adelaide married three times; first to Enguerrand II, Count of Ponthieu (died 1053)[11] by whom she had issue:

Adelaide, living 1096.[7]

She married secondly Lambert II, Count of Lens (died 1054),[10] they had a daughter:

Judith of Lens, m. Waltheof Earl of Huntingdon and Northumbria.[12]

Adelaide married thirdly in 1060 Odo, Count of Champagne (d. aft. 1096),[13] by whom she had a son:

Stephen, Count of Aumale.[13]

end of biography

Children:

44293. Judith of Lens, Countess of Northumberland was born in 1054-1055 in Lens, France; died in ~1090 in Fotheringay, Northamptonshire, England.

88812.

Henri, I, King of France was born on 4 May 1008 in Reims, France; died on 4 Aug 1060 in Vitry-aux-Loges, Centre, France; was buried in Saint Denis Basilique, Paris, France.

Notes:

Henry I (4 May 1008 – 4 August 1060) was King of the Franks from 1031 to his death. The royal demesne of France reached its smallest size during his reign, and for this reason he is often seen as emblematic of the weakness of the early Capetians. This is not entirely agreed upon, however, as other historians regard him as a strong but realistic king, who was forced to conduct a policy mindful of the limitations of the French monarchy.

King of the Franks
Junior king
Senior king 14 May 1027 – 20 July 1031;
20 July 1031 – 4 August 1060
Coronation 14 May 1027, Cathedral of Reims
Predecessor Robert II
Successor Philip I
Born 4 May 1008
Reims, France
Died 4 August 1060 (aged 52)
Vitry-aux-Loges, France
Burial Saint Denis Basilica, Paris, France
Spouse Matilda of Frisia
Anne of Kiev
Issue Philip I
Emma of France
Robert of France
Hugh I, Count of Vermandois
House Capet
Father Robert II of France

Reign
A member of the House of Capet, Henry was born in Reims, the son of King Robert II (972–1031) and Constance of Arles (986–1034).[1] He was crowned King of France at the Cathedral of Reims on 14 May 1027,[2] in the Capetian tradition, while his father still lived. He had little influence and power until he became sole ruler on his father's death.

The reign of Henry I, like those of his predecessors, was marked by territorial struggles. Initially, he joined his brother Robert, with the support of their mother, in a revolt against his father (1025). His mother, however, supported Robert as heir to the old king, on whose death Henry was left to deal with his rebel sibling.[3] In 1032, he placated his brother by giving him the duchy of Burgundy[3] which his father had given him in 1016.[4]

In an early strategic move, Henry came to the rescue of his very young nephew-in-law, the newly appointed Duke William of Normandy (who would go on to become William the Conqueror), to suppress a revolt by William's vassals. In 1047, Henry secured the dukedom for William in their decisive victory over the vassals at the Battle of Val-áes-Dunes near Caen;[5] however, Henry would later support the barons against William until the former's death in 1060.[6]

In 1051, William married Matilda, the daughter of the count of Flanders, which Henry saw as a threat to his throne.[7] In 1054, and again in 1057, Henry invaded Normandy, but on both occasions he was defeated.[7]

Henry had three meetings with Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor—all at Ivois. In early 1043, he met him to discuss the marriage of the emperor with Agnes of Poitou, the daughter of Henry's vassal.[8] In October 1048, the two Henries met again and signed a treaty of friendship.[9] The final meeting took place in May 1056 and concerned disputes over Theobald III and County of Blois.[9] The debate over the duchy became so heated that Henry accused the emperor of breach of contract and subsequently left.[9] In 1058, Henry was selling bishoprics and abbacies, ignoring the accusations of simony and tyranny by the Papal legate Cardinal Humbert.[10] Despite his efforts, Henry I's twenty-nine-year reign saw feudal power in France reach its pinnacle.

King Henry I died on 4 August 1060 in Vitry-en-Brie, France, and was interred in Basilica of St Denis. He was succeeded by his son, Philip I of France, who was 7 at the time of his death; for six years Henry's queen Anne of Kiev ruled as regent. At the time of his death, he was besieging Thimert, which had been occupied by the Normans since 1058.[11]

Marriages
Henry I was betrothed to Matilda, the daughter of Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor, but she died prematurely in 1034.[12] Henry then married Matilda of Frisia, but she died in 1044,[13] following a Caesarean section. Casting further afield in search of a third wife, Henry married Anne of Kiev on 19 May 1051.[13] They had four children:

Philip I (23 May 1052 – 30 July 1108).[14]
Emma (1054 – 1109?).
Robert (c. 1055 – c. 1060).
Hugh "the Great" of Vermandois (1057–1102).[15]

end of biography

88813.

Anna Agnesa Yaraslavna, Queen of France was born in 1036 in Kiev, Ukraine (daughter of Yaroslav, I, Czar of Russia and Ingigerd Olofsdottir, Princess of Sweden); died on 5 Sep 1075 in France.

Notes:

The PEDIGREE of
Anna (Agnesa) JAROSLAVNA (Princess) of KIEV

aka Anne of RUSSIA; (YAROSLAVNA Iaroslavna) KIJEWSKAIA; (Capet's 2nd wife)
Born: Kiev 1036 Died: aft. 1076 France

HM George I's 16-Great Grandmother. HRE Ferdinand I's 13-Great Grandmother. U.S. President [WASHINGTON]'s 19-Great Grandmother. PM Churchill's 23-Great Grandmother. HM Margrethe II's 24-Great Grandmother. Gen. Pierpont Hamilton's 24-Great Grandmother. `Red Baron' Richthofen's 21-Great Grandmother. Poss. Agnes Harris's 17-Great Grandmother. `Osawatomie' Brown's 24-Great Grandmother.
Husbands/Partners: Henry I CAPET (King) of FRANCE ; Raoul III de CREPY
Child: Philip I `the Amorous' (King) of FRANCE
Possible Child: Hugh MAGNUS `the Great' de CREPI
Alternative Mother of Possible Child: prob. not Matilda of GERMANY (1st wife)
________ ________ ________ ________ _______ _______ _______ _______ ______ _____ _____
/ -- Rurik (Grand Prince) of NOVGORAD + ====> [ 255 ,,p,&]
| | or: Ingwar (Rurik's son)
/ | OR: prob. not Rurik NOWGOROD [alt ped] + ====> [ 255 ,,p,&]
/ -- Igor I (Grand Prince) of KIEV (876? - 945?)
| \ | OR: prob. source: N1c1 y-Haplogroup + =====>
| \ -- Efanda of URMAN + ====> [ 1]
/ | OR: prob. not Marija of BULGARIA + ==&=> [ 255 ,,XQD,&]
/ -- Sviatoslav (Svatislav) I IGORJEWITSCH
/ \ -- Olga von PLESKAU (Grand Duchess) of KIEV + ====> [ 2]
/ -- Vladimir (I; Saint; Grand Prince) of KIEV
| \ / -- poss. Malk (Mal) de LUBECH + ====> [ 1]
| \ -- Malousha `the Slav' de LUBECH (944? - 1002?)
| \ | or: Fredslava (ARPAD ?), q.v.
/ \ -- Olga
/ -- Jaroslav (Yaroslav Laroslav) I WLADIMIROWWITSCH
| \ / -- poss. Randolph of POLOTSK + ====> [ 1]
| | / -- Rognwald (Rognvald) (Count) von POLOTZK
| \ -- Rogneida (Rognieda) (Princess) von POLOTZK
| | or: Anna PORPHYROGENITA, q.v.
/ | OR: poss. (Miss) von SCHWABEN + ==&=> [ 255 ,gC,tm,&]
- Anna (Agnesa) JAROSLAVNA (Princess) of KIEV
\ / -- Erik EDMUNDSSON of SWEDEN (Goten) + ====> [ 255 ,,p,&]
| / -- Bjorn (III) `the Old' (`a Haugi') ERIKSSON
| / -- Erik VII `Segersall' (King) of SWEDEN
| | \ | OR: Erik VII `Segersall' of SWEDEN [alt ped] + ====> [ 255 ,,p,&]
| / \ -- Ingeborg (? - 934+)
| / -- Olaf III (II; King; Skot-konig) of SWEDEN
| | \ / -- Skoglar-Toste (Skogul-Tosti) STORRADA
| | \ -- Sigrid (Sigrith) STORRADA (Queen) of DENMARK
| / | OR: prob. Gunhild MIEZKODOTTER av VENDEN + ====> [ 255 ,g,&]
\ -- Ingegarda (Ingrid) OLAFSDOTTIR (1001? - 1050)
\ / -- Mitsui II (Prince) of the OBOTRITES + ====> [ 255 ,,x,&]
| / -- Mieceslas III (Prince) of the OBOTRITES
| | \ -- poss. Sophia MIECESLAS + ====> [ 1]
| / | OR: poss. Margareta of SAXONY + ==&=> [ 255 ,c,pt,&]
\ -- Astrid (Ingegerda) (Princess) of the OBOTRITES
\ -- Sophia (Sweden)

Her (poss.) Grandchildren: Cecile de FRANCE ; Louis VI `the Fat' (King) of FRANCE ; Constance (Constansia) CAPET (Princess) of FRANCE ; Florent de FRANCE ; Raoul I (Count) de VERMANDOIS ; Isabelle (de) VERMANDOIS ; Agnes de VERMANDOIS ; Mathilda (Mahaut) de VERMANDOIS ; Constance de VERMANDOIS ; Alice de VERMANDOIS

[ Start ]
FabPed Genealogy Vers. 86 © Jamie, 1997-2018

Children:

44406. Hugues de France, Count of Vermandois was born in 1057 in (Vermandois) France; died on 18 Oct 1102 in Tarsus, Turkey; was buried in Church of St Paul, Mersin, Mersin, Turkey.

48200.

Notes:

more...

History & issue of Henry I, King of England ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_I_of_England

Family and children

Legitimate

House of Normandy
Bayeux Tapestry WillelmDux.jpg
William the Conqueror invades England
William I[show]
William II[show]
Henry I[show]
Stephen[show]
Monarchy of the United Kingdom
v t e
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Henry I of England.

Henry and his first wife, Matilda, had at least two legitimate children:

Matilda, born in 1102, died 1167.[89]
William Adelin, born in 1103, died 1120.[89]
Possibly Richard, who, if he existed, died young.[100]
Henry and his second wife, Adeliza, had no children.

Illegitimate

Henry had a number of illegitimate children by various mistresses.[nb 32]

Sons

Robert of Gloucester, born in the 1090s.[332]
Richard, born to Ansfride, brought up by Robert Bloet, the Bishop of Lincoln.[333]
Reginald de Dunstanville, Earl of Cornwall, born in the 1110s or early 1120s, possibly to Sibyl Corbet.[334]
Robert the King's son, born to Ede, daughter of Forne.[335]
Gilbert, possibly born to an unnamed sister or daughter of Walter of Gand.[336]
William de Tracy, possibly born in the 1090s.[336]
Henry the King's son, possibly born to Nest ferch Rhys.[335][nb 33]
Fulk the King's son, possibly born to Ansfride.[335]
William, the brother of Sybilla de Normandy, probably the brother of Reginald de Dunstanville.[337]

Daughters

Matilda FitzRoy, Countess of Perche.[338]
Matilda FitzRoy, Duchess of Brittany.[338]
Juliana, wife of Eustace of Breteuil, possibly born to Ansfrida.[339]
Mabel, wife of William Gouet.[340]
Constance, Vicountess of Beaumont-sur-Sarthe.[341]
Aline, wife of Matthew de Montmorency.[342]
Isabel, daughter of Isabel de Beaumont, Countess of Pembroke.[342]
Sybilla de Normandy, Queen of Scotland, probably born before 1100.[342][nb 34]
Matilda Fitzroy, Abbess of Montvilliers.[342]
Gundrada de Dunstanville.[342]
Possibly Rohese, wife of Henry de la Pomerai.[342][nb 35]
Emma, wife of Guy of Laval.[343]
Adeliza, the King's daughter.[343]
The wife of Fergus of Galloway.[343]
Possibly Sibyl of Falaise.[343][nb 36]

Born: ABT Sep 1068, Selby, Yorkshire, England
Acceded: 6 Aug 1100, Westminster Abbey, London, England
Died: 1 Dec 1135, St Denis-le-Fermont, near Gisors
Buried: Reading Abbey, Berkshire, England

Notes: Reigned 1100-1135. Duke of Normandy 1106-1135.

His reign is notable for important legal and administrative reforms, and for the final resolution of the investiture controversy. Abroad, he waged several campaigns in order to consolidate and expand his continental possessions. Was so hated by his brothers that they vowed to disinherit him. In 1106 he captured Robert and held him til he died. He proved to be a hard but just ruler. One of his lovers, Nest, Princess of Deheubarth, was known as the most beautiful woman in Wales; she had many lovers.

He apparently died from over eating Lampreys. During a Christmas court at Windsor Castle in 1126 that Henry I, who had no legitimate male heir, tried to force his barons to accept his daughter Matilda as his successor.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles reported that "...there he caused archbishops and bishops and abbots and earls all the thegns that were there to swear to give England and Normandy after his death into the hand of his daughter". Swear they did, but they were not happy about it. None of those present were interested in being among the first to owe allegiance to a woman. The stage was set for the 19-year-long bloody struggle for the throne that rent England apart after Henry's death. Ironically, the final resolution to that civil war, the peace treaty between King Stephen and Matilda's son Henry of Anjou, was ratified on Christmas Day at Westminster in 1153.

*

Birth:
History, maps & photos of Selby, England ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selby

Buried:
Reading Abbey is a large, ruined abbey in the centre of the town of Reading, in the English county of Berkshire. It was founded by Henry I in 1121 "for the salvation of my soul, and the souls of King William, my father, and of King William, my brother, and Queen Maud, my wife, and all my ancestors and successors".

For more history & images of Reading Abbey, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Abbey

Henry married unnamed partner. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48201.
unnamed partner
Children:

24100. Sir Robert FitzRoy, Knight, 1st Earl of Gloucester was born before 1100 in (France); died on 31 Oct 1147.

48202.

Sir Robert Fitzhamon, Knight, Lord of Glamorgan was born in 1045-1055; died in 0Mar 1107 in Falaise, Calvados, Normandie, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Gloucestershire, England

Notes:

Robert Fitzhamon (died March 1107), or Robert FitzHamon, Seigneur de Creully in the Calvados region and Torigny in the Manche region of Normandy, was the first Norman feudal baron of Gloucester and the Norman conqueror of Glamorgan, southern Wales. He became Lord of Glamorgan in 1075.

As a kinsman of the Conqueror and one of the few Anglo-Norman barons to remain loyal to the two successive kings William Rufus and Henry I of England, he was a prominent figure in England and Normandy.

Not much is known about his earlier life, or his precise relationship to William I of England.

Parentage and ancestry

Robert FitzHamon (born c. 1045-1055, d. March 1107 Falaise, Normandy) was, as the prefix Fitz (fils de, "son of") suggests, the son of Hamo Dapifer the Sheriff of Kent and grandson of Hamon Dentatus ('The Betoothed or Toothy', i.e., probably buck-toothed). His grandfather held the lordships of Torigny, Creully, Mâezy, and Evrecy in Normandy, but following his death at the Battle of Val-áes-Dunes in 1047, the family might have lost these lordships.

Career in England and Wales[edit]
Few details of Robert's career prior to 1087 are available. Robert probably did not fight at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and does not appear in the Domesday Book of 1086, although some of his relatives are listed therein. He first comes to prominence in surviving records as a supporter of King William Rufus (1087-1100) during the Rebellion of 1088. After the revolt was defeated he was granted as a reward by King William Rufus the feudal barony of Gloucester[3] consisting of over two hundred manors in Gloucestershire and other counties. Some of these had belonged to the late Queen Matilda, consort of William the Conqueror and mother of William Rufus, and had been seized by her from the great Saxon thane Brictric son of Algar, apparently as a punishment for his having refused her romantic advances in his youth.[4] They had been destined as the inheritance of Rufus's younger brother Henry (the future King Henry I); nevertheless Fitzhamon remained on good terms with Henry.

Conquest of Glamorgan

The chronology of Fitzhamon's conquest of Glamorgan is uncertain, but it probably took place in the decades after he received the feudal barony of Gloucester.

The Twelve Knights of Glamorgan

One explanation is the legend of the Twelve Knights of Glamorgan, which dates from the 16th century, in which the Welsh Prince Iestyn ap Gwrgan (Jestin), prince or Lord of Glamorgan, supposedly called in the assistance of Robert Fitzhamon. Fitzhamon defeated the prince of South Wales Rhys ap Tewdwr in battle in 1090. With his Norman knights as reward he then took possession of Glamorgan, and "the French came into Dyfed and Ceredigion, which they have still retained, and fortified the castles, and seized upon all the land of the Britons." Iestyn did not profit long by his involvement with the Normans. He was soon defeated and his lands taken in 1091.

Whether there is any truth in the legend or not Robert Fitzhamon seems to have seized control of the lowlands of Glamorgan and Gwynllwg sometime from around 1089 to 1094. His key strongholds were Cardiff Castle, which already may have been built, on the site of an old Roman fort, new castles at Newport, and at Kenfig. His descendants would inherit these castles and lands.

Rhys's daughter Nest became the mistress of King Henry I of England and allegedly was mother of Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester who married Mabel, Fitzhamon's daughter and heiress and thus had legitimacy both among the Welsh and the Norman barons.[5] (Robert of Caen's mother is however unknown to historians and genealogists).

Founder of Tewkesbury Abbey (1092)

He also refounded Tewkesbury Abbey in 1092. The abbey's dimensions are almost the same as Westminster Abbey. The first abbot was Giraldus, Abbot of Cranborne (d. 1110) who died before the abbey was consecrated in October 1121. The abbey was apparently built under the influence of his wife Sybil de Montgomery. [3], said to be a beautiful and religious woman like her sisters.

Fitzhamon and His Kings

Legend has it that Robert had ominous dreams in the days before Rufus' fatal hunting expedition, which postponed but did not prevent the outing. He was one of the first to gather in tears around Rufus' corpse, and he used his cloak to cover the late king's body on its journey to be buried in Winchester. How much of these stories are the invention of later days is unknown.

In any case Fitzhamon proved as loyal to Henry I as he had been to his predecessor, remaining on Henry's side in the several open conflicts with Henry's brother Robert Curthose. He was one of the three barons who negotiated the 1101 truce between Henry I and Robert Curthose.

In 1105 he went to Normandy and was captured while fighting near his ancestral estates near Bayeux. This was one of the reasons Henry crossed the channel with a substantial force later that year. Fitzhamon was freed, and joined Henry's campaign, which proceeded to besiege Falaise. There Fitzhamon was severely injured in the head; although he lived two more years he was never the same mentally. He was buried in the Chapter House at Tewkesbury Abbey, which he had founded and considerably enriched during his lifetime.

Marriage and progeny

Fitzhamon married Sybil de Montgomery around 1087 to 1090, apparently the youngest daughter of Roger of Montgomery, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury by his first wife Mabel Talvas, daughter of William I Talvas. She survived her husband and is said to have entered a convent with two of her daughters. By his wife he is said to have had four daughters including:

Mabel FitzHamon, eldest daughter, who inherited his great estates and in about 1107 married Robert de Caen, 1st Earl of Gloucester, a natural son of King Henry I (1100-1135). Fitzhamon's huge land-holdings in several counties formed the feudal barony of Gloucester[6] which was inherited by his son-in-law Robert de Caen, who in 1122 was created 1st Earl of Gloucester.[7] Fitzhamon is sometimes called Earl of Gloucester, but was never so created formally. Robert Fitzhamon's great-granddaughter Isabel of Gloucester married King John (1199-1216).
Isabella (or Hawisa) FitzHamon, said to have married a count from Brittany, but no further details exist.
1860 Depiction at Kilkhampton[edit]

1860 imaginary depiction of Robert FitzHamon (d.1107) (left) and his younger brother Richard I de Grenville (d.post 1142) (right), Church of St James the Great, Kilkhampton, Cornwall
An imaginary depiction of Robert FitzHamon (d.1107) and his younger brother Richard I de Grenville (d.post 1142)[8]) is contained within one of the two Granville windows by Clayton and Bell[9] erected in 1860 by descendants of the latter within the Granville Chapel of the Church of St James the Great, Kilkhampton, Cornwall. The seat of the Grenville family ("Granville" after 1661 when elevated to the Earldom of Bath[10]) was Stowe within the parish of Kilkhampton. Below the left-hand figure is inscribed: "Rob. FitzHamon Earl of Corboyle", with attributed arms under showing: Azure, a lion rampant guardant or impaling Azure, a lion rampant or a bordure of the last. The right hand figure is of Richard de Granville, the younger brother of Robert FitzHamon and one of the Twelve Knights of Glamorgan who followed his brother in effecting the conquest of Glamorgan. He holds in his hands the church of his foundation of Neath Abbey, Glamorgan. Below is inscribed: "Ric. de Granville Earl of Corboyle" with attributed arms under showing: Gules, three clarions or (the arms of the Grenvilles' later overlord and Robert FitzHamon's heir in the feudal barony of Gloucester,[11] Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, which arms were later adopted by the Grenvilles[12]) with an inescutcheon of pretence of Gules, three lions passant argent. The Granvilles claimed in the 17th century to have been the heirs male of Robert FitzHamon (who left only a daughter as his sole heiress) in his supposed Earldom of Corboil.[13] The windows were erected in 1860 by the heirs of the Grenville family: George Granville Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland KG (1786-1861); John Alexander Thynne, 4th Marquess of Bath (1831–1896); George Granville Francis Egerton, 2nd Earl of Ellesmere (1823–1862); Lord John Thynne (1798-1881), DD, Canon of Westminster, a younger son of Thomas Thynne, 2nd Marquess of Bath (1765-1837), KG.[14]

References

C. Warren Hollister, Henry I
Lynn Nelson, The Normans in South Wales, 1070-1171 (see especially pp. 94–110 in chapter 5)
Cardiff Castle
Norman invasion of South Wales
Tour of the Abbey
Lord of Bristol refers to Robert Fitzhamon as Lord of Bristol, which town and castle became important to his son-in-law.
Robert of Caen, son-in-law is said here to be grandson of a Welsh prince but most other sources say that his mother was an unnamed woman of Caen.
Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Lines: 63-26, 124A-26, 125-26, 185-1.

Notes

Jump up ^ Sir Charles Isham's "Registrum Theokusburiµ" gives a full-page illustration of these noble brothers, "par nobile fratrum," as Dr. Hayman calls them, in which they are termed "duo duces Marciorum et primi fundatores Theokusburiµ" i.e., two Earls of the Marches and first founders of Tewkesbury. Each knight is in armour, and bears in his hand a model of a church. Both are supporting a shield (affixed to a pomegranate tree) bearing the arms of the Abbey, which the blazoning on their own coats repeats.(Massâe, H. J. L. J., The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire (Bell's Cathedrals)) original illustration as shown on folio 8 verso, Bodleian Library Manuscript: Top. Gloucester, d. 2, Founders' and benefectors' book of Tewkesbury Abbey [1]
Jump up ^ Bodleian Library Manuscript: Top. Gloucester, d. 2, Founders' and benefectors' book of Tewkesbury Abbey [2]
Jump up ^ Sanders, I.J., English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, p.6, Barony of Gloucester
Jump up ^ According to the account by the Continuator of Wace and others, quoted in Thorn, Caroline & Frank, (eds.) Domesday Book, (Morris, John, gen.ed.) Vol. 9, Devon, Parts 1 & 2, Phillimore Press, Chichester, 1985, part 2 (notes), 24,21, quoting "Freeman, E.A., The History of the Norman Conquest of England, 6 vols., Oxford, 1867–1879, vol. 4, Appendix, note 0"
Jump up ^ Four Ancient Books of Wales: Introduction: Chapter VI. Manau Gododin and the Picts
Jump up ^ Sanders, p.6
Jump up ^ Sanders, p.6
Jump up ^ Round, J. Horace, Family Origins and Other Studies, London, 1930, The Granvilles and the Monks, pp.130-169, p.137
Jump up ^ Church Guidebook, St James the Great Kilkhampton, 2012, p.11
Jump up ^ Round, J. Horace, Family Origins and Other Studies, London, 1930, The Granvilles and the Monks, pp.130-169
Jump up ^ Sanders, I.J., English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, p.6, Barony of Gloucester
Jump up ^ Round, J. Horace, Family Origins and Other Studies, London, 1930, The Granvilles and the Monks, pp.130-169
Jump up ^ Round, J. Horace, Family Origins and Other Studies, London, 1930, The Granvilles and the Monks, pp.130-169
Jump up ^ Per brass plaque below easternmost window

Robert married Sybil de Montgomery. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48203.

Children:

24101. Lady Mabel FitzHamon, Countess of Gloucester was born in 0___ 1090 in Gloucestershire, England; died on 29 Sep 1157 in Bristol, Gloucestershire, England.

88824.

Simon I de Montfort was born in 1026 in Montfort l'Amaury, Ile de France, France; died on 25 Sep 1087 in Epernon, Normandie, France.

88825.

Agnes d'Evereux was born in 1041 in Evreux, Normandy, France (daughter of Richard d'Evreux and Godeheut Barcelona); died in 1087 in Evreux, Normandy, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: 1030

Notes:

The PEDIGREE of
Agnes d' EVEREUX (EVEREUX; d' EVREUX)
Born: abt. 1030 Died: abt. 1087

HM George I's 15-Great Grandmother. HRE Ferdinand I's 13-Great Grandmother. U.S. President [WASHINGTON]'s 18-Great Grandmother. PM Churchill's 22-Great Grandmother. HM Margrethe II's 23-Great Grandmother. Gen. Pierpont Hamilton's 24-Great Grandmother. `Red Baron' Richthofen's 20-Great Grandmother. Poss. Agnes Harris's 16-Great Grandmother. `Osawatomie' Brown's 23-Great Grandmother.
Husband/Partner: Simon I (Sn.; de) MONTFORT
Children: Bertrade de MONTFORT (l' AMAURI) ; Amauri III (Amaury; IV) de MONTFORT
_________ _________ _________ ________ ________ ________ ________ ______ _____ _____
/ -- Guillaume (2nd Duke) of NORMANDY + ====> [ 255 ,c,pt,&]
/ -- Richard I `the Fearless' (Count) of NORMANDY
/ \ -- Sprota de BRETAGNE (concubine) + ====> [ 1]
/ -- Robert (Count) d' EVEREUX (VREUX)
| \ / -- Herbastus (Herfastus) (Sire) de CREPON + ====> [ 255 ,g,&]
| | | | or: (NN), a Dane
| | / | or: Forquelar of CIRQUES
| \ -- Gunnora (Gonnor) de CREPON (936? - 1031?)
| \ | OR: prob. not Gunnora DENMARK + ====> [ 255 ,gc,t,&]
| \ -- poss. Cynthia of OBATRIDES + ====> [ 255 ,,x,&]
/ | or: poss. Cyrid of SWEDEN
/ -- Richard (Count) de EVREUX (Rouen 986 - 1067)
/ \ -- Havlive (Herleva; or Gunnois) of NORMANDY
- Agnes d' EVEREUX (EVEREUX; d' EVREUX)
\ / -- Sunyer (Suniario) of BESALU + ====> [ 255 ,,mx,&]
| / -- Borell II (Count) of BARCELONA (946? - 992)
| / \ -- Richilde de ROUERGUE (ROUERGES) + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,mY,&]
| / -- Raymond Borrell (I; III) BERENGAR (972 - 1019)
| | \ / -- Raymond III (5th Count?) de TOULOUSE + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,ptm,&]
| | | / | (skip this generation?)
| | \ -- poss. Luitgarde de TOULOUSE (952? - 977+)
| | \ | OR: poss. Luitgarde de TOULOUSE [alt ped] + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,ptmY,&]
| / \ -- poss. Adelaide (Aelips) `Blanche' d' ANJOU (skip?) + ====> [ 255 ,c,&]
\ -- poss. Adelaide (Adela Adele) of BARCELONA
\ | or: prob. Godehildis (Gotelina)
| / -- Arnold I of CONSERANS + ====> [ 255 ,,xY,&]
| / -- Roger I de COMMINGES (935? - 1019?)
| | \ -- Arsenda (Heiress) de CARCASSONNE + ====> [ 255 ,c,mY,&]
| / | OR: Arsinde de ROUERGUE + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,mY,&]
\ -- Ermesinde de CARCASSONNE (972 - 1058)
\ / -- poss. father of Baldwin de PONS (skip?)
\ -- Adelaide de ROUERGUE (949? - 1011+)
\ | OR: Adelaide de MELGUEIL [alt ped] + ====> [ 255 ,,x,&]
\ -- prob. (Miss) de ROUERGUE + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,ptmY,&]
| (skip this generation?)

Her Grandchildren: Cecile de FRANCE ; Foulques (Fulk) V (9th Count) de ANJOU ; Florent de FRANCE ; Agnes d' Evreux de MONTFORT ; Simon III (II; Baron; de) MONTFORT ; Simon II (III) de MONTFORT

[ Start ]
FabPed Genealogy Vers. 86 © Jamie, 1997-2018

Agnes de Montfort formerly Evreux aka d'Evreux
Born 1041 in âEvreux, Eure, Haute-Normandie, France
ANCESTORS ancestors
Daughter of Richard (Evreux) d'Evreux and Godeheut (Barcelona) d'Evreux
Sister of Adelisa (Toeni) FitzOsbern [half], Radulph (Toeni) de Tony [half], Eliant Eliance (de Toeni) Toeni [half], Guillaume (Evreux) d'Evreux [half], Helbert Elbert (de Toeni) Toeni [half], Gazon (de Toeni) Toeni [half] and Unknown (de Toeni) Toeni [half]
Wife of Simon (Montfort) de Montfort — married about 1064 [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Mother of Richard (Montfort) de Montfort, Amauri (Montfort) de Montfort, Simon Montfort, Bertrade I de Montfort, Simon (Montfort) de Montfort and Amauri (Montfort) de Montfort
Died about 1087 in âEvreux, Eure, Haute-Normandie, France
Profile manager: Rev Daniel Washburn Jones private message [send private message]
Profile last modified 26 Mar 2019 | Created 12 Sep 2010
This page has been accessed 6,246 times.
European Aristocracy
Agnes (Evreux) de Montfort was a member of aristocracy in Europe.
Join: European Royals and Aristocrats Project
Discuss: EUROARISTO
This person is the subject of a page on the website of Baldwin and Farmerie concerning the ancestry of Henry II.[1]

Stewart Baldwin describes her as "sister and heiress of her brother count William of âEvreux, Agnes brought the county of âEvreux into the possession of the Montfort family." Her father was Richard, count of âEvreux, and because Agnes was uterine sister of Ralph de Tosny, son of Roger de Tosny who died about 1040, Baldwin says Godehilde must be the name of her mother.

Sources
Wikipedia
? http://sbaldw.home.mindspring.com/hproject/prov/agnes000.htm
Normandy, nobility

end of profile

Children:

44412. Sir Amaury de Montfort, III, Knight, Count of Evreux was born in 1070 in (Epernon, France); died in ~ 1137.

177604.

Edmund II, King of the English was born in 990 in (Wessex) England (son of Aethelred the Unready, King of the English and Aelfgifu of York, Queen Consort of England); died on 30 Nov 1016 in (London) England; was buried in Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset, England.

Notes:

Edmund Ironside (died 30 November 1016), also known as Edmund II, was King of England from 23 April to 30 November 1016. He was the son of King ¥thelred the Unready and his first wife, ¥lfgifu of York. Edmund's reign was marred by a war he had inherited from his father, his cognomen "Ironside" was given to him "because of his valour" in resisting the Danish invasion led by Cnut the Great.[1]

Edmund was not expected to be King of England; however, by 1014 two elder brothers had died, making him the oldest male heir. His father, ¥thelred, was usurped by Sweyn Forkbeard in that same year, but Sweyn died shortly thereafter, paving the way for ¥thelred and his family to return to the throne, which they did but not without opposition. In the process they forced Sweyn's son, Cnut, back to Denmark, where he assembled an invasion force to re-conquer England. It would not arrive for another year.

After regaining the throne, the royal family set about strengthening its hold on the country with the assistance of Eadric Streona (Edmund's brother-in-law). People who had sided with the Danes in 1014 were punished, and some were killed. In one case, two brothers, Morcar and Sigeferth, were killed and their possessions, along with Sigferth's wife, were taken by Edmund. Edmund unofficially became the Earl of the East Midlands and took Ealdgyth for his wife.

Cnut returned to England in August 1015. Over the next few months, Cnut pillaged most of England. Edmund joined ¥thelred to defend London, but he died on 23 April 1016, making Edmund King. It was not until the summer of 1016 that any serious fighting was done: Edmund fought five battles against the Danes, ending in his defeat on 18 October at the Battle of Assandun, after which they agreed to divide the kingdom, Edmund taking Wessex and Cnut the rest of the country. Edmund died shortly afterwards on 30 November, leaving two sons, Edward and Edmund; however, Cnut became the king of all England, and exiled the remaining members of Edmund's family.

King of the English
Reign 23 April – 30 November 1016
Predecessor ¥thelred the Unready
Successor Cnut the Great
Born 990
Died 30 November 1016 (aged 26)
Oxford or London, England
Burial Glastonbury Abbey
Spouse Ealdgyth
Issue Edward the Exile
Edmund
House Wessex
Father ¥thelred the Unready
Mother ¥lfgifu of York
Religion British Church

Early life

The exact date of Edmund's birth is unclear, but it could have been no later than 993 when he was a signatory to charters along with his two elder brothers. He was the third of the six sons of King ¥thelred the Unready and his first wife, ¥lfgifu, who was probably the daughter of Earl Thored of Northumbria. His elder brothers were ¥thelstan (died 1014) and Egbert (died c. 1005), and younger ones, Eadred, Eadwig and Edgar.[1] He had four sisters, Eadgyth (or Edith), ¥lfgifu, Wulfhilda, and the Abbess of Wherwell Abbey. His mother died around 1000,[2] after which his father remarried, this time to Emma of Normandy, who had two sons, Edward the Confessor and Alfred and a daughter Goda.

¥thelstan and Edmund were close, and they probably felt threatened by Emma's ambitions for her sons.[3] The Life of Edward the Confessor, written fifty years later, claimed that when Emma was pregnant with him, all Englishmen promised that if the child was a boy they would accept him as king.[1] However that claim may just be propaganda.

Warrior prince

When Sweyn Forkbeard seized the throne at the end of 1013 and ¥thelred fled to Normandy, the brothers do not appear to have followed him, but stayed in England. ¥thelstan died in June 1014 and left Edmund a sword which had belonged to king Offa of Mercia.[1] His will also reflected the close relationship between the brothers and the nobility of the east midlands.[4]

Sweyn died in February 1014, and the Five Boroughs accepted his son Cnut, who married a kinswoman of Sigeferth and Morcar, as king. However, ¥thelred returned to England and launched a surprise attack which defeated the Vikings and forced Cnut to flee England. In 1015 Sigeferth and Morcar came to an assembly in Oxford, probably hoping for a royal pardon, but they were murdered by Eadric Streona. King ¥thelred then ordered that Sigeferth's widow, Ealdgyth, be seized and brought to Malmesbury Abbey, but Edmund seized and married her in defiance of his father, probably to consolidate his power base in the east midlands.[5] He then received the submission of the people of the Five Boroughs. At the same time, Cnut launched a new invasion of England. In late 1015 Edmund raised an army, possibly assisted by his wife's and mother's links with the midlands and the north, but the Mercians under Eadric Streona joined the West Saxons in submitting to Cnut. In early 1016 the army assembled by Edmund dispersed when ¥thelred did not appear to lead it, probably due to illness. Edmund then raised a new army and in conjunction with Earl Uhtred of Northumbria ravaged Eadric Streona's Mercian territories, but when Cnut occupied Northumbria Uhtred submitted to him, only to be killed by Cnut. Edmund went to London.[1]

King of England

¥thelred died on 23 April 1016, and the citizens and councillors in London chose Edmund as king and probably crowned him. He then mounted a last-ditch effort to revive the defence of England. While the Danes laid siege to London, Edmund headed for Wessex, where the people submitted to him and he gathered an army. He fought inconclusive battles against the Danes and their English supporters at Penselwood in Somerset and Sherston in Wiltshire. He then raised the siege of London and defeated the Danes near Brentford. They renewed the siege while Edmund went to Wessex to raise further troops, returning to again relieve London, defeat the Danes at Otford, and pursue Cnut into Kent. Eadric Streona now went over to Edmund, but at the decisive Battle of Assandun on 18 October, Eadric and his men fled and Cnut decisively defeated Edmund. There may have been one further battle in the Forest of Dean, after which the two kings negotiated a peace dividing the country between them. Edmund received Wessex while Cnut took Mercia and probably Northumbria.[1]

Death

On 30 November 1016, Edmund died. The location of his death is uncertain though it is generally accepted that it occurred in London, rather than in Oxford where Henry of Huntingdon claimed it to be in his sordid version of events, which included Edmund’s murder by suffering multiple stab wounds whilst on a privy tending to a call of nature.[6] Geoffrey Gaimar states a similar occurrence with the weapon being a crossbow, but with a number of other medieval chroniclers including the Encomium Emmae Reginae not mentioning murder, it is thought Edmund’s cause of death may possibly have been caused by wounds received in battle or by some disease, but it is certainly a possibility that he was murdered.

Edmund was buried near his grandfather Edgar at Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset. However the abbey was destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century, and any remains of a monument or crypt would have been plundered and the location of his remains is unclear.

Reputation

In the view of M. K. Lawson, the intensity of Edmund's struggle against the Danes in 1016 is only matched by Alfred the Great's in 871, and contrasts with ¥thelred's failure. Edmund's success in raising one army after another suggests that there was little wrong with the organs of government under competent leadership. He was "probably a highly determined, skilled and indeed inspiring leader of men". Cnut visited his tomb on the anniversary of his death and laid a cloak decorated with peacocks on it to assist in his salvation, peacocks symbolising resurrection.[1]

Descendants

Edmund had two children by Ealdgyth, Edward the Exile and Edmund. According to John of Worcester, Cnut sent them to the king of Sweden where he probably hoped they would be murdered, but the Swedish king instead forwarded them, together with his daughter, on to Kiev. The two boys eventually ended up in Hungary where Edmund died but Edward prospered. Edward "the Exile" returned to England in 1057 only to die within a few days of his arrival.[7] His son Edgar the ¥theling was briefly proclaimed king after the Battle of Hastings in 1066, but later submitted to William the Conqueror. Edgar would live a long and eventful life; fighting in rebellion against William the Conqueror from 1067-1075; fighting alongside the Conqueror's son Robert of Normandy in campaigns in Sicily (1085-1087); and accompanying Robert on the First Crusade (1099-1103). He was stlll alive in 1125.

In 1070 Edward the Exile's daughter, Margaret, became Queen consort to Malcolm III of Scotland. Through her and her decedents, Edmund is the direct ancestor of every subsequent Scottish monarch, every English monarch from Henry II onward, and every monarch of Great Britain and of the United Kingdom, down to the present.

Edmund married Ealdgyth. Ealdgyth was born about 992; died after 1016. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

177605.
Ealdgyth was born about 992; died after 1016.
Children:

88802. Edward the Exile was born in 1016 in (Wessex) England; died on 19 Apr 1057 in London, Middlesex, England.

177626.

Yaroslav, I, Czar of Russia was born in 976 in Kiev, Ukraine (son of Vladimir, Czar of Russia and Rogneda of Polotsk, Princess Consort of Rus); died on 20 Feb 1054 in Kiev, Ukraine.

Notes:

Yaroslav I, Grand Prince of Rus', known as Yaroslav the Wise or Iaroslav the Wise (Old East Slavic: ???????? ?????????????? ??????; Russian: ??????´? ??´????, translit. Jaroslav Mudryj [j?r?'slaf 'mudr?j]; Ukrainian: ??????´? ??´????, translit. Jaroslav Mudryj [j?ro'sl?u? 'mudr?j]; Old Norse: Jarizleifr Valdamarsson;[1]; Latin: Iaroslaus Sapiens; c. 978 – 20 February 1054) was thrice grand prince of Veliky Novgorod and Kiev, uniting the two principalities for a time under his rule. Yaroslav's Christian name was George (Yuri) after Saint George (Old East Slavic: ?????i, Gjurigái).

A son of Vladimir the Great, the first Christian Prince of Novgorod, Yaroslav acted as vice-regent of Novgorod at the time of his father's death in 1015. Subsequently, his eldest surviving brother, Sviatopolk I of Kiev, killed three of his other brothers and seized power in Kiev. Yaroslav, with the active support of the Novgorodians and the help of Varangian mercenaries, (Varangian defined: http://thehennesseefamily.com/showmedia.php?mediaID=3071&medialinkID=3073) defeated Svyatopolk and became the Grand Prince of Kiev in 1019. Under Yaroslav the codification of legal customs and princely enactments was begun, and this work served as the basis for a law code called the Russkaya Pravda ("Rus Truth [Law]"). During his lengthy reign, Kievan Rus' reached the zenith of its cultural flowering and military power.[2]

Yaroslav the Wise
Grand Prince of Kiev and Novgorod
Reign 1019–1054
Predecessor Sviatopolk the Accursed
Successor Iziaslav I
Prince of Rostov?
Reign 978–1010
Prince of Novgorod
Reign 1010–1019
Born c.?978
Died 20 February 1054 (aged c. 76)
Vyésgorod
Burial Saint Sophia's Cathedral, Kiev
Spouse Ingegerd Olofsdotter of Sweden
Issue
Details... Elisiv, Queen of Norway
Anastasia, Queen of Hungary
Anne, Queen of the Franks
Agatha, Queen of England (possibly)
Ilya
Vladimir of Novgorod
Iziaslav I
Sviatoslav II
Vsevolod I
Igor Yaroslavich
Vyacheslav Yaroslavich
Full name
Yaroslav Vladimirovich
Dynasty Rurikid
Father Vladimir the Great
Mother Rogneda of Polotsk (according to the Primary Chronicle)

Rise to the throne

The only contemporary image of Yaroslav I the Wise, on his seal.
Main article: Boleslaw I's intervention in the Kievan succession crisis
The early years of Yaroslav's life are shrouded in mystery. He was one of the numerous sons of Vladimir the Great, presumably his second by Rogneda of Polotsk,[3] although his actual age (as stated in the Primary Chronicle and corroborated by the examination of his skeleton in the 1930s) would place him among the youngest children of Vladimir. It has been suggested that he was a child begotten out of wedlock after Vladimir's divorce from Rogneda and marriage to Anna Porphyrogenita, or even that he was a child of Anna Porphyrogenita herself. Yaroslav figures prominently in the Norse sagas under the name Jarisleif the Lame; his legendary lameness (probably resulting from an arrow wound) was corroborated by the scientists who examined his remains.[citation needed]

In his youth, Yaroslav was sent by his father to rule the northern lands around Rostov but was transferred to Veliky Novgorod,[4] as befitted a senior heir to the throne, in 1010. While living there, he founded the town of Yaroslavl (literally, "Yaroslav's") on the Volga River. His relations with his father were apparently strained,[4] and grew only worse on the news that Vladimir bequeathed the Kievan throne to his younger son, Boris. In 1014 Yaroslav refused to pay tribute to Kiev and only Vladimir's death, in July 1015, prevented a war.[4]

During the next four years Yaroslav waged a complicated and bloody war for Kiev against his half-brother Sviatopolk I of Kiev, who was supported by his father-in-law, Duke Boleslaw I Chrobry of Poland.[5] During the course of this struggle, several other brothers (Boris, Gleb, and Svyatoslav) were brutally murdered.[5] The Primary Chronicle accused Svyatopolk of planning those murders,[5] while the saga Eymundar ¤âattr hrings is often interpreted as recounting the story of Boris' assassination by the Varangians in the service of Yaroslav. However, the victim's name is given there as Burizaf, which is also a name of Boleslaus I in the Scandinavian sources. It is thus possible that the Saga tells the story of Yaroslav's struggle against Svyatopolk (whose troops were commanded by the Polish duke), and not against Boris.[citation needed]

Yaroslav defeated Svyatopolk in their first battle, in 1016, and Svyatopolk fled to Poland.[5] But Svyatopolk returned in 1018 with Polish troops furnished by his father-in-law, seized Kiev[5] and pushed Yaroslav back into Novgorod. Yaroslav at last prevailed over Svyatopolk, and in 1019 firmly established his rule over Kiev.[6] One of his first actions as a grand prince was to confer on the loyal Novgorodians (who had helped him to gain the Kievan throne), numerous freedoms and privileges. Thus, the foundation of the Novgorod Republic was laid. For their part, the Novgorodians respected Yaroslav more than they did other Kievan princes; and the princely residence in their city, next to the marketplace (and where the veche often convened) was named Yaroslav's Court after him. It probably was during this period that Yaroslav promulgated the first code of laws in the lands of the East Slavs, the Russkaya Pravda.

Reign

Coins of Yaroslav and his descendants represent the trident.

Depiction of Yaroslav the Wise from Granovitaya Palata.
Power struggles between siblings
Leaving aside the legitimacy of Yaroslav's claims to the Kievan throne and his postulated guilt in the murder of his brothers, Nestor the Chronicler and later Russian historians often presented him as a model of virtue, styling him "the Wise". A less appealing side of his personality is revealed by his having imprisoned his youngest brother Sudislav for life. Yet another brother, Mstislav of Chernigov, whose distant realm bordered the North Caucasus and the Black Sea, hastened to Kiev and, despite reinforcements led by Yaroslav's brother-in-law King Anund Jacob of Sweden (as Jakun - "blind and dressed in a gold suit"),[7] inflicted a heavy defeat on Yaroslav in 1024. Yaroslav and Mstislav then divided Kievan Rus' between them: the area stretching left from the Dnieper River, with the capital at Chernihiv, was ceded to Mstislav until his death in 1036.

Scandinavian allies
In his foreign policy, Yaroslav relied on the Scandinavian alliance and attempted to weaken the Byzantine influence on Kiev. In 1030, he reconquered Red Ruthenia from the Poles and concluded an alliance with King Casimir I the Restorer, sealed by the latter's marriage to Yaroslav's sister, Maria. In another successful military raid the same year, he captured Tartu, Estonia and renamed it Yuryev[8] (named after Yury, Yaroslav's patron saint) and forced the surrounding province of Ugaunnia to pay annual tribute.

Campaign against Byzantium
In 1043, Yaroslav staged a naval raid against Constantinople led by his son Vladimir of Novgorod and general Vyshata. Although his navy was defeated in the Rus'–Byzantine War (1043), Yaroslav managed to conclude the war with a favourable treaty and prestigious marriage of his son Vsevolod I of Kiev to the emperor's daughter. It has been suggested that the peace was so advantageous because the Kievans had succeeded in taking a key Byzantine possession in Crimea, Chersonesus.

Protecting the inhabitants of the Dniper from the Pechenegs
To defend his state from the Pechenegs and other nomadic tribes threatening it from the south he constructed a line of forts, composed of Yuriev, Bohuslav, Kaniv, Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi, and Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi. To celebrate his decisive victory over the Pechenegs in 1036 (who thereupon never were a threat to Kiev) he sponsored the construction of the Saint Sophia Cathedral in 1037. That same year there were built monasteries of Saint George and Saint Irene. Some mentioned and other celebrated monuments of his reign such as the Golden Gate of Kiev perished during the Mongol invasion of Rus', but later restored.

Establishment of law
Yaroslav was a notable patron of book culture and learning. In 1051, he had a Slavic monk, Hilarion of Kiev, proclaimed the metropolitan bishop of Kiev, thus challenging the Byzantine tradition of placing Greeks on the episcopal sees. Hilarion's discourse on Yaroslav and his father Vladimir is frequently cited as the first work of Old East Slavic literature.

Family life and posterity

Eleventh-century fresco of Saint Sophia's Cathedral, Kiev, representing the daughters of Yaroslav I, with Anne probably being the youngest. Other daughters were Anastasia, wife of Andrew I of Hungary; Elizabeth, wife of Harald Harºrâaºi; and possibly Agatha, wife of Edward the Exile.
In 1019, Yaroslav married Ingegerd Olofsdotter, daughter of the king of Sweden,[9] and gave Staraya Ladoga to her as a marriage gift.

Saint Sophia's Cathedral in Kiev houses a fresco representing the whole family: Yaroslav, Irene (as Ingegerd was known in Rus), their four daughters and six sons.[10] Yaroslav had three of his daughters married to foreign princes who lived in exile at his court:

Elisiv of Kiev to Harald Harºrâaºi[9] (who attained her hand by his military exploits in the Byzantine Empire);
Anastasia of Kiev to the future Andrew I of Hungary;[9]
Anne of Kiev married Henry I of France[9] and was the regent of France during their son's minority; (she was Yaroslav the Wise's most beloved daughter).
(possibly) Agatha, wife of Edward the Exile, of the royal family of England, the mother of Edgar the ¥theling and Saint Margaret of Scotland.

Anne of Kiev.
Yaroslav had one son from the first marriage (his Christian name being Ilya (?-1020)), and six sons from the second marriage. Apprehending the danger that could ensue from divisions between brothers, he exhorted them to live in peace with each other. The eldest of these, Vladimir of Novgorod, best remembered for building the Cathedral of St. Sophia, Novgorod, predeceased his father. Three other sons—Iziaslav I, Sviatoslav II, and Vsevolod I—reigned in Kiev one after another. The youngest children of Yaroslav were Igor Yaroslavich (1036–1060) of Volhynia and Vyacheslav Yaroslavich (1036–1057) of the Principality of Smolensk. About Vyacheslav, there is almost no information. Some documents point out the fact of him having a son, Boris Vyacheslavich, who challenged Vsevolod I sometime in 1077-1078.

Grave

Sarcophagus of Yaroslav the Wise.
Following his death, the body of Yaroslav the Wise was entombed in a white marble sarcophagus within Saint Sophia's Cathedral. In 1936, the sarcophagus was opened and found to contain the skeletal remains of two individuals, one male and one female. The male was determined to be Yaroslav, however the identity of the female was never established. The sarcophagus was again opened in 1939 and the remains removed for research, not being documented as returned until 1964. Then, in 2009, the sarcophagus was opened and surprisingly found to contain only one skeleton, that of a female. It seems the documents detailing the 1964 reinterment of the remains were falsified to hide the fact that Yaroslav's remains had been lost. Subsequent questioning of individuals involved in the research and reinterment of the remains seems to point to the idea that Yaroslav's remains were purposely hidden prior to the German occupation of Ukraine and then either lost completely or stolen and transported to the United States where many ancient religious artifacts were placed to avoid "mistreatment" by the communists.[11]

Legacy

Yaroslav the Wise's consolidation of Kiev and Novgorod as depicted at Zoloti Vorota mosaics https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e8/Yaroslav1.jpg/220px-Yaroslav1.jpg
Four different towns in four different countries were founded by and named after Yaroslav: Yaroslavl (in today's Russia), Yuryev (now Tartu, Estonia) and another Yuryev (now Bila Tserkva, Ukraine), and Jaroslaw in Poland. Following the Russian custom of naming military objects such as tanks and planes after historical figures, the helmet worn by many Russian soldiers during the Crimean War was called the "Helmet of Yaroslav the Wise". It was the first pointed helmet to be used by any army, even before German troops wore pointed helmets.

In 2008 Yaroslav was placed first (with 40% of the votes) in their ranking of "our greatest compatriots" by the viewers of the TV show Velyki Ukraèintsi.[12] Afterwards one of the producers of The Greatest Ukrainians claimed that Yaroslav had only won because of vote manipulation and that (if that had been prevented) the real first place would have been awarded to Stepan Bandera.[13]

Monument to Yaroslav the Wise in Kiev https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/Monument_to_Yaroslav_the_Wise.jpg/220px-Monument_to_Yaroslav_the_Wise.jpg

Iron Lord was a 2010 film based on his early life as a regional prince on the frontier.

end of biography

*Yaroslav I "The Wise" Grand Duke of Kiev
born 0980 Kiev, Ukraine
died 20 February 1054 Kiev, Ukraine
buried 1054 Russia

father:
*Vladimir I "The Great" Grand Duke of Kiev
born 0960 Kiev, Ukraine
died 15 Jul 1015 Berestovo, Kiev, Ukraine
buried Church Of The Tithes, Kiev, Ukraine

mother:
*Rogneda Princess of Polotsk
born about 0962 Polotsk, Byelorussia
died 1002
married Abt 0977 Of Polotsk, Byelorussia

siblings:
Vsevolod Vladimirovich Prince of Vladimir Volynsk
born Abt 0983 Of, Vladimir Volynskij, Volyn, Ukraine died 1015
Iszyaslav Vladimirovich born Abt 0978 Of Kiev, Ukraine died 1001
Mstislav Vladimirovich Duke of Chernigov & Tmutorakan
born Abt 0988 Of Chernigov, Ukraine died 1035/1036
Premislava Vladimirovna Princess of Kiev born Abt 0980 Of Kiev, Ukraine
Predslava Vladimirovna Princess of Kiev born Abt 0984 Of Kiev, Ukraine
died Aft 1018

spouse:
*Ingrid (Ingegerda) Olafsdotter Princess of Sweden
born about 1001 Uppsala, Sweden
died 10 February 1050 Kiev, Ukraine
married 1019 Uppsala, Sweden

children:
*Anna Agnesa Yaroslavna Grand Duchess of Kiev born 1036 Kiev, Ukraine
died 1076/89 France buried Abbaye de Villiers, La-Ferte-Alais, France
*Anastasiya Agmunda Yaroslavna Princess of Kiev born about 1035 Ukraine died after 1074
*Vsevolod I Yaroslavich Prince of Kiev born 1030 Pereyaslavl, Russia died 13 April 1093
Igor Yaroslavich born about 1036 Vladimir Volynskiy, Volyn, Ukraine
died 1059/60 Vladimir Volunsky, Volyn, Ukraine
Vladimir Yaroslavich Duke of Novgorod born 1020 Novgorod, Russia died 4 October 1052
*Izyaslav I Dmitrij Yaroslavich born 1025 Turov, Polesye, Byelorussia died 3 October 1078
Svyatopolk I Yaroslavich Grand Duke of Kiev born 1027 Vladimir-Volynsk, Volyn, Ukraine
died 27 December 1076
*Elizaveta Yaroslavna of Kiev Queen of Norway born about 1032 Kiev, Ukraine

biographical and/or anecdotal:

notes or source:
LDS

end of profile

Yaroslav married Ingigerd Olofsdottir, Princess of Sweden in 1019 in Uppsala, Sweden. Ingigerd (daughter of Olof Skotkonung, King of Sweden and Estrid of the Obotrites, Queen Consort of Sweden) was born in ~1001 in Sigtuna, Sweden; died on 10 Feb 1050 in Kiev, Ukraine. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

177627.

Ingigerd Olofsdottir, Princess of Sweden was born in ~1001 in Sigtuna, Sweden (daughter of Olof Skotkonung, King of Sweden and Estrid of the Obotrites, Queen Consort of Sweden); died on 10 Feb 1050 in Kiev, Ukraine.

Notes:

Ingegerd Olofsdotter of Sweden, also known as Irene, Anna and St. Anna (1001 – 10 February 1050), was a Swedish princess and a Grand Princess of Kiev. She was the daughter of Swedish King Olof Skèotkonung and Estrid of the Obotrites and the consort of Yaroslav I the Wise of Kiev.

Ingegerd or St. Anna is often confused with the mother of St. Vladimir “the Enlightener” of the Rus. This is mainly because Ingegerd and Yaroslav also had a son named Vladimir. However, St. Vladimir was the father of Ingegerd’s husband Yaroslav I “the Wise”, thus making her St. Vladimir’s daughter-in-law. St. Vladimir was the son of Sviatoslav and Malusha.

Biography

11th-century fresco of the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev representing the daughters of Ingegerd and Yaroslav I, with Anna probably being the youngest. Other daughters were Anastasia wife of Andrew I of Hungary, Elizabeth wife of Harald III of Norway, and perhaps Agatha wife of Edward the Exile.
Ingegerd was born in Sigtuna,[citation needed] Sweden. She was engaged to be married to Norwegian King Olaf II, but when Sweden and Norway got into a feud, Swedish King Olof Skèotkonung would no longer allow for the marriage to take place.

Instead, Ingegerd's father quickly arranged for a marriage to the powerful Yaroslav I the Wise of Novgorod.[1] The marriage took place in 1019.[1] Once in Kiev, she changed her name to the Greek Irene. According to several sagas, she was given as a marriage gift Ladoga and adjacent lands, which later received the name Ingria, arguably a corruption of Ingegerd's name. She placed her friend, jarl Ragnvald Ulfsson, to rule in her stead.

Ingegerd initiated the building of the Saint Sophia's Cathedral in Kiev that was supervised by her husband.[citation needed] She also initiated the construction of the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Novgorod. They had six sons and four daughters, the latter of whom became Queens of France, Hungary, Norway, and (arguably) England. The whole family is depicted in one of the frescoes of the Saint Sophia.

Death and burial

Ingegerd died on 10 February 1050. Upon her death, according to different sources, Ingegerd was buried in either Saint Sophia's Cathedral in Kyiv or Cathedral of St. Sophia in Novgorod.

Sainthood

Ingegerd was later declared a saint, by the name of St. Anna, in Novgorod and Kiev. The reason was that she initiated the building of the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev as well as the local version, the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod, along with many good doings.

The following was stated by the church in reference to her sainthood:

St. Anna, Grand Duchess of Novgorod, She was the daughter of Swedish King Olaf Sketktung, the "All-Christian King," who did much to spread Orthodoxy in Scandinavia, and the pious Queen Astrida.

In Sweden she was known as Princess Indegard; she married Yaroslav I “the Wise“, Grand Prince of Kiev, who was the founder of the Saint Sophia Cathedral in 1016, taking the name Irene.

She gave shelter to the outcast sons of British King Edmund, Edwin and Edward, as well as the Norwegian prince Magnus, who later returned to Norway.

She is perhaps best known as the mother of Vsevolod of , himself the father of Vladimir Monomakh and progenitor of the Princes of Moscow.

Her daughters were Anna, Queen of France, Queen Anastasia of Hungary, and Queen Elizabeth (Elisiv) of Norway. The whole family was profoundly devout and pious.

She reposed in 1050 in the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom (St. Sophia) in Kiev, having been tonsured a monastic with the name of Anna.

As saint, her hymn goes:

And 4 stichera, in Tone I: Spec. Mel.: Joy of the ranks of heaven

O joy of the Swedish people, thou didst gladden the Russian realm, filling it with grace and purity, adorning its throne with majesty, lustrous in piety like a priceless gem set in a splendid royal crown.

Named Ingegerd in the baptismal waters, O venerable one, thou wast called Irene by thy Russian subjects, who perceived in thee the divine and ineffable peace; but when thou didst submit to monastic obedience, thou didst take the new name, Anna, after the honoured ancestor of Christ, the King of kings.

Wed in honourable matrimony, O holy Anna, thou didst live in concord with thy royal spouse, the right-believing and most wise Prince Yaroslav; and having born him holy offspring, after his repose thou didst betroth thyself unto the Lord as thy heavenly Bridegroom.

Disdaining all the allurements of vanity and donning the coarse robes of a monastic, O wondrous and sacred Anna, thou gavest thyself over to fasting and prayer, ever entreating Christ thy Master, that He deliver thy people from the all want and misfortune.

Feast days: 10 February, 4 October.

Children

Ingegerd had the following children

Elisiv of Kiev, queen of Norway
Anastasia of Kiev, queen of Hungary
Anne of Kiev, queen of France
(possibly) Agatha, wife of Edward the Exile
Vladimir of Novgorod
Iziaslav
Sviatoslav
Vsevolod
Igor Yaroslavich

Children:

Vladimir of Novgorod was born in 1020 in Novgorod, Ukraine; died on 4 Oct 1052 in Novgorod, Ukraine; was buried in Cathedral of St. Sophia, Novgorod, Ukraine.
88813. Anna Agnesa Yaraslavna, Queen of France was born in 1036 in Kiev, Ukraine; died on 5 Sep 1075 in France.

177650.

Richard d'Evreux was born in ~986 (son of Robert d'Evereux, Comte d'Evreux and Havlive of Normandy); died on 13 Dec 1067.

Richard married Godeheut Barcelona in 1038. Godeheut was born in ~1000 in Eure, Normandy; died after 1077 in Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

177651.

Godeheut Barcelona was born in ~1000 in Eure, Normandy; died after 1077 in Normandy, France.

Children:

88825. Agnes d'Evereux was born in 1041 in Evreux, Normandy, France; died in 1087 in Evreux, Normandy, France.

178144.

Donnchad Mâael Na Mbâo (O'CHEINNSELAIG) Murchada was born in 960 in Ireland; died in 1006.

Donnchad married Aife Ingen (Daughter Of) Gilla Patraic. Aife was born in 960 in Ireland; died in 1068. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

178145.

Aife Ingen (Daughter Of) Gilla Patraic was born in 960 in Ireland; died in 1068.

Children:

89072. Diarmait Macmail Na Mbo Murchada, King of Ireland was born in 974 in Cork, Ireland; died in 1072.

178146.

Donnchad O'Brien, King of Munster was born in 982 in Kincora, Munster, Ireland; died in 1064 in Rome, Italy; was buried in Basilica of St Stephen, Monte Celio, Italy.

Notes:

Donnchad MacBrian "High King of Ireland" Brian formerly O'Brien aka Mac Brian, Munster
Born after 0981 in Kincora, Munster, âEireann

ANCESTORS ancestors

Son of Brian Boru (Cennetig) MacCennetig and Gormflaeth (Murchadh) Munster
Brother of Blanaid Nic (Brian) O'Brian [half], Murchad (O'Brien) of Leinster [half], Dubgilla Olafsdatter [half], Teige Terence mac Briain O'Brien [half], Sihtric Olafsson [half], Slani ingen Brian [half] and Harald Olafsson [half]

Husband of Unkown (Unkown) Mac Briain — married [date unknown] [location unknown]

Husband of Cacht (Ragnaill) Ranald — married 1032 [location unknown]

DESCENDANTS descendants

Father of Lorcan UA Briain, Donnchad MacDiarmata (Leinster) of Leinster and Darbforgaill (O'Brien) Leinster
Died about 1064 in Rome, Italy

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O'Brien-688 created 7 Sep 2011 | Last modified 9 Aug 2017
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Categories: Irish History.

Preceded by
Mâael Sechnaill macDomnaill O'Nâeill. King of Ireland
1022 — 1061 Succeeded by
Diarmait MacMâail na mBâo
Preceded by
Brian Boru 976 — 1014 (father) King of Munster
1022 — 1061 Succeeded by
Toirdelbach (Turlough) O'Brien 1064 — 1086 (nephew)

Parents

For her third marriage, Gormlaith, d. 1030, (daughter of Murchad MacFinn, a Leinster King of the Uâi Fhâaelâain line) married Brâian Bâoruma, they had:
Donnchadh [1]
Name

Name: King of Munster Donnchad /O'Brien/
Name: Donnchad (MacBRIAIN) /O'BRIEN/
Found multiple versions of NAME. Using King of Munster Donnchad /O'Brien/.

Military Campaigns

1026
A hosting by Donnchadh son of Brian, so that he took hostages of the men of Meath and Bregia and the Foreigners and Leinster and Ossory.[2]

A great hosting by Donnchadh, son of Brian, and he took the hostages of the men of Mide and of Brega; and he himself spent three days in Áth Cliath without opposition, with his camp nearby the fort; and he took the hostages of Laigin and Osraige.[3]

1027
A hosting by Donnchadh son of Brian into Ossory, till a division of his people were defeated and Gadhra son of Dâunadhach, king of Sâiol Anmchadha was then slain, and Domhnall son of Senchâan son of Flaithbheartach, crown prince of Munster, and Maelseachlainn son of the king of Corcomroe, and two sons of Cuilâen son of Conchobhar and the crownprince of the Eoghanacht, and Ócan grandson of Corc son of Anluan, and many others who are not numbered.[4]

A hosting by Donnchadh, son of Brian, into Osraige, and he took great captures and much booty therefrom; and a group of his people was overtaken and suffered loss at the hands of Mac Raith Ua Donnchada who was warring in Osraige, and of Ua Gilla Pâatraic, and there were slain there Gadra son of Dâunadach, king of Uâi Maine, Domnall, son of Senchâan, royal heir of Mumu, Ócâan grandson of Core, the two sons of Cuilâen son of Conchobar, and Conall son of âEcertach, royal heir of Caisel.[5]

1031
Ó Ruairc, that is, the Cork, plundered St Brâenainn's Clonfert, and on the same day he was defeated by Donnchadh son of Brian, with the loss of men and ferryboats.[6]

Gilla Pâatraic's son [went] into Mumu, plundered Dâun na Sciath, and killed its steward.
{Donnchadh,} son of Brian, [went] to Osraige to avenge him [the steward], and brought great booty and cattle therefrom; and a slaughter was thrice inflicted on the Mumu there, and Mael Coluim, king of Caenraige, two royal heirs of Uâi Chonaill Gabra, and many others were slain.[7]

1042
Ferna Mâor Maedâoc was burned by Donnchad son of Brian. Glenn Uisen was burned by the son of Mael na mBâo and the oratory broken down and a hundred people slain and four hundred taken out of it in revenge for Ferna Mâor.[8]

Marriage

1032
Donnchadh, son of Brian, married the daughter of Ragnall. Hence the saying: 'the spring of Ragnall's daughter' [9]

Death

Dethroned in 1061, went to Rome on his pilgrimage, died in the monastery of Stephen[10]

Death: 1064[11]
Place: Rome, Italy
Burial

Burial: Basilica of St Stephen, Monte Celio
Occupation

Occupation: King of Munster; Hgh King of Ireland
Note

His wives were Cacht ingen Ragnaill and Driella of Wessex.
Sources

? The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing: Irish women's writing and traditions, retrieved 2014-06-22, amb
? The Annals of Tigernach T1026.1, Author: Unknown, retrieved 2014-06-22, amb
? Annals of Inisfallen AI1026.2, Author: unknown, retrieved 2014-06-22, amb
? The Annals of Tigernach T1027.3
? Annals of Inisfallen AI1027.4
? The Annals of Tigernach T1031.8
? Annals of Inisfallen AI1031.6 and AI1031.7
? The Annals of Ulster, 1042
? Annals of Inisfallen, AI1032.6
? Hennessy, p. 287, retrieved 2014-06-23, amb
? The Tripartite Life of Patrick: With Other Documents Relating to that Saint, Volume 89, Issue 2, Volume 89, Issue 2 of Rerum Britannicarum Medii ¥vi Scriptores, Or, Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland During the Middle Ages, Great Britain. Public Record Office. Author: Saint Patrick. Editor: Whitley Stokes. Publisher: H. M. Stationery Office, 1887. Original: from University of Minnesota. Digitized: Nov 15, 2013, retrieved 2014-06-22, amb
The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing: Irish women's writing and traditions. Vols. 4-5, Volume 4 of The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Jonathan Williams, ISBN 0814799086, 9780814799086, Volume 4 of The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing: Irish Women's Writing and Traditions, Angela Bourke, ISBN 0814799086, 9780814799086. Editor: Angela Bourke. Publisher: NYU Press, 2002
A New History of Ireland, Volume II: Medieval Ireland 1169-1534, edited by Art Cosgrove
William Maunsell Hennessy, editor, Chronicum Scotorum, Issue 46 of Rerum britannicarum medii µvi scriptores; or Chronicles and memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the middle ages, Great Britain Public Record Office. Contributor: Duald Mac Firbis. Publisher: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1866. Original: from Cornell University. Digitized: Apr 17, 2013
O'Brien-688 created through the import of O'Bryan Family tree.ged on Sep 6, 2011 by Tim Tropeck. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Tim and others. This person was created through the import of LJ Pellman Consolidated Family_2011-03-21.ged on 21 March 2011. This person was created through the import of Acrossthepond.ged on 21 February 2011.

end of biography

Died:
on a pilgrimage...

Donnchad married Druscilla Godwin. Druscilla was born in 1019 in (Munster) Ireland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

178147.
Druscilla Godwin was born in 1019 in (Munster) Ireland.
Children:

89073. Dearbforgail Ingen O'Brien was born in 1005 in Dublin, Ireland; died in 1060 in Ireland.

44536.

Murchad Macdairmata Murchada was born in 1032 in (Ireland) (son of Diarmait Macmail Na Mbo Murchada, King of Ireland and Dearbforgail Ingen O'Brien); died in 1070 in (Ireland).

Murchad married Sadb Ingen Mac Bricc(Ireland). Sadb was born in 1085 in (Ireland); died in 1115 in (Ireland). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44537.

Sadb Ingen Mac Bricc was born in 1085 in (Ireland); died in 1115 in (Ireland).

Children:

22268. Donnchad Enna Mac Murchada was born in 1085 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland; died on 8 Dec 1115 in Wexford, Ireland.

44538. Gilla Michil O'Brien was born in 0___ 1055; died in 0___ 1068.
Gilla married Luchdelb Hui Garbita. Luchdelb was born in 0___ 1062. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44539.

Luchdelb Hui Garbita was born in 0___ 1062.

Children:

22269. Orlaith Ingen O'Brien, Queen of Leinster was born in 0___ 1080 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland; died in 0___ 1113 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland.

48136.

Sir William de Braose, Knight, 1st Lord of Bramber was born in ~1049 in Briouze, Normandy, France; died in 1093-1096.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Hastings, East Sussex, England

Notes:

William de Braose arrived in England with William the Conqueror. His mother’s name was Gunnor. She became a nun at the Abbaye aux Dames in Caen, Normandy, which was established by the Conqueror’s queen, Matilda. Some of the property Gunnor gave to the abbey was associated with members of the the Ivry family - Albereda, Hugh and Roger. Emma d’Ivry was the mother of William the Conqueror’s most powerful favourite, William fitz Osbern.

These are the best clues we have as to William de Braose’s parentage. He was entrusted with a key Sussex position at Bramber and land in other English counties, besides Briouze, a strategic location in Normandy. It seems likely that he came from the extended family of the Dukes of Normandy but for genealogists his ancestry is still a frustrating loose end. William probably married the widow of Anchetil de Harcourt, Eve de Boissey, but even this detail remains inconclusive.

Images for Braose coats of arms:

https://www.google.com/search?q=braose+coat+of+arms&rlz=1C1KMZB_enUS591US591&espv=2&biw=1440&bih=834&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjU4oegvMHQAhVFbSYKHTtHB1gQsAQILQ&dpr=1

end of comment

Died 1093-6

Guillaume de Briouze is recorded in lists of those present at the Battle of Hastings. He became the first Lord of Bramber Rape by 1073 and built Bramber Castle. (Right - remains of the gatehouse) William made considerable grants to the abbey of Saint Florent, Saumur to endow the foundation of Sele Priory near Bramber and a priory at Briouze. He continued to fight alongside King William in the campaigns in Britain, Normandy and Maine.

The latest evidence for William is his presence at the consecration of his church at Briouze in 1093. In 1096 his son Philip was issuing charters. From this we can deduce that William died between 1093 and 1096.

Father: Uncertain.

Mother: Gunnor (See Round, Cal. Doc. Fra. p148)

Brydges edition of Collins' Peerage claims he was first married to Agnes, dau of Waldron de Saint Clare but no evidence for this can be found. It may be an example of Bruce - Braose confusion.
According to L C Perfect, a 13th century genealogy in the Bibliotháeque de Paris gives the name of his wife as Eve de Boissey, widow of Anchetil de Harcourt. There is a lot of evidence from contemporary charters which supports this view.

Child 1: Philip

*

Birth:
Briouze is a commune in the Orne department of Normandy in northwestern France. It is considered the capital of the pays d'Houlme at the western end of the Orne in the Norman bocage. The nearby Grand Hazâe marshland is a heritage-listed area (Natura 2000).

William de Braose, First Lord of Bramber (Guillaume de Briouze) was granted lands in England after the Norman conquest and used his wealth to build a priory in his home town.

The name Briouze probably comes from an older Norman form of the word "boue", or "mud".

Map & commentary ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briouze

Residence:
Images, maps & history of Hastings and the "Battle of 1066" ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastings

William married Agnes St. Clair. Agnes (daughter of Waldron St Clair and Helena Normandie) was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandy, France; died in ~1080. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48137.

Agnes St. Clair was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandy, France (daughter of Waldron St Clair and Helena Normandie); died in ~1080.

Notes:

Agnes de Braose formerly St Clair aka de St. Clair, de Brus
Born about 1053 in Manche, Normandy, France

Daughter of Waldron (St Clair) de Sinclair and Helena (Normandie) de Sinclair
Sister of William (St Clair) Sinclair and Mauger (St Clare) Sinclair
Wife of Robert (Brus) de Brus — married 1072 [location unknown]

DESCENDANTS descendants

Wife of William (Braose) de Braose — married about 1075 [location unknown

Mother of Adam (Brus) de Brus, Agatha or Alice (Bruce) Basset, Philip (Braose) de Braose, Unknown (Braose) de Harcourt, John (Braiose) de Braose, Philena (Braiose) de Braose, Hortense (Bruce) de Braose and Robert (Brus) de Brus
Died about 1080 in Bramber, Sussex, England
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end of biography

Notes:

Residence (Family):
Bramber Castle is a Norman motte-and-bailey castle formerly the caput of the large feudal barony of Bramber long held by the Braose family. It is situated in the village of Bramber, West Sussex overlooking the River Adur.

Image, map and history of Bramber Castle ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bramber_Castle

More images and history of Bramber Castle & the Braose family ... http://steyningmuseum.org.uk/braose.htm

Children:

24068. SIr Philip de Braose, Knight, 2nd Lord Bramber was born in 1073 in Bramber, West Sussex, England; died in 1131-1139 in (Syria).

48142.

Bernard de Neufmarche, Lord of Brecknockshire was born in 0___ 1050 in Neufmarche, France; died in 0___ 1093 in Breconshire, Wales.

48143.

Nest Verch Osborn le Scrope was born before 1075 in Richards Castle, Herefordshire, England; died in 1121 in Aberhonwy, Breconshire, , Wale.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: 1079, Herefordshire, England

Notes:

Nesta "Agnes" de Neufmarchâe formerly Osbern aka FerchOsbern, FitzOsbern, le Scrope
Born before 1075 in Richards Castle, Herefordshire, , England,map
ANCESTORS ancestors
Daughter of Osbern (Scrope) le Scrope and Nest (Gruffydd) ferch Gruffydd
Sister of Simon (Scrope) le Scrope [half] and Hugh FitzOsbern
Wife of Bernard (Neufmarchâe) de Neufmarchâe — married 1088 [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Mother of Philip (Neufmarche) de Neufmarche, Sybil (Neufmarchâe) of Gloucester, Adam (Neufmarche) de Neufmarchâe and Mael (Neufmarche) de Neufmarche
Died 1121 in Aberhonwy, Breconshire, , Wales
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British Aristocracy
Nesta (Osbern) de Neufmarchâe was a member of aristocracy in the British Isles.
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Biography

Bernard married Nesta (Agnes), daughter and heir of Osbern fitz Richard, granddaughter of Welsh King Gruffudd ap Llywelyn. Through Nesta, Bernard acquired Bodenham & Berrington, Herefordshire.

Sources
Medieval Lands - NESTA

end of profile

Children:

24071. Lady Sibyl de Neufmarche, Countess of Hereford was born in ~1100 in Brecon Castle, Brecon, Wales; died on 24 Dec 1143 in Llanthony Secunda, Gloucestershire, England; was buried in Llanthony Secunda Priory, Gloucestershire, England.
12035. Lady Bertha of Hereford was born in 1107 in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England; died in ~ 1180 in Bramber, Sussex, England.

48164.

Aubrey de Vere, I was born on 16 Dec 1030 in Ver, Normandie, France; died in 1112-1113 in Abingdon Abbey, Berkshire, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: (~ 1045), (Normandy, France)

Notes:

Aubrey (Albericus) de Vere (died circa 1112-1113) was a tenant-in-chief in England of William the Conqueror in 1086, as well as a tenant of Geoffrey de Montbray, bishop of Coutances and of Count Alan, lord of Richmond. A much later source named his father as Alphonsus.[1]

Biography

His origins are obscure and various regions have been proposed for his birthplace, from Zeeland to Brittany. He may have been Norman, possibly from the region of Ver in the Cotentin peninsula of western Normandy, but the evidence is such that no certainty is possible.[2]

In Domesday Book, he is listed as "Aubrey the chamberlain" and "Aubrey the queen's chamberlain" as well as Aubrey de Vere. He and his wife held land in nine counties in 1086. Both were accused of some unauthorized land seizures.[3] Aubrey's estates were valued at approximately ¹300, putting him in roughly the middle ranks of the post-conquest barons of England in terms of landed wealth.[4] He served King Henry I in the first decade of his reign as a chamberlain and local justiciar in the counties of Berkshire and Northamptonshire.[5]

Sometime in or before 1104, Aubrey's eldest son Geoffrey fell ill and was tended at Abingdon Abbey in Berkshire by the royal physician, Abbot Faritius. The youth appeared to have recovered but suffered a relapse, died, and was buried at the abbey. His parents then founded a cell of Abingdon on land they donated for the purpose: Colne Priory, Essex. Within a year of the formal dedication in March 1111, Aubrey I joined that community and died soon. His youngest son William died not long after his father. Both were buried at the priory, establishing it as the Vere family mausoleum.[6] Aubrey de Vere II then succeeded to his father's estates.

Aubrey I was married by 1086. As his spouse's name is recorded as Beatrice in 1104 and Beatrice is named as the mother of his eldest son, she was almost certainly his wife in 1086.[7] Beatrice attended the formal ceremony for the founding of Earl's Colne Priory. Besides sons Geoffrey, Aubrey II, and William mentioned above, the couple's children included Roger and Robert.[8]

Estates

The principal estates held by Aubrey de Vere in 1086: Castle Hedingham, Beauchamp [Walter], Great Bentley, Great Canfield, Earls Colne, [White] Colne, and Dovercourt, Essex; Aldham, Belstead, Lavenham, and Waldingfield, Suffolk; Castle Camps, Hildersham, Silverley, and Wilbraham, Cambridgeshire. He possessed houses and acreage in Colchester and a house in Winchester. As tenant of Geoffrey bishop of Coutances, he held Kensington, Middlesex; Scaldwell and Wadenhoe, Northamptonshire. Of the barony of Count Alan of Brittany, he held the manors of Beauchamp Roding, Canfield, and West Wickham, Essex. His wife held Aldham, Essex, in her own right of Odo bishop of Bayeux. The couple both were accused by Domesday jurors of expansion into Little Maplestead, Essex. Aubrey's seizures or questionable right of possession to estates included Manuden, Essex; Great Hemingford, Huntingdonshire; and Swaffham, Cambridgeshire. (Counties given are those of Domesday Book.)

end

Aubrey married Beatrice Ghent in BY 1086. Beatrice was born in 1045 in France; died in 1090. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48165.

Beatrice Ghent was born in 1045 in France; died in 1090.

Children:

24082. Sir Aubrey de Vere, II was born in ~ 1085 in (Normandy, France); died in 0May 1141 in (Thrapston, Northamptonshire, England).

22248.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: > 1066, Clare, Suffolk, England
Alt Death: 1117

Notes:

Short Biography
"Gilbert de Tonebruge, who resided at Tonebruge and inherited all his father's lands in England, joined in the rebellion of Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland, but observing the king (William Rufus) upon the point of falling into an ambuscade, he relented, sought pardon, and saved his royal master. Subsequently, however, he was again in rebellion in the same reign and fortifying and losing his castle at Tunbridge.

"He m. in 1113, Adeliza, dau. of the Earl of Cleremont, and had issue, Richard, his successor, Gilbert, Walter, Hervey, and Baldwin. Gilbert de Tonebruge, who was a munificent benefactor to the church, was s. by his eldest son, Richard de Clare." [1]

Long Biography
Gilbert FitzRichard de Clare, aka Gilbert of Tonbridge

Earl Gilbert de Clare was born before 1066. He lived in Tonebridge and died in 1114/1117 in England. He was the son and eventual heir of Richard FitzGilbert of Clare, who had been with William the Conqueror during the conquest of England and Rochese Giffard. After Richard's death, his extensive properties in Normandy and England were divided between his two eldest sons. The Norman fiefs of Bienfaite and Orbec passed to Roger, while Gilbert inherited the English honors of Clare and Tonbridge. Earl Gilbert's inheritance made him one of the wealthiest magnates in early twelfth-century England.

Gilbert held Tonbridge Castle against William Rufus (who would become King William II), but was wounded and captured. {-Encycl. Brit., 1956, 5:754}. He was later reconciled, after King William I's death in 1088. He was involved in rebellion between 1088 and 1095. He may have been present at the suspicious death of William II in the New Forest in 1100.

Earl Gilbert married Adeliza de Clermont in 1113. Adeliza was born about 1065, lived in Northamptonshire, England. She was the daughter of Count Hugh de Clermont and Marguerita de Roucy. She died after 1117 in England.

Adeliza married second, Aubrey II de Vere. Aubrey was born about 1082 in Hedingham, Essex, England. He was the son of Alberic de Vere and Beatrix Gand. He died on 15 May 1141 in London, England and was buried in Coine Priory, Earls Coine, Essex, England.
Adeliza remarried a de Montmorency after his death.

He was granted lands and the Lordship of Cardigan by Henry I and built the second castle at Caerdigan, Pembrokeshire, Wales. Since 1096 the Clares had owned the castle of Striguil on the Severn, opposite Bristol; they also held Goodrich fortess nearby. A marriage brought it into the hands of William Marshall, who soon controlled the strongest castles on the peninsula. The keep has been transformed into a modern house. Of all the castles that finally came into William Marshall's possession, this was the most important to the area. Scholars believe there is evidence that it was originally built of wood. He founded the Cluniac priory at Stoke-by-Clare, Suffolk.

Parents
Father
Earl Richard "De Tonbridge" FitzGilbert (~1024 - ~1090) Count Hugh de Clermont (1030 - 1102)
Grand Parents
Count Gilbert "Crispin" de Brionne (~0979 - ~1040) Renauld de Clermont (~1010 - >1098)
Constance de Eu Ermengarde de Clermont (~1010 - )
Mother
Rochese Giffard (~1034 - >1133) Marguerita de Roucy (~1035 - >1103)
Grand Parents
Walter Giffard de Bolebec (~1010 - 1085/1102) Count Hildwan IV (~1010 - ~1063)
Agnes Ermentrude Fleitel (~1014 - ) Adela de Roucy (~1013 - 1063)
Children
Walter de Clare 1086 1149
Margaret de Clare 1090 1185 m. (ca. 1108), Sir William de Montfitchet, Lord of Stanstead Mountfitchet.
Adelize/Alice de Clare, born circa 1077-1092, died circa 1163, married circa 1105 Aubrey II de Vere, son of Aubrey I de Vere and Beatrice Gand. She had 9 children and in her widowhood was a corrodian at St. Osyth's, Chichester, Essex;
Baldwin Fitz Gilbert de Clare, Lord of Bourne born circa 1092, died 1154, married Adeline de Rollos;
Richard Fitz Gilbert de Clare, born circa 1094, died 1136, 1st Earl of Hertford;
Hervey de Clare, born circa 1096;
Gilbert Fitz Gilbert de Clare, born circa 1100, died 1148, 1st Earl of Pembroke;
Rohese de Clare, born circa 1105, died 1149, married circa 1130 Baderon of Monmouth;
Margaret de Clare born circa 1101, died 1185, married circa 1108 Sir William de Montfitchet, Lord of Stanstead Mountfitchet;
Abbot of Ely Lord of Clare

2nd Earl Clare, Lord of Tunbridge and Cardigan [1107-1111], and Marshall of England.

From "A Baronial Family in Medieval England: The Clares, 1217-1314", by Michael Altschul, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins press, 1965. The Clares came to England with the Conqueror. Like many other great families settled in England after the Conquest, they were related to the dukes of Normandy and had established themselves as important members of the Norman feudal aristocracy in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. The origin of the family can be traced to Godfrey, eldest of the illegitimate children of Duke Richard I (the Fearless), the Conqueror's great-grandfather. While the Duke granted Godfrey Brionne, he did not make him a count. Godfrey's comital title derives from the grant of the county of Eu made to him after 996 by his half-brother, Duke Richard II. After Godfrey's death, Eu was given to William, another of Duke Richard I's bastard sons, and Gilbert, Godfrey's son, was left with only the lordship of Brionne. However, under Duke Robert I, father of William the Conqueror, Gilbert assumed the title of count of Brionne while not relinquishing his claim to Eu. When Count William of Eu died shortly before 1040, Gilbert assumed the land and title, but he was assassinated in 1040 and his young sons, Richard and Baldwin, were forced to flee Normandy, finding safety at the court of Baldwin V, count of Flanders. When William the Conqueror married Count Baldwin's daughter, he restored Gilbert's sons to Normandy, although he did not invest them with either Brionne or Eu or a comital title. William granted the lordships of Bienfaite and Orbec to Richard fitz Gilbert, and Le Sap and Meules to Baldwin. While Gilbert's descendants later pressed a claim for Brionne, it was never restored. Richard and Baldwin fitz Gilbert took part in the Norman conquest of England, and both assumed important positions in the Conqueror's reign. Baldwin was made guardian of Exeter in 1068, and appears in the Domesday Book as sheriff of Devon, lord of Okehampton and numerous other estates in Devon, Dorset, and Somerset. His sons William and Richard were also sheriffs of Devon and participated in the abortive Norman penetration of Carmarthen in the early twelfth century.

However, the lasting position of the family in England must be credited to Baldwin's brother, Richard fitz Gilbert I. He was regent of England jointly with William de Warenne during the Conqueror's absence in 1075, and he served in various other important capacities for the King. King William rewarded his cousin well, granting him one of the largest fiefs in the territorial settlement. The lordship centered on Clare (obviously the origin of the Clare family name), Suffolk, which had been an important stronghold in Anglo-Saxon times. The bulk of Richard fitz Gilbert's estates lay in Suffolk, Essex, Surrey, and Kent, but comprised holdings in various other counties in the southern and eastern parts of the kingdom as well. In addition, King William arranged for Richard's marriage to Rohese, sister of Walter Giffard, later earl of Buckingham, and her dowry, consisting of lands in Huntingdon and Hertford, became absorbed in the family inheritance. After Richard's death, his extensive properties in Normandy and England were divided between his two eldest sons. The Norman fiefs of Bienfaite and Orbec passed to Roger, while Gilbert, inherited the English honors of Clare and Tonbridge.

Part II While Gilbert fitz Richard I found himself at odds with the Conqueror's successor, William Rufus, he and other members of the family enjoyed great favor with Rufus' successor King Henry I. Some have suggested that Henry's largesse was due to the fact that Walter Tirel, husband of Richard's daughter Adelize, shot the arrow which slew Rufus. Proof of this is lacking, but with certainty the wealth and position of the Clare family increased rapidly during Henry's reign. One of Rohese Giffards brothers (Walter) was made earl of Buckingham and another bishop of Winchester. Gilbert fitz Richard's brothers were also rewarded: Richard, a monk at Bec, was made abbot of Ely in 1100; Robert was granted the forfeited manors of Ralph Baynard in East Anglia; Walter, who founded Tintern Abbey in 1131, was given the great lordship of Netherwent with the castle of Striguil in the southern march, territories previously held by Roger, son of William fitz Osborn, earl of Hereford, who had forfeited them in 1075. In 1110 Gilbert was granted the lordship of Ceredigion (Cardigan) in southwestern Wales, and immediately embarked upon an intensive campaign to subjagate the area.

After Gilbert fitz Richard I died in 1117, his children continued to profit from royal generosity and favorable connections. His daughters were all married to important barons; William de Montfichet, lord of Stansted in Essex, the marcher lord Baderon de Monmouth, and Aubrey de Vere, lord of Hedingham in Essex and father of the first Vere earl of Oxford. Of the five sons, little is known of two: Hervey, whom King Stephen sent on an expedition to Cardigan abt 1140, and Walter, who participated in the Second Crusade of 1147. Baldwin established himself as an important member of the lesser baronage by obtaining the Lincolnshire barony of Bourne through marriage. Richard fitz Gilbert II, the eldest and heir, was allowed to marry Adeliz, sister of Ranulf des Gernons, earl of Chester, thus acquiring lands in Lincoln and Northampton as her marriage portion. He tried to consolidate the gains made by his father in Cardigan, but was killed in an ambush in 1136 and the lordship was soon recovered by the Welsh. Of Gilbert fitz Richard I' sons, Gilbert was the only one to achieve any great prominence, being the founder of the great cadet branch of the family and the father of one of the most famous men in English history. Gilbert fitz Gilbert de Clare was high in the favor of Henry I, perhaps because his wife Isabell, daughter of Robert de Beaumont, count of Meulan and earl of Leicester, was one of Henry's favorite mistresses. When Gilbert's uncle Roger died without heirs, Henry granted Gilbert the lordships of Bienfaite and Orbec in Normandy. When another uncle, Walter, lord of Netherwent in South Wales, died without issue in 1138, King Richard? gave Gilbert this lordship in addition to the lordship of Pembroke, which had been forfeited by Arnulf of Montgomery in 1102. Gilbert was also created earl of Pembroke in 1138. At his death in 1148, he was succeeded by his son Richard fitz Gilbert, aka "Strongbow" who led the Norman invasion of Ireland and obtained the great lordship of Leinster in 1171.

Part III Thus, in just two generations, the cadet branch of the Clares became one of the most important families in England. Strongbow was Earl of Pembroke, Lord of Netherwent,and Lord of Leinster being the most powerful of the marcher and Anglo-Irish magnates under King Henry II. Strongbow d. in 1176 and son Gilbert d. abt. 1185, ending the male line. In 1189, the inheritance passed to Strongbow's dau. Isabel and her husband, William Marshal. Meanwhile, the senior side prospered. After Richard fitz Gilbert II d. in 1136, Clare, Tonbridge, and other estates passed to the eldest son Gilbert fitz Richard II, who was created Earl of Hertford by King Stephen. Gilbert d. probably unmarried in 1152, when his younger brother Roger inherited the estates and comital title. Roger resumed the campaign against the Welsh in Cardigan where, after 8 years, he was defeated in 1165. However, Roger did add some lands and nine knights' fees through his marriage to Maud, daughter and heir of the Norfolk baron James de St. Hillary. Roger d. in 1173 and his widow, Maud, conveyed the remainder of the inheritance to her next husband, William de Aubigny, earl of Arundel. The Clare estates along with the earldom passed to Roger's son, Richard, who for the next 4 decades until he d. in 1217, was the head of the great house of CLARE, adding immensely to the wealth, prestige, and landed endowment of his line.

Part IV: Roger's son Richard, hereinafter Richard de CLARE acquired half of the former honor of Giffard in 1189 when King Richard I, in need of money for the Third Crusade, agreed to divide the Giffard estates between Richard de CLARE and his cousin Isabel, Strongbow's dau. based on their claims to descendancy to Rohese Giffard. Richard de CLARE obtained Long Crendon in Buckingham, the caput of the Giffard honor in England, associated manors in Buckingham, ambridge, and bedfordshire, and 43 knights' fees, in addition to some former Giffard lands in Normandy. When Richard de CLARE's mother Maud d. in 1195, he obtained the honor of St. Hilary. Maud's 2nd husband, William de Aubigny, earl of Arundel, who had held St. Hilary jure uxoris, d. in 1193, and despite the fact he had a son and heir, the honor reverted to Maud and after her death escheated to the crown. Richard de CLARE offered ¹360 and acquired it. The honor later became absorbed into the honor of CLARE and lost its separate identity. Richard de CLARE's most important act, however, was his m. to Amicia, 2nd dau. and eventual sole heir to William earl of Gloucester. The Gloucester inheritance included the earldom and honor of Gloucester with over 260 knights' fees in England, along with the important marcher lordships of Glamorgan and Gwynllwg. It was not easy though!! William d. 1183, leaving 3 daughters. The eldest, Mabel, m. Amaury de Montfort, count of Evreux, while the second, Amicia m. Richard de CLARE. King Henry II meanwhile arranged the m. of the youngest Isabel, to his son John, count of Mortain, in 1189. When John became King in 1199, he divorced Isabel to m. Isabelle of Angoulãeme, but, he kept the 1st Isabel in his custody. Then in 1200, John created Mabel's son Amaury earl of Gloucester. In addition, Richard de CLARE and his son Gilbert were given a few estates and 10 fees of the honor of Gloucester of Kent; otherwise, John kept the bulk of the honor, with the great lordships of Glamorgan and Gwynllwg. Mabel's son Amaury d. without issue in 1213 Shortly thereafter, John gave the 1st Isabel in marriage to Geoffrey de Mandeville, earl of Essex, who was also created earl of Gloucester. When Geoffrey died, the inheritance was assigned to Hubert de Burgh, the justiciar. Hubert m. Countess Isabel shortly before her daeth in Oct. 1217, however, he did not retain the estates, since they passed to Amicia, now recognized as countess of Gloucester, and her husband Richard de CLARE, despite the fact Richard and Amicia had been separated since 1200.

Part V: Richard outlived Isabel by several weeks and by 28 Nov 1217, he was dead, leaving Gilbert, aged 38, as the sole heir to the Clare and Gloucester estates and title. Gilbert de CLARE assumed the title of earl of Gloucester and Hertford and was charged ¹350 relief for the honors of Clare, Gloucester, St. Hilary and his half of the old Giffard barony. He controlled some 456 knights fees, far more than any other, and it did not include some 50 fees in Glamorgan and Gwynllwg. By a remarkable series of fortuitous marriages and quick deaths, the Clares were left in 1217 in possession of an inheritance which in terms of social prestige, potential revenues, knights' fees, and a lasting position of great importance among the marcher lords of Wales. They were probably the most successful family in developing their lands and power during the 12th century and in many ways the most powerful noble family in 13th century England. By 1317, however, the male line of Clares became extinct and the inheritance was partitioned. Between 1217 and 1317 there were four Clare generations. Gilbert de CLARE, b. abt 1180 had a brother Richard/Roger and a sister Matilda. Richard accompanied Henry III's brother, Richard of Cornwall, to Gascony in 1225-26 and was never heard from again. Matilda was married to William de Braose (d. 1210 when he and his mother were starved to death by King John), eldest son of the great marcher baron William de Braose (d. 1211), lord of Brecknock, Abergavenny, Builth, Radnor, and Gower, who was exiled by King John. Matilda returned to her father and later (1219) sued Reginald de Braose, second son of William, for the family lands, succeeding only in recovering Gower and the Sussex baronry of Bramber. Gilbert de CLARE, earl of Gloucester and Hertford from 1217 to 1230, m. Oct. 1214 his cousin Isabel, daughter and eventual co-heiress of William Marshal (d 1219), earl of Pembroke. Gilbert and Isabel had three sons and two daughters, with the eldest son and heir Richard, b. 4 Aug 1222, thus only 8 when his father died. In 1243, Richard de CLARE came of age and assumed the estates and titles of his father until he d. 15 July 1262. His brother William, b. 1228 held lands of Earl Richard in Hampshire and Norfolk for the service of a knight's fee. In June 1258, during a baronial reform program, William was granted custody of Winchester castle. A month later he died, reportedly by poison administered by the Earl Richard's seneschal- a steward or major-domo. Walter de Scoteny, in supposed collaboration with Henry III's Poitevin half-brothers, who strongly opposed the baronial program and Earl Richard's participation in it. Earl Gilbert's daughters were very well placed. Amicia, b. 1220, was betrothed in 1226 to Baldwin de Reviers, grandson and heir to William de Reviers, earl of Devon (d 1217). Baldwin was only a year or two older than Amicia and Earl Gilbert offered 2,000 marks to the King for the marriage and custody of some Reviers estates during Baldwin's minority. The marriage must have been consummated around 1235, since Baldwin's son and heir (Baldwin) was b. the next year. After Baldwin d. in 1245, Amicia (d 1283) controlled the lands of her son (d. 1262) and was given permission to marry a minor English baron, Robert de Guines/Gynes, uncle of Arnold III, Count of Guines. Earl Gilbert's other daughter, Isabel b. 1226, m. 1240 the Scots baron Robert Bruce, lord of Annandale (d 1295), and by him was the grandmother of the hero of Bannockburn. Her marriage was probably arranged by her mother Isabel and uncle, Gilbert Marshal who gave her the Sussex manor of Ripe as a marriage portion. Isabel Marshal outlived Earl Gilbert de CLARE by ten years, during which time she was busy. In 1231 she m. Richard of Cornwall, to the displeasure of Richard's brother King Henry III, who was trying to arrange another match for Richard. She d 1240, after 4 children by Richard, only one of which lived past infancy. According to the Tewkesbury chronicle, she wished to be buried next to her 1st husband, but Richard of Cornwall had her buried at Beaulieu Abbey in Hampshire, although as a pious gesture he allowed her heart to be sent to Tewkesbury.

MARSHALL to the ROYAL HOUSEHOLD, Royal Serjeant and Marshal to Henry I, LORD OF STRIGUL

Gilbert FitzRichard d. 1114/7 was son and eventual heir of Richard FitzGilbert of Clare and heiress Rohese Giffard. He succeeded to his father's possessions in England in 1091; his brother, Roger Fitz Richard, inherited his father's lands in Normandy. Earl Gilbert's inheritance made him one of the wealthiest magnates in early twelfth-century England.

Gilbert may have been present at the suspicious death of William II in the New Forest in 1100. He was granted lands and the Lordship of Cardigan by Henry I, including Cardigan Castle. He founded the Cluniac priory at Stoke-by-Clare, Suffolk.

Earl Gilbert de Clare - was born before 1066, lived in Tonebridge and died in 1114/1117 in England . He was the son of Earl Richard "De Tonbridge" FitzGilbert and Rochese Giffard.

Present at the murder of William II in 1100. Received lands in Wales from Henry I, including Cardigan Castle in Wales.

Built a Castle at Caerdigan, Pembrokeshire, Wales. A marriage brought it into the hands of William Marshall, who soon controlled the strongest castles on the peninsula. The keep has been transformed into a modern house. Of all the castles that finally came into William Marshall's possession, this was the most important to the area. Scholars believe there is evidence that it was originally built of wood.

Sources
? Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, London, 1883, p. 119, Clare, Lords of Clare, Earls of Hertford, Earls of Gloucester
See also:

Douglas Richardson, Royal Ancestry" (2013), II;171-2.
Wikipedia: Gilbert fitz Richard
Clare family.
Americans of Royal Descent.
G.E.C.: Complete Peerage, III: 242-43
J.H. Round, Feudal Eng. p. 523, 473
Dict. of Nat'l Biog.
"Ancestral roots of certain American colonists who came to America before 1700", Frederick Lewis Weis, 1992, seventh edition.
"Europaische Stammtafeln", Isenburg.
"Plantagenet Ancestry", Turton.
Gary Boyd Roberts, "Ancestors of American Presidents".
Gary Boyd Roberts, "The Royal Descents of 500 Immigrants", (1993).
"Magna Charta Sureties, 1215", F. L. Weis, 4th Ed.
Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia
'The Thomas Book'
Farrer, William & Brownbill, J. The Victoria History of the County of Lancaster (Archibald Constable and Co. Limited, London, 1906), Vol. 1, Page 300.

end of this biography

Gilbert Fitz Richard (c.?1066–c.?1117), was styled de Clare, de Tonbridge, and Lord of Clare. He was a powerful Anglo-Norman baron who was granted the Lordship of Cardigan, in Wales c.?1107-1111.

Life

Gilbert, born before 1066, was the second son and an heir of Richard Fitz Gilbert of Clare and Rohese Giffard.[1] He succeeded to his father's possessions in England in 1088 when his father retired to a monastery;[2] his brother, Roger Fitz Richard, inherited his father's lands in Normandy.[3] That same year he, along with his brother Roger, fortified his castle at Tonbridge against the forces of William Rufus. But his castle was stormed, Gilbert was wounded and taken prisoner.[4] However he and his brother were in attendance on king William Rufus at his death in August 1100.[4] He was with Henry I at his Christmas court at Westminster in 1101.[4]

It has been hinted, by modern historians, that Gilbert, as a part of a baronial conspiracy, played some part in the suspicious death of William II.[5] Frank Barlow points out that no proof has been found he had any part in the king's death or that a conspiracy even existed.[5]

In 1110, King Henry I took Cardigan from Owain ap Cadwgan, son of Cadwgan ap Bleddyn as punishment for a number of crimes including that of the abduction of Nest, wife of Gerald de Windsor.[6] In turn Henry gave the Lordship of Cardigan, including Cardigan Castle to Gilbert Fitz Richard.[7] He founded the Clunic priory at Stoke-by-Clare, Suffolk.[7] Gilbert died in or before 1117.[7][8]

Family

About 1088,[9] Gilbert married Adeliza/Alice de Claremont, daughter of Hugh, Count of Clermont, and Margaret de Roucy.[8] Gilbert and Adeliza had at least eight children:

Richard Fitz Gilbert de Clare, d. 1136.[10]
Gilbert Fitz Gilbert de Clare, d. 1148, 1st Earl of Pembroke.[10]
Baldwin Fitz Gilbert de Clare, d. 1154, m. Adeline de Rollos.[11]
Adelize/Alice de Clare, d. 1163, m. (ca. 1105), Aubrey II de Vere, son of Aubrey I de Vere and Beatrice.[12] She had 9 children and in her widowhood was a corrodian at St. Osyth's, Chich, Essex.
Hervey de Clare, Lord of Montmorency.[13]
Walter de Clare, d. 1149.[14]
Margaret de Clare, d. 1185, m. (ca. 1108), Sir William de Montfitchet, Lord of Stansted Mountfitchet.[15]
Rohese de Clare, d. 1149, m. (ca. 1130), Baderon of Monmouth[16]

end of this biography

Gilbert married Adeliza de Claremont. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

22249.

Children:

Sir Richard Fitz Gilbert de Clare was born in 1092 in Clare, Suffolk, England; died on 15 Apr 1136 in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, Wales.
24083. Adeliza de Clare was born in ~1093 in Risbridge, Suffolk, England; died on 1 Nov 1163 in St Osyth Priory, Essex, England.
Agnes Clare was born in ~1091 in Clare, Suffolk, England; died in 1115 in England.
11132. Sir Gilbert de Clare, Knight, 1st Earl of Pembroke was born in ~ 1100 in Tonbridge, Kent, England; died on 6 Jan 1148 in Tintern Abbey, Chapel Hill, Monmouthshire, England.

22266.

Sir Robert de Beaumont, Knight, 1st Earl of Leicester was born in ~ 1049 in Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France (son of Roger de Beaumont and Adeline of Meulan); died on 5 Jun 1118.

Other Events and Attributes:

Military: Battle of Hastings, 1066

Notes:

Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester (Sometime between 1040 & 1050 – 5 June 1118), also known as Robert of Meulan, count of Meulan, was a powerful Norman nobleman, one of the Companions of William the Conqueror during the Norman Conquest of England, and was revered as one of the wisest men of his age. Chroniclers spoke highly of his eloquence, his learning, and three kings of England valued his counsel.

Biography

He was born between 1040-1050, the eldest son of Roger de Beaumont (1015-1094) by his wife Adeline of Meulan (died 1081), a daughter of Waleran III, Count de Meulan, and was an older brother of Henry de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Warwick (c. 1050-1119)

Robert de Beaumont was one of only about 15 of the Proven Companions of William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and was leader of the infantry on the right wing of the Norman army, as evidenced in the following near contemporary account by William of Poitiers:

"A certain Norman, Robert, son of Roger of Beaumont, being nephew and heir to Henry, Count of Meulan, through Henry's sister Adeline, found himself that day in battle for the first time. He was as yet but a young man and he performed feats of valour worthy of perpetual remembrance. At the head of a troop which he commanded on the right wing he attacked with the utmost bravery and success".[1]

His service earned him the grant of more than 91 English manors confiscated from the defeated English, as listed in the Domesday Book of 1086.

When his mother died in 1081, Robert inherited the title of Count of Meulan in Normandy, and the title, Viscount Ivry and Lord of Norton. He paid homage to King Philip I of France for these estates and sat as a French Peer in the Parliament held at Poissy.

He and his brother Henry were members of the Royal hunting party in the New Forest in Hampshire when King William II Rufus (1087-1100) was shot dead accidentally by an arrow on 2 August 1100. He pledged allegiance to William II's brother, King Henry I (1100-1135), who created him Earl of Leicester in 1107.

On the death of William Rufus, William, Count of âEvreux and Ralph de Conches made an incursion into Robert's Norman estates, on the pretence they had suffered injury through some advice that Robert had given to the king; their raid was successful and they collected a vast booty.

During the English phase of the Investiture Controversy, he was excommunicated by Pope Paschal II on 26 March 1105 for advising King Henry to continue selecting the bishops of his realm in opposition to the canons of the church. Sometime in 1106, Henry succeeded in having Anselm, the exiled archbishop of Canterbury, revoke this excommunication. Anselm's (somewhat presumptuous) act was ultimately ratified by Paschal.

According to Henry of Huntingdon, Robert died of shame after "a certain earl carried off the lady he had espoused, either by some intrigue or by force and stratagem." He was the last surviving Norman nobleman to have fought in the Battle of Hastings.[2]

Family

In 1096 he married Elizabeth (or Isabel) de Vermandois, daughter of Hugh Magnus (1053-1101) a younger son of the French king and Adelaide, Countess of Vermandois (1050-1120). After his death Elizabeth remarried in 1118 to William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey. He had the following progeny:

Waleran IV de Beaumont, Count of Meulan, 1st Earl of Worcester (b. 1104), eldest twin and heir.
Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester & Earl of Hereford (b. 1104), twin
Hugh de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Bedford (b. circa 1106)
Emma de Beaumont (born 1102)
Adeline de Beaumont, married twice:
Hugh IV of Montfort-sur-Risle;
Richard de Granville of Bideford (d. 1147)
Aubree de Beaumont, married Hugh II of Chãateauneuf-Thimerais.
Agnes de Beaumont, a nun
Maud de Beaumont, married William Lovel. (b. c. 1102)
Isabel de Beaumont, a mistress of King Henry I. Married twice:
Gilbert de Clare, 1st Earl of Pembroke;
Hervâe de Montmorency, Constable of Ireland

Sources

icon Normandy portal
Edward T. Beaumont, J.P. The Beaumonts in History. A.D. 850-1850. Oxford.
References[edit]
Jump up ^ Wm. of Poitiers, per Douglas (1959), p.227
Jump up ^ Edward T. Beaumont, J.P. The Beaumonts in History. A.D. 850-1850. Oxford.

end

22267.

Notes:

Birth: 1081
Basse-Normandie, France
Death: Feb. 17, 1131, France

Countess of Leicester, Countess of Surrey

Third daughter of Hugh Magnus and Adelaide of Vermandois, granddaughter of King Henry I of France and Anne of Kiev, Herbert IV, Count of Vermandois, and Adele of Valois. She was the heiress of the county of Vermandois and descendant of Charlemagne.

Wife of Sir Robert de Beaumont, Count of Meulan, the son of Roger de Beaumont and Adeline of Meulan; Isabel became the Countess of Leicester. They married about 1096 and had three sons and at least five daughters:
* Emma b 1101, probably died young
* Waleran IV de Beaumont, Count of Meulan, twin
* Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester, twin
* Hugh de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Bedford
* Adeline, wife of Hugh Montfort & Richard de Granville
* Aubree, wife of Hugh II of Chãateauneuf-en-Thimerais
* Maud, wife of William Lovel
* Isabel, mistress of King Henry I, wife of Gilbert de Clare and mother of Richard Strongbow & wife of Hervâe de Montmorency

Secondly, the wife of William de Warenne, son of William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey and his first wife Gundred; Isabel became the Countess of Surrey. They married in 1118 and had three sons and two daughters:
* William de Warenne, 3rd Earl of Surrey
Ralph de Warenne
* Reginald de Warenne
* Gundrada de Warenne, wife of Roger de Beaumont& William de Lancaster
* Ada de Warenne, wife of Henry of Scotland, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon, mother King Malcolm IV and King William I 'the Lion'

Sir Robert de Beaumont, described as being "the wisest man in his time between London and Jerusalem", and aged over fifty was determined to marry Isabel, aged about eleven. Bishop Ivo dismissed their request based on their being within a few degrees of kindred. Isabel's father was able to sway Bishop Ivo, and saw his daughter married by April of 1096 when he left on a crusade.

In 1115, Isabel was either carried away or willingly abducted by William de Warrene, revealing they had been lovers for some time. They were unable to marry until the death of Sir Robert, which occurred in 1118.

The Beaumont sons were on opposite sides of support for King Stephen and Queen Matilda, but were not enemies.

Sources vary on her death, reported as 1131 to outliving William who died in 1138.

Family links:
Parents:
Hugues de France (1057 - 1102)

Spouses:
Robert de Beaumont (1049 - 1118)
William II de Warenne (1065 - 1138)

Children:
Waleran de Beaumont (1104 - 1166)*
Robert de Beaumont (1104 - 1168)*
Reginald de Warenne (1113 - 1179)*
William de Warenne (1118 - 1148)*
Ada De Warenne De Huntingdon (1120 - 1178)*

Sibling:
Isabel Of Vermandois Beaumont de Warenne (1081 - 1131)
Raoul I de Vermandois (1094 - 1152)*

*Calculated relationship

Burial:
Lewes Priory
Lewes
Lewes District
East Sussex, England

end

Children:

Eleanor Beaumont was born in 1100 in Cheshire, England; died in 1157 in Cheshire, England.
11133. Isabel de Beaumont was born in ~1101 in Leicester, Leicestershire, England; died after 1172 in Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire, Wales.
Waleran de Beaumont, IV was born in 1104 in (Meulan, France); died on 9 Apr 1166 in Preaux, France.
24102. Sir Robert de Beaumont, Knight, 2nd Earl of Leicester was born in 1104 in (Meulan, France); died on 5 Apr 1168 in Brackley, Northamptonshire, England.

22260.

Edward of Salisbury was born in BY 1045 in Normandy, France; died in Denbighshire, Wales.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Salisbury, Wiltshire, England
Occupation: 0___ 1081; Vicecomitem (sheriff)

Notes:

Birth: unknown
Haute-Normandie, France
Death: unknown
Denbighshire, Wales

Born by 1045, he seems, by virtue of his wide land holdings, to have been well placed among the followers of William the Conqueror. He was called "vicecomitem" [sheriff] of Wiltshire in a charter dated 1081.

Family links:
Children:
Walter Fitz Edward (1091 - 1147)*

*Calculated relationship

Burial:
Unknown

Created by: Darrel Salisbury
Record added: Aug 06, 2014
Find A Grave Memorial# 133948641

end

Edward married Maud Fitz Hurbert. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

22261.

Children:

11130. Sir Walter of Salisbury was born in 0___ 1087 in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England; died in 0___ 1147 in Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England; was buried in Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England.
Maud of Salisbury

22268.

Donnchad Enna Mac Murchada was born in 1085 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland (son of Murchad Macdairmata Murchada and Sadb Ingen Mac Bricc); died on 8 Dec 1115 in Wexford, Ireland.

22269.

Children:

11134. Dermot Dairmait Mac Murchada, King of Leinster was born in 1110 in Dublin, Ireland; died on 1 May 1171 in Ireland.

178432.

Robert Brus was born in ~1051 in Northamptonshire, England (son of Sir Robert Brus, Earl of Annandale and Emma Bretagne); died in 1094.

Robert married Agnes St. Clair. Agnes (daughter of Waldron St Clair and Helena Normandie) was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandy, France; died in ~1080. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

178433.

Agnes St. Clair was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandy, France (daughter of Waldron St Clair and Helena Normandie); died in ~1080.

Notes:

Agnes de Braose formerly St Clair aka de St. Clair, de Brus
Born about 1053 in Manche, Normandy, France

Daughter of Waldron (St Clair) de Sinclair and Helena (Normandie) de Sinclair
Sister of William (St Clair) Sinclair and Mauger (St Clare) Sinclair
Wife of Robert (Brus) de Brus — married 1072 [location unknown]

DESCENDANTS descendants

Wife of William (Braose) de Braose — married about 1075 [location unknown

Mother of Adam (Brus) de Brus, Agatha or Alice (Bruce) Basset, Philip (Braose) de Braose, Unknown (Braose) de Harcourt, John (Braiose) de Braose, Philena (Braiose) de Braose, Hortense (Bruce) de Braose and Robert (Brus) de Brus
Died about 1080 in Bramber, Sussex, England
Profile managers: Katherine Patterson private message [send private message], Becky Bierbrodt private message [send private message], and Dale Burdick private message [send private message]
Profile last modified 30 Sep 2016 | Created 9 Jul 2014
This page has been accessed 6,762 times.

end of biography

Children:

89216. SIr Robert de Brus, 1st Lord of Annandale was born in ~1070; died on 11 May 1142 in Yorkshire, England.

178434.

Fulk de Paynel was born in 1060 in (Normandy, France); died in 1131.

Fulk married Beatrice FitzWilliam. Beatrice was born in 1065 in Dudley, Worcester, England; died in 1168. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

178435.

Beatrice FitzWilliam was born in 1065 in Dudley, Worcester, England; died in 1168.

Children:

89217. Agnes de Paynel was born in ~1095 in Warwickshire, England; died in 1170 in Skelton, Yorkshire, England.
Ralph Paynel was born in 1095 in Dudley, Worcestershire, England; died in 1153.

44400.

Notes:

Malcolm III (Gaelic: Mâael Coluim mac Donnchada; c. 26 March 1031 – 13 November 1093) was King of Scots from 1058 to 1093. He was later nicknamed "Canmore" ("ceann máor", Gaelic for "Great Chief": "ceann" denotes "leader", "head" (of state) and "máor" denotes "pre-eminent", "great", and "big").[1][2] Malcolm's long reign of 35 years preceded the beginning of the Scoto-Norman age.

Malcolm's kingdom did not extend over the full territory of modern Scotland: the north and west of Scotland remained under Scandinavian, Norse-Gael, and Gaelic rule, and the territories under the rule of the Kings of Scots did not extend much beyond the limits established by Malcolm II until the 12th century. Malcolm III fought a series of wars against the Kingdom of England, which may have had as its objective the conquest of the English earldom of Northumbria. These wars did not result in any significant advances southward. Malcolm's primary achievement was to continue a lineage that ruled Scotland for many years,[3] although his role as founder of a dynasty has more to do with the propaganda of his youngest son David I and his descendants than with history.[4]

Malcolm's second wife, St. Margaret of Scotland, is Scotland's only royal saint. Malcolm himself had no reputation for piety; with the notable exception of Dunfermline Abbey in Fife he is not definitely associated with major religious establishments or ecclesiastical reforms.

King of Alba (Scots)
Reign 1058–1093
Coronation 25 April 1058?, Scone, Perth and Kinross
Predecessor Lulach
Successor Donald III
Born c. 26 March 1031
Scotland
Died 13 November 1093
Alnwick, Northumberland, England
Burial Tynemouth Castle and Priory, then in Dunfermline Abbey
Spouse Ingibiorg Finnsdottir
St. Margaret of Scotland
Issue Duncan II, King of Scots
Edward, Prince of Scotland
Edmund
Ethelred
Edgar, King of Scots
Alexander I, King of Scots
David I, King of Scots
Matilda, Queen of England
Mary, Countess of Boulogne
House Dunkeld
Father Duncan I, King of Scots
Mother Suthen

Background
Main article: Scotland in the High Middle Ages
Malcolm's father Duncan I became king in late 1034, on the death of Malcolm II, Duncan's maternal grandfather and Malcolm's great-grandfather. According to John of Fordun, whose account is the original source of part at least of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, Malcolm's mother was a niece of Siward, Earl of Northumbria,[5][6] but an earlier king-list gives her the Gaelic name Suthen.[7] Other sources claim that either a daughter or niece would have been too young to fit the timeline, thus the likely relative would have been Siward's own sister Sybil, which may have translated into Gaelic as Suthen.

Duncan's reign was not successful and he was killed in battle with the men of Moray, led by Macbeth, on 15 August 1040. Duncan was young at the time of his death,[8] and Malcolm and his brother Donalbane were children.[9] Malcolm's family attempted to overthrow Macbeth in 1045, but Malcolm's grandfather Crâinâan of Dunkeld was killed in the attempt.[10]

Soon after the death of Duncan his two young sons were sent away for greater safety—exactly where is the subject of debate. According to one version, Malcolm (then aged about nine) was sent to England,[11] and his younger brother Donalbane was sent to the Isles.[12][13] Based on Fordun's account, it was assumed that Malcolm passed most of Macbeth's seventeen-year reign in the Kingdom of England at the court of Edward the Confessor.[14][15] Today's British Royal family can trace their family history back to Malcolm III via his daughter Matilda.

According to an alternative version, Malcolm's mother took both sons into exile at the court of Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Earl of Orkney, an enemy of Macbeth's family, and perhaps Duncan's kinsman by marriage.[16]

An English invasion in 1054, with Siward, Earl of Northumbria in command, had as its goal the installation of one "Mâael Coluim, son of the king of the Cumbrians". This Mâael Coluim has traditionally been identified with the later Malcolm III.[17] This interpretation derives from the Chronicle attributed to the 14th-century chronicler of Scotland, John of Fordun, as well as from earlier sources such as William of Malmesbury.[18] The latter reported that Macbeth was killed in the battle by Siward, but it is known that Macbeth outlived Siward by two years.[19] A. A. M. Duncan argued in 2002 that, using the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry as their source, later writers innocently misidentified "Mâael Coluim" with the later Scottish king of the same name.[20] Duncan's argument has been supported by several subsequent historians specialising in the era, such as Richard Oram, Dauvit Broun and Alex Woolf.[21] It has also been suggested that Mâael Coluim may have been a son of Owain Foel, British king of Strathclyde[22] perhaps by a daughter of Malcolm II, King of Scotland.[23]

In 1057 various chroniclers report the death of Macbeth at Malcolm's hand, on 15 August 1057 at Lumphanan in Aberdeenshire.[24][25] Macbeth was succeeded by his stepson Lulach, who was crowned at Scone, probably on 8 September 1057. Lulach was killed by Malcolm, "by treachery",[26] near Huntly on 23 April 1058. After this, Malcolm became king, perhaps being inaugurated on 25 April 1058, although only John of Fordun reports this.[27]

Malcolm and Ingibiorg

Late medieval depiction of Malcolm with MacDuff, from an MS (Corpus Christi MS 171) of Walter Bower's Scotichronicon
If Orderic Vitalis is to be relied upon, one of Malcolm's earliest actions as king was to travel to the court of Edward the Confessor in 1059 to arrange a marriage with Edward's kinswoman Margaret, who had arrived in England two years before from Hungary.[28] If a marriage agreement was made in 1059, it was not kept, and this may explain the Scots invasion of Northumbria in 1061 when Lindisfarne was plundered.[29] Equally, Malcolm's raids in Northumbria may have been related to the disputed "Kingdom of the Cumbrians", reestablished by Earl Siward in 1054, which was under Malcolm's control by 1070.[30]

The Orkneyinga saga reports that Malcolm married the widow of Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Ingibiorg, a daughter of Finn Arnesson.[31] Although Ingibiorg is generally assumed to have died shortly before 1070, it is possible that she died much earlier, around 1058.[32] The Orkneyinga Saga records that Malcolm and Ingibiorg had a son, Duncan II (Donnchad mac Maâil Coluim), who was later king.[33] Some Medieval commentators, following William of Malmesbury, claimed that Duncan was illegitimate, but this claim is propaganda reflecting the need of Malcolm's descendants by Margaret to undermine the claims of Duncan's descendants, the Meic Uilleim.[34] Malcolm's son Domnall, whose death is reported in 1085, is not mentioned by the author of the Orkneyinga Saga. He is assumed to have been born to Ingibiorg.[35]

Malcolm's marriage to Ingibiorg secured him peace in the north and west. The Heimskringla tells that her father Finn had been an adviser to Harald Hardraade and, after falling out with Harald, was then made an Earl by Sweyn Estridsson, King of Denmark, which may have been another recommendation for the match.[36] Malcolm enjoyed a peaceful relationship with the Earldom of Orkney, ruled jointly by his stepsons, Paul and Erlend Thorfinnsson. The Orkneyinga Saga reports strife with Norway but this is probably misplaced as it associates this with Magnus Barefoot, who became king of Norway only in 1093, the year of Malcolm's death.[37]

Malcolm and Margaret

Malcolm and Margaret as depicted in a 16th-century armorial. Anachronistically, Malcolm's surcoat is embroidered with the royal arms of Scotland, which probably did not come into use until the time of William the Lion. Margaret's kirtle displays the supposed arms of her great-uncle Edward the Confessor, which were in fact invented in the 13th century, though they were based on a design which appeared on coins from his reign
Although he had given sanctuary to Tostig Godwinson when the Northumbrians drove him out, Malcolm was not directly involved in the ill-fated invasion of England by Harald Hardraade and Tostig in 1066, which ended in defeat and death at the battle of Stamford Bridge.[38] In 1068, he granted asylum to a group of English exiles fleeing from William of Normandy, among them Agatha, widow of Edward the Confessor's nephew Edward the Exile, and her children: Edgar ¥theling and his sisters Margaret and Cristina. They were accompanied by Gospatric, Earl of Northumbria. The exiles were disappointed, however, if they had expected immediate assistance from the Scots.[39]

In 1069 the exiles returned to England, to join a spreading revolt in the north. Even though Gospatric and Siward's son Waltheof submitted by the end of the year, the arrival of a Danish army under Sweyn Estridsson seemed to ensure that William's position remained weak. Malcolm decided on war, and took his army south into Cumbria and across the Pennines, wasting Teesdale and Cleveland then marching north, loaded with loot, to Wearmouth. There Malcolm met Edgar and his family, who were invited to return with him, but did not. As Sweyn had by now been bought off with a large Danegeld, Malcolm took his army home. In reprisal, William sent Gospatric to raid Scotland through Cumbria. In return, the Scots fleet raided the Northumbrian coast where Gospatric's possessions were concentrated.[40] Late in the year, perhaps shipwrecked on their way to a European exile, Edgar and his family again arrived in Scotland, this time to remain. By the end of 1070, Malcolm had married Edgar's sister Margaret of Wessex, the future Saint Margaret of Scotland.[41]

The naming of their children represented a break with the traditional Scots regal names such as Malcolm, Cinâaed and Áed. The point of naming Margaret's sons—Edward after her father Edward the Exile, Edmund for her grandfather Edmund Ironside, Ethelred for her great-grandfather Ethelred the Unready and Edgar for her great-great-grandfather Edgar and her brother, briefly the elected king, Edgar ¥theling—was unlikely to be missed in England, where William of Normandy's grasp on power was far from secure.[42] Whether the adoption of the classical Alexander for the future Alexander I of Scotland (either for Pope Alexander II or for Alexander the Great) and the biblical David for the future David I of Scotland represented a recognition that William of Normandy would not be easily removed, or was due to the repetition of Anglo-Saxon royal name—another Edmund had preceded Edgar—is not known.[43] Margaret also gave Malcolm two daughters, Edith, who married Henry I of England, and Mary, who married Eustace III of Boulogne.

In 1072, with the Harrying of the North completed and his position again secure, William of Normandy came north with an army and a fleet. Malcolm met William at Abernethy and, in the words of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle "became his man" and handed over his eldest son Duncan as a hostage and arranged peace between William and Edgar.[44] Accepting the overlordship of the king of the English was no novelty, as previous kings had done so without result. The same was true of Malcolm; his agreement with the English king was followed by further raids into Northumbria, which led to further trouble in the earldom and the killing of Bishop William Walcher at Gateshead. In 1080, William sent his son Robert Curthose north with an army while his brother Odo punished the Northumbrians. Malcolm again made peace, and this time kept it for over a decade.[45]

Malcolm faced little recorded internal opposition, with the exception of Lulach's son Mâael Snechtai. In an unusual entry, for the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle contains little on Scotland, it says that in 1078:

Malcholom [Mâael Coluim] seized the mother of Mµlslµhtan [Mâael Snechtai] ... and all his treasures, and his cattle; and he himself escaped with difficulty.[46]

Whatever provoked this strife, Mâael Snechtai survived until 1085.[47]

Malcolm and William Rufus

William Rufus, "the Red", king of the English (1087–1100)
When William Rufus became king of England after his father's death, Malcolm did not intervene in the rebellions by supporters of Robert Curthose which followed. In 1091, William Rufus confiscated Edgar ¥theling's lands in England, and Edgar fled north to Scotland. In May, Malcolm marched south, not to raid and take slaves and plunder, but to besiege Newcastle, built by Robert Curthose in 1080. This appears to have been an attempt to advance the frontier south from the River Tweed to the River Tees. The threat was enough to bring the English king back from Normandy, where he had been fighting Robert Curthose. In September, learning of William Rufus's approaching army, Malcolm withdrew north and the English followed. Unlike in 1072, Malcolm was prepared to fight, but a peace was arranged by Edgar ¥theling and Robert Curthose whereby Malcolm again acknowledged the overlordship of the English king.[48]

In 1092, the peace began to break down. Based on the idea that the Scots controlled much of modern Cumbria, it had been supposed that William Rufus's new castle at Carlisle and his settlement of English peasants in the surrounds was the cause. It is unlikely that Malcolm controlled Cumbria, and the dispute instead concerned the estates granted to Malcolm by William Rufus's father in 1072 for his maintenance when visiting England. Malcolm sent messengers to discuss the question and William Rufus agreed to a meeting. Malcolm travelled south to Gloucester, stopping at Wilton Abbey to visit his daughter Edith and sister-in-law Cristina. Malcolm arrived there on 24 August 1093 to find that William Rufus refused to negotiate, insisting that the dispute be judged by the English barons. This Malcolm refused to accept, and returned immediately to Scotland.[49]

It does not appear that William Rufus intended to provoke a war,[50] but, as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports, war came:

For this reason therefore they parted with great dissatisfaction, and the King Malcolm returned to Scotland. And soon after he came home, he gathered his army, and came harrowing into England with more hostility than behoved him ....[51]

Malcolm was accompanied by Edward, his eldest son by Margaret and probable heir-designate (or tâanaiste), and by Edgar.[52] Even by the standards of the time, the ravaging of Northumbria by the Scots was seen as harsh.[53]

Death

Memorial cross said to mark the spot where King Malcolm III of Scotland was killed while besieging Alnwick Castle in 1093.
While marching north again, Malcolm was ambushed by Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumbria, whose lands he had devastated, near Alnwick on 13 November 1093. There he was killed by Arkil Morel, steward of Bamburgh Castle. The conflict became known as the Battle of Alnwick.[54] Edward was mortally wounded in the same fight. Margaret, it is said, died soon after receiving the news of their deaths from Edgar.[55] The Annals of Ulster say:

Mael Coluim son of Donnchad, over-king of Scotland, and Edward his son, were killed by the French [i.e. Normans] in Inber Alda in England. His queen, Margaret, moreover, died of sorrow for him within nine days.[56]

Malcolm's body was taken to Tynemouth Priory for burial. The king's body was sent north for reburial, in the reign of his son Alexander, at Dunfermline Abbey, or possibly Iona.[57]

On 19 June 1250, following the canonisation of Malcolm's wife Margaret by Pope Innocent IV, Margaret's remains were disinterred and placed in a reliquary. Tradition has it that as the reliquary was carried to the high altar of Dunfermline Abbey, past Malcolm's grave, it became too heavy to move. As a result, Malcolm's remains were also disinterred, and buried next to Margaret beside the altar.[58]

Issue

Malcolm and Ingibiorg had three sons:

Duncan II of Scotland, succeeded his father as King of Scotland
Donald, died ca.1094
Malcolm, died ca.1085
Malcolm and Margaret had eight children, six sons and two daughters:

Edward, killed 1093
Edmund of Scotland
Ethelred, abbot of Dunkeld
King Edgar of Scotland
King Alexander I of Scotland
King David I of Scotland
Edith of Scotland, also called Matilda, married King Henry I of England
Mary of Scotland, married Eustace III of Boulogne

end of biography

44401.

Notes:

Saint Margaret "Queen of Scotland" Ceannmore formerly Wessex aka Canmore, Mac Donnachadh, Dunkeld
Born 1045 in Wessex, England
ANCESTORS ancestors
Daughter of Edward (Wessex) of Wessex and Agatha (Unknown) Wessex
Sister of Cristina (of England) Wessex, Edgar (Wessex) Atheling and Aethlreda (Wessex) ¥theling
Wife of Malcolm (Dunkeld) of Scotland — married about 1069 in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland
DESCENDANTS descendants
Mother of Heth MacCrinan (Dunkeld) Earl of Fife, Edward (Dunkeld) of Scotland, Edmund Dunkeld, Aethelred (Dunkeld) Canmore, Edgar (Dunkeld) King of Scotland, Alexander mac Maâil Coluim (Dunkeld) of Scotland, Eadgith (Dunkeld) of Scotland, Mary (Dunkeld) Scotland and David (Dunkeld) of Scotland
Died 16 Nov 1093 in Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Mid-Lothian, Scotland

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Contents
[hide]
1 Biography
1.1 Early Life
1.2 Family
1.3 Death
1.4 Canonisation
2 Sources
Biography
Saint Margaret of Scotland also known as Margaret of Wessex

b. abt. 1045; Margaret may have been born in Hungary,[1] "Aldred Bishop of Worcester, ambassador of King Edward 'the Confessor', proposed to the emperor to send envoys to Hungary to bring back Edward and have him conducted to England."[2]
d. 16 November 1093
Early Life
Margaret's parents were Edward "the Exile" (1016 – Aug 1057) son of Edmund Ironside, and his wife, Agatha, who was related to Gisela, wife of St. Stephen of Hungary,[3] Agatha's origins are disputed.[4]

Her father returned to England in 1057 and died two days later. After the conquest of England by the Normans, she was returning with her mother Agatha to return to the Continent when a storm drove their ship to Scotland, where the king, Malcolm III received them.[3]

Family
Margaret married at Dunfermline Abbey, in 1070, Malcolm III "Caennmor/Bighead" King of Scotland as his second wife.[2] Issue:

Edward, killed at Alnwick defending father;
Ethelred, Earl of Fife, and Abbot of Dunkeld before its erection into a bishopric, and still under Columbite rule, who gave lands of Ardmore to the Culdees of Loch Leven. Buried at St Andrews;
Edmund, who once shared throne with uncle, Donald-bain; became a monk after Donald's deposition in the Cluniae Priory of Montague in Somersetshire, and died there in the odour of sanctity. —Sir James Balfour;
Edgar, who told his mother about his father's and brother's death at Dunfermline (Turgot, confessor and biographer);
Alexander I, surnamed Fierce, had the earldom of Innergoury - given by uncle (Donald-bain) at his baptism;
David I, the Saint;
Matilda m. Henry I, King of England;
Mary m. Eustace, Count de Bulloigne, (bros. Godfrey, King of Jerusalem). issue: "Matilda" m. Stephen, King of England; from Mary also descended the Dukes de Bulloigne, including the celebrated Turenne, General of Louis XIV;[5]
Death
Already ill when her son, Edmund, told her that her husband and eldest son died on 13 November 1093, Margaret died in Edinburgh Castle three days after them on 16 Nov 1093, some say of a broken heart.[2]

(Royal Ancestry) (Malcolm's) widow, Margaret, died at Edinburgh Castle 16 Nov. 1093, and was buried before the high altar in the church of the Holy Trinity at Dunfermline, Fife.

(Wikipedia) In 1250 her body and that of her husband were exhumed and placed in a new shrine in the Abbey. In 1560 Mary Queen of Scots had Margaret's head removed to Edinburgh Castle as a relic to assist her in childbirth. In 1597 the head ended up with the Jesuits at the Scots' College, Douai, France, but was lost during the French Revolution. Philip II of Spain had the other remains of Margaret and her husband Malcolm transferred to the Escorial in Madrid (royal mausoleum), but they cannot now be found. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Margaret_of_Scotland)

Canonisation
Maragaret was canonised in the year 1250, by Pope Innocent IV. In 1969, her veneration day was changed to the date of her death--16 Nov. 1093. She was already ill when her son, Edmund, told her of her husband and eldest son's death. Margaret died in Edinburgh Castle nine days later, some say of a broken heart.[2]

(Royal Ancestry) She was canonized by Pope Innocent IV in 1250.

Sources
Royal Ancestry 2013 Vol. IV p. 576-578
? If she was bornin Hungary, there should be a source that she was born at Castle Reka, Mecseknaddasd, Hungary in 1054
? 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Charles Cawley, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy (FMG), KINGS of WESSEX 802-944, KINGS of ENGLAND 944-1066, Medieval Lands, 2006-15, accessed 20 July 2015.
? 3.0 3.1 Huddleston, Gilbert. "St. Margaret of Scotland." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 20 July 2015 .
? Wikipedia: Edward the Exile, accessed 20 July 2015.
? Douglas, D. (1899). Scottish kings: A revised chronology of Scottish history, 1005-1625. Edinburgh. archive.org.
See also:

Post, W.E. (1999). Saints, Signs and Symbols, (2nd, ed. pp.47). Essex: Hart-Talbot Printers, Ltd.
Wikipedia contributors, "Saint Margaret of Scotland," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Saint_Margaret_of_Scotland&oldid=788950538 (accessed August 1, 2017).

end of this biography

Saint Margaret of Scotland (c. 1045 - 16 November 1093), also known as Margaret of Wessex, was an English princess and a Scottish queen. Margaret was sometimes called "The Pearl of Scotland".[1] Born in exile in the Kingdom of Hungary, she was the sister of Edgar ¥theling, the shortly reigned and uncrowned Anglo-Saxon King of England. Margaret and her family returned to the Kingdom of England in 1057, but fled to the Kingdom of Scotland following the Norman conquest of England in 1066. By the end of 1070, Margaret had married King Malcolm III of Scotland, becoming Queen of Scots. She was a very pious Roman Catholic, and among many charitable works she established a ferry across the Firth of Forth in Scotland for pilgrims travelling to St Andrews in Fife, which gave the towns of South Queensferry and North Queensferry their names. Margaret was the mother of three kings of Scotland, or four, if Edmund of Scotland, who ruled with his uncle, Donald III, is counted, and of a queen consort of England. According to the Vita S. Margaritae (Scotorum) Reginae (Life of St. Margaret, Queen (of the Scots)), attributed to Turgot of Durham, she died at Edinburgh Castle in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1093, merely days after receiving the news of her husband's death in battle. In 1250 Pope Innocent IV canonized her, and her remains were reinterred in a shrine in Dunfermline Abbey in Fife, Scotland. Her relics were dispersed after the Scottish Reformation and subsequently lost. Mary, Queen of Scots at one time owned her head, which was subsequently preserved by Jesuits in the Scottish College, Douai, France, from where it was subsequently lost during the French Revolution.

Queen consort of Scotland
Tenure 1070-93
Born c.?1045
Kingdom of Hungary
Died 16 November 1093
Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Kingdom of Scotland
Burial Dunfermline Abbey, Fife, Kingdom of Scotland
Spouse Malcolm III, King of Scotland
Issue
more... Edmund, Bishop of Dunkeld
Ethelred
Edgar, King of Scotland
Alexander I, King of Scotland
David I, King of Scotland
Matilda, Queen of England
Mary, Countess of Boulogne
House Wessex
Father Edward the Exile
Mother Agatha

Early life

Margaret from a medieval family tree.
Margaret was the daughter of the English prince Edward the Exile, and granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, King of England.[1] After the Danish conquest of England in 1016, King Canute the Great had the infant Edward exiled to the continent. He was taken first to the court of the Swedish king, Olof Skèotkonung, and then to Kiev. As an adult, he travelled to Hungary, where in 1046 he supported the successful bid of King Andrew I for the Hungarian crown. King Andrew I was then also known as "Andrew the Catholic" for his extreme aversion to pagans and great loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church. The provenance of Margaret's mother, Agatha, is disputed, but Margaret was born in Hungary c. 1045. Her brother Edgar the ¥theling and sister Cristina were also born in Hungary around this time. Margaret grew up in a very religious environment in the Hungarian court.

Return to England

Still a child, she came to England with the rest of her family when her father, Edward the Exile, was recalled in 1057 as a possible successor to her great-uncle, the childless King Edward the Confessor. Whether from natural or sinister causes, her father died immediately after landing, and Margaret continued to reside at the English court where her brother, Edgar ¥theling, was considered a possible successor to the English throne.[1] When Edward the Confessor died in January 1066, Harold Godwinson was selected as king, possibly because Edgar was considered too young. After Harold's defeat at the Battle of Hastings later that year, Edgar was proclaimed King of England, but when the Normans advanced on London, the Witenagemot presented Edgar to William the Conqueror, who took him to Normandy before returning him to England in 1068, when Edgar, Margaret, Cristina, and their mother Agatha fled north to Northumbria, England.

Journey to Scotland

According to tradition, the widowed Agatha decided to leave Northumbria, England with her children and return to the continent. However, a storm drove their ship north to the Kingdom of Scotland in 1068, where they sought the protection of King Malcolm III. The locus where it is believed that they landed is known today as St Margaret's Hope, near the village of North Queensferry, Fife, Scotland. Margaret's arrival in Scotland, after the failed revolt of the Northumbrian earls, has been heavily romanticized, though Symeon of Durham implied that her first meeting of Malcolm III may not have been until 1070, after William the Conqueror's Harrying of the North.

King Malcolm III was a widower with two sons, Donald and Duncan. He would have been attracted to marrying one of the few remaining members of the Anglo-Saxon royal family. The marriage of Malcolm and Margaret occurred in 1070. Subsequently, Malcolm executed several invasions of Northumberland to support the claim of his new brother-in-law Edgar and to increase his own power. These, however, had little effect save the devastation of the County.[2]

Progeny

Margaret and Malcolm had eight children, six sons and two daughters:

Edward (c. 1071 — 13 November 1093), killed along with his father Malcolm III in the Battle of Alnwick
Edmund of Scotland (c.1071 – post 1097)
Ethelred of Scotland, Abbot of Dunkeld, Perth and Kinross, Scotland
Edgar of Scotland (c.1074 — 11 January 1107), King of Scotland, regnat 1097-1107
Alexander I of Scotland (c.1078 — 23 April 1124), King of Scotland, regnat 1107-24
Edith of Scotland (c. 1080 – 1 May 1118), also named "Matilda", married King Henry I of England, Queen Consort of England
Mary of Scotland (1082-1116), married Eustace III of Boulogne
David I of Scotland (c.1083 – 24 May 1153), King of Scotland, regnat 1124-53

Piety

Malcolm greeting Margaret at her arrival in Scotland; detail of a mural by Victorian artist William Hole
Margaret's biographer Turgot of Durham, Bishop of St. Andrew's, credits her with having a civilizing influence on her husband Malcolm by reading him narratives from the Bible. She instigated religious reform, striving to conform the worship and practices of the Church in Scotland to those of Rome. This she did on the inspiration and with the guidance of Lanfranc, a future Archbishop of Canterbury.[3] She also worked to conform the practices of the Scottish Church to those of the continental Church, which she experienced in her childhood. Due to these achievements, she was considered an exemplar of the "just ruler", and moreover influenced her husband and children, especially her youngest son, the future King David I of Scotland, to be just and holy rulers.

"The chroniclers all agree in depicting Queen Margaret as a strong, pure, noble character, who had very great influence over her husband, and through him over Scottish history, especially in its ecclesiastical aspects. Her religion, which was genuine and intense, was of the newest Roman style; and to her are attributed a number of reforms by which the Church [in] Scotland was considerably modified from the insular and primitive type which down to her time it had exhibited. Among those expressly mentioned are a change in the manner of observing Lent, which thenceforward began as elsewhere on Ash Wednesday and not as previously on the following Monday, and the abolition of the old practice of observing Saturday (Sabbath), not Sunday, as the day of rest from labour (see Skene's Celtic Scotland, book ii chap. 8)."[4] The later editions of the Encyclopµdia Britannica, however, as an example, the Eleventh Edition, remove Skene's opinion that Scottish Catholics formerly rested from work on Saturday, something for which there is no historical evidence. Skene's Celtic Scotland, vol. ii, chap. 8, pp. 348–350, quotes from a contemporary document regarding Margaret's life, but his source says nothing at all of Saturday Sabbath observance, but rather says St. Margaret exhorted the Scots to cease their tendency "to neglect the due observance of the Lord's day."

She attended to charitable works, serving orphans and the poor every day before she ate and washing the feet of the poor in imitation of Christ. She rose at midnight every night to attend the liturgy. She successfully invited the Benedictine Order to establish a monastery in Dunfermline, Fife in 1072, and established ferries at Queensferry and North Berwick to assist pilgrims journeying from south of the Firth of Forth to St. Andrew's in Fife. She used a cave on the banks of the Tower Burn in Dunfermline as a place of devotion and prayer. St. Margaret's Cave, now covered beneath a municipal car park, is open to the public.[5] Among other deeds, Margaret also instigated the restoration of Iona Abbey in Scotland.[6] She is also known to have interceded for the release of fellow English exiles who had been forced into serfdom by the Norman conquest of England.[7]

Margaret was as pious privately as she was publicly. She spent much of her time in prayer, devotional reading, and ecclesiastical embroidery. This apparently had considerable effect on the more uncouth Malcolm, who was illiterate: he so admired her piety that he had her books decorated in gold and silver. One of these, a pocket gospel book with portraits of the Evangelists, is in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England.[8]

Malcolm was apparently largely ignorant of the long-term effects of Margaret's endeavours, not being especially religious himself. He was content for her to pursue her reforms as she desired, which was a testament to the strength of and affection in their marriage.[6]

Death

Her husband Malcolm III, and their eldest son Edward, were killed in the Battle of Alnwick against the English on 13 November 1093. Her son Edgar was left with the task of informing his mother of their deaths. Margaret was not yet 50 years old, but a life of constant austerity and fasting had taken its toll.[3] Already ill, Margaret died on 16 November 1093, three days after the deaths of her husband and eldest son. She was buried before the high altar in Dunfermline Abbey in Fife, Scotland. In 1250, the year of her canonization, her body and that of her husband were exhumed and placed in a new shrine in the Abbey. In 1560 Mary Queen of Scots had Margaret's head removed to Edinburgh Castle as a relic to assist her in childbirth. In 1597 Margaret's head ended up with the Jesuits at the Scottish College, Douai, France, but was lost during the French Revolution. King Philip of Spain had the other remains of Margaret and Malcolm III transferred to the Escorial palace in Madrid, Spain, but their present location has not been discovered.[9]

Veneration

Site of the ruined Shrine of St. Margaret at Dunfermline Abbey, Fife, Scotland

St Margaret's Chapel in Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland

St Margaret's Church in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland
Canonization and feast day[edit]
Pope Innocent IV canonized St. Margaret in 1250 in recognition of her personal holiness, fidelity to the Roman Catholic Church, work for ecclesiastical reform, and charity. On 19 June 1250, after her canonisation, her remains were transferred to a chapel in the eastern apse of Dunfermline Abbey in Fife, Scotland.[10] In 1693 Pope Innocent XII moved her feast day to 10 June in recognition of the birthdate of the son of James VII of Scotland and II of England.[11] In the revision of the General Roman Calendar in 1969, 16 November became free and the Church transferred her feast day to 16 November, the date of her death, on which it always had been observed in Scotland.[12] However, some traditionalist Catholics continue to celebrate her feast day on 10 June.

She is also venerated as a saint in the Anglican Church.

Institutions bearing her name

Several churches throughout the world are dedicated in honour of St Margaret. One of the oldest is St Margaret's Chapel in Edinburgh Castle in Edinburgh, Scotland, which her son King David I founded. The Chapel was long thought to have been the oratory of Margaret herself, but is now thought to have been established in the 12th century. The oldest edifice in Edinburgh, it was restored in the 19th century and refurbished in the 1990s. Numerous other institutions are named for her as well.

end of this biography

Notes:

Married:
She is part of the English royal family fleeing the Normans after 1066.

Children:

24195. Matilda of Scotland, Queen of England was born in 1080 in Dumfermline, Scotland; died on 1 May 1118 in Westminster Palace, Westminster, London, Middlesex, England; was buried in Westminster Abbey, 20 Deans Yd, London SW1P 3PA, United Kingdom.
Mary of Scotland was born in 1082 in Dumfermline, Scotland; died in 1116.
22200. David I of Scotland, King of the Scots was born in ~1085 in Dumfermline, Scotland; died on 24 May 1154 in Carlisle, Scotland; was buried in Dunfermline Abbey, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland.

44292.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: 1046, Northumberland, England

Notes:

Waltheof, 1st Earl of Northumbria (d. 31 May 1076) was the last of the Anglo-Saxon earls and the only English aristocrat to be executed during the reign of William I.

Earl of Northumbria
Reign 1072–1076
Predecessor Cospatrick of Northumbria
Successor William Walcher
Died 31 May 1076
St. Giles's Hill, Winchester
Buried Croyland Abbey
Spouse(s) Judith of Lens
Father Siward, Earl of Northumbria
Mother Aelfflaed

Early life

Waltheof was the second son of Siward, Earl of Northumbria. His mother was Aelfflaed, daughter of Ealdred, Earl of Bernicia, son of Uhtred, Earl of Northumbria. In 1054, Waltheof’s brother, Osbearn, who was much older than he, was killed in battle, making Waltheof his father’s heir. Siward himself died in 1055, and Waltheof being far too young to succeed as Earl of Northumbria, King Edward appointed Tostig Godwinson to the earldom.

Waltheof was said to be devout and charitable and was probably educated for a monastic life. Around 1065, however, he became an earl, governing Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire. Following the Battle of Hastings he submitted to William and was allowed to keep his pre-Conquest title and possessions. He remained at William’s court until 1068.
First revolt

When Sweyn II invaded Northern England in 1069, Waltheof and Edgar Aetheling joined the Danes and took part in the attack on York. He would again make a fresh submission to William after the departure of the invaders in 1070. He was restored to his earldom, and went on to marry William's niece, Judith of Lens. In 1072, he was appointed Earl of Northampton.

The Domesday Book mentions Waltheof ("Walleff"): "'In Hallam ("Halun"), one manor with its sixteen hamlets, there are twenty-nine carucates [~14 km²] to be taxed. There Earl Waltheof had an "Aula" [hall or court]. There may have been about twenty ploughs. This land Roger de Busli holds of the Countess Judith." (Hallam, or Hallamshire, is now part of the city of Sheffield)

In 1072, William expelled Gospatric from the earldom of Northumbria. Gospatric was Waltheof’s cousin and had taken part in the attack on York with him, but like Waltheof, had been pardoned by William. Gospatric fled into exile and William appointed Waltheof as the new earl.

Waltheof had many enemies in the north. Amongst them were members of a family who had killed Waltheof’s maternal great-grandfather, Uchtred the Bold, and his grandfather Ealdred. This was part of a long-running blood feud. In 1074, Waltheof moved against the family by sending his retainers to ambush them, succeeding in killing the two eldest of four brothers.
Second revolt and death

In 1075 Waltheof joined the Revolt of the Earls against William. His motives for taking part in the revolt are unclear, as is the depth of his involvement. However he repented, confessing his guilt first to Archbishop Lanfranc and then in person to William, who was at the time in Normandy. He returned to England with William but was arrested, brought twice before the king's court and sentenced to death.

He spent almost a year in confinement before being beheaded on 31 May 1076 at St. Giles's Hill, near Winchester. He was said to have spent the months of his captivity in prayer and fasting. Many people believed in his innocence and were surprised when the execution was carried out. His body was initially thrown into a ditch, but was later retrieved and buried in the chapter house of Crowland Abbey in Lincolnshire.
Cult of martyrdom
statue traditionally identified as Waltheof, at Croyland Abbey, west front of ruined nave, 4th tier

In 1092, after a fire in the chapter house, the abbot had Waltheof’s body moved to a prominent place in the abbey church. When the coffin was opened, it is reported that the corpse was found to be intact with the severed head re-joined to the trunk.[1] This was regarded as a miracle, and the abbey, which had a financial interest in the matter began to publicise it. As a result, pilgrims began to visit Waltheof’s tomb. He was commemorated on 31 August.[2][3]

After a few years healing miracles were reputed to occur in the vicinity of Waltheof’s tomb, often involving the restoration of the pilgrim’s lost sight.

Waltheof also became the subject of popular media, heroic but inaccurate accounts of his life being preserved in the Vita et Passio Waldevi comitis, a Middle English Waltheof saga, since lost, and the Anglo-Norman Waldef.
Family and children

In 1070 Waltheof married Judith de Lens, daughter of Lambert II, Count of Lens and Adelaide of Normandy, Countess of Aumale. They had three children, the eldest of whom, Maud, brought the earldom of Huntingdon to her second husband, David I of Scotland, and another, Adelise, married the Anglo-Norman noble Raoul III of Tosny.

One of Waltheof's grandsons was Waltheof (d. 1159), abbot of Melrose.
In popular culture

Waltheof was portrayed by actor Marcus Gilbert in the TV drama Blood Royal: William the Conqueror (1990).
Waltheof is the subject of Juliet Dymoke's 1970 historical novel Of the Ring of Earls
Waltheof is a major character in Elizabeth Chadwick's 2002 historical novel The Winter Mantle

end of biography

Buried:
Images & History of Crowland Abbey: https://www.crowlandabbey.org.uk/

44293.

Notes:

Countess Judith (born in Normandy between 1054 and 1055, died after 1086), was a niece of William the Conqueror. She was a daughter of his sister Adelaide of Normandy, Countess of Aumale and Lambert II, Count of Lens.
Life

In 1070, Judith married Earl Waltheof of Huntingdon and Northumbria. They had three children. Their eldest daughter, Maud, brought the earldom of Huntingdon to her second husband, David I of Scotland. Their daughter, Adelise, married Raoul III de Conches whose sister, Godehilde, married Baldwin I of Jerusalem.

In 1075, Waltheof joined the Revolt of the Earls against William. It was the last serious act of resistance against the Norman conquest of England. Judith betrayed Waltheof to her uncle, who had Waltheof beheaded on 31 May 1076.

After Waltheof's execution Judith was betrothed by William to Simon I of St. Liz, 1st Earl of Northampton. Judith refused to marry Simon and she fled the country to avoid William's anger. William then temporarily confiscated all of Judith's English estates. Finally, Simon married Judith's daughter, Maud, in or before 1090.

Judith founded Elstow Abbey in Bedfordshire around 1078. She also founded churches at Kempston and Hitchin.

She had land-holdings in 10 counties in the Midlands and East Anglia. Her holdings included land at:

Earls Barton, Northamptonshire
Great Doddington, Northamptonshire
Grendon, Northamptonshire
Ashby Folville, Leicestershire
Lowesby, Leicestershire
Merton, Oxfordshire
Piddington, Oxfordshire
Potton, Bedfordshire
Sawtry, Huntingdonshire

The parish of Sawtry Judith in Huntingdonshire is named after the Countess.
From the Domesday Book

In POTONE Hugh holds ½ virgate of land from the Countess. Land for 1 plough; it is there, with 1 smallholder. The value is and was 5s; before 1066, 2s. Earl Tosti held this land in Potton, his manor.

Countess Judith holds POTONE herself. It answers for 10 hides. Land for 12 ploughs. In lordship 3½ hides; 3 ploughs there. 18 villagers and 2 Freemen with 8 ploughs; a ninth possible. 13 smallholders and 3 slaves. 1 mill, 5s; meadow for 12 ploughs; pasture for the village livestock. In total, value ¹12; when acquired 100s; before 1066 ¹13. King Edward held this manor; it was Earl Tosti's. There were 4 Freemen who had 1 hide and 1 virgate; they could grant to whom they would.

In (Cockayne) HATLEY Countess Judith holds 3 hides and 2½ virgates as one manor. Land for 6½ ploughs. In lordship 1 hide and ½ virgate; 2 ploughs there. 8 villagers with 4½ ploughs; woodland, 4 pigs. Value ¹6 5s; when acquired 100s; before 1066 ¹6. Earl Tosti held this manor. It lies in Potton, the Countess' own manor. A Freeman had 1 virgate; he could grant and sell, and withdraw to another lord.

Ranulf brother of Ilger holds EVERTON from the Countess. It answers for 5 hides. Land for 5 ploughs; 2 ploughs there; 3 possible. 4 villagers; 5 smallholders. Meadow for 1 plough. Value ¹3; when acquired 100s; as much before 1066. Earl Tosti held this manor. It lay in Potton, the Countess' own manor.

end of biography

Children:

96483. Maud of Huntingdon, Queen Consort of Scotland was born in ~1074 in Northumberland, England; died in 1130-1131 in Scone, Perthshire, Scotland; was buried in Scone Abbey, Perthshire, Scotland.
Uctred FitzWaltheof was born after 1070 in Tynedale, Scotland; died in 1152 in Johnstone, Dumfries-shire, Scotland.

22250.

Sir Ranulf Meschin, Knight, 1st Earl of Chester was born in 0___ 1070 in (Bayeux, Normandy, France); died in 0Jan 1129 in Cheshire, England; was buried in Chester Abbey, Cheshire, England.

Notes:

Biography

Family and origins

Ranulf le Meschin's father and mother represented two different families of viscounts in Normandy, and both of them were strongly tied to Henry, son of William the Conqueror.[1] His father was Ranulf de Briquessart, and likely for this reason the former Ranulf was styled le Meschin, "the younger".[2] Ranulf's father was viscount of the Bessin, the area around Bayeux.[3] Besides Odo, bishop of Bayeux, Ranulf the elder was the most powerful magnate in the Bessin region of Normandy.[4] Ranulf le Meschin's great-grandmother may even have been from the ducal family of Normandy, as le Meschin's paternal great-grandfather viscount Anschitil is known to have married a daughter of Duke Richard III.[5]

Ranulf le Meschin's mother, Margaret, was the daughter of Richard le Goz, Viscount of Avranches.[1] Richard's father Thurstan Goz had become viscount of the Hiâemois between 1017 and 1025,[6] while Richard himself became viscount of the Avranchin in either 1055 or 1056.[7] Her brother (Richard Goz's son) was Hugh d'Avranches "Lupus" ("the Wolf"), viscount of the Avranchin and Earl of Chester (from c. 1070).[8] Ranulf was thus, in addition to being heir to the Bessin, the nephew of one of Norman England's most powerful and prestigious families.[9]

We know from an entry in the Durham Liber Vitae, c. 1098 x 1120, that Ranulf le Meschin had an older brother named Richard (who died in youth), and a younger brother named William.[10] He had a sister called Agnes, who later married Robert de Grandmesnil (died 1136).[2]

Early career

Historian C. Warren Hollister thought that Ranulf's father Ranulf de Briquessart was one of the early close companions of Prince Henry, the future Henry I.[4] Hollister called Ranulf the Elder "a friend from Henry's youthful days in western Normandy",[11] and argued that the homeland of the two Ranulfs had been under Henry's overlordship since 1088, despite both ducal and royal authority lying with Henry's two brothers.[12] Hollister further suggested that Ranulf le Meschin may have had a role in persuading Robert Curthose to free Henry from captivity in 1089.[13]

The date of Ranulf senior's death, and succession of Ranulf junior, is unclear, but the former's last and the latter's earliest appearance in extant historical records coincides, dating to 24 April 1089 in charter of Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, to Bayeux Cathedral.[14] Ranulf le Meschin appears as "Ranulf son of Ranulf the viscount".[14]

In the foundation charter of Chester Abbey granted by his uncle Hugh Lupus, earl of Chester, and purportedly issued in 1093, Ranulf le Meschin is listed as a witness.[15] His attestation to this grant is written Signum Ranulfi nepotis comitis, "signature of Ranulf nephew of the earl".[16] However, the editor of the Chester comital charters, Geoffrey Barraclough, thought this charter was forged in the period of Earl Ranulf II.[17] Between 1098 and 1101 (probably in 1098) Ranulf became a major English landowner in his own right when he became the third husband of Lucy, heiress of the honour of Bolingbroke in Lincolnshire.[18] This acquisition also brought him the lordship of Appleby in Westmorland, previously held by Lucy's second husband Ivo Taillebois.[2]

Marriage to a great heiress came only with royal patronage, which in turn meant that Ranulf had to be respected and trusted by the king. Ranulf was probably, like his father, among the earliest and most loyal of Henry's followers, and was noted as such by Orderic Vitalis.[19] Ranulf was however not recorded often at the court of Henry I, and did not form part of the king's closest group of administrative advisers.[20] He witnessed charters only occasionally, though this became more frequent after he became earl.[21] In 1106 he is found serving as one of several justiciars at York hearing a case about the lordship of Ripon.[22] In 1116 he is recorded in a similar context.[2]

Ranulf was, however, one of the king's military companions. When, soon after Whitsun 1101 Henry heard news of a planned invasion of England by his brother Robert Curthose, he sought promises from his subjects to defend the kingdom.[23] A letter to the men of Lincolnshire names Ranulf as one of four figures entrusted with collecting these oaths.[24] Ranulf was one of the magnates who accompanied King Henry on his invasion of Duke Robert's Norman territory in 1106.[25] Ranulf served under Henry as an officer of the royal household when the latter was on campaign; Ranulf was in fact one of his three commanders at the Battle of Tinchebrai.[26] The first line of Henry's force was led by Ranulf, the second (with the king) by Robert of Meulan, and third by William de Warrene, with another thousand knights from Brittany and Maine led by Helias, Count of Maine.[27] Ranulf's line consisted of the men of Bayeux, Avranches and Coutances.[28]

Lord of Cumberland

The gatehouse of Wetheral Priory, founded by Ranulf c. 1106.
A charter issued in 1124 by David I, King of the Scots, to Robert I de Brus cited Ranulf's lordship of Carlisle and Cumberland as a model for Robert's new lordship in Annandale.[29] This is significant because Robert is known from other sources to have acted with semi-regal authority in this region.[2] A source from 1212 attests that the jurors of Cumberland remembered Ranulf as quondam dominus Cumberland ("sometime Lord of Cumberland").[30] Ranulf possessed the power and in some respects the dignity of a semi-independent earl in the region, though he lacked the formal status of being called such. A contemporary illustration of this authority comes from the records of Wetheral Priory, where Ranulf is found addressing his own sheriff, "Richer" (probably Richard de Boivill, baron of Kirklinton).[31] Indeed, no royal activity occurred in Cumberland or Westmorland during Ranulf's time in charge there, testimony to the fullness of his powers in the region.[32]

Ivo Taillebois, when he married Ranulf's future wife Lucy, had acquired her Lincolnshire lands but sometime after 1086 he acquired estates in Kendal and elsewhere in Westmorland. Adjacent lands in Westmorland and Lancashire that had previously been controlled by Earl Tostig Godwinson were probably carved up between Roger the Poitevin and Ivo in the 1080s, a territorial division at least partially responsible for the later boundary between the two counties.[33] Norman lordship in the heartland of Cumberland can be dated from chronicle sources to around 1092, the year King William Rufus seized the region from its previous ruler, Dolfin.[34] There is inconclusive evidence that settlers from Ivo's Lincolnshire lands had come into Cumberland as a result.[35]

Between 1094 and 1098 Lucy was married to Roger fitz Gerold de Roumare, and it is probable that this marriage was the king's way of transferring authority in the region to Roger fitz Gerold.[36] Only from 1106 however, well into the reign of Henry I, do we have certain evidence that this authority had come to Ranulf.[2] The "traditional view", held by the historian William Kapelle, was that Ranulf's authority in the region did not come about until 1106 or after, as a reward for participation in the Battle of Tinchebrai.[37] Another historian, Richard Sharpe, has recently attacked this view and argued that it probably came in or soon after 1098. Sharpe stressed that Lucy was the mechanism by which this authority changed hands, and pointed out that Ranulf had been married to Lucy years before Tinchebrai and can be found months before Tinchebrai taking evidence from county jurors at York (which may have been responsible for Cumbria at this point).[38]

Ranulf likewise distributed land to the church, founding a Benedictine monastic house at Wetheral.[39] This he established as a daughter-house of St Mary's Abbey, York, a house that in turn had been generously endowed by Ivo Taillebois.[30] This had occurred by 1112, the year of the death of Abbot Stephen of St Mary's, named in the foundation deed.[40] In later times at least, the priory of Wetheral was dedicated to St Mary and the Holy Trinity, as well as another saint named Constantine.[41] Ranulf gave Wetheral, among other things, his two churches at Appleby, St Lawrences (Burgate) and St Michaels (Bongate).[42]

As an incoming regional magnate Ranulf would be expected to distribute land to his own followers, and indeed the record of the jurors of Cumberland dating to 1212 claimed that Ranulf created two baronies in the region.[43] Ranulf's brother-in-law Robert de Trevers received the barony of Burgh-by-Sands, while the barony of Liddel went to Turgis Brandos.[30] He appears to have attempted to give the large compact barony of Gilsland to his brother William, but failed to dislodge the native lord, the eponymous "Gille" son of Boite; later the lordship of Allerdale (including Copeland), even larger than Gilsland stretching along the coast from the River Ellen to the River Esk, was given to William.[44] Kirklinton may have been given to Richard de Boivill, Ranulf's sheriff.[2]

Earl of Chester

Chester Cathedral today, originally Chester Abbey, where Ranulf's body was buried.
1120 was a fateful year for both Henry I and Ranulf. Richard, earl of Chester, like Henry's son and heir William Adeling, died in the White Ship Disaster near Barfleur on 25 November.[2] Only four days before the disaster, Ranulf and his cousin Richard had witnessed a charter together at Cerisy.[2]

Henry probably could not wait long to replace Richard, as the Welsh were resurgent under the charismatic leadership of Gruffudd ap Cynan. According to the Historia Regum, Richard's death prompted the Welsh to raid Cheshire, looting, killing, and burning two castles.[45] Perhaps because of his recognised military ability and social strength, because he was loyal and because he was the closest male relation to Earl Richard, Henry recognized Ranulf as Richard's successor to the county of Chester.[46]

In 1123, Henry sent Ranulf to Normandy with a large number of knights and with his bastard son, Robert, Earl of Gloucester, to strengthen the garrisons there.[47] Ranulf commanded the king's garrison at âEvreux and governed the county of âEvreux during the 1123-1124 war with William Clito, Robert Curthose's son and heir.[48] In March 1124 Ranulf assisted in the capture of Waleran, Count of Meulan.[49] Scouts informed Ranulf that Waleran's forces were planning an expedition to Vatteville, and Ranulf planned an to intercept them, a plan carried out by Henry de Pommeroy, Odo Borleng and William de Pont-Authou, with 300 knights.[50] A battle followed, perhaps at Rougemontier (or Bourgthâeroulde), in which Waleran was captured.[51]

Although Ranulf bore the title "earl of Chester", the honour (i.e., group of estates) which formed the holdings of the earl of Chester were scattered throughout England, and during the rule of his predecessors included the cantref of Tegeingl in Perfeddwlad in north-western Wales.[52] Around 1100, only a quarter of the value of the honour actually lay in Cheshire, which was one of England's poorest and least developed counties.[53] The estates elsewhere were probably given to the earls in compensation for Cheshire's poverty, in order to strengthen its vulnerable position on the Anglo-Welsh border.[54] The possibility of conquest and booty in Wales should have supplemented the lordship's wealth and attractiveness, but for much of Henry's reign the English king tried to keep the neighboring Welsh princes under his peace.[55]

Ranulf's accession may have involved him giving up many of his other lands, including much of his wife's Lincolnshire lands as well as his lands in Cumbria, though direct evidence for this beyond convenient timing is lacking.[56] That Cumberland was given up at this point is likely, as King Henry visited Carlisle in December 1122, where, according to the Historia Regum, he ordered the strengthening of the castle.[57]

Hollister believed that Ranulf offered the Bolingbroke lands to Henry in exchange for Henry's bestowal of the earldom.[13] The historian A. T. Thacker believed that Henry I forced Ranulf to give up most of the Bolingbroke lands through fear that Ranulf would become too powerful, dominating both Cheshire and the richer county of Lincoln.[58] Sharpe, however, suggested that Ranulf may have had to sell a great deal of land in order to pay the king for the county of Chester, though it could not have covered the whole fee, as Ranulf's son Ranulf de Gernon, when he succeeded his father to Chester in 1129, owed the king ¹1000 "from his father's debt for the land of Earl Hugh".[59] Hollister thought this debt was merely the normal feudal relief expected to be paid on a large honour, and suggested that Ranulf's partial non-payment, or Henry's forgiveness for non-payment, was a form of royal patronage.[60]

Ranulf died in January 1129, and was buried in Chester Abbey.[2] He was survived by his wife and countess, Lucy, and succeeded by his son Ranulf de Gernon.[2] A daughter, Alicia, married Richard de Clare, a lord in the Anglo-Welsh marches.[2] One of his offspring, his fifth son, participated in the Siege of Lisbon, and for this aid was granted the Lordship of Azambuja by King Afonso I of Portugal.[2]

That his career had some claim on the popular imagination may be inferred from lines in William Langland's Piers Plowman (c. 1362–c. 1386) in which Sloth, the lazy priest, confesses: "I kan [know] not parfitly [perfectly] my Paternoster as the preest it singeth,/ But I kan rymes of Robyn Hood and Randolf Erl of Chestre."[61]

end

Ranulf married Lucy of Bolingbroke. Lucy died in 1138. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

22251.

Lucy of Bolingbroke died in 1138.

Children:

22204. Sir Ranulf de Gernon, II, Knight, 4th Earl of Chester was born in 0___ 1099 in Guernon Castle, Calvados, France; died on 16 Dec 1153 in Cheshire, England.
Alice de Gernon

24100.

Sir Robert FitzRoy, Knight, 1st Earl of Gloucester was born before 1100 in (France) (son of Henry I, King of England and unnamed partner); died on 31 Oct 1147.

Notes:

Robert Fitzroy, 1st Earl of Gloucester (before 1100 – 31 October 1147[1]) (alias Robert Rufus, Robert de Caen, Robert Consul[2][3]) was an illegitimate son of King Henry I of England. He was the half-brother of the Empress Matilda, and her chief military supporter during the civil war known as The Anarchy, in which she vied with Stephen of Blois for the throne of England.

Early life

Robert was probably the eldest of Henry's many illegitimate children.[1] He was born before his father's accession to the English throne, either during the reign of his grandfather William the Conqueror or his uncle William Rufus.[4] He is sometimes and erroneously designated as a son of Nest, daughter of Rhys ap Tewdwr, last king of Deheubarth, although his mother has been identified as a member of "the Gay or Gayt family of north Oxfordshire",[5] possibly a daughter of Rainald Gay (fl. 1086) of Hampton Gay and Northbrook Gay in Oxfordshire. Rainald had known issue Robert Gaay of Hampton (died c. 1138) and Stephen Gay of Northbrook (died after 1154). A number of Oxfordshire women feature as the mothers of Robert's siblings.[5][6]

He may have been a native of Caen[1][7] or he may have been only Constable and Governor of that city, jure uxoris.[2]

His father had contracted him in marriage to Mabel FitzHamon, daughter and heir of Robert Fitzhamon, but the marriage was not solemnized until June 1119 at Lisieux.[1][8] His wife brought him the substantial honours of Gloucester in England and Glamorgan in Wales, and the honours of Sainte-Scholasse-sur-Sarthe and âEvrecy in Normandy, as well as Creully. After the White Ship disaster late in 1120, and probably because of this marriage,[9] in 1121 or 1122 his father created him Earl of Gloucester.[10]

Family

Robert and his wife Mabel FitzHamon had seven children:[11]

William FitzRobert (111?–1183): succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of Gloucester
Roger FitzRobert (died 1179): Bishop of Worcester
Hamon FitzRobert (died 1159): killed at the siege of Toulouse.
Philip FitzRobert (died after 1147): lord of Cricklade
Matilda FitzRobert (died 1190): married in 1141 Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester.
Mabel FitzRobert: married Aubrey de Vere
Richard FitzRobert (1120/35-1175): succeeded his mother as Sire de Creully.
He also had four illegitimate children:

Richard FitzRobert (died 1142): Bishop of Bayeux [mother: Isabel de Douvres, sister of Richard de Douvres, bishop of Bayeux (1107–1133)]
Robert FitzRobert (died 1170): Castellan of Gloucester, married in 1147 Hawise de Reviers (daughter of Baldwin de Reviers, 1st Earl of Devon and his first wife Adelisa), had daughter Mabel FitzRobert (married firstly Jordan de Chambernon and secondly William de Soliers)
Mabel FitzRobert: married Gruffud, Lord of Senghenydd, son of Ifor Bach. This couple were ancestors of Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the U.S.A.[12]
Father of Thomas

Relationship with King Stephen

There is evidence in the contemporary source, the Gesta Stephani, that Robert was proposed by some as a candidate for the throne, but his illegitimacy ruled him out:

"Among others came Robert, Earl of Gloucester, son of King Henry, but a bastard, a man of proved talent and admirable wisdom. When he was advised, as the story went, to claim the throne on his father's death, deterred by sounder advice he by no means assented, saying it was fairer to yield it to his sister's son (the future Henry II of England), than presumptuously to arrogate it to himself."
This suggestion cannot have led to any idea that he and Stephen were rivals for the Crown, as Geoffrey of Monmouth in 1136 referred to Robert as one of the 'pillars' of the new King's rule.

The capture of King Stephen at the Battle of Lincoln on 2 February 1141 gave the Empress Matilda the upper hand in her battle for the throne, but by alienating the citizens of London she failed to be crowned Queen. Her forces were defeated at the Rout of Winchester on 14 September 1141, and Robert of Gloucester was captured nearby at Stockbridge.

The two prisoners, King Stephen and Robert of Gloucester, were then exchanged, but by freeing Stephen, the Empress Matilda had given up her best chance of becoming queen. She later returned to France, where she died in 1167, though her son succeeded Stephen as King Henry II in 1154.

Robert of Gloucester died in 1147 at Bristol Castle, where he had previously imprisoned King Stephen, and was buried at St James' Priory, Bristol, which he had founded.

In popular culture

Robert of Gloucester was a central character in the struggle during The Anarchy as portrayed in Ken Follet's 2003 novel The Pillars of the Earth and in the 2010 mini-series of the same name.

Robert is also a figure in many of the novels by Ellis Peters in the Cadfael Chronicles, where he is seen as a strong moderating force to his half-sister (see Saint Peter's Fair). His efforts to gain the crown for his sister by capturing King Stephen and her own actions in London are part of the plot in The Pilgrim of Hate. His capture by Stephen's wife Queen Mathilda is in the background of the plot of An Excellent Mystery. The exchange of the imprisoned Robert for the imprisoned Stephen is in the background of the plot of The Raven in the Foregate. Robert's travels to persuade his brother-in-law to aid his wife Empress Maud militarily in England is in the background of the novel The Rose Rent. His return to England when Empress Maud is trapped in Oxford Castle figures in The Hermit of Eyton Forest. Robert's return to England with his young nephew Henry, years later the king succeeding Stephen, is in the background of the plot of The Confession of Brother Haluin, as the battles begin anew with Robert's military guidance. Robert's success in the Battle of Wilton (1143) leads to the death of a fictional character, part of the plot of The Potter's Field. In the last novel, he is a father who can disagree with then forgive his son Philip (see the last novel, Brother Cadfael's Penance). In that last novel, Brother Cadfael speculates on the possibly different path for England if the first son of old King Henry, the illegitimate Robert of Gloucester, had been recognised and accepted. In Wales of that era, a son was not illegitimate if recognized by his father, and to many in the novels, Robert of Gloucester seemed the best of the contenders to succeed his father.

Footnotes

^ Jump up to: a b c d David Crouch, ‘Robert, first earl of Gloucester (b. before 1100, d. 1147)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006 accessed 1 Oct 2010
^ Jump up to: a b "Complete Peerage" Vol IV(1892), p38, "Gloucester", "Robert filius Regis" quoting Round "Consul is often used for Earl in the time of the first age of the Norman Kings"
Jump up ^ The Complete Peerage claims only that he is "described" as consul, as are most Earls of his time.
Jump up ^ William of Malmesbury
^ Jump up to: a b David Crouch, Historical Research, 1999
Jump up ^ C. Given-Wilson & A. Curteis. The Royal Bastards of Medieval England (London, 1984) (ISBN 0-415-02826-4), page 74
Jump up ^ Cawley, Charles, "Henry I", Medlands, Medieval Lands database, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy,[better source needed]
Jump up ^ "Complete Peerage", "Gloucester"
Jump up ^ "In the aftermath of the White Ship disaster of 1120, when his younger and legitimate half-brother, William, died, Robert shared in the largesse that the king distributed to reassert his political position. Robert was given the marriage of Mabel, the heir of Robert fitz Haimon, whose lands in the west country and Glamorgan had been in royal wardship since 1107. The marriage also brought Robert the Norman honours of Evrecy and St Scholasse-sur-Sarthe. Robert was raised to the rank of earl of Gloucester soon after, probably by the end of 1121." David Crouch, ‘Robert, first earl of Gloucester (b. before 1100, d. 1147)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006 accessed 1 Oct 2010
Jump up ^ CP citing Round for between May 1121 and the end of 1122, but see William of Malmesbury, ed Giles who cites 1119
Jump up ^ Cawley, Charles. Cawley, Charles, Medieval Lands: England, Earls Created 1067–1122, Chapter 11, Medieval Lands database, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy,[better source needed]
Jump up ^ Descent of Franklin Pierce from Henry I Beauclerc

Sources

J. Bradbury, Stephen and Matilda: The Civil War of 1139–53 (Stroud, 1996)
D. Crouch, "Robert of Gloucester's Mother and Sexual Politics in Norman Oxfordshire", Historical Research, 72 (1999) 323–332.
D. Crouch, 'Robert, earl of Gloucester and the daughter of Zelophehad,' Journal of Medieval History, 11 (1985), 227–43.
D. Crouch, The Reign of King Stephen, 1135–1154 (London, 2000).
C. Given-Wilson & A. Curteis. The Royal Bastards of Medieval England (London, 1984)
The Personnel of the Norman Cathedrals during the Ducal Period, 911–1204, ed. David S. Spear (London, 2006)
Earldom of Gloucester Charters, ed. R.B. Patterson (Oxford, 1973)
R.B. Patterson, 'William of Malmesbury's Robert of Gloucester: a re-evaluation of the Historia Novella,' American Historical Review, 70 (1965), 983–97.
K. Thompson, 'Affairs of State: the illegitimate children of Henry I,' Journal of Medieval History, 29 (2003), 129–151.
W.M.M. Picken, 'The Descent of the Devon Family of Willington from Robert Earl of Gloucester' in 'A Medieval Cornish Miscellany', Ed. O.J. Padel. (Phillimore, 2000)

24101.

Notes:

Mabel FitzRobert, Countess of Gloucester (1090 – 29 September 1157[1]) was an Anglo-Norman noblewoman, and a wealthy heiress who brought the lordship of Gloucester, among other prestigious honours to her husband, Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester upon their marriage. He was the illegitimate son of King Henry I of England.

Her father was Robert Fitzhamon, Lord of Gloucester and Glamorgan. As she was the eldest daughter of four, and her younger sisters had become nuns, Mabel inherited all of his honours and properties upon his death in 1107.

As Countess of Gloucester, Mabel was significant politically and she exercised an important administrative role in the lordship.[2]

Family[edit]
Mabel was born in Gloucestershire, England c1090 or later, the eldest of the four daughters of Robert FitzHamon, Lord of Gloucester and Glamorgan, and his wife, Sybil de Montgomery. Her three younger sisters, Hawise, Cecile and Amice[3] all became nuns, making Mabel the sole heiress to her father's lordships and vast estates in England, Wales, and Normandy.

Her paternal grandfather was Hamon, Sheriff of Kent, and her maternal grandparents were Roger de Montgomery, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury and Mabel Talvas of Belleme.

In March 1107, her father died in Normandy, leaving his lordships and estates to Mabel. Her mother married secondly Jean, Sire de Raimes.[4]

Cardiff Castle in Wales, was one of the properties Mabel brought her husband, Robert upon their marriage

Marriage

In 1107, Mabel married Robert of Caen,(also called FitzRoy and FitzEdith), an illegitimate son of King Henry I (not by his mistress Sybil Corbet - other sources say Robert's mother was of the Gai family of Oxfordshire). Their marriage is recorded by Orderic Vitalis who also names her parents.[5] He would later become an important figure during the turbulent period in English history known as The Anarchy which occurred in the reign of King Stephen of England. Throughout the civil war, he was a loyal supporter of his half-sister Empress Matilda who would make him the chief commander of her army. He had originally sworn fealty to King Stephen, but after quarrelling with him in 1137, his English and Welsh possessions were forfeited, and thus he joined forces with Matilda.[6]

Countess of Gloucester

Mabel brought to her husband the honours of Gloucester in England, Glamorgan in Wales, Sainte-Scholasse-sur-Sarthe, Evrecy and Creully in Normandy. By right of his wife, he became the 2nd Lord of Glamorgan, and gained possession of her father's castle of Cardiff in Wales. In August 1122, he was created 1st Earl of Gloucester; henceforth, Mabel was styled as Countess of Gloucester.

As countess, Mabel exercised a prominent administrative role in the Gloucester lordship.[7] Her political importance was evident when she was made responsible for seeing that her husband upheld his side of the agreement in the treaty he made with Miles de Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford.[8] She also witnessed four of Robert's charters; as well as giving her personal consent for his foundation of the Abbey of Margam, whose endowment came from her own lands.[9] Later, after Robert's death, Mabel assumed control of the honour of Gloucester's Norman lands on behalf of her eldest son William.[10]

Issue

Together Robert and Mabel had at least eight children:

William Fitz Robert, 2nd Earl of Gloucester (23 November 1112- 23 November 1183), married Hawise de Beaumont by whom he had five children, including Isabella of Gloucester, the first wife of King John of England, and Amice FitzRobert, Countess of Gloucester.
Roger, Bishop of Worcester (died 9 August 1179)
Hamon FitzRobert, (died 1159), killed in the Siege of Toulouse.
Robert FitzRobert of Ilchester (died before 1157), married Hawise de Redvers, by whom he had a daughter Mabel who in her turn married Jordan de Cambernon.
Richard FitzRobert, Sire de Creully (died 1175), inherited the seigneury of Creully from Mabel, and became the ancestor of the Sires de Creully. He married the daughter of Hughes de Montfort by whom he had five children.
Philip FitzRobert, (died after 1147), Castellan of Cricklade. He took part in the Second Crusade.
Maud FitzRobert (died 29 July 1190), married Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester by whom she had three children.
Mabel FitzRobert, married Aubrey de Vere
Robert also sired an illegitimate son, Richard, Bishop of Bayeux by Isabel de Douvres.

Death

Mabel's husband died on 31 October 1147. Mabel herself died on 29 September 1157 in Bristol at the age of sixty-seven years.

References

Jump up ^ Charles Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earls of Gloucester 1122-1225
Jump up ^ Ward, p.106
Jump up ^ Cawley states in Medieval Lands that Amice might have married a count of Brittany, but no further details are known
Jump up ^ Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earl of Gloucester 1122-1225)
Jump up ^ Cawley
Jump up ^ Cawley
Jump up ^ Jennifer C. Ward (2006). Women in England in the Middle Ages. London: Hambledon Continuum. p.106. Google Books, retrieved 27-10-10 ISBN 1-85285-346-8
Jump up ^ Ward, p.106
Jump up ^ Ward, p.106
Jump up ^ Ward, p.106
Charles Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earls of Gloucester 1122-1225

Children:

Sir William FitzRobert, Knight, 2nd Earl of Gloucester was born on 23 Nov 1116 in (Wales); died on 23 Nov 1183 in (Wales).
22205. Lady Maud of Gloucester, Countess of Chester was born in (Gloucestershire, England); died on 29 Jul 1189.
Robert FitzRobert was born in 1110 in England; died in 1170 in England.

44412.

Sir Amaury de Montfort, III, Knight, Count of Evreux was born in 1070 in (Epernon, France) (son of Simon I de Montfort and Agnes d'Evereux); died in ~ 1137.

Notes:

Amaury III de Montfort († 1137) was a French nobleman, the seigneur de Montfort-l'Amaury, âEpernon, and Houdan in the Île-de-France (1098–c.?1137) and count of âEvreux in Normandy, (1118 to c.?1137).

Life[edit]
Amaury was the son of Simon I, seigneur de Montfort, and his wife Agnáes d'âEvreux, daughter of Richard, Count of âEvreux.[1] In 1098, William Rufus was campaigning in France and had just crossed into the French Vexin and one of the first castles attacked was that of Houdan which Amaury III defended.[2] But Amaury quickly surrendered and joined William's army.[2] He then aided William II against his brother Simon II de Montfort's castles of Montfort-l'Amaury and âEpernon.[3] But Simon and the other castellans successfully defended themselves against the forces of William Rufus until a truce was called and William returned to England.[4] When Simon II died c.?1104, Amaury succeeded him as seigneur de Montfort.[1]

When his maternal uncle William, Count of âEvreux died in 1118, he left no direct heirs so Henry I of England seized his lands.[5] Amaury was Henry's most detested enemy.[6] His sister was the notorious Bertrade de Montfort,[a] his nephew was Fulk V of Anjou, and his kinsman King Louis VI of France was related to him by marriage.[6] Amaury had induced his nephew Fulk V to attack Henry's territories in the past[7] while the French and English kings were at odds again.[8] Amaury was the last person he wanted holding a countship in the center of Normandy.[6] After complaining to Louis VI the French king granted the countship of âEvreux to Amaury.[5] For six months Henry kept Amaury out of âEvreux and denied him the county by keeping the castle garrisoned with his own troops until his constable, William Pointel, turned the castle over to his longtime friend Amaury while Henry was in Rouen.[6] Finally Henry offered Amaury the countship of âEvreux if he would surrender the castle.[9] Amaury refused and the rebellion continued with Amaury now encouraging more Normans to defy Henry.[10]

In 1119 Henry besieged the castle of âEvreux anew, but Theobald II, Count of Champagne, Henry's nephew, negotiated a truce between them.[3] Amaury surrendered the castle to the King and on doing so was confirmed as count of âEvreux by Henry.[3] The following year Amaury fought at the battle of Bourgtheroulde supporting William Clito against Henry I but was captured fleeing the field by William de Grandcourt.[3] Rather than turn over his prisoner to Henry, however, William decided to go into exile with Amaury.[3] Amaury made peace with the King later that same year and for the rest of Henry's reign remained on good terms with him.[3]

Marriages and children

He married firstly, Richilde de Hainaut, daughter of Baudouin II, comte de Hainaut but repudiated her in 1118.[1]

In 1118 he remarried, to Agnáes de Garlande, daughter of Anseau de Garlande, Count de Rochefort and N.N. de Rochefort-en-Yvelines.[1] Their children were :

Amaury IV († 1140), count of âEvreux, seigneur de Montfort[1]
Simon III († 1181), count of âEvreux,seigneur de Montfort[1], whose daughter Bertrade married Hugh de Kevelioc, 5th Earl of Chester.
Agnáes († 1181), Dame de Gournay-sur-Marne, married Waleran de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Worcester († 1166)[1]

Amaury married Agnes de Garlande in ~1120 in (France). Agnes was born in ~1105 in Yvelines, Ile-de-France, France; died in 1143 in Seine-et-Marne, Ile-de-France, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44413.

Agnes de Garlande was born in ~1105 in Yvelines, Ile-de-France, France; died in 1143 in Seine-et-Marne, Ile-de-France, France.

Children:

22206. Sir Simon de Montfort, III, Comte d'Evreux was born in 1117-1123 in Montfort-sur-Ris, Eure, France; died on 13 Mar 1181 in Eure, Normandy, France.
Agnes de Montfort was born in ~1123 in Montfort, Eure, Haute-Normandie, France; died on 15 Dec 1181 in Gournay Sur Marne, Seine-et-Marne, Ile-de-France, France.

192548.

Mauger Normandie was born in ~1020 in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, II and Papia Envermeu); died in 1055 in (Normandy, France).

Mauger married Germaine Corbell. Germaine was born in ~0978 in Marne, Champagne, France; died in ~1012. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

192549.

Germaine Corbell was born in ~0978 in Marne, Champagne, France; died in ~1012.

Children:

96274. Waldron St Clair was born in ~1019 in Normandie, France; died in 1047 in (Normandy, France).

192550.

Richard Normandie was born in ~0997 in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, II and Judith de Bretagne); died on 6 Aug 1027 in (Normandy, France).

Children:

96275. Helena Normandie was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandie, France; died in ~1080.
Adelize Normandie was born in ~1021 in Normandy, France; died in ~1053 in Bayeux, Normandy, France.

96256.

Sir Guillaume d'Aubigny, Seigneur de Saint-Martin-d'Aubigny was born in ~1010 in Saint-Martin-d'Aubigny, Basse-Normandie, France; died in ~1068 in Le Plessis, Colombiers, Lower-Normandy, France.

Notes:

Guillaume d'Aubigny, seigneur de Saint-Martin-d'Aubigny
Also Known As: "William", "d'Albini"
Birthdate: 1010 (58)
Birthplace: Saint-Martin-d'Aubigny, Basse-Normandie, France
Death: 1068 (58)
Plessis, , Normandy, France
Immediate Family:
Son of Niel II (III) de Saint-Sauveur, vicomte de Cotentin and Adáele de Brionne, comtesse d'Eu
Husband of Adeliza FitzOsulf du Plessis, Heiress of Belvoir
Father of Hugues "Pincerna" Pincerna de Albini, [likely not son of Guillaume d'Aubigny]; Roger "Pincerna" d'Aubigny; Olivia d'Aubigny; Nigel d'Aubigny, of Cainhoe and Richard d'Aubigny, Abbot of St. Alban
Brother of Billeheude de Saint Sauveur; Mlle. de St. Sauveur; Emma de Saint Sauveur; Matilda de Saint Sauveur; Gerard de Saint Sauveur and 2 others
Occupation: Seigneur de Saint-Martin-d'Aubigny
Managed by: Pam Wilson
Last Updated: October 8, 2017

Adeliza FitzOsulf du Plessis, He...
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Hugues "Pincerna" Pincerna de Al...
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Roger "Pincerna" d'Aubigny
son

Olivia d'Aubigny
daughter

Nigel d'Aubigny, of Cainhoe
son

Richard d'Aubigny, Abbot of St. ...
son

Niel II (III) de Saint-Sauveur, ...
father

Adáele de Brionne, comtesse d'Eu
mother

Billeheude de Saint Sauveur
sister

Mlle. de St. Sauveur
sister

Emma de Saint Sauveur
sister

Matilda de Saint Sauveur
sister
About Guillaume d'Aubigny, seigneur de Saint-Martin-d'Aubigny
William D'AUBIGNY

Born: ABT 1010, St. Martin d'Aubigny, Manche, Normandy, France

Died: ABT 1066

Notes: Aubigny, Alibini, etc., Earls of Arundel. Saint-Martin d'Aubigny: Manche, arr. Coutances, cant. Periers. The early history of the family will be found in The Complete Peerage, surname Mowbray, new ed., vol. ix, pp. 366-7. The details of their benefactions to the abbey of Lessay as confirmed by a charter of Henry II, 1185-1188, identify St-Martin d'Aubigny with the Aubigny which was the caput of their Norman honour; thus the "ecclesiam De Folgeriis" is Feugeres 2 1/2 kil. SE of Aubigny, the "feria Sancti Christofori" mentioned in conjunction with the "forum Albinneii" is St-Christophe-d'Aubigny, a parish now united to that of St-Martin, and "Marchesis" is Marchesieux, 5 kil. NE of Aubigny. There is no trace of a feudal castle at Aubigny itself, but Gerville found nearby at Le Mesnil-Vigot the remains of a considerable castle with a well-defined motte, then known as "le chateau De St-Clair".

Sources: The Origins of Some Anglo-Norman Families, by Lewis C Loyd, 1999

Page: 7. Title: Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, 106th Edition, Charles Mosley

Editor-in-Chief, 1999 Page: 2026

Father: Nigel De St. SAUVEUR

Mother: Adela D'EU

Married: Dau. De PLESSIS (sister of Grimald De Plessis) BEF 1048

Children:

1. Olivia D'AUBIGNY

2. Roger D'AUBIGNY

3. Aimee D'AUBIGNY

William Seigneur DE AUBIGNY

* Birth: 1015, Aubigny, Normandy, France
* Partnership with: Adeliza Belvoir DU PLESSIS
o Child: Roger DE AUBIGNY Birth: 1045, Normandy, France
Descendants of William Seigneur DE AUBIGNY

1 William Seigneur DE AUBIGNY

=Adeliza Belvoir DU PLESSIS
2 Roger DE AUBIGNY
=Adelina DE GRANDMESNIL
3 Nigel DE AUBIGNY
=Gundred DE GOURNAY
3 William DE AUBIGNY
=Maude BIGOT
SOURCES:

1. G.E.C.: Complete Peerage 9:366
Note:

!William d'Aubigny, Seigneur of Aubigny (subsequently Saint-Martind' Aubigny), Normandy; married by 1048 sister of Grimald de Plessis.[Burke's Peerage]
---------------------------------
Aubigny, Alibini, etc., Earls of Arundel
Saint-Martin d'Aubigny: Manche, arr. Coutances, cant. Periers.
The early history of the family will be found in The Complete Peerage, surname Mowbray, new ed., vol. ix, pp. 366-7. The details of their benefactions to the abbey of Lessay as confirmed by a charter of HenryII, 1185-1188, identify St-Martin d' Aubigny with the Aubigny which was the caput of their Norman honour; thus the "ecclesiam de Folgeriis" is Feugeres 2 1/2 kil. SE of Aubigny, the "feria Sancti Christofori" mentioned in conjunction with the "forum Albinneii" is St-Christophe- d'Aubigny, a parish now united to that of St-Martin, and "Marchesis" is Marchesieux, 5 kil. NE of Aubigny. There is no trace of a feudal castle at Aubigny itself, but Gerville found nearby at Le Mesnil-Vigot the remains of a considerable castle with a well-defined motte, then known as "le chateau de St-Clair". [Origins of SomeAnglo-Norman Families]
_____________________________________
!The following info was provided in a post-em by Curt Hofemann, curt_hofemann@yahoo.com:
A few more dribs & brabs:
Seigneur of Aubigny (Albiniacum) [Ref: CP IX:366, Holloway p20]
(in conjunction with son Roger) benefactor of the Abbey of Lessay [Ref: CP IX:366]
William d'Aubigny, first of the name, married the sister of Grimoult [Ref: McBride citing the Harleian Society, Vol 80, "Knights of Edward I" Vol 1 (A to E), with additions from Crispin and Macary, p6-7]
William d'Aubigny, of St. Martin d'Aubigny, who married the sister of Grimauld de Plessis, (some reconstructions make him older brother instead) [Ref: TAF 21 May 2002] Note: the village of Saint Martin d'Aubigny is 16 km. west of St-Lo and 15 km. north of Coutances, in Normandy. The other (unrelated) Aubigny/Albini line is from St. Aubin Aubignâe, a different town... Curt
married bef 1048: [Ref: Holloway p20], names: William D'AUBIGNEY & ___ PLESSIS [Ref: CP IX:366, Holloway p20]
Research note: As to the link to the Saint Sauvieur line, there is nothing to it - just a guess based on the names of William and Nigel occuring in both families. [Ref: TAF 21 May 2002] Would love to see an expansion/basis of this... Curt
!Note: Holloway = _The Genealogy of Mary Wentworth, Who Became the Wife of William Brewster_ by Naomi D. Holloway, LDS Film #1738313.

end of biography

D'Aubigny Genealogy

D'Aubigny
The D'Aubigny family came from the Norman village of Saint Martin d'Aubigny, 14 km. north of Coutances and 36 km. north west of Montbray. In medieval naming conventions, the surnames beginning with "DE" or "D'" are Latin for "OF." (Many surnames were derived from localities, with the DE being dropped as time went on. The most common form of this name today is "Albini.")
The D'Aubigny family has a proud heritage to Kings, Queens, and even United States Presidents like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Franklin Delano Roosevelt (who cherished his ancestry to this family).
The surname "D'Aubigny" was first found in Lincolnshire, where they were seated from very early times, and were granted lands by Duke William of Normandy, their liege Lord, for their distinguished assistance at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 A.D. They could have fought in the battle, or, more disappointingly, been butlers to William:
"I believe that it was the William, then Pincerna, and probably also Roger, his son, who were companions of the Conqueror in his expedition; Roger's eldest brother William being in disgrace in Normandy at the time, and not restored to favour, or allowed to enter England before the reign of Rufus, or it may have been Henry I."*
But it looks like they, fought, as well: Two D'Aubignys are included on the "Battle Abbey Rolls," which list the Norman combatants: GUILLAUME (WILLIAM) D'AUBIGNY and LE SIRE D'AUBIGNY (his son, ROGER). They list the commanders who accompanied William the Bastard of Falaise [later William I of England] at the Battle of Hastings. There are 375 commanders shown on the list, from a total force of about 5000 men. Subsequently, for their services, each commander was granted lordships of large areas of English countryside, albeit each being widely separated from another. To the victors went the spoils. (Various "copies" of these roll with considerable additions and thus differences exist.)
Our genealogy traces back to this butler named William (1015 - 1066), from whom the ancient Earls of Arundel descended. William married a woman named NN DE PLESSIS (b: 1024), "a sister of Grimoult du Plessis, the traitor of Valognes and Val-áes-Dunes, who died in his dungeon in 1047 (vol. i., pp. 25 and 31), and Wace may after all be right in styling him 'Le Botellier,'as it is probable that he held that office in the household of the Duke of Normandy)*
They had two sons (There may have been daughters, too, but in feudal times women, unless they were heiresses, were of small account; and often not recorded.) Anyway, William's two sons were:

CHILDREN OF WILLIAM D'AUBIGNY AND NN DE PLESSIS

NELE d'AUBIGNY, aka: NIGEL de ALBINI. Nigel's grants were in Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Warwickshire and Leicestershire. He was bow-bearer to the king in the reign of William II (Rufus) and was knighted by Henry I, who gave him the manor of Egmanton with parks in Sherwood Forest.
ROGER D'AUBIGNY (1040-1138), AKA: ROGER de ALBINI, married AMICE MOWBRAY or MONTBRAY (1055 - 1084). Children listed below.

Mowbray
Roger married a woman named AMICE MOWBRAY or MONTBRAY (1055 - 1084) She was also known as Amicie de Coutances, sister of Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances (according to Orderic Vital, he was "one of the bishops with attendant clerks and monks, whose duty it was to aid the war with their prayers and councils"). Amicia also had another brother, Roger de Montbray (Mowbray).
They were the children of ROGER MOWBRAY. The surname Mowbray stems from the small village of Montbray in Normandy. This lies about 10 km. north-east of the town of Villedieu-les-Poeles, which itself is 22 km northeast of Avranches on the bay of Mont Saint Michel. From this village came Geoffrey de Montbray who came to be Bishop of Coutances and accompanied Duke William of Normandy, their liege Lord, at the Conquest of England, after the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The Family Motto, translated: "Virtue stands by its own strength."
"By his wife, the sister of Grimoult (I have not yet lighted on her name), he had a son, the Roger d'Aubigny aforesaid, who married Amicia, or Avitia, sister of Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances, and of Roger de Montbrai, and is supposed by M. Le Prâevost to have been with his brothers-in-law in the battle."
Roger d'Aubigny, or De Albini, had issue by his wife Avitia de Montbrai, five sons:

CHILDREN OF ROGER D' AUBIGNY AND AMICE MOWBRAY

William, known as William de Albini "Pincerna" (i.e., Butler), ancestor of the Earls of Sussex, who married Maud, daughter of Roger le Bigod, and died 1139.
Richard, Abbot of St. Albans
Nigel, the third son, was heir of Robert de Montbrai, or Mowbray, his first cousin, whose wife he married during the lifetime of her husband by licence of Pope Paschal, and for some time treated her with respect out of regard for her noble parents; but on the death of her brother Gilbert de l'Aigle, having no issue by her, he craftily sought for a divorce on the ground of that very kinship which he exerted so much influence to induce the Pope to overlook, and then married Gundred, daughter of Gerrard de Gournay, by whom he had Roger, who assumed the name of Mowbray, and transmitted it to his descendants, Dukes of Norfolk and Earls Marshal of England; and Henri, ancestor of the line of Albini of Cainho."
Humphrey.
Ruafon, or Ralph.

Bigod
The D'Aubignys were granted lands by Duke William of Normandy, their liege Lord, for Roger's distinguished assistance at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 AD.

Roger's children, maternally from the house of Mowbray, came with the Conqueror and obtained large possessions of land. One of his sons was named WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY (1070 - 1139), born in Aubigny, Calvados, Normandy, France. He was a 'Pincerna', a butler to King William.
William D'Aubigni married MAUD BIGOD (b. 1080), daughter of ROGER BIGOD and ADELIZA DE GRENTMESNIL.
Here are their children:

CHILDREN OF WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY AND MAUD BIGOD

WILL IAM D'AUBIGNY "THE STRONGHAND," 1st Earl of Arundel (1102 - 3.10.1176) He married ADELAIDE DE LOUVAIN. Children listed below.
NIGEL D' AUBIGNY
OLIVER D' AUBIGNY.
OLIVIA D' AUBIGNY, born @ 1100, who married Ralphe de Haya.

De Louvain
Our ancestor was their son, EARL WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY "THE STRONGHAND," who was the Earl of Sussex, Earl of Lincoln, 1st Earl of Arundel, and the Lord of Stackhorn.
William the Stronghand was born @ 1102, in Buckenham, Nomandie, England. In 1136, he married the "Fair Maid of Brabant," ADELAIDE DE LOUVAIN (1102 - 1151), daughter of GRAF GOTTFRIED V (I) VON NIEDERLOTHRINGEN 'DER BèARTIGE' (AKA: Godfrey Barbutus, the Bearded of Louvaine, Duke of Louvaine & Brabant + Namur, Ida of Brabant. Godfrey, Duke of Lorraine; Godfried I Count of Leuven and Brabant; Duke of Low Lotharingen; Marquise of Antwerp. BRABANT) and IDA DE CHINEY, in 1138.

Also known as Adeliza de Brabant, she was born in 1102-1103 in Louvain, Belgium. Adeliza was queen consort of England from 1121 to 1135, the second wife of King Henry I of England.
She married Henry I 'Beauclerc', King of England, son of William I 'the Conqueror', King of England, and Matilda de Flandre, on the 29th of January, 1121, at Windsor Castle, Windsor, Berkshire, England. She is thought to have been aged somewhere between fifteen and eighteen; he was fifty three. It is believed that Henry's only reason for marrying again was his desire for a male heir. (Despite holding the record for the largest number of illegitimate children of any British monarch, Henry's only legitimate male heir had died in 1120.)
Adeliza was reputably quite pretty, and Louvain and England had a mutual enemy in Flanders; these were the likely reasons she was chosen. However, no children were born during the almost 15 years of the marriage. As of 30 January 1121, her married name was Queen Consort Adeliza of England.
Henry died on the 11th of December, 1135, in Gisors, St. denis, Seine-St. denis, France, and was buried on the 4th of January, 1136, in Reading Abbey, Reading, Berks, England. The cause of death was his bowels exploding -- either from food poisoning or from over-eating Lampreys.
After Henry died, Adeliza lived as a nun at Wilton, near Salisbury. As she was still young she came out of mourning some time before 1139, the third year of her widowhood, and married William, who had been one of Henry's chief advisors. (That's a tough union for a second husband to live up to! No matter what he gave her or did for her, how do you top THE KING???) She brought with her a queen's dowry, including the great castle of Arundel, and King Stephen created d'Aubigny Earl of Arundel. In feudal times, women were often bartered as wives. If they were heiresses they were married while still of tender years, and when their husbands died were often remarried three or even four times. After the way Henry died, William probably didn't eat much of her cooking. He was created 1st Earl of Arundel [England] circa 1138. In 1139 he gave shelter to the Empress Maud at Arundel Castle, but ever after adhered to King Stephen. He held the office of Lord of the Manor of Buckenham, Norfolk in 1139.
Seven of their children were to survive. Among the descendants of this marriage came two girls destined to become tragic queens; Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard.
The union lasted about a dozen years. But then: "His wife, the Queen Dowager, retired in 1150 to a nunnery in Afflighem in South Brabant. Adeliza spent her final years in Flanders in the convent. She died on the 23rd of April, 1151, at Affligem Abbey, Afflingham, Flandre, Belgium, and was buried there.

A romantic story has been invented to account for the lion rampant subsequently borne by William's descendants in the family coat of arms: "Having captivated the heart of the Queen Dowager of France by his gallant conduct in a tournament at Paris, she offered to marry him, an honour which he respectfully declined, having already given his word and faith to a lady in England, another Queen Dowager, no less a personage than Adeliza, widow of King Henry 1 of England. His refusal so angered the French Queen, that she laid a plot with her attendants to destroy him by inducing him to enter a cave in her garden, where a lion had been placed for that purpose; but the undaunted Earl, rolling his mantle round his arm, thrust his hand into the lion's mouth, tore out its tongue, and sent it to the Queen by one of her maids. 'In token of which noble and valiant act,' says Brooke, in his Catalogue of Nobility, 'this William assumed to bear for his arms a lion gold in a field gules, which his successors ever since continued.'"*
In 1153, William the Stronghand was influential in arranging the treaty where King Stephen retained the crown for life, but with Henry II as heir. In 1163/64, he was one of the embassy to Rome. In 1168, he was one of the embassy to Saxony. He was commander of the Royal army in Normandy, against the King's rebellious sons, where he distinguished himself with "swiftness and velocity" in August 1173. He fought in the battle near Bury St. Edmunds on 29 September 1173, where he assisted in the defeat of the Earl of Leicester who had, with his Flemings, invaded Suffolk.
The "Stronghand" died on the 12th of October, 1176, in Waverly Abbey, Surry, England, and is buried at Priory, Wymondham, Norfolk, England. His children:

KIDS OF WILLIAM D'AUBIGNY AND ADELAIDE DE LOUVAIN

RALPH (Reyner) AUBIGNY

WILLIAM d' AUBIGNY 2nd Earl of Arundel.
HENRY AUBIGNY
GEOFFREY AUBIGNY
ALICE d' AUBIGNY
AGATHA AUBIGNY
AGNES AUBIGNY of Arundel

Their son, EARL WILLIAM IV D' AUBIGNY "LE BRETON," (1139 - 24/25 Dec 1193), 2nd Earl of Arundel, was born in Arundel, Sussex, England. He married MAUD DE ST. HILARY, daughter of JAMES DE ST. HILARY and AVELINE (de St. Hillary), in 1174. (Maud de St. Hilary was born in 1132-1137 in of Burkenham, Field Dalling, Norfolk and died on 24 Dec 1195 in Norfolk, England.) The lion in the family crest was more probably first borne by him, in token of his descent from Adeliza, widow of Henry l, in whose reign we have the earliest evidence of golden lions being adopted as a personal decoration, if not strictly an heraldic bearing.

KIDS OF WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY AND MAUD DE ST. HILARY

William de Albini, 4th Earl of Arundel (dsp 1224 or 1233) - m. Mabel (dau of Hugh 'Keveliok' de Meschines, 3rd Earl of Chester)

Hugh de Albini, 5th Earl of Arundel (dsp 1243) - m. Isabel de Warren (dau of William (Plantagenet) de Warren, Earl of Warren and Surrey)
Mabel de Albini (a 1223) - m. Sir Robert de Tateshall
Isabel de Albini m. John FitzAlan, lord of Oswestry, Sheriff of Shropshire (b c1164, d 1239)
Nicola de Albini - m. Roger de Somerie, lord of Dudley
Cecilia de Albini - m. Roger de Montalt

Their son, EARL WILLIAM V D'AUBIGNY, 3rd Earl of Arundel, and Earl of Sussex, was born in 1165 in of Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire, and died before the 30th of March, 1221, in Cainell, near Rome, Italy. William d'Aubigny was earl of Sussex (1193-1221). "...the title of earl was most known by Arundel and Chichester, at which places his chief residence used to be, yet it was of the county of Sussex that he was really earl..."** William married MATILDA (MABEL) LE MESCHINES of Chester, daughter of EARL HUGH DE KEVELIOCK, 3rd Earl of Chester, and BERTRADE D'EVREUX, after 1207. (Matilda was born in 1171 and died in 1233.) During the signing of the Magna Charta, William was on way home from 5th Crusade, but his name was appended on the document, and later assembled with the other barons at Runnemede as guarantors or counselors of King John. His children:

KIDS OF WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY AND MATILDA LE MESCHINES

WILLIAM AUBIGNY

HUGH d' AUBIGNY
ISABEL d' AUBIGNY of Arundel
NICOLA d' AUBIGNY
MATILDA d' AUBIGNY

De Somery
They had two daughters: Matilda d' Aubigny and our ancestor, NICHOLE D'AUBIGNY. In 1225, Nichole married ROGER DE SOMERY BARON DUDLEY (b: 1208 in Dinas Powis, Wales; Death: 26 Aug 1273 in Staffordshire, England, son of Ralph de Somery and Margaret Marshal.) Nicole died in 1254, at Dudley Castle, Strafford, England, and Roger remarried, to AMABILIA de CHAUCOMBE, in 1254, and had another son: Roger de Somery. Nichole's children:

JOAN de SOMERY
MABEL de SOMERY
MAUD de SOMERY
MARGERY de SOMERY
MARGARET (Margery) de SOMERY

Le Strange
JOAN DE SOMERY was born circa 1233, in Camden, Gloucestershire, England. She married JOHN LE STRANGE, IV, (Birth: 1203 in Knokyn, Salop, England; Death: 26 Feb 1276 in Knockin, Warwick, England). They had a son named JOHN LE STRANGE, V, who became the 1st Baron Strange of Knokyn (ancestor of the Barons Strange, of Knockyn, and the Le Stranges, of Hunstanton, Norfolk). He was born circa 1253 in Ellesmere, Shropshire, England. He married MAUD DE MONTIBUS, daughter of Ebulo de Montibus, Lord of Ketton. He became Baron Strange of Knockyn in 1299. He died in 1310.
JOHN LE STRANGE, the 2nd Baron Strange of Knockyn, was born on the 18th of May, 1282, in Ellesmere, Shropshire, England. He married ISOLDA (or MAUD) DE WALTON, daughter of John de Walton of Walton D'Eiville. John died on the 6th of February, 1311/12, at the age of 29 years, 8 months and 19 days.
They had a daughter, ELIZABETH LE STRANGE. She married GRUFFUDD O'R RHUDDALLT AP MADOG FYCHAN AP MADOG. They had a son, GRUFFUDD FYCHAN AP GRUFFUDD O'R RHUDDALLT. (In Welsh conventions of patronymics, AB denotes "son of," and FERCH denotes "daughter of.")
Gruffud married ELEN FERCH THOMAS. She was the daughter of THOMAS AP LLEWELLYN and ELEANOR GOCH, and the great-aunt to Sir Owen Tudor, founder of the Tudor Dynasty in England (he was related to Katherine of France, the widow of Henry the Fifth, King of England).
They had two children:

CHILDREN OF GRUFFUDD FYCHAN AP GRUFFUDD O'R RHUDDALLT AND ELEN FERCH THOMAS

Lowri ferch Gruffyd Fychan. She married Robert Puleston. He was born Cir 1358, and died 1399
Owen Glendower, The Welsh Rebel hero.
Tudor (Twdr) ap Gruffyd Fychan. He married Maud, daughter of Ienaf ap Adda.

Puleston
LOWRI FERCH GRUFFUDD FYCHAN married ROBERT PULESTON, and you'd think things would start to improve with that name. They had a daughter, ANGARAHAD PULESTON. She completely lost her head over one EDWART (IORWERTH) TREVOR AP DAFYDD AB EDNYFED GA. But sanity finally reigned, and they named their daughter ROSE TREVOR. She married SIR OTEWELL WORSLEY. They had a daughter, MARGARET WORSLEY. She married ADRIAN WHETEHILL, and they had a son, SIR RICHARD WHETEHILL. He married ELIZABETH MUSTON and they had a daughter, MARGERY WHETEHILL.

Isaac
Margery married EDWARD ISAAC. The Isaac family was first found in Devon, where they were seated from very ancient times, some say well before the Norman Conquest and the arrival of Duke William at Hastings in 1066 A.D.
Margery and Edward had a daughter, MARY ISAAC (1552 in Well Court,Ickham,Kent,Eng). Mary married THOMAS APPLETON (1538 - 1603), in 1572, in Suffolk Co., England, and they had a daughter, JOHANNA APPLETON, who was born at the dawn of the 1600's in England. She married RICHARD GILDERSLEEVE (1601 - 1681) of Suffolk, England. They had a daughter named ELIZABETH GILDERSLEEVE (b. @1620), who married JEREMIAH WOOD (b. 1620) in Yorkshire. Jeremiah was a Puritan, and they were part of the Puritan emigration to the American Colonies.

KIDS OF RICHARD GILDERSLEEVE AND JOHANNA APPLETON

ELIZABETH GILDERSLEEVE, b: ABT 1620. Married JEREMIAH WOOD between 1642 - 1644.
RICHARD GILDERSLEEVE, JR., b: 1626, married a woman named DORCAS. He died in 1691.

GENEALOGY

WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY (1015 - 1066) married NN DE PLESSIS (b: 1024), and they begat...

ROGER D' AUBIGNY (1040-1138), who married AMICE and begat...

WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY (1070 - 1139), who married married MAUD BIGOD (b. 1080) and begat...

EARL WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY "THE STRONGHAND" (d. 1176), who married ADELAIDE DE LOUVAIN (1102 - 1151) and begat...

EARL WILLIAM IV D' AUBIGNY "LE BRETON" (1139 - 1193), who married MAUD DE ST. HILARY (1137 - 1195) and begat...

EARL WILLIAM V D'AUBIGNY (b. 1165), who married MATILDA (MABEL) LE MESCHINES (1171 - 1233) and begat...

NICHOLE D'AUBIGNY, who married ROGER DE SOMERY BARON DUDLEY (1208 - 1273) and begat...

JOAN DE SOMERY (1233 - 1282), who married JOHN LE STRANGE, IV, (1203 - 1276) and begat...

JOHN LE STRANGE (1253 - 1310), who married MAUD DE MONTIBUS and begat...

JOHN LE STRANGE (1282 - 1311), who married ISOLDA DE WALTON and begat...

ELIZABETH LE STRANGE, who married GRUFFUDD O'R RHUDDALLT AP MADOG FYCHAN AP MADOG...

GRUFFUDD FYCHAN AP GRUFFUDD O'R RHUDDALLT, who married ELEN FERCH THOMAS and begat...

LOWRI FERCH GRUFFUDD FYCHAN, who married ROBERT PULESTON and begat...

ANGARAHAD PULESTON, who married EDWART (IORWERTH) TREVOR AP DAFYDD AB EDNYFED GA, and begat...

ROSE TREVOR, who married SIR OTEWELL WORSLEY and begat...

MARGARET WORSLEY, who married ADRIAN WHETEHILL and begat...

SIR RICHARD WHETEHILL, who married ELIZABETH MUSTON and begat...

MARGERY WHETEHILL, who married EDWARD ISAAC and begat...

MARY (or AMY) ISAAC, who married THOMAS APPLETON (1538 - 1601) and begat...

SAMUEL APPLETON (1586 - 1670), who married JUDITH EVERHARD and begat...

JOHANNA APPLETON (1601 - ?), who married RICHARD GILDERSLEEVE (1601 - 1681) and begat...

ELIZABETH GILDERSLEEVE (1620 - ?), who married JEREMIAH WOOD (1620 - ) and begat...

JOSEPH WOOD, who married EUNICE JARVIS in 1680 and begat...

JOSEPH WOOD, JR. (1680 - ?) who married MARGRIET (MARGARET) WOOD and begat...

JONATHAN WOOD (1720 - ?) who married JOHANNA CROMPTON (1725 - ?) and begat...

MARTHA WOOD (1753 - 1822) who married WILLIAM HAUSE (1750 - 1818) and begat...

JOHN HAUSE (1773 - 1844) who married ESTHER KETCHAM (1779 - 1853) and begat...

AUGUSTUS HAUSE (1804 - 1875) who married JANE JONES (1802 - 1850) and begat...

LABAN HAUSE (1831 - 1906) who married MELISSA SANDERSON (1839 - 1921) and begat...

FRANK HAUSE (1867 - 1951) who married FLADELLA RAYMOND (1869 - 1961) and begat...

CARLISLE HAUSE (1891 - 1972) who married MARJORIE MARCHANT (1892 - 1939) who begat...

CARLETON MARCHANT HAUSE, SR. (1917 - 1983) who married JEANNE BRUNNER (1918 - 2000) and begat...

CARLETON MARCHANT HAUSE, JR. (b. 1939) who married MARTHA WENK (b. 1940) and begat...

JEFF (who married LORI ANN DOTSON), KATHY (who married HAL LARSEN), ERIC (who married MARY MOONSAMMY), and MICHELE HAUSE (who married JOHN SCOTT HOUSTON).

LITERATURE ON THE D'AUBIGNI FAMILY

*-WILLIAM DE ALBINI, The Conqueror and His Companions, by J.R. Planchâe, Somerset Herald. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1874.
**-"The Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom" - George Edward Cokayne (14 vol) I, p234, (a)
"Rolls of Arms - Henry III - Aspilogia II" - London & Tremlett / Sir Anthony Wagner

96257.

Notes:

Adâelaèis Adeliza FitzOsulf du Plessis, Hâeritiáere de Belvoir
Birthdate: circa 1027 (61)
Birthplace: Le Plessis, Colombiers, Lower-Normandy, France
Death: circa 1088 (53-69)
Belvoir Castle, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England
Place of Burial: St. Mary's Priory, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England
Immediate Family:
Daughter of Osulf "fil Frane" du Plessis, seigneur de Belvoir and NN wife of Osulf du Plessis
Wife of Guillaume d'Aubigny, seigneur de Saint-Martin-d'Aubigny and Robert de Toeni, Lord of Belvoir
Mother of Hugues "Pincerna" Pincerna de Albini, [likely not son of Guillaume d'Aubigny]; Roger "Pincerna" d'Aubigny; Olivia d'Aubigny; Nigel d'Aubigny, of Cainhoe; Richard d'Aubigny, Abbot of St. Alban and 6 others
Sister of Grimoult du Plessis
Managed by: Pam Wilson
Last Updated: December 31, 2015

About Adeliza FitzOsulf du Plessis, Heiress of Belvoir
The daughter of Osulf le Freyne du Plessis and sister of Grimault du Plessis, Adeliza married first, William (Guillaume) d'Aubigny, of Saint-Martin-d'Aubignâe (son of Neel Saint-Saveur, Vicomte de Cotentin/Coutances), and secondly, Robert I de Tosny/Todeni.

Children:

--Roger "Pincerna" d'Aubigny who married Amice de Mowbray

--Nigel/Nele d'Aubigny of Cainhoe who married Amice de Ferrers

--Richard d'Aubigny, Abbot of St. Alban

--William (Guillaume) de Tosny, Lord of Belvoir

--Geoffrey de Tosny

--Robert de Tosny

--Agnes de Tosny who married Hubert de Rye.

--Adeliza de Tosny who married Roger Bigod (two of her daughters married men named William d'Aubigny).

--Albrede m. de l'Isle

[--Berenger de Tosny ? Not listed in FMG database]

As heiress of the honour of Belvoir, Adeliza FitzOsulf de Plessis was instrumental in passing this title and its land down through her family, ironically not through her d'Aubigny children and heirs (who became Earls of Arundel) but through her de Tosny heirs who married into the Bigod family who married into the *other* d'Aubigny family which later became Earls of Belvoir.

[See "The Early Lords of Belvoir" by WA Carrington, Esq (1900) printed in The Journal of the British Archaeological Association, Volume 7, available online on Google Books: p. 299]

Summary: Belvoir was held before Domesday by William de Albini, son of Niel of St Saveur (Vicomte of Cotentin, Lord of the Isles of La Marche), by right of his wife Adeliza, dau of Osulf son of Fane in the time of Edward the Confessor. [Note: This was most likely Osulf II who was High Reeve or Ealdorman of Bamburgh in Northumberland until 1041 when Northumberland was reunified and who died in 1067]

Her second marriage was to Robert de Todeni who built the Castle of Belvoir and the St. Mary's Priory (1077) there. By Domesday, de Todeni held 80 manors in 13 counties, most of them in Lincoln and Leicester, and six of which had been held by Oself (his father in law).

Adeliza died before Robert, who died in 1088 and was buried at St. Mary's Priory in Belvoir.

According to Dugdale, Robert and Adeliza de Todeni had four sons: William, Berenger, Geoffrey and Robert, and a dau Agnes who married Hubert de Rye. Another source says they had a daughter Adeliza who married Roger Bigod.

Robert de Todeni was succeeded by his second son William as Lord of Belvoir. Then, interestingly, it was passed to William de Albini Brito, son of Adeliza by her first marriage.

It was afterwards held by Adeliza de Toeni wife of Roger Bigod. It appears from the Pipe Roll in the time of Henry I that Adeliza de Todeni/Bigod paid Henry I 200 marks for the Lordship of Belvoir (the inheritance of the Albinis).

Then, to add to the soap opera, Cecilia Bigod (daughter of Adeliza de Todeni and Roger Bigod) married William de Albini son of Roger son of William de Albini Brito (Adeliza I's son by her first marriage). Thus Belvoir stayed in the family either way.

NOTE: I use the French term hâeritiáere in the title to indicate that she was the inheritor or heiress of this land and title in her own right. I often do this when a woman brings her own inheritance of land and title into the marriage (called in sui generis in legal terms), to indicate that she inherited in her own right and did not just acquire a title by marriage. In the middle ages, many women were the carriers of important inheritances and therefore their marriages, often arranged by powerful men like trading cards, brought the men who "acquired" them great power and wealth.

http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISHNOBILITYMEDIEVAL3.htm

GUILLAUME d'Aubigny, son of ---. 1056. Seigneur d'Aubigny.

m (before 1048) ---, sister of GRIMAULT de Plessis, daughter of ---. The primary source which confirms her marriage has not yet been identified.

Guillaume & his wife had three children:

1. ROGER d'Aubigny . The primary source which confirms his parentage has not yet been identified. "…Rogerii de Albiniaco, filiique sui Rualoc…" are named as witnesses at the court of William I King of England in the charter dated to [1081] which records an agreement between the monks of Marmoutier and "Gaufridus Nervei filius"[1]. m AMICE, daughter of ---. Henry I King of England confirmed donations of property to the abbey of Holy Trinity, Lessay by "Roger de Albineio and Amicia his wife with the consent of their sons William and Nigel" by charter dated 1126[2]. “Wilielmus comes Sussexiµ” confirmed donations to Boxgrove Priory by his predecessors “Rogerus de Albineio, et Willelmus Pincerna…et Willielmi patris mei filii reginµ Aeliz, et Matildis matris meµ” to Boxgrove Priory by undated charter, which names “domina Avicia, uxor Rogeri de Albineio…et filiorum suorum Willielmi et Nigelli”[3].

2. NELE [Nigel] d'Aubigny of Cainhoe (-[1100]). The primary source which confirms his parentage has not yet been identified. m AMICE de Ferrers, daughter of HENRY de Ferrers & his wife Bertha ---. “Robertus comes junior de Ferariis” confirmed donations to Tutbury by “avus meus Henricus…Egenulfus patruus meus…Robertus pater meus”, naming “Nigellus de Albiniaco et Amicia filia avi mei”[35].

3. RICHARD . “Nigellus de Albeneyo” donated property to “domino Richardo fratri meo abbati de S. Albano” by undated charter dated to the reign of William I King of England[51]. Abbot of St Alban.

-----------------------------------

Of the wife of Robert de Tosny, FMG provides this account:

ROBERT [I] de Tosny (-1088). Europèaische Stammtafeln shows Robert de Tosny unaffiliated with the other members of this family. Although his ancestry is unknown, it is likely that he was a member of this family. He founded Marmoutier in 1063[1926]. Lord of Belvoir 1086. “Robertum de Belvedeir---et A[dela]. uxor eius” founded Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire by charter dated to [1076][1927]. After the death of his wife Adela, Robert de Belvoir donated “land in Sapertune” to Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire, with the consent of "his sons William and Geoffrey"[1928]. m ADELAIS, daughter of --- (-before 1088). “Robertum de Belvedeir---et A[dela]. uxor eius” founded Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire by charter dated to [1076][1929]. “Agnes de Toteneio” confirmed the donation to Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire by "pater meus Robertus de Toteneio et mater mea Adelais", by undated charter[1930]. Robert & his wife had [six] children:

a) GUILLAUME (-[1130]). After the death of his wife Adela, Robert de Belvoir donated “land in Sapertune” to Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire, with the consent of "his sons William and Geoffrey"[1931]. Lord of Belvoir.

b) GEOFFREY . After the death of his wife Adela, Robert de Belvoir donated “land in Sapertune” to Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire, with the consent of "his sons William and Geoffrey"[1932].

c) [ROBERT de Tosny . “Robertus de Toteneia” donated property to Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire, confirmed by "Willielmus de Albeneio frater meus et dominus", by undated charter, witnessed by "…Rogerus Bigot"[1933]. The identity of this Robert de Tosny is uncertain. The document cannot be contemporary as William de Albini was heir of Belvoir through his maternal grandmother Alice, who was the sister of this supposed Robert, so could not have been Robert de Tosny´s brother.]

d) ALICE . Her parentage is indicated by the 1130 Pipe Roll which records "Adeliz uxor Rogi Big…tra patris sui de Belueder" in Lincolnshire[1934]. It is also indicated by the charter dated 23 Apr [1430] under which her descendant “Thomas dominus de Ros, de Hamelake, de Trussebout et de Beavoir” confirmed the possessions of Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire made by "antecessores nostros…Robertum de Toteneio, Willielmum de Toteneyo filium suum, Agnetem de Toteneio filiam dicti Roberti de Toteneyo, Henricum de Rya filium Huberto de Rya, Agnetem de Toteneyo, Willielmum de Albeneio primum, Willielmum de Albeneio secundum, Willielmum de Albeneio tertium, Willielmum de Albeneio quartum, Ywynum de Albeneyo, Heliam de Albeneyo et uxores eorundem, Isabellam filiam domini Willielmi de Albeneio quµ fuit uxor domini de Ros, domini de Beauvoire et de Hamelake"[1935], the connection between Robert de Tosny Lord of Belvoir, father of Alice, being established through the marriage of her daughter Cecilia to William de Albini Brito. "Rogerius Bigot…et uxoris mee Adalicie" donated the church of Thetford to Cluny dated [1100][1936]. “Rogerus Bygot” founded Thetford Priory, with the advice of “…uxoris meµ Adeliciµ”, by undated charter dated to the reign of King Henry I[1937]. Living in 1136[1938]. m (before [1100]) as his second wife, ROGER Bigod, son of ROGER Bigod & his wife --- (-8 or 15 Sep 1107, bur Thetford[1939]).

e) AGNES de Tosny (-before 1127). “Agnes de Toteneio” confirmed the donation to Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire by "pater meus Robertus de Toteneio et mater mea Adelais", by undated charter[1940]. Henry I King of England confirmed the donation of "decimas de Hokeringhe, de Swanetuna, de Depham, de Bukestuna, de Mercheshale" by "Hubertus de Ria…Agnes de Belfo uxor eius…cum Ricardo filio suo" to Holy Trinity, Norwich, at the request of "Henrici filii et heredis ipsorum", by charter dated to [1127][1941]. Her second marriage is confirmed by the undated charter under which her son “Henricus de Rya” confirmed the donations to Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire by "Roberti avi mei et Agnetis matris meµ"[1942]. m firstly RALPH de Belfou, son of ---. m secondly HUBERT de Rie, son of HUBERT de Rie & his wife --- (-before 1127).

f) [ALBREDE . “H comes Norfulc” confirmed property to the monks of Kirkstall, for the soul of “Albrede de Insula amite mee”, by charter dated to [1154/76][1943]. If amita is translated strictly in this document, Albrede was the sister of Earl Hugh´s mother. However, it cannot be excluded that she was in fact his paternal aunt. m --- de l´Isle, son of ---.]

http://www.freewebs.com/stanhopefamily/THE FAMILY OF FRESNE

Adeliza du Plessis was the sister of Grimoult du Plessis, who lost his estates, situated mainly in Coutances, after siding against William the Bastard at Val des Dunes. The name Plessis was of topographical origin, signifying [O.F] a pallisade, and [Lat.] an enclosure, referring to the castle held by the family at Plessis-Grimoult. [The Priory of Plessis-Grimoult was endowed by the Beaumont/Harcourt family; almost invariably a sign that there was a familial connection between them and the founder's family - Mem. Soc. Ant. Norm., vol ii., 23, no. 238.] The original name of the family was Fresne, or, more anciently, Freyne, signifying an ash tree, a derivative of which is the surname Frame. [ G. F. Black, Surnames of Scotland; Their Origin, Meaning, and History, p. 278, 1946.] The father of Adeliza and Grimoult was titled Osulf le Fresne. Their holdings in Coutances abutted those of the family of the wife of the aforementioned Onfroi de Vieilles, who, as said, was of the family of Haye/Haie; of Haye-du-Puits, Manche, arr. Coutances. [The lord of this barony, at the date of the conquest, was Raoul, sâenâechal of the Earl of Mortaigne, and father of Robert de la Haie, a contemporary of Henry I. Raoul seems to have been the son of Hubert de Rye, to whom was entrusted the governorship of the castle and county of Nottingham, and who is frequently mentioned in Domesday Book.] In the Battle of Beaumont-le-Roger, in 1036, Onfroi de Vieilles fought against Roger de Toeni, and his close ally, Osulf du Fresne. Such military and political alliance usually stemmed from familial and consequent topographical connections. Later acts of the Abbey of Conches support this notion, with this Fresne family being noted as feudatories of the Anglo-Norman Toeni family, holding of them land centred around Mesnil-Hardray, canton Conches. In the same regard, Grimoult du Plessis was lord of le Freyne,

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Source http://a.decarne.free.fr/gencar/dat566.htm

Plessis (du), "Adele" or Adâeliza lady Belvoir Gender: Female

Naissance : vers 1027 Birth: about 1027

Note Note

Parents : Parents:

Páere: Plessis (du), "Osulf" Fil Frame seigneur de Belvoir Father: Plessis (du), "Osulf" Wire Frame lord of Belvoir

Famille: Family

Mariage: 1043 Marriage: 1043

Conjoint: Spouse:

Aubigny (d'), Guillaume seigneur des Iles Sexe: Masculin Aubigny (of), Guillaume Lord of the Isles Gender: Male

Naissance : vers 1020 áa Aubigny (14) Birth: about 1020 in Aubigny (14)

Dâecáes : 1066 Died: 1066

Parents : Parents:

Páere: Saint Sauveur (de), Nâeel vicomte de Cotentin Father: St. Saviour (de), Neel Viscount of Cotentin

Máere: Eu (d'), Adáele Mother: Eu (with), Adáele

Enfant(s) : Child (s):

Aubigny (d'), Roger Aubigny (of), Roger

Famille: Family

Mariage: 1067 Marriage: 1067

Conjoint: Spouse:

Toeny (de), Robert seigneur de Belvoir Sexe: Masculin Toeny (de), Robert Lord of Belvoir Gender: Male

Naissance : vers 1030 áa Belvoir Leicestershire (UK) Birth: about 1030 in Belvoir, Leicestershire (UK)

Dâecáes : 04 aoãut 1088 Died: August 4, 1088

La filiation avec ses parents est controversâee. The affiliation with its parents is controversial.

Parents : Parents:

Páere: Toeny (de), Robert seigneur de Conches Father: Toeny (de), Robert Lord of Conches

Enfant(s) : Child (s):

Toeny (de), Alice dame de Belvoir Toeny (of), Lady Alice Belvoir

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Source http://worldconnect.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=AHN&db=pusch&id=I098521

32. WILLIAM I (NOTES) CONTINTIN (L) DE AUBIGNY was born BET 1000 AND 1024 in AUBIGNI OR AUGBIGNY, NORMANDY, FRANCE, and died BET 1019 AND 1068. He was the son of 64. NIEL III NIGEL II (NOTES) (L) DE SAINT SAVEUR and 65. ADELA (NOTES) DE BRIONNE OR (L) D' EU.

33. ADELE (NOTES) DE PLESSIS (L) DE BELVOIR was born BET 1014 AND 1025 in PLESSIS, NORMANDY, FRANCE, and died 1051. She was the daughter of 66. GRIMOLT GRIMOULT OR GRIMOULD (L) DE PLESSIS and 67. VAL (L) DE DUNES.

Children of ADELE (NOTES) DE PLESSIS (L) DE BELVOIR and WILLIAM I (NOTES) CONTINTIN (L) DE AUBIGNY are: i. BALDWIN (NOTE) AUBIGNY MONTGOMERY (L) DE BOULERS was born BET 1050 AND 1080 in HAWORTH CASTLE, YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND. He married SIBYLLA (NOTES) FITZHENRY (L) DE NORMANDY, daughter of HENRY I GUNDRED "BEAUCLERC" KING OF (L) ENGLAND and SIBYL SYBILLA ADELA OR LUCY (NOTES) (L) CORBET. She was born BET 1075 AND 1104 in DOMFRONT, NORMANDY, FRANCE, and died BET 12 AND 13 JUL 1122 in ISLAND OF THE WOMAN, LOCK TAY, SCOTLAND. He married SIBYL (NOTES) (L) DE FALAISE, daughter of WILLIAM (NOTES) FITZROBERT (L) DE FALAISE and GEVA (L) DE BURCI. She was born BET 1074 AND 1088 in WORSPRING MANOR, SOMERSET, ENGLAND.
16. ii. ROGER D' AUBIGNY OR DE AUBIGNY OR (L) DE ALBINI was born BET 1036 AND 1055 in AUBIGNI OR AUBIGNY, NORMANDY, FRANCE, and died ABT 1084. He married CICELY (NOTES) CAIGNE (L) DE PORT. She was born ABT 1045. He married AMICIA AMICE (NOTES) DE MOWBRAY (L) D' AUBIGNY, daughter of GEOFFREY OR ROGER DE MONTBRAI (L) DE MOWBRAY. She was born BET 1040 AND 1055 in AUBIGNI OR AUBIGNY, NORMANDY, FRANCE, and died 1100. He married AMICE OR HALEWISE (NOTES) (L) GRENTMESNIL, daughter of HUGH (NOTE) SENESCHAL ENGLAND(L) DE GRENTEMESNIL and ADELIZA BEATRICE ALICE (NOTES) (L) DE BEAUMONT. She was born BET 1045 AND 1058, and died BET 1077 AND 1084.

iii. AIMEE (L) D' AUBIGNY OR DE ALBINI was born ABT 1050 in ST. MARTIN D' AUBIGNY, NORMANDY, FRANCE. She married RICHARD (L) DE TALBOT TALEBOT OR TALBOT, son of RICHARD OR LE SIRE (NOTES) (L) TALBOT OR TALEBOT. He was born BET 1050 AND 1055 in BADLESLANE, BEDFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND, and died 1129.
iv. WILLIAM II (L) BRITO D' AUBIGNY was born ABT 1034.
v. 0LIVA (NOTE)(L) DE AUBIGNY D' AUBIGNY D' ALBINI was born BET 1047 AND 1141 in AUBIGNI OR AUBIGNY, NORMANDY, FRANCE. She married RALPH OR RANULF (L) DE HAYA OR DE LA HAYE, son of RICHARD THURSTIN HALDUP (NOTES) (L) DE LA HAYE and ANNE (L) ?. He was born BET 1043 AND 1139, and died AFT 1123.
vi. MISS (L) DE AUBIGNY D' AUBIGNY HEIRESS STREATLEY was born BET 1050 AND 1066. She married PIROT OF (L) HAWKWELL GLEMAM SAWSTON. He was born BET 1050 AND 1066, and died AFT 1104.
Adeliza Belvoir DU PLESSIS

* Father: Grimoult DU PLESSIS
* Mother: Mitilda DE NORMANDY
* Birth: 1020, France
* Partnership with: William Seigneur DE AUBIGNY
o Child: Roger DE AUBIGNY Birth: 1045, Normandy, France
Ancestors of Adeliza Belvoir DU PLESSIS

/-Grimoult DU PLESSIS
Adeliza Belvoir DU PLESSIS

\-Mitilda DE NORMANDY
Descendants of Adeliza Belvoir DU PLESSIS

1 Adeliza Belvoir DU PLESSIS

=William Seigneur DE AUBIGNY
2 Roger DE AUBIGNY
=Adelina DE GRANDMESNIL
3 Nigel DE AUBIGNY
=Gundred DE GOURNAY
3 William DE AUBIGNY
=Maude BIGOT

end of biography

Children:

48128. Sir Roger d'Aubigny was born in 1045 in Aubigny, Normandy, France; died in 1084.

44532.

Roger de Beaumont was born in ~ 1015 in (Normandy, France); died on 29 Nov 1094; was buried in Les Preaux, Normandy, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

Burial: Abbey of Saint-Pierre de Prâeaux, France
Possessions: Beaumont-le-Roger, Normandy, France
Possessions: Pont-Audemer, Normandy, France
Military: Battle of Hasings, 1066

Notes:

Roger de Beaumont (c. 1015 – 29 November 1094), feudal lord (French: seigneur) of Beaumont-le-Roger and of Pont-Audemer in Normandy, was a powerful Norman nobleman and close advisor to William the Conqueror.

Origins

He was a son of Humphrey de Vieilles (who was a great-nephew of the Duchess Gunnora of Normandy) by his wife Albreda de la Haye Auberie. Roger de Beaumont was thus a second cousin once removed of William the Conqueror. His Norman feudal lordship had its caput and castle at Beaumont-le-Roger, a settlement situated on the upper reaches of the River Risle, in Normandy, about 46 km SW of Rouen, the capital of the Duchy. He was also feudal lord of Pont-Audemer, a settlement built around the first bridge to cross the River Risle upstream of its estuary, shared with the River Seine.

Physical appearance[edit]
Roger was nicknamed La Barbe (Latinised to Barbatus) (i.e. "The Bearded") because he wore a moustache and beard while the Normans usually were clean shaven. This peculiarity is believed to be recognized in the thirty-second panel of the Bayeux Tapestry where he is depicted sitting at a feast near Hastings, well before the battle, at the right hand of Duke William, who in turn was seated at the right hand of his brother Bishop Odo of Bayeux, who is shown blessing the food at a feast.

Career

Planchâe described him as "the noblest, the wealthiest, and the most valiant seigneur of Normandy, and the greatest and most trusted friend of the Danish (i.e. Norman) family". The explanation for his exalted position appears to be that as an older cousin who had never rebelled against the young Duke, he was part of the kinship group of noblemen that William relied upon in governing Normandy and fighting-off frequent rebellion and invasions. The historian Frank McLynn observed that William relied heavily on relatives on his mother's side, namely his half-brothers Bishop Odo and Robert, and brothers-in-law, and on relatives descended from the Duchess Gunnora's sisters, since his own paternal kin had proved unreliable.

Wace, the 12th century historian, wrote that: "At the time of the invasion of England, Roger was summoned to the great council at Lillebonne, on account of his wisdom; but he did not join in the expedition as he was too far advanced in years". Although Roger could not fight, he did not hesitate in contributing a large share of the cost, and provided at his own expense sixty vessels for the conveyance of the troops across the channel. Furthermore, his eldest son and heir fought bravely at Hastings as noted in several contemporary records. As a result, Roger's elder sons were rewarded generously with lands in England, and both eventually were made English earls by the sons of the Conqueror. Wace's statement may therefore cast doubt on the possibility of Roger being depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry feasting at Hastings. However it is possible that he crossed the Channel so he could continue to act as a valued member of the Duke's council, perhaps giving advice on military tactics, yet stayed well behind the line of battle at headquarters.

Marriage & progeny

He married circa 1048 or earlier Adeline of Meulan (c. 1014-1020 - 8 April 1081), who was buried at the Abbaye du Bec, the daughter of Waleran III, Count de Meulan by Oda de Conteville, and sister and heiress of a childless Count of Meulan. Meulan eventually passed to their elder son who became Count of Meulan in 1081. Their surviving children were:

Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester, Count of Meulan (c.1049-1118), the eldest son and heir. He succeeded his father in the major part of his lands, and was one of the few proven Companions of William the Conqueror who fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
Henry de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Warwick (c.1050-1119). He was overshadowed by his elder brother, but was granted by his father one of his lesser lordships in Normandy, the lordship of Le Neubourg, about 12 km NE of Beaumont-le-Roger, from which his own family adopted the surname Anglicised to "de Newburgh". He established a more enduring line of Beaumont earls than his elder brother, Earls of Warwick seated at Warwick Castle.
William de Beaumont (not mentioned in most sources).
Alberâee de Beaumont (died 1112), Abbess of Eton.

Death & burial

He was buried at Les Prâeaux.

end

44533.

Children:

22266. Sir Robert de Beaumont, Knight, 1st Earl of Leicester was born in ~ 1049 in Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France; died on 5 Jun 1118.
Sir Henry de Beaumont, Knight, 1st Earl of Warwick was born in ~ 1050 in Normandy, France; died on 20 Jun 1119; was buried in Les Preaux, Normandy, France.

89066.

Waleran of Meulan, III, Count of Meulan was born in ~ 990 in Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France; died on 8 Oct 1069 in Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France.

Notes:

Biography

Waleran Meulan (Wakran de Moulcon)
Birth: 0990 • Mellent, Normandy, France
Death: 08 Oct 1069 • Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France

Marriage & Family

Spouse: Oda de Conteville (994–1022)

Children:

Adeline de Maulâeon (de Beaumont)
Marie de Maulâeon (Talbot) (abt. 1005- )
Robert de Maulâeon (aft. 1013- )
Aremgarde de Maulâeon (Thouars) ( –1069)
Avelina de Maulâeon (1014 - 1081)
Hugh de Vernon(?)
Count Waleran

"...Count Waleran established an independent power base on a fortified island in the River Seine, around the year 1020."[1]
"Both he and his son, Count Hugh, maintained an independence from the Capetian king at Paris by a judicious if dangerous alliance with the dukes of Normandy downstream. This led to the marriage of Adeline, Count Hugh's sister, to the Norman magnate, Roger de Beaumont.[2]
"On Count Hugh's death in 1081 his nephew, Robert de Beaumont, acquired the county."[3]

Sources

Source: Web: Netherlands, GenealogieOnline Trees Index, 1000-2015: Name: Waleran De Meulan; Gender: m; Birth Date: 0990; Birth Place: Mellent, Normandy, France; Death Date: 8 Oct 1069; Death Place: Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France; Death Age: 79; Spouse: Oda De Conteville; Children: Aurengarde De Mauleon; URL: https://www.genealogieonline.nl/en/radford-family-tree/I964.php
Source: Waleran de Meulan, Comte de Meulan III. WeRelate.org. Last modified 19:52, 27 Sep 2016. Accessed: 21 Nov 2017. URL: https://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person:Waleran_De_Meulan_%281%29
Waleran de Meulan, Comte de Meulan III
b. est 0990, probably Meulan, Yvelines, France
d. 8 Oct 1069, probably Meulan, Yvelines, France
?Facts and Events
Name[4][5][6][7]
Waleran de Meulan, Comte de Meulan III
Alt Name[8][9]
Galeran de Meulan
Gender: Male
Birth[10][11]: est 0990, probably Meulan, Yvelines, France
Marriage: bef 1015 to Oda de Conteville
Marriage: to Adelais
Death[12][13][14][15]: 8 Oct 1069, probably Meulan, Yvelines, France
Reference Number?: Q2195516?
?References
? Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, 106th Edition, Charles Mosley Editor-in-Chief, 1999 (13), 2943.
? Weis, Frederick Lewis; Walter Lee Sheppard; and David Faris. Ancestral roots of certain American colonists, who came to America before 1700: the lineage of Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, Robert the Strong, and some of their descendants. (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Pub. Co., 7th Edition c1992), 50-24.
? The Plantagenet Ancestry, by William Henry Turton, 1968 (4), 100.
? Stuart, Roderick W. Royalty for Commoners. (Genealogical Publishing Company, 1992, 2nd ed.), p. 140.
Stuart, Roderick W. Royalty for Commoners. (Genealogical Publishing Company, 1992, 2nd ed.), p. 79.
? The Plantagenet Ancestry, by William Henry Turton, 1968 (4).
? 7.0 7.1 Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom, by G. E Cokayne, Sutton Publishing Ltd, 2000.
? Gilman, Mariah Hope. Ancestors of Mariah Hope Gilman. (http://superjordans-home.com/MariahsAncestors/Index.htm, Cited 16 February 2004.).
Waleran III de Meulan, Comte de Meulan, in Lundy, Darryl. The Peerage: A genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain as well as the royal families of Europe.
? 10.0 10.1 Counts of Meulan, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia."Waleran III, Count of Meulan (ca. 990–ca. 1069)"
? 11.0 11.1 Normandy, Nobility: GALERAN [III] de Meulan, in Cawley, Charles. Medieval Lands: A prosopography of medieval European noble and royal families.
? Source: County of Meulan. Wikipedia.org. Last edited: 18 Aug 2016. Accessed: 21 Nov 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_of_Meulan
? ibid.
? ibid.
? Reference: Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, 106th Edition, Charles Mosley Editor-in-Chief, 1999
? Reference: Weis, Frederick Lewis; Walter Lee Sheppard; and David Faris. Ancestral roots of certain American colonists, who came to America before 1700: the lineage of Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, Robert the Strong, and some of their descendants
? Reference: The Plantagenet Ancestry, by William Henry Turton, 1968 (4), 100.
? Reference: Ancestors of Mariah Hope Gilman.
? References: Royalty for Commoners.
? Reference: Normandy, Nobility: GALERAN [III] de Meulan
? Reference: Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom
? Reference: Counts of Meulan
? Reference: The Plantagenet Ancestry
? Reference: Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom
? Reference: Counts of Meulan
? Reference: Normandy, Nobility: GALERAN [III] de Meulan

Also see:

Place sources here:
County of Meulan @Wikipedia
The PEDIGREE of Waleran III (II) de MEULAN

end of biography

Waleran married Oda de Conteville in ~1007. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

89067.
Oda de Conteville
Children:

44533. Adeline of Meulan was born in ~ 1014 in Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France; died on 8 Apr 1081; was buried in Abbaye du Bec, France.

89072.

89073.

Dearbforgail Ingen O'Brien was born in 1005 in Dublin, Ireland (daughter of Donnchad O'Brien, King of Munster and Druscilla Godwin); died in 1060 in Ireland.

Children:

44536. Murchad Macdairmata Murchada was born in 1032 in (Ireland); died in 1070 in (Ireland).

193552.

Richard de Normandie, II was born on 23 Aug 963 in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, I and Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy); died on 28 Aug 1027 in Normandie, France.

Notes:

Richard II of Normandy, Duke of Normandy, was born 23 August 963 in Normandy, France to Richard I, Duke of Normandy (933-996) and Gunnora, Duchess of Normandy (c936-1031) and died 28 August 1027 in Normandy, France of unspecified causes. He married Judith of Brittany (982-1017) 996 JL . He married Papia of Envermeu . Ancestors are from France.
Contents[show]

Children

Offspring of Richard II of Normandy and Judith of Brittany (982-1017)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Richard III of Normandy (997-1027) 997 1027 Adáele of France (1009-1079)

Adelaide of Normandy (1002-1038) 1002 1038 Renaud I de Bourgogne (c990-1057)

Robert II, Duke of Normandy (c1000-1035) 1000 Normandy, France 22 July 1035 Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050)
Estrid of Normandy (1001)

William of Normandy (c1008-aft1025) 1008 1025
Eleanor of Normandy (c1012-aft1071) 1012 1071 Baldwin IV of Flanders (980-1036)

Matilda of Normandy (c1014-aft1033) 1014 1033

Offspring of Richard II of Normandy and Papia of Envermeu
Name Birth Death Joined with
Mauger de Rouen (c1019-c1055) 1019 1055
Guillaume de Talou (c1022-aft1054) 1022 1054 Beatrice de Ponthieu (c1035-c1082)

Noteworthy descendants include

Henry II of England (1133-1189)
William I of England (1027-1087)
Namesakes of Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027)

Richard married Judith de Bretagne in ~1000. Judith (daughter of Conan of Rennes, I, Count of Rennes, Duke of Brittany and Ermengarde of Anjou) was born in 982 in Rennes, France; died in 1017 in Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

193553.

Judith de Bretagne was born in 982 in Rennes, France (daughter of Conan of Rennes, I, Count of Rennes, Duke of Brittany and Ermengarde of Anjou); died in 1017 in Normandy, France.

Notes:

Judith of Brittany was born 982 to Conan I of Rennes (927-992) and Ermengarde of Anjou (bef967-) and died 1017 of unspecified causes. She married Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027) 996 JL . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]
Judith is a 10th generation descendant of Charlemagne (747-814) through her mother. There are two disputed lines (through her father and her maternal grandfather) that place her in generations 9.

Children

Offspring of Judith of Brittany and Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Richard III of Normandy (997-1027) 997 1027 Adáele of France (1009-1079)

Adelaide of Normandy (1002-1038) 1002 1038 Renaud I de Bourgogne (c990-1057)

Robert II, Duke of Normandy (c1000-1035) 1000 Normandy, France 22 July 1035 Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050)
Estrid of Normandy (1001)

William of Normandy (c1008-aft1025) 1008 1025
Eleanor of Normandy (c1012-aft1071) 1012 1071 Baldwin IV of Flanders (980-1036)

Matilda of Normandy (c1014-aft1033) 1014 1033

Noteworthy descendants include

Henry II of England (1133-1189)
William I of England (1027-1087)

Children:

Richard Normandie was born in ~0997 in Normandie, France; died on 6 Aug 1027 in (Normandy, France).
96776. Duke Robert de Normandie, II was born in ~1005 in Normandie, France; died on 22 Jul 1035 in Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey.

194048. Ernald de Chaources was born about 1000 in St Symphoro, Lemans, Maine, France; died in (France).
Ernald married unnamed spouse. unnamed died in (France). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]
194049.
unnamed spouse died in (France).
Notes:
Birth:
(St Symphoro, Lemans, Maine, France)

Children:

97024. Hugh de Chaworth was born about 1025 in St Symphoro, Lemans, Maine, France.

96274.

Waldron St Clair was born in ~1019 in Normandie, France (son of Mauger Normandie and Germaine Corbell); died in 1047 in (Normandy, France).

Waldron married Helena Normandie(Normandy, France). Helena (daughter of Richard Normandie) was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandie, France; died in ~1080. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

96275.

Helena Normandie was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandie, France (daughter of Richard Normandie); died in ~1080.

Children:

48137. Agnes St. Clair was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandy, France; died in ~1080.

194344.

Ranulf Bayeux was born in ~1017.

Ranulf married Adelize NormandieBayeux, Normandy, France. Adelize (daughter of Richard Normandie) was born in ~1021 in Normandy, France; died in ~1053 in Bayeux, Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

194345.

Adelize Normandie was born in ~1021 in Normandy, France (daughter of Richard Normandie); died in ~1053 in Bayeux, Normandy, France.

Notes:

Biography
Name
Name: Alice Alix de /Normandy/
Source: #S-1987194330
Birth date: 1021Birth place: Normandy, France
Name: /Alex/
Surname: Alex
Name: Alix DeNormandy Countess /DeBayeux/[1]
Name: Alix /DeNormandy/
Source: #S48
Record for Richard I Normandy
Name: Alice Alice of Normandy
Name: Alice of Normandy //
Source: #S499
John Scheuerman's data at http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~worden/index.htm
Name: Alix /De Normandy/
Source: #S3
Record for Ranulph Meschimes
Name: Alix /deNormandy/[2]
Alix /Of Normandy/
Name: Alix
Of Normandy[3]
Birth
Date: ABT 1021
Place: Normandy
Date: 1021
Place: Normandy, France
Source: #S-1987194330
Birth date: 1021Birth place: Normandy, France
Date: ABT 1021
Place: Normandy, France
Date: 1021
Place: Normandy, , , France[4]
Date: 1021
Place: Normandy, , , France
Source: #S48
Record for Richard I Normandy
Date: 14 OCT 1021
Place: Falaise, Calvados, Normandy, France
Date: 1021
Place: Normandy, France
Source: #S3
Record for Ranulph Meschimes
Normandy, France[5]
Marriage
Place: F?camp, Seine-Maritime, Haute-Normandie, France
Source: #S48
Record for Richard I Normandy
Date: 3 AUG 1098
Place: Bayeux, Calvados, Basse-Normandie, France
Death
Date: 1121
Place: Bayeux, Calvados, Normandy, France
Source: #S3 Record for Ranulph Meschimes
ID Number: MH:IF7761[6]
http://trees.ancestry.com/rd?f=document&guid=4476e43d-4321-412c-9c42-0bcc87f441d3&tid=21443475&pid=1540148157
http://trees.ancestry.com/rd?f=image&guid=7bd9d086-fa17-4ab6-972f-40c38b83f21d&tid=20194044&pid=1503
Birth: 1052 Normandy, France
Sources
? Source: #S-2066669361 Note: http://trees.ancestry.com/rd?f=sse&db=millind&h=10961109&ti=0&indiv=try&gss=pt Note: Birth date: 1021Birth place: Normandy, France APID: 1,7249::10961109
? Source: #S004386 Ancestry Family Trees http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=6436419&pid=-165742446
? Source: #S96 Date of Import: Jul 25, 2005
? Source: #S-2066669361 Note: http://trees.ancestry.com/rd?f=sse&db=millind&h=10961109&ti=0&indiv=try&gss=pt Note: Birth date: 1021Birth place: Normandy, France APID: 1,7249::10961109
? Source: #S96
? Source: #S96
See also:

soc.genealogy.medieval posting of 22 Oct 2004 by John Ravilious re: Descent from Richard III of Normandy to Jane Lowe (Grey of Sandiacre)
Source: #S-1989558259
Ancestry Family Trees
http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=21443475&pid=1540148157
http://www.thepeerage.com/p10482.htm#i104814

Source S-1987194330
Repository: #R-1989561449
Millennium File
Author: Heritage Consulting
Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2003.Original data - Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Heritage Consulting.Original data: Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA:
Repository R-1989561449
Name: Ancestry.com
Address: http://www.Ancestry.com
Source S-1989558259
Ancestry Family Trees
Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members.
Source S48
Author: Ancestry.com
Public Member Trees
Publication: Name: Ancestry.com Operations Inc; Location: Provo, UT, USA; Date:2006;
Repository: #R1
Repository R1
Name: www.ancestry.com
Source: #S-2015171764
http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=22844971&pid=1314967290
Source S-2015171764
Repository: #R-2015174050
Repository R-2015174050
http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=22844971&pid=1314980310
Source: #S-2041639488
http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=21525863&pid=1673999298
Source S-2041639488
Repository: #R-2041639490
Repository R-2041639490
Source: #S-2128072779
http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=16692088&pid=1171568268
Source S-2128072779
Repository: #R-2128072780
Repository R-2128072780
Source: #S-1968866219
http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=2886322&pid=1747724200
Source S-1968866219
Repository: #R-1969211483
Repository R-1969211483
Source S499
http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~wordenhttp://homepages.rootsweb.com/~worden/index.htm
Abbreviation: WFA Database online
Source: #S1034365574
http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=13248593&pid=977429433
Source S1034365574
Repository: #R1034365571

end of profile

Children:

97172. Sir Ranulph Meschines, Vicomte de Bayeux was born in ~1050 in Bayeux, France; died on 26 Aug 1116.

24068.

Notes:

Born 1065 at the latest.
Died between 1131 and 1139

Philip is recorded as consenting to his father's gifts to his canons at St Nicholas church at Bramber in 1073. He confirmed those gifts to the abbey of St Florent in 1096 after the death of his father.

Old Shoreham was part of Philip's demesne lands where St Nicolas church (right) had stood since Saxon times. Philip expanded trade in the area by founding the port of New Shoreham.

He became the first Braose Lord of Builth and Radnor, the family's initial holding in the Welsh Marches.

Orderic Vitalis (Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, Book IX, Chapter IV) relates that Philip submitted his fortress in Normandy to King William II in 1096 and supported the king against his brother Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy. But, like Robert, Philip may have left Normandy at this time and joined the First Crusade to the Holy Land, returning in 1103. There is evidence in charters that Philip journeyed to the Holy Land but the date of his visit is uncertain.

Philip's lands were confiscated by Henry I in 1110, due to his traitrous support of William, son of Robert Curthose, but they were returned in 1112.

Father: William de Braose, 1st Lord of Bramber

Mother: Eve de Boissey (probably)

There are charters where Robert de Harcourt's sons, Philip and Richard, refer to Philip de Braose as "patruus" - paternal uncle. This lends weight to the theory that Robert de Harcourt and Philip de Braose were both sons of Eve de Boissey. In another record dated 1103 (Pipe Roll Soc. Vol 71 no 544) it is stated that Philip de Braose was represented by "his brother Robert, the son of Anketill".

Philip's sealPhilip was married to Aanor, daughter of Judael (Johel) of Totnes.

Child 1: William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber

Child 2: Philip

Child 3: Basilia

Child 4: Gillian

Child 5: A daughter who married William de Tregoz, the father of Philip de Tregoz who was sheriff of Sussex in 1190. (see evidence here and here )

end of this biography

Philip de Braose, 2nd Lord of Bramber (c. 1070 – c. 1134) was an Anglo-Norman nobleman and Marcher Lord.

Lord of Bramber
Born c. 1070
Died c. 1134
possibly on crusade in the Levant
Noble family House of Braose
Spouse(s) Aenor de Totnes, daughter of Juhel of Totnes[1]
Issue
William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber, Philip de Braose junior, Basilia (daughter), Gilian (daughter)
Father William de Braose, 1st Lord of Bramber

Origins
Philip was born about 1070 to 1073, the son of William de Braose, 1st Lord of Bramber (d. circa 1093/96) by his wife Eve de Boissey or Agnes de St. Clare. William de Braose had participated in the Norman conquest of England. He had been rewarded with the feudal barony of Bramber in Sussex and smaller holdings in Dorset, Wiltshire, Berkshire and Surrey.[2]

Career

Philip as heir consolidated his paternal lands, and expanded them. In 1096 he confirmed his father's gifts to the Abbey of St. Florent. Philip de Braose conquered the Welsh borderlands at Builth and New Radnor and established new Norman lordships over them. At Builth, he constructed a Motte and Bailey fortification at the site where King Edward I later built Builth Castle in the 13th century.[3] He seems to have gone on the First Crusade in 1103. He supported King Henry I (1100–1135) against the claim to the English throne made by his elder brother Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, but then in 1110 he revolted against Henry, who then confiscated his estates. He regained his lordships and lands in 1112 and was thereafter able to retain them, but in 1130 settled them intact onto his eldest son William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber.

Marriage & progeny

He married Aenor de Totnes, sister and co-heiress of Alfred de Totnes (d.pre-1139), son of Juhel de Totnes (d.1123/30) feudal baron of Totnes (which he forfeited c.1087[4]) and of Barnstaple both in Devon.[5] In right of his wife Aenor, Philip acquired a moiety of the feudal barony of Barnstaple, the other moiety of which was held by Henry de Tracy (d.pre-1165), Aenor's brother-in-law.[6] He had the following progeny:

William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber, his eldest son and heir.
Philip de Braose junior
Basilia, a daughter.
Gillian, a daughter.
Before 1206 William III de Braose (d.1211) successfully claimed half of the barony of Totnes from Henry de Nonant, to which family it had been granted after its forfeiture by Juhel de Totnes.[7] However in 1208 William III's lands were confiscated by King John.[8]

Death

He died between 1131 and 1139, possibly in 1134 on crusade in the Levant.

References

Cokayne, G.E., ed V. Gibbs (1910). The Complete Peerage, Vol. 1. London: The St. Catherine Press Ltd. pp. 21/22.
Domesday Book
Taylor, Arnold. The Welsh Castles of Edward I. The Hambledon Press, 1986, p. 3
Sanders, Ivor, English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, p.89, Totnes
Sanders, Ivor, English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, p.104, Barnstaple
Sanders, Ivor, English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, p.104, Barnstaple
Sanders, p.90, Totnes
Sanders, p.105, Barnstaple

Died:
on a crusade...

24069.

Aanor de Totnes was born in 1084 in Barnstaple, Devonshire, England; died in 1153 in Barnstaple, Devonshire, England.

Children:

Maud Braose was born in ~1111 in Bramber, West Sussex, England; died before 20 Mar 1201.
12034. Sir William de Braose, Knight, 3rd Lord of Bramber was born in 1135 in (Bramber, Sussex, England); died on 21 Oct 1190 in London, England.

24070.

Sir Miles of Gloucester, Knight, 1st Earl of Hereford was born in 1092-1100 in Gloucestershire, England; died on 24 Dec 1143.

Other Events and Attributes:

Occupation: Constable of England
Occupation: High Sheriff of Gloucester

Notes:

Miles FitzWalter of Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford, Lord of Brecknock (died 24 December 1143) was High Sheriff of Gloucester and Constable of England.[a]

Biography

Miles was the son and heir of Walter of Gloucester, hereditary castellan of Gloucester and sheriff of Gloucester, by Berta, his wife.[1] Miles' grandfather, Roger de Pitres, had been sheriff from about 1071, then was succeeded by his brother Durand, the Domesday sheriff, before 1083.[2] Durand was succeeded by his nephew Walter of Gloucester, c.?1096, who was sheriff in 1097 and in 1105–1106.[2] Walter was in favour with Henry I, three of whose charters to him are extant.[3] Walter held the post of a Constable of England. Early in 1121 his son Miles was given the hand of Sibyl, daughter of Bernard de Neufmarchâe, the conqueror of Brecknock, with the reversion of her father's possessions.[3] In the Pipe Roll of 1130 Walter is found to have been succeeded by his son,[4] having died in or around 1126.[5]

Miles was (from 1128 at least) sheriff of Gloucestershire, a justice itinerant, and a justice of the forest,[6] and by 1130 was sheriff of Staffordshire.[5] He had also (though the fact has been doubted) been granted his father's office of constable by a special charter.[7] In conjunction with Pain Fitzjohn, sheriff of Herefordshire and Shropshire, he ruled the whole Welsh border "from the Severn to the sea".[8]

On his accession, King Stephen set himself to secure the allegiance of these two lords-marchers, who at length, on receiving a safe-conduct and obtaining all they asked for, did him homage.[8] It was at Reading that they met the king early in 1136.[b] Miles is next found attending the Easter court at Westminster as one of the royal constables,[9] and, shortly after, the Oxford council in the same capacity.[10] He was then despatched to the aid of the widow of Richard fitz Gilbert de Clare, who was beleaguered in her castle by the Welsh and whom he gallantly rescued.[11]

Meanwhile, Miles had married his son and heir, Roger, to Cecily, daughter of Pain Fitzjohn, who inherited the bulk of her father's possessions.[12] In the same year 1136 Miles transferred the original house of Augustinian canons at Llanthony Priory, Monmouthshire to a site on the south side of Gloucester, which they named Llanthony Secunda.[13][14]

Two years later (1138) Miles received, in his official capacity, King Stephen at Gloucester in May.[15] He has been said to have renounced his allegiance a few weeks later,[16] but careful investigation will show that he was with Stephen in August (1138) at the siege of Shrewsbury, and that his defection did not take place till 1139.[17]

In February 1139 Stephen gave Gloucester Abbey to Miles's kinsman Gilbert Foliot at his request.[18] In the summer of 1139, however, he joined his lord, Robert, Earl of Gloucester, in inviting Empress Matilda to England.[19] On her arrival Miles met her at Bristol, welcomed her to Gloucester, recognised her as his rightful sovereign, and became thenceforth her ardent supporter. She at once gave him St. Briavels Castle and the Forest of Dean.[17]

Miles's first achievement on behalf of Matilda was to relieve Brian Fitz Count who was blockaded in Wallingford Castle.[20] In November (1139) he again advanced from Gloucester and attacked and burnt Worcester.[21] He also captured the castles of Winchcombe, Cerne, and Hereford.[22] Meanwhile, he was deprived by Stephen of his office of constable.[23] He took part in the victory at Lincoln (2 February 1141),[24] and on the consequent triumph of the empress he accompanied her in her progress, and was one of her three chief followers on her entry (2 March) into Winchester.[25] He was with her at Reading when she advanced on London,[26] and on reaching St. Albans Matilda bestowed on him a house at Westminster.[27] He was among those who fled with her from London shortly after, and it was on his advice, when they reached Gloucester, that she ventured back to Oxford.[28] There, on 25 July 1141, she bestowed on him the town and castle of Hereford and made him earl of that shire,[29] as well as the forests of the Hay of Hereford and Trinela[30] in avowed consideration of his faithful service. With singular unanimity hostile chroniclers testify to his devotion to her cause.[22] He even boasted that she had lived at his expense throughout her stay in England.[31]

As "Earl Miles" he now accompanied her to Winchester,[32] and on the rout of her forces on 14 September 1141 he escaped, with the greatest difficulty, to Gloucester, where he arrived "exhausted, alone, and with scarcely a rag to his back".[33] Towards the end of the year he was in Bristol making a grant to Llanthony Priory in the presence of the Empress Matilda and the Robert, Earl of Gloucester.[34] In 1142 he is proved by charters to have been with the Empress at Oxford and to have received her permission to hold Abergavenny Castle of Brian Fitz Count.[35] It is probably to the summer of this year that he made a formal deed of alliance with the Earl of Gloucester, and as a hostage for the performance of which he gave the Earl his son Mahel.[17]

In 1143 his pressing want of money wherewith to pay his troops led him to demand large sums from the church lands. Robert de Bethune, Bishop of Hereford, withstood his demands, and, on the Earl invading his lands, excommunicated him and his followers, and laid the diocese under interdict.[36] The Earl's kinsman, Gilbert Foliot (Abbot of Gloucester),[37] appealed to the legate on his behalf against the bishop's severity.[38] On Christmas-eve of this year (1143) the Earl was slain while hunting by an arrow shot at a deer.[39] A dispute at once arose for possession of his body between the canons of Llanthony and the monks of Gloucester. The case was heard before the bishops of Worcester, Hereford, and St. David's, and was terminated by a compromise on 28 December. The Earl was then buried in the chapter-house at Llanthony.[40]

With his death in 1143, Miles was succeeded by his son and heir, Roger.[17] Roger died without an heir twelve years later in 1155 so the Earldom of Hereford became extinct, but the shrievalty of Hereford and Gloucester passed to his brother Walter. On the death of the latter and two other brothers without issue the family possessions passed to their sisters, Bertha through her marriage bringing Abergavenny to Braose, but Margaret, the eldest sister, taking the bulk (Liber Niger) to the Bohuns afterwards (1199), in recognition of their descent from Miles, earls of Hereford, and constables of England.[41]

Assessment

John of Salisbury classes him with Geoffrey de Mandeville and others who were non tam comites regni quam hostes publici. The charge is justified by his public policy; but the materials for appraising his personal character do not exist.[42]

Family

In 1121, Miles married Sibyl de Neufmarchâe, daughter of Bernard de Neufmarchâe, Lord of Brecon and Nest, granddaughter of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn.[43] Miles and Sybil's children where:

Margaret of Hereford,[5][44] married Humphrey II de Bohun, by whom she had issue.
Bertha of Hereford,[45] married William de Braose before 1150, by whom she had issue.
Roger Fitzmiles, 2nd Earl of Hereford.[46] Hereditary Sheriff of Gloucestershire until 1155.
Walter de Hereford[46] died after 1159 in the Holy Land. He was hereditary Sheriff of Gloucestershire in 1155–1157 and High Sheriff of Herefordshire in 1155–1159.
Henry Fitzmiles Henry of Hereford,[44] died 12 April 1165. He succeeded to the title of Baron Abergavenny in 1141/42.
William de Hereford.[44] He died before 1160 without issue.
Mahel de Hereford,[44] died October 1165 at Bronllys Castle, Breconshire, Wales, mortally hurt when a stone dropped from the tower during a fire; died without issue. Buried at Llanthony Priory.
Lucy of Gloucester,[47] married Herbert FitzHerbert of Winchester, Lord Chamberlain, by whom she had issue. Buried at Llanthony Priory.

Notes

Jump up ^ In some sources Miles's name is not translated from the Latin Milo
Jump up ^ "[This is known] from two charters there tested, one of which was printed by Madox (History of the Exchequer, p. 135), by which Stephen confirms to Miles, 'sicut baroni et justiciario meo', the shrievalty of Gloucestershire, the constableship of Gloucester Castle, and the 'honour' of Brecknock" (Round 1890, p. 438).
Jump up ^ Cokayne 1926, pp. 451–452.
^ Jump up to: a b Morris 1918, p. 154, n. 62.
^ Jump up to: a b Round 1890, p. 438 cites Duchy of Lancaster: Royal Charters.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 438 cites Rot. Pip.. 31 Hen. I.
^ Jump up to: a b c Walker 2012, "Gloucester, Miles of".
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 438.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 438 cites Dugdale MSS.
^ Jump up to: a b Round 1890, p. 438 cites Gesta Stephani, p. 17.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 438 cites Rymer, Fœdera, new ed. i. 16.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 438 cites Rich. Hexham, p. 149.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 13.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Duchy Charters.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Mon. Angl. vi. (1), 127, 132.
Jump up ^ Ward1995, p. 107.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. ii. 105.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439; Norgate 1887, p. 295.
^ Jump up to: a b c d Round 1890, p. 439.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439; Norgate 1887, pp. 493, 494.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439; Norgate 1887, pp. 294, 295.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 59.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 119.
^ Jump up to: a b Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 60.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 121.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 69.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 130; Will. Malm. p. 743.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Add. Cart. pp. 19, 576.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Duchy Charters, No. 16.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 132.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Fœdera, i. 14.
Jump up ^ Francis Beaufort Palmer (February 2007), Peerage Law in England, Lawbook Exchange, ISBN 9781584777489, 1584777486 See Appendix, p242; also Theophilus Jones (1805), A history of the county of Brecknock (A history of the county of Brecknock. ed.), Brecknock: Printed and sold by Wm. & Geo. North ... for the author; and sold by J. Booth ... London. p67
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 133.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 79
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 135.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Mon. Angl. vi. 137.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Duchy Charters, No. 17.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gesta, p. 102; Mon. Angl. vi. (1), 133.
Jump up ^ Knowles, Brooke & London 1972, p. 52–53.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Foliot, Letters, No. 3.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Symeon of Durham ii. 315; Gervase, i. 126; Gesta, pp. 16, 95, 103.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 439 cites Gloucester Cartulary, i. lxxv; Foliot, Letters, No. 65.
Jump up ^ Round 1890, p. 440.
Jump up ^ Chisholm 1911, pp. 479.
Jump up ^ Roderick 1968, p. 5.
^ Jump up to: a b c d Lundy 2011, p. 10257 cite Cokayne 2000, p. 21
Jump up ^ Lundy 2011, p. 10257 cite Cokayne 2000a, p. 457
^ Jump up to: a b Lundy 2011, p. 10257 cite Cokayne 2000, p. 20
Jump up ^ Cawley 2012 cites Dugdale 1823, p. 615

References

Cawley, Charles (10 April 2012), English Earls 1067–1122: Miles of Gloucester (–1143), Medieval Lands database, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy
Dugdale, William, Sir (1823), ""Priory of Bergavenny or Abergavenny in Monmouthshire, Cartµ I"", Monasticon Anglicanum, 4 (Revised ed.), London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Browne, p. 615
Cokayne, George Edward (1926), Doubleday, H. A.; Walden, Howard de, eds., The Complete Peerage; or, a History of the House of Lords and all its members from the earliest times, 6, London: The St. Catherine Press
Knowles, David; Brooke, Christopher; London, Veria (1972), The Heads of Religious Houses: England and Wales 940–1216, Cambridge University Press, pp. 52–53, ISBN 0-521-08367-2
Lundy, Darryl (17 May 2011). "Miles of Gloucester". p. 10257 § 102564. Retrieved November 2012. Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
Cokayne, George E (2000), The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, 1 (new, reprint in 6 volumes ed.), Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, pp. 20, 21
Cokayne, George E (2000a), The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, 4 (new, reprint in 6 volumes ed.), Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, p. 457
Morris, W.A (April 1918), "The Office of Sheriff in the Early Norman Period", The English Historical Review, 33 (130): 145–175, doi:10.1093/ehr/xxxiii.cxxx.145
Norgate, Kate (1887), England under the Angevin Kings, 1, London: Macmillan
Roderick, A. J. (June 1968), "Marriage and Politics in Wales, 1066–1282", The Welsh History Review, 4 (1): 1–20
Ward, Jennifer C (1995), Women of the English nobility and gentry, 1066–1500, Manchester medieval sources series, Manchester: Manchester University Press, p. 107, ISBN 0-7190-4115-5, retrieved 25 October 2010
Walker, David (May 2012) [2004]. "Gloucester, Miles of, earl of Hereford (d. 1143)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/10820. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
B Thorpe, 1848–1849) (ed.), Continuation of Florence of Worcester
The Cartulary of Gloucester Abbey (Rolls series);
Round, John Horace (1892), Geoffrey de Mandeville
Domesday Book, (Record Commission);
Rymer, Thomas, Fœdera, (Record Commission), i (new ed.);
Pipe Roll, 31 Hen. I (Record Commission);
Cartulary of St. Peter's, Gloucester, (Rolls Ser.);
Symeon of Durham, Regum Historia, (Rolls Ser.);
"Gesta Stephani", Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, &c, (Rolls Ser.), ii;
Gervase of Canterbury, Chronica, (Rolls Ser.);
Florence of Worcester (1848–49), Thorpe, Benjamin, ed., Florentii Wigorniensis monachi Chronicon ex chronicis (2 volumes ed.), English Historical Society
William of Malmesbury, Chronicle of the Kings of England: From the Earliest Period to the Reign of King Stephen, English Historical Society;
Dugdale, Sir William, Westrum Monasticum, Bodleian Library;
Additional Charters, (British Museum);
Duchy of Lancaster Charters, Public Record Office;
Dugdale, William, Sir (1823), Monasticon Anglicanum
Madox, Thomas, History of the Exchequer;
Hearne, Thomas, ed. (1728), Liber Niger Scaccarii;
Foliot, Gilbert, "Letters", in Giles, John Allen, Patres Ecclesiµ Anglicanµ;
Crawley-Boevey, Arthur William, Cartulary of Flaxley Abbey;
Ellis, A. S. (1879–1880). "On the Landholders of Gloucestershire named in Domesday Book". Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society. 4 vol.: 86–198.
Walker, David (1958). "Miles of Gloucester, Earl of Hereford". Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society. 77: 66–84.

24071.

Other Events and Attributes:

Burial: Hempsted, Gloucestershire, England
Alt Birth: 1092, Aberhonddu, Breconshire, Wales

Notes:

Sibyl de Neufmarchâe, Countess of Hereford, suo jure Lady of Brecknock (c. 1100 – after 1143), was a Cambro-Norman noblewoman, heiress to one of the most substantial fiefs in the Welsh Marches. The great-granddaughter of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, king of Wales, Sibyl was also connected to the nobility of England and Normandy. Sibyl inherited the titles and lands of her father, Bernard de Neufmarchâe, Lord of Brecon, after her mother, Nest ferch Osbern, had declared her brother Mahel to have been illegitimate. Most of these estates passed to Sibyl's husband, Miles de Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford, as her dowry. Their marriage had been arranged personally by King Henry I of England in the spring of 1121. Sibyl, with her extensive lands, was central to the King's plans of consolidating Anglo-Norman power in south-east Wales by the merging of her estates with those of Miles, his loyal subject on whom he relied to implement Crown policy.

As an adult, Sibyl lived through King Stephen's turbulent reign, known to history as the Anarchy, in which her husband played a pivotal role. Following Miles' accidental death in 1143, Sibyl entered a religious life at Llanthony Secunda Priory, Gloucestershire, England, which she had endowed up to six years previously. Sibyl is buried at the priory, founded by Miles in 1136.

Family

Ancestry

A small, ruined castle of rough stone comprising two connected, castellated towers, partly covered in ivy, surrounded by much vegetation. Numerous arrowslits indicate the walls to be three to four storeys tall. The upward direction of the image suggests that the castle is at the top of a hill
Ruins of Brecon castle
Sibyl's birthplace and a part of her vast inheritance
Sibyl was born in about 1100 in Brecon Castle, Brecon, Wales, the only daughter of Marcher Lord Bernard de Neufmarchâe, Lord of Brecon, and Nest ferch Osbern.[1][2] Nest was the daughter of Osbern FitzRichard and Nest ferch Gruffydd.[2] Sybil's maternal great-grandparents were Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, king of Wales, and Ealdgyth (Edith of Mercia).[2][3] Ealdgyth, the daughter of ¥lfgar, Earl of Mercia, was briefly Queen consort of England by her second marriage to Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, who was killed at the Battle of Hastings.[4]

Sibyl's father, Bernard, was born at the castle of Le Neuf-Marchâe-en-Lions, on the frontier between Normandy and Beauvais.[5] Bernard was a knight who had fought under English kings William I, William Rufus and Henry I.[6] According to historian Lynn H Nelson, Bernard de Neufmarchâe was "the first of the original conquerors of Wales".[7] He led the Norman army at the Battle of Brecon in 1093, during which Rhys ap Tewdwr was killed.[6][8] Kingship in Wales ended with Rhys' death, and allowed Bernard to confirm his hold on Brycheiniog, becoming the first ruler of the lordship of Brecon.[8] The title and lands would remain in his family's possession until 1521.[9] The name Neufmarchâe, Novo Mercato in Latin, is anglicised into 'Newmarket' or 'Newmarch'.[10][a][11]

Inheritance

Sibyl had two brothers, Philip, who most likely died young, and Mahel. Nest had Mahel disinherited by swearing to King Henry I of England that Mahel had been fathered by another man. According to Giraldus Cambrensis, this was done out of vengeance when Mahel had multilated Nest's lover, a knight whose identity is not disclosed.[10] In the 19th century, Bernard Bolingbroke Woodward proposed that, after Bernard's death, Nest "disgraced herself with an intrigue" with one of his soldiers. Mahel, who had by this time inherited Bernard's estates, disapproved of the liaison to such an extent that he killed Nest's lover. Nest's revenge was to have Mahel disinherited by claiming that Bernard was not Mahel's father.[12] The maritagium (marriage charter) arranged by King Henry I in 1121 for the marriage between Sibyl and her future husband Miles, however, makes it clear that Bernard was still alive when it was written; showing Bernard Bolingbroke Woodward's version of the story to diverge from the known facts.[13] Author Jennifer C. Ward suggests that, although the marriage charter recorded that King Henry was acting at the request of Bernard, Nest, and the barons, it was probable he had put considerable pressure on the Neufmarchâes to disinherit Mahel in favour of Sibyl and, thereby, Miles.[14] Nevertheless, whatever the timing or reason, the outcome of Nest's declaration was that Sibyl (whom Nest acknowledged as Bernard's child) became the sole lawful heiress to the vast Lordship of Brecon, one of the most important and substantial fiefs in the Welsh Marches.[15] Henry's maritagium referred specifically to Sibyl's parents' lands as "comprising Talgarth, the forest of Ystradwy, the castle of Hay, the whole land of Brecknock, up to the boundaries of the land of Richard Fitz Pons,[b] namely up to Brecon and Much Cowarne, a vill in England";[16] the fees and services of several named individuals were also granted as part of the dowry.[16] This made her suo jure Lady of Brecknock on her father's death, and one of the wealthiest heiresses in south Wales.[17][18]

Marriage

Medieval illumination

King Henry I of England who granted Sibyl in marriage to Miles de Gloucester Sometime in April or May 1121, Sibyl married Miles (or Milo) FitzWalter de Gloucester,[19] who on his father's death in 1129, became sheriff of Gloucester,[20] and Constable of England.[21][22] The marriage was personally arranged by King Henry I, to whom Miles was a trusted royal official.[13][23] A charter written in Latin (the maritagium), which dates to 10 April/29 May 1121, records the arrangements for the marriage of Sibyl and Miles.[13][24] Historian C. Warren Hollister found the charter's wording telling, noting that "the king gave the daughter as if he were making a grant of land": "Know that I [King Henry I] have given and firmly granted to Miles of Gloucester Sibyl, daughter of Bernard de Neufmarchâe, together with all the lands of Bernard her father and of her mother after their deaths … ".[13][25] Her parents' lands would be conveyed to Miles after their deaths or earlier during "their life if they so wish".[13] Henry also commanded that the fief's tenants were to pay Miles liege homage as their lord.[13]

By arranging a series of matrimonial alliances, similar to that between Sibyl and Miles, King Henry I of England transformed "the map of territorial power in south-east Wales". Such arrangements were mutually advantageous. Hollister describes Miles' marriage to Sibyl as having been a "crucial breakthrough in his career". The new lords, in similar positions to Miles, were the King's own loyal vassals, on whom he could rely to implement royal policy.[25][26] Sibyl's father died sometime before 1128 (most probably in 1125), and Miles came into possession of her entire inheritance, which when merged with his own estates, formed one honour.[6][27]

Children

Together Sibyl and Miles had eight children:[original research?][28][not in citation given]

Margaret of Hereford (1122/1123- 6 April 1197), married Humphrey II de Bohun, by whom she had children. She received the office of constable of England and exercised lordship of Herefordshire as a widow until her death.[29]

Roger Fitzmiles, 2nd Earl of Hereford (before 1125- 22 September 1155). Roger's marriage settlement with Cecily FitzJohn (her first marriage), daughter of Payn FitzJohn and Sibyl de Lacy, was ratified by King Stephen in 1137.[18] The marriage was childless as were Cecily's subsequent marriages.

Walter de Hereford (died 1159/60), whether he married is unknown; however, Walter departed for Palestine on Michaelmas 1159, and died shortly afterwards without leaving legitimate issue[30][31]

Henry Fitzmiles (died c.1162), married a woman named Isabella, surname unknown; Henry died without legitimate issue.

Mahel de Hereford (died 1164), no record of marriage; died without legitimate issue.

William de Hereford (died 1166), no record of marriage; died without legitimate issue.

Bertha of Hereford (c.1130-), married William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber, by whom she had issue.

Lucy of Hereford, Lady of Blaen Llyfni and Bwlch y Dinas (died 1219/20), married Herbert FitzHerbert of Winchester, by whom she had issue.

The Anarchy

Medieval illumination
Stephen of Blois
whose chaotic reign in England became known as the Anarchy
After Henry I's death in 1135, the throne of England was seized by Stephen of Blois, a grandson of William I of England. Henry's daughter, Empress Matilda (Maud), also claimed the throne, and had the support of the Marcher Lords. On the death of her husband, the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry V, in 1125, Matilda had returned to England for the first time in 16 years. At the insistence of her father, the barons (including Stephen) swore to uphold Matilda's rights as his heir. Matilda married Geoffrey of Anjou in 1128. They lived together in France, having three sons; the eldest of whom was to become King Henry II of England.[32] Initially, Miles supported Stephen.[33] In about 1136, Stephen granted Sibyl's husband the entire honour of Gloucester and Brecknock, and appointed him Constable of Gloucester Castle,[34] whereby Miles became known as one of Stephen's "henchmen".[33]

Llanthony Priory had been established near Crucorney, in the Vale of Ewyas, in 1118; Wales' earliest Augustine monastery. Miles' father, Walter de Gloucester, had retired there by 1126.[23] The unrest that had been simmering in Wales during the last years of Henry's reign, boiled over in 1135 on his death. The area around the priory returned to Welsh rule, coming under such “hostile mollestation” from the Welsh that the non-Welsh canons decided to leave.[18][35][36][37] Miles established a new Priory for them in Gloucester, England, which they called Llanthony Secunda, in 1136.[38] Sometime after 1137, Sibyl, together with her husband, made a further endowment to Llanthony Secunda.[34]

Medieval illumination
Empress Matilda
whom Sibyl supported
in opposition to King Stephen
Miles transferred his allegiance to Empress Matilda, on her return to England in 1139.Matthew 2002, pp. 95, 96 According to Professor Edmund King, Miles' decision to support Matilda was guided by expediancy rather than principle, and the necessity of joining forces with Matilda's illegitimate half-brother, the powerful Robert, Earl of Gloucester, who was the overlord of some of Miles' fiefs.[17] Stephen stripped Miles of the title 'Constable of England' in punishment for having deserted him. On 25 July 1141, in gratitude for his support and military assistance and, according to historian R.H.C. Davis, possibly to compensate Miles for having appeared to have lost the constableship, Matilda invested him as 1st Earl of Hereford.[39] He also received St. Briavels Castle and the Forest of Dean. At the time Matilda was the de facto ruler of England, Stephen having been imprisoned at Bristol following his capture the previous February after the Battle of Lincoln. Sibyl was styled Countess of Hereford, until Miles' unexpected death over two years later. In 1141, Miles received the honour of Abergavenny from Brien FitzCount, the (likely illegitimate) son of Duke Alan IV of Brittany. This was in appreciation of the skilled military tactics Miles had deployed which had spared Brien's castle of Wallingford during King Stephen's besiegement in 1139/1140. Matilda gave her permission for the transfer.[40]

During the Anarchy, which the period of Stephen's reign as King of England was to become known, life was greatly disrupted in her husband's lands. Sibyl would have doubtless suffered as a result, especially after Miles' decision to support Matilda's claim to the throne and to oppose Stephen.[33] When Matilda was defeated at Winchester in late 1141, Miles was compelled to return to Gloucester in disgrace: "weary, half-naked and alone".[41] In November of that same year, Stephen was released from prison and restored to the English throne.[18]

Sibyl's distress would have been heightened in 1143 after the Bishop of Hereford, Robert de Bethune placed an interdict upon Hereford, blocked all the cathedral's entrances with thorns, and excommunicated Miles. In order to raise money to pay his troops and to assist Matilda financially, Miles had imposed a levy on all the churches in his earldom, an act which the bishop had regarded as unlawful.[23][42] When the bishop protested and threatened Miles with excommunication, Miles in response, sent his men to plunder the diocese of its resources.[23] In retaliation against Miles' earlier attacks on the royalist city of Worcester and the castles of Hereford and Wallingford, King Stephen bestowed the title "Earl of Hereford" on Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester; Miles, however, never surrendered the earldom nor the title to Robert de Beaumont.[42]

Widowhood and death

While on a deer-hunting expedition in his own Forest of Dean, Sibyl's husband was accidentally shot in the chest by an arrow which killed him on 24 December 1143.[41][43] He had been involved in legal proceedings against the bishop's jurisdiction when he died.[42] Their eldest son, Roger succeeded him in the earldom.[22] In protest against his father's excommunication, Roger remained an outspoken enemy of the Church until close to the end of his life when he entered a Gloucester monastery as a monk.[43][44] After her husband's death, Sibyl entered a religious life at Llanthony Secunda Priory, Gloucester,[38] which she had previously endowed.[34] Sibyl was buried in the same priory,[45] the dates of death and burial unrecorded.[citation needed]

Sibyl's legacy

Upon the childless death of Roger in 1155, the Earldom of Hereford fell into abeyance until 1199 when King John bestowed the title on Henry de Bohun, Sibyl's grandson through her eldest daughter, Margaret. As her sons all died without legitimate offspring, Sibyl's three daughters became co-heirs to the Brecon honour, with Bertha, the second daughter, passing Sibyl's inheritance on (through marriage) to the de Braoses, thereby making them one of the most powerful families in the Welsh Marches.[46][47]

The Brecknock lordship would eventually go to the de Bohuns, by way of Eleanor de Braose. Eleanor, a descendant of Sibyl's through Bertha of Hereford,[c] married Humphrey de Bohun, son of the 2nd Earl of Hereford. Eleanor and Humphrey's son, Humphrey de Bohun, succeeded his grandfather to the titles in 1275.[48]

Through the advantageous marriages of her daughters, Sibyl was an ancestress of many of England and Ireland's noblest families including among others, the de Bohun's, de Beauchamps, Mortimers, Fitzalans, de Burghs, de Lacy's, and Bonvilles. Four of her descendants, Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford, Elizabeth de Burgh, 4th Countess of Ulster, Eleanor de Bohun, and Mary de Bohun married into the English royal family, while another, Anne Mortimer was the grandmother of Yorkist kings Edward IV and Richard III. By way of Edward's daughter, Elizabeth of York, every monarch of England and, subsequently, the United Kingdom, from Henry VIII up to and including Elizabeth II, descended from Sibyl de Neufmarchâe, as did the various royal sovereigns of Europe who shared a common descent from Mary, Queen of Scots.[49]

Notes

Jump up ^ According to Gerald of Wales, when Bernard witnessed a charter issued by William I in 1086-87, he signed his name in Latin as Bernardus de Novo Mercato (Gerald of Wales, p.88)
Jump up ^ Richard Fitz Pons was Miles' brother-in-law, being the husband of his sister, Matilda (Cawley 2012a, "English Earls 1067-1122: Matilda"; Cawley 2012b, "Richard FitzPons" cites Round 1888, Part I, 12, p. 20).
Jump up ^ Cawley 2012d gives the lineage as:
Bertha daughter of Sibylle de Neufmarchâe married William [II] de Briouse (died after 1175))
William [III] de Briouse (died 1211)
Reynold de Briouse (died 1227)
William de Briouse (hanged 1230)
Eleanor de Briouse

end of biography

Children:

12035. Lady Bertha of Hereford was born in 1107 in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England; died in ~ 1180 in Bramber, Sussex, England.
Margaret of Hereford was born in 1122-1123 in England; died on 6 Apr 1197; was buried in Llanthony Secunda, Gloucestershire, England.
Lucy FitzMiles was born in ~1136 in Brecknockshire, Wales; died in ~1220.

48128.

Notes:

Family Roger d'Aubigny & Amice de Grentemesnil

They had three sons named William, Nigel and Roger.

Personal Details
Male Roger d'Aubigny
Roger was born in 1045 in Aubigny, Normandy, France.1 He died at the age of 39 in 1084.

Female Amice de Grentemesnil
Amice was born in 1045.1
Birth Notes
B: Abt. 1045
She died at the age of 39 in 1084.1

Children
Male Lord of Buckingham William d'Aubigney
William was born in 1064 in St. Sauveur, France.2 He died at the age of 75 in 1139. He was buried in Priory Wymondham, England.3 4

Male Sir Nigel d'Aubigny
Nigel was born in 1080 in Aubigny, Calvados, Normandie, France.5 He died at the age of 49 on November 26th, 1129

Male Roger Pincerna
Roger was born in 1085.6
Birth Notes
B: Abt. 1085

1 http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=jdp-fam&id=I66857&style=TABLE
2 http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=tamer&id=I13194&style=TABLE
3 http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=tamer&id=I13199
4 http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=jdp-fam&id=I11548&style=TABLE
5 http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=arciek&id=I15658&style=TABLE
6 http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=jdp-fam&id=I6319

end

Roger married Amice de Mowbray. Amice was born in 1045 in Aubigny, Normandy, France; died in 1084 in Somme, Picardie, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48129.

Amice de Mowbray was born in 1045 in Aubigny, Normandy, France; died in 1084 in Somme, Picardie, France.

Notes:

Female Amice de Grentemesnil (Amice de Mowbray)

Amice was born in 1045
Birth Notes
B: Abt. 1045
Amice's father was Hugh de Grentemesnil and her mother was Adeliza de Beaumont. Her paternal grandparents were Robert de Grentmesnil and Hawise d'Eschafour; her maternal grandparents were Comte Yves Ivo de Beaumont II and Judith Adela de Gournay. She had three brothers and two sisters, named Robert, Ives, Ivo, Agnes and Rohese. She was the oldest of the six children. She died at the age of 39 in 1084.1
General Notes
sister of Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland,

A sister of Bishop Geoffrey de Montbray, was mother by Roger d'Aubigny (of Aubigny in the Cotentin) of two sons, Nigel and William, who were ardent supporters of Henry I, and were rewarded by him with great estates in England. William was made king's butler, and was father of William d'Aubigny (de Albini), first earl of Arundel; Nigel was rewarded with the escheated fief of Geoffrey de la Guerche, of which Melton (Mowbray) was the head, and with forfeited lands in Yorkshire. Nigel married, by dispensation, the wife of his cousin, the imprisoned earl, but afterwards divorced her, and by another wife was father of a son Roger, who took the name of Mowbray.
(Wikipedia)

Ancestor Pedigree Chart

Gervase le Breton - b.0960 in Bretagne, France
Robert de Grentmesnil - b.0990 in Grentemesnil, Calvados, Normandy, France d.17 Jun 1039 in Grentemesnil, Calvados, Normandy, France

Hugh de Grentemesnil - b.1030 in Grentemesnil, Calvados, Normandy, France d.22 Feb 1092 in Leicester Castle, Leicestershire, England
Ansfred Rollosson* - b.0907 in Tillieres, Normandy, France
Toustien le Goz - b.0935 in Bastembourg, Normandy, France d.0978 in Heismes, Normandy, France
Countess Helloe of Beulac* - b.0910 in Belac, Normandy, France d.1032 in Dammertin, France
Seigneur d'Echafour Giroie le Goz - b.0968 in Heismes, Normandy, France d.1020 in Eschafour, Normandy, France
Judith de Montanolier - b.0945 in Montanolier, Normandy, France
Hawise d'Eschafour - b.1007 in Eschafour, Normandy, France
Rollo Hrolf Thurstan Brico* - b.0887 in Maer, Nord-Trondelag, Norway
Seigneur de Montfort Touissant de Briquibec - b.0928 in Chateau Briquebec, Manche, Normandy, France d.0997 in Montfort-Sur-Risle, Normandy, France
Gerlotte De Blois* - b.0913 in Tilliers, Normandy
Gisela Bertrand de Montfort - b.0972 in Montfort-Sur-Risle, Normandy, France
Geoffrey Murdac - b.0900
Juliane Murdac - b.0930 in Manche, Normandy, France

Amice de Grentemesnil - b.1045 d.1084
Yves of Ham*
Yves Bellomontensis - d.1035
Gisela
Count Ivan Bellomontensis - b.0975 in Beaumont-sur-Oise, Normandy, France d.1022 in Beaumont-sur-Oise, Normandy, France

Comte Yves Ivo de Beaumont II - b.1005 in Beaumont, Sur-Oise, Normandy, France d.22 May 1059 in Beaumont-sur-Oise, Normandy, France
Guy de Chevreuse - b.1130 in Mauvoisin, Nord, France d.01 Sep 1192
Gisele Chevreuse - b.0980 in Beaumont, Sur-Oise, Normandy, France d.1039 in France

Adeliza de Beaumont - b.1035 in Beaumont, France d.11 Jul 1091 in Rouen, Normandy, France
Hugh de Gournay I* - b.0940 in Gournay, France
Hugh de Gournay II - b.0960 in Gournay, Normandy, France

Hugh de Gournay III - b.0985 in Gournay-sur-Marne, Normandy, France d.1074 in Gournay-sur-Marne, Normandy, France

Judith Adela de Gournay - b.1008 in Beaumont, Sur-Oise, Normandy, France d.08 Apr 1099
Girard Flaitel - b.0960 in Evereux, Normandie, France
Gerald de Flaitel - b.0985 in Longueville, Normandy, France

Basilie Basita Flaitel - b.1000 in Normandy, France d.16 Jan 1098
Robert de Normandie* - b.0965 in Normandie d.1037
Herleva D'Evereaux - b.1003
Havlive Rouen* - b.0968 in Normandy, France d.21 Feb 1034 in Evreux, Rouen, Seine-et-Maritime, France
*There are earlier generations for the ancestor(s) indicated. See their page(s) for details (click name)
Family Details of Amice's family with Roger d'Aubigny

1 http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=jdp-fam&id=I66857&style=TABLE
Further sources/citations:
http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=jdp-fam&id=I66857&style=TABLE, http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=arciek&id=I10096

end of commentary

Children:

48144. Sir William "Pincerna" d'Aubigny, Lord of Buckingham was born in 1064 in Sauveur, France; died in 1139; was buried in Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk, England.
Sir Nigel d'Aubigny, 3rd Baron of Thirsk was born in 0___ 1170 in Thirsk Castle, Thirsk, Yorkshire, England; died on 26 Nov 1129 in Normandy, France.
Roger de Mowbray was born in 1085.

48624.

Sir Roger Bigod, Knight was born in ~1060 in Manche, Normandy, France; died on 9 Sep 1107 in (Norfolkshire, England); was buried in Norwich, England.

Notes:

Roger Bigod (died 1107) was a Norman knight who travelled to England in the Norman Conquest. He held great power in East Anglia, and five of his descendants were earls of Norfolk. He was also known as Roger Bigot, appearing as such as a witness to the Charter of Liberties of Henry I of England.

Biography

Roger came from a fairly obscure family of poor knights in Normandy. Robert le Bigot, certainly a relation of Roger's, possibly his father, acquired an important position in the household of William, Duke of Normandy (later William I of England), due, the story goes, to his disclosure to the duke of a plot by the duke's cousin William Werlenc.[1]

Both Roger and Robert may have fought at the Battle of Hastings, and afterwards they were rewarded with a substantial estate in East Anglia. The Domesday Book lists Roger as holding six lordships in Essex, 117 in Suffolk and 187 in Norfolk.

Bigod's (Bigot) base was in Thetford, Norfolk, then the see of the bishop, where he founded a priory later donated to the abbey at Cluny. In 1101 he further consolidated his power when Henry I granted him licence to build a castle at Framlingham, which became the family seat of power until their downfall in 1307. Another of his castles was Bungay Castle, also in Suffolk.

In 1069 he, Robert Malet and Ralph de Gael (then Earl of Norfolk), defeated Sweyn Estrithson (Sweyn II) of Denmark near Ipswich. After Ralph de Gael's fall in 1074, Roger was appointed sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, and acquired many of the dispossessed earl's estates. For this reason he is sometimes counted as Earl of Norfolk, but he probably was never actually created earl. (His son Hugh acquired the title earl of Norfolk in 1141.) He acquired further estates through his influence in local law courts as sheriff and great lord of the region.

In the Rebellion of 1088 he joined other barons in England against William II, whom they hoped to depose in favour of Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy. He seems to have lost his lands after the rebellion had failed, but regained them after reconciling with the king.

In 1100, Robert Bigod (Bigot) was one of the witnesses recorded on the Charter of Liberties, King Henry I's coronation promises later to influence the Magna Carta of 1215.

In 1101 there was another attempt to bring in Robert of Normandy by removing King Henry, but this time Roger Bigod stayed loyal to the king.

He died on 9 September 1107 and is buried in Norwich. Upon his death there was a dispute over his burial place between the Bishop of Norwich, Herbert Losinga, and the monks at Thetford Priory, founded by Bigod. The monks claimed Roger's body, along with those of his family and successors, had been left to them by Roger for burial in the priory in Roger's foundation charter (as was common practice at the time). The bishop of Norwich stole the body in the middle of the night and had him buried in the new cathedral he had built in Norwich.

For some time he was thought to have two wives, Adelaide/Adeliza and Alice/Adeliza de Tosny. It is now believed these were the same woman, Adeliza (Alice) de Tosny (Toeni, Toeny). She was the sister and coheiress of William de Tosny, Lord of Belvoir.

He was succeeded by his eldest son, William Bigod, and, after William drowned in the sinking of the White Ship, by his second son, Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk. He also had three daughters: Gunnor, who married Robert fitz Swein of Essex, Lord of Rayleigh; Cecily, who married William d'Aubigny "Brito"; and Maud, who married William d'Aubigny "Pincerna", and was mother to William d'Aubigny, 1st Earl of Arundel.[2]

end

Roger married Adeliza de Tosny. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48625.

Adeliza de Tosny

Children:

Sir Hugh Bigod, Knight, 1st Earl of Norfolk was born in 0___ 1095 in Belvoir Castle, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England; died in 0___ 1177 in Israel.
48145. Maud Bigod was born in (Belvoir Castle, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England).

24194.

Notes:

more...

History & issue of Henry I, King of England ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_I_of_England

Family and children

Legitimate

House of Normandy
Bayeux Tapestry WillelmDux.jpg
William the Conqueror invades England
William I[show]
William II[show]
Henry I[show]
Stephen[show]
Monarchy of the United Kingdom
v t e
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Henry I of England.

Henry and his first wife, Matilda, had at least two legitimate children:

Matilda, born in 1102, died 1167.[89]
William Adelin, born in 1103, died 1120.[89]
Possibly Richard, who, if he existed, died young.[100]
Henry and his second wife, Adeliza, had no children.

Illegitimate

Henry had a number of illegitimate children by various mistresses.[nb 32]

Sons

Robert of Gloucester, born in the 1090s.[332]
Richard, born to Ansfride, brought up by Robert Bloet, the Bishop of Lincoln.[333]
Reginald de Dunstanville, Earl of Cornwall, born in the 1110s or early 1120s, possibly to Sibyl Corbet.[334]
Robert the King's son, born to Ede, daughter of Forne.[335]
Gilbert, possibly born to an unnamed sister or daughter of Walter of Gand.[336]
William de Tracy, possibly born in the 1090s.[336]
Henry the King's son, possibly born to Nest ferch Rhys.[335][nb 33]
Fulk the King's son, possibly born to Ansfride.[335]
William, the brother of Sybilla de Normandy, probably the brother of Reginald de Dunstanville.[337]

Daughters

Matilda FitzRoy, Countess of Perche.[338]
Matilda FitzRoy, Duchess of Brittany.[338]
Juliana, wife of Eustace of Breteuil, possibly born to Ansfrida.[339]
Mabel, wife of William Gouet.[340]
Constance, Vicountess of Beaumont-sur-Sarthe.[341]
Aline, wife of Matthew de Montmorency.[342]
Isabel, daughter of Isabel de Beaumont, Countess of Pembroke.[342]
Sybilla de Normandy, Queen of Scotland, probably born before 1100.[342][nb 34]
Matilda Fitzroy, Abbess of Montvilliers.[342]
Gundrada de Dunstanville.[342]
Possibly Rohese, wife of Henry de la Pomerai.[342][nb 35]
Emma, wife of Guy of Laval.[343]
Adeliza, the King's daughter.[343]
The wife of Fergus of Galloway.[343]
Possibly Sibyl of Falaise.[343][nb 36]

Born: ABT Sep 1068, Selby, Yorkshire, England
Acceded: 6 Aug 1100, Westminster Abbey, London, England
Died: 1 Dec 1135, St Denis-le-Fermont, near Gisors
Buried: Reading Abbey, Berkshire, England

Notes: Reigned 1100-1135. Duke of Normandy 1106-1135.

His reign is notable for important legal and administrative reforms, and for the final resolution of the investiture controversy. Abroad, he waged several campaigns in order to consolidate and expand his continental possessions. Was so hated by his brothers that they vowed to disinherit him. In 1106 he captured Robert and held him til he died. He proved to be a hard but just ruler. One of his lovers, Nest, Princess of Deheubarth, was known as the most beautiful woman in Wales; she had many lovers.

He apparently died from over eating Lampreys. During a Christmas court at Windsor Castle in 1126 that Henry I, who had no legitimate male heir, tried to force his barons to accept his daughter Matilda as his successor.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles reported that "...there he caused archbishops and bishops and abbots and earls all the thegns that were there to swear to give England and Normandy after his death into the hand of his daughter". Swear they did, but they were not happy about it. None of those present were interested in being among the first to owe allegiance to a woman. The stage was set for the 19-year-long bloody struggle for the throne that rent England apart after Henry's death. Ironically, the final resolution to that civil war, the peace treaty between King Stephen and Matilda's son Henry of Anjou, was ratified on Christmas Day at Westminster in 1153.

*

Birth:
History, maps & photos of Selby, England ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selby

Buried:
Reading Abbey is a large, ruined abbey in the centre of the town of Reading, in the English county of Berkshire. It was founded by Henry I in 1121 "for the salvation of my soul, and the souls of King William, my father, and of King William, my brother, and Queen Maud, my wife, and all my ancestors and successors".

For more history & images of Reading Abbey, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Abbey

24195.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Normandy, France

Notes:

Matilda of Scotland (c. 1080 – 1 May 1118), originally christened Edith,[1] was Queen of England as the first wife of King Henry I.

Matilda was the daughter of the English princess Saint Margaret and the Scottish king Malcolm III. At the age of about six Matilda was sent with her sister to be educated in a convent in southern England, where her aunt Cristina was abbess. It is not clear if she spent much time in Scotland thereafter. In 1093, when she was about 13, she was engaged to an English nobleman when her father and brother Edward were killed in a minor raid into England, and her mother died soon after; her fiance then abandoned the proposed marriage. In Scotland a messy succession conflict followed between Matilda's uncle Donald III, her half-brother Duncan II and brother Edgar until 1097. Matilda's whereabouts during this no doubt difficult period are uncertain.

But after the suspicious death of William II of England in 1100 and accession of his brother Henry I, Matilda's prospects improved. Henry moved quickly to propose to her. It is said that he already knew and admired her, and she may indeed have spent time at the English court. Edgar was now secure on the Scottish throne, offering the prospect of better relations between the two countries, and Matilda also had the considerable advantage of Anglo-Saxon royal blood, which the Norman dynasty largely lacked.[2] There was a difficulty about the marriage; a special church council was called to be satisfied that Matilda had not taken vows as a nun, which her emphatic testimony managed to convince them of.

Matilda and Henry married in late 1100. They had two children who reached adulthood and two more who died young. Matilda led a literary and musical court, but was also pious. She embarked on building projects for the church, and took a role in government when her husband was away; many surviving charters are signed by her. Matilda lived to see her daughter Matilda become Holy Roman Empress but died two years before the drowning of her son William. Henry remarried, but had no further legitimate children, which caused a succession crisis known as The Anarchy. Matilda is buried in Westminster Abbey and was fondly remembered by her subjects as "Matilda the Good Queen" and "Matilda of Blessed Memory". There was an attempt to have her canonized, which was not pursued.

Early life

Matilda was born around 1080 in Dunfermline, the daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland and Saint Margaret. She was christened (baptised) Edith, and Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, stood as godfather at the ceremony. The English queen Matilda of Flanders was also present at the baptismal font and served as her godmother. Baby Matilda pulled at Queen Matilda's headdress, which was seen as an omen that the younger Matilda would be queen one day.[3]

The Life of St Margaret, Queen of Scotland was later written for Matilda possibly by Turgot of Durham. It refers to Matilda's childhood and her relationship with her mother. In it, Margaret is described as a strict but loving mother. She did not spare the rod when it came to raising her children in virtue, which the author presupposed was the reason for the good behaviour Matilda and her siblings displayed, and Margaret also stressed the importance of piety.[4]

When she was about six years old, Matilda of Scotland (or Edith as she was then probably still called) and her sister Mary were sent to Romsey Abbey, near Southampton in southern England, where their aunt Cristina was abbess. During her stay at Romsey and, some time before 1093, at Wilton Abbey, both institutions known for learning,[5] the Scottish princess was much sought-after as a bride; refusing proposals from William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey, and Alan Rufus, Lord of Richmond. Hâeriman of Tournai claimed that William Rufus considered marrying her. Her education went beyond the standard feminine pursuits. This was not surprising as her mother was a great lover of books. Her daughters learned English, French, and some Latin, and were sufficiently literate to read St. Augustine and the Bible.[6]

In 1093, her parents betrothed her to Alan Rufus, Lord of Richmond, one of her numerous suitors. However, before the marriage took place, her father entered into a dispute with William Rufus. In response, he marauded the English king's lands where he was surprised by Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumbria and killed along with his son, Edward. Upon hearing of her husband and son's death, Margaret, already ill, died on 16 November. Edith was now an orphan. She was abandoned by her betrothed who ran off with a daughter of Harold Godwinson, Gunhild of Wessex. However, he died before they could be married.[7]

She had left the monastery by 1093, when Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote to the Bishop of Salisbury ordering that the daughter of the King of Scotland be returned to the monastery that she had left. She did not return to Wilton and until 1100, is largely unaccounted for in chronicles.[8]

Marriage

After William II's death in the New Forest in August 1100, his brother, Henry, immediately seized the royal treasury and crown. His next task was to marry and Henry's choice was Matilda. Because Matilda had spent most of her life in a convent, there was some controversy over whether she was a nun and thus canonically ineligible for marriage. Henry sought permission for the marriage from Archbishop Anselm, who returned to England in September 1100 after a long exile. Professing himself unwilling to decide so weighty a matter on his own, Anselm called a council of bishops in order to determine the canonical legality of the proposed marriage. Matilda testified that she had never taken holy vows, insisting that her parents had sent her and her sister to England for educational purposes, and her aunt Cristina had veiled her to protect her "from the lust of the Normans." Matilda claimed she had pulled the veil off and stamped on it, and her aunt beat and scolded her for this act. The council concluded that Matilda was not a nun, never had been and her parents had not intended that she become one, giving their permission for the marriage.

Matilda and Henry seem to have known one another for some time before their marriage — William of Malmesbury states that Henry had "long been attached" to her, and Orderic Vitalis says that Henry had "long adored" her character. It is possible that Matilda had spent some time at William Rufus's court and that the pair had met there. It is also possible Henry was introduced to his bride by his teacher Bishop Osmund. Whatever the case, it is clear that the two at least knew each other prior to their wedding. Additionally, the chronicler William of Malmesbury suggests that the new king loved his bride.[9]

Matilda's mother was the sister of Edgar the ¥theling, proclaimed but uncrowned King of England after Harold, and, through her mother, Matilda was descended from Edmund Ironside and thus from the royal family of Wessex, which in the 10th century had become the royal family of a united England. This was extremely important because although Henry had been born in England, he needed a bride with ties to the ancient Wessex line to increase his popularity with the English and to reconcile the Normans and Anglo-Saxons.[10] In their children, the two factions would be united, further unifying the new regime. Another benefit was that England and Scotland became politically closer; three of Matilda's brothers became kings of Scotland in succession and were unusually friendly towards England during this period of unbroken peace between the two nations: Alexander married one of Henry I's illegitimate daughters and David lived at Henry's court for some time before his accession.[11]

Matilda had a small dower but it did incorporate some lordship rights. Most of her dower estates were granted from lands previously held by Edith of Wessex. Additionally, Henry made numerous grants on his wife including substantial property in London. Generosity aside, this was a political move in order to win over the unruly Londoners who were vehement supporters of the Wessex kings.[12]

Queen

The seal of Matilda
After Matilda and Henry were married on 11 November 1100 at Westminster Abbey by Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury, she was crowned as "Matilda," a hallowed Norman name. By courtiers, however, she and her husband were soon nicknamed 'Godric and Godiva'.[13] These two names were typical English names from before The Conquest and mocked their more rustic style, especially when compared to the flamboyance of William II.

She gave birth to a daughter, Matilda, born in February 1102, and a son, William, called "Adelin", in November 1103. As queen, she resided primarily at Westminster, but accompanied her husband on his travels around England, and, circa 1106–1107, probably visited Normandy with him. Matilda was the designated head of Henry's curia and acted as regent during his frequent absences.[14]

During the English investiture controversy (1103-07), she acted as intercessor between her husband and archbishop Anselm. She wrote several letters during Anselm's absence, first asking him for advice and to return, but later increasingly to mediate.[15]

Works

Matilda had great interest in architecture and instigated the building of many Norman-style buildings, including Waltham Abbey and Holy Trinity Aldgate.[16] She also had the first arched bridge in England built, at Stratford-le-Bow, as well as a bathhouse with piped-in water and public lavatories at Queenhithe.[17]

Her court was filled with musicians and poets; she commissioned a monk, possibly Thurgot, to write a biography of her mother, Saint Margaret. She was an active queen and, like her mother, was renowned for her devotion to religion and the poor. William of Malmesbury describes her as attending church barefoot at Lent, and washing the feet and kissing the hands of the sick. Matilda exhibited a particular interest in leprosy, founding at least two leper hospitals, including the institution that later became the parish church of St Giles-in-the-Fields.[18] She also administered extensive dower properties and was known as a patron of the arts, especially music.

Death

After Matilda died on 1 May 1118 at Westminster Palace, she was buried at Westminster Abbey. The death of her son, William Adelin, in the tragic disaster of the White Ship (November 1120) and Henry's failure to produce a legitimate son from his second marriage led to the succession crisis of The Anarchy.

Legacy

After her death, she was remembered by her subjects as "Matilda the Good Queen" and "Matilda of Blessed Memory", and for a time sainthood was sought for her, though she was never canonized. Matilda is also thought to be the identity of the "Fair Lady" mentioned at the end of each verse in the nursery rhyme London Bridge Is Falling Down. The post-Norman conquest English monarchs to the present day are related to the Anglo-Saxon House of Wessex monarchs via Matilda of Scotland as she was the great-granddaughter of King Edmund Ironside, see House of Wessex family tree.

Issue

Matilda and Henry had issue

Euphemia (July/August 1101), died young
Matilda of England (c. February 1102 – 10 September 1167), Holy Roman Empress, Countess consort of Anjou, called Lady of the English
William Adelin, (5 August 1103 – 25 November 1120), sometimes called Duke of Normandy, who married Matilda (d.1154), daughter of Fulk V, Count of Anjou.
Elizabeth (August/September 1104), died young

Appearance and character

"It causes pleasure to see the queen whom no woman equals in beauty of body or face, hiding her body, nevertheless, in a veil of loose clothing. Here alone, with new modesty, wishes to conceal it, but what gleams with its own light cannot be hidden and the sun, penetrating his clouds, hurls his rays." She also had "fluent, honeyed speech." From a poem of Marbodius of Rennes.

Children:

12097. Matilda of England, Queen of England was born on 7 Feb 1102 in London, Middlesex, England; was christened on 7 Apr 1141; died on 10 Sep 1167 in Notre Dame, Rouen, Seine-Maritime, France; was buried on 10 Sep 1169 in Bec Abbey, Le Bec-Hellouin, Eure, France.

Generation: 19

354340.

Untred, Earl of Northumbria was born in (0970-0980) in Northumberland, England; died in 1016 in Wighill, Yorkshire, England.

Notes:

Uchtred or Uhtred, called the Bold, (d. 1016) was the ealdorman of all Northumbria from 1006 to 1016, when he was assassinated. He was the son of Waltheof I, ealdorman of Bamburgh, whose ancient family had ruled from the castle of Bamburgh on the Northumbrian coast.

Career

In 995, according to Symeon of Durham, when the remains of St Cuthbert were transferred from Chester-le-Street to Durham, Uhtred went to Durham with his monks to clear the site of the new cathedral. The new cathedral was founded by Bishop Aldhun, and Uhtred married Aldhun's daughter, Ecgfrida, probably at about this time. From his marriage he received several estates that had belonged to the church. [1]

In 1006 Malcolm II of Scotland invaded Northumbria and besieged the newly founded episcopal city of Durham. At that time the Danes were raiding southern England and King Ethelred was unable to send help to the Northumbrians. Ealdorman Waltheof was too old to fight and remained in his castle at Bamburgh. Ealdorman ¥lfhelm of York also took no action. Uhtred, acting for his father, called together an army from Bernicia and Yorkshire and led it against the Scots. The result was a decisive victory for Uhtred. Local women washed the severed heads of the Scots, receiving a payment of a cow for each, and the heads were fixed on stakes to Durham's walls. Uhtred was rewarded by King Ethelred II with the ealdormanry of Bamburgh even though his father was still alive. In the meantime, Ethelred had Ealdorman ¥lfhelm of York murdered, and he allowed Uhtred to succeed ¥lfhelm as ealdorman of York, thus uniting northern and southern Northumbria under the house of Bamburgh. It seems likely that Ethelred did not trust the Scandinavian population of southern Northumbria and wanted an Anglo-Saxon in power there. [2]

After receiving these honours Uhtred dismissed his wife, Ecgfrida, and married Sige, daughter of Styr, son of Ulf. Styr was a rich citizen of York. It appears that Uhtred was trying to make political allies amongst the Danes in Deira. Through Sige, Uhtred had two children, Eadulf, later Eadulf III, and Gospatric. This Gospatric's grandson was the infamous Eadwulf Rus who murdered Bishop Walcher.[2]

In 1013 King Sweyn of Denmark invaded England, sailing up the Humber and Trent to the town of Gainsborough. Uhtred submitted to him there, as did all of the Danes in the north. In the winter of 1013 Ethelred was forced into exile in Normandy. After London had finally submitted to him, Sweyn was accepted as king by Christmas 1013. However he only reigned for five weeks, for he died at, or near, Gainsborough on 2 February 1014. At Sweyn’s death, Ethelred was able to return from exile and resume his reign. Uhtred, along with many others, transferred his allegiance back to Ethelred, on his return. Uhtred also married Ethelred’s daughter ¥lfgifu about this time. [2]

In 1016 Uhtred campaigned with Ethelred's son Edmund Ironside in Cheshire and the surrounding shires. While Uhtred was away from his lands, Sweyn's son, Cnut, invaded Yorkshire. Cnut's forces were too strong for Uhtred to fight, and so Uhtred did homage to him as King of England. Uhtred was summoned to a meeting with Cnut, and on the way there, he and forty of his men were murdered by Thurbrand the Hold, with assistance from Uhtred's own servant, Wighill and with the connivance of Cnut. Uhtred was succeeded in Bernicia by his brother Eadwulf Cudel. Cnut made the Norwegian, Eric of Hlathir, ealdorman ("earl" in Scandinavian terms) in southern Northumbria. [1]
Descendants

The killing of Uhtred by Thurbrand the Hold started a blood feud that lasted for many years. Uhtred's son Ealdred subsequently avenged his father by killing Thurbrand, but Ealdred in turn was killed by Thurbrand's son, Carl. Ealdred's vengeance had to wait until the 1070s, when Waltheof, Ealdred’s grandson had his soldiers kill most of Carl's sons and grandsons. This is an example of the notorious Northumbrian blood feuds that were common at this time. [3]

Uhtred's dynasty continued to reign in Bernicia through Ealdred, Earl of Bamburgh (killed 1038) his son from his marriage to Ecgfrida, and Eadulf (killed 1041) his son from his marriage to Sige, and briefly Eadulf's son Osulf held the earldom of northern Northumbria 1067 until he too was killed. Eadulf's brother Cospatric began the Swinton Family dynasty, his son Eadulf Rus famously murdering William Walcher, Bishop of Durham which led to William the Conqueror sending an army northwards to harry the region again. Uhtred’s marriage to ¥lfgifu produced a daughter, Ealdgyth, who married Maldred, brother of Duncan I of Scotland and who gave birth to a son, Gospatric, who was Earl of Northumbria from 1068 to 1072. [4]

end of biography

Untred married Ecgfrida of Durham. Ecgfrida was born in 973 in Northumberland, England; died in 0Dec 1067 in Durham, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

354341.

Ecgfrida of Durham was born in 973 in Northumberland, England; died in 0Dec 1067 in Durham, England.

Notes:

Ecgfrida of Durham formerly Durham aka of Northumbria
Born 0973 in Northumberland, England
Daughter of Ealdhun Durham and [mother unknown]
[sibling(s) unknown]
Wife of Uhtred (Northumbria) of Northumbria — married about 0995 (to 1006) [location unknown]
Wife of Kilvert (UNKNOWN) FitzLigulf — married after 1006 [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Mother of Ealdred (Northumbria) of Bamburgh and Sigrida FitzKilvert (Yorkshire) of Yorkshire
Died Dec 1067 in Durham, England

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Durham-500 created 6 Jun 2012 | Last modified 29 Apr 2019
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[categories]
Contents
[hide]
1 Biography
2 Vitals
3 Parents
4 Marriage
5 Sources
Biography

Ecgfrida (Durham) of Durham was a member of aristocracy in England.
According to Simeon of Durham, Ecgfrida seems to have been left by both of her husbands. After her marriage with Kilvert fell apart, her father made her return to Durham ... where she became a nun, and was supposedly buried in the yard of the church.

Vitals
Ecgfrida[1]
bur. Durham[1]
Parents
Aldun, Bishop of Durham[2] and Unknown.
Marriage
m.1 Ughtred the Bold, Earl of Northumbria. Repudiated.[3] Issue:
Ealdred of Bamburgh[4]

m.2 Kilvert[5] Issue:
Sigrida m. Arkil[6][1][7]
Sources
? 1.0 1.1 1.2 Simeon of Durham
? Wikipedia: Aldhun; Medieval Lands
? Wikipedia: Uhtred the Bold
? Wikipedia: Ealdred of Bamburgh
? father: Ligulf
? son of Ecgfrid
? Issue: Cospatric m. dau. of Dolfin, son of Tolfin
Cawley, C. (2006). "England, AngloSaxon nobility: Northumbria." Medieval Lands v.3. fmg.ac
Stevenson, J., ed. (1855). "Simeon's account of the Siege of Durham." The historical works of Simeon of Durham ... (Vol.3, Part 2, pp765). Google eBook.

end of this biography

Children:

177170. Ealdred, Earl of Bernicia was born in ~990 in Bernicia, Northumbria, England; died in ~1038 in Risewood Forest, England.

193552.

Richard de Normandie, II was born on 23 Aug 963 in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, I and Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy); died on 28 Aug 1027 in Normandie, France.

Notes:

Richard II of Normandy, Duke of Normandy, was born 23 August 963 in Normandy, France to Richard I, Duke of Normandy (933-996) and Gunnora, Duchess of Normandy (c936-1031) and died 28 August 1027 in Normandy, France of unspecified causes. He married Judith of Brittany (982-1017) 996 JL . He married Papia of Envermeu . Ancestors are from France.
Contents[show]

Children

Offspring of Richard II of Normandy and Judith of Brittany (982-1017)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Richard III of Normandy (997-1027) 997 1027 Adáele of France (1009-1079)

Adelaide of Normandy (1002-1038) 1002 1038 Renaud I de Bourgogne (c990-1057)

Robert II, Duke of Normandy (c1000-1035) 1000 Normandy, France 22 July 1035 Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050)
Estrid of Normandy (1001)

William of Normandy (c1008-aft1025) 1008 1025
Eleanor of Normandy (c1012-aft1071) 1012 1071 Baldwin IV of Flanders (980-1036)

Matilda of Normandy (c1014-aft1033) 1014 1033

Offspring of Richard II of Normandy and Papia of Envermeu
Name Birth Death Joined with
Mauger de Rouen (c1019-c1055) 1019 1055
Guillaume de Talou (c1022-aft1054) 1022 1054 Beatrice de Ponthieu (c1035-c1082)

Noteworthy descendants include

Henry II of England (1133-1189)
William I of England (1027-1087)
Namesakes of Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027)

193553.

Judith de Bretagne was born in 982 in Rennes, France (daughter of Conan of Rennes, I, Count of Rennes, Duke of Brittany and Ermengarde of Anjou); died in 1017 in Normandy, France.

Notes:

Judith of Brittany was born 982 to Conan I of Rennes (927-992) and Ermengarde of Anjou (bef967-) and died 1017 of unspecified causes. She married Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027) 996 JL . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]
Judith is a 10th generation descendant of Charlemagne (747-814) through her mother. There are two disputed lines (through her father and her maternal grandfather) that place her in generations 9.

Children

Offspring of Judith of Brittany and Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Richard III of Normandy (997-1027) 997 1027 Adáele of France (1009-1079)

Adelaide of Normandy (1002-1038) 1002 1038 Renaud I de Bourgogne (c990-1057)

Robert II, Duke of Normandy (c1000-1035) 1000 Normandy, France 22 July 1035 Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050)
Estrid of Normandy (1001)

William of Normandy (c1008-aft1025) 1008 1025
Eleanor of Normandy (c1012-aft1071) 1012 1071 Baldwin IV of Flanders (980-1036)

Matilda of Normandy (c1014-aft1033) 1014 1033

Noteworthy descendants include

Henry II of England (1133-1189)
William I of England (1027-1087)

Children:

192550. Richard Normandie was born in ~0997 in Normandie, France; died on 6 Aug 1027 in (Normandy, France).
96776. Duke Robert de Normandie, II was born in ~1005 in Normandie, France; died on 22 Jul 1035 in Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey.

354354.

Malcolm II of Scotland, High King of Scotland was born in ~0954 in Scotland (son of Kenneth II of Scotland, King of Alba and a Princess of Leinster); died on 25 Nov 1034 in Glamis, Scotland; was buried in Isle of Iona, Scotland.

Notes:

Malcolm (Gaelic: Mâael Coluim; c. 954 - 25 November 1034)[1] was King of the Scots from 1005 until his death.[2] He was a son of King Kenneth II; the Prophecy of Berchâan says that his mother was a woman of Leinster and refers to him as Forranach, "the Destroyer".[3]

To the Irish annals which recorded his death, Malcolm was ard râi Alban, High King of Scotland. In the same way that Brian Bâoruma, High King of Ireland, was not the only king in Ireland, Malcolm was one of several kings within the geographical boundaries of modern Scotland: his fellow kings included the king of Strathclyde, who ruled much of the south-west, various Norse-Gael kings on the western coast and the Hebrides and, nearest and most dangerous rivals, the kings or Mormaers of Moray. To the south, in the Kingdom of England, the Earls of Bernicia and Northumbria, whose predecessors as kings of Northumbria had once ruled most of southern Scotland, still controlled large parts of the southeast.[4]

Early years

Malcolm II was born to Kenneth II of Scotland. He was grandson of Malcolm I of Scotland. In 997, the killer of Constantine is credited as being Kenneth, son of Malcolm. Since there is no known and relevant Kenneth alive at that time (King Kenneth having died in 995), it is considered an error for either Kenneth III, who succeeded Constantine, or, possibly, Malcolm himself, the son of Kenneth II.[5] Whether Malcolm killed Constantine or not, there is no doubt that in 1005 he killed Constantine's successor Kenneth III in battle at Monzievaird in Strathearn.[6]

John of Fordun writes that Malcolm defeated a Norwegian army "in almost the first days after his coronation", but this is not reported elsewhere. Fordun says that the Bishopric of Mortlach (later moved to Aberdeen) was founded in thanks for this victory over the Norwegians.[7]
Children

Malcolm demonstrated a rare ability to survive among early Scottish kings by reigning for twenty-nine years. He was a clever and ambitious man. Brehon tradition provided that the successor to Malcolm was to be selected by him from among the descendants of King Aedh, with the consent of Malcolm's ministers and of the church. Ostensibly in an attempt to end the devastating feuds in the north of Scotland, but obviously influenced by the Norman feudal model, Malcolm ignored tradition and determined to retain the succession within his own line. But since Malcolm had no son of his own, he undertook to negotiate a series of dynastic marriages of his three daughters to men who might otherwise be his rivals, while securing the loyalty of the principal chiefs, their relatives. First he married his daughter Bethoc to Crinan, Thane of The Isles, head of the house of Atholl and secular Abbot of Dunkeld; then his youngest daughter, Olith, to Sigurd, Earl of Orkney. His middle daughter, Donada, was married to Finlay, Earl of Moray, Thane of Ross and Cromarty and a descendant of Loarn of Dalriada. This was risky business under the rules of succession of the Gael, but he thereby secured his rear and, taking advantage of the renewal of Viking attacks on England, marched south to fight the English. He defeated the Angles at Carham in 1018 and installed his grandson, Duncan, son of the Abbot of Dunkeld and his choice as Tanist, in Carlisle as King of Cumbria that same year.[8]
Bernicia

The first reliable report of Malcolm II's reign is of an invasion of Bernicia in 1006, perhaps the customary crech râig (literally royal prey, a raid by a new king made to demonstrate prowess in war), which involved a siege of Durham. This appears to have resulted in a heavy defeat by the Northumbrians, led by Uhtred of Bamburgh, later Earl of Bernicia, which is reported by the Annals of Ulster.[9]

A second war in Bernicia, probably in 1018, was more successful. The Battle of Carham, by the River Tweed, was a victory for the Scots led by Malcolm II and the men of Strathclyde led by their king, Owen the Bald. By this time Earl Uchtred may have been dead, and Eirâikr Hâakonarson was appointed Earl of Northumbria by his brother-in-law Cnut the Great, although his authority seems to have been limited to the south, the former kingdom of Deira, and he took no action against the Scots so far as is known.[10] The work De obsessione Dunelmi (The siege of Durham, associated with Symeon of Durham) claims that Uchtred's brother Eadwulf Cudel surrendered Lothian to Malcolm II, presumably in the aftermath of the defeat at Carham. This is likely to have been the lands between Dunbar and the Tweed as other parts of Lothian had been under Scots control before this time. It has been suggested that Cnut received tribute from the Scots for Lothian, but as he had likely received none from the Bernician Earls this is not very probable.[11]
Cnut

Cnut, reports the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, led an army into Scotland on his return from pilgrimage to Rome. The Chronicle dates this to 1031, but there are reasons to suppose that it should be dated to 1027.[12] Burgundian chronicler Rodulfus Glaber recounts the expedition soon afterwards, describing Malcolm as "powerful in resources and arms … very Christian in faith and deed."[13] Ralph claims that peace was made between Malcolm and Cnut through the intervention of Richard, Duke of Normandy, brother of Cnut's wife Emma. Richard died in about 1027 and Rodulfus wrote close in time to the events.[14]

It has been suggested that the root of the quarrel between Cnut and Malcolm lies in Cnut's pilgrimage to Rome, and the coronation of Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II, where Cnut and Rudolph III, King of Burgundy had the place of honour. If Malcolm were present, and the repeated mentions of his piety in the annals make it quite possible that he made a pilgrimage to Rome, as did Mac Bethad mac Findlâaich ("Macbeth") in later times, then the coronation would have allowed Malcolm to publicly snub Cnut's claims to overlordship.[15]

Cnut obtained rather less than previous English kings, a promise of peace and friendship rather than the promise of aid on land and sea that Edgar and others had obtained. The sources say that Malcolm was accompanied by one or two other kings, certainly Mac Bethad, and perhaps Echmarcach mac Ragnaill, King of Mann and the Isles, and of Galloway.[16] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle remarks of the submission "but he [Malcolm] adhered to that for only a little while".[17] Cnut was soon occupied in Norway against Olaf Haraldsson and appears to have had no further involvement with Scotland.
Orkney and Moray

Olith a daughter of Malcolm, married Sigurd Hlodvisson, Earl of Orkney.[18] Their son Thorfinn Sigurdsson was said to be five years old when Sigurd was killed on 23 April 1014 in the Battle of Clontarf. The Orkneyinga Saga says that Thorfinn was raised at Malcolm's court and was given the Mormaerdom of Caithness by his grandfather. Thorfinn says in the Heimskringla that he was the ally of the king of Scots, and counted on Malcolm's support to resist the "tyranny" of Norwegian King Olaf Haraldsson.[19] (Thorfinn's older step brother had died while a hostage to King Olaf.) The chronology of Thorfinn's life is problematic, and he may have had a share in the Earldom of Orkney while still a child, if he was indeed only five in 1014.[20] Whatever the exact chronology, before Malcolm's death a client of the king of Scots was in control of Caithness and Orkney, although, as with all such relationships, it is unlikely to have lasted beyond his death.

If Malcolm exercised control over Moray, which is far from being generally accepted, then the annals record a number of events pointing to a struggle for power in the north. In 1020, Mac Bethad's father Findlâaech mac Ruaidrâi was killed by the sons of his brother Mâael Brigte.[21] It seems that Mâael Coluim mac Mâail Brigti took control of Moray, for his death is reported in 1029.[22]

Despite the accounts of the Irish annals, English and Scandinavian writers appear to see Mac Bethad as the rightful king of Moray: this is clear from their descriptions of the meeting with Cnut in 1027, before the death of Malcolm mac Mâail Brigti. Malcolm was followed as king or earl by his brother Gillecomgan, husband of Gruoch, a granddaughter of King Kenneth III. It has been supposed that Mac Bethad was responsible for the killing of Gille Coemgâain in 1032, but if Mac Bethad had a cause for feud in the killing of his father in 1020, Malcolm too had reason to see Gille Coemgâain dead. Not only had Gillecomgan's ancestors killed many of Malcolm's kin, but Gillecomgan and his son Lulach might be rivals for the throne. Malcolm had no living sons, and the threat to his plans for the succession was obvious. As a result, the following year Gruoch's brother or nephew, who might have eventually become king, was killed by Malcolm.[23]
Strathclyde and the succession

It has traditionally been supposed that King Owen the Bald of Strathclyde died at the Battle of Carham and that the kingdom passed into the hands of the Scots afterwards. This rests on some very weak evidence. It is far from certain that Owen died at Carham, and it is reasonably certain that there were kings of Strathclyde as late as 1054, when Edward the Confessor sent Earl Siward to install "Malcolm son of the king of the Cumbrians". The confusion is old, probably inspired by William of Malmesbury and embellished by John of Fordun, but there is no firm evidence that the kingdom of Strathclyde was a part of the kingdom of the Scots, rather than a loosely subjected kingdom, before the time of Malcolm II of Scotland's great-grandson Malcolm Canmore.[24]

By the 1030s Malcolm's sons, if he had any, were dead. The only evidence that he did have a son or sons is in Rodulfus Glaber's chronicle where Cnut is said to have stood as godfather to a son of Malcolm.[25] His grandson Thorfinn would have been unlikely to be accepted as king by the Scots, and he chose the sons of his other daughter, Bethâoc, who was married to Crâinâan, lay abbot of Dunkeld, and perhaps Mormaer of Atholl. It may be no more than coincidence, but in 1027 the Irish annals had reported the burning of Dunkeld, although no mention is made of the circumstances.[26] Malcolm's chosen heir, and the first tâanaise râig certainly known in Scotland, was Duncan.

It is possible that a third daughter of Malcolm married Findlâaech mac Ruaidrâi and that Mac Bethad was thus his grandson, but this rests on relatively weak evidence.[27]
Death and posterity
19th-century engraving of "King Malcolm's grave stone" (Glamis no. 2) at Glamis

Malcolm died in 1034, Marianus Scotus giving the date as 25 November 1034. The king lists say that he died at Glamis, variously describing him as a "most glorious" or "most victorious" king. The Annals of Tigernach report that "Malcolm mac Cinâaeda, king of Scotland, the honour of all the west of Europe, died." The Prophecy of Berchâan, perhaps the inspiration for John of Fordun and Andrew of Wyntoun's accounts where Malcolm is killed fighting bandits, says that he died by violence, fighting "the parricides", suggested to be the sons of Mâael Brigte of Moray.[28]

Perhaps the most notable feature of Malcolm's death is the account of Marianus, matched by the silence of the Irish annals, which tells us that Duncan I became king and ruled for five years and nine months. Given that his death in 1040 is described as being "at an immature age" in the Annals of Tigernach, he must have been a young man in 1034. The absence of any opposition suggests that Malcolm had dealt thoroughly with any likely opposition in his own lifetime.[29]

Tradition, dating from Fordun's time if not earlier, knew the Pictish stone now called "Glamis 2" as "King Malcolm's grave stone". The stone is a Class II stone, apparently formed by re-using a Bronze Age standing stone. Its dating is uncertain, with dates from the 8th century onwards having been proposed. While an earlier date is favoured, an association with accounts of Malcolm's has been proposed on the basis of the iconography of the carvings.[30]

On the question of Malcolm's putative pilgrimage, pilgrimages to Rome, or other long-distance journeys, were far from unusual. Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Cnut and Mac Bethad have already been mentioned. Rognvald Kali Kolsson is known to have gone crusading in the Mediterranean in the 12th century. Nearer in time, Dyfnwal of Strathclyde died on pilgrimage to Rome in 975 as did Mâael Ruanaid uâa Mâaele Doraid, King of the Cenâel Conaill, in 1025.

Not a great deal is known of Malcolm's activities beyond the wars and killings. The Book of Deer records that Malcolm "gave a king's dues in Biffie and in Pett Meic-Gobraig, and two davochs" to the monastery of Old Deer.[31] He was also probably not the founder of the Bishopric of Mortlach-Aberdeen. John of Fordun has a peculiar tale to tell, related to the supposed "Laws of Malcolm MacKenneth", saying that Malcolm gave away all of Scotland, except for the Moot Hill at Scone, which is unlikely to have any basis in fact.[32]

end of biography

Malcolm II (a.k.a. Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda) lived from 954 to 25 November 1034 and was King of Alba from 25 March 1005 to 25 November 1034. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline.

Until Malcolm's rule, the Crown of Alba had passed backwards and forwards between different strands of the House of Alpin under the law of tanistry, under which the extended family elected the successor from candidates across the family.

Malcolm changed this by the simple expedient of wiping out all competition to his own line anywhere in the family (or so he thought at the time). He succeeded to the throne by killing his predecessor Kenneth III (and Kenneth's son Giric) at the Battle of Monzievaird on 25 March 1005. This took place just north of Crieff, close to the location of today's Glenturret Distillery. He later had Kenneth's grandson killed.

Malcolm's reasons for killing the competiton was straightforward. He himself had three daughters, and while they had all married well, his grandsons could not compete the more direct claims to the Crown of Alba of those he eliminated.

Malcolm II's rule started badly, with a loss in battle against the English near Durham in 1006. He put this right with an alliance with Strathclyde and a victory over the English at the Battle of Carham, on the River Tweed, in 1018. This greatly strengthened his grip on Lothian: in effect the east side of Scotland from the Forth to the Tweed. Scottish soverignty over Lothian seems to have been subsequently acknowledged by King Canute during a visit to Scotland in 1031.

In the north, Malcolm II formed an alliance with the Vikings which included the marriage of one of his daughters to the Norse Earl Sigurd of Orkney. The situation in Strathclyde was more troublesome. Malcolm's ally, King Owen, died without an heir, and Malcolm tried to place his grandson Duncan (later Duncan I of Alba) on the throne of Strathclyde. This displeased the Britons and led to Malcolm's assassination at Glamis on 25 November 1034. He was buried in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel on the Isle of Iona.

Malcolm's three daughters had between them produced three notable sons. One married Earl Sigurd of Orkney, and their son Earl Thorfinn went on to bring much of Caithness and Sutherland into Scotland. One married Crâinâan, the Abbot of Dunkeld, and their son Duncan went on to succeed Malcom II as Duncan I. And the third married Findláaech, the sub-king of Moray, and their son Macbeth went on to kill Duncan (with Thorfinn's help) and become King Macbeth.

end of biography

Buried:
in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel...

View images and more history of St Oran's; https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/iona/storanschapel/index.html

Malcolm married Aefgifu. Aefgifu was born in Ossory, Ireland; died in (Scotland). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

354355.

Aefgifu was born in Ossory, Ireland; died in (Scotland).

Children:

177177. Bethoc was born in 984 in Perthshire, Scotland; died on 15 Sep 1049 in Dunkeld, Perthshire, Scotland.
Donalda was born in Scotland.
a daughter of Malcolm, II was born in (Scotland).

96776.

Duke Robert de Normandie, II was born in ~1005 in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, II and Judith de Bretagne); died on 22 Jul 1035 in Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey.

Notes:

Robert I the Magnificent of Normandy, Duke of Normany, was born 1000 in Normandy, France to Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027) and Judith of Brittany (982-1017) and died 22 July 1035 in Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey of unspecified causes. Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]

Robert, called "The Magnificent" (French, "le Magnifique") for his love of finery, and also called "The Devil" was the son of Duke Richard II of Normandy and Judith, daughter of Conan I, Duke of Brittany.

When his father died, his elder brother Richard succeeded, whilst he became Count of Hiâemois. When Richard died a year later, there were great suspicions that Robert had Richard murdered, hence his other nickname, "Robert le diable" (the devil). He is sometimes identified with the legendary Robert the Devil. Robert aided King Henry I of France against Henry's rebellious brother and mother, and for his help he was given the territory of the Vexin. He also intervened in the affairs of Flanders, supported Edward the Confessor, who was then in exile at Robert's court, and sponsored monastic reform in Normandy.

Children

Offspring of Robert I of Normandy and Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050)
Name Birth Death Joined with
William I of England (1027-1087) 9 September 1027 Falaise, France 1087 Rouen, France Matilda of Flanders (c1031-1083)

96777.

Harriette de Falaise, Countess of Montaigne was born in 1003 in Falaise, Calvados, Normandie, France; died in ~1050 in Mortagne-au-Perche, Normandie, France.

Notes:

Herleva[a] (c. 1003 – c. 1050) was a Norman woman of the 11th century, known for three sons: William I of England "the Conqueror", an illegitimate son fathered by Robert I, Duke of Normandy; and Odo of Bayeux and Robert, Count of Mortain, who were both fathered by her husband Herluin de Conteville. All three became prominent in William's realm.

Life

The background of Herleva and the circumstances of William's birth are shrouded in mystery. The written evidence dates from a generation or two later, and is not entirely consistent, but of all the Norman chroniclers only the Tours chronicler asserts that William's parents were subsequently joined in marriage.[b] The most commonly accepted version says that she was the daughter of a tanner named Fulbert from the town of Falaise, in Normandy. The meaning of filia pelletarii burgensis[6] is somewhat uncertain, and Fulbert may instead have been a furrier, embalmer, apothecary, or a person who laid out corpses for burial.[7]

Some argue that Herleva's father was not a tanner but rather a member of the burgher class.[8] The idea is supported by the appearance of her brothers in a later document as attestors for an under-age William. Also, the Count of Flanders later accepted Herleva as a proper guardian for his own daughter. Both of these would be nearly impossible if Herleva's father was a tanner, which would place his standing as little more than a peasant.

Orderic Vitalis described Herleva's father Fulbert as the Duke's Chamberlain (cubicularii ducis).[9]
Relationship with Robert the Magnificent

According to one legend, it all started when Robert, the young Duke of Normandy, saw Herleva from the roof of his castle tower.[10] The walkway on the roof still looks down on the dyeing trenches cut into stone in the courtyard below, which can be seen to this day from the tower ramparts above. The traditional way of dyeing leather or garments was to trample barefoot on the garments which were awash in the liquid dye in these trenches. Herleva, legend goes, seeing the Duke on his ramparts above, raised her skirts perhaps a bit more than necessary in order to attract the Duke's eye.[10] The latter was immediately smitten and ordered her brought in (as was customary for any woman that caught the Duke's eye) through the back door. Herleva refused, saying she would only enter the Duke's castle on horseback through the front gate, and not as an ordinary commoner. The Duke, filled with lust, could only agree. In a few days, Herleva, dressed in the finest her father could provide, and sitting on a white horse, rode proudly through the front gate, her head held high.[10][11] This gave Herleva a semi-official status as the Duke's concubine.[12] She later gave birth to his son, William, in 1027 or 1028.[13]

Some historians suggest Herleva was first the mistress of Gilbert of Brionne with whom she had a son, Richard. It was Gilbert who first saw Herleva and elevated her position and then Robert took her for his mistress.[14]
Marriage to Herluin de Conteville

Herleva later married Herluin de Conteville in 1031. Some accounts maintain that Robert always loved her, but the gap in their social status made marriage impossible, so, to give her a good life, he married her off to one of his favourite noblemen.[15]

Another source suggests that Herleva did not marry Herluin until after Robert died, because there is no record of Robert entering another relationship, whereas Herluin married another woman, Fredesendis, by the time he founded the abbey of Grestain.[16]

From her marriage to Herluin she had two sons: Odo, who later became Bishop of Bayeux, and Robert, who became Count of Mortain. Both became prominent during William's reign. They also had at least two daughters: Emma, who married Richard le Goz, Viscount of Avranches, and a daughter of unknown name who married William, lord of la Fertâe-Macâe.[17]
Death

According to Robert of Torigni, Herleva was buried at the abbey of Grestain, which was founded by Herluin and their son Robert around 1050. This would put Herleva in her forties around the time of her death. However, David C. Douglas suggests that Herleva probably died before Herluin founded the abbey because her name does not appear on the list of benefactors, whereas the name of Herluin's second wife, Fredesendis, does.[18]

end of biography

Children:

48388. William the Conqueror, King of England, Duke of Normandy was born on 14 Oct 1024 in Chateau de Falaise, Falaise, Normandy, France; was christened in 1066 in Dives-sur-Mer, Normandie, France; died on 9 Sep 1087 in Rouen, Normandy, France; was buried in Saint-Etienne de Caen, France.
88587. Countess Adelaide of Normandy was born in ~1030 in Normandie, France; died before 1090 in (Normandie, France).

88812.

Henri, I, King of France was born on 4 May 1008 in Reims, France; died on 4 Aug 1060 in Vitry-aux-Loges, Centre, France; was buried in Saint Denis Basilique, Paris, France.

Notes:

Henry I (4 May 1008 – 4 August 1060) was King of the Franks from 1031 to his death. The royal demesne of France reached its smallest size during his reign, and for this reason he is often seen as emblematic of the weakness of the early Capetians. This is not entirely agreed upon, however, as other historians regard him as a strong but realistic king, who was forced to conduct a policy mindful of the limitations of the French monarchy.

King of the Franks
Junior king
Senior king 14 May 1027 – 20 July 1031;
20 July 1031 – 4 August 1060
Coronation 14 May 1027, Cathedral of Reims
Predecessor Robert II
Successor Philip I
Born 4 May 1008
Reims, France
Died 4 August 1060 (aged 52)
Vitry-aux-Loges, France
Burial Saint Denis Basilica, Paris, France
Spouse Matilda of Frisia
Anne of Kiev
Issue Philip I
Emma of France
Robert of France
Hugh I, Count of Vermandois
House Capet
Father Robert II of France

Reign
A member of the House of Capet, Henry was born in Reims, the son of King Robert II (972–1031) and Constance of Arles (986–1034).[1] He was crowned King of France at the Cathedral of Reims on 14 May 1027,[2] in the Capetian tradition, while his father still lived. He had little influence and power until he became sole ruler on his father's death.

The reign of Henry I, like those of his predecessors, was marked by territorial struggles. Initially, he joined his brother Robert, with the support of their mother, in a revolt against his father (1025). His mother, however, supported Robert as heir to the old king, on whose death Henry was left to deal with his rebel sibling.[3] In 1032, he placated his brother by giving him the duchy of Burgundy[3] which his father had given him in 1016.[4]

In an early strategic move, Henry came to the rescue of his very young nephew-in-law, the newly appointed Duke William of Normandy (who would go on to become William the Conqueror), to suppress a revolt by William's vassals. In 1047, Henry secured the dukedom for William in their decisive victory over the vassals at the Battle of Val-áes-Dunes near Caen;[5] however, Henry would later support the barons against William until the former's death in 1060.[6]

In 1051, William married Matilda, the daughter of the count of Flanders, which Henry saw as a threat to his throne.[7] In 1054, and again in 1057, Henry invaded Normandy, but on both occasions he was defeated.[7]

Henry had three meetings with Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor—all at Ivois. In early 1043, he met him to discuss the marriage of the emperor with Agnes of Poitou, the daughter of Henry's vassal.[8] In October 1048, the two Henries met again and signed a treaty of friendship.[9] The final meeting took place in May 1056 and concerned disputes over Theobald III and County of Blois.[9] The debate over the duchy became so heated that Henry accused the emperor of breach of contract and subsequently left.[9] In 1058, Henry was selling bishoprics and abbacies, ignoring the accusations of simony and tyranny by the Papal legate Cardinal Humbert.[10] Despite his efforts, Henry I's twenty-nine-year reign saw feudal power in France reach its pinnacle.

King Henry I died on 4 August 1060 in Vitry-en-Brie, France, and was interred in Basilica of St Denis. He was succeeded by his son, Philip I of France, who was 7 at the time of his death; for six years Henry's queen Anne of Kiev ruled as regent. At the time of his death, he was besieging Thimert, which had been occupied by the Normans since 1058.[11]

Marriages
Henry I was betrothed to Matilda, the daughter of Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor, but she died prematurely in 1034.[12] Henry then married Matilda of Frisia, but she died in 1044,[13] following a Caesarean section. Casting further afield in search of a third wife, Henry married Anne of Kiev on 19 May 1051.[13] They had four children:

Philip I (23 May 1052 – 30 July 1108).[14]
Emma (1054 – 1109?).
Robert (c. 1055 – c. 1060).
Hugh "the Great" of Vermandois (1057–1102).[15]

end of biography

88813.

Anna Agnesa Yaraslavna, Queen of France was born in 1036 in Kiev, Ukraine (daughter of Yaroslav, I, Czar of Russia and Ingigerd Olofsdottir, Princess of Sweden); died on 5 Sep 1075 in France.

Notes:

The PEDIGREE of
Anna (Agnesa) JAROSLAVNA (Princess) of KIEV

aka Anne of RUSSIA; (YAROSLAVNA Iaroslavna) KIJEWSKAIA; (Capet's 2nd wife)
Born: Kiev 1036 Died: aft. 1076 France

HM George I's 16-Great Grandmother. HRE Ferdinand I's 13-Great Grandmother. U.S. President [WASHINGTON]'s 19-Great Grandmother. PM Churchill's 23-Great Grandmother. HM Margrethe II's 24-Great Grandmother. Gen. Pierpont Hamilton's 24-Great Grandmother. `Red Baron' Richthofen's 21-Great Grandmother. Poss. Agnes Harris's 17-Great Grandmother. `Osawatomie' Brown's 24-Great Grandmother.
Husbands/Partners: Henry I CAPET (King) of FRANCE ; Raoul III de CREPY
Child: Philip I `the Amorous' (King) of FRANCE
Possible Child: Hugh MAGNUS `the Great' de CREPI
Alternative Mother of Possible Child: prob. not Matilda of GERMANY (1st wife)
________ ________ ________ ________ _______ _______ _______ _______ ______ _____ _____
/ -- Rurik (Grand Prince) of NOVGORAD + ====> [ 255 ,,p,&]
| | or: Ingwar (Rurik's son)
/ | OR: prob. not Rurik NOWGOROD [alt ped] + ====> [ 255 ,,p,&]
/ -- Igor I (Grand Prince) of KIEV (876? - 945?)
| \ | OR: prob. source: N1c1 y-Haplogroup + =====>
| \ -- Efanda of URMAN + ====> [ 1]
/ | OR: prob. not Marija of BULGARIA + ==&=> [ 255 ,,XQD,&]
/ -- Sviatoslav (Svatislav) I IGORJEWITSCH
/ \ -- Olga von PLESKAU (Grand Duchess) of KIEV + ====> [ 2]
/ -- Vladimir (I; Saint; Grand Prince) of KIEV
| \ / -- poss. Malk (Mal) de LUBECH + ====> [ 1]
| \ -- Malousha `the Slav' de LUBECH (944? - 1002?)
| \ | or: Fredslava (ARPAD ?), q.v.
/ \ -- Olga
/ -- Jaroslav (Yaroslav Laroslav) I WLADIMIROWWITSCH
| \ / -- poss. Randolph of POLOTSK + ====> [ 1]
| | / -- Rognwald (Rognvald) (Count) von POLOTZK
| \ -- Rogneida (Rognieda) (Princess) von POLOTZK
| | or: Anna PORPHYROGENITA, q.v.
/ | OR: poss. (Miss) von SCHWABEN + ==&=> [ 255 ,gC,tm,&]
- Anna (Agnesa) JAROSLAVNA (Princess) of KIEV
\ / -- Erik EDMUNDSSON of SWEDEN (Goten) + ====> [ 255 ,,p,&]
| / -- Bjorn (III) `the Old' (`a Haugi') ERIKSSON
| / -- Erik VII `Segersall' (King) of SWEDEN
| | \ | OR: Erik VII `Segersall' of SWEDEN [alt ped] + ====> [ 255 ,,p,&]
| / \ -- Ingeborg (? - 934+)
| / -- Olaf III (II; King; Skot-konig) of SWEDEN
| | \ / -- Skoglar-Toste (Skogul-Tosti) STORRADA
| | \ -- Sigrid (Sigrith) STORRADA (Queen) of DENMARK
| / | OR: prob. Gunhild MIEZKODOTTER av VENDEN + ====> [ 255 ,g,&]
\ -- Ingegarda (Ingrid) OLAFSDOTTIR (1001? - 1050)
\ / -- Mitsui II (Prince) of the OBOTRITES + ====> [ 255 ,,x,&]
| / -- Mieceslas III (Prince) of the OBOTRITES
| | \ -- poss. Sophia MIECESLAS + ====> [ 1]
| / | OR: poss. Margareta of SAXONY + ==&=> [ 255 ,c,pt,&]
\ -- Astrid (Ingegerda) (Princess) of the OBOTRITES
\ -- Sophia (Sweden)

Her (poss.) Grandchildren: Cecile de FRANCE ; Louis VI `the Fat' (King) of FRANCE ; Constance (Constansia) CAPET (Princess) of FRANCE ; Florent de FRANCE ; Raoul I (Count) de VERMANDOIS ; Isabelle (de) VERMANDOIS ; Agnes de VERMANDOIS ; Mathilda (Mahaut) de VERMANDOIS ; Constance de VERMANDOIS ; Alice de VERMANDOIS

[ Start ]
FabPed Genealogy Vers. 86 © Jamie, 1997-2018

Children:

44406. Hugues de France, Count of Vermandois was born in 1057 in (Vermandois) France; died on 18 Oct 1102 in Tarsus, Turkey; was buried in Church of St Paul, Mersin, Mersin, Turkey.

177176.

Crinan of Dunkeld, Abbot of Dunkeld was born in ~976; died in 1045 in Dunkeld, Perthshire, Scotland.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: ~980, Atholl, Perthshire, Scotland

Notes:

Crâinâan of Dunkeld (died 1045) was the hereditary abbot of the monastery of Dunkeld, and perhaps the Mormaer of Atholl. Crâinâan was progenitor of the House of Dunkeld, the dynasty which would rule Scotland until the later 13th century. He was the son-in-law of one king, and the father of another.

Family

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Crâinâan was married to Bethâoc, daughter of Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda (Malcolm II) (King of Scots, who reigned from 1005 to 1034). As Mâael Coluim had no surviving son, the strongest hereditary claim to the Scottish throne descended through Bethâoc. Crâinâan and Bethâoc's eldest son, Donnchad (Duncan I), who reigned from 1034 to 1040.

It is likely that Crâinâan had a second son Maldred, father of Gospatric of Northumbria.
Abbot of Dunkeld

The monastery of Saint Columba was founded on the north bank of the River Tay in the 6th century or early 7th century following the expedition of Columba into the land of the Picts. It may have continued to draw its hierarchy from the Cenâel Conaill of Donegal.[1] Iain Moncreiffe argued that Crinâan belonged to a Scottish sept of the Irish Cenâel Conaill royal dynasty.[2]

While the title of Hereditary Abbot (coarb in Gaelic) was a feudal position that was often exercised in name only, Crinâan does seem to have acted as Abbot in charge of the monastery in his time. He was thus a man of high position in both clerical and secular society.

The magnificent semi-ruined Dunkeld Cathedral, built in stages between 1260 and 1501, stands today on the grounds once occupied by the monastery. The Cathedral contains the only surviving remains of the previous monastic society: a course of red stone visible in the east choir wall that may have been re-used from an earlier building, and two stone ninth - or tenth-century cross-slabs in the Cathedral Museum.

In 1045, Crâinâan of Dunkeld rose in rebellion against Macbeth in support of his 14-year-old grandson, Malcolm III's claim to the throne.[3] Malcolm was the elder son of Crinan's son, the late King Duncan, who predeceased his father. However, Crâinâan, by then an elderly man, was killed in a battle at Dunkeld.
References

Woolf, Alex. "The Problem with Crâinâan", From Pictland to Alba, Edinburgh University Press, 2007
Sir Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk, The Highland Clans. Part II. 1982. p. 236

Knox, James. The topography of the basin of the Tay, Andrew Shorteed, Edinburgh, 1831

External Source

Cawley, Charles, Medieval Lands Project on Crinan, Medieval Lands database, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy,[self-published source][better source needed]
Clans and Families of Ireland and Scotland

end of biography

177177.

Bethoc was born in 984 in Perthshire, Scotland (daughter of Malcolm II of Scotland, High King of Scotland and Aefgifu); died on 15 Sep 1049 in Dunkeld, Perthshire, Scotland.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Death: 1045

Notes:

British Aristocracy
Bethâoc MacAlpin was a member of aristocracy in the British Isles.
Join: British Royals and Aristocrats Project
Discuss: EUROARISTO
Contents
[hide]
1 Biography
1.1 Medieval Lands
1.1.1 Issue
1.2 Wikipedia, English
2 Research Notes
3 Sources
Biography
Bethâoc ingen Maâil Coluim meic Cinâaeda

Parents: Malcolm II of Scotland and his wife.
Spouse: Crâinâan of Dunkeld, Mormaer of Atholl
Children:
1. Duncan I, King of Scotland
2. Maldred of Allerdale
3. daughter(s)?
Medieval Lands
http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/SCOTLAND.htm#_Toc253996182
Bethâoc was the wife of Crâinâan: CRINAN "the Thane" (-killed in battle 1045). The primary source which confirms his parentage has not yet been identified. Abthane of Dule. Lay abbot of Dunkeld. Steward of the Western Isles. Mormaer of Atholl. He was killed fighting King Macbeth. The Annals of Ulster record that "Crâonâan abbot of Dâun Caillen" was killed in 1045 in "a battle between the Scots themselves"[204]. The Annals of Tigernach record that “Crâinan abbot of Dunkeld” was killed in 1045 in “a battle between the men of Scotland on one road”[205].

m ([1000]) BETHOC, daughter of MALCOLM II King of Scotland & his wife ---. The "Genealogy of King William the Lyon" dated 1175 names "Betoch filii Malcolmi" as parent of "Malcolmi filii Dunecani"[206]. The Chronicle of the Scots and Picts dated 1177 names "Cran Abbatis de Dunkelden et Bethok filia Malcolm mac Kynnet" as parents of King Duncan[207]. The Chronicle of John of Fordun records that King Malcolm II had "an only daughter…Beatrice who married Crynyne Abthane of Dul and Steward of the Isles…in some annals, by a blunder of the writer…abbot of Dul"[208].

Issue
Crinan & Bethoc had two children:

i) DUNCAN ([1001]-killed in battle either Bothganowan/Pitgaveny, near Elgin, or Burghead 14 Aug 1040, bur Isle of Iona). His parentage is confirmed by the Annals of Ulster which record the death of "Donnchad son of Crâinâan, king of Scotland" in 1040[209]. The Chronicle of John of Fordun names "Duncan" as son of "Crynyne Abthane of Dul and Steward of the Isles" and his wife[210]. He succeeded in 1018 as King of Strathclyde. He succeeded his maternal grandfather in 1034 as DUNCAN I King of Scotland.

ii) MALDRED (-killed in battle [1045]). His parentage is confirmed by Simeon of Durham who records the marriage of "Maldred the son of Crinan"[211]. Lord of Allerdale. Regent of Strathclyde 1034/35.

Wikipedia, English
Bethâoc ingen Maâil Coluim meic Cinâaeda was the eldest daughter of King Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda, King of Scots, who had no known sons.

The strongest hereditary claim of succession to the Scottish throne therefore passed through Bethâoc. Approximately 1000, Princess Bethâoc married Crâinâan, Abbot of Dunkeld. The first son of this marriage was Donnchad I, who ascended to the throne of Scotland in 1034. Early writers have asserted that Mâael Coluim also designated Donnchad as his successor under the rules of tanistry because there were other possible claimants to the throne.

Her sister Olith was married to Jarl Sigurd the Stout of Orkney, and the other sister Donada to Findlâaech, the Mormaer of Moireabh.

She is not to be confused with Bethâoc ingen Domnaill Bain meic Donnchada.

She gained the title of Heiress of Scone. As a result of her marriage, Bethoc of Scotland was styled as Lady of Atholl.

It is possible that Bethâoc had previously been married to Jarl Sigurd the Stout of Orkney, and to Findlâaech, the Mormaer of Moireabh. She is not to be confused with Bethâoc ingen Domnaill Bain meic Donnchada.

Research Notes
Citation needed for spare husband and surplus kids.

The name of Bethâoc's mother is not known.

Sources
Nigel Tranter has a pretty good book on the subject as well, "Macbeth the King" and it is far more readable than Dorothy Dunnett's. Tranter thinks that Thorfinn and Macbeth are halfbrothers, possibly sons of Malcolm II of
Scotland 's daughter Dovada. Duncan is their cousin son of Malcolm II's other daughter Bethoc.

It is possible that Bethâoc had previously been married to Jarl Sigurd the Stout of Orkney, and to Findlâaech, the Mormaer of Moireabh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethoc
Bethoc av Skottland, eller Bethâoc ingen Maâil Coluim meic Cinâaeda, var den eldste datteren til kong Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda (Malcolm II av Skottland) som ikke hadde noen s²nner.
Det sterkeste arvelige krav til êa etterf²lge som skottenes konge gikk derfor via Bethâoc. Omtrent rundt êar 1000 giftet prinsesse Bethâoc seg med Crâinâan av Dunkeld, lekmannsabbed og muligens mormaer. Den f²rste s²nnen av dette ekteskapet ble Donnchad mac Crâinâain (Duncan I av Skottland) som overtok den skotske tronen i 1034. Tidlige skribenter har ogsêa forfektet at Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda (Malcolm II av Skottland) selv hadde utsett Donnchad som sin etterf²lger under reglene om tanisteri ettersom det var andre mulige krav til tronen. Det er mulig at Bethâoc tidligere hadde vµrt gift med jarl Sigurd Lodvesson (kalt den digre eller staute) av Orkn²yene, og med Findlâaech, mormaer av Moireabh. Bethâoc mêa ikke forveksles med Bethâoc ingen Domnaill Bain meic Donnchada, en datter av Donald III av Skottland.
https://www.stirnet.com/genie/data/british/aa/alpin1.php
Anderson, Marjorie Ogilvy: Kings and Kingship in Early Scotland, 1973
Alison Weir, Britain's Royal Family: A Complete Genealogy (London, U.K.: The Bodley Head, 1999), page 177-178.
Richard Glanville-Brown, online , Richard Glanville-Brown (RR 2, Milton, Ontario, Canada), downloaded 17 August 2005.
The Oxford History of the British Monarchy ,
http://www.thepeerage.com/p10289.htm#i102883

end of this biography

Bethâoc ingen Maâil Coluim meic Cinâaeda was the elder daughter of Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda, King of Scots, and the mother of his successor, Duncan I.

Biography

Bethâoc was the eldest daughter of the Malcolm II of Scotland, who had no known surviving sons. She married Crâinâan, Abbot of Dunkeld. Their older son, Donnchad I, ascended to the throne of Scotland around 1034. Malcolm's youngest daughter married Sigurd Hlodvirsson, Earl of Orkney.[1] Early writers have asserted that Mâael Coluim also designated Donnchad as his successor under the rules of tanistry because there were other possible claimants to the throne.

In this period, the Scottish throne still passed in Picto-Gaelic matrilineal fashion, from brother to brother, uncle to nephew, and cousin to cousin.

Bethâoc
Spouse Crâinâan, Abbot of Dunkeld
Issue Duncan I, King of Alba
Maldred of Allerdale
House House of Alpin
Father Malcolm II, King of Alba

end of biography

Children:

88588. Duncan I of Scotland, King of Alba was born in ~1001 in (Dunkeld, Scotland); died on 14 Aug 1040 in Elgin, Scotland.
Maldred, King of Cumbria

177604.

Notes:

Edmund Ironside (died 30 November 1016), also known as Edmund II, was King of England from 23 April to 30 November 1016. He was the son of King ¥thelred the Unready and his first wife, ¥lfgifu of York. Edmund's reign was marred by a war he had inherited from his father, his cognomen "Ironside" was given to him "because of his valour" in resisting the Danish invasion led by Cnut the Great.[1]

Edmund was not expected to be King of England; however, by 1014 two elder brothers had died, making him the oldest male heir. His father, ¥thelred, was usurped by Sweyn Forkbeard in that same year, but Sweyn died shortly thereafter, paving the way for ¥thelred and his family to return to the throne, which they did but not without opposition. In the process they forced Sweyn's son, Cnut, back to Denmark, where he assembled an invasion force to re-conquer England. It would not arrive for another year.

After regaining the throne, the royal family set about strengthening its hold on the country with the assistance of Eadric Streona (Edmund's brother-in-law). People who had sided with the Danes in 1014 were punished, and some were killed. In one case, two brothers, Morcar and Sigeferth, were killed and their possessions, along with Sigferth's wife, were taken by Edmund. Edmund unofficially became the Earl of the East Midlands and took Ealdgyth for his wife.

Cnut returned to England in August 1015. Over the next few months, Cnut pillaged most of England. Edmund joined ¥thelred to defend London, but he died on 23 April 1016, making Edmund King. It was not until the summer of 1016 that any serious fighting was done: Edmund fought five battles against the Danes, ending in his defeat on 18 October at the Battle of Assandun, after which they agreed to divide the kingdom, Edmund taking Wessex and Cnut the rest of the country. Edmund died shortly afterwards on 30 November, leaving two sons, Edward and Edmund; however, Cnut became the king of all England, and exiled the remaining members of Edmund's family.

King of the English
Reign 23 April – 30 November 1016
Predecessor ¥thelred the Unready
Successor Cnut the Great
Born 990
Died 30 November 1016 (aged 26)
Oxford or London, England
Burial Glastonbury Abbey
Spouse Ealdgyth
Issue Edward the Exile
Edmund
House Wessex
Father ¥thelred the Unready
Mother ¥lfgifu of York
Religion British Church

Early life

The exact date of Edmund's birth is unclear, but it could have been no later than 993 when he was a signatory to charters along with his two elder brothers. He was the third of the six sons of King ¥thelred the Unready and his first wife, ¥lfgifu, who was probably the daughter of Earl Thored of Northumbria. His elder brothers were ¥thelstan (died 1014) and Egbert (died c. 1005), and younger ones, Eadred, Eadwig and Edgar.[1] He had four sisters, Eadgyth (or Edith), ¥lfgifu, Wulfhilda, and the Abbess of Wherwell Abbey. His mother died around 1000,[2] after which his father remarried, this time to Emma of Normandy, who had two sons, Edward the Confessor and Alfred and a daughter Goda.

¥thelstan and Edmund were close, and they probably felt threatened by Emma's ambitions for her sons.[3] The Life of Edward the Confessor, written fifty years later, claimed that when Emma was pregnant with him, all Englishmen promised that if the child was a boy they would accept him as king.[1] However that claim may just be propaganda.

Warrior prince

When Sweyn Forkbeard seized the throne at the end of 1013 and ¥thelred fled to Normandy, the brothers do not appear to have followed him, but stayed in England. ¥thelstan died in June 1014 and left Edmund a sword which had belonged to king Offa of Mercia.[1] His will also reflected the close relationship between the brothers and the nobility of the east midlands.[4]

Sweyn died in February 1014, and the Five Boroughs accepted his son Cnut, who married a kinswoman of Sigeferth and Morcar, as king. However, ¥thelred returned to England and launched a surprise attack which defeated the Vikings and forced Cnut to flee England. In 1015 Sigeferth and Morcar came to an assembly in Oxford, probably hoping for a royal pardon, but they were murdered by Eadric Streona. King ¥thelred then ordered that Sigeferth's widow, Ealdgyth, be seized and brought to Malmesbury Abbey, but Edmund seized and married her in defiance of his father, probably to consolidate his power base in the east midlands.[5] He then received the submission of the people of the Five Boroughs. At the same time, Cnut launched a new invasion of England. In late 1015 Edmund raised an army, possibly assisted by his wife's and mother's links with the midlands and the north, but the Mercians under Eadric Streona joined the West Saxons in submitting to Cnut. In early 1016 the army assembled by Edmund dispersed when ¥thelred did not appear to lead it, probably due to illness. Edmund then raised a new army and in conjunction with Earl Uhtred of Northumbria ravaged Eadric Streona's Mercian territories, but when Cnut occupied Northumbria Uhtred submitted to him, only to be killed by Cnut. Edmund went to London.[1]

King of England

¥thelred died on 23 April 1016, and the citizens and councillors in London chose Edmund as king and probably crowned him. He then mounted a last-ditch effort to revive the defence of England. While the Danes laid siege to London, Edmund headed for Wessex, where the people submitted to him and he gathered an army. He fought inconclusive battles against the Danes and their English supporters at Penselwood in Somerset and Sherston in Wiltshire. He then raised the siege of London and defeated the Danes near Brentford. They renewed the siege while Edmund went to Wessex to raise further troops, returning to again relieve London, defeat the Danes at Otford, and pursue Cnut into Kent. Eadric Streona now went over to Edmund, but at the decisive Battle of Assandun on 18 October, Eadric and his men fled and Cnut decisively defeated Edmund. There may have been one further battle in the Forest of Dean, after which the two kings negotiated a peace dividing the country between them. Edmund received Wessex while Cnut took Mercia and probably Northumbria.[1]

Death

On 30 November 1016, Edmund died. The location of his death is uncertain though it is generally accepted that it occurred in London, rather than in Oxford where Henry of Huntingdon claimed it to be in his sordid version of events, which included Edmund’s murder by suffering multiple stab wounds whilst on a privy tending to a call of nature.[6] Geoffrey Gaimar states a similar occurrence with the weapon being a crossbow, but with a number of other medieval chroniclers including the Encomium Emmae Reginae not mentioning murder, it is thought Edmund’s cause of death may possibly have been caused by wounds received in battle or by some disease, but it is certainly a possibility that he was murdered.

Edmund was buried near his grandfather Edgar at Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset. However the abbey was destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century, and any remains of a monument or crypt would have been plundered and the location of his remains is unclear.

Reputation

In the view of M. K. Lawson, the intensity of Edmund's struggle against the Danes in 1016 is only matched by Alfred the Great's in 871, and contrasts with ¥thelred's failure. Edmund's success in raising one army after another suggests that there was little wrong with the organs of government under competent leadership. He was "probably a highly determined, skilled and indeed inspiring leader of men". Cnut visited his tomb on the anniversary of his death and laid a cloak decorated with peacocks on it to assist in his salvation, peacocks symbolising resurrection.[1]

Descendants

Edmund had two children by Ealdgyth, Edward the Exile and Edmund. According to John of Worcester, Cnut sent them to the king of Sweden where he probably hoped they would be murdered, but the Swedish king instead forwarded them, together with his daughter, on to Kiev. The two boys eventually ended up in Hungary where Edmund died but Edward prospered. Edward "the Exile" returned to England in 1057 only to die within a few days of his arrival.[7] His son Edgar the ¥theling was briefly proclaimed king after the Battle of Hastings in 1066, but later submitted to William the Conqueror. Edgar would live a long and eventful life; fighting in rebellion against William the Conqueror from 1067-1075; fighting alongside the Conqueror's son Robert of Normandy in campaigns in Sicily (1085-1087); and accompanying Robert on the First Crusade (1099-1103). He was stlll alive in 1125.

In 1070 Edward the Exile's daughter, Margaret, became Queen consort to Malcolm III of Scotland. Through her and her decedents, Edmund is the direct ancestor of every subsequent Scottish monarch, every English monarch from Henry II onward, and every monarch of Great Britain and of the United Kingdom, down to the present.

Edmund married Ealdgyth. Ealdgyth was born about 992; died after 1016. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

177605.
Ealdgyth was born about 992; died after 1016.
Children:

88802. Edward the Exile was born in 1016 in (Wessex) England; died on 19 Apr 1057 in London, Middlesex, England.

177170.

Ealdred, Earl of Bernicia was born in ~990 in Bernicia, Northumbria, England (son of Untred, Earl of Northumbria and Ecgfrida of Durham); died in ~1038 in Risewood Forest, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: (1000)

Notes:

Ealdred was Earl of Bernicia from 1020/25 until his murder in 1038. He was the son of Uhtred, Earl of Northumbria, who was murdered by Thurbrand the Hold in 1016 with the connivance of Cnut. Ealdred's mother was Ecgfrida, daughter of Aldhun, bishop of Durham.

Ealdred succeeded his uncle Eadwulf Cudel as Earl of Bernicia in 1020/25, and some time probably in the mid 1020s he killed Thurbrand in revenge for his father's death. In 1038 Ealdred was murdered by Thurbrand's son, Carl. He was succeeded as Earl of Bernicia by his brother, another Eadwulf. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle asserts that in 1041 Eadwulf was "betrayed" by King Harthacnut.[1] The "betrayal" seems to have been carried out by Siward, Earl of Northumbria; since when the Libellus de Exordio and other sources write about the same event, they say that Siward attacked and killed Eadulf.[2] It was thus that Siward became earl of all Northumbria, perhaps the first person to do so since Uhtred the Bold.

Ealdred's daughter Ealdgyth was married to Ligulf, who was murdered in 1080.[3] Ealdred's daughter, Aelfflaed, was the first wife of Siward and her son (Ealdred's grandson) was Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria.
References

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle manuscripts C, D, s.a. 1041
Rollason (ed.), Libellus de Exordio, pp. 170–71

Aird, William M. (2004). "Ligulf (d. 1080)" ((subscription or UK public library membership required)). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/16791. Retrieved 20 January 2016.

Sources

Fletcher, Richard. Bloodfeud: Murder and Revenge in Anglo-Saxon England. Allen Lane 2002.

end of biography

Ealdred married unnamed spouse. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

177171.
unnamed spouse
Children:

88585. Aelfflaed was born in ~1010 in (Northumbria, England); died in 1060 in Northumbria, England.

177626.

Yaroslav, I, Czar of Russia was born in 976 in Kiev, Ukraine (son of Vladimir, Czar of Russia and Rogneda of Polotsk, Princess Consort of Rus); died on 20 Feb 1054 in Kiev, Ukraine.

Notes:

Yaroslav I, Grand Prince of Rus', known as Yaroslav the Wise or Iaroslav the Wise (Old East Slavic: ???????? ?????????????? ??????; Russian: ??????´? ??´????, translit. Jaroslav Mudryj [j?r?'slaf 'mudr?j]; Ukrainian: ??????´? ??´????, translit. Jaroslav Mudryj [j?ro'sl?u? 'mudr?j]; Old Norse: Jarizleifr Valdamarsson;[1]; Latin: Iaroslaus Sapiens; c. 978 – 20 February 1054) was thrice grand prince of Veliky Novgorod and Kiev, uniting the two principalities for a time under his rule. Yaroslav's Christian name was George (Yuri) after Saint George (Old East Slavic: ?????i, Gjurigái).

A son of Vladimir the Great, the first Christian Prince of Novgorod, Yaroslav acted as vice-regent of Novgorod at the time of his father's death in 1015. Subsequently, his eldest surviving brother, Sviatopolk I of Kiev, killed three of his other brothers and seized power in Kiev. Yaroslav, with the active support of the Novgorodians and the help of Varangian mercenaries, (Varangian defined: http://thehennesseefamily.com/showmedia.php?mediaID=3071&medialinkID=3073) defeated Svyatopolk and became the Grand Prince of Kiev in 1019. Under Yaroslav the codification of legal customs and princely enactments was begun, and this work served as the basis for a law code called the Russkaya Pravda ("Rus Truth [Law]"). During his lengthy reign, Kievan Rus' reached the zenith of its cultural flowering and military power.[2]

Yaroslav the Wise
Grand Prince of Kiev and Novgorod
Reign 1019–1054
Predecessor Sviatopolk the Accursed
Successor Iziaslav I
Prince of Rostov?
Reign 978–1010
Prince of Novgorod
Reign 1010–1019
Born c.?978
Died 20 February 1054 (aged c. 76)
Vyésgorod
Burial Saint Sophia's Cathedral, Kiev
Spouse Ingegerd Olofsdotter of Sweden
Issue
Details... Elisiv, Queen of Norway
Anastasia, Queen of Hungary
Anne, Queen of the Franks
Agatha, Queen of England (possibly)
Ilya
Vladimir of Novgorod
Iziaslav I
Sviatoslav II
Vsevolod I
Igor Yaroslavich
Vyacheslav Yaroslavich
Full name
Yaroslav Vladimirovich
Dynasty Rurikid
Father Vladimir the Great
Mother Rogneda of Polotsk (according to the Primary Chronicle)

Rise to the throne

The only contemporary image of Yaroslav I the Wise, on his seal.
Main article: Boleslaw I's intervention in the Kievan succession crisis
The early years of Yaroslav's life are shrouded in mystery. He was one of the numerous sons of Vladimir the Great, presumably his second by Rogneda of Polotsk,[3] although his actual age (as stated in the Primary Chronicle and corroborated by the examination of his skeleton in the 1930s) would place him among the youngest children of Vladimir. It has been suggested that he was a child begotten out of wedlock after Vladimir's divorce from Rogneda and marriage to Anna Porphyrogenita, or even that he was a child of Anna Porphyrogenita herself. Yaroslav figures prominently in the Norse sagas under the name Jarisleif the Lame; his legendary lameness (probably resulting from an arrow wound) was corroborated by the scientists who examined his remains.[citation needed]

In his youth, Yaroslav was sent by his father to rule the northern lands around Rostov but was transferred to Veliky Novgorod,[4] as befitted a senior heir to the throne, in 1010. While living there, he founded the town of Yaroslavl (literally, "Yaroslav's") on the Volga River. His relations with his father were apparently strained,[4] and grew only worse on the news that Vladimir bequeathed the Kievan throne to his younger son, Boris. In 1014 Yaroslav refused to pay tribute to Kiev and only Vladimir's death, in July 1015, prevented a war.[4]

During the next four years Yaroslav waged a complicated and bloody war for Kiev against his half-brother Sviatopolk I of Kiev, who was supported by his father-in-law, Duke Boleslaw I Chrobry of Poland.[5] During the course of this struggle, several other brothers (Boris, Gleb, and Svyatoslav) were brutally murdered.[5] The Primary Chronicle accused Svyatopolk of planning those murders,[5] while the saga Eymundar ¤âattr hrings is often interpreted as recounting the story of Boris' assassination by the Varangians in the service of Yaroslav. However, the victim's name is given there as Burizaf, which is also a name of Boleslaus I in the Scandinavian sources. It is thus possible that the Saga tells the story of Yaroslav's struggle against Svyatopolk (whose troops were commanded by the Polish duke), and not against Boris.[citation needed]

Yaroslav defeated Svyatopolk in their first battle, in 1016, and Svyatopolk fled to Poland.[5] But Svyatopolk returned in 1018 with Polish troops furnished by his father-in-law, seized Kiev[5] and pushed Yaroslav back into Novgorod. Yaroslav at last prevailed over Svyatopolk, and in 1019 firmly established his rule over Kiev.[6] One of his first actions as a grand prince was to confer on the loyal Novgorodians (who had helped him to gain the Kievan throne), numerous freedoms and privileges. Thus, the foundation of the Novgorod Republic was laid. For their part, the Novgorodians respected Yaroslav more than they did other Kievan princes; and the princely residence in their city, next to the marketplace (and where the veche often convened) was named Yaroslav's Court after him. It probably was during this period that Yaroslav promulgated the first code of laws in the lands of the East Slavs, the Russkaya Pravda.

Reign

Coins of Yaroslav and his descendants represent the trident.

Depiction of Yaroslav the Wise from Granovitaya Palata.
Power struggles between siblings
Leaving aside the legitimacy of Yaroslav's claims to the Kievan throne and his postulated guilt in the murder of his brothers, Nestor the Chronicler and later Russian historians often presented him as a model of virtue, styling him "the Wise". A less appealing side of his personality is revealed by his having imprisoned his youngest brother Sudislav for life. Yet another brother, Mstislav of Chernigov, whose distant realm bordered the North Caucasus and the Black Sea, hastened to Kiev and, despite reinforcements led by Yaroslav's brother-in-law King Anund Jacob of Sweden (as Jakun - "blind and dressed in a gold suit"),[7] inflicted a heavy defeat on Yaroslav in 1024. Yaroslav and Mstislav then divided Kievan Rus' between them: the area stretching left from the Dnieper River, with the capital at Chernihiv, was ceded to Mstislav until his death in 1036.

Scandinavian allies
In his foreign policy, Yaroslav relied on the Scandinavian alliance and attempted to weaken the Byzantine influence on Kiev. In 1030, he reconquered Red Ruthenia from the Poles and concluded an alliance with King Casimir I the Restorer, sealed by the latter's marriage to Yaroslav's sister, Maria. In another successful military raid the same year, he captured Tartu, Estonia and renamed it Yuryev[8] (named after Yury, Yaroslav's patron saint) and forced the surrounding province of Ugaunnia to pay annual tribute.

Campaign against Byzantium
In 1043, Yaroslav staged a naval raid against Constantinople led by his son Vladimir of Novgorod and general Vyshata. Although his navy was defeated in the Rus'–Byzantine War (1043), Yaroslav managed to conclude the war with a favourable treaty and prestigious marriage of his son Vsevolod I of Kiev to the emperor's daughter. It has been suggested that the peace was so advantageous because the Kievans had succeeded in taking a key Byzantine possession in Crimea, Chersonesus.

Protecting the inhabitants of the Dniper from the Pechenegs
To defend his state from the Pechenegs and other nomadic tribes threatening it from the south he constructed a line of forts, composed of Yuriev, Bohuslav, Kaniv, Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi, and Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi. To celebrate his decisive victory over the Pechenegs in 1036 (who thereupon never were a threat to Kiev) he sponsored the construction of the Saint Sophia Cathedral in 1037. That same year there were built monasteries of Saint George and Saint Irene. Some mentioned and other celebrated monuments of his reign such as the Golden Gate of Kiev perished during the Mongol invasion of Rus', but later restored.

Establishment of law
Yaroslav was a notable patron of book culture and learning. In 1051, he had a Slavic monk, Hilarion of Kiev, proclaimed the metropolitan bishop of Kiev, thus challenging the Byzantine tradition of placing Greeks on the episcopal sees. Hilarion's discourse on Yaroslav and his father Vladimir is frequently cited as the first work of Old East Slavic literature.

Family life and posterity

Eleventh-century fresco of Saint Sophia's Cathedral, Kiev, representing the daughters of Yaroslav I, with Anne probably being the youngest. Other daughters were Anastasia, wife of Andrew I of Hungary; Elizabeth, wife of Harald Harºrâaºi; and possibly Agatha, wife of Edward the Exile.
In 1019, Yaroslav married Ingegerd Olofsdotter, daughter of the king of Sweden,[9] and gave Staraya Ladoga to her as a marriage gift.

Saint Sophia's Cathedral in Kiev houses a fresco representing the whole family: Yaroslav, Irene (as Ingegerd was known in Rus), their four daughters and six sons.[10] Yaroslav had three of his daughters married to foreign princes who lived in exile at his court:

Elisiv of Kiev to Harald Harºrâaºi[9] (who attained her hand by his military exploits in the Byzantine Empire);
Anastasia of Kiev to the future Andrew I of Hungary;[9]
Anne of Kiev married Henry I of France[9] and was the regent of France during their son's minority; (she was Yaroslav the Wise's most beloved daughter).
(possibly) Agatha, wife of Edward the Exile, of the royal family of England, the mother of Edgar the ¥theling and Saint Margaret of Scotland.

Anne of Kiev.
Yaroslav had one son from the first marriage (his Christian name being Ilya (?-1020)), and six sons from the second marriage. Apprehending the danger that could ensue from divisions between brothers, he exhorted them to live in peace with each other. The eldest of these, Vladimir of Novgorod, best remembered for building the Cathedral of St. Sophia, Novgorod, predeceased his father. Three other sons—Iziaslav I, Sviatoslav II, and Vsevolod I—reigned in Kiev one after another. The youngest children of Yaroslav were Igor Yaroslavich (1036–1060) of Volhynia and Vyacheslav Yaroslavich (1036–1057) of the Principality of Smolensk. About Vyacheslav, there is almost no information. Some documents point out the fact of him having a son, Boris Vyacheslavich, who challenged Vsevolod I sometime in 1077-1078.

Grave

Sarcophagus of Yaroslav the Wise.
Following his death, the body of Yaroslav the Wise was entombed in a white marble sarcophagus within Saint Sophia's Cathedral. In 1936, the sarcophagus was opened and found to contain the skeletal remains of two individuals, one male and one female. The male was determined to be Yaroslav, however the identity of the female was never established. The sarcophagus was again opened in 1939 and the remains removed for research, not being documented as returned until 1964. Then, in 2009, the sarcophagus was opened and surprisingly found to contain only one skeleton, that of a female. It seems the documents detailing the 1964 reinterment of the remains were falsified to hide the fact that Yaroslav's remains had been lost. Subsequent questioning of individuals involved in the research and reinterment of the remains seems to point to the idea that Yaroslav's remains were purposely hidden prior to the German occupation of Ukraine and then either lost completely or stolen and transported to the United States where many ancient religious artifacts were placed to avoid "mistreatment" by the communists.[11]

Legacy

Yaroslav the Wise's consolidation of Kiev and Novgorod as depicted at Zoloti Vorota mosaics https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e8/Yaroslav1.jpg/220px-Yaroslav1.jpg
Four different towns in four different countries were founded by and named after Yaroslav: Yaroslavl (in today's Russia), Yuryev (now Tartu, Estonia) and another Yuryev (now Bila Tserkva, Ukraine), and Jaroslaw in Poland. Following the Russian custom of naming military objects such as tanks and planes after historical figures, the helmet worn by many Russian soldiers during the Crimean War was called the "Helmet of Yaroslav the Wise". It was the first pointed helmet to be used by any army, even before German troops wore pointed helmets.

In 2008 Yaroslav was placed first (with 40% of the votes) in their ranking of "our greatest compatriots" by the viewers of the TV show Velyki Ukraèintsi.[12] Afterwards one of the producers of The Greatest Ukrainians claimed that Yaroslav had only won because of vote manipulation and that (if that had been prevented) the real first place would have been awarded to Stepan Bandera.[13]

Monument to Yaroslav the Wise in Kiev https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/Monument_to_Yaroslav_the_Wise.jpg/220px-Monument_to_Yaroslav_the_Wise.jpg

Iron Lord was a 2010 film based on his early life as a regional prince on the frontier.

end of biography

*Yaroslav I "The Wise" Grand Duke of Kiev
born 0980 Kiev, Ukraine
died 20 February 1054 Kiev, Ukraine
buried 1054 Russia

father:
*Vladimir I "The Great" Grand Duke of Kiev
born 0960 Kiev, Ukraine
died 15 Jul 1015 Berestovo, Kiev, Ukraine
buried Church Of The Tithes, Kiev, Ukraine

mother:
*Rogneda Princess of Polotsk
born about 0962 Polotsk, Byelorussia
died 1002
married Abt 0977 Of Polotsk, Byelorussia

siblings:
Vsevolod Vladimirovich Prince of Vladimir Volynsk
born Abt 0983 Of, Vladimir Volynskij, Volyn, Ukraine died 1015
Iszyaslav Vladimirovich born Abt 0978 Of Kiev, Ukraine died 1001
Mstislav Vladimirovich Duke of Chernigov & Tmutorakan
born Abt 0988 Of Chernigov, Ukraine died 1035/1036
Premislava Vladimirovna Princess of Kiev born Abt 0980 Of Kiev, Ukraine
Predslava Vladimirovna Princess of Kiev born Abt 0984 Of Kiev, Ukraine
died Aft 1018

spouse:
*Ingrid (Ingegerda) Olafsdotter Princess of Sweden
born about 1001 Uppsala, Sweden
died 10 February 1050 Kiev, Ukraine
married 1019 Uppsala, Sweden

children:
*Anna Agnesa Yaroslavna Grand Duchess of Kiev born 1036 Kiev, Ukraine
died 1076/89 France buried Abbaye de Villiers, La-Ferte-Alais, France
*Anastasiya Agmunda Yaroslavna Princess of Kiev born about 1035 Ukraine died after 1074
*Vsevolod I Yaroslavich Prince of Kiev born 1030 Pereyaslavl, Russia died 13 April 1093
Igor Yaroslavich born about 1036 Vladimir Volynskiy, Volyn, Ukraine
died 1059/60 Vladimir Volunsky, Volyn, Ukraine
Vladimir Yaroslavich Duke of Novgorod born 1020 Novgorod, Russia died 4 October 1052
*Izyaslav I Dmitrij Yaroslavich born 1025 Turov, Polesye, Byelorussia died 3 October 1078
Svyatopolk I Yaroslavich Grand Duke of Kiev born 1027 Vladimir-Volynsk, Volyn, Ukraine
died 27 December 1076
*Elizaveta Yaroslavna of Kiev Queen of Norway born about 1032 Kiev, Ukraine

biographical and/or anecdotal:

notes or source:
LDS

end of profile

177627.

Notes:

Ingegerd Olofsdotter of Sweden, also known as Irene, Anna and St. Anna (1001 – 10 February 1050), was a Swedish princess and a Grand Princess of Kiev. She was the daughter of Swedish King Olof Skèotkonung and Estrid of the Obotrites and the consort of Yaroslav I the Wise of Kiev.

Ingegerd or St. Anna is often confused with the mother of St. Vladimir “the Enlightener” of the Rus. This is mainly because Ingegerd and Yaroslav also had a son named Vladimir. However, St. Vladimir was the father of Ingegerd’s husband Yaroslav I “the Wise”, thus making her St. Vladimir’s daughter-in-law. St. Vladimir was the son of Sviatoslav and Malusha.

Biography

11th-century fresco of the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev representing the daughters of Ingegerd and Yaroslav I, with Anna probably being the youngest. Other daughters were Anastasia wife of Andrew I of Hungary, Elizabeth wife of Harald III of Norway, and perhaps Agatha wife of Edward the Exile.
Ingegerd was born in Sigtuna,[citation needed] Sweden. She was engaged to be married to Norwegian King Olaf II, but when Sweden and Norway got into a feud, Swedish King Olof Skèotkonung would no longer allow for the marriage to take place.

Instead, Ingegerd's father quickly arranged for a marriage to the powerful Yaroslav I the Wise of Novgorod.[1] The marriage took place in 1019.[1] Once in Kiev, she changed her name to the Greek Irene. According to several sagas, she was given as a marriage gift Ladoga and adjacent lands, which later received the name Ingria, arguably a corruption of Ingegerd's name. She placed her friend, jarl Ragnvald Ulfsson, to rule in her stead.

Ingegerd initiated the building of the Saint Sophia's Cathedral in Kiev that was supervised by her husband.[citation needed] She also initiated the construction of the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Novgorod. They had six sons and four daughters, the latter of whom became Queens of France, Hungary, Norway, and (arguably) England. The whole family is depicted in one of the frescoes of the Saint Sophia.

Death and burial

Ingegerd died on 10 February 1050. Upon her death, according to different sources, Ingegerd was buried in either Saint Sophia's Cathedral in Kyiv or Cathedral of St. Sophia in Novgorod.

Sainthood

Ingegerd was later declared a saint, by the name of St. Anna, in Novgorod and Kiev. The reason was that she initiated the building of the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev as well as the local version, the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod, along with many good doings.

The following was stated by the church in reference to her sainthood:

St. Anna, Grand Duchess of Novgorod, She was the daughter of Swedish King Olaf Sketktung, the "All-Christian King," who did much to spread Orthodoxy in Scandinavia, and the pious Queen Astrida.

In Sweden she was known as Princess Indegard; she married Yaroslav I “the Wise“, Grand Prince of Kiev, who was the founder of the Saint Sophia Cathedral in 1016, taking the name Irene.

She gave shelter to the outcast sons of British King Edmund, Edwin and Edward, as well as the Norwegian prince Magnus, who later returned to Norway.

She is perhaps best known as the mother of Vsevolod of , himself the father of Vladimir Monomakh and progenitor of the Princes of Moscow.

Her daughters were Anna, Queen of France, Queen Anastasia of Hungary, and Queen Elizabeth (Elisiv) of Norway. The whole family was profoundly devout and pious.

She reposed in 1050 in the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom (St. Sophia) in Kiev, having been tonsured a monastic with the name of Anna.

As saint, her hymn goes:

And 4 stichera, in Tone I: Spec. Mel.: Joy of the ranks of heaven

O joy of the Swedish people, thou didst gladden the Russian realm, filling it with grace and purity, adorning its throne with majesty, lustrous in piety like a priceless gem set in a splendid royal crown.

Named Ingegerd in the baptismal waters, O venerable one, thou wast called Irene by thy Russian subjects, who perceived in thee the divine and ineffable peace; but when thou didst submit to monastic obedience, thou didst take the new name, Anna, after the honoured ancestor of Christ, the King of kings.

Wed in honourable matrimony, O holy Anna, thou didst live in concord with thy royal spouse, the right-believing and most wise Prince Yaroslav; and having born him holy offspring, after his repose thou didst betroth thyself unto the Lord as thy heavenly Bridegroom.

Disdaining all the allurements of vanity and donning the coarse robes of a monastic, O wondrous and sacred Anna, thou gavest thyself over to fasting and prayer, ever entreating Christ thy Master, that He deliver thy people from the all want and misfortune.

Feast days: 10 February, 4 October.

Children

Ingegerd had the following children

Elisiv of Kiev, queen of Norway
Anastasia of Kiev, queen of Hungary
Anne of Kiev, queen of France
(possibly) Agatha, wife of Edward the Exile
Vladimir of Novgorod
Iziaslav
Sviatoslav
Vsevolod
Igor Yaroslavich

Children:

Vladimir of Novgorod was born in 1020 in Novgorod, Ukraine; died on 4 Oct 1052 in Novgorod, Ukraine; was buried in Cathedral of St. Sophia, Novgorod, Ukraine.
88813. Anna Agnesa Yaraslavna, Queen of France was born in 1036 in Kiev, Ukraine; died on 5 Sep 1075 in France.

48388.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Hastings, England
Military: Victor over the English in the Battle of Hastings, 1066
Burial: 10 Sep 1087, St. Stephen Abbey, Caen, Calvados, France

Notes:

William I the Conqueror of England and Normandy, Duke of Normandy, King of England, was born 9 September 1027 in Falaise, France to Robert II, Duke of Normandy (c1000-1035) and Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050) and died 1087 in Rouen, France of unspecified causes. He married Matilda of Flanders (c1031-1083) 1051 JL . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]

William I, King of England, Duke of Normandy was a mediµval monarch. He ruled as the Duke of Normandy from 1035 to 1087 and as King of England from 1066 to 1087. As Duke of Normandy, William was known as William II, and, as King of England, as William I. He is commonly refered to as William the Conqueror (Guillaume le Conquâerant) or William the Bastard (Guillaume le Bãatard).

The name "William the Bastard", a name used by his enemies arose from the fact that his mother was a Tanner's daughter who agreed to be his father Robert II's mistress. She demanded that their relationship not be secret, and had a position in court. After the affair was over, she married a Viscount. William retained the favour of his father and when Robert II left for the Holy Land, he forced his lords to pledge fealty to William. Robert II never returned from the Holy land and the oath was quickly forgotten, and intrigue surrounded the boy Duke. William's guardian Gilbert of Brionne was murdered, as was his tutor, as was his uncle Osbern- killed while protecting William from kidnappers found in his bedroom. William was sent away from home for his protection, and it was common practice for William's uncle Walter to awaken him in the night to move him to a new location.

By age fifteen, William was knighted, and by twenty he went to war against his cousin Guy of Normandy to defend his title of Duke of Normandy. With the help of King Henri I of France, he subdued his enemies who were forced to swear allegiance to William.

William asked for the hand of Matilda, daughter of Count Baldwin V of Flanders, but Matilda would have none of it. Purportedly, she was in love with the English ambassador to Flanders, a Saxon named Brihtric, who declined her advances. As for William, she told his emissary that she was far too high-born (being descended from King Alfred the Great of England) to consider marrying a bastard. When that was repeated to him, William, all of 5'10", rode from Normandy to Bruges, found Matilda on her way to church, dragged her off her horse (some said by her long braids), threw her down in the street in front of her flabbergasted attendants, and then rode off. Another version states that William rode to Matilda's father's house in Lille, threw her to the ground in her room (again, by the braids), and hit her (or violently shook her) before leaving.

William convinced Matilda to relent, but the pope opposed the marriage because they were distant cousins. For a period of time all of Normandy was excommunicated along with their duke because William disregarded the pope's advice and married Matilda. In return for the construction of two abbeys, the excommunication of Normandy was lifted.

In 1051, William visited his cousin Edward the Confessor, king of England. Edward was childless, and William's account is that the king made him his heir. According to supporters of William, Edward sent his brother in law Harold Godwinson to see William in 1063. Other accounts say that Harold was shipwrecked. All accounts agree that William refused to let Harold depart until he swore on holy relics that he would uphold William's claim to the throne of England, and agreed to marry his daughter (then an infant) Agatha. After winning his release, Harold reneged on both promises.

In support of his claim to the English crown, William invaded England in 1066, leading an army of Normans to victory over the Anglo-Saxon forces of Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, and suppressed subsequent English revolts| in what has become known as the Norman Conquest.

His reign brought Norman culture to England, which had an enormous impact on the subsequent course of England in the Middle Ages. In addition to political changes, his reign also saw changes to English law, a programme of building and fortification, changes in the English language and the introduction of continental European feudalism into England.

For additional details beyond William's family history, see more here.

Residence at Falaise
In Falaise France, is a series of statues that pays tribute to the six Norman Dukes from Rollo to William Conqueror. The castle here was the principal residence of the Norman Knights.

Chãateau Guillaume-le-Conquâerant Place Guillaume le Conquâerant / 14700 Falaise / Tel: 02 31 41 61 44

History of Norman Dukes
Homepage - Falaise Castle of William the Conqueror - In French.

Children

Offspring of William I of England and Matilda of Flanders (c1031-1083)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Robert III, Duke of Normandy (c1051-1134) 1051 (Normandy) 10 February 1134 (Cardiff Castle+ Glamorganshire+ Wales) Sybilla of Conversano (-1103)

Richard of Normandy (c1054) 1054 Normandy 1081 New Forest, Hampshire
Adeliza of Normandy (c1055) 1055 Normandy 1065
Cecilia of Normandy (c1055) 1055 Normandy, France 30 July 1126 Caen, Calvados, France
William II of England (c1056-1100) 1056 Normandy, France 2 August 1100 New Forest, England, United Kingdom
Adela of Normandy (c1062) 1062 Normandy, France 8 March 1138 Marcigny, Saãone-et-Loire, France Stephen II, Count of Blois (c1045-1102)

Agatha of Normandy (c1064) 1064 1079
Constance of Normandy (c1066-1090) 1066 1090 Alain Fergent de Bretagne (c1060-1119)

Henry I of England (1068-1135) 13 June 1068 Selby, Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom 1 December 1135 St. Denis-le-Fermont near Gisors, Picardy, Lyons-la-Forãet, Eure, France Ansfrid (1070-?)
Matilda of Scotland (c1080-1118)
Sybil Corbet (1077-?)
Edith
Gieva de Tracy
Nest ferch Rhys (c1073-aft1136)
Isabel de Beaumont
Adeliza of Leuven (1103-1151)

Common ancestors of William I of England (1027-1087) and Matilda of Flanders (c1031-1083)

Fulk II, Count of Anjou (?-958)
Gerberge of Maine (?-?)
Noteworthy descendants include

Henry II of England (1133-1189)
William I of England (1027-1087)

Footnotes (including sources)
‡ General
wikipedia:en:William the Conqueror
Burke's Guide to the Royal Family, London, 1973 , Reference: 193, 310

end of biography

Click here to view William the Conqueror's biography... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_I_of_England

Click here to read about the historic Norman Conquest by William ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Conquest

Click here to view his 9-generation pedigree ... http://www.ourfamilyhistories.org/ahnentafel.php?personID=I3527&tree=00&parentset=0&generations=9

William the Conqueror is the 26th & 27th great grandfather of the grandchildren of Vernia Swindell Byars (1894-1985)

end of comment

Click this link to view lots of pictures of William I & a video from the, "Bayeux Tapestry"; http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/William_I_of_England_(1027-1087)/pictures

How Did the Normans Change England?

The Normans were more than just the people who conquered England.

They were dynamic and passionate people who changed English history forever.

Apr 10, 2023 • By Greg Beyer, BA History and Linguistics, Diploma in Journalism ... https://www.thecollector.com/how-did-the-normans-change-england/

Residence:
Victor over the English in the Battle of 1066

Military:
a seminal moment in English history...

Died:
at the Priory of St. Gervase...

Buried:
The Abbey of Saint-âEtienne, also known as Abbaye aux Hommes ("Men's Abbey"), is a former Benedictine monastery in the French city of Caen, Normandy, dedicated to Saint Stephen. It was founded in 1063[1] by William the Conqueror and is one of the most important Romanesque buildings in Normandy.

Photos, history & source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_of_Saint-%C3%89tienne,_Caen

48389.

Matilda of Flanders, Queen of England was born about 1031 in Flanders, Belgium; died on 2 Nov 1083 in Caen, Calvados, Normandie, France; was buried in Abbaye aux Dames, Caen, Normandie, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

_HEIG: 5' 0"

Notes:

Matilda of Flanders (French: Mathilde; Dutch: Machteld) (c. 1031 – 2 November 1083) was Queen of England and Duchess of Normandy by marriage to William the Conqueror, and sometime Regent of these realms during his absence. She was the mother of ten children who survived to adulthood, including two kings, William II and Henry I.

As a niece and granddaughter of kings of France, Matilda was of grander birth than William, who was illegitimate, and, according to some suspiciously romantic tales, she initially refused his proposal on this account. Her descent from the Anglo-Saxon royal House of Wessex was also to become a useful card. Like many royal marriages of the period, it breached the rules of consanguinity, then at their most restrictive (to seven generations or degrees of relatedness); Matilda and William were third-cousins, once removed. She was about 20 when they married in 1051/2; William was four years older,24, and had been Duke of Normandy since he was about eight (in 1035).

The marriage appears to have been successful, and William is not recorded to have had any bastards. Matilda was about 35, and had already produced most of her children, when William embarked on the Norman conquest of England, sailing in his flagship Mora, which Matilda had given him. She governed the Duchy of Normandy in his absence, joining him in England only after more than a year, and subsequently returning to Normandy, where she spent most of the remainder of her life, while William was mostly in his new kingdom. She was about 52 when she died in Normandy in 1083.

Apart from governing Normandy and supporting her brother's interests in Flanders, Matilda took a close interest in the education of her children, who were unusually well educated for contemporary royalty. The boys were tutored by the Italian Lanfranc, who was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1070, while the girls learned Latin in Sainte-Trinitâe Abbey in Caen, founded by William and Matilda as part of the papal dispensation allowing their marriage.

Marriage

Matilda, or Maud, was the daughter of Baldwin V, Count of Flanders, and Adela, herself daughter of King Robert II of France.[1]

According to legend, when the Norman duke William the Bastard (later called the Conqueror) sent his representative to ask for Matilda's hand in marriage, she told the representative that she was far too high-born to consider marrying a bastard.[a] After hearing this response, William rode from Normandy to Bruges, found Matilda on her way to church, dragged her off her horse by her long braids, threw her down in the street in front of her flabbergasted attendants and rode off.

Another version of the story states that William rode to Matilda's father's house in Lille, threw her to the ground in her room (again, by her braids) and hit her (or violently battered her) before leaving. Naturally, Baldwin took offence at this; but, before they could draw swords, Matilda settled the matter[2] by refusing to marry anyone but William;[3] even a papal ban by Pope Leo IX at the Council of Reims on the grounds of consanguinity did not dissuade her. William and Matilda were married after a delay in c.?1051–2.[4] A papal dispensation was finally awarded in 1059 by Pope Nicholas II.[5] Lanfranc, at the time prior of Bec Abbey, negotiated the arrangement in Rome and it came only after William and Matilda agreed to found two churches as penance.[6]

Rumored romances

There were rumours that Matilda had been in love variously with the English ambassador to Flanders and with the great Saxon thegn Brictric, son of Algar, who (according to the account by the Continuator of Wace and others[7]) in his youth declined her advances. Whatever the truth of the matter, years later when she was acting as regent for her husband William in England, she is said to have used her authority to confiscate Brictric's lands and throw him into prison, where he died.[8]

Duchess of Normandy

When William was preparing to invade England, Matilda outfitted a ship, the Mora, out of her own funds and gave it to him.[9] Additionally, William gave Normandy to his wife during his absence. Matilda successfully guided the duchy through this period in the name of her fourteen-year-old son; no major uprisings or unrest occurred.[10]

Even after William conquered England and became its king, it took her more than a year to visit the kingdom.[11] Despite having been crowned queen, she spent most of her time in Normandy, governing the duchy, supporting her brother's interests in Flanders, and sponsoring ecclesiastic houses there. Only one of her children was born in England; Henry was born in Yorkshire when Matilda accompanied her husband in the Harrying of the North.[12]

Queen

Statue of Matilda of Flanders, one of the twenty Reines de France et Femmes illustres in the Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris, by Carle Elshoecht (1850)

Tomb of Matilda of Flanders at Abbaye aux Dames, Caen

Tomb of William of Normandy at Abbaye-aux-Hommes, Caen
Matilda was crowned queen on 11 May 1068 in Westminster during the feast of Pentecost, in a ceremony presided over by the archbishop of York. Three new phrases were incorporated to cement the importance of English consorts, stating that the Queen was divinely placed by God, shares in royal power, and blesses her people by her power and virtue.[13][14]

For many years it was thought that she had some involvement in the creation of the Bayeux Tapestry (commonly called La Tapisserie de la Reine Mathilde in French), but historians no longer believe that; it seems to have been commissioned by William's half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and made by English artists in Kent.[15]

Matilda bore William nine or ten children. He was believed to have been faithful to her and never produced a child outside their marriage. Despite her royal duties, Matilda was deeply invested in her children's well-being. All were known for being remarkably educated. Her daughters were educated and taught to read Latin at Sainte-Trinitâe in Caen founded by Matilda and William in response to the recognition of their marriage.[16] For her sons, she secured Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury of whom she was an ardent supporter. Both she and William approved of the Archbishop's desire to revitalise the Church.[17]

She stood as godmother for Matilda of Scotland, who would become Queen of England after marrying Matilda's son Henry I. During the christening, the baby pulled Queen Matilda's headdress down on top of herself, which was seen as an omen that the younger Matilda would be queen some day as well.[18]

Matilda fell ill during the summer of 1083 and died in November 1083. Her husband was present for her final confession.[19] William died four years later in 1087.

Contrary to the common belief that she was buried at St. Stephen's, also called l'Abbaye-aux-Hommes in Caen, Normandy, where William was eventually buried, she is entombed in Caen at l'Abbaye aux Dames, which is the community of Sainte-Trinitâe. Of particular interest is the 11th-century slab, a sleek black stone decorated with her epitaph, marking her grave at the rear of the church. In contrast, the grave marker for William's tomb was replaced as recently as the beginning of the 19th century.

Height

Over time Matilda's tomb was desecrated and her original coffin destroyed. Her remains were placed in a sealed box and reburied under the original black slab.[20] In 1959 Matilda's incomplete skeleton was examined and her femur and tibia were measured to determine her height using anthropometric methods. Her height was 5 feet (1.52m), a normal height for the time.[21] However, as a result of this examination she was misreported as being 4 feet 2 inches (1.27m)[22] leading to the myth that she was extremely small.

Family and children

Matilda and William had four sons and at least five daughters.[23] The birth order of the boys is clear, but no source gives the relative order of birth of the daughters.[23]

Robert, born between 1051 and 1054, died 10 February 1134.[24] Duke of Normandy, married Sybil of Conversano, daughter of Geoffrey of Conversano.[25]
Richard, born c. 1054, died around 1075.[24]
William Rufus, born between 1056 and 1060, died 2 August 1100.[24] King of England, killed in the New Forest.
Henry, born late 1068, died 1 December 1135.[24] King of England, married Edith of Scotland, daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland. His second wife was Adeliza of Louvain.[26]
Agatha, betrothed to Harold II of England, Alfonso VI of Castile, and possibly Herbert I, Count of Maine, but died unmarried.[b][27]
Adeliza (or Adelida,[28] Adelaide[26]), died before 1113, reportedly betrothed to Harold II of England, probably a nun of St Lâeger at Prâeaux.[28]
Cecilia (or Cecily), born c. 1056, died 1127. Abbess of Holy Trinity, Caen.[27]
Matilda,[28] "daughter of the King", born around 1061, died perhaps about 1086,[26] or else much later (according to Trevor Foulds's suggestion that she was identical to Matilda d'Aincourt[29]).
Constance, died 1090, married Alan IV Fergent, Duke of Brittany.[27]
Adela, died 1137, married Stephen, Count of Blois.[27] Mother of King Stephen of England.
There is no evidence of any illegitimate children born to William.[30]

William was furious when he discovered she sent large sums of money to their exiled son Robert.[31] She effected a truce between them at Easter 1080.

Buried:
(or Sainte Trinitâe) for women which was founded by Matilda around four years later (1063)...

Notes:

Married:
The problem has been and maybe still is that William the Conqueror and Matilda (dau. of Baldwin V of Flanders & Adelaide of France) had relatively great difficulty is obtaining a papal dispensation for their marriage. It was not immediately obvious that there was any impediment that needed a dispensation. This problem of what the relationship between Matilda and William was that required a dispensation generated a vigorous debate earlier this century. Weis or Weis's source (as you report it) goes for a theory that makes Matilda and William cousins of sorts.

Children:

Adela of Normandy was born in ~ 1067 in Normandy, France; died on 8 Mar 1137 in Marcigny-sur-Loire, France.
24194. Henry I, King of England was born in 1068-1070 in Selby, Yorkshire, England; was christened on 5 Aug 1100 in Selby, Yorkshire, England; died on 1 Dec 1135 in Saint-Denis-en-Lyons, Normandy, France; was buried on 4 Jan 1136 in Reading Abbey, Reading, Berkshire, England.

177650.

Richard d'Evreux was born in ~986 (son of Robert d'Evereux, Comte d'Evreux and Havlive of Normandy); died on 13 Dec 1067.

Richard married Godeheut Barcelona in 1038. Godeheut was born in ~1000 in Eure, Normandy; died after 1077 in Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

177651.

Godeheut Barcelona was born in ~1000 in Eure, Normandy; died after 1077 in Normandy, France.

Children:

88825. Agnes d'Evereux was born in 1041 in Evreux, Normandy, France; died in 1087 in Evreux, Normandy, France.

355208.

Aethelred the Unready, King of the English was born about 966 in (Wessex) England (son of Edgar the Peaceful, King of England and Aelfthryth); died on 23 Apr 1016 in London, England; was buried in London, England.

Notes:

¥thelred II (Old English: ¥¤elrµd, pronounced [µºelrµ?d];[1] c. 966 – 23 April 1016), known as the Unready, was King of the English from 978 to 1013 and again from 1014 until his death. His epithet does not derive from the modern word "unready", but rather from the Old English unrµd (meaning "poorly advised"); it is a pun on his name, which means "well advised".

¥thelred was the son of King Edgar and Queen ¥lfthryth. He came to the throne at about the age of 12, following the assassination of his older half-brother, Edward the Martyr. His brother's murder was carried out by supporters of his own claim to the throne, although he was too young to have any personal involvement. The chief problem of ¥thelred's reign was conflict with the Danes. After several decades of relative peace, Danish raids on English territory began again in earnest in the 980s. Following the Battle of Maldon in 991, ¥thelred paid tribute, or Danegeld, to the Danish king. In 1002, ¥thelred ordered what became known as the St. Brice's Day massacre of Danish settlers. In 1013, King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark invaded England, as a result of which ¥thelred fled to Normandy in 1013 and was replaced by Sweyn. However, he returned as king for two years after Sweyn's death in 1014. ¥thelred's 37-year reign was the longest of any Anglo-Saxon king of England, and was only surpassed in the 13th century, by Henry III. ¥thelred was briefly succeeded by his son, Edmund Ironside, but he died after a few months and was replaced by Sweyn's son, Cnut. Another of his sons, Edward the Confessor, became king in 1042.

King of the English
Reign 18 March 978 – 1013 (first time)
Predecessor Edward the Martyr
Successor Sweyn Forkbeard
Reign 1014 – 23 April 1016
(second time)
Predecessor Sweyn Forkbeard
Successor Edmund Ironside
Born c. 966
Died 23 April 1016 (aged about 50)
London, England
Burial Old St Paul's Cathedral, London, now lost
Spouse ¥lfgifu of York
Emma of Normandy
Issue
Detail
See list[show]
House Wessex
Father Edgar, King of England
Mother ¥lfthryth
Religion Christianity

Name

¥thelred's first name, composed of the elements µºele, "noble", and rµd, "counsel, advice",[2] is typical of the compound names of those who belonged to the royal House of Wessex, and it characteristically alliterates with the names of his ancestors, like ¥thelwulf ("noble-wolf"), ¥lfred ("elf-counsel"), Eadweard ("rich-protection"), and Eadgar ("rich-spear").[3]

The story of ¥thelred's notorious nickname, Old English Unrµd, goes a long way toward explaining how his reputation has declined through history[dubious – discuss] It is usually translated into present-day English as "The Unready" (less often, though less confusingly, as "The Redeless").[4] The Anglo-Saxon noun unrµd means "evil counsel", "bad plan", or "folly".[2] It most often describes decisions and deeds, and once refers to the nature of Satan's deceit. The element rµd in unrµd is the element in ¥thelred's name which means "counsel". Thus ¥¤elrµd Unrµd is a pun meaning "Noble counsel, No counsel". The nickname has alternatively been taken adjectivally as "ill-advised", "ill-prepared", "indecisive", thus "¥thelred the ill-advised".

Because the nickname was first recorded in the 1180s, more than 150 years after ¥thelred's death, it is doubtful that it carries any implications for how the king was seen by his contemporaries or near contemporaries.[5]

Early life

Gold mancus of ¥thelred wearing armour, 1003–1006.
Sir Frank Stenton remarked that "much that has brought condemnation of historians on King ¥thelred may well be due in the last resort to the circumstances under which he became king."[6] ¥thelred's father, King Edgar, had died suddenly in July 975, leaving two young sons behind. The elder, Edward (later Edward the Martyr), was probably illegitimate,[7] and was "still a youth on the verge of manhood" in 975.[8] The younger son was ¥thelred, whose mother, ¥lfthryth, Edgar had married in 964. ¥lfthryth was the daughter of Ordgar, ealdorman of Devon, and widow of ¥thelwold, Ealdorman of East Anglia. At the time of his father's death, ¥thelred could have been no more than 10 years old. As the elder of Edgar's sons, Edward – reportedly a young man given to frequent violent outbursts – probably would have naturally succeeded to the throne of England despite his young age, had not he "offended many important persons by his intolerable violence of speech and behaviour."[8] In any case, a number of English nobles took to opposing Edward's succession and to defending ¥thelred's claim to the throne; ¥thelred was, after all, the son of Edgar's last, living wife, and no rumour of illegitimacy is known to have plagued ¥thelred's birth, as it might have his elder brother's.[9] Both boys, ¥thelred certainly, were too young to have played any significant part in the political manoeuvring which followed Edgar's death. It was the brothers' supporters, and not the brothers themselves, who were responsible for the turmoil which accompanied the choice of a successor to the throne. ¥thelred's cause was led by his mother and included ¥lfhere, Ealdorman of Mercia and Bishop ¥thelwold of Winchester,[10] while Edward's claim was supported by Dunstan, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Oswald, the Archbishop of York[11] among other noblemen, notably ¥thelwine, Ealdorman of East Anglia, and Byrhtnoth, ealdorman of Essex. In the end, Edward's supporters proved the more powerful and persuasive, and he was crowned king at Kingston upon Thames before the year was out.

Edward reigned for only three years before he was murdered by members of his brother's household.[12] Though little is known about Edward's short reign, it is known that it was marked by political turmoil. Edgar had made extensive grants of land to monasteries which pursued the new monastic ideals of ecclesiastical reform, but these disrupted aristocratic families' traditional patronage. The end of his firm rule saw a reversal of this policy, with aristocrats recovering their lost properties or seizing new ones. This was opposed by Dunstan, but according to Cyril Hart, "The presence of supporters of church reform on both sides indicates that the conflict between them depended as much on issues of land ownership and local power as on ecclesiastical legitimacy. Adherents of both Edward and ¥thelred can be seen appropriating, or recovering, monastic lands."[7] Nevertheless, favour for Edward must have been strong among the monastic communities. When Edward was killed at ¥thelred's estate at Corfe Castle in Dorset in March 978, the job of recording the event, as well as reactions to it, fell to monastic writers. Stenton offers a summary of the earliest account of Edward's murder, which comes from a work praising the life of St Oswald: "On the surface his [Edward's] relations with ¥thelred his half-brother and ¥lfthryth his stepmother were friendly, and he was visiting them informally when he was killed. [¥thelred's] retainers came out to meet him with ostentatious signs of respect, and then, before he had dismounted, surrounded him, seized his hands, and stabbed him. ... So far as can be seen the murder was planned and carried out by ¥thelred's household men in order that their young master might become king. There is nothing to support the allegation, which first appears in writing more than a century later, that Queen ¥lfthryth had plotted her stepson's death. No one was punished for a part in the crime, and ¥thelred, who was crowned a month after the murder, began to reign in an atmosphere of suspicion which destroyed the prestige of the crown. It was never fully restored in his lifetime."[13] Nevertheless, at first, the outlook of the new king's officers and counsellors seems in no way to have been bleak. According to one chronicler, the coronation of ¥thelred took place with much rejoicing by the councillors of the English people.[14] Simon Keynes notes that "Byrhtferth of Ramsey states similarly that when ¥thelred was consecrated king, by Archbishop Dunstan and Archbishop Oswald, 'there was great joy at his consecration’, and describes the king in this connection as 'a young man in respect of years, elegant in his manners, with an attractive face and handsome appearance'."[14] ¥thelred could not have been older than 13 years of age in this year.

During these early years, ¥thelred was developing a close relationship to ¥thelwold, bishop of Winchester, one who had supported his unsuccessful claim to the throne. When ¥thelwold died, on 1 August 984, ¥thelred deeply lamented the loss, and he wrote later in a charter from 993 that the event had deprived the country of one "whose industry and pastoral care administered not only to my interest but also to that of all inhabitants of the country."[14]

Conflict with the Danes

England had experienced a period of peace after the reconquest of the Danelaw in the mid-10th century by King Edgar, ¥thelred's father. However, beginning in 980, when ¥thelred could not have been more than 14 years old, small companies of Danish adventurers carried out a series of coastline raids against England. Hampshire, Thanet and Cheshire were attacked in 980, Devon and Cornwall in 981, and Dorset in 982. A period of six years then passed before, in 988, another coastal attack is recorded as having taken place to the south-west, though here a famous battle was fought between the invaders and the thegns of Devon. Stenton notes that, though this series of isolated raids had no lasting effect on England itself, "their chief historical importance is that they brought England for the first time into diplomatic contact with Normandy."[15] During this period, the Normans, who remembered their origins as a Scandinavian people, were well-disposed to their Danish cousins who, occasionally returning from a raid on England, sought port in Normandy. This led to grave tension between the English and Norman courts, and word of their enmity eventually reached Pope John XV. The pope was disposed to dissolve their hostility towards each other, and took steps to engineer a peace between England and Normandy, which was ratified in Rouen in 991.

Battle of Maldon

However, in August of that same year, a sizeable Danish fleet began a sustained campaign in the south-east of England. It arrived off Folkestone, in Kent, and made its way around the south-east coast and up the River Blackwater, coming eventually to its estuary and occupying Northey Island.[14] About 2 kilometres (1 mile) west of Northey lies the coastal town of Maldon, where Byrhtnoth, ealdorman of Essex, was stationed with a company of thegns. The battle that followed between English and Danes is immortalised by the Old English poem The Battle of Maldon, which describes the doomed but heroic attempt of Byrhtnoth to defend the coast of Essex against overwhelming odds. Stenton summarises the events of the poem: "For access to the mainland they (the Danes) depended on a causeway, flooded at high tide, which led from Northey to the flats along the southern margin of the estuary. Before they (the Danes) had left their camp on the island[,] Byrhtnoth, with his retainers and a force of local militia, had taken possession of the landward end of the causeway. Refusing a demand for tribute, shouted across the water while the tide was high, Byrhtnoth drew up his men along the bank, and waited for the ebb. As the water fell the raiders began to stream out along the causeway. But three of Byrthnoth's retainers held it against them, and at last they asked to be allowed to cross unhindered and fight on equal terms on the mainland. With what even those who admired him most called 'over-courage', Byrhtnoth agreed to this; the pirates rushed through the falling tide, and battle was joined. Its issue was decided by Byrhtnoth's fall. Many even of his own men immediately took to flight and the English ranks were broken. What gives enduring interest to the battle is the superb courage with which a group of Byrhtnoth's thegns, knowing that the fight was lost, deliberately gave themselves to death in order that they might avenge their lord."[16] This was the first of a series of crushing defeats felt by the English: beaten first by Danish raiders, and later by organised Danish armies.

England begins tributes

In 991, ¥thelred was around 24 years old. In the aftermath of Maldon, it was decided that the English should grant the tribute to the Danes that they desired, and so a gafol of ¹10,000 was paid them for their peace. Yet it was presumably the Danish fleet that had beaten Byrhtnoth at Maldon that continued to ravage the English coast from 991 to 993. In 994, the Danish fleet, which had swollen in ranks since 991, turned up the Thames estuary and headed toward London. The battle fought there was inconclusive. It was about this time that ¥thelred met with the leaders of the fleet, foremost among them Olaf Tryggvason[clarification needed] and arranged an uneasy accord. A treaty was signed between ¥thelred and Olaf that provided for seemingly civilised arrangements between the then-settled Danish companies and the English government, such as regulation settlement disputes and trade. But the treaty also stipulated that the ravaging and slaughter of the previous year would be forgotten, and ended abruptly by stating that ¹22,000 of gold and silver had been paid to the raiders as the price of peace.[17] In 994, Olaf Tryggvason, already a baptised Christian, was confirmed as Christian in a ceremony at Andover; King ¥thelred stood as his sponsor. After receiving gifts, Olaf promised "that he would never come back to England in hostility."[14] Olaf then left England for Norway and never returned, though "other component parts of the Viking force appear to have decided to stay in England, for it is apparent from the treaty that some had chosen to enter into King ¥thelred's service as mercenaries, based presumably on the Isle of Wight."[14]

Renewed Danish raids

In 997, Danish raids began again. According to Keynes, "there is no suggestion that this was a new fleet or army, and presumably the mercenary force created in 994 from the residue of the raiding army of 991 had turned on those whom it had been hired to protect."[14] It harried Cornwall, Devon, western Somerset and south Wales in 997, Dorset, Hampshire and Sussex in 998. In 999, it raided Kent, and, in 1000, it left England for Normandy, perhaps because the English had refused in this latest wave of attacks to acquiesce to the Danish demands for gafol or tribute, which would come to be known as Danegeld, 'Dane-payment'. This sudden relief from attack ¥thelred used to gather his thoughts, resources, and armies: the fleet's departure in 1000 "allowed ¥thelred to carry out a devastation of Strathclyde, the motive for which is part of the lost history of the north."[18]

In 1001, a Danish fleet – perhaps the same fleet from 1000 – returned and ravaged west Sussex. During its movements, the fleet regularly returned to its base in the Isle of Wight. There was later an attempted attack in the south of Devon, though the English mounted a successful defence at Exeter. Nevertheless, ¥thelred must have felt at a loss, and, in the Spring of 1002, the English bought a truce for ¹24,000. ¥thelred's frequent payments of immense Danegelds are often held up as exemplary of the incompetency of his government and his own short-sightedness. However, Keynes points out that such payments had been practice for at least a century, and had been adopted by Alfred the Great, Charles the Bald and many others. Indeed, in some cases it "may have seemed the best available way of protecting the people against loss of life, shelter, livestock and crops. Though undeniably burdensome, it constituted a measure for which the king could rely on widespread support."[14]

St. Brice's Day massacre of 1002

Main article: St. Brice's Day massacre
¥thelred ordered the massacre of all Danish men in England to take place on 13 November 1002, St Brice's Day. No order of this kind could be carried out in more than a third of England, where the Danes were too strong, but Gunhilde, sister of Sweyn Forkbeard, King of Denmark, was said to have been among the victims. It is likely that a wish to avenge her was a principal motive for Sweyn's invasion of western England the following year.[19] By 1004 Sweyn was in East Anglia, where he sacked Norwich. In this year, a nobleman of East Anglia, Ulfcytel Snillingr met Sweyn in force, and made an impression on the until-then rampant Danish expedition. Though Ulfcytel was eventually defeated, outside Thetford, he caused the Danes heavy losses and was nearly able to destroy their ships. The Danish army left England for Denmark in 1005, perhaps because of their injuries sustained in East Anglia, perhaps from the very severe famine which afflicted the continent and the British Isles in that year.[14]

An expedition the following year was bought off in early 1007 by tribute money of ¹36,000, and for the next two years England was free from attack. In 1008, the government created a new fleet of warships, organised on a national scale, but this was weakened when one of its commanders took to piracy, and the king and his council decided not to risk it in a general action. In Stenton's view: "The history of England in the next generation was really determined between 1009 and 1012...the ignominious collapse of the English defence caused a loss of morale which was irreparable." The Danish army of 1009, led by Thorkell the Tall and his brother Hemming, was the most formidable force to invade England since ¥thelred became king. It harried England until it was bought off by ¹48,000 in April 1012.[20]

Invasion of 1013

Sweyn then launched an invasion in 1013 intending to crown himself king of England, during which he proved himself to be a general greater than any other Viking leader of his generation. By the end of 1013 English resistance had collapsed and Sweyn had conquered the country, forcing ¥thelred into exile in Normandy. But the situation changed suddenly when Sweyn died on 3 February 1014. The crews of the Danish ships in the Trent that had supported Sweyn immediately swore their allegiance to Sweyn's son Cnut the Great, but leading English noblemen sent a deputation to ¥thelred to negotiate his restoration to the throne. He was required to declare his loyalty to them, to bring in reforms regarding everything that they disliked and to forgive all that had been said and done against him in his previous reign. The terms of this agreement are of great constitutional interest in early English History as they are the first recorded pact between a King and his subjects and are also widely regarded as showing that many English noblemen had submitted to Sweyn simply because of their distrust of ¥thelred.[21] According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:

they [the counsellors] said that no lord was dearer to them than their natural (gecynde) lord, if he would govern them more justly than he did before. Then the king sent his son Edward hither with his messengers and bade them greet all his people and said that he would be a gracious (hold) lord to them, and reform all the things which they hated; and all the things which had been said and done against him should be forgiven on condition that they all unanimously turned to him (to him gecyrdon) without treachery. And complete friendship was then established with oath and pledge (mid worde and mid wµdde) on both sides, and they pronounced every Danish king an exile from England forever.[22]
¥thelred then launched an expedition against Cnut and his allies. It was only the people of the Kingdom of Lindsey (modern North Lincolnshire) who supported Cnut. ¥thelred first set out to recapture London apparently with the help of the Norwegian Olaf Haraldsson. According to the Icelandic historian, Snorri Sturluson, Ólaf led a successful attack on London bridge with a fleet of ships. He then went on to help ¥thelred retake London and other parts of the country. Cnut and his army decided to withdraw from England, in April 1014, leaving his Lindsey allies to suffer ¥thelred's revenge. In about 1016 it is thought that Ólaf left to concentrate on raiding western Europe.[23] In the same year, Cnut returned to find a complex and volatile situation unfolding in England.[23] ¥thelred's son, Edmund Ironside, had revolted against his father and established himself in the Danelaw, which was angry at Cnut and ¥thelred for the ravaging of Lindsey and was prepared to support Edmund in any uprising against both of them

Death and burial

Over the next few months Cnut conquered most of England, while Edmund rejoined ¥thelred to defend London when ¥thelred died on 23 April 1016. The subsequent war between Edmund and Cnut ended in a decisive victory for Cnut at the Battle of Ashingdon on 18 October 1016. Edmund's reputation as a warrior was such that Cnut nevertheless agreed to divide England, Edmund taking Wessex and Cnut the whole of the country beyond the Thames. However, Edmund died on 30 November and Cnut became king of the whole country.[24]

¥thelred was buried in Old St Paul's Cathedral, London. The tomb and his monument were destroyed along with the cathedral in the Great Fire of London in 1666.[25] A modern monument in the crypt lists his among the important graves lost.

Legislation

A charter of ¥thelred's in 1003 to his follower, ¥thelred. British Library, London.
¥thelred's government produced extensive legislation, which he "ruthlessly enforced."[26] Records of at least six legal codes survive from his reign, covering a range of topics.[27] Notably, one of the members of his council (known as the Witan) was Wulfstan II, Archbishop of York, a well-known homilist. The three latest codes from ¥thelred's reign seemed to have been drafted by Wulfstan.[28] These codes are extensively concerned with ecclesiastical affairs. They also exhibit the characteristics of Wulfstan's highly rhetorical style. Wulfstan went on to draft codes for King Cnut, and recycled there many of the laws which were used in ¥thelred's codes.[29]

Despite the failure of his government in the face of the Danish threat, ¥thelred's reign was not without some important institutional achievements. The quality of the coinage, a good indicator of the prevailing economic conditions, significantly improved during his reign due to his numerous coinage reform laws.[30]

Legacy

Later perspectives of ¥thelred have been less than flattering. Numerous legends and anecdotes have sprung up to explain his shortcomings, often elaborating abusively on his character and failures. One such anecdote is given by William of Malmesbury (lived c. 1080–c. 1143), who reports that ¥thelred had defecated in the baptismal font as a child, which led St Dunstan to prophesy that the English monarchy would be overthrown during his reign. This story is, however, a fabrication, and a similar story is told of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine Copronymus, another mediaeval monarch who was unpopular among certain of his subjects.

Efforts to rehabilitate ¥thelred's reputation have gained momentum since about 1980. Chief among the rehabilitators has been Simon Keynes, who has often argued that our poor impression of ¥thelred is almost entirely based upon after-the-fact accounts of, and later accretions to, the narrative of events during ¥thelred's long and complex reign. Chief among the culprits is in fact one of the most important sources for the history of the period, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which, as it reports events with a retrospect of 15 years, cannot help but interpret events with the eventual English defeat a foregone conclusion. Yet, as virtually no strictly contemporary narrative account of the events of ¥thelred's reign exists, historians are forced to rely on what evidence there is. Keynes and others thus draw attention to some of the inevitable snares of investigating the history of a man whom later popular opinion has utterly damned. Recent cautious assessments of ¥thelred's reign have more often uncovered reasons to doubt, rather than uphold, ¥thelred's later infamy. Though the failures of his government will always put ¥thelred's reign in the shadow of the reigns of kings Edgar, Aethelstan, and Alfred, historians' current impression of ¥thelred's personal character is certainly not as unflattering as it once was: "¥thelred's misfortune as a ruler was owed not so much to any supposed defects of his imagined character, as to a combination of circumstances which anyone would have found difficult to control."[31]

Origin of the jury

¥thelred has been credited with the formation of a local investigative body made up of twelve thegns who were charged with publishing the names of any notorious or wicked men in their respective districts. Because the members of these bodies were under solemn oath to act in accordance with the law and their own good consciences, they have been seen by some legal historians as the prototype for the English Grand Jury.[32] ¥thelred makes provision for such a body in a law code he enacted at Wantage in 997, which states:

¤µt man habbe gemot on µlcum wµpentace; & gan ut ¤a yldestan XII ¤egnas & se gerefa mid, & swerian on ¤am haligdome, ¤e heom man on hand sylle, ¤µt hig nellan nµnne sacleasan man forsecgean ne nµnne sacne forhelan. & niman ¤onne ¤a tihtbysian men, ¤e mid ¤am gerefan habbaº, & heora µlc sylle VI healfmarc wedd, healf landrican & healf wµpentake.[33]

that there shall be an assembly in every wapentake,[34] and in that assembly shall go forth the twelve eldest thegns and the reeve along with them, and let them swear on holy relics, which shall be placed in their hands, that they will never knowingly accuse an innocent man nor conceal a guilty man. And thereafter let them seize those notorious [lit. "charge-laden"] men, who have business with the reeve, and let each of them give a security of 6 half-marks, half of which shall go to the lord of that district, and half to the wapentake.

But the wording here suggests that ¥thelred was perhaps revamping or re-confirming a custom which had already existed. He may actually have been expanding an established English custom for use among the Danish citizens in the North (the Danelaw). Previously, King Edgar had legislated along similar lines in his Whitbordesstan code:

ic wille, ¤µt µlc mon sy under borge ge binnan burgum ge buton burgum. & gewitnes sy geset to µlcere byrig & to µlcum hundrode. To µlcere byrig XXXVI syn gecorone to gewitnesse; to smalum burgum & to µlcum hundrode XII, buton ge ma willan. & µlc mon mid heora gewitnysse bigcge & sylle µlc ¤ara ceapa, ¤e he bigcge oººe sylle a¤er oººe burge oººe on wµpengetace. & heora µlc, ¤onne hine man µrest to gewitnysse gecysº, sylle ¤µne aº, ¤µt he nµfre, ne for feo ne for lufe ne for ege, ne µtsace nanes ¤ara ¤inga, ¤e he to gewitnysse wµs, & nan oºer ¤ingc on gewitnysse ne cyºe buton ¤µt an, ¤µt he geseah oººe gehyrde. & swa geµ¤dera manna syn on µlcum ceape twegen oººe ¤ry to gewitnysse.[35]

It is my wish that each person be in surety, both within settled areas and without. And 'witnessing' shall be established in each city and each hundred. To each city let there be 36 chosen for witnessing; to small towns and to each hundred let there be 12, unless they desire more. And everybody shall purchase and sell their goods in the presence a witness, whether he is buying or selling something, whether in a city or a wapentake. And each of them, when they first choose to become a witness, shall give an oath that he will never, neither for wealth nor love nor fear, deny any of those things which he will be a witness to, and will not, in his capacity as a witness, make known any thing except that which he saw and heard. And let there be either two or three of these sworn witnesses at every sale of goods.

The 'legend' of an Anglo-Saxon origin to the jury was first challenged seriously by Heinrich Brunner in 1872, who claimed that evidence of the jury was only seen for the first time during the reign of Henry II, some 200 years after the end of the Anglo-Saxon period, and that the practice had originated with the Franks, who in turn had influenced the Normans, who thence introduced it to England.[36] Since Brunner's thesis, the origin of the English jury has been much disputed. Throughout the 20th century, legal historians disagreed about whether the practice was English in origin, or was introduced, directly or indirectly, from either Scandinavia or Francia.[32] Recently, the legal historians Patrick Wormald and Michael Macnair have reasserted arguments in favour of finding in practices current during the Anglo-Saxon period traces of the Angevin practice of conducting inquests using bodies of sworn, private witnesses. Wormald has gone as far as to present evidence suggesting that the English practice outlined in ¥thelred's Wantage code is at least as old as, if not older than, 975, and ultimately traces it back to a Carolingian model (something Brinner had done).[37] However, no scholarly consensus has yet been reached.

Appearance and character

"[A] youth of graceful manners, handsome countenance and fine person..."[38] as well as "[A] tall, handsome man, elegant in manners, beautiful in countenance and interesting in his deportment."[39]

Marriages and issue

¥thelred married first ¥lfgifu, daughter of Thored, earl of Northumbria, in about 985.[14] Their known children are:

¥thelstan ¥theling (died 1014)
Ecgberht ¥theling (died c. 1005)[40]
Edmund Ironside (died 1016)
Eadred ¥theling (died before 1013)
Eadwig ¥theling (executed by Cnut 1017)
Edgar ¥theling (died c. 1008)[40]
Eadgyth or Edith (married Eadric Streona)
¥lfgifu (married Uchtred the Bold, ealdorman of Northumbria)
Wulfhilda? (married Ulfcytel Snillingr)
Abbess of Wherwell Abbey?
In 1002 ¥thelred married Emma of Normandy, sister of Richard II, Duke of Normandy. Their children were:

Edward the Confessor (died 1066)
¥lfred ¥theling (died 1036–7)
Goda of England (married 1. Drogo of Mantes and 2. Eustace II, Count of Boulogne)
All of ¥thelred's sons were named after predecessors of ¥thelred on the throne.[41]

Buried:
Old St Paul's Cathedral, London, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_St_Paul%27s_Cathedral, now lost

Aethelred married Aelfgifu of York, Queen Consort of England. Aelfgifu (daughter of Thored Gunnarsson, Earl of Southern Northumbria and Hilda LNU) was born in ~970 in (Yorkshire) England; died in 1002. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

355209.

Aelfgifu of York, Queen Consort of England was born in ~970 in (Yorkshire) England (daughter of Thored Gunnarsson, Earl of Southern Northumbria and Hilda LNU); died in 1002.

Notes:

¥lfgifu of York (fl. c. 970 – 1002) was the first wife of ¥thelred the Unready (r. 968–1016), by whom she bore many offspring, including Edmund Ironside. It is most probable that she was a daughter of Thored, Earl of southern Northumbria.

Queen consort of England
Tenure 980s–1002
Born fl. c. 970
Died c. 1002
Spouse ¥thelred the Unready
Issue ¥thelstan ¥theling
Ecgberht of England
Edmund, King of England
Eadred ¥theling
Eadwig ¥theling
Edgar of England
Edith, Lady of the Mercians
¥lfgifu, Lady of Northumbria
Wulfhilda, Lady of East Anglia
Father

Identity and background

Her name and paternity do not surface in the sources until sometime after the Conquest. The first to offer any information at all, Sulcard of Westminster (fl. 1080s), merely describes her as being “of very noble English stock” (ex nobilioribus Anglis), without naming her,[1] while in the early 12th century, William of Malmesbury has nothing to report. All primary evidence comes from two Anglo-Norman historians. John of Worcester, also writing in the early 12th century, states that ¥thelred's first wife was ¥lfgifu, daughter of the nobleman ¥thelberht (comes Agelberhtus) and the mother of Edmund, ¥thelstan, Eadwig and Eadgyth.[2] Writing in the 1150s, Ailred of Rievaulx identifies her as a daughter of earl (comes) Thored and the mother of Edmund, though he supplies no name.[3] Ailred had been seneschal at the court of King David I of Scotland (r. 1124–53), whose mother Margaret descended from King ¥thelred and his first wife. Although his testimony is late, his proximity to the royal family may have given him access to genuine information.[4]

Problem of fatherhood

These two accounts are irreconcilable at the point of ascribing two different fathers to ¥thelred's first wife (in both cases, Edmund's mother). One way out of it would be to assume the existence of two different wives before the arrival of Queen Emma, ¥thelred's Norman wife, although this interpretation presents difficulties of its own, especially as the sources envisage a single woman.[5] Historians generally favour the view that John of Worcester was in error about the father's name, as ¥thelberht's very existence is under suspicion:[6] if Latin comes is to be interpreted as a gloss on the office of ealdorman, only two doubtful references to one or two duces (ealdormen) of this name can be put forward that would fit the description.[7] All in all, the combined evidence suggests that ¥thelred's first wife was ¥lfgifu, the daughter of Earl Thored. This magnate is likely to have been the Thored who was a son of Gunnar and earl of (southern) Northumbria.[8]

Marriage and children[edit]
Based largely on the careers of her sons, ¥lfgifu's marriage has been dated approximately to the (mid-)980s.[8] Considering Thored's authority as earl of York and apparently, the tenure of that office without royal appointment, the union would have signified an important step for the West-Saxon royal family by which it secured a foothold in the north.[9] Such a politically weighty union would help explain the close connections maintained by ¥lfgifu's eldest sons Edmund and ¥thelstan with noble families based in the northern Danelaw.[10]

The marriage produced six sons, all of whom were named after ¥thelred's predecessors, and an unknown number of daughters. The eldest sons ¥thelstan, Ecgberht, Eadred and Edmund first attest charters in 993, while the younger sons Eadwig and Edgar first make an appearance in them in 997 and 1001 respectively.[11] Some of these sons seem to have spent part of their childhood in fosterage elsewhere, possibly with ¥thelred's mother ¥lfthryth.[12]

Out of ¥lfgifu's six sons, only Edmund Ironside outlived his father and became king. In 1016 he suffered several defeats against Cnut and in October they agreed to share the kingdom, but Edmund died within six weeks and Cnut became king of all England. ¥thelred gave three of his daughters in marriage to ealdormen, presumably in order to secure the loyalties of his nobles and so to consolidate a defence system against Viking attacks.[13]

Sons

¥thelstan (born before 993, d. 1014)
Ecgberht (born before 993, d. 1005)
Edmund (II) Ironside (born before 993, d. 1016)
Eadred (d. 1012 x 1015)
Eadwig (born before 997, exiled and killed 1017)
Edgar (born before 1001, d. 1012 x 1015)

Daughters

Eadgyth (born before 993), married Eadric Streona, ealdorman of Mercia.[14]
¥lfgifu, married ealdorman Uhtred of Northumbria.[15]
(possibly) Wulfhild, who married Ulfcytel (Snillingr) (d. 1016), apparently ealdorman of East Anglia.[16]
possibly an unnamed daughter who married the ¥thelstan who was killed fighting the Danes at the Battle of Ringmere in 1010. He is called ¥thelred's aºum, meaning either son-in-law or brother-in-law.[16] Ann Williams, however, argues that the latter meaning is the appropriate one and refers to ¥thelstan as being ¥lfgifu's brother.[8]
possibly unnamed daughter, who became abbess of Wherwell.[17]

Life and death

Unlike her mother-in-law, ¥lfthryth, ¥lfgifu was not anointed queen and never signed charters.[18] She did, however, make at least some impression on the contemporary record. In a will issued between 975/980 and 987, the thegn Beorhtric and his wife bequeathed to their “lady” (hlµfdige) an armlet worth 30 gold mancuses and a stallion, calling upon her authority to oversee the implementation of the arrangements set out by will.[19] In a will of later date (AD 990 x 1001), in which she is addressed as “my lady” (mire hlµfdian), the noblewoman ¥thelgifu promised a bequest of 30 mancuses of gold.[20] Just as little is known of ¥lfgifu's life, so the precise date and circumstances of her death cannot be recovered.[21] In any event, she appears to have died by 1002, possibly in childbirth, when ¥thelred took to wife Emma of Normandy, daughter of Count Richard of Rouen, who received or adopted her predecessor's Anglo-Saxon name, ¥lfgifu.

Children:

177604. Edmund II, King of the English was born in 990 in (Wessex) England; died on 30 Nov 1016 in (London) England; was buried in Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset, England.

355252.

Vladimir, Czar of Russia was born in 956 in Kiev, Ukraine (son of Sviatoslav, I, Grand Prince of Kiev and Malusha); died on 15 Jul 1015 in Kiev, Ukraine.

Notes:

Vladimir the Great (also (Saint) Vladimir of Kiev; Old East Slavic: ?????????? ????????????, Volodimer? Svetoslavic?,[3] Old Norse Valdamarr gamli;[4] c. 958 – 15 July 1015, Berestove) was a prince of Novgorod, grand prince of Kiev, and ruler of Kievan Rus' from 980 to 1015.[5][6]

Vladimir's father was prince Sviatoslav of the Rurik dynasty.[7] After the death of his father in 972, Vladimir, who was then prince of Novgorod, was forced to flee to Scandinavia in 976 after his brother Yaropolk had murdered his other brother Oleg and conquered Rus'. In Sweden, with the help from his relative Ladejarl Hêakon Sigurdsson, ruler of Norway, he assembled a Varangian army and reconquered Novgorod from Yaropolk.[8] By 980, Vladimir had consolidated the Kievan realm from modern-day Belarus, Russia and Ukraine to the Baltic Sea and had solidified the frontiers against incursions of Bulgarian, Baltic tribes and Eastern nomads. Originally a follower of Slavic paganism, Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988[9][10][11] and Christianized the Kievan Rus'.[12]

Rise to power

Born in 958, Vladimir was the natural son and youngest son of Sviatoslav I of Kiev by his housekeeper Malusha. Malusha is described in the Norse sagas as a prophetess who lived to the age of 100 and was brought from her cave to the palace to predict the future. Malusha's brother Dobrynya was Vladimir's tutor and most trusted advisor. Hagiographic tradition of dubious authenticity also connects his childhood with the name of his grandmother, Olga of Kiev, who was Christian and governed the capital during Sviatoslav's frequent military campaigns. His place of birth is identified by different authors either as Budyatychi (modern Volyn Oblast, Ukraine)[13][14][15] or Budnik (ru:?????? (???????); modern Pskov Oblast, Russia).[16]

Transferring his capital to Pereyaslavets in 969, Sviatoslav designated Vladimir ruler of Novgorod the Great but gave Kiev to his legitimate son Yaropolk. After Sviatoslav's death at the hands of the Pechenegs in 972, a fratricidal war erupted in 976 between Yaropolk and his younger brother Oleg, ruler of the Drevlians. In 977, Vladimir fled to his kinsman Haakon Sigurdsson, ruler of Norway, collecting as many Norse warriors as he could to assist him to recover Novgorod. On his return the next year, he marched against Yaropolk. On his way to Kiev he sent ambassadors to Rogvolod (Norse: Ragnvald), prince of Polotsk, to sue for the hand of his daughter Rogneda (Norse: Ragnhild). The high-born princess refused to affiance herself to the son of a bondswoman, so Vladimir attacked Polotsk, slew Rogvolod, and took Ragnhild by force. Polotsk was a key fortress on the way to Kiev, and capturing Polotsk and Smolensk facilitated the taking of Kiev in 978, where he slew Yaropolk by treachery and was proclaimed knyaz of all Kievan Rus.[17]

Years of pagan rule

Vladimir continued to expand his territories beyond his father's extensive domain. In 981, he seized the Cherven towns from the Poles; in 981–982, he suppressed a Vyatichi rebellion; in 983, he subdued the Yatvingians; in 984, he conquered the Radimichs; and in 985, he conducted a military campaign against the Volga Bulgars,[18][19] planting numerous fortresses and colonies on his way.

Although Christianity spread in the region under Oleg's rule, Vladimir had remained a thoroughgoing pagan, taking eight hundred concubines (along with numerous wives) and erecting pagan statues and shrines to gods.[20]

He may have attempted to reform Slavic paganism in an attempt to identify himself with the various gods worshipped by his subjects. He built a pagan temple on the a hill in Kiev dedicated to six gods: Perun - the god of thunder and war "a Norse god favored by members of the prince’s druzhina (military retinue)". Slav gods Stribog and Dazhd'bog; Mokosh - a goddess representing Mother Nature "worshipped by Finnish tribes"; Khors and Simargl, "both of which had Iranian origins, were included, probably to appeal to the Poliane."[21]

Open abuse of the deities that most people in Rus' revered triggered widespread indignation. A mob killed the Christian Fyodor and his son Ioann (later, after the overall christening of Kievan Rus', people came to regard these two as the first Christian martyrs in Rus', and the Orthodox Church[citation needed] set a day to commemorate them, 25 July). Immediately after the murder of Fyodor and Ioann, early medieval Rus' saw persecutions against Christians, many of whom escaped or concealed their belief.[22]

However, Prince Vladimir mused over the incident long after, and not least for political considerations. According to the early Slavic chronicle called Tale of Bygone Years, which describes life in Kievan Rus' up to the year 1110, he sent his envoys throughout the civilized world to judge first hand the major religions of the time, Islam, Roman Catholicism, Judaism, and Byzantine Orthodoxy. They were most impressed with their visit to Constantinople, saying, "We knew not whether we were in Heaven or on Earth… We only know that God dwells there among the people, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other nations."[23]

Christianization of the Kievan Rus'
Main article: Christianization of Kievan Rus'

The Baptism of Saint Prince Vladimir, by Viktor Vasnetsov (1890)

The Primary Chronicle reports that in the year 987, after consultation with his boyars, Vladimir the Great sent envoys to study the religions of the various neighboring nations whose representatives had been urging him to embrace their respective faiths. The result is described by the chronicler Nestor. Of the Muslim Bulgarians of the Volga the envoys reported there is no gladness among them, only sorrow and a great stench. He also reported that Islam was undesirable due to its taboo against alcoholic beverages and pork.[24] Vladimir remarked on the occasion: "Drinking is the joy of all Rus'. We cannot exist without that pleasure."[25] Ukrainian and Russian sources also describe Vladimir consulting with Jewish envoys and questioning them about their religion, but ultimately rejecting it as well, saying that their loss of Jerusalem was evidence that they had been abandoned by God.

His emissaries also visited pre-schism Latin Rite Christian and Eastern Rite Christian missionaries.[citation needed] Ultimately Vladimir settled on Eastern Orthodox Christianity. In the churches of the Germans his emissaries saw no beauty; but at Constantinople, where the full festival ritual of the Byzantine Church was set in motion to impress them, they found their ideal: "We no longer knew whether we were in heaven or on earth", they reported, describing a majestic Divine Liturgy in Hagia Sophia, "nor such beauty, and we know not how to tell of it." If Vladimir was impressed by this account of his envoys, he was even more attracted by the political gains of the Byzantine alliance.

Saint Vladimir Monument on Saint Vladimir Hill in Kiev, often depicted in paintings and photographs of the city

In 988, having taken the town of Chersonesos in Crimea, he boldly negotiated for the hand of emperor Basil II's sister, Anna.[26] Never before had a Byzantine imperial princess, and one "born in the purple" at that, married a barbarian, as matrimonial offers of French kings and German emperors had been peremptorily rejected. In short, to marry the 27-year-old princess to a pagan Slav seemed impossible. Vladimir was baptized at Chersonesos, however, taking the Christian name of Basil out of compliment to his imperial brother-in-law; the sacrament was followed by his wedding to Anna. Returning to Kiev in triumph, he destroyed pagan monuments and established many churches, starting with a church dedicated to St. Basil,[27] and the Church of the Tithes (989).

Arab sources, both Muslim and Christian, present a different story of Vladimir's conversion. Yahya of Antioch, al-Rudhrawari, al-Makin, Al-Dimashqi, and ibn al-Athir all give essentially the same account.[28] In 987, Bardas Sclerus and Bardas Phocas revolted against the Byzantine emperor Basil II. Both rebels briefly joined forces, but then Bardas Phocas proclaimed himself emperor on 14 September 987. Basil II turned to the Kievan Rus' for assistance, even though they were considered enemies at that time. Vladimir agreed, in exchange for a marital tie; he also agreed to accept Christianity as his religion and to Christianize his people. When the wedding arrangements were settled, Vladimir dispatched 6,000 troops to the Byzantine Empire, and they helped to put down the revolt.[29]

In 988 and 991, he baptized Pecheneg princes Metiga and Kuchug, respectively.[30]

Christian reign

The Pontic steppes, c. 1015

Vladimir then formed a great council out of his boyars and set his twelve sons over his subject principalities. According to the Primary Chronicle, he founded the city of Belgorod in 991. In 992, he went on a campaign against the Croats, most likely the White Croats that lived on the border of modern Ukraine. This campaign was cut short by the attacks of the Pechenegs on and around Kiev.

In his later years he lived in a relative peace with his other neighbors: Boleslav I of Poland, Stephen I of Hungary, and Andrikh the Czech (questionable character mentioned in A Tale of the Bygone Years). After Anna's death, he married again, likely to a granddaughter of Otto the Great.

In 1014, his son Yaroslav the Wise stopped paying tribute. Vladimir decided to chastise the insolence of his son and began gathering troops against him. Vladimir fell ill, however, most likely of old age, and died at Berestove, near Kiev. The various parts of his dismembered body were distributed among his numerous sacred foundations and were venerated as relics.

During his Christian reign, Vladimir lived the teachings of the Bible through acts of charity. He would hand out food and drink to the less fortunate, and made an effort to go out to the people who could not reach him. His work was based on the impulse to help one’s neighbors by sharing the burden of carrying their cross.[31]

Family

Main article: Family life and children of Vladimir I

Vladimir and Rogneda (1770)

The fate of all Vladimir's daughters, whose number is around nine, is uncertain.

Olava or Allogia (Varangian or Czech), speculative she might have been mother of Vysheslav while others claim that it is a confusion with Helena Lekapena[citation needed]
Vysheslav (~977 – ~1010), Prince of Novgorod (988–1010)
a widow of Yaropolk I, a Greek nun
Sviatopolk the Accursed (~979), possibly the surviving son of Yaropolk
Rogneda (the daughter of Rogvolod), later upon divorce she entered a convent taking the Christian name of Anastasia
Izyaslav of Polotsk (~979, Kiev), Prince of Polotsk (989–1001)
Yaroslav the Wise (no earlier than 983), Prince of Rostov (987–1010), Prince of Novgorod (1010–1034), Grand Prince of Kiev (1016–1018, 1019–1054). Possibly he was a son of Anna rather than Rogneda. Another interesting fact that he was younger than Sviatopolk according to the words of Boris in the Tale of Bygone Years and not as it was officially known. Also the fact of him being the Prince of Rostov is highly doubtful although not discarded.
Vsevolod (~984–1013), possibly the Swedish Prince Wissawald of Volyn (~1000), was perhaps the first husband of Estrid Svendsdatter
Mstislav, other Mstislav that possibly died as an infant if he was ever born
Mstislav of Chernigov (~983), Prince of Tmutarakan (990–1036), Prince of Chernigov (1024–1036), other sources claim him to be son of other mothers (Adela, Malfrida, or some other Bulgarian wife)
Predslava, a concubine of Boleslaw I Chrobry according to Gesta principum Polonorum
Premislava, (?–1015), some source state that she was a wife of the Duke Laszlo (Vladislav) "the Bald" of Arpadians
Mstislava, in 1018 was taken by Boleslaw I Chrobry among the other daughters
Bulgarian Adela, some sources claim that Adela is not necessarily Bulgarian as Boris and Gleb were born from some other wife
Boris (~986), Prince of Rostov (~1010–1015), remarkable is the fact that Rostov Principality as well as the Principality of Murom used to border the territory of Volga Bolgars
Gleb (~987), Prince of Murom (1013–1015), as Boris, Gleb is being also claimed the son of Anna Porphyrogenita
Stanislav (~985–1015), Prince of Smolensk (988–1015), possible of another wife and a fate of whom is not certain
Sudislav (?–1063), Prince of Pskov (1014–1036), possible of another wife, but he is mentioned in Nikon's Chronicles. He spent 35 years in prison and later before dying turned into a monk.
Malfrida
Sviatoslav (~982–1015), Prince of Drevlians (990–1015)
Anna Porphyrogenita
Theofana, a wife of Novgorod posadnik Ostromir, a grandson of semi-legendary Dobrynya (highly doubtful is the fact of her being Anna's offspring)
a granddaughter of Otto the Great (possibly Rechlinda Otona [Regelindis])
Maria Dobroniega of Kiev (~1012), the Duchess of Poland (1040–1087), married around 1040 to Casimir I the Restorer, Duke of Poland, her maternity as daughter of this wife is deduced from her apparent age
other possible family
Vladimirovna, an out-of-marriage daughter (d. 1044), married to Bernard, Margrave of the Nordmark.
Pozvizd (prior to 988–?), a son of Vladimir according to Hustyn Chronicles. He, possibly, was the Prince Khrisokhir mentioned by Niketas Choniates.
Significance and legacy

Vladimir the Great portrait on obverse ?1 bill circa 2006

The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate the feast day of St. Vladimir on 15 July.[32]

The town Volodymyr-Volynskyi in north-western Ukraine was founded by Vladimir and is named after him.[33] The foundation of another town, Vladimir in Russia, is usually attributed to Vladimir Monomakh. However some researchers argue that it was also founded by Vladimir the Great.[34]

St Volodymyr's Cathedral, one of the largest cathedrals in Kiev, is dedicated to Vladimir the Great, as was originally the University of Kiev. The Imperial Russian Order of St. Vladimir and Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in the United States are also named after him.

The memory of Vladimir was also kept alive by innumerable Russian folk ballads and legends, which refer to him as Krasno Solnyshko (the Fair (or Red) Sun). The Varangian period of Eastern Slavic history ceases with Vladimir, and the Christian period begins. The appropriation of Kievan Rus' as part of national history has also been a topic of contention in Ukrainophile vs. Russophile schools of historiography since the Soviet era.[35]

During his leadership, all branches of the economy prospered under him.[36] He was able to mint coins and regulated foreign affairs with other countries such as trade. Through trade he brought in Greek wines, Baghdad spices, and Arab horses to trade at the markets of Kiev.

Vladimir the Great on the Millennium of Russia monument in Novgorod

Monument to Vladimir the Great and the monk Fyodor at Pushkin Park in Vladimir, Russia

Vladimir as a symbol of Ukrainian nationalism: "St Volodymyr – Ruler of Ukraine, 980–1015, erected by Ukrainians in Great Britain in 1988 to celebrate the establishment of Christianity in Ukraine by St. Volodymir in 988"

See also

Saints portal
List of Russian rulers
List of Ukrainian rulers
Family life and children of Vladimir I
List of people known as The Great
Saint Vladimir Monument
Prince Vladimir, Russian animated feature film (2006)
Viking (film)
Vladimir Putin

Notes

Dyba, Yury (2012). Aleksandrovych V.; Voitovych, Leontii; et al., eds. ?????????-?????? ?????? ???????? ??????????? ???????????? ??? ?????????? ????? ?????????? ??????????????: ??????????? ?????????? ???? [Historical-geographic figurative context of the chronicled report about the birth of Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavovich: localisation of a busy village] (PDF). ????? ????: ??????? ? ???????? [Era of the Princes: history and culture] (in Ukrainian). Lviv. 6. ISSN 2221-6294. Retrieved 7 January 2018.
Harvard Ukrainian studies, Vol. 12–13, p. 190, Harvard Ukrainian studies, 1990
Volodimer? is the East Slavic form of the given name; this form was influenced and partially replaced by the Old Bulgarian (Old Church Slavonic) form Vladimer? (by folk etymology later also Vladimir?; in modern East Slavic, the given name is rendered Ukrainian: ????????? Volodymyr, Russian: ?????´??? Vladimir, Belarusian: ?????i?i? Uladzimir. See Vladimir (name) for details.
Fagrskinna ch. 21 (ed. Finnur Jâonsson 1902–8, p. 108).
Companion to the Calendar: A Guide to the Saints and Mysteries of the Christian Calendar, p. 105, Mary Ellen Hynes, Ed. Peter Mazar, LiturgyTrainingPublications, 1993
National geographic, Vol. 167, p. 290, National Geographic Society, 1985
Vladimir I (Grand Prince of Kiev), Encyclopµdia Britannica
Den hellige Vladimir av Kiev (~956–1015), Den katolske kirke website
Vladimir the Great, Encyclopedia of Ukraine
Saint Vladimir the Baptizer: Wetting cultural appetites for the Gospel, Dr. Alexander Roman, Ukrainian Orthodoxy website
Ukrainian Catholic Church: part 1., The Free Library
Vladimir I, Encyclopµdia Britannica
???? ?. ?????????-???????????? ???????? ??????????? ???????????? ??? ?????????? ????? ?????????? ??????????????: ??????????? ?????????? ???? // ????? ????. ??????? ? ????????. ?????: ???????? ??????????????? ??. ?. ????'??????? ??? ???????. — ???. VI. — ?. 37-70

References

Golden, P. B. (2006) "Rus." Encyclopaedia of Islam (Brill Online). Eds.: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Vladimir, St". Encyclopµdia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Some historical analysis and political insights on the state affairs of Vladimir the Great (in Russian)
Moss, Walter G. (2002) "A History of Russia Volume I: To 1917" (London: Anthem Press).
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Vladimir I of Kiev.
Velychenko, Stephen, How Valdamarr Sveinaldsson got to Moscow (krytyka.com), 9 November 2015.

Vladimir I Sviatoslavich
SuffixSuggest a change for this event Czar of Russia
BornSuggest a change for this event 960 , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Gender Male
NameSuggest a change for this event Vladimir I "The Great" Sviatoslavich
ReligionSuggest a change for this event Abt 989 , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Converted to Christianity
DiedSuggest a change for this event 15 Jul 1015 , Berestovo, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
BuriedSuggest a change for this event Church of Tithes, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Headstones Submit Headstone Photo Submit Headstone Photo
Person ID I3910 Full Tree
Last Modified 27 Sep 2013

Father Sviatoslav I Igorovich, Czar of Russia
b. 942, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 972, , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Mother Duchess Malusha von Lèubeck
b. Abt 944, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1002
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 959 , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location [1, 2, 6]
StatusSuggest a change for this event Concubinage
Family ID F1903 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 1 Adlaga de Kiev, Grand Duchess of Kiev
b. Abt 959, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 976 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
1. Vysheslav Vladimirovich, Duke of Novgorod
b. Abt 977, of, Novgorod, Novgorod Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1010
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1818 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 2 Olava de Kiev, Grand Duchess of Kiev
b. Abt 953, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 977 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1819 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 3 Predislava de Kiev, Grand Duchess of Kiev
b. Abt 960, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
MarriedSuggest a change for this event 980 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1820 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 4 Milolika Asen, Princess of Bulgaria
b. Abt 963, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Bef 982 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
1. Boris David Vladimirovich, Duke of Rostov
b. Abt 982, of, Rostov-Yaroslavski, Yaroslavski Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 24 Jul 1015
2. Gleb Roman Vladimirovich, Duke of Murom
b. Abt 983, of, Murom, Vladimir Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Abt 5 Aug 1015
3. Stanslav Vladimirovich, Duke of Smolensk
b. Abt 984, of, Smolensk, Smolensk Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 1015
4. Pozvizd Vladimirovich, Duke of Vladimir-Volnysk
b. Abt 985, of, Vladimir-Volynski, Volyn Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 1015
5. Sudislav Vladimirovich, Duke of Pskov
b. Abt 986, of, Pskov, Pskov Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1063-1065
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1821 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 5 Malfriede Premysl, Princess of Bohemia
b. Abt 960, of, Prague, Praha, Czechoslovakia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 987 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
1. Svyatoslav Vladimirovich, Duke of Drevlians
b. Abt 988, of, Ovruch, Zhitomir Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 15 Jul 1015
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1823 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 6 Miss Oehringen
b. Abt 991, of Oehringen, Jagstkreis, Baden-Wèurttemberg, Schwaben, Germany Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 14 Aug 1018
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 1013 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1824 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 7 Princess Rogneda zu Polotsk
b. Abt 962, of, Polotsk, Polotsk Oblast, Byelorussia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1002
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 977 of, Polotsk, Polotsk Oblast, Byelorussia Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
+ 1. Iszyaslav Vladimirovich, Duke of Polotsk
b. Abt 978, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1001
2. Vsevolod Vladimirovich, Prince of Vladimir
b. Abt 979, of, Vladimir-Volynski, Volyn Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1015
+ 3. Yaroslav I Vladimirovich, Czar of Russia
b. 980, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 20 Feb 1054, , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
4. Prâemieslawa Vladimirovna, Princess of Kiev
b. Abt 984, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 1018
5. Mstislav Vladimirovich, Duke of Chernigov
b. Abt 988, of, Chernigov, Chernigov Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1035-1036, , Chernigov, Chernigov Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1828 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 8 Anna Lekapene, Princess of the Byzantine Empire
b. 13 Mar 963, of, Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantium Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1011
MarriedSuggest a change for this event 989 , Kherson, Kherson Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
MARRIAGE: Married 7 Pagan wives (Rogneide was one) by whom he had 22 children (prior to Anna) [7]
Children
+ 1. Arlogia Vladimirovna, Countess of Orkney
b. Abt 1011, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
+ 2. Dobronegra Mariya Vladimirovna, Princess of Kiev
b. Abt 1012, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1087
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1933

Volodymyr the Great (Valdamar, Volodimer, Vladimir), b ca 956, d 15 July 1015 in Vyshhorod, near Kyiv. Grand prince of Kyiv from 980; son of Sviatoslav I Ihorovych and Malusha; half-brother of Yaropolk I Sviatoslavych and Oleh Sviatoslavych; and father of 11 princes by five wives, including Sviatopolk I, Yaroslav the Wise, Mstyslav Volodymyrovych, and Saints Borys and Hlib. In 969 Grand Prince Sviatoslav I named his son Volodymyr the prince of Novgorod the Great, where the latter ruled under the guidance of his uncle, Dobrynia. In 977 a struggle for power broke out among Sviatoslav's sons. Yaropolk I, who was then the grand prince of Kyiv, seized the Derevlianian land and Novgorod, thereby forcing Volodymyr to flee to Scandinavia. In 980 Volodymyr returned to Rus’ with a Varangian force, expelled Yaropolk's governors from Novgorod, and took Polatsk after a battle in which Prince Rogvolod of Polatsk was slain. Volodymyr took Rogvolod's daughter, Rohnida, as his wife. Later that year he captured Kyiv and had Yaropolk murdered, thereby becoming the grand prince , and married Yaropolk's Greek widow.

Over the next 35 years Volodymyr expanded the borders of Kyivan Rus’ and turned it into one of the most powerful states in Eastern Europe. After taking the Cherven towns and Peremyshl from Poland (981) and waging successful wars against the Viatichians (981–2) and Radimichians (984) he united the remaining East Slavic tribes, divided his realm into lands, and installed his sons or viceroys to govern them, dispense princely justice, and collect tribute. In 983 Volodymyr waged war against the Yatvingians and thereby gained access to the Baltic Sea. In 985 he defeated the Khazars and Volga Bulgars and secured his state's eastern frontier. Volodymyr devoted considerable attention to defending his southern borders against the nomadic Pechenegs and Chorni Klobuky. He had lines of fortifications built along the Irpin River, the Stuhna River, the Trubizh River, and the Sula River and founded fortified towns (eg, Vasylkiv, Voin, and Bilhorod) that were joined by earthen ramparts.

Volodymyr attributed his victory over Yaropolk I Sviatoslavych to the support he received from pagan forces, and had idols of the deities Perun, Khors, Dazhboh, Stryboh, Symarhl, and Mokosh erected on a hill overlooking his palace in Kyiv. Later he became convinced that a monotheistic religion would consolidate his power, as Christianity and Islam had done for neighboring rulers. His choice was determined after the Byzantine emperor Basil II turned to him for help in defeating his rival, Bardas Phocas. Volodymyr offered military aid only if he was allowed to marry Basil's sister, Anna, and Basil agreed to the marriage only after Volodymyr promised to convert himself and his subjects to Christianity. Volodymyr, his family, and his closest associates were baptized in December 987, when he took the Christian name Vasylii (Basil). Soon afterward he ordered the destruction of all pagan idols. The mass baptism of the citizens of Kyiv took place on 1 August 988 (see Christianization of Ukraine), and the remaining population of Rus’ was slowly converted, sometimes by force. In 988 Volodymyr sent several thousand warriors to help Basil regain power and married Anna, and in 989 he besieged Chersonese Taurica, took it from Bardas Phocas, and returned it to Basil.

The Christianization of Rus’ was essentially engineered by Byzantium. Byzantium supplied the first hierarchs and other missionary clergy in Rus’ and introduced Byzantine art, education, and literature there. During Volodymyr's reign the first schools and churches were built, notably the Church of the Tithes in Kyiv. The adoption of Christianity as the official religion facilitated the unification of the Rus’ tribes and the establishment of foreign dynastic, political, cultural, religious, and commercial relations, particularly with the Byzantine Empire, Bulgaria, and Germany. Relations with Poland improved after Volodymyr's son Sviatopolk I married the daughter of Prince Boleslaw I the Brave in 992. Volodymyr received papal emissaries in 986, 988, 991, 992, and 1000 and sent his own envoys to Rome in 993 and 1001.

After Anna's death in 1011, Volodymyr married the daughter of Count Kuno von Enningen. Toward the end of his life his sons Sviatopolk of Turiv and Yaroslav the Wise of Novgorod challenged his rule. Having defeated Sviatopolk, Volodymyr died while preparing a campaign against Yaroslav and was buried in the Church of the Tithes. He was succeeded briefly by Sviatopolk.

The Rus’ clergy venerated Volodymyr because of his support of the church, but he was canonized only after 1240. Thereafter he was referred to as ‘the holy, equal to the Apostles, grand prince of Kyiv.’ The oldest extant mention of him as Saint Volodymyr is found in the Hypatian Chronicle under the year 1254, and his feast day, 28 July (15 July OS), was first celebrated in 1263.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Zavitnevich, V. Vladimir Sviatoi kak politicheskii deiatel’ (Kyiv 1888)
Nazarko, I. Sviatyi Volodymyr Velykyi, Volodar i Khrystytel’ Rusy-Ukraèiny (960–1015) (Rome 1954)
Poppe, A. ‘The Political Background to the Baptism of Rus’: Byzantine-Russian Relations between 986 and 989,’ Dumbarton Oaks Papers, no. 30 (1976); repr in his Rise of Christian Russia (London 1982)
Volkoff, V. Vladimir the Russian Viking ([London] 1984)
Tolochko, Petro. Sviatyi Volodymyr; Iaroslav Mudryi (Kyiv 1996)

Birth:
What is the meaning of the word, "Ukraine"?

In most Slavic languages, "kraina" means "country" or "land". The word "krai" in Russian is used this way too (several regions within Russia are categorized as "krai"), but its second meaning "edge"/"boundary" is often pitched by Russia to interpret the word "Ukraine" as "borderlands" (of Russia, of course).

Source: https://www.quora.com/What-does-Ukraine-for-Ukrainians-mean

What is the meaning of the word, "Russia"?

1530s, from Medieval Latin Russi "the people of Russia," from Rus, the native name of the people and the country (source of Arabic Rus, Medieval Greek Rhos), originally the name of a group of Swedish merchant/warriors who established themselves around Kiev 9c.

Source: https://www.etymonline.com/word/russia

Religion:
converted to Christianity

Vladimir married Rogneda of Polotsk, Princess Consort of Rus. Rogneda (daughter of Rogvolod, Prince of Polotsk) was born in 0Apr 962 in Polotsk, Russia; died in 1002 in Berestovo, Kiev, Ukraine. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

355253.

Rogneda of Polotsk, Princess Consort of Rus was born in 0Apr 962 in Polotsk, Russia (daughter of Rogvolod, Prince of Polotsk); died in 1002 in Berestovo, Kiev, Ukraine.

Notes:

Rogneda of Polotsk (962–1002) is the Slavic name for Ragnhild, was a Princess consort of Rus. She was the daughter of Ragnvald (Slavic: Rogvolod) came from Scandinavia and established himself at Polatsk in the mid-10th century.

Life

It has been speculated that Rogneda belonged to the Ynglings royal family of Norway. In or about 980, Vladimir, on learning that she was betrothed to his half-brother Yaropolk I of Kiev, took Polotsk and forced Rogneda to marry him. Having raped Rogneda in the presence of her parents, he ordered them to be killed, along with two of Rogneda's brothers.

Rogneda gave him several children. The four sons were Yaroslav the Wise, Vsevolod, Mstislav of Chernigov, and Izyaslav of Polotsk. She also bore two daughters, one of whom is named by Nestor the Chronicler as Predslava (taken as a concubine of Boleslaus I of Poland, according to Gallus). A later chronicle tells a story, most likely taken from a Norse saga, of Rogneda plotting against Vladimir and asking her elder son, Izyaslav, to kill him. As was the Norse royal custom, she was sent with her elder son to govern the land of her parents, i.e. Polotsk. Izyaslav's line continued to rule Polotsk and the newly found town of Izyaslavl until the Mongol invasion.

After Vladimir converted to Christianity and took Anna Porphyrogeneta as his wife, he had to divorce all his previous wives, including Rogneda. After that, she entered the convent and took the name Anastasia.

Legacy

Around 1825 Kondraty Ryleev wrote a narrative poem entitled Rogneda. This poem became a literary source for her portrayal in the nationalist Russian opera Rogneda by Alexander Serov, which premiered in 1865.

See also

Family life and children of Vladimir I
List of rape victims from history and mythology

Princess Consort of Rus
Rahvalod, Rahnieda (Polacak). ????????, ??????? (???????).jpg
Matchmakers Vladimir Svyatoslavich in Rogvolod (left side); Rogvolod talks with Rogneda (right side).
Reign 980–988
Predecessor Unknown wife of Yaropolk I
Successor Anna Porphyrogeneta
Born 962
Died 1002 [aged 40]
Spouse Vladimir the Great (divorced)
Issue Izyaslav of Polotsk
Yaroslav the Wise
Mstislav of Chernigov
Predlava
Premislava
Mstislava
Father Rogvolod

end of biography

end of biography

Notes:

Married:
List of rape victims from ancient history and mythology:

Rogneda of Polotsk from Belarus/Scandinavian history; raped by Vladimir, half-brother of her betrothed Yaropolk I of Kiev, in the presence of her parents (10th century)

... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rape_victims_from_ancient_history_and_mythology

Children:

177626. Yaroslav, I, Czar of Russia was born in 976 in Kiev, Ukraine; died on 20 Feb 1054 in Kiev, Ukraine.

355254.

Olof Skotkonung, King of Sweden was born in ~980 in (Sweden); died in 1022 in Husaby, Sweden.

Olof married Estrid of the Obotrites, Queen Consort of Sweden(Sweden). Estrid was born in ~979 in (Schleswig-Holstein, Germany); died in 1035 in (Sweden). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

355255.

Estrid of the Obotrites, Queen Consort of Sweden was born in ~979 in (Schleswig-Holstein, Germany); died in 1035 in (Sweden).

Notes:

Estrid (or Astrid) of the Obotrites (c. 979 – 1035) was a Viking age Swedish queen and West Slavic princess, married to Olof Skèotkonung, the King of Sweden, c. 1000–1022, mother of King Anund Jacob of Sweden and the Kievan Rus' saint and grand princess Ingegerd Olofsdotter.

Biography
Legend says that Estrid was taken back to Sweden from a war in the West Slavic area of Mecklenburg as a war-prize. She was most likely given by her father, a tribal chief of the Polabian Obotrites, as a peace offering in a marriage to seal the peace, and she is thought to have brought with her a great dowry, as a great Slavic influence is represented in Sweden from her time, mainly among craftsmen.

Her husband also had a mistress, Edla, who came from the same area in Europe as herself, and who was possibly taken to Sweden at the same time. The king treated Edla and Estrid the same way and gave his son and his two daughters with Edla the same privileges as the children he had with Estrid, though it was Estrid he married and made queen.

Queen Estrid was baptised with her husband, their children and large numbers of the Swedish royal court in 1008, when the Swedish royal family converted to Christianity, although the king promised to respect the freedom of religion - Sweden was not to be Christian until the last religious war between Inge the Elder and Blot-Sweyn of 1084-1088.

Snorre Sturlasson wrote about her, that Estrid was unkind to the children (Emund, Astrid and Holmfrid) of her husband's mistress Edla;

" Queen Estrid was arrogant and not kind towards her stepchildren, and therefore the king sent his son Emund to Vendland, where he was brought up by his maternal relatives".
Not much is known of Estrid as a person. Snorre Sturlasson mentions her as a lover of pomp and luxury, and as hard and strict towards her servants.

Children
Ingegerd Olofsdotter (c. 1001-1054), Grand Princess of Kiev, in Kievan Rus' called Anna, married Yaroslav I the Wise, prince of Novgorod and Kiev.
Anund Jacob (c. 1010-1050), king of Sweden, succeeded Olof as king in c. 1022.
References
êAke Ohlmarks: "Alla Sveriges drottningar" (All the queens of Sweden) (In Swedish)
Snorri Sturluson

end of this biography

Children:

177627. Ingigerd Olofsdottir, Princess of Sweden was born in ~1001 in Sigtuna, Sweden; died on 10 Feb 1050 in Kiev, Ukraine.
Anund Jacob, King of Sweden was born in ~1010 in (Sweden); died in 1050 in (Sweden).

355300.

Robert d'Evereux, Comte d'Evreux was born in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, I and Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy); died on 16 Mar 1037 in Seine-Inferieure, Normandy, France.

Notes:

Robert "Archbishop of Rouen, Comte d'Evreux" Normandie
Born [date unknown] in Normandie, France
ANCESTORS ancestors
Son of Richard (Normandie) de Normandie and Gunnora (Crâepon) de Normandie
Brother of Unknown (of Normandy) Normandie, Unknown (Normandy) de St. Sauveur [half], Godfrey (Brionne) de Brionne [half], Richard (Normandie) de Normandie, Muriella (Normandie) de Hauteville [half], Guillaume (Normandie) d'Eu [half], Matilda (Normandy) de Normandie, Mauger (Normandie) de Corbeil, Hawise (Normandie) de Normandie, Beatrix (Normandie) Turenne [half], Emma (Normandie) of England, Fressenda (Normandie) de Hauteville [half] and Papia (Normandie) de St Valâery [half]
Husband of Herleva (UNKNOWN) d'Evreux — married [date unknown] [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Father of Raoul (d'âEvreux) Evreux, Gautier (de Rouen) de Rosmar, Richard (Evreux) d'Evreux and Guillaume (de Evreux) Evreux
Died 16 Mar 1037 in Seine-Inferieure, Normandy, France
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Categories: House of Normandie.

European Aristocracy
Robert Normandie was a member of aristocracy in Europe.
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Robert Normandie is a member of the House of Normandie.
Contents
[hide]
1 Biography
1.1 Marriage
1.2 Religion
1.3 Surname
2 Sources
Biography
Robert (d. 1037), Comte d'Evreux.[1][2][3]

Robert, born before 989, the son of Richard I and his second wife Gunnora, was named the Comte d'âEvreux. He was the Archbishop of Rouen from 989 to 1037.[2]

Marriage
He married Herleve (Havlive).[4] Her orignis are unknown.[2] They had 3 children:[5]

Richard d'âEvreux (d. 1067) Comte d'âEvreux[2]
Raoul (d1051), Seigneur de Gacâe[2]
Guillaume d'âEvreux[2]
Gautier (Walter) de Rosmar[6]
Religion
c. 989-1037: Archbishop of Rouen.[1]
Surname
"DEVEREAUX originally d'Evreux (of Normandy) is found in Ireland after the Conquest via settlers of co. Wexford."[7]

Sources
? 1.0 1.1 Baldwin, n.d.
? 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Cawley, 2006
? 1. Tab. Souv. Gen., France 22, Tab. 48
? clerical marriages were not forbidden in Normandy until 1064.
? Cawley (2006); Wikipedia
? Walter is mentioned as the son of Robert and Herlave in:
Massan de St. Amand, A. (1813). Essais historiques et anecdotiques sur l'ancien comtâe, les comtes et la ville d'Evreux. Google Books.[1]
He is not named as a son by Wikipedia, Baldwin (n.d.) or Cawley (2006).
? see Geni.com for copy.[2]
See also:

Baldwin, S. (n.d.). "Robert, archbishop of Rouen and count of âEvreux." Henry Project. Web.[3]
Cawley, C. (2006). Medieval Lands v.4. Fmg.ac. Web.[4]
Wikipedia: Robert II (archbishop of Rouen)

end of profile

Robert married Havlive of Normandy. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

355301.
Havlive of Normandy
Children:

177650. Richard d'Evreux was born in ~986; died on 13 Dec 1067.

89072.

89073.

Dearbforgail Ingen O'Brien was born in 1005 in Dublin, Ireland (daughter of Donnchad O'Brien, King of Munster and Druscilla Godwin); died in 1060 in Ireland.

Children:

44536. Murchad Macdairmata Murchada was born in 1032 in (Ireland); died in 1070 in (Ireland).

96274.

Waldron St Clair was born in ~1019 in Normandie, France (son of Mauger Normandie and Germaine Corbell); died in 1047 in (Normandy, France).

Waldron married Helena Normandie(Normandy, France). Helena (daughter of Richard Normandie) was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandie, France; died in ~1080. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

96275.

Helena Normandie was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandie, France (daughter of Richard Normandie); died in ~1080.

Children:

178433. Agnes St. Clair was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandy, France; died in ~1080.

44532.

Roger de Beaumont was born in ~ 1015 in (Normandy, France); died on 29 Nov 1094; was buried in Les Preaux, Normandy, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

Burial: Abbey of Saint-Pierre de Prâeaux, France
Possessions: Beaumont-le-Roger, Normandy, France
Possessions: Pont-Audemer, Normandy, France
Military: Battle of Hasings, 1066

Notes:

Roger de Beaumont (c. 1015 – 29 November 1094), feudal lord (French: seigneur) of Beaumont-le-Roger and of Pont-Audemer in Normandy, was a powerful Norman nobleman and close advisor to William the Conqueror.

Origins

He was a son of Humphrey de Vieilles (who was a great-nephew of the Duchess Gunnora of Normandy) by his wife Albreda de la Haye Auberie. Roger de Beaumont was thus a second cousin once removed of William the Conqueror. His Norman feudal lordship had its caput and castle at Beaumont-le-Roger, a settlement situated on the upper reaches of the River Risle, in Normandy, about 46 km SW of Rouen, the capital of the Duchy. He was also feudal lord of Pont-Audemer, a settlement built around the first bridge to cross the River Risle upstream of its estuary, shared with the River Seine.

Physical appearance[edit]
Roger was nicknamed La Barbe (Latinised to Barbatus) (i.e. "The Bearded") because he wore a moustache and beard while the Normans usually were clean shaven. This peculiarity is believed to be recognized in the thirty-second panel of the Bayeux Tapestry where he is depicted sitting at a feast near Hastings, well before the battle, at the right hand of Duke William, who in turn was seated at the right hand of his brother Bishop Odo of Bayeux, who is shown blessing the food at a feast.

Career

Planchâe described him as "the noblest, the wealthiest, and the most valiant seigneur of Normandy, and the greatest and most trusted friend of the Danish (i.e. Norman) family". The explanation for his exalted position appears to be that as an older cousin who had never rebelled against the young Duke, he was part of the kinship group of noblemen that William relied upon in governing Normandy and fighting-off frequent rebellion and invasions. The historian Frank McLynn observed that William relied heavily on relatives on his mother's side, namely his half-brothers Bishop Odo and Robert, and brothers-in-law, and on relatives descended from the Duchess Gunnora's sisters, since his own paternal kin had proved unreliable.

Wace, the 12th century historian, wrote that: "At the time of the invasion of England, Roger was summoned to the great council at Lillebonne, on account of his wisdom; but he did not join in the expedition as he was too far advanced in years". Although Roger could not fight, he did not hesitate in contributing a large share of the cost, and provided at his own expense sixty vessels for the conveyance of the troops across the channel. Furthermore, his eldest son and heir fought bravely at Hastings as noted in several contemporary records. As a result, Roger's elder sons were rewarded generously with lands in England, and both eventually were made English earls by the sons of the Conqueror. Wace's statement may therefore cast doubt on the possibility of Roger being depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry feasting at Hastings. However it is possible that he crossed the Channel so he could continue to act as a valued member of the Duke's council, perhaps giving advice on military tactics, yet stayed well behind the line of battle at headquarters.

Marriage & progeny

He married circa 1048 or earlier Adeline of Meulan (c. 1014-1020 - 8 April 1081), who was buried at the Abbaye du Bec, the daughter of Waleran III, Count de Meulan by Oda de Conteville, and sister and heiress of a childless Count of Meulan. Meulan eventually passed to their elder son who became Count of Meulan in 1081. Their surviving children were:

Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester, Count of Meulan (c.1049-1118), the eldest son and heir. He succeeded his father in the major part of his lands, and was one of the few proven Companions of William the Conqueror who fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
Henry de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Warwick (c.1050-1119). He was overshadowed by his elder brother, but was granted by his father one of his lesser lordships in Normandy, the lordship of Le Neubourg, about 12 km NE of Beaumont-le-Roger, from which his own family adopted the surname Anglicised to "de Newburgh". He established a more enduring line of Beaumont earls than his elder brother, Earls of Warwick seated at Warwick Castle.
William de Beaumont (not mentioned in most sources).
Alberâee de Beaumont (died 1112), Abbess of Eton.

Death & burial

He was buried at Les Prâeaux.

end

44533.

Children:

22266. Sir Robert de Beaumont, Knight, 1st Earl of Leicester was born in ~ 1049 in Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France; died on 5 Jun 1118.
Sir Henry de Beaumont, Knight, 1st Earl of Warwick was born in ~ 1050 in Normandy, France; died on 20 Jun 1119; was buried in Les Preaux, Normandy, France.

44406.

Other Events and Attributes:

Military: Leader of the 1st Crusade

Notes:

Birth: 1057
Death: Oct. 18, 1102

Nobility. Son of Henri I of France and his second wife Anna Iaroslavna of Kiev. He married Adelais de Vermandois who bore him nine children.

Family links:
Parents:
King Henri (1008 - 1060)
Anna Agnesa Yaroslavna (1036 - 1075)

Spouse:
Adelaide, Countess of Vermandois*

Children:
Isabel Of Vermandois Beaumont de Warenne (1081 - 1131)*
Raoul I de Vermandois (1094 - 1152)*

Siblings:
Philip I of France (1052 - 1108)*
Hugh I Count of Vermandois (1057 - 1102)*
Hugues de France (1057 - 1102)

*Calculated relationship

Burial:
Church of St Paul
Mersin
Mersin, Turkey

Created by: Lutetia
Record added: Jan 13, 2013
Find A Grave Memorial# 103487897

end of profile

The PEDIGREE of
Hugh MAGNUS `the Great' de CREPI

Count of VERMANDOIS; Leader of 1st Crusade (Crusader); (inherited VERMANDOIS from his wife, whose brother Eudes, q.v., was disinherited)
Born: abt. 1057 Died: 18 Oct 1101 Tarsus d. from Battle wounds

HM George I's 15-Great Grandfather. HRE Ferdinand I's 13-Great Grandfather. U.S. President [WASHINGTON]'s 19-Great Grandfather. PM Churchill's 22-Great Grandfather. HM Margrethe II's 23-Great Grandfather. Gen. Pierpont Hamilton's 23-Great Grandfather. `Red Baron' Richthofen's 20-Great Grandfather. Poss. Agnes Harris's 16-Great Grandfather. `Osawatomie' Brown's 23-Great Grandfather.
Wife/Partner: Adelheid (Adelaide) (Countess) de VERMANDOIS
Children: Raoul I (Count) de VERMANDOIS ; Isabelle (de) VERMANDOIS ; Agnes de VERMANDOIS ; Mathilda (Mahaut) de VERMANDOIS ; Constance de VERMANDOIS ; Henri de Chaumont
Possible Child: Alice de VERMANDOIS
________ ________ ________ ________ _______ _______ _______ _______ ______ _____ _____
/ -- Robert I (King) of FRANCE + ==&=> [ 255 ,,x,&]
/ -- Hugh (I) `the Great' (Duke) of the FRANKS
/ \ -- Beatrice (poss. de VERMANDOIS) + ====> [ 255 ,,x,&]
/ -- Hugh (Hugues) CAPET (King) of FRANCE
/ \ -- Hedwige (Hedwig) of SAXONY + ==&=> [ 255 ,c,ptm,&]
/ -- Robert II CAPET (King) of FRANCE
/ \ -- Adelais of the CAROLINGIANS + ====> [ 255 ,c,pt,&]
/ -- Henry I CAPET (King) of FRANCE (1008 - 1060)
| \ / -- Boso (Bozon; II) of PROVENCE + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,pt,&]
| | / -- William (I; II; Marquis/Duke) of PROVENCE
| | | \ -- Constance of ARLES (de VIENNE) + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,ptQD,&]
| | / | or: Constantia (of unknown ancestry)
| \ -- Constance of ARLES (TOULOUSE) (980? - 1032 Meulan)
/ \ -- Adelaide (Aelips) `Blanche' d' ANJOU + ====> [ 255 ,c,&]
- Hugh MAGNUS `the Great' de CREPI
\ / -- Vladimir (I; Saint; Grand Prince) of KIEV + ====> [ 255 ,,R,&]
| / -- Jaroslav (Yaroslav Laroslav) I WLADIMIROWWITSCH
| | \ -- Rogneida (Rognieda) (Princess) von POLOTZK + ====> [ 3]
| | | or: Anna PORPHYROGENITA, q.v.
| / | OR: poss. (Miss) von SCHWABEN + ==&=> [ 255 ,gC,tm,&]
\ -- Anna (Agnesa) JAROSLAVNA (Princess) of KIEV
\ | or: prob. not Matilda of GERMANY (1st wife)
| / -- Olaf III (II; King; Skot-konig) of SWEDEN + ====> [ 255 ,g,&]
\ -- Ingegarda (Ingrid) OLAFSDOTTIR (1001? - 1050)
\ / -- Mieceslas III (Prince) of the OBOTRITES + ====> [ 255 ,c,pt,&]
\ -- Astrid (Ingegerda) (Princess) of the OBOTRITES
\ -- Sophia (Sweden)

His (poss.) Grandchildren: Eleonore de VERMANDOIS ; Isabelle de VERMANDOIS ; Eleonore de VERMANDOIS ; Alice of LEICESTER ; Ada (of Surrey) de WARENNE ; Reginald de WARREN ; Isabel (Elizabeth) de BEAUMONT ; Robert II `Bossu' de BEAUMONT (BELLOMONT; BLANCHMAIN) ; William (III) de WARENNE ; Waleran II de BEAUMONT (Count) de MEULAN ; Gundred de WARREN (WARENNE) ; Adelina (de) BEAUMONT ; Rainald de WARENNE ; Ella de WARREN ; (Miss) de WARENNE ; Matilda (Aubreye) de BEAUMONT ; Emma of BEAUMONT ; Eleanor BEAUMONT ; Manfred I (Marquess) of SALUZZO ; Anselmo (Marquis) de CEVA (del VASTO) ; Guglielmo del VASTO ; Sibel (Sibyl) of SAVONA del VASTO ; Agnes de BAUGENCY ; Mathilde de BEAUGENCY ; Adelheid de la FERTE-GAUCHER ; Bernard de ST. VALERY

[ Start ]
FabPed Genealogy Vers. 86 © Jamie, 1997-2018

end of pedigree

Birth:
Vermandois was a French county that appeared in the Merovingian period. Its name derives from that of an ancient tribe, the Viromandui. In the 10th century, it was organised around two castellan domains: St Quentin (Aisne) and Pâeronne (Somme). In today's times, the Vermandois county would fall in the Picardy region of northern France.

Pepin I of Vermandois, the earliest of its hereditary counts, was descended in direct male line from the emperor Charlemagne. More famous was his grandson Herbert II (902–943), who considerably increased the territorial power of the house of Vermandois, and kept the lawful king of France, the unlucky Charles the Simple, prisoner for six years. Herbert II was son of Herbert I, lord of Pâeronne and St Quentin, who was killed in 902 by an assassin in the pay of Baldwin II, Count of Flanders. His successors, Albert I, Herbert III, Albert II, Otto and Herbert IV, were not as historically significant.

In 1077, the last count of the first house of Vermandois, Herbert IV, received the county of Valois through his wife. His son Eudes (II) the Insane was disinherited by the council of the Barons of France. He was lord of Saint-Simon through his wife, and the county was given to his sister Adela, whose first husband was Hugh the Great, the brother of King Philip I of France. Hugh was one of the leaders of the First Crusade, and died in 1102 at Tarsus in Cilicia. The eldest son of Hugh and Adela was count Raoul I (c. 1120–1152), who married Petronilla of Aquitaine, sister of the queen, Eleanor, and had by her three children: Raoul (Rudolph) II, the Leper (count from 1152–1167); Isabelle, who possessed from 1167 to 1183 the counties of Vermandois, Valois and Amiens conjointly with her husband, Philip, Count of Flanders; and Eleanor. By the terms of a treaty concluded in 1186 with the king, Philip Augustus, the count of Flanders kept the county of Vermandois until his death, in 1191. At this date, a new arrangement gave Eleanor (d. 1213) a life interest in the eastern part of Vermandois, together with the title of countess of St Quentin, and the king entered immediately into possession of Peronne and its dependencies.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermandois

Died:
from battle wounds...

Hugues married Adelaide of Vermandois. Adelaide was born in 1060-1062 in Valois, France; died on 28 Sep 1120 in Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44407.

Adelaide of Vermandois was born in 1060-1062 in Valois, France; died on 28 Sep 1120 in Normandy, France.

Children:

22267. Lady Isabel de Vermandois, Countess of Leicester was born on 13 Dec 1081 in Basse-Normandie, France; died on 17 Feb 1131 in France; was buried in Lewes Priory, Southover, Sussex, England.

44536.

Murchad Macdairmata Murchada was born in 1032 in (Ireland) (son of Diarmait Macmail Na Mbo Murchada, King of Ireland and Dearbforgail Ingen O'Brien); died in 1070 in (Ireland).

Murchad married Sadb Ingen Mac Bricc(Ireland). Sadb was born in 1085 in (Ireland); died in 1115 in (Ireland). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44537.

Sadb Ingen Mac Bricc was born in 1085 in (Ireland); died in 1115 in (Ireland).

Children:

22268. Donnchad Enna Mac Murchada was born in 1085 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland; died on 8 Dec 1115 in Wexford, Ireland.

44538. Gilla Michil O'Brien was born in 0___ 1055; died in 0___ 1068.
Gilla married Luchdelb Hui Garbita. Luchdelb was born in 0___ 1062. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

44539.

Luchdelb Hui Garbita was born in 0___ 1062.

Children:

22269. Orlaith Ingen O'Brien, Queen of Leinster was born in 0___ 1080 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland; died in 0___ 1113 in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland.

356864.

Sir Robert Brus, Earl of Annandale was born in 1030-1036 in Carrick, Argyllshire, Scotland (son of Ragnvald Brusesson, Earl of Orkney and Arlogia of Orkney, Countess of Orkney); died in 1080-1098 in Dumfries, Scotland.

Robert married Emma Bretagne. Emma was born in 1034 in Nantes, Bretagne, France; died in 1094. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

356865.
Emma Bretagne was born in 1034 in Nantes, Bretagne, France; died in 1094.
Children:

178432. Robert Brus was born in ~1051 in Northamptonshire, England; died in 1094.

88588.

Duncan I of Scotland, King of Alba was born in ~1001 in (Dunkeld, Scotland) (son of Crinan of Dunkeld, Abbot of Dunkeld and Bethoc); died on 14 Aug 1040 in Elgin, Scotland.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: 1007, (Dunkeld) Scotland

Notes:

Donnchad mac Crinain (Modern Gaelic: Donnchadh mac Cráionain;[2] anglicised as Duncan I, and nicknamed An t-Ilgarach, "the Diseased" or "the Sick";[3] ca. 1001 – 14 August 1040)[1] was king of Scotland (Alba) from 1034 to 1040. He is the historical basis of the "King Duncan" in Shakespeare's play Macbeth.

Life

He was a son of Crâinâan, hereditary lay abbot of Dunkeld, and Bethâoc, daughter of king Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda (Malcolm II).

Unlike the "King Duncan" of Shakespeare's Macbeth, the historical Duncan appears to have been a young man. He followed his grandfather Malcolm as king after the latter's death on 25 November 1034, without apparent opposition. He may have been Malcolm's acknowledged successor or Táanaiste as the succession appears to have been uneventful.[4] Earlier histories, following John of Fordun, supposed that Duncan had been king of Strathclyde in his grandfather's lifetime, between 1018 and 1034, ruling the former Kingdom of Strathclyde as an appanage. Modern historians discount this idea.[5]

An earlier source, a variant of the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba (CK-I), gives Duncan's wife the Gaelic name Suthen.[6] Whatever his wife's name may have been, Duncan had at least two sons. The eldest, Malcolm III (Mâael Coluim mac Donnchada) was king from 1058 to 1093, the second Donald III (Domnall Bâan, or "Donalbane") was king afterwards. Mâael Muire, Earl of Atholl is a possible third son of Duncan, although this is uncertain.[7]

The early period of Duncan's reign was apparently uneventful, perhaps a consequence of his youth. Macbeth (Mac Bethad mac Findlâaich) is recorded as having been his dux, today rendered as "duke" and meaning nothing more than the rank between prince and marquess, but then still having the Roman meaning of "war leader". In context — "dukes of Francia" had half a century before replaced the Carolingian kings of the Franks and in England the over-mighty Godwin of Wessex was called a dux — this suggests that Macbeth may have been the power behind the throne.[8]

In 1039, Duncan led a large Scots army south to besiege Durham, but the expedition ended in disaster. Duncan survived, but the following year he led an army north into Moray, Macbeth's domain, apparently on a punitive expedition against Moray.[9] There he was killed in action, at Bothnagowan, now Pitgaveny, near Elgin, by the men of Moray led by Macbeth, probably on 14 August 1040.[10] He is thought to have been buried at Elgin[11] before later relocation to the Isle of Iona.
Depictions in fiction

Duncan is depicted as an elderly King in the play Macbeth (1606) by William Shakespeare. He is killed in his sleep by the protagonist, Macbeth.

In the historical novel Macbeth the King (1978) by Nigel Tranter, Duncan is portrayed as a schemer who is fearful of Macbeth as a possible rival for the throne. He tries to assassinate Macbeth by poisoning and then when this fails, attacks his home with an army. In self-defence Macbeth meets him in battle and kills him in personal combat.

In the animated television series Gargoyles he is depicted as a weak and conniving king who assassinates those who he believes threaten his rule.[12] He even tries to assassinate Macbeth, forcing Demona to ally with the Moray nobleman, with Duncan's resulting death coming from attempting to strike an enchanted orb of energy that one of the Weird Sisters gave to Macbeth to take Duncan down.

Died:
during the Battle of Pitgaveny by Macbeth

Duncan married Suthen, Queen of Scotland in ~1030 in (Northumbria, England). Suthen was born in ~1020 in Northumbria, England; died in 1050 in Scotland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

88589.

Suthen, Queen of Scotland was born in ~1020 in Northumbria, England; died in 1050 in Scotland.

Notes:

Biography
This is the Final Profile ID for Suthen, wife of Duncan I of Scotland.
Suthen/Sybil is being consolidated in this profile. Due to her unknown parentage, her LNAB has been determined as UNKNOWN.
Take care when merging.

There is confusion surrounding the origins of Sybill/Suthen. Conflicting theories claim she is either a: cousin, sister, or daughter of Siward, Earl of Northumbria. Therefore, her LNAB is "UNKNOWN".
Siward had 2 known children: Waltheof of Bamburg and (unproven) Osbeorne (d.27 Jul 1054).
"[SIBYLLA] . The Chronicle of John of Fordun states the mother of Malcolm and Donald Bane, Duncan's sons, was "the cousin of Earl Siward". This info is not in any earlier source and should be considered dubious" (Medieval Lands)
Please see G2G discussion for more:
http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/137645/what-is-the-lnab-for-suthen-sybil-of-scotland-

Vitals
Name: Suthen
Alias: Sybill, Sybilla
b. ____
d. ____
Disputed Origins
The parents listed for this individual are speculative and may not be based on sound genealogical research. Sources to prove or disprove this ancestry are needed. Please contact the Profile Manager or leave information on the bulletin board.

Sybill's relation to Siward, Earl of Northumbria, as well as Bjorn is unknown. She has been referred to as Siward's cousin, sister, and daughter.

John of Fordun:
Duncan's wife was the cousin of Earl Siward.[1]
Foundation for Medieval Genealogy [2] states:
information is dubious ... "In one earlier king list, King Malcolm III's mother is named "Suthen"".
more recent sources suggest:[citation needed]
Earl Siward and Sybilla are siblings.
Sybilla was daughter of Bjorn Bearsson and sister of Sigurd "Digera" Bjornsson, Earl of Northumbria
Marriage and Issue
m. c.1030 Duncan of Scotland.[3] Issue:
Malcolm III
Donald III
Maelmuire.[4]
Sources
? Fordun, J. (1872) Chronicle of a Scottish Nation. Felix J.H. Skene, Trans. & William F. Skene, Ed. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas. www.archive.org
? fmg.ac
? Ashley, M. (2008). A Brief History of British Kings and Queens, (pp.106-107). Philadelphia, PA: Running Press Book Publishers. Print.
? Alan Anderson's EARLY SOURCES OF SCOTTISH HISTORY, AD 500-1286; Weir, A. (n.d.) BRITAIN'S ROYAL FAMILIES (revised edition).
http://www.clanmacfarlanegenealogy.info/genealogy/TNGWebsite/getperson.php?personID=I4519&tree=CC

end of this biography

Children:

44400. Malcolm III of Scotland, King of Scots was born in 0Mar 1031 in Scotland; died on 13 Nov 1093 in Alnwick, Northumberland, England.
Donald Dunkeld, III, King of Scots was born in 1034 in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland; died in 1097 in Rescobie, Angus, Scotland.

88802.

Edward the Exile was born in 1016 in (Wessex) England (son of Edmund II, King of the English and Ealdgyth); died on 19 Apr 1057 in London, Middlesex, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Hungary

Notes:

Edward the Exile (1016 – 19 April 1057), also called Edward ¥theling, was the son of King Edmund Ironside and of Ealdgyth. He spent most of his life in exile in the Kingdom of Hungary following the defeat of his father by Canute the Great; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnut_the_Great.

Exile

After the Danish conquest of England in 1016, Canute had Edward, said to be only a few months old, and his brother, Edmund, sent to the Swedish court of Olof Skèotkonung[1][2] (who was either Canute's half-brother or stepbrother), supposedly with instructions to have the children murdered. Instead, the two boys were secretly sent either to Kiev,[3] where Olof's daughter Ingigerd was the Queen, or to Poland, where Canute's uncle Boleslaw I Chrobry was duke.[4] Later Edward made his way to Hungary, probably in the retinue of Ingigerd's son-in-law, Andrâas in 1046.

Return

On hearing the news of his being alive, Edward the Confessor recalled him to England in 1056 and made him his heir. Edward offered the last chance of an undisputed succession within the Saxon royal house. News of Edward's existence came at a time when the old Anglo-Saxon monarchy, restored after a long period of Danish domination, was heading for catastrophe. The Confessor, personally devout but politically weak and without children, was unable to make an effective stand against the steady advance of the powerful and ambitious sons of Godwin, Earl of Wessex. From across the Channel William, Duke of Normandy, also had an eye on the succession. Edward the Exile appeared at just the right time. Approved by both king and by the Witan, the Council of the Realm, he offered a way out of the impasse, a counter both to the Godwinsons and to William, and one with a legitimacy that could not be readily challenged.

In 1054 King Edward sent Ealdred, Bishop of Worcester, to the court of the German emperor to set in train negotiations with the king of Hungary for the return of Edward the Exile. Ealdred was not at first successful, and Earl Harold's journey to Flanders, and possibly on to Germany and Hungary, in 1056 was probably undertaken to further negotiations. The Exile finally arrived in England in 1057 with his wife and children, but died within a few days, on 19 April, without meeting the King. He was buried in Old St Paul's Cathedral.[5]

Family

Edward's wife was named Agatha, whose origins are disputed.[6] Their children were:

Edgar ¥theling (c. 1051 - c. 1126) - Elected King of England after the Battle of Hastings but submitted to William the Conqueror.
Saint Margaret of Scotland (c. 1045 - 16 November 1093) - Married King Malcolm III of Scotland.
Cristina (c. 1057 - c. 1093) - Abbess at Romsey Abbey.
Edward's grandchild Edith of Scotland, also called Matilda, married King Henry I of England, continuing the Anglo-Saxon line into the post-Conquest English monarchy.

Ancestors

Edward the Exile was a direct descendant of a line of Wessex kings dating back, at least on the pages of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, to the arrival of Cerdic of Wessex in 495AD, and from Alfred the Great in the English monarchs family tree.[7] Of his more immediate ancestors, all four of Edward's male-line ancestors shown in the diagram below were Kings of England before Cnut the Great took the crown and sent Edward into exile.[8]

Edward married Agatha. Agatha was born in >1030; died in <1070 in (England). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

88803.

Agatha was born in >1030; died in <1070 in (England).

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: Aft 1018
Alt Death: 13 Jul 1054, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Northumberland, England

Notes:

Biography of Agatha, Wife of Edward the Exile
Parentage: Agatha's parents are unknown. Who they might me be remains one the great genealogical puzzles as tantalizing clues were left by near contemporaries. However, all of these clues are open to interpretation and debate, and are at times contradictory. One should not take any published as proof that her parentage has been discovered or worked out.
Stewart Baldwin's The Henry Project discusses the various theories and their origins on his "Agatha" page. [1]
Wikipedia also covers the various theories regarding her possible parrentage, all of them cited, with links to many primary genealogical sources in WHO ARE AGATHA'S PARENTS?.
The controversy was most recently discussed in The Scottish Genealogist in 2002. [2].
WHAT IS CERTAIN is that she was the wife of Edward, of Wessex, and the mother of Saint Margaret of Scotland

One Biographical Theory
Agatha of Augsburg, Princess of Hungary Some authorities say that she is the daughter of Ludolph, Margrave of West Friesland and Gertrude von Stade (RN=28199). She Paget says she is daughter of Bruno, Bishop of Augsburg, brother of Emperor Henry II. Agatha of Augsburg, Princess of Hungary died after 1066.

Another Biographical Theory
Her parentage is disputed repeatedly; the most interesting theories are published in the New England Genealogical journals[3][4][5]

Another Biographical Theory
(Someone copied from Wikipedia article) Wikipedia: Agatha,_wife_of_Edward_the_Exile
There is doubt about her parentage.
Note on paternity of Agatha, wife of Edward The Exile (by Andrey Alexandrovich Frizyuk)
" Two main versions of Agatha's parentage have been proposed so far:
1. Szabolcs de Vajay in his paper "Agatha, Mother of St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland" (Duquesne Review, vol. 7, no. 2 (Spring 1962), pp. 71-80) expounded the theory that Agatha was a daughter of Liudolf, Margrave of West-Friesland (he was half-brother of Emperor Henry III), by Gertrude of Egisheim. This is based on statements of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Florence of Worcester's "Chronicon ex chronicis" that Agatha was a blood relative of the "Emperor Henry".
2. Rene Jette in his article "Is the Mystery of the Origins of Agatha, Wife of Edward the Exile, Finally Solved?" (New England Historical and Genealogical Register, no. 150 (October 1996): 417-432) pointed out some facts which were not explained by Szabolcs de Vajay's theory:
A. William of Malmesbury in "De Gestis Regis Anglorum" and several later chronicles state that Agatha was a Hungarian Queen's sister. Edward was a loyal supporter of Andras who accompanied him from Kiev to Hungary in 1046 and lived for many years at his court. Thus it's highly probable that "a Hungarian Queen" in question was Andras' wife, Anastasia Yaroslavna.
B. According to Szabolcs de Vajay, the marriage of Agatha and Edward took place in Kiev. This accords with statements of Geoffrey Gaimar and Roger of Howden that Edward took a Kievan wife "of noble parentage."
C. There are several etymological arguments. Agatha, for instance, is a Greek name quite unknown in Western Europe of that time. On the other hand, the name Agatha/Agafia was fairly common in the Rurikid family: all daughters of Yaroslav received Greek names, and we know that Yaroslav's Byzantine stepmother had an aunt named Agatha.
D. Also, the 11th-century fresco of St Sophia Cathedral in Kiev represents 5 living daughters/sisters of Yaroslav, all of marriageable age. One of them is Anastasia the Queen of Hungary, another Elisaveta the Queen of Norway, the third - Anna the Queen of France, the fourth - Dobronega the Queen of Poland, but who was the fifth?
It's interesting that the last wife of Vladimir I was apparently the first cousin of Emperor Henry III. Her daughter Dobronega could have been described as "filia germani imperatoris Henrici". What if Agatha was Dobronega's full sister? It seems to me that such a solution would explain all the evidence that we have in the best way."
See NEHGR 152. Forebears, XVI, #4, p 521 says daughter of Bruno, brother of HRE Henry II; Bruno d 1057, London.
Sources
? Baldwin. "Agatha", in The Henry Project (2010, accessed 2017).
? Lauder-Frost, Gregory M.S., FSA Scot., "Agatha - The Ancestry Dispute" in The Scottish Genealogist, Edinburgh, Sept 2002, vol.xlix no.3, p.71-2.
? David Faris and Douglas Richard"The Origin of Agatha-The Debate Continues: The Parents of Agatha, Wife of Edward The Exile" in New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 152, (April 1998).By
? Renâe Jettâe, "Is the Mystery of the Origins of Agatha, Wife of Edward the Exile, Finally Solved?", in New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 150 (October 1996), pp. 417-432
? G. Andrews Moriarty, "Agatha, wife of the Atheling Eadward", in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 106 (1952), pp. 52-60
Our main source for medieval genealogy in the EuroAristo Project is the FMG database which is MEDIEVAL LANDS :A prosopography of medieval European noble and royal families by Charles Cawley,© Foundation for Medieval Genealogy, 2000-2013. http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/index.htm http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/CONTENTS.htm

We are open to other sources as well but please cite them.
Source list:
Baldwin, Stewart. "Agatha: Wife of Eadweard the Exile", website The Henry Project: The Ancestors of King Henry II of England. (4 July 2010, http://sbaldw.home.mindspring.com/hproject/prov/agath000.htm ; accessed April 2017).
History of Scotland, George Buchanan--Scots Peerage Sir James Balfor--U.K. Extracted Probate Records---ancestry.com
Spottiswood, John. The History of the Church of Scotland, beginning the year of our Lord 203, and continued to the end of the reign of King James VI. (R. Norton, for R. Royston, London, 1668) Page 29

end of this biography

Children:

44401. Margaret of Wessex, Queen of Scotland was born in ~1045 in Wessex, England; died on 16 Nov 1093 in Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland; was buried in Dunfermline Abbey, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland.

88584.

Siward Bjornsson, Earl of Northumbia was born in (1000-1010) in Denmark; died on 26 Mar 1055 in St Olave's Church, York, England; was buried in York, Yorkshire, England.

Notes:

Siward or Sigurd (/'su?w?rd/ or more recently /'si?w?rd/;[1] Old English: Sigeweard)[2] was an important earl of 11th-century northern England. The Old Norse nickname Digri and its Latin translation Grossus ("the stout") are given to him by near-contemporary texts.[3] Siward was probably of Scandinavian origin, perhaps a relative of Earl Ulf, and emerged as a powerful regional strongman in England during the reign of Cnut ("Canute the Great", 1016–1035). Cnut was a Scandinavian ruler who conquered England in the 1010s, and Siward was one of the many Scandinavians who came to England in the aftermath of that conquest. Siward subsequently rose to become sub-ruler of most of northern England. From 1033 at the latest Siward was in control of southern Northumbria, that is, present-day Yorkshire, governing as earl on Cnut's behalf.

He entrenched his position in northern England by marrying ¥lfflµd, the daughter of Ealdred, Earl of Bamburgh. After killing Ealdred's successor Eadulf in 1041, Siward gained control of all Northumbria. He exerted his power in support of Cnut's successors, kings Harthacnut and Edward, assisting them with vital military aid and counsel. He probably gained control of the middle shires of Northampton and Huntingdon by the 1050s, and there is some evidence that he spread Northumbrian control into Cumberland. In the early 1050s Earl Siward turned against the Scottish ruler Mac Bethad mac Findlaâich ("Macbeth"). Despite the death of his son Osbjorn, Siward defeated Mac Bethad in battle in 1054. More than half a millennium later the Scotland adventure earned him a place in William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Siward died in 1055, leaving one son, Waltheof, who would eventually succeed to Northumbria. St Olave's church in York and nearby Heslington Hill are associated with Siward.

read more...

Died:
"Siward, the stalwart earl, being stricken by dysentery, felt that death was near, and said, "How shameful it is that I, who could not die in so many battles, should have been saved for the ignominious death of a cow! At least clothe me in my impenetrable breastplate, gird me with my sword, place my helmet on my head, my shield in my left hand, my gilded battle-axe in my right, that I, the bravest of soldiers, may die like a soldier."

He spoke, and armed as he had requested, he gave up his spirit with honour".

— A description of Siward's death, taken from the Historia Anglorum of Henry of Huntingdon.

Buried:
at St Olave's Church, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Olave%27s_Church,_York

88585.

Aelfflaed was born in ~1010 in (Northumbria, England) (daughter of Ealdred, Earl of Bernicia and unnamed spouse); died in 1060 in Northumbria, England.

Children:

44292. Waltheof Huntington, Earl of Northumbria died on 31 May 1076 in St. Giles Hill, Winchester, England; was buried in Crowland, Crowland Abbey, Peterborough, England.

88586.

Lambert II, Count of Lens was born in Lens, France; died in 1054 in (France).

88587.

Notes:

Adelaide of Normandy (or Adeliza) (c. 1030 – bef. 1090) was the sister of William the Conqueror and was Countess of Aumale in her own right.

Life

Born c. 1030,[1] Adelaide was an illegitimate daughter of the Norman duke Robert the Magnificent. Robert's likewise illegitimate son and successor, William the Conqueror, was Adelaide's brother or half-brother.[a]

Adelaide's first marriage to Enguerrand II, Count of Ponthieu potentially gave William a powerful ally in upper Normandy.[2] But at the Council of Reims in 1049, when the marriage of William with Matilda of Flanders was prohibited based on consanguinity, so were those of Eustace II, Count of Boulogne and Enguerrand of Ponthieu, who was already married to Adelaide.[3] Adelaide's marriage was apparently annulled c.1049/50 and another marriage was arranged for her, this time to Lambert II, Count of Lens, younger son of Eustace I, Count of Boulogne forming a new marital alliance between Normandy and Boulogne.[4] Lambert was killed in 1054 at Lille, aiding Baldwin V, Count of Flanders against Emperor Henry III.[5] Now widowed, Adelaide resided at Aumale, probably part of her dower from her first husband, Enguerrand, or part of a settlement after the capture of Guy of Ponthieu, her brother-in-law.[b][4] As a dowager Adelaide began a semi-religious retirement and became involved with the church at Auchy presenting them with a number of gifts.[4] In 1060 she was called upon again to form another marital alliance, this time to a younger man Odo, Count of Champagne.[6] Odo seems to have been something of a disappointment as he appears on only one of the Conqueror's charters and received no land in England; his wife being a tenant-in-chief in her own right.[6]

In 1082, William and his wife, Matilda, gave to the abbey of the Holy Trinity in Caen the town of Le Homme in the Cotentin with a provision to the Countess of Albamarla (Aumale), his sister, for a life tenancy.[7] In 1086, as Comitissa de Albatnarla,[7] as she was listed in the Domesday Book, was shown as having numerous holdings in both Suffolk and Essex,[8] one of the very few Norman noblewomen to have held lands in England at Domesday as a tenant-in-chief.[9] She was also given the lordship of Holderness which was held after her death by her 3rd husband, Odo, the by then disinherited Count of Champagne; the lordship then passed to their son, Stephen.[7] Adelaide died before 1090.[10]
Family

Adelaide married three times; first to Enguerrand II, Count of Ponthieu (died 1053)[11] by whom she had issue:

Adelaide, living 1096.[7]

She married secondly Lambert II, Count of Lens (died 1054),[10] they had a daughter:

Judith of Lens, m. Waltheof Earl of Huntingdon and Northumbria.[12]

Adelaide married thirdly in 1060 Odo, Count of Champagne (d. aft. 1096),[13] by whom she had a son:

Stephen, Count of Aumale.[13]

end of biography

Children:

44293. Judith of Lens, Countess of Northumberland was born in 1054-1055 in Lens, France; died in ~1090 in Fotheringay, Northamptonshire, England.

48200.

Notes:

more...

History & issue of Henry I, King of England ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_I_of_England

Family and children

Legitimate

House of Normandy
Bayeux Tapestry WillelmDux.jpg
William the Conqueror invades England
William I[show]
William II[show]
Henry I[show]
Stephen[show]
Monarchy of the United Kingdom
v t e
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Henry I of England.

Henry and his first wife, Matilda, had at least two legitimate children:

Matilda, born in 1102, died 1167.[89]
William Adelin, born in 1103, died 1120.[89]
Possibly Richard, who, if he existed, died young.[100]
Henry and his second wife, Adeliza, had no children.

Illegitimate

Henry had a number of illegitimate children by various mistresses.[nb 32]

Sons

Robert of Gloucester, born in the 1090s.[332]
Richard, born to Ansfride, brought up by Robert Bloet, the Bishop of Lincoln.[333]
Reginald de Dunstanville, Earl of Cornwall, born in the 1110s or early 1120s, possibly to Sibyl Corbet.[334]
Robert the King's son, born to Ede, daughter of Forne.[335]
Gilbert, possibly born to an unnamed sister or daughter of Walter of Gand.[336]
William de Tracy, possibly born in the 1090s.[336]
Henry the King's son, possibly born to Nest ferch Rhys.[335][nb 33]
Fulk the King's son, possibly born to Ansfride.[335]
William, the brother of Sybilla de Normandy, probably the brother of Reginald de Dunstanville.[337]

Daughters

Matilda FitzRoy, Countess of Perche.[338]
Matilda FitzRoy, Duchess of Brittany.[338]
Juliana, wife of Eustace of Breteuil, possibly born to Ansfrida.[339]
Mabel, wife of William Gouet.[340]
Constance, Vicountess of Beaumont-sur-Sarthe.[341]
Aline, wife of Matthew de Montmorency.[342]
Isabel, daughter of Isabel de Beaumont, Countess of Pembroke.[342]
Sybilla de Normandy, Queen of Scotland, probably born before 1100.[342][nb 34]
Matilda Fitzroy, Abbess of Montvilliers.[342]
Gundrada de Dunstanville.[342]
Possibly Rohese, wife of Henry de la Pomerai.[342][nb 35]
Emma, wife of Guy of Laval.[343]
Adeliza, the King's daughter.[343]
The wife of Fergus of Galloway.[343]
Possibly Sibyl of Falaise.[343][nb 36]

Born: ABT Sep 1068, Selby, Yorkshire, England
Acceded: 6 Aug 1100, Westminster Abbey, London, England
Died: 1 Dec 1135, St Denis-le-Fermont, near Gisors
Buried: Reading Abbey, Berkshire, England

Notes: Reigned 1100-1135. Duke of Normandy 1106-1135.

His reign is notable for important legal and administrative reforms, and for the final resolution of the investiture controversy. Abroad, he waged several campaigns in order to consolidate and expand his continental possessions. Was so hated by his brothers that they vowed to disinherit him. In 1106 he captured Robert and held him til he died. He proved to be a hard but just ruler. One of his lovers, Nest, Princess of Deheubarth, was known as the most beautiful woman in Wales; she had many lovers.

He apparently died from over eating Lampreys. During a Christmas court at Windsor Castle in 1126 that Henry I, who had no legitimate male heir, tried to force his barons to accept his daughter Matilda as his successor.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles reported that "...there he caused archbishops and bishops and abbots and earls all the thegns that were there to swear to give England and Normandy after his death into the hand of his daughter". Swear they did, but they were not happy about it. None of those present were interested in being among the first to owe allegiance to a woman. The stage was set for the 19-year-long bloody struggle for the throne that rent England apart after Henry's death. Ironically, the final resolution to that civil war, the peace treaty between King Stephen and Matilda's son Henry of Anjou, was ratified on Christmas Day at Westminster in 1153.

*

Birth:
History, maps & photos of Selby, England ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selby

Buried:
Reading Abbey is a large, ruined abbey in the centre of the town of Reading, in the English county of Berkshire. It was founded by Henry I in 1121 "for the salvation of my soul, and the souls of King William, my father, and of King William, my brother, and Queen Maud, my wife, and all my ancestors and successors".

For more history & images of Reading Abbey, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Abbey

Henry married unnamed partner. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48201.
unnamed partner
Children:

24100. Sir Robert FitzRoy, Knight, 1st Earl of Gloucester was born before 1100 in (France); died on 31 Oct 1147.

48202.

Sir Robert Fitzhamon, Knight, Lord of Glamorgan was born in 1045-1055; died in 0Mar 1107 in Falaise, Calvados, Normandie, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Gloucestershire, England

Notes:

Robert Fitzhamon (died March 1107), or Robert FitzHamon, Seigneur de Creully in the Calvados region and Torigny in the Manche region of Normandy, was the first Norman feudal baron of Gloucester and the Norman conqueror of Glamorgan, southern Wales. He became Lord of Glamorgan in 1075.

As a kinsman of the Conqueror and one of the few Anglo-Norman barons to remain loyal to the two successive kings William Rufus and Henry I of England, he was a prominent figure in England and Normandy.

Not much is known about his earlier life, or his precise relationship to William I of England.

Parentage and ancestry

Robert FitzHamon (born c. 1045-1055, d. March 1107 Falaise, Normandy) was, as the prefix Fitz (fils de, "son of") suggests, the son of Hamo Dapifer the Sheriff of Kent and grandson of Hamon Dentatus ('The Betoothed or Toothy', i.e., probably buck-toothed). His grandfather held the lordships of Torigny, Creully, Mâezy, and Evrecy in Normandy, but following his death at the Battle of Val-áes-Dunes in 1047, the family might have lost these lordships.

Career in England and Wales[edit]
Few details of Robert's career prior to 1087 are available. Robert probably did not fight at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and does not appear in the Domesday Book of 1086, although some of his relatives are listed therein. He first comes to prominence in surviving records as a supporter of King William Rufus (1087-1100) during the Rebellion of 1088. After the revolt was defeated he was granted as a reward by King William Rufus the feudal barony of Gloucester[3] consisting of over two hundred manors in Gloucestershire and other counties. Some of these had belonged to the late Queen Matilda, consort of William the Conqueror and mother of William Rufus, and had been seized by her from the great Saxon thane Brictric son of Algar, apparently as a punishment for his having refused her romantic advances in his youth.[4] They had been destined as the inheritance of Rufus's younger brother Henry (the future King Henry I); nevertheless Fitzhamon remained on good terms with Henry.

Conquest of Glamorgan

The chronology of Fitzhamon's conquest of Glamorgan is uncertain, but it probably took place in the decades after he received the feudal barony of Gloucester.

The Twelve Knights of Glamorgan

One explanation is the legend of the Twelve Knights of Glamorgan, which dates from the 16th century, in which the Welsh Prince Iestyn ap Gwrgan (Jestin), prince or Lord of Glamorgan, supposedly called in the assistance of Robert Fitzhamon. Fitzhamon defeated the prince of South Wales Rhys ap Tewdwr in battle in 1090. With his Norman knights as reward he then took possession of Glamorgan, and "the French came into Dyfed and Ceredigion, which they have still retained, and fortified the castles, and seized upon all the land of the Britons." Iestyn did not profit long by his involvement with the Normans. He was soon defeated and his lands taken in 1091.

Whether there is any truth in the legend or not Robert Fitzhamon seems to have seized control of the lowlands of Glamorgan and Gwynllwg sometime from around 1089 to 1094. His key strongholds were Cardiff Castle, which already may have been built, on the site of an old Roman fort, new castles at Newport, and at Kenfig. His descendants would inherit these castles and lands.

Rhys's daughter Nest became the mistress of King Henry I of England and allegedly was mother of Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester who married Mabel, Fitzhamon's daughter and heiress and thus had legitimacy both among the Welsh and the Norman barons.[5] (Robert of Caen's mother is however unknown to historians and genealogists).

Founder of Tewkesbury Abbey (1092)

He also refounded Tewkesbury Abbey in 1092. The abbey's dimensions are almost the same as Westminster Abbey. The first abbot was Giraldus, Abbot of Cranborne (d. 1110) who died before the abbey was consecrated in October 1121. The abbey was apparently built under the influence of his wife Sybil de Montgomery. [3], said to be a beautiful and religious woman like her sisters.

Fitzhamon and His Kings

Legend has it that Robert had ominous dreams in the days before Rufus' fatal hunting expedition, which postponed but did not prevent the outing. He was one of the first to gather in tears around Rufus' corpse, and he used his cloak to cover the late king's body on its journey to be buried in Winchester. How much of these stories are the invention of later days is unknown.

In any case Fitzhamon proved as loyal to Henry I as he had been to his predecessor, remaining on Henry's side in the several open conflicts with Henry's brother Robert Curthose. He was one of the three barons who negotiated the 1101 truce between Henry I and Robert Curthose.

In 1105 he went to Normandy and was captured while fighting near his ancestral estates near Bayeux. This was one of the reasons Henry crossed the channel with a substantial force later that year. Fitzhamon was freed, and joined Henry's campaign, which proceeded to besiege Falaise. There Fitzhamon was severely injured in the head; although he lived two more years he was never the same mentally. He was buried in the Chapter House at Tewkesbury Abbey, which he had founded and considerably enriched during his lifetime.

Marriage and progeny

Fitzhamon married Sybil de Montgomery around 1087 to 1090, apparently the youngest daughter of Roger of Montgomery, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury by his first wife Mabel Talvas, daughter of William I Talvas. She survived her husband and is said to have entered a convent with two of her daughters. By his wife he is said to have had four daughters including:

Mabel FitzHamon, eldest daughter, who inherited his great estates and in about 1107 married Robert de Caen, 1st Earl of Gloucester, a natural son of King Henry I (1100-1135). Fitzhamon's huge land-holdings in several counties formed the feudal barony of Gloucester[6] which was inherited by his son-in-law Robert de Caen, who in 1122 was created 1st Earl of Gloucester.[7] Fitzhamon is sometimes called Earl of Gloucester, but was never so created formally. Robert Fitzhamon's great-granddaughter Isabel of Gloucester married King John (1199-1216).
Isabella (or Hawisa) FitzHamon, said to have married a count from Brittany, but no further details exist.
1860 Depiction at Kilkhampton[edit]

1860 imaginary depiction of Robert FitzHamon (d.1107) (left) and his younger brother Richard I de Grenville (d.post 1142) (right), Church of St James the Great, Kilkhampton, Cornwall
An imaginary depiction of Robert FitzHamon (d.1107) and his younger brother Richard I de Grenville (d.post 1142)[8]) is contained within one of the two Granville windows by Clayton and Bell[9] erected in 1860 by descendants of the latter within the Granville Chapel of the Church of St James the Great, Kilkhampton, Cornwall. The seat of the Grenville family ("Granville" after 1661 when elevated to the Earldom of Bath[10]) was Stowe within the parish of Kilkhampton. Below the left-hand figure is inscribed: "Rob. FitzHamon Earl of Corboyle", with attributed arms under showing: Azure, a lion rampant guardant or impaling Azure, a lion rampant or a bordure of the last. The right hand figure is of Richard de Granville, the younger brother of Robert FitzHamon and one of the Twelve Knights of Glamorgan who followed his brother in effecting the conquest of Glamorgan. He holds in his hands the church of his foundation of Neath Abbey, Glamorgan. Below is inscribed: "Ric. de Granville Earl of Corboyle" with attributed arms under showing: Gules, three clarions or (the arms of the Grenvilles' later overlord and Robert FitzHamon's heir in the feudal barony of Gloucester,[11] Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, which arms were later adopted by the Grenvilles[12]) with an inescutcheon of pretence of Gules, three lions passant argent. The Granvilles claimed in the 17th century to have been the heirs male of Robert FitzHamon (who left only a daughter as his sole heiress) in his supposed Earldom of Corboil.[13] The windows were erected in 1860 by the heirs of the Grenville family: George Granville Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland KG (1786-1861); John Alexander Thynne, 4th Marquess of Bath (1831–1896); George Granville Francis Egerton, 2nd Earl of Ellesmere (1823–1862); Lord John Thynne (1798-1881), DD, Canon of Westminster, a younger son of Thomas Thynne, 2nd Marquess of Bath (1765-1837), KG.[14]

References

C. Warren Hollister, Henry I
Lynn Nelson, The Normans in South Wales, 1070-1171 (see especially pp. 94–110 in chapter 5)
Cardiff Castle
Norman invasion of South Wales
Tour of the Abbey
Lord of Bristol refers to Robert Fitzhamon as Lord of Bristol, which town and castle became important to his son-in-law.
Robert of Caen, son-in-law is said here to be grandson of a Welsh prince but most other sources say that his mother was an unnamed woman of Caen.
Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Lines: 63-26, 124A-26, 125-26, 185-1.

Notes

Jump up ^ Sir Charles Isham's "Registrum Theokusburiµ" gives a full-page illustration of these noble brothers, "par nobile fratrum," as Dr. Hayman calls them, in which they are termed "duo duces Marciorum et primi fundatores Theokusburiµ" i.e., two Earls of the Marches and first founders of Tewkesbury. Each knight is in armour, and bears in his hand a model of a church. Both are supporting a shield (affixed to a pomegranate tree) bearing the arms of the Abbey, which the blazoning on their own coats repeats.(Massâe, H. J. L. J., The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire (Bell's Cathedrals)) original illustration as shown on folio 8 verso, Bodleian Library Manuscript: Top. Gloucester, d. 2, Founders' and benefectors' book of Tewkesbury Abbey [1]
Jump up ^ Bodleian Library Manuscript: Top. Gloucester, d. 2, Founders' and benefectors' book of Tewkesbury Abbey [2]
Jump up ^ Sanders, I.J., English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, p.6, Barony of Gloucester
Jump up ^ According to the account by the Continuator of Wace and others, quoted in Thorn, Caroline & Frank, (eds.) Domesday Book, (Morris, John, gen.ed.) Vol. 9, Devon, Parts 1 & 2, Phillimore Press, Chichester, 1985, part 2 (notes), 24,21, quoting "Freeman, E.A., The History of the Norman Conquest of England, 6 vols., Oxford, 1867–1879, vol. 4, Appendix, note 0"
Jump up ^ Four Ancient Books of Wales: Introduction: Chapter VI. Manau Gododin and the Picts
Jump up ^ Sanders, p.6
Jump up ^ Sanders, p.6
Jump up ^ Round, J. Horace, Family Origins and Other Studies, London, 1930, The Granvilles and the Monks, pp.130-169, p.137
Jump up ^ Church Guidebook, St James the Great Kilkhampton, 2012, p.11
Jump up ^ Round, J. Horace, Family Origins and Other Studies, London, 1930, The Granvilles and the Monks, pp.130-169
Jump up ^ Sanders, I.J., English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, p.6, Barony of Gloucester
Jump up ^ Round, J. Horace, Family Origins and Other Studies, London, 1930, The Granvilles and the Monks, pp.130-169
Jump up ^ Round, J. Horace, Family Origins and Other Studies, London, 1930, The Granvilles and the Monks, pp.130-169
Jump up ^ Per brass plaque below easternmost window

Robert married Sybil de Montgomery. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48203.

Children:

24101. Lady Mabel FitzHamon, Countess of Gloucester was born in 0___ 1090 in Gloucestershire, England; died on 29 Sep 1157 in Bristol, Gloucestershire, England.

88824.

Simon I de Montfort was born in 1026 in Montfort l'Amaury, Ile de France, France; died on 25 Sep 1087 in Epernon, Normandie, France.

88825.

Agnes d'Evereux was born in 1041 in Evreux, Normandy, France (daughter of Richard d'Evreux and Godeheut Barcelona); died in 1087 in Evreux, Normandy, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: 1030

Notes:

The PEDIGREE of
Agnes d' EVEREUX (EVEREUX; d' EVREUX)
Born: abt. 1030 Died: abt. 1087

HM George I's 15-Great Grandmother. HRE Ferdinand I's 13-Great Grandmother. U.S. President [WASHINGTON]'s 18-Great Grandmother. PM Churchill's 22-Great Grandmother. HM Margrethe II's 23-Great Grandmother. Gen. Pierpont Hamilton's 24-Great Grandmother. `Red Baron' Richthofen's 20-Great Grandmother. Poss. Agnes Harris's 16-Great Grandmother. `Osawatomie' Brown's 23-Great Grandmother.
Husband/Partner: Simon I (Sn.; de) MONTFORT
Children: Bertrade de MONTFORT (l' AMAURI) ; Amauri III (Amaury; IV) de MONTFORT
_________ _________ _________ ________ ________ ________ ________ ______ _____ _____
/ -- Guillaume (2nd Duke) of NORMANDY + ====> [ 255 ,c,pt,&]
/ -- Richard I `the Fearless' (Count) of NORMANDY
/ \ -- Sprota de BRETAGNE (concubine) + ====> [ 1]
/ -- Robert (Count) d' EVEREUX (VREUX)
| \ / -- Herbastus (Herfastus) (Sire) de CREPON + ====> [ 255 ,g,&]
| | | | or: (NN), a Dane
| | / | or: Forquelar of CIRQUES
| \ -- Gunnora (Gonnor) de CREPON (936? - 1031?)
| \ | OR: prob. not Gunnora DENMARK + ====> [ 255 ,gc,t,&]
| \ -- poss. Cynthia of OBATRIDES + ====> [ 255 ,,x,&]
/ | or: poss. Cyrid of SWEDEN
/ -- Richard (Count) de EVREUX (Rouen 986 - 1067)
/ \ -- Havlive (Herleva; or Gunnois) of NORMANDY
- Agnes d' EVEREUX (EVEREUX; d' EVREUX)
\ / -- Sunyer (Suniario) of BESALU + ====> [ 255 ,,mx,&]
| / -- Borell II (Count) of BARCELONA (946? - 992)
| / \ -- Richilde de ROUERGUE (ROUERGES) + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,mY,&]
| / -- Raymond Borrell (I; III) BERENGAR (972 - 1019)
| | \ / -- Raymond III (5th Count?) de TOULOUSE + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,ptm,&]
| | | / | (skip this generation?)
| | \ -- poss. Luitgarde de TOULOUSE (952? - 977+)
| | \ | OR: poss. Luitgarde de TOULOUSE [alt ped] + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,ptmY,&]
| / \ -- poss. Adelaide (Aelips) `Blanche' d' ANJOU (skip?) + ====> [ 255 ,c,&]
\ -- poss. Adelaide (Adela Adele) of BARCELONA
\ | or: prob. Godehildis (Gotelina)
| / -- Arnold I of CONSERANS + ====> [ 255 ,,xY,&]
| / -- Roger I de COMMINGES (935? - 1019?)
| | \ -- Arsenda (Heiress) de CARCASSONNE + ====> [ 255 ,c,mY,&]
| / | OR: Arsinde de ROUERGUE + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,mY,&]
\ -- Ermesinde de CARCASSONNE (972 - 1058)
\ / -- poss. father of Baldwin de PONS (skip?)
\ -- Adelaide de ROUERGUE (949? - 1011+)
\ | OR: Adelaide de MELGUEIL [alt ped] + ====> [ 255 ,,x,&]
\ -- prob. (Miss) de ROUERGUE + ==&=> [ 255 ,C,ptmY,&]
| (skip this generation?)

Her Grandchildren: Cecile de FRANCE ; Foulques (Fulk) V (9th Count) de ANJOU ; Florent de FRANCE ; Agnes d' Evreux de MONTFORT ; Simon III (II; Baron; de) MONTFORT ; Simon II (III) de MONTFORT

[ Start ]
FabPed Genealogy Vers. 86 © Jamie, 1997-2018

Agnes de Montfort formerly Evreux aka d'Evreux
Born 1041 in âEvreux, Eure, Haute-Normandie, France
ANCESTORS ancestors
Daughter of Richard (Evreux) d'Evreux and Godeheut (Barcelona) d'Evreux
Sister of Adelisa (Toeni) FitzOsbern [half], Radulph (Toeni) de Tony [half], Eliant Eliance (de Toeni) Toeni [half], Guillaume (Evreux) d'Evreux [half], Helbert Elbert (de Toeni) Toeni [half], Gazon (de Toeni) Toeni [half] and Unknown (de Toeni) Toeni [half]
Wife of Simon (Montfort) de Montfort — married about 1064 [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Mother of Richard (Montfort) de Montfort, Amauri (Montfort) de Montfort, Simon Montfort, Bertrade I de Montfort, Simon (Montfort) de Montfort and Amauri (Montfort) de Montfort
Died about 1087 in âEvreux, Eure, Haute-Normandie, France
Profile manager: Rev Daniel Washburn Jones private message [send private message]
Profile last modified 26 Mar 2019 | Created 12 Sep 2010
This page has been accessed 6,246 times.
European Aristocracy
Agnes (Evreux) de Montfort was a member of aristocracy in Europe.
Join: European Royals and Aristocrats Project
Discuss: EUROARISTO
This person is the subject of a page on the website of Baldwin and Farmerie concerning the ancestry of Henry II.[1]

Stewart Baldwin describes her as "sister and heiress of her brother count William of âEvreux, Agnes brought the county of âEvreux into the possession of the Montfort family." Her father was Richard, count of âEvreux, and because Agnes was uterine sister of Ralph de Tosny, son of Roger de Tosny who died about 1040, Baldwin says Godehilde must be the name of her mother.

Sources
Wikipedia
? http://sbaldw.home.mindspring.com/hproject/prov/agnes000.htm
Normandy, nobility

end of profile

Children:

44412. Sir Amaury de Montfort, III, Knight, Count of Evreux was born in 1070 in (Epernon, France); died in ~ 1137.

385096.

Richard de Normandie, II was born on 23 Aug 963 in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, I and Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy); died on 28 Aug 1027 in Normandie, France.

Notes:

Richard II of Normandy, Duke of Normandy, was born 23 August 963 in Normandy, France to Richard I, Duke of Normandy (933-996) and Gunnora, Duchess of Normandy (c936-1031) and died 28 August 1027 in Normandy, France of unspecified causes. He married Judith of Brittany (982-1017) 996 JL . He married Papia of Envermeu . Ancestors are from France.
Contents[show]

Children

Offspring of Richard II of Normandy and Judith of Brittany (982-1017)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Richard III of Normandy (997-1027) 997 1027 Adáele of France (1009-1079)

Adelaide of Normandy (1002-1038) 1002 1038 Renaud I de Bourgogne (c990-1057)

Robert II, Duke of Normandy (c1000-1035) 1000 Normandy, France 22 July 1035 Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050)
Estrid of Normandy (1001)

William of Normandy (c1008-aft1025) 1008 1025
Eleanor of Normandy (c1012-aft1071) 1012 1071 Baldwin IV of Flanders (980-1036)

Matilda of Normandy (c1014-aft1033) 1014 1033

Offspring of Richard II of Normandy and Papia of Envermeu
Name Birth Death Joined with
Mauger de Rouen (c1019-c1055) 1019 1055
Guillaume de Talou (c1022-aft1054) 1022 1054 Beatrice de Ponthieu (c1035-c1082)

Noteworthy descendants include

Henry II of England (1133-1189)
William I of England (1027-1087)
Namesakes of Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027)

Richard married Papia Envermeu in 1017-1026 in (Normandy, France). Papia was born in 997 in (Normandy, France); died after 1047. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

385097.
Papia Envermeu was born in 997 in (Normandy, France); died after 1047.
Children:

192548. Mauger Normandie was born in ~1020 in Normandie, France; died in 1055 in (Normandy, France).

89066.

Waleran of Meulan, III, Count of Meulan was born in ~ 990 in Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France; died on 8 Oct 1069 in Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France.

Notes:

Biography

Waleran Meulan (Wakran de Moulcon)
Birth: 0990 • Mellent, Normandy, France
Death: 08 Oct 1069 • Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France

Marriage & Family

Spouse: Oda de Conteville (994–1022)

Children:

Adeline de Maulâeon (de Beaumont)
Marie de Maulâeon (Talbot) (abt. 1005- )
Robert de Maulâeon (aft. 1013- )
Aremgarde de Maulâeon (Thouars) ( –1069)
Avelina de Maulâeon (1014 - 1081)
Hugh de Vernon(?)
Count Waleran

"...Count Waleran established an independent power base on a fortified island in the River Seine, around the year 1020."[1]
"Both he and his son, Count Hugh, maintained an independence from the Capetian king at Paris by a judicious if dangerous alliance with the dukes of Normandy downstream. This led to the marriage of Adeline, Count Hugh's sister, to the Norman magnate, Roger de Beaumont.[2]
"On Count Hugh's death in 1081 his nephew, Robert de Beaumont, acquired the county."[3]

Sources

Source: Web: Netherlands, GenealogieOnline Trees Index, 1000-2015: Name: Waleran De Meulan; Gender: m; Birth Date: 0990; Birth Place: Mellent, Normandy, France; Death Date: 8 Oct 1069; Death Place: Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France; Death Age: 79; Spouse: Oda De Conteville; Children: Aurengarde De Mauleon; URL: https://www.genealogieonline.nl/en/radford-family-tree/I964.php
Source: Waleran de Meulan, Comte de Meulan III. WeRelate.org. Last modified 19:52, 27 Sep 2016. Accessed: 21 Nov 2017. URL: https://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person:Waleran_De_Meulan_%281%29
Waleran de Meulan, Comte de Meulan III
b. est 0990, probably Meulan, Yvelines, France
d. 8 Oct 1069, probably Meulan, Yvelines, France
?Facts and Events
Name[4][5][6][7]
Waleran de Meulan, Comte de Meulan III
Alt Name[8][9]
Galeran de Meulan
Gender: Male
Birth[10][11]: est 0990, probably Meulan, Yvelines, France
Marriage: bef 1015 to Oda de Conteville
Marriage: to Adelais
Death[12][13][14][15]: 8 Oct 1069, probably Meulan, Yvelines, France
Reference Number?: Q2195516?
?References
? Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, 106th Edition, Charles Mosley Editor-in-Chief, 1999 (13), 2943.
? Weis, Frederick Lewis; Walter Lee Sheppard; and David Faris. Ancestral roots of certain American colonists, who came to America before 1700: the lineage of Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, Robert the Strong, and some of their descendants. (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Pub. Co., 7th Edition c1992), 50-24.
? The Plantagenet Ancestry, by William Henry Turton, 1968 (4), 100.
? Stuart, Roderick W. Royalty for Commoners. (Genealogical Publishing Company, 1992, 2nd ed.), p. 140.
Stuart, Roderick W. Royalty for Commoners. (Genealogical Publishing Company, 1992, 2nd ed.), p. 79.
? The Plantagenet Ancestry, by William Henry Turton, 1968 (4).
? 7.0 7.1 Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom, by G. E Cokayne, Sutton Publishing Ltd, 2000.
? Gilman, Mariah Hope. Ancestors of Mariah Hope Gilman. (http://superjordans-home.com/MariahsAncestors/Index.htm, Cited 16 February 2004.).
Waleran III de Meulan, Comte de Meulan, in Lundy, Darryl. The Peerage: A genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain as well as the royal families of Europe.
? 10.0 10.1 Counts of Meulan, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia."Waleran III, Count of Meulan (ca. 990–ca. 1069)"
? 11.0 11.1 Normandy, Nobility: GALERAN [III] de Meulan, in Cawley, Charles. Medieval Lands: A prosopography of medieval European noble and royal families.
? Source: County of Meulan. Wikipedia.org. Last edited: 18 Aug 2016. Accessed: 21 Nov 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_of_Meulan
? ibid.
? ibid.
? Reference: Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, 106th Edition, Charles Mosley Editor-in-Chief, 1999
? Reference: Weis, Frederick Lewis; Walter Lee Sheppard; and David Faris. Ancestral roots of certain American colonists, who came to America before 1700: the lineage of Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, Robert the Strong, and some of their descendants
? Reference: The Plantagenet Ancestry, by William Henry Turton, 1968 (4), 100.
? Reference: Ancestors of Mariah Hope Gilman.
? References: Royalty for Commoners.
? Reference: Normandy, Nobility: GALERAN [III] de Meulan
? Reference: Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom
? Reference: Counts of Meulan
? Reference: The Plantagenet Ancestry
? Reference: Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom
? Reference: Counts of Meulan
? Reference: Normandy, Nobility: GALERAN [III] de Meulan

Also see:

Place sources here:
County of Meulan @Wikipedia
The PEDIGREE of Waleran III (II) de MEULAN

end of biography

Waleran married Oda de Conteville in ~1007. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

89067.
Oda de Conteville
Children:

44533. Adeline of Meulan was born in ~ 1014 in Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France; died on 8 Apr 1081; was buried in Abbaye du Bec, France.

178144.

Donnchad Mâael Na Mbâo (O'CHEINNSELAIG) Murchada was born in 960 in Ireland; died in 1006.

Donnchad married Aife Ingen (Daughter Of) Gilla Patraic. Aife was born in 960 in Ireland; died in 1068. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

178145.

Aife Ingen (Daughter Of) Gilla Patraic was born in 960 in Ireland; died in 1068.

Children:

89072. Diarmait Macmail Na Mbo Murchada, King of Ireland was born in 974 in Cork, Ireland; died in 1072.

178146.

Donnchad O'Brien, King of Munster was born in 982 in Kincora, Munster, Ireland; died in 1064 in Rome, Italy; was buried in Basilica of St Stephen, Monte Celio, Italy.

Notes:

Donnchad MacBrian "High King of Ireland" Brian formerly O'Brien aka Mac Brian, Munster
Born after 0981 in Kincora, Munster, âEireann

ANCESTORS ancestors

Son of Brian Boru (Cennetig) MacCennetig and Gormflaeth (Murchadh) Munster
Brother of Blanaid Nic (Brian) O'Brian [half], Murchad (O'Brien) of Leinster [half], Dubgilla Olafsdatter [half], Teige Terence mac Briain O'Brien [half], Sihtric Olafsson [half], Slani ingen Brian [half] and Harald Olafsson [half]

Husband of Unkown (Unkown) Mac Briain — married [date unknown] [location unknown]

Husband of Cacht (Ragnaill) Ranald — married 1032 [location unknown]

DESCENDANTS descendants

Father of Lorcan UA Briain, Donnchad MacDiarmata (Leinster) of Leinster and Darbforgaill (O'Brien) Leinster
Died about 1064 in Rome, Italy

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Categories: Irish History.

Preceded by
Mâael Sechnaill macDomnaill O'Nâeill. King of Ireland
1022 — 1061 Succeeded by
Diarmait MacMâail na mBâo
Preceded by
Brian Boru 976 — 1014 (father) King of Munster
1022 — 1061 Succeeded by
Toirdelbach (Turlough) O'Brien 1064 — 1086 (nephew)

Parents

For her third marriage, Gormlaith, d. 1030, (daughter of Murchad MacFinn, a Leinster King of the Uâi Fhâaelâain line) married Brâian Bâoruma, they had:
Donnchadh [1]
Name

Name: King of Munster Donnchad /O'Brien/
Name: Donnchad (MacBRIAIN) /O'BRIEN/
Found multiple versions of NAME. Using King of Munster Donnchad /O'Brien/.

Military Campaigns

1026
A hosting by Donnchadh son of Brian, so that he took hostages of the men of Meath and Bregia and the Foreigners and Leinster and Ossory.[2]

A great hosting by Donnchadh, son of Brian, and he took the hostages of the men of Mide and of Brega; and he himself spent three days in Áth Cliath without opposition, with his camp nearby the fort; and he took the hostages of Laigin and Osraige.[3]

1027
A hosting by Donnchadh son of Brian into Ossory, till a division of his people were defeated and Gadhra son of Dâunadhach, king of Sâiol Anmchadha was then slain, and Domhnall son of Senchâan son of Flaithbheartach, crown prince of Munster, and Maelseachlainn son of the king of Corcomroe, and two sons of Cuilâen son of Conchobhar and the crownprince of the Eoghanacht, and Ócan grandson of Corc son of Anluan, and many others who are not numbered.[4]

A hosting by Donnchadh, son of Brian, into Osraige, and he took great captures and much booty therefrom; and a group of his people was overtaken and suffered loss at the hands of Mac Raith Ua Donnchada who was warring in Osraige, and of Ua Gilla Pâatraic, and there were slain there Gadra son of Dâunadach, king of Uâi Maine, Domnall, son of Senchâan, royal heir of Mumu, Ócâan grandson of Core, the two sons of Cuilâen son of Conchobar, and Conall son of âEcertach, royal heir of Caisel.[5]

1031
Ó Ruairc, that is, the Cork, plundered St Brâenainn's Clonfert, and on the same day he was defeated by Donnchadh son of Brian, with the loss of men and ferryboats.[6]

Gilla Pâatraic's son [went] into Mumu, plundered Dâun na Sciath, and killed its steward.
{Donnchadh,} son of Brian, [went] to Osraige to avenge him [the steward], and brought great booty and cattle therefrom; and a slaughter was thrice inflicted on the Mumu there, and Mael Coluim, king of Caenraige, two royal heirs of Uâi Chonaill Gabra, and many others were slain.[7]

1042
Ferna Mâor Maedâoc was burned by Donnchad son of Brian. Glenn Uisen was burned by the son of Mael na mBâo and the oratory broken down and a hundred people slain and four hundred taken out of it in revenge for Ferna Mâor.[8]

Marriage

1032
Donnchadh, son of Brian, married the daughter of Ragnall. Hence the saying: 'the spring of Ragnall's daughter' [9]

Death

Dethroned in 1061, went to Rome on his pilgrimage, died in the monastery of Stephen[10]

Death: 1064[11]
Place: Rome, Italy
Burial

Burial: Basilica of St Stephen, Monte Celio
Occupation

Occupation: King of Munster; Hgh King of Ireland
Note

His wives were Cacht ingen Ragnaill and Driella of Wessex.
Sources

? The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing: Irish women's writing and traditions, retrieved 2014-06-22, amb
? The Annals of Tigernach T1026.1, Author: Unknown, retrieved 2014-06-22, amb
? Annals of Inisfallen AI1026.2, Author: unknown, retrieved 2014-06-22, amb
? The Annals of Tigernach T1027.3
? Annals of Inisfallen AI1027.4
? The Annals of Tigernach T1031.8
? Annals of Inisfallen AI1031.6 and AI1031.7
? The Annals of Ulster, 1042
? Annals of Inisfallen, AI1032.6
? Hennessy, p. 287, retrieved 2014-06-23, amb
? The Tripartite Life of Patrick: With Other Documents Relating to that Saint, Volume 89, Issue 2, Volume 89, Issue 2 of Rerum Britannicarum Medii ¥vi Scriptores, Or, Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland During the Middle Ages, Great Britain. Public Record Office. Author: Saint Patrick. Editor: Whitley Stokes. Publisher: H. M. Stationery Office, 1887. Original: from University of Minnesota. Digitized: Nov 15, 2013, retrieved 2014-06-22, amb
The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing: Irish women's writing and traditions. Vols. 4-5, Volume 4 of The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Jonathan Williams, ISBN 0814799086, 9780814799086, Volume 4 of The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing: Irish Women's Writing and Traditions, Angela Bourke, ISBN 0814799086, 9780814799086. Editor: Angela Bourke. Publisher: NYU Press, 2002
A New History of Ireland, Volume II: Medieval Ireland 1169-1534, edited by Art Cosgrove
William Maunsell Hennessy, editor, Chronicum Scotorum, Issue 46 of Rerum britannicarum medii µvi scriptores; or Chronicles and memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the middle ages, Great Britain Public Record Office. Contributor: Duald Mac Firbis. Publisher: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1866. Original: from Cornell University. Digitized: Apr 17, 2013
O'Brien-688 created through the import of O'Bryan Family tree.ged on Sep 6, 2011 by Tim Tropeck. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Tim and others. This person was created through the import of LJ Pellman Consolidated Family_2011-03-21.ged on 21 March 2011. This person was created through the import of Acrossthepond.ged on 21 February 2011.

end of biography

Died:
on a pilgrimage...

Donnchad married Druscilla Godwin. Druscilla was born in 1019 in (Munster) Ireland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

178147.
Druscilla Godwin was born in 1019 in (Munster) Ireland.
Children:

89073. Dearbforgail Ingen O'Brien was born in 1005 in Dublin, Ireland; died in 1060 in Ireland.

387104.

Richard de Normandie, I was born on 28 Aug 932 in Fecamp, Normandie, France (son of William of Normandy, I, Duke of Normandy and Sprota); died on 20 Nov 996 in Fecamp, France; was buried in Fecamp, France.

Notes:

Richard I (28 August 932 – 20 November 996), also known as Richard the Fearless (French: Richard Sans-Peur; Old Norse: Jarl Richart), was the Count of Rouen or Jarl of Rouen from 942 to 996.[1] Dudo of Saint-Quentin, whom Richard commissioned to write the "De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum" (Latin, "On the Customs and Deeds of the First Dukes of Normandy"), called him a Dux. However, this use of the word may have been in the context of Richard's renowned leadership in war, and not as a reference to a title of nobility.[2][3] Richard either introduced feudalism into Normandy or he greatly expanded it. By the end of his reign, most important Norman landholders held their lands in feudal tenure.[4]

Birth
Richard was born to William Longsword, princeps (chieftain or ruler)[5] of Normandy, and Sprota.[1] His mother was a Breton concubine captured in war and bound to William by a more danico marriage.[6] He was also the grandson of the famous Rollo. William was told of the birth of a son after the battle with Riouf and other Viking rebels, but his existence was kept secret until a few years later when William Longsword first met his son Richard. After kissing the boy and declaring him his heir, William sent Richard to be raised in Bayeux.[7] Richard was about ten years old when his father was killed on 17 December 942.[1] After William was killed, Sprota became the wife of Esperleng, a wealthy miller. Rodulf of Ivry was their son and Richard's half-brother.[8]

Life
With the death of Richard's father in 942, King Louis IV of France installed the boy, Richard, in his father's office. Under the influence of Arnulf I, Count of Flanders the King took him into Frankish territory[9]:32–4 and placing him in the custody of the count of Ponthieu before the King reneged and seized the lands of the Duchy of Normandy.[10] He then split up the Duchy, giving its lands in lower Normandy to Hugh the Great. Louis IV thereafter kept Richard in close confinement at Lãaon,[11] but the youth escaped from imprisonment[9]:36–7 with assistance of Osmond de Centville, Bernard de Senlis (who had been a companion of Rollo of Normandy), Ivo de Belláesme, and Bernard the Dane[12] (ancestor to the families of Harcourt and Beaumont).[a]

In 946, at the age of 14, Richard allied himself with the Norman and Viking leaders in France and with men sent by King Harold of Denmark. A battle was fought after which Louis IV was captured. Hostages were taken and held until King Louis recognised Richard as Duke, returning Normandy to him.[9]:37–41 Richard agreed to "commend" himself to Hugh, the Count of Paris, Hugh resolved to form a permanent alliance with Richard and promised his daughter Emma, who was just a child, as a bride, the marriage would take place in 960.[9]:41–2

Louis IV working with Arnulf I, Count of Flanders persuaded Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor to attack Richard and Hugh. The combined armies of Otto, Arnulf and Louis IV were driven from the gates of Rouen, fleeing to Amiens and being decisively defeated in 947.[9]:41–2[13] A period of peace ensued, Louis IV dying in 954, 13 year old Lothair becoming King. The middle aged Hugh appointed Richard as guardian of his 15-year-old son, Hugh Capet in 955.[9]:44

In 962, Theobald I, Count of Blois, attempted a renewed invasion of Rouen, Richard's stronghold, but his troops were summarily routed by Normans under Richard's command, and forced to retreat before ever having crossed the Seine river.[14][15] Lothair, the king of the West Franks, was fearful that Richard's retaliation could destabilize a large part of West Francia so he stepped in to prevent any further war between the two.[16] In 987 Hugh Capet became King of the Franks.

For the last 30 years until his death in 996 in Fâecamp, Richard concentrated on Normandy itself, and participated less in Frankish politics and its petty wars. In lieu of building up the Norman Empire by expansion, he stabilized the realm and reunited the Normans, forging the reclaimed Duchy of his father and grandfather into West Francia's most cohesive and formidable principality.[17]

Richard was succeeded in November 996 by his 33-year-old son, Richard II, Duke of Normandy.

Relationships with France, England and the Church
Richard used marriage to build strong alliances. His marriage to Emma of Paris connected him directly to the House of Capet. His second wife, Gunnora, from a rival Viking group in the Cotentin, formed an alliance to that group, while her sisters formed the core group that were to provide loyal followers to him and his successors.[18]

His daughters forged valuable marriage alliances with powerful neighboring counts as well as to the king of England.[18] Emma marrying firstly ¥thelred the Unready and after his death in 1016, the invader, Cnut the Great. Her children included three English kings, Edward the Confessor, Alfred Aetheling and with Cnut, Harthacnut so completing a major link between the Duke of Normandy and the Crown of England that would add validity to the claim by the future William the Conqueror to the throne of England.

Richard also built on his relationship with the church, undertaking acts of piety,[19]:lv restoring their lands and ensuring the great monasteries flourished in Normandy. His further reign was marked by an extended period of peace and tranquility.[18][20]

Marriages

Richard & his children
His first marriage in 960 was to Emma, daughter of Hugh "The Great" of France,[1][21] and Hedwig von Sachsen.[21] They were betrothed when both were very young. She died after 19 March 968, with no issue.[1]

According to Robert of Torigni, not long after Emma's death, Duke Richard went out hunting and stopped at the house of a local forester. He became enamored with the forester's wife, Seinfreda, but she was a virtuous woman and suggested he court her unmarried sister, Gunnor, instead. Gunnor became his mistress and her family rose to prominence. Her brother, Herfast de Crepon, may have been involved in a controversial heresy trial. Gunnor was, like Richard, of Viking descent, being a Dane by blood. Richard finally married her to legitimize their children:[b]

Richard II "the Good", Duke of Normandy[1]
Robert, Archbishop of Rouen, Count of Evreux[1]
Mauger, Count of Corbeil[1]
Emma of Normandy, wife of two kings of England[1]
Maud of Normandy, wife of Odo II of Blois, Count of Blois, Champagne and Chartres[1]
Hawise of Normandy m. Geoffrey I, Duke of Brittany[1]
Papia of Normandy
Orielda (963-1031) wife of Fulk Seigneur de Guernanville, Dean of Evreax [22][23]
Illegitimate children

Richard was known to have had several other mistresses and had children with many of them. Known children are:

Geoffrey, Count of Eu[1][24]
William, Count of Eu (ca. 972-26 January 1057/58),[24] m. Lasceline de Turqueville (d. 26 January 1057/58).
Beatrice of Normandy, Abbess of Montvilliers d.1034 m. Ebles of Turenne[1] (d.1030 (divorced)
Possible children
Muriella, married Tancred de Hauteville[1][25][26]
Fressenda or Fredesenda (ca. 995-ca. 1057), second wife of Tancred de Hauteville.[1][26][27]
Guimara (Wimarc(a)) (b. circa 986), died Abbey of Montivilliers, Seine-Inferieure, Normandy, wife of Ansfred (Ansfroi) II "le Dane" le Goz, vicomte of Exmes and Falaise, mother of Robert FitzWimarc[28]
Death
Richard died of natural causes in Fecamp, France, on 20 November 996.[29]

Depictions in fiction
The Little Duke, a Victorian juvenile novel by Charlotte Mary Yonge, is a fictionalized account of Richard's boyhood and early struggles.

Count of Rouen
Reign 17 December 942 – 20 November 996
Predecessor William Longsword
Successor Richard II
Born 28 August 932
Fâecamp Normandy, France
Died 20 November 996 (aged 64)
Fâecamp Normandy, France
Spouse Emma of Paris
Gunnor
Issue Richard II of Normandy
Robert II (Archbishop of Rouen)
Mauger, Count of Corbeil
Robert Danus
Willam?
Emma of Normandy
Maud of Normandy
Hawise of Normandy
Geoffrey, Count of Eu (illegitimate)
William, Count of Eu (illegitimate)
Beatrice of Normandy (illegitimate)
Robert (illegitimate)
Papia (illegitimate)
House House of Normandy
Father William I Longsword
Mother Sprota

end of biography

Richard married Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy. Gonor (daughter of Harold Gormsen, VII, King of Denmark and Gunhild von Denmark) was born in 936-941 in Rouen, France; died on 5 Jan 1031 in Normandie, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

387105.

Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy was born in 936-941 in Rouen, France (daughter of Harold Gormsen, VII, King of Denmark and Gunhild von Denmark); died on 5 Jan 1031 in Normandie, France.

Notes:

Gunnora (or Gunnor) (circa 936 – 5 Jan 1031) was a Duchess of Normandy and the wife of Richard I of Normandy.

Life

The names of Gunnora's parents are unknown, but Robert of Torigni wrote that her father was a forester from the Pays de Caux and according to Dudo of Saint-Quentin she was of noble Danish origin.[2] Gunnora was probably born c.? 950.[3] Her family held sway in western Normandy and Gunnora herself was said to be very wealthy.[4] Her marriage to Richard I was of great political importance, both to her husband[b] and her progeny.[5] Her brother, Herfast de Crepon, was progenitor of a great Norman family.[4] Her sisters and nieces[c] married some of the most important nobles in Normandy.[6]

Robert of Torigni recounts a story of how Richard met Gunnora.[7] She was living with her sister Seinfreda, the wife of a local forester, when Richard, hunting nearby, heard of the beauty of the forester's wife. He is said to have ordered Seinfreda to come to his bed, but the lady substituted her unmarried sister, Gunnora. Richard, it is said, was pleased that by this subterfuge he had been saved from committing adultery and together they had three sons and three daughters.[d][8] Unlike other territorial rulers, the Normans recognized marriage by cohabitation or more danico. But when Richard was prevented from nominating their son Robert to be Archbishop of Rouen, the two were married, "according to the Christian custom", making their children legitimate in the eyes of the church.[8]

Gunnora attested ducal charters up into the 1020s, was skilled in languages and was said to have had an excellent memory.[9] She was one of the most important sources of information on Norman history for Dudo of St. Quentin.[10] As Richard's widow she is mentioned accompanying her sons on numerous occasions.[9] That her husband depended on her is shown in the couple's charters where she is variously regent of Normandy, a mediator and judge, and in the typical role of a medieval aristocratic mother, an arbitrator between her husband and their oldest son Richard II.[9]

Gunnora was a founder and supporter of Coutances Cathedral and laid its first stone.[11] In one of her own charters after Richard's death she gave two alods to the abbey of Mont Saint-Michel, namely Britavilla and Domjean, given to her by her husband in dower, which she gave for the soul of her husband, and the weal of her own soul and that of her sons "count Richard, archbishop Robert, and others..."[12] She also attested a charter, c.?1024–26, to that same abbey by her son, Richard II, shown as Gonnor matris comitis (mother of the count).[13] Gunnora, both as wife and countess,[e] was able to use her influence to see her kin favored, and several of the most prominent Anglo-Norman families on both sides of the English Channel are descended from her, her sisters and nieces.[9] Gunnora died c.?1031.[3]

Family

Richard and Gunnora were parents to several children:

Richard II "the Good", Duke of Normandy[14]
Robert, Archbishop of Rouen, Count of Evreux, died 1037[14]
Mauger, Count of Corbeil[14]
Emma of Normandy (c.?985–1052), married first to ¥thelred, King of England and secondly Cnut the Great, King of England.[14]
Hawise of Normandy, wife of Geoffrey I, Duke of Brittany[14]
Maud of Normandy, wife of Odo II of Blois, Count of Blois, Champagne and Chartres[14]

end of biography

Children:

193552. Richard de Normandie, II was born on 23 Aug 963 in Normandie, France; died on 28 Aug 1027 in Normandie, France.
Emma of Normandy, Queen consort of England was born in ~985 in Normandie, France; died on 6 Mar 1052 in Winchester, Hampshire, England; was buried in Winchester Cathedral, Winchester, Hampshire, England.
Robert d'Evereux, Comte d'Evreux was born in Normandie, France; died on 16 Mar 1037 in Seine-Inferieure, Normandy, France.
Hawise of Normandy, Duchess of Brittany

387106.

Conan of Rennes, I, Count of Rennes, Duke of Brittany was born in 927 in (Rennes, France); died on 27 Jun 992.

Notes:

Conan I le Tort of Rennes, Count of Rennes, Duke of Brittany, was born 927 to Judicael Berengar (-bef979) and died 27 June 992 at the Battle of Conquereuil of unspecified causes. He married Ermengarde of Anjou (bef967-) .

Conan may have married his second cousin once removed: Herbert I, Count of Vermandois (c848-907) may have been his great-grandfather and was his wife's great-great-grandfather.

Conan married Ermengarde of Anjou. Ermengarde (daughter of Geoffrey of Anjou and Adele of Meaux) was born before 967 in (Anjou, France). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

387107.

Ermengarde of Anjou was born before 967 in (Anjou, France) (daughter of Geoffrey of Anjou and Adele of Meaux).

Children:

193553. Judith de Bretagne was born in 982 in Rennes, France; died in 1017 in Normandy, France.

192548.

Mauger Normandie was born in ~1020 in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, II and Papia Envermeu); died in 1055 in (Normandy, France).

Mauger married Germaine Corbell. Germaine was born in ~0978 in Marne, Champagne, France; died in ~1012. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

192549.

Germaine Corbell was born in ~0978 in Marne, Champagne, France; died in ~1012.

Children:

96274. Waldron St Clair was born in ~1019 in Normandie, France; died in 1047 in (Normandy, France).

192550.

Richard Normandie was born in ~0997 in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, II and Judith de Bretagne); died on 6 Aug 1027 in (Normandy, France).

Children:

96275. Helena Normandie was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandie, France; died in ~1080.
194345. Adelize Normandie was born in ~1021 in Normandy, France; died in ~1053 in Bayeux, Normandy, France.

48136.

Sir William de Braose, Knight, 1st Lord of Bramber was born in ~1049 in Briouze, Normandy, France; died in 1093-1096.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Hastings, East Sussex, England

Notes:

William de Braose arrived in England with William the Conqueror. His mother’s name was Gunnor. She became a nun at the Abbaye aux Dames in Caen, Normandy, which was established by the Conqueror’s queen, Matilda. Some of the property Gunnor gave to the abbey was associated with members of the the Ivry family - Albereda, Hugh and Roger. Emma d’Ivry was the mother of William the Conqueror’s most powerful favourite, William fitz Osbern.

These are the best clues we have as to William de Braose’s parentage. He was entrusted with a key Sussex position at Bramber and land in other English counties, besides Briouze, a strategic location in Normandy. It seems likely that he came from the extended family of the Dukes of Normandy but for genealogists his ancestry is still a frustrating loose end. William probably married the widow of Anchetil de Harcourt, Eve de Boissey, but even this detail remains inconclusive.

Images for Braose coats of arms:

https://www.google.com/search?q=braose+coat+of+arms&rlz=1C1KMZB_enUS591US591&espv=2&biw=1440&bih=834&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjU4oegvMHQAhVFbSYKHTtHB1gQsAQILQ&dpr=1

end of comment

Died 1093-6

Guillaume de Briouze is recorded in lists of those present at the Battle of Hastings. He became the first Lord of Bramber Rape by 1073 and built Bramber Castle. (Right - remains of the gatehouse) William made considerable grants to the abbey of Saint Florent, Saumur to endow the foundation of Sele Priory near Bramber and a priory at Briouze. He continued to fight alongside King William in the campaigns in Britain, Normandy and Maine.

The latest evidence for William is his presence at the consecration of his church at Briouze in 1093. In 1096 his son Philip was issuing charters. From this we can deduce that William died between 1093 and 1096.

Father: Uncertain.

Mother: Gunnor (See Round, Cal. Doc. Fra. p148)

Brydges edition of Collins' Peerage claims he was first married to Agnes, dau of Waldron de Saint Clare but no evidence for this can be found. It may be an example of Bruce - Braose confusion.
According to L C Perfect, a 13th century genealogy in the Bibliotháeque de Paris gives the name of his wife as Eve de Boissey, widow of Anchetil de Harcourt. There is a lot of evidence from contemporary charters which supports this view.

Child 1: Philip

*

Birth:
Briouze is a commune in the Orne department of Normandy in northwestern France. It is considered the capital of the pays d'Houlme at the western end of the Orne in the Norman bocage. The nearby Grand Hazâe marshland is a heritage-listed area (Natura 2000).

William de Braose, First Lord of Bramber (Guillaume de Briouze) was granted lands in England after the Norman conquest and used his wealth to build a priory in his home town.

The name Briouze probably comes from an older Norman form of the word "boue", or "mud".

Map & commentary ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briouze

Residence:
Images, maps & history of Hastings and the "Battle of 1066" ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastings

William married Agnes St. Clair. Agnes (daughter of Waldron St Clair and Helena Normandie) was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandy, France; died in ~1080. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

48137.

Agnes St. Clair was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandy, France (daughter of Waldron St Clair and Helena Normandie); died in ~1080.

Notes:

Agnes de Braose formerly St Clair aka de St. Clair, de Brus
Born about 1053 in Manche, Normandy, France

Daughter of Waldron (St Clair) de Sinclair and Helena (Normandie) de Sinclair
Sister of William (St Clair) Sinclair and Mauger (St Clare) Sinclair
Wife of Robert (Brus) de Brus — married 1072 [location unknown]

DESCENDANTS descendants

Wife of William (Braose) de Braose — married about 1075 [location unknown

Mother of Adam (Brus) de Brus, Agatha or Alice (Bruce) Basset, Philip (Braose) de Braose, Unknown (Braose) de Harcourt, John (Braiose) de Braose, Philena (Braiose) de Braose, Hortense (Bruce) de Braose and Robert (Brus) de Brus
Died about 1080 in Bramber, Sussex, England
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end of biography

Notes:

Residence (Family):
Bramber Castle is a Norman motte-and-bailey castle formerly the caput of the large feudal barony of Bramber long held by the Braose family. It is situated in the village of Bramber, West Sussex overlooking the River Adur.

Image, map and history of Bramber Castle ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bramber_Castle

More images and history of Bramber Castle & the Braose family ... http://steyningmuseum.org.uk/braose.htm

Children:

24068. SIr Philip de Braose, Knight, 2nd Lord Bramber was born in 1073 in Bramber, West Sussex, England; died in 1131-1139 in (Syria).

48142.

Bernard de Neufmarche, Lord of Brecknockshire was born in 0___ 1050 in Neufmarche, France; died in 0___ 1093 in Breconshire, Wales.

48143.

Nest Verch Osborn le Scrope was born before 1075 in Richards Castle, Herefordshire, England; died in 1121 in Aberhonwy, Breconshire, , Wale.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: 1079, Herefordshire, England

Notes:

Nesta "Agnes" de Neufmarchâe formerly Osbern aka FerchOsbern, FitzOsbern, le Scrope
Born before 1075 in Richards Castle, Herefordshire, , England,map
ANCESTORS ancestors
Daughter of Osbern (Scrope) le Scrope and Nest (Gruffydd) ferch Gruffydd
Sister of Simon (Scrope) le Scrope [half] and Hugh FitzOsbern
Wife of Bernard (Neufmarchâe) de Neufmarchâe — married 1088 [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Mother of Philip (Neufmarche) de Neufmarche, Sybil (Neufmarchâe) of Gloucester, Adam (Neufmarche) de Neufmarchâe and Mael (Neufmarche) de Neufmarche
Died 1121 in Aberhonwy, Breconshire, , Wales
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Profile last modified 21 Oct 2018 | Created 6 Jun 2014
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British Aristocracy
Nesta (Osbern) de Neufmarchâe was a member of aristocracy in the British Isles.
Join: British Royals and Aristocrats Project
Discuss: BRITISH_ARISTO
Biography

Bernard married Nesta (Agnes), daughter and heir of Osbern fitz Richard, granddaughter of Welsh King Gruffudd ap Llywelyn. Through Nesta, Bernard acquired Bodenham & Berrington, Herefordshire.

Sources
Medieval Lands - NESTA

end of profile

Children:

24071. Lady Sibyl de Neufmarche, Countess of Hereford was born in ~1100 in Brecon Castle, Brecon, Wales; died on 24 Dec 1143 in Llanthony Secunda, Gloucestershire, England; was buried in Llanthony Secunda Priory, Gloucestershire, England.
Lady Bertha of Hereford was born in 1107 in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England; died in ~ 1180 in Bramber, Sussex, England.

96256.

Sir Guillaume d'Aubigny, Seigneur de Saint-Martin-d'Aubigny was born in ~1010 in Saint-Martin-d'Aubigny, Basse-Normandie, France; died in ~1068 in Le Plessis, Colombiers, Lower-Normandy, France.

Notes:

Guillaume d'Aubigny, seigneur de Saint-Martin-d'Aubigny
Also Known As: "William", "d'Albini"
Birthdate: 1010 (58)
Birthplace: Saint-Martin-d'Aubigny, Basse-Normandie, France
Death: 1068 (58)
Plessis, , Normandy, France
Immediate Family:
Son of Niel II (III) de Saint-Sauveur, vicomte de Cotentin and Adáele de Brionne, comtesse d'Eu
Husband of Adeliza FitzOsulf du Plessis, Heiress of Belvoir
Father of Hugues "Pincerna" Pincerna de Albini, [likely not son of Guillaume d'Aubigny]; Roger "Pincerna" d'Aubigny; Olivia d'Aubigny; Nigel d'Aubigny, of Cainhoe and Richard d'Aubigny, Abbot of St. Alban
Brother of Billeheude de Saint Sauveur; Mlle. de St. Sauveur; Emma de Saint Sauveur; Matilda de Saint Sauveur; Gerard de Saint Sauveur and 2 others
Occupation: Seigneur de Saint-Martin-d'Aubigny
Managed by: Pam Wilson
Last Updated: October 8, 2017

Adeliza FitzOsulf du Plessis, He...
wife

Hugues "Pincerna" Pincerna de Al...
son

Roger "Pincerna" d'Aubigny
son

Olivia d'Aubigny
daughter

Nigel d'Aubigny, of Cainhoe
son

Richard d'Aubigny, Abbot of St. ...
son

Niel II (III) de Saint-Sauveur, ...
father

Adáele de Brionne, comtesse d'Eu
mother

Billeheude de Saint Sauveur
sister

Mlle. de St. Sauveur
sister

Emma de Saint Sauveur
sister

Matilda de Saint Sauveur
sister
About Guillaume d'Aubigny, seigneur de Saint-Martin-d'Aubigny
William D'AUBIGNY

Born: ABT 1010, St. Martin d'Aubigny, Manche, Normandy, France

Died: ABT 1066

Notes: Aubigny, Alibini, etc., Earls of Arundel. Saint-Martin d'Aubigny: Manche, arr. Coutances, cant. Periers. The early history of the family will be found in The Complete Peerage, surname Mowbray, new ed., vol. ix, pp. 366-7. The details of their benefactions to the abbey of Lessay as confirmed by a charter of Henry II, 1185-1188, identify St-Martin d'Aubigny with the Aubigny which was the caput of their Norman honour; thus the "ecclesiam De Folgeriis" is Feugeres 2 1/2 kil. SE of Aubigny, the "feria Sancti Christofori" mentioned in conjunction with the "forum Albinneii" is St-Christophe-d'Aubigny, a parish now united to that of St-Martin, and "Marchesis" is Marchesieux, 5 kil. NE of Aubigny. There is no trace of a feudal castle at Aubigny itself, but Gerville found nearby at Le Mesnil-Vigot the remains of a considerable castle with a well-defined motte, then known as "le chateau De St-Clair".

Sources: The Origins of Some Anglo-Norman Families, by Lewis C Loyd, 1999

Page: 7. Title: Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, 106th Edition, Charles Mosley

Editor-in-Chief, 1999 Page: 2026

Father: Nigel De St. SAUVEUR

Mother: Adela D'EU

Married: Dau. De PLESSIS (sister of Grimald De Plessis) BEF 1048

Children:

1. Olivia D'AUBIGNY

2. Roger D'AUBIGNY

3. Aimee D'AUBIGNY

William Seigneur DE AUBIGNY

* Birth: 1015, Aubigny, Normandy, France
* Partnership with: Adeliza Belvoir DU PLESSIS
o Child: Roger DE AUBIGNY Birth: 1045, Normandy, France
Descendants of William Seigneur DE AUBIGNY

1 William Seigneur DE AUBIGNY

=Adeliza Belvoir DU PLESSIS
2 Roger DE AUBIGNY
=Adelina DE GRANDMESNIL
3 Nigel DE AUBIGNY
=Gundred DE GOURNAY
3 William DE AUBIGNY
=Maude BIGOT
SOURCES:

1. G.E.C.: Complete Peerage 9:366
Note:

!William d'Aubigny, Seigneur of Aubigny (subsequently Saint-Martind' Aubigny), Normandy; married by 1048 sister of Grimald de Plessis.[Burke's Peerage]
---------------------------------
Aubigny, Alibini, etc., Earls of Arundel
Saint-Martin d'Aubigny: Manche, arr. Coutances, cant. Periers.
The early history of the family will be found in The Complete Peerage, surname Mowbray, new ed., vol. ix, pp. 366-7. The details of their benefactions to the abbey of Lessay as confirmed by a charter of HenryII, 1185-1188, identify St-Martin d' Aubigny with the Aubigny which was the caput of their Norman honour; thus the "ecclesiam de Folgeriis" is Feugeres 2 1/2 kil. SE of Aubigny, the "feria Sancti Christofori" mentioned in conjunction with the "forum Albinneii" is St-Christophe- d'Aubigny, a parish now united to that of St-Martin, and "Marchesis" is Marchesieux, 5 kil. NE of Aubigny. There is no trace of a feudal castle at Aubigny itself, but Gerville found nearby at Le Mesnil-Vigot the remains of a considerable castle with a well-defined motte, then known as "le chateau de St-Clair". [Origins of SomeAnglo-Norman Families]
_____________________________________
!The following info was provided in a post-em by Curt Hofemann, curt_hofemann@yahoo.com:
A few more dribs & brabs:
Seigneur of Aubigny (Albiniacum) [Ref: CP IX:366, Holloway p20]
(in conjunction with son Roger) benefactor of the Abbey of Lessay [Ref: CP IX:366]
William d'Aubigny, first of the name, married the sister of Grimoult [Ref: McBride citing the Harleian Society, Vol 80, "Knights of Edward I" Vol 1 (A to E), with additions from Crispin and Macary, p6-7]
William d'Aubigny, of St. Martin d'Aubigny, who married the sister of Grimauld de Plessis, (some reconstructions make him older brother instead) [Ref: TAF 21 May 2002] Note: the village of Saint Martin d'Aubigny is 16 km. west of St-Lo and 15 km. north of Coutances, in Normandy. The other (unrelated) Aubigny/Albini line is from St. Aubin Aubignâe, a different town... Curt
married bef 1048: [Ref: Holloway p20], names: William D'AUBIGNEY & ___ PLESSIS [Ref: CP IX:366, Holloway p20]
Research note: As to the link to the Saint Sauvieur line, there is nothing to it - just a guess based on the names of William and Nigel occuring in both families. [Ref: TAF 21 May 2002] Would love to see an expansion/basis of this... Curt
!Note: Holloway = _The Genealogy of Mary Wentworth, Who Became the Wife of William Brewster_ by Naomi D. Holloway, LDS Film #1738313.

end of biography

D'Aubigny Genealogy

D'Aubigny
The D'Aubigny family came from the Norman village of Saint Martin d'Aubigny, 14 km. north of Coutances and 36 km. north west of Montbray. In medieval naming conventions, the surnames beginning with "DE" or "D'" are Latin for "OF." (Many surnames were derived from localities, with the DE being dropped as time went on. The most common form of this name today is "Albini.")
The D'Aubigny family has a proud heritage to Kings, Queens, and even United States Presidents like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Franklin Delano Roosevelt (who cherished his ancestry to this family).
The surname "D'Aubigny" was first found in Lincolnshire, where they were seated from very early times, and were granted lands by Duke William of Normandy, their liege Lord, for their distinguished assistance at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 A.D. They could have fought in the battle, or, more disappointingly, been butlers to William:
"I believe that it was the William, then Pincerna, and probably also Roger, his son, who were companions of the Conqueror in his expedition; Roger's eldest brother William being in disgrace in Normandy at the time, and not restored to favour, or allowed to enter England before the reign of Rufus, or it may have been Henry I."*
But it looks like they, fought, as well: Two D'Aubignys are included on the "Battle Abbey Rolls," which list the Norman combatants: GUILLAUME (WILLIAM) D'AUBIGNY and LE SIRE D'AUBIGNY (his son, ROGER). They list the commanders who accompanied William the Bastard of Falaise [later William I of England] at the Battle of Hastings. There are 375 commanders shown on the list, from a total force of about 5000 men. Subsequently, for their services, each commander was granted lordships of large areas of English countryside, albeit each being widely separated from another. To the victors went the spoils. (Various "copies" of these roll with considerable additions and thus differences exist.)
Our genealogy traces back to this butler named William (1015 - 1066), from whom the ancient Earls of Arundel descended. William married a woman named NN DE PLESSIS (b: 1024), "a sister of Grimoult du Plessis, the traitor of Valognes and Val-áes-Dunes, who died in his dungeon in 1047 (vol. i., pp. 25 and 31), and Wace may after all be right in styling him 'Le Botellier,'as it is probable that he held that office in the household of the Duke of Normandy)*
They had two sons (There may have been daughters, too, but in feudal times women, unless they were heiresses, were of small account; and often not recorded.) Anyway, William's two sons were:

CHILDREN OF WILLIAM D'AUBIGNY AND NN DE PLESSIS

NELE d'AUBIGNY, aka: NIGEL de ALBINI. Nigel's grants were in Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Warwickshire and Leicestershire. He was bow-bearer to the king in the reign of William II (Rufus) and was knighted by Henry I, who gave him the manor of Egmanton with parks in Sherwood Forest.
ROGER D'AUBIGNY (1040-1138), AKA: ROGER de ALBINI, married AMICE MOWBRAY or MONTBRAY (1055 - 1084). Children listed below.

Mowbray
Roger married a woman named AMICE MOWBRAY or MONTBRAY (1055 - 1084) She was also known as Amicie de Coutances, sister of Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances (according to Orderic Vital, he was "one of the bishops with attendant clerks and monks, whose duty it was to aid the war with their prayers and councils"). Amicia also had another brother, Roger de Montbray (Mowbray).
They were the children of ROGER MOWBRAY. The surname Mowbray stems from the small village of Montbray in Normandy. This lies about 10 km. north-east of the town of Villedieu-les-Poeles, which itself is 22 km northeast of Avranches on the bay of Mont Saint Michel. From this village came Geoffrey de Montbray who came to be Bishop of Coutances and accompanied Duke William of Normandy, their liege Lord, at the Conquest of England, after the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The Family Motto, translated: "Virtue stands by its own strength."
"By his wife, the sister of Grimoult (I have not yet lighted on her name), he had a son, the Roger d'Aubigny aforesaid, who married Amicia, or Avitia, sister of Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances, and of Roger de Montbrai, and is supposed by M. Le Prâevost to have been with his brothers-in-law in the battle."
Roger d'Aubigny, or De Albini, had issue by his wife Avitia de Montbrai, five sons:

CHILDREN OF ROGER D' AUBIGNY AND AMICE MOWBRAY

William, known as William de Albini "Pincerna" (i.e., Butler), ancestor of the Earls of Sussex, who married Maud, daughter of Roger le Bigod, and died 1139.
Richard, Abbot of St. Albans
Nigel, the third son, was heir of Robert de Montbrai, or Mowbray, his first cousin, whose wife he married during the lifetime of her husband by licence of Pope Paschal, and for some time treated her with respect out of regard for her noble parents; but on the death of her brother Gilbert de l'Aigle, having no issue by her, he craftily sought for a divorce on the ground of that very kinship which he exerted so much influence to induce the Pope to overlook, and then married Gundred, daughter of Gerrard de Gournay, by whom he had Roger, who assumed the name of Mowbray, and transmitted it to his descendants, Dukes of Norfolk and Earls Marshal of England; and Henri, ancestor of the line of Albini of Cainho."
Humphrey.
Ruafon, or Ralph.

Bigod
The D'Aubignys were granted lands by Duke William of Normandy, their liege Lord, for Roger's distinguished assistance at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 AD.

Roger's children, maternally from the house of Mowbray, came with the Conqueror and obtained large possessions of land. One of his sons was named WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY (1070 - 1139), born in Aubigny, Calvados, Normandy, France. He was a 'Pincerna', a butler to King William.
William D'Aubigni married MAUD BIGOD (b. 1080), daughter of ROGER BIGOD and ADELIZA DE GRENTMESNIL.
Here are their children:

CHILDREN OF WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY AND MAUD BIGOD

WILL IAM D'AUBIGNY "THE STRONGHAND," 1st Earl of Arundel (1102 - 3.10.1176) He married ADELAIDE DE LOUVAIN. Children listed below.
NIGEL D' AUBIGNY
OLIVER D' AUBIGNY.
OLIVIA D' AUBIGNY, born @ 1100, who married Ralphe de Haya.

De Louvain
Our ancestor was their son, EARL WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY "THE STRONGHAND," who was the Earl of Sussex, Earl of Lincoln, 1st Earl of Arundel, and the Lord of Stackhorn.
William the Stronghand was born @ 1102, in Buckenham, Nomandie, England. In 1136, he married the "Fair Maid of Brabant," ADELAIDE DE LOUVAIN (1102 - 1151), daughter of GRAF GOTTFRIED V (I) VON NIEDERLOTHRINGEN 'DER BèARTIGE' (AKA: Godfrey Barbutus, the Bearded of Louvaine, Duke of Louvaine & Brabant + Namur, Ida of Brabant. Godfrey, Duke of Lorraine; Godfried I Count of Leuven and Brabant; Duke of Low Lotharingen; Marquise of Antwerp. BRABANT) and IDA DE CHINEY, in 1138.

Also known as Adeliza de Brabant, she was born in 1102-1103 in Louvain, Belgium. Adeliza was queen consort of England from 1121 to 1135, the second wife of King Henry I of England.
She married Henry I 'Beauclerc', King of England, son of William I 'the Conqueror', King of England, and Matilda de Flandre, on the 29th of January, 1121, at Windsor Castle, Windsor, Berkshire, England. She is thought to have been aged somewhere between fifteen and eighteen; he was fifty three. It is believed that Henry's only reason for marrying again was his desire for a male heir. (Despite holding the record for the largest number of illegitimate children of any British monarch, Henry's only legitimate male heir had died in 1120.)
Adeliza was reputably quite pretty, and Louvain and England had a mutual enemy in Flanders; these were the likely reasons she was chosen. However, no children were born during the almost 15 years of the marriage. As of 30 January 1121, her married name was Queen Consort Adeliza of England.
Henry died on the 11th of December, 1135, in Gisors, St. denis, Seine-St. denis, France, and was buried on the 4th of January, 1136, in Reading Abbey, Reading, Berks, England. The cause of death was his bowels exploding -- either from food poisoning or from over-eating Lampreys.
After Henry died, Adeliza lived as a nun at Wilton, near Salisbury. As she was still young she came out of mourning some time before 1139, the third year of her widowhood, and married William, who had been one of Henry's chief advisors. (That's a tough union for a second husband to live up to! No matter what he gave her or did for her, how do you top THE KING???) She brought with her a queen's dowry, including the great castle of Arundel, and King Stephen created d'Aubigny Earl of Arundel. In feudal times, women were often bartered as wives. If they were heiresses they were married while still of tender years, and when their husbands died were often remarried three or even four times. After the way Henry died, William probably didn't eat much of her cooking. He was created 1st Earl of Arundel [England] circa 1138. In 1139 he gave shelter to the Empress Maud at Arundel Castle, but ever after adhered to King Stephen. He held the office of Lord of the Manor of Buckenham, Norfolk in 1139.
Seven of their children were to survive. Among the descendants of this marriage came two girls destined to become tragic queens; Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard.
The union lasted about a dozen years. But then: "His wife, the Queen Dowager, retired in 1150 to a nunnery in Afflighem in South Brabant. Adeliza spent her final years in Flanders in the convent. She died on the 23rd of April, 1151, at Affligem Abbey, Afflingham, Flandre, Belgium, and was buried there.

A romantic story has been invented to account for the lion rampant subsequently borne by William's descendants in the family coat of arms: "Having captivated the heart of the Queen Dowager of France by his gallant conduct in a tournament at Paris, she offered to marry him, an honour which he respectfully declined, having already given his word and faith to a lady in England, another Queen Dowager, no less a personage than Adeliza, widow of King Henry 1 of England. His refusal so angered the French Queen, that she laid a plot with her attendants to destroy him by inducing him to enter a cave in her garden, where a lion had been placed for that purpose; but the undaunted Earl, rolling his mantle round his arm, thrust his hand into the lion's mouth, tore out its tongue, and sent it to the Queen by one of her maids. 'In token of which noble and valiant act,' says Brooke, in his Catalogue of Nobility, 'this William assumed to bear for his arms a lion gold in a field gules, which his successors ever since continued.'"*
In 1153, William the Stronghand was influential in arranging the treaty where King Stephen retained the crown for life, but with Henry II as heir. In 1163/64, he was one of the embassy to Rome. In 1168, he was one of the embassy to Saxony. He was commander of the Royal army in Normandy, against the King's rebellious sons, where he distinguished himself with "swiftness and velocity" in August 1173. He fought in the battle near Bury St. Edmunds on 29 September 1173, where he assisted in the defeat of the Earl of Leicester who had, with his Flemings, invaded Suffolk.
The "Stronghand" died on the 12th of October, 1176, in Waverly Abbey, Surry, England, and is buried at Priory, Wymondham, Norfolk, England. His children:

KIDS OF WILLIAM D'AUBIGNY AND ADELAIDE DE LOUVAIN

RALPH (Reyner) AUBIGNY

WILLIAM d' AUBIGNY 2nd Earl of Arundel.
HENRY AUBIGNY
GEOFFREY AUBIGNY
ALICE d' AUBIGNY
AGATHA AUBIGNY
AGNES AUBIGNY of Arundel

Their son, EARL WILLIAM IV D' AUBIGNY "LE BRETON," (1139 - 24/25 Dec 1193), 2nd Earl of Arundel, was born in Arundel, Sussex, England. He married MAUD DE ST. HILARY, daughter of JAMES DE ST. HILARY and AVELINE (de St. Hillary), in 1174. (Maud de St. Hilary was born in 1132-1137 in of Burkenham, Field Dalling, Norfolk and died on 24 Dec 1195 in Norfolk, England.) The lion in the family crest was more probably first borne by him, in token of his descent from Adeliza, widow of Henry l, in whose reign we have the earliest evidence of golden lions being adopted as a personal decoration, if not strictly an heraldic bearing.

KIDS OF WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY AND MAUD DE ST. HILARY

William de Albini, 4th Earl of Arundel (dsp 1224 or 1233) - m. Mabel (dau of Hugh 'Keveliok' de Meschines, 3rd Earl of Chester)

Hugh de Albini, 5th Earl of Arundel (dsp 1243) - m. Isabel de Warren (dau of William (Plantagenet) de Warren, Earl of Warren and Surrey)
Mabel de Albini (a 1223) - m. Sir Robert de Tateshall
Isabel de Albini m. John FitzAlan, lord of Oswestry, Sheriff of Shropshire (b c1164, d 1239)
Nicola de Albini - m. Roger de Somerie, lord of Dudley
Cecilia de Albini - m. Roger de Montalt

Their son, EARL WILLIAM V D'AUBIGNY, 3rd Earl of Arundel, and Earl of Sussex, was born in 1165 in of Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire, and died before the 30th of March, 1221, in Cainell, near Rome, Italy. William d'Aubigny was earl of Sussex (1193-1221). "...the title of earl was most known by Arundel and Chichester, at which places his chief residence used to be, yet it was of the county of Sussex that he was really earl..."** William married MATILDA (MABEL) LE MESCHINES of Chester, daughter of EARL HUGH DE KEVELIOCK, 3rd Earl of Chester, and BERTRADE D'EVREUX, after 1207. (Matilda was born in 1171 and died in 1233.) During the signing of the Magna Charta, William was on way home from 5th Crusade, but his name was appended on the document, and later assembled with the other barons at Runnemede as guarantors or counselors of King John. His children:

KIDS OF WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY AND MATILDA LE MESCHINES

WILLIAM AUBIGNY

HUGH d' AUBIGNY
ISABEL d' AUBIGNY of Arundel
NICOLA d' AUBIGNY
MATILDA d' AUBIGNY

De Somery
They had two daughters: Matilda d' Aubigny and our ancestor, NICHOLE D'AUBIGNY. In 1225, Nichole married ROGER DE SOMERY BARON DUDLEY (b: 1208 in Dinas Powis, Wales; Death: 26 Aug 1273 in Staffordshire, England, son of Ralph de Somery and Margaret Marshal.) Nicole died in 1254, at Dudley Castle, Strafford, England, and Roger remarried, to AMABILIA de CHAUCOMBE, in 1254, and had another son: Roger de Somery. Nichole's children:

JOAN de SOMERY
MABEL de SOMERY
MAUD de SOMERY
MARGERY de SOMERY
MARGARET (Margery) de SOMERY

Le Strange
JOAN DE SOMERY was born circa 1233, in Camden, Gloucestershire, England. She married JOHN LE STRANGE, IV, (Birth: 1203 in Knokyn, Salop, England; Death: 26 Feb 1276 in Knockin, Warwick, England). They had a son named JOHN LE STRANGE, V, who became the 1st Baron Strange of Knokyn (ancestor of the Barons Strange, of Knockyn, and the Le Stranges, of Hunstanton, Norfolk). He was born circa 1253 in Ellesmere, Shropshire, England. He married MAUD DE MONTIBUS, daughter of Ebulo de Montibus, Lord of Ketton. He became Baron Strange of Knockyn in 1299. He died in 1310.
JOHN LE STRANGE, the 2nd Baron Strange of Knockyn, was born on the 18th of May, 1282, in Ellesmere, Shropshire, England. He married ISOLDA (or MAUD) DE WALTON, daughter of John de Walton of Walton D'Eiville. John died on the 6th of February, 1311/12, at the age of 29 years, 8 months and 19 days.
They had a daughter, ELIZABETH LE STRANGE. She married GRUFFUDD O'R RHUDDALLT AP MADOG FYCHAN AP MADOG. They had a son, GRUFFUDD FYCHAN AP GRUFFUDD O'R RHUDDALLT. (In Welsh conventions of patronymics, AB denotes "son of," and FERCH denotes "daughter of.")
Gruffud married ELEN FERCH THOMAS. She was the daughter of THOMAS AP LLEWELLYN and ELEANOR GOCH, and the great-aunt to Sir Owen Tudor, founder of the Tudor Dynasty in England (he was related to Katherine of France, the widow of Henry the Fifth, King of England).
They had two children:

CHILDREN OF GRUFFUDD FYCHAN AP GRUFFUDD O'R RHUDDALLT AND ELEN FERCH THOMAS

Lowri ferch Gruffyd Fychan. She married Robert Puleston. He was born Cir 1358, and died 1399
Owen Glendower, The Welsh Rebel hero.
Tudor (Twdr) ap Gruffyd Fychan. He married Maud, daughter of Ienaf ap Adda.

Puleston
LOWRI FERCH GRUFFUDD FYCHAN married ROBERT PULESTON, and you'd think things would start to improve with that name. They had a daughter, ANGARAHAD PULESTON. She completely lost her head over one EDWART (IORWERTH) TREVOR AP DAFYDD AB EDNYFED GA. But sanity finally reigned, and they named their daughter ROSE TREVOR. She married SIR OTEWELL WORSLEY. They had a daughter, MARGARET WORSLEY. She married ADRIAN WHETEHILL, and they had a son, SIR RICHARD WHETEHILL. He married ELIZABETH MUSTON and they had a daughter, MARGERY WHETEHILL.

Isaac
Margery married EDWARD ISAAC. The Isaac family was first found in Devon, where they were seated from very ancient times, some say well before the Norman Conquest and the arrival of Duke William at Hastings in 1066 A.D.
Margery and Edward had a daughter, MARY ISAAC (1552 in Well Court,Ickham,Kent,Eng). Mary married THOMAS APPLETON (1538 - 1603), in 1572, in Suffolk Co., England, and they had a daughter, JOHANNA APPLETON, who was born at the dawn of the 1600's in England. She married RICHARD GILDERSLEEVE (1601 - 1681) of Suffolk, England. They had a daughter named ELIZABETH GILDERSLEEVE (b. @1620), who married JEREMIAH WOOD (b. 1620) in Yorkshire. Jeremiah was a Puritan, and they were part of the Puritan emigration to the American Colonies.

KIDS OF RICHARD GILDERSLEEVE AND JOHANNA APPLETON

ELIZABETH GILDERSLEEVE, b: ABT 1620. Married JEREMIAH WOOD between 1642 - 1644.
RICHARD GILDERSLEEVE, JR., b: 1626, married a woman named DORCAS. He died in 1691.

GENEALOGY

WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY (1015 - 1066) married NN DE PLESSIS (b: 1024), and they begat...

ROGER D' AUBIGNY (1040-1138), who married AMICE and begat...

WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY (1070 - 1139), who married married MAUD BIGOD (b. 1080) and begat...

EARL WILLIAM D' AUBIGNY "THE STRONGHAND" (d. 1176), who married ADELAIDE DE LOUVAIN (1102 - 1151) and begat...

EARL WILLIAM IV D' AUBIGNY "LE BRETON" (1139 - 1193), who married MAUD DE ST. HILARY (1137 - 1195) and begat...

EARL WILLIAM V D'AUBIGNY (b. 1165), who married MATILDA (MABEL) LE MESCHINES (1171 - 1233) and begat...

NICHOLE D'AUBIGNY, who married ROGER DE SOMERY BARON DUDLEY (1208 - 1273) and begat...

JOAN DE SOMERY (1233 - 1282), who married JOHN LE STRANGE, IV, (1203 - 1276) and begat...

JOHN LE STRANGE (1253 - 1310), who married MAUD DE MONTIBUS and begat...

JOHN LE STRANGE (1282 - 1311), who married ISOLDA DE WALTON and begat...

ELIZABETH LE STRANGE, who married GRUFFUDD O'R RHUDDALLT AP MADOG FYCHAN AP MADOG...

GRUFFUDD FYCHAN AP GRUFFUDD O'R RHUDDALLT, who married ELEN FERCH THOMAS and begat...

LOWRI FERCH GRUFFUDD FYCHAN, who married ROBERT PULESTON and begat...

ANGARAHAD PULESTON, who married EDWART (IORWERTH) TREVOR AP DAFYDD AB EDNYFED GA, and begat...

ROSE TREVOR, who married SIR OTEWELL WORSLEY and begat...

MARGARET WORSLEY, who married ADRIAN WHETEHILL and begat...

SIR RICHARD WHETEHILL, who married ELIZABETH MUSTON and begat...

MARGERY WHETEHILL, who married EDWARD ISAAC and begat...

MARY (or AMY) ISAAC, who married THOMAS APPLETON (1538 - 1601) and begat...

SAMUEL APPLETON (1586 - 1670), who married JUDITH EVERHARD and begat...

JOHANNA APPLETON (1601 - ?), who married RICHARD GILDERSLEEVE (1601 - 1681) and begat...

ELIZABETH GILDERSLEEVE (1620 - ?), who married JEREMIAH WOOD (1620 - ) and begat...

JOSEPH WOOD, who married EUNICE JARVIS in 1680 and begat...

JOSEPH WOOD, JR. (1680 - ?) who married MARGRIET (MARGARET) WOOD and begat...

JONATHAN WOOD (1720 - ?) who married JOHANNA CROMPTON (1725 - ?) and begat...

MARTHA WOOD (1753 - 1822) who married WILLIAM HAUSE (1750 - 1818) and begat...

JOHN HAUSE (1773 - 1844) who married ESTHER KETCHAM (1779 - 1853) and begat...

AUGUSTUS HAUSE (1804 - 1875) who married JANE JONES (1802 - 1850) and begat...

LABAN HAUSE (1831 - 1906) who married MELISSA SANDERSON (1839 - 1921) and begat...

FRANK HAUSE (1867 - 1951) who married FLADELLA RAYMOND (1869 - 1961) and begat...

CARLISLE HAUSE (1891 - 1972) who married MARJORIE MARCHANT (1892 - 1939) who begat...

CARLETON MARCHANT HAUSE, SR. (1917 - 1983) who married JEANNE BRUNNER (1918 - 2000) and begat...

CARLETON MARCHANT HAUSE, JR. (b. 1939) who married MARTHA WENK (b. 1940) and begat...

JEFF (who married LORI ANN DOTSON), KATHY (who married HAL LARSEN), ERIC (who married MARY MOONSAMMY), and MICHELE HAUSE (who married JOHN SCOTT HOUSTON).

LITERATURE ON THE D'AUBIGNI FAMILY

*-WILLIAM DE ALBINI, The Conqueror and His Companions, by J.R. Planchâe, Somerset Herald. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1874.
**-"The Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom" - George Edward Cokayne (14 vol) I, p234, (a)
"Rolls of Arms - Henry III - Aspilogia II" - London & Tremlett / Sir Anthony Wagner

96257.

Notes:

Adâelaèis Adeliza FitzOsulf du Plessis, Hâeritiáere de Belvoir
Birthdate: circa 1027 (61)
Birthplace: Le Plessis, Colombiers, Lower-Normandy, France
Death: circa 1088 (53-69)
Belvoir Castle, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England
Place of Burial: St. Mary's Priory, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England
Immediate Family:
Daughter of Osulf "fil Frane" du Plessis, seigneur de Belvoir and NN wife of Osulf du Plessis
Wife of Guillaume d'Aubigny, seigneur de Saint-Martin-d'Aubigny and Robert de Toeni, Lord of Belvoir
Mother of Hugues "Pincerna" Pincerna de Albini, [likely not son of Guillaume d'Aubigny]; Roger "Pincerna" d'Aubigny; Olivia d'Aubigny; Nigel d'Aubigny, of Cainhoe; Richard d'Aubigny, Abbot of St. Alban and 6 others
Sister of Grimoult du Plessis
Managed by: Pam Wilson
Last Updated: December 31, 2015

About Adeliza FitzOsulf du Plessis, Heiress of Belvoir
The daughter of Osulf le Freyne du Plessis and sister of Grimault du Plessis, Adeliza married first, William (Guillaume) d'Aubigny, of Saint-Martin-d'Aubignâe (son of Neel Saint-Saveur, Vicomte de Cotentin/Coutances), and secondly, Robert I de Tosny/Todeni.

Children:

--Roger "Pincerna" d'Aubigny who married Amice de Mowbray

--Nigel/Nele d'Aubigny of Cainhoe who married Amice de Ferrers

--Richard d'Aubigny, Abbot of St. Alban

--William (Guillaume) de Tosny, Lord of Belvoir

--Geoffrey de Tosny

--Robert de Tosny

--Agnes de Tosny who married Hubert de Rye.

--Adeliza de Tosny who married Roger Bigod (two of her daughters married men named William d'Aubigny).

--Albrede m. de l'Isle

[--Berenger de Tosny ? Not listed in FMG database]

As heiress of the honour of Belvoir, Adeliza FitzOsulf de Plessis was instrumental in passing this title and its land down through her family, ironically not through her d'Aubigny children and heirs (who became Earls of Arundel) but through her de Tosny heirs who married into the Bigod family who married into the *other* d'Aubigny family which later became Earls of Belvoir.

[See "The Early Lords of Belvoir" by WA Carrington, Esq (1900) printed in The Journal of the British Archaeological Association, Volume 7, available online on Google Books: p. 299]

Summary: Belvoir was held before Domesday by William de Albini, son of Niel of St Saveur (Vicomte of Cotentin, Lord of the Isles of La Marche), by right of his wife Adeliza, dau of Osulf son of Fane in the time of Edward the Confessor. [Note: This was most likely Osulf II who was High Reeve or Ealdorman of Bamburgh in Northumberland until 1041 when Northumberland was reunified and who died in 1067]

Her second marriage was to Robert de Todeni who built the Castle of Belvoir and the St. Mary's Priory (1077) there. By Domesday, de Todeni held 80 manors in 13 counties, most of them in Lincoln and Leicester, and six of which had been held by Oself (his father in law).

Adeliza died before Robert, who died in 1088 and was buried at St. Mary's Priory in Belvoir.

According to Dugdale, Robert and Adeliza de Todeni had four sons: William, Berenger, Geoffrey and Robert, and a dau Agnes who married Hubert de Rye. Another source says they had a daughter Adeliza who married Roger Bigod.

Robert de Todeni was succeeded by his second son William as Lord of Belvoir. Then, interestingly, it was passed to William de Albini Brito, son of Adeliza by her first marriage.

It was afterwards held by Adeliza de Toeni wife of Roger Bigod. It appears from the Pipe Roll in the time of Henry I that Adeliza de Todeni/Bigod paid Henry I 200 marks for the Lordship of Belvoir (the inheritance of the Albinis).

Then, to add to the soap opera, Cecilia Bigod (daughter of Adeliza de Todeni and Roger Bigod) married William de Albini son of Roger son of William de Albini Brito (Adeliza I's son by her first marriage). Thus Belvoir stayed in the family either way.

NOTE: I use the French term hâeritiáere in the title to indicate that she was the inheritor or heiress of this land and title in her own right. I often do this when a woman brings her own inheritance of land and title into the marriage (called in sui generis in legal terms), to indicate that she inherited in her own right and did not just acquire a title by marriage. In the middle ages, many women were the carriers of important inheritances and therefore their marriages, often arranged by powerful men like trading cards, brought the men who "acquired" them great power and wealth.

http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISHNOBILITYMEDIEVAL3.htm

GUILLAUME d'Aubigny, son of ---. 1056. Seigneur d'Aubigny.

m (before 1048) ---, sister of GRIMAULT de Plessis, daughter of ---. The primary source which confirms her marriage has not yet been identified.

Guillaume & his wife had three children:

1. ROGER d'Aubigny . The primary source which confirms his parentage has not yet been identified. "…Rogerii de Albiniaco, filiique sui Rualoc…" are named as witnesses at the court of William I King of England in the charter dated to [1081] which records an agreement between the monks of Marmoutier and "Gaufridus Nervei filius"[1]. m AMICE, daughter of ---. Henry I King of England confirmed donations of property to the abbey of Holy Trinity, Lessay by "Roger de Albineio and Amicia his wife with the consent of their sons William and Nigel" by charter dated 1126[2]. “Wilielmus comes Sussexiµ” confirmed donations to Boxgrove Priory by his predecessors “Rogerus de Albineio, et Willelmus Pincerna…et Willielmi patris mei filii reginµ Aeliz, et Matildis matris meµ” to Boxgrove Priory by undated charter, which names “domina Avicia, uxor Rogeri de Albineio…et filiorum suorum Willielmi et Nigelli”[3].

2. NELE [Nigel] d'Aubigny of Cainhoe (-[1100]). The primary source which confirms his parentage has not yet been identified. m AMICE de Ferrers, daughter of HENRY de Ferrers & his wife Bertha ---. “Robertus comes junior de Ferariis” confirmed donations to Tutbury by “avus meus Henricus…Egenulfus patruus meus…Robertus pater meus”, naming “Nigellus de Albiniaco et Amicia filia avi mei”[35].

3. RICHARD . “Nigellus de Albeneyo” donated property to “domino Richardo fratri meo abbati de S. Albano” by undated charter dated to the reign of William I King of England[51]. Abbot of St Alban.

-----------------------------------

Of the wife of Robert de Tosny, FMG provides this account:

ROBERT [I] de Tosny (-1088). Europèaische Stammtafeln shows Robert de Tosny unaffiliated with the other members of this family. Although his ancestry is unknown, it is likely that he was a member of this family. He founded Marmoutier in 1063[1926]. Lord of Belvoir 1086. “Robertum de Belvedeir---et A[dela]. uxor eius” founded Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire by charter dated to [1076][1927]. After the death of his wife Adela, Robert de Belvoir donated “land in Sapertune” to Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire, with the consent of "his sons William and Geoffrey"[1928]. m ADELAIS, daughter of --- (-before 1088). “Robertum de Belvedeir---et A[dela]. uxor eius” founded Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire by charter dated to [1076][1929]. “Agnes de Toteneio” confirmed the donation to Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire by "pater meus Robertus de Toteneio et mater mea Adelais", by undated charter[1930]. Robert & his wife had [six] children:

a) GUILLAUME (-[1130]). After the death of his wife Adela, Robert de Belvoir donated “land in Sapertune” to Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire, with the consent of "his sons William and Geoffrey"[1931]. Lord of Belvoir.

b) GEOFFREY . After the death of his wife Adela, Robert de Belvoir donated “land in Sapertune” to Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire, with the consent of "his sons William and Geoffrey"[1932].

c) [ROBERT de Tosny . “Robertus de Toteneia” donated property to Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire, confirmed by "Willielmus de Albeneio frater meus et dominus", by undated charter, witnessed by "…Rogerus Bigot"[1933]. The identity of this Robert de Tosny is uncertain. The document cannot be contemporary as William de Albini was heir of Belvoir through his maternal grandmother Alice, who was the sister of this supposed Robert, so could not have been Robert de Tosny´s brother.]

d) ALICE . Her parentage is indicated by the 1130 Pipe Roll which records "Adeliz uxor Rogi Big…tra patris sui de Belueder" in Lincolnshire[1934]. It is also indicated by the charter dated 23 Apr [1430] under which her descendant “Thomas dominus de Ros, de Hamelake, de Trussebout et de Beavoir” confirmed the possessions of Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire made by "antecessores nostros…Robertum de Toteneio, Willielmum de Toteneyo filium suum, Agnetem de Toteneio filiam dicti Roberti de Toteneyo, Henricum de Rya filium Huberto de Rya, Agnetem de Toteneyo, Willielmum de Albeneio primum, Willielmum de Albeneio secundum, Willielmum de Albeneio tertium, Willielmum de Albeneio quartum, Ywynum de Albeneyo, Heliam de Albeneyo et uxores eorundem, Isabellam filiam domini Willielmi de Albeneio quµ fuit uxor domini de Ros, domini de Beauvoire et de Hamelake"[1935], the connection between Robert de Tosny Lord of Belvoir, father of Alice, being established through the marriage of her daughter Cecilia to William de Albini Brito. "Rogerius Bigot…et uxoris mee Adalicie" donated the church of Thetford to Cluny dated [1100][1936]. “Rogerus Bygot” founded Thetford Priory, with the advice of “…uxoris meµ Adeliciµ”, by undated charter dated to the reign of King Henry I[1937]. Living in 1136[1938]. m (before [1100]) as his second wife, ROGER Bigod, son of ROGER Bigod & his wife --- (-8 or 15 Sep 1107, bur Thetford[1939]).

e) AGNES de Tosny (-before 1127). “Agnes de Toteneio” confirmed the donation to Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire by "pater meus Robertus de Toteneio et mater mea Adelais", by undated charter[1940]. Henry I King of England confirmed the donation of "decimas de Hokeringhe, de Swanetuna, de Depham, de Bukestuna, de Mercheshale" by "Hubertus de Ria…Agnes de Belfo uxor eius…cum Ricardo filio suo" to Holy Trinity, Norwich, at the request of "Henrici filii et heredis ipsorum", by charter dated to [1127][1941]. Her second marriage is confirmed by the undated charter under which her son “Henricus de Rya” confirmed the donations to Belvoir priory, Lincolnshire by "Roberti avi mei et Agnetis matris meµ"[1942]. m firstly RALPH de Belfou, son of ---. m secondly HUBERT de Rie, son of HUBERT de Rie & his wife --- (-before 1127).

f) [ALBREDE . “H comes Norfulc” confirmed property to the monks of Kirkstall, for the soul of “Albrede de Insula amite mee”, by charter dated to [1154/76][1943]. If amita is translated strictly in this document, Albrede was the sister of Earl Hugh´s mother. However, it cannot be excluded that she was in fact his paternal aunt. m --- de l´Isle, son of ---.]

http://www.freewebs.com/stanhopefamily/THE FAMILY OF FRESNE

Adeliza du Plessis was the sister of Grimoult du Plessis, who lost his estates, situated mainly in Coutances, after siding against William the Bastard at Val des Dunes. The name Plessis was of topographical origin, signifying [O.F] a pallisade, and [Lat.] an enclosure, referring to the castle held by the family at Plessis-Grimoult. [The Priory of Plessis-Grimoult was endowed by the Beaumont/Harcourt family; almost invariably a sign that there was a familial connection between them and the founder's family - Mem. Soc. Ant. Norm., vol ii., 23, no. 238.] The original name of the family was Fresne, or, more anciently, Freyne, signifying an ash tree, a derivative of which is the surname Frame. [ G. F. Black, Surnames of Scotland; Their Origin, Meaning, and History, p. 278, 1946.] The father of Adeliza and Grimoult was titled Osulf le Fresne. Their holdings in Coutances abutted those of the family of the wife of the aforementioned Onfroi de Vieilles, who, as said, was of the family of Haye/Haie; of Haye-du-Puits, Manche, arr. Coutances. [The lord of this barony, at the date of the conquest, was Raoul, sâenâechal of the Earl of Mortaigne, and father of Robert de la Haie, a contemporary of Henry I. Raoul seems to have been the son of Hubert de Rye, to whom was entrusted the governorship of the castle and county of Nottingham, and who is frequently mentioned in Domesday Book.] In the Battle of Beaumont-le-Roger, in 1036, Onfroi de Vieilles fought against Roger de Toeni, and his close ally, Osulf du Fresne. Such military and political alliance usually stemmed from familial and consequent topographical connections. Later acts of the Abbey of Conches support this notion, with this Fresne family being noted as feudatories of the Anglo-Norman Toeni family, holding of them land centred around Mesnil-Hardray, canton Conches. In the same regard, Grimoult du Plessis was lord of le Freyne,

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Source http://a.decarne.free.fr/gencar/dat566.htm

Plessis (du), "Adele" or Adâeliza lady Belvoir Gender: Female

Naissance : vers 1027 Birth: about 1027

Note Note

Parents : Parents:

Páere: Plessis (du), "Osulf" Fil Frame seigneur de Belvoir Father: Plessis (du), "Osulf" Wire Frame lord of Belvoir

Famille: Family

Mariage: 1043 Marriage: 1043

Conjoint: Spouse:

Aubigny (d'), Guillaume seigneur des Iles Sexe: Masculin Aubigny (of), Guillaume Lord of the Isles Gender: Male

Naissance : vers 1020 áa Aubigny (14) Birth: about 1020 in Aubigny (14)

Dâecáes : 1066 Died: 1066

Parents : Parents:

Páere: Saint Sauveur (de), Nâeel vicomte de Cotentin Father: St. Saviour (de), Neel Viscount of Cotentin

Máere: Eu (d'), Adáele Mother: Eu (with), Adáele

Enfant(s) : Child (s):

Aubigny (d'), Roger Aubigny (of), Roger

Famille: Family

Mariage: 1067 Marriage: 1067

Conjoint: Spouse:

Toeny (de), Robert seigneur de Belvoir Sexe: Masculin Toeny (de), Robert Lord of Belvoir Gender: Male

Naissance : vers 1030 áa Belvoir Leicestershire (UK) Birth: about 1030 in Belvoir, Leicestershire (UK)

Dâecáes : 04 aoãut 1088 Died: August 4, 1088

La filiation avec ses parents est controversâee. The affiliation with its parents is controversial.

Parents : Parents:

Páere: Toeny (de), Robert seigneur de Conches Father: Toeny (de), Robert Lord of Conches

Enfant(s) : Child (s):

Toeny (de), Alice dame de Belvoir Toeny (of), Lady Alice Belvoir

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Source http://worldconnect.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=AHN&db=pusch&id=I098521

32. WILLIAM I (NOTES) CONTINTIN (L) DE AUBIGNY was born BET 1000 AND 1024 in AUBIGNI OR AUGBIGNY, NORMANDY, FRANCE, and died BET 1019 AND 1068. He was the son of 64. NIEL III NIGEL II (NOTES) (L) DE SAINT SAVEUR and 65. ADELA (NOTES) DE BRIONNE OR (L) D' EU.

33. ADELE (NOTES) DE PLESSIS (L) DE BELVOIR was born BET 1014 AND 1025 in PLESSIS, NORMANDY, FRANCE, and died 1051. She was the daughter of 66. GRIMOLT GRIMOULT OR GRIMOULD (L) DE PLESSIS and 67. VAL (L) DE DUNES.

Children of ADELE (NOTES) DE PLESSIS (L) DE BELVOIR and WILLIAM I (NOTES) CONTINTIN (L) DE AUBIGNY are: i. BALDWIN (NOTE) AUBIGNY MONTGOMERY (L) DE BOULERS was born BET 1050 AND 1080 in HAWORTH CASTLE, YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND. He married SIBYLLA (NOTES) FITZHENRY (L) DE NORMANDY, daughter of HENRY I GUNDRED "BEAUCLERC" KING OF (L) ENGLAND and SIBYL SYBILLA ADELA OR LUCY (NOTES) (L) CORBET. She was born BET 1075 AND 1104 in DOMFRONT, NORMANDY, FRANCE, and died BET 12 AND 13 JUL 1122 in ISLAND OF THE WOMAN, LOCK TAY, SCOTLAND. He married SIBYL (NOTES) (L) DE FALAISE, daughter of WILLIAM (NOTES) FITZROBERT (L) DE FALAISE and GEVA (L) DE BURCI. She was born BET 1074 AND 1088 in WORSPRING MANOR, SOMERSET, ENGLAND.
16. ii. ROGER D' AUBIGNY OR DE AUBIGNY OR (L) DE ALBINI was born BET 1036 AND 1055 in AUBIGNI OR AUBIGNY, NORMANDY, FRANCE, and died ABT 1084. He married CICELY (NOTES) CAIGNE (L) DE PORT. She was born ABT 1045. He married AMICIA AMICE (NOTES) DE MOWBRAY (L) D' AUBIGNY, daughter of GEOFFREY OR ROGER DE MONTBRAI (L) DE MOWBRAY. She was born BET 1040 AND 1055 in AUBIGNI OR AUBIGNY, NORMANDY, FRANCE, and died 1100. He married AMICE OR HALEWISE (NOTES) (L) GRENTMESNIL, daughter of HUGH (NOTE) SENESCHAL ENGLAND(L) DE GRENTEMESNIL and ADELIZA BEATRICE ALICE (NOTES) (L) DE BEAUMONT. She was born BET 1045 AND 1058, and died BET 1077 AND 1084.

iii. AIMEE (L) D' AUBIGNY OR DE ALBINI was born ABT 1050 in ST. MARTIN D' AUBIGNY, NORMANDY, FRANCE. She married RICHARD (L) DE TALBOT TALEBOT OR TALBOT, son of RICHARD OR LE SIRE (NOTES) (L) TALBOT OR TALEBOT. He was born BET 1050 AND 1055 in BADLESLANE, BEDFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND, and died 1129.
iv. WILLIAM II (L) BRITO D' AUBIGNY was born ABT 1034.
v. 0LIVA (NOTE)(L) DE AUBIGNY D' AUBIGNY D' ALBINI was born BET 1047 AND 1141 in AUBIGNI OR AUBIGNY, NORMANDY, FRANCE. She married RALPH OR RANULF (L) DE HAYA OR DE LA HAYE, son of RICHARD THURSTIN HALDUP (NOTES) (L) DE LA HAYE and ANNE (L) ?. He was born BET 1043 AND 1139, and died AFT 1123.
vi. MISS (L) DE AUBIGNY D' AUBIGNY HEIRESS STREATLEY was born BET 1050 AND 1066. She married PIROT OF (L) HAWKWELL GLEMAM SAWSTON. He was born BET 1050 AND 1066, and died AFT 1104.
Adeliza Belvoir DU PLESSIS

* Father: Grimoult DU PLESSIS
* Mother: Mitilda DE NORMANDY
* Birth: 1020, France
* Partnership with: William Seigneur DE AUBIGNY
o Child: Roger DE AUBIGNY Birth: 1045, Normandy, France
Ancestors of Adeliza Belvoir DU PLESSIS

/-Grimoult DU PLESSIS
Adeliza Belvoir DU PLESSIS

\-Mitilda DE NORMANDY
Descendants of Adeliza Belvoir DU PLESSIS

1 Adeliza Belvoir DU PLESSIS

=William Seigneur DE AUBIGNY
2 Roger DE AUBIGNY
=Adelina DE GRANDMESNIL
3 Nigel DE AUBIGNY
=Gundred DE GOURNAY
3 William DE AUBIGNY
=Maude BIGOT

end of biography

Children:

48128. Sir Roger d'Aubigny was born in 1045 in Aubigny, Normandy, France; died in 1084.

44400.

Notes:

Malcolm III (Gaelic: Mâael Coluim mac Donnchada; c. 26 March 1031 – 13 November 1093) was King of Scots from 1058 to 1093. He was later nicknamed "Canmore" ("ceann máor", Gaelic for "Great Chief": "ceann" denotes "leader", "head" (of state) and "máor" denotes "pre-eminent", "great", and "big").[1][2] Malcolm's long reign of 35 years preceded the beginning of the Scoto-Norman age.

Malcolm's kingdom did not extend over the full territory of modern Scotland: the north and west of Scotland remained under Scandinavian, Norse-Gael, and Gaelic rule, and the territories under the rule of the Kings of Scots did not extend much beyond the limits established by Malcolm II until the 12th century. Malcolm III fought a series of wars against the Kingdom of England, which may have had as its objective the conquest of the English earldom of Northumbria. These wars did not result in any significant advances southward. Malcolm's primary achievement was to continue a lineage that ruled Scotland for many years,[3] although his role as founder of a dynasty has more to do with the propaganda of his youngest son David I and his descendants than with history.[4]

Malcolm's second wife, St. Margaret of Scotland, is Scotland's only royal saint. Malcolm himself had no reputation for piety; with the notable exception of Dunfermline Abbey in Fife he is not definitely associated with major religious establishments or ecclesiastical reforms.

King of Alba (Scots)
Reign 1058–1093
Coronation 25 April 1058?, Scone, Perth and Kinross
Predecessor Lulach
Successor Donald III
Born c. 26 March 1031
Scotland
Died 13 November 1093
Alnwick, Northumberland, England
Burial Tynemouth Castle and Priory, then in Dunfermline Abbey
Spouse Ingibiorg Finnsdottir
St. Margaret of Scotland
Issue Duncan II, King of Scots
Edward, Prince of Scotland
Edmund
Ethelred
Edgar, King of Scots
Alexander I, King of Scots
David I, King of Scots
Matilda, Queen of England
Mary, Countess of Boulogne
House Dunkeld
Father Duncan I, King of Scots
Mother Suthen

Background
Main article: Scotland in the High Middle Ages
Malcolm's father Duncan I became king in late 1034, on the death of Malcolm II, Duncan's maternal grandfather and Malcolm's great-grandfather. According to John of Fordun, whose account is the original source of part at least of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, Malcolm's mother was a niece of Siward, Earl of Northumbria,[5][6] but an earlier king-list gives her the Gaelic name Suthen.[7] Other sources claim that either a daughter or niece would have been too young to fit the timeline, thus the likely relative would have been Siward's own sister Sybil, which may have translated into Gaelic as Suthen.

Duncan's reign was not successful and he was killed in battle with the men of Moray, led by Macbeth, on 15 August 1040. Duncan was young at the time of his death,[8] and Malcolm and his brother Donalbane were children.[9] Malcolm's family attempted to overthrow Macbeth in 1045, but Malcolm's grandfather Crâinâan of Dunkeld was killed in the attempt.[10]

Soon after the death of Duncan his two young sons were sent away for greater safety—exactly where is the subject of debate. According to one version, Malcolm (then aged about nine) was sent to England,[11] and his younger brother Donalbane was sent to the Isles.[12][13] Based on Fordun's account, it was assumed that Malcolm passed most of Macbeth's seventeen-year reign in the Kingdom of England at the court of Edward the Confessor.[14][15] Today's British Royal family can trace their family history back to Malcolm III via his daughter Matilda.

According to an alternative version, Malcolm's mother took both sons into exile at the court of Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Earl of Orkney, an enemy of Macbeth's family, and perhaps Duncan's kinsman by marriage.[16]

An English invasion in 1054, with Siward, Earl of Northumbria in command, had as its goal the installation of one "Mâael Coluim, son of the king of the Cumbrians". This Mâael Coluim has traditionally been identified with the later Malcolm III.[17] This interpretation derives from the Chronicle attributed to the 14th-century chronicler of Scotland, John of Fordun, as well as from earlier sources such as William of Malmesbury.[18] The latter reported that Macbeth was killed in the battle by Siward, but it is known that Macbeth outlived Siward by two years.[19] A. A. M. Duncan argued in 2002 that, using the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry as their source, later writers innocently misidentified "Mâael Coluim" with the later Scottish king of the same name.[20] Duncan's argument has been supported by several subsequent historians specialising in the era, such as Richard Oram, Dauvit Broun and Alex Woolf.[21] It has also been suggested that Mâael Coluim may have been a son of Owain Foel, British king of Strathclyde[22] perhaps by a daughter of Malcolm II, King of Scotland.[23]

In 1057 various chroniclers report the death of Macbeth at Malcolm's hand, on 15 August 1057 at Lumphanan in Aberdeenshire.[24][25] Macbeth was succeeded by his stepson Lulach, who was crowned at Scone, probably on 8 September 1057. Lulach was killed by Malcolm, "by treachery",[26] near Huntly on 23 April 1058. After this, Malcolm became king, perhaps being inaugurated on 25 April 1058, although only John of Fordun reports this.[27]

Malcolm and Ingibiorg

Late medieval depiction of Malcolm with MacDuff, from an MS (Corpus Christi MS 171) of Walter Bower's Scotichronicon
If Orderic Vitalis is to be relied upon, one of Malcolm's earliest actions as king was to travel to the court of Edward the Confessor in 1059 to arrange a marriage with Edward's kinswoman Margaret, who had arrived in England two years before from Hungary.[28] If a marriage agreement was made in 1059, it was not kept, and this may explain the Scots invasion of Northumbria in 1061 when Lindisfarne was plundered.[29] Equally, Malcolm's raids in Northumbria may have been related to the disputed "Kingdom of the Cumbrians", reestablished by Earl Siward in 1054, which was under Malcolm's control by 1070.[30]

The Orkneyinga saga reports that Malcolm married the widow of Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Ingibiorg, a daughter of Finn Arnesson.[31] Although Ingibiorg is generally assumed to have died shortly before 1070, it is possible that she died much earlier, around 1058.[32] The Orkneyinga Saga records that Malcolm and Ingibiorg had a son, Duncan II (Donnchad mac Maâil Coluim), who was later king.[33] Some Medieval commentators, following William of Malmesbury, claimed that Duncan was illegitimate, but this claim is propaganda reflecting the need of Malcolm's descendants by Margaret to undermine the claims of Duncan's descendants, the Meic Uilleim.[34] Malcolm's son Domnall, whose death is reported in 1085, is not mentioned by the author of the Orkneyinga Saga. He is assumed to have been born to Ingibiorg.[35]

Malcolm's marriage to Ingibiorg secured him peace in the north and west. The Heimskringla tells that her father Finn had been an adviser to Harald Hardraade and, after falling out with Harald, was then made an Earl by Sweyn Estridsson, King of Denmark, which may have been another recommendation for the match.[36] Malcolm enjoyed a peaceful relationship with the Earldom of Orkney, ruled jointly by his stepsons, Paul and Erlend Thorfinnsson. The Orkneyinga Saga reports strife with Norway but this is probably misplaced as it associates this with Magnus Barefoot, who became king of Norway only in 1093, the year of Malcolm's death.[37]

Malcolm and Margaret

Malcolm and Margaret as depicted in a 16th-century armorial. Anachronistically, Malcolm's surcoat is embroidered with the royal arms of Scotland, which probably did not come into use until the time of William the Lion. Margaret's kirtle displays the supposed arms of her great-uncle Edward the Confessor, which were in fact invented in the 13th century, though they were based on a design which appeared on coins from his reign
Although he had given sanctuary to Tostig Godwinson when the Northumbrians drove him out, Malcolm was not directly involved in the ill-fated invasion of England by Harald Hardraade and Tostig in 1066, which ended in defeat and death at the battle of Stamford Bridge.[38] In 1068, he granted asylum to a group of English exiles fleeing from William of Normandy, among them Agatha, widow of Edward the Confessor's nephew Edward the Exile, and her children: Edgar ¥theling and his sisters Margaret and Cristina. They were accompanied by Gospatric, Earl of Northumbria. The exiles were disappointed, however, if they had expected immediate assistance from the Scots.[39]

In 1069 the exiles returned to England, to join a spreading revolt in the north. Even though Gospatric and Siward's son Waltheof submitted by the end of the year, the arrival of a Danish army under Sweyn Estridsson seemed to ensure that William's position remained weak. Malcolm decided on war, and took his army south into Cumbria and across the Pennines, wasting Teesdale and Cleveland then marching north, loaded with loot, to Wearmouth. There Malcolm met Edgar and his family, who were invited to return with him, but did not. As Sweyn had by now been bought off with a large Danegeld, Malcolm took his army home. In reprisal, William sent Gospatric to raid Scotland through Cumbria. In return, the Scots fleet raided the Northumbrian coast where Gospatric's possessions were concentrated.[40] Late in the year, perhaps shipwrecked on their way to a European exile, Edgar and his family again arrived in Scotland, this time to remain. By the end of 1070, Malcolm had married Edgar's sister Margaret of Wessex, the future Saint Margaret of Scotland.[41]

The naming of their children represented a break with the traditional Scots regal names such as Malcolm, Cinâaed and Áed. The point of naming Margaret's sons—Edward after her father Edward the Exile, Edmund for her grandfather Edmund Ironside, Ethelred for her great-grandfather Ethelred the Unready and Edgar for her great-great-grandfather Edgar and her brother, briefly the elected king, Edgar ¥theling—was unlikely to be missed in England, where William of Normandy's grasp on power was far from secure.[42] Whether the adoption of the classical Alexander for the future Alexander I of Scotland (either for Pope Alexander II or for Alexander the Great) and the biblical David for the future David I of Scotland represented a recognition that William of Normandy would not be easily removed, or was due to the repetition of Anglo-Saxon royal name—another Edmund had preceded Edgar—is not known.[43] Margaret also gave Malcolm two daughters, Edith, who married Henry I of England, and Mary, who married Eustace III of Boulogne.

In 1072, with the Harrying of the North completed and his position again secure, William of Normandy came north with an army and a fleet. Malcolm met William at Abernethy and, in the words of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle "became his man" and handed over his eldest son Duncan as a hostage and arranged peace between William and Edgar.[44] Accepting the overlordship of the king of the English was no novelty, as previous kings had done so without result. The same was true of Malcolm; his agreement with the English king was followed by further raids into Northumbria, which led to further trouble in the earldom and the killing of Bishop William Walcher at Gateshead. In 1080, William sent his son Robert Curthose north with an army while his brother Odo punished the Northumbrians. Malcolm again made peace, and this time kept it for over a decade.[45]

Malcolm faced little recorded internal opposition, with the exception of Lulach's son Mâael Snechtai. In an unusual entry, for the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle contains little on Scotland, it says that in 1078:

Malcholom [Mâael Coluim] seized the mother of Mµlslµhtan [Mâael Snechtai] ... and all his treasures, and his cattle; and he himself escaped with difficulty.[46]

Whatever provoked this strife, Mâael Snechtai survived until 1085.[47]

Malcolm and William Rufus

William Rufus, "the Red", king of the English (1087–1100)
When William Rufus became king of England after his father's death, Malcolm did not intervene in the rebellions by supporters of Robert Curthose which followed. In 1091, William Rufus confiscated Edgar ¥theling's lands in England, and Edgar fled north to Scotland. In May, Malcolm marched south, not to raid and take slaves and plunder, but to besiege Newcastle, built by Robert Curthose in 1080. This appears to have been an attempt to advance the frontier south from the River Tweed to the River Tees. The threat was enough to bring the English king back from Normandy, where he had been fighting Robert Curthose. In September, learning of William Rufus's approaching army, Malcolm withdrew north and the English followed. Unlike in 1072, Malcolm was prepared to fight, but a peace was arranged by Edgar ¥theling and Robert Curthose whereby Malcolm again acknowledged the overlordship of the English king.[48]

In 1092, the peace began to break down. Based on the idea that the Scots controlled much of modern Cumbria, it had been supposed that William Rufus's new castle at Carlisle and his settlement of English peasants in the surrounds was the cause. It is unlikely that Malcolm controlled Cumbria, and the dispute instead concerned the estates granted to Malcolm by William Rufus's father in 1072 for his maintenance when visiting England. Malcolm sent messengers to discuss the question and William Rufus agreed to a meeting. Malcolm travelled south to Gloucester, stopping at Wilton Abbey to visit his daughter Edith and sister-in-law Cristina. Malcolm arrived there on 24 August 1093 to find that William Rufus refused to negotiate, insisting that the dispute be judged by the English barons. This Malcolm refused to accept, and returned immediately to Scotland.[49]

It does not appear that William Rufus intended to provoke a war,[50] but, as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports, war came:

For this reason therefore they parted with great dissatisfaction, and the King Malcolm returned to Scotland. And soon after he came home, he gathered his army, and came harrowing into England with more hostility than behoved him ....[51]

Malcolm was accompanied by Edward, his eldest son by Margaret and probable heir-designate (or tâanaiste), and by Edgar.[52] Even by the standards of the time, the ravaging of Northumbria by the Scots was seen as harsh.[53]

Death

Memorial cross said to mark the spot where King Malcolm III of Scotland was killed while besieging Alnwick Castle in 1093.
While marching north again, Malcolm was ambushed by Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumbria, whose lands he had devastated, near Alnwick on 13 November 1093. There he was killed by Arkil Morel, steward of Bamburgh Castle. The conflict became known as the Battle of Alnwick.[54] Edward was mortally wounded in the same fight. Margaret, it is said, died soon after receiving the news of their deaths from Edgar.[55] The Annals of Ulster say:

Mael Coluim son of Donnchad, over-king of Scotland, and Edward his son, were killed by the French [i.e. Normans] in Inber Alda in England. His queen, Margaret, moreover, died of sorrow for him within nine days.[56]

Malcolm's body was taken to Tynemouth Priory for burial. The king's body was sent north for reburial, in the reign of his son Alexander, at Dunfermline Abbey, or possibly Iona.[57]

On 19 June 1250, following the canonisation of Malcolm's wife Margaret by Pope Innocent IV, Margaret's remains were disinterred and placed in a reliquary. Tradition has it that as the reliquary was carried to the high altar of Dunfermline Abbey, past Malcolm's grave, it became too heavy to move. As a result, Malcolm's remains were also disinterred, and buried next to Margaret beside the altar.[58]

Issue

Malcolm and Ingibiorg had three sons:

Duncan II of Scotland, succeeded his father as King of Scotland
Donald, died ca.1094
Malcolm, died ca.1085
Malcolm and Margaret had eight children, six sons and two daughters:

Edward, killed 1093
Edmund of Scotland
Ethelred, abbot of Dunkeld
King Edgar of Scotland
King Alexander I of Scotland
King David I of Scotland
Edith of Scotland, also called Matilda, married King Henry I of England
Mary of Scotland, married Eustace III of Boulogne

end of biography

44401.

Notes:

Saint Margaret "Queen of Scotland" Ceannmore formerly Wessex aka Canmore, Mac Donnachadh, Dunkeld
Born 1045 in Wessex, England
ANCESTORS ancestors
Daughter of Edward (Wessex) of Wessex and Agatha (Unknown) Wessex
Sister of Cristina (of England) Wessex, Edgar (Wessex) Atheling and Aethlreda (Wessex) ¥theling
Wife of Malcolm (Dunkeld) of Scotland — married about 1069 in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland
DESCENDANTS descendants
Mother of Heth MacCrinan (Dunkeld) Earl of Fife, Edward (Dunkeld) of Scotland, Edmund Dunkeld, Aethelred (Dunkeld) Canmore, Edgar (Dunkeld) King of Scotland, Alexander mac Maâil Coluim (Dunkeld) of Scotland, Eadgith (Dunkeld) of Scotland, Mary (Dunkeld) Scotland and David (Dunkeld) of Scotland
Died 16 Nov 1093 in Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Mid-Lothian, Scotland

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Contents
[hide]
1 Biography
1.1 Early Life
1.2 Family
1.3 Death
1.4 Canonisation
2 Sources
Biography
Saint Margaret of Scotland also known as Margaret of Wessex

b. abt. 1045; Margaret may have been born in Hungary,[1] "Aldred Bishop of Worcester, ambassador of King Edward 'the Confessor', proposed to the emperor to send envoys to Hungary to bring back Edward and have him conducted to England."[2]
d. 16 November 1093
Early Life
Margaret's parents were Edward "the Exile" (1016 – Aug 1057) son of Edmund Ironside, and his wife, Agatha, who was related to Gisela, wife of St. Stephen of Hungary,[3] Agatha's origins are disputed.[4]

Her father returned to England in 1057 and died two days later. After the conquest of England by the Normans, she was returning with her mother Agatha to return to the Continent when a storm drove their ship to Scotland, where the king, Malcolm III received them.[3]

Family
Margaret married at Dunfermline Abbey, in 1070, Malcolm III "Caennmor/Bighead" King of Scotland as his second wife.[2] Issue:

Edward, killed at Alnwick defending father;
Ethelred, Earl of Fife, and Abbot of Dunkeld before its erection into a bishopric, and still under Columbite rule, who gave lands of Ardmore to the Culdees of Loch Leven. Buried at St Andrews;
Edmund, who once shared throne with uncle, Donald-bain; became a monk after Donald's deposition in the Cluniae Priory of Montague in Somersetshire, and died there in the odour of sanctity. —Sir James Balfour;
Edgar, who told his mother about his father's and brother's death at Dunfermline (Turgot, confessor and biographer);
Alexander I, surnamed Fierce, had the earldom of Innergoury - given by uncle (Donald-bain) at his baptism;
David I, the Saint;
Matilda m. Henry I, King of England;
Mary m. Eustace, Count de Bulloigne, (bros. Godfrey, King of Jerusalem). issue: "Matilda" m. Stephen, King of England; from Mary also descended the Dukes de Bulloigne, including the celebrated Turenne, General of Louis XIV;[5]
Death
Already ill when her son, Edmund, told her that her husband and eldest son died on 13 November 1093, Margaret died in Edinburgh Castle three days after them on 16 Nov 1093, some say of a broken heart.[2]

(Royal Ancestry) (Malcolm's) widow, Margaret, died at Edinburgh Castle 16 Nov. 1093, and was buried before the high altar in the church of the Holy Trinity at Dunfermline, Fife.

(Wikipedia) In 1250 her body and that of her husband were exhumed and placed in a new shrine in the Abbey. In 1560 Mary Queen of Scots had Margaret's head removed to Edinburgh Castle as a relic to assist her in childbirth. In 1597 the head ended up with the Jesuits at the Scots' College, Douai, France, but was lost during the French Revolution. Philip II of Spain had the other remains of Margaret and her husband Malcolm transferred to the Escorial in Madrid (royal mausoleum), but they cannot now be found. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Margaret_of_Scotland)

Canonisation
Maragaret was canonised in the year 1250, by Pope Innocent IV. In 1969, her veneration day was changed to the date of her death--16 Nov. 1093. She was already ill when her son, Edmund, told her of her husband and eldest son's death. Margaret died in Edinburgh Castle nine days later, some say of a broken heart.[2]

(Royal Ancestry) She was canonized by Pope Innocent IV in 1250.

Sources
Royal Ancestry 2013 Vol. IV p. 576-578
? If she was bornin Hungary, there should be a source that she was born at Castle Reka, Mecseknaddasd, Hungary in 1054
? 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Charles Cawley, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy (FMG), KINGS of WESSEX 802-944, KINGS of ENGLAND 944-1066, Medieval Lands, 2006-15, accessed 20 July 2015.
? 3.0 3.1 Huddleston, Gilbert. "St. Margaret of Scotland." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 20 July 2015 .
? Wikipedia: Edward the Exile, accessed 20 July 2015.
? Douglas, D. (1899). Scottish kings: A revised chronology of Scottish history, 1005-1625. Edinburgh. archive.org.
See also:

Post, W.E. (1999). Saints, Signs and Symbols, (2nd, ed. pp.47). Essex: Hart-Talbot Printers, Ltd.
Wikipedia contributors, "Saint Margaret of Scotland," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Saint_Margaret_of_Scotland&oldid=788950538 (accessed August 1, 2017).

end of this biography

Saint Margaret of Scotland (c. 1045 - 16 November 1093), also known as Margaret of Wessex, was an English princess and a Scottish queen. Margaret was sometimes called "The Pearl of Scotland".[1] Born in exile in the Kingdom of Hungary, she was the sister of Edgar ¥theling, the shortly reigned and uncrowned Anglo-Saxon King of England. Margaret and her family returned to the Kingdom of England in 1057, but fled to the Kingdom of Scotland following the Norman conquest of England in 1066. By the end of 1070, Margaret had married King Malcolm III of Scotland, becoming Queen of Scots. She was a very pious Roman Catholic, and among many charitable works she established a ferry across the Firth of Forth in Scotland for pilgrims travelling to St Andrews in Fife, which gave the towns of South Queensferry and North Queensferry their names. Margaret was the mother of three kings of Scotland, or four, if Edmund of Scotland, who ruled with his uncle, Donald III, is counted, and of a queen consort of England. According to the Vita S. Margaritae (Scotorum) Reginae (Life of St. Margaret, Queen (of the Scots)), attributed to Turgot of Durham, she died at Edinburgh Castle in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1093, merely days after receiving the news of her husband's death in battle. In 1250 Pope Innocent IV canonized her, and her remains were reinterred in a shrine in Dunfermline Abbey in Fife, Scotland. Her relics were dispersed after the Scottish Reformation and subsequently lost. Mary, Queen of Scots at one time owned her head, which was subsequently preserved by Jesuits in the Scottish College, Douai, France, from where it was subsequently lost during the French Revolution.

Queen consort of Scotland
Tenure 1070-93
Born c.?1045
Kingdom of Hungary
Died 16 November 1093
Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Kingdom of Scotland
Burial Dunfermline Abbey, Fife, Kingdom of Scotland
Spouse Malcolm III, King of Scotland
Issue
more... Edmund, Bishop of Dunkeld
Ethelred
Edgar, King of Scotland
Alexander I, King of Scotland
David I, King of Scotland
Matilda, Queen of England
Mary, Countess of Boulogne
House Wessex
Father Edward the Exile
Mother Agatha

Early life

Margaret from a medieval family tree.
Margaret was the daughter of the English prince Edward the Exile, and granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, King of England.[1] After the Danish conquest of England in 1016, King Canute the Great had the infant Edward exiled to the continent. He was taken first to the court of the Swedish king, Olof Skèotkonung, and then to Kiev. As an adult, he travelled to Hungary, where in 1046 he supported the successful bid of King Andrew I for the Hungarian crown. King Andrew I was then also known as "Andrew the Catholic" for his extreme aversion to pagans and great loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church. The provenance of Margaret's mother, Agatha, is disputed, but Margaret was born in Hungary c. 1045. Her brother Edgar the ¥theling and sister Cristina were also born in Hungary around this time. Margaret grew up in a very religious environment in the Hungarian court.

Return to England

Still a child, she came to England with the rest of her family when her father, Edward the Exile, was recalled in 1057 as a possible successor to her great-uncle, the childless King Edward the Confessor. Whether from natural or sinister causes, her father died immediately after landing, and Margaret continued to reside at the English court where her brother, Edgar ¥theling, was considered a possible successor to the English throne.[1] When Edward the Confessor died in January 1066, Harold Godwinson was selected as king, possibly because Edgar was considered too young. After Harold's defeat at the Battle of Hastings later that year, Edgar was proclaimed King of England, but when the Normans advanced on London, the Witenagemot presented Edgar to William the Conqueror, who took him to Normandy before returning him to England in 1068, when Edgar, Margaret, Cristina, and their mother Agatha fled north to Northumbria, England.

Journey to Scotland

According to tradition, the widowed Agatha decided to leave Northumbria, England with her children and return to the continent. However, a storm drove their ship north to the Kingdom of Scotland in 1068, where they sought the protection of King Malcolm III. The locus where it is believed that they landed is known today as St Margaret's Hope, near the village of North Queensferry, Fife, Scotland. Margaret's arrival in Scotland, after the failed revolt of the Northumbrian earls, has been heavily romanticized, though Symeon of Durham implied that her first meeting of Malcolm III may not have been until 1070, after William the Conqueror's Harrying of the North.

King Malcolm III was a widower with two sons, Donald and Duncan. He would have been attracted to marrying one of the few remaining members of the Anglo-Saxon royal family. The marriage of Malcolm and Margaret occurred in 1070. Subsequently, Malcolm executed several invasions of Northumberland to support the claim of his new brother-in-law Edgar and to increase his own power. These, however, had little effect save the devastation of the County.[2]

Progeny

Margaret and Malcolm had eight children, six sons and two daughters:

Edward (c. 1071 — 13 November 1093), killed along with his father Malcolm III in the Battle of Alnwick
Edmund of Scotland (c.1071 – post 1097)
Ethelred of Scotland, Abbot of Dunkeld, Perth and Kinross, Scotland
Edgar of Scotland (c.1074 — 11 January 1107), King of Scotland, regnat 1097-1107
Alexander I of Scotland (c.1078 — 23 April 1124), King of Scotland, regnat 1107-24
Edith of Scotland (c. 1080 – 1 May 1118), also named "Matilda", married King Henry I of England, Queen Consort of England
Mary of Scotland (1082-1116), married Eustace III of Boulogne
David I of Scotland (c.1083 – 24 May 1153), King of Scotland, regnat 1124-53

Piety

Malcolm greeting Margaret at her arrival in Scotland; detail of a mural by Victorian artist William Hole
Margaret's biographer Turgot of Durham, Bishop of St. Andrew's, credits her with having a civilizing influence on her husband Malcolm by reading him narratives from the Bible. She instigated religious reform, striving to conform the worship and practices of the Church in Scotland to those of Rome. This she did on the inspiration and with the guidance of Lanfranc, a future Archbishop of Canterbury.[3] She also worked to conform the practices of the Scottish Church to those of the continental Church, which she experienced in her childhood. Due to these achievements, she was considered an exemplar of the "just ruler", and moreover influenced her husband and children, especially her youngest son, the future King David I of Scotland, to be just and holy rulers.

"The chroniclers all agree in depicting Queen Margaret as a strong, pure, noble character, who had very great influence over her husband, and through him over Scottish history, especially in its ecclesiastical aspects. Her religion, which was genuine and intense, was of the newest Roman style; and to her are attributed a number of reforms by which the Church [in] Scotland was considerably modified from the insular and primitive type which down to her time it had exhibited. Among those expressly mentioned are a change in the manner of observing Lent, which thenceforward began as elsewhere on Ash Wednesday and not as previously on the following Monday, and the abolition of the old practice of observing Saturday (Sabbath), not Sunday, as the day of rest from labour (see Skene's Celtic Scotland, book ii chap. 8)."[4] The later editions of the Encyclopµdia Britannica, however, as an example, the Eleventh Edition, remove Skene's opinion that Scottish Catholics formerly rested from work on Saturday, something for which there is no historical evidence. Skene's Celtic Scotland, vol. ii, chap. 8, pp. 348–350, quotes from a contemporary document regarding Margaret's life, but his source says nothing at all of Saturday Sabbath observance, but rather says St. Margaret exhorted the Scots to cease their tendency "to neglect the due observance of the Lord's day."

She attended to charitable works, serving orphans and the poor every day before she ate and washing the feet of the poor in imitation of Christ. She rose at midnight every night to attend the liturgy. She successfully invited the Benedictine Order to establish a monastery in Dunfermline, Fife in 1072, and established ferries at Queensferry and North Berwick to assist pilgrims journeying from south of the Firth of Forth to St. Andrew's in Fife. She used a cave on the banks of the Tower Burn in Dunfermline as a place of devotion and prayer. St. Margaret's Cave, now covered beneath a municipal car park, is open to the public.[5] Among other deeds, Margaret also instigated the restoration of Iona Abbey in Scotland.[6] She is also known to have interceded for the release of fellow English exiles who had been forced into serfdom by the Norman conquest of England.[7]

Margaret was as pious privately as she was publicly. She spent much of her time in prayer, devotional reading, and ecclesiastical embroidery. This apparently had considerable effect on the more uncouth Malcolm, who was illiterate: he so admired her piety that he had her books decorated in gold and silver. One of these, a pocket gospel book with portraits of the Evangelists, is in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England.[8]

Malcolm was apparently largely ignorant of the long-term effects of Margaret's endeavours, not being especially religious himself. He was content for her to pursue her reforms as she desired, which was a testament to the strength of and affection in their marriage.[6]

Death

Her husband Malcolm III, and their eldest son Edward, were killed in the Battle of Alnwick against the English on 13 November 1093. Her son Edgar was left with the task of informing his mother of their deaths. Margaret was not yet 50 years old, but a life of constant austerity and fasting had taken its toll.[3] Already ill, Margaret died on 16 November 1093, three days after the deaths of her husband and eldest son. She was buried before the high altar in Dunfermline Abbey in Fife, Scotland. In 1250, the year of her canonization, her body and that of her husband were exhumed and placed in a new shrine in the Abbey. In 1560 Mary Queen of Scots had Margaret's head removed to Edinburgh Castle as a relic to assist her in childbirth. In 1597 Margaret's head ended up with the Jesuits at the Scottish College, Douai, France, but was lost during the French Revolution. King Philip of Spain had the other remains of Margaret and Malcolm III transferred to the Escorial palace in Madrid, Spain, but their present location has not been discovered.[9]

Veneration

Site of the ruined Shrine of St. Margaret at Dunfermline Abbey, Fife, Scotland

St Margaret's Chapel in Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland

St Margaret's Church in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland
Canonization and feast day[edit]
Pope Innocent IV canonized St. Margaret in 1250 in recognition of her personal holiness, fidelity to the Roman Catholic Church, work for ecclesiastical reform, and charity. On 19 June 1250, after her canonisation, her remains were transferred to a chapel in the eastern apse of Dunfermline Abbey in Fife, Scotland.[10] In 1693 Pope Innocent XII moved her feast day to 10 June in recognition of the birthdate of the son of James VII of Scotland and II of England.[11] In the revision of the General Roman Calendar in 1969, 16 November became free and the Church transferred her feast day to 16 November, the date of her death, on which it always had been observed in Scotland.[12] However, some traditionalist Catholics continue to celebrate her feast day on 10 June.

She is also venerated as a saint in the Anglican Church.

Institutions bearing her name

Several churches throughout the world are dedicated in honour of St Margaret. One of the oldest is St Margaret's Chapel in Edinburgh Castle in Edinburgh, Scotland, which her son King David I founded. The Chapel was long thought to have been the oratory of Margaret herself, but is now thought to have been established in the 12th century. The oldest edifice in Edinburgh, it was restored in the 19th century and refurbished in the 1990s. Numerous other institutions are named for her as well.

end of this biography

Notes:

Married:
She is part of the English royal family fleeing the Normans after 1066.

Children:

24195. Matilda of Scotland, Queen of England was born in 1080 in Dumfermline, Scotland; died on 1 May 1118 in Westminster Palace, Westminster, London, Middlesex, England; was buried in Westminster Abbey, 20 Deans Yd, London SW1P 3PA, United Kingdom.
Mary of Scotland was born in 1082 in Dumfermline, Scotland; died in 1116.
David I of Scotland, King of the Scots was born in ~1085 in Dumfermline, Scotland; died on 24 May 1154 in Carlisle, Scotland; was buried in Dunfermline Abbey, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland.

Generation: 20

387104.

Notes:

Richard I (28 August 932 – 20 November 996), also known as Richard the Fearless (French: Richard Sans-Peur; Old Norse: Jarl Richart), was the Count of Rouen or Jarl of Rouen from 942 to 996.[1] Dudo of Saint-Quentin, whom Richard commissioned to write the "De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum" (Latin, "On the Customs and Deeds of the First Dukes of Normandy"), called him a Dux. However, this use of the word may have been in the context of Richard's renowned leadership in war, and not as a reference to a title of nobility.[2][3] Richard either introduced feudalism into Normandy or he greatly expanded it. By the end of his reign, most important Norman landholders held their lands in feudal tenure.[4]

Birth
Richard was born to William Longsword, princeps (chieftain or ruler)[5] of Normandy, and Sprota.[1] His mother was a Breton concubine captured in war and bound to William by a more danico marriage.[6] He was also the grandson of the famous Rollo. William was told of the birth of a son after the battle with Riouf and other Viking rebels, but his existence was kept secret until a few years later when William Longsword first met his son Richard. After kissing the boy and declaring him his heir, William sent Richard to be raised in Bayeux.[7] Richard was about ten years old when his father was killed on 17 December 942.[1] After William was killed, Sprota became the wife of Esperleng, a wealthy miller. Rodulf of Ivry was their son and Richard's half-brother.[8]

Life
With the death of Richard's father in 942, King Louis IV of France installed the boy, Richard, in his father's office. Under the influence of Arnulf I, Count of Flanders the King took him into Frankish territory[9]:32–4 and placing him in the custody of the count of Ponthieu before the King reneged and seized the lands of the Duchy of Normandy.[10] He then split up the Duchy, giving its lands in lower Normandy to Hugh the Great. Louis IV thereafter kept Richard in close confinement at Lãaon,[11] but the youth escaped from imprisonment[9]:36–7 with assistance of Osmond de Centville, Bernard de Senlis (who had been a companion of Rollo of Normandy), Ivo de Belláesme, and Bernard the Dane[12] (ancestor to the families of Harcourt and Beaumont).[a]

In 946, at the age of 14, Richard allied himself with the Norman and Viking leaders in France and with men sent by King Harold of Denmark. A battle was fought after which Louis IV was captured. Hostages were taken and held until King Louis recognised Richard as Duke, returning Normandy to him.[9]:37–41 Richard agreed to "commend" himself to Hugh, the Count of Paris, Hugh resolved to form a permanent alliance with Richard and promised his daughter Emma, who was just a child, as a bride, the marriage would take place in 960.[9]:41–2

Louis IV working with Arnulf I, Count of Flanders persuaded Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor to attack Richard and Hugh. The combined armies of Otto, Arnulf and Louis IV were driven from the gates of Rouen, fleeing to Amiens and being decisively defeated in 947.[9]:41–2[13] A period of peace ensued, Louis IV dying in 954, 13 year old Lothair becoming King. The middle aged Hugh appointed Richard as guardian of his 15-year-old son, Hugh Capet in 955.[9]:44

In 962, Theobald I, Count of Blois, attempted a renewed invasion of Rouen, Richard's stronghold, but his troops were summarily routed by Normans under Richard's command, and forced to retreat before ever having crossed the Seine river.[14][15] Lothair, the king of the West Franks, was fearful that Richard's retaliation could destabilize a large part of West Francia so he stepped in to prevent any further war between the two.[16] In 987 Hugh Capet became King of the Franks.

For the last 30 years until his death in 996 in Fâecamp, Richard concentrated on Normandy itself, and participated less in Frankish politics and its petty wars. In lieu of building up the Norman Empire by expansion, he stabilized the realm and reunited the Normans, forging the reclaimed Duchy of his father and grandfather into West Francia's most cohesive and formidable principality.[17]

Richard was succeeded in November 996 by his 33-year-old son, Richard II, Duke of Normandy.

Relationships with France, England and the Church
Richard used marriage to build strong alliances. His marriage to Emma of Paris connected him directly to the House of Capet. His second wife, Gunnora, from a rival Viking group in the Cotentin, formed an alliance to that group, while her sisters formed the core group that were to provide loyal followers to him and his successors.[18]

His daughters forged valuable marriage alliances with powerful neighboring counts as well as to the king of England.[18] Emma marrying firstly ¥thelred the Unready and after his death in 1016, the invader, Cnut the Great. Her children included three English kings, Edward the Confessor, Alfred Aetheling and with Cnut, Harthacnut so completing a major link between the Duke of Normandy and the Crown of England that would add validity to the claim by the future William the Conqueror to the throne of England.

Richard also built on his relationship with the church, undertaking acts of piety,[19]:lv restoring their lands and ensuring the great monasteries flourished in Normandy. His further reign was marked by an extended period of peace and tranquility.[18][20]

Marriages

Richard & his children
His first marriage in 960 was to Emma, daughter of Hugh "The Great" of France,[1][21] and Hedwig von Sachsen.[21] They were betrothed when both were very young. She died after 19 March 968, with no issue.[1]

According to Robert of Torigni, not long after Emma's death, Duke Richard went out hunting and stopped at the house of a local forester. He became enamored with the forester's wife, Seinfreda, but she was a virtuous woman and suggested he court her unmarried sister, Gunnor, instead. Gunnor became his mistress and her family rose to prominence. Her brother, Herfast de Crepon, may have been involved in a controversial heresy trial. Gunnor was, like Richard, of Viking descent, being a Dane by blood. Richard finally married her to legitimize their children:[b]

Richard II "the Good", Duke of Normandy[1]
Robert, Archbishop of Rouen, Count of Evreux[1]
Mauger, Count of Corbeil[1]
Emma of Normandy, wife of two kings of England[1]
Maud of Normandy, wife of Odo II of Blois, Count of Blois, Champagne and Chartres[1]
Hawise of Normandy m. Geoffrey I, Duke of Brittany[1]
Papia of Normandy
Orielda (963-1031) wife of Fulk Seigneur de Guernanville, Dean of Evreax [22][23]
Illegitimate children

Richard was known to have had several other mistresses and had children with many of them. Known children are:

Geoffrey, Count of Eu[1][24]
William, Count of Eu (ca. 972-26 January 1057/58),[24] m. Lasceline de Turqueville (d. 26 January 1057/58).
Beatrice of Normandy, Abbess of Montvilliers d.1034 m. Ebles of Turenne[1] (d.1030 (divorced)
Possible children
Muriella, married Tancred de Hauteville[1][25][26]
Fressenda or Fredesenda (ca. 995-ca. 1057), second wife of Tancred de Hauteville.[1][26][27]
Guimara (Wimarc(a)) (b. circa 986), died Abbey of Montivilliers, Seine-Inferieure, Normandy, wife of Ansfred (Ansfroi) II "le Dane" le Goz, vicomte of Exmes and Falaise, mother of Robert FitzWimarc[28]
Death
Richard died of natural causes in Fecamp, France, on 20 November 996.[29]

Depictions in fiction
The Little Duke, a Victorian juvenile novel by Charlotte Mary Yonge, is a fictionalized account of Richard's boyhood and early struggles.

Count of Rouen
Reign 17 December 942 – 20 November 996
Predecessor William Longsword
Successor Richard II
Born 28 August 932
Fâecamp Normandy, France
Died 20 November 996 (aged 64)
Fâecamp Normandy, France
Spouse Emma of Paris
Gunnor
Issue Richard II of Normandy
Robert II (Archbishop of Rouen)
Mauger, Count of Corbeil
Robert Danus
Willam?
Emma of Normandy
Maud of Normandy
Hawise of Normandy
Geoffrey, Count of Eu (illegitimate)
William, Count of Eu (illegitimate)
Beatrice of Normandy (illegitimate)
Robert (illegitimate)
Papia (illegitimate)
House House of Normandy
Father William I Longsword
Mother Sprota

end of biography

387105.

Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy was born in 936-941 in Rouen, France (daughter of Harold Gormsen, VII, King of Denmark and Gunhild von Denmark); died on 5 Jan 1031 in Normandie, France.

Notes:

Gunnora (or Gunnor) (circa 936 – 5 Jan 1031) was a Duchess of Normandy and the wife of Richard I of Normandy.

Life

The names of Gunnora's parents are unknown, but Robert of Torigni wrote that her father was a forester from the Pays de Caux and according to Dudo of Saint-Quentin she was of noble Danish origin.[2] Gunnora was probably born c.? 950.[3] Her family held sway in western Normandy and Gunnora herself was said to be very wealthy.[4] Her marriage to Richard I was of great political importance, both to her husband[b] and her progeny.[5] Her brother, Herfast de Crepon, was progenitor of a great Norman family.[4] Her sisters and nieces[c] married some of the most important nobles in Normandy.[6]

Robert of Torigni recounts a story of how Richard met Gunnora.[7] She was living with her sister Seinfreda, the wife of a local forester, when Richard, hunting nearby, heard of the beauty of the forester's wife. He is said to have ordered Seinfreda to come to his bed, but the lady substituted her unmarried sister, Gunnora. Richard, it is said, was pleased that by this subterfuge he had been saved from committing adultery and together they had three sons and three daughters.[d][8] Unlike other territorial rulers, the Normans recognized marriage by cohabitation or more danico. But when Richard was prevented from nominating their son Robert to be Archbishop of Rouen, the two were married, "according to the Christian custom", making their children legitimate in the eyes of the church.[8]

Gunnora attested ducal charters up into the 1020s, was skilled in languages and was said to have had an excellent memory.[9] She was one of the most important sources of information on Norman history for Dudo of St. Quentin.[10] As Richard's widow she is mentioned accompanying her sons on numerous occasions.[9] That her husband depended on her is shown in the couple's charters where she is variously regent of Normandy, a mediator and judge, and in the typical role of a medieval aristocratic mother, an arbitrator between her husband and their oldest son Richard II.[9]

Gunnora was a founder and supporter of Coutances Cathedral and laid its first stone.[11] In one of her own charters after Richard's death she gave two alods to the abbey of Mont Saint-Michel, namely Britavilla and Domjean, given to her by her husband in dower, which she gave for the soul of her husband, and the weal of her own soul and that of her sons "count Richard, archbishop Robert, and others..."[12] She also attested a charter, c.?1024–26, to that same abbey by her son, Richard II, shown as Gonnor matris comitis (mother of the count).[13] Gunnora, both as wife and countess,[e] was able to use her influence to see her kin favored, and several of the most prominent Anglo-Norman families on both sides of the English Channel are descended from her, her sisters and nieces.[9] Gunnora died c.?1031.[3]

Family

Richard and Gunnora were parents to several children:

Richard II "the Good", Duke of Normandy[14]
Robert, Archbishop of Rouen, Count of Evreux, died 1037[14]
Mauger, Count of Corbeil[14]
Emma of Normandy (c.?985–1052), married first to ¥thelred, King of England and secondly Cnut the Great, King of England.[14]
Hawise of Normandy, wife of Geoffrey I, Duke of Brittany[14]
Maud of Normandy, wife of Odo II of Blois, Count of Blois, Champagne and Chartres[14]

end of biography

Children:

385096. Richard de Normandie, II was born on 23 Aug 963 in Normandie, France; died on 28 Aug 1027 in Normandie, France.
Emma of Normandy, Queen consort of England was born in ~985 in Normandie, France; died on 6 Mar 1052 in Winchester, Hampshire, England; was buried in Winchester Cathedral, Winchester, Hampshire, England.
355300. Robert d'Evereux, Comte d'Evreux was born in Normandie, France; died on 16 Mar 1037 in Seine-Inferieure, Normandy, France.
Hawise of Normandy, Duchess of Brittany

387106.

Conan of Rennes, I, Count of Rennes, Duke of Brittany was born in 927 in (Rennes, France); died on 27 Jun 992.

Notes:

Conan I le Tort of Rennes, Count of Rennes, Duke of Brittany, was born 927 to Judicael Berengar (-bef979) and died 27 June 992 at the Battle of Conquereuil of unspecified causes. He married Ermengarde of Anjou (bef967-) .

Conan may have married his second cousin once removed: Herbert I, Count of Vermandois (c848-907) may have been his great-grandfather and was his wife's great-great-grandfather.

Conan married Ermengarde of Anjou. Ermengarde (daughter of Geoffrey of Anjou and Adele of Meaux) was born before 967 in (Anjou, France). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

387107.

Ermengarde of Anjou was born before 967 in (Anjou, France) (daughter of Geoffrey of Anjou and Adele of Meaux).

Children:

193553. Judith de Bretagne was born in 982 in Rennes, France; died in 1017 in Normandy, France.

708708.

Kenneth II of Scotland, King of Alba was born in 932 in Scotland (son of Malcolm I of Scotland, King of Alba and unnamed spouse); died in 995 in Fettercairn, Scotland; was buried in Isle of Iona, Scotland.

Notes:

Kenneth II (a.k.a. Cinâaed mac Maâil Choluim) lived from 932 to 995 and was King of Alba from 971 to 995. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline. Kenneth was the son of Malcolm I and brother to King Duff, who had ruled until 966. He became King of Alba on the killing of his predecessor, King Culen, by the Britons of Strathclyde, though it was no until he killed Culen's brother Amlaib in 977 that he was able to rule unchallenged.

Kenneth II spent much of his reign in conflict. He first fought the Britons of Strathclyde, before turning his attention to Northumbria, where he further secured Alba's hold on the lands between the River Forth and the River Tweed against the ever present threat of King Edgar's English forces.

In the north, Scottish claims were being constantly challenged by Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, and much of Caithness, Easter Ross and Inverness-Shire were under Viking control. Kenneth strengthened his ties with the Irish nobility by marrying a Princess of Leinster. They had at least one son, who went on to become Malcolm II.

After a reign of 24 years Kenneth was killed in Fettercairn. According to the chronciles of John of Fordun, this was as a result of a plot mounted by Lady Finella, the daughter of the Earl of Angus. After the murder Finella fled to St Cyrus before being caught and executed. Kenneth II was buried in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel on the Isle of Iona. Kenneth II was succeeded by his third cousin Constantine III, son of King Culen.

end of biography

Cinâaed mac Maâil Coluim (Modern Gaelic: Coinneach mac Mhaoil Chaluim[1] anglicised as Kenneth II, and nicknamed An Fionnghalach, "The Fratricide";[2] died 995) was King of Scots (Alba). The son of Malcolm I (Mâael Coluim mac Domnaill), he succeeded King Cuilâen (Cuilâen mac Iduilb) on the latter's death at the hands of Rhydderch ap Dyfnwal in 971.

Primary sources

The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba was compiled in Kenneth's reign, but many of the place names mentioned are entirely corrupt, if not fictitious.[3] Whatever the reality, the Chronicle states that "[h]e immediately plundered [Strathclyde] in part. Kenneth's infantry were slain with very great slaughter in Moin Uacoruar." The Chronicle further states that Kenneth plundered Northumbria three times, first as far as Stainmore, then to Cluiam and lastly to the River Dee by Chester. These raids may belong to around 980, when the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records attacks on Cheshire.[4]

In 973, the Chronicle of Melrose reports that Kenneth, with Mâael Coluim I (Mâael Coluim mac Domnaill), the King of Strathclyde, "Maccus, king of very many islands" (i.e. Magnus Haraldsson (Maccus mac Arailt), King of Mann and the Isles) and other kings, Welsh and Norse, came to Chester to acknowledge the overlordship of the English king Edgar the Peaceable[5] at a council in Chester. It may be that Edgar here regulated the frontier between the southern lands of the kingdom of Alba and the northern lands of his English kingdom. Cumbria was English, the western frontier lay on the Solway. In the east, the frontier lay somewhere in later Lothian, south of Edinburgh.[6]

The Annals of Tigernach, in an aside, name three of the Mormaers of Alba in Kenneth's reign in entry in 976: Cellach mac Fâindgaine, Cellach mac Baireda and Donnchad mac Morgaâind. The third of these, if not an error for Domnall mac Morgaâind, is very likely a brother of Domnall, and thus the Mormaer of Moray. The Mormaerdoms or kingdoms ruled by the two Cellachs cannot be identified.

The feud which had persisted since the death of King Indulf (Idulb mac Causantâin) between his descendants and Kenneth's family persisted. In 977 the Annals of Ulster report that "Amlaâib mac Iduilb [Amlaâib, son of Indulf], King of Scotland, was killed by Cinâaed mac Domnaill." The Annals of Tigernach give the correct name of Amlaâib's killer: Cinâaed mac Maâil Coluim, or Kenneth II. Thus, even if only for a short time, Kenneth had been overthrown by the brother of the previous king.[7]

Adam of Bremen tells that Sweyn Forkbeard found exile in Scotland at this time, but whether this was with Kenneth, or one of the other kings in Scotland, is unknown. Also at this time, Njal's Saga, the Orkneyinga Saga and other sources recount wars between "the Scots" and the Northmen, but these are more probably wars between Sigurd Hlodvisson, Earl of Orkney, and the Mormaers, or Kings, of Moray.[8]

The Chronicle says that Kenneth founded a great monastery at Brechin.

Kenneth was killed in 995, the Annals of Ulster say "by deceit" and the Annals of Tigernach say "by his subjects". Some later sources, such as the Chronicle of Melrose, John of Fordun and Andrew of Wyntoun provide more details, accurately or not. The simplest account is that he was killed by his own men in Fettercairn, through the treachery of Finnguala (also called Fimberhele or Fenella), daughter of Cuncar, Mormaer of Angus, in revenge for the killing of her only son.[9]

The Prophecy of Berchâan adds little to our knowledge, except that it names Kenneth "the kinslayer", and states he died in Strathmore.[10]

Children

Kenneth's son Malcolm II (Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda) was later king of Alba. Kenneth may have had a second son, named either Dâungal or Gille Coemgâain.[11] Sources differ as to whether Boite mac Cinâaeda should be counted a son of Kenneth II or of Kenneth III (Cinâaed mac Duib).[12] Another son of Kenneth may have been Suibne mac Cinâaeda, a king of the Gall Gaidheil who died in 1034.
Interpretation

Kenneth's rival Amlaâib, King of Scotland is omitted by the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba and later Scottish king-lists. The Irish Annals of Tigernach appear to better reflect contemporary events. Amlaâib could be a direct predecessor of Kenneth who suffered damnatio memoriae, or the rival king recognized in parts of Scotland. A period of divided kingship appears likely.[13]

Amlaâib was the heir of his brother Cuilâen, who was killed in a hall-burning. He might have served as a regent north of the River Forth, during the absence of his brother. Kenneth was brother to the deceased Dub, King of Scotland and was most likely an exile. He could claim the throne due to the support of friends and maternal kin. He was likely older and more experienced than his rival king.[13] Amlaâib is the Gaelic form of Ólâafr, suggesting maternal descent from Norsemen. He could possibly claim descent from the Uâi Ímair dynasty. Alex Woolf suggests he was a grandson of Amlaâib Cuarâan, King of Dublin or his cousin Olaf Guthfrithson, which suggests his own group of supporters.[13]

Death

According to John of Fordun (14th century), Kenneth II of Scotland (reigned 971-995) attempted to change the succession rules, allowing "the nearest survivor in blood to the deceased king to succeed", thus securing the throne for his own descendants. He reportedly did so to specifically exclude Constantine (III) and Kenneth (III), called Gryme in this source. The two men then jointly conspired against him, convincing Lady Finella, daughter of Cuncar, Mormaer of Angus, to kill the king. She reportedly did so to achieve personal revenge, as Kenneth II had killed her own son. Entries in the Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, collected by William Forbes Skene, provide the account of Finnela killing Kenneth II in revenge, but not her affiliation to Constantine or his cousins. These entries date to the 12th and 13th centuries.[14][15] The Annals of Ulster simply record "Cinaed son of Mael Coluim [Kenneth, son of Malcolm], king of Scotland, was deceitfully killed", with no indication of who killed him.[16][17]

In the account of John of Fordun, Constantine the Bald, son of King Cullen and Gryme were "plotting unceasingly the death of the king and his son". One day, Kenneth II and his companions went hunting into the woods, "at no great distance from his own abode". The hunt took him to Fettercairn, where Finella resided. She approached him to proclaim her loyalty and invited him to visit her residence, whispering into his ear that she had information about a conspiracy plot. She managed to lure him to "an out-of-the-way little cottage", where a booby trap was hidden. Inside the cottage was a statue, connected by strings to a number of crossbows. If anyone touched or moved the statue, he would trigger the crossbows and fall victim to their arrows. Kenneth II gently touched the statue and "was shot though by arrows sped from all sides, and fell without uttering another word." Finella escaped through the woods and managed to join her abettors, Constantine III and Gryme. The hunting companions soon discovered the bloody king. They were unable to locate Finella, but burned Fettercairn to the ground.[18] Smyth dismisses the elaborate plotting and the mechanical contraption as mere fables, but accepts the basic details of the story, that the succession plans of Kenneth II caused his assassination.[19] Alan Orr Anderson raised his own doubts concerning the story of Finella, which he considered "semi-mythical". He noted that the feminine name Finnguala or Findguala means "white shoulders", but suggested it derived from "find-ela" (white swan). The name figures in toponyms such as Finella Hill (near Fordoun) and Finella Den (near St Cyrus), while local tradition in The Mearns (Kincardineshire) has Finella walking atop the treetops from one location to the other. Anderson thus theorized that Finella could be a mythical figure, suggesting she was a local stream-goddess.[20] A later passage of John of Fordun mentions Finele as mother of Macbeth, King of Scotland (reigned 1040–1057), but this is probably an error based on the similarity of names. Macbeth was son of Findlâaech of Moray, not of a woman called Finella.[20][21]

end of biography

Buried:
in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel... https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/iona/storanschapel/index.html

View images and more history of St Oran's; https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/iona/storanschapel/index.html, (images: https://www.google.com/search?q=Saint+Oran%27s+Chapel+image&client=firefox-b-1-ab&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjcxPKjgIraAhUL71MKHcCmCYoQ7AkIQA&biw=1224&bih=826)

Kenneth married a Princess of Leinster. a was born in (Leinster, Ireland); died in (Scotland). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

708709.

a Princess of Leinster was born in (Leinster, Ireland); died in (Scotland).

Children:

354354. Malcolm II of Scotland, High King of Scotland was born in ~0954 in Scotland; died on 25 Nov 1034 in Glamis, Scotland; was buried in Isle of Iona, Scotland.

193552.

Richard de Normandie, II was born on 23 Aug 963 in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, I and Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy); died on 28 Aug 1027 in Normandie, France.

Notes:

Richard II of Normandy, Duke of Normandy, was born 23 August 963 in Normandy, France to Richard I, Duke of Normandy (933-996) and Gunnora, Duchess of Normandy (c936-1031) and died 28 August 1027 in Normandy, France of unspecified causes. He married Judith of Brittany (982-1017) 996 JL . He married Papia of Envermeu . Ancestors are from France.
Contents[show]

Children

Offspring of Richard II of Normandy and Judith of Brittany (982-1017)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Richard III of Normandy (997-1027) 997 1027 Adáele of France (1009-1079)

Adelaide of Normandy (1002-1038) 1002 1038 Renaud I de Bourgogne (c990-1057)

Robert II, Duke of Normandy (c1000-1035) 1000 Normandy, France 22 July 1035 Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050)
Estrid of Normandy (1001)

William of Normandy (c1008-aft1025) 1008 1025
Eleanor of Normandy (c1012-aft1071) 1012 1071 Baldwin IV of Flanders (980-1036)

Matilda of Normandy (c1014-aft1033) 1014 1033

Offspring of Richard II of Normandy and Papia of Envermeu
Name Birth Death Joined with
Mauger de Rouen (c1019-c1055) 1019 1055
Guillaume de Talou (c1022-aft1054) 1022 1054 Beatrice de Ponthieu (c1035-c1082)

Noteworthy descendants include

Henry II of England (1133-1189)
William I of England (1027-1087)
Namesakes of Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027)

193553.

Judith de Bretagne was born in 982 in Rennes, France (daughter of Conan of Rennes, I, Count of Rennes, Duke of Brittany and Ermengarde of Anjou); died in 1017 in Normandy, France.

Notes:

Judith of Brittany was born 982 to Conan I of Rennes (927-992) and Ermengarde of Anjou (bef967-) and died 1017 of unspecified causes. She married Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027) 996 JL . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]
Judith is a 10th generation descendant of Charlemagne (747-814) through her mother. There are two disputed lines (through her father and her maternal grandfather) that place her in generations 9.

Children

Offspring of Judith of Brittany and Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Richard III of Normandy (997-1027) 997 1027 Adáele of France (1009-1079)

Adelaide of Normandy (1002-1038) 1002 1038 Renaud I de Bourgogne (c990-1057)

Robert II, Duke of Normandy (c1000-1035) 1000 Normandy, France 22 July 1035 Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050)
Estrid of Normandy (1001)

William of Normandy (c1008-aft1025) 1008 1025
Eleanor of Normandy (c1012-aft1071) 1012 1071 Baldwin IV of Flanders (980-1036)

Matilda of Normandy (c1014-aft1033) 1014 1033

Noteworthy descendants include

Henry II of England (1133-1189)
William I of England (1027-1087)

Children:

192550. Richard Normandie was born in ~0997 in Normandie, France; died on 6 Aug 1027 in (Normandy, France).
96776. Duke Robert de Normandie, II was born in ~1005 in Normandie, France; died on 22 Jul 1035 in Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey.

177626.

Yaroslav, I, Czar of Russia was born in 976 in Kiev, Ukraine (son of Vladimir, Czar of Russia and Rogneda of Polotsk, Princess Consort of Rus); died on 20 Feb 1054 in Kiev, Ukraine.

Notes:

Yaroslav I, Grand Prince of Rus', known as Yaroslav the Wise or Iaroslav the Wise (Old East Slavic: ???????? ?????????????? ??????; Russian: ??????´? ??´????, translit. Jaroslav Mudryj [j?r?'slaf 'mudr?j]; Ukrainian: ??????´? ??´????, translit. Jaroslav Mudryj [j?ro'sl?u? 'mudr?j]; Old Norse: Jarizleifr Valdamarsson;[1]; Latin: Iaroslaus Sapiens; c. 978 – 20 February 1054) was thrice grand prince of Veliky Novgorod and Kiev, uniting the two principalities for a time under his rule. Yaroslav's Christian name was George (Yuri) after Saint George (Old East Slavic: ?????i, Gjurigái).

A son of Vladimir the Great, the first Christian Prince of Novgorod, Yaroslav acted as vice-regent of Novgorod at the time of his father's death in 1015. Subsequently, his eldest surviving brother, Sviatopolk I of Kiev, killed three of his other brothers and seized power in Kiev. Yaroslav, with the active support of the Novgorodians and the help of Varangian mercenaries, (Varangian defined: http://thehennesseefamily.com/showmedia.php?mediaID=3071&medialinkID=3073) defeated Svyatopolk and became the Grand Prince of Kiev in 1019. Under Yaroslav the codification of legal customs and princely enactments was begun, and this work served as the basis for a law code called the Russkaya Pravda ("Rus Truth [Law]"). During his lengthy reign, Kievan Rus' reached the zenith of its cultural flowering and military power.[2]

Yaroslav the Wise
Grand Prince of Kiev and Novgorod
Reign 1019–1054
Predecessor Sviatopolk the Accursed
Successor Iziaslav I
Prince of Rostov?
Reign 978–1010
Prince of Novgorod
Reign 1010–1019
Born c.?978
Died 20 February 1054 (aged c. 76)
Vyésgorod
Burial Saint Sophia's Cathedral, Kiev
Spouse Ingegerd Olofsdotter of Sweden
Issue
Details... Elisiv, Queen of Norway
Anastasia, Queen of Hungary
Anne, Queen of the Franks
Agatha, Queen of England (possibly)
Ilya
Vladimir of Novgorod
Iziaslav I
Sviatoslav II
Vsevolod I
Igor Yaroslavich
Vyacheslav Yaroslavich
Full name
Yaroslav Vladimirovich
Dynasty Rurikid
Father Vladimir the Great
Mother Rogneda of Polotsk (according to the Primary Chronicle)

Rise to the throne

The only contemporary image of Yaroslav I the Wise, on his seal.
Main article: Boleslaw I's intervention in the Kievan succession crisis
The early years of Yaroslav's life are shrouded in mystery. He was one of the numerous sons of Vladimir the Great, presumably his second by Rogneda of Polotsk,[3] although his actual age (as stated in the Primary Chronicle and corroborated by the examination of his skeleton in the 1930s) would place him among the youngest children of Vladimir. It has been suggested that he was a child begotten out of wedlock after Vladimir's divorce from Rogneda and marriage to Anna Porphyrogenita, or even that he was a child of Anna Porphyrogenita herself. Yaroslav figures prominently in the Norse sagas under the name Jarisleif the Lame; his legendary lameness (probably resulting from an arrow wound) was corroborated by the scientists who examined his remains.[citation needed]

In his youth, Yaroslav was sent by his father to rule the northern lands around Rostov but was transferred to Veliky Novgorod,[4] as befitted a senior heir to the throne, in 1010. While living there, he founded the town of Yaroslavl (literally, "Yaroslav's") on the Volga River. His relations with his father were apparently strained,[4] and grew only worse on the news that Vladimir bequeathed the Kievan throne to his younger son, Boris. In 1014 Yaroslav refused to pay tribute to Kiev and only Vladimir's death, in July 1015, prevented a war.[4]

During the next four years Yaroslav waged a complicated and bloody war for Kiev against his half-brother Sviatopolk I of Kiev, who was supported by his father-in-law, Duke Boleslaw I Chrobry of Poland.[5] During the course of this struggle, several other brothers (Boris, Gleb, and Svyatoslav) were brutally murdered.[5] The Primary Chronicle accused Svyatopolk of planning those murders,[5] while the saga Eymundar ¤âattr hrings is often interpreted as recounting the story of Boris' assassination by the Varangians in the service of Yaroslav. However, the victim's name is given there as Burizaf, which is also a name of Boleslaus I in the Scandinavian sources. It is thus possible that the Saga tells the story of Yaroslav's struggle against Svyatopolk (whose troops were commanded by the Polish duke), and not against Boris.[citation needed]

Yaroslav defeated Svyatopolk in their first battle, in 1016, and Svyatopolk fled to Poland.[5] But Svyatopolk returned in 1018 with Polish troops furnished by his father-in-law, seized Kiev[5] and pushed Yaroslav back into Novgorod. Yaroslav at last prevailed over Svyatopolk, and in 1019 firmly established his rule over Kiev.[6] One of his first actions as a grand prince was to confer on the loyal Novgorodians (who had helped him to gain the Kievan throne), numerous freedoms and privileges. Thus, the foundation of the Novgorod Republic was laid. For their part, the Novgorodians respected Yaroslav more than they did other Kievan princes; and the princely residence in their city, next to the marketplace (and where the veche often convened) was named Yaroslav's Court after him. It probably was during this period that Yaroslav promulgated the first code of laws in the lands of the East Slavs, the Russkaya Pravda.

Reign

Coins of Yaroslav and his descendants represent the trident.

Depiction of Yaroslav the Wise from Granovitaya Palata.
Power struggles between siblings
Leaving aside the legitimacy of Yaroslav's claims to the Kievan throne and his postulated guilt in the murder of his brothers, Nestor the Chronicler and later Russian historians often presented him as a model of virtue, styling him "the Wise". A less appealing side of his personality is revealed by his having imprisoned his youngest brother Sudislav for life. Yet another brother, Mstislav of Chernigov, whose distant realm bordered the North Caucasus and the Black Sea, hastened to Kiev and, despite reinforcements led by Yaroslav's brother-in-law King Anund Jacob of Sweden (as Jakun - "blind and dressed in a gold suit"),[7] inflicted a heavy defeat on Yaroslav in 1024. Yaroslav and Mstislav then divided Kievan Rus' between them: the area stretching left from the Dnieper River, with the capital at Chernihiv, was ceded to Mstislav until his death in 1036.

Scandinavian allies
In his foreign policy, Yaroslav relied on the Scandinavian alliance and attempted to weaken the Byzantine influence on Kiev. In 1030, he reconquered Red Ruthenia from the Poles and concluded an alliance with King Casimir I the Restorer, sealed by the latter's marriage to Yaroslav's sister, Maria. In another successful military raid the same year, he captured Tartu, Estonia and renamed it Yuryev[8] (named after Yury, Yaroslav's patron saint) and forced the surrounding province of Ugaunnia to pay annual tribute.

Campaign against Byzantium
In 1043, Yaroslav staged a naval raid against Constantinople led by his son Vladimir of Novgorod and general Vyshata. Although his navy was defeated in the Rus'–Byzantine War (1043), Yaroslav managed to conclude the war with a favourable treaty and prestigious marriage of his son Vsevolod I of Kiev to the emperor's daughter. It has been suggested that the peace was so advantageous because the Kievans had succeeded in taking a key Byzantine possession in Crimea, Chersonesus.

Protecting the inhabitants of the Dniper from the Pechenegs
To defend his state from the Pechenegs and other nomadic tribes threatening it from the south he constructed a line of forts, composed of Yuriev, Bohuslav, Kaniv, Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi, and Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi. To celebrate his decisive victory over the Pechenegs in 1036 (who thereupon never were a threat to Kiev) he sponsored the construction of the Saint Sophia Cathedral in 1037. That same year there were built monasteries of Saint George and Saint Irene. Some mentioned and other celebrated monuments of his reign such as the Golden Gate of Kiev perished during the Mongol invasion of Rus', but later restored.

Establishment of law
Yaroslav was a notable patron of book culture and learning. In 1051, he had a Slavic monk, Hilarion of Kiev, proclaimed the metropolitan bishop of Kiev, thus challenging the Byzantine tradition of placing Greeks on the episcopal sees. Hilarion's discourse on Yaroslav and his father Vladimir is frequently cited as the first work of Old East Slavic literature.

Family life and posterity

Eleventh-century fresco of Saint Sophia's Cathedral, Kiev, representing the daughters of Yaroslav I, with Anne probably being the youngest. Other daughters were Anastasia, wife of Andrew I of Hungary; Elizabeth, wife of Harald Harºrâaºi; and possibly Agatha, wife of Edward the Exile.
In 1019, Yaroslav married Ingegerd Olofsdotter, daughter of the king of Sweden,[9] and gave Staraya Ladoga to her as a marriage gift.

Saint Sophia's Cathedral in Kiev houses a fresco representing the whole family: Yaroslav, Irene (as Ingegerd was known in Rus), their four daughters and six sons.[10] Yaroslav had three of his daughters married to foreign princes who lived in exile at his court:

Elisiv of Kiev to Harald Harºrâaºi[9] (who attained her hand by his military exploits in the Byzantine Empire);
Anastasia of Kiev to the future Andrew I of Hungary;[9]
Anne of Kiev married Henry I of France[9] and was the regent of France during their son's minority; (she was Yaroslav the Wise's most beloved daughter).
(possibly) Agatha, wife of Edward the Exile, of the royal family of England, the mother of Edgar the ¥theling and Saint Margaret of Scotland.

Anne of Kiev.
Yaroslav had one son from the first marriage (his Christian name being Ilya (?-1020)), and six sons from the second marriage. Apprehending the danger that could ensue from divisions between brothers, he exhorted them to live in peace with each other. The eldest of these, Vladimir of Novgorod, best remembered for building the Cathedral of St. Sophia, Novgorod, predeceased his father. Three other sons—Iziaslav I, Sviatoslav II, and Vsevolod I—reigned in Kiev one after another. The youngest children of Yaroslav were Igor Yaroslavich (1036–1060) of Volhynia and Vyacheslav Yaroslavich (1036–1057) of the Principality of Smolensk. About Vyacheslav, there is almost no information. Some documents point out the fact of him having a son, Boris Vyacheslavich, who challenged Vsevolod I sometime in 1077-1078.

Grave

Sarcophagus of Yaroslav the Wise.
Following his death, the body of Yaroslav the Wise was entombed in a white marble sarcophagus within Saint Sophia's Cathedral. In 1936, the sarcophagus was opened and found to contain the skeletal remains of two individuals, one male and one female. The male was determined to be Yaroslav, however the identity of the female was never established. The sarcophagus was again opened in 1939 and the remains removed for research, not being documented as returned until 1964. Then, in 2009, the sarcophagus was opened and surprisingly found to contain only one skeleton, that of a female. It seems the documents detailing the 1964 reinterment of the remains were falsified to hide the fact that Yaroslav's remains had been lost. Subsequent questioning of individuals involved in the research and reinterment of the remains seems to point to the idea that Yaroslav's remains were purposely hidden prior to the German occupation of Ukraine and then either lost completely or stolen and transported to the United States where many ancient religious artifacts were placed to avoid "mistreatment" by the communists.[11]

Legacy

Yaroslav the Wise's consolidation of Kiev and Novgorod as depicted at Zoloti Vorota mosaics https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e8/Yaroslav1.jpg/220px-Yaroslav1.jpg
Four different towns in four different countries were founded by and named after Yaroslav: Yaroslavl (in today's Russia), Yuryev (now Tartu, Estonia) and another Yuryev (now Bila Tserkva, Ukraine), and Jaroslaw in Poland. Following the Russian custom of naming military objects such as tanks and planes after historical figures, the helmet worn by many Russian soldiers during the Crimean War was called the "Helmet of Yaroslav the Wise". It was the first pointed helmet to be used by any army, even before German troops wore pointed helmets.

In 2008 Yaroslav was placed first (with 40% of the votes) in their ranking of "our greatest compatriots" by the viewers of the TV show Velyki Ukraèintsi.[12] Afterwards one of the producers of The Greatest Ukrainians claimed that Yaroslav had only won because of vote manipulation and that (if that had been prevented) the real first place would have been awarded to Stepan Bandera.[13]

Monument to Yaroslav the Wise in Kiev https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/Monument_to_Yaroslav_the_Wise.jpg/220px-Monument_to_Yaroslav_the_Wise.jpg

Iron Lord was a 2010 film based on his early life as a regional prince on the frontier.

end of biography

*Yaroslav I "The Wise" Grand Duke of Kiev
born 0980 Kiev, Ukraine
died 20 February 1054 Kiev, Ukraine
buried 1054 Russia

father:
*Vladimir I "The Great" Grand Duke of Kiev
born 0960 Kiev, Ukraine
died 15 Jul 1015 Berestovo, Kiev, Ukraine
buried Church Of The Tithes, Kiev, Ukraine

mother:
*Rogneda Princess of Polotsk
born about 0962 Polotsk, Byelorussia
died 1002
married Abt 0977 Of Polotsk, Byelorussia

siblings:
Vsevolod Vladimirovich Prince of Vladimir Volynsk
born Abt 0983 Of, Vladimir Volynskij, Volyn, Ukraine died 1015
Iszyaslav Vladimirovich born Abt 0978 Of Kiev, Ukraine died 1001
Mstislav Vladimirovich Duke of Chernigov & Tmutorakan
born Abt 0988 Of Chernigov, Ukraine died 1035/1036
Premislava Vladimirovna Princess of Kiev born Abt 0980 Of Kiev, Ukraine
Predslava Vladimirovna Princess of Kiev born Abt 0984 Of Kiev, Ukraine
died Aft 1018

spouse:
*Ingrid (Ingegerda) Olafsdotter Princess of Sweden
born about 1001 Uppsala, Sweden
died 10 February 1050 Kiev, Ukraine
married 1019 Uppsala, Sweden

children:
*Anna Agnesa Yaroslavna Grand Duchess of Kiev born 1036 Kiev, Ukraine
died 1076/89 France buried Abbaye de Villiers, La-Ferte-Alais, France
*Anastasiya Agmunda Yaroslavna Princess of Kiev born about 1035 Ukraine died after 1074
*Vsevolod I Yaroslavich Prince of Kiev born 1030 Pereyaslavl, Russia died 13 April 1093
Igor Yaroslavich born about 1036 Vladimir Volynskiy, Volyn, Ukraine
died 1059/60 Vladimir Volunsky, Volyn, Ukraine
Vladimir Yaroslavich Duke of Novgorod born 1020 Novgorod, Russia died 4 October 1052
*Izyaslav I Dmitrij Yaroslavich born 1025 Turov, Polesye, Byelorussia died 3 October 1078
Svyatopolk I Yaroslavich Grand Duke of Kiev born 1027 Vladimir-Volynsk, Volyn, Ukraine
died 27 December 1076
*Elizaveta Yaroslavna of Kiev Queen of Norway born about 1032 Kiev, Ukraine

biographical and/or anecdotal:

notes or source:
LDS

end of profile

177627.

Notes:

Ingegerd Olofsdotter of Sweden, also known as Irene, Anna and St. Anna (1001 – 10 February 1050), was a Swedish princess and a Grand Princess of Kiev. She was the daughter of Swedish King Olof Skèotkonung and Estrid of the Obotrites and the consort of Yaroslav I the Wise of Kiev.

Ingegerd or St. Anna is often confused with the mother of St. Vladimir “the Enlightener” of the Rus. This is mainly because Ingegerd and Yaroslav also had a son named Vladimir. However, St. Vladimir was the father of Ingegerd’s husband Yaroslav I “the Wise”, thus making her St. Vladimir’s daughter-in-law. St. Vladimir was the son of Sviatoslav and Malusha.

Biography

11th-century fresco of the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev representing the daughters of Ingegerd and Yaroslav I, with Anna probably being the youngest. Other daughters were Anastasia wife of Andrew I of Hungary, Elizabeth wife of Harald III of Norway, and perhaps Agatha wife of Edward the Exile.
Ingegerd was born in Sigtuna,[citation needed] Sweden. She was engaged to be married to Norwegian King Olaf II, but when Sweden and Norway got into a feud, Swedish King Olof Skèotkonung would no longer allow for the marriage to take place.

Instead, Ingegerd's father quickly arranged for a marriage to the powerful Yaroslav I the Wise of Novgorod.[1] The marriage took place in 1019.[1] Once in Kiev, she changed her name to the Greek Irene. According to several sagas, she was given as a marriage gift Ladoga and adjacent lands, which later received the name Ingria, arguably a corruption of Ingegerd's name. She placed her friend, jarl Ragnvald Ulfsson, to rule in her stead.

Ingegerd initiated the building of the Saint Sophia's Cathedral in Kiev that was supervised by her husband.[citation needed] She also initiated the construction of the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Novgorod. They had six sons and four daughters, the latter of whom became Queens of France, Hungary, Norway, and (arguably) England. The whole family is depicted in one of the frescoes of the Saint Sophia.

Death and burial

Ingegerd died on 10 February 1050. Upon her death, according to different sources, Ingegerd was buried in either Saint Sophia's Cathedral in Kyiv or Cathedral of St. Sophia in Novgorod.

Sainthood

Ingegerd was later declared a saint, by the name of St. Anna, in Novgorod and Kiev. The reason was that she initiated the building of the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev as well as the local version, the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod, along with many good doings.

The following was stated by the church in reference to her sainthood:

St. Anna, Grand Duchess of Novgorod, She was the daughter of Swedish King Olaf Sketktung, the "All-Christian King," who did much to spread Orthodoxy in Scandinavia, and the pious Queen Astrida.

In Sweden she was known as Princess Indegard; she married Yaroslav I “the Wise“, Grand Prince of Kiev, who was the founder of the Saint Sophia Cathedral in 1016, taking the name Irene.

She gave shelter to the outcast sons of British King Edmund, Edwin and Edward, as well as the Norwegian prince Magnus, who later returned to Norway.

She is perhaps best known as the mother of Vsevolod of , himself the father of Vladimir Monomakh and progenitor of the Princes of Moscow.

Her daughters were Anna, Queen of France, Queen Anastasia of Hungary, and Queen Elizabeth (Elisiv) of Norway. The whole family was profoundly devout and pious.

She reposed in 1050 in the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom (St. Sophia) in Kiev, having been tonsured a monastic with the name of Anna.

As saint, her hymn goes:

And 4 stichera, in Tone I: Spec. Mel.: Joy of the ranks of heaven

O joy of the Swedish people, thou didst gladden the Russian realm, filling it with grace and purity, adorning its throne with majesty, lustrous in piety like a priceless gem set in a splendid royal crown.

Named Ingegerd in the baptismal waters, O venerable one, thou wast called Irene by thy Russian subjects, who perceived in thee the divine and ineffable peace; but when thou didst submit to monastic obedience, thou didst take the new name, Anna, after the honoured ancestor of Christ, the King of kings.

Wed in honourable matrimony, O holy Anna, thou didst live in concord with thy royal spouse, the right-believing and most wise Prince Yaroslav; and having born him holy offspring, after his repose thou didst betroth thyself unto the Lord as thy heavenly Bridegroom.

Disdaining all the allurements of vanity and donning the coarse robes of a monastic, O wondrous and sacred Anna, thou gavest thyself over to fasting and prayer, ever entreating Christ thy Master, that He deliver thy people from the all want and misfortune.

Feast days: 10 February, 4 October.

Children

Ingegerd had the following children

Elisiv of Kiev, queen of Norway
Anastasia of Kiev, queen of Hungary
Anne of Kiev, queen of France
(possibly) Agatha, wife of Edward the Exile
Vladimir of Novgorod
Iziaslav
Sviatoslav
Vsevolod
Igor Yaroslavich

Children:

Vladimir of Novgorod was born in 1020 in Novgorod, Ukraine; died on 4 Oct 1052 in Novgorod, Ukraine; was buried in Cathedral of St. Sophia, Novgorod, Ukraine.
88813. Anna Agnesa Yaraslavna, Queen of France was born in 1036 in Kiev, Ukraine; died on 5 Sep 1075 in France.

354354.

Notes:

Malcolm (Gaelic: Mâael Coluim; c. 954 - 25 November 1034)[1] was King of the Scots from 1005 until his death.[2] He was a son of King Kenneth II; the Prophecy of Berchâan says that his mother was a woman of Leinster and refers to him as Forranach, "the Destroyer".[3]

To the Irish annals which recorded his death, Malcolm was ard râi Alban, High King of Scotland. In the same way that Brian Bâoruma, High King of Ireland, was not the only king in Ireland, Malcolm was one of several kings within the geographical boundaries of modern Scotland: his fellow kings included the king of Strathclyde, who ruled much of the south-west, various Norse-Gael kings on the western coast and the Hebrides and, nearest and most dangerous rivals, the kings or Mormaers of Moray. To the south, in the Kingdom of England, the Earls of Bernicia and Northumbria, whose predecessors as kings of Northumbria had once ruled most of southern Scotland, still controlled large parts of the southeast.[4]

Early years

Malcolm II was born to Kenneth II of Scotland. He was grandson of Malcolm I of Scotland. In 997, the killer of Constantine is credited as being Kenneth, son of Malcolm. Since there is no known and relevant Kenneth alive at that time (King Kenneth having died in 995), it is considered an error for either Kenneth III, who succeeded Constantine, or, possibly, Malcolm himself, the son of Kenneth II.[5] Whether Malcolm killed Constantine or not, there is no doubt that in 1005 he killed Constantine's successor Kenneth III in battle at Monzievaird in Strathearn.[6]

John of Fordun writes that Malcolm defeated a Norwegian army "in almost the first days after his coronation", but this is not reported elsewhere. Fordun says that the Bishopric of Mortlach (later moved to Aberdeen) was founded in thanks for this victory over the Norwegians.[7]
Children

Malcolm demonstrated a rare ability to survive among early Scottish kings by reigning for twenty-nine years. He was a clever and ambitious man. Brehon tradition provided that the successor to Malcolm was to be selected by him from among the descendants of King Aedh, with the consent of Malcolm's ministers and of the church. Ostensibly in an attempt to end the devastating feuds in the north of Scotland, but obviously influenced by the Norman feudal model, Malcolm ignored tradition and determined to retain the succession within his own line. But since Malcolm had no son of his own, he undertook to negotiate a series of dynastic marriages of his three daughters to men who might otherwise be his rivals, while securing the loyalty of the principal chiefs, their relatives. First he married his daughter Bethoc to Crinan, Thane of The Isles, head of the house of Atholl and secular Abbot of Dunkeld; then his youngest daughter, Olith, to Sigurd, Earl of Orkney. His middle daughter, Donada, was married to Finlay, Earl of Moray, Thane of Ross and Cromarty and a descendant of Loarn of Dalriada. This was risky business under the rules of succession of the Gael, but he thereby secured his rear and, taking advantage of the renewal of Viking attacks on England, marched south to fight the English. He defeated the Angles at Carham in 1018 and installed his grandson, Duncan, son of the Abbot of Dunkeld and his choice as Tanist, in Carlisle as King of Cumbria that same year.[8]
Bernicia

The first reliable report of Malcolm II's reign is of an invasion of Bernicia in 1006, perhaps the customary crech râig (literally royal prey, a raid by a new king made to demonstrate prowess in war), which involved a siege of Durham. This appears to have resulted in a heavy defeat by the Northumbrians, led by Uhtred of Bamburgh, later Earl of Bernicia, which is reported by the Annals of Ulster.[9]

A second war in Bernicia, probably in 1018, was more successful. The Battle of Carham, by the River Tweed, was a victory for the Scots led by Malcolm II and the men of Strathclyde led by their king, Owen the Bald. By this time Earl Uchtred may have been dead, and Eirâikr Hâakonarson was appointed Earl of Northumbria by his brother-in-law Cnut the Great, although his authority seems to have been limited to the south, the former kingdom of Deira, and he took no action against the Scots so far as is known.[10] The work De obsessione Dunelmi (The siege of Durham, associated with Symeon of Durham) claims that Uchtred's brother Eadwulf Cudel surrendered Lothian to Malcolm II, presumably in the aftermath of the defeat at Carham. This is likely to have been the lands between Dunbar and the Tweed as other parts of Lothian had been under Scots control before this time. It has been suggested that Cnut received tribute from the Scots for Lothian, but as he had likely received none from the Bernician Earls this is not very probable.[11]
Cnut

Cnut, reports the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, led an army into Scotland on his return from pilgrimage to Rome. The Chronicle dates this to 1031, but there are reasons to suppose that it should be dated to 1027.[12] Burgundian chronicler Rodulfus Glaber recounts the expedition soon afterwards, describing Malcolm as "powerful in resources and arms … very Christian in faith and deed."[13] Ralph claims that peace was made between Malcolm and Cnut through the intervention of Richard, Duke of Normandy, brother of Cnut's wife Emma. Richard died in about 1027 and Rodulfus wrote close in time to the events.[14]

It has been suggested that the root of the quarrel between Cnut and Malcolm lies in Cnut's pilgrimage to Rome, and the coronation of Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II, where Cnut and Rudolph III, King of Burgundy had the place of honour. If Malcolm were present, and the repeated mentions of his piety in the annals make it quite possible that he made a pilgrimage to Rome, as did Mac Bethad mac Findlâaich ("Macbeth") in later times, then the coronation would have allowed Malcolm to publicly snub Cnut's claims to overlordship.[15]

Cnut obtained rather less than previous English kings, a promise of peace and friendship rather than the promise of aid on land and sea that Edgar and others had obtained. The sources say that Malcolm was accompanied by one or two other kings, certainly Mac Bethad, and perhaps Echmarcach mac Ragnaill, King of Mann and the Isles, and of Galloway.[16] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle remarks of the submission "but he [Malcolm] adhered to that for only a little while".[17] Cnut was soon occupied in Norway against Olaf Haraldsson and appears to have had no further involvement with Scotland.
Orkney and Moray

Olith a daughter of Malcolm, married Sigurd Hlodvisson, Earl of Orkney.[18] Their son Thorfinn Sigurdsson was said to be five years old when Sigurd was killed on 23 April 1014 in the Battle of Clontarf. The Orkneyinga Saga says that Thorfinn was raised at Malcolm's court and was given the Mormaerdom of Caithness by his grandfather. Thorfinn says in the Heimskringla that he was the ally of the king of Scots, and counted on Malcolm's support to resist the "tyranny" of Norwegian King Olaf Haraldsson.[19] (Thorfinn's older step brother had died while a hostage to King Olaf.) The chronology of Thorfinn's life is problematic, and he may have had a share in the Earldom of Orkney while still a child, if he was indeed only five in 1014.[20] Whatever the exact chronology, before Malcolm's death a client of the king of Scots was in control of Caithness and Orkney, although, as with all such relationships, it is unlikely to have lasted beyond his death.

If Malcolm exercised control over Moray, which is far from being generally accepted, then the annals record a number of events pointing to a struggle for power in the north. In 1020, Mac Bethad's father Findlâaech mac Ruaidrâi was killed by the sons of his brother Mâael Brigte.[21] It seems that Mâael Coluim mac Mâail Brigti took control of Moray, for his death is reported in 1029.[22]

Despite the accounts of the Irish annals, English and Scandinavian writers appear to see Mac Bethad as the rightful king of Moray: this is clear from their descriptions of the meeting with Cnut in 1027, before the death of Malcolm mac Mâail Brigti. Malcolm was followed as king or earl by his brother Gillecomgan, husband of Gruoch, a granddaughter of King Kenneth III. It has been supposed that Mac Bethad was responsible for the killing of Gille Coemgâain in 1032, but if Mac Bethad had a cause for feud in the killing of his father in 1020, Malcolm too had reason to see Gille Coemgâain dead. Not only had Gillecomgan's ancestors killed many of Malcolm's kin, but Gillecomgan and his son Lulach might be rivals for the throne. Malcolm had no living sons, and the threat to his plans for the succession was obvious. As a result, the following year Gruoch's brother or nephew, who might have eventually become king, was killed by Malcolm.[23]
Strathclyde and the succession

It has traditionally been supposed that King Owen the Bald of Strathclyde died at the Battle of Carham and that the kingdom passed into the hands of the Scots afterwards. This rests on some very weak evidence. It is far from certain that Owen died at Carham, and it is reasonably certain that there were kings of Strathclyde as late as 1054, when Edward the Confessor sent Earl Siward to install "Malcolm son of the king of the Cumbrians". The confusion is old, probably inspired by William of Malmesbury and embellished by John of Fordun, but there is no firm evidence that the kingdom of Strathclyde was a part of the kingdom of the Scots, rather than a loosely subjected kingdom, before the time of Malcolm II of Scotland's great-grandson Malcolm Canmore.[24]

By the 1030s Malcolm's sons, if he had any, were dead. The only evidence that he did have a son or sons is in Rodulfus Glaber's chronicle where Cnut is said to have stood as godfather to a son of Malcolm.[25] His grandson Thorfinn would have been unlikely to be accepted as king by the Scots, and he chose the sons of his other daughter, Bethâoc, who was married to Crâinâan, lay abbot of Dunkeld, and perhaps Mormaer of Atholl. It may be no more than coincidence, but in 1027 the Irish annals had reported the burning of Dunkeld, although no mention is made of the circumstances.[26] Malcolm's chosen heir, and the first tâanaise râig certainly known in Scotland, was Duncan.

It is possible that a third daughter of Malcolm married Findlâaech mac Ruaidrâi and that Mac Bethad was thus his grandson, but this rests on relatively weak evidence.[27]
Death and posterity
19th-century engraving of "King Malcolm's grave stone" (Glamis no. 2) at Glamis

Malcolm died in 1034, Marianus Scotus giving the date as 25 November 1034. The king lists say that he died at Glamis, variously describing him as a "most glorious" or "most victorious" king. The Annals of Tigernach report that "Malcolm mac Cinâaeda, king of Scotland, the honour of all the west of Europe, died." The Prophecy of Berchâan, perhaps the inspiration for John of Fordun and Andrew of Wyntoun's accounts where Malcolm is killed fighting bandits, says that he died by violence, fighting "the parricides", suggested to be the sons of Mâael Brigte of Moray.[28]

Perhaps the most notable feature of Malcolm's death is the account of Marianus, matched by the silence of the Irish annals, which tells us that Duncan I became king and ruled for five years and nine months. Given that his death in 1040 is described as being "at an immature age" in the Annals of Tigernach, he must have been a young man in 1034. The absence of any opposition suggests that Malcolm had dealt thoroughly with any likely opposition in his own lifetime.[29]

Tradition, dating from Fordun's time if not earlier, knew the Pictish stone now called "Glamis 2" as "King Malcolm's grave stone". The stone is a Class II stone, apparently formed by re-using a Bronze Age standing stone. Its dating is uncertain, with dates from the 8th century onwards having been proposed. While an earlier date is favoured, an association with accounts of Malcolm's has been proposed on the basis of the iconography of the carvings.[30]

On the question of Malcolm's putative pilgrimage, pilgrimages to Rome, or other long-distance journeys, were far from unusual. Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Cnut and Mac Bethad have already been mentioned. Rognvald Kali Kolsson is known to have gone crusading in the Mediterranean in the 12th century. Nearer in time, Dyfnwal of Strathclyde died on pilgrimage to Rome in 975 as did Mâael Ruanaid uâa Mâaele Doraid, King of the Cenâel Conaill, in 1025.

Not a great deal is known of Malcolm's activities beyond the wars and killings. The Book of Deer records that Malcolm "gave a king's dues in Biffie and in Pett Meic-Gobraig, and two davochs" to the monastery of Old Deer.[31] He was also probably not the founder of the Bishopric of Mortlach-Aberdeen. John of Fordun has a peculiar tale to tell, related to the supposed "Laws of Malcolm MacKenneth", saying that Malcolm gave away all of Scotland, except for the Moot Hill at Scone, which is unlikely to have any basis in fact.[32]

end of biography

Malcolm II (a.k.a. Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda) lived from 954 to 25 November 1034 and was King of Alba from 25 March 1005 to 25 November 1034. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline.

Until Malcolm's rule, the Crown of Alba had passed backwards and forwards between different strands of the House of Alpin under the law of tanistry, under which the extended family elected the successor from candidates across the family.

Malcolm changed this by the simple expedient of wiping out all competition to his own line anywhere in the family (or so he thought at the time). He succeeded to the throne by killing his predecessor Kenneth III (and Kenneth's son Giric) at the Battle of Monzievaird on 25 March 1005. This took place just north of Crieff, close to the location of today's Glenturret Distillery. He later had Kenneth's grandson killed.

Malcolm's reasons for killing the competiton was straightforward. He himself had three daughters, and while they had all married well, his grandsons could not compete the more direct claims to the Crown of Alba of those he eliminated.

Malcolm II's rule started badly, with a loss in battle against the English near Durham in 1006. He put this right with an alliance with Strathclyde and a victory over the English at the Battle of Carham, on the River Tweed, in 1018. This greatly strengthened his grip on Lothian: in effect the east side of Scotland from the Forth to the Tweed. Scottish soverignty over Lothian seems to have been subsequently acknowledged by King Canute during a visit to Scotland in 1031.

In the north, Malcolm II formed an alliance with the Vikings which included the marriage of one of his daughters to the Norse Earl Sigurd of Orkney. The situation in Strathclyde was more troublesome. Malcolm's ally, King Owen, died without an heir, and Malcolm tried to place his grandson Duncan (later Duncan I of Alba) on the throne of Strathclyde. This displeased the Britons and led to Malcolm's assassination at Glamis on 25 November 1034. He was buried in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel on the Isle of Iona.

Malcolm's three daughters had between them produced three notable sons. One married Earl Sigurd of Orkney, and their son Earl Thorfinn went on to bring much of Caithness and Sutherland into Scotland. One married Crâinâan, the Abbot of Dunkeld, and their son Duncan went on to succeed Malcom II as Duncan I. And the third married Findláaech, the sub-king of Moray, and their son Macbeth went on to kill Duncan (with Thorfinn's help) and become King Macbeth.

end of biography

Buried:
in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel...

View images and more history of St Oran's; https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/iona/storanschapel/index.html

Malcolm married Aefgifu. Aefgifu was born in Ossory, Ireland; died in (Scotland). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

354355.

Aefgifu was born in Ossory, Ireland; died in (Scotland).

Children:

177177. Bethoc was born in 984 in Perthshire, Scotland; died on 15 Sep 1049 in Dunkeld, Perthshire, Scotland.
Donalda was born in Scotland.
a daughter of Malcolm, II was born in (Scotland).

355208.

Notes:

¥thelred II (Old English: ¥¤elrµd, pronounced [µºelrµ?d];[1] c. 966 – 23 April 1016), known as the Unready, was King of the English from 978 to 1013 and again from 1014 until his death. His epithet does not derive from the modern word "unready", but rather from the Old English unrµd (meaning "poorly advised"); it is a pun on his name, which means "well advised".

¥thelred was the son of King Edgar and Queen ¥lfthryth. He came to the throne at about the age of 12, following the assassination of his older half-brother, Edward the Martyr. His brother's murder was carried out by supporters of his own claim to the throne, although he was too young to have any personal involvement. The chief problem of ¥thelred's reign was conflict with the Danes. After several decades of relative peace, Danish raids on English territory began again in earnest in the 980s. Following the Battle of Maldon in 991, ¥thelred paid tribute, or Danegeld, to the Danish king. In 1002, ¥thelred ordered what became known as the St. Brice's Day massacre of Danish settlers. In 1013, King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark invaded England, as a result of which ¥thelred fled to Normandy in 1013 and was replaced by Sweyn. However, he returned as king for two years after Sweyn's death in 1014. ¥thelred's 37-year reign was the longest of any Anglo-Saxon king of England, and was only surpassed in the 13th century, by Henry III. ¥thelred was briefly succeeded by his son, Edmund Ironside, but he died after a few months and was replaced by Sweyn's son, Cnut. Another of his sons, Edward the Confessor, became king in 1042.

King of the English
Reign 18 March 978 – 1013 (first time)
Predecessor Edward the Martyr
Successor Sweyn Forkbeard
Reign 1014 – 23 April 1016
(second time)
Predecessor Sweyn Forkbeard
Successor Edmund Ironside
Born c. 966
Died 23 April 1016 (aged about 50)
London, England
Burial Old St Paul's Cathedral, London, now lost
Spouse ¥lfgifu of York
Emma of Normandy
Issue
Detail
See list[show]
House Wessex
Father Edgar, King of England
Mother ¥lfthryth
Religion Christianity

Name

¥thelred's first name, composed of the elements µºele, "noble", and rµd, "counsel, advice",[2] is typical of the compound names of those who belonged to the royal House of Wessex, and it characteristically alliterates with the names of his ancestors, like ¥thelwulf ("noble-wolf"), ¥lfred ("elf-counsel"), Eadweard ("rich-protection"), and Eadgar ("rich-spear").[3]

The story of ¥thelred's notorious nickname, Old English Unrµd, goes a long way toward explaining how his reputation has declined through history[dubious – discuss] It is usually translated into present-day English as "The Unready" (less often, though less confusingly, as "The Redeless").[4] The Anglo-Saxon noun unrµd means "evil counsel", "bad plan", or "folly".[2] It most often describes decisions and deeds, and once refers to the nature of Satan's deceit. The element rµd in unrµd is the element in ¥thelred's name which means "counsel". Thus ¥¤elrµd Unrµd is a pun meaning "Noble counsel, No counsel". The nickname has alternatively been taken adjectivally as "ill-advised", "ill-prepared", "indecisive", thus "¥thelred the ill-advised".

Because the nickname was first recorded in the 1180s, more than 150 years after ¥thelred's death, it is doubtful that it carries any implications for how the king was seen by his contemporaries or near contemporaries.[5]

Early life

Gold mancus of ¥thelred wearing armour, 1003–1006.
Sir Frank Stenton remarked that "much that has brought condemnation of historians on King ¥thelred may well be due in the last resort to the circumstances under which he became king."[6] ¥thelred's father, King Edgar, had died suddenly in July 975, leaving two young sons behind. The elder, Edward (later Edward the Martyr), was probably illegitimate,[7] and was "still a youth on the verge of manhood" in 975.[8] The younger son was ¥thelred, whose mother, ¥lfthryth, Edgar had married in 964. ¥lfthryth was the daughter of Ordgar, ealdorman of Devon, and widow of ¥thelwold, Ealdorman of East Anglia. At the time of his father's death, ¥thelred could have been no more than 10 years old. As the elder of Edgar's sons, Edward – reportedly a young man given to frequent violent outbursts – probably would have naturally succeeded to the throne of England despite his young age, had not he "offended many important persons by his intolerable violence of speech and behaviour."[8] In any case, a number of English nobles took to opposing Edward's succession and to defending ¥thelred's claim to the throne; ¥thelred was, after all, the son of Edgar's last, living wife, and no rumour of illegitimacy is known to have plagued ¥thelred's birth, as it might have his elder brother's.[9] Both boys, ¥thelred certainly, were too young to have played any significant part in the political manoeuvring which followed Edgar's death. It was the brothers' supporters, and not the brothers themselves, who were responsible for the turmoil which accompanied the choice of a successor to the throne. ¥thelred's cause was led by his mother and included ¥lfhere, Ealdorman of Mercia and Bishop ¥thelwold of Winchester,[10] while Edward's claim was supported by Dunstan, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Oswald, the Archbishop of York[11] among other noblemen, notably ¥thelwine, Ealdorman of East Anglia, and Byrhtnoth, ealdorman of Essex. In the end, Edward's supporters proved the more powerful and persuasive, and he was crowned king at Kingston upon Thames before the year was out.

Edward reigned for only three years before he was murdered by members of his brother's household.[12] Though little is known about Edward's short reign, it is known that it was marked by political turmoil. Edgar had made extensive grants of land to monasteries which pursued the new monastic ideals of ecclesiastical reform, but these disrupted aristocratic families' traditional patronage. The end of his firm rule saw a reversal of this policy, with aristocrats recovering their lost properties or seizing new ones. This was opposed by Dunstan, but according to Cyril Hart, "The presence of supporters of church reform on both sides indicates that the conflict between them depended as much on issues of land ownership and local power as on ecclesiastical legitimacy. Adherents of both Edward and ¥thelred can be seen appropriating, or recovering, monastic lands."[7] Nevertheless, favour for Edward must have been strong among the monastic communities. When Edward was killed at ¥thelred's estate at Corfe Castle in Dorset in March 978, the job of recording the event, as well as reactions to it, fell to monastic writers. Stenton offers a summary of the earliest account of Edward's murder, which comes from a work praising the life of St Oswald: "On the surface his [Edward's] relations with ¥thelred his half-brother and ¥lfthryth his stepmother were friendly, and he was visiting them informally when he was killed. [¥thelred's] retainers came out to meet him with ostentatious signs of respect, and then, before he had dismounted, surrounded him, seized his hands, and stabbed him. ... So far as can be seen the murder was planned and carried out by ¥thelred's household men in order that their young master might become king. There is nothing to support the allegation, which first appears in writing more than a century later, that Queen ¥lfthryth had plotted her stepson's death. No one was punished for a part in the crime, and ¥thelred, who was crowned a month after the murder, began to reign in an atmosphere of suspicion which destroyed the prestige of the crown. It was never fully restored in his lifetime."[13] Nevertheless, at first, the outlook of the new king's officers and counsellors seems in no way to have been bleak. According to one chronicler, the coronation of ¥thelred took place with much rejoicing by the councillors of the English people.[14] Simon Keynes notes that "Byrhtferth of Ramsey states similarly that when ¥thelred was consecrated king, by Archbishop Dunstan and Archbishop Oswald, 'there was great joy at his consecration’, and describes the king in this connection as 'a young man in respect of years, elegant in his manners, with an attractive face and handsome appearance'."[14] ¥thelred could not have been older than 13 years of age in this year.

During these early years, ¥thelred was developing a close relationship to ¥thelwold, bishop of Winchester, one who had supported his unsuccessful claim to the throne. When ¥thelwold died, on 1 August 984, ¥thelred deeply lamented the loss, and he wrote later in a charter from 993 that the event had deprived the country of one "whose industry and pastoral care administered not only to my interest but also to that of all inhabitants of the country."[14]

Conflict with the Danes

England had experienced a period of peace after the reconquest of the Danelaw in the mid-10th century by King Edgar, ¥thelred's father. However, beginning in 980, when ¥thelred could not have been more than 14 years old, small companies of Danish adventurers carried out a series of coastline raids against England. Hampshire, Thanet and Cheshire were attacked in 980, Devon and Cornwall in 981, and Dorset in 982. A period of six years then passed before, in 988, another coastal attack is recorded as having taken place to the south-west, though here a famous battle was fought between the invaders and the thegns of Devon. Stenton notes that, though this series of isolated raids had no lasting effect on England itself, "their chief historical importance is that they brought England for the first time into diplomatic contact with Normandy."[15] During this period, the Normans, who remembered their origins as a Scandinavian people, were well-disposed to their Danish cousins who, occasionally returning from a raid on England, sought port in Normandy. This led to grave tension between the English and Norman courts, and word of their enmity eventually reached Pope John XV. The pope was disposed to dissolve their hostility towards each other, and took steps to engineer a peace between England and Normandy, which was ratified in Rouen in 991.

Battle of Maldon

However, in August of that same year, a sizeable Danish fleet began a sustained campaign in the south-east of England. It arrived off Folkestone, in Kent, and made its way around the south-east coast and up the River Blackwater, coming eventually to its estuary and occupying Northey Island.[14] About 2 kilometres (1 mile) west of Northey lies the coastal town of Maldon, where Byrhtnoth, ealdorman of Essex, was stationed with a company of thegns. The battle that followed between English and Danes is immortalised by the Old English poem The Battle of Maldon, which describes the doomed but heroic attempt of Byrhtnoth to defend the coast of Essex against overwhelming odds. Stenton summarises the events of the poem: "For access to the mainland they (the Danes) depended on a causeway, flooded at high tide, which led from Northey to the flats along the southern margin of the estuary. Before they (the Danes) had left their camp on the island[,] Byrhtnoth, with his retainers and a force of local militia, had taken possession of the landward end of the causeway. Refusing a demand for tribute, shouted across the water while the tide was high, Byrhtnoth drew up his men along the bank, and waited for the ebb. As the water fell the raiders began to stream out along the causeway. But three of Byrthnoth's retainers held it against them, and at last they asked to be allowed to cross unhindered and fight on equal terms on the mainland. With what even those who admired him most called 'over-courage', Byrhtnoth agreed to this; the pirates rushed through the falling tide, and battle was joined. Its issue was decided by Byrhtnoth's fall. Many even of his own men immediately took to flight and the English ranks were broken. What gives enduring interest to the battle is the superb courage with which a group of Byrhtnoth's thegns, knowing that the fight was lost, deliberately gave themselves to death in order that they might avenge their lord."[16] This was the first of a series of crushing defeats felt by the English: beaten first by Danish raiders, and later by organised Danish armies.

England begins tributes

In 991, ¥thelred was around 24 years old. In the aftermath of Maldon, it was decided that the English should grant the tribute to the Danes that they desired, and so a gafol of ¹10,000 was paid them for their peace. Yet it was presumably the Danish fleet that had beaten Byrhtnoth at Maldon that continued to ravage the English coast from 991 to 993. In 994, the Danish fleet, which had swollen in ranks since 991, turned up the Thames estuary and headed toward London. The battle fought there was inconclusive. It was about this time that ¥thelred met with the leaders of the fleet, foremost among them Olaf Tryggvason[clarification needed] and arranged an uneasy accord. A treaty was signed between ¥thelred and Olaf that provided for seemingly civilised arrangements between the then-settled Danish companies and the English government, such as regulation settlement disputes and trade. But the treaty also stipulated that the ravaging and slaughter of the previous year would be forgotten, and ended abruptly by stating that ¹22,000 of gold and silver had been paid to the raiders as the price of peace.[17] In 994, Olaf Tryggvason, already a baptised Christian, was confirmed as Christian in a ceremony at Andover; King ¥thelred stood as his sponsor. After receiving gifts, Olaf promised "that he would never come back to England in hostility."[14] Olaf then left England for Norway and never returned, though "other component parts of the Viking force appear to have decided to stay in England, for it is apparent from the treaty that some had chosen to enter into King ¥thelred's service as mercenaries, based presumably on the Isle of Wight."[14]

Renewed Danish raids

In 997, Danish raids began again. According to Keynes, "there is no suggestion that this was a new fleet or army, and presumably the mercenary force created in 994 from the residue of the raiding army of 991 had turned on those whom it had been hired to protect."[14] It harried Cornwall, Devon, western Somerset and south Wales in 997, Dorset, Hampshire and Sussex in 998. In 999, it raided Kent, and, in 1000, it left England for Normandy, perhaps because the English had refused in this latest wave of attacks to acquiesce to the Danish demands for gafol or tribute, which would come to be known as Danegeld, 'Dane-payment'. This sudden relief from attack ¥thelred used to gather his thoughts, resources, and armies: the fleet's departure in 1000 "allowed ¥thelred to carry out a devastation of Strathclyde, the motive for which is part of the lost history of the north."[18]

In 1001, a Danish fleet – perhaps the same fleet from 1000 – returned and ravaged west Sussex. During its movements, the fleet regularly returned to its base in the Isle of Wight. There was later an attempted attack in the south of Devon, though the English mounted a successful defence at Exeter. Nevertheless, ¥thelred must have felt at a loss, and, in the Spring of 1002, the English bought a truce for ¹24,000. ¥thelred's frequent payments of immense Danegelds are often held up as exemplary of the incompetency of his government and his own short-sightedness. However, Keynes points out that such payments had been practice for at least a century, and had been adopted by Alfred the Great, Charles the Bald and many others. Indeed, in some cases it "may have seemed the best available way of protecting the people against loss of life, shelter, livestock and crops. Though undeniably burdensome, it constituted a measure for which the king could rely on widespread support."[14]

St. Brice's Day massacre of 1002

Main article: St. Brice's Day massacre
¥thelred ordered the massacre of all Danish men in England to take place on 13 November 1002, St Brice's Day. No order of this kind could be carried out in more than a third of England, where the Danes were too strong, but Gunhilde, sister of Sweyn Forkbeard, King of Denmark, was said to have been among the victims. It is likely that a wish to avenge her was a principal motive for Sweyn's invasion of western England the following year.[19] By 1004 Sweyn was in East Anglia, where he sacked Norwich. In this year, a nobleman of East Anglia, Ulfcytel Snillingr met Sweyn in force, and made an impression on the until-then rampant Danish expedition. Though Ulfcytel was eventually defeated, outside Thetford, he caused the Danes heavy losses and was nearly able to destroy their ships. The Danish army left England for Denmark in 1005, perhaps because of their injuries sustained in East Anglia, perhaps from the very severe famine which afflicted the continent and the British Isles in that year.[14]

An expedition the following year was bought off in early 1007 by tribute money of ¹36,000, and for the next two years England was free from attack. In 1008, the government created a new fleet of warships, organised on a national scale, but this was weakened when one of its commanders took to piracy, and the king and his council decided not to risk it in a general action. In Stenton's view: "The history of England in the next generation was really determined between 1009 and 1012...the ignominious collapse of the English defence caused a loss of morale which was irreparable." The Danish army of 1009, led by Thorkell the Tall and his brother Hemming, was the most formidable force to invade England since ¥thelred became king. It harried England until it was bought off by ¹48,000 in April 1012.[20]

Invasion of 1013

Sweyn then launched an invasion in 1013 intending to crown himself king of England, during which he proved himself to be a general greater than any other Viking leader of his generation. By the end of 1013 English resistance had collapsed and Sweyn had conquered the country, forcing ¥thelred into exile in Normandy. But the situation changed suddenly when Sweyn died on 3 February 1014. The crews of the Danish ships in the Trent that had supported Sweyn immediately swore their allegiance to Sweyn's son Cnut the Great, but leading English noblemen sent a deputation to ¥thelred to negotiate his restoration to the throne. He was required to declare his loyalty to them, to bring in reforms regarding everything that they disliked and to forgive all that had been said and done against him in his previous reign. The terms of this agreement are of great constitutional interest in early English History as they are the first recorded pact between a King and his subjects and are also widely regarded as showing that many English noblemen had submitted to Sweyn simply because of their distrust of ¥thelred.[21] According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:

they [the counsellors] said that no lord was dearer to them than their natural (gecynde) lord, if he would govern them more justly than he did before. Then the king sent his son Edward hither with his messengers and bade them greet all his people and said that he would be a gracious (hold) lord to them, and reform all the things which they hated; and all the things which had been said and done against him should be forgiven on condition that they all unanimously turned to him (to him gecyrdon) without treachery. And complete friendship was then established with oath and pledge (mid worde and mid wµdde) on both sides, and they pronounced every Danish king an exile from England forever.[22]
¥thelred then launched an expedition against Cnut and his allies. It was only the people of the Kingdom of Lindsey (modern North Lincolnshire) who supported Cnut. ¥thelred first set out to recapture London apparently with the help of the Norwegian Olaf Haraldsson. According to the Icelandic historian, Snorri Sturluson, Ólaf led a successful attack on London bridge with a fleet of ships. He then went on to help ¥thelred retake London and other parts of the country. Cnut and his army decided to withdraw from England, in April 1014, leaving his Lindsey allies to suffer ¥thelred's revenge. In about 1016 it is thought that Ólaf left to concentrate on raiding western Europe.[23] In the same year, Cnut returned to find a complex and volatile situation unfolding in England.[23] ¥thelred's son, Edmund Ironside, had revolted against his father and established himself in the Danelaw, which was angry at Cnut and ¥thelred for the ravaging of Lindsey and was prepared to support Edmund in any uprising against both of them

Death and burial

Over the next few months Cnut conquered most of England, while Edmund rejoined ¥thelred to defend London when ¥thelred died on 23 April 1016. The subsequent war between Edmund and Cnut ended in a decisive victory for Cnut at the Battle of Ashingdon on 18 October 1016. Edmund's reputation as a warrior was such that Cnut nevertheless agreed to divide England, Edmund taking Wessex and Cnut the whole of the country beyond the Thames. However, Edmund died on 30 November and Cnut became king of the whole country.[24]

¥thelred was buried in Old St Paul's Cathedral, London. The tomb and his monument were destroyed along with the cathedral in the Great Fire of London in 1666.[25] A modern monument in the crypt lists his among the important graves lost.

Legislation

A charter of ¥thelred's in 1003 to his follower, ¥thelred. British Library, London.
¥thelred's government produced extensive legislation, which he "ruthlessly enforced."[26] Records of at least six legal codes survive from his reign, covering a range of topics.[27] Notably, one of the members of his council (known as the Witan) was Wulfstan II, Archbishop of York, a well-known homilist. The three latest codes from ¥thelred's reign seemed to have been drafted by Wulfstan.[28] These codes are extensively concerned with ecclesiastical affairs. They also exhibit the characteristics of Wulfstan's highly rhetorical style. Wulfstan went on to draft codes for King Cnut, and recycled there many of the laws which were used in ¥thelred's codes.[29]

Despite the failure of his government in the face of the Danish threat, ¥thelred's reign was not without some important institutional achievements. The quality of the coinage, a good indicator of the prevailing economic conditions, significantly improved during his reign due to his numerous coinage reform laws.[30]

Legacy

Later perspectives of ¥thelred have been less than flattering. Numerous legends and anecdotes have sprung up to explain his shortcomings, often elaborating abusively on his character and failures. One such anecdote is given by William of Malmesbury (lived c. 1080–c. 1143), who reports that ¥thelred had defecated in the baptismal font as a child, which led St Dunstan to prophesy that the English monarchy would be overthrown during his reign. This story is, however, a fabrication, and a similar story is told of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine Copronymus, another mediaeval monarch who was unpopular among certain of his subjects.

Efforts to rehabilitate ¥thelred's reputation have gained momentum since about 1980. Chief among the rehabilitators has been Simon Keynes, who has often argued that our poor impression of ¥thelred is almost entirely based upon after-the-fact accounts of, and later accretions to, the narrative of events during ¥thelred's long and complex reign. Chief among the culprits is in fact one of the most important sources for the history of the period, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which, as it reports events with a retrospect of 15 years, cannot help but interpret events with the eventual English defeat a foregone conclusion. Yet, as virtually no strictly contemporary narrative account of the events of ¥thelred's reign exists, historians are forced to rely on what evidence there is. Keynes and others thus draw attention to some of the inevitable snares of investigating the history of a man whom later popular opinion has utterly damned. Recent cautious assessments of ¥thelred's reign have more often uncovered reasons to doubt, rather than uphold, ¥thelred's later infamy. Though the failures of his government will always put ¥thelred's reign in the shadow of the reigns of kings Edgar, Aethelstan, and Alfred, historians' current impression of ¥thelred's personal character is certainly not as unflattering as it once was: "¥thelred's misfortune as a ruler was owed not so much to any supposed defects of his imagined character, as to a combination of circumstances which anyone would have found difficult to control."[31]

Origin of the jury

¥thelred has been credited with the formation of a local investigative body made up of twelve thegns who were charged with publishing the names of any notorious or wicked men in their respective districts. Because the members of these bodies were under solemn oath to act in accordance with the law and their own good consciences, they have been seen by some legal historians as the prototype for the English Grand Jury.[32] ¥thelred makes provision for such a body in a law code he enacted at Wantage in 997, which states:

¤µt man habbe gemot on µlcum wµpentace; & gan ut ¤a yldestan XII ¤egnas & se gerefa mid, & swerian on ¤am haligdome, ¤e heom man on hand sylle, ¤µt hig nellan nµnne sacleasan man forsecgean ne nµnne sacne forhelan. & niman ¤onne ¤a tihtbysian men, ¤e mid ¤am gerefan habbaº, & heora µlc sylle VI healfmarc wedd, healf landrican & healf wµpentake.[33]

that there shall be an assembly in every wapentake,[34] and in that assembly shall go forth the twelve eldest thegns and the reeve along with them, and let them swear on holy relics, which shall be placed in their hands, that they will never knowingly accuse an innocent man nor conceal a guilty man. And thereafter let them seize those notorious [lit. "charge-laden"] men, who have business with the reeve, and let each of them give a security of 6 half-marks, half of which shall go to the lord of that district, and half to the wapentake.

But the wording here suggests that ¥thelred was perhaps revamping or re-confirming a custom which had already existed. He may actually have been expanding an established English custom for use among the Danish citizens in the North (the Danelaw). Previously, King Edgar had legislated along similar lines in his Whitbordesstan code:

ic wille, ¤µt µlc mon sy under borge ge binnan burgum ge buton burgum. & gewitnes sy geset to µlcere byrig & to µlcum hundrode. To µlcere byrig XXXVI syn gecorone to gewitnesse; to smalum burgum & to µlcum hundrode XII, buton ge ma willan. & µlc mon mid heora gewitnysse bigcge & sylle µlc ¤ara ceapa, ¤e he bigcge oººe sylle a¤er oººe burge oººe on wµpengetace. & heora µlc, ¤onne hine man µrest to gewitnysse gecysº, sylle ¤µne aº, ¤µt he nµfre, ne for feo ne for lufe ne for ege, ne µtsace nanes ¤ara ¤inga, ¤e he to gewitnysse wµs, & nan oºer ¤ingc on gewitnysse ne cyºe buton ¤µt an, ¤µt he geseah oººe gehyrde. & swa geµ¤dera manna syn on µlcum ceape twegen oººe ¤ry to gewitnysse.[35]

It is my wish that each person be in surety, both within settled areas and without. And 'witnessing' shall be established in each city and each hundred. To each city let there be 36 chosen for witnessing; to small towns and to each hundred let there be 12, unless they desire more. And everybody shall purchase and sell their goods in the presence a witness, whether he is buying or selling something, whether in a city or a wapentake. And each of them, when they first choose to become a witness, shall give an oath that he will never, neither for wealth nor love nor fear, deny any of those things which he will be a witness to, and will not, in his capacity as a witness, make known any thing except that which he saw and heard. And let there be either two or three of these sworn witnesses at every sale of goods.

The 'legend' of an Anglo-Saxon origin to the jury was first challenged seriously by Heinrich Brunner in 1872, who claimed that evidence of the jury was only seen for the first time during the reign of Henry II, some 200 years after the end of the Anglo-Saxon period, and that the practice had originated with the Franks, who in turn had influenced the Normans, who thence introduced it to England.[36] Since Brunner's thesis, the origin of the English jury has been much disputed. Throughout the 20th century, legal historians disagreed about whether the practice was English in origin, or was introduced, directly or indirectly, from either Scandinavia or Francia.[32] Recently, the legal historians Patrick Wormald and Michael Macnair have reasserted arguments in favour of finding in practices current during the Anglo-Saxon period traces of the Angevin practice of conducting inquests using bodies of sworn, private witnesses. Wormald has gone as far as to present evidence suggesting that the English practice outlined in ¥thelred's Wantage code is at least as old as, if not older than, 975, and ultimately traces it back to a Carolingian model (something Brinner had done).[37] However, no scholarly consensus has yet been reached.

Appearance and character

"[A] youth of graceful manners, handsome countenance and fine person..."[38] as well as "[A] tall, handsome man, elegant in manners, beautiful in countenance and interesting in his deportment."[39]

Marriages and issue

¥thelred married first ¥lfgifu, daughter of Thored, earl of Northumbria, in about 985.[14] Their known children are:

¥thelstan ¥theling (died 1014)
Ecgberht ¥theling (died c. 1005)[40]
Edmund Ironside (died 1016)
Eadred ¥theling (died before 1013)
Eadwig ¥theling (executed by Cnut 1017)
Edgar ¥theling (died c. 1008)[40]
Eadgyth or Edith (married Eadric Streona)
¥lfgifu (married Uchtred the Bold, ealdorman of Northumbria)
Wulfhilda? (married Ulfcytel Snillingr)
Abbess of Wherwell Abbey?
In 1002 ¥thelred married Emma of Normandy, sister of Richard II, Duke of Normandy. Their children were:

Edward the Confessor (died 1066)
¥lfred ¥theling (died 1036–7)
Goda of England (married 1. Drogo of Mantes and 2. Eustace II, Count of Boulogne)
All of ¥thelred's sons were named after predecessors of ¥thelred on the throne.[41]

Buried:
Old St Paul's Cathedral, London, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_St_Paul%27s_Cathedral, now lost

355209.

Aelfgifu of York, Queen Consort of England was born in ~970 in (Yorkshire) England (daughter of Thored Gunnarsson, Earl of Southern Northumbria and Hilda LNU); died in 1002.

Notes:

¥lfgifu of York (fl. c. 970 – 1002) was the first wife of ¥thelred the Unready (r. 968–1016), by whom she bore many offspring, including Edmund Ironside. It is most probable that she was a daughter of Thored, Earl of southern Northumbria.

Queen consort of England
Tenure 980s–1002
Born fl. c. 970
Died c. 1002
Spouse ¥thelred the Unready
Issue ¥thelstan ¥theling
Ecgberht of England
Edmund, King of England
Eadred ¥theling
Eadwig ¥theling
Edgar of England
Edith, Lady of the Mercians
¥lfgifu, Lady of Northumbria
Wulfhilda, Lady of East Anglia
Father

Identity and background

Her name and paternity do not surface in the sources until sometime after the Conquest. The first to offer any information at all, Sulcard of Westminster (fl. 1080s), merely describes her as being “of very noble English stock” (ex nobilioribus Anglis), without naming her,[1] while in the early 12th century, William of Malmesbury has nothing to report. All primary evidence comes from two Anglo-Norman historians. John of Worcester, also writing in the early 12th century, states that ¥thelred's first wife was ¥lfgifu, daughter of the nobleman ¥thelberht (comes Agelberhtus) and the mother of Edmund, ¥thelstan, Eadwig and Eadgyth.[2] Writing in the 1150s, Ailred of Rievaulx identifies her as a daughter of earl (comes) Thored and the mother of Edmund, though he supplies no name.[3] Ailred had been seneschal at the court of King David I of Scotland (r. 1124–53), whose mother Margaret descended from King ¥thelred and his first wife. Although his testimony is late, his proximity to the royal family may have given him access to genuine information.[4]

Problem of fatherhood

These two accounts are irreconcilable at the point of ascribing two different fathers to ¥thelred's first wife (in both cases, Edmund's mother). One way out of it would be to assume the existence of two different wives before the arrival of Queen Emma, ¥thelred's Norman wife, although this interpretation presents difficulties of its own, especially as the sources envisage a single woman.[5] Historians generally favour the view that John of Worcester was in error about the father's name, as ¥thelberht's very existence is under suspicion:[6] if Latin comes is to be interpreted as a gloss on the office of ealdorman, only two doubtful references to one or two duces (ealdormen) of this name can be put forward that would fit the description.[7] All in all, the combined evidence suggests that ¥thelred's first wife was ¥lfgifu, the daughter of Earl Thored. This magnate is likely to have been the Thored who was a son of Gunnar and earl of (southern) Northumbria.[8]

Marriage and children[edit]
Based largely on the careers of her sons, ¥lfgifu's marriage has been dated approximately to the (mid-)980s.[8] Considering Thored's authority as earl of York and apparently, the tenure of that office without royal appointment, the union would have signified an important step for the West-Saxon royal family by which it secured a foothold in the north.[9] Such a politically weighty union would help explain the close connections maintained by ¥lfgifu's eldest sons Edmund and ¥thelstan with noble families based in the northern Danelaw.[10]

The marriage produced six sons, all of whom were named after ¥thelred's predecessors, and an unknown number of daughters. The eldest sons ¥thelstan, Ecgberht, Eadred and Edmund first attest charters in 993, while the younger sons Eadwig and Edgar first make an appearance in them in 997 and 1001 respectively.[11] Some of these sons seem to have spent part of their childhood in fosterage elsewhere, possibly with ¥thelred's mother ¥lfthryth.[12]

Out of ¥lfgifu's six sons, only Edmund Ironside outlived his father and became king. In 1016 he suffered several defeats against Cnut and in October they agreed to share the kingdom, but Edmund died within six weeks and Cnut became king of all England. ¥thelred gave three of his daughters in marriage to ealdormen, presumably in order to secure the loyalties of his nobles and so to consolidate a defence system against Viking attacks.[13]

Sons

¥thelstan (born before 993, d. 1014)
Ecgberht (born before 993, d. 1005)
Edmund (II) Ironside (born before 993, d. 1016)
Eadred (d. 1012 x 1015)
Eadwig (born before 997, exiled and killed 1017)
Edgar (born before 1001, d. 1012 x 1015)

Daughters

Eadgyth (born before 993), married Eadric Streona, ealdorman of Mercia.[14]
¥lfgifu, married ealdorman Uhtred of Northumbria.[15]
(possibly) Wulfhild, who married Ulfcytel (Snillingr) (d. 1016), apparently ealdorman of East Anglia.[16]
possibly an unnamed daughter who married the ¥thelstan who was killed fighting the Danes at the Battle of Ringmere in 1010. He is called ¥thelred's aºum, meaning either son-in-law or brother-in-law.[16] Ann Williams, however, argues that the latter meaning is the appropriate one and refers to ¥thelstan as being ¥lfgifu's brother.[8]
possibly unnamed daughter, who became abbess of Wherwell.[17]

Life and death

Unlike her mother-in-law, ¥lfthryth, ¥lfgifu was not anointed queen and never signed charters.[18] She did, however, make at least some impression on the contemporary record. In a will issued between 975/980 and 987, the thegn Beorhtric and his wife bequeathed to their “lady” (hlµfdige) an armlet worth 30 gold mancuses and a stallion, calling upon her authority to oversee the implementation of the arrangements set out by will.[19] In a will of later date (AD 990 x 1001), in which she is addressed as “my lady” (mire hlµfdian), the noblewoman ¥thelgifu promised a bequest of 30 mancuses of gold.[20] Just as little is known of ¥lfgifu's life, so the precise date and circumstances of her death cannot be recovered.[21] In any event, she appears to have died by 1002, possibly in childbirth, when ¥thelred took to wife Emma of Normandy, daughter of Count Richard of Rouen, who received or adopted her predecessor's Anglo-Saxon name, ¥lfgifu.

Children:

177604. Edmund II, King of the English was born in 990 in (Wessex) England; died on 30 Nov 1016 in (London) England; was buried in Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset, England.

354340.

Untred, Earl of Northumbria was born in (0970-0980) in Northumberland, England; died in 1016 in Wighill, Yorkshire, England.

Notes:

Uchtred or Uhtred, called the Bold, (d. 1016) was the ealdorman of all Northumbria from 1006 to 1016, when he was assassinated. He was the son of Waltheof I, ealdorman of Bamburgh, whose ancient family had ruled from the castle of Bamburgh on the Northumbrian coast.

Career

In 995, according to Symeon of Durham, when the remains of St Cuthbert were transferred from Chester-le-Street to Durham, Uhtred went to Durham with his monks to clear the site of the new cathedral. The new cathedral was founded by Bishop Aldhun, and Uhtred married Aldhun's daughter, Ecgfrida, probably at about this time. From his marriage he received several estates that had belonged to the church. [1]

In 1006 Malcolm II of Scotland invaded Northumbria and besieged the newly founded episcopal city of Durham. At that time the Danes were raiding southern England and King Ethelred was unable to send help to the Northumbrians. Ealdorman Waltheof was too old to fight and remained in his castle at Bamburgh. Ealdorman ¥lfhelm of York also took no action. Uhtred, acting for his father, called together an army from Bernicia and Yorkshire and led it against the Scots. The result was a decisive victory for Uhtred. Local women washed the severed heads of the Scots, receiving a payment of a cow for each, and the heads were fixed on stakes to Durham's walls. Uhtred was rewarded by King Ethelred II with the ealdormanry of Bamburgh even though his father was still alive. In the meantime, Ethelred had Ealdorman ¥lfhelm of York murdered, and he allowed Uhtred to succeed ¥lfhelm as ealdorman of York, thus uniting northern and southern Northumbria under the house of Bamburgh. It seems likely that Ethelred did not trust the Scandinavian population of southern Northumbria and wanted an Anglo-Saxon in power there. [2]

After receiving these honours Uhtred dismissed his wife, Ecgfrida, and married Sige, daughter of Styr, son of Ulf. Styr was a rich citizen of York. It appears that Uhtred was trying to make political allies amongst the Danes in Deira. Through Sige, Uhtred had two children, Eadulf, later Eadulf III, and Gospatric. This Gospatric's grandson was the infamous Eadwulf Rus who murdered Bishop Walcher.[2]

In 1013 King Sweyn of Denmark invaded England, sailing up the Humber and Trent to the town of Gainsborough. Uhtred submitted to him there, as did all of the Danes in the north. In the winter of 1013 Ethelred was forced into exile in Normandy. After London had finally submitted to him, Sweyn was accepted as king by Christmas 1013. However he only reigned for five weeks, for he died at, or near, Gainsborough on 2 February 1014. At Sweyn’s death, Ethelred was able to return from exile and resume his reign. Uhtred, along with many others, transferred his allegiance back to Ethelred, on his return. Uhtred also married Ethelred’s daughter ¥lfgifu about this time. [2]

In 1016 Uhtred campaigned with Ethelred's son Edmund Ironside in Cheshire and the surrounding shires. While Uhtred was away from his lands, Sweyn's son, Cnut, invaded Yorkshire. Cnut's forces were too strong for Uhtred to fight, and so Uhtred did homage to him as King of England. Uhtred was summoned to a meeting with Cnut, and on the way there, he and forty of his men were murdered by Thurbrand the Hold, with assistance from Uhtred's own servant, Wighill and with the connivance of Cnut. Uhtred was succeeded in Bernicia by his brother Eadwulf Cudel. Cnut made the Norwegian, Eric of Hlathir, ealdorman ("earl" in Scandinavian terms) in southern Northumbria. [1]
Descendants

The killing of Uhtred by Thurbrand the Hold started a blood feud that lasted for many years. Uhtred's son Ealdred subsequently avenged his father by killing Thurbrand, but Ealdred in turn was killed by Thurbrand's son, Carl. Ealdred's vengeance had to wait until the 1070s, when Waltheof, Ealdred’s grandson had his soldiers kill most of Carl's sons and grandsons. This is an example of the notorious Northumbrian blood feuds that were common at this time. [3]

Uhtred's dynasty continued to reign in Bernicia through Ealdred, Earl of Bamburgh (killed 1038) his son from his marriage to Ecgfrida, and Eadulf (killed 1041) his son from his marriage to Sige, and briefly Eadulf's son Osulf held the earldom of northern Northumbria 1067 until he too was killed. Eadulf's brother Cospatric began the Swinton Family dynasty, his son Eadulf Rus famously murdering William Walcher, Bishop of Durham which led to William the Conqueror sending an army northwards to harry the region again. Uhtred’s marriage to ¥lfgifu produced a daughter, Ealdgyth, who married Maldred, brother of Duncan I of Scotland and who gave birth to a son, Gospatric, who was Earl of Northumbria from 1068 to 1072. [4]

end of biography

Untred married Ecgfrida of Durham. Ecgfrida was born in 973 in Northumberland, England; died in 0Dec 1067 in Durham, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

354341.

Ecgfrida of Durham was born in 973 in Northumberland, England; died in 0Dec 1067 in Durham, England.

Notes:

Ecgfrida of Durham formerly Durham aka of Northumbria
Born 0973 in Northumberland, England
Daughter of Ealdhun Durham and [mother unknown]
[sibling(s) unknown]
Wife of Uhtred (Northumbria) of Northumbria — married about 0995 (to 1006) [location unknown]
Wife of Kilvert (UNKNOWN) FitzLigulf — married after 1006 [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Mother of Ealdred (Northumbria) of Bamburgh and Sigrida FitzKilvert (Yorkshire) of Yorkshire
Died Dec 1067 in Durham, England

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Durham-500 created 6 Jun 2012 | Last modified 29 Apr 2019
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[categories]
Contents
[hide]
1 Biography
2 Vitals
3 Parents
4 Marriage
5 Sources
Biography

Ecgfrida (Durham) of Durham was a member of aristocracy in England.
According to Simeon of Durham, Ecgfrida seems to have been left by both of her husbands. After her marriage with Kilvert fell apart, her father made her return to Durham ... where she became a nun, and was supposedly buried in the yard of the church.

Vitals
Ecgfrida[1]
bur. Durham[1]
Parents
Aldun, Bishop of Durham[2] and Unknown.
Marriage
m.1 Ughtred the Bold, Earl of Northumbria. Repudiated.[3] Issue:
Ealdred of Bamburgh[4]

m.2 Kilvert[5] Issue:
Sigrida m. Arkil[6][1][7]
Sources
? 1.0 1.1 1.2 Simeon of Durham
? Wikipedia: Aldhun; Medieval Lands
? Wikipedia: Uhtred the Bold
? Wikipedia: Ealdred of Bamburgh
? father: Ligulf
? son of Ecgfrid
? Issue: Cospatric m. dau. of Dolfin, son of Tolfin
Cawley, C. (2006). "England, AngloSaxon nobility: Northumbria." Medieval Lands v.3. fmg.ac
Stevenson, J., ed. (1855). "Simeon's account of the Siege of Durham." The historical works of Simeon of Durham ... (Vol.3, Part 2, pp765). Google eBook.

end of this biography

Children:

177170. Ealdred, Earl of Bernicia was born in ~990 in Bernicia, Northumbria, England; died in ~1038 in Risewood Forest, England.

355252.

Vladimir, Czar of Russia was born in 956 in Kiev, Ukraine (son of Sviatoslav, I, Grand Prince of Kiev and Malusha); died on 15 Jul 1015 in Kiev, Ukraine.

Notes:

Vladimir the Great (also (Saint) Vladimir of Kiev; Old East Slavic: ?????????? ????????????, Volodimer? Svetoslavic?,[3] Old Norse Valdamarr gamli;[4] c. 958 – 15 July 1015, Berestove) was a prince of Novgorod, grand prince of Kiev, and ruler of Kievan Rus' from 980 to 1015.[5][6]

Vladimir's father was prince Sviatoslav of the Rurik dynasty.[7] After the death of his father in 972, Vladimir, who was then prince of Novgorod, was forced to flee to Scandinavia in 976 after his brother Yaropolk had murdered his other brother Oleg and conquered Rus'. In Sweden, with the help from his relative Ladejarl Hêakon Sigurdsson, ruler of Norway, he assembled a Varangian army and reconquered Novgorod from Yaropolk.[8] By 980, Vladimir had consolidated the Kievan realm from modern-day Belarus, Russia and Ukraine to the Baltic Sea and had solidified the frontiers against incursions of Bulgarian, Baltic tribes and Eastern nomads. Originally a follower of Slavic paganism, Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988[9][10][11] and Christianized the Kievan Rus'.[12]

Rise to power

Born in 958, Vladimir was the natural son and youngest son of Sviatoslav I of Kiev by his housekeeper Malusha. Malusha is described in the Norse sagas as a prophetess who lived to the age of 100 and was brought from her cave to the palace to predict the future. Malusha's brother Dobrynya was Vladimir's tutor and most trusted advisor. Hagiographic tradition of dubious authenticity also connects his childhood with the name of his grandmother, Olga of Kiev, who was Christian and governed the capital during Sviatoslav's frequent military campaigns. His place of birth is identified by different authors either as Budyatychi (modern Volyn Oblast, Ukraine)[13][14][15] or Budnik (ru:?????? (???????); modern Pskov Oblast, Russia).[16]

Transferring his capital to Pereyaslavets in 969, Sviatoslav designated Vladimir ruler of Novgorod the Great but gave Kiev to his legitimate son Yaropolk. After Sviatoslav's death at the hands of the Pechenegs in 972, a fratricidal war erupted in 976 between Yaropolk and his younger brother Oleg, ruler of the Drevlians. In 977, Vladimir fled to his kinsman Haakon Sigurdsson, ruler of Norway, collecting as many Norse warriors as he could to assist him to recover Novgorod. On his return the next year, he marched against Yaropolk. On his way to Kiev he sent ambassadors to Rogvolod (Norse: Ragnvald), prince of Polotsk, to sue for the hand of his daughter Rogneda (Norse: Ragnhild). The high-born princess refused to affiance herself to the son of a bondswoman, so Vladimir attacked Polotsk, slew Rogvolod, and took Ragnhild by force. Polotsk was a key fortress on the way to Kiev, and capturing Polotsk and Smolensk facilitated the taking of Kiev in 978, where he slew Yaropolk by treachery and was proclaimed knyaz of all Kievan Rus.[17]

Years of pagan rule

Vladimir continued to expand his territories beyond his father's extensive domain. In 981, he seized the Cherven towns from the Poles; in 981–982, he suppressed a Vyatichi rebellion; in 983, he subdued the Yatvingians; in 984, he conquered the Radimichs; and in 985, he conducted a military campaign against the Volga Bulgars,[18][19] planting numerous fortresses and colonies on his way.

Although Christianity spread in the region under Oleg's rule, Vladimir had remained a thoroughgoing pagan, taking eight hundred concubines (along with numerous wives) and erecting pagan statues and shrines to gods.[20]

He may have attempted to reform Slavic paganism in an attempt to identify himself with the various gods worshipped by his subjects. He built a pagan temple on the a hill in Kiev dedicated to six gods: Perun - the god of thunder and war "a Norse god favored by members of the prince’s druzhina (military retinue)". Slav gods Stribog and Dazhd'bog; Mokosh - a goddess representing Mother Nature "worshipped by Finnish tribes"; Khors and Simargl, "both of which had Iranian origins, were included, probably to appeal to the Poliane."[21]

Open abuse of the deities that most people in Rus' revered triggered widespread indignation. A mob killed the Christian Fyodor and his son Ioann (later, after the overall christening of Kievan Rus', people came to regard these two as the first Christian martyrs in Rus', and the Orthodox Church[citation needed] set a day to commemorate them, 25 July). Immediately after the murder of Fyodor and Ioann, early medieval Rus' saw persecutions against Christians, many of whom escaped or concealed their belief.[22]

However, Prince Vladimir mused over the incident long after, and not least for political considerations. According to the early Slavic chronicle called Tale of Bygone Years, which describes life in Kievan Rus' up to the year 1110, he sent his envoys throughout the civilized world to judge first hand the major religions of the time, Islam, Roman Catholicism, Judaism, and Byzantine Orthodoxy. They were most impressed with their visit to Constantinople, saying, "We knew not whether we were in Heaven or on Earth… We only know that God dwells there among the people, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other nations."[23]

Christianization of the Kievan Rus'
Main article: Christianization of Kievan Rus'

The Baptism of Saint Prince Vladimir, by Viktor Vasnetsov (1890)

The Primary Chronicle reports that in the year 987, after consultation with his boyars, Vladimir the Great sent envoys to study the religions of the various neighboring nations whose representatives had been urging him to embrace their respective faiths. The result is described by the chronicler Nestor. Of the Muslim Bulgarians of the Volga the envoys reported there is no gladness among them, only sorrow and a great stench. He also reported that Islam was undesirable due to its taboo against alcoholic beverages and pork.[24] Vladimir remarked on the occasion: "Drinking is the joy of all Rus'. We cannot exist without that pleasure."[25] Ukrainian and Russian sources also describe Vladimir consulting with Jewish envoys and questioning them about their religion, but ultimately rejecting it as well, saying that their loss of Jerusalem was evidence that they had been abandoned by God.

His emissaries also visited pre-schism Latin Rite Christian and Eastern Rite Christian missionaries.[citation needed] Ultimately Vladimir settled on Eastern Orthodox Christianity. In the churches of the Germans his emissaries saw no beauty; but at Constantinople, where the full festival ritual of the Byzantine Church was set in motion to impress them, they found their ideal: "We no longer knew whether we were in heaven or on earth", they reported, describing a majestic Divine Liturgy in Hagia Sophia, "nor such beauty, and we know not how to tell of it." If Vladimir was impressed by this account of his envoys, he was even more attracted by the political gains of the Byzantine alliance.

Saint Vladimir Monument on Saint Vladimir Hill in Kiev, often depicted in paintings and photographs of the city

In 988, having taken the town of Chersonesos in Crimea, he boldly negotiated for the hand of emperor Basil II's sister, Anna.[26] Never before had a Byzantine imperial princess, and one "born in the purple" at that, married a barbarian, as matrimonial offers of French kings and German emperors had been peremptorily rejected. In short, to marry the 27-year-old princess to a pagan Slav seemed impossible. Vladimir was baptized at Chersonesos, however, taking the Christian name of Basil out of compliment to his imperial brother-in-law; the sacrament was followed by his wedding to Anna. Returning to Kiev in triumph, he destroyed pagan monuments and established many churches, starting with a church dedicated to St. Basil,[27] and the Church of the Tithes (989).

Arab sources, both Muslim and Christian, present a different story of Vladimir's conversion. Yahya of Antioch, al-Rudhrawari, al-Makin, Al-Dimashqi, and ibn al-Athir all give essentially the same account.[28] In 987, Bardas Sclerus and Bardas Phocas revolted against the Byzantine emperor Basil II. Both rebels briefly joined forces, but then Bardas Phocas proclaimed himself emperor on 14 September 987. Basil II turned to the Kievan Rus' for assistance, even though they were considered enemies at that time. Vladimir agreed, in exchange for a marital tie; he also agreed to accept Christianity as his religion and to Christianize his people. When the wedding arrangements were settled, Vladimir dispatched 6,000 troops to the Byzantine Empire, and they helped to put down the revolt.[29]

In 988 and 991, he baptized Pecheneg princes Metiga and Kuchug, respectively.[30]

Christian reign

The Pontic steppes, c. 1015

Vladimir then formed a great council out of his boyars and set his twelve sons over his subject principalities. According to the Primary Chronicle, he founded the city of Belgorod in 991. In 992, he went on a campaign against the Croats, most likely the White Croats that lived on the border of modern Ukraine. This campaign was cut short by the attacks of the Pechenegs on and around Kiev.

In his later years he lived in a relative peace with his other neighbors: Boleslav I of Poland, Stephen I of Hungary, and Andrikh the Czech (questionable character mentioned in A Tale of the Bygone Years). After Anna's death, he married again, likely to a granddaughter of Otto the Great.

In 1014, his son Yaroslav the Wise stopped paying tribute. Vladimir decided to chastise the insolence of his son and began gathering troops against him. Vladimir fell ill, however, most likely of old age, and died at Berestove, near Kiev. The various parts of his dismembered body were distributed among his numerous sacred foundations and were venerated as relics.

During his Christian reign, Vladimir lived the teachings of the Bible through acts of charity. He would hand out food and drink to the less fortunate, and made an effort to go out to the people who could not reach him. His work was based on the impulse to help one’s neighbors by sharing the burden of carrying their cross.[31]

Family

Main article: Family life and children of Vladimir I

Vladimir and Rogneda (1770)

The fate of all Vladimir's daughters, whose number is around nine, is uncertain.

Olava or Allogia (Varangian or Czech), speculative she might have been mother of Vysheslav while others claim that it is a confusion with Helena Lekapena[citation needed]
Vysheslav (~977 – ~1010), Prince of Novgorod (988–1010)
a widow of Yaropolk I, a Greek nun
Sviatopolk the Accursed (~979), possibly the surviving son of Yaropolk
Rogneda (the daughter of Rogvolod), later upon divorce she entered a convent taking the Christian name of Anastasia
Izyaslav of Polotsk (~979, Kiev), Prince of Polotsk (989–1001)
Yaroslav the Wise (no earlier than 983), Prince of Rostov (987–1010), Prince of Novgorod (1010–1034), Grand Prince of Kiev (1016–1018, 1019–1054). Possibly he was a son of Anna rather than Rogneda. Another interesting fact that he was younger than Sviatopolk according to the words of Boris in the Tale of Bygone Years and not as it was officially known. Also the fact of him being the Prince of Rostov is highly doubtful although not discarded.
Vsevolod (~984–1013), possibly the Swedish Prince Wissawald of Volyn (~1000), was perhaps the first husband of Estrid Svendsdatter
Mstislav, other Mstislav that possibly died as an infant if he was ever born
Mstislav of Chernigov (~983), Prince of Tmutarakan (990–1036), Prince of Chernigov (1024–1036), other sources claim him to be son of other mothers (Adela, Malfrida, or some other Bulgarian wife)
Predslava, a concubine of Boleslaw I Chrobry according to Gesta principum Polonorum
Premislava, (?–1015), some source state that she was a wife of the Duke Laszlo (Vladislav) "the Bald" of Arpadians
Mstislava, in 1018 was taken by Boleslaw I Chrobry among the other daughters
Bulgarian Adela, some sources claim that Adela is not necessarily Bulgarian as Boris and Gleb were born from some other wife
Boris (~986), Prince of Rostov (~1010–1015), remarkable is the fact that Rostov Principality as well as the Principality of Murom used to border the territory of Volga Bolgars
Gleb (~987), Prince of Murom (1013–1015), as Boris, Gleb is being also claimed the son of Anna Porphyrogenita
Stanislav (~985–1015), Prince of Smolensk (988–1015), possible of another wife and a fate of whom is not certain
Sudislav (?–1063), Prince of Pskov (1014–1036), possible of another wife, but he is mentioned in Nikon's Chronicles. He spent 35 years in prison and later before dying turned into a monk.
Malfrida
Sviatoslav (~982–1015), Prince of Drevlians (990–1015)
Anna Porphyrogenita
Theofana, a wife of Novgorod posadnik Ostromir, a grandson of semi-legendary Dobrynya (highly doubtful is the fact of her being Anna's offspring)
a granddaughter of Otto the Great (possibly Rechlinda Otona [Regelindis])
Maria Dobroniega of Kiev (~1012), the Duchess of Poland (1040–1087), married around 1040 to Casimir I the Restorer, Duke of Poland, her maternity as daughter of this wife is deduced from her apparent age
other possible family
Vladimirovna, an out-of-marriage daughter (d. 1044), married to Bernard, Margrave of the Nordmark.
Pozvizd (prior to 988–?), a son of Vladimir according to Hustyn Chronicles. He, possibly, was the Prince Khrisokhir mentioned by Niketas Choniates.
Significance and legacy

Vladimir the Great portrait on obverse ?1 bill circa 2006

The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate the feast day of St. Vladimir on 15 July.[32]

The town Volodymyr-Volynskyi in north-western Ukraine was founded by Vladimir and is named after him.[33] The foundation of another town, Vladimir in Russia, is usually attributed to Vladimir Monomakh. However some researchers argue that it was also founded by Vladimir the Great.[34]

St Volodymyr's Cathedral, one of the largest cathedrals in Kiev, is dedicated to Vladimir the Great, as was originally the University of Kiev. The Imperial Russian Order of St. Vladimir and Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in the United States are also named after him.

The memory of Vladimir was also kept alive by innumerable Russian folk ballads and legends, which refer to him as Krasno Solnyshko (the Fair (or Red) Sun). The Varangian period of Eastern Slavic history ceases with Vladimir, and the Christian period begins. The appropriation of Kievan Rus' as part of national history has also been a topic of contention in Ukrainophile vs. Russophile schools of historiography since the Soviet era.[35]

During his leadership, all branches of the economy prospered under him.[36] He was able to mint coins and regulated foreign affairs with other countries such as trade. Through trade he brought in Greek wines, Baghdad spices, and Arab horses to trade at the markets of Kiev.

Vladimir the Great on the Millennium of Russia monument in Novgorod

Monument to Vladimir the Great and the monk Fyodor at Pushkin Park in Vladimir, Russia

Vladimir as a symbol of Ukrainian nationalism: "St Volodymyr – Ruler of Ukraine, 980–1015, erected by Ukrainians in Great Britain in 1988 to celebrate the establishment of Christianity in Ukraine by St. Volodymir in 988"

See also

Saints portal
List of Russian rulers
List of Ukrainian rulers
Family life and children of Vladimir I
List of people known as The Great
Saint Vladimir Monument
Prince Vladimir, Russian animated feature film (2006)
Viking (film)
Vladimir Putin

Notes

Dyba, Yury (2012). Aleksandrovych V.; Voitovych, Leontii; et al., eds. ?????????-?????? ?????? ???????? ??????????? ???????????? ??? ?????????? ????? ?????????? ??????????????: ??????????? ?????????? ???? [Historical-geographic figurative context of the chronicled report about the birth of Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavovich: localisation of a busy village] (PDF). ????? ????: ??????? ? ???????? [Era of the Princes: history and culture] (in Ukrainian). Lviv. 6. ISSN 2221-6294. Retrieved 7 January 2018.
Harvard Ukrainian studies, Vol. 12–13, p. 190, Harvard Ukrainian studies, 1990
Volodimer? is the East Slavic form of the given name; this form was influenced and partially replaced by the Old Bulgarian (Old Church Slavonic) form Vladimer? (by folk etymology later also Vladimir?; in modern East Slavic, the given name is rendered Ukrainian: ????????? Volodymyr, Russian: ?????´??? Vladimir, Belarusian: ?????i?i? Uladzimir. See Vladimir (name) for details.
Fagrskinna ch. 21 (ed. Finnur Jâonsson 1902–8, p. 108).
Companion to the Calendar: A Guide to the Saints and Mysteries of the Christian Calendar, p. 105, Mary Ellen Hynes, Ed. Peter Mazar, LiturgyTrainingPublications, 1993
National geographic, Vol. 167, p. 290, National Geographic Society, 1985
Vladimir I (Grand Prince of Kiev), Encyclopµdia Britannica
Den hellige Vladimir av Kiev (~956–1015), Den katolske kirke website
Vladimir the Great, Encyclopedia of Ukraine
Saint Vladimir the Baptizer: Wetting cultural appetites for the Gospel, Dr. Alexander Roman, Ukrainian Orthodoxy website
Ukrainian Catholic Church: part 1., The Free Library
Vladimir I, Encyclopµdia Britannica
???? ?. ?????????-???????????? ???????? ??????????? ???????????? ??? ?????????? ????? ?????????? ??????????????: ??????????? ?????????? ???? // ????? ????. ??????? ? ????????. ?????: ???????? ??????????????? ??. ?. ????'??????? ??? ???????. — ???. VI. — ?. 37-70

References

Golden, P. B. (2006) "Rus." Encyclopaedia of Islam (Brill Online). Eds.: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Vladimir, St". Encyclopµdia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Some historical analysis and political insights on the state affairs of Vladimir the Great (in Russian)
Moss, Walter G. (2002) "A History of Russia Volume I: To 1917" (London: Anthem Press).
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Vladimir I of Kiev.
Velychenko, Stephen, How Valdamarr Sveinaldsson got to Moscow (krytyka.com), 9 November 2015.

Vladimir I Sviatoslavich
SuffixSuggest a change for this event Czar of Russia
BornSuggest a change for this event 960 , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Gender Male
NameSuggest a change for this event Vladimir I "The Great" Sviatoslavich
ReligionSuggest a change for this event Abt 989 , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Converted to Christianity
DiedSuggest a change for this event 15 Jul 1015 , Berestovo, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
BuriedSuggest a change for this event Church of Tithes, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Headstones Submit Headstone Photo Submit Headstone Photo
Person ID I3910 Full Tree
Last Modified 27 Sep 2013

Father Sviatoslav I Igorovich, Czar of Russia
b. 942, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 972, , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Mother Duchess Malusha von Lèubeck
b. Abt 944, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1002
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 959 , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location [1, 2, 6]
StatusSuggest a change for this event Concubinage
Family ID F1903 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 1 Adlaga de Kiev, Grand Duchess of Kiev
b. Abt 959, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 976 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
1. Vysheslav Vladimirovich, Duke of Novgorod
b. Abt 977, of, Novgorod, Novgorod Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1010
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1818 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 2 Olava de Kiev, Grand Duchess of Kiev
b. Abt 953, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 977 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1819 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 3 Predislava de Kiev, Grand Duchess of Kiev
b. Abt 960, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
MarriedSuggest a change for this event 980 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1820 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 4 Milolika Asen, Princess of Bulgaria
b. Abt 963, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Bef 982 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
1. Boris David Vladimirovich, Duke of Rostov
b. Abt 982, of, Rostov-Yaroslavski, Yaroslavski Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 24 Jul 1015
2. Gleb Roman Vladimirovich, Duke of Murom
b. Abt 983, of, Murom, Vladimir Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Abt 5 Aug 1015
3. Stanslav Vladimirovich, Duke of Smolensk
b. Abt 984, of, Smolensk, Smolensk Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 1015
4. Pozvizd Vladimirovich, Duke of Vladimir-Volnysk
b. Abt 985, of, Vladimir-Volynski, Volyn Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 1015
5. Sudislav Vladimirovich, Duke of Pskov
b. Abt 986, of, Pskov, Pskov Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1063-1065
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1821 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 5 Malfriede Premysl, Princess of Bohemia
b. Abt 960, of, Prague, Praha, Czechoslovakia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 987 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
1. Svyatoslav Vladimirovich, Duke of Drevlians
b. Abt 988, of, Ovruch, Zhitomir Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 15 Jul 1015
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1823 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 6 Miss Oehringen
b. Abt 991, of Oehringen, Jagstkreis, Baden-Wèurttemberg, Schwaben, Germany Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 14 Aug 1018
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 1013 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1824 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 7 Princess Rogneda zu Polotsk
b. Abt 962, of, Polotsk, Polotsk Oblast, Byelorussia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1002
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 977 of, Polotsk, Polotsk Oblast, Byelorussia Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
+ 1. Iszyaslav Vladimirovich, Duke of Polotsk
b. Abt 978, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1001
2. Vsevolod Vladimirovich, Prince of Vladimir
b. Abt 979, of, Vladimir-Volynski, Volyn Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1015
+ 3. Yaroslav I Vladimirovich, Czar of Russia
b. 980, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 20 Feb 1054, , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
4. Prâemieslawa Vladimirovna, Princess of Kiev
b. Abt 984, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 1018
5. Mstislav Vladimirovich, Duke of Chernigov
b. Abt 988, of, Chernigov, Chernigov Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1035-1036, , Chernigov, Chernigov Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1828 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 8 Anna Lekapene, Princess of the Byzantine Empire
b. 13 Mar 963, of, Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantium Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1011
MarriedSuggest a change for this event 989 , Kherson, Kherson Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
MARRIAGE: Married 7 Pagan wives (Rogneide was one) by whom he had 22 children (prior to Anna) [7]
Children
+ 1. Arlogia Vladimirovna, Countess of Orkney
b. Abt 1011, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
+ 2. Dobronegra Mariya Vladimirovna, Princess of Kiev
b. Abt 1012, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1087
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1933

Volodymyr the Great (Valdamar, Volodimer, Vladimir), b ca 956, d 15 July 1015 in Vyshhorod, near Kyiv. Grand prince of Kyiv from 980; son of Sviatoslav I Ihorovych and Malusha; half-brother of Yaropolk I Sviatoslavych and Oleh Sviatoslavych; and father of 11 princes by five wives, including Sviatopolk I, Yaroslav the Wise, Mstyslav Volodymyrovych, and Saints Borys and Hlib. In 969 Grand Prince Sviatoslav I named his son Volodymyr the prince of Novgorod the Great, where the latter ruled under the guidance of his uncle, Dobrynia. In 977 a struggle for power broke out among Sviatoslav's sons. Yaropolk I, who was then the grand prince of Kyiv, seized the Derevlianian land and Novgorod, thereby forcing Volodymyr to flee to Scandinavia. In 980 Volodymyr returned to Rus’ with a Varangian force, expelled Yaropolk's governors from Novgorod, and took Polatsk after a battle in which Prince Rogvolod of Polatsk was slain. Volodymyr took Rogvolod's daughter, Rohnida, as his wife. Later that year he captured Kyiv and had Yaropolk murdered, thereby becoming the grand prince , and married Yaropolk's Greek widow.

Over the next 35 years Volodymyr expanded the borders of Kyivan Rus’ and turned it into one of the most powerful states in Eastern Europe. After taking the Cherven towns and Peremyshl from Poland (981) and waging successful wars against the Viatichians (981–2) and Radimichians (984) he united the remaining East Slavic tribes, divided his realm into lands, and installed his sons or viceroys to govern them, dispense princely justice, and collect tribute. In 983 Volodymyr waged war against the Yatvingians and thereby gained access to the Baltic Sea. In 985 he defeated the Khazars and Volga Bulgars and secured his state's eastern frontier. Volodymyr devoted considerable attention to defending his southern borders against the nomadic Pechenegs and Chorni Klobuky. He had lines of fortifications built along the Irpin River, the Stuhna River, the Trubizh River, and the Sula River and founded fortified towns (eg, Vasylkiv, Voin, and Bilhorod) that were joined by earthen ramparts.

Volodymyr attributed his victory over Yaropolk I Sviatoslavych to the support he received from pagan forces, and had idols of the deities Perun, Khors, Dazhboh, Stryboh, Symarhl, and Mokosh erected on a hill overlooking his palace in Kyiv. Later he became convinced that a monotheistic religion would consolidate his power, as Christianity and Islam had done for neighboring rulers. His choice was determined after the Byzantine emperor Basil II turned to him for help in defeating his rival, Bardas Phocas. Volodymyr offered military aid only if he was allowed to marry Basil's sister, Anna, and Basil agreed to the marriage only after Volodymyr promised to convert himself and his subjects to Christianity. Volodymyr, his family, and his closest associates were baptized in December 987, when he took the Christian name Vasylii (Basil). Soon afterward he ordered the destruction of all pagan idols. The mass baptism of the citizens of Kyiv took place on 1 August 988 (see Christianization of Ukraine), and the remaining population of Rus’ was slowly converted, sometimes by force. In 988 Volodymyr sent several thousand warriors to help Basil regain power and married Anna, and in 989 he besieged Chersonese Taurica, took it from Bardas Phocas, and returned it to Basil.

The Christianization of Rus’ was essentially engineered by Byzantium. Byzantium supplied the first hierarchs and other missionary clergy in Rus’ and introduced Byzantine art, education, and literature there. During Volodymyr's reign the first schools and churches were built, notably the Church of the Tithes in Kyiv. The adoption of Christianity as the official religion facilitated the unification of the Rus’ tribes and the establishment of foreign dynastic, political, cultural, religious, and commercial relations, particularly with the Byzantine Empire, Bulgaria, and Germany. Relations with Poland improved after Volodymyr's son Sviatopolk I married the daughter of Prince Boleslaw I the Brave in 992. Volodymyr received papal emissaries in 986, 988, 991, 992, and 1000 and sent his own envoys to Rome in 993 and 1001.

After Anna's death in 1011, Volodymyr married the daughter of Count Kuno von Enningen. Toward the end of his life his sons Sviatopolk of Turiv and Yaroslav the Wise of Novgorod challenged his rule. Having defeated Sviatopolk, Volodymyr died while preparing a campaign against Yaroslav and was buried in the Church of the Tithes. He was succeeded briefly by Sviatopolk.

The Rus’ clergy venerated Volodymyr because of his support of the church, but he was canonized only after 1240. Thereafter he was referred to as ‘the holy, equal to the Apostles, grand prince of Kyiv.’ The oldest extant mention of him as Saint Volodymyr is found in the Hypatian Chronicle under the year 1254, and his feast day, 28 July (15 July OS), was first celebrated in 1263.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Zavitnevich, V. Vladimir Sviatoi kak politicheskii deiatel’ (Kyiv 1888)
Nazarko, I. Sviatyi Volodymyr Velykyi, Volodar i Khrystytel’ Rusy-Ukraèiny (960–1015) (Rome 1954)
Poppe, A. ‘The Political Background to the Baptism of Rus’: Byzantine-Russian Relations between 986 and 989,’ Dumbarton Oaks Papers, no. 30 (1976); repr in his Rise of Christian Russia (London 1982)
Volkoff, V. Vladimir the Russian Viking ([London] 1984)
Tolochko, Petro. Sviatyi Volodymyr; Iaroslav Mudryi (Kyiv 1996)

Birth:
What is the meaning of the word, "Ukraine"?

In most Slavic languages, "kraina" means "country" or "land". The word "krai" in Russian is used this way too (several regions within Russia are categorized as "krai"), but its second meaning "edge"/"boundary" is often pitched by Russia to interpret the word "Ukraine" as "borderlands" (of Russia, of course).

Source: https://www.quora.com/What-does-Ukraine-for-Ukrainians-mean

What is the meaning of the word, "Russia"?

1530s, from Medieval Latin Russi "the people of Russia," from Rus, the native name of the people and the country (source of Arabic Rus, Medieval Greek Rhos), originally the name of a group of Swedish merchant/warriors who established themselves around Kiev 9c.

Source: https://www.etymonline.com/word/russia

Religion:
converted to Christianity

355253.

Rogneda of Polotsk, Princess Consort of Rus was born in 0Apr 962 in Polotsk, Russia (daughter of Rogvolod, Prince of Polotsk); died in 1002 in Berestovo, Kiev, Ukraine.

Notes:

Rogneda of Polotsk (962–1002) is the Slavic name for Ragnhild, was a Princess consort of Rus. She was the daughter of Ragnvald (Slavic: Rogvolod) came from Scandinavia and established himself at Polatsk in the mid-10th century.

Life

It has been speculated that Rogneda belonged to the Ynglings royal family of Norway. In or about 980, Vladimir, on learning that she was betrothed to his half-brother Yaropolk I of Kiev, took Polotsk and forced Rogneda to marry him. Having raped Rogneda in the presence of her parents, he ordered them to be killed, along with two of Rogneda's brothers.

Rogneda gave him several children. The four sons were Yaroslav the Wise, Vsevolod, Mstislav of Chernigov, and Izyaslav of Polotsk. She also bore two daughters, one of whom is named by Nestor the Chronicler as Predslava (taken as a concubine of Boleslaus I of Poland, according to Gallus). A later chronicle tells a story, most likely taken from a Norse saga, of Rogneda plotting against Vladimir and asking her elder son, Izyaslav, to kill him. As was the Norse royal custom, she was sent with her elder son to govern the land of her parents, i.e. Polotsk. Izyaslav's line continued to rule Polotsk and the newly found town of Izyaslavl until the Mongol invasion.

After Vladimir converted to Christianity and took Anna Porphyrogeneta as his wife, he had to divorce all his previous wives, including Rogneda. After that, she entered the convent and took the name Anastasia.

Legacy

Around 1825 Kondraty Ryleev wrote a narrative poem entitled Rogneda. This poem became a literary source for her portrayal in the nationalist Russian opera Rogneda by Alexander Serov, which premiered in 1865.

See also

Family life and children of Vladimir I
List of rape victims from history and mythology

Princess Consort of Rus
Rahvalod, Rahnieda (Polacak). ????????, ??????? (???????).jpg
Matchmakers Vladimir Svyatoslavich in Rogvolod (left side); Rogvolod talks with Rogneda (right side).
Reign 980–988
Predecessor Unknown wife of Yaropolk I
Successor Anna Porphyrogeneta
Born 962
Died 1002 [aged 40]
Spouse Vladimir the Great (divorced)
Issue Izyaslav of Polotsk
Yaroslav the Wise
Mstislav of Chernigov
Predlava
Premislava
Mstislava
Father Rogvolod

end of biography

end of biography

Notes:

Married:
List of rape victims from ancient history and mythology:

Rogneda of Polotsk from Belarus/Scandinavian history; raped by Vladimir, half-brother of her betrothed Yaropolk I of Kiev, in the presence of her parents (10th century)

... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rape_victims_from_ancient_history_and_mythology

Children:

177626. Yaroslav, I, Czar of Russia was born in 976 in Kiev, Ukraine; died on 20 Feb 1054 in Kiev, Ukraine.

355254.

Olof Skotkonung, King of Sweden was born in ~980 in (Sweden); died in 1022 in Husaby, Sweden.

Olof married Estrid of the Obotrites, Queen Consort of Sweden(Sweden). Estrid was born in ~979 in (Schleswig-Holstein, Germany); died in 1035 in (Sweden). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

355255.

Estrid of the Obotrites, Queen Consort of Sweden was born in ~979 in (Schleswig-Holstein, Germany); died in 1035 in (Sweden).

Notes:

Estrid (or Astrid) of the Obotrites (c. 979 – 1035) was a Viking age Swedish queen and West Slavic princess, married to Olof Skèotkonung, the King of Sweden, c. 1000–1022, mother of King Anund Jacob of Sweden and the Kievan Rus' saint and grand princess Ingegerd Olofsdotter.

Biography
Legend says that Estrid was taken back to Sweden from a war in the West Slavic area of Mecklenburg as a war-prize. She was most likely given by her father, a tribal chief of the Polabian Obotrites, as a peace offering in a marriage to seal the peace, and she is thought to have brought with her a great dowry, as a great Slavic influence is represented in Sweden from her time, mainly among craftsmen.

Her husband also had a mistress, Edla, who came from the same area in Europe as herself, and who was possibly taken to Sweden at the same time. The king treated Edla and Estrid the same way and gave his son and his two daughters with Edla the same privileges as the children he had with Estrid, though it was Estrid he married and made queen.

Queen Estrid was baptised with her husband, their children and large numbers of the Swedish royal court in 1008, when the Swedish royal family converted to Christianity, although the king promised to respect the freedom of religion - Sweden was not to be Christian until the last religious war between Inge the Elder and Blot-Sweyn of 1084-1088.

Snorre Sturlasson wrote about her, that Estrid was unkind to the children (Emund, Astrid and Holmfrid) of her husband's mistress Edla;

" Queen Estrid was arrogant and not kind towards her stepchildren, and therefore the king sent his son Emund to Vendland, where he was brought up by his maternal relatives".
Not much is known of Estrid as a person. Snorre Sturlasson mentions her as a lover of pomp and luxury, and as hard and strict towards her servants.

Children
Ingegerd Olofsdotter (c. 1001-1054), Grand Princess of Kiev, in Kievan Rus' called Anna, married Yaroslav I the Wise, prince of Novgorod and Kiev.
Anund Jacob (c. 1010-1050), king of Sweden, succeeded Olof as king in c. 1022.
References
êAke Ohlmarks: "Alla Sveriges drottningar" (All the queens of Sweden) (In Swedish)
Snorri Sturluson

end of this biography

Children:

177627. Ingigerd Olofsdottir, Princess of Sweden was born in ~1001 in Sigtuna, Sweden; died on 10 Feb 1050 in Kiev, Ukraine.
Anund Jacob, King of Sweden was born in ~1010 in (Sweden); died in 1050 in (Sweden).

96776.

Duke Robert de Normandie, II was born in ~1005 in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, II and Judith de Bretagne); died on 22 Jul 1035 in Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey.

Notes:

Robert I the Magnificent of Normandy, Duke of Normany, was born 1000 in Normandy, France to Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027) and Judith of Brittany (982-1017) and died 22 July 1035 in Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey of unspecified causes. Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]

Robert, called "The Magnificent" (French, "le Magnifique") for his love of finery, and also called "The Devil" was the son of Duke Richard II of Normandy and Judith, daughter of Conan I, Duke of Brittany.

When his father died, his elder brother Richard succeeded, whilst he became Count of Hiâemois. When Richard died a year later, there were great suspicions that Robert had Richard murdered, hence his other nickname, "Robert le diable" (the devil). He is sometimes identified with the legendary Robert the Devil. Robert aided King Henry I of France against Henry's rebellious brother and mother, and for his help he was given the territory of the Vexin. He also intervened in the affairs of Flanders, supported Edward the Confessor, who was then in exile at Robert's court, and sponsored monastic reform in Normandy.

Children

Offspring of Robert I of Normandy and Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050)
Name Birth Death Joined with
William I of England (1027-1087) 9 September 1027 Falaise, France 1087 Rouen, France Matilda of Flanders (c1031-1083)

96777.

Harriette de Falaise, Countess of Montaigne was born in 1003 in Falaise, Calvados, Normandie, France; died in ~1050 in Mortagne-au-Perche, Normandie, France.

Notes:

Herleva[a] (c. 1003 – c. 1050) was a Norman woman of the 11th century, known for three sons: William I of England "the Conqueror", an illegitimate son fathered by Robert I, Duke of Normandy; and Odo of Bayeux and Robert, Count of Mortain, who were both fathered by her husband Herluin de Conteville. All three became prominent in William's realm.

Life

The background of Herleva and the circumstances of William's birth are shrouded in mystery. The written evidence dates from a generation or two later, and is not entirely consistent, but of all the Norman chroniclers only the Tours chronicler asserts that William's parents were subsequently joined in marriage.[b] The most commonly accepted version says that she was the daughter of a tanner named Fulbert from the town of Falaise, in Normandy. The meaning of filia pelletarii burgensis[6] is somewhat uncertain, and Fulbert may instead have been a furrier, embalmer, apothecary, or a person who laid out corpses for burial.[7]

Some argue that Herleva's father was not a tanner but rather a member of the burgher class.[8] The idea is supported by the appearance of her brothers in a later document as attestors for an under-age William. Also, the Count of Flanders later accepted Herleva as a proper guardian for his own daughter. Both of these would be nearly impossible if Herleva's father was a tanner, which would place his standing as little more than a peasant.

Orderic Vitalis described Herleva's father Fulbert as the Duke's Chamberlain (cubicularii ducis).[9]
Relationship with Robert the Magnificent

According to one legend, it all started when Robert, the young Duke of Normandy, saw Herleva from the roof of his castle tower.[10] The walkway on the roof still looks down on the dyeing trenches cut into stone in the courtyard below, which can be seen to this day from the tower ramparts above. The traditional way of dyeing leather or garments was to trample barefoot on the garments which were awash in the liquid dye in these trenches. Herleva, legend goes, seeing the Duke on his ramparts above, raised her skirts perhaps a bit more than necessary in order to attract the Duke's eye.[10] The latter was immediately smitten and ordered her brought in (as was customary for any woman that caught the Duke's eye) through the back door. Herleva refused, saying she would only enter the Duke's castle on horseback through the front gate, and not as an ordinary commoner. The Duke, filled with lust, could only agree. In a few days, Herleva, dressed in the finest her father could provide, and sitting on a white horse, rode proudly through the front gate, her head held high.[10][11] This gave Herleva a semi-official status as the Duke's concubine.[12] She later gave birth to his son, William, in 1027 or 1028.[13]

Some historians suggest Herleva was first the mistress of Gilbert of Brionne with whom she had a son, Richard. It was Gilbert who first saw Herleva and elevated her position and then Robert took her for his mistress.[14]
Marriage to Herluin de Conteville

Herleva later married Herluin de Conteville in 1031. Some accounts maintain that Robert always loved her, but the gap in their social status made marriage impossible, so, to give her a good life, he married her off to one of his favourite noblemen.[15]

Another source suggests that Herleva did not marry Herluin until after Robert died, because there is no record of Robert entering another relationship, whereas Herluin married another woman, Fredesendis, by the time he founded the abbey of Grestain.[16]

From her marriage to Herluin she had two sons: Odo, who later became Bishop of Bayeux, and Robert, who became Count of Mortain. Both became prominent during William's reign. They also had at least two daughters: Emma, who married Richard le Goz, Viscount of Avranches, and a daughter of unknown name who married William, lord of la Fertâe-Macâe.[17]
Death

According to Robert of Torigni, Herleva was buried at the abbey of Grestain, which was founded by Herluin and their son Robert around 1050. This would put Herleva in her forties around the time of her death. However, David C. Douglas suggests that Herleva probably died before Herluin founded the abbey because her name does not appear on the list of benefactors, whereas the name of Herluin's second wife, Fredesendis, does.[18]

end of biography

Children:

48388. William the Conqueror, King of England, Duke of Normandy was born on 14 Oct 1024 in Chateau de Falaise, Falaise, Normandy, France; was christened in 1066 in Dives-sur-Mer, Normandie, France; died on 9 Sep 1087 in Rouen, Normandy, France; was buried in Saint-Etienne de Caen, France.
88587. Countess Adelaide of Normandy was born in ~1030 in Normandie, France; died before 1090 in (Normandie, France).

355300.

Robert d'Evereux, Comte d'Evreux was born in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, I and Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy); died on 16 Mar 1037 in Seine-Inferieure, Normandy, France.

Notes:

Robert "Archbishop of Rouen, Comte d'Evreux" Normandie
Born [date unknown] in Normandie, France
ANCESTORS ancestors
Son of Richard (Normandie) de Normandie and Gunnora (Crâepon) de Normandie
Brother of Unknown (of Normandy) Normandie, Unknown (Normandy) de St. Sauveur [half], Godfrey (Brionne) de Brionne [half], Richard (Normandie) de Normandie, Muriella (Normandie) de Hauteville [half], Guillaume (Normandie) d'Eu [half], Matilda (Normandy) de Normandie, Mauger (Normandie) de Corbeil, Hawise (Normandie) de Normandie, Beatrix (Normandie) Turenne [half], Emma (Normandie) of England, Fressenda (Normandie) de Hauteville [half] and Papia (Normandie) de St Valâery [half]
Husband of Herleva (UNKNOWN) d'Evreux — married [date unknown] [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Father of Raoul (d'âEvreux) Evreux, Gautier (de Rouen) de Rosmar, Richard (Evreux) d'Evreux and Guillaume (de Evreux) Evreux
Died 16 Mar 1037 in Seine-Inferieure, Normandy, France
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Categories: House of Normandie.

European Aristocracy
Robert Normandie was a member of aristocracy in Europe.
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Robert Normandie is a member of the House of Normandie.
Contents
[hide]
1 Biography
1.1 Marriage
1.2 Religion
1.3 Surname
2 Sources
Biography
Robert (d. 1037), Comte d'Evreux.[1][2][3]

Robert, born before 989, the son of Richard I and his second wife Gunnora, was named the Comte d'âEvreux. He was the Archbishop of Rouen from 989 to 1037.[2]

Marriage
He married Herleve (Havlive).[4] Her orignis are unknown.[2] They had 3 children:[5]

Richard d'âEvreux (d. 1067) Comte d'âEvreux[2]
Raoul (d1051), Seigneur de Gacâe[2]
Guillaume d'âEvreux[2]
Gautier (Walter) de Rosmar[6]
Religion
c. 989-1037: Archbishop of Rouen.[1]
Surname
"DEVEREAUX originally d'Evreux (of Normandy) is found in Ireland after the Conquest via settlers of co. Wexford."[7]

Sources
? 1.0 1.1 Baldwin, n.d.
? 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Cawley, 2006
? 1. Tab. Souv. Gen., France 22, Tab. 48
? clerical marriages were not forbidden in Normandy until 1064.
? Cawley (2006); Wikipedia
? Walter is mentioned as the son of Robert and Herlave in:
Massan de St. Amand, A. (1813). Essais historiques et anecdotiques sur l'ancien comtâe, les comtes et la ville d'Evreux. Google Books.[1]
He is not named as a son by Wikipedia, Baldwin (n.d.) or Cawley (2006).
? see Geni.com for copy.[2]
See also:

Baldwin, S. (n.d.). "Robert, archbishop of Rouen and count of âEvreux." Henry Project. Web.[3]
Cawley, C. (2006). Medieval Lands v.4. Fmg.ac. Web.[4]
Wikipedia: Robert II (archbishop of Rouen)

end of profile

Robert married Havlive of Normandy. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

355301.
Havlive of Normandy
Children:

177650. Richard d'Evreux was born in ~986; died on 13 Dec 1067.

710416.

Edgar the Peaceful, King of England was born about 943 in (Wessex) England (son of Edmund I, King of the English and Aelfgifu of Shaftsbury); died on 8 Jul 0975 in Winchester, Hampshire, England; was buried in Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset, England.

Notes:

Edgar (Old English: Eadgar; c.?943—8 July 975), known as the Peaceful or the Peaceable, was King of England from 959 until his death. He was the younger son of Edmund I and ¥lfgifu of Shaftesbury, and came to the throne as a teenager, following the death of his older brother Eadwig. As king, Edgar further consolidated the political unity achieved by his predecessors, with his reign being noted for its relative stability. His most trusted advisor was Dunstan, whom he recalled from exile and made Archbishop of Canterbury. The pinnacle of Edgar's reign was his coronation at Bath in 973, which was organised by Dunstan and forms the basis for the current coronation ceremony. After his death he was succeeded by his son Edward, although the succession was disputed.

King of the English
Reign 1 October 959 – 8 July 975
Predecessor Eadwig
Successor Edward
Born 943/944
Died 8 July 975 (aged 31/32)
Winchester, Hampshire
Burial Glastonbury Abbey
Spouse ¥thelflµd[1]
Wulfthryth[1]
¥lfthryth
Issue Edward, King of England
Eadgyth[1]
Edmund[2]
¥thelred, King of England
House Wessex
Father Edmund, King of England
Mother ¥lfgifu of Shaftesbury
Religion Christianity

Early years and accession

Edgar was the son of Edmund I and ¥lfgifu of Shaftesbury. Upon the death of King Edmund in 946, Edgar's uncle, Eadred, ruled until 955. Eadred was succeeded by his nephew, Eadwig, the son of Edmund and Edgar's older brother.

Eadwig was not a popular king, and his reign was marked by conflict with nobles and the Church, primarily St Dunstan and Archbishop Oda. In 957, the thanes of Mercia and Northumbria changed their allegiance to Edgar.[3] A conclave of nobles declared Edgar as king of the territory north of the Thames.[4] Edgar became King of England upon Eadwig's death in October 959, aged just 16.

Government

One of Edgar's first actions was to recall Dunstan from exile and have him made Bishop of Worcester (and subsequently Bishop of London and later, Archbishop of Canterbury). Dunstan remained Edgar's advisor throughout his reign. While Edgar may not have been a particularly peaceable man[citation needed], his reign was peaceful. The Kingdom of England was well established, and Edgar consolidated the political unity achieved by his predecessors. By the end of his reign, England was sufficiently unified in that it was unlikely to regress back to a state of division among rival kingships, as it had to an extent under the reign of Eadred. William Blackstone mentions that King Edgar standardised measure throughout the realm.[5] According to George Molyneaux, Edgar's reign, "far more than the reigns of either Alfred or ¥thelstan, was probably the most pivotal phase in the development of the institutional structures that were fundamental to royal rule in the eleventh-century kingdom".[6] Indeed, an early eleventh century king Cnut the Great states in a letter to his subjects that ''it is my will that all the nation, ecclesiastical and lay, shall steadfastly observe Edgar's laws, which all men have chosen and sworn at Oxford''.[7]

Benedictine reform

A coin of Edgar, struck in Winchcombe (c. 973-75).
The Monastic Reform Movement that introduced the Benedictine Rule to England's monastic communities peaked during the era of Dunstan, ¥thelwold, and Oswald (historians continue to debate the extent and significance of this movement).[8]

Dead Man's Plack

In 963, Edgar allegedly killed Earl ¥thelwald, his rival in love, near present-day Longparish, Hampshire.[9] The event was commemorated by the Dead Man's Plack, erected in 1825.[9] In 1875, Edward Augustus Freeman debunked the story as a "tissue of romance" in his book, Historic Essays;[10] however, his arguments were rebutted by naturalist William Henry Hudson in his 1920 book Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn.[4]

Coronation at Bath

Edgar was crowned at Bath and along with his wife ¥lfthryth was anointed, setting a precedent for a coronation of a queen in England itself.[11] Edgar's coronation did not happen until 973, in an imperial ceremony planned not as the initiation, but as the culmination of his reign (a move that must have taken a great deal of preliminary diplomacy). This service, devised by Dunstan himself and celebrated with a poem in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, forms the basis of the present-day British coronation ceremony.

Main article: King Edgar's council at Chester
The symbolic coronation was an important step; other kings of Britain came and gave their allegiance to Edgar shortly afterwards at Chester. Six kings in Britain, including the King of Scots and the King of Strathclyde, pledged their faith that they would be the king's liege-men on sea and land. Later chroniclers made the kings into eight, all plying the oars of Edgar's state barge on the River Dee.[12] Such embellishments may not be factual, and what actually happened is unclear.[13]

Death

Edgar died on 8 July 975 at Winchester, Hampshire. He left behind Edward, who was probably his illegitimate son by ¥thelflµd (not to be confused with the Lady of the Mercians), and ¥thelred, the younger, the child of his wife ¥lfthryth. He was succeeded by Edward. Edgar also had a possibly illegitimate daughter by Wulfthryth, who later became abbess of Wilton. She was joined there by her daughter, Edith of Wilton, who lived there as a nun until her death. Both women were later regarded as saints.[14][15]

Appearance

"[H]e was extremely small both in stature and bulk..."[16]

See also

House of Wessex family tree; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_of_Wessex#House_of_Wessex_family_tree

Edgar married Aelfthryth. Aelfthryth was born about 945; died in 1000-1001. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

710417.

Aelfthryth was born about 945; died in 1000-1001.

Children:

355208. Aethelred the Unready, King of the English was born about 966 in (Wessex) England; died on 23 Apr 1016 in London, England; was buried in London, England.

710418.

Thored Gunnarsson, Earl of Southern Northumbria was born in 938 in Wessex, England; died in 992-994 in Northumberland, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Death: 992, Wessex, England

Notes:

Thored (Old English: £oreº or ´oreº; fl. 979–992) was a 10th-century ealdorman of York, ruler of the southern half of the old Kingdom of Northumbria on behalf of the king of England. He was the son of either Gunnar or Oslac, northern ealdormen. If he was the former, he may have attained adulthood by the 960s, when a man of his name raided Westmorland. Other potential appearances in the records are likewise uncertain until 979, the point from which Thored's period as ealdorman can be accurately dated.

Although historians differ in their opinions about his relationship, if any, to Kings Edgar the Peaceable and Edward the Martyr, it is generally thought that he enjoyed a good relationship with King ¥thelred II. His daughter ¥lfgifu married ¥thelred. Thored was ealdorman in Northumbria for much of his reign, disappearing from the sources in 992 after being appointed by ¥thelred to lead an expedition against the Vikings.

Ealdorman of York
Reign c. 964/974x979–992x994
Predecessor Oslac (?)
Successor ¥lfhelm
Born unknown
unknown
Died 992 or 994
Burial unknown
Issue ¥lfgifu (died 1002)
¥thelstan (died 1010)
Father Gunnar (probable)/
Oslac (potential)
Mother unknown

Origins

The area shaded under "Jorvik" (York), probably corresponds very roughly with Thored's territory of southern Northumbria; it should be noted that the Danelaw as a territory is a modern construct, though Yorkshire was in the area where Dena lagu ("Scandinavian law") was practised

Thored appears to have been of at least partially Scandinavian origin, suggested by the title applied to him in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 992. Here, the ealdorman of Hampshire is called by the English title "ealdorman", while Thored himself is styled by the Scandinavian word eorl (i.e. Earl).[1]

Two accounts of Thored's origins have been offered by modern historians. The first is that he was a son of Oslac, ealdorman of York from 966 until his exile in 975.[2] This argument is partly based on the assertion by the Historia Eliensis, that Oslac had a son named Thorth (i.e. "Thored").[3] The other suggestion, favoured by most historians, is that he was the son of a man named Gunnar.[4] This Gunnar is known to have held land in the East and North Ridings of Yorkshire.[5]

If the latter suggestion is correct, then Thored's first appearance in history is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recension D (EF)'s entry for 966, which recorded the accession of Oslac to the ealdormanry of southern Northumbria:

In this year, Thored, Gunnar's son, harried Westmoringa land, and, in this same year, Oslac succeeded to the office of ealdorman.[6]

The Anglo-Saxon scholar Frank Stenton believed that this was an act of regional faction-fighting, rather than, as had been suggested by others, Thored carrying out the orders of King Edgar the Peaceable.[7] This entry is, incidentally, the first mention of Westmoringa land, that is, Westmorland.[7] Gunnar seems to have been ealdorman earlier in the decade, for in one charter (surviving only in a later cartulary) dated to 963 and three Abingdon charters dated to 965, an ealdorman (dux) called Gunnar is mentioned.[8]

Thored may be the Thored who appears for the first time in charter attestations during the reign of King Edgar (959–75), his earliest possible appearance being in 964, witnessing a grant of land in Kent by King Edgar to St Peter's, Ghent. This is uncertain because the authenticity of this particular charter is unclear.[9] A charter issued by Edgar in 966, granting land in Oxfordshire to a woman named ¥lfgifu, has an illegible ealdorman witness signature beginning with ´, which may be Thored.[10]

Ealdorman

Coin of ¥thelred the Unready.jpgAethelred rev2.jpg
O: Draped bust of ¥thelred II left. +¥£ELRED REX ANGLOR R: Long cross. +EAD?OLD MO C¥NT
'LonCross' penny of ¥thelred II, moneyer Eadwold, Canterbury, c. 997-1003. The cross made cutting the coin into half-pennies or farthings (quarter-pennies) easier. (Note spelling Ead?old in inscription, using Anglo-Saxon letter wynn in place of modern w.)
Thored's governorship as ealdorman, based on charter attestations, cannot be securely dated before 979.[11] He did attest royal charters during the reign of ¥thelred II, the first in 979,[12] six in 983,[13] one in 984,[14] three in 985,[15] one in 988,[16] appearing in such attestations for the last time in 989.[12] It is possible that such appearances represent more than one Thored, though that is not a generally accepted theory.[17] His definite predecessor, Oslac, was expelled from England in 975.[18] The historian Richard Fletcher thought that Oslac's downfall may have been the result of opposing the succession of Edward the Martyr, enemy and brother of ¥thelred II.[19] What is known about Thored's time as ealdorman is that he did not have a good relationship with Oswald, Archbishop of York (971–92). In a memorandum written by Oswald, a group of estates belonging to the archdiocese of York was listed, and Oswald noted that "I held them all until Thored came to power; then was St Peter [to whom York was dedicated] robbed".[20] One of the estates allegedly lost was Newbald, an estate given by King Edgar to a man named Gunnar, suggesting to historian Dorothy Whitelock that Thored may just have been reclaiming land "wrongly alienated from his family".[21]

His relationship with King Edgar is unclear, particularly given the uncertainty of Thored's paternity, Oslac being banished from England in 975, the year of Edgar's death.[2] Richard Fletcher, who thought Thored was the son of Gunnar, argued that Thored's raid on Westmorland was caused by resentment derived from losing out on the ealdormanry to Oslac, and that Edgar thereafter confiscated various territories as punishment.[5] The evidence for this is that Newbald, granted by Edgar to Gunnar circa 963, was bought by Archbishop Osketel from the king sometime before 971, implying that the king had seized the land.[5]

Thored's relationship with the English monarchy under ¥thelred II seems to have been good. ¥lfgifu, the first wife of King ¥thelred II, was probably Thored's daughter.[22] Evidence for this is that in the 1150s Ailred of Rievaulx in his De genealogia regum Anglorum wrote that the wife of ¥thelred II was the daughter of an ealdorman (comes) called Thored (Thorth).[23] Historian Pauline Stafford argued that this marriage was evidence that Thored had been a local rather than royal appointment to the ealdormanry of York, and that ¥thelred II's marriage was an attempt to woo Thored.[24] Stafford was supported in this argument by Richard Fletcher.[25]

Death

Modern imaginative depiction of the ship of Ólâafr Tryggvason, the "Long Serpent" (Illustration by Halfan Egedius)
The date of Thored's death is uncertain, but his last historical appearance came in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, recension C (D, E), under the year 992, which reported the death of Archbishop Oswald and an expedition against a marauding Scandinavian fleet:

In this year the holy Archbishop Oswald left this life and attained the heavenly life, and Ealdorman ¥thelwine [of East Anglia] died in the same year. Then the king and all his counsellors decreed that all the ships that were any use should be assembled at London. And the king then entrusted the expedition to the leadership of Ealdorman ¥lfric (of Hampshire), Earl Thored and Bishop ¥lfstan [.of London or of Rochester.] and Bishop ¥scwig [of Dorchester], and they were to try if they could entrap the Danish army anywhere at sea. Then Ealdorman ¥lfric sent someone to warn the enemy, and then in the night before the day on which they were to have joined battle, he absconded by night from the army, to his own disgrace, and then the enemy escaped, except that the crew of one ship was slain. And then the Danish army encountered the ships from East Anglia and from London, and they made a great slaughter there and captured the ship, all armed and equipped, on which the ealdorman was.[26]

Scandinavians led by Ólâafr Tryggvason had been raiding England's coast since the previous year, when they killed Ealdorman Brihtnoth of Essex at the Battle of Maldon.[27]

Historians think that Thored was either killed fighting these Scandinavians, or else survived, but became disgraced through defeat or treachery.[28] Fletcher speculated that Thored was removed from office and replaced by the Mercian ¥lfhelm as a result of his failure against the Scandinavians.[29] Another historian, William Kapelle, believed Thored was removed because of his Scandinavian descent, an argument based on the Worcester Chronicle's claim, added to the text borrowed from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, that Frµna, Godwine and Frythegyst fled a battle against the Danes in the following year because "they were Danish on their father's side".[30]

A man named ¥thelstan who died at the Battle of Ringmere in 1010, "the king's a¤um", was probably Thored's son.[31] The term a¤um means either "son-in-law" or "brother-in-law", so this ¥thelstan could also have been Thored's grandson by an unknown intermediary.[32] Thored's immediate successor was ¥lfhelm, who appears witnessing charters as ealdorman from 994.[33]

Thored married Hilda LNU(Wessex, England). Hilda was born in 948 in Wessex, England; died in 970 in England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

710419.

Hilda LNU was born in 948 in Wessex, England; died in 970 in England.

Children:

355209. Aelfgifu of York, Queen Consort of England was born in ~970 in (Yorkshire) England; died in 1002.

710504.

Sviatoslav, I, Grand Prince of Kiev was born in ~941 in Kiev, Ukraine (son of Igor of Kiev, Prince of the Rus' and Olga of Kiev); died on 26 Mar 972 in Khortytsia, Dnieper, Ukraine.

Notes:

Sviatoslav I Igorevich (Old East Slavic: ?~??????? / ??????????[1] ?????????, Sventoslavu / Svantoslavu Igorevici; Old Norse: Sveinald Ingvarsson) (c. 942 – 26 March 972), also spelled Svyatoslav was a Grand prince of Kiev[2][3] famous for his persistent campaigns in the east and south, which precipitated the collapse of two great powers of Eastern Europe, Khazaria and the First Bulgarian Empire. He also conquered numerous East Slavic tribes, defeated the Alans and attacked the Volga Bulgars,[4][5] and at times was allied with the Pechenegs and Magyars.

His decade-long reign over the Kievan Rus' was marked by rapid expansion into the Volga River valley, the Pontic steppe, and the Balkans. By the end of his short life, Sviatoslav carved out for himself the largest state in Europe, eventually moving his capital in 969 from Kiev (modern-day Ukraine) to Pereyaslavets (identified as the modern village of Nufaru, Romania)[6] on the Danube.

In contrast with his mother's conversion to Christianity, Sviatoslav remained a staunch pagan all of his life.

Due to his abrupt death in ambush, his conquests, for the most part, were not consolidated into a functioning empire, while his failure to establish a stable succession led to a fratricidal feud among his three sons, resulting in two of them being killed.

Reign 945–972
Coronation 964
Predecessor Igor
Successor Yaropolk I
Born 942? AD
Kiev
Died 26 March 972 AD [aged ~30]
The island of Khortytsa Dnieper
Wives
Predslava
Malusha
Issue With unknown woman:
Yaropolk I
Oleg

With Malusha:
Vladimir the Great
Full name
Sviatoslav Igorevich
Dynasty Rurik Dynasty
Father Igor
Mother Saint Olga (regent 945-964)

Name

The Primary Chronicle records Sviatoslav as the first ruler of the Kievan Rus' with a name of Slavic origin (as opposed to his predecessors, whose names had Old Norse forms). The name Sviatoslav, however, is not recorded in other medieval Slavic countries. Nevertheless, Sveinald is the Old East Norse cognate with the Slavic form as attested in the Old East Norse patronymic of Sviatoslav's son Vladimir: Valdamarr Sveinaldsson. This patronymic naming convention continues in Icelandic and in East Slavic languages. Even in Rus', it was attested only among the members of the house of Rurik, as were the names of Sviatoslav's immediate successors: Vladimir, Yaroslav, and Mstislav.[7][need quotation to verify] Some scholars see the name of Sviatoslav, composed of the Slavic roots for "holy" and "glory", as an artificial derivation combining the names of his predecessors Oleg and Rurik (whose names mean "holy" and "glorious" in Old Norse, respectively).[8]

Early life and personality

Virtually nothing is known about Sviatoslav's childhood and youth, which he spent reigning in Novgorod. Sviatoslav's father, Igor, was killed by the Drevlians around 945, and his mother, Olga, ruled as regent in Kiev until Sviatoslav reached maturity (ca. 963).[9] Sviatoslav was tutored by a Varangian named Asmud.[10] The tradition of employing Varangian tutors for the sons of ruling princes survived well into the 11th century. Sviatoslav appears to have had little patience for administration. His life was spent with his druzhina (roughly, "company") in permanent warfare against neighboring states. According to the Primary Chronicle, he carried on his expeditions neither wagons nor kettles, and he boiled no meat, rather cutting off small strips of horseflesh, game, or beef to eat after roasting it on the coals. Nor did he have a tent, rather spreading out a horse-blanket under him and setting his saddle under his head, and all his retinue did likewise.[11]

Illustration of Sviatoslav wearing a vyshyvanka, by Fedor Solntsev

Sviatoslav's appearance has been described very clearly by Leo the Deacon, who himself attended the meeting of Sviatoslav with John I Tzimiskes. Following Deacon's memories, Sviatoslav was a blue-eyed man of average height but of stalwart build, much more sturdy than Tzimiskes. He shaved his blond head and his beard but wore a bushy mustache and a sidelock as a sign of his nobility.[12] He preferred to dress in white, and it was noted that his garments were much cleaner than those of his men, although he had a lot in common with his warriors. He wore a single large gold earring bearing a carbuncle and two pearls.[13]

Religious beliefs

Sviatoslav's mother, Olga, converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity at the court of Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus in 957,[14] at the approximate age of 67. However, Sviatoslav remained a pagan all of his life. In the treaty of 971 between Sviatoslav and the Byzantine emperor John I Tzimiskes, the Rus' are swearing by Perun and Veles.[15] According to the Primary Chronicle, he believed that his warriors (druzhina) would lose respect for him and mock him if he became a Christian.[16] The allegiance of his warriors was of paramount importance in his conquest of an empire that stretched from the Volga to the Danube.

Family

Svjatoslav's mother, Olga, with her escort in Constantinople, a miniature from the late 11th century chronicle of John Skylitzes.
Very little is known of Sviatoslav's family life. It is possible that he was not the only (or the eldest) son of his parents. The Russo-Byzantine treaty of 945 mentions a certain Predslava, Volodislav's wife, as the noblest of the Rus' women after Olga. The fact that Predslava was Oleg's mother is presented by Vasily Tatishchev. He also speculated that Predslava was of a Hungarian nobility. George Vernadsky was among many historians to speculate that Volodislav was Igor's eldest son and heir who died at some point during Olga's regency. Another chronicle told that Oleg (? - 944?) was the eldest son of Igor. At the time of Igor's death, Sviatoslav was still a child, and he was raised by his mother or under her instructions. Her influence, however, did not extend to his religious observance.

Sviatoslav I in the Tsarsky Titulyarnik, 1672

Sviatoslav had several children, but the origin of his wives is not specified in the chronicle. By his wives, he had Yaropolk and Oleg.[17] By Malusha, a woman of indeterminate origins,[18] Sviatoslav had Vladimir, who would ultimately break with his father's paganism and convert Rus' to Christianity. John Skylitzes reported that Vladimir had a brother named Sfengus; whether this Sfengus was a son of Sviatoslav, a son of Malusha by a prior or subsequent husband, or an unrelated Rus' nobleman is unclear.[19]

Eastern campaigns

The Kievan Rus' at the beginning of Sviatoslav's reign (in red), showing his sphere of influence to 972 (in orange)
Shortly after his accession to the throne, Sviatoslav began campaigning to expand Rus' control over the Volga valley and the Pontic steppe region. His greatest success was the conquest of Khazaria, which for centuries had been one of the strongest states of Eastern Europe. The sources are not clear about the roots of the conflict between Khazaria and Rus', so several possibilities have been suggested. The Rus' had an interest in removing the Khazar hold on the Volga trade route because the Khazars collected duties from the goods transported by the Volga. Historians have suggested that the Byzantine Empire may have incited the Rus' against the Khazars, who fell out with the Byzantines after the persecutions of the Jews in the reign of Romanus I Lecapenus.[20]

Sviatoslav began by rallying the East Slavic vassal tribes of the Khazars to his cause. Those who would not join him, such as the Vyatichs, were attacked and forced to pay tribute to the Kievan Rus' rather than to the Khazars.[21] According to a legend recorded in the Primary Chronicle, Sviatoslav sent a message to the Vyatich rulers, consisting of a single phrase: "I want to come at you!" (Old East Slavic: "???? ?? ?? ???")[22] This phrase is used in modern Russian (usually misquoted as "??? ?? ??") and in modern Ukrainian ("??? ?? ??") to denote an unequivocal declaration of one's intentions. Proceeding by the Oka and Volga rivers, he attacked Volga Bulgaria. He employed Oghuz and Pecheneg mercenaries in this campaign, perhaps to counter the superior cavalry of the Khazars and Bulgars.[23]

Sviatoslav's Council of War by Boris Chorikov

Sviatoslav destroyed the Khazar city of Sarkel around 965, possibly sacking (but not occupying) the Khazar city of Kerch on the Crimea as well.[24] At Sarkel he established a Rus' settlement called Belaya Vyezha ("the white tower" or "the white fortress", the East Slavic translation for "Sarkel").[25] He subsequently destroyed the Khazar capital of Atil.[26] A visitor to Atil wrote soon after Sviatoslav's campaign: "The Rus' attacked, and no grape or raisin remained, not a leaf on a branch."[27] The exact chronology of his Khazar campaign is uncertain and disputed; for example, Mikhail Artamonov and David Christian proposed that the sack of Sarkel came after the destruction of Atil.[28]

Although Ibn Haukal reports the sack of Samandar by Sviatoslav, the Rus' leader did not bother to occupy the Khazar heartlands north of the Caucasus Mountains permanently. On his way back to Kiev, Sviatoslav chose to strike against the Ossetians and force them into subservience.[29] Therefore, Khazar successor statelets continued their precarious existence in the region.[30] The destruction of Khazar imperial power paved the way for Kievan Rus' to dominate north-south trade routes through the steppe and across the Black Sea, routes that formerly had been a major source of revenue for the Khazars. Moreover, Sviatoslav's campaigns led to increased Slavic settlement in the region of the Saltovo-Mayaki culture, greatly changing the demographics and culture of the transitional area between the forest and the steppe.[31]

Campaigns in the Balkans

Main article: Sviatoslav's invasion of Bulgaria

Sviatoslav invading Bulgaria, Manasses Chronicle
The annihilation of Khazaria was undertaken against the background of the Rus'-Byzantine alliance, concluded in the wake of Igor's Byzantine campaign in 944.[32] Close military ties between the Rus' and Byzantium are illustrated by the fact, reported by John Skylitzes, that a Rus' detachment accompanied Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros Phokas in his victorious naval expedition to Crete.

In 967 or 968,[33] Nikephoros sent to Sviatoslav his agent, Kalokyros, with the task of talking Sviatoslav into assisting him in a war against Bulgaria.[34] Sviatoslav was paid 15,000 pounds of gold and set sail with an army of 60,000 men, including thousands of Pecheneg mercenaries.[35][36]

Sviatoslav defeated the Bulgarian ruler Boris II[37] and proceeded to occupy the whole of northern Bulgaria. Meanwhile, the Byzantines bribed the Pechenegs to attack and besiege Kiev, where Olga stayed with Sviatoslav's son Vladimir. The siege was relieved by the druzhina of Pretich, and immediately following the Pecheneg retreat, Olga sent a reproachful letter to Sviatoslav. He promptly returned and defeated the Pechenegs, who continued to threaten Kiev.

[show] v t e
Rus'–Byzantine Wars
Sviatoslav refused to turn his Balkan conquests over to the Byzantines, and the parties fell out as a result. To the chagrin of his boyars and his mother (who died within three days after learning about his decision), Sviatoslav decided to move his capital to Pereyaslavets in the mouth of the Danube due to the great potential of that location as a commercial hub. In the Primary Chronicle record for 969, Sviatoslav explains that it is to Pereyaslavets, the centre of his lands, "all the riches flow: gold, silks, wine, and various fruits from Greece, silver and horses from Hungary and Bohemia, and from Rus' furs, wax, honey, and slaves".

Pursuit of Sviatoslav's warriors by the Byzantine army, a miniature from 11th century chronicles of John Skylitzes.

In summer 969, Sviatoslav left Rus' again, dividing his dominion into three parts, each under a nominal rule of one of his sons. At the head of an army that included Pecheneg and Magyar auxiliary troops, he invaded Bulgaria again, devastating Thrace, capturing the city of Philippopolis, and massacring its inhabitants. Nikephoros responded by repairing the defenses of Constantinople and raising new squadrons of armored cavalry. In the midst of his preparations, Nikephoros was overthrown and killed by John Tzimiskes, who thus became the new Byzantine emperor.[38]

Madrid Skylitzes, meeting between John Tzimiskes and Sviatoslav.

John Tzimiskes first attempted to persuade Sviatoslav into leaving Bulgaria, but he was unsuccessful. Challenging the Byzantine authority, Sviatoslav crossed the Danube and laid siege to Adrianople, causing panic on the streets of Constantinople in summer 970.[39] Later that year, the Byzantines launched a counteroffensive. Being occupied with suppressing a revolt of Bardas Phokas in Asia Minor, John Tzimiskes sent his commander-in-chief, Bardas Skleros, who defeated the coalition of Rus', Pechenegs, Magyars, and Bulgarians in the Battle of Arcadiopolis.[40] Meanwhile, John, having quelled the revolt of Bardas Phokas, came to the Balkans with a large army and promoting himself as the liberator of Bulgaria from Sviatoslav, penetrated the impracticable mountain passes and shortly thereafter captured Marcianopolis, where the Rus' were holding a number of Bulgar princes hostage.

Siege of Durostorum in Manasses Chronicle

Sviatoslav retreated to Dorostolon, which the Byzantine armies besieged for sixty-five days. Cut off and surrounded, Sviatoslav came to terms with John and agreed to abandon the Balkans, renounce his claims to the southern Crimea, and return west of the Dnieper River. In return, the Byzantine emperor supplied the Rus' with food and safe passage home. Sviatoslav and his men set sail and landed on Berezan Island at the mouth of the Dnieper, where they made camp for the winter. Several months later, their camp was devastated by famine, so that even a horse's head could not be bought for less than a half-grivna, reports the Kievan chronicler of the Primary Chronicle.[41] While Sviatoslav's campaign brought no tangible results for the Rus', it weakened the Bulgarian statehood and left it vulnerable to the attacks of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer four decades later.

Death and aftermath

The Death of Sviatoslav by Boris Chorikov
Fearing that the peace with Sviatoslav would not endure, the Byzantine emperor induced the Pecheneg khan Kurya to kill Sviatoslav before he reached Kiev. This was in line with the policy outlined by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in De Administrando Imperio of fomenting strife between the Rus' and the Pechenegs.[42] According to the Slavic chronicle, Sveneld attempted to warn Sviatoslav to avoid the Dnieper rapids, but the prince slighted his wise advice and was ambushed and slain by the Pechenegs when he tried to cross the cataracts near Khortitsa early in 972. The Primary Chronicle reports that his skull was made into a chalice by the Pecheneg khan.[43]

Following Sviatoslav's death, tensions between his sons grew. A war broke out between his legitimate sons, Oleg and Yaropolk, in 976, at the conclusion of which Oleg was killed. In 977 Vladimir fled Novgorod to escape Oleg's fate and went to Scandinavia, where he raised an army of Varangians and returned in 980. Yaropolk was killed, and Vladimir became the sole ruler of Kievan Rus'.

Art and literature

Ivan Akimov. Sviatoslav's Return from the Danube to His Family in Kiev (1773)
Sviatoslav has long been a hero of Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian patriots due to his great military successes. His figure first attracted attention of Russian artists and poets during the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774), which provided obvious parallels with Sviatoslav's push towards Constantinople. Russia's southward expansion and the imperialistic ventures of Catherine II in the Balkans seemed to have been legitimized by Sviatoslav's campaigns eight centuries earlier.

Among the works created during the war was Yakov Knyazhnin's tragedy Olga (1772). The Russian playwright chose to introduce Sviatoslav as his protagonist, although his active participation in the events following Igor's death is out of sync with the traditional chronology. Knyazhnin's rival Nikolai Nikolev (1758–1815) also wrote a play on the subject of Sviatoslav's life. Ivan Akimov's painting Sviatoslav's Return from the Danube to Kiev (1773) explores the conflict between military honour and family attachment. It is a vivid example of Poussinesque rendering of early medieval subject matter.

Interest in Sviatoslav's career increased in the 19th century. Klavdiy Lebedev depicted an episode of Sviatoslav's meeting with Emperor John in his well-known painting, while Eugene Lanceray sculpted an equestrian statue of Sviatoslav in the early 20th century.[44] Sviatoslav appears in the 1913 poem of Velimir Khlebnikov Written before the war (#70. ?????????? ?? ?????)[45] as an epitome of militant Slavdom:

?????????? ??? ?????, Pouring the famed juice of the Danube
??????? ? ????? ?????, Into the depth of my head,
????? ???? ?, ????????? I shall drink and remember
??????? ????: "??? ?? ??!". The cry of the bright ones: "I come at you!"[46]
Sviatoslav is the villain of the novel The Lost Kingdom, or the Passing of the Khazars, by Samuel Gordon,[47] a fictionalised account of the destruction of Khazaria by the Rus'. The Slavic warrior figures in a more positive context in the story "Chernye Strely Vyaticha" by Vadim Viktorovich Kargalov; the story is included in his book Istoricheskie povesti.[48]

In 2005, reports circulated that a village in the Belgorod region had erected a monument to Sviatoslav's victory over the Khazars by the Russian sculptor Vyacheslav Klykov. The reports described the 13-meter tall statue as depicting a Rus' cavalryman trampling a supine Khazar bearing a Star of David and Kolovrat. This created an outcry within the Jewish community of Russia. The controversy was further exacerbated by Klykov's connections with Pamyat and other anti-Semitic organizations, as well as by his involvement in the "letter of 500", a controversial appeal to the Prosecutor General to review all Jewish organizations in Russia for extremism.[49] The Press Centre of the Belgorod Regional Administration responded by stating that a planned monument to Sviatoslav had not yet been constructed but would show "respect towards representatives of all nationalities and religions."[50] When the statue was unveiled, the shield bore a twelve-pointed star.

Sviatoslav is the main character of the books "Knyaz" ("?????") and "The Hero" ("?????"), written by Russian writer Alexander Mazin.

On 7 November 2011, a Ukrainian fisherman found a one metre long sword in the waters of the Dnieper on Khortytsia near where Sviatoslav is believed to have been killed in 972. The handle is made out of four different metals including gold and silver, and could possibly have belonged to Sviatoslav himself.[51]

end of biography

Sviatoslav married Malusha. Malusha was born in (0944) in (Kiev, Ukraine); died in (1002). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

710505.

Malusha was born in (0944) in (Kiev, Ukraine); died in (1002).

Notes:

Malusha/Malfrida[1][2] (Old Ruthenian: ?????a, Old Norse: Mâalfrâiºr)[3] historically is known as a servant (kholopka) for Olga of Kiev and wife of Sviatoslav I of Kiev. According to Slavonic chronicles, she was the mother of Vladimir the Great and sister of Dobrynya. The Norse sagas describe Vladimir's mother as a prophetess who lived to the age of 100 and was brought from her cave to the palace to predict the future. Malusha monuments in Korosten, Ukraine, with her young son Vladimir.[1]

Origin
As the chronicles are silent on the subject of Malusha's pedigree, 19th-century Russian and Ukrainian historians devised various theories to explain her parentage and name.

Alexei Shakhmatov considered Malusha to be the daughter of Mstisha Sveneldovich, son of Sveneld, a Varangian warlord. He believed that the name Malusha was a slavinized version of a Scandinavian name Malfried.[4] In this case, Malusha was of Norse origin.[5] The Primary Chronicle records that a certain Malfried died in 1000. This record follows that of Rogneda's death. Since Rogneda was Vladimir's wife, historians assume that Malfried was another close relative of the ruling prince, preferably his wife or mother.

The anti-Normanist historian Dmitry Ilovaisky managed to draw an opposite conclusion: that the Slavic name Malusha was turned into a Scandinavian Malfried. This claim received no wider support. Dmitry Prozorovsky believed that Malusha was the daughter of Mal, a Drevlyan leader.[6] The same one that wanted to marry Olga of Kiev after she became a widow.[7]

References
Vladimir Plougin: Russian Intelligence Services: The Early Years, 9th-11th Centuries, Algora Publ., 2000
History of Ukraine-Rus': From prehistory to the eleventh century, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 1997
Mâalfrâiºr nordicnames.de
Vladimir Plougin: Russian Intelligence Services: The Early Years, 9th-11th Centuries, Algora Publ., 2000
Harvard Ukrainian studies, Volumer 12-13, Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1990
?. ?. ???????. ?????? ??????? ? ?????????? ????????? ? ???????????? ?????. ISBN 9785860075351. Page 90.
Dixon-Kennedy, Mike (1998). Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio. p. 210. ISBN 1-57607-063-8.

end of biography

Children:

355252. Vladimir, Czar of Russia was born in 956 in Kiev, Ukraine; died on 15 Jul 1015 in Kiev, Ukraine.
Oleg

710506.

Rogvolod, Prince of Polotsk was born in ~920 in Gothland, Sweden (son of Ulf Tostesson, Jarl of Skara and Ingeborg); died in 978 in Polotsk, Belarus.

Notes:

Ragnvald Ulfsson the Old (beginning 11th century) was a jarl of Vèastergèotland or èOstergèotland, and married to a sister of Olav Tryggvason.[1]

Ragnvald is mentioned in the skaldic poem Austrfaravâisur, ascribed to Sigvatr ´âorºarson, skald of King Olaf Haraldsson of Norway (Olaf the Holy), who had been on a diplomatic mission to Sweden. This poem is quoted in the 13th century sagas Fagrskinna and Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla. In addition to the poem, Fagrskinna only briefly mentions Ragnvald, while Heimskringla contains a more elaborate account of him. This 13th-century prose text is not considered historically reliable.

According to Snorri, Ragnvald was the son of jarl Ulf Tostesson and Ingeborg and the foster-son of ´orgnýr the Lawspeaker. He was the cousin of Olof Skèotkonung, through his aunt Sigrid the Haughty, and he was married to Ingeborg Tryggvasdotter.

During his days the Norwegians pillaged in Vèastergèotland, but then the Norwegian king, Olaf the Holy, proposed to the Swedish princess Ingigerd Olofsdotter, the daughter of Sweden's king Olof Skèotkonung. This pleased Ragnvald who was related to both.

However, at the Thing at Gamla Uppsala, Ragnvald and his foster-father ´orgnýr the Lawspeaker had to force Olof, the Swedish king, to promise his daughter to Olaf, the Norwegian king, whom he did not like. When the Swedish king failed to deliver his daughter, Ragnvald realized that he was in trouble. He has not only fallen out of grace with the Swedish king, but he could also expect the revenge of the Norwegians.

During a visit by the skald Sigvatr ´âorºarson, Ragnvald learned that Prince Jaroslav of Kievan Rus' has proposed to Ingigerd, and so he had the idea that Olaf the Holy should marry the illegitimate daughter of Olof Skèotkonung, Astrid, who was staying with Ragnvald. Sigvat promised to deliver the message, and the Norwegian king accepted.

Ragnvald and Astrid arrive at Sarpsborg.
Ragnvald delivered Astrid at Sarpsborg in Norway and she married the king after Christmas of 1019.

Olof Skèotkonung was now so upset that he intended to hang Ragnvald at the next Thing. However, when Ingigerd Olofsdotter married Jaroslav, Ingigerd managed to arrange that Ragnvald became the jarl of Staraja Ladoga (Aldeigjuborg) and Ingria, and Olof let him depart with Ingigerd in the summer of 1019.

Fagrskinna's account of Olaf the Holy's betrothal to Ingigerd, and eventual wedding with Astrid, differs significantly from the account in Heimskringla. In Fagrskinna's account, Ragnvald is not given a prominent role in the proceedings.

Married to Ingeborg Tryggvasdotter. Children:

Ulf Ragnvaldsson Jarl
Eilif Ragnvaldsson Jarl
Ostrida Ragnvalsdatter
He is considered to have fathered king Stenkil,[2] with Astrid Nialsdotter from Norway, but this is based on later Icelandic sources,[3] and the identification of Ragnvald with Ragnvald the Old of Hervarar saga.[4]

Notes

Winroth 1995–1997:616
The entry Stenkil in Larsson 2000:33
Stenkil anses ha varit son till Ragnvald jal i Vèastergèotland. Translation: Stenkil is considered to have been the son of earl Ragnvald in Vèastergèotland.
Lagerquist 1997:41
Den nye kungen hette Stenkil och den ganska kortlivade dynasti han grundade kallas efter honom den stenkilska. Enligt senare islèandska uppgifter var han son till jarlen Ragnvald i Vèastergèotland och Astrid Nialsdotter frêan Norge. Translation: The name of the new king was Stenkil and the rather shortlived dynasty that he founded is named the House of Stenkil after him. According to later Icelandic reports, he was the son of the earl Ragnvald in Vèastergèotland and Astrid Nialsdotter from Norway.
Larsson 2002:154–157
[...] ingenting om Ragnvald den gamle eller den norska hèovdingadottern Astrid som var Stenkils fèorèaldrar enligt den fornislèandska Hervararsagan. [...] Och lika lite kan jag fêa veta ifall Stenkils far Ragnvald var identisk med vèastgèotajarlen med samma namn, som det ofta pêastêas i den historiska literaturen - en hypotes som i och fèor sig ocksêa skulle leda till slèaktskap med den gamla kungaèatten genom att Ragnvald enligt sagorna var kusin till Olof Skèotkonung. Translation: [...] nothing on Ragnvald the Old or the Norwegian chieftain's daughter Astrid who were Stenkil's parents according to the Old Icelandic Hervarar saga. [...] And just as little can I be informed whether Stenkil's father Ragnvald was identical to the Vèastergèotland jarl by the same name, as it is often stated in history books - a hypothesis which, as it were, would lead to kinship with the old dynasty through the fact that Ragnvald according to the sagas was the cousin of Olof Skèotkonung.
Literature
Larsson, Lars-Ove (1993, 2000). Vem èar vem i svensk historia, frêan êar 1000 till 1900. Prisma, Stockholm. ISBN 91-518-3427-8
Larsson, Mats G (2002). Gèotarnas Riken : Upptèacktsfèarder Till Sveriges Enande. Bokfèorlaget Atlantis AB ISBN 978-91-7486-641-4
Lagerquist, Lars O. (1997). Sveriges Regenter, frêan forntid till nutid. Norstedts, Stockholm. ISBN 91-1-963882-5
Winroth, Anders (1995–1997) "Ragnvald Ulfsson", Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon, volume 29, page 616.
Wisâen, Theodor, revised by Erik Brate (1915), "Ragnvald Ulfsson", Nordisk familjebok, volume 22, 913–914

Rogvolod (Russian: ????????, Rogvolod; Belarusian: ????????, Rahvalod) (c. 920 – 978) was first chronicled prince of Polatsk (945–978). In the Russian Primary Chronicle, he is known as ??????????, probably a slavicized version of the Old Norse name Ragnvald. He came from overseas (i.e., from Scandinavia or Southern Baltic) and established himself at Polatsk in the mid-10th century. According to the Russian Primary Chronicle, Vladimir the Great sought an alliance with him in 980 by marrying his daughter Rogneda, but she insultingly refused, prompting Vladimir to attack Rogvolod and his sons and kill them, after which he forcibly took Rogneda as his wife.[1]

References
Janet Martin, Medieval Russia 980-1584 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 1.
External links
Oleg Latyszonek, Ales’ Bely. On the Scandinavian origin of Rahvalod // Annus Albaruthenicus/??? ????????? ?6. 2005.

end of biography

Children:

355253. Rogneda of Polotsk, Princess Consort of Rus was born in 0Apr 962 in Polotsk, Russia; died in 1002 in Berestovo, Kiev, Ukraine.
Stenkil

178144.

Donnchad Mâael Na Mbâo (O'CHEINNSELAIG) Murchada was born in 960 in Ireland; died in 1006.

Donnchad married Aife Ingen (Daughter Of) Gilla Patraic. Aife was born in 960 in Ireland; died in 1068. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

178145.

Aife Ingen (Daughter Of) Gilla Patraic was born in 960 in Ireland; died in 1068.

Children:

89072. Diarmait Macmail Na Mbo Murchada, King of Ireland was born in 974 in Cork, Ireland; died in 1072.

178146.

Donnchad O'Brien, King of Munster was born in 982 in Kincora, Munster, Ireland; died in 1064 in Rome, Italy; was buried in Basilica of St Stephen, Monte Celio, Italy.

Notes:

Donnchad MacBrian "High King of Ireland" Brian formerly O'Brien aka Mac Brian, Munster
Born after 0981 in Kincora, Munster, âEireann

ANCESTORS ancestors

Son of Brian Boru (Cennetig) MacCennetig and Gormflaeth (Murchadh) Munster
Brother of Blanaid Nic (Brian) O'Brian [half], Murchad (O'Brien) of Leinster [half], Dubgilla Olafsdatter [half], Teige Terence mac Briain O'Brien [half], Sihtric Olafsson [half], Slani ingen Brian [half] and Harald Olafsson [half]

Husband of Unkown (Unkown) Mac Briain — married [date unknown] [location unknown]

Husband of Cacht (Ragnaill) Ranald — married 1032 [location unknown]

DESCENDANTS descendants

Father of Lorcan UA Briain, Donnchad MacDiarmata (Leinster) of Leinster and Darbforgaill (O'Brien) Leinster
Died about 1064 in Rome, Italy

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Categories: Irish History.

Preceded by
Mâael Sechnaill macDomnaill O'Nâeill. King of Ireland
1022 — 1061 Succeeded by
Diarmait MacMâail na mBâo
Preceded by
Brian Boru 976 — 1014 (father) King of Munster
1022 — 1061 Succeeded by
Toirdelbach (Turlough) O'Brien 1064 — 1086 (nephew)

Parents

For her third marriage, Gormlaith, d. 1030, (daughter of Murchad MacFinn, a Leinster King of the Uâi Fhâaelâain line) married Brâian Bâoruma, they had:
Donnchadh [1]
Name

Name: King of Munster Donnchad /O'Brien/
Name: Donnchad (MacBRIAIN) /O'BRIEN/
Found multiple versions of NAME. Using King of Munster Donnchad /O'Brien/.

Military Campaigns

1026
A hosting by Donnchadh son of Brian, so that he took hostages of the men of Meath and Bregia and the Foreigners and Leinster and Ossory.[2]

A great hosting by Donnchadh, son of Brian, and he took the hostages of the men of Mide and of Brega; and he himself spent three days in Áth Cliath without opposition, with his camp nearby the fort; and he took the hostages of Laigin and Osraige.[3]

1027
A hosting by Donnchadh son of Brian into Ossory, till a division of his people were defeated and Gadhra son of Dâunadhach, king of Sâiol Anmchadha was then slain, and Domhnall son of Senchâan son of Flaithbheartach, crown prince of Munster, and Maelseachlainn son of the king of Corcomroe, and two sons of Cuilâen son of Conchobhar and the crownprince of the Eoghanacht, and Ócan grandson of Corc son of Anluan, and many others who are not numbered.[4]

A hosting by Donnchadh, son of Brian, into Osraige, and he took great captures and much booty therefrom; and a group of his people was overtaken and suffered loss at the hands of Mac Raith Ua Donnchada who was warring in Osraige, and of Ua Gilla Pâatraic, and there were slain there Gadra son of Dâunadach, king of Uâi Maine, Domnall, son of Senchâan, royal heir of Mumu, Ócâan grandson of Core, the two sons of Cuilâen son of Conchobar, and Conall son of âEcertach, royal heir of Caisel.[5]

1031
Ó Ruairc, that is, the Cork, plundered St Brâenainn's Clonfert, and on the same day he was defeated by Donnchadh son of Brian, with the loss of men and ferryboats.[6]

Gilla Pâatraic's son [went] into Mumu, plundered Dâun na Sciath, and killed its steward.
{Donnchadh,} son of Brian, [went] to Osraige to avenge him [the steward], and brought great booty and cattle therefrom; and a slaughter was thrice inflicted on the Mumu there, and Mael Coluim, king of Caenraige, two royal heirs of Uâi Chonaill Gabra, and many others were slain.[7]

1042
Ferna Mâor Maedâoc was burned by Donnchad son of Brian. Glenn Uisen was burned by the son of Mael na mBâo and the oratory broken down and a hundred people slain and four hundred taken out of it in revenge for Ferna Mâor.[8]

Marriage

1032
Donnchadh, son of Brian, married the daughter of Ragnall. Hence the saying: 'the spring of Ragnall's daughter' [9]

Death

Dethroned in 1061, went to Rome on his pilgrimage, died in the monastery of Stephen[10]

Death: 1064[11]
Place: Rome, Italy
Burial

Burial: Basilica of St Stephen, Monte Celio
Occupation

Occupation: King of Munster; Hgh King of Ireland
Note

His wives were Cacht ingen Ragnaill and Driella of Wessex.
Sources

? The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing: Irish women's writing and traditions, retrieved 2014-06-22, amb
? The Annals of Tigernach T1026.1, Author: Unknown, retrieved 2014-06-22, amb
? Annals of Inisfallen AI1026.2, Author: unknown, retrieved 2014-06-22, amb
? The Annals of Tigernach T1027.3
? Annals of Inisfallen AI1027.4
? The Annals of Tigernach T1031.8
? Annals of Inisfallen AI1031.6 and AI1031.7
? The Annals of Ulster, 1042
? Annals of Inisfallen, AI1032.6
? Hennessy, p. 287, retrieved 2014-06-23, amb
? The Tripartite Life of Patrick: With Other Documents Relating to that Saint, Volume 89, Issue 2, Volume 89, Issue 2 of Rerum Britannicarum Medii ¥vi Scriptores, Or, Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland During the Middle Ages, Great Britain. Public Record Office. Author: Saint Patrick. Editor: Whitley Stokes. Publisher: H. M. Stationery Office, 1887. Original: from University of Minnesota. Digitized: Nov 15, 2013, retrieved 2014-06-22, amb
The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing: Irish women's writing and traditions. Vols. 4-5, Volume 4 of The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Jonathan Williams, ISBN 0814799086, 9780814799086, Volume 4 of The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing: Irish Women's Writing and Traditions, Angela Bourke, ISBN 0814799086, 9780814799086. Editor: Angela Bourke. Publisher: NYU Press, 2002
A New History of Ireland, Volume II: Medieval Ireland 1169-1534, edited by Art Cosgrove
William Maunsell Hennessy, editor, Chronicum Scotorum, Issue 46 of Rerum britannicarum medii µvi scriptores; or Chronicles and memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the middle ages, Great Britain Public Record Office. Contributor: Duald Mac Firbis. Publisher: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1866. Original: from Cornell University. Digitized: Apr 17, 2013
O'Brien-688 created through the import of O'Bryan Family tree.ged on Sep 6, 2011 by Tim Tropeck. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Tim and others. This person was created through the import of LJ Pellman Consolidated Family_2011-03-21.ged on 21 March 2011. This person was created through the import of Acrossthepond.ged on 21 February 2011.

end of biography

Died:
on a pilgrimage...

Donnchad married Druscilla Godwin. Druscilla was born in 1019 in (Munster) Ireland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

178147.
Druscilla Godwin was born in 1019 in (Munster) Ireland.
Children:

89073. Dearbforgail Ingen O'Brien was born in 1005 in Dublin, Ireland; died in 1060 in Ireland.

192548.

Mauger Normandie was born in ~1020 in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, II and Papia Envermeu); died in 1055 in (Normandy, France).

Mauger married Germaine Corbell. Germaine was born in ~0978 in Marne, Champagne, France; died in ~1012. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

192549.

Germaine Corbell was born in ~0978 in Marne, Champagne, France; died in ~1012.

Children:

96274. Waldron St Clair was born in ~1019 in Normandie, France; died in 1047 in (Normandy, France).

192550.

Richard Normandie was born in ~0997 in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, II and Judith de Bretagne); died on 6 Aug 1027 in (Normandy, France).

Children:

96275. Helena Normandie was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandie, France; died in ~1080.
Adelize Normandie was born in ~1021 in Normandy, France; died in ~1053 in Bayeux, Normandy, France.

89066.

Waleran of Meulan, III, Count of Meulan was born in ~ 990 in Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France; died on 8 Oct 1069 in Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France.

Notes:

Biography

Waleran Meulan (Wakran de Moulcon)
Birth: 0990 • Mellent, Normandy, France
Death: 08 Oct 1069 • Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France

Marriage & Family

Spouse: Oda de Conteville (994–1022)

Children:

Adeline de Maulâeon (de Beaumont)
Marie de Maulâeon (Talbot) (abt. 1005- )
Robert de Maulâeon (aft. 1013- )
Aremgarde de Maulâeon (Thouars) ( –1069)
Avelina de Maulâeon (1014 - 1081)
Hugh de Vernon(?)
Count Waleran

"...Count Waleran established an independent power base on a fortified island in the River Seine, around the year 1020."[1]
"Both he and his son, Count Hugh, maintained an independence from the Capetian king at Paris by a judicious if dangerous alliance with the dukes of Normandy downstream. This led to the marriage of Adeline, Count Hugh's sister, to the Norman magnate, Roger de Beaumont.[2]
"On Count Hugh's death in 1081 his nephew, Robert de Beaumont, acquired the county."[3]

Sources

Source: Web: Netherlands, GenealogieOnline Trees Index, 1000-2015: Name: Waleran De Meulan; Gender: m; Birth Date: 0990; Birth Place: Mellent, Normandy, France; Death Date: 8 Oct 1069; Death Place: Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France; Death Age: 79; Spouse: Oda De Conteville; Children: Aurengarde De Mauleon; URL: https://www.genealogieonline.nl/en/radford-family-tree/I964.php
Source: Waleran de Meulan, Comte de Meulan III. WeRelate.org. Last modified 19:52, 27 Sep 2016. Accessed: 21 Nov 2017. URL: https://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person:Waleran_De_Meulan_%281%29
Waleran de Meulan, Comte de Meulan III
b. est 0990, probably Meulan, Yvelines, France
d. 8 Oct 1069, probably Meulan, Yvelines, France
?Facts and Events
Name[4][5][6][7]
Waleran de Meulan, Comte de Meulan III
Alt Name[8][9]
Galeran de Meulan
Gender: Male
Birth[10][11]: est 0990, probably Meulan, Yvelines, France
Marriage: bef 1015 to Oda de Conteville
Marriage: to Adelais
Death[12][13][14][15]: 8 Oct 1069, probably Meulan, Yvelines, France
Reference Number?: Q2195516?
?References
? Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, 106th Edition, Charles Mosley Editor-in-Chief, 1999 (13), 2943.
? Weis, Frederick Lewis; Walter Lee Sheppard; and David Faris. Ancestral roots of certain American colonists, who came to America before 1700: the lineage of Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, Robert the Strong, and some of their descendants. (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Pub. Co., 7th Edition c1992), 50-24.
? The Plantagenet Ancestry, by William Henry Turton, 1968 (4), 100.
? Stuart, Roderick W. Royalty for Commoners. (Genealogical Publishing Company, 1992, 2nd ed.), p. 140.
Stuart, Roderick W. Royalty for Commoners. (Genealogical Publishing Company, 1992, 2nd ed.), p. 79.
? The Plantagenet Ancestry, by William Henry Turton, 1968 (4).
? 7.0 7.1 Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom, by G. E Cokayne, Sutton Publishing Ltd, 2000.
? Gilman, Mariah Hope. Ancestors of Mariah Hope Gilman. (http://superjordans-home.com/MariahsAncestors/Index.htm, Cited 16 February 2004.).
Waleran III de Meulan, Comte de Meulan, in Lundy, Darryl. The Peerage: A genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain as well as the royal families of Europe.
? 10.0 10.1 Counts of Meulan, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia."Waleran III, Count of Meulan (ca. 990–ca. 1069)"
? 11.0 11.1 Normandy, Nobility: GALERAN [III] de Meulan, in Cawley, Charles. Medieval Lands: A prosopography of medieval European noble and royal families.
? Source: County of Meulan. Wikipedia.org. Last edited: 18 Aug 2016. Accessed: 21 Nov 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_of_Meulan
? ibid.
? ibid.
? Reference: Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, 106th Edition, Charles Mosley Editor-in-Chief, 1999
? Reference: Weis, Frederick Lewis; Walter Lee Sheppard; and David Faris. Ancestral roots of certain American colonists, who came to America before 1700: the lineage of Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, Robert the Strong, and some of their descendants
? Reference: The Plantagenet Ancestry, by William Henry Turton, 1968 (4), 100.
? Reference: Ancestors of Mariah Hope Gilman.
? References: Royalty for Commoners.
? Reference: Normandy, Nobility: GALERAN [III] de Meulan
? Reference: Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom
? Reference: Counts of Meulan
? Reference: The Plantagenet Ancestry
? Reference: Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom
? Reference: Counts of Meulan
? Reference: Normandy, Nobility: GALERAN [III] de Meulan

Also see:

Place sources here:
County of Meulan @Wikipedia
The PEDIGREE of Waleran III (II) de MEULAN

end of biography

Waleran married Oda de Conteville in ~1007. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

89067.
Oda de Conteville
Children:

44533. Adeline of Meulan was born in ~ 1014 in Meulan, Yvelines, Ile-De-France, France; died on 8 Apr 1081; was buried in Abbaye du Bec, France.

88812.

Henri, I, King of France was born on 4 May 1008 in Reims, France; died on 4 Aug 1060 in Vitry-aux-Loges, Centre, France; was buried in Saint Denis Basilique, Paris, France.

Notes:

Henry I (4 May 1008 – 4 August 1060) was King of the Franks from 1031 to his death. The royal demesne of France reached its smallest size during his reign, and for this reason he is often seen as emblematic of the weakness of the early Capetians. This is not entirely agreed upon, however, as other historians regard him as a strong but realistic king, who was forced to conduct a policy mindful of the limitations of the French monarchy.

King of the Franks
Junior king
Senior king 14 May 1027 – 20 July 1031;
20 July 1031 – 4 August 1060
Coronation 14 May 1027, Cathedral of Reims
Predecessor Robert II
Successor Philip I
Born 4 May 1008
Reims, France
Died 4 August 1060 (aged 52)
Vitry-aux-Loges, France
Burial Saint Denis Basilica, Paris, France
Spouse Matilda of Frisia
Anne of Kiev
Issue Philip I
Emma of France
Robert of France
Hugh I, Count of Vermandois
House Capet
Father Robert II of France

Reign
A member of the House of Capet, Henry was born in Reims, the son of King Robert II (972–1031) and Constance of Arles (986–1034).[1] He was crowned King of France at the Cathedral of Reims on 14 May 1027,[2] in the Capetian tradition, while his father still lived. He had little influence and power until he became sole ruler on his father's death.

The reign of Henry I, like those of his predecessors, was marked by territorial struggles. Initially, he joined his brother Robert, with the support of their mother, in a revolt against his father (1025). His mother, however, supported Robert as heir to the old king, on whose death Henry was left to deal with his rebel sibling.[3] In 1032, he placated his brother by giving him the duchy of Burgundy[3] which his father had given him in 1016.[4]

In an early strategic move, Henry came to the rescue of his very young nephew-in-law, the newly appointed Duke William of Normandy (who would go on to become William the Conqueror), to suppress a revolt by William's vassals. In 1047, Henry secured the dukedom for William in their decisive victory over the vassals at the Battle of Val-áes-Dunes near Caen;[5] however, Henry would later support the barons against William until the former's death in 1060.[6]

In 1051, William married Matilda, the daughter of the count of Flanders, which Henry saw as a threat to his throne.[7] In 1054, and again in 1057, Henry invaded Normandy, but on both occasions he was defeated.[7]

Henry had three meetings with Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor—all at Ivois. In early 1043, he met him to discuss the marriage of the emperor with Agnes of Poitou, the daughter of Henry's vassal.[8] In October 1048, the two Henries met again and signed a treaty of friendship.[9] The final meeting took place in May 1056 and concerned disputes over Theobald III and County of Blois.[9] The debate over the duchy became so heated that Henry accused the emperor of breach of contract and subsequently left.[9] In 1058, Henry was selling bishoprics and abbacies, ignoring the accusations of simony and tyranny by the Papal legate Cardinal Humbert.[10] Despite his efforts, Henry I's twenty-nine-year reign saw feudal power in France reach its pinnacle.

King Henry I died on 4 August 1060 in Vitry-en-Brie, France, and was interred in Basilica of St Denis. He was succeeded by his son, Philip I of France, who was 7 at the time of his death; for six years Henry's queen Anne of Kiev ruled as regent. At the time of his death, he was besieging Thimert, which had been occupied by the Normans since 1058.[11]

Marriages
Henry I was betrothed to Matilda, the daughter of Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor, but she died prematurely in 1034.[12] Henry then married Matilda of Frisia, but she died in 1044,[13] following a Caesarean section. Casting further afield in search of a third wife, Henry married Anne of Kiev on 19 May 1051.[13] They had four children:

Philip I (23 May 1052 – 30 July 1108).[14]
Emma (1054 – 1109?).
Robert (c. 1055 – c. 1060).
Hugh "the Great" of Vermandois (1057–1102).[15]

end of biography

88813.

Anna Agnesa Yaraslavna, Queen of France was born in 1036 in Kiev, Ukraine (daughter of Yaroslav, I, Czar of Russia and Ingigerd Olofsdottir, Princess of Sweden); died on 5 Sep 1075 in France.

Notes:

The PEDIGREE of
Anna (Agnesa) JAROSLAVNA (Princess) of KIEV

aka Anne of RUSSIA; (YAROSLAVNA Iaroslavna) KIJEWSKAIA; (Capet's 2nd wife)
Born: Kiev 1036 Died: aft. 1076 France

HM George I's 16-Great Grandmother. HRE Ferdinand I's 13-Great Grandmother. U.S. President [WASHINGTON]'s 19-Great Grandmother. PM Churchill's 23-Great Grandmother. HM Margrethe II's 24-Great Grandmother. Gen. Pierpont Hamilton's 24-Great Grandmother. `Red Baron' Richthofen's 21-Great Grandmother. Poss. Agnes Harris's 17-Great Grandmother. `Osawatomie' Brown's 24-Great Grandmother.
Husbands/Partners: Henry I CAPET (King) of FRANCE ; Raoul III de CREPY
Child: Philip I `the Amorous' (King) of FRANCE
Possible Child: Hugh MAGNUS `the Great' de CREPI
Alternative Mother of Possible Child: prob. not Matilda of GERMANY (1st wife)
________ ________ ________ ________ _______ _______ _______ _______ ______ _____ _____
/ -- Rurik (Grand Prince) of NOVGORAD + ====> [ 255 ,,p,&]
| | or: Ingwar (Rurik's son)
/ | OR: prob. not Rurik NOWGOROD [alt ped] + ====> [ 255 ,,p,&]
/ -- Igor I (Grand Prince) of KIEV (876? - 945?)
| \ | OR: prob. source: N1c1 y-Haplogroup + =====>
| \ -- Efanda of URMAN + ====> [ 1]
/ | OR: prob. not Marija of BULGARIA + ==&=> [ 255 ,,XQD,&]
/ -- Sviatoslav (Svatislav) I IGORJEWITSCH
/ \ -- Olga von PLESKAU (Grand Duchess) of KIEV + ====> [ 2]
/ -- Vladimir (I; Saint; Grand Prince) of KIEV
| \ / -- poss. Malk (Mal) de LUBECH + ====> [ 1]
| \ -- Malousha `the Slav' de LUBECH (944? - 1002?)
| \ | or: Fredslava (ARPAD ?), q.v.
/ \ -- Olga
/ -- Jaroslav (Yaroslav Laroslav) I WLADIMIROWWITSCH
| \ / -- poss. Randolph of POLOTSK + ====> [ 1]
| | / -- Rognwald (Rognvald) (Count) von POLOTZK
| \ -- Rogneida (Rognieda) (Princess) von POLOTZK
| | or: Anna PORPHYROGENITA, q.v.
/ | OR: poss. (Miss) von SCHWABEN + ==&=> [ 255 ,gC,tm,&]
- Anna (Agnesa) JAROSLAVNA (Princess) of KIEV
\ / -- Erik EDMUNDSSON of SWEDEN (Goten) + ====> [ 255 ,,p,&]
| / -- Bjorn (III) `the Old' (`a Haugi') ERIKSSON
| / -- Erik VII `Segersall' (King) of SWEDEN
| | \ | OR: Erik VII `Segersall' of SWEDEN [alt ped] + ====> [ 255 ,,p,&]
| / \ -- Ingeborg (? - 934+)
| / -- Olaf III (II; King; Skot-konig) of SWEDEN
| | \ / -- Skoglar-Toste (Skogul-Tosti) STORRADA
| | \ -- Sigrid (Sigrith) STORRADA (Queen) of DENMARK
| / | OR: prob. Gunhild MIEZKODOTTER av VENDEN + ====> [ 255 ,g,&]
\ -- Ingegarda (Ingrid) OLAFSDOTTIR (1001? - 1050)
\ / -- Mitsui II (Prince) of the OBOTRITES + ====> [ 255 ,,x,&]
| / -- Mieceslas III (Prince) of the OBOTRITES
| | \ -- poss. Sophia MIECESLAS + ====> [ 1]
| / | OR: poss. Margareta of SAXONY + ==&=> [ 255 ,c,pt,&]
\ -- Astrid (Ingegerda) (Princess) of the OBOTRITES
\ -- Sophia (Sweden)

Her (poss.) Grandchildren: Cecile de FRANCE ; Louis VI `the Fat' (King) of FRANCE ; Constance (Constansia) CAPET (Princess) of FRANCE ; Florent de FRANCE ; Raoul I (Count) de VERMANDOIS ; Isabelle (de) VERMANDOIS ; Agnes de VERMANDOIS ; Mathilda (Mahaut) de VERMANDOIS ; Constance de VERMANDOIS ; Alice de VERMANDOIS

[ Start ]
FabPed Genealogy Vers. 86 © Jamie, 1997-2018

Children:

44406. Hugues de France, Count of Vermandois was born in 1057 in (Vermandois) France; died on 18 Oct 1102 in Tarsus, Turkey; was buried in Church of St Paul, Mersin, Mersin, Turkey.

89072.

89073.

Dearbforgail Ingen O'Brien was born in 1005 in Dublin, Ireland (daughter of Donnchad O'Brien, King of Munster and Druscilla Godwin); died in 1060 in Ireland.

Children:

44536. Murchad Macdairmata Murchada was born in 1032 in (Ireland); died in 1070 in (Ireland).

713728.

Ragnvald Brusesson, Earl of Orkney was born in 1011 in Orkney, Scotland (son of Brusi Sigurdsson Sigurdsson, Earl of Orkney and Ostrida Regenwaldsdottir); died in 0Dec 1046 in Orkney, Scotland.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Kiev, Ukraine
Residence: Norway

Notes:

Rognvald Brusason (died 1046), son of Brusi Sigurdsson, was Earl of Orkney jointly with Thorfinn Sigurdsson from about 1037 onwards. His life is recorded in the Orkneyinga Saga.

Rognvald was taken by his father to Norway, to the court of Olaf Haraldsson, when Brusi and Thorfinn went there to have the inheritance of Einar Wry-mouth's third-share of the Earldom settled. Olaf kept Einar's share for himself, appointing Brusi to administer it, and kept Rognvald at his court.[1]

The Orkneyinga Saga says of Rognvald:

Rognvald was one of the handsomest of men, with a fine head of golden hair, smooth as silk. At an early age he grew to be tall and strong, earning a great reputation for his shrewdness and courtesy ...[2]

Rognvald was a supporter of Olaf Haraldsson, later Saint Olaf, sharing his exile in Kievan Rus, and helping his brother Harald Sigurdsson, better known as Harald Hardraade, escape after the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030. While Harald went on to Constantinople, Rognvald and other exiles remained in Rus, in the service of Yaroslav the Wise. Rognvald returned to Norway with Olaf's son Magnus the Good in 1035.[3]

While Rognvald was abroad, his father had died and Thorfinn Sigurdsson was ruling all of the Earldom of Orkney. Rognvald asked King Magnus for his third part of the Earldom, and Magnus agreed, giving him three ships and granting him the stewardship of Magnus's own third share. When Rognvald arrived in Orkney, he sent to his uncle Thorfinn asking him for the two thirds of the Earldom which Magnus had given him. Thorfinn agreed to give Rognvald his father's third, and the third which Magnus claimed into the bargain, although he claimed not to recognise Magnus's claim and presented this as a gift in return for Rognvald's assistance. and Rognvald worked closely together for eight years, fighting against enemies in the Hebrides and raiding Scotland and England.[4]

However, the Earls eventually fell out. The proximate cause of their quarrel, according to the saga, was the arrival of Kalf Arnesson, the uncle of Thorfinn's wife Ingibiorg Finnsdottir.

Kalf had a large following which placed a heavy burden on the Earl's finances. Plenty of people told him that he shouldn't let Rognvald have two-thirds of the islands, considering his heavy outlay.[5]

Rognvald and Kalf Arnesson were not friends. The Orkneyinga Saga reports that Rognvald, a staunch supporter of Saint Olaf, came close to attacking Kalf in Rus, who alone among the Arnessons had betrayed Olaf, when he came to pledge his support to Magnus.[6] For that reason, if for no other, Rognvald refused to hand over the third which Thorfinn asked for. From then onwards, relations deteriorated. Rognvald was defeated in a sea-battle and sought refuge in Norway with Magnus while Thorfinn took control of the earldom.[7]

With a single ship, and a crew of picked men, Rognvald returned to Orkney hoping that surprise would enable him to retake the earldom. He succeeded, but not entirely as Thorfinn was able to flee to Caithness. However, soon afterwards, Rognvald was surprised in his turn, but was killed by Thorkell the Fosterer while escaping, given away by the barking of his lap dog.[8]

Rognvald was buried on Papa Westray. The Orkneyinga Saga offers this assessment of Rognvald:

Everyone agrees that of all the Earls of Orkney he was the most popular and gifted, and his death was mourned by many.[9]

Twelfth-century Earl Kali Kolsson was given the name Rognvald "because Kali's mother claimed that Rognvald Brusason had been the most able of all the Earls of Orkney, and people saw this as a sign of good luck."[10]

end of biography

Ragnvald Brusesson
Born 1011 in Orkney, Scotland
ANCESTORS ancestors
Son of Brusi Sigurdsson (Sigurdsson) Sunderland and Ostrida Regenwaldsdottir
Brother of Ingreda Brusisdottir, Margarita Brusisdottir and Olaf (Brusison) Brusisson
Husband of Emma Bretagne — married [date unknown] [location unknown]
Husband of Unknown (UNKNOWN) Unknown — married [date unknown] [location unknown]
Husband of Felicia (Normandy) Normandie — married 1029 in God²y, More og Romsdal, Norway
Husband of Arlogia (Orkney) of Orkney — married 1034 in Russia

Profile managers: Katherine Patterson private message [send private message], Marc Cohen private message [send private message], Jeff Johnson private message [send private message], and Wendy Hampton private message [send private message]
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DESCENDANTS descendants

Father of Arne Robert Ragnvaldsson (dORCADES) Orcades, UNKNOWN Robert, Duvnjall Ragnvaldsson, Eilif Ragnvaldsson, Waldemar Orkney, Robert (Brus) Bruce, Hamiliana Orkney, Arlogia of Orkney UNKNOWN and Tora (Ragnvaldsdatter) d'Orcades
Died Dec 1046 in Islands, Orkney, Scotlandmap

Relationships between historical figures could have been simplified or even fabricated in the text to give the impression that succession remained within the same family….Precise chronology is also difficult to assess from the Sagas….The conclusion must be that the tight family network described in the Sagas is unlikely to be correct and that the relationships shown below should be treated with considerable caution. http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/NORWEGIAN%20NOBILITY.htm

TRANSLATED FROM NORWEGIAN; Ragnvald Brusesson Orken²yjarl married unknown. Ragnvald died in 1045 . Peace-loving , shared power with 2 other contenders, his only brothers.

Buried Olav Church in Kirkwall ( Kirkwall ) in memory of his foster father , King Olav . Attended 19 years antique? D. at the Battle of Stiklestad .

end of profile

Ragnvald married Arlogia of Orkney, Countess of Orkney in 1034 in Russia. Arlogia (daughter of Vladimir, Czar of Russia and Anna Porphyrogenita, Princess of Byzantium) was born in 1015 in Kiev, Ukraine; died on 10 Dec 1046 in Orkney Islands, Orkney, Scotland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

713729.

Arlogia of Orkney, Countess of Orkney was born in 1015 in Kiev, Ukraine (daughter of Vladimir, Czar of Russia and Anna Porphyrogenita, Princess of Byzantium); died on 10 Dec 1046 in Orkney Islands, Orkney, Scotland.

Notes:

Generation: 1

1. Arlogia Vladimirovna, Countess of OrkneyArlogia Vladimirovna, Countess of Orkney was born Abt 1011, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine (daughter of Vladimir I Sviatoslavich, Czar of Russia and Anna Lekapene, Princess of the Byzantine Empire); died Yes, date unknown.
Arlogia married Ragnvald II Brusesson, Earl of Orkney Abt 1029, of, , , Russia. Ragnvald (son of Brusi Sigurdsson, Earl of Orkney and Ostrida Regenwaldsdotter, Countess of Orkney) was born 1011, of, , Orkney Islands, Scotland; died Dec 1046, , Papa Stronsay, Orkney Islands, Scotland; was buried , Papa, Westroy, Orkney, Scotland. [Group Sheet]

Children:
Robert de Brusse, Earl of Annandale was born Abt 1030, of Carrick, Galloway, Argyll, Scotland; died 1080-1098, , Annan, Dumfries, Scotland.
Waldemar de Orkney was born Abt 1035, of, , , Russia; died Yes, date unknown.
Hamiliana de Orkney was born Abt 1037, of, , Orkney Islands, Scotland; died Yes, date unknown.
Arlogia de Orkney was born Abt 1038, of, , Orkney Islands, Scotland; died Yes, date unknown.

Generation: 2

2. Vladimir I Sviatoslavich, Czar of RussiaVladimir I Sviatoslavich, Czar of Russia was born 960, , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine (son of Sviatoslav I Igorovich, Czar of Russia and Duchess Malusha von Lèubeck); died 15 Jul 1015, , Berestovo, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine; was buried , Church of Tithes, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine.
Vladimir married Anna Lekapene, Princess of the Byzantine Empire 989, , Kherson, Kherson Oblast, Ukraine. Anna (daughter of Romanos II Lecapenus, Emperor of the Byzantine Empire and Theophano Byzantine, Empress of the Byzantine Empire) was born 13 Mar 963, of, Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantium; died 1011. [Group Sheet]

3. Anna Lekapene, Princess of the Byzantine EmpireAnna Lekapene, Princess of the Byzantine Empire was born 13 Mar 963, of, Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantium (daughter of Romanos II Lecapenus, Emperor of the Byzantine Empire and Theophano Byzantine, Empress of the Byzantine Empire); died 1011.
Children:
1. Arlogia Vladimirovna, Countess of Orkney was born Abt 1011, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine; died Yes, date unknown.
Dobronegra Mariya Vladimirovna, Princess of Kiev was born Abt 1012, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine; died 1087.

Generation: 3

4. Sviatoslav I Igorovich, Czar of RussiaSviatoslav I Igorovich, Czar of Russia was born 942, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine; was christened Mar 945, , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine (son of Igor of Ryurikovich, Czar of Russia and Olga Helgisdatter, Czarina of Russia); died 972, , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine.
Sviatoslav married Duchess Malusha von Lèubeck Abt 959, , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine. Malusha (daughter of Duke Malk von Lèubeck and Mrs. Malk von Lèubeck) was born Abt 944, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine; died 1002. [Group Sheet]

5. Duchess Malusha von LèubeckDuchess Malusha von Lèubeck was born Abt 944, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine (daughter of Duke Malk von Lèubeck and Mrs. Malk von Lèubeck); died 1002.
Children:
2. Vladimir I Sviatoslavich, Czar of Russia was born 960, , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine; died 15 Jul 1015, , Berestovo, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine; was buried , Church of Tithes, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine.

6. Romanos II Lecapenus, Emperor of the Byzantine EmpireRomanos II Lecapenus, Emperor of the Byzantine Empire was born 939, of, Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantium (son of Konstantinos VII Porphyrogenitus, Emperor of the Byzantine Empire and Eleni Lekapene, Empress of the Byzantine Empire); died 15 Mar 963, of, Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantium.
Romanos married Theophano Byzantine, Empress of the Byzantine Empire Abt 954, , Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantium. Theophano (daughter of Anastaso de Byzantine and Mrs. Anastaso de Byzantine) was born Abt 936, of, Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantium; died , of, Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantium. [Group Sheet]

7. Theophano Byzantine, Empress of the Byzantine EmpireTheophano Byzantine, Empress of the Byzantine Empire was born Abt 936, of, Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantium (daughter of Anastaso de Byzantine and Mrs. Anastaso de Byzantine); died , of, Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantium.
Children:
Theodora Lekapene, Princess of the Byzantine Empire was born Abt 955, of, Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantium; died Yes, date unknown.
Theophano Skleros Lekapene, Empress of the Holy Roman Empire was born Abt 956, of, Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantium; died 15 Jun 991, of, Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantium.
Basileos II Lecapenus, Emperor of the Byzantine Empire was born 958, , Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantium; died 15 Dec 1025.
Agatha Lekapene, Princess of the Byzantine Empire was born Abt 958, of, Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantium; died Yes, date unknown.
Konstantinos VIII Lecapenus, Emperor of the Byzantine Empire was born 960, of, Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantium; died 11 Nov 1028, of, Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantium.
3. Anna Lekapene, Princess of the Byzantine Empire was born 13 Mar 963, of, Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantium; died 1011.

end of this pedigree

Arlogia of Orkney formerly Orkney aka of Kiev
Born 1015 in Kiev, Ukraine
HIDE ANCESTORS
Daughter of ???????? ??????????? (Kiev) ???????? and ??????? ???????????? (Polotsk) ????????
Sister of ??????? ???????????? (Kiev) ????????, ???????? ???????????? (Duke of Chernigov and Tmutorakan) ????????????, ??????? ???????????? (Kiev) ????????, ?????????? ???????????? (Kiev) ???????? [half], ???????? ???????????? (Vladimirovich) ????????? and ????? ???????????? (Kiev) ???????? [half]
Wife of Ragnvald Brusesson — married 1034 in Russia
DESCENDANTS descendants
Mother of UNKNOWN Robert, Duvnjall Ragnvaldsson, Eilif Ragnvaldsson, Waldemar Orkney, Robert (Brus) Bruce, Hamiliana Orkney and Arlogia of Orkney UNKNOWN
Died 10 Dec 1046 in Orkney Islands, Orkney, Scotlandmap
Profile managers: Katherine Patterson private message [send private message] and Jeff Johnson private message [send private message]
Profile last modified 21 Jun 2017 | Created 7 May 2011
This page has been accessed 5,186 times.

Biography
Research Notes
Relationships between historical figures could have been simplified or even fabricated in the text to give the impression that succession remained within the same family….Precise chronology is also difficult to assess from the Sagas….The conclusion must be that the tight family network described in the Sagas is unlikely to be correct and that the relationships shown below should be treated with considerable caution. http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/NORWEGIAN%20NOBILITY.htm

end of profile

Children:

356864. Sir Robert Brus, Earl of Annandale was born in 1030-1036 in Carrick, Argyllshire, Scotland; died in 1080-1098 in Dumfries, Scotland.

177176.

Crinan of Dunkeld, Abbot of Dunkeld was born in ~976; died in 1045 in Dunkeld, Perthshire, Scotland.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: ~980, Atholl, Perthshire, Scotland

Notes:

Crâinâan of Dunkeld (died 1045) was the hereditary abbot of the monastery of Dunkeld, and perhaps the Mormaer of Atholl. Crâinâan was progenitor of the House of Dunkeld, the dynasty which would rule Scotland until the later 13th century. He was the son-in-law of one king, and the father of another.

Family

This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Crâinâan was married to Bethâoc, daughter of Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda (Malcolm II) (King of Scots, who reigned from 1005 to 1034). As Mâael Coluim had no surviving son, the strongest hereditary claim to the Scottish throne descended through Bethâoc. Crâinâan and Bethâoc's eldest son, Donnchad (Duncan I), who reigned from 1034 to 1040.

It is likely that Crâinâan had a second son Maldred, father of Gospatric of Northumbria.
Abbot of Dunkeld

The monastery of Saint Columba was founded on the north bank of the River Tay in the 6th century or early 7th century following the expedition of Columba into the land of the Picts. It may have continued to draw its hierarchy from the Cenâel Conaill of Donegal.[1] Iain Moncreiffe argued that Crinâan belonged to a Scottish sept of the Irish Cenâel Conaill royal dynasty.[2]

While the title of Hereditary Abbot (coarb in Gaelic) was a feudal position that was often exercised in name only, Crinâan does seem to have acted as Abbot in charge of the monastery in his time. He was thus a man of high position in both clerical and secular society.

The magnificent semi-ruined Dunkeld Cathedral, built in stages between 1260 and 1501, stands today on the grounds once occupied by the monastery. The Cathedral contains the only surviving remains of the previous monastic society: a course of red stone visible in the east choir wall that may have been re-used from an earlier building, and two stone ninth - or tenth-century cross-slabs in the Cathedral Museum.

In 1045, Crâinâan of Dunkeld rose in rebellion against Macbeth in support of his 14-year-old grandson, Malcolm III's claim to the throne.[3] Malcolm was the elder son of Crinan's son, the late King Duncan, who predeceased his father. However, Crâinâan, by then an elderly man, was killed in a battle at Dunkeld.
References

Woolf, Alex. "The Problem with Crâinâan", From Pictland to Alba, Edinburgh University Press, 2007
Sir Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk, The Highland Clans. Part II. 1982. p. 236

Knox, James. The topography of the basin of the Tay, Andrew Shorteed, Edinburgh, 1831

External Source

Cawley, Charles, Medieval Lands Project on Crinan, Medieval Lands database, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy,[self-published source][better source needed]
Clans and Families of Ireland and Scotland

end of biography

177177.

Bethoc was born in 984 in Perthshire, Scotland (daughter of Malcolm II of Scotland, High King of Scotland and Aefgifu); died on 15 Sep 1049 in Dunkeld, Perthshire, Scotland.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Death: 1045

Notes:

British Aristocracy
Bethâoc MacAlpin was a member of aristocracy in the British Isles.
Join: British Royals and Aristocrats Project
Discuss: EUROARISTO
Contents
[hide]
1 Biography
1.1 Medieval Lands
1.1.1 Issue
1.2 Wikipedia, English
2 Research Notes
3 Sources
Biography
Bethâoc ingen Maâil Coluim meic Cinâaeda

Parents: Malcolm II of Scotland and his wife.
Spouse: Crâinâan of Dunkeld, Mormaer of Atholl
Children:
1. Duncan I, King of Scotland
2. Maldred of Allerdale
3. daughter(s)?
Medieval Lands
http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/SCOTLAND.htm#_Toc253996182
Bethâoc was the wife of Crâinâan: CRINAN "the Thane" (-killed in battle 1045). The primary source which confirms his parentage has not yet been identified. Abthane of Dule. Lay abbot of Dunkeld. Steward of the Western Isles. Mormaer of Atholl. He was killed fighting King Macbeth. The Annals of Ulster record that "Crâonâan abbot of Dâun Caillen" was killed in 1045 in "a battle between the Scots themselves"[204]. The Annals of Tigernach record that “Crâinan abbot of Dunkeld” was killed in 1045 in “a battle between the men of Scotland on one road”[205].

m ([1000]) BETHOC, daughter of MALCOLM II King of Scotland & his wife ---. The "Genealogy of King William the Lyon" dated 1175 names "Betoch filii Malcolmi" as parent of "Malcolmi filii Dunecani"[206]. The Chronicle of the Scots and Picts dated 1177 names "Cran Abbatis de Dunkelden et Bethok filia Malcolm mac Kynnet" as parents of King Duncan[207]. The Chronicle of John of Fordun records that King Malcolm II had "an only daughter…Beatrice who married Crynyne Abthane of Dul and Steward of the Isles…in some annals, by a blunder of the writer…abbot of Dul"[208].

Issue
Crinan & Bethoc had two children:

i) DUNCAN ([1001]-killed in battle either Bothganowan/Pitgaveny, near Elgin, or Burghead 14 Aug 1040, bur Isle of Iona). His parentage is confirmed by the Annals of Ulster which record the death of "Donnchad son of Crâinâan, king of Scotland" in 1040[209]. The Chronicle of John of Fordun names "Duncan" as son of "Crynyne Abthane of Dul and Steward of the Isles" and his wife[210]. He succeeded in 1018 as King of Strathclyde. He succeeded his maternal grandfather in 1034 as DUNCAN I King of Scotland.

ii) MALDRED (-killed in battle [1045]). His parentage is confirmed by Simeon of Durham who records the marriage of "Maldred the son of Crinan"[211]. Lord of Allerdale. Regent of Strathclyde 1034/35.

Wikipedia, English
Bethâoc ingen Maâil Coluim meic Cinâaeda was the eldest daughter of King Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda, King of Scots, who had no known sons.

The strongest hereditary claim of succession to the Scottish throne therefore passed through Bethâoc. Approximately 1000, Princess Bethâoc married Crâinâan, Abbot of Dunkeld. The first son of this marriage was Donnchad I, who ascended to the throne of Scotland in 1034. Early writers have asserted that Mâael Coluim also designated Donnchad as his successor under the rules of tanistry because there were other possible claimants to the throne.

Her sister Olith was married to Jarl Sigurd the Stout of Orkney, and the other sister Donada to Findlâaech, the Mormaer of Moireabh.

She is not to be confused with Bethâoc ingen Domnaill Bain meic Donnchada.

She gained the title of Heiress of Scone. As a result of her marriage, Bethoc of Scotland was styled as Lady of Atholl.

It is possible that Bethâoc had previously been married to Jarl Sigurd the Stout of Orkney, and to Findlâaech, the Mormaer of Moireabh. She is not to be confused with Bethâoc ingen Domnaill Bain meic Donnchada.

Research Notes
Citation needed for spare husband and surplus kids.

The name of Bethâoc's mother is not known.

Sources
Nigel Tranter has a pretty good book on the subject as well, "Macbeth the King" and it is far more readable than Dorothy Dunnett's. Tranter thinks that Thorfinn and Macbeth are halfbrothers, possibly sons of Malcolm II of
Scotland 's daughter Dovada. Duncan is their cousin son of Malcolm II's other daughter Bethoc.

It is possible that Bethâoc had previously been married to Jarl Sigurd the Stout of Orkney, and to Findlâaech, the Mormaer of Moireabh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethoc
Bethoc av Skottland, eller Bethâoc ingen Maâil Coluim meic Cinâaeda, var den eldste datteren til kong Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda (Malcolm II av Skottland) som ikke hadde noen s²nner.
Det sterkeste arvelige krav til êa etterf²lge som skottenes konge gikk derfor via Bethâoc. Omtrent rundt êar 1000 giftet prinsesse Bethâoc seg med Crâinâan av Dunkeld, lekmannsabbed og muligens mormaer. Den f²rste s²nnen av dette ekteskapet ble Donnchad mac Crâinâain (Duncan I av Skottland) som overtok den skotske tronen i 1034. Tidlige skribenter har ogsêa forfektet at Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda (Malcolm II av Skottland) selv hadde utsett Donnchad som sin etterf²lger under reglene om tanisteri ettersom det var andre mulige krav til tronen. Det er mulig at Bethâoc tidligere hadde vµrt gift med jarl Sigurd Lodvesson (kalt den digre eller staute) av Orkn²yene, og med Findlâaech, mormaer av Moireabh. Bethâoc mêa ikke forveksles med Bethâoc ingen Domnaill Bain meic Donnchada, en datter av Donald III av Skottland.
https://www.stirnet.com/genie/data/british/aa/alpin1.php
Anderson, Marjorie Ogilvy: Kings and Kingship in Early Scotland, 1973
Alison Weir, Britain's Royal Family: A Complete Genealogy (London, U.K.: The Bodley Head, 1999), page 177-178.
Richard Glanville-Brown, online , Richard Glanville-Brown (RR 2, Milton, Ontario, Canada), downloaded 17 August 2005.
The Oxford History of the British Monarchy ,
http://www.thepeerage.com/p10289.htm#i102883

end of this biography

Bethâoc ingen Maâil Coluim meic Cinâaeda was the elder daughter of Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda, King of Scots, and the mother of his successor, Duncan I.

Biography

Bethâoc was the eldest daughter of the Malcolm II of Scotland, who had no known surviving sons. She married Crâinâan, Abbot of Dunkeld. Their older son, Donnchad I, ascended to the throne of Scotland around 1034. Malcolm's youngest daughter married Sigurd Hlodvirsson, Earl of Orkney.[1] Early writers have asserted that Mâael Coluim also designated Donnchad as his successor under the rules of tanistry because there were other possible claimants to the throne.

In this period, the Scottish throne still passed in Picto-Gaelic matrilineal fashion, from brother to brother, uncle to nephew, and cousin to cousin.

Bethâoc
Spouse Crâinâan, Abbot of Dunkeld
Issue Duncan I, King of Alba
Maldred of Allerdale
House House of Alpin
Father Malcolm II, King of Alba

end of biography

Children:

88588. Duncan I of Scotland, King of Alba was born in ~1001 in (Dunkeld, Scotland); died on 14 Aug 1040 in Elgin, Scotland.
Maldred, King of Cumbria

177604.

Notes:

Edmund Ironside (died 30 November 1016), also known as Edmund II, was King of England from 23 April to 30 November 1016. He was the son of King ¥thelred the Unready and his first wife, ¥lfgifu of York. Edmund's reign was marred by a war he had inherited from his father, his cognomen "Ironside" was given to him "because of his valour" in resisting the Danish invasion led by Cnut the Great.[1]

Edmund was not expected to be King of England; however, by 1014 two elder brothers had died, making him the oldest male heir. His father, ¥thelred, was usurped by Sweyn Forkbeard in that same year, but Sweyn died shortly thereafter, paving the way for ¥thelred and his family to return to the throne, which they did but not without opposition. In the process they forced Sweyn's son, Cnut, back to Denmark, where he assembled an invasion force to re-conquer England. It would not arrive for another year.

After regaining the throne, the royal family set about strengthening its hold on the country with the assistance of Eadric Streona (Edmund's brother-in-law). People who had sided with the Danes in 1014 were punished, and some were killed. In one case, two brothers, Morcar and Sigeferth, were killed and their possessions, along with Sigferth's wife, were taken by Edmund. Edmund unofficially became the Earl of the East Midlands and took Ealdgyth for his wife.

Cnut returned to England in August 1015. Over the next few months, Cnut pillaged most of England. Edmund joined ¥thelred to defend London, but he died on 23 April 1016, making Edmund King. It was not until the summer of 1016 that any serious fighting was done: Edmund fought five battles against the Danes, ending in his defeat on 18 October at the Battle of Assandun, after which they agreed to divide the kingdom, Edmund taking Wessex and Cnut the rest of the country. Edmund died shortly afterwards on 30 November, leaving two sons, Edward and Edmund; however, Cnut became the king of all England, and exiled the remaining members of Edmund's family.

King of the English
Reign 23 April – 30 November 1016
Predecessor ¥thelred the Unready
Successor Cnut the Great
Born 990
Died 30 November 1016 (aged 26)
Oxford or London, England
Burial Glastonbury Abbey
Spouse Ealdgyth
Issue Edward the Exile
Edmund
House Wessex
Father ¥thelred the Unready
Mother ¥lfgifu of York
Religion British Church

Early life

The exact date of Edmund's birth is unclear, but it could have been no later than 993 when he was a signatory to charters along with his two elder brothers. He was the third of the six sons of King ¥thelred the Unready and his first wife, ¥lfgifu, who was probably the daughter of Earl Thored of Northumbria. His elder brothers were ¥thelstan (died 1014) and Egbert (died c. 1005), and younger ones, Eadred, Eadwig and Edgar.[1] He had four sisters, Eadgyth (or Edith), ¥lfgifu, Wulfhilda, and the Abbess of Wherwell Abbey. His mother died around 1000,[2] after which his father remarried, this time to Emma of Normandy, who had two sons, Edward the Confessor and Alfred and a daughter Goda.

¥thelstan and Edmund were close, and they probably felt threatened by Emma's ambitions for her sons.[3] The Life of Edward the Confessor, written fifty years later, claimed that when Emma was pregnant with him, all Englishmen promised that if the child was a boy they would accept him as king.[1] However that claim may just be propaganda.

Warrior prince

When Sweyn Forkbeard seized the throne at the end of 1013 and ¥thelred fled to Normandy, the brothers do not appear to have followed him, but stayed in England. ¥thelstan died in June 1014 and left Edmund a sword which had belonged to king Offa of Mercia.[1] His will also reflected the close relationship between the brothers and the nobility of the east midlands.[4]

Sweyn died in February 1014, and the Five Boroughs accepted his son Cnut, who married a kinswoman of Sigeferth and Morcar, as king. However, ¥thelred returned to England and launched a surprise attack which defeated the Vikings and forced Cnut to flee England. In 1015 Sigeferth and Morcar came to an assembly in Oxford, probably hoping for a royal pardon, but they were murdered by Eadric Streona. King ¥thelred then ordered that Sigeferth's widow, Ealdgyth, be seized and brought to Malmesbury Abbey, but Edmund seized and married her in defiance of his father, probably to consolidate his power base in the east midlands.[5] He then received the submission of the people of the Five Boroughs. At the same time, Cnut launched a new invasion of England. In late 1015 Edmund raised an army, possibly assisted by his wife's and mother's links with the midlands and the north, but the Mercians under Eadric Streona joined the West Saxons in submitting to Cnut. In early 1016 the army assembled by Edmund dispersed when ¥thelred did not appear to lead it, probably due to illness. Edmund then raised a new army and in conjunction with Earl Uhtred of Northumbria ravaged Eadric Streona's Mercian territories, but when Cnut occupied Northumbria Uhtred submitted to him, only to be killed by Cnut. Edmund went to London.[1]

King of England

¥thelred died on 23 April 1016, and the citizens and councillors in London chose Edmund as king and probably crowned him. He then mounted a last-ditch effort to revive the defence of England. While the Danes laid siege to London, Edmund headed for Wessex, where the people submitted to him and he gathered an army. He fought inconclusive battles against the Danes and their English supporters at Penselwood in Somerset and Sherston in Wiltshire. He then raised the siege of London and defeated the Danes near Brentford. They renewed the siege while Edmund went to Wessex to raise further troops, returning to again relieve London, defeat the Danes at Otford, and pursue Cnut into Kent. Eadric Streona now went over to Edmund, but at the decisive Battle of Assandun on 18 October, Eadric and his men fled and Cnut decisively defeated Edmund. There may have been one further battle in the Forest of Dean, after which the two kings negotiated a peace dividing the country between them. Edmund received Wessex while Cnut took Mercia and probably Northumbria.[1]

Death

On 30 November 1016, Edmund died. The location of his death is uncertain though it is generally accepted that it occurred in London, rather than in Oxford where Henry of Huntingdon claimed it to be in his sordid version of events, which included Edmund’s murder by suffering multiple stab wounds whilst on a privy tending to a call of nature.[6] Geoffrey Gaimar states a similar occurrence with the weapon being a crossbow, but with a number of other medieval chroniclers including the Encomium Emmae Reginae not mentioning murder, it is thought Edmund’s cause of death may possibly have been caused by wounds received in battle or by some disease, but it is certainly a possibility that he was murdered.

Edmund was buried near his grandfather Edgar at Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset. However the abbey was destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century, and any remains of a monument or crypt would have been plundered and the location of his remains is unclear.

Reputation

In the view of M. K. Lawson, the intensity of Edmund's struggle against the Danes in 1016 is only matched by Alfred the Great's in 871, and contrasts with ¥thelred's failure. Edmund's success in raising one army after another suggests that there was little wrong with the organs of government under competent leadership. He was "probably a highly determined, skilled and indeed inspiring leader of men". Cnut visited his tomb on the anniversary of his death and laid a cloak decorated with peacocks on it to assist in his salvation, peacocks symbolising resurrection.[1]

Descendants

Edmund had two children by Ealdgyth, Edward the Exile and Edmund. According to John of Worcester, Cnut sent them to the king of Sweden where he probably hoped they would be murdered, but the Swedish king instead forwarded them, together with his daughter, on to Kiev. The two boys eventually ended up in Hungary where Edmund died but Edward prospered. Edward "the Exile" returned to England in 1057 only to die within a few days of his arrival.[7] His son Edgar the ¥theling was briefly proclaimed king after the Battle of Hastings in 1066, but later submitted to William the Conqueror. Edgar would live a long and eventful life; fighting in rebellion against William the Conqueror from 1067-1075; fighting alongside the Conqueror's son Robert of Normandy in campaigns in Sicily (1085-1087); and accompanying Robert on the First Crusade (1099-1103). He was stlll alive in 1125.

In 1070 Edward the Exile's daughter, Margaret, became Queen consort to Malcolm III of Scotland. Through her and her decedents, Edmund is the direct ancestor of every subsequent Scottish monarch, every English monarch from Henry II onward, and every monarch of Great Britain and of the United Kingdom, down to the present.

Edmund married Ealdgyth. Ealdgyth was born about 992; died after 1016. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

177605.
Ealdgyth was born about 992; died after 1016.
Children:

88802. Edward the Exile was born in 1016 in (Wessex) England; died on 19 Apr 1057 in London, Middlesex, England.

177170.

Ealdred, Earl of Bernicia was born in ~990 in Bernicia, Northumbria, England (son of Untred, Earl of Northumbria and Ecgfrida of Durham); died in ~1038 in Risewood Forest, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: (1000)

Notes:

Ealdred was Earl of Bernicia from 1020/25 until his murder in 1038. He was the son of Uhtred, Earl of Northumbria, who was murdered by Thurbrand the Hold in 1016 with the connivance of Cnut. Ealdred's mother was Ecgfrida, daughter of Aldhun, bishop of Durham.

Ealdred succeeded his uncle Eadwulf Cudel as Earl of Bernicia in 1020/25, and some time probably in the mid 1020s he killed Thurbrand in revenge for his father's death. In 1038 Ealdred was murdered by Thurbrand's son, Carl. He was succeeded as Earl of Bernicia by his brother, another Eadwulf. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle asserts that in 1041 Eadwulf was "betrayed" by King Harthacnut.[1] The "betrayal" seems to have been carried out by Siward, Earl of Northumbria; since when the Libellus de Exordio and other sources write about the same event, they say that Siward attacked and killed Eadulf.[2] It was thus that Siward became earl of all Northumbria, perhaps the first person to do so since Uhtred the Bold.

Ealdred's daughter Ealdgyth was married to Ligulf, who was murdered in 1080.[3] Ealdred's daughter, Aelfflaed, was the first wife of Siward and her son (Ealdred's grandson) was Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria.
References

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle manuscripts C, D, s.a. 1041
Rollason (ed.), Libellus de Exordio, pp. 170–71

Aird, William M. (2004). "Ligulf (d. 1080)" ((subscription or UK public library membership required)). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/16791. Retrieved 20 January 2016.

Sources

Fletcher, Richard. Bloodfeud: Murder and Revenge in Anglo-Saxon England. Allen Lane 2002.

end of biography

Ealdred married unnamed spouse. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

177171.
unnamed spouse
Children:

88585. Aelfflaed was born in ~1010 in (Northumbria, England); died in 1060 in Northumbria, England.

48388.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Hastings, England
Military: Victor over the English in the Battle of Hastings, 1066
Burial: 10 Sep 1087, St. Stephen Abbey, Caen, Calvados, France

Notes:

William I the Conqueror of England and Normandy, Duke of Normandy, King of England, was born 9 September 1027 in Falaise, France to Robert II, Duke of Normandy (c1000-1035) and Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050) and died 1087 in Rouen, France of unspecified causes. He married Matilda of Flanders (c1031-1083) 1051 JL . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]

William I, King of England, Duke of Normandy was a mediµval monarch. He ruled as the Duke of Normandy from 1035 to 1087 and as King of England from 1066 to 1087. As Duke of Normandy, William was known as William II, and, as King of England, as William I. He is commonly refered to as William the Conqueror (Guillaume le Conquâerant) or William the Bastard (Guillaume le Bãatard).

The name "William the Bastard", a name used by his enemies arose from the fact that his mother was a Tanner's daughter who agreed to be his father Robert II's mistress. She demanded that their relationship not be secret, and had a position in court. After the affair was over, she married a Viscount. William retained the favour of his father and when Robert II left for the Holy Land, he forced his lords to pledge fealty to William. Robert II never returned from the Holy land and the oath was quickly forgotten, and intrigue surrounded the boy Duke. William's guardian Gilbert of Brionne was murdered, as was his tutor, as was his uncle Osbern- killed while protecting William from kidnappers found in his bedroom. William was sent away from home for his protection, and it was common practice for William's uncle Walter to awaken him in the night to move him to a new location.

By age fifteen, William was knighted, and by twenty he went to war against his cousin Guy of Normandy to defend his title of Duke of Normandy. With the help of King Henri I of France, he subdued his enemies who were forced to swear allegiance to William.

William asked for the hand of Matilda, daughter of Count Baldwin V of Flanders, but Matilda would have none of it. Purportedly, she was in love with the English ambassador to Flanders, a Saxon named Brihtric, who declined her advances. As for William, she told his emissary that she was far too high-born (being descended from King Alfred the Great of England) to consider marrying a bastard. When that was repeated to him, William, all of 5'10", rode from Normandy to Bruges, found Matilda on her way to church, dragged her off her horse (some said by her long braids), threw her down in the street in front of her flabbergasted attendants, and then rode off. Another version states that William rode to Matilda's father's house in Lille, threw her to the ground in her room (again, by the braids), and hit her (or violently shook her) before leaving.

William convinced Matilda to relent, but the pope opposed the marriage because they were distant cousins. For a period of time all of Normandy was excommunicated along with their duke because William disregarded the pope's advice and married Matilda. In return for the construction of two abbeys, the excommunication of Normandy was lifted.

In 1051, William visited his cousin Edward the Confessor, king of England. Edward was childless, and William's account is that the king made him his heir. According to supporters of William, Edward sent his brother in law Harold Godwinson to see William in 1063. Other accounts say that Harold was shipwrecked. All accounts agree that William refused to let Harold depart until he swore on holy relics that he would uphold William's claim to the throne of England, and agreed to marry his daughter (then an infant) Agatha. After winning his release, Harold reneged on both promises.

In support of his claim to the English crown, William invaded England in 1066, leading an army of Normans to victory over the Anglo-Saxon forces of Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, and suppressed subsequent English revolts| in what has become known as the Norman Conquest.

His reign brought Norman culture to England, which had an enormous impact on the subsequent course of England in the Middle Ages. In addition to political changes, his reign also saw changes to English law, a programme of building and fortification, changes in the English language and the introduction of continental European feudalism into England.

For additional details beyond William's family history, see more here.

Residence at Falaise
In Falaise France, is a series of statues that pays tribute to the six Norman Dukes from Rollo to William Conqueror. The castle here was the principal residence of the Norman Knights.

Chãateau Guillaume-le-Conquâerant Place Guillaume le Conquâerant / 14700 Falaise / Tel: 02 31 41 61 44

History of Norman Dukes
Homepage - Falaise Castle of William the Conqueror - In French.

Children

Offspring of William I of England and Matilda of Flanders (c1031-1083)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Robert III, Duke of Normandy (c1051-1134) 1051 (Normandy) 10 February 1134 (Cardiff Castle+ Glamorganshire+ Wales) Sybilla of Conversano (-1103)

Richard of Normandy (c1054) 1054 Normandy 1081 New Forest, Hampshire
Adeliza of Normandy (c1055) 1055 Normandy 1065
Cecilia of Normandy (c1055) 1055 Normandy, France 30 July 1126 Caen, Calvados, France
William II of England (c1056-1100) 1056 Normandy, France 2 August 1100 New Forest, England, United Kingdom
Adela of Normandy (c1062) 1062 Normandy, France 8 March 1138 Marcigny, Saãone-et-Loire, France Stephen II, Count of Blois (c1045-1102)

Agatha of Normandy (c1064) 1064 1079
Constance of Normandy (c1066-1090) 1066 1090 Alain Fergent de Bretagne (c1060-1119)

Henry I of England (1068-1135) 13 June 1068 Selby, Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom 1 December 1135 St. Denis-le-Fermont near Gisors, Picardy, Lyons-la-Forãet, Eure, France Ansfrid (1070-?)
Matilda of Scotland (c1080-1118)
Sybil Corbet (1077-?)
Edith
Gieva de Tracy
Nest ferch Rhys (c1073-aft1136)
Isabel de Beaumont
Adeliza of Leuven (1103-1151)

Common ancestors of William I of England (1027-1087) and Matilda of Flanders (c1031-1083)

Fulk II, Count of Anjou (?-958)
Gerberge of Maine (?-?)
Noteworthy descendants include

Henry II of England (1133-1189)
William I of England (1027-1087)

Footnotes (including sources)
‡ General
wikipedia:en:William the Conqueror
Burke's Guide to the Royal Family, London, 1973 , Reference: 193, 310

end of biography

Click here to view William the Conqueror's biography... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_I_of_England

Click here to read about the historic Norman Conquest by William ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Conquest

Click here to view his 9-generation pedigree ... http://www.ourfamilyhistories.org/ahnentafel.php?personID=I3527&tree=00&parentset=0&generations=9

William the Conqueror is the 26th & 27th great grandfather of the grandchildren of Vernia Swindell Byars (1894-1985)

end of comment

Click this link to view lots of pictures of William I & a video from the, "Bayeux Tapestry"; http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/William_I_of_England_(1027-1087)/pictures

How Did the Normans Change England?

The Normans were more than just the people who conquered England.

They were dynamic and passionate people who changed English history forever.

Apr 10, 2023 • By Greg Beyer, BA History and Linguistics, Diploma in Journalism ... https://www.thecollector.com/how-did-the-normans-change-england/

Residence:
Victor over the English in the Battle of 1066

Military:
a seminal moment in English history...

Died:
at the Priory of St. Gervase...

Buried:
The Abbey of Saint-âEtienne, also known as Abbaye aux Hommes ("Men's Abbey"), is a former Benedictine monastery in the French city of Caen, Normandy, dedicated to Saint Stephen. It was founded in 1063[1] by William the Conqueror and is one of the most important Romanesque buildings in Normandy.

Photos, history & source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_of_Saint-%C3%89tienne,_Caen

48389.

Matilda of Flanders, Queen of England was born about 1031 in Flanders, Belgium; died on 2 Nov 1083 in Caen, Calvados, Normandie, France; was buried in Abbaye aux Dames, Caen, Normandie, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

_HEIG: 5' 0"

Notes:

Matilda of Flanders (French: Mathilde; Dutch: Machteld) (c. 1031 – 2 November 1083) was Queen of England and Duchess of Normandy by marriage to William the Conqueror, and sometime Regent of these realms during his absence. She was the mother of ten children who survived to adulthood, including two kings, William II and Henry I.

As a niece and granddaughter of kings of France, Matilda was of grander birth than William, who was illegitimate, and, according to some suspiciously romantic tales, she initially refused his proposal on this account. Her descent from the Anglo-Saxon royal House of Wessex was also to become a useful card. Like many royal marriages of the period, it breached the rules of consanguinity, then at their most restrictive (to seven generations or degrees of relatedness); Matilda and William were third-cousins, once removed. She was about 20 when they married in 1051/2; William was four years older,24, and had been Duke of Normandy since he was about eight (in 1035).

The marriage appears to have been successful, and William is not recorded to have had any bastards. Matilda was about 35, and had already produced most of her children, when William embarked on the Norman conquest of England, sailing in his flagship Mora, which Matilda had given him. She governed the Duchy of Normandy in his absence, joining him in England only after more than a year, and subsequently returning to Normandy, where she spent most of the remainder of her life, while William was mostly in his new kingdom. She was about 52 when she died in Normandy in 1083.

Apart from governing Normandy and supporting her brother's interests in Flanders, Matilda took a close interest in the education of her children, who were unusually well educated for contemporary royalty. The boys were tutored by the Italian Lanfranc, who was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1070, while the girls learned Latin in Sainte-Trinitâe Abbey in Caen, founded by William and Matilda as part of the papal dispensation allowing their marriage.

Marriage

Matilda, or Maud, was the daughter of Baldwin V, Count of Flanders, and Adela, herself daughter of King Robert II of France.[1]

According to legend, when the Norman duke William the Bastard (later called the Conqueror) sent his representative to ask for Matilda's hand in marriage, she told the representative that she was far too high-born to consider marrying a bastard.[a] After hearing this response, William rode from Normandy to Bruges, found Matilda on her way to church, dragged her off her horse by her long braids, threw her down in the street in front of her flabbergasted attendants and rode off.

Another version of the story states that William rode to Matilda's father's house in Lille, threw her to the ground in her room (again, by her braids) and hit her (or violently battered her) before leaving. Naturally, Baldwin took offence at this; but, before they could draw swords, Matilda settled the matter[2] by refusing to marry anyone but William;[3] even a papal ban by Pope Leo IX at the Council of Reims on the grounds of consanguinity did not dissuade her. William and Matilda were married after a delay in c.?1051–2.[4] A papal dispensation was finally awarded in 1059 by Pope Nicholas II.[5] Lanfranc, at the time prior of Bec Abbey, negotiated the arrangement in Rome and it came only after William and Matilda agreed to found two churches as penance.[6]

Rumored romances

There were rumours that Matilda had been in love variously with the English ambassador to Flanders and with the great Saxon thegn Brictric, son of Algar, who (according to the account by the Continuator of Wace and others[7]) in his youth declined her advances. Whatever the truth of the matter, years later when she was acting as regent for her husband William in England, she is said to have used her authority to confiscate Brictric's lands and throw him into prison, where he died.[8]

Duchess of Normandy

When William was preparing to invade England, Matilda outfitted a ship, the Mora, out of her own funds and gave it to him.[9] Additionally, William gave Normandy to his wife during his absence. Matilda successfully guided the duchy through this period in the name of her fourteen-year-old son; no major uprisings or unrest occurred.[10]

Even after William conquered England and became its king, it took her more than a year to visit the kingdom.[11] Despite having been crowned queen, she spent most of her time in Normandy, governing the duchy, supporting her brother's interests in Flanders, and sponsoring ecclesiastic houses there. Only one of her children was born in England; Henry was born in Yorkshire when Matilda accompanied her husband in the Harrying of the North.[12]

Queen

Statue of Matilda of Flanders, one of the twenty Reines de France et Femmes illustres in the Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris, by Carle Elshoecht (1850)

Tomb of Matilda of Flanders at Abbaye aux Dames, Caen

Tomb of William of Normandy at Abbaye-aux-Hommes, Caen
Matilda was crowned queen on 11 May 1068 in Westminster during the feast of Pentecost, in a ceremony presided over by the archbishop of York. Three new phrases were incorporated to cement the importance of English consorts, stating that the Queen was divinely placed by God, shares in royal power, and blesses her people by her power and virtue.[13][14]

For many years it was thought that she had some involvement in the creation of the Bayeux Tapestry (commonly called La Tapisserie de la Reine Mathilde in French), but historians no longer believe that; it seems to have been commissioned by William's half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and made by English artists in Kent.[15]

Matilda bore William nine or ten children. He was believed to have been faithful to her and never produced a child outside their marriage. Despite her royal duties, Matilda was deeply invested in her children's well-being. All were known for being remarkably educated. Her daughters were educated and taught to read Latin at Sainte-Trinitâe in Caen founded by Matilda and William in response to the recognition of their marriage.[16] For her sons, she secured Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury of whom she was an ardent supporter. Both she and William approved of the Archbishop's desire to revitalise the Church.[17]

She stood as godmother for Matilda of Scotland, who would become Queen of England after marrying Matilda's son Henry I. During the christening, the baby pulled Queen Matilda's headdress down on top of herself, which was seen as an omen that the younger Matilda would be queen some day as well.[18]

Matilda fell ill during the summer of 1083 and died in November 1083. Her husband was present for her final confession.[19] William died four years later in 1087.

Contrary to the common belief that she was buried at St. Stephen's, also called l'Abbaye-aux-Hommes in Caen, Normandy, where William was eventually buried, she is entombed in Caen at l'Abbaye aux Dames, which is the community of Sainte-Trinitâe. Of particular interest is the 11th-century slab, a sleek black stone decorated with her epitaph, marking her grave at the rear of the church. In contrast, the grave marker for William's tomb was replaced as recently as the beginning of the 19th century.

Height

Over time Matilda's tomb was desecrated and her original coffin destroyed. Her remains were placed in a sealed box and reburied under the original black slab.[20] In 1959 Matilda's incomplete skeleton was examined and her femur and tibia were measured to determine her height using anthropometric methods. Her height was 5 feet (1.52m), a normal height for the time.[21] However, as a result of this examination she was misreported as being 4 feet 2 inches (1.27m)[22] leading to the myth that she was extremely small.

Family and children

Matilda and William had four sons and at least five daughters.[23] The birth order of the boys is clear, but no source gives the relative order of birth of the daughters.[23]

Robert, born between 1051 and 1054, died 10 February 1134.[24] Duke of Normandy, married Sybil of Conversano, daughter of Geoffrey of Conversano.[25]
Richard, born c. 1054, died around 1075.[24]
William Rufus, born between 1056 and 1060, died 2 August 1100.[24] King of England, killed in the New Forest.
Henry, born late 1068, died 1 December 1135.[24] King of England, married Edith of Scotland, daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland. His second wife was Adeliza of Louvain.[26]
Agatha, betrothed to Harold II of England, Alfonso VI of Castile, and possibly Herbert I, Count of Maine, but died unmarried.[b][27]
Adeliza (or Adelida,[28] Adelaide[26]), died before 1113, reportedly betrothed to Harold II of England, probably a nun of St Lâeger at Prâeaux.[28]
Cecilia (or Cecily), born c. 1056, died 1127. Abbess of Holy Trinity, Caen.[27]
Matilda,[28] "daughter of the King", born around 1061, died perhaps about 1086,[26] or else much later (according to Trevor Foulds's suggestion that she was identical to Matilda d'Aincourt[29]).
Constance, died 1090, married Alan IV Fergent, Duke of Brittany.[27]
Adela, died 1137, married Stephen, Count of Blois.[27] Mother of King Stephen of England.
There is no evidence of any illegitimate children born to William.[30]

William was furious when he discovered she sent large sums of money to their exiled son Robert.[31] She effected a truce between them at Easter 1080.

Buried:
(or Sainte Trinitâe) for women which was founded by Matilda around four years later (1063)...

Notes:

Married:
The problem has been and maybe still is that William the Conqueror and Matilda (dau. of Baldwin V of Flanders & Adelaide of France) had relatively great difficulty is obtaining a papal dispensation for their marriage. It was not immediately obvious that there was any impediment that needed a dispensation. This problem of what the relationship between Matilda and William was that required a dispensation generated a vigorous debate earlier this century. Weis or Weis's source (as you report it) goes for a theory that makes Matilda and William cousins of sorts.

Children:

Adela of Normandy was born in ~ 1067 in Normandy, France; died on 8 Mar 1137 in Marcigny-sur-Loire, France.
48200. Henry I, King of England was born in 1068-1070 in Selby, Yorkshire, England; was christened on 5 Aug 1100 in Selby, Yorkshire, England; died on 1 Dec 1135 in Saint-Denis-en-Lyons, Normandy, France; was buried on 4 Jan 1136 in Reading Abbey, Reading, Berkshire, England.

177650.

Richard d'Evreux was born in ~986 (son of Robert d'Evereux, Comte d'Evreux and Havlive of Normandy); died on 13 Dec 1067.

Richard married Godeheut Barcelona in 1038. Godeheut was born in ~1000 in Eure, Normandy; died after 1077 in Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

177651.

Godeheut Barcelona was born in ~1000 in Eure, Normandy; died after 1077 in Normandy, France.

Children:

88825. Agnes d'Evereux was born in 1041 in Evreux, Normandy, France; died in 1087 in Evreux, Normandy, France.

774208.

William of Normandy, I, Duke of Normandy was born in ~893 in Normandy, France (son of Rollo and Lady Poppa of Bayeux); died on 17 Dec 942 in Piquigny, France.

Notes:

William Longsword (French: Guillaume Longue-âEpâee, Latin: Willermus Longa Spata, Old Norse: Vilhjâalmr Langaspjâot; c. 893 – 17 December 942) was the second ruler of Normandy, from 927 until his assassination in 942.[1]

He is sometimes anachronistically dubbed "Duke of Normandy", even though the title duke (dux) did not come into common usage until the 11th century.[2] Longsword was known at the time by the title Count (Latin comes) of Rouen.[3][4] Flodoard—always detailed about titles—consistently referred to both Rollo and his son William as principes (chieftains) of the Norse.[5]

Birth

William Longsword was born "overseas"[a][6] to the Viking Rollo (while he was still a pagan) and his Christian wife Poppa of Bayeux.[7][8] Dudo of Saint-Quentin in his panegyric of the Norman dukes describes Poppa as the daughter of a Count Beranger, the dominant prince of that region.[9] In the 11th century Annales Rouennaises (Annals of Rouen), she is called the daughter of Guy, Count of Senlis,[10] otherwise unknown to history.[b] Despite the uncertainty of her parentage she was undoubtedly a member of the Frankish aristocracy.[11] According to the Longsword's planctus, he was baptized a Christian probably at the same time as his father,[12] which Orderic Vitalis stated was in 912, by Franco, Archbishop of Rouen.[13]

Life

Longsword succeeded Rollo (who would continue to live for about another 5 years) in 927[14] and, early in his reign, faced a rebellion from Normans[15] who felt he had become too Gallicised and too soft.[16] According to Orderic Vitalis, the leader was Riouf of Evreux,[16][17][18] who was besieging Longsword in Rouen. Sallying forth, Longsword won a decisive battle, proving his authority to be Duke.[19]:25-6 At the time of this 933 rebellion Longsword sent his pregnant wife by custom, Sprota, to Fâecamp where their son Richard was born.[20]

In 933 Longsword recognized Raoul as King of Western Francia, who was struggling to assert his authority in Northern France. In turn Raoul gave him lordship over much of the lands of the Bretons including Avranches, the Cotentin Peninsula and the Channel Islands.[21][22][23]:lii The Bretons did not agree to these changes and resistance to the Normans was led by Alan Wrybeard, Duke of Brittany and Count Berenger of Rennes but ended shortly with great slaughter and Breton castles being razed to the ground,[19]:24 Alan fleeing to England and Beranger seeking reconciliation.[24]

In 935, Longsword married Luitgarde,[1] daughter of Count Herbert II of Vermandois whose dowry gave him the lands of Longueville, Coudres and Illiers l'Eveque.[18] Longsword also contracted a marriage between his sister Adela (Gerloc was her Norse name) and William, Count of Poitou with the approval of Hugh the Great.[25] In addition to supporting King Raoul, he was now a loyal ally of his father-in-law, Herbert II, both of whom his father Rollo had opposed.[26] In January 936 King Raoul died and the 16 year old Louis IV, who was living in exile in England, was persuaded by a promise of loyalty by Longsword, to return and became King. The Bretons returned to recover the lands taken by the Normans, resulting in fighting in the expanded Norman lands.[23]:lii

The funerary monument of William Longsword in the cathedral of Rouen, France. The monument is from the 14th century.
The new King was not capable of controlling his Barons and after Longsword's brother in law, Herluin II, Count of Montreuil, was attacked by Flanders, Longsword went to their assistance in 939,[19]:28-9 Arnulf I, Count of Flanders retaliated by attacking Normandy. Arnulf captured the castle of Montreuil-sur-Mer expelling Herluin. Herluin and Longsword cooperated to retake the castle.[27][28] Longsword was excommunicated for his actions in attacking and destroying several estates belonging to Arnulf.[29]

Longsword pledged his loyalty to King Louis IV when they met in 940 and, in return, he was confirmed in lands that had been given to his father, Rollo.[30] [23]:liii In 941 a peace treaty was signed between the Bretons and Normans, brokered in Rouen by King Louis IV which limited the Norman expansion into Breton lands.[23]:liii The following year, on 17 December 942 at Picquigny on an island on the Somme, Longsword was ambushed and killed by followers of Arnulf while at a peace conference to settle their differences.[18][28] Longsword's son, Richard becoming the next Duke of Normandy.

Family
Longsword had no children with his wife Luitgarde.[31] He fathered his son, Richard the Fearless, with Sprota [c] who was a Breton captive and his concubine.[32] Richard, then aged 10, succeeded him as Duke of Normandy in December 942.[31]

end of biography

William married Sprota. Sprota was born in 0911 in Bretagne, France; died in 0940. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

774209.

Sprota was born in 0911 in Bretagne, France; died in 0940.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Fecamp, Normandie, France

Notes:

Sprota was the name of a Breton captive who William I, Duke of Normandy took as a wife in the Viking fashion (more danico)[1][2] and by her had a son, Richard I, Duke of Normandy. After the death of her husband William, she became the wife of Esperleng and mother of Rodulf of Ivry.[3][4][5]

Life

The first mention of her is by Flodoard of Reims and although he doesn't name her he identifies her under the year [943] as the mother of "William’s son [Richard] born of a Breton concubine".[6] Her Breton origins could mean she was of Breton, Scandinavian, or Frankish origin, the latter being the most likely based on her name spelling.[7] Elisabeth van Houts wrote "on this reference rests the identification of Sprota, William Longsword’s wife 'according to the Danish custom', as of Breton origin".[8] The first to provide her name was William of Jumiáeges.[9][10] The irregular nature (as per the Church) of her relationship with William served as the basis for her son by him being the subject of ridicule, the French King Louis "abused the boy with bitter insults", calling him "the son of a whore who had seduced another woman's husband."[11][12]

At the time of the birth of her first son Richard, she was living in her own household at Bayeux, under William's protection.[4] William, having just quashed a rebellion at Prâe-de Bataille (c.936),[a] received the news by a messenger that Sprota had just given birth to a son; delighted at the news William ordered his son to be baptized and given the personal name of Richard.[10] William's steward Boto became the boy's godfather.[13]

After the death of William Longsword and the captivity of her son Richard, she had been 'collected' from her dangerous situation by the 'immensely wealthy' Esperleng.[3] Robert of Torigni identified Sprota's second husband[b] as Esperleng, a wealthy landowner who operated mills at Pãitres.[4][14]

Children:

387104. Richard de Normandie, I was born on 28 Aug 932 in Fecamp, Normandie, France; died on 20 Nov 996 in Fecamp, France; was buried in Fecamp, France.

774210.

Harold Gormsen, VII, King of Denmark was born in ~0895 in Blauzahn, Bavaria, Schwaben, Germany (son of Gorm the Old, King of Denmark and Elgiva of Wessex, Queen of Denmark); died on 1 Sep 0986 in Gormshoj, Denmark.

Harold married Gunhild von Denmark in ~935 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Gunhild was born in ~0920 in Copenhagen, Denmark. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

774211.

Gunhild von Denmark was born in ~0920 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Children:

387105. Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy was born in 936-941 in Rouen, France; died on 5 Jan 1031 in Normandie, France.

774214.

Geoffrey married Adele of Meaux. Adele (daughter of Robert De Vermandois, Count of Meaux and Adelaide-Werra de Chaton) was born in ~950 in Meaux, France; died in ~980. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

774215.

Adele of Meaux was born in ~950 in Meaux, France (daughter of Robert De Vermandois, Count of Meaux and Adelaide-Werra de Chaton); died in ~980.

Notes:

Adele Carolingian of Meaux was born 950 to Robert de Vermandois (918-968) and Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967) and died 980 of unspecified causes. She married Lambert de Chalon (930-979) . She married Geoffrey I of Anjou (-987) . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]

The French Wikipedia has her first husband marry her mother,[1] which is unlikely, given her age. The same source has her a daughter Gerberge marry King Adalberto of Italy. This would make Adele a grandmother at the age of 12. However, in the reconstruction shown here, Adele is married to two men at once, with her youngest daughter from her first marriage born around 972 and her eldest daughter from her second marriage born around 965.

Note that Genealogie Quebec merges her with her sister.[2]

Children

Offspring of Adele of Meaux and Lambert de Chalon (930-979)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Hugh I de Chalon (?-1039)
Mahaut de Chalon (?-1019) Henri I de Bourgogne (c948-1002)
Geoffroi de Semur (?-c990)

Aelis of Chalon (?-?) Guy I de Macon (975-1006)

Elizabeth de Chalon (970-1014)

Offspring of Adele of Meaux and Geoffrey I of Anjou (-987)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Gottfried of Anjou (?-987) 987
Fulk III, Count of Anjou (972-1040) 972 21 June 1040 Metz, France âElisabeth de Vendãome (c979-999)
Hildegarde de Beaugency (c990-)

Ermengarde of Anjou (bef967-) 967 Conan I of Rennes (927-992)

Gerberge of Anjou (965-1041) 965 1041 Guillaume III Taillefer of Angoulãeme (960-1028)
^ wikipedia:fr:Lambert de Chalon
^ http://genealogiequebec.info/testphp/info.php?no=23981

Noteworthy descendants include

William I of England (1027-1087)

Children:

387107. Ermengarde of Anjou was born before 967 in (Anjou, France).

385096.

Richard de Normandie, II was born on 23 Aug 963 in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, I and Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy); died on 28 Aug 1027 in Normandie, France.

Notes:

Richard II of Normandy, Duke of Normandy, was born 23 August 963 in Normandy, France to Richard I, Duke of Normandy (933-996) and Gunnora, Duchess of Normandy (c936-1031) and died 28 August 1027 in Normandy, France of unspecified causes. He married Judith of Brittany (982-1017) 996 JL . He married Papia of Envermeu . Ancestors are from France.
Contents[show]

Children

Offspring of Richard II of Normandy and Judith of Brittany (982-1017)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Richard III of Normandy (997-1027) 997 1027 Adáele of France (1009-1079)

Adelaide of Normandy (1002-1038) 1002 1038 Renaud I de Bourgogne (c990-1057)

Robert II, Duke of Normandy (c1000-1035) 1000 Normandy, France 22 July 1035 Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050)
Estrid of Normandy (1001)

William of Normandy (c1008-aft1025) 1008 1025
Eleanor of Normandy (c1012-aft1071) 1012 1071 Baldwin IV of Flanders (980-1036)

Matilda of Normandy (c1014-aft1033) 1014 1033

Offspring of Richard II of Normandy and Papia of Envermeu
Name Birth Death Joined with
Mauger de Rouen (c1019-c1055) 1019 1055
Guillaume de Talou (c1022-aft1054) 1022 1054 Beatrice de Ponthieu (c1035-c1082)

Noteworthy descendants include

Henry II of England (1133-1189)
William I of England (1027-1087)
Namesakes of Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027)

Richard married Papia Envermeu in 1017-1026 in (Normandy, France). Papia was born in 997 in (Normandy, France); died after 1047. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

385097.
Papia Envermeu was born in 997 in (Normandy, France); died after 1047.
Children:

192548. Mauger Normandie was born in ~1020 in Normandie, France; died in 1055 in (Normandy, France).

96274.

Waldron St Clair was born in ~1019 in Normandie, France (son of Mauger Normandie and Germaine Corbell); died in 1047 in (Normandy, France).

Waldron married Helena Normandie(Normandy, France). Helena (daughter of Richard Normandie) was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandie, France; died in ~1080. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

96275.

Helena Normandie was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandie, France (daughter of Richard Normandie); died in ~1080.

Children:

48137. Agnes St. Clair was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandy, France; died in ~1080.

88588.

Duncan I of Scotland, King of Alba was born in ~1001 in (Dunkeld, Scotland) (son of Crinan of Dunkeld, Abbot of Dunkeld and Bethoc); died on 14 Aug 1040 in Elgin, Scotland.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: 1007, (Dunkeld) Scotland

Notes:

Donnchad mac Crinain (Modern Gaelic: Donnchadh mac Cráionain;[2] anglicised as Duncan I, and nicknamed An t-Ilgarach, "the Diseased" or "the Sick";[3] ca. 1001 – 14 August 1040)[1] was king of Scotland (Alba) from 1034 to 1040. He is the historical basis of the "King Duncan" in Shakespeare's play Macbeth.

Life

He was a son of Crâinâan, hereditary lay abbot of Dunkeld, and Bethâoc, daughter of king Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda (Malcolm II).

Unlike the "King Duncan" of Shakespeare's Macbeth, the historical Duncan appears to have been a young man. He followed his grandfather Malcolm as king after the latter's death on 25 November 1034, without apparent opposition. He may have been Malcolm's acknowledged successor or Táanaiste as the succession appears to have been uneventful.[4] Earlier histories, following John of Fordun, supposed that Duncan had been king of Strathclyde in his grandfather's lifetime, between 1018 and 1034, ruling the former Kingdom of Strathclyde as an appanage. Modern historians discount this idea.[5]

An earlier source, a variant of the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba (CK-I), gives Duncan's wife the Gaelic name Suthen.[6] Whatever his wife's name may have been, Duncan had at least two sons. The eldest, Malcolm III (Mâael Coluim mac Donnchada) was king from 1058 to 1093, the second Donald III (Domnall Bâan, or "Donalbane") was king afterwards. Mâael Muire, Earl of Atholl is a possible third son of Duncan, although this is uncertain.[7]

The early period of Duncan's reign was apparently uneventful, perhaps a consequence of his youth. Macbeth (Mac Bethad mac Findlâaich) is recorded as having been his dux, today rendered as "duke" and meaning nothing more than the rank between prince and marquess, but then still having the Roman meaning of "war leader". In context — "dukes of Francia" had half a century before replaced the Carolingian kings of the Franks and in England the over-mighty Godwin of Wessex was called a dux — this suggests that Macbeth may have been the power behind the throne.[8]

In 1039, Duncan led a large Scots army south to besiege Durham, but the expedition ended in disaster. Duncan survived, but the following year he led an army north into Moray, Macbeth's domain, apparently on a punitive expedition against Moray.[9] There he was killed in action, at Bothnagowan, now Pitgaveny, near Elgin, by the men of Moray led by Macbeth, probably on 14 August 1040.[10] He is thought to have been buried at Elgin[11] before later relocation to the Isle of Iona.
Depictions in fiction

Duncan is depicted as an elderly King in the play Macbeth (1606) by William Shakespeare. He is killed in his sleep by the protagonist, Macbeth.

In the historical novel Macbeth the King (1978) by Nigel Tranter, Duncan is portrayed as a schemer who is fearful of Macbeth as a possible rival for the throne. He tries to assassinate Macbeth by poisoning and then when this fails, attacks his home with an army. In self-defence Macbeth meets him in battle and kills him in personal combat.

In the animated television series Gargoyles he is depicted as a weak and conniving king who assassinates those who he believes threaten his rule.[12] He even tries to assassinate Macbeth, forcing Demona to ally with the Moray nobleman, with Duncan's resulting death coming from attempting to strike an enchanted orb of energy that one of the Weird Sisters gave to Macbeth to take Duncan down.

Died:
during the Battle of Pitgaveny by Macbeth

Duncan married Suthen, Queen of Scotland in ~1030 in (Northumbria, England). Suthen was born in ~1020 in Northumbria, England; died in 1050 in Scotland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

88589.

Suthen, Queen of Scotland was born in ~1020 in Northumbria, England; died in 1050 in Scotland.

Notes:

Biography
This is the Final Profile ID for Suthen, wife of Duncan I of Scotland.
Suthen/Sybil is being consolidated in this profile. Due to her unknown parentage, her LNAB has been determined as UNKNOWN.
Take care when merging.

There is confusion surrounding the origins of Sybill/Suthen. Conflicting theories claim she is either a: cousin, sister, or daughter of Siward, Earl of Northumbria. Therefore, her LNAB is "UNKNOWN".
Siward had 2 known children: Waltheof of Bamburg and (unproven) Osbeorne (d.27 Jul 1054).
"[SIBYLLA] . The Chronicle of John of Fordun states the mother of Malcolm and Donald Bane, Duncan's sons, was "the cousin of Earl Siward". This info is not in any earlier source and should be considered dubious" (Medieval Lands)
Please see G2G discussion for more:
http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/137645/what-is-the-lnab-for-suthen-sybil-of-scotland-

Vitals
Name: Suthen
Alias: Sybill, Sybilla
b. ____
d. ____
Disputed Origins
The parents listed for this individual are speculative and may not be based on sound genealogical research. Sources to prove or disprove this ancestry are needed. Please contact the Profile Manager or leave information on the bulletin board.

Sybill's relation to Siward, Earl of Northumbria, as well as Bjorn is unknown. She has been referred to as Siward's cousin, sister, and daughter.

John of Fordun:
Duncan's wife was the cousin of Earl Siward.[1]
Foundation for Medieval Genealogy [2] states:
information is dubious ... "In one earlier king list, King Malcolm III's mother is named "Suthen"".
more recent sources suggest:[citation needed]
Earl Siward and Sybilla are siblings.
Sybilla was daughter of Bjorn Bearsson and sister of Sigurd "Digera" Bjornsson, Earl of Northumbria
Marriage and Issue
m. c.1030 Duncan of Scotland.[3] Issue:
Malcolm III
Donald III
Maelmuire.[4]
Sources
? Fordun, J. (1872) Chronicle of a Scottish Nation. Felix J.H. Skene, Trans. & William F. Skene, Ed. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas. www.archive.org
? fmg.ac
? Ashley, M. (2008). A Brief History of British Kings and Queens, (pp.106-107). Philadelphia, PA: Running Press Book Publishers. Print.
? Alan Anderson's EARLY SOURCES OF SCOTTISH HISTORY, AD 500-1286; Weir, A. (n.d.) BRITAIN'S ROYAL FAMILIES (revised edition).
http://www.clanmacfarlanegenealogy.info/genealogy/TNGWebsite/getperson.php?personID=I4519&tree=CC

end of this biography

Children:

44400. Malcolm III of Scotland, King of Scots was born in 0Mar 1031 in Scotland; died on 13 Nov 1093 in Alnwick, Northumberland, England.
Donald Dunkeld, III, King of Scots was born in 1034 in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland; died in 1097 in Rescobie, Angus, Scotland.

88802.

Edward the Exile was born in 1016 in (Wessex) England (son of Edmund II, King of the English and Ealdgyth); died on 19 Apr 1057 in London, Middlesex, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Hungary

Notes:

Edward the Exile (1016 – 19 April 1057), also called Edward ¥theling, was the son of King Edmund Ironside and of Ealdgyth. He spent most of his life in exile in the Kingdom of Hungary following the defeat of his father by Canute the Great; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnut_the_Great.

Exile

After the Danish conquest of England in 1016, Canute had Edward, said to be only a few months old, and his brother, Edmund, sent to the Swedish court of Olof Skèotkonung[1][2] (who was either Canute's half-brother or stepbrother), supposedly with instructions to have the children murdered. Instead, the two boys were secretly sent either to Kiev,[3] where Olof's daughter Ingigerd was the Queen, or to Poland, where Canute's uncle Boleslaw I Chrobry was duke.[4] Later Edward made his way to Hungary, probably in the retinue of Ingigerd's son-in-law, Andrâas in 1046.

Return

On hearing the news of his being alive, Edward the Confessor recalled him to England in 1056 and made him his heir. Edward offered the last chance of an undisputed succession within the Saxon royal house. News of Edward's existence came at a time when the old Anglo-Saxon monarchy, restored after a long period of Danish domination, was heading for catastrophe. The Confessor, personally devout but politically weak and without children, was unable to make an effective stand against the steady advance of the powerful and ambitious sons of Godwin, Earl of Wessex. From across the Channel William, Duke of Normandy, also had an eye on the succession. Edward the Exile appeared at just the right time. Approved by both king and by the Witan, the Council of the Realm, he offered a way out of the impasse, a counter both to the Godwinsons and to William, and one with a legitimacy that could not be readily challenged.

In 1054 King Edward sent Ealdred, Bishop of Worcester, to the court of the German emperor to set in train negotiations with the king of Hungary for the return of Edward the Exile. Ealdred was not at first successful, and Earl Harold's journey to Flanders, and possibly on to Germany and Hungary, in 1056 was probably undertaken to further negotiations. The Exile finally arrived in England in 1057 with his wife and children, but died within a few days, on 19 April, without meeting the King. He was buried in Old St Paul's Cathedral.[5]

Family

Edward's wife was named Agatha, whose origins are disputed.[6] Their children were:

Edgar ¥theling (c. 1051 - c. 1126) - Elected King of England after the Battle of Hastings but submitted to William the Conqueror.
Saint Margaret of Scotland (c. 1045 - 16 November 1093) - Married King Malcolm III of Scotland.
Cristina (c. 1057 - c. 1093) - Abbess at Romsey Abbey.
Edward's grandchild Edith of Scotland, also called Matilda, married King Henry I of England, continuing the Anglo-Saxon line into the post-Conquest English monarchy.

Ancestors

Edward the Exile was a direct descendant of a line of Wessex kings dating back, at least on the pages of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, to the arrival of Cerdic of Wessex in 495AD, and from Alfred the Great in the English monarchs family tree.[7] Of his more immediate ancestors, all four of Edward's male-line ancestors shown in the diagram below were Kings of England before Cnut the Great took the crown and sent Edward into exile.[8]

Edward married Agatha. Agatha was born in >1030; died in <1070 in (England). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

88803.

Agatha was born in >1030; died in <1070 in (England).

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: Aft 1018
Alt Death: 13 Jul 1054, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Northumberland, England

Notes:

Biography of Agatha, Wife of Edward the Exile
Parentage: Agatha's parents are unknown. Who they might me be remains one the great genealogical puzzles as tantalizing clues were left by near contemporaries. However, all of these clues are open to interpretation and debate, and are at times contradictory. One should not take any published as proof that her parentage has been discovered or worked out.
Stewart Baldwin's The Henry Project discusses the various theories and their origins on his "Agatha" page. [1]
Wikipedia also covers the various theories regarding her possible parrentage, all of them cited, with links to many primary genealogical sources in WHO ARE AGATHA'S PARENTS?.
The controversy was most recently discussed in The Scottish Genealogist in 2002. [2].
WHAT IS CERTAIN is that she was the wife of Edward, of Wessex, and the mother of Saint Margaret of Scotland

One Biographical Theory
Agatha of Augsburg, Princess of Hungary Some authorities say that she is the daughter of Ludolph, Margrave of West Friesland and Gertrude von Stade (RN=28199). She Paget says she is daughter of Bruno, Bishop of Augsburg, brother of Emperor Henry II. Agatha of Augsburg, Princess of Hungary died after 1066.

Another Biographical Theory
Her parentage is disputed repeatedly; the most interesting theories are published in the New England Genealogical journals[3][4][5]

Another Biographical Theory
(Someone copied from Wikipedia article) Wikipedia: Agatha,_wife_of_Edward_the_Exile
There is doubt about her parentage.
Note on paternity of Agatha, wife of Edward The Exile (by Andrey Alexandrovich Frizyuk)
" Two main versions of Agatha's parentage have been proposed so far:
1. Szabolcs de Vajay in his paper "Agatha, Mother of St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland" (Duquesne Review, vol. 7, no. 2 (Spring 1962), pp. 71-80) expounded the theory that Agatha was a daughter of Liudolf, Margrave of West-Friesland (he was half-brother of Emperor Henry III), by Gertrude of Egisheim. This is based on statements of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Florence of Worcester's "Chronicon ex chronicis" that Agatha was a blood relative of the "Emperor Henry".
2. Rene Jette in his article "Is the Mystery of the Origins of Agatha, Wife of Edward the Exile, Finally Solved?" (New England Historical and Genealogical Register, no. 150 (October 1996): 417-432) pointed out some facts which were not explained by Szabolcs de Vajay's theory:
A. William of Malmesbury in "De Gestis Regis Anglorum" and several later chronicles state that Agatha was a Hungarian Queen's sister. Edward was a loyal supporter of Andras who accompanied him from Kiev to Hungary in 1046 and lived for many years at his court. Thus it's highly probable that "a Hungarian Queen" in question was Andras' wife, Anastasia Yaroslavna.
B. According to Szabolcs de Vajay, the marriage of Agatha and Edward took place in Kiev. This accords with statements of Geoffrey Gaimar and Roger of Howden that Edward took a Kievan wife "of noble parentage."
C. There are several etymological arguments. Agatha, for instance, is a Greek name quite unknown in Western Europe of that time. On the other hand, the name Agatha/Agafia was fairly common in the Rurikid family: all daughters of Yaroslav received Greek names, and we know that Yaroslav's Byzantine stepmother had an aunt named Agatha.
D. Also, the 11th-century fresco of St Sophia Cathedral in Kiev represents 5 living daughters/sisters of Yaroslav, all of marriageable age. One of them is Anastasia the Queen of Hungary, another Elisaveta the Queen of Norway, the third - Anna the Queen of France, the fourth - Dobronega the Queen of Poland, but who was the fifth?
It's interesting that the last wife of Vladimir I was apparently the first cousin of Emperor Henry III. Her daughter Dobronega could have been described as "filia germani imperatoris Henrici". What if Agatha was Dobronega's full sister? It seems to me that such a solution would explain all the evidence that we have in the best way."
See NEHGR 152. Forebears, XVI, #4, p 521 says daughter of Bruno, brother of HRE Henry II; Bruno d 1057, London.
Sources
? Baldwin. "Agatha", in The Henry Project (2010, accessed 2017).
? Lauder-Frost, Gregory M.S., FSA Scot., "Agatha - The Ancestry Dispute" in The Scottish Genealogist, Edinburgh, Sept 2002, vol.xlix no.3, p.71-2.
? David Faris and Douglas Richard"The Origin of Agatha-The Debate Continues: The Parents of Agatha, Wife of Edward The Exile" in New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 152, (April 1998).By
? Renâe Jettâe, "Is the Mystery of the Origins of Agatha, Wife of Edward the Exile, Finally Solved?", in New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 150 (October 1996), pp. 417-432
? G. Andrews Moriarty, "Agatha, wife of the Atheling Eadward", in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 106 (1952), pp. 52-60
Our main source for medieval genealogy in the EuroAristo Project is the FMG database which is MEDIEVAL LANDS :A prosopography of medieval European noble and royal families by Charles Cawley,© Foundation for Medieval Genealogy, 2000-2013. http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/index.htm http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/CONTENTS.htm

We are open to other sources as well but please cite them.
Source list:
Baldwin, Stewart. "Agatha: Wife of Eadweard the Exile", website The Henry Project: The Ancestors of King Henry II of England. (4 July 2010, http://sbaldw.home.mindspring.com/hproject/prov/agath000.htm ; accessed April 2017).
History of Scotland, George Buchanan--Scots Peerage Sir James Balfor--U.K. Extracted Probate Records---ancestry.com
Spottiswood, John. The History of the Church of Scotland, beginning the year of our Lord 203, and continued to the end of the reign of King James VI. (R. Norton, for R. Royston, London, 1668) Page 29

end of this biography

Children:

44401. Margaret of Wessex, Queen of Scotland was born in ~1045 in Wessex, England; died on 16 Nov 1093 in Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland; was buried in Dunfermline Abbey, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland.

Generation: 21

774208.

William of Normandy, I, Duke of Normandy was born in ~893 in Normandy, France (son of Rollo and Lady Poppa of Bayeux); died on 17 Dec 942 in Piquigny, France.

Notes:

William Longsword (French: Guillaume Longue-âEpâee, Latin: Willermus Longa Spata, Old Norse: Vilhjâalmr Langaspjâot; c. 893 – 17 December 942) was the second ruler of Normandy, from 927 until his assassination in 942.[1]

He is sometimes anachronistically dubbed "Duke of Normandy", even though the title duke (dux) did not come into common usage until the 11th century.[2] Longsword was known at the time by the title Count (Latin comes) of Rouen.[3][4] Flodoard—always detailed about titles—consistently referred to both Rollo and his son William as principes (chieftains) of the Norse.[5]

Birth

William Longsword was born "overseas"[a][6] to the Viking Rollo (while he was still a pagan) and his Christian wife Poppa of Bayeux.[7][8] Dudo of Saint-Quentin in his panegyric of the Norman dukes describes Poppa as the daughter of a Count Beranger, the dominant prince of that region.[9] In the 11th century Annales Rouennaises (Annals of Rouen), she is called the daughter of Guy, Count of Senlis,[10] otherwise unknown to history.[b] Despite the uncertainty of her parentage she was undoubtedly a member of the Frankish aristocracy.[11] According to the Longsword's planctus, he was baptized a Christian probably at the same time as his father,[12] which Orderic Vitalis stated was in 912, by Franco, Archbishop of Rouen.[13]

Life

Longsword succeeded Rollo (who would continue to live for about another 5 years) in 927[14] and, early in his reign, faced a rebellion from Normans[15] who felt he had become too Gallicised and too soft.[16] According to Orderic Vitalis, the leader was Riouf of Evreux,[16][17][18] who was besieging Longsword in Rouen. Sallying forth, Longsword won a decisive battle, proving his authority to be Duke.[19]:25-6 At the time of this 933 rebellion Longsword sent his pregnant wife by custom, Sprota, to Fâecamp where their son Richard was born.[20]

In 933 Longsword recognized Raoul as King of Western Francia, who was struggling to assert his authority in Northern France. In turn Raoul gave him lordship over much of the lands of the Bretons including Avranches, the Cotentin Peninsula and the Channel Islands.[21][22][23]:lii The Bretons did not agree to these changes and resistance to the Normans was led by Alan Wrybeard, Duke of Brittany and Count Berenger of Rennes but ended shortly with great slaughter and Breton castles being razed to the ground,[19]:24 Alan fleeing to England and Beranger seeking reconciliation.[24]

In 935, Longsword married Luitgarde,[1] daughter of Count Herbert II of Vermandois whose dowry gave him the lands of Longueville, Coudres and Illiers l'Eveque.[18] Longsword also contracted a marriage between his sister Adela (Gerloc was her Norse name) and William, Count of Poitou with the approval of Hugh the Great.[25] In addition to supporting King Raoul, he was now a loyal ally of his father-in-law, Herbert II, both of whom his father Rollo had opposed.[26] In January 936 King Raoul died and the 16 year old Louis IV, who was living in exile in England, was persuaded by a promise of loyalty by Longsword, to return and became King. The Bretons returned to recover the lands taken by the Normans, resulting in fighting in the expanded Norman lands.[23]:lii

The funerary monument of William Longsword in the cathedral of Rouen, France. The monument is from the 14th century.
The new King was not capable of controlling his Barons and after Longsword's brother in law, Herluin II, Count of Montreuil, was attacked by Flanders, Longsword went to their assistance in 939,[19]:28-9 Arnulf I, Count of Flanders retaliated by attacking Normandy. Arnulf captured the castle of Montreuil-sur-Mer expelling Herluin. Herluin and Longsword cooperated to retake the castle.[27][28] Longsword was excommunicated for his actions in attacking and destroying several estates belonging to Arnulf.[29]

Longsword pledged his loyalty to King Louis IV when they met in 940 and, in return, he was confirmed in lands that had been given to his father, Rollo.[30] [23]:liii In 941 a peace treaty was signed between the Bretons and Normans, brokered in Rouen by King Louis IV which limited the Norman expansion into Breton lands.[23]:liii The following year, on 17 December 942 at Picquigny on an island on the Somme, Longsword was ambushed and killed by followers of Arnulf while at a peace conference to settle their differences.[18][28] Longsword's son, Richard becoming the next Duke of Normandy.

Family
Longsword had no children with his wife Luitgarde.[31] He fathered his son, Richard the Fearless, with Sprota [c] who was a Breton captive and his concubine.[32] Richard, then aged 10, succeeded him as Duke of Normandy in December 942.[31]

end of biography

William married Sprota. Sprota was born in 0911 in Bretagne, France; died in 0940. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

774209.

Sprota was born in 0911 in Bretagne, France; died in 0940.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Fecamp, Normandie, France

Notes:

Sprota was the name of a Breton captive who William I, Duke of Normandy took as a wife in the Viking fashion (more danico)[1][2] and by her had a son, Richard I, Duke of Normandy. After the death of her husband William, she became the wife of Esperleng and mother of Rodulf of Ivry.[3][4][5]

Life

The first mention of her is by Flodoard of Reims and although he doesn't name her he identifies her under the year [943] as the mother of "William’s son [Richard] born of a Breton concubine".[6] Her Breton origins could mean she was of Breton, Scandinavian, or Frankish origin, the latter being the most likely based on her name spelling.[7] Elisabeth van Houts wrote "on this reference rests the identification of Sprota, William Longsword’s wife 'according to the Danish custom', as of Breton origin".[8] The first to provide her name was William of Jumiáeges.[9][10] The irregular nature (as per the Church) of her relationship with William served as the basis for her son by him being the subject of ridicule, the French King Louis "abused the boy with bitter insults", calling him "the son of a whore who had seduced another woman's husband."[11][12]

At the time of the birth of her first son Richard, she was living in her own household at Bayeux, under William's protection.[4] William, having just quashed a rebellion at Prâe-de Bataille (c.936),[a] received the news by a messenger that Sprota had just given birth to a son; delighted at the news William ordered his son to be baptized and given the personal name of Richard.[10] William's steward Boto became the boy's godfather.[13]

After the death of William Longsword and the captivity of her son Richard, she had been 'collected' from her dangerous situation by the 'immensely wealthy' Esperleng.[3] Robert of Torigni identified Sprota's second husband[b] as Esperleng, a wealthy landowner who operated mills at Pãitres.[4][14]

Children:

387104. Richard de Normandie, I was born on 28 Aug 932 in Fecamp, Normandie, France; died on 20 Nov 996 in Fecamp, France; was buried in Fecamp, France.

774210.

Harold married Gunhild von Denmark in ~935 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Gunhild was born in ~0920 in Copenhagen, Denmark. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

774211.

Gunhild von Denmark was born in ~0920 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Children:

387105. Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy was born in 936-941 in Rouen, France; died on 5 Jan 1031 in Normandie, France.

774214.

Geoffrey married Adele of Meaux. Adele (daughter of Robert De Vermandois, Count of Meaux and Adelaide-Werra de Chaton) was born in ~950 in Meaux, France; died in ~980. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

774215.

Adele of Meaux was born in ~950 in Meaux, France (daughter of Robert De Vermandois, Count of Meaux and Adelaide-Werra de Chaton); died in ~980.

Notes:

Adele Carolingian of Meaux was born 950 to Robert de Vermandois (918-968) and Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967) and died 980 of unspecified causes. She married Lambert de Chalon (930-979) . She married Geoffrey I of Anjou (-987) . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]

The French Wikipedia has her first husband marry her mother,[1] which is unlikely, given her age. The same source has her a daughter Gerberge marry King Adalberto of Italy. This would make Adele a grandmother at the age of 12. However, in the reconstruction shown here, Adele is married to two men at once, with her youngest daughter from her first marriage born around 972 and her eldest daughter from her second marriage born around 965.

Note that Genealogie Quebec merges her with her sister.[2]

Children

Offspring of Adele of Meaux and Lambert de Chalon (930-979)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Hugh I de Chalon (?-1039)
Mahaut de Chalon (?-1019) Henri I de Bourgogne (c948-1002)
Geoffroi de Semur (?-c990)

Aelis of Chalon (?-?) Guy I de Macon (975-1006)

Elizabeth de Chalon (970-1014)

Offspring of Adele of Meaux and Geoffrey I of Anjou (-987)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Gottfried of Anjou (?-987) 987
Fulk III, Count of Anjou (972-1040) 972 21 June 1040 Metz, France âElisabeth de Vendãome (c979-999)
Hildegarde de Beaugency (c990-)

Ermengarde of Anjou (bef967-) 967 Conan I of Rennes (927-992)

Gerberge of Anjou (965-1041) 965 1041 Guillaume III Taillefer of Angoulãeme (960-1028)
^ wikipedia:fr:Lambert de Chalon
^ http://genealogiequebec.info/testphp/info.php?no=23981

Noteworthy descendants include

William I of England (1027-1087)

Children:

387107. Ermengarde of Anjou was born before 967 in (Anjou, France).

1417416.

Malcolm I of Scotland, King of Alba was born in 897 in Scotland (son of Donald of Scotland, II, King of Alba and unnamed spouse); died in 954 in Auldearn, Scotland; was buried in Isle of Iona, Scotland.

Notes:

Mâael Coluim mac Domnaill (anglicised Malcolm I) (died 954) was king of Scots (before 943 – 954), becoming king when his cousin Causantâin mac Áeda abdicated to become a monk. He was the son of Domnall mac Causantâin.

Mâael Coluim was probably born during his father's reign (889–900).[1] By the 940s, he was no longer a young man, and may have become impatient in awaiting the throne. Willingly or not—the 11th-century Prophecy of Berchâan, a verse history in the form of a supposed prophecy, states that it was not a voluntary decision that Constantine II abdicated in 943 and entered a monastery, leaving the kingdom to Mâael Coluim.[2]

Seven years later, the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba says:

[Malcolm I] plundered the English as far as the River Tees, and he seized a multitude of people and many herds of cattle: and the Scots called this the raid of Albidosorum, that is, Nainndisi. But others say that Constantine made this raid, asking of the king, Malcolm, that the kingship should be given to him for a week's time, so that he could visit the English. In fact, it was Malcolm who made the raid, but Constantine incited him, as I have said.[3]

Woolf suggests that the association of Constantine with the raid is a late addition, one derived from a now-lost saga or poem.[4]

He died in the shield wall next to his men.[citation needed] Mâael Coluim would be the third in his immediate family to die violently, his father Donald II and grandfather Constantine I both having met similar fates 54 years earlier in 900 and 77 years earlier in 877 respectively.

In 945, Edmund I of England, having expelled Amlaâib Cuaran (Olaf Sihtricsson) from Northumbria, devastated Cumbria and blinded two sons of Domnall mac Eâogain, king of Strathclyde. It is said that he then "let" or "commended" Strathclyde to Mâael Coluim in return for an alliance.[5] What is to be understood by "let" or "commended" is unclear, but it may well mean that Mâael Coluim had been the overlord of Strathclyde and that Edmund recognised this while taking lands in southern Cumbria for himself.[6]

The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba says that Mâael Coluim took an army into Moray "and slew Cellach". Cellach is not named in the surviving genealogies of the rulers of Moray, and his identity is unknown.[7]

Mâael Coluim appears to have kept his agreement with the late English king, which may have been renewed with the new king, Edmund having been murdered in 946 and succeeded by his brother Edred. Eric Bloodaxe took York in 948, before being driven out by Edred, and when Amlaâib Cuaran again took York in 949–950, Mâael Coluim raided Northumbria as far south as the Tees taking "a multitude of people and many herds of cattle" according to the Chronicle.[8] The Annals of Ulster for 952 report a battle between "the men of Alba and the Britons [of Strathclyde] and the English" against the foreigners, i.e. the Northmen or the Norse-Gaels. This battle is not reported by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and it is unclear whether it should be related to the expulsion of Amlaâib Cuaran from York or the return of Eric Bloodaxe.[9]

The Annals of Ulster report that Mâael Coluim was killed in 954. Other sources place this most probably in the Mearns, either at Fetteresso following the Chronicle, or at Dunnottar following the Prophecy of Berchâan. He was buried on Iona.[10] Mâael Coluim's sons Dub and Cinâaed were later kings.

end of biography

Malcolm I (a.k.a. Mâael Coluim mac Domnaill) lived from 897 to 954 and was King of Alba from 943 to 954. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline.

Malcolm I was the son of Donald II of Alba, and succeeded to he throne on the abdication of his father's cousin, King Constantine II.

Malcolm gained a reputation for his wisdom and Edmund I of England sought him out as an ally against the Vikings, giving Malcolm the province of Cumbria in return for an alliance. The alliance was invoked by Edmund's successor, who wanted Malcolm's support against King Anlaf of Northumberland which at that time still included the Lothians.

In 954 Malcolm I was faced with a revolt by the men of Moray led by their maormor (or earl), Cellach. The revolt was suppressed, and Cellach was killed. But shortly afterwards Malcolm I was himself killed by one of Cellach's supporters at Auldearn. He was buried, as was now traditional for Scottish Kings, in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel on the Isle of Iona.

Malcolm I was succeeded by King Indulf, his second cousin and son of King Constantine II.

end of biography

Buried:
in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel...

View images and more history of St Oran's; https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/iona/storanschapel/index.html, (images: https://www.google.com/search?q=Saint+Oran%27s+Chapel+image&client=firefox-b-1-ab&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjcxPKjgIraAhUL71MKHcCmCYoQ7AkIQA&biw=1224&bih=826)

Malcolm married unnamed spouse. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1417417.
unnamed spouse
Children:

708708. Kenneth II of Scotland, King of Alba was born in 932 in Scotland; died in 995 in Fettercairn, Scotland; was buried in Isle of Iona, Scotland.

387104.

Notes:

Richard I (28 August 932 – 20 November 996), also known as Richard the Fearless (French: Richard Sans-Peur; Old Norse: Jarl Richart), was the Count of Rouen or Jarl of Rouen from 942 to 996.[1] Dudo of Saint-Quentin, whom Richard commissioned to write the "De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum" (Latin, "On the Customs and Deeds of the First Dukes of Normandy"), called him a Dux. However, this use of the word may have been in the context of Richard's renowned leadership in war, and not as a reference to a title of nobility.[2][3] Richard either introduced feudalism into Normandy or he greatly expanded it. By the end of his reign, most important Norman landholders held their lands in feudal tenure.[4]

Birth
Richard was born to William Longsword, princeps (chieftain or ruler)[5] of Normandy, and Sprota.[1] His mother was a Breton concubine captured in war and bound to William by a more danico marriage.[6] He was also the grandson of the famous Rollo. William was told of the birth of a son after the battle with Riouf and other Viking rebels, but his existence was kept secret until a few years later when William Longsword first met his son Richard. After kissing the boy and declaring him his heir, William sent Richard to be raised in Bayeux.[7] Richard was about ten years old when his father was killed on 17 December 942.[1] After William was killed, Sprota became the wife of Esperleng, a wealthy miller. Rodulf of Ivry was their son and Richard's half-brother.[8]

Life
With the death of Richard's father in 942, King Louis IV of France installed the boy, Richard, in his father's office. Under the influence of Arnulf I, Count of Flanders the King took him into Frankish territory[9]:32–4 and placing him in the custody of the count of Ponthieu before the King reneged and seized the lands of the Duchy of Normandy.[10] He then split up the Duchy, giving its lands in lower Normandy to Hugh the Great. Louis IV thereafter kept Richard in close confinement at Lãaon,[11] but the youth escaped from imprisonment[9]:36–7 with assistance of Osmond de Centville, Bernard de Senlis (who had been a companion of Rollo of Normandy), Ivo de Belláesme, and Bernard the Dane[12] (ancestor to the families of Harcourt and Beaumont).[a]

In 946, at the age of 14, Richard allied himself with the Norman and Viking leaders in France and with men sent by King Harold of Denmark. A battle was fought after which Louis IV was captured. Hostages were taken and held until King Louis recognised Richard as Duke, returning Normandy to him.[9]:37–41 Richard agreed to "commend" himself to Hugh, the Count of Paris, Hugh resolved to form a permanent alliance with Richard and promised his daughter Emma, who was just a child, as a bride, the marriage would take place in 960.[9]:41–2

Louis IV working with Arnulf I, Count of Flanders persuaded Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor to attack Richard and Hugh. The combined armies of Otto, Arnulf and Louis IV were driven from the gates of Rouen, fleeing to Amiens and being decisively defeated in 947.[9]:41–2[13] A period of peace ensued, Louis IV dying in 954, 13 year old Lothair becoming King. The middle aged Hugh appointed Richard as guardian of his 15-year-old son, Hugh Capet in 955.[9]:44

In 962, Theobald I, Count of Blois, attempted a renewed invasion of Rouen, Richard's stronghold, but his troops were summarily routed by Normans under Richard's command, and forced to retreat before ever having crossed the Seine river.[14][15] Lothair, the king of the West Franks, was fearful that Richard's retaliation could destabilize a large part of West Francia so he stepped in to prevent any further war between the two.[16] In 987 Hugh Capet became King of the Franks.

For the last 30 years until his death in 996 in Fâecamp, Richard concentrated on Normandy itself, and participated less in Frankish politics and its petty wars. In lieu of building up the Norman Empire by expansion, he stabilized the realm and reunited the Normans, forging the reclaimed Duchy of his father and grandfather into West Francia's most cohesive and formidable principality.[17]

Richard was succeeded in November 996 by his 33-year-old son, Richard II, Duke of Normandy.

Relationships with France, England and the Church
Richard used marriage to build strong alliances. His marriage to Emma of Paris connected him directly to the House of Capet. His second wife, Gunnora, from a rival Viking group in the Cotentin, formed an alliance to that group, while her sisters formed the core group that were to provide loyal followers to him and his successors.[18]

His daughters forged valuable marriage alliances with powerful neighboring counts as well as to the king of England.[18] Emma marrying firstly ¥thelred the Unready and after his death in 1016, the invader, Cnut the Great. Her children included three English kings, Edward the Confessor, Alfred Aetheling and with Cnut, Harthacnut so completing a major link between the Duke of Normandy and the Crown of England that would add validity to the claim by the future William the Conqueror to the throne of England.

Richard also built on his relationship with the church, undertaking acts of piety,[19]:lv restoring their lands and ensuring the great monasteries flourished in Normandy. His further reign was marked by an extended period of peace and tranquility.[18][20]

Marriages

Richard & his children
His first marriage in 960 was to Emma, daughter of Hugh "The Great" of France,[1][21] and Hedwig von Sachsen.[21] They were betrothed when both were very young. She died after 19 March 968, with no issue.[1]

According to Robert of Torigni, not long after Emma's death, Duke Richard went out hunting and stopped at the house of a local forester. He became enamored with the forester's wife, Seinfreda, but she was a virtuous woman and suggested he court her unmarried sister, Gunnor, instead. Gunnor became his mistress and her family rose to prominence. Her brother, Herfast de Crepon, may have been involved in a controversial heresy trial. Gunnor was, like Richard, of Viking descent, being a Dane by blood. Richard finally married her to legitimize their children:[b]

Richard II "the Good", Duke of Normandy[1]
Robert, Archbishop of Rouen, Count of Evreux[1]
Mauger, Count of Corbeil[1]
Emma of Normandy, wife of two kings of England[1]
Maud of Normandy, wife of Odo II of Blois, Count of Blois, Champagne and Chartres[1]
Hawise of Normandy m. Geoffrey I, Duke of Brittany[1]
Papia of Normandy
Orielda (963-1031) wife of Fulk Seigneur de Guernanville, Dean of Evreax [22][23]
Illegitimate children

Richard was known to have had several other mistresses and had children with many of them. Known children are:

Geoffrey, Count of Eu[1][24]
William, Count of Eu (ca. 972-26 January 1057/58),[24] m. Lasceline de Turqueville (d. 26 January 1057/58).
Beatrice of Normandy, Abbess of Montvilliers d.1034 m. Ebles of Turenne[1] (d.1030 (divorced)
Possible children
Muriella, married Tancred de Hauteville[1][25][26]
Fressenda or Fredesenda (ca. 995-ca. 1057), second wife of Tancred de Hauteville.[1][26][27]
Guimara (Wimarc(a)) (b. circa 986), died Abbey of Montivilliers, Seine-Inferieure, Normandy, wife of Ansfred (Ansfroi) II "le Dane" le Goz, vicomte of Exmes and Falaise, mother of Robert FitzWimarc[28]
Death
Richard died of natural causes in Fecamp, France, on 20 November 996.[29]

Depictions in fiction
The Little Duke, a Victorian juvenile novel by Charlotte Mary Yonge, is a fictionalized account of Richard's boyhood and early struggles.

Count of Rouen
Reign 17 December 942 – 20 November 996
Predecessor William Longsword
Successor Richard II
Born 28 August 932
Fâecamp Normandy, France
Died 20 November 996 (aged 64)
Fâecamp Normandy, France
Spouse Emma of Paris
Gunnor
Issue Richard II of Normandy
Robert II (Archbishop of Rouen)
Mauger, Count of Corbeil
Robert Danus
Willam?
Emma of Normandy
Maud of Normandy
Hawise of Normandy
Geoffrey, Count of Eu (illegitimate)
William, Count of Eu (illegitimate)
Beatrice of Normandy (illegitimate)
Robert (illegitimate)
Papia (illegitimate)
House House of Normandy
Father William I Longsword
Mother Sprota

end of biography

387105.

Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy was born in 936-941 in Rouen, France (daughter of Harold Gormsen, VII, King of Denmark and Gunhild von Denmark); died on 5 Jan 1031 in Normandie, France.

Notes:

Gunnora (or Gunnor) (circa 936 – 5 Jan 1031) was a Duchess of Normandy and the wife of Richard I of Normandy.

Life

The names of Gunnora's parents are unknown, but Robert of Torigni wrote that her father was a forester from the Pays de Caux and according to Dudo of Saint-Quentin she was of noble Danish origin.[2] Gunnora was probably born c.? 950.[3] Her family held sway in western Normandy and Gunnora herself was said to be very wealthy.[4] Her marriage to Richard I was of great political importance, both to her husband[b] and her progeny.[5] Her brother, Herfast de Crepon, was progenitor of a great Norman family.[4] Her sisters and nieces[c] married some of the most important nobles in Normandy.[6]

Robert of Torigni recounts a story of how Richard met Gunnora.[7] She was living with her sister Seinfreda, the wife of a local forester, when Richard, hunting nearby, heard of the beauty of the forester's wife. He is said to have ordered Seinfreda to come to his bed, but the lady substituted her unmarried sister, Gunnora. Richard, it is said, was pleased that by this subterfuge he had been saved from committing adultery and together they had three sons and three daughters.[d][8] Unlike other territorial rulers, the Normans recognized marriage by cohabitation or more danico. But when Richard was prevented from nominating their son Robert to be Archbishop of Rouen, the two were married, "according to the Christian custom", making their children legitimate in the eyes of the church.[8]

Gunnora attested ducal charters up into the 1020s, was skilled in languages and was said to have had an excellent memory.[9] She was one of the most important sources of information on Norman history for Dudo of St. Quentin.[10] As Richard's widow she is mentioned accompanying her sons on numerous occasions.[9] That her husband depended on her is shown in the couple's charters where she is variously regent of Normandy, a mediator and judge, and in the typical role of a medieval aristocratic mother, an arbitrator between her husband and their oldest son Richard II.[9]

Gunnora was a founder and supporter of Coutances Cathedral and laid its first stone.[11] In one of her own charters after Richard's death she gave two alods to the abbey of Mont Saint-Michel, namely Britavilla and Domjean, given to her by her husband in dower, which she gave for the soul of her husband, and the weal of her own soul and that of her sons "count Richard, archbishop Robert, and others..."[12] She also attested a charter, c.?1024–26, to that same abbey by her son, Richard II, shown as Gonnor matris comitis (mother of the count).[13] Gunnora, both as wife and countess,[e] was able to use her influence to see her kin favored, and several of the most prominent Anglo-Norman families on both sides of the English Channel are descended from her, her sisters and nieces.[9] Gunnora died c.?1031.[3]

Family

Richard and Gunnora were parents to several children:

Richard II "the Good", Duke of Normandy[14]
Robert, Archbishop of Rouen, Count of Evreux, died 1037[14]
Mauger, Count of Corbeil[14]
Emma of Normandy (c.?985–1052), married first to ¥thelred, King of England and secondly Cnut the Great, King of England.[14]
Hawise of Normandy, wife of Geoffrey I, Duke of Brittany[14]
Maud of Normandy, wife of Odo II of Blois, Count of Blois, Champagne and Chartres[14]

end of biography

Children:

385096. Richard de Normandie, II was born on 23 Aug 963 in Normandie, France; died on 28 Aug 1027 in Normandie, France.
Emma of Normandy, Queen consort of England was born in ~985 in Normandie, France; died on 6 Mar 1052 in Winchester, Hampshire, England; was buried in Winchester Cathedral, Winchester, Hampshire, England.
355300. Robert d'Evereux, Comte d'Evreux was born in Normandie, France; died on 16 Mar 1037 in Seine-Inferieure, Normandy, France.
Hawise of Normandy, Duchess of Brittany

387106.

Conan of Rennes, I, Count of Rennes, Duke of Brittany was born in 927 in (Rennes, France); died on 27 Jun 992.

Notes:

Conan I le Tort of Rennes, Count of Rennes, Duke of Brittany, was born 927 to Judicael Berengar (-bef979) and died 27 June 992 at the Battle of Conquereuil of unspecified causes. He married Ermengarde of Anjou (bef967-) .

Conan may have married his second cousin once removed: Herbert I, Count of Vermandois (c848-907) may have been his great-grandfather and was his wife's great-great-grandfather.

Conan married Ermengarde of Anjou. Ermengarde (daughter of Geoffrey of Anjou and Adele of Meaux) was born before 967 in (Anjou, France). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

387107.

Ermengarde of Anjou was born before 967 in (Anjou, France) (daughter of Geoffrey of Anjou and Adele of Meaux).

Children:

193553. Judith de Bretagne was born in 982 in Rennes, France; died in 1017 in Normandy, France.

355252.

Vladimir, Czar of Russia was born in 956 in Kiev, Ukraine (son of Sviatoslav, I, Grand Prince of Kiev and Malusha); died on 15 Jul 1015 in Kiev, Ukraine.

Notes:

Vladimir the Great (also (Saint) Vladimir of Kiev; Old East Slavic: ?????????? ????????????, Volodimer? Svetoslavic?,[3] Old Norse Valdamarr gamli;[4] c. 958 – 15 July 1015, Berestove) was a prince of Novgorod, grand prince of Kiev, and ruler of Kievan Rus' from 980 to 1015.[5][6]

Vladimir's father was prince Sviatoslav of the Rurik dynasty.[7] After the death of his father in 972, Vladimir, who was then prince of Novgorod, was forced to flee to Scandinavia in 976 after his brother Yaropolk had murdered his other brother Oleg and conquered Rus'. In Sweden, with the help from his relative Ladejarl Hêakon Sigurdsson, ruler of Norway, he assembled a Varangian army and reconquered Novgorod from Yaropolk.[8] By 980, Vladimir had consolidated the Kievan realm from modern-day Belarus, Russia and Ukraine to the Baltic Sea and had solidified the frontiers against incursions of Bulgarian, Baltic tribes and Eastern nomads. Originally a follower of Slavic paganism, Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988[9][10][11] and Christianized the Kievan Rus'.[12]

Rise to power

Born in 958, Vladimir was the natural son and youngest son of Sviatoslav I of Kiev by his housekeeper Malusha. Malusha is described in the Norse sagas as a prophetess who lived to the age of 100 and was brought from her cave to the palace to predict the future. Malusha's brother Dobrynya was Vladimir's tutor and most trusted advisor. Hagiographic tradition of dubious authenticity also connects his childhood with the name of his grandmother, Olga of Kiev, who was Christian and governed the capital during Sviatoslav's frequent military campaigns. His place of birth is identified by different authors either as Budyatychi (modern Volyn Oblast, Ukraine)[13][14][15] or Budnik (ru:?????? (???????); modern Pskov Oblast, Russia).[16]

Transferring his capital to Pereyaslavets in 969, Sviatoslav designated Vladimir ruler of Novgorod the Great but gave Kiev to his legitimate son Yaropolk. After Sviatoslav's death at the hands of the Pechenegs in 972, a fratricidal war erupted in 976 between Yaropolk and his younger brother Oleg, ruler of the Drevlians. In 977, Vladimir fled to his kinsman Haakon Sigurdsson, ruler of Norway, collecting as many Norse warriors as he could to assist him to recover Novgorod. On his return the next year, he marched against Yaropolk. On his way to Kiev he sent ambassadors to Rogvolod (Norse: Ragnvald), prince of Polotsk, to sue for the hand of his daughter Rogneda (Norse: Ragnhild). The high-born princess refused to affiance herself to the son of a bondswoman, so Vladimir attacked Polotsk, slew Rogvolod, and took Ragnhild by force. Polotsk was a key fortress on the way to Kiev, and capturing Polotsk and Smolensk facilitated the taking of Kiev in 978, where he slew Yaropolk by treachery and was proclaimed knyaz of all Kievan Rus.[17]

Years of pagan rule

Vladimir continued to expand his territories beyond his father's extensive domain. In 981, he seized the Cherven towns from the Poles; in 981–982, he suppressed a Vyatichi rebellion; in 983, he subdued the Yatvingians; in 984, he conquered the Radimichs; and in 985, he conducted a military campaign against the Volga Bulgars,[18][19] planting numerous fortresses and colonies on his way.

Although Christianity spread in the region under Oleg's rule, Vladimir had remained a thoroughgoing pagan, taking eight hundred concubines (along with numerous wives) and erecting pagan statues and shrines to gods.[20]

He may have attempted to reform Slavic paganism in an attempt to identify himself with the various gods worshipped by his subjects. He built a pagan temple on the a hill in Kiev dedicated to six gods: Perun - the god of thunder and war "a Norse god favored by members of the prince’s druzhina (military retinue)". Slav gods Stribog and Dazhd'bog; Mokosh - a goddess representing Mother Nature "worshipped by Finnish tribes"; Khors and Simargl, "both of which had Iranian origins, were included, probably to appeal to the Poliane."[21]

Open abuse of the deities that most people in Rus' revered triggered widespread indignation. A mob killed the Christian Fyodor and his son Ioann (later, after the overall christening of Kievan Rus', people came to regard these two as the first Christian martyrs in Rus', and the Orthodox Church[citation needed] set a day to commemorate them, 25 July). Immediately after the murder of Fyodor and Ioann, early medieval Rus' saw persecutions against Christians, many of whom escaped or concealed their belief.[22]

However, Prince Vladimir mused over the incident long after, and not least for political considerations. According to the early Slavic chronicle called Tale of Bygone Years, which describes life in Kievan Rus' up to the year 1110, he sent his envoys throughout the civilized world to judge first hand the major religions of the time, Islam, Roman Catholicism, Judaism, and Byzantine Orthodoxy. They were most impressed with their visit to Constantinople, saying, "We knew not whether we were in Heaven or on Earth… We only know that God dwells there among the people, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other nations."[23]

Christianization of the Kievan Rus'
Main article: Christianization of Kievan Rus'

The Baptism of Saint Prince Vladimir, by Viktor Vasnetsov (1890)

The Primary Chronicle reports that in the year 987, after consultation with his boyars, Vladimir the Great sent envoys to study the religions of the various neighboring nations whose representatives had been urging him to embrace their respective faiths. The result is described by the chronicler Nestor. Of the Muslim Bulgarians of the Volga the envoys reported there is no gladness among them, only sorrow and a great stench. He also reported that Islam was undesirable due to its taboo against alcoholic beverages and pork.[24] Vladimir remarked on the occasion: "Drinking is the joy of all Rus'. We cannot exist without that pleasure."[25] Ukrainian and Russian sources also describe Vladimir consulting with Jewish envoys and questioning them about their religion, but ultimately rejecting it as well, saying that their loss of Jerusalem was evidence that they had been abandoned by God.

His emissaries also visited pre-schism Latin Rite Christian and Eastern Rite Christian missionaries.[citation needed] Ultimately Vladimir settled on Eastern Orthodox Christianity. In the churches of the Germans his emissaries saw no beauty; but at Constantinople, where the full festival ritual of the Byzantine Church was set in motion to impress them, they found their ideal: "We no longer knew whether we were in heaven or on earth", they reported, describing a majestic Divine Liturgy in Hagia Sophia, "nor such beauty, and we know not how to tell of it." If Vladimir was impressed by this account of his envoys, he was even more attracted by the political gains of the Byzantine alliance.

Saint Vladimir Monument on Saint Vladimir Hill in Kiev, often depicted in paintings and photographs of the city

In 988, having taken the town of Chersonesos in Crimea, he boldly negotiated for the hand of emperor Basil II's sister, Anna.[26] Never before had a Byzantine imperial princess, and one "born in the purple" at that, married a barbarian, as matrimonial offers of French kings and German emperors had been peremptorily rejected. In short, to marry the 27-year-old princess to a pagan Slav seemed impossible. Vladimir was baptized at Chersonesos, however, taking the Christian name of Basil out of compliment to his imperial brother-in-law; the sacrament was followed by his wedding to Anna. Returning to Kiev in triumph, he destroyed pagan monuments and established many churches, starting with a church dedicated to St. Basil,[27] and the Church of the Tithes (989).

Arab sources, both Muslim and Christian, present a different story of Vladimir's conversion. Yahya of Antioch, al-Rudhrawari, al-Makin, Al-Dimashqi, and ibn al-Athir all give essentially the same account.[28] In 987, Bardas Sclerus and Bardas Phocas revolted against the Byzantine emperor Basil II. Both rebels briefly joined forces, but then Bardas Phocas proclaimed himself emperor on 14 September 987. Basil II turned to the Kievan Rus' for assistance, even though they were considered enemies at that time. Vladimir agreed, in exchange for a marital tie; he also agreed to accept Christianity as his religion and to Christianize his people. When the wedding arrangements were settled, Vladimir dispatched 6,000 troops to the Byzantine Empire, and they helped to put down the revolt.[29]

In 988 and 991, he baptized Pecheneg princes Metiga and Kuchug, respectively.[30]

Christian reign

The Pontic steppes, c. 1015

Vladimir then formed a great council out of his boyars and set his twelve sons over his subject principalities. According to the Primary Chronicle, he founded the city of Belgorod in 991. In 992, he went on a campaign against the Croats, most likely the White Croats that lived on the border of modern Ukraine. This campaign was cut short by the attacks of the Pechenegs on and around Kiev.

In his later years he lived in a relative peace with his other neighbors: Boleslav I of Poland, Stephen I of Hungary, and Andrikh the Czech (questionable character mentioned in A Tale of the Bygone Years). After Anna's death, he married again, likely to a granddaughter of Otto the Great.

In 1014, his son Yaroslav the Wise stopped paying tribute. Vladimir decided to chastise the insolence of his son and began gathering troops against him. Vladimir fell ill, however, most likely of old age, and died at Berestove, near Kiev. The various parts of his dismembered body were distributed among his numerous sacred foundations and were venerated as relics.

During his Christian reign, Vladimir lived the teachings of the Bible through acts of charity. He would hand out food and drink to the less fortunate, and made an effort to go out to the people who could not reach him. His work was based on the impulse to help one’s neighbors by sharing the burden of carrying their cross.[31]

Family

Main article: Family life and children of Vladimir I

Vladimir and Rogneda (1770)

The fate of all Vladimir's daughters, whose number is around nine, is uncertain.

Olava or Allogia (Varangian or Czech), speculative she might have been mother of Vysheslav while others claim that it is a confusion with Helena Lekapena[citation needed]
Vysheslav (~977 – ~1010), Prince of Novgorod (988–1010)
a widow of Yaropolk I, a Greek nun
Sviatopolk the Accursed (~979), possibly the surviving son of Yaropolk
Rogneda (the daughter of Rogvolod), later upon divorce she entered a convent taking the Christian name of Anastasia
Izyaslav of Polotsk (~979, Kiev), Prince of Polotsk (989–1001)
Yaroslav the Wise (no earlier than 983), Prince of Rostov (987–1010), Prince of Novgorod (1010–1034), Grand Prince of Kiev (1016–1018, 1019–1054). Possibly he was a son of Anna rather than Rogneda. Another interesting fact that he was younger than Sviatopolk according to the words of Boris in the Tale of Bygone Years and not as it was officially known. Also the fact of him being the Prince of Rostov is highly doubtful although not discarded.
Vsevolod (~984–1013), possibly the Swedish Prince Wissawald of Volyn (~1000), was perhaps the first husband of Estrid Svendsdatter
Mstislav, other Mstislav that possibly died as an infant if he was ever born
Mstislav of Chernigov (~983), Prince of Tmutarakan (990–1036), Prince of Chernigov (1024–1036), other sources claim him to be son of other mothers (Adela, Malfrida, or some other Bulgarian wife)
Predslava, a concubine of Boleslaw I Chrobry according to Gesta principum Polonorum
Premislava, (?–1015), some source state that she was a wife of the Duke Laszlo (Vladislav) "the Bald" of Arpadians
Mstislava, in 1018 was taken by Boleslaw I Chrobry among the other daughters
Bulgarian Adela, some sources claim that Adela is not necessarily Bulgarian as Boris and Gleb were born from some other wife
Boris (~986), Prince of Rostov (~1010–1015), remarkable is the fact that Rostov Principality as well as the Principality of Murom used to border the territory of Volga Bolgars
Gleb (~987), Prince of Murom (1013–1015), as Boris, Gleb is being also claimed the son of Anna Porphyrogenita
Stanislav (~985–1015), Prince of Smolensk (988–1015), possible of another wife and a fate of whom is not certain
Sudislav (?–1063), Prince of Pskov (1014–1036), possible of another wife, but he is mentioned in Nikon's Chronicles. He spent 35 years in prison and later before dying turned into a monk.
Malfrida
Sviatoslav (~982–1015), Prince of Drevlians (990–1015)
Anna Porphyrogenita
Theofana, a wife of Novgorod posadnik Ostromir, a grandson of semi-legendary Dobrynya (highly doubtful is the fact of her being Anna's offspring)
a granddaughter of Otto the Great (possibly Rechlinda Otona [Regelindis])
Maria Dobroniega of Kiev (~1012), the Duchess of Poland (1040–1087), married around 1040 to Casimir I the Restorer, Duke of Poland, her maternity as daughter of this wife is deduced from her apparent age
other possible family
Vladimirovna, an out-of-marriage daughter (d. 1044), married to Bernard, Margrave of the Nordmark.
Pozvizd (prior to 988–?), a son of Vladimir according to Hustyn Chronicles. He, possibly, was the Prince Khrisokhir mentioned by Niketas Choniates.
Significance and legacy

Vladimir the Great portrait on obverse ?1 bill circa 2006

The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate the feast day of St. Vladimir on 15 July.[32]

The town Volodymyr-Volynskyi in north-western Ukraine was founded by Vladimir and is named after him.[33] The foundation of another town, Vladimir in Russia, is usually attributed to Vladimir Monomakh. However some researchers argue that it was also founded by Vladimir the Great.[34]

St Volodymyr's Cathedral, one of the largest cathedrals in Kiev, is dedicated to Vladimir the Great, as was originally the University of Kiev. The Imperial Russian Order of St. Vladimir and Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in the United States are also named after him.

The memory of Vladimir was also kept alive by innumerable Russian folk ballads and legends, which refer to him as Krasno Solnyshko (the Fair (or Red) Sun). The Varangian period of Eastern Slavic history ceases with Vladimir, and the Christian period begins. The appropriation of Kievan Rus' as part of national history has also been a topic of contention in Ukrainophile vs. Russophile schools of historiography since the Soviet era.[35]

During his leadership, all branches of the economy prospered under him.[36] He was able to mint coins and regulated foreign affairs with other countries such as trade. Through trade he brought in Greek wines, Baghdad spices, and Arab horses to trade at the markets of Kiev.

Vladimir the Great on the Millennium of Russia monument in Novgorod

Monument to Vladimir the Great and the monk Fyodor at Pushkin Park in Vladimir, Russia

Vladimir as a symbol of Ukrainian nationalism: "St Volodymyr – Ruler of Ukraine, 980–1015, erected by Ukrainians in Great Britain in 1988 to celebrate the establishment of Christianity in Ukraine by St. Volodymir in 988"

See also

Saints portal
List of Russian rulers
List of Ukrainian rulers
Family life and children of Vladimir I
List of people known as The Great
Saint Vladimir Monument
Prince Vladimir, Russian animated feature film (2006)
Viking (film)
Vladimir Putin

Notes

Dyba, Yury (2012). Aleksandrovych V.; Voitovych, Leontii; et al., eds. ?????????-?????? ?????? ???????? ??????????? ???????????? ??? ?????????? ????? ?????????? ??????????????: ??????????? ?????????? ???? [Historical-geographic figurative context of the chronicled report about the birth of Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavovich: localisation of a busy village] (PDF). ????? ????: ??????? ? ???????? [Era of the Princes: history and culture] (in Ukrainian). Lviv. 6. ISSN 2221-6294. Retrieved 7 January 2018.
Harvard Ukrainian studies, Vol. 12–13, p. 190, Harvard Ukrainian studies, 1990
Volodimer? is the East Slavic form of the given name; this form was influenced and partially replaced by the Old Bulgarian (Old Church Slavonic) form Vladimer? (by folk etymology later also Vladimir?; in modern East Slavic, the given name is rendered Ukrainian: ????????? Volodymyr, Russian: ?????´??? Vladimir, Belarusian: ?????i?i? Uladzimir. See Vladimir (name) for details.
Fagrskinna ch. 21 (ed. Finnur Jâonsson 1902–8, p. 108).
Companion to the Calendar: A Guide to the Saints and Mysteries of the Christian Calendar, p. 105, Mary Ellen Hynes, Ed. Peter Mazar, LiturgyTrainingPublications, 1993
National geographic, Vol. 167, p. 290, National Geographic Society, 1985
Vladimir I (Grand Prince of Kiev), Encyclopµdia Britannica
Den hellige Vladimir av Kiev (~956–1015), Den katolske kirke website
Vladimir the Great, Encyclopedia of Ukraine
Saint Vladimir the Baptizer: Wetting cultural appetites for the Gospel, Dr. Alexander Roman, Ukrainian Orthodoxy website
Ukrainian Catholic Church: part 1., The Free Library
Vladimir I, Encyclopµdia Britannica
???? ?. ?????????-???????????? ???????? ??????????? ???????????? ??? ?????????? ????? ?????????? ??????????????: ??????????? ?????????? ???? // ????? ????. ??????? ? ????????. ?????: ???????? ??????????????? ??. ?. ????'??????? ??? ???????. — ???. VI. — ?. 37-70

References

Golden, P. B. (2006) "Rus." Encyclopaedia of Islam (Brill Online). Eds.: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Vladimir, St". Encyclopµdia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Some historical analysis and political insights on the state affairs of Vladimir the Great (in Russian)
Moss, Walter G. (2002) "A History of Russia Volume I: To 1917" (London: Anthem Press).
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Vladimir I of Kiev.
Velychenko, Stephen, How Valdamarr Sveinaldsson got to Moscow (krytyka.com), 9 November 2015.

Vladimir I Sviatoslavich
SuffixSuggest a change for this event Czar of Russia
BornSuggest a change for this event 960 , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Gender Male
NameSuggest a change for this event Vladimir I "The Great" Sviatoslavich
ReligionSuggest a change for this event Abt 989 , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Converted to Christianity
DiedSuggest a change for this event 15 Jul 1015 , Berestovo, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
BuriedSuggest a change for this event Church of Tithes, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Headstones Submit Headstone Photo Submit Headstone Photo
Person ID I3910 Full Tree
Last Modified 27 Sep 2013

Father Sviatoslav I Igorovich, Czar of Russia
b. 942, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 972, , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Mother Duchess Malusha von Lèubeck
b. Abt 944, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1002
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 959 , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location [1, 2, 6]
StatusSuggest a change for this event Concubinage
Family ID F1903 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 1 Adlaga de Kiev, Grand Duchess of Kiev
b. Abt 959, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 976 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
1. Vysheslav Vladimirovich, Duke of Novgorod
b. Abt 977, of, Novgorod, Novgorod Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1010
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1818 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 2 Olava de Kiev, Grand Duchess of Kiev
b. Abt 953, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 977 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1819 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 3 Predislava de Kiev, Grand Duchess of Kiev
b. Abt 960, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
MarriedSuggest a change for this event 980 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1820 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 4 Milolika Asen, Princess of Bulgaria
b. Abt 963, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Bef 982 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
1. Boris David Vladimirovich, Duke of Rostov
b. Abt 982, of, Rostov-Yaroslavski, Yaroslavski Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 24 Jul 1015
2. Gleb Roman Vladimirovich, Duke of Murom
b. Abt 983, of, Murom, Vladimir Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Abt 5 Aug 1015
3. Stanslav Vladimirovich, Duke of Smolensk
b. Abt 984, of, Smolensk, Smolensk Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 1015
4. Pozvizd Vladimirovich, Duke of Vladimir-Volnysk
b. Abt 985, of, Vladimir-Volynski, Volyn Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 1015
5. Sudislav Vladimirovich, Duke of Pskov
b. Abt 986, of, Pskov, Pskov Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1063-1065
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1821 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 5 Malfriede Premysl, Princess of Bohemia
b. Abt 960, of, Prague, Praha, Czechoslovakia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 987 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
1. Svyatoslav Vladimirovich, Duke of Drevlians
b. Abt 988, of, Ovruch, Zhitomir Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 15 Jul 1015
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1823 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 6 Miss Oehringen
b. Abt 991, of Oehringen, Jagstkreis, Baden-Wèurttemberg, Schwaben, Germany Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 14 Aug 1018
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 1013 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1824 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 7 Princess Rogneda zu Polotsk
b. Abt 962, of, Polotsk, Polotsk Oblast, Byelorussia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1002
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 977 of, Polotsk, Polotsk Oblast, Byelorussia Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
+ 1. Iszyaslav Vladimirovich, Duke of Polotsk
b. Abt 978, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1001
2. Vsevolod Vladimirovich, Prince of Vladimir
b. Abt 979, of, Vladimir-Volynski, Volyn Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1015
+ 3. Yaroslav I Vladimirovich, Czar of Russia
b. 980, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 20 Feb 1054, , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
4. Prâemieslawa Vladimirovna, Princess of Kiev
b. Abt 984, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 1018
5. Mstislav Vladimirovich, Duke of Chernigov
b. Abt 988, of, Chernigov, Chernigov Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1035-1036, , Chernigov, Chernigov Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1828 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 8 Anna Lekapene, Princess of the Byzantine Empire
b. 13 Mar 963, of, Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantium Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1011
MarriedSuggest a change for this event 989 , Kherson, Kherson Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
MARRIAGE: Married 7 Pagan wives (Rogneide was one) by whom he had 22 children (prior to Anna) [7]
Children
+ 1. Arlogia Vladimirovna, Countess of Orkney
b. Abt 1011, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
+ 2. Dobronegra Mariya Vladimirovna, Princess of Kiev
b. Abt 1012, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1087
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1933

Volodymyr the Great (Valdamar, Volodimer, Vladimir), b ca 956, d 15 July 1015 in Vyshhorod, near Kyiv. Grand prince of Kyiv from 980; son of Sviatoslav I Ihorovych and Malusha; half-brother of Yaropolk I Sviatoslavych and Oleh Sviatoslavych; and father of 11 princes by five wives, including Sviatopolk I, Yaroslav the Wise, Mstyslav Volodymyrovych, and Saints Borys and Hlib. In 969 Grand Prince Sviatoslav I named his son Volodymyr the prince of Novgorod the Great, where the latter ruled under the guidance of his uncle, Dobrynia. In 977 a struggle for power broke out among Sviatoslav's sons. Yaropolk I, who was then the grand prince of Kyiv, seized the Derevlianian land and Novgorod, thereby forcing Volodymyr to flee to Scandinavia. In 980 Volodymyr returned to Rus’ with a Varangian force, expelled Yaropolk's governors from Novgorod, and took Polatsk after a battle in which Prince Rogvolod of Polatsk was slain. Volodymyr took Rogvolod's daughter, Rohnida, as his wife. Later that year he captured Kyiv and had Yaropolk murdered, thereby becoming the grand prince , and married Yaropolk's Greek widow.

Over the next 35 years Volodymyr expanded the borders of Kyivan Rus’ and turned it into one of the most powerful states in Eastern Europe. After taking the Cherven towns and Peremyshl from Poland (981) and waging successful wars against the Viatichians (981–2) and Radimichians (984) he united the remaining East Slavic tribes, divided his realm into lands, and installed his sons or viceroys to govern them, dispense princely justice, and collect tribute. In 983 Volodymyr waged war against the Yatvingians and thereby gained access to the Baltic Sea. In 985 he defeated the Khazars and Volga Bulgars and secured his state's eastern frontier. Volodymyr devoted considerable attention to defending his southern borders against the nomadic Pechenegs and Chorni Klobuky. He had lines of fortifications built along the Irpin River, the Stuhna River, the Trubizh River, and the Sula River and founded fortified towns (eg, Vasylkiv, Voin, and Bilhorod) that were joined by earthen ramparts.

Volodymyr attributed his victory over Yaropolk I Sviatoslavych to the support he received from pagan forces, and had idols of the deities Perun, Khors, Dazhboh, Stryboh, Symarhl, and Mokosh erected on a hill overlooking his palace in Kyiv. Later he became convinced that a monotheistic religion would consolidate his power, as Christianity and Islam had done for neighboring rulers. His choice was determined after the Byzantine emperor Basil II turned to him for help in defeating his rival, Bardas Phocas. Volodymyr offered military aid only if he was allowed to marry Basil's sister, Anna, and Basil agreed to the marriage only after Volodymyr promised to convert himself and his subjects to Christianity. Volodymyr, his family, and his closest associates were baptized in December 987, when he took the Christian name Vasylii (Basil). Soon afterward he ordered the destruction of all pagan idols. The mass baptism of the citizens of Kyiv took place on 1 August 988 (see Christianization of Ukraine), and the remaining population of Rus’ was slowly converted, sometimes by force. In 988 Volodymyr sent several thousand warriors to help Basil regain power and married Anna, and in 989 he besieged Chersonese Taurica, took it from Bardas Phocas, and returned it to Basil.

The Christianization of Rus’ was essentially engineered by Byzantium. Byzantium supplied the first hierarchs and other missionary clergy in Rus’ and introduced Byzantine art, education, and literature there. During Volodymyr's reign the first schools and churches were built, notably the Church of the Tithes in Kyiv. The adoption of Christianity as the official religion facilitated the unification of the Rus’ tribes and the establishment of foreign dynastic, political, cultural, religious, and commercial relations, particularly with the Byzantine Empire, Bulgaria, and Germany. Relations with Poland improved after Volodymyr's son Sviatopolk I married the daughter of Prince Boleslaw I the Brave in 992. Volodymyr received papal emissaries in 986, 988, 991, 992, and 1000 and sent his own envoys to Rome in 993 and 1001.

After Anna's death in 1011, Volodymyr married the daughter of Count Kuno von Enningen. Toward the end of his life his sons Sviatopolk of Turiv and Yaroslav the Wise of Novgorod challenged his rule. Having defeated Sviatopolk, Volodymyr died while preparing a campaign against Yaroslav and was buried in the Church of the Tithes. He was succeeded briefly by Sviatopolk.

The Rus’ clergy venerated Volodymyr because of his support of the church, but he was canonized only after 1240. Thereafter he was referred to as ‘the holy, equal to the Apostles, grand prince of Kyiv.’ The oldest extant mention of him as Saint Volodymyr is found in the Hypatian Chronicle under the year 1254, and his feast day, 28 July (15 July OS), was first celebrated in 1263.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Zavitnevich, V. Vladimir Sviatoi kak politicheskii deiatel’ (Kyiv 1888)
Nazarko, I. Sviatyi Volodymyr Velykyi, Volodar i Khrystytel’ Rusy-Ukraèiny (960–1015) (Rome 1954)
Poppe, A. ‘The Political Background to the Baptism of Rus’: Byzantine-Russian Relations between 986 and 989,’ Dumbarton Oaks Papers, no. 30 (1976); repr in his Rise of Christian Russia (London 1982)
Volkoff, V. Vladimir the Russian Viking ([London] 1984)
Tolochko, Petro. Sviatyi Volodymyr; Iaroslav Mudryi (Kyiv 1996)

Birth:
What is the meaning of the word, "Ukraine"?

In most Slavic languages, "kraina" means "country" or "land". The word "krai" in Russian is used this way too (several regions within Russia are categorized as "krai"), but its second meaning "edge"/"boundary" is often pitched by Russia to interpret the word "Ukraine" as "borderlands" (of Russia, of course).

Source: https://www.quora.com/What-does-Ukraine-for-Ukrainians-mean

What is the meaning of the word, "Russia"?

1530s, from Medieval Latin Russi "the people of Russia," from Rus, the native name of the people and the country (source of Arabic Rus, Medieval Greek Rhos), originally the name of a group of Swedish merchant/warriors who established themselves around Kiev 9c.

Source: https://www.etymonline.com/word/russia

Religion:
converted to Christianity

355253.

Rogneda of Polotsk, Princess Consort of Rus was born in 0Apr 962 in Polotsk, Russia (daughter of Rogvolod, Prince of Polotsk); died in 1002 in Berestovo, Kiev, Ukraine.

Notes:

Rogneda of Polotsk (962–1002) is the Slavic name for Ragnhild, was a Princess consort of Rus. She was the daughter of Ragnvald (Slavic: Rogvolod) came from Scandinavia and established himself at Polatsk in the mid-10th century.

Life

It has been speculated that Rogneda belonged to the Ynglings royal family of Norway. In or about 980, Vladimir, on learning that she was betrothed to his half-brother Yaropolk I of Kiev, took Polotsk and forced Rogneda to marry him. Having raped Rogneda in the presence of her parents, he ordered them to be killed, along with two of Rogneda's brothers.

Rogneda gave him several children. The four sons were Yaroslav the Wise, Vsevolod, Mstislav of Chernigov, and Izyaslav of Polotsk. She also bore two daughters, one of whom is named by Nestor the Chronicler as Predslava (taken as a concubine of Boleslaus I of Poland, according to Gallus). A later chronicle tells a story, most likely taken from a Norse saga, of Rogneda plotting against Vladimir and asking her elder son, Izyaslav, to kill him. As was the Norse royal custom, she was sent with her elder son to govern the land of her parents, i.e. Polotsk. Izyaslav's line continued to rule Polotsk and the newly found town of Izyaslavl until the Mongol invasion.

After Vladimir converted to Christianity and took Anna Porphyrogeneta as his wife, he had to divorce all his previous wives, including Rogneda. After that, she entered the convent and took the name Anastasia.

Legacy

Around 1825 Kondraty Ryleev wrote a narrative poem entitled Rogneda. This poem became a literary source for her portrayal in the nationalist Russian opera Rogneda by Alexander Serov, which premiered in 1865.

See also

Family life and children of Vladimir I
List of rape victims from history and mythology

Princess Consort of Rus
Rahvalod, Rahnieda (Polacak). ????????, ??????? (???????).jpg
Matchmakers Vladimir Svyatoslavich in Rogvolod (left side); Rogvolod talks with Rogneda (right side).
Reign 980–988
Predecessor Unknown wife of Yaropolk I
Successor Anna Porphyrogeneta
Born 962
Died 1002 [aged 40]
Spouse Vladimir the Great (divorced)
Issue Izyaslav of Polotsk
Yaroslav the Wise
Mstislav of Chernigov
Predlava
Premislava
Mstislava
Father Rogvolod

end of biography

end of biography

Notes:

Married:
List of rape victims from ancient history and mythology:

Rogneda of Polotsk from Belarus/Scandinavian history; raped by Vladimir, half-brother of her betrothed Yaropolk I of Kiev, in the presence of her parents (10th century)

... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rape_victims_from_ancient_history_and_mythology

Children:

177626. Yaroslav, I, Czar of Russia was born in 976 in Kiev, Ukraine; died on 20 Feb 1054 in Kiev, Ukraine.

355254.

Olof Skotkonung, King of Sweden was born in ~980 in (Sweden); died in 1022 in Husaby, Sweden.

Olof married Estrid of the Obotrites, Queen Consort of Sweden(Sweden). Estrid was born in ~979 in (Schleswig-Holstein, Germany); died in 1035 in (Sweden). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

355255.

Estrid of the Obotrites, Queen Consort of Sweden was born in ~979 in (Schleswig-Holstein, Germany); died in 1035 in (Sweden).

Notes:

Estrid (or Astrid) of the Obotrites (c. 979 – 1035) was a Viking age Swedish queen and West Slavic princess, married to Olof Skèotkonung, the King of Sweden, c. 1000–1022, mother of King Anund Jacob of Sweden and the Kievan Rus' saint and grand princess Ingegerd Olofsdotter.

Biography
Legend says that Estrid was taken back to Sweden from a war in the West Slavic area of Mecklenburg as a war-prize. She was most likely given by her father, a tribal chief of the Polabian Obotrites, as a peace offering in a marriage to seal the peace, and she is thought to have brought with her a great dowry, as a great Slavic influence is represented in Sweden from her time, mainly among craftsmen.

Her husband also had a mistress, Edla, who came from the same area in Europe as herself, and who was possibly taken to Sweden at the same time. The king treated Edla and Estrid the same way and gave his son and his two daughters with Edla the same privileges as the children he had with Estrid, though it was Estrid he married and made queen.

Queen Estrid was baptised with her husband, their children and large numbers of the Swedish royal court in 1008, when the Swedish royal family converted to Christianity, although the king promised to respect the freedom of religion - Sweden was not to be Christian until the last religious war between Inge the Elder and Blot-Sweyn of 1084-1088.

Snorre Sturlasson wrote about her, that Estrid was unkind to the children (Emund, Astrid and Holmfrid) of her husband's mistress Edla;

" Queen Estrid was arrogant and not kind towards her stepchildren, and therefore the king sent his son Emund to Vendland, where he was brought up by his maternal relatives".
Not much is known of Estrid as a person. Snorre Sturlasson mentions her as a lover of pomp and luxury, and as hard and strict towards her servants.

Children
Ingegerd Olofsdotter (c. 1001-1054), Grand Princess of Kiev, in Kievan Rus' called Anna, married Yaroslav I the Wise, prince of Novgorod and Kiev.
Anund Jacob (c. 1010-1050), king of Sweden, succeeded Olof as king in c. 1022.
References
êAke Ohlmarks: "Alla Sveriges drottningar" (All the queens of Sweden) (In Swedish)
Snorri Sturluson

end of this biography

Children:

177627. Ingigerd Olofsdottir, Princess of Sweden was born in ~1001 in Sigtuna, Sweden; died on 10 Feb 1050 in Kiev, Ukraine.
Anund Jacob, King of Sweden was born in ~1010 in (Sweden); died in 1050 in (Sweden).

708708.

Notes:

Kenneth II (a.k.a. Cinâaed mac Maâil Choluim) lived from 932 to 995 and was King of Alba from 971 to 995. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline. Kenneth was the son of Malcolm I and brother to King Duff, who had ruled until 966. He became King of Alba on the killing of his predecessor, King Culen, by the Britons of Strathclyde, though it was no until he killed Culen's brother Amlaib in 977 that he was able to rule unchallenged.

Kenneth II spent much of his reign in conflict. He first fought the Britons of Strathclyde, before turning his attention to Northumbria, where he further secured Alba's hold on the lands between the River Forth and the River Tweed against the ever present threat of King Edgar's English forces.

In the north, Scottish claims were being constantly challenged by Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, and much of Caithness, Easter Ross and Inverness-Shire were under Viking control. Kenneth strengthened his ties with the Irish nobility by marrying a Princess of Leinster. They had at least one son, who went on to become Malcolm II.

After a reign of 24 years Kenneth was killed in Fettercairn. According to the chronciles of John of Fordun, this was as a result of a plot mounted by Lady Finella, the daughter of the Earl of Angus. After the murder Finella fled to St Cyrus before being caught and executed. Kenneth II was buried in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel on the Isle of Iona. Kenneth II was succeeded by his third cousin Constantine III, son of King Culen.

end of biography

Cinâaed mac Maâil Coluim (Modern Gaelic: Coinneach mac Mhaoil Chaluim[1] anglicised as Kenneth II, and nicknamed An Fionnghalach, "The Fratricide";[2] died 995) was King of Scots (Alba). The son of Malcolm I (Mâael Coluim mac Domnaill), he succeeded King Cuilâen (Cuilâen mac Iduilb) on the latter's death at the hands of Rhydderch ap Dyfnwal in 971.

Primary sources

The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba was compiled in Kenneth's reign, but many of the place names mentioned are entirely corrupt, if not fictitious.[3] Whatever the reality, the Chronicle states that "[h]e immediately plundered [Strathclyde] in part. Kenneth's infantry were slain with very great slaughter in Moin Uacoruar." The Chronicle further states that Kenneth plundered Northumbria three times, first as far as Stainmore, then to Cluiam and lastly to the River Dee by Chester. These raids may belong to around 980, when the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records attacks on Cheshire.[4]

In 973, the Chronicle of Melrose reports that Kenneth, with Mâael Coluim I (Mâael Coluim mac Domnaill), the King of Strathclyde, "Maccus, king of very many islands" (i.e. Magnus Haraldsson (Maccus mac Arailt), King of Mann and the Isles) and other kings, Welsh and Norse, came to Chester to acknowledge the overlordship of the English king Edgar the Peaceable[5] at a council in Chester. It may be that Edgar here regulated the frontier between the southern lands of the kingdom of Alba and the northern lands of his English kingdom. Cumbria was English, the western frontier lay on the Solway. In the east, the frontier lay somewhere in later Lothian, south of Edinburgh.[6]

The Annals of Tigernach, in an aside, name three of the Mormaers of Alba in Kenneth's reign in entry in 976: Cellach mac Fâindgaine, Cellach mac Baireda and Donnchad mac Morgaâind. The third of these, if not an error for Domnall mac Morgaâind, is very likely a brother of Domnall, and thus the Mormaer of Moray. The Mormaerdoms or kingdoms ruled by the two Cellachs cannot be identified.

The feud which had persisted since the death of King Indulf (Idulb mac Causantâin) between his descendants and Kenneth's family persisted. In 977 the Annals of Ulster report that "Amlaâib mac Iduilb [Amlaâib, son of Indulf], King of Scotland, was killed by Cinâaed mac Domnaill." The Annals of Tigernach give the correct name of Amlaâib's killer: Cinâaed mac Maâil Coluim, or Kenneth II. Thus, even if only for a short time, Kenneth had been overthrown by the brother of the previous king.[7]

Adam of Bremen tells that Sweyn Forkbeard found exile in Scotland at this time, but whether this was with Kenneth, or one of the other kings in Scotland, is unknown. Also at this time, Njal's Saga, the Orkneyinga Saga and other sources recount wars between "the Scots" and the Northmen, but these are more probably wars between Sigurd Hlodvisson, Earl of Orkney, and the Mormaers, or Kings, of Moray.[8]

The Chronicle says that Kenneth founded a great monastery at Brechin.

Kenneth was killed in 995, the Annals of Ulster say "by deceit" and the Annals of Tigernach say "by his subjects". Some later sources, such as the Chronicle of Melrose, John of Fordun and Andrew of Wyntoun provide more details, accurately or not. The simplest account is that he was killed by his own men in Fettercairn, through the treachery of Finnguala (also called Fimberhele or Fenella), daughter of Cuncar, Mormaer of Angus, in revenge for the killing of her only son.[9]

The Prophecy of Berchâan adds little to our knowledge, except that it names Kenneth "the kinslayer", and states he died in Strathmore.[10]

Children

Kenneth's son Malcolm II (Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda) was later king of Alba. Kenneth may have had a second son, named either Dâungal or Gille Coemgâain.[11] Sources differ as to whether Boite mac Cinâaeda should be counted a son of Kenneth II or of Kenneth III (Cinâaed mac Duib).[12] Another son of Kenneth may have been Suibne mac Cinâaeda, a king of the Gall Gaidheil who died in 1034.
Interpretation

Kenneth's rival Amlaâib, King of Scotland is omitted by the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba and later Scottish king-lists. The Irish Annals of Tigernach appear to better reflect contemporary events. Amlaâib could be a direct predecessor of Kenneth who suffered damnatio memoriae, or the rival king recognized in parts of Scotland. A period of divided kingship appears likely.[13]

Amlaâib was the heir of his brother Cuilâen, who was killed in a hall-burning. He might have served as a regent north of the River Forth, during the absence of his brother. Kenneth was brother to the deceased Dub, King of Scotland and was most likely an exile. He could claim the throne due to the support of friends and maternal kin. He was likely older and more experienced than his rival king.[13] Amlaâib is the Gaelic form of Ólâafr, suggesting maternal descent from Norsemen. He could possibly claim descent from the Uâi Ímair dynasty. Alex Woolf suggests he was a grandson of Amlaâib Cuarâan, King of Dublin or his cousin Olaf Guthfrithson, which suggests his own group of supporters.[13]

Death

According to John of Fordun (14th century), Kenneth II of Scotland (reigned 971-995) attempted to change the succession rules, allowing "the nearest survivor in blood to the deceased king to succeed", thus securing the throne for his own descendants. He reportedly did so to specifically exclude Constantine (III) and Kenneth (III), called Gryme in this source. The two men then jointly conspired against him, convincing Lady Finella, daughter of Cuncar, Mormaer of Angus, to kill the king. She reportedly did so to achieve personal revenge, as Kenneth II had killed her own son. Entries in the Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, collected by William Forbes Skene, provide the account of Finnela killing Kenneth II in revenge, but not her affiliation to Constantine or his cousins. These entries date to the 12th and 13th centuries.[14][15] The Annals of Ulster simply record "Cinaed son of Mael Coluim [Kenneth, son of Malcolm], king of Scotland, was deceitfully killed", with no indication of who killed him.[16][17]

In the account of John of Fordun, Constantine the Bald, son of King Cullen and Gryme were "plotting unceasingly the death of the king and his son". One day, Kenneth II and his companions went hunting into the woods, "at no great distance from his own abode". The hunt took him to Fettercairn, where Finella resided. She approached him to proclaim her loyalty and invited him to visit her residence, whispering into his ear that she had information about a conspiracy plot. She managed to lure him to "an out-of-the-way little cottage", where a booby trap was hidden. Inside the cottage was a statue, connected by strings to a number of crossbows. If anyone touched or moved the statue, he would trigger the crossbows and fall victim to their arrows. Kenneth II gently touched the statue and "was shot though by arrows sped from all sides, and fell without uttering another word." Finella escaped through the woods and managed to join her abettors, Constantine III and Gryme. The hunting companions soon discovered the bloody king. They were unable to locate Finella, but burned Fettercairn to the ground.[18] Smyth dismisses the elaborate plotting and the mechanical contraption as mere fables, but accepts the basic details of the story, that the succession plans of Kenneth II caused his assassination.[19] Alan Orr Anderson raised his own doubts concerning the story of Finella, which he considered "semi-mythical". He noted that the feminine name Finnguala or Findguala means "white shoulders", but suggested it derived from "find-ela" (white swan). The name figures in toponyms such as Finella Hill (near Fordoun) and Finella Den (near St Cyrus), while local tradition in The Mearns (Kincardineshire) has Finella walking atop the treetops from one location to the other. Anderson thus theorized that Finella could be a mythical figure, suggesting she was a local stream-goddess.[20] A later passage of John of Fordun mentions Finele as mother of Macbeth, King of Scotland (reigned 1040–1057), but this is probably an error based on the similarity of names. Macbeth was son of Findlâaech of Moray, not of a woman called Finella.[20][21]

end of biography

Buried:
in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel... https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/iona/storanschapel/index.html

View images and more history of St Oran's; https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/iona/storanschapel/index.html, (images: https://www.google.com/search?q=Saint+Oran%27s+Chapel+image&client=firefox-b-1-ab&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjcxPKjgIraAhUL71MKHcCmCYoQ7AkIQA&biw=1224&bih=826)

Kenneth married a Princess of Leinster. a was born in (Leinster, Ireland); died in (Scotland). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

708709.

a Princess of Leinster was born in (Leinster, Ireland); died in (Scotland).

Children:

354354. Malcolm II of Scotland, High King of Scotland was born in ~0954 in Scotland; died on 25 Nov 1034 in Glamis, Scotland; was buried in Isle of Iona, Scotland.

710416.

Notes:

Edgar (Old English: Eadgar; c.?943—8 July 975), known as the Peaceful or the Peaceable, was King of England from 959 until his death. He was the younger son of Edmund I and ¥lfgifu of Shaftesbury, and came to the throne as a teenager, following the death of his older brother Eadwig. As king, Edgar further consolidated the political unity achieved by his predecessors, with his reign being noted for its relative stability. His most trusted advisor was Dunstan, whom he recalled from exile and made Archbishop of Canterbury. The pinnacle of Edgar's reign was his coronation at Bath in 973, which was organised by Dunstan and forms the basis for the current coronation ceremony. After his death he was succeeded by his son Edward, although the succession was disputed.

King of the English
Reign 1 October 959 – 8 July 975
Predecessor Eadwig
Successor Edward
Born 943/944
Died 8 July 975 (aged 31/32)
Winchester, Hampshire
Burial Glastonbury Abbey
Spouse ¥thelflµd[1]
Wulfthryth[1]
¥lfthryth
Issue Edward, King of England
Eadgyth[1]
Edmund[2]
¥thelred, King of England
House Wessex
Father Edmund, King of England
Mother ¥lfgifu of Shaftesbury
Religion Christianity

Early years and accession

Edgar was the son of Edmund I and ¥lfgifu of Shaftesbury. Upon the death of King Edmund in 946, Edgar's uncle, Eadred, ruled until 955. Eadred was succeeded by his nephew, Eadwig, the son of Edmund and Edgar's older brother.

Eadwig was not a popular king, and his reign was marked by conflict with nobles and the Church, primarily St Dunstan and Archbishop Oda. In 957, the thanes of Mercia and Northumbria changed their allegiance to Edgar.[3] A conclave of nobles declared Edgar as king of the territory north of the Thames.[4] Edgar became King of England upon Eadwig's death in October 959, aged just 16.

Government

One of Edgar's first actions was to recall Dunstan from exile and have him made Bishop of Worcester (and subsequently Bishop of London and later, Archbishop of Canterbury). Dunstan remained Edgar's advisor throughout his reign. While Edgar may not have been a particularly peaceable man[citation needed], his reign was peaceful. The Kingdom of England was well established, and Edgar consolidated the political unity achieved by his predecessors. By the end of his reign, England was sufficiently unified in that it was unlikely to regress back to a state of division among rival kingships, as it had to an extent under the reign of Eadred. William Blackstone mentions that King Edgar standardised measure throughout the realm.[5] According to George Molyneaux, Edgar's reign, "far more than the reigns of either Alfred or ¥thelstan, was probably the most pivotal phase in the development of the institutional structures that were fundamental to royal rule in the eleventh-century kingdom".[6] Indeed, an early eleventh century king Cnut the Great states in a letter to his subjects that ''it is my will that all the nation, ecclesiastical and lay, shall steadfastly observe Edgar's laws, which all men have chosen and sworn at Oxford''.[7]

Benedictine reform

A coin of Edgar, struck in Winchcombe (c. 973-75).
The Monastic Reform Movement that introduced the Benedictine Rule to England's monastic communities peaked during the era of Dunstan, ¥thelwold, and Oswald (historians continue to debate the extent and significance of this movement).[8]

Dead Man's Plack

In 963, Edgar allegedly killed Earl ¥thelwald, his rival in love, near present-day Longparish, Hampshire.[9] The event was commemorated by the Dead Man's Plack, erected in 1825.[9] In 1875, Edward Augustus Freeman debunked the story as a "tissue of romance" in his book, Historic Essays;[10] however, his arguments were rebutted by naturalist William Henry Hudson in his 1920 book Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn.[4]

Coronation at Bath

Edgar was crowned at Bath and along with his wife ¥lfthryth was anointed, setting a precedent for a coronation of a queen in England itself.[11] Edgar's coronation did not happen until 973, in an imperial ceremony planned not as the initiation, but as the culmination of his reign (a move that must have taken a great deal of preliminary diplomacy). This service, devised by Dunstan himself and celebrated with a poem in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, forms the basis of the present-day British coronation ceremony.

Main article: King Edgar's council at Chester
The symbolic coronation was an important step; other kings of Britain came and gave their allegiance to Edgar shortly afterwards at Chester. Six kings in Britain, including the King of Scots and the King of Strathclyde, pledged their faith that they would be the king's liege-men on sea and land. Later chroniclers made the kings into eight, all plying the oars of Edgar's state barge on the River Dee.[12] Such embellishments may not be factual, and what actually happened is unclear.[13]

Death

Edgar died on 8 July 975 at Winchester, Hampshire. He left behind Edward, who was probably his illegitimate son by ¥thelflµd (not to be confused with the Lady of the Mercians), and ¥thelred, the younger, the child of his wife ¥lfthryth. He was succeeded by Edward. Edgar also had a possibly illegitimate daughter by Wulfthryth, who later became abbess of Wilton. She was joined there by her daughter, Edith of Wilton, who lived there as a nun until her death. Both women were later regarded as saints.[14][15]

Appearance

"[H]e was extremely small both in stature and bulk..."[16]

See also

House of Wessex family tree; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_of_Wessex#House_of_Wessex_family_tree

Edgar married Aelfthryth. Aelfthryth was born about 945; died in 1000-1001. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

710417.

Aelfthryth was born about 945; died in 1000-1001.

Children:

355208. Aethelred the Unready, King of the English was born about 966 in (Wessex) England; died on 23 Apr 1016 in London, England; was buried in London, England.

710418.

Thored Gunnarsson, Earl of Southern Northumbria was born in 938 in Wessex, England; died in 992-994 in Northumberland, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Death: 992, Wessex, England

Notes:

Thored (Old English: £oreº or ´oreº; fl. 979–992) was a 10th-century ealdorman of York, ruler of the southern half of the old Kingdom of Northumbria on behalf of the king of England. He was the son of either Gunnar or Oslac, northern ealdormen. If he was the former, he may have attained adulthood by the 960s, when a man of his name raided Westmorland. Other potential appearances in the records are likewise uncertain until 979, the point from which Thored's period as ealdorman can be accurately dated.

Although historians differ in their opinions about his relationship, if any, to Kings Edgar the Peaceable and Edward the Martyr, it is generally thought that he enjoyed a good relationship with King ¥thelred II. His daughter ¥lfgifu married ¥thelred. Thored was ealdorman in Northumbria for much of his reign, disappearing from the sources in 992 after being appointed by ¥thelred to lead an expedition against the Vikings.

Ealdorman of York
Reign c. 964/974x979–992x994
Predecessor Oslac (?)
Successor ¥lfhelm
Born unknown
unknown
Died 992 or 994
Burial unknown
Issue ¥lfgifu (died 1002)
¥thelstan (died 1010)
Father Gunnar (probable)/
Oslac (potential)
Mother unknown

Origins

The area shaded under "Jorvik" (York), probably corresponds very roughly with Thored's territory of southern Northumbria; it should be noted that the Danelaw as a territory is a modern construct, though Yorkshire was in the area where Dena lagu ("Scandinavian law") was practised

Thored appears to have been of at least partially Scandinavian origin, suggested by the title applied to him in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 992. Here, the ealdorman of Hampshire is called by the English title "ealdorman", while Thored himself is styled by the Scandinavian word eorl (i.e. Earl).[1]

Two accounts of Thored's origins have been offered by modern historians. The first is that he was a son of Oslac, ealdorman of York from 966 until his exile in 975.[2] This argument is partly based on the assertion by the Historia Eliensis, that Oslac had a son named Thorth (i.e. "Thored").[3] The other suggestion, favoured by most historians, is that he was the son of a man named Gunnar.[4] This Gunnar is known to have held land in the East and North Ridings of Yorkshire.[5]

If the latter suggestion is correct, then Thored's first appearance in history is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recension D (EF)'s entry for 966, which recorded the accession of Oslac to the ealdormanry of southern Northumbria:

In this year, Thored, Gunnar's son, harried Westmoringa land, and, in this same year, Oslac succeeded to the office of ealdorman.[6]

The Anglo-Saxon scholar Frank Stenton believed that this was an act of regional faction-fighting, rather than, as had been suggested by others, Thored carrying out the orders of King Edgar the Peaceable.[7] This entry is, incidentally, the first mention of Westmoringa land, that is, Westmorland.[7] Gunnar seems to have been ealdorman earlier in the decade, for in one charter (surviving only in a later cartulary) dated to 963 and three Abingdon charters dated to 965, an ealdorman (dux) called Gunnar is mentioned.[8]

Thored may be the Thored who appears for the first time in charter attestations during the reign of King Edgar (959–75), his earliest possible appearance being in 964, witnessing a grant of land in Kent by King Edgar to St Peter's, Ghent. This is uncertain because the authenticity of this particular charter is unclear.[9] A charter issued by Edgar in 966, granting land in Oxfordshire to a woman named ¥lfgifu, has an illegible ealdorman witness signature beginning with ´, which may be Thored.[10]

Ealdorman

Coin of ¥thelred the Unready.jpgAethelred rev2.jpg
O: Draped bust of ¥thelred II left. +¥£ELRED REX ANGLOR R: Long cross. +EAD?OLD MO C¥NT
'LonCross' penny of ¥thelred II, moneyer Eadwold, Canterbury, c. 997-1003. The cross made cutting the coin into half-pennies or farthings (quarter-pennies) easier. (Note spelling Ead?old in inscription, using Anglo-Saxon letter wynn in place of modern w.)
Thored's governorship as ealdorman, based on charter attestations, cannot be securely dated before 979.[11] He did attest royal charters during the reign of ¥thelred II, the first in 979,[12] six in 983,[13] one in 984,[14] three in 985,[15] one in 988,[16] appearing in such attestations for the last time in 989.[12] It is possible that such appearances represent more than one Thored, though that is not a generally accepted theory.[17] His definite predecessor, Oslac, was expelled from England in 975.[18] The historian Richard Fletcher thought that Oslac's downfall may have been the result of opposing the succession of Edward the Martyr, enemy and brother of ¥thelred II.[19] What is known about Thored's time as ealdorman is that he did not have a good relationship with Oswald, Archbishop of York (971–92). In a memorandum written by Oswald, a group of estates belonging to the archdiocese of York was listed, and Oswald noted that "I held them all until Thored came to power; then was St Peter [to whom York was dedicated] robbed".[20] One of the estates allegedly lost was Newbald, an estate given by King Edgar to a man named Gunnar, suggesting to historian Dorothy Whitelock that Thored may just have been reclaiming land "wrongly alienated from his family".[21]

His relationship with King Edgar is unclear, particularly given the uncertainty of Thored's paternity, Oslac being banished from England in 975, the year of Edgar's death.[2] Richard Fletcher, who thought Thored was the son of Gunnar, argued that Thored's raid on Westmorland was caused by resentment derived from losing out on the ealdormanry to Oslac, and that Edgar thereafter confiscated various territories as punishment.[5] The evidence for this is that Newbald, granted by Edgar to Gunnar circa 963, was bought by Archbishop Osketel from the king sometime before 971, implying that the king had seized the land.[5]

Thored's relationship with the English monarchy under ¥thelred II seems to have been good. ¥lfgifu, the first wife of King ¥thelred II, was probably Thored's daughter.[22] Evidence for this is that in the 1150s Ailred of Rievaulx in his De genealogia regum Anglorum wrote that the wife of ¥thelred II was the daughter of an ealdorman (comes) called Thored (Thorth).[23] Historian Pauline Stafford argued that this marriage was evidence that Thored had been a local rather than royal appointment to the ealdormanry of York, and that ¥thelred II's marriage was an attempt to woo Thored.[24] Stafford was supported in this argument by Richard Fletcher.[25]

Death

Modern imaginative depiction of the ship of Ólâafr Tryggvason, the "Long Serpent" (Illustration by Halfan Egedius)
The date of Thored's death is uncertain, but his last historical appearance came in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, recension C (D, E), under the year 992, which reported the death of Archbishop Oswald and an expedition against a marauding Scandinavian fleet:

In this year the holy Archbishop Oswald left this life and attained the heavenly life, and Ealdorman ¥thelwine [of East Anglia] died in the same year. Then the king and all his counsellors decreed that all the ships that were any use should be assembled at London. And the king then entrusted the expedition to the leadership of Ealdorman ¥lfric (of Hampshire), Earl Thored and Bishop ¥lfstan [.of London or of Rochester.] and Bishop ¥scwig [of Dorchester], and they were to try if they could entrap the Danish army anywhere at sea. Then Ealdorman ¥lfric sent someone to warn the enemy, and then in the night before the day on which they were to have joined battle, he absconded by night from the army, to his own disgrace, and then the enemy escaped, except that the crew of one ship was slain. And then the Danish army encountered the ships from East Anglia and from London, and they made a great slaughter there and captured the ship, all armed and equipped, on which the ealdorman was.[26]

Scandinavians led by Ólâafr Tryggvason had been raiding England's coast since the previous year, when they killed Ealdorman Brihtnoth of Essex at the Battle of Maldon.[27]

Historians think that Thored was either killed fighting these Scandinavians, or else survived, but became disgraced through defeat or treachery.[28] Fletcher speculated that Thored was removed from office and replaced by the Mercian ¥lfhelm as a result of his failure against the Scandinavians.[29] Another historian, William Kapelle, believed Thored was removed because of his Scandinavian descent, an argument based on the Worcester Chronicle's claim, added to the text borrowed from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, that Frµna, Godwine and Frythegyst fled a battle against the Danes in the following year because "they were Danish on their father's side".[30]

A man named ¥thelstan who died at the Battle of Ringmere in 1010, "the king's a¤um", was probably Thored's son.[31] The term a¤um means either "son-in-law" or "brother-in-law", so this ¥thelstan could also have been Thored's grandson by an unknown intermediary.[32] Thored's immediate successor was ¥lfhelm, who appears witnessing charters as ealdorman from 994.[33]

Thored married Hilda LNU(Wessex, England). Hilda was born in 948 in Wessex, England; died in 970 in England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

710419.

Hilda LNU was born in 948 in Wessex, England; died in 970 in England.

Children:

355209. Aelfgifu of York, Queen Consort of England was born in ~970 in (Yorkshire) England; died in 1002.

710504.

Sviatoslav, I, Grand Prince of Kiev was born in ~941 in Kiev, Ukraine (son of Igor of Kiev, Prince of the Rus' and Olga of Kiev); died on 26 Mar 972 in Khortytsia, Dnieper, Ukraine.

Notes:

Sviatoslav I Igorevich (Old East Slavic: ?~??????? / ??????????[1] ?????????, Sventoslavu / Svantoslavu Igorevici; Old Norse: Sveinald Ingvarsson) (c. 942 – 26 March 972), also spelled Svyatoslav was a Grand prince of Kiev[2][3] famous for his persistent campaigns in the east and south, which precipitated the collapse of two great powers of Eastern Europe, Khazaria and the First Bulgarian Empire. He also conquered numerous East Slavic tribes, defeated the Alans and attacked the Volga Bulgars,[4][5] and at times was allied with the Pechenegs and Magyars.

His decade-long reign over the Kievan Rus' was marked by rapid expansion into the Volga River valley, the Pontic steppe, and the Balkans. By the end of his short life, Sviatoslav carved out for himself the largest state in Europe, eventually moving his capital in 969 from Kiev (modern-day Ukraine) to Pereyaslavets (identified as the modern village of Nufaru, Romania)[6] on the Danube.

In contrast with his mother's conversion to Christianity, Sviatoslav remained a staunch pagan all of his life.

Due to his abrupt death in ambush, his conquests, for the most part, were not consolidated into a functioning empire, while his failure to establish a stable succession led to a fratricidal feud among his three sons, resulting in two of them being killed.

Reign 945–972
Coronation 964
Predecessor Igor
Successor Yaropolk I
Born 942? AD
Kiev
Died 26 March 972 AD [aged ~30]
The island of Khortytsa Dnieper
Wives
Predslava
Malusha
Issue With unknown woman:
Yaropolk I
Oleg

With Malusha:
Vladimir the Great
Full name
Sviatoslav Igorevich
Dynasty Rurik Dynasty
Father Igor
Mother Saint Olga (regent 945-964)

Name

The Primary Chronicle records Sviatoslav as the first ruler of the Kievan Rus' with a name of Slavic origin (as opposed to his predecessors, whose names had Old Norse forms). The name Sviatoslav, however, is not recorded in other medieval Slavic countries. Nevertheless, Sveinald is the Old East Norse cognate with the Slavic form as attested in the Old East Norse patronymic of Sviatoslav's son Vladimir: Valdamarr Sveinaldsson. This patronymic naming convention continues in Icelandic and in East Slavic languages. Even in Rus', it was attested only among the members of the house of Rurik, as were the names of Sviatoslav's immediate successors: Vladimir, Yaroslav, and Mstislav.[7][need quotation to verify] Some scholars see the name of Sviatoslav, composed of the Slavic roots for "holy" and "glory", as an artificial derivation combining the names of his predecessors Oleg and Rurik (whose names mean "holy" and "glorious" in Old Norse, respectively).[8]

Early life and personality

Virtually nothing is known about Sviatoslav's childhood and youth, which he spent reigning in Novgorod. Sviatoslav's father, Igor, was killed by the Drevlians around 945, and his mother, Olga, ruled as regent in Kiev until Sviatoslav reached maturity (ca. 963).[9] Sviatoslav was tutored by a Varangian named Asmud.[10] The tradition of employing Varangian tutors for the sons of ruling princes survived well into the 11th century. Sviatoslav appears to have had little patience for administration. His life was spent with his druzhina (roughly, "company") in permanent warfare against neighboring states. According to the Primary Chronicle, he carried on his expeditions neither wagons nor kettles, and he boiled no meat, rather cutting off small strips of horseflesh, game, or beef to eat after roasting it on the coals. Nor did he have a tent, rather spreading out a horse-blanket under him and setting his saddle under his head, and all his retinue did likewise.[11]

Illustration of Sviatoslav wearing a vyshyvanka, by Fedor Solntsev

Sviatoslav's appearance has been described very clearly by Leo the Deacon, who himself attended the meeting of Sviatoslav with John I Tzimiskes. Following Deacon's memories, Sviatoslav was a blue-eyed man of average height but of stalwart build, much more sturdy than Tzimiskes. He shaved his blond head and his beard but wore a bushy mustache and a sidelock as a sign of his nobility.[12] He preferred to dress in white, and it was noted that his garments were much cleaner than those of his men, although he had a lot in common with his warriors. He wore a single large gold earring bearing a carbuncle and two pearls.[13]

Religious beliefs

Sviatoslav's mother, Olga, converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity at the court of Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus in 957,[14] at the approximate age of 67. However, Sviatoslav remained a pagan all of his life. In the treaty of 971 between Sviatoslav and the Byzantine emperor John I Tzimiskes, the Rus' are swearing by Perun and Veles.[15] According to the Primary Chronicle, he believed that his warriors (druzhina) would lose respect for him and mock him if he became a Christian.[16] The allegiance of his warriors was of paramount importance in his conquest of an empire that stretched from the Volga to the Danube.

Family

Svjatoslav's mother, Olga, with her escort in Constantinople, a miniature from the late 11th century chronicle of John Skylitzes.
Very little is known of Sviatoslav's family life. It is possible that he was not the only (or the eldest) son of his parents. The Russo-Byzantine treaty of 945 mentions a certain Predslava, Volodislav's wife, as the noblest of the Rus' women after Olga. The fact that Predslava was Oleg's mother is presented by Vasily Tatishchev. He also speculated that Predslava was of a Hungarian nobility. George Vernadsky was among many historians to speculate that Volodislav was Igor's eldest son and heir who died at some point during Olga's regency. Another chronicle told that Oleg (? - 944?) was the eldest son of Igor. At the time of Igor's death, Sviatoslav was still a child, and he was raised by his mother or under her instructions. Her influence, however, did not extend to his religious observance.

Sviatoslav I in the Tsarsky Titulyarnik, 1672

Sviatoslav had several children, but the origin of his wives is not specified in the chronicle. By his wives, he had Yaropolk and Oleg.[17] By Malusha, a woman of indeterminate origins,[18] Sviatoslav had Vladimir, who would ultimately break with his father's paganism and convert Rus' to Christianity. John Skylitzes reported that Vladimir had a brother named Sfengus; whether this Sfengus was a son of Sviatoslav, a son of Malusha by a prior or subsequent husband, or an unrelated Rus' nobleman is unclear.[19]

Eastern campaigns

The Kievan Rus' at the beginning of Sviatoslav's reign (in red), showing his sphere of influence to 972 (in orange)
Shortly after his accession to the throne, Sviatoslav began campaigning to expand Rus' control over the Volga valley and the Pontic steppe region. His greatest success was the conquest of Khazaria, which for centuries had been one of the strongest states of Eastern Europe. The sources are not clear about the roots of the conflict between Khazaria and Rus', so several possibilities have been suggested. The Rus' had an interest in removing the Khazar hold on the Volga trade route because the Khazars collected duties from the goods transported by the Volga. Historians have suggested that the Byzantine Empire may have incited the Rus' against the Khazars, who fell out with the Byzantines after the persecutions of the Jews in the reign of Romanus I Lecapenus.[20]

Sviatoslav began by rallying the East Slavic vassal tribes of the Khazars to his cause. Those who would not join him, such as the Vyatichs, were attacked and forced to pay tribute to the Kievan Rus' rather than to the Khazars.[21] According to a legend recorded in the Primary Chronicle, Sviatoslav sent a message to the Vyatich rulers, consisting of a single phrase: "I want to come at you!" (Old East Slavic: "???? ?? ?? ???")[22] This phrase is used in modern Russian (usually misquoted as "??? ?? ??") and in modern Ukrainian ("??? ?? ??") to denote an unequivocal declaration of one's intentions. Proceeding by the Oka and Volga rivers, he attacked Volga Bulgaria. He employed Oghuz and Pecheneg mercenaries in this campaign, perhaps to counter the superior cavalry of the Khazars and Bulgars.[23]

Sviatoslav's Council of War by Boris Chorikov

Sviatoslav destroyed the Khazar city of Sarkel around 965, possibly sacking (but not occupying) the Khazar city of Kerch on the Crimea as well.[24] At Sarkel he established a Rus' settlement called Belaya Vyezha ("the white tower" or "the white fortress", the East Slavic translation for "Sarkel").[25] He subsequently destroyed the Khazar capital of Atil.[26] A visitor to Atil wrote soon after Sviatoslav's campaign: "The Rus' attacked, and no grape or raisin remained, not a leaf on a branch."[27] The exact chronology of his Khazar campaign is uncertain and disputed; for example, Mikhail Artamonov and David Christian proposed that the sack of Sarkel came after the destruction of Atil.[28]

Although Ibn Haukal reports the sack of Samandar by Sviatoslav, the Rus' leader did not bother to occupy the Khazar heartlands north of the Caucasus Mountains permanently. On his way back to Kiev, Sviatoslav chose to strike against the Ossetians and force them into subservience.[29] Therefore, Khazar successor statelets continued their precarious existence in the region.[30] The destruction of Khazar imperial power paved the way for Kievan Rus' to dominate north-south trade routes through the steppe and across the Black Sea, routes that formerly had been a major source of revenue for the Khazars. Moreover, Sviatoslav's campaigns led to increased Slavic settlement in the region of the Saltovo-Mayaki culture, greatly changing the demographics and culture of the transitional area between the forest and the steppe.[31]

Campaigns in the Balkans

Main article: Sviatoslav's invasion of Bulgaria

Sviatoslav invading Bulgaria, Manasses Chronicle
The annihilation of Khazaria was undertaken against the background of the Rus'-Byzantine alliance, concluded in the wake of Igor's Byzantine campaign in 944.[32] Close military ties between the Rus' and Byzantium are illustrated by the fact, reported by John Skylitzes, that a Rus' detachment accompanied Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros Phokas in his victorious naval expedition to Crete.

In 967 or 968,[33] Nikephoros sent to Sviatoslav his agent, Kalokyros, with the task of talking Sviatoslav into assisting him in a war against Bulgaria.[34] Sviatoslav was paid 15,000 pounds of gold and set sail with an army of 60,000 men, including thousands of Pecheneg mercenaries.[35][36]

Sviatoslav defeated the Bulgarian ruler Boris II[37] and proceeded to occupy the whole of northern Bulgaria. Meanwhile, the Byzantines bribed the Pechenegs to attack and besiege Kiev, where Olga stayed with Sviatoslav's son Vladimir. The siege was relieved by the druzhina of Pretich, and immediately following the Pecheneg retreat, Olga sent a reproachful letter to Sviatoslav. He promptly returned and defeated the Pechenegs, who continued to threaten Kiev.

[show] v t e
Rus'–Byzantine Wars
Sviatoslav refused to turn his Balkan conquests over to the Byzantines, and the parties fell out as a result. To the chagrin of his boyars and his mother (who died within three days after learning about his decision), Sviatoslav decided to move his capital to Pereyaslavets in the mouth of the Danube due to the great potential of that location as a commercial hub. In the Primary Chronicle record for 969, Sviatoslav explains that it is to Pereyaslavets, the centre of his lands, "all the riches flow: gold, silks, wine, and various fruits from Greece, silver and horses from Hungary and Bohemia, and from Rus' furs, wax, honey, and slaves".

Pursuit of Sviatoslav's warriors by the Byzantine army, a miniature from 11th century chronicles of John Skylitzes.

In summer 969, Sviatoslav left Rus' again, dividing his dominion into three parts, each under a nominal rule of one of his sons. At the head of an army that included Pecheneg and Magyar auxiliary troops, he invaded Bulgaria again, devastating Thrace, capturing the city of Philippopolis, and massacring its inhabitants. Nikephoros responded by repairing the defenses of Constantinople and raising new squadrons of armored cavalry. In the midst of his preparations, Nikephoros was overthrown and killed by John Tzimiskes, who thus became the new Byzantine emperor.[38]

Madrid Skylitzes, meeting between John Tzimiskes and Sviatoslav.

John Tzimiskes first attempted to persuade Sviatoslav into leaving Bulgaria, but he was unsuccessful. Challenging the Byzantine authority, Sviatoslav crossed the Danube and laid siege to Adrianople, causing panic on the streets of Constantinople in summer 970.[39] Later that year, the Byzantines launched a counteroffensive. Being occupied with suppressing a revolt of Bardas Phokas in Asia Minor, John Tzimiskes sent his commander-in-chief, Bardas Skleros, who defeated the coalition of Rus', Pechenegs, Magyars, and Bulgarians in the Battle of Arcadiopolis.[40] Meanwhile, John, having quelled the revolt of Bardas Phokas, came to the Balkans with a large army and promoting himself as the liberator of Bulgaria from Sviatoslav, penetrated the impracticable mountain passes and shortly thereafter captured Marcianopolis, where the Rus' were holding a number of Bulgar princes hostage.

Siege of Durostorum in Manasses Chronicle

Sviatoslav retreated to Dorostolon, which the Byzantine armies besieged for sixty-five days. Cut off and surrounded, Sviatoslav came to terms with John and agreed to abandon the Balkans, renounce his claims to the southern Crimea, and return west of the Dnieper River. In return, the Byzantine emperor supplied the Rus' with food and safe passage home. Sviatoslav and his men set sail and landed on Berezan Island at the mouth of the Dnieper, where they made camp for the winter. Several months later, their camp was devastated by famine, so that even a horse's head could not be bought for less than a half-grivna, reports the Kievan chronicler of the Primary Chronicle.[41] While Sviatoslav's campaign brought no tangible results for the Rus', it weakened the Bulgarian statehood and left it vulnerable to the attacks of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer four decades later.

Death and aftermath

The Death of Sviatoslav by Boris Chorikov
Fearing that the peace with Sviatoslav would not endure, the Byzantine emperor induced the Pecheneg khan Kurya to kill Sviatoslav before he reached Kiev. This was in line with the policy outlined by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in De Administrando Imperio of fomenting strife between the Rus' and the Pechenegs.[42] According to the Slavic chronicle, Sveneld attempted to warn Sviatoslav to avoid the Dnieper rapids, but the prince slighted his wise advice and was ambushed and slain by the Pechenegs when he tried to cross the cataracts near Khortitsa early in 972. The Primary Chronicle reports that his skull was made into a chalice by the Pecheneg khan.[43]

Following Sviatoslav's death, tensions between his sons grew. A war broke out between his legitimate sons, Oleg and Yaropolk, in 976, at the conclusion of which Oleg was killed. In 977 Vladimir fled Novgorod to escape Oleg's fate and went to Scandinavia, where he raised an army of Varangians and returned in 980. Yaropolk was killed, and Vladimir became the sole ruler of Kievan Rus'.

Art and literature

Ivan Akimov. Sviatoslav's Return from the Danube to His Family in Kiev (1773)
Sviatoslav has long been a hero of Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian patriots due to his great military successes. His figure first attracted attention of Russian artists and poets during the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774), which provided obvious parallels with Sviatoslav's push towards Constantinople. Russia's southward expansion and the imperialistic ventures of Catherine II in the Balkans seemed to have been legitimized by Sviatoslav's campaigns eight centuries earlier.

Among the works created during the war was Yakov Knyazhnin's tragedy Olga (1772). The Russian playwright chose to introduce Sviatoslav as his protagonist, although his active participation in the events following Igor's death is out of sync with the traditional chronology. Knyazhnin's rival Nikolai Nikolev (1758–1815) also wrote a play on the subject of Sviatoslav's life. Ivan Akimov's painting Sviatoslav's Return from the Danube to Kiev (1773) explores the conflict between military honour and family attachment. It is a vivid example of Poussinesque rendering of early medieval subject matter.

Interest in Sviatoslav's career increased in the 19th century. Klavdiy Lebedev depicted an episode of Sviatoslav's meeting with Emperor John in his well-known painting, while Eugene Lanceray sculpted an equestrian statue of Sviatoslav in the early 20th century.[44] Sviatoslav appears in the 1913 poem of Velimir Khlebnikov Written before the war (#70. ?????????? ?? ?????)[45] as an epitome of militant Slavdom:

?????????? ??? ?????, Pouring the famed juice of the Danube
??????? ? ????? ?????, Into the depth of my head,
????? ???? ?, ????????? I shall drink and remember
??????? ????: "??? ?? ??!". The cry of the bright ones: "I come at you!"[46]
Sviatoslav is the villain of the novel The Lost Kingdom, or the Passing of the Khazars, by Samuel Gordon,[47] a fictionalised account of the destruction of Khazaria by the Rus'. The Slavic warrior figures in a more positive context in the story "Chernye Strely Vyaticha" by Vadim Viktorovich Kargalov; the story is included in his book Istoricheskie povesti.[48]

In 2005, reports circulated that a village in the Belgorod region had erected a monument to Sviatoslav's victory over the Khazars by the Russian sculptor Vyacheslav Klykov. The reports described the 13-meter tall statue as depicting a Rus' cavalryman trampling a supine Khazar bearing a Star of David and Kolovrat. This created an outcry within the Jewish community of Russia. The controversy was further exacerbated by Klykov's connections with Pamyat and other anti-Semitic organizations, as well as by his involvement in the "letter of 500", a controversial appeal to the Prosecutor General to review all Jewish organizations in Russia for extremism.[49] The Press Centre of the Belgorod Regional Administration responded by stating that a planned monument to Sviatoslav had not yet been constructed but would show "respect towards representatives of all nationalities and religions."[50] When the statue was unveiled, the shield bore a twelve-pointed star.

Sviatoslav is the main character of the books "Knyaz" ("?????") and "The Hero" ("?????"), written by Russian writer Alexander Mazin.

On 7 November 2011, a Ukrainian fisherman found a one metre long sword in the waters of the Dnieper on Khortytsia near where Sviatoslav is believed to have been killed in 972. The handle is made out of four different metals including gold and silver, and could possibly have belonged to Sviatoslav himself.[51]

end of biography

Sviatoslav married Malusha. Malusha was born in (0944) in (Kiev, Ukraine); died in (1002). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

710505.

Malusha was born in (0944) in (Kiev, Ukraine); died in (1002).

Notes:

Malusha/Malfrida[1][2] (Old Ruthenian: ?????a, Old Norse: Mâalfrâiºr)[3] historically is known as a servant (kholopka) for Olga of Kiev and wife of Sviatoslav I of Kiev. According to Slavonic chronicles, she was the mother of Vladimir the Great and sister of Dobrynya. The Norse sagas describe Vladimir's mother as a prophetess who lived to the age of 100 and was brought from her cave to the palace to predict the future. Malusha monuments in Korosten, Ukraine, with her young son Vladimir.[1]

Origin
As the chronicles are silent on the subject of Malusha's pedigree, 19th-century Russian and Ukrainian historians devised various theories to explain her parentage and name.

Alexei Shakhmatov considered Malusha to be the daughter of Mstisha Sveneldovich, son of Sveneld, a Varangian warlord. He believed that the name Malusha was a slavinized version of a Scandinavian name Malfried.[4] In this case, Malusha was of Norse origin.[5] The Primary Chronicle records that a certain Malfried died in 1000. This record follows that of Rogneda's death. Since Rogneda was Vladimir's wife, historians assume that Malfried was another close relative of the ruling prince, preferably his wife or mother.

The anti-Normanist historian Dmitry Ilovaisky managed to draw an opposite conclusion: that the Slavic name Malusha was turned into a Scandinavian Malfried. This claim received no wider support. Dmitry Prozorovsky believed that Malusha was the daughter of Mal, a Drevlyan leader.[6] The same one that wanted to marry Olga of Kiev after she became a widow.[7]

References
Vladimir Plougin: Russian Intelligence Services: The Early Years, 9th-11th Centuries, Algora Publ., 2000
History of Ukraine-Rus': From prehistory to the eleventh century, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 1997
Mâalfrâiºr nordicnames.de
Vladimir Plougin: Russian Intelligence Services: The Early Years, 9th-11th Centuries, Algora Publ., 2000
Harvard Ukrainian studies, Volumer 12-13, Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1990
?. ?. ???????. ?????? ??????? ? ?????????? ????????? ? ???????????? ?????. ISBN 9785860075351. Page 90.
Dixon-Kennedy, Mike (1998). Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio. p. 210. ISBN 1-57607-063-8.

end of biography

Children:

355252. Vladimir, Czar of Russia was born in 956 in Kiev, Ukraine; died on 15 Jul 1015 in Kiev, Ukraine.
Oleg

710506.

Rogvolod, Prince of Polotsk was born in ~920 in Gothland, Sweden (son of Ulf Tostesson, Jarl of Skara and Ingeborg); died in 978 in Polotsk, Belarus.

Notes:

Ragnvald Ulfsson the Old (beginning 11th century) was a jarl of Vèastergèotland or èOstergèotland, and married to a sister of Olav Tryggvason.[1]

Ragnvald is mentioned in the skaldic poem Austrfaravâisur, ascribed to Sigvatr ´âorºarson, skald of King Olaf Haraldsson of Norway (Olaf the Holy), who had been on a diplomatic mission to Sweden. This poem is quoted in the 13th century sagas Fagrskinna and Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla. In addition to the poem, Fagrskinna only briefly mentions Ragnvald, while Heimskringla contains a more elaborate account of him. This 13th-century prose text is not considered historically reliable.

According to Snorri, Ragnvald was the son of jarl Ulf Tostesson and Ingeborg and the foster-son of ´orgnýr the Lawspeaker. He was the cousin of Olof Skèotkonung, through his aunt Sigrid the Haughty, and he was married to Ingeborg Tryggvasdotter.

During his days the Norwegians pillaged in Vèastergèotland, but then the Norwegian king, Olaf the Holy, proposed to the Swedish princess Ingigerd Olofsdotter, the daughter of Sweden's king Olof Skèotkonung. This pleased Ragnvald who was related to both.

However, at the Thing at Gamla Uppsala, Ragnvald and his foster-father ´orgnýr the Lawspeaker had to force Olof, the Swedish king, to promise his daughter to Olaf, the Norwegian king, whom he did not like. When the Swedish king failed to deliver his daughter, Ragnvald realized that he was in trouble. He has not only fallen out of grace with the Swedish king, but he could also expect the revenge of the Norwegians.

During a visit by the skald Sigvatr ´âorºarson, Ragnvald learned that Prince Jaroslav of Kievan Rus' has proposed to Ingigerd, and so he had the idea that Olaf the Holy should marry the illegitimate daughter of Olof Skèotkonung, Astrid, who was staying with Ragnvald. Sigvat promised to deliver the message, and the Norwegian king accepted.

Ragnvald and Astrid arrive at Sarpsborg.
Ragnvald delivered Astrid at Sarpsborg in Norway and she married the king after Christmas of 1019.

Olof Skèotkonung was now so upset that he intended to hang Ragnvald at the next Thing. However, when Ingigerd Olofsdotter married Jaroslav, Ingigerd managed to arrange that Ragnvald became the jarl of Staraja Ladoga (Aldeigjuborg) and Ingria, and Olof let him depart with Ingigerd in the summer of 1019.

Fagrskinna's account of Olaf the Holy's betrothal to Ingigerd, and eventual wedding with Astrid, differs significantly from the account in Heimskringla. In Fagrskinna's account, Ragnvald is not given a prominent role in the proceedings.

Married to Ingeborg Tryggvasdotter. Children:

Ulf Ragnvaldsson Jarl
Eilif Ragnvaldsson Jarl
Ostrida Ragnvalsdatter
He is considered to have fathered king Stenkil,[2] with Astrid Nialsdotter from Norway, but this is based on later Icelandic sources,[3] and the identification of Ragnvald with Ragnvald the Old of Hervarar saga.[4]

Notes

Winroth 1995–1997:616
The entry Stenkil in Larsson 2000:33
Stenkil anses ha varit son till Ragnvald jal i Vèastergèotland. Translation: Stenkil is considered to have been the son of earl Ragnvald in Vèastergèotland.
Lagerquist 1997:41
Den nye kungen hette Stenkil och den ganska kortlivade dynasti han grundade kallas efter honom den stenkilska. Enligt senare islèandska uppgifter var han son till jarlen Ragnvald i Vèastergèotland och Astrid Nialsdotter frêan Norge. Translation: The name of the new king was Stenkil and the rather shortlived dynasty that he founded is named the House of Stenkil after him. According to later Icelandic reports, he was the son of the earl Ragnvald in Vèastergèotland and Astrid Nialsdotter from Norway.
Larsson 2002:154–157
[...] ingenting om Ragnvald den gamle eller den norska hèovdingadottern Astrid som var Stenkils fèorèaldrar enligt den fornislèandska Hervararsagan. [...] Och lika lite kan jag fêa veta ifall Stenkils far Ragnvald var identisk med vèastgèotajarlen med samma namn, som det ofta pêastêas i den historiska literaturen - en hypotes som i och fèor sig ocksêa skulle leda till slèaktskap med den gamla kungaèatten genom att Ragnvald enligt sagorna var kusin till Olof Skèotkonung. Translation: [...] nothing on Ragnvald the Old or the Norwegian chieftain's daughter Astrid who were Stenkil's parents according to the Old Icelandic Hervarar saga. [...] And just as little can I be informed whether Stenkil's father Ragnvald was identical to the Vèastergèotland jarl by the same name, as it is often stated in history books - a hypothesis which, as it were, would lead to kinship with the old dynasty through the fact that Ragnvald according to the sagas was the cousin of Olof Skèotkonung.
Literature
Larsson, Lars-Ove (1993, 2000). Vem èar vem i svensk historia, frêan êar 1000 till 1900. Prisma, Stockholm. ISBN 91-518-3427-8
Larsson, Mats G (2002). Gèotarnas Riken : Upptèacktsfèarder Till Sveriges Enande. Bokfèorlaget Atlantis AB ISBN 978-91-7486-641-4
Lagerquist, Lars O. (1997). Sveriges Regenter, frêan forntid till nutid. Norstedts, Stockholm. ISBN 91-1-963882-5
Winroth, Anders (1995–1997) "Ragnvald Ulfsson", Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon, volume 29, page 616.
Wisâen, Theodor, revised by Erik Brate (1915), "Ragnvald Ulfsson", Nordisk familjebok, volume 22, 913–914

Rogvolod (Russian: ????????, Rogvolod; Belarusian: ????????, Rahvalod) (c. 920 – 978) was first chronicled prince of Polatsk (945–978). In the Russian Primary Chronicle, he is known as ??????????, probably a slavicized version of the Old Norse name Ragnvald. He came from overseas (i.e., from Scandinavia or Southern Baltic) and established himself at Polatsk in the mid-10th century. According to the Russian Primary Chronicle, Vladimir the Great sought an alliance with him in 980 by marrying his daughter Rogneda, but she insultingly refused, prompting Vladimir to attack Rogvolod and his sons and kill them, after which he forcibly took Rogneda as his wife.[1]

References
Janet Martin, Medieval Russia 980-1584 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 1.
External links
Oleg Latyszonek, Ales’ Bely. On the Scandinavian origin of Rahvalod // Annus Albaruthenicus/??? ????????? ?6. 2005.

end of biography

Children:

355253. Rogneda of Polotsk, Princess Consort of Rus was born in 0Apr 962 in Polotsk, Russia; died in 1002 in Berestovo, Kiev, Ukraine.
Stenkil

193552.

Richard de Normandie, II was born on 23 Aug 963 in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, I and Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy); died on 28 Aug 1027 in Normandie, France.

Notes:

Richard II of Normandy, Duke of Normandy, was born 23 August 963 in Normandy, France to Richard I, Duke of Normandy (933-996) and Gunnora, Duchess of Normandy (c936-1031) and died 28 August 1027 in Normandy, France of unspecified causes. He married Judith of Brittany (982-1017) 996 JL . He married Papia of Envermeu . Ancestors are from France.
Contents[show]

Children

Offspring of Richard II of Normandy and Judith of Brittany (982-1017)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Richard III of Normandy (997-1027) 997 1027 Adáele of France (1009-1079)

Adelaide of Normandy (1002-1038) 1002 1038 Renaud I de Bourgogne (c990-1057)

Robert II, Duke of Normandy (c1000-1035) 1000 Normandy, France 22 July 1035 Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050)
Estrid of Normandy (1001)

William of Normandy (c1008-aft1025) 1008 1025
Eleanor of Normandy (c1012-aft1071) 1012 1071 Baldwin IV of Flanders (980-1036)

Matilda of Normandy (c1014-aft1033) 1014 1033

Offspring of Richard II of Normandy and Papia of Envermeu
Name Birth Death Joined with
Mauger de Rouen (c1019-c1055) 1019 1055
Guillaume de Talou (c1022-aft1054) 1022 1054 Beatrice de Ponthieu (c1035-c1082)

Noteworthy descendants include

Henry II of England (1133-1189)
William I of England (1027-1087)
Namesakes of Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027)

193553.

Judith de Bretagne was born in 982 in Rennes, France (daughter of Conan of Rennes, I, Count of Rennes, Duke of Brittany and Ermengarde of Anjou); died in 1017 in Normandy, France.

Notes:

Judith of Brittany was born 982 to Conan I of Rennes (927-992) and Ermengarde of Anjou (bef967-) and died 1017 of unspecified causes. She married Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027) 996 JL . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]
Judith is a 10th generation descendant of Charlemagne (747-814) through her mother. There are two disputed lines (through her father and her maternal grandfather) that place her in generations 9.

Children

Offspring of Judith of Brittany and Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Richard III of Normandy (997-1027) 997 1027 Adáele of France (1009-1079)

Adelaide of Normandy (1002-1038) 1002 1038 Renaud I de Bourgogne (c990-1057)

Robert II, Duke of Normandy (c1000-1035) 1000 Normandy, France 22 July 1035 Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050)
Estrid of Normandy (1001)

William of Normandy (c1008-aft1025) 1008 1025
Eleanor of Normandy (c1012-aft1071) 1012 1071 Baldwin IV of Flanders (980-1036)

Matilda of Normandy (c1014-aft1033) 1014 1033

Noteworthy descendants include

Henry II of England (1133-1189)
William I of England (1027-1087)

Children:

192550. Richard Normandie was born in ~0997 in Normandie, France; died on 6 Aug 1027 in (Normandy, France).
96776. Duke Robert de Normandie, II was born in ~1005 in Normandie, France; died on 22 Jul 1035 in Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey.

1420832.

Edmund I, King of the English was born in ~921 in Wessex, England (son of Edward the Elder, King of the Anglo-Saxons and Eadgifu of Kent); died on 26 May 946 in Pucklechurch, Gloucestershire, England; was buried in Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset, England.

Notes:

Edmund I (Old English: Eadmund, pronounced [µ??dmund]; 921 – 26 May 946) was King of the English from 939 until his death. His epithets include the Elder, the Deed-doer, the Just, and the Magnificent.

Edmund was the son of Edward the Elder and his third wife Eadgifu of Kent, and a grandson of Alfred the Great. His father died when he was young, and was succeeded by his oldest son ¥thelstan. Edmund came to the throne upon the death of his half-brother in 939, apparently with little opposition. His reign was marked by almost constant warfare, including conquests or reconquests of the Midlands, Northumbria, and Strathclyde (the last of which was ceded to Malcolm I of Scotland). Edmund was assassinated after six-and-a-half years as king, while attending mass in Pucklechurch, Gloucestershire. He was initially succeeded by his brother Eadred, but his two sons – Eadwig and Edgar the Peaceful – both later came to the throne.

King of the English
Tenure 27 October 939 – 26 May 946
Coronation c. 29 November 939
probably at Kingston upon Thames[1]
Predecessor ¥thelstan
Successor Eadred
Born 921
Wessex, England
Died 26 May 946 (aged 24–25)
Pucklechurch, Gloucestershire, England
Burial Glastonbury Abbey
Spouse ¥lfgifu of Shaftesbury
¥thelflµd of Damerham
Issue Eadwig, King of England
Edgar, King of England
House Wessex
Father Edward the Elder
Mother Eadgifu of Kent
Religion Roman Catholic

Early life and military threats

Edmund came to the throne as the son of Edward the Elder,[2] and therefore the grandson of Alfred the Great, great-grandson of ¥thelwulf of Wessex and great-great grandson of Egbert of Wessex, who was the first of the house of Wessex to start dominating the Anglo Saxon realms. However, being born when his father was already a middle aged man, Edmund lost his father when he was a toddler, in 924, which saw his 30 year old half brother Athelstan come to the throne. Edmund would grow up in the reign of Athelstan, even participating in the Battle of Brunanburgh in his adolescence in 937.[citation needed]

Athelstan died in the year 939, which saw young Edmund come to the throne. Shortly after his proclamation as king, he had to face several military threats. King Olaf III Guthfrithson conquered Northumbria and invaded the Midlands; when Olaf died in 942, Edmund reconquered the Midlands.[2] In 943, Edmund became the god-father of King Olaf of York. In 944, Edmund was successful in reconquering Northumbria.[3] In the same year, his ally Olaf of York lost his throne and left for Dublin in Ireland. Olaf became the king of Dublin as Amlaâib Cuarâan and continued to be allied to his god-father. In 945, Edmund conquered Strathclyde but ceded the territory to King Malcolm I of Scotland in exchange for a treaty of mutual military support.[3] Edmund thus established a policy of safe borders and peaceful relationships with Scotland. During his reign, the revival of monasteries in England began.

Louis IV of France

One of Edmund's last political movements of which there is some knowledge is his role in the restoration of Louis IV of France to the throne. Louis, son of Charles the Simple and Edmund's half-sister Eadgifu, had resided at the West-Saxon court for some time until 936, when he returned to be crowned King of France. In the summer of 945, he was captured by the Norsemen of Rouen and subsequently released to Duke Hugh the Great, who held him in custody. The chronicler Richerus claims that Eadgifu wrote letters both to Edmund and to Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor in which she requested support for her son. Edmund responded to her plea by sending angry threats to Hugh.[4] Flodoard's Annales, one of Richerus' sources, report:

Edmund, king of the English, sent messengers to Duke Hugh about the restoration of King Louis, and the duke accordingly made a public agreement with his nephews and other leading men of his kingdom. [...] Hugh, duke of the Franks, allying himself with Hugh the Black, son of Richard, and the other leading men of the kingdom, restored to the kingdom King Louis.[5][6]

Death and succession

On 26 May 946, Edmund was murdered by Leofa, an exiled thief, while attending St Augustine's Day mass in Pucklechurch (South Gloucestershire).[7] John of Worcester and William of Malmesbury add some lively detail by suggesting that Edmund had been feasting with his nobles, when he spotted Leofa in the crowd. He attacked the intruder in person, but in the event, Leofa killed him. Leofa was killed on the spot by those present.[8] A recent article re-examines Edmund's death and dismisses the later chronicle accounts as fiction. It suggests the king was the victim of a political assassination.[9]

Edmund's sister Eadgyth, the wife of Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, died earlier the same year, as Flodoard's Annales for 946 report.[10]

Edmund was succeeded as king by his brother Eadred, king from 946 until 955. Edmund's sons later ruled England as:

Eadwig, King of England from 955 until 957, king of only Wessex and Kent from 957 until his death on 1 October 959.
Edgar the Peaceful, king of Mercia and Northumbria from 957 until his brother's death in 959, then king of England from 959 until 975.

Buried:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glastonbury_Abbey

Edmund married Aelfgifu of Shaftsbury. Aelfgifu was born in (~914); died in 944; was buried in Shaftesbury Abbey, Dorset, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1420833.

Aelfgifu of Shaftsbury was born in (~914); died in 944; was buried in Shaftesbury Abbey, Dorset, England.

Notes:

Saint ¥lfgifu of Shaftesbury, also known as Saint Elgiva[1] (died 944) was the first wife of Edmund I (r. 939–946), by whom she bore two future kings, Eadwig (r. 955–959) and Edgar (r. 959–975). Like her mother Wynflaed, she had a close and special if unknown connection with the royal nunnery of Shaftesbury (Dorset), founded by King Alfred,[2] where she was buried and soon revered as a saint. According to a pre-Conquest tradition from Winchester, her feast day is 18 May.[3][4]

Queen consort of England
Tenure 939 - 944
Died 944
Burial Shaftesbury Abbey
Spouse Edmund I, King of England
Issue Eadwig, King of England
Edgar, King of England
Mother Wynflaed

Family background

Will of Wynflµd (British Library Cotton Charters viii. 38)[5]
Her mother appears to have been an associate of Shaftesbury Abbey called Wynflaed (also Wynnflµd). The vital clue comes from a charter of King Edgar, in which he confirmed the grant of an estate at Uppidelen (Piddletrenthide, Dorset) made by his grandmother (ava) Wynflµd to Shaftesbury.[6] She may well be the nun or vowess (religiosa femina) of this name in a charter dated 942 and preserved in the abbey's chartulary. It records that she received and retrieved from King Edmund a handful of estates in Dorset, namely Cheselbourne and Winterbourne Tomson, which somehow ended up in the possession of the community.[7]

Since no father or siblings are known, further speculation on ¥lfgifu's background has largely depended on the identity of her mother, whose relatively uncommon name has invited further guesswork. H. P. R. Finberg suggests that she was the Wynflµd who drew up a will, supposedly sometime in the mid-10th century, after ¥lfgifu's death. This lady held many estates scattered across Wessex (in Somerset, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Hampshire) and was well connected with the nunneries at Wilton and Shaftesbury, both of which were royal foundations. On that basis, a number of relatives have been proposed for ¥lfgifu, including a sister called ¥thelflµd, a brother called Eadmµr, and a grandmother called Brihtwyn.[8]

There is, however, no consensus among scholars about Finberg's suggestion. Simon Keynes and Gale R. Owen object that there is no sign of royal relatives or connections in Wynflµd's will and Finberg's assumptions about ¥lfgifu's family therefore stand on shaky ground.[9] Andrew Wareham is less troubled about this and suggests that different kinship strategies may account for it.[10] Much of the issue of identification also seems to hang on the number of years by which Wynflµd can plausibly have outlived her daughter. In this light, it is significant that on palaeographical grounds, David Dumville has rejected the conventional date of c. 950 for the will, which he considers “speculative and too early” (and that one Wynflµd was still alive in 967).[11]

Married life

The sources do not record the date of ¥lfgifu's marriage to Edmund. The eldest son Eadwig, who had barely reached majority on his accession in 955, may have been born around 940, which gives us only a very rough terminus ante quem for the betrothal. Although as the mother of two future kings, ¥lfgifu proved to be an important royal bed companion, there is no strictly contemporary evidence that she was ever consecrated as queen. In a charter of doubtful authenticity dated 942-946, she attests as the king's concubine (concubina regis).[12] but later in the century ¥thelweard the Chronicler styles her queen (regina).

The remains of the Norman buildings which replaced the earlier ones at Shaftesbury Abbey.
Much of ¥lfgifu's claim to fame derives from her association with Shaftesbury. Her patronage of the community is suggested by a charter of King ¥thelred, dated 984, according to which the abbey exchanged with King Edmund the large estate at Tisbury (Wiltshire) for Butticanlea (unidentified). ¥lfgifu received it from her husband and intended to bequeath it back to the nunnery, but such had not yet come to pass (her son Eadwig demanded that Butticanlea was returned to the royal family first).[13]

¥lfgifu predeceased her husband in 944.[14] In the early 12th century, William of Malmesbury wrote that she suffered from an illness during the last few years of her life, but there may have been some confusion with details of ¥thelgifu's life as recorded in a forged foundation charter of the late 11th or 12th century (see below).[15] Her body was buried and enshrined at the nunnery.[16]

Sainthood

¥lfgifu was venerated as a saint soon after her burial at Shaftesbury. ¥thelweard reports that many miracles had taken place at her tomb up to his day,[17] and these were apparently attracting some local attention. Lantfred of Winchester, who wrote in the 970's and so can be called the earliest known witness of her cult, tells of a young man from Collingbourne (possibly Collingbourne Kingston, Wiltshire), who in the hope of being cured of blindness travelled to Shaftesbury and kept vigil. What led him there was the reputation of “the venerable St ¥lfgifu [...] at whose tomb many bodies of sick person receive medication through the omnipotence of God”.[18] Despite the new prominence of Edward the Martyr as a saint interred at Shaftesbury, her cult continued to flourish in later Anglo-Saxon England, as evidenced by her inclusion in a list of saints' resting places, at least 8 pre-Conquest calendars and 3 or 4 litanies from Winchester.[19]

¥lfgifu is styled a saint (Sancte ¥lfgife) in the D-text of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (mid-11th century) at the point where it specifies Eadwig's and Edgar's royal parentage.[20] Her cult may have been fostered and used to enhance the status of the royal lineage, more narrowly that of her descendants.[21] Lantfred attributes her healing power both to her own merits and those of her son Edgar. It may have been due to her association that in 979 the supposed body of her murdered grandson Edward the Martyr was exhumed and in a spectacular ceremony, received at the nunnery of Shaftesbury, under the supervision of ealdorman ¥lfhere.[22]

According to William of Malmesbury, ¥lfgifu would secretly redeem those who were publicly condemned to severe judgment, she gave expensive clothes to the poor, and she also had prophetic powers as well as powers of healing. [23]

¥lfgifu's fame at Shaftesbury seems to have eclipsed that of its first abbess, King Alfred's daughter ¥thelgifu,[24] so much so perhaps that William of Malmesbury wrote contradictory reports on the abbey's early history. In the Gesta regum, he correctly identifies the first abbess as Alfred's daughter, following Asser, although he gives her the name of ¥lfgifu (Elfgiva),[25] while in his Gesta pontificum, he credits Edmund's wife ¥lfgifu with the foundation.[26] Either William encountered conflicting information, or he meant to say that ¥lfgifu refounded the nunnery.[27] In any event, William would have had access to local traditions at Shaftesbury, since he probably wrote a now lost metrical Life for the community, a fragment of which he included in his Gesta pontificum:[28]

Latin text Translation
Nam nonnullis passa annis morborum molestiam,
defecatam et excoctam Deo dedit animam.
Functas ergo uitae fato beatas exuuias
infinitis clemens signis illustrabat Deitas.
Inops uisus et auditus si adorant tumulum,
sanitati restituti probant sanctae meritum.
Rectum gressum refert domum qui accessit loripes,
mente captus redit sanus, boni sensus locuples

For some years she suffered from illness,
And gave to God a soul that it had purged and purified
When she died, God brought lustre to her blessed remains
In his clemency with countless miracles.
If a blind man or a deaf worship at her tomb,
They are restored to health and prove the saint's merits.
He who went there lame comes home firm of step,
The madman returns sane, rich in good sense.[29]

See also

¥lfgifu of Exeter; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86lfgifu_of_Exeter

Children:

710416. Edgar the Peaceful, King of England was born about 943 in (Wessex) England; died on 8 Jul 0975 in Winchester, Hampshire, England; was buried in Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset, England.

1421008.

Igor of Kiev, Prince of the Rus' was born in ~900 in (Kiev, Ukraine) (son of Rurik, Prince of Ladoga and Novgorod); died in 945 in Korosten, Ukraine.

Other Events and Attributes:

Religion: Norse Pagan

Notes:

Igor I (Old East Slavic: ?????, Igor'; Old Norse: Ingvar R²riksen; Ukrainian: ????, translit. Ihor ['i??r]; Russian: ?????, translit. Igor' ['ig?r?]; Belarusian: ????, translit. Ihar ['i?ar]) was a Varangian ruler of Kievan Rus' from 912 to 945. (Varangian defined: http://thehennesseefamily.com/showmedia.php?mediaID=3071&medialinkID=3073)

Ingvar the Rus
Prince of the Rus'
Igor RC.png
Ingvar the Rus. Illumination from the Radziwill Chronicle
Reign 914–945
Coronation 914
Predecessor Oleg
Successor Sviatoslav the Brave
Died 945
Iskorosten
Burial ?
Wife
Saint Olga
Issue Sviatoslav the Brave
Full name
Ingvar Roriksen
Dynasty Rurik Dynasty
Father Rurik
Religion Norse Pagan

Biography

Information about Igor comes mostly from the Primary Chronicle. This document has Igor as the son of Rurik, the first ruler of Kievan Rus':

6378–6387 (870–879). On his deathbed, Rurik bequeathed his realm to Oleg, who belonged to his kin, and entrusted to Oleg's hands his son Igor', for he was very young.

6388–6390 (880–882). Oleg set forth, taking with him many warriors from among the Varangians, the Chuds, the Slavs, the Merians and all the Krivichians. He thus arrived with his Krivichians before Smolensk, captured the city, and set up a garrison there. Thence he went on and captured Lyubech, where he also set up a garrison. He then came to the hills of Kiev, and saw how Askold and Dir reigned there. He hid his warriors in the boats, left some others behind, and went forward himself bearing the child Igor'. He thus came to the foot of the Hungarian hill, and after concealing his troops, he sent messengers to Askold and Dir, representing himself as a stranger on his way to Greece on an errand for Oleg and for Igor', the prince's son, and requesting that they should come forth to greet them as members of their race. Askold and Dir straightway came forth. Then all the soldiery jumped out of the boats, and Oleg said to Askold and Dir, "You are not princes nor even of princely stock, but I am of princely birth." Igor' was then brought forward, and Oleg announced that he was the son of Rurik. They killed Askold and Dir, and after carrying them to the hill, they buried them there, on the hill now known as Hungarian, where the castle of Ol'ma now stands.[1]

Igor' twice besieged Constantinople, in 941 and 944, and although Greek fire destroyed part of his fleet, he concluded with the Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine VII a favourable treaty (945), the text of which the chronicle has preserved. In 913 and 944 the Rus' plundered the Arabs in the Caspian Sea during the Caspian expeditions of the Rus', but it remains unclear whether Igor' had anything to do with these campaigns.

Prince Igor Exacting Tribute from the Drevlyans, by Klavdiy Lebedev (1852-1916).
Igor was killed while collecting tribute from the Drevlians in 945. The Byzantine historian and chronicler, Leo the Deacon (born ca 950), describes how Igor met his death: "They had bent down two birch trees to the prince's feet and tied them to his legs; then they let the trees straighten again, thus tearing the prince's body apart."[2] Igor's wife, Olga of Kiev, avenged his death by punishing the Drevlians. The Primary Chronicle blames his death on his own excessive greed, indicating that he tried to collect tribute for a second time in a month. As a result, Olga changed the system of tribute gathering (poliudie) in what may be regarded as the first legal reform recorded in Eastern Europe.

Controversy
Drastically revising the chronology of the Primary Chronicle, Constantin Zuckerman argues that Igor actually reigned for three years, between summer 941 and his death in early 945. He explains the epic 33-year span of his reign in the chronicle to be the result of its author's faulty interpretation of Byzantine sources.[3] Indeed, none of Igor's activities are recorded in the chronicle before 941.

See also

List of Ukrainian rulers
List of Russian rulers

References

Translated and edited by Cross, S. H. and Sherbowitz-Wetzor, O. P. (1953). "The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text" (PDF). Crimson Printing Company, Cambridge, Massachusetts. pp. 60–61. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
Tarasenko, Leonid (27 February 2008). "Korosten (Iskorosten): A small town with a great history". geocities.com. Archived from the original on 26 October 2009. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
Zuckerman, Constantin (1995). "On the Date of the Khazars' Conversion to Judaism and the Chronology of the Kings of the Rus Oleg and Igor: A Study of the Anonymous Khazar Letter from the Genizah of Cairo" (PDF). Volume 53. Revue des âetudes byzantines (1): 237–270. doi:10.3406/rebyz.1995.1906. ISSN 0766-5598. Retrieved 5 July 2016.

end of biography

Igor married Olga of Kiev in 903. Olga was born in (Pskov) Russia; died on 11 Jul 0969 in Kiev, Ukraine. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1421009.

Olga of Kiev was born in (Pskov) Russia; died on 11 Jul 0969 in Kiev, Ukraine.

Other Events and Attributes:

Religion: Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church

Notes:

Saint Olga (Church Slavonic: ?????, died 969 AD in Kiev) was a regent of Kievan Rus' for her son Svyatoslav from 945 until 960. She is known for her obliteration of the Drevlians, a tribe that had killed her husband Igor of Kiev. Even though it would be her grandson Vladimir that would convert the entire nation to Christianity, for her efforts to spread Christianity through the Rus' Olga is venerated as a saint. While her birthdate is unknown, it could be as early as AD 890 and as late as 5 June 925.[1]

Grand Princess of Kiev, Equal to the Apostles
Born Pskov
Died 11 July 969
Kiev
Venerated in Roman Catholicism
Eastern Catholicism, especially in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
Eastern Orthodoxy
Feast July 11/24

Early life
Olga was reportedly from Pskov. The Primary Chronicle gives 879 as her date of birth, which is unlikely, given the birth of her only son probably some 65 years after that date. She was, hypothetically, of Varangian extraction.

She married the future Igor of Kiev arguably in 903, but perhaps as early as 901-902.

Regency
After Igor's death on 945, Olga ruled Kievan Rus as regent on behalf of their son Svyatoslav.[2]

In 947, Princess Olga launched a punitive expedition against the tribal elites between the Luga and the Msta River.[3] Following this successful campaign, a number of forts were erected at Olga’s orders. One of them is supposed to be Gorodets in the Luga region[4] a fortification dated to the middle of the 10th century. Because of its isolated location, Gorodets does not seem to have been in any way associated with the pre-existing settlement pattern. Moreover, the fort produced another example of square timber frames designed to consolidate the rampart that was seen at Rurikovo Gorodische. The same building technique was in use a century later in the Novgorod fortifications.

Olga remained regent ruler of Kievan Rus with the support of the army and her people. She changed the system of tribute gathering (poliudie) in the first legal reform recorded in Eastern Europe. She continued to evade proposals of marriage, defended the city during the Siege of Kiev in 968, and saved the power of the throne for her son.

Drevlian Uprising

The following account is taken from the Primary Chronicle. Princess Olga was the wife of Igor of Kiev, who was killed by the Drevlians. At the time of her husband's death, their son Svyatoslav was three years old, making Olga the official ruler of Kievan Rus' until he reached adulthood. The Drevlians wanted Olga to marry their Prince Mal, making him the ruler of Kievan Rus', but Olga was determined to remain in power and preserve it for her son.

The Drevlians sent twenty of their best men to persuade Olga to marry their Prince Mal and give up her rule of Kievan Rus'. She had them buried alive. Then she sent word to Prince Mal that she accepted the proposal, but required their most distinguished men to accompany her on the journey in order for her people to accept the offer of marriage. The Drevlians sent the best men who governed their land. Upon their arrival, she offered them a warm welcome and an invitation to clean up after their long journey in a bathhouse. After they entered, she locked the doors and set fire to the building, burning them alive.

With the best and wisest men out of the way, she planned to destroy the remaining Drevlians. She invited them to a funeral feast so she could mourn over her husband's grave. Her servants waited on them, and after the Drevlians were drunk, Olga's soldiers killed over 5,000 of them.[2] She then placed the city under siege.[2] She asked for three pigeons and three sparrows from each house; she claimed she did not want to burden the villagers any further after the siege.[2] They were happy to comply with the request.

Now Olga gave to each soldier in her army a pigeon or a sparrow, and ordered them to attach by thread to each bird a piece of sulfur bound with small pieces of cloth. When night fell, Olga bade her soldiers release the pigeons and the sparrows. So the birds flew to their nests, the pigeons to the cotes, and the sparrows under the eaves. The dove-cotes, the coops, the porches, and the haymows were set on fire. There was not a house that was not consumed, and it was impossible to extinguish the flames because all the houses caught on fire at once. The people fled from the city, and Olga ordered her soldiers to catch them. Thus she took the city and burned it, and captured the elders of the city. Some of the other captives she killed, while some she gave as slaves to her followers. The remnant she left to pay tribute.[5]

The story, however, is most likely a myth.[2]

Relations with the Holy Roman Emperor

Seven Latin sources document Olga's embassy to Holy Roman Emperor Otto I in 959. The continuation of Regino of Prèum mentions that the envoys requested the emperor to appoint a bishop and priests for their nation. The chronicler accuses the envoys of lies, commenting that their trick was not exposed until later. Thietmar of Merseburg says that the first archbishop of Magdeburg, Saint Adalbert of Magdeburg, before being promoted to this high rank, was sent by Emperor Otto to the country of the Rus' (Rusciae) as a simple bishop but was expelled by pagan allies of Svyatoslav I. The same data is repeated in the annals of Quedlinburg and Hildesheim.

Christianity

Princess Olga meets the body of her husband. A sketch by Vasily Surikov.
Olga was the first ruler of Rus' to convert to Christianity, done in either 945 or 957. The ceremonies of her formal reception in Constantinople were detailed by Emperor Constantine VII in his book De Ceremoniis. Following her baptism, Olga took the Christian name Yelena, after the reigning Empress Helena Lekapena. The Slavonic chronicles add apocryphal details to the account of her baptism, such as the story of how she charmed and "outwitted" Constantine and spurned his proposals of marriage. In actuality, at the time of her baptism, Olga was an old woman, while Constantine already had a wife.

Olga was one of the first people of Rus' to be proclaimed a saint for her efforts to spread Christianity throughout the country. Because of her proselytizing influence, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church, and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church call Saint Olga by the honorific Isapâostolos, "Equal to the Apostles". She is also a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. However, she failed to convert Svyatoslav, and it was left to Vladimir I, her grandson and pupil, to make Christianity the lasting state religion. During her son's prolonged military campaigns, she remained in charge of Kiev, residing in the castle of Vyshgorod with her grandsons. She died in 969, soon after the Pechenegs' siege of the city.[6][7]

Gallery

Illuminations from the Radziwill Chronicle

Olga's revenge for her husband's death

Fourth revenge of Olga: Burning of Derevlian capital Iskorosten

Reception of Olga by Constantine VII

Notes

"Princess Olga of Kiev". Russiapedia. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
Clements 2012, p. 7.
Laurentian Codex (1997:60)
Lebedev 1982:225-238; Zalevskaia 1982:49-54
Russian Primary Chronicle
extracts of the Primary Chronicle in English translation, University of Oregon
Primary Sources - A collection of translated excerpts on Medieval Rus, University of Washington Faculty Web Server (November 6, 2004)
References
Clements, Barbara Evans (2012). A History of Women in Russia: From Earliest Times to the Present. Indiana University Press.
See also
Order of Princess Olga (established in Ukraine in 1997)
Christianization of Kievan Rus'
A Perfect Absolution - concept album by French band Gorod about Olga of Kiev
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Olga of Kiev.

end of biography

Children:

710504. Sviatoslav, I, Grand Prince of Kiev was born in ~941 in Kiev, Ukraine; died on 26 Mar 972 in Khortytsia, Dnieper, Ukraine.

1421012.

Ulf Tostesson, Jarl of Skara was born in 930 in Gothland, Sweden (son of Skagul Toste, King of Sweden); died in 950 in (Kiev, Ukraine).

Notes:

Ulf Tostesson was a jarl and the son of the legendary Viking Skogul Toste. He was the brother of Sigrid the Haughty, and his son, Ragnvald Ulfsson, a jarl, was the father of Stenkil, who was elected king when the old House of Munsèo died out.

end of biography

Ulf "den gamle" Tostesson
Born 0930 in Vestgotalnd, Sweden
ANCESTORS ancestors
Son of Skoglar Skagul Toste and [mother unknown]
Brother of Ulf (UNKNOWN) Tostesson av Skara and Sigrid Storrada
[spouse(s) unknown]
[children unknown]
Died 0950 in Sweden

Relationships between historical figures could have been simplified or even fabricated in the text to give the impression that succession remained within the same family….Precise chronology is also difficult to assess from the Sagas….The conclusion must be that the tight family network described in the Sagas is unlikely to be correct and that the relationships shown below should be treated with considerable caution.

Biography
(English below Swedish version.)

Ulf Tostesson var enligt de islèandska sagorna jarl och son till den legendariske vikingen Skoglar-Toste och bror till den historiskt omtvistade Sigrid Storrêada. Genom sonen Ragnvald Ulfsson pêastêas han ha varit farfar till Stenkil som blev vald till kung efter Emund den gamles dèod. Ulf ska ha varit gift med Ingeborg.

Fèodelse- och dèodsdatum fêar ses som vèaldigt osèakra. (Har lêatit dem vara kvar som en referens om vilket êarhundrade som avses). I originalbiografin fanns èaven "av Skara" i namnet

Barn: Ragnvald Ulfsson, (jarl av Vèastergèotland och uppgiven far till kung Stenkil av Svitjod)

Enligt svenska Wikipedia fèor "sonen" Ragnvald: Att Ragnvald hette Ulfsson och var jarl èar "fèorfalskningar" skapade av Snorre Sturlasson i Olav den heliges historia.[kèalla behèovs] Snorre uppger att Ragnvald var jarl i Skara i Vèastergèotland och bland annat fick en son vid namn Ulf som blev jarl. Austrfararvâisur èar en samtida (1000-tal) primèarkèalla och dèarmed mycket mer pêalitlig èan Snorres sekundèar/tertièara fantastiska kèallmaterial frêan 1200-tal.

Ulf Tostesson is said to be a "jarl" and the son of the legendary viking Skogul Toste. He was the brother of Sigrid the Haughty, and his son, Ragnvald Ulfsson, a jarl, was the father of Stenkil, who was elected king when the king Edmund died. Ulf is said to be married to Ingeborg.

The birth and death years should be considered as very uncertain. They should however be left to indicate what period of time this profile is referred to.

"Den gamle" translates to "the old/er".

There is some argumentation that the son Ragnvald really was a "jarl" and the son of Ulf, that it actually could be a "forgery" made by Snorre Sturlasson, it seems Snorre is the one mentioning that Ragnvald as a " jarl" in Skara (Vèastergèotland). Austrfararvâisur is an earlier source (1000-tal) that does not mention these facts.

Click here for EARLY KINGS OF SWEDEN [1] on WikiTree.

Sources

See also:

Book: Strinnholm, Anders Magnus (1834). Svenska folkets historia frêan èaldsta till nèarvarande tider. Bd 1, Skandinavien under hedna-êaldern, afd. 1. Stockholm. sid. 389. Libris 294689
Wikipedia pêa svenska:
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulf_Tostesson
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnvald_Ulfsson
Wikipedia in English:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulf_Tostesson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnvald_Ulfsson

Ulf married Ingeborg. Ingeborg was born in (Gothland, Sweden); died in (Kiev, Ukraine). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1421013.
Ingeborg was born in (Gothland, Sweden); died in (Kiev, Ukraine).
Children:

710506. Rogvolod, Prince of Polotsk was born in ~920 in Gothland, Sweden; died in 978 in Polotsk, Belarus.

385096.

Richard de Normandie, II was born on 23 Aug 963 in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, I and Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy); died on 28 Aug 1027 in Normandie, France.

Notes:

Richard II of Normandy, Duke of Normandy, was born 23 August 963 in Normandy, France to Richard I, Duke of Normandy (933-996) and Gunnora, Duchess of Normandy (c936-1031) and died 28 August 1027 in Normandy, France of unspecified causes. He married Judith of Brittany (982-1017) 996 JL . He married Papia of Envermeu . Ancestors are from France.
Contents[show]

Children

Offspring of Richard II of Normandy and Judith of Brittany (982-1017)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Richard III of Normandy (997-1027) 997 1027 Adáele of France (1009-1079)

Adelaide of Normandy (1002-1038) 1002 1038 Renaud I de Bourgogne (c990-1057)

Robert II, Duke of Normandy (c1000-1035) 1000 Normandy, France 22 July 1035 Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050)
Estrid of Normandy (1001)

William of Normandy (c1008-aft1025) 1008 1025
Eleanor of Normandy (c1012-aft1071) 1012 1071 Baldwin IV of Flanders (980-1036)

Matilda of Normandy (c1014-aft1033) 1014 1033

Offspring of Richard II of Normandy and Papia of Envermeu
Name Birth Death Joined with
Mauger de Rouen (c1019-c1055) 1019 1055
Guillaume de Talou (c1022-aft1054) 1022 1054 Beatrice de Ponthieu (c1035-c1082)

Noteworthy descendants include

Henry II of England (1133-1189)
William I of England (1027-1087)
Namesakes of Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027)

Richard married Papia Envermeu in 1017-1026 in (Normandy, France). Papia was born in 997 in (Normandy, France); died after 1047. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

385097.
Papia Envermeu was born in 997 in (Normandy, France); died after 1047.
Children:

192548. Mauger Normandie was born in ~1020 in Normandie, France; died in 1055 in (Normandy, France).

177626.

Yaroslav, I, Czar of Russia was born in 976 in Kiev, Ukraine (son of Vladimir, Czar of Russia and Rogneda of Polotsk, Princess Consort of Rus); died on 20 Feb 1054 in Kiev, Ukraine.

Notes:

Yaroslav I, Grand Prince of Rus', known as Yaroslav the Wise or Iaroslav the Wise (Old East Slavic: ???????? ?????????????? ??????; Russian: ??????´? ??´????, translit. Jaroslav Mudryj [j?r?'slaf 'mudr?j]; Ukrainian: ??????´? ??´????, translit. Jaroslav Mudryj [j?ro'sl?u? 'mudr?j]; Old Norse: Jarizleifr Valdamarsson;[1]; Latin: Iaroslaus Sapiens; c. 978 – 20 February 1054) was thrice grand prince of Veliky Novgorod and Kiev, uniting the two principalities for a time under his rule. Yaroslav's Christian name was George (Yuri) after Saint George (Old East Slavic: ?????i, Gjurigái).

A son of Vladimir the Great, the first Christian Prince of Novgorod, Yaroslav acted as vice-regent of Novgorod at the time of his father's death in 1015. Subsequently, his eldest surviving brother, Sviatopolk I of Kiev, killed three of his other brothers and seized power in Kiev. Yaroslav, with the active support of the Novgorodians and the help of Varangian mercenaries, (Varangian defined: http://thehennesseefamily.com/showmedia.php?mediaID=3071&medialinkID=3073) defeated Svyatopolk and became the Grand Prince of Kiev in 1019. Under Yaroslav the codification of legal customs and princely enactments was begun, and this work served as the basis for a law code called the Russkaya Pravda ("Rus Truth [Law]"). During his lengthy reign, Kievan Rus' reached the zenith of its cultural flowering and military power.[2]

Yaroslav the Wise
Grand Prince of Kiev and Novgorod
Reign 1019–1054
Predecessor Sviatopolk the Accursed
Successor Iziaslav I
Prince of Rostov?
Reign 978–1010
Prince of Novgorod
Reign 1010–1019
Born c.?978
Died 20 February 1054 (aged c. 76)
Vyésgorod
Burial Saint Sophia's Cathedral, Kiev
Spouse Ingegerd Olofsdotter of Sweden
Issue
Details... Elisiv, Queen of Norway
Anastasia, Queen of Hungary
Anne, Queen of the Franks
Agatha, Queen of England (possibly)
Ilya
Vladimir of Novgorod
Iziaslav I
Sviatoslav II
Vsevolod I
Igor Yaroslavich
Vyacheslav Yaroslavich
Full name
Yaroslav Vladimirovich
Dynasty Rurikid
Father Vladimir the Great
Mother Rogneda of Polotsk (according to the Primary Chronicle)

Rise to the throne

The only contemporary image of Yaroslav I the Wise, on his seal.
Main article: Boleslaw I's intervention in the Kievan succession crisis
The early years of Yaroslav's life are shrouded in mystery. He was one of the numerous sons of Vladimir the Great, presumably his second by Rogneda of Polotsk,[3] although his actual age (as stated in the Primary Chronicle and corroborated by the examination of his skeleton in the 1930s) would place him among the youngest children of Vladimir. It has been suggested that he was a child begotten out of wedlock after Vladimir's divorce from Rogneda and marriage to Anna Porphyrogenita, or even that he was a child of Anna Porphyrogenita herself. Yaroslav figures prominently in the Norse sagas under the name Jarisleif the Lame; his legendary lameness (probably resulting from an arrow wound) was corroborated by the scientists who examined his remains.[citation needed]

In his youth, Yaroslav was sent by his father to rule the northern lands around Rostov but was transferred to Veliky Novgorod,[4] as befitted a senior heir to the throne, in 1010. While living there, he founded the town of Yaroslavl (literally, "Yaroslav's") on the Volga River. His relations with his father were apparently strained,[4] and grew only worse on the news that Vladimir bequeathed the Kievan throne to his younger son, Boris. In 1014 Yaroslav refused to pay tribute to Kiev and only Vladimir's death, in July 1015, prevented a war.[4]

During the next four years Yaroslav waged a complicated and bloody war for Kiev against his half-brother Sviatopolk I of Kiev, who was supported by his father-in-law, Duke Boleslaw I Chrobry of Poland.[5] During the course of this struggle, several other brothers (Boris, Gleb, and Svyatoslav) were brutally murdered.[5] The Primary Chronicle accused Svyatopolk of planning those murders,[5] while the saga Eymundar ¤âattr hrings is often interpreted as recounting the story of Boris' assassination by the Varangians in the service of Yaroslav. However, the victim's name is given there as Burizaf, which is also a name of Boleslaus I in the Scandinavian sources. It is thus possible that the Saga tells the story of Yaroslav's struggle against Svyatopolk (whose troops were commanded by the Polish duke), and not against Boris.[citation needed]

Yaroslav defeated Svyatopolk in their first battle, in 1016, and Svyatopolk fled to Poland.[5] But Svyatopolk returned in 1018 with Polish troops furnished by his father-in-law, seized Kiev[5] and pushed Yaroslav back into Novgorod. Yaroslav at last prevailed over Svyatopolk, and in 1019 firmly established his rule over Kiev.[6] One of his first actions as a grand prince was to confer on the loyal Novgorodians (who had helped him to gain the Kievan throne), numerous freedoms and privileges. Thus, the foundation of the Novgorod Republic was laid. For their part, the Novgorodians respected Yaroslav more than they did other Kievan princes; and the princely residence in their city, next to the marketplace (and where the veche often convened) was named Yaroslav's Court after him. It probably was during this period that Yaroslav promulgated the first code of laws in the lands of the East Slavs, the Russkaya Pravda.

Reign

Coins of Yaroslav and his descendants represent the trident.

Depiction of Yaroslav the Wise from Granovitaya Palata.
Power struggles between siblings
Leaving aside the legitimacy of Yaroslav's claims to the Kievan throne and his postulated guilt in the murder of his brothers, Nestor the Chronicler and later Russian historians often presented him as a model of virtue, styling him "the Wise". A less appealing side of his personality is revealed by his having imprisoned his youngest brother Sudislav for life. Yet another brother, Mstislav of Chernigov, whose distant realm bordered the North Caucasus and the Black Sea, hastened to Kiev and, despite reinforcements led by Yaroslav's brother-in-law King Anund Jacob of Sweden (as Jakun - "blind and dressed in a gold suit"),[7] inflicted a heavy defeat on Yaroslav in 1024. Yaroslav and Mstislav then divided Kievan Rus' between them: the area stretching left from the Dnieper River, with the capital at Chernihiv, was ceded to Mstislav until his death in 1036.

Scandinavian allies
In his foreign policy, Yaroslav relied on the Scandinavian alliance and attempted to weaken the Byzantine influence on Kiev. In 1030, he reconquered Red Ruthenia from the Poles and concluded an alliance with King Casimir I the Restorer, sealed by the latter's marriage to Yaroslav's sister, Maria. In another successful military raid the same year, he captured Tartu, Estonia and renamed it Yuryev[8] (named after Yury, Yaroslav's patron saint) and forced the surrounding province of Ugaunnia to pay annual tribute.

Campaign against Byzantium
In 1043, Yaroslav staged a naval raid against Constantinople led by his son Vladimir of Novgorod and general Vyshata. Although his navy was defeated in the Rus'–Byzantine War (1043), Yaroslav managed to conclude the war with a favourable treaty and prestigious marriage of his son Vsevolod I of Kiev to the emperor's daughter. It has been suggested that the peace was so advantageous because the Kievans had succeeded in taking a key Byzantine possession in Crimea, Chersonesus.

Protecting the inhabitants of the Dniper from the Pechenegs
To defend his state from the Pechenegs and other nomadic tribes threatening it from the south he constructed a line of forts, composed of Yuriev, Bohuslav, Kaniv, Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi, and Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi. To celebrate his decisive victory over the Pechenegs in 1036 (who thereupon never were a threat to Kiev) he sponsored the construction of the Saint Sophia Cathedral in 1037. That same year there were built monasteries of Saint George and Saint Irene. Some mentioned and other celebrated monuments of his reign such as the Golden Gate of Kiev perished during the Mongol invasion of Rus', but later restored.

Establishment of law
Yaroslav was a notable patron of book culture and learning. In 1051, he had a Slavic monk, Hilarion of Kiev, proclaimed the metropolitan bishop of Kiev, thus challenging the Byzantine tradition of placing Greeks on the episcopal sees. Hilarion's discourse on Yaroslav and his father Vladimir is frequently cited as the first work of Old East Slavic literature.

Family life and posterity

Eleventh-century fresco of Saint Sophia's Cathedral, Kiev, representing the daughters of Yaroslav I, with Anne probably being the youngest. Other daughters were Anastasia, wife of Andrew I of Hungary; Elizabeth, wife of Harald Harºrâaºi; and possibly Agatha, wife of Edward the Exile.
In 1019, Yaroslav married Ingegerd Olofsdotter, daughter of the king of Sweden,[9] and gave Staraya Ladoga to her as a marriage gift.

Saint Sophia's Cathedral in Kiev houses a fresco representing the whole family: Yaroslav, Irene (as Ingegerd was known in Rus), their four daughters and six sons.[10] Yaroslav had three of his daughters married to foreign princes who lived in exile at his court:

Elisiv of Kiev to Harald Harºrâaºi[9] (who attained her hand by his military exploits in the Byzantine Empire);
Anastasia of Kiev to the future Andrew I of Hungary;[9]
Anne of Kiev married Henry I of France[9] and was the regent of France during their son's minority; (she was Yaroslav the Wise's most beloved daughter).
(possibly) Agatha, wife of Edward the Exile, of the royal family of England, the mother of Edgar the ¥theling and Saint Margaret of Scotland.

Anne of Kiev.
Yaroslav had one son from the first marriage (his Christian name being Ilya (?-1020)), and six sons from the second marriage. Apprehending the danger that could ensue from divisions between brothers, he exhorted them to live in peace with each other. The eldest of these, Vladimir of Novgorod, best remembered for building the Cathedral of St. Sophia, Novgorod, predeceased his father. Three other sons—Iziaslav I, Sviatoslav II, and Vsevolod I—reigned in Kiev one after another. The youngest children of Yaroslav were Igor Yaroslavich (1036–1060) of Volhynia and Vyacheslav Yaroslavich (1036–1057) of the Principality of Smolensk. About Vyacheslav, there is almost no information. Some documents point out the fact of him having a son, Boris Vyacheslavich, who challenged Vsevolod I sometime in 1077-1078.

Grave

Sarcophagus of Yaroslav the Wise.
Following his death, the body of Yaroslav the Wise was entombed in a white marble sarcophagus within Saint Sophia's Cathedral. In 1936, the sarcophagus was opened and found to contain the skeletal remains of two individuals, one male and one female. The male was determined to be Yaroslav, however the identity of the female was never established. The sarcophagus was again opened in 1939 and the remains removed for research, not being documented as returned until 1964. Then, in 2009, the sarcophagus was opened and surprisingly found to contain only one skeleton, that of a female. It seems the documents detailing the 1964 reinterment of the remains were falsified to hide the fact that Yaroslav's remains had been lost. Subsequent questioning of individuals involved in the research and reinterment of the remains seems to point to the idea that Yaroslav's remains were purposely hidden prior to the German occupation of Ukraine and then either lost completely or stolen and transported to the United States where many ancient religious artifacts were placed to avoid "mistreatment" by the communists.[11]

Legacy

Yaroslav the Wise's consolidation of Kiev and Novgorod as depicted at Zoloti Vorota mosaics https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e8/Yaroslav1.jpg/220px-Yaroslav1.jpg
Four different towns in four different countries were founded by and named after Yaroslav: Yaroslavl (in today's Russia), Yuryev (now Tartu, Estonia) and another Yuryev (now Bila Tserkva, Ukraine), and Jaroslaw in Poland. Following the Russian custom of naming military objects such as tanks and planes after historical figures, the helmet worn by many Russian soldiers during the Crimean War was called the "Helmet of Yaroslav the Wise". It was the first pointed helmet to be used by any army, even before German troops wore pointed helmets.

In 2008 Yaroslav was placed first (with 40% of the votes) in their ranking of "our greatest compatriots" by the viewers of the TV show Velyki Ukraèintsi.[12] Afterwards one of the producers of The Greatest Ukrainians claimed that Yaroslav had only won because of vote manipulation and that (if that had been prevented) the real first place would have been awarded to Stepan Bandera.[13]

Monument to Yaroslav the Wise in Kiev https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/Monument_to_Yaroslav_the_Wise.jpg/220px-Monument_to_Yaroslav_the_Wise.jpg

Iron Lord was a 2010 film based on his early life as a regional prince on the frontier.

end of biography

*Yaroslav I "The Wise" Grand Duke of Kiev
born 0980 Kiev, Ukraine
died 20 February 1054 Kiev, Ukraine
buried 1054 Russia

father:
*Vladimir I "The Great" Grand Duke of Kiev
born 0960 Kiev, Ukraine
died 15 Jul 1015 Berestovo, Kiev, Ukraine
buried Church Of The Tithes, Kiev, Ukraine

mother:
*Rogneda Princess of Polotsk
born about 0962 Polotsk, Byelorussia
died 1002
married Abt 0977 Of Polotsk, Byelorussia

siblings:
Vsevolod Vladimirovich Prince of Vladimir Volynsk
born Abt 0983 Of, Vladimir Volynskij, Volyn, Ukraine died 1015
Iszyaslav Vladimirovich born Abt 0978 Of Kiev, Ukraine died 1001
Mstislav Vladimirovich Duke of Chernigov & Tmutorakan
born Abt 0988 Of Chernigov, Ukraine died 1035/1036
Premislava Vladimirovna Princess of Kiev born Abt 0980 Of Kiev, Ukraine
Predslava Vladimirovna Princess of Kiev born Abt 0984 Of Kiev, Ukraine
died Aft 1018

spouse:
*Ingrid (Ingegerda) Olafsdotter Princess of Sweden
born about 1001 Uppsala, Sweden
died 10 February 1050 Kiev, Ukraine
married 1019 Uppsala, Sweden

children:
*Anna Agnesa Yaroslavna Grand Duchess of Kiev born 1036 Kiev, Ukraine
died 1076/89 France buried Abbaye de Villiers, La-Ferte-Alais, France
*Anastasiya Agmunda Yaroslavna Princess of Kiev born about 1035 Ukraine died after 1074
*Vsevolod I Yaroslavich Prince of Kiev born 1030 Pereyaslavl, Russia died 13 April 1093
Igor Yaroslavich born about 1036 Vladimir Volynskiy, Volyn, Ukraine
died 1059/60 Vladimir Volunsky, Volyn, Ukraine
Vladimir Yaroslavich Duke of Novgorod born 1020 Novgorod, Russia died 4 October 1052
*Izyaslav I Dmitrij Yaroslavich born 1025 Turov, Polesye, Byelorussia died 3 October 1078
Svyatopolk I Yaroslavich Grand Duke of Kiev born 1027 Vladimir-Volynsk, Volyn, Ukraine
died 27 December 1076
*Elizaveta Yaroslavna of Kiev Queen of Norway born about 1032 Kiev, Ukraine

biographical and/or anecdotal:

notes or source:
LDS

end of profile

177627.

Notes:

Ingegerd Olofsdotter of Sweden, also known as Irene, Anna and St. Anna (1001 – 10 February 1050), was a Swedish princess and a Grand Princess of Kiev. She was the daughter of Swedish King Olof Skèotkonung and Estrid of the Obotrites and the consort of Yaroslav I the Wise of Kiev.

Ingegerd or St. Anna is often confused with the mother of St. Vladimir “the Enlightener” of the Rus. This is mainly because Ingegerd and Yaroslav also had a son named Vladimir. However, St. Vladimir was the father of Ingegerd’s husband Yaroslav I “the Wise”, thus making her St. Vladimir’s daughter-in-law. St. Vladimir was the son of Sviatoslav and Malusha.

Biography

11th-century fresco of the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev representing the daughters of Ingegerd and Yaroslav I, with Anna probably being the youngest. Other daughters were Anastasia wife of Andrew I of Hungary, Elizabeth wife of Harald III of Norway, and perhaps Agatha wife of Edward the Exile.
Ingegerd was born in Sigtuna,[citation needed] Sweden. She was engaged to be married to Norwegian King Olaf II, but when Sweden and Norway got into a feud, Swedish King Olof Skèotkonung would no longer allow for the marriage to take place.

Instead, Ingegerd's father quickly arranged for a marriage to the powerful Yaroslav I the Wise of Novgorod.[1] The marriage took place in 1019.[1] Once in Kiev, she changed her name to the Greek Irene. According to several sagas, she was given as a marriage gift Ladoga and adjacent lands, which later received the name Ingria, arguably a corruption of Ingegerd's name. She placed her friend, jarl Ragnvald Ulfsson, to rule in her stead.

Ingegerd initiated the building of the Saint Sophia's Cathedral in Kiev that was supervised by her husband.[citation needed] She also initiated the construction of the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Novgorod. They had six sons and four daughters, the latter of whom became Queens of France, Hungary, Norway, and (arguably) England. The whole family is depicted in one of the frescoes of the Saint Sophia.

Death and burial

Ingegerd died on 10 February 1050. Upon her death, according to different sources, Ingegerd was buried in either Saint Sophia's Cathedral in Kyiv or Cathedral of St. Sophia in Novgorod.

Sainthood

Ingegerd was later declared a saint, by the name of St. Anna, in Novgorod and Kiev. The reason was that she initiated the building of the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev as well as the local version, the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod, along with many good doings.

The following was stated by the church in reference to her sainthood:

St. Anna, Grand Duchess of Novgorod, She was the daughter of Swedish King Olaf Sketktung, the "All-Christian King," who did much to spread Orthodoxy in Scandinavia, and the pious Queen Astrida.

In Sweden she was known as Princess Indegard; she married Yaroslav I “the Wise“, Grand Prince of Kiev, who was the founder of the Saint Sophia Cathedral in 1016, taking the name Irene.

She gave shelter to the outcast sons of British King Edmund, Edwin and Edward, as well as the Norwegian prince Magnus, who later returned to Norway.

She is perhaps best known as the mother of Vsevolod of , himself the father of Vladimir Monomakh and progenitor of the Princes of Moscow.

Her daughters were Anna, Queen of France, Queen Anastasia of Hungary, and Queen Elizabeth (Elisiv) of Norway. The whole family was profoundly devout and pious.

She reposed in 1050 in the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom (St. Sophia) in Kiev, having been tonsured a monastic with the name of Anna.

As saint, her hymn goes:

And 4 stichera, in Tone I: Spec. Mel.: Joy of the ranks of heaven

O joy of the Swedish people, thou didst gladden the Russian realm, filling it with grace and purity, adorning its throne with majesty, lustrous in piety like a priceless gem set in a splendid royal crown.

Named Ingegerd in the baptismal waters, O venerable one, thou wast called Irene by thy Russian subjects, who perceived in thee the divine and ineffable peace; but when thou didst submit to monastic obedience, thou didst take the new name, Anna, after the honoured ancestor of Christ, the King of kings.

Wed in honourable matrimony, O holy Anna, thou didst live in concord with thy royal spouse, the right-believing and most wise Prince Yaroslav; and having born him holy offspring, after his repose thou didst betroth thyself unto the Lord as thy heavenly Bridegroom.

Disdaining all the allurements of vanity and donning the coarse robes of a monastic, O wondrous and sacred Anna, thou gavest thyself over to fasting and prayer, ever entreating Christ thy Master, that He deliver thy people from the all want and misfortune.

Feast days: 10 February, 4 October.

Children

Ingegerd had the following children

Elisiv of Kiev, queen of Norway
Anastasia of Kiev, queen of Hungary
Anne of Kiev, queen of France
(possibly) Agatha, wife of Edward the Exile
Vladimir of Novgorod
Iziaslav
Sviatoslav
Vsevolod
Igor Yaroslavich

Children:

Vladimir of Novgorod was born in 1020 in Novgorod, Ukraine; died on 4 Oct 1052 in Novgorod, Ukraine; was buried in Cathedral of St. Sophia, Novgorod, Ukraine.
88813. Anna Agnesa Yaraslavna, Queen of France was born in 1036 in Kiev, Ukraine; died on 5 Sep 1075 in France.

178144.

Donnchad Mâael Na Mbâo (O'CHEINNSELAIG) Murchada was born in 960 in Ireland; died in 1006.

Donnchad married Aife Ingen (Daughter Of) Gilla Patraic. Aife was born in 960 in Ireland; died in 1068. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

178145.

Aife Ingen (Daughter Of) Gilla Patraic was born in 960 in Ireland; died in 1068.

Children:

89072. Diarmait Macmail Na Mbo Murchada, King of Ireland was born in 974 in Cork, Ireland; died in 1072.

178146.

Donnchad O'Brien, King of Munster was born in 982 in Kincora, Munster, Ireland; died in 1064 in Rome, Italy; was buried in Basilica of St Stephen, Monte Celio, Italy.

Notes:

Donnchad MacBrian "High King of Ireland" Brian formerly O'Brien aka Mac Brian, Munster
Born after 0981 in Kincora, Munster, âEireann

ANCESTORS ancestors

Son of Brian Boru (Cennetig) MacCennetig and Gormflaeth (Murchadh) Munster
Brother of Blanaid Nic (Brian) O'Brian [half], Murchad (O'Brien) of Leinster [half], Dubgilla Olafsdatter [half], Teige Terence mac Briain O'Brien [half], Sihtric Olafsson [half], Slani ingen Brian [half] and Harald Olafsson [half]

Husband of Unkown (Unkown) Mac Briain — married [date unknown] [location unknown]

Husband of Cacht (Ragnaill) Ranald — married 1032 [location unknown]

DESCENDANTS descendants

Father of Lorcan UA Briain, Donnchad MacDiarmata (Leinster) of Leinster and Darbforgaill (O'Brien) Leinster
Died about 1064 in Rome, Italy

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Categories: Irish History.

Preceded by
Mâael Sechnaill macDomnaill O'Nâeill. King of Ireland
1022 — 1061 Succeeded by
Diarmait MacMâail na mBâo
Preceded by
Brian Boru 976 — 1014 (father) King of Munster
1022 — 1061 Succeeded by
Toirdelbach (Turlough) O'Brien 1064 — 1086 (nephew)

Parents

For her third marriage, Gormlaith, d. 1030, (daughter of Murchad MacFinn, a Leinster King of the Uâi Fhâaelâain line) married Brâian Bâoruma, they had:
Donnchadh [1]
Name

Name: King of Munster Donnchad /O'Brien/
Name: Donnchad (MacBRIAIN) /O'BRIEN/
Found multiple versions of NAME. Using King of Munster Donnchad /O'Brien/.

Military Campaigns

1026
A hosting by Donnchadh son of Brian, so that he took hostages of the men of Meath and Bregia and the Foreigners and Leinster and Ossory.[2]

A great hosting by Donnchadh, son of Brian, and he took the hostages of the men of Mide and of Brega; and he himself spent three days in Áth Cliath without opposition, with his camp nearby the fort; and he took the hostages of Laigin and Osraige.[3]

1027
A hosting by Donnchadh son of Brian into Ossory, till a division of his people were defeated and Gadhra son of Dâunadhach, king of Sâiol Anmchadha was then slain, and Domhnall son of Senchâan son of Flaithbheartach, crown prince of Munster, and Maelseachlainn son of the king of Corcomroe, and two sons of Cuilâen son of Conchobhar and the crownprince of the Eoghanacht, and Ócan grandson of Corc son of Anluan, and many others who are not numbered.[4]

A hosting by Donnchadh, son of Brian, into Osraige, and he took great captures and much booty therefrom; and a group of his people was overtaken and suffered loss at the hands of Mac Raith Ua Donnchada who was warring in Osraige, and of Ua Gilla Pâatraic, and there were slain there Gadra son of Dâunadach, king of Uâi Maine, Domnall, son of Senchâan, royal heir of Mumu, Ócâan grandson of Core, the two sons of Cuilâen son of Conchobar, and Conall son of âEcertach, royal heir of Caisel.[5]

1031
Ó Ruairc, that is, the Cork, plundered St Brâenainn's Clonfert, and on the same day he was defeated by Donnchadh son of Brian, with the loss of men and ferryboats.[6]

Gilla Pâatraic's son [went] into Mumu, plundered Dâun na Sciath, and killed its steward.
{Donnchadh,} son of Brian, [went] to Osraige to avenge him [the steward], and brought great booty and cattle therefrom; and a slaughter was thrice inflicted on the Mumu there, and Mael Coluim, king of Caenraige, two royal heirs of Uâi Chonaill Gabra, and many others were slain.[7]

1042
Ferna Mâor Maedâoc was burned by Donnchad son of Brian. Glenn Uisen was burned by the son of Mael na mBâo and the oratory broken down and a hundred people slain and four hundred taken out of it in revenge for Ferna Mâor.[8]

Marriage

1032
Donnchadh, son of Brian, married the daughter of Ragnall. Hence the saying: 'the spring of Ragnall's daughter' [9]

Death

Dethroned in 1061, went to Rome on his pilgrimage, died in the monastery of Stephen[10]

Death: 1064[11]
Place: Rome, Italy
Burial

Burial: Basilica of St Stephen, Monte Celio
Occupation

Occupation: King of Munster; Hgh King of Ireland
Note

His wives were Cacht ingen Ragnaill and Driella of Wessex.
Sources

? The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing: Irish women's writing and traditions, retrieved 2014-06-22, amb
? The Annals of Tigernach T1026.1, Author: Unknown, retrieved 2014-06-22, amb
? Annals of Inisfallen AI1026.2, Author: unknown, retrieved 2014-06-22, amb
? The Annals of Tigernach T1027.3
? Annals of Inisfallen AI1027.4
? The Annals of Tigernach T1031.8
? Annals of Inisfallen AI1031.6 and AI1031.7
? The Annals of Ulster, 1042
? Annals of Inisfallen, AI1032.6
? Hennessy, p. 287, retrieved 2014-06-23, amb
? The Tripartite Life of Patrick: With Other Documents Relating to that Saint, Volume 89, Issue 2, Volume 89, Issue 2 of Rerum Britannicarum Medii ¥vi Scriptores, Or, Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland During the Middle Ages, Great Britain. Public Record Office. Author: Saint Patrick. Editor: Whitley Stokes. Publisher: H. M. Stationery Office, 1887. Original: from University of Minnesota. Digitized: Nov 15, 2013, retrieved 2014-06-22, amb
The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing: Irish women's writing and traditions. Vols. 4-5, Volume 4 of The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Jonathan Williams, ISBN 0814799086, 9780814799086, Volume 4 of The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing: Irish Women's Writing and Traditions, Angela Bourke, ISBN 0814799086, 9780814799086. Editor: Angela Bourke. Publisher: NYU Press, 2002
A New History of Ireland, Volume II: Medieval Ireland 1169-1534, edited by Art Cosgrove
William Maunsell Hennessy, editor, Chronicum Scotorum, Issue 46 of Rerum britannicarum medii µvi scriptores; or Chronicles and memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the middle ages, Great Britain Public Record Office. Contributor: Duald Mac Firbis. Publisher: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1866. Original: from Cornell University. Digitized: Apr 17, 2013
O'Brien-688 created through the import of O'Bryan Family tree.ged on Sep 6, 2011 by Tim Tropeck. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Tim and others. This person was created through the import of LJ Pellman Consolidated Family_2011-03-21.ged on 21 March 2011. This person was created through the import of Acrossthepond.ged on 21 February 2011.

end of biography

Died:
on a pilgrimage...

Donnchad married Druscilla Godwin. Druscilla was born in 1019 in (Munster) Ireland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

178147.
Druscilla Godwin was born in 1019 in (Munster) Ireland.
Children:

89073. Dearbforgail Ingen O'Brien was born in 1005 in Dublin, Ireland; died in 1060 in Ireland.

1427456.

Brusi Sigurdsson Sigurdsson, Earl of Orkney was born in 0980 in Orkney, Orkney Islands, Scotland; died on 31 Aug 1030 in Clontarf, Dublin North, Ireland.

Notes:

Brusi Sigurdsson (died between 1030 and 1035) was one of Sigurd Hlodvirsson's four sons (together with Thorfinn, Einar and Sumarlidi ). He was joint Earl of Orkney from 1014. His life is recorded in the Orkneyinga Saga.

Earl of Orkney
Title held 1014 to the early 1030s, jointly with his three brothers
Predecessor Sigurd Hlodvirsson
Successor Thorfinn Sigurdsson
Died before 1035[1]
Noble family Norse Earls of Orkney
Spouse Unknown
Issue
Rèognvald
Father Sigurd Hlodvirsson
Mother Unknown

Sources
The sources for Sigurd's life are almost exclusively Norse sagas, none of which were written down at the time of the events they record. The main source is the Orkneyinga Saga, which was first compiled in Iceland in the early 13th century and much of the information it contains is "hard to corroborate".[2]

Family background
The Orkneyinga Saga reports that when their father Earl Sigurd was killed at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, the Norse earldom was divided between his three oldest sons, Brusi, Sumarlidi, and Einar "Wry-Mouth". The youngest son Thorfinn was only five years old and being fostered by his maternal grandfather Malcolm II of Scotland on the Scottish mainland[3] who gave him the earldom of Caithness,[4] which Sigurd had held from the Scottish crown. Brusi is described as "gentle, restrained, unassuming and a fine speaker".[3] Sumarlidi was the oldest of the brothers and had a similar disposition to Brusi. Einar, on the other hand was "ruthless and grasping, a hard and successful fighting man".[3]

Joint rule
With Sumarlidi and Einar
Joint earldoms were a frequent feature of the Norse earldom of Orkney and usually one of the partners was recognised as the senior figure, responsible for military activities. However, such arrangements were often unstable and the Orkneyinga saga is less than explicit about how these shares were divided up geographically. It is possible that Brusi's share, described as the "northernmost part of the isles", was those islands lying north of the Orkney mainland, that Einar's was originally the east Mainland and the south isles and that Sumarlidi's was the west Mainland. However, it is also possible that Brusi's share was Shetland, which formed part of the earldom throughout the Norse period. This possibility is supported by a later reference to his son Rèognvald as "Lord of the Shetlanders" and Thompson (2008) is in "no doubt " that Shetland was in Brusi's possession.[5][Note 1]

Sumarlidi died in his bed not long after his father.[7] Einar took his share, ruling two-thirds of the Earldom with the remaining third held by Brusi. Einar soon became unpopular, demanding heavy taxes and frequent military service from the farmers, and gaining little booty on his raids. He was, the saga says, "a great bully", whereas Brusi was "well liked by everyone".[8]

With Einar and Thorfinn

Looking towards Skaill, Deerness, the site of Thorkel Fosterer's hall, Hlaupandanes, on the east coast of mainland Orkney.[9]
Thorfinn was "greedy and ambitious" like Einar[10] and Brusi had to make peace between the two when Thorfinn grew to manhood, not once but twice. On coming of age Thorfinn asked for Sumarlidi's third from Einar but the latter refused. Both raised an army so Brusi also raised a force to come between them. He forged a peace treaty in which it was agreed that Thorfinn should get his third and that on the death of either of the other two brothers, the surviving one would inherit their share.[10] Thorfinn remained in Caithness and appointed stewards to look after his Orkney possessions.[Note 2] On one occasion he sent Thorkel Fosterer to collect his taxes but Einar drove him out of the islands back to Caithness. Thorfinn advised him to go to the court of King Olaf Haraldsson in Norway and subsequently Thorfinn was invited there too. They returned together in the summer of 1020 and landed in Orkney where they were met by Einar at the head of large armed force. Once again Brusi intervened and it was agreed that Einar and Thorkel would make peace and entertain one another to a feast.[10]

A coin from the reign of Olaf Haraldsson of Norway dated 1023–28.
In October 1020 Einar attended Thorkel's hall at Hlaupandanes in Deerness in a sour mood. On the last day of the feast Thorkel was supposed to travel with Einar for the reciprocal event but the former's spies reported that ambushes were in place en route. Thorkel therefore delayed his departure, leaving Einar to wait for his arrival by the fire in his great hall. Thorkel arrived by stealth, walked into the hall with one of his men and they killed Einar. Thorkel then escaped to Norway.[9][14][16][17]

With Thorfinn
When Brusi inherited Einar's third of the earldom Thorfinn was not pleased with this arrangement, and asked Brusi for a half share.[14] This Brusi refused. However, while Thorfinn could count on the aid of his maternal grandfather, Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda, Brusi could rely only on his own resources.[18]

To find support Brusi went to Norway, to the court of King Olaf, to have the sharing out of the Earldom settled and Thorfinn followed him there. Olaf forced both of them to accept his overlordship and kept Einar's share for himself, (as reparation for Einar's murder of Eyvind Aurochs-horn) appointing Brusi to administer it, and kept Brusi's two-year-old son Rèognvald at his court.[14][19] Brusi later gave control of Einar's third of the islands to Thorfinn in return for his seeing to the defence of Orkney and Shetland.[20][21] The Heimskringla then tells that at this time, when King Olaf was defeated by Cnut the Great and exiled to Russia, that he was joined there by Rèognvald Brusason.[22][23] Rèognvald later fought in the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030 where Olaf was killed.[22]

St Olaf's saga states that Brusi died at some point between the death of Olaf and before the close of Cnut's reign in 1035[24] and the Orkneyinga saga that he had died before his son Rèognvald accompanied Magnus the Good back to Norway.[25]

Succession

An example of a page from the Orkneyinga saga, as it appears in the 14th century Flatey Book.
On Brusi's death Thorfinn ruled the earldom alone until 1036 when, like his father before him, Rèognvald became joint earl. This was not however a peaceful partnership and Rèognvald was killed c. 1046. Orkneyinga saga recorded that "everyone agrees that of all the Earls of Orkney he was the most popular and gifted, and his death was mourned by many"[26] but it was Thorfinn's line that would provide subsequent earls for the next two and a half centuries.[27]

Interpretations
The joint rulership of earls was a recurring theme in the period up to 1214 and was "inherently unstable and usually ended in violence".[28] Thomson (2008) identifies these family feuds as being the main theme of the Orkneyinga saga, culminating in the martyrdom of St Magnus c.1115, and that the writer emphasises the doom of "kin-slaying" at various points in the story.[28] In this case the Sigurdsson brothers do not assassinate one another, but rather Thorkel Fosterer becomes an intermediary, killing both Einar rangmunnr and, at a later date, Rèognvald Brusasson on behalf of Thorfinn Sigurdsson.[14][29] It is also clear that there is a moral element to the tale, with Brusi cast as the peacemaker who is father to the noble Rèognvald and who stands in contrast to his grasping brother and half-brother. Nonetheless Brusi has a relatively minor role to play compared to Thorfinn "the Mighty", whose conquests included expansion well into north mainland Scotland and whose rule may have marked the zenith of Scandinavian influence in Scotland.

Brusi's story also includes another recurring aspect of the saga, relations with Norway. Crawford (1987) observes several sub-themes: "submission and of overlordship; the problem of dual allegiance and the threat of the earls looking to the kings of Scots as an alternative source of support; the Norwegian kings' use of hostages; and their general aim of attempting to turn the Orkney earls into royal officials bound to them by oaths of homage, and returning tribute to them on a regular basis."[30] King Olaf was a "skilled practitioner" of divide and rule and the competing claims of Brusi and Thorfinn enabled him to take full advantage.[30]

Thorfinn's journey in 1020 is the first occasion on which an earl of Orkney is known to have visited the royal court in Norway[31] and the Icelandic Annals have little to say about Orkney. However, under the year 1021 it is said "Earl Thorfinn and earl Brusi, Sigurd's sons, gave the Orkneys into the power of King Olaf."[30] Although the saga writer paints a vivid and plausible picture of the scene, this "merely tell us that the thirteenth-century saga writer knew his Orkney traditions and the recurring factors which did indeed come to the fore on occasions during the thirteenth century when the kings and earls fought or negotiated from their related positions of strength".[30]

Notes

Earl Sigurd also had territories in the Hebrides and possibly Ireland that had been obtained by conquest and it is likely these were subsequently controlled by Einar.[6]
Dating Thorfinn's assumption of the earldom is troublesome. The Heimskringla states that Thorfinn was 5 years old when his father Sigurd was killed at Clontarf, reliably dated to 1014.[11][12] "When Thorfinn came of age he asked Earl Einar for a third of the islands"[13] and it is clear from the text of the Orkneyinga saga that Einar, Brusi and Thorfinn were joint earls for a period. Muir (2005) is clear that Einar died in October 1020[14] but if Thorfinn was five years old in 1014 this would have made him only eleven by then. A rather earlier birth date for Thorfinn is thus implied, with a coming of age c. 1018. Similarly, Thorfinn is often stated as dying c. 1064, although Woolf (2007) states that "there is no reason why a date in the late 1050s is not just as credible."[15]

Citations

Muir (2005) p. 47 "Earl Brusi died in the early 1030s".
Woolf (2007) p. 242
Orkneyinga Saga c. 12-13 p. 38
St Olaf's Saga c. 99.
Thompson (2008) pp. 70-73
Thompson (2008) p. 73
Muir (2005) p. 44
Orkneyinga Saga, c. 13; St Olaf's Saga, c. 97.
Thompson (2008) p. 74
Muir (2005) pp. 44-46
Heimskringla. "Chapter 99 - History Of The Earls Of Orkney".
Woolf (2007) p. 243
Muir (2005) p. 45
Muir (2005) p. 46
Woolf (2007) p. 267
Orkneyinga Saga c. 16
St Olaf's Saga, cc. 98–99.
Orkneyinga Saga, cc. 16–17; St Olaf's Saga, c. 100.
Orkneyinga Saga, cc. 17–19; Saint Olaf's Saga, cc. 100–102.
Orkneyinga Saga, c. 19.
Muir (2005) p. 47
Muir (2005) p. 48
Orkneyinga Saga, c. 19
Thompson (2008) p. 78
Orkneyinga Saga c. 21.
Orkneyinga Saga c. 30
Muir (2005) Preface: Genealogical table of the Earls of Orkney.
Thomson (2008) p. 58
Orkneyinga Saga c. 29.
Crawford (1987) pp. 76-77
Crawford (1987) pp. 78

References

Anderson, Alan Orr, Early Sources of Scottish History A.D 500–1286, volume 1. Reprinted with corrections. Paul Watkins, Stamford, 1990. ISBN 1-871615-03-8
Crawford, Barbara E. (1987) Scandinavian Scotland. Leicester University Press. ISBN 0-7185-1197-2
Muir, Tom (2005) Orkney in the Sagas: The Story of the Earldom of Orkney as told in the Icelandic Sagas. The Orcadian. Kirkwall. ISBN 0954886232.
Orkneyinga Saga: The History of the Earls of Orkney, tr. Hermann Pâalsson and Paul Edwards. Penguin, London, 1978. ISBN 0-14-044383-5
Thomson, William P. L. (2008) The New History of Orkney. Edinburgh. Birlinn. ISBN 978-1-84158-696-0
Sturluson, Snorri, Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway, tr. Lee M. Hollander. Reprinted University of Texas Press, Austin, 1992. ISBN 0-292-73061-6
Woolf, Alex (2007) From Pictland to Alba, 789–1070. Edinburgh. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-1234-5

end of biography

The PEDIGREE of
Brusse (Earl) of CAITHNESS

poss. 16th Jarl of Orkney; aka Brusi SIGURDSSON

Born: ? Died: abt. 1031

HM George I's 19-Great Uncle. Poss. HRE Ferdinand I's 16-Great Grandfather. Poss. HRE Charles VI's 21-Great Grandfather. U.S. President [B, HARRISON]'s 22-Great Uncle. PM Churchill's 26-Great Uncle. Poss. Gen. Pierpont Hamilton's 24-Great Grandfather. Poss. Agnes Harris's 19-Great Grandfather. Poss. `Osawatomie' Brown's 23-Great Grandfather.
Wife/Partner: Ostrida of GOTHLAND
Child: Rognvald BRUSSE (19th Jarl) of ORKNEY
________ ________ _______ _______ _______ _______ _______ _______ _______ _______ _____ _____ _____
/ -- Ivar of the UPLANDS + ====> [ 255 ,,pt,&]
/ -- Eystein Glumra IVARSSON (Earl) of MORE
/ \ -- Gundella(?) of THRONDHEIM + ====> [ 255 ,,p,&]
/ -- Ragnvald (Earl/Jarl) of MORE
/ \ -- Aseda RAGNVALDSDOTTIR + ====> [ 255 ,,pT,&]
/ -- Turf-Einar RAGNVALDSSON (852? - ?)
| \ -- Groa, (prob. concubine)
/ | or: poss. Ragnhild HROLFSDOTTIR, q.v.
/ -- Thorfin (II) EINARSSON (? - 977+)
/ -- Hlodvir `Lodar' THORFINSSON (924? - 988?)
| \ / -- prob. not Constantine I of ALBA + ==&=> [ 255 ,,pD,&]
| | / -- Duncan (Mormaer) of CAITHNESS (871? - ?)
| \ -- Grelod (of CAITHNESS) DUNCANSDOTTIR (898? - ?)
| \ / -- Thorstein `the Red' OLAFSSON of DUBLIN + ====> [ 255 ,,pT,&]
| \ -- Groa THORSTEINSDOTTIR (873? - ?)
/ \ -- Thorida AUSTMANN + ==&=> [ 255 ,,pD,&]
/ -- prob. Sigurd (II) HLODVIRSSON (960? - 1014)
| \ / -- prob. Dunghal (Dungal) MacFEARGAL
| | / -- Kiarval (Kierval Carrol) (King ?) in IRELAND
/ \ -- Audna (KIARVALSDATTER) of IRELAND (928? - ?)
- Brusse (Earl) of CAITHNESS
\ / -- Constantine I of ALBA + ==&=> [ 255 ,,pD,&]
| / -- Donald II Dasachtach (6th King) of SCOTS
| / \ -- poss. Nesta verch RHODRI MAWR + ====> [ 255 ,,pD,&]
| / -- Malcolm I MacALPIN of ALBA (897? - 954)
| / -- Kenneth II MacALPIN of ALBA (932? - 995)
| / -- Malcolm II MacKENNETH of ALBA (954? - 1034)
| | \ -- (NN; Lady) of LEINSTER (Eire)
| / | OR: prob. not Fregida of MUMHAN + ====> [ 233 ,,q,&]
\ -- prob. Anleta (Alice Olith) MacKENNETH of SCOTLAND
\ -- prob. Aefgifu, Irish Woman of OSSORY

His (poss.) Great Grandchildren: Magnus III OLAFSSON (King) of NORWAY ; Roger FitzOSBORNE de PETRES (PITRES; PISTRES) ; (NN) de BRAOSE ; Robert II de/le BRUS (BRUSSE)

[ Start ]
FabPed Genealogy Vers. 86 © Jamie, 1997-2018

end of pedigree

Brusi married Ostrida Regenwaldsdottir. Ostrida was born in 0990 in Gothland, Sweden; died in 1011 in Orkney, Orkney Islands, Scotland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1427457.

Ostrida Regenwaldsdottir was born in 0990 in Gothland, Sweden; died in 1011 in Orkney, Orkney Islands, Scotland.

Children:

713728. Ragnvald Brusesson, Earl of Orkney was born in 1011 in Orkney, Scotland; died in 0Dec 1046 in Orkney, Scotland.

1427458.

Vladimir, Czar of Russia was born in 956 in Kiev, Ukraine (son of Sviatoslav, I, Grand Prince of Kiev and Malusha); died on 15 Jul 1015 in Kiev, Ukraine.

Notes:

Vladimir the Great (also (Saint) Vladimir of Kiev; Old East Slavic: ?????????? ????????????, Volodimer? Svetoslavic?,[3] Old Norse Valdamarr gamli;[4] c. 958 – 15 July 1015, Berestove) was a prince of Novgorod, grand prince of Kiev, and ruler of Kievan Rus' from 980 to 1015.[5][6]

Vladimir's father was prince Sviatoslav of the Rurik dynasty.[7] After the death of his father in 972, Vladimir, who was then prince of Novgorod, was forced to flee to Scandinavia in 976 after his brother Yaropolk had murdered his other brother Oleg and conquered Rus'. In Sweden, with the help from his relative Ladejarl Hêakon Sigurdsson, ruler of Norway, he assembled a Varangian army and reconquered Novgorod from Yaropolk.[8] By 980, Vladimir had consolidated the Kievan realm from modern-day Belarus, Russia and Ukraine to the Baltic Sea and had solidified the frontiers against incursions of Bulgarian, Baltic tribes and Eastern nomads. Originally a follower of Slavic paganism, Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988[9][10][11] and Christianized the Kievan Rus'.[12]

Rise to power

Born in 958, Vladimir was the natural son and youngest son of Sviatoslav I of Kiev by his housekeeper Malusha. Malusha is described in the Norse sagas as a prophetess who lived to the age of 100 and was brought from her cave to the palace to predict the future. Malusha's brother Dobrynya was Vladimir's tutor and most trusted advisor. Hagiographic tradition of dubious authenticity also connects his childhood with the name of his grandmother, Olga of Kiev, who was Christian and governed the capital during Sviatoslav's frequent military campaigns. His place of birth is identified by different authors either as Budyatychi (modern Volyn Oblast, Ukraine)[13][14][15] or Budnik (ru:?????? (???????); modern Pskov Oblast, Russia).[16]

Transferring his capital to Pereyaslavets in 969, Sviatoslav designated Vladimir ruler of Novgorod the Great but gave Kiev to his legitimate son Yaropolk. After Sviatoslav's death at the hands of the Pechenegs in 972, a fratricidal war erupted in 976 between Yaropolk and his younger brother Oleg, ruler of the Drevlians. In 977, Vladimir fled to his kinsman Haakon Sigurdsson, ruler of Norway, collecting as many Norse warriors as he could to assist him to recover Novgorod. On his return the next year, he marched against Yaropolk. On his way to Kiev he sent ambassadors to Rogvolod (Norse: Ragnvald), prince of Polotsk, to sue for the hand of his daughter Rogneda (Norse: Ragnhild). The high-born princess refused to affiance herself to the son of a bondswoman, so Vladimir attacked Polotsk, slew Rogvolod, and took Ragnhild by force. Polotsk was a key fortress on the way to Kiev, and capturing Polotsk and Smolensk facilitated the taking of Kiev in 978, where he slew Yaropolk by treachery and was proclaimed knyaz of all Kievan Rus.[17]

Years of pagan rule

Vladimir continued to expand his territories beyond his father's extensive domain. In 981, he seized the Cherven towns from the Poles; in 981–982, he suppressed a Vyatichi rebellion; in 983, he subdued the Yatvingians; in 984, he conquered the Radimichs; and in 985, he conducted a military campaign against the Volga Bulgars,[18][19] planting numerous fortresses and colonies on his way.

Although Christianity spread in the region under Oleg's rule, Vladimir had remained a thoroughgoing pagan, taking eight hundred concubines (along with numerous wives) and erecting pagan statues and shrines to gods.[20]

He may have attempted to reform Slavic paganism in an attempt to identify himself with the various gods worshipped by his subjects. He built a pagan temple on the a hill in Kiev dedicated to six gods: Perun - the god of thunder and war "a Norse god favored by members of the prince’s druzhina (military retinue)". Slav gods Stribog and Dazhd'bog; Mokosh - a goddess representing Mother Nature "worshipped by Finnish tribes"; Khors and Simargl, "both of which had Iranian origins, were included, probably to appeal to the Poliane."[21]

Open abuse of the deities that most people in Rus' revered triggered widespread indignation. A mob killed the Christian Fyodor and his son Ioann (later, after the overall christening of Kievan Rus', people came to regard these two as the first Christian martyrs in Rus', and the Orthodox Church[citation needed] set a day to commemorate them, 25 July). Immediately after the murder of Fyodor and Ioann, early medieval Rus' saw persecutions against Christians, many of whom escaped or concealed their belief.[22]

However, Prince Vladimir mused over the incident long after, and not least for political considerations. According to the early Slavic chronicle called Tale of Bygone Years, which describes life in Kievan Rus' up to the year 1110, he sent his envoys throughout the civilized world to judge first hand the major religions of the time, Islam, Roman Catholicism, Judaism, and Byzantine Orthodoxy. They were most impressed with their visit to Constantinople, saying, "We knew not whether we were in Heaven or on Earth… We only know that God dwells there among the people, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other nations."[23]

Christianization of the Kievan Rus'
Main article: Christianization of Kievan Rus'

The Baptism of Saint Prince Vladimir, by Viktor Vasnetsov (1890)

The Primary Chronicle reports that in the year 987, after consultation with his boyars, Vladimir the Great sent envoys to study the religions of the various neighboring nations whose representatives had been urging him to embrace their respective faiths. The result is described by the chronicler Nestor. Of the Muslim Bulgarians of the Volga the envoys reported there is no gladness among them, only sorrow and a great stench. He also reported that Islam was undesirable due to its taboo against alcoholic beverages and pork.[24] Vladimir remarked on the occasion: "Drinking is the joy of all Rus'. We cannot exist without that pleasure."[25] Ukrainian and Russian sources also describe Vladimir consulting with Jewish envoys and questioning them about their religion, but ultimately rejecting it as well, saying that their loss of Jerusalem was evidence that they had been abandoned by God.

His emissaries also visited pre-schism Latin Rite Christian and Eastern Rite Christian missionaries.[citation needed] Ultimately Vladimir settled on Eastern Orthodox Christianity. In the churches of the Germans his emissaries saw no beauty; but at Constantinople, where the full festival ritual of the Byzantine Church was set in motion to impress them, they found their ideal: "We no longer knew whether we were in heaven or on earth", they reported, describing a majestic Divine Liturgy in Hagia Sophia, "nor such beauty, and we know not how to tell of it." If Vladimir was impressed by this account of his envoys, he was even more attracted by the political gains of the Byzantine alliance.

Saint Vladimir Monument on Saint Vladimir Hill in Kiev, often depicted in paintings and photographs of the city

In 988, having taken the town of Chersonesos in Crimea, he boldly negotiated for the hand of emperor Basil II's sister, Anna.[26] Never before had a Byzantine imperial princess, and one "born in the purple" at that, married a barbarian, as matrimonial offers of French kings and German emperors had been peremptorily rejected. In short, to marry the 27-year-old princess to a pagan Slav seemed impossible. Vladimir was baptized at Chersonesos, however, taking the Christian name of Basil out of compliment to his imperial brother-in-law; the sacrament was followed by his wedding to Anna. Returning to Kiev in triumph, he destroyed pagan monuments and established many churches, starting with a church dedicated to St. Basil,[27] and the Church of the Tithes (989).

Arab sources, both Muslim and Christian, present a different story of Vladimir's conversion. Yahya of Antioch, al-Rudhrawari, al-Makin, Al-Dimashqi, and ibn al-Athir all give essentially the same account.[28] In 987, Bardas Sclerus and Bardas Phocas revolted against the Byzantine emperor Basil II. Both rebels briefly joined forces, but then Bardas Phocas proclaimed himself emperor on 14 September 987. Basil II turned to the Kievan Rus' for assistance, even though they were considered enemies at that time. Vladimir agreed, in exchange for a marital tie; he also agreed to accept Christianity as his religion and to Christianize his people. When the wedding arrangements were settled, Vladimir dispatched 6,000 troops to the Byzantine Empire, and they helped to put down the revolt.[29]

In 988 and 991, he baptized Pecheneg princes Metiga and Kuchug, respectively.[30]

Christian reign

The Pontic steppes, c. 1015

Vladimir then formed a great council out of his boyars and set his twelve sons over his subject principalities. According to the Primary Chronicle, he founded the city of Belgorod in 991. In 992, he went on a campaign against the Croats, most likely the White Croats that lived on the border of modern Ukraine. This campaign was cut short by the attacks of the Pechenegs on and around Kiev.

In his later years he lived in a relative peace with his other neighbors: Boleslav I of Poland, Stephen I of Hungary, and Andrikh the Czech (questionable character mentioned in A Tale of the Bygone Years). After Anna's death, he married again, likely to a granddaughter of Otto the Great.

In 1014, his son Yaroslav the Wise stopped paying tribute. Vladimir decided to chastise the insolence of his son and began gathering troops against him. Vladimir fell ill, however, most likely of old age, and died at Berestove, near Kiev. The various parts of his dismembered body were distributed among his numerous sacred foundations and were venerated as relics.

During his Christian reign, Vladimir lived the teachings of the Bible through acts of charity. He would hand out food and drink to the less fortunate, and made an effort to go out to the people who could not reach him. His work was based on the impulse to help one’s neighbors by sharing the burden of carrying their cross.[31]

Family

Main article: Family life and children of Vladimir I

Vladimir and Rogneda (1770)

The fate of all Vladimir's daughters, whose number is around nine, is uncertain.

Olava or Allogia (Varangian or Czech), speculative she might have been mother of Vysheslav while others claim that it is a confusion with Helena Lekapena[citation needed]
Vysheslav (~977 – ~1010), Prince of Novgorod (988–1010)
a widow of Yaropolk I, a Greek nun
Sviatopolk the Accursed (~979), possibly the surviving son of Yaropolk
Rogneda (the daughter of Rogvolod), later upon divorce she entered a convent taking the Christian name of Anastasia
Izyaslav of Polotsk (~979, Kiev), Prince of Polotsk (989–1001)
Yaroslav the Wise (no earlier than 983), Prince of Rostov (987–1010), Prince of Novgorod (1010–1034), Grand Prince of Kiev (1016–1018, 1019–1054). Possibly he was a son of Anna rather than Rogneda. Another interesting fact that he was younger than Sviatopolk according to the words of Boris in the Tale of Bygone Years and not as it was officially known. Also the fact of him being the Prince of Rostov is highly doubtful although not discarded.
Vsevolod (~984–1013), possibly the Swedish Prince Wissawald of Volyn (~1000), was perhaps the first husband of Estrid Svendsdatter
Mstislav, other Mstislav that possibly died as an infant if he was ever born
Mstislav of Chernigov (~983), Prince of Tmutarakan (990–1036), Prince of Chernigov (1024–1036), other sources claim him to be son of other mothers (Adela, Malfrida, or some other Bulgarian wife)
Predslava, a concubine of Boleslaw I Chrobry according to Gesta principum Polonorum
Premislava, (?–1015), some source state that she was a wife of the Duke Laszlo (Vladislav) "the Bald" of Arpadians
Mstislava, in 1018 was taken by Boleslaw I Chrobry among the other daughters
Bulgarian Adela, some sources claim that Adela is not necessarily Bulgarian as Boris and Gleb were born from some other wife
Boris (~986), Prince of Rostov (~1010–1015), remarkable is the fact that Rostov Principality as well as the Principality of Murom used to border the territory of Volga Bolgars
Gleb (~987), Prince of Murom (1013–1015), as Boris, Gleb is being also claimed the son of Anna Porphyrogenita
Stanislav (~985–1015), Prince of Smolensk (988–1015), possible of another wife and a fate of whom is not certain
Sudislav (?–1063), Prince of Pskov (1014–1036), possible of another wife, but he is mentioned in Nikon's Chronicles. He spent 35 years in prison and later before dying turned into a monk.
Malfrida
Sviatoslav (~982–1015), Prince of Drevlians (990–1015)
Anna Porphyrogenita
Theofana, a wife of Novgorod posadnik Ostromir, a grandson of semi-legendary Dobrynya (highly doubtful is the fact of her being Anna's offspring)
a granddaughter of Otto the Great (possibly Rechlinda Otona [Regelindis])
Maria Dobroniega of Kiev (~1012), the Duchess of Poland (1040–1087), married around 1040 to Casimir I the Restorer, Duke of Poland, her maternity as daughter of this wife is deduced from her apparent age
other possible family
Vladimirovna, an out-of-marriage daughter (d. 1044), married to Bernard, Margrave of the Nordmark.
Pozvizd (prior to 988–?), a son of Vladimir according to Hustyn Chronicles. He, possibly, was the Prince Khrisokhir mentioned by Niketas Choniates.
Significance and legacy

Vladimir the Great portrait on obverse ?1 bill circa 2006

The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate the feast day of St. Vladimir on 15 July.[32]

The town Volodymyr-Volynskyi in north-western Ukraine was founded by Vladimir and is named after him.[33] The foundation of another town, Vladimir in Russia, is usually attributed to Vladimir Monomakh. However some researchers argue that it was also founded by Vladimir the Great.[34]

St Volodymyr's Cathedral, one of the largest cathedrals in Kiev, is dedicated to Vladimir the Great, as was originally the University of Kiev. The Imperial Russian Order of St. Vladimir and Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in the United States are also named after him.

The memory of Vladimir was also kept alive by innumerable Russian folk ballads and legends, which refer to him as Krasno Solnyshko (the Fair (or Red) Sun). The Varangian period of Eastern Slavic history ceases with Vladimir, and the Christian period begins. The appropriation of Kievan Rus' as part of national history has also been a topic of contention in Ukrainophile vs. Russophile schools of historiography since the Soviet era.[35]

During his leadership, all branches of the economy prospered under him.[36] He was able to mint coins and regulated foreign affairs with other countries such as trade. Through trade he brought in Greek wines, Baghdad spices, and Arab horses to trade at the markets of Kiev.

Vladimir the Great on the Millennium of Russia monument in Novgorod

Monument to Vladimir the Great and the monk Fyodor at Pushkin Park in Vladimir, Russia

Vladimir as a symbol of Ukrainian nationalism: "St Volodymyr – Ruler of Ukraine, 980–1015, erected by Ukrainians in Great Britain in 1988 to celebrate the establishment of Christianity in Ukraine by St. Volodymir in 988"

See also

Saints portal
List of Russian rulers
List of Ukrainian rulers
Family life and children of Vladimir I
List of people known as The Great
Saint Vladimir Monument
Prince Vladimir, Russian animated feature film (2006)
Viking (film)
Vladimir Putin

Notes

Dyba, Yury (2012). Aleksandrovych V.; Voitovych, Leontii; et al., eds. ?????????-?????? ?????? ???????? ??????????? ???????????? ??? ?????????? ????? ?????????? ??????????????: ??????????? ?????????? ???? [Historical-geographic figurative context of the chronicled report about the birth of Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavovich: localisation of a busy village] (PDF). ????? ????: ??????? ? ???????? [Era of the Princes: history and culture] (in Ukrainian). Lviv. 6. ISSN 2221-6294. Retrieved 7 January 2018.
Harvard Ukrainian studies, Vol. 12–13, p. 190, Harvard Ukrainian studies, 1990
Volodimer? is the East Slavic form of the given name; this form was influenced and partially replaced by the Old Bulgarian (Old Church Slavonic) form Vladimer? (by folk etymology later also Vladimir?; in modern East Slavic, the given name is rendered Ukrainian: ????????? Volodymyr, Russian: ?????´??? Vladimir, Belarusian: ?????i?i? Uladzimir. See Vladimir (name) for details.
Fagrskinna ch. 21 (ed. Finnur Jâonsson 1902–8, p. 108).
Companion to the Calendar: A Guide to the Saints and Mysteries of the Christian Calendar, p. 105, Mary Ellen Hynes, Ed. Peter Mazar, LiturgyTrainingPublications, 1993
National geographic, Vol. 167, p. 290, National Geographic Society, 1985
Vladimir I (Grand Prince of Kiev), Encyclopµdia Britannica
Den hellige Vladimir av Kiev (~956–1015), Den katolske kirke website
Vladimir the Great, Encyclopedia of Ukraine
Saint Vladimir the Baptizer: Wetting cultural appetites for the Gospel, Dr. Alexander Roman, Ukrainian Orthodoxy website
Ukrainian Catholic Church: part 1., The Free Library
Vladimir I, Encyclopµdia Britannica
???? ?. ?????????-???????????? ???????? ??????????? ???????????? ??? ?????????? ????? ?????????? ??????????????: ??????????? ?????????? ???? // ????? ????. ??????? ? ????????. ?????: ???????? ??????????????? ??. ?. ????'??????? ??? ???????. — ???. VI. — ?. 37-70

References

Golden, P. B. (2006) "Rus." Encyclopaedia of Islam (Brill Online). Eds.: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Vladimir, St". Encyclopµdia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Some historical analysis and political insights on the state affairs of Vladimir the Great (in Russian)
Moss, Walter G. (2002) "A History of Russia Volume I: To 1917" (London: Anthem Press).
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Vladimir I of Kiev.
Velychenko, Stephen, How Valdamarr Sveinaldsson got to Moscow (krytyka.com), 9 November 2015.

Vladimir I Sviatoslavich
SuffixSuggest a change for this event Czar of Russia
BornSuggest a change for this event 960 , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Gender Male
NameSuggest a change for this event Vladimir I "The Great" Sviatoslavich
ReligionSuggest a change for this event Abt 989 , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Converted to Christianity
DiedSuggest a change for this event 15 Jul 1015 , Berestovo, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
BuriedSuggest a change for this event Church of Tithes, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Headstones Submit Headstone Photo Submit Headstone Photo
Person ID I3910 Full Tree
Last Modified 27 Sep 2013

Father Sviatoslav I Igorovich, Czar of Russia
b. 942, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 972, , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Mother Duchess Malusha von Lèubeck
b. Abt 944, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1002
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 959 , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location [1, 2, 6]
StatusSuggest a change for this event Concubinage
Family ID F1903 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 1 Adlaga de Kiev, Grand Duchess of Kiev
b. Abt 959, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 976 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
1. Vysheslav Vladimirovich, Duke of Novgorod
b. Abt 977, of, Novgorod, Novgorod Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1010
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1818 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 2 Olava de Kiev, Grand Duchess of Kiev
b. Abt 953, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 977 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1819 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 3 Predislava de Kiev, Grand Duchess of Kiev
b. Abt 960, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
MarriedSuggest a change for this event 980 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1820 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 4 Milolika Asen, Princess of Bulgaria
b. Abt 963, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Bef 982 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
1. Boris David Vladimirovich, Duke of Rostov
b. Abt 982, of, Rostov-Yaroslavski, Yaroslavski Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 24 Jul 1015
2. Gleb Roman Vladimirovich, Duke of Murom
b. Abt 983, of, Murom, Vladimir Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Abt 5 Aug 1015
3. Stanslav Vladimirovich, Duke of Smolensk
b. Abt 984, of, Smolensk, Smolensk Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 1015
4. Pozvizd Vladimirovich, Duke of Vladimir-Volnysk
b. Abt 985, of, Vladimir-Volynski, Volyn Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 1015
5. Sudislav Vladimirovich, Duke of Pskov
b. Abt 986, of, Pskov, Pskov Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1063-1065
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1821 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 5 Malfriede Premysl, Princess of Bohemia
b. Abt 960, of, Prague, Praha, Czechoslovakia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 987 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
1. Svyatoslav Vladimirovich, Duke of Drevlians
b. Abt 988, of, Ovruch, Zhitomir Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 15 Jul 1015
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1823 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 6 Miss Oehringen
b. Abt 991, of Oehringen, Jagstkreis, Baden-Wèurttemberg, Schwaben, Germany Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 14 Aug 1018
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 1013 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1824 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 7 Princess Rogneda zu Polotsk
b. Abt 962, of, Polotsk, Polotsk Oblast, Byelorussia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1002
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 977 of, Polotsk, Polotsk Oblast, Byelorussia Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
+ 1. Iszyaslav Vladimirovich, Duke of Polotsk
b. Abt 978, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1001
2. Vsevolod Vladimirovich, Prince of Vladimir
b. Abt 979, of, Vladimir-Volynski, Volyn Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1015
+ 3. Yaroslav I Vladimirovich, Czar of Russia
b. 980, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 20 Feb 1054, , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
4. Prâemieslawa Vladimirovna, Princess of Kiev
b. Abt 984, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 1018
5. Mstislav Vladimirovich, Duke of Chernigov
b. Abt 988, of, Chernigov, Chernigov Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1035-1036, , Chernigov, Chernigov Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1828 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 8 Anna Lekapene, Princess of the Byzantine Empire
b. 13 Mar 963, of, Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantium Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1011
MarriedSuggest a change for this event 989 , Kherson, Kherson Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
MARRIAGE: Married 7 Pagan wives (Rogneide was one) by whom he had 22 children (prior to Anna) [7]
Children
+ 1. Arlogia Vladimirovna, Countess of Orkney
b. Abt 1011, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
+ 2. Dobronegra Mariya Vladimirovna, Princess of Kiev
b. Abt 1012, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1087
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1933

Volodymyr the Great (Valdamar, Volodimer, Vladimir), b ca 956, d 15 July 1015 in Vyshhorod, near Kyiv. Grand prince of Kyiv from 980; son of Sviatoslav I Ihorovych and Malusha; half-brother of Yaropolk I Sviatoslavych and Oleh Sviatoslavych; and father of 11 princes by five wives, including Sviatopolk I, Yaroslav the Wise, Mstyslav Volodymyrovych, and Saints Borys and Hlib. In 969 Grand Prince Sviatoslav I named his son Volodymyr the prince of Novgorod the Great, where the latter ruled under the guidance of his uncle, Dobrynia. In 977 a struggle for power broke out among Sviatoslav's sons. Yaropolk I, who was then the grand prince of Kyiv, seized the Derevlianian land and Novgorod, thereby forcing Volodymyr to flee to Scandinavia. In 980 Volodymyr returned to Rus’ with a Varangian force, expelled Yaropolk's governors from Novgorod, and took Polatsk after a battle in which Prince Rogvolod of Polatsk was slain. Volodymyr took Rogvolod's daughter, Rohnida, as his wife. Later that year he captured Kyiv and had Yaropolk murdered, thereby becoming the grand prince , and married Yaropolk's Greek widow.

Over the next 35 years Volodymyr expanded the borders of Kyivan Rus’ and turned it into one of the most powerful states in Eastern Europe. After taking the Cherven towns and Peremyshl from Poland (981) and waging successful wars against the Viatichians (981–2) and Radimichians (984) he united the remaining East Slavic tribes, divided his realm into lands, and installed his sons or viceroys to govern them, dispense princely justice, and collect tribute. In 983 Volodymyr waged war against the Yatvingians and thereby gained access to the Baltic Sea. In 985 he defeated the Khazars and Volga Bulgars and secured his state's eastern frontier. Volodymyr devoted considerable attention to defending his southern borders against the nomadic Pechenegs and Chorni Klobuky. He had lines of fortifications built along the Irpin River, the Stuhna River, the Trubizh River, and the Sula River and founded fortified towns (eg, Vasylkiv, Voin, and Bilhorod) that were joined by earthen ramparts.

Volodymyr attributed his victory over Yaropolk I Sviatoslavych to the support he received from pagan forces, and had idols of the deities Perun, Khors, Dazhboh, Stryboh, Symarhl, and Mokosh erected on a hill overlooking his palace in Kyiv. Later he became convinced that a monotheistic religion would consolidate his power, as Christianity and Islam had done for neighboring rulers. His choice was determined after the Byzantine emperor Basil II turned to him for help in defeating his rival, Bardas Phocas. Volodymyr offered military aid only if he was allowed to marry Basil's sister, Anna, and Basil agreed to the marriage only after Volodymyr promised to convert himself and his subjects to Christianity. Volodymyr, his family, and his closest associates were baptized in December 987, when he took the Christian name Vasylii (Basil). Soon afterward he ordered the destruction of all pagan idols. The mass baptism of the citizens of Kyiv took place on 1 August 988 (see Christianization of Ukraine), and the remaining population of Rus’ was slowly converted, sometimes by force. In 988 Volodymyr sent several thousand warriors to help Basil regain power and married Anna, and in 989 he besieged Chersonese Taurica, took it from Bardas Phocas, and returned it to Basil.

The Christianization of Rus’ was essentially engineered by Byzantium. Byzantium supplied the first hierarchs and other missionary clergy in Rus’ and introduced Byzantine art, education, and literature there. During Volodymyr's reign the first schools and churches were built, notably the Church of the Tithes in Kyiv. The adoption of Christianity as the official religion facilitated the unification of the Rus’ tribes and the establishment of foreign dynastic, political, cultural, religious, and commercial relations, particularly with the Byzantine Empire, Bulgaria, and Germany. Relations with Poland improved after Volodymyr's son Sviatopolk I married the daughter of Prince Boleslaw I the Brave in 992. Volodymyr received papal emissaries in 986, 988, 991, 992, and 1000 and sent his own envoys to Rome in 993 and 1001.

After Anna's death in 1011, Volodymyr married the daughter of Count Kuno von Enningen. Toward the end of his life his sons Sviatopolk of Turiv and Yaroslav the Wise of Novgorod challenged his rule. Having defeated Sviatopolk, Volodymyr died while preparing a campaign against Yaroslav and was buried in the Church of the Tithes. He was succeeded briefly by Sviatopolk.

The Rus’ clergy venerated Volodymyr because of his support of the church, but he was canonized only after 1240. Thereafter he was referred to as ‘the holy, equal to the Apostles, grand prince of Kyiv.’ The oldest extant mention of him as Saint Volodymyr is found in the Hypatian Chronicle under the year 1254, and his feast day, 28 July (15 July OS), was first celebrated in 1263.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Zavitnevich, V. Vladimir Sviatoi kak politicheskii deiatel’ (Kyiv 1888)
Nazarko, I. Sviatyi Volodymyr Velykyi, Volodar i Khrystytel’ Rusy-Ukraèiny (960–1015) (Rome 1954)
Poppe, A. ‘The Political Background to the Baptism of Rus’: Byzantine-Russian Relations between 986 and 989,’ Dumbarton Oaks Papers, no. 30 (1976); repr in his Rise of Christian Russia (London 1982)
Volkoff, V. Vladimir the Russian Viking ([London] 1984)
Tolochko, Petro. Sviatyi Volodymyr; Iaroslav Mudryi (Kyiv 1996)

Birth:
What is the meaning of the word, "Ukraine"?

In most Slavic languages, "kraina" means "country" or "land". The word "krai" in Russian is used this way too (several regions within Russia are categorized as "krai"), but its second meaning "edge"/"boundary" is often pitched by Russia to interpret the word "Ukraine" as "borderlands" (of Russia, of course).

Source: https://www.quora.com/What-does-Ukraine-for-Ukrainians-mean

What is the meaning of the word, "Russia"?

1530s, from Medieval Latin Russi "the people of Russia," from Rus, the native name of the people and the country (source of Arabic Rus, Medieval Greek Rhos), originally the name of a group of Swedish merchant/warriors who established themselves around Kiev 9c.

Source: https://www.etymonline.com/word/russia

Religion:
converted to Christianity

Vladimir married Anna Porphyrogenita, Princess of Byzantium in 0989 in Kherson, Ukraine. Anna was born on 13 Mar 0963 in Constantinople, Turkey. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1427459.

Anna Porphyrogenita, Princess of Byzantium was born on 13 Mar 0963 in Constantinople, Turkey.

Notes:

Anna Porphyrogenita (Greek: ???a ???f????????t?, Russian: ???? ????????????, Ukrainian: ???? ?????????????; 13 March 963 – 1011) was a Grand Princess consort of Kiev; she was married to Grand Prince Vladimir the Great.[1]

Anna was the daughter of Byzantine Emperor Romanos II and the Empress Theophano. She was also the sister of Emperors Basil II Bulgaroktonos (The Bulgar-Slayer) and Constantine VIII. Anna was a Porphyrogenita, a legitimate daughter born in the special purple chamber of the Byzantine Emperor's Palace. Anna's hand was considered such a prize that some theorize that Vladimir became Christian just to marry her.[2]

Anna did not wish to marry Vladimir and expressed deep distress on her way to her wedding. Grand Prince Vladimir was impressed by Byzantine religious practices; this factor, along with his marriage to Anna, led to his decision to convert to Eastern Christianity. Due to these two factors, Grand Prince Vladimir also began Christianizing his kingdom. By marriage to Grand Prince Vladimir, Anna became Grand Princess of Kiev, but in practice, she was referred to as Queen or Czarina, probably as a sign of her membership of the Imperial Byzantine House. Anna participated actively in the Christianization of Rus: she acted as the religious adviser of Vladimir and founded a few convents and churches herself. It is not known whether she was the biological mother of any of Vladimir's children, although some scholars have pointed to evidence that she and Vladimir may have had as many as three children together.[3]

Grand Princess of Kievan Rus
Reign 989–1011
Born March 13, 963
Constantinople, purple chamber of the Byzantine Emperor's Palace.
Died 1011
Spouse Vladimir the Great of Kiev
House Macedonian dynasty
Father Byzantine Emperor Romanos II
Mother Theophano

end of biography

Birth:
in the purple chamber of the Byzantine Emperor's Palace.

Died:
~1101

Notes:

Married:
Anna (March 13, 963 - 1011/12) was the daughter of Byzantine Emperor Romanos II and the Empress Theophano. She was also the sister of Emperors Basil II Bulgaroktonos (The Bulgar-Slayer) and Constantine VIII.

Anna was a Porphyrogenita, a legitimate daughter born in the special purple chamber of the Byzantine Emperor's Palace.

Anna's hand was considered such a prize that Vladimir became Christian just to marry her.

Children:

713729. Arlogia of Orkney, Countess of Orkney was born in 1015 in Kiev, Ukraine; died on 10 Dec 1046 in Orkney Islands, Orkney, Scotland.

354354.

Notes:

Malcolm (Gaelic: Mâael Coluim; c. 954 - 25 November 1034)[1] was King of the Scots from 1005 until his death.[2] He was a son of King Kenneth II; the Prophecy of Berchâan says that his mother was a woman of Leinster and refers to him as Forranach, "the Destroyer".[3]

To the Irish annals which recorded his death, Malcolm was ard râi Alban, High King of Scotland. In the same way that Brian Bâoruma, High King of Ireland, was not the only king in Ireland, Malcolm was one of several kings within the geographical boundaries of modern Scotland: his fellow kings included the king of Strathclyde, who ruled much of the south-west, various Norse-Gael kings on the western coast and the Hebrides and, nearest and most dangerous rivals, the kings or Mormaers of Moray. To the south, in the Kingdom of England, the Earls of Bernicia and Northumbria, whose predecessors as kings of Northumbria had once ruled most of southern Scotland, still controlled large parts of the southeast.[4]

Early years

Malcolm II was born to Kenneth II of Scotland. He was grandson of Malcolm I of Scotland. In 997, the killer of Constantine is credited as being Kenneth, son of Malcolm. Since there is no known and relevant Kenneth alive at that time (King Kenneth having died in 995), it is considered an error for either Kenneth III, who succeeded Constantine, or, possibly, Malcolm himself, the son of Kenneth II.[5] Whether Malcolm killed Constantine or not, there is no doubt that in 1005 he killed Constantine's successor Kenneth III in battle at Monzievaird in Strathearn.[6]

John of Fordun writes that Malcolm defeated a Norwegian army "in almost the first days after his coronation", but this is not reported elsewhere. Fordun says that the Bishopric of Mortlach (later moved to Aberdeen) was founded in thanks for this victory over the Norwegians.[7]
Children

Malcolm demonstrated a rare ability to survive among early Scottish kings by reigning for twenty-nine years. He was a clever and ambitious man. Brehon tradition provided that the successor to Malcolm was to be selected by him from among the descendants of King Aedh, with the consent of Malcolm's ministers and of the church. Ostensibly in an attempt to end the devastating feuds in the north of Scotland, but obviously influenced by the Norman feudal model, Malcolm ignored tradition and determined to retain the succession within his own line. But since Malcolm had no son of his own, he undertook to negotiate a series of dynastic marriages of his three daughters to men who might otherwise be his rivals, while securing the loyalty of the principal chiefs, their relatives. First he married his daughter Bethoc to Crinan, Thane of The Isles, head of the house of Atholl and secular Abbot of Dunkeld; then his youngest daughter, Olith, to Sigurd, Earl of Orkney. His middle daughter, Donada, was married to Finlay, Earl of Moray, Thane of Ross and Cromarty and a descendant of Loarn of Dalriada. This was risky business under the rules of succession of the Gael, but he thereby secured his rear and, taking advantage of the renewal of Viking attacks on England, marched south to fight the English. He defeated the Angles at Carham in 1018 and installed his grandson, Duncan, son of the Abbot of Dunkeld and his choice as Tanist, in Carlisle as King of Cumbria that same year.[8]
Bernicia

The first reliable report of Malcolm II's reign is of an invasion of Bernicia in 1006, perhaps the customary crech râig (literally royal prey, a raid by a new king made to demonstrate prowess in war), which involved a siege of Durham. This appears to have resulted in a heavy defeat by the Northumbrians, led by Uhtred of Bamburgh, later Earl of Bernicia, which is reported by the Annals of Ulster.[9]

A second war in Bernicia, probably in 1018, was more successful. The Battle of Carham, by the River Tweed, was a victory for the Scots led by Malcolm II and the men of Strathclyde led by their king, Owen the Bald. By this time Earl Uchtred may have been dead, and Eirâikr Hâakonarson was appointed Earl of Northumbria by his brother-in-law Cnut the Great, although his authority seems to have been limited to the south, the former kingdom of Deira, and he took no action against the Scots so far as is known.[10] The work De obsessione Dunelmi (The siege of Durham, associated with Symeon of Durham) claims that Uchtred's brother Eadwulf Cudel surrendered Lothian to Malcolm II, presumably in the aftermath of the defeat at Carham. This is likely to have been the lands between Dunbar and the Tweed as other parts of Lothian had been under Scots control before this time. It has been suggested that Cnut received tribute from the Scots for Lothian, but as he had likely received none from the Bernician Earls this is not very probable.[11]
Cnut

Cnut, reports the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, led an army into Scotland on his return from pilgrimage to Rome. The Chronicle dates this to 1031, but there are reasons to suppose that it should be dated to 1027.[12] Burgundian chronicler Rodulfus Glaber recounts the expedition soon afterwards, describing Malcolm as "powerful in resources and arms … very Christian in faith and deed."[13] Ralph claims that peace was made between Malcolm and Cnut through the intervention of Richard, Duke of Normandy, brother of Cnut's wife Emma. Richard died in about 1027 and Rodulfus wrote close in time to the events.[14]

It has been suggested that the root of the quarrel between Cnut and Malcolm lies in Cnut's pilgrimage to Rome, and the coronation of Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II, where Cnut and Rudolph III, King of Burgundy had the place of honour. If Malcolm were present, and the repeated mentions of his piety in the annals make it quite possible that he made a pilgrimage to Rome, as did Mac Bethad mac Findlâaich ("Macbeth") in later times, then the coronation would have allowed Malcolm to publicly snub Cnut's claims to overlordship.[15]

Cnut obtained rather less than previous English kings, a promise of peace and friendship rather than the promise of aid on land and sea that Edgar and others had obtained. The sources say that Malcolm was accompanied by one or two other kings, certainly Mac Bethad, and perhaps Echmarcach mac Ragnaill, King of Mann and the Isles, and of Galloway.[16] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle remarks of the submission "but he [Malcolm] adhered to that for only a little while".[17] Cnut was soon occupied in Norway against Olaf Haraldsson and appears to have had no further involvement with Scotland.
Orkney and Moray

Olith a daughter of Malcolm, married Sigurd Hlodvisson, Earl of Orkney.[18] Their son Thorfinn Sigurdsson was said to be five years old when Sigurd was killed on 23 April 1014 in the Battle of Clontarf. The Orkneyinga Saga says that Thorfinn was raised at Malcolm's court and was given the Mormaerdom of Caithness by his grandfather. Thorfinn says in the Heimskringla that he was the ally of the king of Scots, and counted on Malcolm's support to resist the "tyranny" of Norwegian King Olaf Haraldsson.[19] (Thorfinn's older step brother had died while a hostage to King Olaf.) The chronology of Thorfinn's life is problematic, and he may have had a share in the Earldom of Orkney while still a child, if he was indeed only five in 1014.[20] Whatever the exact chronology, before Malcolm's death a client of the king of Scots was in control of Caithness and Orkney, although, as with all such relationships, it is unlikely to have lasted beyond his death.

If Malcolm exercised control over Moray, which is far from being generally accepted, then the annals record a number of events pointing to a struggle for power in the north. In 1020, Mac Bethad's father Findlâaech mac Ruaidrâi was killed by the sons of his brother Mâael Brigte.[21] It seems that Mâael Coluim mac Mâail Brigti took control of Moray, for his death is reported in 1029.[22]

Despite the accounts of the Irish annals, English and Scandinavian writers appear to see Mac Bethad as the rightful king of Moray: this is clear from their descriptions of the meeting with Cnut in 1027, before the death of Malcolm mac Mâail Brigti. Malcolm was followed as king or earl by his brother Gillecomgan, husband of Gruoch, a granddaughter of King Kenneth III. It has been supposed that Mac Bethad was responsible for the killing of Gille Coemgâain in 1032, but if Mac Bethad had a cause for feud in the killing of his father in 1020, Malcolm too had reason to see Gille Coemgâain dead. Not only had Gillecomgan's ancestors killed many of Malcolm's kin, but Gillecomgan and his son Lulach might be rivals for the throne. Malcolm had no living sons, and the threat to his plans for the succession was obvious. As a result, the following year Gruoch's brother or nephew, who might have eventually become king, was killed by Malcolm.[23]
Strathclyde and the succession

It has traditionally been supposed that King Owen the Bald of Strathclyde died at the Battle of Carham and that the kingdom passed into the hands of the Scots afterwards. This rests on some very weak evidence. It is far from certain that Owen died at Carham, and it is reasonably certain that there were kings of Strathclyde as late as 1054, when Edward the Confessor sent Earl Siward to install "Malcolm son of the king of the Cumbrians". The confusion is old, probably inspired by William of Malmesbury and embellished by John of Fordun, but there is no firm evidence that the kingdom of Strathclyde was a part of the kingdom of the Scots, rather than a loosely subjected kingdom, before the time of Malcolm II of Scotland's great-grandson Malcolm Canmore.[24]

By the 1030s Malcolm's sons, if he had any, were dead. The only evidence that he did have a son or sons is in Rodulfus Glaber's chronicle where Cnut is said to have stood as godfather to a son of Malcolm.[25] His grandson Thorfinn would have been unlikely to be accepted as king by the Scots, and he chose the sons of his other daughter, Bethâoc, who was married to Crâinâan, lay abbot of Dunkeld, and perhaps Mormaer of Atholl. It may be no more than coincidence, but in 1027 the Irish annals had reported the burning of Dunkeld, although no mention is made of the circumstances.[26] Malcolm's chosen heir, and the first tâanaise râig certainly known in Scotland, was Duncan.

It is possible that a third daughter of Malcolm married Findlâaech mac Ruaidrâi and that Mac Bethad was thus his grandson, but this rests on relatively weak evidence.[27]
Death and posterity
19th-century engraving of "King Malcolm's grave stone" (Glamis no. 2) at Glamis

Malcolm died in 1034, Marianus Scotus giving the date as 25 November 1034. The king lists say that he died at Glamis, variously describing him as a "most glorious" or "most victorious" king. The Annals of Tigernach report that "Malcolm mac Cinâaeda, king of Scotland, the honour of all the west of Europe, died." The Prophecy of Berchâan, perhaps the inspiration for John of Fordun and Andrew of Wyntoun's accounts where Malcolm is killed fighting bandits, says that he died by violence, fighting "the parricides", suggested to be the sons of Mâael Brigte of Moray.[28]

Perhaps the most notable feature of Malcolm's death is the account of Marianus, matched by the silence of the Irish annals, which tells us that Duncan I became king and ruled for five years and nine months. Given that his death in 1040 is described as being "at an immature age" in the Annals of Tigernach, he must have been a young man in 1034. The absence of any opposition suggests that Malcolm had dealt thoroughly with any likely opposition in his own lifetime.[29]

Tradition, dating from Fordun's time if not earlier, knew the Pictish stone now called "Glamis 2" as "King Malcolm's grave stone". The stone is a Class II stone, apparently formed by re-using a Bronze Age standing stone. Its dating is uncertain, with dates from the 8th century onwards having been proposed. While an earlier date is favoured, an association with accounts of Malcolm's has been proposed on the basis of the iconography of the carvings.[30]

On the question of Malcolm's putative pilgrimage, pilgrimages to Rome, or other long-distance journeys, were far from unusual. Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Cnut and Mac Bethad have already been mentioned. Rognvald Kali Kolsson is known to have gone crusading in the Mediterranean in the 12th century. Nearer in time, Dyfnwal of Strathclyde died on pilgrimage to Rome in 975 as did Mâael Ruanaid uâa Mâaele Doraid, King of the Cenâel Conaill, in 1025.

Not a great deal is known of Malcolm's activities beyond the wars and killings. The Book of Deer records that Malcolm "gave a king's dues in Biffie and in Pett Meic-Gobraig, and two davochs" to the monastery of Old Deer.[31] He was also probably not the founder of the Bishopric of Mortlach-Aberdeen. John of Fordun has a peculiar tale to tell, related to the supposed "Laws of Malcolm MacKenneth", saying that Malcolm gave away all of Scotland, except for the Moot Hill at Scone, which is unlikely to have any basis in fact.[32]

end of biography

Malcolm II (a.k.a. Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda) lived from 954 to 25 November 1034 and was King of Alba from 25 March 1005 to 25 November 1034. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline.

Until Malcolm's rule, the Crown of Alba had passed backwards and forwards between different strands of the House of Alpin under the law of tanistry, under which the extended family elected the successor from candidates across the family.

Malcolm changed this by the simple expedient of wiping out all competition to his own line anywhere in the family (or so he thought at the time). He succeeded to the throne by killing his predecessor Kenneth III (and Kenneth's son Giric) at the Battle of Monzievaird on 25 March 1005. This took place just north of Crieff, close to the location of today's Glenturret Distillery. He later had Kenneth's grandson killed.

Malcolm's reasons for killing the competiton was straightforward. He himself had three daughters, and while they had all married well, his grandsons could not compete the more direct claims to the Crown of Alba of those he eliminated.

Malcolm II's rule started badly, with a loss in battle against the English near Durham in 1006. He put this right with an alliance with Strathclyde and a victory over the English at the Battle of Carham, on the River Tweed, in 1018. This greatly strengthened his grip on Lothian: in effect the east side of Scotland from the Forth to the Tweed. Scottish soverignty over Lothian seems to have been subsequently acknowledged by King Canute during a visit to Scotland in 1031.

In the north, Malcolm II formed an alliance with the Vikings which included the marriage of one of his daughters to the Norse Earl Sigurd of Orkney. The situation in Strathclyde was more troublesome. Malcolm's ally, King Owen, died without an heir, and Malcolm tried to place his grandson Duncan (later Duncan I of Alba) on the throne of Strathclyde. This displeased the Britons and led to Malcolm's assassination at Glamis on 25 November 1034. He was buried in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel on the Isle of Iona.

Malcolm's three daughters had between them produced three notable sons. One married Earl Sigurd of Orkney, and their son Earl Thorfinn went on to bring much of Caithness and Sutherland into Scotland. One married Crâinâan, the Abbot of Dunkeld, and their son Duncan went on to succeed Malcom II as Duncan I. And the third married Findláaech, the sub-king of Moray, and their son Macbeth went on to kill Duncan (with Thorfinn's help) and become King Macbeth.

end of biography

Buried:
in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel...

View images and more history of St Oran's; https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/iona/storanschapel/index.html

Malcolm married Aefgifu. Aefgifu was born in Ossory, Ireland; died in (Scotland). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

354355.

Aefgifu was born in Ossory, Ireland; died in (Scotland).

Children:

177177. Bethoc was born in 984 in Perthshire, Scotland; died on 15 Sep 1049 in Dunkeld, Perthshire, Scotland.
Donalda was born in Scotland.
a daughter of Malcolm, II was born in (Scotland).

355208.

Notes:

¥thelred II (Old English: ¥¤elrµd, pronounced [µºelrµ?d];[1] c. 966 – 23 April 1016), known as the Unready, was King of the English from 978 to 1013 and again from 1014 until his death. His epithet does not derive from the modern word "unready", but rather from the Old English unrµd (meaning "poorly advised"); it is a pun on his name, which means "well advised".

¥thelred was the son of King Edgar and Queen ¥lfthryth. He came to the throne at about the age of 12, following the assassination of his older half-brother, Edward the Martyr. His brother's murder was carried out by supporters of his own claim to the throne, although he was too young to have any personal involvement. The chief problem of ¥thelred's reign was conflict with the Danes. After several decades of relative peace, Danish raids on English territory began again in earnest in the 980s. Following the Battle of Maldon in 991, ¥thelred paid tribute, or Danegeld, to the Danish king. In 1002, ¥thelred ordered what became known as the St. Brice's Day massacre of Danish settlers. In 1013, King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark invaded England, as a result of which ¥thelred fled to Normandy in 1013 and was replaced by Sweyn. However, he returned as king for two years after Sweyn's death in 1014. ¥thelred's 37-year reign was the longest of any Anglo-Saxon king of England, and was only surpassed in the 13th century, by Henry III. ¥thelred was briefly succeeded by his son, Edmund Ironside, but he died after a few months and was replaced by Sweyn's son, Cnut. Another of his sons, Edward the Confessor, became king in 1042.

King of the English
Reign 18 March 978 – 1013 (first time)
Predecessor Edward the Martyr
Successor Sweyn Forkbeard
Reign 1014 – 23 April 1016
(second time)
Predecessor Sweyn Forkbeard
Successor Edmund Ironside
Born c. 966
Died 23 April 1016 (aged about 50)
London, England
Burial Old St Paul's Cathedral, London, now lost
Spouse ¥lfgifu of York
Emma of Normandy
Issue
Detail
See list[show]
House Wessex
Father Edgar, King of England
Mother ¥lfthryth
Religion Christianity

Name

¥thelred's first name, composed of the elements µºele, "noble", and rµd, "counsel, advice",[2] is typical of the compound names of those who belonged to the royal House of Wessex, and it characteristically alliterates with the names of his ancestors, like ¥thelwulf ("noble-wolf"), ¥lfred ("elf-counsel"), Eadweard ("rich-protection"), and Eadgar ("rich-spear").[3]

The story of ¥thelred's notorious nickname, Old English Unrµd, goes a long way toward explaining how his reputation has declined through history[dubious – discuss] It is usually translated into present-day English as "The Unready" (less often, though less confusingly, as "The Redeless").[4] The Anglo-Saxon noun unrµd means "evil counsel", "bad plan", or "folly".[2] It most often describes decisions and deeds, and once refers to the nature of Satan's deceit. The element rµd in unrµd is the element in ¥thelred's name which means "counsel". Thus ¥¤elrµd Unrµd is a pun meaning "Noble counsel, No counsel". The nickname has alternatively been taken adjectivally as "ill-advised", "ill-prepared", "indecisive", thus "¥thelred the ill-advised".

Because the nickname was first recorded in the 1180s, more than 150 years after ¥thelred's death, it is doubtful that it carries any implications for how the king was seen by his contemporaries or near contemporaries.[5]

Early life

Gold mancus of ¥thelred wearing armour, 1003–1006.
Sir Frank Stenton remarked that "much that has brought condemnation of historians on King ¥thelred may well be due in the last resort to the circumstances under which he became king."[6] ¥thelred's father, King Edgar, had died suddenly in July 975, leaving two young sons behind. The elder, Edward (later Edward the Martyr), was probably illegitimate,[7] and was "still a youth on the verge of manhood" in 975.[8] The younger son was ¥thelred, whose mother, ¥lfthryth, Edgar had married in 964. ¥lfthryth was the daughter of Ordgar, ealdorman of Devon, and widow of ¥thelwold, Ealdorman of East Anglia. At the time of his father's death, ¥thelred could have been no more than 10 years old. As the elder of Edgar's sons, Edward – reportedly a young man given to frequent violent outbursts – probably would have naturally succeeded to the throne of England despite his young age, had not he "offended many important persons by his intolerable violence of speech and behaviour."[8] In any case, a number of English nobles took to opposing Edward's succession and to defending ¥thelred's claim to the throne; ¥thelred was, after all, the son of Edgar's last, living wife, and no rumour of illegitimacy is known to have plagued ¥thelred's birth, as it might have his elder brother's.[9] Both boys, ¥thelred certainly, were too young to have played any significant part in the political manoeuvring which followed Edgar's death. It was the brothers' supporters, and not the brothers themselves, who were responsible for the turmoil which accompanied the choice of a successor to the throne. ¥thelred's cause was led by his mother and included ¥lfhere, Ealdorman of Mercia and Bishop ¥thelwold of Winchester,[10] while Edward's claim was supported by Dunstan, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Oswald, the Archbishop of York[11] among other noblemen, notably ¥thelwine, Ealdorman of East Anglia, and Byrhtnoth, ealdorman of Essex. In the end, Edward's supporters proved the more powerful and persuasive, and he was crowned king at Kingston upon Thames before the year was out.

Edward reigned for only three years before he was murdered by members of his brother's household.[12] Though little is known about Edward's short reign, it is known that it was marked by political turmoil. Edgar had made extensive grants of land to monasteries which pursued the new monastic ideals of ecclesiastical reform, but these disrupted aristocratic families' traditional patronage. The end of his firm rule saw a reversal of this policy, with aristocrats recovering their lost properties or seizing new ones. This was opposed by Dunstan, but according to Cyril Hart, "The presence of supporters of church reform on both sides indicates that the conflict between them depended as much on issues of land ownership and local power as on ecclesiastical legitimacy. Adherents of both Edward and ¥thelred can be seen appropriating, or recovering, monastic lands."[7] Nevertheless, favour for Edward must have been strong among the monastic communities. When Edward was killed at ¥thelred's estate at Corfe Castle in Dorset in March 978, the job of recording the event, as well as reactions to it, fell to monastic writers. Stenton offers a summary of the earliest account of Edward's murder, which comes from a work praising the life of St Oswald: "On the surface his [Edward's] relations with ¥thelred his half-brother and ¥lfthryth his stepmother were friendly, and he was visiting them informally when he was killed. [¥thelred's] retainers came out to meet him with ostentatious signs of respect, and then, before he had dismounted, surrounded him, seized his hands, and stabbed him. ... So far as can be seen the murder was planned and carried out by ¥thelred's household men in order that their young master might become king. There is nothing to support the allegation, which first appears in writing more than a century later, that Queen ¥lfthryth had plotted her stepson's death. No one was punished for a part in the crime, and ¥thelred, who was crowned a month after the murder, began to reign in an atmosphere of suspicion which destroyed the prestige of the crown. It was never fully restored in his lifetime."[13] Nevertheless, at first, the outlook of the new king's officers and counsellors seems in no way to have been bleak. According to one chronicler, the coronation of ¥thelred took place with much rejoicing by the councillors of the English people.[14] Simon Keynes notes that "Byrhtferth of Ramsey states similarly that when ¥thelred was consecrated king, by Archbishop Dunstan and Archbishop Oswald, 'there was great joy at his consecration’, and describes the king in this connection as 'a young man in respect of years, elegant in his manners, with an attractive face and handsome appearance'."[14] ¥thelred could not have been older than 13 years of age in this year.

During these early years, ¥thelred was developing a close relationship to ¥thelwold, bishop of Winchester, one who had supported his unsuccessful claim to the throne. When ¥thelwold died, on 1 August 984, ¥thelred deeply lamented the loss, and he wrote later in a charter from 993 that the event had deprived the country of one "whose industry and pastoral care administered not only to my interest but also to that of all inhabitants of the country."[14]

Conflict with the Danes

England had experienced a period of peace after the reconquest of the Danelaw in the mid-10th century by King Edgar, ¥thelred's father. However, beginning in 980, when ¥thelred could not have been more than 14 years old, small companies of Danish adventurers carried out a series of coastline raids against England. Hampshire, Thanet and Cheshire were attacked in 980, Devon and Cornwall in 981, and Dorset in 982. A period of six years then passed before, in 988, another coastal attack is recorded as having taken place to the south-west, though here a famous battle was fought between the invaders and the thegns of Devon. Stenton notes that, though this series of isolated raids had no lasting effect on England itself, "their chief historical importance is that they brought England for the first time into diplomatic contact with Normandy."[15] During this period, the Normans, who remembered their origins as a Scandinavian people, were well-disposed to their Danish cousins who, occasionally returning from a raid on England, sought port in Normandy. This led to grave tension between the English and Norman courts, and word of their enmity eventually reached Pope John XV. The pope was disposed to dissolve their hostility towards each other, and took steps to engineer a peace between England and Normandy, which was ratified in Rouen in 991.

Battle of Maldon

However, in August of that same year, a sizeable Danish fleet began a sustained campaign in the south-east of England. It arrived off Folkestone, in Kent, and made its way around the south-east coast and up the River Blackwater, coming eventually to its estuary and occupying Northey Island.[14] About 2 kilometres (1 mile) west of Northey lies the coastal town of Maldon, where Byrhtnoth, ealdorman of Essex, was stationed with a company of thegns. The battle that followed between English and Danes is immortalised by the Old English poem The Battle of Maldon, which describes the doomed but heroic attempt of Byrhtnoth to defend the coast of Essex against overwhelming odds. Stenton summarises the events of the poem: "For access to the mainland they (the Danes) depended on a causeway, flooded at high tide, which led from Northey to the flats along the southern margin of the estuary. Before they (the Danes) had left their camp on the island[,] Byrhtnoth, with his retainers and a force of local militia, had taken possession of the landward end of the causeway. Refusing a demand for tribute, shouted across the water while the tide was high, Byrhtnoth drew up his men along the bank, and waited for the ebb. As the water fell the raiders began to stream out along the causeway. But three of Byrthnoth's retainers held it against them, and at last they asked to be allowed to cross unhindered and fight on equal terms on the mainland. With what even those who admired him most called 'over-courage', Byrhtnoth agreed to this; the pirates rushed through the falling tide, and battle was joined. Its issue was decided by Byrhtnoth's fall. Many even of his own men immediately took to flight and the English ranks were broken. What gives enduring interest to the battle is the superb courage with which a group of Byrhtnoth's thegns, knowing that the fight was lost, deliberately gave themselves to death in order that they might avenge their lord."[16] This was the first of a series of crushing defeats felt by the English: beaten first by Danish raiders, and later by organised Danish armies.

England begins tributes

In 991, ¥thelred was around 24 years old. In the aftermath of Maldon, it was decided that the English should grant the tribute to the Danes that they desired, and so a gafol of ¹10,000 was paid them for their peace. Yet it was presumably the Danish fleet that had beaten Byrhtnoth at Maldon that continued to ravage the English coast from 991 to 993. In 994, the Danish fleet, which had swollen in ranks since 991, turned up the Thames estuary and headed toward London. The battle fought there was inconclusive. It was about this time that ¥thelred met with the leaders of the fleet, foremost among them Olaf Tryggvason[clarification needed] and arranged an uneasy accord. A treaty was signed between ¥thelred and Olaf that provided for seemingly civilised arrangements between the then-settled Danish companies and the English government, such as regulation settlement disputes and trade. But the treaty also stipulated that the ravaging and slaughter of the previous year would be forgotten, and ended abruptly by stating that ¹22,000 of gold and silver had been paid to the raiders as the price of peace.[17] In 994, Olaf Tryggvason, already a baptised Christian, was confirmed as Christian in a ceremony at Andover; King ¥thelred stood as his sponsor. After receiving gifts, Olaf promised "that he would never come back to England in hostility."[14] Olaf then left England for Norway and never returned, though "other component parts of the Viking force appear to have decided to stay in England, for it is apparent from the treaty that some had chosen to enter into King ¥thelred's service as mercenaries, based presumably on the Isle of Wight."[14]

Renewed Danish raids

In 997, Danish raids began again. According to Keynes, "there is no suggestion that this was a new fleet or army, and presumably the mercenary force created in 994 from the residue of the raiding army of 991 had turned on those whom it had been hired to protect."[14] It harried Cornwall, Devon, western Somerset and south Wales in 997, Dorset, Hampshire and Sussex in 998. In 999, it raided Kent, and, in 1000, it left England for Normandy, perhaps because the English had refused in this latest wave of attacks to acquiesce to the Danish demands for gafol or tribute, which would come to be known as Danegeld, 'Dane-payment'. This sudden relief from attack ¥thelred used to gather his thoughts, resources, and armies: the fleet's departure in 1000 "allowed ¥thelred to carry out a devastation of Strathclyde, the motive for which is part of the lost history of the north."[18]

In 1001, a Danish fleet – perhaps the same fleet from 1000 – returned and ravaged west Sussex. During its movements, the fleet regularly returned to its base in the Isle of Wight. There was later an attempted attack in the south of Devon, though the English mounted a successful defence at Exeter. Nevertheless, ¥thelred must have felt at a loss, and, in the Spring of 1002, the English bought a truce for ¹24,000. ¥thelred's frequent payments of immense Danegelds are often held up as exemplary of the incompetency of his government and his own short-sightedness. However, Keynes points out that such payments had been practice for at least a century, and had been adopted by Alfred the Great, Charles the Bald and many others. Indeed, in some cases it "may have seemed the best available way of protecting the people against loss of life, shelter, livestock and crops. Though undeniably burdensome, it constituted a measure for which the king could rely on widespread support."[14]

St. Brice's Day massacre of 1002

Main article: St. Brice's Day massacre
¥thelred ordered the massacre of all Danish men in England to take place on 13 November 1002, St Brice's Day. No order of this kind could be carried out in more than a third of England, where the Danes were too strong, but Gunhilde, sister of Sweyn Forkbeard, King of Denmark, was said to have been among the victims. It is likely that a wish to avenge her was a principal motive for Sweyn's invasion of western England the following year.[19] By 1004 Sweyn was in East Anglia, where he sacked Norwich. In this year, a nobleman of East Anglia, Ulfcytel Snillingr met Sweyn in force, and made an impression on the until-then rampant Danish expedition. Though Ulfcytel was eventually defeated, outside Thetford, he caused the Danes heavy losses and was nearly able to destroy their ships. The Danish army left England for Denmark in 1005, perhaps because of their injuries sustained in East Anglia, perhaps from the very severe famine which afflicted the continent and the British Isles in that year.[14]

An expedition the following year was bought off in early 1007 by tribute money of ¹36,000, and for the next two years England was free from attack. In 1008, the government created a new fleet of warships, organised on a national scale, but this was weakened when one of its commanders took to piracy, and the king and his council decided not to risk it in a general action. In Stenton's view: "The history of England in the next generation was really determined between 1009 and 1012...the ignominious collapse of the English defence caused a loss of morale which was irreparable." The Danish army of 1009, led by Thorkell the Tall and his brother Hemming, was the most formidable force to invade England since ¥thelred became king. It harried England until it was bought off by ¹48,000 in April 1012.[20]

Invasion of 1013

Sweyn then launched an invasion in 1013 intending to crown himself king of England, during which he proved himself to be a general greater than any other Viking leader of his generation. By the end of 1013 English resistance had collapsed and Sweyn had conquered the country, forcing ¥thelred into exile in Normandy. But the situation changed suddenly when Sweyn died on 3 February 1014. The crews of the Danish ships in the Trent that had supported Sweyn immediately swore their allegiance to Sweyn's son Cnut the Great, but leading English noblemen sent a deputation to ¥thelred to negotiate his restoration to the throne. He was required to declare his loyalty to them, to bring in reforms regarding everything that they disliked and to forgive all that had been said and done against him in his previous reign. The terms of this agreement are of great constitutional interest in early English History as they are the first recorded pact between a King and his subjects and are also widely regarded as showing that many English noblemen had submitted to Sweyn simply because of their distrust of ¥thelred.[21] According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:

they [the counsellors] said that no lord was dearer to them than their natural (gecynde) lord, if he would govern them more justly than he did before. Then the king sent his son Edward hither with his messengers and bade them greet all his people and said that he would be a gracious (hold) lord to them, and reform all the things which they hated; and all the things which had been said and done against him should be forgiven on condition that they all unanimously turned to him (to him gecyrdon) without treachery. And complete friendship was then established with oath and pledge (mid worde and mid wµdde) on both sides, and they pronounced every Danish king an exile from England forever.[22]
¥thelred then launched an expedition against Cnut and his allies. It was only the people of the Kingdom of Lindsey (modern North Lincolnshire) who supported Cnut. ¥thelred first set out to recapture London apparently with the help of the Norwegian Olaf Haraldsson. According to the Icelandic historian, Snorri Sturluson, Ólaf led a successful attack on London bridge with a fleet of ships. He then went on to help ¥thelred retake London and other parts of the country. Cnut and his army decided to withdraw from England, in April 1014, leaving his Lindsey allies to suffer ¥thelred's revenge. In about 1016 it is thought that Ólaf left to concentrate on raiding western Europe.[23] In the same year, Cnut returned to find a complex and volatile situation unfolding in England.[23] ¥thelred's son, Edmund Ironside, had revolted against his father and established himself in the Danelaw, which was angry at Cnut and ¥thelred for the ravaging of Lindsey and was prepared to support Edmund in any uprising against both of them

Death and burial

Over the next few months Cnut conquered most of England, while Edmund rejoined ¥thelred to defend London when ¥thelred died on 23 April 1016. The subsequent war between Edmund and Cnut ended in a decisive victory for Cnut at the Battle of Ashingdon on 18 October 1016. Edmund's reputation as a warrior was such that Cnut nevertheless agreed to divide England, Edmund taking Wessex and Cnut the whole of the country beyond the Thames. However, Edmund died on 30 November and Cnut became king of the whole country.[24]

¥thelred was buried in Old St Paul's Cathedral, London. The tomb and his monument were destroyed along with the cathedral in the Great Fire of London in 1666.[25] A modern monument in the crypt lists his among the important graves lost.

Legislation

A charter of ¥thelred's in 1003 to his follower, ¥thelred. British Library, London.
¥thelred's government produced extensive legislation, which he "ruthlessly enforced."[26] Records of at least six legal codes survive from his reign, covering a range of topics.[27] Notably, one of the members of his council (known as the Witan) was Wulfstan II, Archbishop of York, a well-known homilist. The three latest codes from ¥thelred's reign seemed to have been drafted by Wulfstan.[28] These codes are extensively concerned with ecclesiastical affairs. They also exhibit the characteristics of Wulfstan's highly rhetorical style. Wulfstan went on to draft codes for King Cnut, and recycled there many of the laws which were used in ¥thelred's codes.[29]

Despite the failure of his government in the face of the Danish threat, ¥thelred's reign was not without some important institutional achievements. The quality of the coinage, a good indicator of the prevailing economic conditions, significantly improved during his reign due to his numerous coinage reform laws.[30]

Legacy

Later perspectives of ¥thelred have been less than flattering. Numerous legends and anecdotes have sprung up to explain his shortcomings, often elaborating abusively on his character and failures. One such anecdote is given by William of Malmesbury (lived c. 1080–c. 1143), who reports that ¥thelred had defecated in the baptismal font as a child, which led St Dunstan to prophesy that the English monarchy would be overthrown during his reign. This story is, however, a fabrication, and a similar story is told of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine Copronymus, another mediaeval monarch who was unpopular among certain of his subjects.

Efforts to rehabilitate ¥thelred's reputation have gained momentum since about 1980. Chief among the rehabilitators has been Simon Keynes, who has often argued that our poor impression of ¥thelred is almost entirely based upon after-the-fact accounts of, and later accretions to, the narrative of events during ¥thelred's long and complex reign. Chief among the culprits is in fact one of the most important sources for the history of the period, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which, as it reports events with a retrospect of 15 years, cannot help but interpret events with the eventual English defeat a foregone conclusion. Yet, as virtually no strictly contemporary narrative account of the events of ¥thelred's reign exists, historians are forced to rely on what evidence there is. Keynes and others thus draw attention to some of the inevitable snares of investigating the history of a man whom later popular opinion has utterly damned. Recent cautious assessments of ¥thelred's reign have more often uncovered reasons to doubt, rather than uphold, ¥thelred's later infamy. Though the failures of his government will always put ¥thelred's reign in the shadow of the reigns of kings Edgar, Aethelstan, and Alfred, historians' current impression of ¥thelred's personal character is certainly not as unflattering as it once was: "¥thelred's misfortune as a ruler was owed not so much to any supposed defects of his imagined character, as to a combination of circumstances which anyone would have found difficult to control."[31]

Origin of the jury

¥thelred has been credited with the formation of a local investigative body made up of twelve thegns who were charged with publishing the names of any notorious or wicked men in their respective districts. Because the members of these bodies were under solemn oath to act in accordance with the law and their own good consciences, they have been seen by some legal historians as the prototype for the English Grand Jury.[32] ¥thelred makes provision for such a body in a law code he enacted at Wantage in 997, which states:

¤µt man habbe gemot on µlcum wµpentace; & gan ut ¤a yldestan XII ¤egnas & se gerefa mid, & swerian on ¤am haligdome, ¤e heom man on hand sylle, ¤µt hig nellan nµnne sacleasan man forsecgean ne nµnne sacne forhelan. & niman ¤onne ¤a tihtbysian men, ¤e mid ¤am gerefan habbaº, & heora µlc sylle VI healfmarc wedd, healf landrican & healf wµpentake.[33]

that there shall be an assembly in every wapentake,[34] and in that assembly shall go forth the twelve eldest thegns and the reeve along with them, and let them swear on holy relics, which shall be placed in their hands, that they will never knowingly accuse an innocent man nor conceal a guilty man. And thereafter let them seize those notorious [lit. "charge-laden"] men, who have business with the reeve, and let each of them give a security of 6 half-marks, half of which shall go to the lord of that district, and half to the wapentake.

But the wording here suggests that ¥thelred was perhaps revamping or re-confirming a custom which had already existed. He may actually have been expanding an established English custom for use among the Danish citizens in the North (the Danelaw). Previously, King Edgar had legislated along similar lines in his Whitbordesstan code:

ic wille, ¤µt µlc mon sy under borge ge binnan burgum ge buton burgum. & gewitnes sy geset to µlcere byrig & to µlcum hundrode. To µlcere byrig XXXVI syn gecorone to gewitnesse; to smalum burgum & to µlcum hundrode XII, buton ge ma willan. & µlc mon mid heora gewitnysse bigcge & sylle µlc ¤ara ceapa, ¤e he bigcge oººe sylle a¤er oººe burge oººe on wµpengetace. & heora µlc, ¤onne hine man µrest to gewitnysse gecysº, sylle ¤µne aº, ¤µt he nµfre, ne for feo ne for lufe ne for ege, ne µtsace nanes ¤ara ¤inga, ¤e he to gewitnysse wµs, & nan oºer ¤ingc on gewitnysse ne cyºe buton ¤µt an, ¤µt he geseah oººe gehyrde. & swa geµ¤dera manna syn on µlcum ceape twegen oººe ¤ry to gewitnysse.[35]

It is my wish that each person be in surety, both within settled areas and without. And 'witnessing' shall be established in each city and each hundred. To each city let there be 36 chosen for witnessing; to small towns and to each hundred let there be 12, unless they desire more. And everybody shall purchase and sell their goods in the presence a witness, whether he is buying or selling something, whether in a city or a wapentake. And each of them, when they first choose to become a witness, shall give an oath that he will never, neither for wealth nor love nor fear, deny any of those things which he will be a witness to, and will not, in his capacity as a witness, make known any thing except that which he saw and heard. And let there be either two or three of these sworn witnesses at every sale of goods.

The 'legend' of an Anglo-Saxon origin to the jury was first challenged seriously by Heinrich Brunner in 1872, who claimed that evidence of the jury was only seen for the first time during the reign of Henry II, some 200 years after the end of the Anglo-Saxon period, and that the practice had originated with the Franks, who in turn had influenced the Normans, who thence introduced it to England.[36] Since Brunner's thesis, the origin of the English jury has been much disputed. Throughout the 20th century, legal historians disagreed about whether the practice was English in origin, or was introduced, directly or indirectly, from either Scandinavia or Francia.[32] Recently, the legal historians Patrick Wormald and Michael Macnair have reasserted arguments in favour of finding in practices current during the Anglo-Saxon period traces of the Angevin practice of conducting inquests using bodies of sworn, private witnesses. Wormald has gone as far as to present evidence suggesting that the English practice outlined in ¥thelred's Wantage code is at least as old as, if not older than, 975, and ultimately traces it back to a Carolingian model (something Brinner had done).[37] However, no scholarly consensus has yet been reached.

Appearance and character

"[A] youth of graceful manners, handsome countenance and fine person..."[38] as well as "[A] tall, handsome man, elegant in manners, beautiful in countenance and interesting in his deportment."[39]

Marriages and issue

¥thelred married first ¥lfgifu, daughter of Thored, earl of Northumbria, in about 985.[14] Their known children are:

¥thelstan ¥theling (died 1014)
Ecgberht ¥theling (died c. 1005)[40]
Edmund Ironside (died 1016)
Eadred ¥theling (died before 1013)
Eadwig ¥theling (executed by Cnut 1017)
Edgar ¥theling (died c. 1008)[40]
Eadgyth or Edith (married Eadric Streona)
¥lfgifu (married Uchtred the Bold, ealdorman of Northumbria)
Wulfhilda? (married Ulfcytel Snillingr)
Abbess of Wherwell Abbey?
In 1002 ¥thelred married Emma of Normandy, sister of Richard II, Duke of Normandy. Their children were:

Edward the Confessor (died 1066)
¥lfred ¥theling (died 1036–7)
Goda of England (married 1. Drogo of Mantes and 2. Eustace II, Count of Boulogne)
All of ¥thelred's sons were named after predecessors of ¥thelred on the throne.[41]

Buried:
Old St Paul's Cathedral, London, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_St_Paul%27s_Cathedral, now lost

355209.

Aelfgifu of York, Queen Consort of England was born in ~970 in (Yorkshire) England (daughter of Thored Gunnarsson, Earl of Southern Northumbria and Hilda LNU); died in 1002.

Notes:

¥lfgifu of York (fl. c. 970 – 1002) was the first wife of ¥thelred the Unready (r. 968–1016), by whom she bore many offspring, including Edmund Ironside. It is most probable that she was a daughter of Thored, Earl of southern Northumbria.

Queen consort of England
Tenure 980s–1002
Born fl. c. 970
Died c. 1002
Spouse ¥thelred the Unready
Issue ¥thelstan ¥theling
Ecgberht of England
Edmund, King of England
Eadred ¥theling
Eadwig ¥theling
Edgar of England
Edith, Lady of the Mercians
¥lfgifu, Lady of Northumbria
Wulfhilda, Lady of East Anglia
Father

Identity and background

Her name and paternity do not surface in the sources until sometime after the Conquest. The first to offer any information at all, Sulcard of Westminster (fl. 1080s), merely describes her as being “of very noble English stock” (ex nobilioribus Anglis), without naming her,[1] while in the early 12th century, William of Malmesbury has nothing to report. All primary evidence comes from two Anglo-Norman historians. John of Worcester, also writing in the early 12th century, states that ¥thelred's first wife was ¥lfgifu, daughter of the nobleman ¥thelberht (comes Agelberhtus) and the mother of Edmund, ¥thelstan, Eadwig and Eadgyth.[2] Writing in the 1150s, Ailred of Rievaulx identifies her as a daughter of earl (comes) Thored and the mother of Edmund, though he supplies no name.[3] Ailred had been seneschal at the court of King David I of Scotland (r. 1124–53), whose mother Margaret descended from King ¥thelred and his first wife. Although his testimony is late, his proximity to the royal family may have given him access to genuine information.[4]

Problem of fatherhood

These two accounts are irreconcilable at the point of ascribing two different fathers to ¥thelred's first wife (in both cases, Edmund's mother). One way out of it would be to assume the existence of two different wives before the arrival of Queen Emma, ¥thelred's Norman wife, although this interpretation presents difficulties of its own, especially as the sources envisage a single woman.[5] Historians generally favour the view that John of Worcester was in error about the father's name, as ¥thelberht's very existence is under suspicion:[6] if Latin comes is to be interpreted as a gloss on the office of ealdorman, only two doubtful references to one or two duces (ealdormen) of this name can be put forward that would fit the description.[7] All in all, the combined evidence suggests that ¥thelred's first wife was ¥lfgifu, the daughter of Earl Thored. This magnate is likely to have been the Thored who was a son of Gunnar and earl of (southern) Northumbria.[8]

Marriage and children[edit]
Based largely on the careers of her sons, ¥lfgifu's marriage has been dated approximately to the (mid-)980s.[8] Considering Thored's authority as earl of York and apparently, the tenure of that office without royal appointment, the union would have signified an important step for the West-Saxon royal family by which it secured a foothold in the north.[9] Such a politically weighty union would help explain the close connections maintained by ¥lfgifu's eldest sons Edmund and ¥thelstan with noble families based in the northern Danelaw.[10]

The marriage produced six sons, all of whom were named after ¥thelred's predecessors, and an unknown number of daughters. The eldest sons ¥thelstan, Ecgberht, Eadred and Edmund first attest charters in 993, while the younger sons Eadwig and Edgar first make an appearance in them in 997 and 1001 respectively.[11] Some of these sons seem to have spent part of their childhood in fosterage elsewhere, possibly with ¥thelred's mother ¥lfthryth.[12]

Out of ¥lfgifu's six sons, only Edmund Ironside outlived his father and became king. In 1016 he suffered several defeats against Cnut and in October they agreed to share the kingdom, but Edmund died within six weeks and Cnut became king of all England. ¥thelred gave three of his daughters in marriage to ealdormen, presumably in order to secure the loyalties of his nobles and so to consolidate a defence system against Viking attacks.[13]

Sons

¥thelstan (born before 993, d. 1014)
Ecgberht (born before 993, d. 1005)
Edmund (II) Ironside (born before 993, d. 1016)
Eadred (d. 1012 x 1015)
Eadwig (born before 997, exiled and killed 1017)
Edgar (born before 1001, d. 1012 x 1015)

Daughters

Eadgyth (born before 993), married Eadric Streona, ealdorman of Mercia.[14]
¥lfgifu, married ealdorman Uhtred of Northumbria.[15]
(possibly) Wulfhild, who married Ulfcytel (Snillingr) (d. 1016), apparently ealdorman of East Anglia.[16]
possibly an unnamed daughter who married the ¥thelstan who was killed fighting the Danes at the Battle of Ringmere in 1010. He is called ¥thelred's aºum, meaning either son-in-law or brother-in-law.[16] Ann Williams, however, argues that the latter meaning is the appropriate one and refers to ¥thelstan as being ¥lfgifu's brother.[8]
possibly unnamed daughter, who became abbess of Wherwell.[17]

Life and death

Unlike her mother-in-law, ¥lfthryth, ¥lfgifu was not anointed queen and never signed charters.[18] She did, however, make at least some impression on the contemporary record. In a will issued between 975/980 and 987, the thegn Beorhtric and his wife bequeathed to their “lady” (hlµfdige) an armlet worth 30 gold mancuses and a stallion, calling upon her authority to oversee the implementation of the arrangements set out by will.[19] In a will of later date (AD 990 x 1001), in which she is addressed as “my lady” (mire hlµfdian), the noblewoman ¥thelgifu promised a bequest of 30 mancuses of gold.[20] Just as little is known of ¥lfgifu's life, so the precise date and circumstances of her death cannot be recovered.[21] In any event, she appears to have died by 1002, possibly in childbirth, when ¥thelred took to wife Emma of Normandy, daughter of Count Richard of Rouen, who received or adopted her predecessor's Anglo-Saxon name, ¥lfgifu.

Children:

177604. Edmund II, King of the English was born in 990 in (Wessex) England; died on 30 Nov 1016 in (London) England; was buried in Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset, England.

354340.

Untred, Earl of Northumbria was born in (0970-0980) in Northumberland, England; died in 1016 in Wighill, Yorkshire, England.

Notes:

Uchtred or Uhtred, called the Bold, (d. 1016) was the ealdorman of all Northumbria from 1006 to 1016, when he was assassinated. He was the son of Waltheof I, ealdorman of Bamburgh, whose ancient family had ruled from the castle of Bamburgh on the Northumbrian coast.

Career

In 995, according to Symeon of Durham, when the remains of St Cuthbert were transferred from Chester-le-Street to Durham, Uhtred went to Durham with his monks to clear the site of the new cathedral. The new cathedral was founded by Bishop Aldhun, and Uhtred married Aldhun's daughter, Ecgfrida, probably at about this time. From his marriage he received several estates that had belonged to the church. [1]

In 1006 Malcolm II of Scotland invaded Northumbria and besieged the newly founded episcopal city of Durham. At that time the Danes were raiding southern England and King Ethelred was unable to send help to the Northumbrians. Ealdorman Waltheof was too old to fight and remained in his castle at Bamburgh. Ealdorman ¥lfhelm of York also took no action. Uhtred, acting for his father, called together an army from Bernicia and Yorkshire and led it against the Scots. The result was a decisive victory for Uhtred. Local women washed the severed heads of the Scots, receiving a payment of a cow for each, and the heads were fixed on stakes to Durham's walls. Uhtred was rewarded by King Ethelred II with the ealdormanry of Bamburgh even though his father was still alive. In the meantime, Ethelred had Ealdorman ¥lfhelm of York murdered, and he allowed Uhtred to succeed ¥lfhelm as ealdorman of York, thus uniting northern and southern Northumbria under the house of Bamburgh. It seems likely that Ethelred did not trust the Scandinavian population of southern Northumbria and wanted an Anglo-Saxon in power there. [2]

After receiving these honours Uhtred dismissed his wife, Ecgfrida, and married Sige, daughter of Styr, son of Ulf. Styr was a rich citizen of York. It appears that Uhtred was trying to make political allies amongst the Danes in Deira. Through Sige, Uhtred had two children, Eadulf, later Eadulf III, and Gospatric. This Gospatric's grandson was the infamous Eadwulf Rus who murdered Bishop Walcher.[2]

In 1013 King Sweyn of Denmark invaded England, sailing up the Humber and Trent to the town of Gainsborough. Uhtred submitted to him there, as did all of the Danes in the north. In the winter of 1013 Ethelred was forced into exile in Normandy. After London had finally submitted to him, Sweyn was accepted as king by Christmas 1013. However he only reigned for five weeks, for he died at, or near, Gainsborough on 2 February 1014. At Sweyn’s death, Ethelred was able to return from exile and resume his reign. Uhtred, along with many others, transferred his allegiance back to Ethelred, on his return. Uhtred also married Ethelred’s daughter ¥lfgifu about this time. [2]

In 1016 Uhtred campaigned with Ethelred's son Edmund Ironside in Cheshire and the surrounding shires. While Uhtred was away from his lands, Sweyn's son, Cnut, invaded Yorkshire. Cnut's forces were too strong for Uhtred to fight, and so Uhtred did homage to him as King of England. Uhtred was summoned to a meeting with Cnut, and on the way there, he and forty of his men were murdered by Thurbrand the Hold, with assistance from Uhtred's own servant, Wighill and with the connivance of Cnut. Uhtred was succeeded in Bernicia by his brother Eadwulf Cudel. Cnut made the Norwegian, Eric of Hlathir, ealdorman ("earl" in Scandinavian terms) in southern Northumbria. [1]
Descendants

The killing of Uhtred by Thurbrand the Hold started a blood feud that lasted for many years. Uhtred's son Ealdred subsequently avenged his father by killing Thurbrand, but Ealdred in turn was killed by Thurbrand's son, Carl. Ealdred's vengeance had to wait until the 1070s, when Waltheof, Ealdred’s grandson had his soldiers kill most of Carl's sons and grandsons. This is an example of the notorious Northumbrian blood feuds that were common at this time. [3]

Uhtred's dynasty continued to reign in Bernicia through Ealdred, Earl of Bamburgh (killed 1038) his son from his marriage to Ecgfrida, and Eadulf (killed 1041) his son from his marriage to Sige, and briefly Eadulf's son Osulf held the earldom of northern Northumbria 1067 until he too was killed. Eadulf's brother Cospatric began the Swinton Family dynasty, his son Eadulf Rus famously murdering William Walcher, Bishop of Durham which led to William the Conqueror sending an army northwards to harry the region again. Uhtred’s marriage to ¥lfgifu produced a daughter, Ealdgyth, who married Maldred, brother of Duncan I of Scotland and who gave birth to a son, Gospatric, who was Earl of Northumbria from 1068 to 1072. [4]

end of biography

Untred married Ecgfrida of Durham. Ecgfrida was born in 973 in Northumberland, England; died in 0Dec 1067 in Durham, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

354341.

Ecgfrida of Durham was born in 973 in Northumberland, England; died in 0Dec 1067 in Durham, England.

Notes:

Ecgfrida of Durham formerly Durham aka of Northumbria
Born 0973 in Northumberland, England
Daughter of Ealdhun Durham and [mother unknown]
[sibling(s) unknown]
Wife of Uhtred (Northumbria) of Northumbria — married about 0995 (to 1006) [location unknown]
Wife of Kilvert (UNKNOWN) FitzLigulf — married after 1006 [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Mother of Ealdred (Northumbria) of Bamburgh and Sigrida FitzKilvert (Yorkshire) of Yorkshire
Died Dec 1067 in Durham, England

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[categories]
Contents
[hide]
1 Biography
2 Vitals
3 Parents
4 Marriage
5 Sources
Biography

Ecgfrida (Durham) of Durham was a member of aristocracy in England.
According to Simeon of Durham, Ecgfrida seems to have been left by both of her husbands. After her marriage with Kilvert fell apart, her father made her return to Durham ... where she became a nun, and was supposedly buried in the yard of the church.

Vitals
Ecgfrida[1]
bur. Durham[1]
Parents
Aldun, Bishop of Durham[2] and Unknown.
Marriage
m.1 Ughtred the Bold, Earl of Northumbria. Repudiated.[3] Issue:
Ealdred of Bamburgh[4]

m.2 Kilvert[5] Issue:
Sigrida m. Arkil[6][1][7]
Sources
? 1.0 1.1 1.2 Simeon of Durham
? Wikipedia: Aldhun; Medieval Lands
? Wikipedia: Uhtred the Bold
? Wikipedia: Ealdred of Bamburgh
? father: Ligulf
? son of Ecgfrid
? Issue: Cospatric m. dau. of Dolfin, son of Tolfin
Cawley, C. (2006). "England, AngloSaxon nobility: Northumbria." Medieval Lands v.3. fmg.ac
Stevenson, J., ed. (1855). "Simeon's account of the Siege of Durham." The historical works of Simeon of Durham ... (Vol.3, Part 2, pp765). Google eBook.

end of this biography

Children:

177170. Ealdred, Earl of Bernicia was born in ~990 in Bernicia, Northumbria, England; died in ~1038 in Risewood Forest, England.

96776.

Duke Robert de Normandie, II was born in ~1005 in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, II and Judith de Bretagne); died on 22 Jul 1035 in Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey.

Notes:

Robert I the Magnificent of Normandy, Duke of Normany, was born 1000 in Normandy, France to Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027) and Judith of Brittany (982-1017) and died 22 July 1035 in Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey of unspecified causes. Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]

Robert, called "The Magnificent" (French, "le Magnifique") for his love of finery, and also called "The Devil" was the son of Duke Richard II of Normandy and Judith, daughter of Conan I, Duke of Brittany.

When his father died, his elder brother Richard succeeded, whilst he became Count of Hiâemois. When Richard died a year later, there were great suspicions that Robert had Richard murdered, hence his other nickname, "Robert le diable" (the devil). He is sometimes identified with the legendary Robert the Devil. Robert aided King Henry I of France against Henry's rebellious brother and mother, and for his help he was given the territory of the Vexin. He also intervened in the affairs of Flanders, supported Edward the Confessor, who was then in exile at Robert's court, and sponsored monastic reform in Normandy.

Children

Offspring of Robert I of Normandy and Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050)
Name Birth Death Joined with
William I of England (1027-1087) 9 September 1027 Falaise, France 1087 Rouen, France Matilda of Flanders (c1031-1083)

96777.

Harriette de Falaise, Countess of Montaigne was born in 1003 in Falaise, Calvados, Normandie, France; died in ~1050 in Mortagne-au-Perche, Normandie, France.

Notes:

Herleva[a] (c. 1003 – c. 1050) was a Norman woman of the 11th century, known for three sons: William I of England "the Conqueror", an illegitimate son fathered by Robert I, Duke of Normandy; and Odo of Bayeux and Robert, Count of Mortain, who were both fathered by her husband Herluin de Conteville. All three became prominent in William's realm.

Life

The background of Herleva and the circumstances of William's birth are shrouded in mystery. The written evidence dates from a generation or two later, and is not entirely consistent, but of all the Norman chroniclers only the Tours chronicler asserts that William's parents were subsequently joined in marriage.[b] The most commonly accepted version says that she was the daughter of a tanner named Fulbert from the town of Falaise, in Normandy. The meaning of filia pelletarii burgensis[6] is somewhat uncertain, and Fulbert may instead have been a furrier, embalmer, apothecary, or a person who laid out corpses for burial.[7]

Some argue that Herleva's father was not a tanner but rather a member of the burgher class.[8] The idea is supported by the appearance of her brothers in a later document as attestors for an under-age William. Also, the Count of Flanders later accepted Herleva as a proper guardian for his own daughter. Both of these would be nearly impossible if Herleva's father was a tanner, which would place his standing as little more than a peasant.

Orderic Vitalis described Herleva's father Fulbert as the Duke's Chamberlain (cubicularii ducis).[9]
Relationship with Robert the Magnificent

According to one legend, it all started when Robert, the young Duke of Normandy, saw Herleva from the roof of his castle tower.[10] The walkway on the roof still looks down on the dyeing trenches cut into stone in the courtyard below, which can be seen to this day from the tower ramparts above. The traditional way of dyeing leather or garments was to trample barefoot on the garments which were awash in the liquid dye in these trenches. Herleva, legend goes, seeing the Duke on his ramparts above, raised her skirts perhaps a bit more than necessary in order to attract the Duke's eye.[10] The latter was immediately smitten and ordered her brought in (as was customary for any woman that caught the Duke's eye) through the back door. Herleva refused, saying she would only enter the Duke's castle on horseback through the front gate, and not as an ordinary commoner. The Duke, filled with lust, could only agree. In a few days, Herleva, dressed in the finest her father could provide, and sitting on a white horse, rode proudly through the front gate, her head held high.[10][11] This gave Herleva a semi-official status as the Duke's concubine.[12] She later gave birth to his son, William, in 1027 or 1028.[13]

Some historians suggest Herleva was first the mistress of Gilbert of Brionne with whom she had a son, Richard. It was Gilbert who first saw Herleva and elevated her position and then Robert took her for his mistress.[14]
Marriage to Herluin de Conteville

Herleva later married Herluin de Conteville in 1031. Some accounts maintain that Robert always loved her, but the gap in their social status made marriage impossible, so, to give her a good life, he married her off to one of his favourite noblemen.[15]

Another source suggests that Herleva did not marry Herluin until after Robert died, because there is no record of Robert entering another relationship, whereas Herluin married another woman, Fredesendis, by the time he founded the abbey of Grestain.[16]

From her marriage to Herluin she had two sons: Odo, who later became Bishop of Bayeux, and Robert, who became Count of Mortain. Both became prominent during William's reign. They also had at least two daughters: Emma, who married Richard le Goz, Viscount of Avranches, and a daughter of unknown name who married William, lord of la Fertâe-Macâe.[17]
Death

According to Robert of Torigni, Herleva was buried at the abbey of Grestain, which was founded by Herluin and their son Robert around 1050. This would put Herleva in her forties around the time of her death. However, David C. Douglas suggests that Herleva probably died before Herluin founded the abbey because her name does not appear on the list of benefactors, whereas the name of Herluin's second wife, Fredesendis, does.[18]

end of biography

Children:

48388. William the Conqueror, King of England, Duke of Normandy was born on 14 Oct 1024 in Chateau de Falaise, Falaise, Normandy, France; was christened in 1066 in Dives-sur-Mer, Normandie, France; died on 9 Sep 1087 in Rouen, Normandy, France; was buried in Saint-Etienne de Caen, France.
Countess Adelaide of Normandy was born in ~1030 in Normandie, France; died before 1090 in (Normandie, France).

355300.

Robert d'Evereux, Comte d'Evreux was born in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, I and Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy); died on 16 Mar 1037 in Seine-Inferieure, Normandy, France.

Notes:

Robert "Archbishop of Rouen, Comte d'Evreux" Normandie
Born [date unknown] in Normandie, France
ANCESTORS ancestors
Son of Richard (Normandie) de Normandie and Gunnora (Crâepon) de Normandie
Brother of Unknown (of Normandy) Normandie, Unknown (Normandy) de St. Sauveur [half], Godfrey (Brionne) de Brionne [half], Richard (Normandie) de Normandie, Muriella (Normandie) de Hauteville [half], Guillaume (Normandie) d'Eu [half], Matilda (Normandy) de Normandie, Mauger (Normandie) de Corbeil, Hawise (Normandie) de Normandie, Beatrix (Normandie) Turenne [half], Emma (Normandie) of England, Fressenda (Normandie) de Hauteville [half] and Papia (Normandie) de St Valâery [half]
Husband of Herleva (UNKNOWN) d'Evreux — married [date unknown] [location unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Father of Raoul (d'âEvreux) Evreux, Gautier (de Rouen) de Rosmar, Richard (Evreux) d'Evreux and Guillaume (de Evreux) Evreux
Died 16 Mar 1037 in Seine-Inferieure, Normandy, France
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Categories: House of Normandie.

European Aristocracy
Robert Normandie was a member of aristocracy in Europe.
Join: European Royals and Aristocrats Project
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Robert Normandie is a member of the House of Normandie.
Contents
[hide]
1 Biography
1.1 Marriage
1.2 Religion
1.3 Surname
2 Sources
Biography
Robert (d. 1037), Comte d'Evreux.[1][2][3]

Robert, born before 989, the son of Richard I and his second wife Gunnora, was named the Comte d'âEvreux. He was the Archbishop of Rouen from 989 to 1037.[2]

Marriage
He married Herleve (Havlive).[4] Her orignis are unknown.[2] They had 3 children:[5]

Richard d'âEvreux (d. 1067) Comte d'âEvreux[2]
Raoul (d1051), Seigneur de Gacâe[2]
Guillaume d'âEvreux[2]
Gautier (Walter) de Rosmar[6]
Religion
c. 989-1037: Archbishop of Rouen.[1]
Surname
"DEVEREAUX originally d'Evreux (of Normandy) is found in Ireland after the Conquest via settlers of co. Wexford."[7]

Sources
? 1.0 1.1 Baldwin, n.d.
? 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Cawley, 2006
? 1. Tab. Souv. Gen., France 22, Tab. 48
? clerical marriages were not forbidden in Normandy until 1064.
? Cawley (2006); Wikipedia
? Walter is mentioned as the son of Robert and Herlave in:
Massan de St. Amand, A. (1813). Essais historiques et anecdotiques sur l'ancien comtâe, les comtes et la ville d'Evreux. Google Books.[1]
He is not named as a son by Wikipedia, Baldwin (n.d.) or Cawley (2006).
? see Geni.com for copy.[2]
See also:

Baldwin, S. (n.d.). "Robert, archbishop of Rouen and count of âEvreux." Henry Project. Web.[3]
Cawley, C. (2006). Medieval Lands v.4. Fmg.ac. Web.[4]
Wikipedia: Robert II (archbishop of Rouen)

end of profile

Robert married Havlive of Normandy. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

355301.
Havlive of Normandy
Children:

177650. Richard d'Evreux was born in ~986; died on 13 Dec 1067.

1548416.

Rollo was born in 846 in Maer, Norway (son of Ragnvald Eysteinsson, Earl of Mar and Ragnhild Hrâolfsdâottir, Countess of Mar); died in 931; was buried in Rouen Cathedral, Rouen, Normandy, France.

Notes:

Rollo or Gaange Rolf[1] (Norman: Rou; Old Norse: Hrâolfr; French: Rollon; c. 846 – c. 930 AD) was a Viking who became the first ruler of Normandy, a region of France. He is sometimes called the 1st Duke of Normandy. His Scandinavian name Rolf was extended to Gaange Rolf because he as an adult became too heavy for a horse to carry, therefore he had to walk ("gaa" in older Dano-Norwegian). Rollo emerged as the outstanding personality among the Norsemen who had secured a permanent foothold on Frankish soil in the valley of the lower Seine. Charles the Simple, the king of West Francia, ceded them lands between the mouth of the Seine and what is now the city of Rouen in exchange for Rollo agreeing to end his brigandage, and provide the Franks with protection against future Viking raids.[2]

Rollo is first recorded as the leader of these Viking settlers in a charter of 918, and he continued to reign over the region of Normandy until at least 928. He was succeeded by his son, William Longsword in the Duchy of Normandy that he had founded.[3] The offspring of Rollo and his followers became known as the Normans. After the Norman conquest of England and their conquest of southern Italy and Sicily over the following two centuries, their descendants came to rule Norman England (the House of Normandy), the Kingdom of Sicily (the Kings of Sicily) as well as the Principality of Antioch from the 10th to 12th century, leaving behind an enduring legacy in the historical developments of Europe and the Near East.[4]

Name

The name Rollo is generally presumed to be a latinisation of the Old Norse name Hrâolfr – a theory that is supported by the rendition of Hrâolfr as Roluo in the Gesta Danorum. It is also sometimes suggested that Rollo may be a Latinised version of another Norse name, Hrollaugr.[5]

Rollo is generally identified with one Viking in particular – a man of high social status mentioned in Icelandic sagas, which refer to him by the Old Norse name Gèongu-Hrâolfr, meaning "Hrâolfr the Walker". (Gèongu-Hrâolfr is also widely known by an Old Danish variant, Ganger-Hrolf.) The byname "Walker" is usually understood to suggest that Rollo was so physically imposing that he could not be carried by a horse and was obliged to travel on foot. Norman and other French sources do not use the name Hrâolfr, and the identification of Rollo with Gèongu-Hrâolfr is based upon similarities between circumstances and actions ascribed to both figures.[citation needed]

The 10th-century Norman historian Dudo records that Rollo took the baptismal name Robert.[6] A variant spelling, Roul, is used in the 12th-century Norman French Roman de la Rou, which was compiled by Wace and commissioned by King Henry II of England (a descendant of Rollo).[citation needed]

Origins and historiography
Rollo was born in the latter half of the 9th century; his place of birth is unknown.

The earliest well-attested historical event associated with Rollo is his leadership of Vikings who besieged Paris in 885–886.[7]

Perhaps the earliest known source to mention Rollo's early life is the French chronicler Richer of Reims, who claims (in the 10th century) that Rollo was the son of a Viking named Ketill.[8] In terms of onomastics, it is interesting that Richer also names – without explicitly linking him to Rollo – a man named Ketill as being the leader of subsequent Viking raids (in 888), against areas on the coast of West Francia, between the Seine and the Loire.

Medieval sources contradict each other regarding whether Rollo's family was Norwegian or Danish in origin. In part, this disparity may result from the indifferent and interchangeable usage in Europe, at the time, of terms such as "Vikings", "Northmen", "Danes", "Norwegians" and so on (in the Medieval Latin texts Dani vel Nortmanni means "Danes or Northmen").

A biography of Rollo, written by the cleric Dudo of Saint-Quentin in the late 10th Century, claimed that Rollo was from Denmark. One of Rollo's great-grandsons and a contemporary of Dudo was known as Robert the Dane. However, Dudo's Historia Normannorum (or Libri III de moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum) was commissioned by Rollo's grandson, Richard I of Normandy and – while Dudo likely had access to family members and/or other people with a living memory of Rollo – this fact must be weighed against the text's potential biases, as an official biography. According to Dudo, an unnamed king of Denmark was antagonistic to Rollo's family, including his father – an unnamed Danish nobleman – and Rollo's brother Gurim. Following the death of Rollo and Gurim's father, Gurim was killed and Rollo was forced to leave Denmark.[9] Dudo appears to have been the main source for William of Jumiáeges (after 1066) and Orderic Vitalis (early 12th century), although both include additional details.[10]

A Norwegian background for Rollo was first explicitly claimed by Goffredo Malaterra (Geoffrey Malaterra), an 11th-century Benedictine monk and historian, who wrote: "Rollo sailed boldly from Norway with his fleet to the Christian coast."[11] Likewise, the 12th-century English historian William of Malmesbury stated that Rollo was "born of noble lineage among the Norwegians".[12]

A chronicler named Benoãit (probably Benoãit de Sainte-More) wrote in the mid-12th Century Chronique des ducs de Normandie that Rollo had been born in a town named "Fasge". This has since been variously interpreted as referring to Faxe, in Sjµlland (Denmark), Fauske, in Hêalogaland (Norway), or perhaps a more obscure settlement that has since been abandoned or renamed. Benoãit also repeated the claim that Rollo had been persecuted by a local ruler and had fled from there to "Scanza island", by which Benoãit probably means Scania (Swedish Skêane). While Faxe was physically much closer to Scania, the mountainous scenery of "Fasge", described by Benoãit, would seem to be more like Fauske.

The claim that Rollo was the brother of a King of Norway, Harald Finehair was made by an anonymous 12th-century Welsh author, in The Life of Gruffudd ap Cynan.[13]

Rollo was first explicitly identified with Hrâolf the Walker (Norse Gèongu-Hrâolfr; Danish Ganger-Hrâolf) by the 13th-century Icelandic sagas, Heimskringla and Orkneyinga Saga. Hrâolf the Walker was so named because he "was so big that no horse could carry him".[14] The Icelandic sources claim that Hrâolfr was born in M²re, western Norway, in the late 9th century and that his parents were the Norwegian jarl Rognvald Eysteinsson ("Rognvald the Wise") and a noblewoman from M²re named Hildr Hrâolfsdâottir. However, these claims were made three centuries after the history commissioned by Rollo's own grandson.

There may be circumstantial evidence for kinship between Rollo and his historical contemporary, Ketill Flatnose, King of the Isles – a Norse realm centred on the Western Isles of Scotland. If, as Richer suggested, Rollo's father was also named Ketill and as Dudo suggested, Rollo had a brother named Gurim, such names are onomastic evidence for a family connection: Icelandic sources name Ketill Flatnose's father as Bjèorn Grâimsson,[15] and "Grim" – the implied name of Ketill Flatnose's paternal grandfather – was likely cognate with Gurim. In addition, both Irish and Icelandic sources suggest that Rollo, as a young man, visited or lived in Scotland, where he had a daughter named Cadlinar (Kaºlâin; Kathleen).[16][17] Moreover, Ketill Flatnose's ancestors were said to have come from M²re – Rollo's ancestral home in the Icelandic sources. However, Ketill was a common name in Norse societies,[18] as were names like Gurim and Grim. It is also possible that the later sources were attempting to suggest an otherwise undocumented link between the historical figures of Rollo and Ketill Flatnose, by way of little-known, possibly apocryphal figures like Grim, Gurim and the Ketill said to be Rollo's father.[citation needed]

Biography

Statue of Rollo in Rouen. There are two bronze replicas of this statue: one at êAlesund (Norway) and the other one at Fargo, North Dakota (United States)
Dudo tells us that Rollo seized Rouen in 876. He is supported by the contemporary chronicler Flodoard, who records that Robert of the Breton March waged a campaign against the Vikings, who nearly levelled Rouen and other settlements; eventually, he conceded "certain coastal provinces" to them.[19]

According to Dudo, Rollo struck up a friendship in England with a king that Dudo calls Alstem. This has puzzled many historians, but recently the puzzle has been resolved by recognition that this refers to Guthrum, the Danish leader whom Alfred the Great baptised with the baptismal name Athelstan, and then recognised as king of the East Angles in 880.[20]

Dudo records that when Rollo took Bayeux by force, he carried off with him the beautiful Popa or Poppa, a daughter of Berenger, Count of Rennes, took her in marriage and with her had their son and Rollo's heir, William Longsword.[21]

Rollo's grave at the Cathedral of Rouen

There are few contemporary mentions of Rollo. The earliest record is from 918, in a charter of Charles III to an abbey, which referred to an earlier grant to "the Normans of the Seine", namely "Rollo and his associates" for "the protection of the kingdom." [22] Dudo retrospectively stated that this pact took place in 911 at Saint-Clair-sur-Epte. In return for formal recognition of the lands he possessed, Rollo agreed to be baptised and assist the king in the defence of the realm. Rollo took the baptismal name Robert. The seal of agreement was to be marriage between Rollo and Gisla, daughter of Charles. Dudo claims that Gisla was a legitimate daughter of Charles.[23] Since Charles first married in 907, that would mean that Gisla was at most 5 years old at the time of the treaty of 911 which offered her in marriage.[24] It has therefore been speculated that she could have been an illegitimate daughter.[25] However a diplomatic child betrothal need not be doubted.[26]

After pledging his fealty to Charles III as part of the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, Rollo divided the lands between the rivers Epte and Risle among his chieftains, and settled with a de facto capital in Rouen.[27]

Charles was overthrown by a revolt in 923, and his successor, Robert I, was killed by the Vikings in 923. His successor, Ralph, conceded the Bessin and Maine to Rollo shortly afterwards, the chronicler Flodoard tells us.[28]

Rollo died sometime between a final mention of him by Flodoard in 928, and 933, the year in which a third grant of land, usually identified as being the Cotentin and Avranchin areas, was made to his son and successor William.[29]

Descendants

A genealogical chart of the Norman dynasty
Rollo's son and heir, William Longsword, and grandchild, Richard the Fearless, forged the Duchy of Normandy into West Francia's most cohesive and formidable principality.[30] The descendants of Rollo and his men assimilated with their maternal Frankish-Catholic culture and became known as the Normans, lending their name to the region of Normandy.

Rollo is the great-great-great-grandfather of William the Conqueror, or William I of England. Through William, he is one of the ancestors of the present-day British royal family, as well as an ancestor of all current European monarchs and a great many claimants to abolished European thrones.

One daughter of Rollo, Gerloc (also known as Adele), who married William III, Duke of Aquitaine, was mentioned by Dudo. According to William of Jumiáeges, writing in the latter half of the 11th century, Gerloc's mother was named Poppa.[31]

According to the medieval Irish text An Banshenchas and Icelandic sources, another daughter, Cadlinar (Kaºlâin; Kathleen) was born in Scotland (probably to a Scots mother) and married an Irish prince named Beollâan mac Ciarmaic, later King of South Brega (Lagore). A daughter of Cadlinar and Beollâan named Nithbeorg was abducted by an Icelandic Viking named Helgi Ottarsson,[32][33] and became the mother of the poet Einarr Helgason and grandmother of Guºrâun Ósvâifrsdâottir (protagonist of the Laxdœla saga).

A genetic investigation into the remains of Rollo's grandson, Richard the Fearless, and his great-grandson, Richard the Good, was announced in 2011 with the intention of discerning the origins of the historic Viking leader.[34] On 29 February 2016 Norwegian researchers opened Richard the Good's tomb and found his lower jaw with eight teeth in it.[35] Unfortunately, the skeletal remains in both graves turned out to significantly predate Rollo and therefore are not related to him.[36]

Depictions in fiction

Rollo is the subject of the seventeenth-century play Rollo Duke of Normandy, written by John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, Ben Jonson, and George Chapman.

A character, broadly inspired by the historical Rollo but including many events before the real Rollo was born, played by Clive Standen, is Ragnar Lothbrok's brother in the History Channel television series Vikings.[37]

end of biography

Also known as Hrolf the Ganger or Rollon, 1st Duke of Normandy from 911 to 927, called also Rolf the Walker, because, being so tall, he preferred to go afoot rather than ride the little Norwegian horses. Also shown as Rollon, Row, or Robert. Originally a Norse Viking, he was noted for strength and martial prowess. In the reign of Charles II the Bald, he sailed up the Seine River and took Rouen, which he kept as a base of operations. He gained a number of victories over the Franks, and extorted the cession of the province since called Normandy.

By the famous treaty which Charles the Bald, http://thehennesseefamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I53974&tree=hennessee, and Rollo signed the latter agreed to adopt Christianity. He was born in 846 and died in 932, and was buried in the Cathedral at Rouen.
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From: http://sbaldw.home.mindspring.com/hproject/prov/rollo000.htm

Commentary
Supposed father: Rognvaldr, jarl of M²re.

Supposed mother: Ragnhildr or Hildr.

The origin of Rollo is contraversial. There are several medieval sources which claim to give information about the origin of Rollo, the most widely repeated of which would make him a son of Rognvaldr, jarl of M²re by Ragnhildr or Hildr. As can be seen from the following brief notices, the various primary sources offer very contradictory information about Rollo's origin.

The earliest author to attribute an explicit origin to Rollo was Richer of Rheims, writing between 996 and 998, who called Rollo the son of another Viking invader of France named Catillus (presumably representing the Norse name Ketil) [Richer i, 28 (see PL 138: 35)]. Since Catillus appears to be a legendary individual, this account has generally been discredited, probably correctly [see Douglas 420-1].

According to Dudo of St. Quentin (writing early 11th century), author of the earliest history of the Normans, Rollo had a younger brother named Gurim, presumed to be the familiar name Gorm. Dudo states that Rollo and Gurim were sons of a man who held many lands in "Dacia" (Dudo's word for Denmark, following other authors), and that after the death of the (unnamed) father of Rollo and Gurim, the king of Dacia fought against the sons, killing Gurim and driving Rollo out [Dudo ii, 2-4 (pp. 26-7)]. Dudo later refers to duke Richard I as being related to a "king of Dacia" named Haigrold [Dudo iv, 84-88 (pp. 114-20 passim)], who must have been the Viking raider of France of that name [Flodoard's Annals, s.a. 945, see PL 135: 463-4, van Houts 51], and not king Harald "Bluetooth" of Denmark. Note that Gurim cannot be the famous Gorm "the Old" of Denmark, who survived Rollo by many years.

William of Malmesbury (early 12th century) appears to be the earliest author to attribute a Norwegian origin to Rollo [WM ii, 5 (p. 125)].

As is well known, the Orkneyinga Saga (late twelfth century) [OrkS 4 (pp. 29-30)], followed by other Icelandic sources (such as the well known Heimskringla and Landnâamabâok), gives Rollo the name Hrâolfr, and make him a son of Rognvaldr, jarl of M²re, and brother of (among others) jarl Torf-Einarr of the Orkneys [OI 1: 187]. Earlier sources, such as Ari's Íslendingabâok (early to middle 12th century), mention Rognvald of M²re and his son Hrollaugr who settled in Iceland, but not the supposed connection to the dukes of Normandy [Ari 49, 61]. A poem allegedly written by Einar mentions his brothers, including a Hrâolfr, but does not connect Hrâolfr to Normandy, and does not name a Gorm among the brothers. (See the page on Rognvaldr for more on this poem.)

Historia Gruffud vab Kenan (ca. 1250), apparently a Welsh translation and/or revision of an earlier Latin life of Gruffudd ap Cynan, gives Haraldr Hâarfagri of Norway ("Harald Harfagyr") a brother named Rodulf (i.e., the Latin form of Hrâolfr) who is called the founder of Normandy [HGK, 3-4]. However, this is evidently a corrupt version of the Scandinavian version, and the suggestion that Rollo was a brother of Haraldr Hâarfagri need not be given any credence.

The most prominent argument of the case for accepting the Scandinavian account that Rollo was the same person as Hrâolfr, son of Rognvaldr of M²re, was given by D. C. Douglas [Douglas 419-23], and those who accept this identification have generally followed the same arguments. On the other side, arguments against the identification were given by Viggo Starcke in his book Denmark in World History [Starcke 222-7].

Most of the argument of Douglas consists of accepting the tale of the sagas and rejecting evidence from the Norman sources which contradict the saga version, while explaining away the problems (on which more below). The evidence which Douglas puts forward as "a powerful, if not a conclusive, argument in favor of the identity of Rollo with Ganger-Rolf" concerns a passage in Landnâaamabâok that refers to a daughter of Gongu-Hrâolfr:

"... Annarr son Óttars vas Helge; hann herjaºe âa Skottland, ok feck ¤ar at herfange Niºbiorgo, dâottor Beolans konungs ok Caºlâinar, dâottor Gongo-Hrâolfs" (Another son of Óttarr was Helge. He harried in Scotland, and won there as his booty Niºbjorg, daughter of king Beolan and Caºlâin, daughter of Gongu-Hrâolfr.) [OI 1: 66-7]

This passage, which Douglas attributed to "Ari the Learned" (who may or may not have been the author), is then compared with a passage from the nearly contemporary Plaintsong of Rollo's son William "Longsword" which was written soon after William's death:

"Hic in orbe transmarino natus patre
in errore paganorum permanente
matre quoque consignata alma fide
sacra fuit lotus unda"
(Born overseas from a father who stuck to the pagan error and from a mother who was devoted to the sweet religion, he was blessed with the holy chrism.)
[Douglas 422 (Latin); van Houts 41 (English translation)]

After explaining that the two stories are consistent with one another, Douglas then state that "[t]he suggestion of the Landnâamabâok is thus confirmed by an epic poem composed in Gaul in the tenth century." While it is true that the two accounts as they stand are consistent with each other and with the claim that Rollo and Gongu-Hrâolfr were the same man (ignoring all other evidence), it is surely a gross overstatement to claim that the Plaintsong "confirms" the other account, for there is not a single statement in the passage from Landnâamabâok that is confirmed by the Plaintsong. This is a clear case of circular reasoning, for without first assuming that Rollo and Gongu-Hrâolfr were the same man, there is no evidence that the two passages have any relation whatsoever. Douglas's case is further undermined by the fact that another source [Laxdœla Saga chapter 32, see OI 1: 246] makes Niºbjorg's mother Caºlâin a daughter of Gongu-Hrâolfr, son of Oxna-´âorir, directly contradicting the thesis that Caºlâin was supposedly a granddaughter of Rognvaldr of M²re. Yet, Douglas apparently regarded this as the strongest part of his argument.

There are three main strands of evidence (somewhat related to each other) against the identification of Rollo with Hrâolfr son of Rognvaldr:

1. The discrepancies between the Norman and Icelandic sources.
Among other contradictions, the Norman sources give Rollo a brother named Gurim, while the Icelandic sources give Hrâolfr several brothers, none of them named Gormr (the presumed Old-Norse form for Gurim). Although both of the sources have their problems, earlier native sources would seem to have a higher priority than later foreign sources. While many elements of the Dudo's account are clearly legendary, there appears to be no clear motive on the part of Dudo (writing less than a century after Rollo's death) to invent a younger brother for Rollo who is then immediately killed off.

2. The general unreliability of Norse source for the early tenth century.
For the period under consideration, i.e., the early ninth century, the sagas have a poor record for reliability, even for Scandinavian history. For example, consider the following words of Peter Sawyer (written with regard to a different matter, but true in general), a well known expert on early Viking history: "... These sagas cannot, however, be accepted as reliable sources for the tenth century. The only trustworthy evidence for the tenth century in those sagas are the contemporary verses around which the saga writers wove their tales." [Sawyer 42] None of these verses confirm the identity of Rollo and Hrâolfr. The suspicion is made even larger by the fact that the Icelandic sources show no knowledge of Norman history other than the fact (well known throughout Europe at the time) that William the Conqueror was a descendant of the dukes of Normandy.

3. Rollo and Hrâolfr appear to be different names.
The natural Latinization of the name Hrâolfr would be Radulfus or Rodulfus. Yet, the Frankish and Norman sources consistently refer to the founder of Normandy as Rollo. Since these sources also include numerous individuals named Rodulfus, and consistently separate the two names, it appears that the names were regarded as different. Douglas explained this by suggesting a hypothetical hypochoristic form "Hrolle" of the name "Hroºwulf" as the basis for the name Rollo, and provides a single charter in which Rollo is referred to as "Rolphus" as evidence that the names were the same, acknowledging, however, that the charter itself was "not above suspicion." If the names were really regarded as the same, it would be expected that more convincing evidence to this effect could be offered.

Personally, I am inclined to believe that the identification of Hrâolfr and Rollo has no basis in fact, that it was likely to have been invented by a saga writer who wanted to give the jarls of Orkney some famous relatives (i.e., the kings of England), and that whatever the confusing Norman sources say are probably about the closest we are going to get to Rollo's origin. However, based on the surviving evidence, it is not possible to come to any definitive conclusion one way or the other, and Rollo's parentage should be listed as "unknown" unless further evidence becomes available.

Supposed second wife:

Gisla, said to be daughter of Charles the Simple, king of France [Dudo, 46-7, 53]. She is unknown in the Frankish sources. The fact that Charles the Simple's kinsman Charles the Fat had a daughter also named Gisla who married a Viking (Godefridus) in the ninth century has led to the natural suspicion that this Gisla is an invention based on the earlier woman of the name. If she existed at all, there is no reason to believe that she was a mother of any of Rollo's children.

Supposed additional child:

Caºlin (Kathleen), said by Norse sources to have married a certain king Beolan, who is otherwise unidentified. As discussed above, the evidence for her is less than satisfactory.

end of commentary

Rollo Ragnvaldsson
French: Robert Rognvalsson De Heidmark, Norwegian: Hrolf Ragnvaldsson, Norse, Old: Gange-Hrâolfr Ragnvaldsson
Also Known As: "Hrolf", "Rolf", "Rollo", "Gange-Rolv", "Gange-Rolf", "Gèongu-Hrâolfr", "le marcheur", "the walker", "the dane", "duke of normandy", "Rollo the Walker", "Viking", "Gange Rolf"
Birthdate: circa 860 (71)
Death: 931 (67-75)
Rouen, Seine-Maritime, Haute-Normandie, France
Place of Burial: Rouen, Haute-Normandie, France
Immediate Family:
Son of Ragnvald Eysteinsson, Earl of M²re and Ragnhild 'Hild' Hrâolfsdâottir, of More
Husband of Poppa of Bayeux and Gisáele
Partner of Kaºlin's mother
Father of William "Longsword"; Adáele of Normandy and Kaºlin
Brother of Gutum Ragnvaldson
Half brother of Hrollager Rognvaldsson; Hallad Ragnvaldsson Orkneyjarl, .; Einarr "Turf" Rognvaldsson, Orkneyjarl and Hrollaug Ragnvaldsson Eyjafjèorºur, Íslands
Occupation: Duc de Normandie, Comte de Rouen, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Normandy (911 - 932), duc de Normandie, Earl of Normandy, Viking chief, Count of Normandy, 'Agongah-woekh' Aeuello (Rollo Rognvaldsson), First Duke of Normandy, Duke of Normandy 1st, Norse Viking
Managed by: Private User
Last Updated: October 12, 2017

About Gange-Hrâolfr 'Rollo' of Normandy
http://www.friesian.com/flanders.htm#norman

http://genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00020055&tree=LEO

Duke of Normandy was the title given to the rulers of the Duchy of Normandy in northwestern France, which has its origins as the County of Rouen, a fief created in 911 by King Charles III "the Simple" of France for Rollo, a Norwegian nobleman and Viking leader of Northmen.

Gangu-Hrâolfr Ragnvaldsson, or Rollo de Normandie was a Norse nobleman and the founder and first ruler of the Viking principality in what soon became known as Normandy. The name "Rollo" is a Frankish-Latin name probably taken from the Old Norse name Hrâolfr, modern Scandinavian name Rolf (cf. the latinization of Hrâolfr into the similar Roluo in the Gesta Danorum).

Parents: Ragnvald Eysteinsson M²rejarl & Hild Nefja (uncertain, see below)
Spouses:
1. Poppa de Bayeux
Children:
Vilhjalm Langaspjâot (Guillaume Longue âEpâee)
Geirlaug (Gerloc) who later took the name Adela
2. Gisela de France (betrothal, no children)
According to Landnâama (The book of Settlers in Iceland, written in the 12th century), Rollo had a daughter named Kaºlâin (Kathlin or Cathlin) her mother is not named (Notes by Anna Petursdottir):

Kaºlin (Kathlin)
Kaºlâin is mentioned along with her father Rollo in chapter 33 in Landnâamabâok (The Book of Settlers) and her father, Rollo, and his brothers, also their father, Ragnvald are mentioned in chapert 82 : https://www.snerpa.is/net/snorri/landnama.htm

BIG NEWS
French and Norwegian scientists within several fields go together in a project to extract DNA from the remains of Rollo's grandson and great grandson in Fâecamp. This might give us the final answer to Rollo's origin (Note from Anna Petursdottir: Provided that the remains that are being researched, are in fact the persons in question and also are legitimate grandsons of Rollo). Excavations are expected in July 2011, results sometime autumn 2011.

Links and Resources
Snorre's saga
Dudo's account (eng): http://the-orb.arlima.net/orb_done/dudo/dudindex.html
Store Norske Leksikon
MEDIEVAL LANDS
[ROLLO [Hrolf "Ganger/the Walker"] (-[928]). Orkneyinga Saga names “Hrolf who conquered Normandy” as son of “Earl Rognwald” and his wife “Ragnhild the daughter of Hrolf Nose”, adding that he was so big that no horse could carry him, giving rise to his name “Gèongu-Hrolf”[153]. Snorre names "Rolf and Thorer" as the two sons of "Earl Ragnvald" and his wife Hild, recording that Rolf was banished from Norway by King Harald and travelled to the Hebrides, settling first in Orkney before moving southwards through Scotland, and eventually conquering Normandy[154]. The Historia Norwegie records that, after Orkney was conquered by "principi Rogwaldi" and his followers, "de quorum collegio…Rodulfus" captured Rouen in Normandy, commenting that he was known as "Gongurolfr" because he was obliged to walk as he was too large to travel on horseback[155]. This source makes no reference to any blood relationship between Rollo and "principi Rogwaldi".

According to Dudo of Saint-Quentin, Rollo arrived in northern France in 876[156], although there is some debate about [900] being a more likely date[157]. William of Jumiáeges records that Rollo was chosen by lot to be leader of the Viking colonists[158]. Viking raids intensified in northern France. Although they were defeated after raiding Chartres [911], Charles III "le Simple" King of the West Franks granted the Normans land around Rouen in which to settle[159]. The uncertain nature of the demise was the source of future problems between the French crown, which claimed that it was an enfeofment for which the ruler owed allegiance, and the later Dukes of Normandy who claimed it was an unconditional allod for which no allegiance was owed. A charter dated 14 Mar 918 which granted land to the monastery of Saint-Germain-des-Prâes "except that part…which we have granted to the Normans of the Seine, namely to Rollo and his companions"[160]. He was later known as ROBERT I Comte [de Normandie].

ROLLO ["Ganger" Hrolf], son of [RAGNVALD "the Wise" Jarl of Mèore in Norway & his wife Ragnhild ---] (-Rouen [928/33], bur ---, transferred [1064] to Rouen Cathedral[6]). The parentage of Rollo/Rolf is uncertain and the chronology of his life confused. Richer names "Rollone filio Catilli" as leader of the Vikings who raided along the Loire and against whom "Robertus Celticµ Galliµ dux" campaigned[7]. No further reference has been found to "Catillus/Ketel". Flodoard provides no information on Rollo´s ancestry. The early 12th century William of Malmesbury states that "Rollo…[was] born of noble lineage among the Norwegians, though obsolete from its extreme antiquity" and adds that he was "banished by the king´s command from his own country"[8]. The later Orkneyinga Saga is more specific, naming “Hrolf who conquered Normandy” as son of “Earl Rognwald” and his wife “Ragnhild the daughter of Hrolf Nose”, adding that he was so big that no horse could carry him, giving rise to his name “Gèongu-Hrolf”[9]. Snorre names "Rolf and Thorer" as the two sons of "Earl Ragnvald" and his wife Hild, recording that Rolf was banished from Norway by King Harald and travelled to the Hebrides, settling first in Orkney before moving southwards through Scotland, and eventually conquering Normandy[10]. The Historia Norwegie records that, after Orkney was conquered by "principi Rogwaldi" and his followers, "de quorum collegio…Rodulfus" captured Rouen in Normandy, commenting that he was known as "Gongurolfr" because he was obliged to walk as he was too large to travel on horseback[11]. This source makes no reference to any blood relationship between Rollo and "principi Rogwaldi". Guillaume de Jumiáeges accords a Danish origin to Rollo, stating that his father "possâedant presque en totalitâe le royaume de Dacie, conquit en outre les territoires limitrophes de la Dacie et de l´Alanie" and left "deux fils…l´aãinâe Rollon et le plus jeune Gurim"[12]. He records that the king of Denmark defeated the two brothers and killed Gorm, and that Rollo fled the country, first landing in England, where he made peace with "le roi…Alstem"[13]. If this refers to ¥thelstan King of Wessex, the account must be confused given King ¥thelstan´s succession in 924. Freeman suggests that Guillaume de Jumiáeges must be referring to "Guthrum-¥thelstan of East-Anglia"[14], although this does not resolve the chronological problems assuming that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is correct in recording Guthrum´s death in 890[15]. After recording Rollo´s expeditions in Frisia, Guillaume de Jumiáeges states that Rollo landed at Jumiáeges after sailing up the Seine in 876[16], another suspect date which Houts suggests should be corrected to [900][17]. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that Rollo defeated "Renaud duc de toute la France", captured "le chãateau de Meulan", defeated and killed Duke Renaud in another campaign, besieged Paris, captured Bayeux, and attacked Paris again while his other troops devastated Evreux where they killed "son âevãeque…Sibor"[18]. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that Rollo attacked Chartres but withdrew after being defeated by "Richard duc de Bourgogne" and "Anselme l âevãeque"[19].

William of Malmesbury records that "Rollo…experienced a check at Chartres" but escaped the "plentiful slaughter" of the Vikings by the townspeople, before capturing Rouen "in 876"[20]. Guillaume of Jumiáeges records that Charles III "le Simple" King of the West Franks granted Rollo "tout le territoire maritime qui s´âetend depuis la riviáere d´Epte jusqu´aux confines de la Bretagne" together with "sa fille…Gisáele", that "les princes de cette province…Bâeranger et Alain" swore allegiance to Rollo, and that Rollo was baptised in 912 by "l´archâevãeque Francon", adopting the name ROBERT after "le duc Robert" who acted as his sponsor[21].

William of Malmesbury records that "it was determined by treaty, that [Rollo] should be baptised, and hold the country of the king as his lord"[22]. The charter which confirms the original grant (assuming that there was such a document) has not survived. However, the grant of land is inferred from a charter dated 14 Mar 918, under which land was donated to the monastery of Saint-Germain-des-Prâes specifying that the donation excluded "that part…which we have granted to the Normans of the Seine, namely to Rollo and his companions"[23]. The uncertain nature of the demise was the source of future problems between the French crown, which claimed that Normandy was an enfeofment for which the ruling duke owed allegiance, and the later dukes of Normandy, who claimed that it was an unconditional allod for which no allegiance was owed[24].

The version of events recorded by Flodoard provides a different slant and names two Viking leaders. Firstly, Flodoard records that in 923 "Ragenoldus princeps Nortmannorum" who occupied "in fluvio Ligeri" devastated "Franciam trans Isaram", that "Nortmanni" made peace in 924 "cum Francis", that King Raoul granted them "Cinomannis et Baiocµ" [Maine and Bayeux], but that "Raginoldus cum suis Nortmannis" devasted the land between the Loire and the Seine[25]. This passage makes no mention of the supposed earlier grant of land along the shore. Secondly, the same source records that "Raginoldus cum suis Nortmannis" devasted Burgundy in 925, that Hâeribert [II] Comte de Vermandois besieged Norman castles "super Sequanam", that "Nortmanni" devastated "pagum Belvacensem atque Ambianensem" [Beauvais and Amboise], while Comte Hâeribert and Arnoul Count of Flanders forced "Rollo princeps" from his strongholds[26]. Thirdly, Flodoard states that "Hugo filius Rotberti et Heribertus comes" campaigned against "Nortmannos" in 927, that "filius Rollonis" did homage to ex-king Charles at "castellum…Auga", and that "Rollo" held "filius Heriberti Odo" as a hostage in 928, which suggests some sort of alliance between Rollo and Comte Hâeribert[27]. William of Malmesbury records that Rollo died at Rouen[28]. The date of his death is uncertain: Flodoard names Rollo as living in 928 (see above) but the same source names "Willelmus princeps Nortmannorum" in 933[29]. Orderic Vitalis implies that the transfer of Robert's body to Rouen Cathedral took place after the "the ninth year" in office of Archbishop Maurilius, who had succeeded Mauger de Normandie[30], which would date the event to [1064]. He is known to history as ROBERT I Comte [de Normandie], although no early source has been identified which refers to him by this name or title.

[m] [firstly] ---. The identity of Rollo´s first wife or concubine is not known.

m [secondly] ([886] or after, repudiated, remarried after 912) POPPA, daughter of BERENGAR Comte de Bayeux & his wife ---. Guillaume of Jumiáeges records that Rollo took "Popa, fille de Bâerenger, homme illustre" when he captured Bayeux and "s´unit avec elle, áa la maniáere des Danois"[31]. According to Orderic Vitalis, Rollo "stormed and captured Bayeux, slew its count Berengar and took to wife his daughter Poppa"[32]. In another passage, the same source records that Rollo besieged Paris, captured Bayeux, killed "Berengarium comitem" and married his daughter Popa, in 886[33], although this date appears early in light of the likely birth date range of the couple's son Guillaume. The Chronico Rotomagensis records that "mortua a Gisla, accepit Rollo propriam uxorem filiam comitis Silvanectensis Widonis"[34]. Robert of Torigny combines the information, recording that "Rollo dux Northmannorum" married "Popam prius repudiatam uxorem…filiam…Berengarii comitis Baiocensis neptem vero Widonis comitis Silvanectensis"[35]. The Historia Norwegie records that, after capturing Rouen, "Rodulfus" married the daughter of its deceased count by whom he was father of "Willelmum…Longosped"[36]. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that "le comte Bernard" welcomed "son neveu Richard" (grandson of Rollo) at Senlis after his escape from captivity[37], although in another passage he describes how Rollo captured Bayeux and took "une tráes-noble jeune fille Popa, fille de Bâerenger" in the town, marrying her "áa la maniáere des Danois"[38], in a later passage adding that Rollo married Poppa, whom he had previously repudiated, a second time after the death of his wife[39]. It would be possible to reconcile the different versions if Comte Bernard's mother was married twice, her first husband being Bâerenger Comte de Bayeux.

m thirdly (912) GISELA, daughter of CHARLES III "le Simple" King of the West Franks & his first wife Frederuna --- ([908/16]-before her husband). The Genealogica Arnulfi Comitis names (in order) "Hyrmintrudim, Frederunam, Adelheidim, Gislam, Rotrudim et Hildegardim" as the children of "Karolus rex…ex Frederuna regina"[40]. Guillaume of Jumiáeges records that Charles III "le Simple" King of the West Franks granted Rollo "tout le territoire maritime qui s´âetend depuis la riviáere d´Epte jusqu´aux confines de la Bretagne" together with "sa fille…Gisáele", and their marriage which took place after Rollo´s baptism[41]. Her marriage is recorded in the Norman annals for 912, which state that she died without issue, presumably soon after the marriage when Gisla must still have been an infant. The chronicle of Dudo of Saint-Quentin[42] describes her as of "tall stature, most elegant…", which is of course inconsistent with her supposed birth date range. The Liber Modernorum Regum Francorum records the marriage of "filiam suam [=rex Karolus] nomine Gillam" to "Rollo"[43]. Settipani considers that the marriage did not occur, and that the Norman sources confused it with the marriage of Gisela, daughter of Lothaire II King of Lotharingia, to the Viking leader Gotfrid[44].

Rollo & his [first wife] had two children:

1. [KADLINE . Her parentage and marriage are confirmed by the Landnâama-Boc which records that "son of Oht-here…Helge" captured and married [her daughter] "Nidh-beorg, daughter of king Beolan and Cadh-lina, daughter of Walking-Rolf [Gongo-Hrâolfs]" when he "harried in Scotland", and also records their descendants[45]. No other record has been found of "king Beolan" and the accuracy of this report is unknown. m BEOLAN King [in Scotland].]

2. [NIEDERGA . Niederga is shown in Europèaische Stammtafeln[46] as the second daughter of Rollo by his first wife but the primary source on which this is based has not been identified.]

Robert & his [second] wife had two children:

3. GUILLAUME (Rouen [900/05]-murdered Pequigny 17 Dec 942, bur ---, transferred [1064] to Rouen Cathedral[47]). Guillaume de Jumiáeges names "Guillaume et…Gerloc" as children of Rollo and Poppa[48]. However, the Planctus for William Longsword[49], composed shortly after the murder of Guillaume, states that he had a Christian mother of overseas origin. Dudo of Saint-Quentin states that he was born in Rouen and, in a later passage, describes him as a "young man" one year before his father's death[50]. His father chose him as heir one year before his death[51]. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that he was born before his father's marriage to Gisela and his remarriage with Popa after Gisela's death[52]. Flodoard records that "filius Rollonis" did homage to ex-king Charles III "le Simple" at "castellum…Auga" in 927[53]. He succeeded his father in [928/33] as GUILLAUME I "Longuespee" Comte [de Normandie]. Flodoard names "Willelmus princeps Nortmannorum" in 933[54]. He quelled a rebellion by the Viking chief Riulf after the latter besieged Rouen[55]. In return for swearing allegiance to Raoul King of France, he appears to have been granted rights to further territory along the coast in 933, maybe the Cotentin and Avranchin. If this is correct, it would have created rivalry with the dukes of Brittany. Dudo of Saint-Quentin describes Comte Guillaume's invasion of Brittany shortly after his accession to quell a rebellion against him, and his defeat of the rebels at Bayeux[56]. Responding to raids by Comte Guillaume, Arnoul I Count of Flanders invaded Ponthieu and in 939 captured Montreuil from Herluin Comte de Ponthieu, although it was recaptured by Comte Guillaume's forces. In 939, Guillaume joined the alliance against Louis IV King of France which was led by Otto I "der GroÏe" King of Germany who raided Frankish territory. Comte Guillaume, however, met King Louis at Amiens, receiving a confirmation of the grant of his lands in Normandy. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that Guillaume was tricked into a meeting on the river Seine at Pecquigny by Arnoul Count of Flanders to settle their dispute over the castle of Montreuil, but was murdered on Count Arnoul's orders, recording his death on 17 Dec[57]. The Annalibus Rotomagensibus record that "Willermus dux Normannorum filius Rollonis" was killed "943 XVI Kal Jan"[58]. Orderic Vitalis implies that the transfer of his body to Rouen Cathedral took place after the "the ninth year" in office of Archbishop Maurilius, who had succeeded Mauger de Normandie[59], which would date the event to [1064].

[m] firstly SPROTA, daughter of ---. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that Guillaume married "une tráes-noble jeune fille Sprota…selon l'usage des Danois"[60]. From Brittany. It is possible that Sprota was Count Guillaume's concubine rather than wife, particularly as no reference has been found to a dissolution of any marriage before she married Esperleng. She married Esperleng de Pãitres, by whom she had Rodulf [Raoul] Comte d'Ivry.

m secondly ([940]) as her first husband, LUITGARDIS de Vermandois, daughter of HERIBERT II Comte de Vermandois & his wife Adela [Capet] (before 925-14 Nov after 985, bur Chartres, Abbaye de Saint-Páere). Rodulfus Glauber refers to the wife of Comte Guillaume as "sororem [Heribertum Trecorum comitem]", specifying that she was childless by her first husband, when recording her second marriage to "Tetbaldus"[61]. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records the marriage of Guillaume and the daughter of Heribert, specifying that it was arranged by Hugues "le Grand"[62]. The source which confirms her name has not yet been identified. She married secondly Thibaut I Comte de Blois. "Hugonis ducis, Odonis comitis, Hugonis sanctµ Bituricensis archiprµsulis, Letgardis comitissµ, Bertµ comitissµ, Gauzfridi vicecomitis…" subscribed the charter dated 985 under which "Robertus" donated property to "Sancti Petri Carnotensis", on the advice of "Odonem, simul cum sua matre Ledgarde, pariterque dominam meam Bertam, ipsius µque coniugem"[63]. The necrology of Chartres cathedral records the death "XVIII Kal Dec" of "Letgardis comitissa"[64]. Guillaume & his first wife had one child:

a) RICHARD (Fâecamp [932]-20 Nov 996, bur Fâecamp). Guillaume de Jumiáeges names Richard as son of Guillaume and Sprota, recording that news of his birth was brought to his father when he was returning from his victory against the rebels led by "Riulf"[65]. After the death of Richard's father, Louis IV "d'Outremer" King of the West Franks briefly controlled Rouen, and kept Richard prisoner, before the latter was able to escape, whereupon he succeeded as RICHARD I "Sans Peur" Comte [de Normandie].

4. GERLOC (-after 969). Guillaume de Jumiáeges names "Guillaume et…Gerloc" as children of Rollo and Poppa, in a later passage records her marriage to "Guillaume comte de Poitou"[66]. Robert of Torigny also names "Willermum Longum Spatam et Gerloch" as children of "Rollo dux Northmannorum" and Poppa[67]. The Chronico Richardi Pictavensis records that "Heblus…Pictavorum Comes et Dux Aquitaniµ duxit Adelam filiam Rolli Rothomagensis"[68], although this is presumably an error for Guillaume son of Ebles. She adopted the name ADELA when baptised. "Guillelmi comitis, Adeleidis comitisse" subscribed a charter recording a donation to Cluny dated [963][69]. Lothaire King of France granted her 14 Oct 962 the right to dispose of extensive property in Poitiers, la Cour de Faye, this grant effectively putting an end to the long dispute between her husband and the family of Hugues "Capet". She used the property to found the Monastery of Sainte-Trinitâe[70]. m (935) GUILLAUME I "Tãete d'Etoupe" Comte de Poitou, son of EBLES "Mancer" Comte de Poitou, Duke of Aquitaine & his first wife Aremburga ([900]-3 Apr 963). He succeeded in 959 as GUILLAUME III Duke of Aquitaine.

Rollo's origin
He is named as Rollo and said to have come from Dacia by Dudo of St. Quentin (c. 965-after 1043), the historian of the Norman dukes and the earliest source. Dudo does not name Rollo's parents. The Orkneyinga saga, a later source (c. 1230), identifies him with Hrolf Gange, who is said to have been a son of Ragnvald Eysteinsson, jarl of M²re. Modern scholars generally doubt the identification with Hrolf. See, for example, Stewart Baldwin, "Rollo of Normany" in soc.genealogy.medieval, Mar. 16, 1998.

There is much support for the claim of Rollo's homeland being Sykkylven in Sunnm²re (M²re), Norway.

Dacia, the country Dudo refers to as Rollo's homeland, was what people outside Scandinavia called the Nordic countries as a unity: Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Iceland together. Dudo describes Dacia as a country of high mountains, surrounding Rollo's estate - just like Gange-Hrolf's Fauske in Sykkylven. (see photos)

At the time the language, Old Norse (called dèonsk tunga by Snorri and others) was still the same and had not started to divide into separate dialects or languages.

Fasge, the place Adam of Bremen describes as Rollo's home, can easily be placed in Sykkylven where Gangu-Hrolfr had his estate at the farm called Fauske, Aure or Aurum. The Danish historian Steenstrup identified (works from 1876-82) Fasge with the town Faxe in Denmark, but linguistic argument shows that this consonant change is highly unlikely, and that the Norwegian place-name Fauske is more probable.

The outstanding linguist Hêakon Melberg argued in his dissertation that linguistic studies could shed light on the origin of the Scandinavian people and their history. In particular he opposes Steenstrup's analysis and points at several discrepancies, making Denmark improbable as Gange-Hrolf's origin.

http://books.google.com/books?hl=no&id=KGIeAAAAMAAJ&q=fauske#search_anchor

Sources
Linge, Per Eldar: Gangerolvs mektige M²re, Sunnm²rsposten forlag 1992.
More here: http://www.eutopia.no/Gangerolv.html

Melberg, Hêakon: Origin of the Scandinavian Nations and Languages : An Introduction (doctoral dissertation). University of Oslo, 1952.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A5kon_Melberg http://books.google.com/books?id=KGIeAAAAMAAJ&hl=no&pgis=1 http://ask.bibsys.no/ask/action/show?pid=921271042&kid=biblio

Languages
Gangu-Hrolf's Languages: Old French and Old Norse (the language spoken in the Nordic countries at the time):

"Danish tounge", dansk tunga, would be the language spoken in all of Scandinavia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Norse_language

dèonsk tunga: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Icelandic_language#The_Scandinavian_period_.28550.E2.80.931050.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_French

Snorri Sturlusson
From Heimskringla, Snorri: "24. ROLF GANGER DRIVEN INTO BANISHMENT.

Earl Ragnvald was King Harald's dearest friend, and the king had the greatest regard for him. He was married to Hild, a daughter of Rolf Nefia, and their sons were Rolf and Thorer. Earl Ragnvald had also three sons by concubines, -- the one called Hallad, the second Einar, the third Hrollaug; and all three were grown men when their brothers born in marriage were still children Rolf became a great viking, and was of so stout a growth that no horse could carry him, and wheresoever he went he must go on foot; and therefore he was called Rolf Ganger. He plundered much in the East sea. One summer, as he was coming from the eastward on a viking's expedition to the coast of Viken, he landed there and made a cattle foray. As King Harald happened, just at that time, to be in Viken, he heard of it, and was in a great rage; for he had forbid, by the greatest punishment, the plundering within the bounds of the country. The king assembled a Thing, and had Rolf declared an outlaw over all Norway. When Rolf's mother, Hild heard of it she hastened to the king, and entreated peace for Rolf; but the king was so enraged that here entreaty was of no avail. Then Hild spake these lines: --

"Think'st thou, King Harald, in thy anger, To drive away my brave Rolf Ganger Like a mad wolf, from out the land? Why, Harald, raise thy mighty hand? Why banish Nefia's gallant name-son, The brother of brave udal-men? Why is thy cruelty so fell? Bethink thee, monarch, it is ill With such a wolf at wolf to play, Who, driven to the wild woods away May make the king's best deer his prey."

Rolf Ganger went afterwards over sea to the West to the Hebrides, or Sudreys; and at last farther west to Valland, where he plundered and subdued for himself a great earldom, which he peopled with Northmen, from which that land is called Normandy. Rolf Ganger's son was William, father to Richard, and grandfather to another Richard, who was the father of Robert Longspear, and grandfather of William the Bastard, from whom all the following English kings are descended. From Rolf Ganger also are descended the earls in Normandy. Queen Ragnhild the Mighty lived three years after she came to Norway; and, after her death, her son and King Harald's was taken to the herse Thorer Hroaldson, and Eirik was fostered by him." (Snorri Sturlasson )

Gange-Rolv (Gèongu-Hrâolfr), var en norsk vikingh²vding og sagafigur som egentlig het Hrâolfr Rèognvaldsson (ca 860-932) og var s²nn av Ragnvald M²rejarl, kjent som jarlen som klippet Harald Hêarfagre etter at Norge var samlet til ett rike.

Gange-Rolv fikk tilnavnet fordi han var sêa stor at han alltid mêatte gêa til fots, underforstêatt at hesten ble for liten. I f²lge norsk og islandsk tradisjon er denne personen identisk med den historiske Rollo, som i 911 ble utnevnt til hertug over Normandie. Rollos opphav er imidlertid omdiskutert og nok umulig êa stadfeste helt sikkert ettersom kildene spriker i alle retninger. En sannsynlig slektning, Vilhelm Erobreren av Normandie, inntok England i 1066 og grunnla et nytt normannisk kongehus i der.

Gange-Rolv var med pêa mange tokt i Austerled, men ble forvist fra landet av Harald Hêarfagre etter et strandhogg han gjorde i Viken (Norge). I henhold til Snorre dro Rolv til Valland (Frankrike) etter landsforvisningen. Der ble han blant annet ble gift med kongsdatteren Gisela, og han skal ha blitt d²pt i Saint-Clair-katedralen.

WIKIPEDIA (Eng)
Rollo (c. 860 - c. 932) was the founder and first ruler of the Viking principality in what soon became known as Normandy. He is also in some later sources known as Robert of Normandy.

The name Rollo is a Frankish-Latin name probably taken from Scandinavian name Hrâolf (cf. the latinization of Hrâolf Kraki into the similar Roluo in the Gesta Danorum).

Historical evidence Rollo was a Viking leader of contested origin. Dudo of St. Quentin, in his De moribus et actis primorum Normannorum ducum (Latin), tells of a powerful Danish nobleman at loggerheads with the king of Dacia, who then died and left his two sons, Gurim and Rollo, leaving Rollo to be expelled and Gurim killed. William of Jumiáeges also mentions Rollo's prehistory in his Gesta Normannorum Ducum however he states that he was from the Danish town of Fasge. Wace, writing some 300 years after the event in his Roman de Rou, also mentions the two brothers (as Rou and Garin), as does the Orkneyinga Saga.

Norwegian and Icelandic historians identified this Rollo with a son of Rognvald Eysteinsson, Earl of M²re, in Western Norway, based on medieval Norwegian and Icelandic sagas that mention a Ganger Hrolf (Hrolf, the Walker). The oldest source of this version is the Latin Historia Norvegiae, written in Norway at the end of the 12th century. This Hrolf fell foul of the Norwegian king Harald Fairhair, and became a Jarl in Iceland. The nickname of that character came from being so big that no horse could carry him. [1]

The question of Rollo's Danish or Norwegian origins was a matter of heated dispute between Norwegian and Danish historians of the 19th and early 20th century, particularly in the run-up to Normandy's 1000-year-anniversary in 1911. Today, historians still disagree on this question, but most would now agree that a certain conclusion can never be reached.'

Invasion of France In 885, Rollo was one of the lesser leaders of the Viking fleet which besieged Paris under Sigfred. Legend has it that an emissary was sent by the king to find the chieftain and negotiate terms. When he asked for this information, the Vikings replied that they were all chieftains in their own right. In 886, when Sigfred retreated in return for tribute, Rollo stayed behind and was eventually bought off and sent to harry Burgundy.

Later, he returned to the Seine with his followers (known as Danes, or Norsemen). He invaded the area of northern France now known as Normandy.

Rather than pay Rollo to leave, as was customary, the Frankish king, Charles the Simple, understood that he could no longer hold back their onslaught, and decided to give Rollo the coastal lands they occupied under the condition that he defend against other raiding Vikings.

In the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte (911) with King Charles, Rollo pledged feudal allegiance to the king, changed his name to the Frankish version, and converted to Christianity, probably with the baptismal name Robert. In return, and in admission of defeat, King Charles granted Rollo the lower Seine area (today's upper Normandy) and the titular rulership of Normandy, centred around the city of Rouen. There exists some argument among historians as to whether Rollo was a "duke" (dux) or whether his position was equivalent to that of a "count" under Charlemagne. According to legend, when required to kiss the foot of King Charles, as a condition of the treaty, he refused to perform so great a humiliation, and when Charles extended his foot to Rollo, Rollo ordered one of his warriors to do so in his place. His warrior then lifted Charles' foot up to his mouth causing him to fall to the ground. [2]

Settlement Initially, Rollo stayed true to his word of defending the shores of the Seine river in accordance to the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, but in time he and his followers had very different ideas. Rollo began to divide the land between the Epte and Risle rivers among his chieftains and settled there with a de facto capital in Rouen. With these settlements, Rollo began to further raid other Frankish lands, now from the security of a settled homeland, rather than a mobile fleet. Eventually, however, Rollo's men intermarried with the local women, and became more settled as Frenchmen. At the time of his death, Rollo's expansion of his territory had extended as far west as the Vire River.

Death Sometime around 927, Rollo passed the fief in Normandy to his son, William Longsword. Rollo may have lived for a few years after that, but certainly died before 933. According to the historian Adhemar, 'As Rollo's death drew near, he went mad and had a hundred Christian prisoners beheaded in front of him in honour of the gods whom he had worshipped,[citation needed] and in the end distributed a hundred pounds of gold around the churches in honour of the true God in whose name he had accepted baptism.' Even though Rollo had converted to Christianity, some of his pagan roots surfaced at the end.

Legacy Rollo is a direct ancestor of William the Conqueror. Through William, he is a direct ancestor and predecessor of the present-day British royal family, including Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The "Clameur de Haro" in the Channel Islands is, supposedly, an appeal to Rollo.

Depictions in Fiction Rollo is the subject of the 17th Century play Rollo Duke of Normandy written by John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, Ben Jonson, and George Chapman.

References ^ Gèongu-Hrâolfs saga in Old Norse from heimskringla.no ^ Holden, A.J. (1970). Le Roman de Rou de Wace. Paris: âEditions A.J. Picard. p.54. Lines 1147-1156 D.C. Douglas, "Rollo of Normandy", English Historical Review, Vol. 57 (1942), pp. 414-436 Robert Helmerichs, [Rollo as Historical Figure] Rosamond McKitterick, The Frankish Kingdom under the Carolingians, 751-987, (Longman) 1983 Dudonis gesta Normannorum - Dudo of St. Quentin Gesta Normannorum Latin version at Bibliotheca Augustana Dudo of St. Quentin's Gesta Normannorum - An English Translation Gwyn Jones. Second edition: A History of the Vikings. Oxford University Press. (1984). William W. Fitzhugh and Elizabeth Ward. Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. Smithsonian Institute Press. (2000) Eric Christiansen. The Norsemen in the Viking Age. Blackwell Publishers Ltd. (2002) Agnus Konstam. Historical Atlas of the Viking World. Checkmark Books. (2002) Holgar Arbman. Ancient People and Places: The Vikings. Thames and Husdson. (1961) Eric Oxenstierna. The Norsemen, New York Graphics Society Publishers, Ltd. (1965)

TEXT - SOURCE? Rollo was a Viking leader, probably (based on Icelandic sources) from Norway, the son of Ragnvald, Earl of Moer; sagas mention a Hrolf, son of Ragnvald jarl of Moer. However, the latinization Rollo has in no known instance been applied to a Hrolf, and in the texts which speak of him, numerous latinized Hrolfs are included. Dudo of St. Quentin (by most accounts a more reliable source, and at least more recent and living nearer the regions concerned), in his Gesta Normannorum, tells of a powerful Dacian nobleman at loggerheads with the king of Dacia, who then died and left his two sons, Gurim and Rollo, leaving Rollo to be expelled and Gurim killed.(1) With his followers (known as Normans, or northmen), Rollo invaded the area of northern France now known as Normandy. Wace, writing some 300 years after the event, gives a Scandinavian origin, as does the Orkneyinga Saga, Danish or Norwegian most likely.

Unlike most Vikings whose intentions were to plunder Frankish lands, Rollo's true intentions were to look for lands to settle. Upon arrival in France, and after many battles with the Vikings, Charles the Simple understood that he could no longer hold back their advances, and decided as a tempory measure to give Rollo land around Rouen, as he did with his other barons, but under the condition that he would convert to Christianity and defend the Seine River from other raiding Vikings. In the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte (911) with the French King Charles the Simple, "for the protection of the realm," Rollo pledged feudal allegiance to the king, changed his name to the Frankish version, and converted to Christianity, probably with the baptismal name Robert. In return, and in admission of defeat, King Charles granted Rollo the lower Seine area (today's upper Normandy) and the titular rulership of Normandy, centred around the city of Rouen. There exists some argument among historians as to whether Rollo was a "duke" (dux) or whether his position was equivalent to that of a "count" under Charlemagne. According to legend, when required, in conformity with general usage, to kiss the foot of King Charles, he refused to stoop to what he considered so great a degradation; yet as the homage could not be dispensed with, he ordered one of his warriors to perform it for him. The latter, as proud as his chief, instead of stooping to the royal foot, raised it so high, that the King fell to the ground. It is important to note that Rollo did stay true to his word of defending the shores of the Seine river in accordance to the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, but in time Rollo and his followers had very different ideas. Rollo began to divide the land between the Epte and Risle rivers among his chieftains and settled there with a de-facto capital in Rouen. With these settlements, Rollo began to further raid other Frankish lands, now from the security of a settled homeland, rather than a mobile fleet.

Rollo expanded his territory as far west as the Vire River and sometime around 927 he passed the Duchy of Normandy to his son, William Longsword. Rollo may have lived for a few years after that, but certainly died before 933. According to the historian Adhemar, 'As Rollo's death drew near, he went mad and had a hundred Christian prisoners beheaded in front of him in honour of the gods whom he had worshiped, and in the end distributed a hundred pounds of gold around the churches in honour of the true god in whose name he had accepted baptism.' Even though Rollo had converted to Christianity, at the end, some of Rollo's pagan roots eventually came to the surface. He was a direct ancestor of William the Conqueror. By William, he was a direct ancestor of the present-day British royal family, including Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The "clameur de haro" on the Channel Islands is, supposedly, an appeal to Rollo.

TEXT - SOURCE??? Rollo (later Robert) "of Normandy" Viking leader in France, d. 932.

Although he is often referred to as the first Duke of Normandy, that title is an anachronism. Probably about 911, King Charles the Simple of France ceded a district around the city of Rouen to Rollo, which eventually evolved into the duchy of Normandy. He is said to have been baptized in 912, assuming the Christian name Robert. He was still living in 928, when he was holding Eudes, son of Heribert of Vermandois, as a captive and was probably dead by 932, when his son William was mentioned as leading the Normans.

end of biography

ROLLO THE VIKING

DIED 931 A.D.

For more than two hundred years during the Middle Ages the Christian countries of Europe were attacked on the southwest by the Saracens of Spain, and on the northwest by the Norsemen, or Northmen. The Northmen were so called because they came into Middle Europe from the north. Sometimes they were called Vikings, or pirates, because they were adventurous sea-robbers who plundered all countries which they could reach by sea.

Their ships were long and swift In the center was placed a single mast, which carried one large sail. For the most part, however, the Norsemen depended on rowing, not on the wind, and sometimes there were twenty rowers in one vessel.

The Vikings were a terror to all their neighbors; but the two regions that suffered most from their attacks were the Island of Britain and that part of Charlemagne's empire in which the Franks were settled.

endof commentary

Nearly fifty times in two hundred years the lands of the Franks were invaded. The Vikings sailed up the large rivers into the heart of the region which we now call France and captured and pillaged cities and towns. Some years after Charlemagne's death they went as far as his capital, Aix, took the place, and stabled their horses in the cathedral which the great emperor had built.

In the year 860 they discovered Iceland and made a settlement upon its shores. A few years later they sailed as far as Greenland, and there established settlements which existed for about a century.

These Vikings were the first discoverers of the continent on which we live. Ancient books found in Iceland tell the story of the discovery. It is related that a Viking ship was driven during a storm to a strange coast, which is thought to have been that part of America now known as Labrador.

When the captain of the ship returned home he told what he had seen. His tale so excited the curiosity of a young Viking prince, called Leif the Lucky, that he sailed to the newly discovered coast.

Going ashore, he found that the country abounded in wild grapes; and so he called it Vinland, or the land of Vines. Vinland is thought to have been a part of what is now the Rhode Island coast.

The Vikings were not aware that they had found a great unknown continent. No one in the more civilized parts of Europe knew anything about their discovery; and after a while the story of the Vinland voyages seems to have been forgotten, even among the Vikings themselves.

So it is not to them that we owe the discovery of America, but to Columbus; because his discovery, though nearly five hundred years later than that of the Norsemen, actually made known to all Europe, for all time, the existence of the New World.

II

THE Vikings had many able chieftains. One of the most famous was Rollo the Walker, so called because he was such a giant that no horse strong enough to carry him could be found, and therefore he always had to walk. However, he did on foot what few could do on horseback.

In 885 seven hundred ships, commanded by Rollo and other Viking chiefs, left the harbors of Norway, sailed to the mouth of the Seine, and started up the river to capture the city of Paris.

Rollo and his men stopped on the way at Rouen, which also was on the Seine, but nearer its mouth. The citizens had heard of the giant, and when they saw the river covered by his fleet they were dismayed. However, the bishop of Rouen told them that Rollo could be as noble and generous as he was fierce; and he advised them to open their gates and trust to the mercy of the Viking chief. This was done, and Rollo marched into Rouen and took possession of it. The bishop had given good advice, for Rollo treated the people very kindly.

Soon after capturing Rouen he left the place, sailed up the river to Paris, and joined the other Viking chiefs. And now for six long miles the beautiful Seine was covered with Viking vessels, which carried an army of thirty thousand men.

A noted warrior named Eudes was Count of Paris, and he had advised the Parisians to fortify the city. So not long before the arrival of Rollo and his companions, two walls with strong gates had been built round Paris.

It was no easy task for even Vikings to capture a strongly walled city. We are told that Rollo and his men built a high tower and rolled it on wheels up to the walls. At its top was a floor well manned with soldiers. But the people within the city shot hundreds of arrows at the besiegers, and threw down rocks, or poured boiling oil and pitch upon them.

The Vikings thought to starve the Parisians, and for thirteen months they encamped round the city. At length food became very scarce, and Count Eudes determined to go for help. He went out through one of the gates on a dark, stormy night, and rode post-haste to the king. He told him that something must be done to save the people of Paris.

So the king gathered an army and marched to the city. No battle was fought--the Vikings seemed to have been afraid to risk one. They gave up the siege, and Paris was relieved.

Rollo and his men went to the Duchy of Burgundy, where, as now, the finest crops were raised and the best of wines were made.

III

PERHAPS after a time Rollo and his Vikings went home; but we do not know what he did for about twenty-five years. We do know that he abandoned his old home in Norway in 911. Then he and his people sailed from the icy shore of Norway and again went up the Seine in hundreds of Viking vessels.

Of course, on arriving in the land of the Franks, Rollo at once began to plunder towns and farms.

Charles, then king of the Franks, although his people called him the Simple, or Senseless, had sense enough to see that this must be stopped.

So he sent a message to Rollo and proposed that they should have a talk about peace. Rollo agreed and accordingly they met. The king and his troops stood on one side of a little river, and Rollo with his Vikings stood on the other. Messages passed between them. The king asked Rollo what he wanted.

"Let me and my people live in the land of the Franks; let us make ourselves home here, and I and my Vikings will become your vassals," answered Rollo. He asked for Rouen and the neighboring land. So the king gave him that part of Francia; and ever since it has been called Normandy, the land of the Northmen.

When it was decided that the Vikings should settle in Francia and be subjects of the Frankish king, Rollo was told that he must kiss the foot of Charles in token that he would be the king's vassal. The haughty Viking refused. "Never," said he, "will I bend my knee before any man, and no man's foot will I kiss." After some persuasion, however, he ordered one of his men to perform the act of homage for him. The king was on horseback and the Norseman, standing by the side of the horse, suddenly seized the king's foot and drew it up to his lips. This almost made the king fall from his horse, to the great amusement of the Norsemen.

Becoming a vassal to the king meant that if the king went to war Rollo would be obliged to join his army and bring a certain number of armed men--one thousand or more.

Rollo now granted parts of Normandy to his leading men on condition that they would bring soldiers to his army and fight under him. They became his vassals, as he was the king's vassal.

The lands granted to vassals in this way were called feuds, and this plan of holding lands was called the Feudal System.

It was established in every country of Europe during the Middle Ages.

The poorest people were called serfs. They were almost slaves and were never permitted to leave the estate to which they belonged. They did all the work. They worked chiefly for the landlords, but partly for themselves.

Having been a robber himself, Rollo knew what a shocking thing it was to ravage and plunder, and he determined to change his people's habits. He made strict laws and hanged robbers. His duchy thus became one of the safest parts of Europe.

The Northmen learned the language of the Franks and adopted their religion.

The story of Rollo is especially interesting to us, because Rollo was the forefather of that famous Duke of Normandy who, less than a hundred and fifty years later, conquered England and brought into that country the Norman nobles with their French language and customs.

The Vikings in Normandy:
Timeline
Pre-Norman France map, http://www.viking.no/e/france/norm_col_gb.gif The chronology of the Vikings in Normandy can be encapsulated by a division into two successive centuries:

From AD 820 to c. AD 920, the Viking incursions on the lower Seine became more and more frequent, resulting finally in some permanent colonisation.
From c. AD 920 to AD 1020 was a consolidation period for Normandy, with the influx of numerous Scandinavian settlers, before turning increasingly to the Kingdom of France.

Timeline showing the Viking raids on the river Seine

820 Thirteen ships reach the Seine Bay. A force of Vikings lands but, having to face the shore guard, they are forced to re-embark, leaving five of their number dead on the Neustrian shore.
841 Asgeir's fleet sails up the River Seine (from 12th May), takes the city of Rouen (14th May) and burns it down. The loot is enormous. Aesgir's army continues its penetration of the Seine, plunders and burns the rich Jumiáege monastery (24th May). The nearby monastery of Fontenelle (the future Saint-Wandrille) is also assaulted and held to ransom. In this expedition, sixty-eight captives are taken and then returned on payment of a ransom by the monks of Saint-Denis (28th May).
845 Ragnar's fleet of 120 ships (therefore c. 6000 men) sails up the Seine and besieges Paris (28th March). Charles the Bald pays 7000 livres in order to spare Paris.
851 Asgeir and his men, back on the Seine, this time devastate the monastery of Fontenelle (13th October) and return there eighty-nine days later (9th January 852) and, finding nothing to plunder, burn it down.
852 Asgeir and his force raid on foot in the Beauvais region (Flanders county), from their base in Rouen. Engaged by a Frankish army, they have to withdraw and camp for the winter on Jeufosse island, securely controlling the entrance to the Seine. They stay there up to the 5th June. By the end of this year, a new group of Vikings, mainly Norwegians led by Sigtrygg (back from Ireland) and Godfrid, sails up the Seine to Jeufosse to establish their own base there. The Frankish army of Charles the Bald besieges the island.
853 (beg.) Charles the Bald negotiates with Godfrid, who afterwards retires. As for Sigtrygg, he stays to plunder and burn numerous places up to March.
855 Sigtrygg returns (18th July) to attempt to destroy a Frankish fort located on the Seine shore on the approach to Paris. He is reinforced by Bjèorn, leading a powerful fleet (17th August). The two armies join and carry out a raid in the south of the Seine, as far as Chartres, where they are stopped by the Frankish army of Charles the Bald. They have to withdraw to the Seine after heavy losses.
857 Again from Jeufosse, which has now become an established base, Sigtrygg's and Bjèorn's armies attack Paris (January). Chartres is assaulted again (12th June); on this occasion, revenging the reverse of AD 855, they take it, plunder it, and slaughter all its population. During the summer they also attack Evreux and many other places, the action taking place generally around Jeufosse island. Finally, Sigtrygg retires with his men.
858 Bjèorn is joined by a new group of Danes, led by Hasting (9th January). They lay again into the abbey of Fontenelle, which they burn down. Leading a mounted force, Bjèorn surrounds Paris and demands a ransom of the Parisian monasteries. Charles the Bald is defeated when he reacts and tries again to besiege the Viking base of Jeufosse.
859 The attacks from the Seine valley are redoubled. Charles the Bald is engaged in a struggle with his brother, Louis the German. The Vikings take advantage of this to attack freely far from their bases: Bayeux, Laon and Beauvais, where the bishops are executed.
860 The Viking chief, Veland, is paid 3000 silver livres by Charles the Bald to try to drive out the Vikings of the lower Seine.
861 From May, Veland besieges Jeufosse island, leading 200 Viking ships. The Vikings of Jeufosse have to retire from the Seine, with some 100 ships. This fleet then joins Veland's. Taking advantage of several years of respite, Charles the Bald builds forts which control the Seine at Pont-de-l'Arche.
865 Fifty Viking ships settle at Pãitres (near Pont-de-l'Arche), on the Seine.
876 100 new Viking ships make an incursion into the Seine. They sail away again after a payment of 5000 livres by Charles the Bald.
885 A huge fleet sails up the Seine (one report tells of some 700 ships) to besiege Paris. Losses are severe on both sides. The new Frankish king, Charles the Big, relieves the city by paying a heavy ransom to the besiegers.
887-911 Rolf (Rollo/Rollon) imposes himself as chief of the Vikings settled in the lower Seine region. He repels the Franks, pushing right up to the doors of the Ile-de-France. He attacks Chartres but, repulsed, withdraws again to the Seine.
911 Seeking to block the lower Seine, which had become a real "motorway" for the Viking invasions of the Kingdom of Frankia, the new king, Charles the Simple, concludes an agreement with Rolf at Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, conceding to him the suzerainty of the territory of the lower Seine which, de facto, Rolf had already had for several years.

Timeline showing the Viking Raids in Western Neustria

From AD 836 Bjèorn and Hasting lead numerous raids in Cotentin and Avranchin.
860-989 There are no more resident bishops in Cotentin and Avranchin nor any ecclesiastical infrastructures in these bishoprics. Whole areas are deserted by the native population as they become untenable, particularly in Cotentin.
867 The Frankish king, Charles the Bald, concedes Cotentin and Avranchin to the Bretons, so that they might defend these territories.
889, 890 and 891 Respectively, Saint-Lão, Coutances and Avranches are plundered or burnt down.
890-892 Rolf makes several raids in Bessin (Bayeux).
905 Vire is plundered.
907 Since Brittany is too devastated by the Viking raids, the Breton sovereignty of Cotentin and Avranchin exists only theoretically.
911 Since Rolf is now Jarl of Rouen, and since they refuse to convert to Christianity, and seek new conquests, many of Rolf's companions settle in Cotentin and Bessin.
916 From Cotentin and Bessin, where they have settled, numerous Scandinavian forces attack the whole eastern region of Brittany.
924 Bessin is added to Rolf's territory.
925 Some unsubdued Scandinavian troops of Bessin, united with native Saxons, devastate the western part of the Seine colony.
927-928 Rolf erect many fortifications (Bayeux, Exmes, Saint-Lão, Brionne, etc.) to face a huge influx of new Viking contingents, resistant to his authority in Cotentin (Danes from the Danelaw, and Hiberno-Norse from Ireland) and in Bessin (especially Danes from the Danelaw).
931 Brittany is totally subdued: on the east by the Normans of the Seine and on the west by Normans who have settled on the River Loire. The Normans of the Seine take advantage of this to get a foothold in Cotentin and Avranchin, and on the Channel Islands, in order to control the Scandinavian troops which have to submit to the Jarl of Rouen's authority.
933 Cotentin and Avranchin are conceded officially by the King of France, Raoul, to the Normans of the Seine, who are also appointed to the protectorate of Brittany.

Rollo married Lady Poppa of Bayeux. Poppa (daughter of Berengar II of Neustria, Count of Bayeux and unnamed spouse) was born in (850) in Bayeux, France; was buried in Rouen Cathedral, Rouen, Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1548417.

Lady Poppa of Bayeux was born in (850) in Bayeux, France (daughter of Berengar II of Neustria, Count of Bayeux and unnamed spouse); was buried in Rouen Cathedral, Rouen, Normandy, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Place de Gaulle, Bayeux, France

Notes:

Poppa of Bayeux was the Christian wife or mistress[1] (perhaps more danico)[2] of the Viking conqueror Rollo.

She was the mother of William I Longsword and grandmother of Richard the Fearless, who forged the Duchy of Normandy into a great fief of medieval France.[3]

Dudo of Saint-Quentin, in his panegyric of the Norman dukes, describes her as the daughter of a "Count Berengar", the dominant prince of that region, who was captured at Bayeux by Rollo in 885 or 889.[4]

This has led to speculation that she was the daughter of Berengar II of Neustria. Despite the uncertainty of her parentage, she undoubtedly was a member of the Frankish aristocracy.[5]

A statue of Poppa stands at the Place de Gaulle in Bayeux.

Notes:

Married:
Poppa was captured in a raid and married to Rollo of Normandy.

Children:

774208. William of Normandy, I, Duke of Normandy was born in ~893 in Normandy, France; died on 17 Dec 942 in Piquigny, France.

1548420.

Gorm the Old, King of Denmark was born in 860 in Jellinge, Denmark; died in 931 in Jellinge, Denmark; was buried in Jellinge, Denmark.

Notes:

Gorm the Old (Danish: Gorm den Gamle, Old Norse: Gormr gamli, Latin: Gormus Senex[1][2]), also called Gorm the Languid (Danish: Gorm L²ge, Gorm den Dvaske), was the first historically recognized ruler of Denmark, reigning from c.? 936 to his death c.? 958.[3] He ruled from Jelling, and made the oldest of the Jelling Stones in honour of his wife Thyra. Gorm was born before 900 and died c.? 958.[3]

Ancestry and reign

Gorm is the reported son of semi-legendary Danish king Harthacnut. Chronicler Adam of Bremen says that Harthacnut came from Northmannia to Denmark and seized power in the early 10th century.[4] He deposed the young king Sigtrygg Gnupasson, reigning over Western Denmark.[3] When Harthacnut died, Gorm ascended the throne.

Heimskringla reports Gorm taking at least part of the kingdom by force from Gnupa, and Adam himself suggests that the kingdom had been divided prior to Gorm's time. Gorm is first mentioned as the host of Archbishop Unni of Hamburg and Bremen in 936.[4] According to the Jelling Stones, Gorm's son, Harald Bluetooth, "won all of Denmark", so it is speculated that Gorm only ruled Jutland from his seat in Jelling.[4]

Marriage to Thyra

Runic stone for Thyra, back side
Gorm married Thyra, who is given conflicting and chronologically dubious parentage by late sources, but no contemporary indication of her parentage survives. Gorm raised one of the great burial mounds at Jelling as well as the oldest of the Jelling Stones for her, calling her tanmarkar but ("Denmark's Salvation" or "Denmark's Adornment"). Gorm was the father of three sons, Toke, Knut and Harald, later King Harald Bluetooth.[5]

His wife, Thyra, is credited with the completion of the Danevirke, a wall between Denmark's southern border and its unfriendly Saxon neighbors to the south. The wall was not new, but it was expanded with a ditch and earthen foundation topped by a timber stockade above it. The Danevirke ran between the Schlei and the Treene river, across what is now Schleswig.[6]

Death, burial and reburial

Gorm died in the winter of 958–959[5] and dendrochronology shows that his burial chamber was made from wood of timbers felled in 958.[7] Arild Huitfeldt explains how in Danmarks Riges Kr²nike:[citation needed]

Runic stone for Thyra, front side
The three sons were Vikings in the truest sense, departing Denmark each summer to raid and pillage. Harald came back to the royal enclosure at Jelling with the news that his son Canute had been killed in an attempt to capture Dublin, Ireland. Canute was shot with a coward's arrow while watching some games at night. No one would tell the king in view of the oath the king had made. Queen Thyra ordered the royal hall hung with black cloth and that no one was to say a single word. When Gorm entered the hall, he was astonished and asked what the mourning colors meant. Queen Thyra spoke up: "Lord King, you had two falcons, one white and the other gray. The white one flew far afield and was set upon by other birds which tore off its beautiful feathers and is now useless to you. Meanwhile the gray falcon continues to catch fowl for the king's table." Gorm understood immediately the Queen's metaphor and cried out, "My son is surely dead, since all of Denmark mourns!" "You have said it, your majesty," Thyra announced, "Not I, but what you have said is true." According to the story Gorm was so grieved by Canute's death that he died the following day.

This account would contradict information on the Jelling Stones which point to Queen Thyra dying before Gorm. Some archaeologists and historians have suggested that Gorm was buried first in Queen Thyra's grave mound at Jelling, and later moved by his son, Harald Bluetooth, into the original wooden church in Jelling.[3] According to this theory it is believed, that the skeleton found at the site of the first Christian church of Jelling is in fact Gorm the Old, though the theory is still much debated. During the reign of Gorm, most Danes still worshipped the Norse gods, but during the reign of Gorm's son, Harold Bluetooth, Denmark officially converted to Christianity. Harald, accordingly, left the hill where Gorm had originally been interred as a memorial.

Legacy

Gorm was "old" in the sense that he was considered the traditional ancestral "head" of the Danish monarchy. Saxo Grammaticus in the Gesta Danorum asserts that Gorm was older than other monarchs and having lived so long was blind by the time his son Canute was killed.

end of biography

Gorm's pedigree: https://fabpedigree.com/s038/f790309.htm

end of comment

Buried:
Gormshoj, Jellinge, Vejle, Denmark

Gorm married Elgiva of Wessex, Queen of Denmark. Elgiva (daughter of Aethelstan, King of the East Angles and unnamed spouse) was born in ~872 in Wantage, Berkshire, England; died in ~935 in Jellinge, Vejle, Denmark; was buried in Gormshoj, Jellinge, Vejle, Denmark. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1548421.

Elgiva of Wessex, Queen of Denmark was born in ~872 in Wantage, Berkshire, England (daughter of Aethelstan, King of the East Angles and unnamed spouse); died in ~935 in Jellinge, Vejle, Denmark; was buried in Gormshoj, Jellinge, Vejle, Denmark.

Children:

774210. Harold Gormsen, VII, King of Denmark was born in ~0895 in Blauzahn, Bavaria, Schwaben, Germany; died on 1 Sep 0986 in Gormshoj, Denmark.

1548430.

Robert De Vermandois, Count of Meaux was born in 918 in (France) (son of Herbert de Vermandois, II, Count of Meaux and Hildebranda of France); died on 29 Aug 968 in Seine-et-Marne, France.

Notes:

Robert Carolingian Vermandois de Meaux, Count of Meaux, Count of Troyes, was born circa 920 to Herbert II de Vermandois (884-943) and Hildebranda of France (895-931) and died circa 968 in Seine-et-Marne, France of unspecified causes. He married Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967) . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.

Children

Offspring of Robert de Vermandois and Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Herbert III of Meaux (c950-995) 950 995
Adele of Meaux (c950-c980) 950 980 Lambert de Chalon (930-979)
Geoffrey I of Anjou (-987)

Adelaide de Troyes (c955-c991) 955 991 Charles, Duke of Lower Lorraine (953-993)
Noteworthy descendants include

William I of England (1027-1087)

Namesakes of Robert de Vermandois (918-968)

Birth place
Death place
Father
Mother
Joined with
Robert de Vermandois (918-968) Seine-et-Marne, France Herbert II de Vermandois (884-943) Hildebranda of France (895-931) Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967)
Robert I of Senlis (?-1004) Bernard of Senlis (919-947)
Robert II of Senlis (?-1028) Robert I of Senlis (?-1004)

Robert married Adelaide-Werra de Chaton in 953 in Vermandois, France. Adelaide-Werra was born in 920 in (France); died in 967 in (France). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1548431.

Adelaide-Werra de Chaton was born in 920 in (France); died in 967 in (France).

Notes:

Adele Carolingian of Meaux was born 950 to Robert de Vermandois (918-968) and Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967) and died 980 of unspecified causes. She married Lambert de Chalon (930-979) . She married Geoffrey I of Anjou (-987) . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]

The French Wikipedia has her first husband marry her mother,[1] which is unlikely, given her age. The same source has her a daughter Gerberge marry King Adalberto of Italy. This would make Adele a grandmother at the age of 12. However, in the reconstruction shown here, Adele is married to two men at once, with her youngest daughter from her first marriage born around 972 and her eldest daughter from her second marriage born around 965.

Note that Genealogie Quebec merges her with her sister.[2]

Children

Offspring of Adele of Meaux and Lambert de Chalon (930-979)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Hugh I de Chalon (?-1039)
Mahaut de Chalon (?-1019) Henri I de Bourgogne (c948-1002)
Geoffroi de Semur (?-c990)

Aelis of Chalon (?-?) Guy I de Macon (975-1006)

Elizabeth de Chalon (970-1014)

Offspring of Adele of Meaux and Geoffrey I of Anjou (-987)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Gottfried of Anjou (?-987) 987
Fulk III, Count of Anjou (972-1040) 972 21 June 1040 Metz, France âElisabeth de Vendãome (c979-999)
Hildegarde de Beaugency (c990-)

Ermengarde of Anjou (bef967-) 967 Conan I of Rennes (927-992)

Gerberge of Anjou (965-1041) 965 1041 Guillaume III Taillefer of Angoulãeme (960-1028)
^ wikipedia:fr:Lambert de Chalon
^ http://genealogiequebec.info/testphp/info.php?no=23981

Children:

774215. Adele of Meaux was born in ~950 in Meaux, France; died in ~980.

192548.

Mauger Normandie was born in ~1020 in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, II and Papia Envermeu); died in 1055 in (Normandy, France).

Mauger married Germaine Corbell. Germaine was born in ~0978 in Marne, Champagne, France; died in ~1012. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

192549.

Germaine Corbell was born in ~0978 in Marne, Champagne, France; died in ~1012.

Children:

96274. Waldron St Clair was born in ~1019 in Normandie, France; died in 1047 in (Normandy, France).

192550.

Richard Normandie was born in ~0997 in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, II and Judith de Bretagne); died on 6 Aug 1027 in (Normandy, France).

Children:

96275. Helena Normandie was born in ~1053 in Manche, Normandie, France; died in ~1080.
Adelize Normandie was born in ~1021 in Normandy, France; died in ~1053 in Bayeux, Normandy, France.

177176.

Crinan of Dunkeld, Abbot of Dunkeld was born in ~976; died in 1045 in Dunkeld, Perthshire, Scotland.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: ~980, Atholl, Perthshire, Scotland

Notes:

Crâinâan of Dunkeld (died 1045) was the hereditary abbot of the monastery of Dunkeld, and perhaps the Mormaer of Atholl. Crâinâan was progenitor of the House of Dunkeld, the dynasty which would rule Scotland until the later 13th century. He was the son-in-law of one king, and the father of another.

Family

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Crâinâan was married to Bethâoc, daughter of Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda (Malcolm II) (King of Scots, who reigned from 1005 to 1034). As Mâael Coluim had no surviving son, the strongest hereditary claim to the Scottish throne descended through Bethâoc. Crâinâan and Bethâoc's eldest son, Donnchad (Duncan I), who reigned from 1034 to 1040.

It is likely that Crâinâan had a second son Maldred, father of Gospatric of Northumbria.
Abbot of Dunkeld

The monastery of Saint Columba was founded on the north bank of the River Tay in the 6th century or early 7th century following the expedition of Columba into the land of the Picts. It may have continued to draw its hierarchy from the Cenâel Conaill of Donegal.[1] Iain Moncreiffe argued that Crinâan belonged to a Scottish sept of the Irish Cenâel Conaill royal dynasty.[2]

While the title of Hereditary Abbot (coarb in Gaelic) was a feudal position that was often exercised in name only, Crinâan does seem to have acted as Abbot in charge of the monastery in his time. He was thus a man of high position in both clerical and secular society.

The magnificent semi-ruined Dunkeld Cathedral, built in stages between 1260 and 1501, stands today on the grounds once occupied by the monastery. The Cathedral contains the only surviving remains of the previous monastic society: a course of red stone visible in the east choir wall that may have been re-used from an earlier building, and two stone ninth - or tenth-century cross-slabs in the Cathedral Museum.

In 1045, Crâinâan of Dunkeld rose in rebellion against Macbeth in support of his 14-year-old grandson, Malcolm III's claim to the throne.[3] Malcolm was the elder son of Crinan's son, the late King Duncan, who predeceased his father. However, Crâinâan, by then an elderly man, was killed in a battle at Dunkeld.
References

Woolf, Alex. "The Problem with Crâinâan", From Pictland to Alba, Edinburgh University Press, 2007
Sir Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk, The Highland Clans. Part II. 1982. p. 236

Knox, James. The topography of the basin of the Tay, Andrew Shorteed, Edinburgh, 1831

External Source

Cawley, Charles, Medieval Lands Project on Crinan, Medieval Lands database, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy,[self-published source][better source needed]
Clans and Families of Ireland and Scotland

end of biography

177177.

Bethoc was born in 984 in Perthshire, Scotland (daughter of Malcolm II of Scotland, High King of Scotland and Aefgifu); died on 15 Sep 1049 in Dunkeld, Perthshire, Scotland.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Death: 1045

Notes:

British Aristocracy
Bethâoc MacAlpin was a member of aristocracy in the British Isles.
Join: British Royals and Aristocrats Project
Discuss: EUROARISTO
Contents
[hide]
1 Biography
1.1 Medieval Lands
1.1.1 Issue
1.2 Wikipedia, English
2 Research Notes
3 Sources
Biography
Bethâoc ingen Maâil Coluim meic Cinâaeda

Parents: Malcolm II of Scotland and his wife.
Spouse: Crâinâan of Dunkeld, Mormaer of Atholl
Children:
1. Duncan I, King of Scotland
2. Maldred of Allerdale
3. daughter(s)?
Medieval Lands
http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/SCOTLAND.htm#_Toc253996182
Bethâoc was the wife of Crâinâan: CRINAN "the Thane" (-killed in battle 1045). The primary source which confirms his parentage has not yet been identified. Abthane of Dule. Lay abbot of Dunkeld. Steward of the Western Isles. Mormaer of Atholl. He was killed fighting King Macbeth. The Annals of Ulster record that "Crâonâan abbot of Dâun Caillen" was killed in 1045 in "a battle between the Scots themselves"[204]. The Annals of Tigernach record that “Crâinan abbot of Dunkeld” was killed in 1045 in “a battle between the men of Scotland on one road”[205].

m ([1000]) BETHOC, daughter of MALCOLM II King of Scotland & his wife ---. The "Genealogy of King William the Lyon" dated 1175 names "Betoch filii Malcolmi" as parent of "Malcolmi filii Dunecani"[206]. The Chronicle of the Scots and Picts dated 1177 names "Cran Abbatis de Dunkelden et Bethok filia Malcolm mac Kynnet" as parents of King Duncan[207]. The Chronicle of John of Fordun records that King Malcolm II had "an only daughter…Beatrice who married Crynyne Abthane of Dul and Steward of the Isles…in some annals, by a blunder of the writer…abbot of Dul"[208].

Issue
Crinan & Bethoc had two children:

i) DUNCAN ([1001]-killed in battle either Bothganowan/Pitgaveny, near Elgin, or Burghead 14 Aug 1040, bur Isle of Iona). His parentage is confirmed by the Annals of Ulster which record the death of "Donnchad son of Crâinâan, king of Scotland" in 1040[209]. The Chronicle of John of Fordun names "Duncan" as son of "Crynyne Abthane of Dul and Steward of the Isles" and his wife[210]. He succeeded in 1018 as King of Strathclyde. He succeeded his maternal grandfather in 1034 as DUNCAN I King of Scotland.

ii) MALDRED (-killed in battle [1045]). His parentage is confirmed by Simeon of Durham who records the marriage of "Maldred the son of Crinan"[211]. Lord of Allerdale. Regent of Strathclyde 1034/35.

Wikipedia, English
Bethâoc ingen Maâil Coluim meic Cinâaeda was the eldest daughter of King Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda, King of Scots, who had no known sons.

The strongest hereditary claim of succession to the Scottish throne therefore passed through Bethâoc. Approximately 1000, Princess Bethâoc married Crâinâan, Abbot of Dunkeld. The first son of this marriage was Donnchad I, who ascended to the throne of Scotland in 1034. Early writers have asserted that Mâael Coluim also designated Donnchad as his successor under the rules of tanistry because there were other possible claimants to the throne.

Her sister Olith was married to Jarl Sigurd the Stout of Orkney, and the other sister Donada to Findlâaech, the Mormaer of Moireabh.

She is not to be confused with Bethâoc ingen Domnaill Bain meic Donnchada.

She gained the title of Heiress of Scone. As a result of her marriage, Bethoc of Scotland was styled as Lady of Atholl.

It is possible that Bethâoc had previously been married to Jarl Sigurd the Stout of Orkney, and to Findlâaech, the Mormaer of Moireabh. She is not to be confused with Bethâoc ingen Domnaill Bain meic Donnchada.

Research Notes
Citation needed for spare husband and surplus kids.

The name of Bethâoc's mother is not known.

Sources
Nigel Tranter has a pretty good book on the subject as well, "Macbeth the King" and it is far more readable than Dorothy Dunnett's. Tranter thinks that Thorfinn and Macbeth are halfbrothers, possibly sons of Malcolm II of
Scotland 's daughter Dovada. Duncan is their cousin son of Malcolm II's other daughter Bethoc.

It is possible that Bethâoc had previously been married to Jarl Sigurd the Stout of Orkney, and to Findlâaech, the Mormaer of Moireabh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethoc
Bethoc av Skottland, eller Bethâoc ingen Maâil Coluim meic Cinâaeda, var den eldste datteren til kong Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda (Malcolm II av Skottland) som ikke hadde noen s²nner.
Det sterkeste arvelige krav til êa etterf²lge som skottenes konge gikk derfor via Bethâoc. Omtrent rundt êar 1000 giftet prinsesse Bethâoc seg med Crâinâan av Dunkeld, lekmannsabbed og muligens mormaer. Den f²rste s²nnen av dette ekteskapet ble Donnchad mac Crâinâain (Duncan I av Skottland) som overtok den skotske tronen i 1034. Tidlige skribenter har ogsêa forfektet at Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda (Malcolm II av Skottland) selv hadde utsett Donnchad som sin etterf²lger under reglene om tanisteri ettersom det var andre mulige krav til tronen. Det er mulig at Bethâoc tidligere hadde vµrt gift med jarl Sigurd Lodvesson (kalt den digre eller staute) av Orkn²yene, og med Findlâaech, mormaer av Moireabh. Bethâoc mêa ikke forveksles med Bethâoc ingen Domnaill Bain meic Donnchada, en datter av Donald III av Skottland.
https://www.stirnet.com/genie/data/british/aa/alpin1.php
Anderson, Marjorie Ogilvy: Kings and Kingship in Early Scotland, 1973
Alison Weir, Britain's Royal Family: A Complete Genealogy (London, U.K.: The Bodley Head, 1999), page 177-178.
Richard Glanville-Brown, online , Richard Glanville-Brown (RR 2, Milton, Ontario, Canada), downloaded 17 August 2005.
The Oxford History of the British Monarchy ,
http://www.thepeerage.com/p10289.htm#i102883

end of this biography

Bethâoc ingen Maâil Coluim meic Cinâaeda was the elder daughter of Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda, King of Scots, and the mother of his successor, Duncan I.

Biography

Bethâoc was the eldest daughter of the Malcolm II of Scotland, who had no known surviving sons. She married Crâinâan, Abbot of Dunkeld. Their older son, Donnchad I, ascended to the throne of Scotland around 1034. Malcolm's youngest daughter married Sigurd Hlodvirsson, Earl of Orkney.[1] Early writers have asserted that Mâael Coluim also designated Donnchad as his successor under the rules of tanistry because there were other possible claimants to the throne.

In this period, the Scottish throne still passed in Picto-Gaelic matrilineal fashion, from brother to brother, uncle to nephew, and cousin to cousin.

Bethâoc
Spouse Crâinâan, Abbot of Dunkeld
Issue Duncan I, King of Alba
Maldred of Allerdale
House House of Alpin
Father Malcolm II, King of Alba

end of biography

Children:

88588. Duncan I of Scotland, King of Alba was born in ~1001 in (Dunkeld, Scotland); died on 14 Aug 1040 in Elgin, Scotland.
Maldred, King of Cumbria

177604.

Notes:

Edmund Ironside (died 30 November 1016), also known as Edmund II, was King of England from 23 April to 30 November 1016. He was the son of King ¥thelred the Unready and his first wife, ¥lfgifu of York. Edmund's reign was marred by a war he had inherited from his father, his cognomen "Ironside" was given to him "because of his valour" in resisting the Danish invasion led by Cnut the Great.[1]

Edmund was not expected to be King of England; however, by 1014 two elder brothers had died, making him the oldest male heir. His father, ¥thelred, was usurped by Sweyn Forkbeard in that same year, but Sweyn died shortly thereafter, paving the way for ¥thelred and his family to return to the throne, which they did but not without opposition. In the process they forced Sweyn's son, Cnut, back to Denmark, where he assembled an invasion force to re-conquer England. It would not arrive for another year.

After regaining the throne, the royal family set about strengthening its hold on the country with the assistance of Eadric Streona (Edmund's brother-in-law). People who had sided with the Danes in 1014 were punished, and some were killed. In one case, two brothers, Morcar and Sigeferth, were killed and their possessions, along with Sigferth's wife, were taken by Edmund. Edmund unofficially became the Earl of the East Midlands and took Ealdgyth for his wife.

Cnut returned to England in August 1015. Over the next few months, Cnut pillaged most of England. Edmund joined ¥thelred to defend London, but he died on 23 April 1016, making Edmund King. It was not until the summer of 1016 that any serious fighting was done: Edmund fought five battles against the Danes, ending in his defeat on 18 October at the Battle of Assandun, after which they agreed to divide the kingdom, Edmund taking Wessex and Cnut the rest of the country. Edmund died shortly afterwards on 30 November, leaving two sons, Edward and Edmund; however, Cnut became the king of all England, and exiled the remaining members of Edmund's family.

King of the English
Reign 23 April – 30 November 1016
Predecessor ¥thelred the Unready
Successor Cnut the Great
Born 990
Died 30 November 1016 (aged 26)
Oxford or London, England
Burial Glastonbury Abbey
Spouse Ealdgyth
Issue Edward the Exile
Edmund
House Wessex
Father ¥thelred the Unready
Mother ¥lfgifu of York
Religion British Church

Early life

The exact date of Edmund's birth is unclear, but it could have been no later than 993 when he was a signatory to charters along with his two elder brothers. He was the third of the six sons of King ¥thelred the Unready and his first wife, ¥lfgifu, who was probably the daughter of Earl Thored of Northumbria. His elder brothers were ¥thelstan (died 1014) and Egbert (died c. 1005), and younger ones, Eadred, Eadwig and Edgar.[1] He had four sisters, Eadgyth (or Edith), ¥lfgifu, Wulfhilda, and the Abbess of Wherwell Abbey. His mother died around 1000,[2] after which his father remarried, this time to Emma of Normandy, who had two sons, Edward the Confessor and Alfred and a daughter Goda.

¥thelstan and Edmund were close, and they probably felt threatened by Emma's ambitions for her sons.[3] The Life of Edward the Confessor, written fifty years later, claimed that when Emma was pregnant with him, all Englishmen promised that if the child was a boy they would accept him as king.[1] However that claim may just be propaganda.

Warrior prince

When Sweyn Forkbeard seized the throne at the end of 1013 and ¥thelred fled to Normandy, the brothers do not appear to have followed him, but stayed in England. ¥thelstan died in June 1014 and left Edmund a sword which had belonged to king Offa of Mercia.[1] His will also reflected the close relationship between the brothers and the nobility of the east midlands.[4]

Sweyn died in February 1014, and the Five Boroughs accepted his son Cnut, who married a kinswoman of Sigeferth and Morcar, as king. However, ¥thelred returned to England and launched a surprise attack which defeated the Vikings and forced Cnut to flee England. In 1015 Sigeferth and Morcar came to an assembly in Oxford, probably hoping for a royal pardon, but they were murdered by Eadric Streona. King ¥thelred then ordered that Sigeferth's widow, Ealdgyth, be seized and brought to Malmesbury Abbey, but Edmund seized and married her in defiance of his father, probably to consolidate his power base in the east midlands.[5] He then received the submission of the people of the Five Boroughs. At the same time, Cnut launched a new invasion of England. In late 1015 Edmund raised an army, possibly assisted by his wife's and mother's links with the midlands and the north, but the Mercians under Eadric Streona joined the West Saxons in submitting to Cnut. In early 1016 the army assembled by Edmund dispersed when ¥thelred did not appear to lead it, probably due to illness. Edmund then raised a new army and in conjunction with Earl Uhtred of Northumbria ravaged Eadric Streona's Mercian territories, but when Cnut occupied Northumbria Uhtred submitted to him, only to be killed by Cnut. Edmund went to London.[1]

King of England

¥thelred died on 23 April 1016, and the citizens and councillors in London chose Edmund as king and probably crowned him. He then mounted a last-ditch effort to revive the defence of England. While the Danes laid siege to London, Edmund headed for Wessex, where the people submitted to him and he gathered an army. He fought inconclusive battles against the Danes and their English supporters at Penselwood in Somerset and Sherston in Wiltshire. He then raised the siege of London and defeated the Danes near Brentford. They renewed the siege while Edmund went to Wessex to raise further troops, returning to again relieve London, defeat the Danes at Otford, and pursue Cnut into Kent. Eadric Streona now went over to Edmund, but at the decisive Battle of Assandun on 18 October, Eadric and his men fled and Cnut decisively defeated Edmund. There may have been one further battle in the Forest of Dean, after which the two kings negotiated a peace dividing the country between them. Edmund received Wessex while Cnut took Mercia and probably Northumbria.[1]

Death

On 30 November 1016, Edmund died. The location of his death is uncertain though it is generally accepted that it occurred in London, rather than in Oxford where Henry of Huntingdon claimed it to be in his sordid version of events, which included Edmund’s murder by suffering multiple stab wounds whilst on a privy tending to a call of nature.[6] Geoffrey Gaimar states a similar occurrence with the weapon being a crossbow, but with a number of other medieval chroniclers including the Encomium Emmae Reginae not mentioning murder, it is thought Edmund’s cause of death may possibly have been caused by wounds received in battle or by some disease, but it is certainly a possibility that he was murdered.

Edmund was buried near his grandfather Edgar at Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset. However the abbey was destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century, and any remains of a monument or crypt would have been plundered and the location of his remains is unclear.

Reputation

In the view of M. K. Lawson, the intensity of Edmund's struggle against the Danes in 1016 is only matched by Alfred the Great's in 871, and contrasts with ¥thelred's failure. Edmund's success in raising one army after another suggests that there was little wrong with the organs of government under competent leadership. He was "probably a highly determined, skilled and indeed inspiring leader of men". Cnut visited his tomb on the anniversary of his death and laid a cloak decorated with peacocks on it to assist in his salvation, peacocks symbolising resurrection.[1]

Descendants

Edmund had two children by Ealdgyth, Edward the Exile and Edmund. According to John of Worcester, Cnut sent them to the king of Sweden where he probably hoped they would be murdered, but the Swedish king instead forwarded them, together with his daughter, on to Kiev. The two boys eventually ended up in Hungary where Edmund died but Edward prospered. Edward "the Exile" returned to England in 1057 only to die within a few days of his arrival.[7] His son Edgar the ¥theling was briefly proclaimed king after the Battle of Hastings in 1066, but later submitted to William the Conqueror. Edgar would live a long and eventful life; fighting in rebellion against William the Conqueror from 1067-1075; fighting alongside the Conqueror's son Robert of Normandy in campaigns in Sicily (1085-1087); and accompanying Robert on the First Crusade (1099-1103). He was stlll alive in 1125.

In 1070 Edward the Exile's daughter, Margaret, became Queen consort to Malcolm III of Scotland. Through her and her decedents, Edmund is the direct ancestor of every subsequent Scottish monarch, every English monarch from Henry II onward, and every monarch of Great Britain and of the United Kingdom, down to the present.

Edmund married Ealdgyth. Ealdgyth was born about 992; died after 1016. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

177605.
Ealdgyth was born about 992; died after 1016.
Children:

88802. Edward the Exile was born in 1016 in (Wessex) England; died on 19 Apr 1057 in London, Middlesex, England.

Generation: 22

1548416.

Rollo was born in 846 in Maer, Norway (son of Ragnvald Eysteinsson, Earl of Mar and Ragnhild Hrâolfsdâottir, Countess of Mar); died in 931; was buried in Rouen Cathedral, Rouen, Normandy, France.

Notes:

Rollo or Gaange Rolf[1] (Norman: Rou; Old Norse: Hrâolfr; French: Rollon; c. 846 – c. 930 AD) was a Viking who became the first ruler of Normandy, a region of France. He is sometimes called the 1st Duke of Normandy. His Scandinavian name Rolf was extended to Gaange Rolf because he as an adult became too heavy for a horse to carry, therefore he had to walk ("gaa" in older Dano-Norwegian). Rollo emerged as the outstanding personality among the Norsemen who had secured a permanent foothold on Frankish soil in the valley of the lower Seine. Charles the Simple, the king of West Francia, ceded them lands between the mouth of the Seine and what is now the city of Rouen in exchange for Rollo agreeing to end his brigandage, and provide the Franks with protection against future Viking raids.[2]

Rollo is first recorded as the leader of these Viking settlers in a charter of 918, and he continued to reign over the region of Normandy until at least 928. He was succeeded by his son, William Longsword in the Duchy of Normandy that he had founded.[3] The offspring of Rollo and his followers became known as the Normans. After the Norman conquest of England and their conquest of southern Italy and Sicily over the following two centuries, their descendants came to rule Norman England (the House of Normandy), the Kingdom of Sicily (the Kings of Sicily) as well as the Principality of Antioch from the 10th to 12th century, leaving behind an enduring legacy in the historical developments of Europe and the Near East.[4]

Name

The name Rollo is generally presumed to be a latinisation of the Old Norse name Hrâolfr – a theory that is supported by the rendition of Hrâolfr as Roluo in the Gesta Danorum. It is also sometimes suggested that Rollo may be a Latinised version of another Norse name, Hrollaugr.[5]

Rollo is generally identified with one Viking in particular – a man of high social status mentioned in Icelandic sagas, which refer to him by the Old Norse name Gèongu-Hrâolfr, meaning "Hrâolfr the Walker". (Gèongu-Hrâolfr is also widely known by an Old Danish variant, Ganger-Hrolf.) The byname "Walker" is usually understood to suggest that Rollo was so physically imposing that he could not be carried by a horse and was obliged to travel on foot. Norman and other French sources do not use the name Hrâolfr, and the identification of Rollo with Gèongu-Hrâolfr is based upon similarities between circumstances and actions ascribed to both figures.[citation needed]

The 10th-century Norman historian Dudo records that Rollo took the baptismal name Robert.[6] A variant spelling, Roul, is used in the 12th-century Norman French Roman de la Rou, which was compiled by Wace and commissioned by King Henry II of England (a descendant of Rollo).[citation needed]

Origins and historiography
Rollo was born in the latter half of the 9th century; his place of birth is unknown.

The earliest well-attested historical event associated with Rollo is his leadership of Vikings who besieged Paris in 885–886.[7]

Perhaps the earliest known source to mention Rollo's early life is the French chronicler Richer of Reims, who claims (in the 10th century) that Rollo was the son of a Viking named Ketill.[8] In terms of onomastics, it is interesting that Richer also names – without explicitly linking him to Rollo – a man named Ketill as being the leader of subsequent Viking raids (in 888), against areas on the coast of West Francia, between the Seine and the Loire.

Medieval sources contradict each other regarding whether Rollo's family was Norwegian or Danish in origin. In part, this disparity may result from the indifferent and interchangeable usage in Europe, at the time, of terms such as "Vikings", "Northmen", "Danes", "Norwegians" and so on (in the Medieval Latin texts Dani vel Nortmanni means "Danes or Northmen").

A biography of Rollo, written by the cleric Dudo of Saint-Quentin in the late 10th Century, claimed that Rollo was from Denmark. One of Rollo's great-grandsons and a contemporary of Dudo was known as Robert the Dane. However, Dudo's Historia Normannorum (or Libri III de moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum) was commissioned by Rollo's grandson, Richard I of Normandy and – while Dudo likely had access to family members and/or other people with a living memory of Rollo – this fact must be weighed against the text's potential biases, as an official biography. According to Dudo, an unnamed king of Denmark was antagonistic to Rollo's family, including his father – an unnamed Danish nobleman – and Rollo's brother Gurim. Following the death of Rollo and Gurim's father, Gurim was killed and Rollo was forced to leave Denmark.[9] Dudo appears to have been the main source for William of Jumiáeges (after 1066) and Orderic Vitalis (early 12th century), although both include additional details.[10]

A Norwegian background for Rollo was first explicitly claimed by Goffredo Malaterra (Geoffrey Malaterra), an 11th-century Benedictine monk and historian, who wrote: "Rollo sailed boldly from Norway with his fleet to the Christian coast."[11] Likewise, the 12th-century English historian William of Malmesbury stated that Rollo was "born of noble lineage among the Norwegians".[12]

A chronicler named Benoãit (probably Benoãit de Sainte-More) wrote in the mid-12th Century Chronique des ducs de Normandie that Rollo had been born in a town named "Fasge". This has since been variously interpreted as referring to Faxe, in Sjµlland (Denmark), Fauske, in Hêalogaland (Norway), or perhaps a more obscure settlement that has since been abandoned or renamed. Benoãit also repeated the claim that Rollo had been persecuted by a local ruler and had fled from there to "Scanza island", by which Benoãit probably means Scania (Swedish Skêane). While Faxe was physically much closer to Scania, the mountainous scenery of "Fasge", described by Benoãit, would seem to be more like Fauske.

The claim that Rollo was the brother of a King of Norway, Harald Finehair was made by an anonymous 12th-century Welsh author, in The Life of Gruffudd ap Cynan.[13]

Rollo was first explicitly identified with Hrâolf the Walker (Norse Gèongu-Hrâolfr; Danish Ganger-Hrâolf) by the 13th-century Icelandic sagas, Heimskringla and Orkneyinga Saga. Hrâolf the Walker was so named because he "was so big that no horse could carry him".[14] The Icelandic sources claim that Hrâolfr was born in M²re, western Norway, in the late 9th century and that his parents were the Norwegian jarl Rognvald Eysteinsson ("Rognvald the Wise") and a noblewoman from M²re named Hildr Hrâolfsdâottir. However, these claims were made three centuries after the history commissioned by Rollo's own grandson.

There may be circumstantial evidence for kinship between Rollo and his historical contemporary, Ketill Flatnose, King of the Isles – a Norse realm centred on the Western Isles of Scotland. If, as Richer suggested, Rollo's father was also named Ketill and as Dudo suggested, Rollo had a brother named Gurim, such names are onomastic evidence for a family connection: Icelandic sources name Ketill Flatnose's father as Bjèorn Grâimsson,[15] and "Grim" – the implied name of Ketill Flatnose's paternal grandfather – was likely cognate with Gurim. In addition, both Irish and Icelandic sources suggest that Rollo, as a young man, visited or lived in Scotland, where he had a daughter named Cadlinar (Kaºlâin; Kathleen).[16][17] Moreover, Ketill Flatnose's ancestors were said to have come from M²re – Rollo's ancestral home in the Icelandic sources. However, Ketill was a common name in Norse societies,[18] as were names like Gurim and Grim. It is also possible that the later sources were attempting to suggest an otherwise undocumented link between the historical figures of Rollo and Ketill Flatnose, by way of little-known, possibly apocryphal figures like Grim, Gurim and the Ketill said to be Rollo's father.[citation needed]

Biography

Statue of Rollo in Rouen. There are two bronze replicas of this statue: one at êAlesund (Norway) and the other one at Fargo, North Dakota (United States)
Dudo tells us that Rollo seized Rouen in 876. He is supported by the contemporary chronicler Flodoard, who records that Robert of the Breton March waged a campaign against the Vikings, who nearly levelled Rouen and other settlements; eventually, he conceded "certain coastal provinces" to them.[19]

According to Dudo, Rollo struck up a friendship in England with a king that Dudo calls Alstem. This has puzzled many historians, but recently the puzzle has been resolved by recognition that this refers to Guthrum, the Danish leader whom Alfred the Great baptised with the baptismal name Athelstan, and then recognised as king of the East Angles in 880.[20]

Dudo records that when Rollo took Bayeux by force, he carried off with him the beautiful Popa or Poppa, a daughter of Berenger, Count of Rennes, took her in marriage and with her had their son and Rollo's heir, William Longsword.[21]

Rollo's grave at the Cathedral of Rouen

There are few contemporary mentions of Rollo. The earliest record is from 918, in a charter of Charles III to an abbey, which referred to an earlier grant to "the Normans of the Seine", namely "Rollo and his associates" for "the protection of the kingdom." [22] Dudo retrospectively stated that this pact took place in 911 at Saint-Clair-sur-Epte. In return for formal recognition of the lands he possessed, Rollo agreed to be baptised and assist the king in the defence of the realm. Rollo took the baptismal name Robert. The seal of agreement was to be marriage between Rollo and Gisla, daughter of Charles. Dudo claims that Gisla was a legitimate daughter of Charles.[23] Since Charles first married in 907, that would mean that Gisla was at most 5 years old at the time of the treaty of 911 which offered her in marriage.[24] It has therefore been speculated that she could have been an illegitimate daughter.[25] However a diplomatic child betrothal need not be doubted.[26]

After pledging his fealty to Charles III as part of the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, Rollo divided the lands between the rivers Epte and Risle among his chieftains, and settled with a de facto capital in Rouen.[27]

Charles was overthrown by a revolt in 923, and his successor, Robert I, was killed by the Vikings in 923. His successor, Ralph, conceded the Bessin and Maine to Rollo shortly afterwards, the chronicler Flodoard tells us.[28]

Rollo died sometime between a final mention of him by Flodoard in 928, and 933, the year in which a third grant of land, usually identified as being the Cotentin and Avranchin areas, was made to his son and successor William.[29]

Descendants

A genealogical chart of the Norman dynasty
Rollo's son and heir, William Longsword, and grandchild, Richard the Fearless, forged the Duchy of Normandy into West Francia's most cohesive and formidable principality.[30] The descendants of Rollo and his men assimilated with their maternal Frankish-Catholic culture and became known as the Normans, lending their name to the region of Normandy.

Rollo is the great-great-great-grandfather of William the Conqueror, or William I of England. Through William, he is one of the ancestors of the present-day British royal family, as well as an ancestor of all current European monarchs and a great many claimants to abolished European thrones.

One daughter of Rollo, Gerloc (also known as Adele), who married William III, Duke of Aquitaine, was mentioned by Dudo. According to William of Jumiáeges, writing in the latter half of the 11th century, Gerloc's mother was named Poppa.[31]

According to the medieval Irish text An Banshenchas and Icelandic sources, another daughter, Cadlinar (Kaºlâin; Kathleen) was born in Scotland (probably to a Scots mother) and married an Irish prince named Beollâan mac Ciarmaic, later King of South Brega (Lagore). A daughter of Cadlinar and Beollâan named Nithbeorg was abducted by an Icelandic Viking named Helgi Ottarsson,[32][33] and became the mother of the poet Einarr Helgason and grandmother of Guºrâun Ósvâifrsdâottir (protagonist of the Laxdœla saga).

A genetic investigation into the remains of Rollo's grandson, Richard the Fearless, and his great-grandson, Richard the Good, was announced in 2011 with the intention of discerning the origins of the historic Viking leader.[34] On 29 February 2016 Norwegian researchers opened Richard the Good's tomb and found his lower jaw with eight teeth in it.[35] Unfortunately, the skeletal remains in both graves turned out to significantly predate Rollo and therefore are not related to him.[36]

Depictions in fiction

Rollo is the subject of the seventeenth-century play Rollo Duke of Normandy, written by John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, Ben Jonson, and George Chapman.

A character, broadly inspired by the historical Rollo but including many events before the real Rollo was born, played by Clive Standen, is Ragnar Lothbrok's brother in the History Channel television series Vikings.[37]

end of biography

Also known as Hrolf the Ganger or Rollon, 1st Duke of Normandy from 911 to 927, called also Rolf the Walker, because, being so tall, he preferred to go afoot rather than ride the little Norwegian horses. Also shown as Rollon, Row, or Robert. Originally a Norse Viking, he was noted for strength and martial prowess. In the reign of Charles II the Bald, he sailed up the Seine River and took Rouen, which he kept as a base of operations. He gained a number of victories over the Franks, and extorted the cession of the province since called Normandy.

By the famous treaty which Charles the Bald, http://thehennesseefamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I53974&tree=hennessee, and Rollo signed the latter agreed to adopt Christianity. He was born in 846 and died in 932, and was buried in the Cathedral at Rouen.
-------------------------------------------------------
From: http://sbaldw.home.mindspring.com/hproject/prov/rollo000.htm

Commentary
Supposed father: Rognvaldr, jarl of M²re.

Supposed mother: Ragnhildr or Hildr.

The origin of Rollo is contraversial. There are several medieval sources which claim to give information about the origin of Rollo, the most widely repeated of which would make him a son of Rognvaldr, jarl of M²re by Ragnhildr or Hildr. As can be seen from the following brief notices, the various primary sources offer very contradictory information about Rollo's origin.

The earliest author to attribute an explicit origin to Rollo was Richer of Rheims, writing between 996 and 998, who called Rollo the son of another Viking invader of France named Catillus (presumably representing the Norse name Ketil) [Richer i, 28 (see PL 138: 35)]. Since Catillus appears to be a legendary individual, this account has generally been discredited, probably correctly [see Douglas 420-1].

According to Dudo of St. Quentin (writing early 11th century), author of the earliest history of the Normans, Rollo had a younger brother named Gurim, presumed to be the familiar name Gorm. Dudo states that Rollo and Gurim were sons of a man who held many lands in "Dacia" (Dudo's word for Denmark, following other authors), and that after the death of the (unnamed) father of Rollo and Gurim, the king of Dacia fought against the sons, killing Gurim and driving Rollo out [Dudo ii, 2-4 (pp. 26-7)]. Dudo later refers to duke Richard I as being related to a "king of Dacia" named Haigrold [Dudo iv, 84-88 (pp. 114-20 passim)], who must have been the Viking raider of France of that name [Flodoard's Annals, s.a. 945, see PL 135: 463-4, van Houts 51], and not king Harald "Bluetooth" of Denmark. Note that Gurim cannot be the famous Gorm "the Old" of Denmark, who survived Rollo by many years.

William of Malmesbury (early 12th century) appears to be the earliest author to attribute a Norwegian origin to Rollo [WM ii, 5 (p. 125)].

As is well known, the Orkneyinga Saga (late twelfth century) [OrkS 4 (pp. 29-30)], followed by other Icelandic sources (such as the well known Heimskringla and Landnâamabâok), gives Rollo the name Hrâolfr, and make him a son of Rognvaldr, jarl of M²re, and brother of (among others) jarl Torf-Einarr of the Orkneys [OI 1: 187]. Earlier sources, such as Ari's Íslendingabâok (early to middle 12th century), mention Rognvald of M²re and his son Hrollaugr who settled in Iceland, but not the supposed connection to the dukes of Normandy [Ari 49, 61]. A poem allegedly written by Einar mentions his brothers, including a Hrâolfr, but does not connect Hrâolfr to Normandy, and does not name a Gorm among the brothers. (See the page on Rognvaldr for more on this poem.)

Historia Gruffud vab Kenan (ca. 1250), apparently a Welsh translation and/or revision of an earlier Latin life of Gruffudd ap Cynan, gives Haraldr Hâarfagri of Norway ("Harald Harfagyr") a brother named Rodulf (i.e., the Latin form of Hrâolfr) who is called the founder of Normandy [HGK, 3-4]. However, this is evidently a corrupt version of the Scandinavian version, and the suggestion that Rollo was a brother of Haraldr Hâarfagri need not be given any credence.

The most prominent argument of the case for accepting the Scandinavian account that Rollo was the same person as Hrâolfr, son of Rognvaldr of M²re, was given by D. C. Douglas [Douglas 419-23], and those who accept this identification have generally followed the same arguments. On the other side, arguments against the identification were given by Viggo Starcke in his book Denmark in World History [Starcke 222-7].

Most of the argument of Douglas consists of accepting the tale of the sagas and rejecting evidence from the Norman sources which contradict the saga version, while explaining away the problems (on which more below). The evidence which Douglas puts forward as "a powerful, if not a conclusive, argument in favor of the identity of Rollo with Ganger-Rolf" concerns a passage in Landnâaamabâok that refers to a daughter of Gongu-Hrâolfr:

"... Annarr son Óttars vas Helge; hann herjaºe âa Skottland, ok feck ¤ar at herfange Niºbiorgo, dâottor Beolans konungs ok Caºlâinar, dâottor Gongo-Hrâolfs" (Another son of Óttarr was Helge. He harried in Scotland, and won there as his booty Niºbjorg, daughter of king Beolan and Caºlâin, daughter of Gongu-Hrâolfr.) [OI 1: 66-7]

This passage, which Douglas attributed to "Ari the Learned" (who may or may not have been the author), is then compared with a passage from the nearly contemporary Plaintsong of Rollo's son William "Longsword" which was written soon after William's death:

"Hic in orbe transmarino natus patre
in errore paganorum permanente
matre quoque consignata alma fide
sacra fuit lotus unda"
(Born overseas from a father who stuck to the pagan error and from a mother who was devoted to the sweet religion, he was blessed with the holy chrism.)
[Douglas 422 (Latin); van Houts 41 (English translation)]

After explaining that the two stories are consistent with one another, Douglas then state that "[t]he suggestion of the Landnâamabâok is thus confirmed by an epic poem composed in Gaul in the tenth century." While it is true that the two accounts as they stand are consistent with each other and with the claim that Rollo and Gongu-Hrâolfr were the same man (ignoring all other evidence), it is surely a gross overstatement to claim that the Plaintsong "confirms" the other account, for there is not a single statement in the passage from Landnâamabâok that is confirmed by the Plaintsong. This is a clear case of circular reasoning, for without first assuming that Rollo and Gongu-Hrâolfr were the same man, there is no evidence that the two passages have any relation whatsoever. Douglas's case is further undermined by the fact that another source [Laxdœla Saga chapter 32, see OI 1: 246] makes Niºbjorg's mother Caºlâin a daughter of Gongu-Hrâolfr, son of Oxna-´âorir, directly contradicting the thesis that Caºlâin was supposedly a granddaughter of Rognvaldr of M²re. Yet, Douglas apparently regarded this as the strongest part of his argument.

There are three main strands of evidence (somewhat related to each other) against the identification of Rollo with Hrâolfr son of Rognvaldr:

1. The discrepancies between the Norman and Icelandic sources.
Among other contradictions, the Norman sources give Rollo a brother named Gurim, while the Icelandic sources give Hrâolfr several brothers, none of them named Gormr (the presumed Old-Norse form for Gurim). Although both of the sources have their problems, earlier native sources would seem to have a higher priority than later foreign sources. While many elements of the Dudo's account are clearly legendary, there appears to be no clear motive on the part of Dudo (writing less than a century after Rollo's death) to invent a younger brother for Rollo who is then immediately killed off.

2. The general unreliability of Norse source for the early tenth century.
For the period under consideration, i.e., the early ninth century, the sagas have a poor record for reliability, even for Scandinavian history. For example, consider the following words of Peter Sawyer (written with regard to a different matter, but true in general), a well known expert on early Viking history: "... These sagas cannot, however, be accepted as reliable sources for the tenth century. The only trustworthy evidence for the tenth century in those sagas are the contemporary verses around which the saga writers wove their tales." [Sawyer 42] None of these verses confirm the identity of Rollo and Hrâolfr. The suspicion is made even larger by the fact that the Icelandic sources show no knowledge of Norman history other than the fact (well known throughout Europe at the time) that William the Conqueror was a descendant of the dukes of Normandy.

3. Rollo and Hrâolfr appear to be different names.
The natural Latinization of the name Hrâolfr would be Radulfus or Rodulfus. Yet, the Frankish and Norman sources consistently refer to the founder of Normandy as Rollo. Since these sources also include numerous individuals named Rodulfus, and consistently separate the two names, it appears that the names were regarded as different. Douglas explained this by suggesting a hypothetical hypochoristic form "Hrolle" of the name "Hroºwulf" as the basis for the name Rollo, and provides a single charter in which Rollo is referred to as "Rolphus" as evidence that the names were the same, acknowledging, however, that the charter itself was "not above suspicion." If the names were really regarded as the same, it would be expected that more convincing evidence to this effect could be offered.

Personally, I am inclined to believe that the identification of Hrâolfr and Rollo has no basis in fact, that it was likely to have been invented by a saga writer who wanted to give the jarls of Orkney some famous relatives (i.e., the kings of England), and that whatever the confusing Norman sources say are probably about the closest we are going to get to Rollo's origin. However, based on the surviving evidence, it is not possible to come to any definitive conclusion one way or the other, and Rollo's parentage should be listed as "unknown" unless further evidence becomes available.

Supposed second wife:

Gisla, said to be daughter of Charles the Simple, king of France [Dudo, 46-7, 53]. She is unknown in the Frankish sources. The fact that Charles the Simple's kinsman Charles the Fat had a daughter also named Gisla who married a Viking (Godefridus) in the ninth century has led to the natural suspicion that this Gisla is an invention based on the earlier woman of the name. If she existed at all, there is no reason to believe that she was a mother of any of Rollo's children.

Supposed additional child:

Caºlin (Kathleen), said by Norse sources to have married a certain king Beolan, who is otherwise unidentified. As discussed above, the evidence for her is less than satisfactory.

end of commentary

Rollo Ragnvaldsson
French: Robert Rognvalsson De Heidmark, Norwegian: Hrolf Ragnvaldsson, Norse, Old: Gange-Hrâolfr Ragnvaldsson
Also Known As: "Hrolf", "Rolf", "Rollo", "Gange-Rolv", "Gange-Rolf", "Gèongu-Hrâolfr", "le marcheur", "the walker", "the dane", "duke of normandy", "Rollo the Walker", "Viking", "Gange Rolf"
Birthdate: circa 860 (71)
Death: 931 (67-75)
Rouen, Seine-Maritime, Haute-Normandie, France
Place of Burial: Rouen, Haute-Normandie, France
Immediate Family:
Son of Ragnvald Eysteinsson, Earl of M²re and Ragnhild 'Hild' Hrâolfsdâottir, of More
Husband of Poppa of Bayeux and Gisáele
Partner of Kaºlin's mother
Father of William "Longsword"; Adáele of Normandy and Kaºlin
Brother of Gutum Ragnvaldson
Half brother of Hrollager Rognvaldsson; Hallad Ragnvaldsson Orkneyjarl, .; Einarr "Turf" Rognvaldsson, Orkneyjarl and Hrollaug Ragnvaldsson Eyjafjèorºur, Íslands
Occupation: Duc de Normandie, Comte de Rouen, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Normandy (911 - 932), duc de Normandie, Earl of Normandy, Viking chief, Count of Normandy, 'Agongah-woekh' Aeuello (Rollo Rognvaldsson), First Duke of Normandy, Duke of Normandy 1st, Norse Viking
Managed by: Private User
Last Updated: October 12, 2017

About Gange-Hrâolfr 'Rollo' of Normandy
http://www.friesian.com/flanders.htm#norman

http://genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00020055&tree=LEO

Duke of Normandy was the title given to the rulers of the Duchy of Normandy in northwestern France, which has its origins as the County of Rouen, a fief created in 911 by King Charles III "the Simple" of France for Rollo, a Norwegian nobleman and Viking leader of Northmen.

Gangu-Hrâolfr Ragnvaldsson, or Rollo de Normandie was a Norse nobleman and the founder and first ruler of the Viking principality in what soon became known as Normandy. The name "Rollo" is a Frankish-Latin name probably taken from the Old Norse name Hrâolfr, modern Scandinavian name Rolf (cf. the latinization of Hrâolfr into the similar Roluo in the Gesta Danorum).

Parents: Ragnvald Eysteinsson M²rejarl & Hild Nefja (uncertain, see below)
Spouses:
1. Poppa de Bayeux
Children:
Vilhjalm Langaspjâot (Guillaume Longue âEpâee)
Geirlaug (Gerloc) who later took the name Adela
2. Gisela de France (betrothal, no children)
According to Landnâama (The book of Settlers in Iceland, written in the 12th century), Rollo had a daughter named Kaºlâin (Kathlin or Cathlin) her mother is not named (Notes by Anna Petursdottir):

Kaºlin (Kathlin)
Kaºlâin is mentioned along with her father Rollo in chapter 33 in Landnâamabâok (The Book of Settlers) and her father, Rollo, and his brothers, also their father, Ragnvald are mentioned in chapert 82 : https://www.snerpa.is/net/snorri/landnama.htm

BIG NEWS
French and Norwegian scientists within several fields go together in a project to extract DNA from the remains of Rollo's grandson and great grandson in Fâecamp. This might give us the final answer to Rollo's origin (Note from Anna Petursdottir: Provided that the remains that are being researched, are in fact the persons in question and also are legitimate grandsons of Rollo). Excavations are expected in July 2011, results sometime autumn 2011.

Links and Resources
Snorre's saga
Dudo's account (eng): http://the-orb.arlima.net/orb_done/dudo/dudindex.html
Store Norske Leksikon
MEDIEVAL LANDS
[ROLLO [Hrolf "Ganger/the Walker"] (-[928]). Orkneyinga Saga names “Hrolf who conquered Normandy” as son of “Earl Rognwald” and his wife “Ragnhild the daughter of Hrolf Nose”, adding that he was so big that no horse could carry him, giving rise to his name “Gèongu-Hrolf”[153]. Snorre names "Rolf and Thorer" as the two sons of "Earl Ragnvald" and his wife Hild, recording that Rolf was banished from Norway by King Harald and travelled to the Hebrides, settling first in Orkney before moving southwards through Scotland, and eventually conquering Normandy[154]. The Historia Norwegie records that, after Orkney was conquered by "principi Rogwaldi" and his followers, "de quorum collegio…Rodulfus" captured Rouen in Normandy, commenting that he was known as "Gongurolfr" because he was obliged to walk as he was too large to travel on horseback[155]. This source makes no reference to any blood relationship between Rollo and "principi Rogwaldi".

According to Dudo of Saint-Quentin, Rollo arrived in northern France in 876[156], although there is some debate about [900] being a more likely date[157]. William of Jumiáeges records that Rollo was chosen by lot to be leader of the Viking colonists[158]. Viking raids intensified in northern France. Although they were defeated after raiding Chartres [911], Charles III "le Simple" King of the West Franks granted the Normans land around Rouen in which to settle[159]. The uncertain nature of the demise was the source of future problems between the French crown, which claimed that it was an enfeofment for which the ruler owed allegiance, and the later Dukes of Normandy who claimed it was an unconditional allod for which no allegiance was owed. A charter dated 14 Mar 918 which granted land to the monastery of Saint-Germain-des-Prâes "except that part…which we have granted to the Normans of the Seine, namely to Rollo and his companions"[160]. He was later known as ROBERT I Comte [de Normandie].

ROLLO ["Ganger" Hrolf], son of [RAGNVALD "the Wise" Jarl of Mèore in Norway & his wife Ragnhild ---] (-Rouen [928/33], bur ---, transferred [1064] to Rouen Cathedral[6]). The parentage of Rollo/Rolf is uncertain and the chronology of his life confused. Richer names "Rollone filio Catilli" as leader of the Vikings who raided along the Loire and against whom "Robertus Celticµ Galliµ dux" campaigned[7]. No further reference has been found to "Catillus/Ketel". Flodoard provides no information on Rollo´s ancestry. The early 12th century William of Malmesbury states that "Rollo…[was] born of noble lineage among the Norwegians, though obsolete from its extreme antiquity" and adds that he was "banished by the king´s command from his own country"[8]. The later Orkneyinga Saga is more specific, naming “Hrolf who conquered Normandy” as son of “Earl Rognwald” and his wife “Ragnhild the daughter of Hrolf Nose”, adding that he was so big that no horse could carry him, giving rise to his name “Gèongu-Hrolf”[9]. Snorre names "Rolf and Thorer" as the two sons of "Earl Ragnvald" and his wife Hild, recording that Rolf was banished from Norway by King Harald and travelled to the Hebrides, settling first in Orkney before moving southwards through Scotland, and eventually conquering Normandy[10]. The Historia Norwegie records that, after Orkney was conquered by "principi Rogwaldi" and his followers, "de quorum collegio…Rodulfus" captured Rouen in Normandy, commenting that he was known as "Gongurolfr" because he was obliged to walk as he was too large to travel on horseback[11]. This source makes no reference to any blood relationship between Rollo and "principi Rogwaldi". Guillaume de Jumiáeges accords a Danish origin to Rollo, stating that his father "possâedant presque en totalitâe le royaume de Dacie, conquit en outre les territoires limitrophes de la Dacie et de l´Alanie" and left "deux fils…l´aãinâe Rollon et le plus jeune Gurim"[12]. He records that the king of Denmark defeated the two brothers and killed Gorm, and that Rollo fled the country, first landing in England, where he made peace with "le roi…Alstem"[13]. If this refers to ¥thelstan King of Wessex, the account must be confused given King ¥thelstan´s succession in 924. Freeman suggests that Guillaume de Jumiáeges must be referring to "Guthrum-¥thelstan of East-Anglia"[14], although this does not resolve the chronological problems assuming that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is correct in recording Guthrum´s death in 890[15]. After recording Rollo´s expeditions in Frisia, Guillaume de Jumiáeges states that Rollo landed at Jumiáeges after sailing up the Seine in 876[16], another suspect date which Houts suggests should be corrected to [900][17]. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that Rollo defeated "Renaud duc de toute la France", captured "le chãateau de Meulan", defeated and killed Duke Renaud in another campaign, besieged Paris, captured Bayeux, and attacked Paris again while his other troops devastated Evreux where they killed "son âevãeque…Sibor"[18]. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that Rollo attacked Chartres but withdrew after being defeated by "Richard duc de Bourgogne" and "Anselme l âevãeque"[19].

William of Malmesbury records that "Rollo…experienced a check at Chartres" but escaped the "plentiful slaughter" of the Vikings by the townspeople, before capturing Rouen "in 876"[20]. Guillaume of Jumiáeges records that Charles III "le Simple" King of the West Franks granted Rollo "tout le territoire maritime qui s´âetend depuis la riviáere d´Epte jusqu´aux confines de la Bretagne" together with "sa fille…Gisáele", that "les princes de cette province…Bâeranger et Alain" swore allegiance to Rollo, and that Rollo was baptised in 912 by "l´archâevãeque Francon", adopting the name ROBERT after "le duc Robert" who acted as his sponsor[21].

William of Malmesbury records that "it was determined by treaty, that [Rollo] should be baptised, and hold the country of the king as his lord"[22]. The charter which confirms the original grant (assuming that there was such a document) has not survived. However, the grant of land is inferred from a charter dated 14 Mar 918, under which land was donated to the monastery of Saint-Germain-des-Prâes specifying that the donation excluded "that part…which we have granted to the Normans of the Seine, namely to Rollo and his companions"[23]. The uncertain nature of the demise was the source of future problems between the French crown, which claimed that Normandy was an enfeofment for which the ruling duke owed allegiance, and the later dukes of Normandy, who claimed that it was an unconditional allod for which no allegiance was owed[24].

The version of events recorded by Flodoard provides a different slant and names two Viking leaders. Firstly, Flodoard records that in 923 "Ragenoldus princeps Nortmannorum" who occupied "in fluvio Ligeri" devastated "Franciam trans Isaram", that "Nortmanni" made peace in 924 "cum Francis", that King Raoul granted them "Cinomannis et Baiocµ" [Maine and Bayeux], but that "Raginoldus cum suis Nortmannis" devasted the land between the Loire and the Seine[25]. This passage makes no mention of the supposed earlier grant of land along the shore. Secondly, the same source records that "Raginoldus cum suis Nortmannis" devasted Burgundy in 925, that Hâeribert [II] Comte de Vermandois besieged Norman castles "super Sequanam", that "Nortmanni" devastated "pagum Belvacensem atque Ambianensem" [Beauvais and Amboise], while Comte Hâeribert and Arnoul Count of Flanders forced "Rollo princeps" from his strongholds[26]. Thirdly, Flodoard states that "Hugo filius Rotberti et Heribertus comes" campaigned against "Nortmannos" in 927, that "filius Rollonis" did homage to ex-king Charles at "castellum…Auga", and that "Rollo" held "filius Heriberti Odo" as a hostage in 928, which suggests some sort of alliance between Rollo and Comte Hâeribert[27]. William of Malmesbury records that Rollo died at Rouen[28]. The date of his death is uncertain: Flodoard names Rollo as living in 928 (see above) but the same source names "Willelmus princeps Nortmannorum" in 933[29]. Orderic Vitalis implies that the transfer of Robert's body to Rouen Cathedral took place after the "the ninth year" in office of Archbishop Maurilius, who had succeeded Mauger de Normandie[30], which would date the event to [1064]. He is known to history as ROBERT I Comte [de Normandie], although no early source has been identified which refers to him by this name or title.

[m] [firstly] ---. The identity of Rollo´s first wife or concubine is not known.

m [secondly] ([886] or after, repudiated, remarried after 912) POPPA, daughter of BERENGAR Comte de Bayeux & his wife ---. Guillaume of Jumiáeges records that Rollo took "Popa, fille de Bâerenger, homme illustre" when he captured Bayeux and "s´unit avec elle, áa la maniáere des Danois"[31]. According to Orderic Vitalis, Rollo "stormed and captured Bayeux, slew its count Berengar and took to wife his daughter Poppa"[32]. In another passage, the same source records that Rollo besieged Paris, captured Bayeux, killed "Berengarium comitem" and married his daughter Popa, in 886[33], although this date appears early in light of the likely birth date range of the couple's son Guillaume. The Chronico Rotomagensis records that "mortua a Gisla, accepit Rollo propriam uxorem filiam comitis Silvanectensis Widonis"[34]. Robert of Torigny combines the information, recording that "Rollo dux Northmannorum" married "Popam prius repudiatam uxorem…filiam…Berengarii comitis Baiocensis neptem vero Widonis comitis Silvanectensis"[35]. The Historia Norwegie records that, after capturing Rouen, "Rodulfus" married the daughter of its deceased count by whom he was father of "Willelmum…Longosped"[36]. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that "le comte Bernard" welcomed "son neveu Richard" (grandson of Rollo) at Senlis after his escape from captivity[37], although in another passage he describes how Rollo captured Bayeux and took "une tráes-noble jeune fille Popa, fille de Bâerenger" in the town, marrying her "áa la maniáere des Danois"[38], in a later passage adding that Rollo married Poppa, whom he had previously repudiated, a second time after the death of his wife[39]. It would be possible to reconcile the different versions if Comte Bernard's mother was married twice, her first husband being Bâerenger Comte de Bayeux.

m thirdly (912) GISELA, daughter of CHARLES III "le Simple" King of the West Franks & his first wife Frederuna --- ([908/16]-before her husband). The Genealogica Arnulfi Comitis names (in order) "Hyrmintrudim, Frederunam, Adelheidim, Gislam, Rotrudim et Hildegardim" as the children of "Karolus rex…ex Frederuna regina"[40]. Guillaume of Jumiáeges records that Charles III "le Simple" King of the West Franks granted Rollo "tout le territoire maritime qui s´âetend depuis la riviáere d´Epte jusqu´aux confines de la Bretagne" together with "sa fille…Gisáele", and their marriage which took place after Rollo´s baptism[41]. Her marriage is recorded in the Norman annals for 912, which state that she died without issue, presumably soon after the marriage when Gisla must still have been an infant. The chronicle of Dudo of Saint-Quentin[42] describes her as of "tall stature, most elegant…", which is of course inconsistent with her supposed birth date range. The Liber Modernorum Regum Francorum records the marriage of "filiam suam [=rex Karolus] nomine Gillam" to "Rollo"[43]. Settipani considers that the marriage did not occur, and that the Norman sources confused it with the marriage of Gisela, daughter of Lothaire II King of Lotharingia, to the Viking leader Gotfrid[44].

Rollo & his [first wife] had two children:

1. [KADLINE . Her parentage and marriage are confirmed by the Landnâama-Boc which records that "son of Oht-here…Helge" captured and married [her daughter] "Nidh-beorg, daughter of king Beolan and Cadh-lina, daughter of Walking-Rolf [Gongo-Hrâolfs]" when he "harried in Scotland", and also records their descendants[45]. No other record has been found of "king Beolan" and the accuracy of this report is unknown. m BEOLAN King [in Scotland].]

2. [NIEDERGA . Niederga is shown in Europèaische Stammtafeln[46] as the second daughter of Rollo by his first wife but the primary source on which this is based has not been identified.]

Robert & his [second] wife had two children:

3. GUILLAUME (Rouen [900/05]-murdered Pequigny 17 Dec 942, bur ---, transferred [1064] to Rouen Cathedral[47]). Guillaume de Jumiáeges names "Guillaume et…Gerloc" as children of Rollo and Poppa[48]. However, the Planctus for William Longsword[49], composed shortly after the murder of Guillaume, states that he had a Christian mother of overseas origin. Dudo of Saint-Quentin states that he was born in Rouen and, in a later passage, describes him as a "young man" one year before his father's death[50]. His father chose him as heir one year before his death[51]. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that he was born before his father's marriage to Gisela and his remarriage with Popa after Gisela's death[52]. Flodoard records that "filius Rollonis" did homage to ex-king Charles III "le Simple" at "castellum…Auga" in 927[53]. He succeeded his father in [928/33] as GUILLAUME I "Longuespee" Comte [de Normandie]. Flodoard names "Willelmus princeps Nortmannorum" in 933[54]. He quelled a rebellion by the Viking chief Riulf after the latter besieged Rouen[55]. In return for swearing allegiance to Raoul King of France, he appears to have been granted rights to further territory along the coast in 933, maybe the Cotentin and Avranchin. If this is correct, it would have created rivalry with the dukes of Brittany. Dudo of Saint-Quentin describes Comte Guillaume's invasion of Brittany shortly after his accession to quell a rebellion against him, and his defeat of the rebels at Bayeux[56]. Responding to raids by Comte Guillaume, Arnoul I Count of Flanders invaded Ponthieu and in 939 captured Montreuil from Herluin Comte de Ponthieu, although it was recaptured by Comte Guillaume's forces. In 939, Guillaume joined the alliance against Louis IV King of France which was led by Otto I "der GroÏe" King of Germany who raided Frankish territory. Comte Guillaume, however, met King Louis at Amiens, receiving a confirmation of the grant of his lands in Normandy. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that Guillaume was tricked into a meeting on the river Seine at Pecquigny by Arnoul Count of Flanders to settle their dispute over the castle of Montreuil, but was murdered on Count Arnoul's orders, recording his death on 17 Dec[57]. The Annalibus Rotomagensibus record that "Willermus dux Normannorum filius Rollonis" was killed "943 XVI Kal Jan"[58]. Orderic Vitalis implies that the transfer of his body to Rouen Cathedral took place after the "the ninth year" in office of Archbishop Maurilius, who had succeeded Mauger de Normandie[59], which would date the event to [1064].

[m] firstly SPROTA, daughter of ---. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that Guillaume married "une tráes-noble jeune fille Sprota…selon l'usage des Danois"[60]. From Brittany. It is possible that Sprota was Count Guillaume's concubine rather than wife, particularly as no reference has been found to a dissolution of any marriage before she married Esperleng. She married Esperleng de Pãitres, by whom she had Rodulf [Raoul] Comte d'Ivry.

m secondly ([940]) as her first husband, LUITGARDIS de Vermandois, daughter of HERIBERT II Comte de Vermandois & his wife Adela [Capet] (before 925-14 Nov after 985, bur Chartres, Abbaye de Saint-Páere). Rodulfus Glauber refers to the wife of Comte Guillaume as "sororem [Heribertum Trecorum comitem]", specifying that she was childless by her first husband, when recording her second marriage to "Tetbaldus"[61]. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records the marriage of Guillaume and the daughter of Heribert, specifying that it was arranged by Hugues "le Grand"[62]. The source which confirms her name has not yet been identified. She married secondly Thibaut I Comte de Blois. "Hugonis ducis, Odonis comitis, Hugonis sanctµ Bituricensis archiprµsulis, Letgardis comitissµ, Bertµ comitissµ, Gauzfridi vicecomitis…" subscribed the charter dated 985 under which "Robertus" donated property to "Sancti Petri Carnotensis", on the advice of "Odonem, simul cum sua matre Ledgarde, pariterque dominam meam Bertam, ipsius µque coniugem"[63]. The necrology of Chartres cathedral records the death "XVIII Kal Dec" of "Letgardis comitissa"[64]. Guillaume & his first wife had one child:

a) RICHARD (Fâecamp [932]-20 Nov 996, bur Fâecamp). Guillaume de Jumiáeges names Richard as son of Guillaume and Sprota, recording that news of his birth was brought to his father when he was returning from his victory against the rebels led by "Riulf"[65]. After the death of Richard's father, Louis IV "d'Outremer" King of the West Franks briefly controlled Rouen, and kept Richard prisoner, before the latter was able to escape, whereupon he succeeded as RICHARD I "Sans Peur" Comte [de Normandie].

4. GERLOC (-after 969). Guillaume de Jumiáeges names "Guillaume et…Gerloc" as children of Rollo and Poppa, in a later passage records her marriage to "Guillaume comte de Poitou"[66]. Robert of Torigny also names "Willermum Longum Spatam et Gerloch" as children of "Rollo dux Northmannorum" and Poppa[67]. The Chronico Richardi Pictavensis records that "Heblus…Pictavorum Comes et Dux Aquitaniµ duxit Adelam filiam Rolli Rothomagensis"[68], although this is presumably an error for Guillaume son of Ebles. She adopted the name ADELA when baptised. "Guillelmi comitis, Adeleidis comitisse" subscribed a charter recording a donation to Cluny dated [963][69]. Lothaire King of France granted her 14 Oct 962 the right to dispose of extensive property in Poitiers, la Cour de Faye, this grant effectively putting an end to the long dispute between her husband and the family of Hugues "Capet". She used the property to found the Monastery of Sainte-Trinitâe[70]. m (935) GUILLAUME I "Tãete d'Etoupe" Comte de Poitou, son of EBLES "Mancer" Comte de Poitou, Duke of Aquitaine & his first wife Aremburga ([900]-3 Apr 963). He succeeded in 959 as GUILLAUME III Duke of Aquitaine.

Rollo's origin
He is named as Rollo and said to have come from Dacia by Dudo of St. Quentin (c. 965-after 1043), the historian of the Norman dukes and the earliest source. Dudo does not name Rollo's parents. The Orkneyinga saga, a later source (c. 1230), identifies him with Hrolf Gange, who is said to have been a son of Ragnvald Eysteinsson, jarl of M²re. Modern scholars generally doubt the identification with Hrolf. See, for example, Stewart Baldwin, "Rollo of Normany" in soc.genealogy.medieval, Mar. 16, 1998.

There is much support for the claim of Rollo's homeland being Sykkylven in Sunnm²re (M²re), Norway.

Dacia, the country Dudo refers to as Rollo's homeland, was what people outside Scandinavia called the Nordic countries as a unity: Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Iceland together. Dudo describes Dacia as a country of high mountains, surrounding Rollo's estate - just like Gange-Hrolf's Fauske in Sykkylven. (see photos)

At the time the language, Old Norse (called dèonsk tunga by Snorri and others) was still the same and had not started to divide into separate dialects or languages.

Fasge, the place Adam of Bremen describes as Rollo's home, can easily be placed in Sykkylven where Gangu-Hrolfr had his estate at the farm called Fauske, Aure or Aurum. The Danish historian Steenstrup identified (works from 1876-82) Fasge with the town Faxe in Denmark, but linguistic argument shows that this consonant change is highly unlikely, and that the Norwegian place-name Fauske is more probable.

The outstanding linguist Hêakon Melberg argued in his dissertation that linguistic studies could shed light on the origin of the Scandinavian people and their history. In particular he opposes Steenstrup's analysis and points at several discrepancies, making Denmark improbable as Gange-Hrolf's origin.

http://books.google.com/books?hl=no&id=KGIeAAAAMAAJ&q=fauske#search_anchor

Sources
Linge, Per Eldar: Gangerolvs mektige M²re, Sunnm²rsposten forlag 1992.
More here: http://www.eutopia.no/Gangerolv.html

Melberg, Hêakon: Origin of the Scandinavian Nations and Languages : An Introduction (doctoral dissertation). University of Oslo, 1952.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A5kon_Melberg http://books.google.com/books?id=KGIeAAAAMAAJ&hl=no&pgis=1 http://ask.bibsys.no/ask/action/show?pid=921271042&kid=biblio

Languages
Gangu-Hrolf's Languages: Old French and Old Norse (the language spoken in the Nordic countries at the time):

"Danish tounge", dansk tunga, would be the language spoken in all of Scandinavia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Norse_language

dèonsk tunga: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Icelandic_language#The_Scandinavian_period_.28550.E2.80.931050.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_French

Snorri Sturlusson
From Heimskringla, Snorri: "24. ROLF GANGER DRIVEN INTO BANISHMENT.

Earl Ragnvald was King Harald's dearest friend, and the king had the greatest regard for him. He was married to Hild, a daughter of Rolf Nefia, and their sons were Rolf and Thorer. Earl Ragnvald had also three sons by concubines, -- the one called Hallad, the second Einar, the third Hrollaug; and all three were grown men when their brothers born in marriage were still children Rolf became a great viking, and was of so stout a growth that no horse could carry him, and wheresoever he went he must go on foot; and therefore he was called Rolf Ganger. He plundered much in the East sea. One summer, as he was coming from the eastward on a viking's expedition to the coast of Viken, he landed there and made a cattle foray. As King Harald happened, just at that time, to be in Viken, he heard of it, and was in a great rage; for he had forbid, by the greatest punishment, the plundering within the bounds of the country. The king assembled a Thing, and had Rolf declared an outlaw over all Norway. When Rolf's mother, Hild heard of it she hastened to the king, and entreated peace for Rolf; but the king was so enraged that here entreaty was of no avail. Then Hild spake these lines: --

"Think'st thou, King Harald, in thy anger, To drive away my brave Rolf Ganger Like a mad wolf, from out the land? Why, Harald, raise thy mighty hand? Why banish Nefia's gallant name-son, The brother of brave udal-men? Why is thy cruelty so fell? Bethink thee, monarch, it is ill With such a wolf at wolf to play, Who, driven to the wild woods away May make the king's best deer his prey."

Rolf Ganger went afterwards over sea to the West to the Hebrides, or Sudreys; and at last farther west to Valland, where he plundered and subdued for himself a great earldom, which he peopled with Northmen, from which that land is called Normandy. Rolf Ganger's son was William, father to Richard, and grandfather to another Richard, who was the father of Robert Longspear, and grandfather of William the Bastard, from whom all the following English kings are descended. From Rolf Ganger also are descended the earls in Normandy. Queen Ragnhild the Mighty lived three years after she came to Norway; and, after her death, her son and King Harald's was taken to the herse Thorer Hroaldson, and Eirik was fostered by him." (Snorri Sturlasson )

Gange-Rolv (Gèongu-Hrâolfr), var en norsk vikingh²vding og sagafigur som egentlig het Hrâolfr Rèognvaldsson (ca 860-932) og var s²nn av Ragnvald M²rejarl, kjent som jarlen som klippet Harald Hêarfagre etter at Norge var samlet til ett rike.

Gange-Rolv fikk tilnavnet fordi han var sêa stor at han alltid mêatte gêa til fots, underforstêatt at hesten ble for liten. I f²lge norsk og islandsk tradisjon er denne personen identisk med den historiske Rollo, som i 911 ble utnevnt til hertug over Normandie. Rollos opphav er imidlertid omdiskutert og nok umulig êa stadfeste helt sikkert ettersom kildene spriker i alle retninger. En sannsynlig slektning, Vilhelm Erobreren av Normandie, inntok England i 1066 og grunnla et nytt normannisk kongehus i der.

Gange-Rolv var med pêa mange tokt i Austerled, men ble forvist fra landet av Harald Hêarfagre etter et strandhogg han gjorde i Viken (Norge). I henhold til Snorre dro Rolv til Valland (Frankrike) etter landsforvisningen. Der ble han blant annet ble gift med kongsdatteren Gisela, og han skal ha blitt d²pt i Saint-Clair-katedralen.

WIKIPEDIA (Eng)
Rollo (c. 860 - c. 932) was the founder and first ruler of the Viking principality in what soon became known as Normandy. He is also in some later sources known as Robert of Normandy.

The name Rollo is a Frankish-Latin name probably taken from Scandinavian name Hrâolf (cf. the latinization of Hrâolf Kraki into the similar Roluo in the Gesta Danorum).

Historical evidence Rollo was a Viking leader of contested origin. Dudo of St. Quentin, in his De moribus et actis primorum Normannorum ducum (Latin), tells of a powerful Danish nobleman at loggerheads with the king of Dacia, who then died and left his two sons, Gurim and Rollo, leaving Rollo to be expelled and Gurim killed. William of Jumiáeges also mentions Rollo's prehistory in his Gesta Normannorum Ducum however he states that he was from the Danish town of Fasge. Wace, writing some 300 years after the event in his Roman de Rou, also mentions the two brothers (as Rou and Garin), as does the Orkneyinga Saga.

Norwegian and Icelandic historians identified this Rollo with a son of Rognvald Eysteinsson, Earl of M²re, in Western Norway, based on medieval Norwegian and Icelandic sagas that mention a Ganger Hrolf (Hrolf, the Walker). The oldest source of this version is the Latin Historia Norvegiae, written in Norway at the end of the 12th century. This Hrolf fell foul of the Norwegian king Harald Fairhair, and became a Jarl in Iceland. The nickname of that character came from being so big that no horse could carry him. [1]

The question of Rollo's Danish or Norwegian origins was a matter of heated dispute between Norwegian and Danish historians of the 19th and early 20th century, particularly in the run-up to Normandy's 1000-year-anniversary in 1911. Today, historians still disagree on this question, but most would now agree that a certain conclusion can never be reached.'

Invasion of France In 885, Rollo was one of the lesser leaders of the Viking fleet which besieged Paris under Sigfred. Legend has it that an emissary was sent by the king to find the chieftain and negotiate terms. When he asked for this information, the Vikings replied that they were all chieftains in their own right. In 886, when Sigfred retreated in return for tribute, Rollo stayed behind and was eventually bought off and sent to harry Burgundy.

Later, he returned to the Seine with his followers (known as Danes, or Norsemen). He invaded the area of northern France now known as Normandy.

Rather than pay Rollo to leave, as was customary, the Frankish king, Charles the Simple, understood that he could no longer hold back their onslaught, and decided to give Rollo the coastal lands they occupied under the condition that he defend against other raiding Vikings.

In the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte (911) with King Charles, Rollo pledged feudal allegiance to the king, changed his name to the Frankish version, and converted to Christianity, probably with the baptismal name Robert. In return, and in admission of defeat, King Charles granted Rollo the lower Seine area (today's upper Normandy) and the titular rulership of Normandy, centred around the city of Rouen. There exists some argument among historians as to whether Rollo was a "duke" (dux) or whether his position was equivalent to that of a "count" under Charlemagne. According to legend, when required to kiss the foot of King Charles, as a condition of the treaty, he refused to perform so great a humiliation, and when Charles extended his foot to Rollo, Rollo ordered one of his warriors to do so in his place. His warrior then lifted Charles' foot up to his mouth causing him to fall to the ground. [2]

Settlement Initially, Rollo stayed true to his word of defending the shores of the Seine river in accordance to the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, but in time he and his followers had very different ideas. Rollo began to divide the land between the Epte and Risle rivers among his chieftains and settled there with a de facto capital in Rouen. With these settlements, Rollo began to further raid other Frankish lands, now from the security of a settled homeland, rather than a mobile fleet. Eventually, however, Rollo's men intermarried with the local women, and became more settled as Frenchmen. At the time of his death, Rollo's expansion of his territory had extended as far west as the Vire River.

Death Sometime around 927, Rollo passed the fief in Normandy to his son, William Longsword. Rollo may have lived for a few years after that, but certainly died before 933. According to the historian Adhemar, 'As Rollo's death drew near, he went mad and had a hundred Christian prisoners beheaded in front of him in honour of the gods whom he had worshipped,[citation needed] and in the end distributed a hundred pounds of gold around the churches in honour of the true God in whose name he had accepted baptism.' Even though Rollo had converted to Christianity, some of his pagan roots surfaced at the end.

Legacy Rollo is a direct ancestor of William the Conqueror. Through William, he is a direct ancestor and predecessor of the present-day British royal family, including Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The "Clameur de Haro" in the Channel Islands is, supposedly, an appeal to Rollo.

Depictions in Fiction Rollo is the subject of the 17th Century play Rollo Duke of Normandy written by John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, Ben Jonson, and George Chapman.

References ^ Gèongu-Hrâolfs saga in Old Norse from heimskringla.no ^ Holden, A.J. (1970). Le Roman de Rou de Wace. Paris: âEditions A.J. Picard. p.54. Lines 1147-1156 D.C. Douglas, "Rollo of Normandy", English Historical Review, Vol. 57 (1942), pp. 414-436 Robert Helmerichs, [Rollo as Historical Figure] Rosamond McKitterick, The Frankish Kingdom under the Carolingians, 751-987, (Longman) 1983 Dudonis gesta Normannorum - Dudo of St. Quentin Gesta Normannorum Latin version at Bibliotheca Augustana Dudo of St. Quentin's Gesta Normannorum - An English Translation Gwyn Jones. Second edition: A History of the Vikings. Oxford University Press. (1984). William W. Fitzhugh and Elizabeth Ward. Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. Smithsonian Institute Press. (2000) Eric Christiansen. The Norsemen in the Viking Age. Blackwell Publishers Ltd. (2002) Agnus Konstam. Historical Atlas of the Viking World. Checkmark Books. (2002) Holgar Arbman. Ancient People and Places: The Vikings. Thames and Husdson. (1961) Eric Oxenstierna. The Norsemen, New York Graphics Society Publishers, Ltd. (1965)

TEXT - SOURCE? Rollo was a Viking leader, probably (based on Icelandic sources) from Norway, the son of Ragnvald, Earl of Moer; sagas mention a Hrolf, son of Ragnvald jarl of Moer. However, the latinization Rollo has in no known instance been applied to a Hrolf, and in the texts which speak of him, numerous latinized Hrolfs are included. Dudo of St. Quentin (by most accounts a more reliable source, and at least more recent and living nearer the regions concerned), in his Gesta Normannorum, tells of a powerful Dacian nobleman at loggerheads with the king of Dacia, who then died and left his two sons, Gurim and Rollo, leaving Rollo to be expelled and Gurim killed.(1) With his followers (known as Normans, or northmen), Rollo invaded the area of northern France now known as Normandy. Wace, writing some 300 years after the event, gives a Scandinavian origin, as does the Orkneyinga Saga, Danish or Norwegian most likely.

Unlike most Vikings whose intentions were to plunder Frankish lands, Rollo's true intentions were to look for lands to settle. Upon arrival in France, and after many battles with the Vikings, Charles the Simple understood that he could no longer hold back their advances, and decided as a tempory measure to give Rollo land around Rouen, as he did with his other barons, but under the condition that he would convert to Christianity and defend the Seine River from other raiding Vikings. In the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte (911) with the French King Charles the Simple, "for the protection of the realm," Rollo pledged feudal allegiance to the king, changed his name to the Frankish version, and converted to Christianity, probably with the baptismal name Robert. In return, and in admission of defeat, King Charles granted Rollo the lower Seine area (today's upper Normandy) and the titular rulership of Normandy, centred around the city of Rouen. There exists some argument among historians as to whether Rollo was a "duke" (dux) or whether his position was equivalent to that of a "count" under Charlemagne. According to legend, when required, in conformity with general usage, to kiss the foot of King Charles, he refused to stoop to what he considered so great a degradation; yet as the homage could not be dispensed with, he ordered one of his warriors to perform it for him. The latter, as proud as his chief, instead of stooping to the royal foot, raised it so high, that the King fell to the ground. It is important to note that Rollo did stay true to his word of defending the shores of the Seine river in accordance to the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, but in time Rollo and his followers had very different ideas. Rollo began to divide the land between the Epte and Risle rivers among his chieftains and settled there with a de-facto capital in Rouen. With these settlements, Rollo began to further raid other Frankish lands, now from the security of a settled homeland, rather than a mobile fleet.

Rollo expanded his territory as far west as the Vire River and sometime around 927 he passed the Duchy of Normandy to his son, William Longsword. Rollo may have lived for a few years after that, but certainly died before 933. According to the historian Adhemar, 'As Rollo's death drew near, he went mad and had a hundred Christian prisoners beheaded in front of him in honour of the gods whom he had worshiped, and in the end distributed a hundred pounds of gold around the churches in honour of the true god in whose name he had accepted baptism.' Even though Rollo had converted to Christianity, at the end, some of Rollo's pagan roots eventually came to the surface. He was a direct ancestor of William the Conqueror. By William, he was a direct ancestor of the present-day British royal family, including Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The "clameur de haro" on the Channel Islands is, supposedly, an appeal to Rollo.

TEXT - SOURCE??? Rollo (later Robert) "of Normandy" Viking leader in France, d. 932.

Although he is often referred to as the first Duke of Normandy, that title is an anachronism. Probably about 911, King Charles the Simple of France ceded a district around the city of Rouen to Rollo, which eventually evolved into the duchy of Normandy. He is said to have been baptized in 912, assuming the Christian name Robert. He was still living in 928, when he was holding Eudes, son of Heribert of Vermandois, as a captive and was probably dead by 932, when his son William was mentioned as leading the Normans.

end of biography

ROLLO THE VIKING

DIED 931 A.D.

For more than two hundred years during the Middle Ages the Christian countries of Europe were attacked on the southwest by the Saracens of Spain, and on the northwest by the Norsemen, or Northmen. The Northmen were so called because they came into Middle Europe from the north. Sometimes they were called Vikings, or pirates, because they were adventurous sea-robbers who plundered all countries which they could reach by sea.

Their ships were long and swift In the center was placed a single mast, which carried one large sail. For the most part, however, the Norsemen depended on rowing, not on the wind, and sometimes there were twenty rowers in one vessel.

The Vikings were a terror to all their neighbors; but the two regions that suffered most from their attacks were the Island of Britain and that part of Charlemagne's empire in which the Franks were settled.

endof commentary

Nearly fifty times in two hundred years the lands of the Franks were invaded. The Vikings sailed up the large rivers into the heart of the region which we now call France and captured and pillaged cities and towns. Some years after Charlemagne's death they went as far as his capital, Aix, took the place, and stabled their horses in the cathedral which the great emperor had built.

In the year 860 they discovered Iceland and made a settlement upon its shores. A few years later they sailed as far as Greenland, and there established settlements which existed for about a century.

These Vikings were the first discoverers of the continent on which we live. Ancient books found in Iceland tell the story of the discovery. It is related that a Viking ship was driven during a storm to a strange coast, which is thought to have been that part of America now known as Labrador.

When the captain of the ship returned home he told what he had seen. His tale so excited the curiosity of a young Viking prince, called Leif the Lucky, that he sailed to the newly discovered coast.

Going ashore, he found that the country abounded in wild grapes; and so he called it Vinland, or the land of Vines. Vinland is thought to have been a part of what is now the Rhode Island coast.

The Vikings were not aware that they had found a great unknown continent. No one in the more civilized parts of Europe knew anything about their discovery; and after a while the story of the Vinland voyages seems to have been forgotten, even among the Vikings themselves.

So it is not to them that we owe the discovery of America, but to Columbus; because his discovery, though nearly five hundred years later than that of the Norsemen, actually made known to all Europe, for all time, the existence of the New World.

II

THE Vikings had many able chieftains. One of the most famous was Rollo the Walker, so called because he was such a giant that no horse strong enough to carry him could be found, and therefore he always had to walk. However, he did on foot what few could do on horseback.

In 885 seven hundred ships, commanded by Rollo and other Viking chiefs, left the harbors of Norway, sailed to the mouth of the Seine, and started up the river to capture the city of Paris.

Rollo and his men stopped on the way at Rouen, which also was on the Seine, but nearer its mouth. The citizens had heard of the giant, and when they saw the river covered by his fleet they were dismayed. However, the bishop of Rouen told them that Rollo could be as noble and generous as he was fierce; and he advised them to open their gates and trust to the mercy of the Viking chief. This was done, and Rollo marched into Rouen and took possession of it. The bishop had given good advice, for Rollo treated the people very kindly.

Soon after capturing Rouen he left the place, sailed up the river to Paris, and joined the other Viking chiefs. And now for six long miles the beautiful Seine was covered with Viking vessels, which carried an army of thirty thousand men.

A noted warrior named Eudes was Count of Paris, and he had advised the Parisians to fortify the city. So not long before the arrival of Rollo and his companions, two walls with strong gates had been built round Paris.

It was no easy task for even Vikings to capture a strongly walled city. We are told that Rollo and his men built a high tower and rolled it on wheels up to the walls. At its top was a floor well manned with soldiers. But the people within the city shot hundreds of arrows at the besiegers, and threw down rocks, or poured boiling oil and pitch upon them.

The Vikings thought to starve the Parisians, and for thirteen months they encamped round the city. At length food became very scarce, and Count Eudes determined to go for help. He went out through one of the gates on a dark, stormy night, and rode post-haste to the king. He told him that something must be done to save the people of Paris.

So the king gathered an army and marched to the city. No battle was fought--the Vikings seemed to have been afraid to risk one. They gave up the siege, and Paris was relieved.

Rollo and his men went to the Duchy of Burgundy, where, as now, the finest crops were raised and the best of wines were made.

III

PERHAPS after a time Rollo and his Vikings went home; but we do not know what he did for about twenty-five years. We do know that he abandoned his old home in Norway in 911. Then he and his people sailed from the icy shore of Norway and again went up the Seine in hundreds of Viking vessels.

Of course, on arriving in the land of the Franks, Rollo at once began to plunder towns and farms.

Charles, then king of the Franks, although his people called him the Simple, or Senseless, had sense enough to see that this must be stopped.

So he sent a message to Rollo and proposed that they should have a talk about peace. Rollo agreed and accordingly they met. The king and his troops stood on one side of a little river, and Rollo with his Vikings stood on the other. Messages passed between them. The king asked Rollo what he wanted.

"Let me and my people live in the land of the Franks; let us make ourselves home here, and I and my Vikings will become your vassals," answered Rollo. He asked for Rouen and the neighboring land. So the king gave him that part of Francia; and ever since it has been called Normandy, the land of the Northmen.

When it was decided that the Vikings should settle in Francia and be subjects of the Frankish king, Rollo was told that he must kiss the foot of Charles in token that he would be the king's vassal. The haughty Viking refused. "Never," said he, "will I bend my knee before any man, and no man's foot will I kiss." After some persuasion, however, he ordered one of his men to perform the act of homage for him. The king was on horseback and the Norseman, standing by the side of the horse, suddenly seized the king's foot and drew it up to his lips. This almost made the king fall from his horse, to the great amusement of the Norsemen.

Becoming a vassal to the king meant that if the king went to war Rollo would be obliged to join his army and bring a certain number of armed men--one thousand or more.

Rollo now granted parts of Normandy to his leading men on condition that they would bring soldiers to his army and fight under him. They became his vassals, as he was the king's vassal.

The lands granted to vassals in this way were called feuds, and this plan of holding lands was called the Feudal System.

It was established in every country of Europe during the Middle Ages.

The poorest people were called serfs. They were almost slaves and were never permitted to leave the estate to which they belonged. They did all the work. They worked chiefly for the landlords, but partly for themselves.

Having been a robber himself, Rollo knew what a shocking thing it was to ravage and plunder, and he determined to change his people's habits. He made strict laws and hanged robbers. His duchy thus became one of the safest parts of Europe.

The Northmen learned the language of the Franks and adopted their religion.

The story of Rollo is especially interesting to us, because Rollo was the forefather of that famous Duke of Normandy who, less than a hundred and fifty years later, conquered England and brought into that country the Norman nobles with their French language and customs.

The Vikings in Normandy:
Timeline
Pre-Norman France map, http://www.viking.no/e/france/norm_col_gb.gif The chronology of the Vikings in Normandy can be encapsulated by a division into two successive centuries:

From AD 820 to c. AD 920, the Viking incursions on the lower Seine became more and more frequent, resulting finally in some permanent colonisation.
From c. AD 920 to AD 1020 was a consolidation period for Normandy, with the influx of numerous Scandinavian settlers, before turning increasingly to the Kingdom of France.

Timeline showing the Viking raids on the river Seine

820 Thirteen ships reach the Seine Bay. A force of Vikings lands but, having to face the shore guard, they are forced to re-embark, leaving five of their number dead on the Neustrian shore.
841 Asgeir's fleet sails up the River Seine (from 12th May), takes the city of Rouen (14th May) and burns it down. The loot is enormous. Aesgir's army continues its penetration of the Seine, plunders and burns the rich Jumiáege monastery (24th May). The nearby monastery of Fontenelle (the future Saint-Wandrille) is also assaulted and held to ransom. In this expedition, sixty-eight captives are taken and then returned on payment of a ransom by the monks of Saint-Denis (28th May).
845 Ragnar's fleet of 120 ships (therefore c. 6000 men) sails up the Seine and besieges Paris (28th March). Charles the Bald pays 7000 livres in order to spare Paris.
851 Asgeir and his men, back on the Seine, this time devastate the monastery of Fontenelle (13th October) and return there eighty-nine days later (9th January 852) and, finding nothing to plunder, burn it down.
852 Asgeir and his force raid on foot in the Beauvais region (Flanders county), from their base in Rouen. Engaged by a Frankish army, they have to withdraw and camp for the winter on Jeufosse island, securely controlling the entrance to the Seine. They stay there up to the 5th June. By the end of this year, a new group of Vikings, mainly Norwegians led by Sigtrygg (back from Ireland) and Godfrid, sails up the Seine to Jeufosse to establish their own base there. The Frankish army of Charles the Bald besieges the island.
853 (beg.) Charles the Bald negotiates with Godfrid, who afterwards retires. As for Sigtrygg, he stays to plunder and burn numerous places up to March.
855 Sigtrygg returns (18th July) to attempt to destroy a Frankish fort located on the Seine shore on the approach to Paris. He is reinforced by Bjèorn, leading a powerful fleet (17th August). The two armies join and carry out a raid in the south of the Seine, as far as Chartres, where they are stopped by the Frankish army of Charles the Bald. They have to withdraw to the Seine after heavy losses.
857 Again from Jeufosse, which has now become an established base, Sigtrygg's and Bjèorn's armies attack Paris (January). Chartres is assaulted again (12th June); on this occasion, revenging the reverse of AD 855, they take it, plunder it, and slaughter all its population. During the summer they also attack Evreux and many other places, the action taking place generally around Jeufosse island. Finally, Sigtrygg retires with his men.
858 Bjèorn is joined by a new group of Danes, led by Hasting (9th January). They lay again into the abbey of Fontenelle, which they burn down. Leading a mounted force, Bjèorn surrounds Paris and demands a ransom of the Parisian monasteries. Charles the Bald is defeated when he reacts and tries again to besiege the Viking base of Jeufosse.
859 The attacks from the Seine valley are redoubled. Charles the Bald is engaged in a struggle with his brother, Louis the German. The Vikings take advantage of this to attack freely far from their bases: Bayeux, Laon and Beauvais, where the bishops are executed.
860 The Viking chief, Veland, is paid 3000 silver livres by Charles the Bald to try to drive out the Vikings of the lower Seine.
861 From May, Veland besieges Jeufosse island, leading 200 Viking ships. The Vikings of Jeufosse have to retire from the Seine, with some 100 ships. This fleet then joins Veland's. Taking advantage of several years of respite, Charles the Bald builds forts which control the Seine at Pont-de-l'Arche.
865 Fifty Viking ships settle at Pãitres (near Pont-de-l'Arche), on the Seine.
876 100 new Viking ships make an incursion into the Seine. They sail away again after a payment of 5000 livres by Charles the Bald.
885 A huge fleet sails up the Seine (one report tells of some 700 ships) to besiege Paris. Losses are severe on both sides. The new Frankish king, Charles the Big, relieves the city by paying a heavy ransom to the besiegers.
887-911 Rolf (Rollo/Rollon) imposes himself as chief of the Vikings settled in the lower Seine region. He repels the Franks, pushing right up to the doors of the Ile-de-France. He attacks Chartres but, repulsed, withdraws again to the Seine.
911 Seeking to block the lower Seine, which had become a real "motorway" for the Viking invasions of the Kingdom of Frankia, the new king, Charles the Simple, concludes an agreement with Rolf at Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, conceding to him the suzerainty of the territory of the lower Seine which, de facto, Rolf had already had for several years.

Timeline showing the Viking Raids in Western Neustria

From AD 836 Bjèorn and Hasting lead numerous raids in Cotentin and Avranchin.
860-989 There are no more resident bishops in Cotentin and Avranchin nor any ecclesiastical infrastructures in these bishoprics. Whole areas are deserted by the native population as they become untenable, particularly in Cotentin.
867 The Frankish king, Charles the Bald, concedes Cotentin and Avranchin to the Bretons, so that they might defend these territories.
889, 890 and 891 Respectively, Saint-Lão, Coutances and Avranches are plundered or burnt down.
890-892 Rolf makes several raids in Bessin (Bayeux).
905 Vire is plundered.
907 Since Brittany is too devastated by the Viking raids, the Breton sovereignty of Cotentin and Avranchin exists only theoretically.
911 Since Rolf is now Jarl of Rouen, and since they refuse to convert to Christianity, and seek new conquests, many of Rolf's companions settle in Cotentin and Bessin.
916 From Cotentin and Bessin, where they have settled, numerous Scandinavian forces attack the whole eastern region of Brittany.
924 Bessin is added to Rolf's territory.
925 Some unsubdued Scandinavian troops of Bessin, united with native Saxons, devastate the western part of the Seine colony.
927-928 Rolf erect many fortifications (Bayeux, Exmes, Saint-Lão, Brionne, etc.) to face a huge influx of new Viking contingents, resistant to his authority in Cotentin (Danes from the Danelaw, and Hiberno-Norse from Ireland) and in Bessin (especially Danes from the Danelaw).
931 Brittany is totally subdued: on the east by the Normans of the Seine and on the west by Normans who have settled on the River Loire. The Normans of the Seine take advantage of this to get a foothold in Cotentin and Avranchin, and on the Channel Islands, in order to control the Scandinavian troops which have to submit to the Jarl of Rouen's authority.
933 Cotentin and Avranchin are conceded officially by the King of France, Raoul, to the Normans of the Seine, who are also appointed to the protectorate of Brittany.

1548417.

Lady Poppa of Bayeux was born in (850) in Bayeux, France (daughter of Berengar II of Neustria, Count of Bayeux and unnamed spouse); was buried in Rouen Cathedral, Rouen, Normandy, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Place de Gaulle, Bayeux, France

Notes:

Poppa of Bayeux was the Christian wife or mistress[1] (perhaps more danico)[2] of the Viking conqueror Rollo.

She was the mother of William I Longsword and grandmother of Richard the Fearless, who forged the Duchy of Normandy into a great fief of medieval France.[3]

Dudo of Saint-Quentin, in his panegyric of the Norman dukes, describes her as the daughter of a "Count Berengar", the dominant prince of that region, who was captured at Bayeux by Rollo in 885 or 889.[4]

This has led to speculation that she was the daughter of Berengar II of Neustria. Despite the uncertainty of her parentage, she undoubtedly was a member of the Frankish aristocracy.[5]

A statue of Poppa stands at the Place de Gaulle in Bayeux.

Notes:

Married:
Poppa was captured in a raid and married to Rollo of Normandy.

Children:

774208. William of Normandy, I, Duke of Normandy was born in ~893 in Normandy, France; died on 17 Dec 942 in Piquigny, France.

1548420.

Gorm the Old, King of Denmark was born in 860 in Jellinge, Denmark; died in 931 in Jellinge, Denmark; was buried in Jellinge, Denmark.

Notes:

Gorm the Old (Danish: Gorm den Gamle, Old Norse: Gormr gamli, Latin: Gormus Senex[1][2]), also called Gorm the Languid (Danish: Gorm L²ge, Gorm den Dvaske), was the first historically recognized ruler of Denmark, reigning from c.? 936 to his death c.? 958.[3] He ruled from Jelling, and made the oldest of the Jelling Stones in honour of his wife Thyra. Gorm was born before 900 and died c.? 958.[3]

Ancestry and reign

Gorm is the reported son of semi-legendary Danish king Harthacnut. Chronicler Adam of Bremen says that Harthacnut came from Northmannia to Denmark and seized power in the early 10th century.[4] He deposed the young king Sigtrygg Gnupasson, reigning over Western Denmark.[3] When Harthacnut died, Gorm ascended the throne.

Heimskringla reports Gorm taking at least part of the kingdom by force from Gnupa, and Adam himself suggests that the kingdom had been divided prior to Gorm's time. Gorm is first mentioned as the host of Archbishop Unni of Hamburg and Bremen in 936.[4] According to the Jelling Stones, Gorm's son, Harald Bluetooth, "won all of Denmark", so it is speculated that Gorm only ruled Jutland from his seat in Jelling.[4]

Marriage to Thyra

Runic stone for Thyra, back side
Gorm married Thyra, who is given conflicting and chronologically dubious parentage by late sources, but no contemporary indication of her parentage survives. Gorm raised one of the great burial mounds at Jelling as well as the oldest of the Jelling Stones for her, calling her tanmarkar but ("Denmark's Salvation" or "Denmark's Adornment"). Gorm was the father of three sons, Toke, Knut and Harald, later King Harald Bluetooth.[5]

His wife, Thyra, is credited with the completion of the Danevirke, a wall between Denmark's southern border and its unfriendly Saxon neighbors to the south. The wall was not new, but it was expanded with a ditch and earthen foundation topped by a timber stockade above it. The Danevirke ran between the Schlei and the Treene river, across what is now Schleswig.[6]

Death, burial and reburial

Gorm died in the winter of 958–959[5] and dendrochronology shows that his burial chamber was made from wood of timbers felled in 958.[7] Arild Huitfeldt explains how in Danmarks Riges Kr²nike:[citation needed]

Runic stone for Thyra, front side
The three sons were Vikings in the truest sense, departing Denmark each summer to raid and pillage. Harald came back to the royal enclosure at Jelling with the news that his son Canute had been killed in an attempt to capture Dublin, Ireland. Canute was shot with a coward's arrow while watching some games at night. No one would tell the king in view of the oath the king had made. Queen Thyra ordered the royal hall hung with black cloth and that no one was to say a single word. When Gorm entered the hall, he was astonished and asked what the mourning colors meant. Queen Thyra spoke up: "Lord King, you had two falcons, one white and the other gray. The white one flew far afield and was set upon by other birds which tore off its beautiful feathers and is now useless to you. Meanwhile the gray falcon continues to catch fowl for the king's table." Gorm understood immediately the Queen's metaphor and cried out, "My son is surely dead, since all of Denmark mourns!" "You have said it, your majesty," Thyra announced, "Not I, but what you have said is true." According to the story Gorm was so grieved by Canute's death that he died the following day.

This account would contradict information on the Jelling Stones which point to Queen Thyra dying before Gorm. Some archaeologists and historians have suggested that Gorm was buried first in Queen Thyra's grave mound at Jelling, and later moved by his son, Harald Bluetooth, into the original wooden church in Jelling.[3] According to this theory it is believed, that the skeleton found at the site of the first Christian church of Jelling is in fact Gorm the Old, though the theory is still much debated. During the reign of Gorm, most Danes still worshipped the Norse gods, but during the reign of Gorm's son, Harold Bluetooth, Denmark officially converted to Christianity. Harald, accordingly, left the hill where Gorm had originally been interred as a memorial.

Legacy

Gorm was "old" in the sense that he was considered the traditional ancestral "head" of the Danish monarchy. Saxo Grammaticus in the Gesta Danorum asserts that Gorm was older than other monarchs and having lived so long was blind by the time his son Canute was killed.

end of biography

Gorm's pedigree: https://fabpedigree.com/s038/f790309.htm

end of comment

Buried:
Gormshoj, Jellinge, Vejle, Denmark

1548421.

Children:

774210. Harold Gormsen, VII, King of Denmark was born in ~0895 in Blauzahn, Bavaria, Schwaben, Germany; died on 1 Sep 0986 in Gormshoj, Denmark.

1548430.

Robert De Vermandois, Count of Meaux was born in 918 in (France) (son of Herbert de Vermandois, II, Count of Meaux and Hildebranda of France); died on 29 Aug 968 in Seine-et-Marne, France.

Notes:

Robert Carolingian Vermandois de Meaux, Count of Meaux, Count of Troyes, was born circa 920 to Herbert II de Vermandois (884-943) and Hildebranda of France (895-931) and died circa 968 in Seine-et-Marne, France of unspecified causes. He married Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967) . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.

Children

Offspring of Robert de Vermandois and Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Herbert III of Meaux (c950-995) 950 995
Adele of Meaux (c950-c980) 950 980 Lambert de Chalon (930-979)
Geoffrey I of Anjou (-987)

Adelaide de Troyes (c955-c991) 955 991 Charles, Duke of Lower Lorraine (953-993)
Noteworthy descendants include

William I of England (1027-1087)

Namesakes of Robert de Vermandois (918-968)

Birth place
Death place
Father
Mother
Joined with
Robert de Vermandois (918-968) Seine-et-Marne, France Herbert II de Vermandois (884-943) Hildebranda of France (895-931) Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967)
Robert I of Senlis (?-1004) Bernard of Senlis (919-947)
Robert II of Senlis (?-1028) Robert I of Senlis (?-1004)

Robert married Adelaide-Werra de Chaton in 953 in Vermandois, France. Adelaide-Werra was born in 920 in (France); died in 967 in (France). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1548431.

Adelaide-Werra de Chaton was born in 920 in (France); died in 967 in (France).

Notes:

Adele Carolingian of Meaux was born 950 to Robert de Vermandois (918-968) and Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967) and died 980 of unspecified causes. She married Lambert de Chalon (930-979) . She married Geoffrey I of Anjou (-987) . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]

The French Wikipedia has her first husband marry her mother,[1] which is unlikely, given her age. The same source has her a daughter Gerberge marry King Adalberto of Italy. This would make Adele a grandmother at the age of 12. However, in the reconstruction shown here, Adele is married to two men at once, with her youngest daughter from her first marriage born around 972 and her eldest daughter from her second marriage born around 965.

Note that Genealogie Quebec merges her with her sister.[2]

Children

Offspring of Adele of Meaux and Lambert de Chalon (930-979)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Hugh I de Chalon (?-1039)
Mahaut de Chalon (?-1019) Henri I de Bourgogne (c948-1002)
Geoffroi de Semur (?-c990)

Aelis of Chalon (?-?) Guy I de Macon (975-1006)

Elizabeth de Chalon (970-1014)

Offspring of Adele of Meaux and Geoffrey I of Anjou (-987)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Gottfried of Anjou (?-987) 987
Fulk III, Count of Anjou (972-1040) 972 21 June 1040 Metz, France âElisabeth de Vendãome (c979-999)
Hildegarde de Beaugency (c990-)

Ermengarde of Anjou (bef967-) 967 Conan I of Rennes (927-992)

Gerberge of Anjou (965-1041) 965 1041 Guillaume III Taillefer of Angoulãeme (960-1028)
^ wikipedia:fr:Lambert de Chalon
^ http://genealogiequebec.info/testphp/info.php?no=23981

Children:

774215. Adele of Meaux was born in ~950 in Meaux, France; died in ~980.

2834832.

Donald of Scotland, II, King of Alba was born in (850-860) in (Scotland); died in 900 in Forres, Scotland; was buried in Isle of Iona, Scotland.

Notes:

Donald II (a.k.a. Domnall mac Causantâin and Domnall II) lived from 862 to 900 and was King of Alba from 889 to 900. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline.

Donald II was the son of King Constantine I of the Picts and Scots, and it is arguable that he should have succeeded to the throne on the death of his uncle, King Aedh. However, Aedh's murder in 878 was followed by the joint rule of Eochaid and Giric. In 889 Eochaid tried to gain sole control of the crown by commissioning Donald to kill Giric. This Donald did, at Dundurn near St Fillans at the eastern end of Loch Earn. He then went on to exile Eochaid, before taking the crown for himself.

However dubious Eochaid's claims to the Crown of the Picts and Scots had been, he claim to be King of Strathclyde was much stronger. When Eochaid was exiled by Donald II to Gwynedd in Wales most of the nobility of Strathclyde left with him, and Donald II combined the Crowns of the Picts and Scots and the Crown of Strathclyde, becoming the first person to be referred to in his own time as King of Alba. Alba had been an entity since the merging of the Crowns of the Picts and the Scots by Kenneth I in 843; but until Donald, Kings had taken the title King of Picts or King of the Picts and Scots.

Donald II's reign was a turbulent one. During it, much of northern Scotland fell under the control of the Vikings under Sigurd the Mighty. He was also the first Scottish King (though not the last) to be recorded as fighting against Highlanders.

Donald was killed in battle by the Danes at Dunnottar, in 900 and was buried in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel on the Isle of Iona. His successor was his cousin, King Constantine II. Donald's son, Malcolm, later became King Malcolm I.

end of biography

Domnall mac Causantâin (Modern Gaelic: Dáomhnall mac Cháoiseim),[1] anglicised as Donald II (died 900) was King of the Picts or King of Scotland (Alba) in the late 9th century. He was the son of Constantine I (Causantâin mac Cinâaeda). Donald is given the epithet Dâasachtach, "the Madman", by The Prophecy of Berchâan.[2]

Life

Donald became king on the death or deposition of Giric (Giric mac Dâungail), the date of which is not certainly known but usually placed in 889. The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba reports:

Doniualdus son of Constantini held the kingdom for 11 years [889–900]. The Northmen wasted Pictland at this time. In his reign a battle occurred between Danes and Scots at Innisibsolian where the Scots had victory. He was killed at Opidum Fother [modern Dunnottar] by the Gentiles.[3]

It has been suggested that the attack on Dunnottar, rather than being a small raid by a handful of pirates, may be associated with the ravaging of Scotland attributed to Harald Fairhair in the Heimskringla.[4] The Prophecy of Berchâan places Donald's death at Dunnottar, but appears to attribute it to Gaels rather than Norsemen; other sources report he died at Forres.[5] Donald's death is dated to 900 by the Annals of Ulster and the Chronicon Scotorum, where he is called king of Alba, rather than king of the Picts. He was buried on Iona. Like his father, Constantine, he died a violent death at a premature age.

The change from king of the Picts to king of Alba is seen as indicating a step towards the kingdom of the Scots, but historians, while divided as to when this change should be placed, do not generally attribute it to Donald in view of his epithet.[6] The consensus view is that the key changes occurred in the reign of Constantine II (Causantâin mac Áeda),[7] but the reign of Giric has also been proposed.[8]

The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba has Donald succeeded by his cousin Constantine II. Donald's son Malcolm (Mâael Coluim mac Domnall) was later king as Malcolm I. The Prophecy of Berchâan appears to suggest that another king reigned for a short while between Donald II and Constantine II, saying "half a day will he take sovereignty". Possible confirmation of this exists in the Chronicon Scotorum, where the death of "Ead, king of the Picts" in battle against the Uâi Ímair is reported in 904. This, however, is thought to be an error, referring perhaps to ¥dwulf, the ruler of Bernicia, whose death is reported in 913 by the other Irish annals.[9]

end of biography

Timeline: Prehistory to 1000

8500 BC: The date of the oldest human settlement yet found in Scotland, at Cramond, near Edinburgh.

3000 BC: Maeshowe chambered tomb is built on Orkney.

3000 BC: Alleged date of origin of the Fortingall Yew, probably the world's oldest living thing.

3000 BC: Occupation of what may be the first Crannog or artificial islet residence, on the islet Eilean Domhnuill on Loch Olabhat in North Uist.

2500 BC to 2000 BC: Stone village of Skara Brae on Orkney in occupation.

1400 BC: The era of Scota, the daughter of an Egyptian Pharaoh, who features in the foundation myth of Ireland an Scotland, and who Scotland is named after.

500 BC: Crannogs, houses built on stilts or artificial islets, begin to appear widely on Scottish lochs.

200 BC: According to Irish legend, the "School for Heroes" is run by the warrior queen Scâathach, or Sgathach, at her fortress Dâun Scâaith, near Tarskavaig on Skye.

200 BC to AD 200: Building and occupation of Brochs, circular stone defensive towers.

20 BC: Pontius Pilate, later to become the Prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, is born at Fortingall.

AD 80: Julius Agricola Roman Governor of Britain, invades Scotland, reaching a line between the Rivers Clyde and Forth by AD 82.

AD 83: Julius Agricola invades northern Scotland.

AD 84: The Battle of Mons Graupius takes place at a location still uncertain. The Romans under Julius Agricola convincingly defeat the Caledonians under Calgacus. They fail to press home their advantage, however, and instead establish a defensive line of forts extending north east from Loch Lomond to Stonehaven to guard the exits from the main highland glens.

AD 105: The Romans withdraw from Scotland to a defensive line between the Rivers Solway and Tyne. This is fortified as Hadrian's Wall from AD 121.

AD 139: The Romans advance again, to a line between the Forth and Clyde and build the Antonine Wall.

AD 170: The Romans withdraw to Hadrian's Wall once more.

AD 208: Roman Emperor Septimius Severus launches the last campaign intended to conquer Scotland, establishing a major base at Cramond, on the site of a fort built in AD 142.

AD 211: Septimius Severus dies in York. His successor Caracalla abandons territory north of Hadrians Wall and in 212 the Romans withdraw from what will later become Scotland for the final time.

AD 250: The first raids take place in western Scotland by the strong Irish tribe, the Scots.

AD 367: The Picti, or the Picts, push the Romans back from Hadrian's Wall. "Picti" is the Romans' disparaging slang for their northern neighbours, meaning the painted (or tattooed) ones.

AD 397: Saint Ninian dedicates the first Christian church in Scotland, the Candida Casa at Whithorn, to St Martin.

AD 500: Increased migration of Scoti or Scots from Ireland to Scotland leads to the establishment of the kingdom of Dalriada in what is now Argyll, with its capital at Dunadd in Kilmartin Glen.

AD 500: King of the Scots of Dalriada, Fergus Mor fights both the Picts to the east and the Britons of Strathclyde to the south for land.

10 March 520: St Kessog, the original patron saint of Scotland, is killed at Bandry, on the western shore of Loch Lomond.

7 December 521: The birth in County Donegal in Ireland of the man who would go on to become Saint Columba.

AD 550: The Angles establish Bernicia, later called Northumbria, with boundaries extending south to Yorkshire.

AD 552: St Mungo or St Kentigern founds a church on part of the site that later became Glasgow Cathedral.

AD 562: St Moluag founds a settlement on the Isle of Lismore in the mouth of Loch Linnhe.

12 May 563: Saint Columba and twelve companions land on the island of Iona to establish a monastery.

25 June 592: St Moluag dies in Rosemarkie.

9 June 597: St Columba dies in his monastery at Iona.

13 January 614: St Mungo or St Kentigern dies, and is buried at his church in Clas-gu which later becomes Glasgow.

17 April 617: Saint Donan and 52 of his followers are murdered during a raid on their monastery on the Island of Eigg.

AD 638: Edinburgh - Din Eidyn - is overrun by the Angles of the Kingdom of Northumbria.

3 January 642: The birth in Ireland of Saint Maelrubha, a monk who founded a monastery at what is now Applecross.

5 August 642: The death at the Battle of Maserfield (near modern Oswestry) of King Oswald of Northumbria, later known as St Oswald.

31 August 651: The death in what is now St Aidan's Church in Bamburgh of St Aidan of Lindisfarne, the Apostle of Northumbria.

AD 672: A Pictish uprising against the Kingdom of Northumbria is suppressed.

AD 678: St Nathalan dies on Deeside.

Clickable Index Map

8500 BC: The date of the oldest human settlement yet found in Scotland, at Cramond, near Edinburgh.

3000 BC: Maeshowe chambered tomb is built on Orkney.

3000 BC: Alleged date of origin of the Fortingall Yew, probably the world's oldest living thing.

3000 BC: Occupation of what may be the first Crannog or artificial islet residence, on the islet Eilean Domhnuill on Loch Olabhat in North Uist.

2500 BC to 2000 BC: Stone village of Skara Brae on Orkney in occupation.

1400 BC: The era of Scota, the daughter of an Egyptian Pharaoh, who features in the foundation myth of Ireland an Scotland, and who Scotland is named after.

500 BC: Crannogs, houses built on stilts or artificial islets, begin to appear widely on Scottish lochs.

200 BC: According to Irish legend, the "School for Heroes" is run by the warrior queen Scâathach, or Sgathach, at her fortress Dâun Scâaith, near Tarskavaig on Skye.

200 BC to AD 200: Building and occupation of Brochs, circular stone defensive towers.

20 BC: Pontius Pilate, later to become the Prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, is born at Fortingall.

AD 80: Julius Agricola Roman Governor of Britain, invades Scotland, reaching a line between the Rivers Clyde and Forth by AD 82.

AD 83: Julius Agricola invades northern Scotland.

AD 84: The Battle of Mons Graupius takes place at a location still uncertain. The Romans under Julius Agricola convincingly defeat the Caledonians under Calgacus. They fail to press home their advantage, however, and instead establish a defensive line of forts extending north east from Loch Lomond to Stonehaven to guard the exits from the main highland glens.

AD 105: The Romans withdraw from Scotland to a defensive line between the Rivers Solway and Tyne. This is fortified as Hadrian's Wall from AD 121.

AD 139: The Romans advance again, to a line between the Forth and Clyde and build the Antonine Wall.

AD 170: The Romans withdraw to Hadrian's Wall once more.

AD 208: Roman Emperor Septimius Severus launches the last campaign intended to conquer Scotland, establishing a major base at Cramond, on the site of a fort built in AD 142.

AD 211: Septimius Severus dies in York. His successor Caracalla abandons territory north of Hadrians Wall and in 212 the Romans withdraw from what will later become Scotland for the final time.

AD 250: The first raids take place in western Scotland by the strong Irish tribe, the Scots.

AD 367: The Picti, or the Picts, push the Romans back from Hadrian's Wall. "Picti" is the Romans' disparaging slang for their northern neighbours, meaning the painted (or tattooed) ones.

AD 397: Saint Ninian dedicates the first Christian church in Scotland, the Candida Casa at Whithorn, to St Martin.

AD 500: Increased migration of Scoti or Scots from Ireland to Scotland leads to the establishment of the kingdom of Dalriada in what is now Argyll, with its capital at Dunadd in Kilmartin Glen.

AD 500: King of the Scots of Dalriada, Fergus Mor fights both the Picts to the east and the Britons of Strathclyde to the south for land.

10 March 520: St Kessog, the original patron saint of Scotland, is killed at Bandry, on the western shore of Loch Lomond.

7 December 521: The birth in County Donegal in Ireland of the man who would go on to become Saint Columba.

AD 550: The Angles establish Bernicia, later called Northumbria, with boundaries extending south to Yorkshire.

AD 552: St Mungo or St Kentigern founds a church on part of the site that later became Glasgow Cathedral.

AD 562: St Moluag founds a settlement on the Isle of Lismore in the mouth of Loch Linnhe.

12 May 563: Saint Columba and twelve companions land on the island of Iona to establish a monastery.

25 June 592: St Moluag dies in Rosemarkie.

9 June 597: St Columba dies in his monastery at Iona.

13 January 614: St Mungo or St Kentigern dies, and is buried at his church in Clas-gu which later becomes Glasgow.

17 April 617: Saint Donan and 52 of his followers are murdered during a raid on their monastery on the Island of Eigg.

AD 638: Edinburgh - Din Eidyn - is overrun by the Angles of the Kingdom of Northumbria.

3 January 642: The birth in Ireland of Saint Maelrubha, a monk who founded a monastery at what is now Applecross.

5 August 642: The death at the Battle of Maserfield (near modern Oswestry) of King Oswald of Northumbria, later known as St Oswald.

31 August 651: The death in what is now St Aidan's Church in Bamburgh of St Aidan of Lindisfarne, the Apostle of Northumbria.

AD 672: A Pictish uprising against the Kingdom of Northumbria is suppressed.

AD 678: St Nathalan dies on Deeside.

20 May 685: The Battle of Dunnichen or Nechtansmere, near Forfar. King Ecgfrith of Northumbria is decisively defeated by the Picts, paving the way for the development of a separate Scottish nation. The battle is later depicted on a cross slab at Aberlemno Kirk.

20 March 687: The death on Inner Farne Island of St Cuthbert, the a monk, bishop and hermit regarded as the patron saint of northern England.

23 September 704: The death of Adomnâan of Iona, also known as Saint Adomnâan. He was Abbot of Iona, the author of the Life of Columba and the promoter of the hugely influential Law of Adomnâan.

6 March 757: The death on Bass Rock of Saint Baldred of Tyninghame.

8 June 793: The monastery at Lindisfarne suffers its first raid by Vikings. Others will follow, leading to the abandonment of the monastery in 875.

795: First recorded Viking raid (probably from Orkney), on Iona, which is raided twice more in the following decade.

839: The Picts, who have controlled all of Scotland north of the Forth and Clyde except for Argyll, suffer a heavy defeat at the hands of the Vikings. Most of the Pictish nobility is wiped out in the defeat, including King Bridei VI.

843: Kenneth Mac Alpin becomes King of the Scots of Dalriada; and later becomes King of the Picts of Pictland as well, unifying the main groups in Scotland north of the Forth-Clyde line for the first time within the Kingdom of Alba.

850: Viking pressure leads to the relocation of the capital of Alba from Argyll to Scone, near Perth. The religious centre, and the relics of St Columba, moves from Iona to Dunkeld.

850: Kenneth Mac Alpin, also known as Kenneth I, raids Northumbria six times in the 850s.

858: Kenneth Mac Alpin is succeeded by Donald I.

863: Donald I is succeeded by Constantine I.

870: Following a 15 week siege the Vikings capture the fortress at Dumbarton Rock guarding the entrance to the Clyde and the British Kingdom of Strathclyde.

872: Constantine I arranges the death of the King of Strathclyde in 872. He replaces him with his own brother in law, Rhun: effectively making Strathclyde a subordinate kingdom to Alba.

877: Constantine I is succeeded by King Aedh.

878: King Aedh is succeeded by the joint rule of Kings Eochaid and Giric.

889: Kings Eochaid and Giric are succeeded by Donald II.

890: The Vikings capture the Pictish fortress at Dunnottar, near Stonehaven.

900: Constantine II succeeds Donald II and helps incorporate Viking settlers into the emerging Kingdom of Scotland.

937: A joint army comprising Constantine II's Scots and Olaf III Guthfrithson's Vikings is defeated at the Battle of Brunanburh by King Athelstan of England in 937: largely securing the future of what is to become England.

943: Constantine II is succeeded by Malcolm I.

945: Edmund, a Danish King ruling Northumbria, gives Cumbria to Malcolm I of Scotland in return for military support.

954: Malcolm I is succeeded by King Indulf.

962: King Indulf is succeeded by King Duff.

967: King Duff is succeeded by King Culen.

971: King Culen is succeeded by Kenneth II.

995: Kenneth II is succeeded by Constantine III.

997: Constantine III is succeeded by Kenneth III.

end of timeline

Died:
A brief history and overview of Forres; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forres

The earliest written reference to Forres may be the ????a? e?s??s?? (Ouâarar eâischysis, 'Varar Estuary') mentioned in the second century Geography of Claudius Ptolemy. A royal castle was present in the area from at least 900 AD, and around 1140 AD Forres became a royal burgh. Royal burghs were founded by the Kings of Scots of the 12th century to encourage trade and economic improvement. The local abbey was plundered by the Wolf of Badenoch.

On 23 June 1496 King James IV of Scotland issued a Royal Charter laying down the rights and privileges that the town's people are believed to have held by an earlier charter since the reign of King David I some 300 years earlier.

Buried:
was buried in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel... https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/iona/storanschapel/index.html

View images and more history of St Oran's; https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/iona/storanschapel/index.html, (images: https://www.google.com/search?q=Saint+Oran%27s+Chapel+image&client=firefox-b-1-ab&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjcxPKjgIraAhUL71MKHcCmCYoQ7AkIQA&biw=1224&bih=826)

Donald married unnamed spouse. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

2834833.
unnamed spouse
Children:

1417416. Malcolm I of Scotland, King of Alba was born in 897 in Scotland; died in 954 in Auldearn, Scotland; was buried in Isle of Iona, Scotland.

774208.

William of Normandy, I, Duke of Normandy was born in ~893 in Normandy, France (son of Rollo and Lady Poppa of Bayeux); died on 17 Dec 942 in Piquigny, France.

Notes:

William Longsword (French: Guillaume Longue-âEpâee, Latin: Willermus Longa Spata, Old Norse: Vilhjâalmr Langaspjâot; c. 893 – 17 December 942) was the second ruler of Normandy, from 927 until his assassination in 942.[1]

He is sometimes anachronistically dubbed "Duke of Normandy", even though the title duke (dux) did not come into common usage until the 11th century.[2] Longsword was known at the time by the title Count (Latin comes) of Rouen.[3][4] Flodoard—always detailed about titles—consistently referred to both Rollo and his son William as principes (chieftains) of the Norse.[5]

Birth

William Longsword was born "overseas"[a][6] to the Viking Rollo (while he was still a pagan) and his Christian wife Poppa of Bayeux.[7][8] Dudo of Saint-Quentin in his panegyric of the Norman dukes describes Poppa as the daughter of a Count Beranger, the dominant prince of that region.[9] In the 11th century Annales Rouennaises (Annals of Rouen), she is called the daughter of Guy, Count of Senlis,[10] otherwise unknown to history.[b] Despite the uncertainty of her parentage she was undoubtedly a member of the Frankish aristocracy.[11] According to the Longsword's planctus, he was baptized a Christian probably at the same time as his father,[12] which Orderic Vitalis stated was in 912, by Franco, Archbishop of Rouen.[13]

Life

Longsword succeeded Rollo (who would continue to live for about another 5 years) in 927[14] and, early in his reign, faced a rebellion from Normans[15] who felt he had become too Gallicised and too soft.[16] According to Orderic Vitalis, the leader was Riouf of Evreux,[16][17][18] who was besieging Longsword in Rouen. Sallying forth, Longsword won a decisive battle, proving his authority to be Duke.[19]:25-6 At the time of this 933 rebellion Longsword sent his pregnant wife by custom, Sprota, to Fâecamp where their son Richard was born.[20]

In 933 Longsword recognized Raoul as King of Western Francia, who was struggling to assert his authority in Northern France. In turn Raoul gave him lordship over much of the lands of the Bretons including Avranches, the Cotentin Peninsula and the Channel Islands.[21][22][23]:lii The Bretons did not agree to these changes and resistance to the Normans was led by Alan Wrybeard, Duke of Brittany and Count Berenger of Rennes but ended shortly with great slaughter and Breton castles being razed to the ground,[19]:24 Alan fleeing to England and Beranger seeking reconciliation.[24]

In 935, Longsword married Luitgarde,[1] daughter of Count Herbert II of Vermandois whose dowry gave him the lands of Longueville, Coudres and Illiers l'Eveque.[18] Longsword also contracted a marriage between his sister Adela (Gerloc was her Norse name) and William, Count of Poitou with the approval of Hugh the Great.[25] In addition to supporting King Raoul, he was now a loyal ally of his father-in-law, Herbert II, both of whom his father Rollo had opposed.[26] In January 936 King Raoul died and the 16 year old Louis IV, who was living in exile in England, was persuaded by a promise of loyalty by Longsword, to return and became King. The Bretons returned to recover the lands taken by the Normans, resulting in fighting in the expanded Norman lands.[23]:lii

The funerary monument of William Longsword in the cathedral of Rouen, France. The monument is from the 14th century.
The new King was not capable of controlling his Barons and after Longsword's brother in law, Herluin II, Count of Montreuil, was attacked by Flanders, Longsword went to their assistance in 939,[19]:28-9 Arnulf I, Count of Flanders retaliated by attacking Normandy. Arnulf captured the castle of Montreuil-sur-Mer expelling Herluin. Herluin and Longsword cooperated to retake the castle.[27][28] Longsword was excommunicated for his actions in attacking and destroying several estates belonging to Arnulf.[29]

Longsword pledged his loyalty to King Louis IV when they met in 940 and, in return, he was confirmed in lands that had been given to his father, Rollo.[30] [23]:liii In 941 a peace treaty was signed between the Bretons and Normans, brokered in Rouen by King Louis IV which limited the Norman expansion into Breton lands.[23]:liii The following year, on 17 December 942 at Picquigny on an island on the Somme, Longsword was ambushed and killed by followers of Arnulf while at a peace conference to settle their differences.[18][28] Longsword's son, Richard becoming the next Duke of Normandy.

Family
Longsword had no children with his wife Luitgarde.[31] He fathered his son, Richard the Fearless, with Sprota [c] who was a Breton captive and his concubine.[32] Richard, then aged 10, succeeded him as Duke of Normandy in December 942.[31]

end of biography

William married Sprota. Sprota was born in 0911 in Bretagne, France; died in 0940. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

774209.

Sprota was born in 0911 in Bretagne, France; died in 0940.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Fecamp, Normandie, France

Notes:

Sprota was the name of a Breton captive who William I, Duke of Normandy took as a wife in the Viking fashion (more danico)[1][2] and by her had a son, Richard I, Duke of Normandy. After the death of her husband William, she became the wife of Esperleng and mother of Rodulf of Ivry.[3][4][5]

Life

The first mention of her is by Flodoard of Reims and although he doesn't name her he identifies her under the year [943] as the mother of "William’s son [Richard] born of a Breton concubine".[6] Her Breton origins could mean she was of Breton, Scandinavian, or Frankish origin, the latter being the most likely based on her name spelling.[7] Elisabeth van Houts wrote "on this reference rests the identification of Sprota, William Longsword’s wife 'according to the Danish custom', as of Breton origin".[8] The first to provide her name was William of Jumiáeges.[9][10] The irregular nature (as per the Church) of her relationship with William served as the basis for her son by him being the subject of ridicule, the French King Louis "abused the boy with bitter insults", calling him "the son of a whore who had seduced another woman's husband."[11][12]

At the time of the birth of her first son Richard, she was living in her own household at Bayeux, under William's protection.[4] William, having just quashed a rebellion at Prâe-de Bataille (c.936),[a] received the news by a messenger that Sprota had just given birth to a son; delighted at the news William ordered his son to be baptized and given the personal name of Richard.[10] William's steward Boto became the boy's godfather.[13]

After the death of William Longsword and the captivity of her son Richard, she had been 'collected' from her dangerous situation by the 'immensely wealthy' Esperleng.[3] Robert of Torigni identified Sprota's second husband[b] as Esperleng, a wealthy landowner who operated mills at Pãitres.[4][14]

Children:

387104. Richard de Normandie, I was born on 28 Aug 932 in Fecamp, Normandie, France; died on 20 Nov 996 in Fecamp, France; was buried in Fecamp, France.

774210.

Harold married Gunhild von Denmark in ~935 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Gunhild was born in ~0920 in Copenhagen, Denmark. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

774211.

Gunhild von Denmark was born in ~0920 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Children:

387105. Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy was born in 936-941 in Rouen, France; died on 5 Jan 1031 in Normandie, France.

774214.

Geoffrey married Adele of Meaux. Adele (daughter of Robert De Vermandois, Count of Meaux and Adelaide-Werra de Chaton) was born in ~950 in Meaux, France; died in ~980. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

774215.

Adele of Meaux was born in ~950 in Meaux, France (daughter of Robert De Vermandois, Count of Meaux and Adelaide-Werra de Chaton); died in ~980.

Notes:

Adele Carolingian of Meaux was born 950 to Robert de Vermandois (918-968) and Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967) and died 980 of unspecified causes. She married Lambert de Chalon (930-979) . She married Geoffrey I of Anjou (-987) . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]

The French Wikipedia has her first husband marry her mother,[1] which is unlikely, given her age. The same source has her a daughter Gerberge marry King Adalberto of Italy. This would make Adele a grandmother at the age of 12. However, in the reconstruction shown here, Adele is married to two men at once, with her youngest daughter from her first marriage born around 972 and her eldest daughter from her second marriage born around 965.

Note that Genealogie Quebec merges her with her sister.[2]

Children

Offspring of Adele of Meaux and Lambert de Chalon (930-979)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Hugh I de Chalon (?-1039)
Mahaut de Chalon (?-1019) Henri I de Bourgogne (c948-1002)
Geoffroi de Semur (?-c990)

Aelis of Chalon (?-?) Guy I de Macon (975-1006)

Elizabeth de Chalon (970-1014)

Offspring of Adele of Meaux and Geoffrey I of Anjou (-987)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Gottfried of Anjou (?-987) 987
Fulk III, Count of Anjou (972-1040) 972 21 June 1040 Metz, France âElisabeth de Vendãome (c979-999)
Hildegarde de Beaugency (c990-)

Ermengarde of Anjou (bef967-) 967 Conan I of Rennes (927-992)

Gerberge of Anjou (965-1041) 965 1041 Guillaume III Taillefer of Angoulãeme (960-1028)
^ wikipedia:fr:Lambert de Chalon
^ http://genealogiequebec.info/testphp/info.php?no=23981

Noteworthy descendants include

William I of England (1027-1087)

Children:

387107. Ermengarde of Anjou was born before 967 in (Anjou, France).

710504.

Sviatoslav, I, Grand Prince of Kiev was born in ~941 in Kiev, Ukraine (son of Igor of Kiev, Prince of the Rus' and Olga of Kiev); died on 26 Mar 972 in Khortytsia, Dnieper, Ukraine.

Notes:

Sviatoslav I Igorevich (Old East Slavic: ?~??????? / ??????????[1] ?????????, Sventoslavu / Svantoslavu Igorevici; Old Norse: Sveinald Ingvarsson) (c. 942 – 26 March 972), also spelled Svyatoslav was a Grand prince of Kiev[2][3] famous for his persistent campaigns in the east and south, which precipitated the collapse of two great powers of Eastern Europe, Khazaria and the First Bulgarian Empire. He also conquered numerous East Slavic tribes, defeated the Alans and attacked the Volga Bulgars,[4][5] and at times was allied with the Pechenegs and Magyars.

His decade-long reign over the Kievan Rus' was marked by rapid expansion into the Volga River valley, the Pontic steppe, and the Balkans. By the end of his short life, Sviatoslav carved out for himself the largest state in Europe, eventually moving his capital in 969 from Kiev (modern-day Ukraine) to Pereyaslavets (identified as the modern village of Nufaru, Romania)[6] on the Danube.

In contrast with his mother's conversion to Christianity, Sviatoslav remained a staunch pagan all of his life.

Due to his abrupt death in ambush, his conquests, for the most part, were not consolidated into a functioning empire, while his failure to establish a stable succession led to a fratricidal feud among his three sons, resulting in two of them being killed.

Reign 945–972
Coronation 964
Predecessor Igor
Successor Yaropolk I
Born 942? AD
Kiev
Died 26 March 972 AD [aged ~30]
The island of Khortytsa Dnieper
Wives
Predslava
Malusha
Issue With unknown woman:
Yaropolk I
Oleg

With Malusha:
Vladimir the Great
Full name
Sviatoslav Igorevich
Dynasty Rurik Dynasty
Father Igor
Mother Saint Olga (regent 945-964)

Name

The Primary Chronicle records Sviatoslav as the first ruler of the Kievan Rus' with a name of Slavic origin (as opposed to his predecessors, whose names had Old Norse forms). The name Sviatoslav, however, is not recorded in other medieval Slavic countries. Nevertheless, Sveinald is the Old East Norse cognate with the Slavic form as attested in the Old East Norse patronymic of Sviatoslav's son Vladimir: Valdamarr Sveinaldsson. This patronymic naming convention continues in Icelandic and in East Slavic languages. Even in Rus', it was attested only among the members of the house of Rurik, as were the names of Sviatoslav's immediate successors: Vladimir, Yaroslav, and Mstislav.[7][need quotation to verify] Some scholars see the name of Sviatoslav, composed of the Slavic roots for "holy" and "glory", as an artificial derivation combining the names of his predecessors Oleg and Rurik (whose names mean "holy" and "glorious" in Old Norse, respectively).[8]

Early life and personality

Virtually nothing is known about Sviatoslav's childhood and youth, which he spent reigning in Novgorod. Sviatoslav's father, Igor, was killed by the Drevlians around 945, and his mother, Olga, ruled as regent in Kiev until Sviatoslav reached maturity (ca. 963).[9] Sviatoslav was tutored by a Varangian named Asmud.[10] The tradition of employing Varangian tutors for the sons of ruling princes survived well into the 11th century. Sviatoslav appears to have had little patience for administration. His life was spent with his druzhina (roughly, "company") in permanent warfare against neighboring states. According to the Primary Chronicle, he carried on his expeditions neither wagons nor kettles, and he boiled no meat, rather cutting off small strips of horseflesh, game, or beef to eat after roasting it on the coals. Nor did he have a tent, rather spreading out a horse-blanket under him and setting his saddle under his head, and all his retinue did likewise.[11]

Illustration of Sviatoslav wearing a vyshyvanka, by Fedor Solntsev

Sviatoslav's appearance has been described very clearly by Leo the Deacon, who himself attended the meeting of Sviatoslav with John I Tzimiskes. Following Deacon's memories, Sviatoslav was a blue-eyed man of average height but of stalwart build, much more sturdy than Tzimiskes. He shaved his blond head and his beard but wore a bushy mustache and a sidelock as a sign of his nobility.[12] He preferred to dress in white, and it was noted that his garments were much cleaner than those of his men, although he had a lot in common with his warriors. He wore a single large gold earring bearing a carbuncle and two pearls.[13]

Religious beliefs

Sviatoslav's mother, Olga, converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity at the court of Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus in 957,[14] at the approximate age of 67. However, Sviatoslav remained a pagan all of his life. In the treaty of 971 between Sviatoslav and the Byzantine emperor John I Tzimiskes, the Rus' are swearing by Perun and Veles.[15] According to the Primary Chronicle, he believed that his warriors (druzhina) would lose respect for him and mock him if he became a Christian.[16] The allegiance of his warriors was of paramount importance in his conquest of an empire that stretched from the Volga to the Danube.

Family

Svjatoslav's mother, Olga, with her escort in Constantinople, a miniature from the late 11th century chronicle of John Skylitzes.
Very little is known of Sviatoslav's family life. It is possible that he was not the only (or the eldest) son of his parents. The Russo-Byzantine treaty of 945 mentions a certain Predslava, Volodislav's wife, as the noblest of the Rus' women after Olga. The fact that Predslava was Oleg's mother is presented by Vasily Tatishchev. He also speculated that Predslava was of a Hungarian nobility. George Vernadsky was among many historians to speculate that Volodislav was Igor's eldest son and heir who died at some point during Olga's regency. Another chronicle told that Oleg (? - 944?) was the eldest son of Igor. At the time of Igor's death, Sviatoslav was still a child, and he was raised by his mother or under her instructions. Her influence, however, did not extend to his religious observance.

Sviatoslav I in the Tsarsky Titulyarnik, 1672

Sviatoslav had several children, but the origin of his wives is not specified in the chronicle. By his wives, he had Yaropolk and Oleg.[17] By Malusha, a woman of indeterminate origins,[18] Sviatoslav had Vladimir, who would ultimately break with his father's paganism and convert Rus' to Christianity. John Skylitzes reported that Vladimir had a brother named Sfengus; whether this Sfengus was a son of Sviatoslav, a son of Malusha by a prior or subsequent husband, or an unrelated Rus' nobleman is unclear.[19]

Eastern campaigns

The Kievan Rus' at the beginning of Sviatoslav's reign (in red), showing his sphere of influence to 972 (in orange)
Shortly after his accession to the throne, Sviatoslav began campaigning to expand Rus' control over the Volga valley and the Pontic steppe region. His greatest success was the conquest of Khazaria, which for centuries had been one of the strongest states of Eastern Europe. The sources are not clear about the roots of the conflict between Khazaria and Rus', so several possibilities have been suggested. The Rus' had an interest in removing the Khazar hold on the Volga trade route because the Khazars collected duties from the goods transported by the Volga. Historians have suggested that the Byzantine Empire may have incited the Rus' against the Khazars, who fell out with the Byzantines after the persecutions of the Jews in the reign of Romanus I Lecapenus.[20]

Sviatoslav began by rallying the East Slavic vassal tribes of the Khazars to his cause. Those who would not join him, such as the Vyatichs, were attacked and forced to pay tribute to the Kievan Rus' rather than to the Khazars.[21] According to a legend recorded in the Primary Chronicle, Sviatoslav sent a message to the Vyatich rulers, consisting of a single phrase: "I want to come at you!" (Old East Slavic: "???? ?? ?? ???")[22] This phrase is used in modern Russian (usually misquoted as "??? ?? ??") and in modern Ukrainian ("??? ?? ??") to denote an unequivocal declaration of one's intentions. Proceeding by the Oka and Volga rivers, he attacked Volga Bulgaria. He employed Oghuz and Pecheneg mercenaries in this campaign, perhaps to counter the superior cavalry of the Khazars and Bulgars.[23]

Sviatoslav's Council of War by Boris Chorikov

Sviatoslav destroyed the Khazar city of Sarkel around 965, possibly sacking (but not occupying) the Khazar city of Kerch on the Crimea as well.[24] At Sarkel he established a Rus' settlement called Belaya Vyezha ("the white tower" or "the white fortress", the East Slavic translation for "Sarkel").[25] He subsequently destroyed the Khazar capital of Atil.[26] A visitor to Atil wrote soon after Sviatoslav's campaign: "The Rus' attacked, and no grape or raisin remained, not a leaf on a branch."[27] The exact chronology of his Khazar campaign is uncertain and disputed; for example, Mikhail Artamonov and David Christian proposed that the sack of Sarkel came after the destruction of Atil.[28]

Although Ibn Haukal reports the sack of Samandar by Sviatoslav, the Rus' leader did not bother to occupy the Khazar heartlands north of the Caucasus Mountains permanently. On his way back to Kiev, Sviatoslav chose to strike against the Ossetians and force them into subservience.[29] Therefore, Khazar successor statelets continued their precarious existence in the region.[30] The destruction of Khazar imperial power paved the way for Kievan Rus' to dominate north-south trade routes through the steppe and across the Black Sea, routes that formerly had been a major source of revenue for the Khazars. Moreover, Sviatoslav's campaigns led to increased Slavic settlement in the region of the Saltovo-Mayaki culture, greatly changing the demographics and culture of the transitional area between the forest and the steppe.[31]

Campaigns in the Balkans

Main article: Sviatoslav's invasion of Bulgaria

Sviatoslav invading Bulgaria, Manasses Chronicle
The annihilation of Khazaria was undertaken against the background of the Rus'-Byzantine alliance, concluded in the wake of Igor's Byzantine campaign in 944.[32] Close military ties between the Rus' and Byzantium are illustrated by the fact, reported by John Skylitzes, that a Rus' detachment accompanied Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros Phokas in his victorious naval expedition to Crete.

In 967 or 968,[33] Nikephoros sent to Sviatoslav his agent, Kalokyros, with the task of talking Sviatoslav into assisting him in a war against Bulgaria.[34] Sviatoslav was paid 15,000 pounds of gold and set sail with an army of 60,000 men, including thousands of Pecheneg mercenaries.[35][36]

Sviatoslav defeated the Bulgarian ruler Boris II[37] and proceeded to occupy the whole of northern Bulgaria. Meanwhile, the Byzantines bribed the Pechenegs to attack and besiege Kiev, where Olga stayed with Sviatoslav's son Vladimir. The siege was relieved by the druzhina of Pretich, and immediately following the Pecheneg retreat, Olga sent a reproachful letter to Sviatoslav. He promptly returned and defeated the Pechenegs, who continued to threaten Kiev.

[show] v t e
Rus'–Byzantine Wars
Sviatoslav refused to turn his Balkan conquests over to the Byzantines, and the parties fell out as a result. To the chagrin of his boyars and his mother (who died within three days after learning about his decision), Sviatoslav decided to move his capital to Pereyaslavets in the mouth of the Danube due to the great potential of that location as a commercial hub. In the Primary Chronicle record for 969, Sviatoslav explains that it is to Pereyaslavets, the centre of his lands, "all the riches flow: gold, silks, wine, and various fruits from Greece, silver and horses from Hungary and Bohemia, and from Rus' furs, wax, honey, and slaves".

Pursuit of Sviatoslav's warriors by the Byzantine army, a miniature from 11th century chronicles of John Skylitzes.

In summer 969, Sviatoslav left Rus' again, dividing his dominion into three parts, each under a nominal rule of one of his sons. At the head of an army that included Pecheneg and Magyar auxiliary troops, he invaded Bulgaria again, devastating Thrace, capturing the city of Philippopolis, and massacring its inhabitants. Nikephoros responded by repairing the defenses of Constantinople and raising new squadrons of armored cavalry. In the midst of his preparations, Nikephoros was overthrown and killed by John Tzimiskes, who thus became the new Byzantine emperor.[38]

Madrid Skylitzes, meeting between John Tzimiskes and Sviatoslav.

John Tzimiskes first attempted to persuade Sviatoslav into leaving Bulgaria, but he was unsuccessful. Challenging the Byzantine authority, Sviatoslav crossed the Danube and laid siege to Adrianople, causing panic on the streets of Constantinople in summer 970.[39] Later that year, the Byzantines launched a counteroffensive. Being occupied with suppressing a revolt of Bardas Phokas in Asia Minor, John Tzimiskes sent his commander-in-chief, Bardas Skleros, who defeated the coalition of Rus', Pechenegs, Magyars, and Bulgarians in the Battle of Arcadiopolis.[40] Meanwhile, John, having quelled the revolt of Bardas Phokas, came to the Balkans with a large army and promoting himself as the liberator of Bulgaria from Sviatoslav, penetrated the impracticable mountain passes and shortly thereafter captured Marcianopolis, where the Rus' were holding a number of Bulgar princes hostage.

Siege of Durostorum in Manasses Chronicle

Sviatoslav retreated to Dorostolon, which the Byzantine armies besieged for sixty-five days. Cut off and surrounded, Sviatoslav came to terms with John and agreed to abandon the Balkans, renounce his claims to the southern Crimea, and return west of the Dnieper River. In return, the Byzantine emperor supplied the Rus' with food and safe passage home. Sviatoslav and his men set sail and landed on Berezan Island at the mouth of the Dnieper, where they made camp for the winter. Several months later, their camp was devastated by famine, so that even a horse's head could not be bought for less than a half-grivna, reports the Kievan chronicler of the Primary Chronicle.[41] While Sviatoslav's campaign brought no tangible results for the Rus', it weakened the Bulgarian statehood and left it vulnerable to the attacks of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer four decades later.

Death and aftermath

The Death of Sviatoslav by Boris Chorikov
Fearing that the peace with Sviatoslav would not endure, the Byzantine emperor induced the Pecheneg khan Kurya to kill Sviatoslav before he reached Kiev. This was in line with the policy outlined by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in De Administrando Imperio of fomenting strife between the Rus' and the Pechenegs.[42] According to the Slavic chronicle, Sveneld attempted to warn Sviatoslav to avoid the Dnieper rapids, but the prince slighted his wise advice and was ambushed and slain by the Pechenegs when he tried to cross the cataracts near Khortitsa early in 972. The Primary Chronicle reports that his skull was made into a chalice by the Pecheneg khan.[43]

Following Sviatoslav's death, tensions between his sons grew. A war broke out between his legitimate sons, Oleg and Yaropolk, in 976, at the conclusion of which Oleg was killed. In 977 Vladimir fled Novgorod to escape Oleg's fate and went to Scandinavia, where he raised an army of Varangians and returned in 980. Yaropolk was killed, and Vladimir became the sole ruler of Kievan Rus'.

Art and literature

Ivan Akimov. Sviatoslav's Return from the Danube to His Family in Kiev (1773)
Sviatoslav has long been a hero of Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian patriots due to his great military successes. His figure first attracted attention of Russian artists and poets during the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774), which provided obvious parallels with Sviatoslav's push towards Constantinople. Russia's southward expansion and the imperialistic ventures of Catherine II in the Balkans seemed to have been legitimized by Sviatoslav's campaigns eight centuries earlier.

Among the works created during the war was Yakov Knyazhnin's tragedy Olga (1772). The Russian playwright chose to introduce Sviatoslav as his protagonist, although his active participation in the events following Igor's death is out of sync with the traditional chronology. Knyazhnin's rival Nikolai Nikolev (1758–1815) also wrote a play on the subject of Sviatoslav's life. Ivan Akimov's painting Sviatoslav's Return from the Danube to Kiev (1773) explores the conflict between military honour and family attachment. It is a vivid example of Poussinesque rendering of early medieval subject matter.

Interest in Sviatoslav's career increased in the 19th century. Klavdiy Lebedev depicted an episode of Sviatoslav's meeting with Emperor John in his well-known painting, while Eugene Lanceray sculpted an equestrian statue of Sviatoslav in the early 20th century.[44] Sviatoslav appears in the 1913 poem of Velimir Khlebnikov Written before the war (#70. ?????????? ?? ?????)[45] as an epitome of militant Slavdom:

?????????? ??? ?????, Pouring the famed juice of the Danube
??????? ? ????? ?????, Into the depth of my head,
????? ???? ?, ????????? I shall drink and remember
??????? ????: "??? ?? ??!". The cry of the bright ones: "I come at you!"[46]
Sviatoslav is the villain of the novel The Lost Kingdom, or the Passing of the Khazars, by Samuel Gordon,[47] a fictionalised account of the destruction of Khazaria by the Rus'. The Slavic warrior figures in a more positive context in the story "Chernye Strely Vyaticha" by Vadim Viktorovich Kargalov; the story is included in his book Istoricheskie povesti.[48]

In 2005, reports circulated that a village in the Belgorod region had erected a monument to Sviatoslav's victory over the Khazars by the Russian sculptor Vyacheslav Klykov. The reports described the 13-meter tall statue as depicting a Rus' cavalryman trampling a supine Khazar bearing a Star of David and Kolovrat. This created an outcry within the Jewish community of Russia. The controversy was further exacerbated by Klykov's connections with Pamyat and other anti-Semitic organizations, as well as by his involvement in the "letter of 500", a controversial appeal to the Prosecutor General to review all Jewish organizations in Russia for extremism.[49] The Press Centre of the Belgorod Regional Administration responded by stating that a planned monument to Sviatoslav had not yet been constructed but would show "respect towards representatives of all nationalities and religions."[50] When the statue was unveiled, the shield bore a twelve-pointed star.

Sviatoslav is the main character of the books "Knyaz" ("?????") and "The Hero" ("?????"), written by Russian writer Alexander Mazin.

On 7 November 2011, a Ukrainian fisherman found a one metre long sword in the waters of the Dnieper on Khortytsia near where Sviatoslav is believed to have been killed in 972. The handle is made out of four different metals including gold and silver, and could possibly have belonged to Sviatoslav himself.[51]

end of biography

Sviatoslav married Malusha. Malusha was born in (0944) in (Kiev, Ukraine); died in (1002). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

710505.

Malusha was born in (0944) in (Kiev, Ukraine); died in (1002).

Notes:

Malusha/Malfrida[1][2] (Old Ruthenian: ?????a, Old Norse: Mâalfrâiºr)[3] historically is known as a servant (kholopka) for Olga of Kiev and wife of Sviatoslav I of Kiev. According to Slavonic chronicles, she was the mother of Vladimir the Great and sister of Dobrynya. The Norse sagas describe Vladimir's mother as a prophetess who lived to the age of 100 and was brought from her cave to the palace to predict the future. Malusha monuments in Korosten, Ukraine, with her young son Vladimir.[1]

Origin
As the chronicles are silent on the subject of Malusha's pedigree, 19th-century Russian and Ukrainian historians devised various theories to explain her parentage and name.

Alexei Shakhmatov considered Malusha to be the daughter of Mstisha Sveneldovich, son of Sveneld, a Varangian warlord. He believed that the name Malusha was a slavinized version of a Scandinavian name Malfried.[4] In this case, Malusha was of Norse origin.[5] The Primary Chronicle records that a certain Malfried died in 1000. This record follows that of Rogneda's death. Since Rogneda was Vladimir's wife, historians assume that Malfried was another close relative of the ruling prince, preferably his wife or mother.

The anti-Normanist historian Dmitry Ilovaisky managed to draw an opposite conclusion: that the Slavic name Malusha was turned into a Scandinavian Malfried. This claim received no wider support. Dmitry Prozorovsky believed that Malusha was the daughter of Mal, a Drevlyan leader.[6] The same one that wanted to marry Olga of Kiev after she became a widow.[7]

References
Vladimir Plougin: Russian Intelligence Services: The Early Years, 9th-11th Centuries, Algora Publ., 2000
History of Ukraine-Rus': From prehistory to the eleventh century, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 1997
Mâalfrâiºr nordicnames.de
Vladimir Plougin: Russian Intelligence Services: The Early Years, 9th-11th Centuries, Algora Publ., 2000
Harvard Ukrainian studies, Volumer 12-13, Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1990
?. ?. ???????. ?????? ??????? ? ?????????? ????????? ? ???????????? ?????. ISBN 9785860075351. Page 90.
Dixon-Kennedy, Mike (1998). Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio. p. 210. ISBN 1-57607-063-8.

end of biography

Children:

1427458. Vladimir, Czar of Russia was born in 956 in Kiev, Ukraine; died on 15 Jul 1015 in Kiev, Ukraine.
Oleg

710506.

Rogvolod, Prince of Polotsk was born in ~920 in Gothland, Sweden (son of Ulf Tostesson, Jarl of Skara and Ingeborg); died in 978 in Polotsk, Belarus.

Notes:

Ragnvald Ulfsson the Old (beginning 11th century) was a jarl of Vèastergèotland or èOstergèotland, and married to a sister of Olav Tryggvason.[1]

Ragnvald is mentioned in the skaldic poem Austrfaravâisur, ascribed to Sigvatr ´âorºarson, skald of King Olaf Haraldsson of Norway (Olaf the Holy), who had been on a diplomatic mission to Sweden. This poem is quoted in the 13th century sagas Fagrskinna and Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla. In addition to the poem, Fagrskinna only briefly mentions Ragnvald, while Heimskringla contains a more elaborate account of him. This 13th-century prose text is not considered historically reliable.

According to Snorri, Ragnvald was the son of jarl Ulf Tostesson and Ingeborg and the foster-son of ´orgnýr the Lawspeaker. He was the cousin of Olof Skèotkonung, through his aunt Sigrid the Haughty, and he was married to Ingeborg Tryggvasdotter.

During his days the Norwegians pillaged in Vèastergèotland, but then the Norwegian king, Olaf the Holy, proposed to the Swedish princess Ingigerd Olofsdotter, the daughter of Sweden's king Olof Skèotkonung. This pleased Ragnvald who was related to both.

However, at the Thing at Gamla Uppsala, Ragnvald and his foster-father ´orgnýr the Lawspeaker had to force Olof, the Swedish king, to promise his daughter to Olaf, the Norwegian king, whom he did not like. When the Swedish king failed to deliver his daughter, Ragnvald realized that he was in trouble. He has not only fallen out of grace with the Swedish king, but he could also expect the revenge of the Norwegians.

During a visit by the skald Sigvatr ´âorºarson, Ragnvald learned that Prince Jaroslav of Kievan Rus' has proposed to Ingigerd, and so he had the idea that Olaf the Holy should marry the illegitimate daughter of Olof Skèotkonung, Astrid, who was staying with Ragnvald. Sigvat promised to deliver the message, and the Norwegian king accepted.

Ragnvald and Astrid arrive at Sarpsborg.
Ragnvald delivered Astrid at Sarpsborg in Norway and she married the king after Christmas of 1019.

Olof Skèotkonung was now so upset that he intended to hang Ragnvald at the next Thing. However, when Ingigerd Olofsdotter married Jaroslav, Ingigerd managed to arrange that Ragnvald became the jarl of Staraja Ladoga (Aldeigjuborg) and Ingria, and Olof let him depart with Ingigerd in the summer of 1019.

Fagrskinna's account of Olaf the Holy's betrothal to Ingigerd, and eventual wedding with Astrid, differs significantly from the account in Heimskringla. In Fagrskinna's account, Ragnvald is not given a prominent role in the proceedings.

Married to Ingeborg Tryggvasdotter. Children:

Ulf Ragnvaldsson Jarl
Eilif Ragnvaldsson Jarl
Ostrida Ragnvalsdatter
He is considered to have fathered king Stenkil,[2] with Astrid Nialsdotter from Norway, but this is based on later Icelandic sources,[3] and the identification of Ragnvald with Ragnvald the Old of Hervarar saga.[4]

Notes

Winroth 1995–1997:616
The entry Stenkil in Larsson 2000:33
Stenkil anses ha varit son till Ragnvald jal i Vèastergèotland. Translation: Stenkil is considered to have been the son of earl Ragnvald in Vèastergèotland.
Lagerquist 1997:41
Den nye kungen hette Stenkil och den ganska kortlivade dynasti han grundade kallas efter honom den stenkilska. Enligt senare islèandska uppgifter var han son till jarlen Ragnvald i Vèastergèotland och Astrid Nialsdotter frêan Norge. Translation: The name of the new king was Stenkil and the rather shortlived dynasty that he founded is named the House of Stenkil after him. According to later Icelandic reports, he was the son of the earl Ragnvald in Vèastergèotland and Astrid Nialsdotter from Norway.
Larsson 2002:154–157
[...] ingenting om Ragnvald den gamle eller den norska hèovdingadottern Astrid som var Stenkils fèorèaldrar enligt den fornislèandska Hervararsagan. [...] Och lika lite kan jag fêa veta ifall Stenkils far Ragnvald var identisk med vèastgèotajarlen med samma namn, som det ofta pêastêas i den historiska literaturen - en hypotes som i och fèor sig ocksêa skulle leda till slèaktskap med den gamla kungaèatten genom att Ragnvald enligt sagorna var kusin till Olof Skèotkonung. Translation: [...] nothing on Ragnvald the Old or the Norwegian chieftain's daughter Astrid who were Stenkil's parents according to the Old Icelandic Hervarar saga. [...] And just as little can I be informed whether Stenkil's father Ragnvald was identical to the Vèastergèotland jarl by the same name, as it is often stated in history books - a hypothesis which, as it were, would lead to kinship with the old dynasty through the fact that Ragnvald according to the sagas was the cousin of Olof Skèotkonung.
Literature
Larsson, Lars-Ove (1993, 2000). Vem èar vem i svensk historia, frêan êar 1000 till 1900. Prisma, Stockholm. ISBN 91-518-3427-8
Larsson, Mats G (2002). Gèotarnas Riken : Upptèacktsfèarder Till Sveriges Enande. Bokfèorlaget Atlantis AB ISBN 978-91-7486-641-4
Lagerquist, Lars O. (1997). Sveriges Regenter, frêan forntid till nutid. Norstedts, Stockholm. ISBN 91-1-963882-5
Winroth, Anders (1995–1997) "Ragnvald Ulfsson", Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon, volume 29, page 616.
Wisâen, Theodor, revised by Erik Brate (1915), "Ragnvald Ulfsson", Nordisk familjebok, volume 22, 913–914

Rogvolod (Russian: ????????, Rogvolod; Belarusian: ????????, Rahvalod) (c. 920 – 978) was first chronicled prince of Polatsk (945–978). In the Russian Primary Chronicle, he is known as ??????????, probably a slavicized version of the Old Norse name Ragnvald. He came from overseas (i.e., from Scandinavia or Southern Baltic) and established himself at Polatsk in the mid-10th century. According to the Russian Primary Chronicle, Vladimir the Great sought an alliance with him in 980 by marrying his daughter Rogneda, but she insultingly refused, prompting Vladimir to attack Rogvolod and his sons and kill them, after which he forcibly took Rogneda as his wife.[1]

References
Janet Martin, Medieval Russia 980-1584 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 1.
External links
Oleg Latyszonek, Ales’ Bely. On the Scandinavian origin of Rahvalod // Annus Albaruthenicus/??? ????????? ?6. 2005.

end of biography

Children:

355253. Rogneda of Polotsk, Princess Consort of Rus was born in 0Apr 962 in Polotsk, Russia; died in 1002 in Berestovo, Kiev, Ukraine.
Stenkil

1417416.

Notes:

Mâael Coluim mac Domnaill (anglicised Malcolm I) (died 954) was king of Scots (before 943 – 954), becoming king when his cousin Causantâin mac Áeda abdicated to become a monk. He was the son of Domnall mac Causantâin.

Mâael Coluim was probably born during his father's reign (889–900).[1] By the 940s, he was no longer a young man, and may have become impatient in awaiting the throne. Willingly or not—the 11th-century Prophecy of Berchâan, a verse history in the form of a supposed prophecy, states that it was not a voluntary decision that Constantine II abdicated in 943 and entered a monastery, leaving the kingdom to Mâael Coluim.[2]

Seven years later, the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba says:

[Malcolm I] plundered the English as far as the River Tees, and he seized a multitude of people and many herds of cattle: and the Scots called this the raid of Albidosorum, that is, Nainndisi. But others say that Constantine made this raid, asking of the king, Malcolm, that the kingship should be given to him for a week's time, so that he could visit the English. In fact, it was Malcolm who made the raid, but Constantine incited him, as I have said.[3]

Woolf suggests that the association of Constantine with the raid is a late addition, one derived from a now-lost saga or poem.[4]

He died in the shield wall next to his men.[citation needed] Mâael Coluim would be the third in his immediate family to die violently, his father Donald II and grandfather Constantine I both having met similar fates 54 years earlier in 900 and 77 years earlier in 877 respectively.

In 945, Edmund I of England, having expelled Amlaâib Cuaran (Olaf Sihtricsson) from Northumbria, devastated Cumbria and blinded two sons of Domnall mac Eâogain, king of Strathclyde. It is said that he then "let" or "commended" Strathclyde to Mâael Coluim in return for an alliance.[5] What is to be understood by "let" or "commended" is unclear, but it may well mean that Mâael Coluim had been the overlord of Strathclyde and that Edmund recognised this while taking lands in southern Cumbria for himself.[6]

The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba says that Mâael Coluim took an army into Moray "and slew Cellach". Cellach is not named in the surviving genealogies of the rulers of Moray, and his identity is unknown.[7]

Mâael Coluim appears to have kept his agreement with the late English king, which may have been renewed with the new king, Edmund having been murdered in 946 and succeeded by his brother Edred. Eric Bloodaxe took York in 948, before being driven out by Edred, and when Amlaâib Cuaran again took York in 949–950, Mâael Coluim raided Northumbria as far south as the Tees taking "a multitude of people and many herds of cattle" according to the Chronicle.[8] The Annals of Ulster for 952 report a battle between "the men of Alba and the Britons [of Strathclyde] and the English" against the foreigners, i.e. the Northmen or the Norse-Gaels. This battle is not reported by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and it is unclear whether it should be related to the expulsion of Amlaâib Cuaran from York or the return of Eric Bloodaxe.[9]

The Annals of Ulster report that Mâael Coluim was killed in 954. Other sources place this most probably in the Mearns, either at Fetteresso following the Chronicle, or at Dunnottar following the Prophecy of Berchâan. He was buried on Iona.[10] Mâael Coluim's sons Dub and Cinâaed were later kings.

end of biography

Malcolm I (a.k.a. Mâael Coluim mac Domnaill) lived from 897 to 954 and was King of Alba from 943 to 954. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline.

Malcolm I was the son of Donald II of Alba, and succeeded to he throne on the abdication of his father's cousin, King Constantine II.

Malcolm gained a reputation for his wisdom and Edmund I of England sought him out as an ally against the Vikings, giving Malcolm the province of Cumbria in return for an alliance. The alliance was invoked by Edmund's successor, who wanted Malcolm's support against King Anlaf of Northumberland which at that time still included the Lothians.

In 954 Malcolm I was faced with a revolt by the men of Moray led by their maormor (or earl), Cellach. The revolt was suppressed, and Cellach was killed. But shortly afterwards Malcolm I was himself killed by one of Cellach's supporters at Auldearn. He was buried, as was now traditional for Scottish Kings, in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel on the Isle of Iona.

Malcolm I was succeeded by King Indulf, his second cousin and son of King Constantine II.

end of biography

Buried:
in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel...

View images and more history of St Oran's; https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/iona/storanschapel/index.html, (images: https://www.google.com/search?q=Saint+Oran%27s+Chapel+image&client=firefox-b-1-ab&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjcxPKjgIraAhUL71MKHcCmCYoQ7AkIQA&biw=1224&bih=826)

Malcolm married unnamed spouse. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1417417.
unnamed spouse
Children:

708708. Kenneth II of Scotland, King of Alba was born in 932 in Scotland; died in 995 in Fettercairn, Scotland; was buried in Isle of Iona, Scotland.

1420832.

Notes:

Edmund I (Old English: Eadmund, pronounced [µ??dmund]; 921 – 26 May 946) was King of the English from 939 until his death. His epithets include the Elder, the Deed-doer, the Just, and the Magnificent.

Edmund was the son of Edward the Elder and his third wife Eadgifu of Kent, and a grandson of Alfred the Great. His father died when he was young, and was succeeded by his oldest son ¥thelstan. Edmund came to the throne upon the death of his half-brother in 939, apparently with little opposition. His reign was marked by almost constant warfare, including conquests or reconquests of the Midlands, Northumbria, and Strathclyde (the last of which was ceded to Malcolm I of Scotland). Edmund was assassinated after six-and-a-half years as king, while attending mass in Pucklechurch, Gloucestershire. He was initially succeeded by his brother Eadred, but his two sons – Eadwig and Edgar the Peaceful – both later came to the throne.

King of the English
Tenure 27 October 939 – 26 May 946
Coronation c. 29 November 939
probably at Kingston upon Thames[1]
Predecessor ¥thelstan
Successor Eadred
Born 921
Wessex, England
Died 26 May 946 (aged 24–25)
Pucklechurch, Gloucestershire, England
Burial Glastonbury Abbey
Spouse ¥lfgifu of Shaftesbury
¥thelflµd of Damerham
Issue Eadwig, King of England
Edgar, King of England
House Wessex
Father Edward the Elder
Mother Eadgifu of Kent
Religion Roman Catholic

Early life and military threats

Edmund came to the throne as the son of Edward the Elder,[2] and therefore the grandson of Alfred the Great, great-grandson of ¥thelwulf of Wessex and great-great grandson of Egbert of Wessex, who was the first of the house of Wessex to start dominating the Anglo Saxon realms. However, being born when his father was already a middle aged man, Edmund lost his father when he was a toddler, in 924, which saw his 30 year old half brother Athelstan come to the throne. Edmund would grow up in the reign of Athelstan, even participating in the Battle of Brunanburgh in his adolescence in 937.[citation needed]

Athelstan died in the year 939, which saw young Edmund come to the throne. Shortly after his proclamation as king, he had to face several military threats. King Olaf III Guthfrithson conquered Northumbria and invaded the Midlands; when Olaf died in 942, Edmund reconquered the Midlands.[2] In 943, Edmund became the god-father of King Olaf of York. In 944, Edmund was successful in reconquering Northumbria.[3] In the same year, his ally Olaf of York lost his throne and left for Dublin in Ireland. Olaf became the king of Dublin as Amlaâib Cuarâan and continued to be allied to his god-father. In 945, Edmund conquered Strathclyde but ceded the territory to King Malcolm I of Scotland in exchange for a treaty of mutual military support.[3] Edmund thus established a policy of safe borders and peaceful relationships with Scotland. During his reign, the revival of monasteries in England began.

Louis IV of France

One of Edmund's last political movements of which there is some knowledge is his role in the restoration of Louis IV of France to the throne. Louis, son of Charles the Simple and Edmund's half-sister Eadgifu, had resided at the West-Saxon court for some time until 936, when he returned to be crowned King of France. In the summer of 945, he was captured by the Norsemen of Rouen and subsequently released to Duke Hugh the Great, who held him in custody. The chronicler Richerus claims that Eadgifu wrote letters both to Edmund and to Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor in which she requested support for her son. Edmund responded to her plea by sending angry threats to Hugh.[4] Flodoard's Annales, one of Richerus' sources, report:

Edmund, king of the English, sent messengers to Duke Hugh about the restoration of King Louis, and the duke accordingly made a public agreement with his nephews and other leading men of his kingdom. [...] Hugh, duke of the Franks, allying himself with Hugh the Black, son of Richard, and the other leading men of the kingdom, restored to the kingdom King Louis.[5][6]

Death and succession

On 26 May 946, Edmund was murdered by Leofa, an exiled thief, while attending St Augustine's Day mass in Pucklechurch (South Gloucestershire).[7] John of Worcester and William of Malmesbury add some lively detail by suggesting that Edmund had been feasting with his nobles, when he spotted Leofa in the crowd. He attacked the intruder in person, but in the event, Leofa killed him. Leofa was killed on the spot by those present.[8] A recent article re-examines Edmund's death and dismisses the later chronicle accounts as fiction. It suggests the king was the victim of a political assassination.[9]

Edmund's sister Eadgyth, the wife of Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, died earlier the same year, as Flodoard's Annales for 946 report.[10]

Edmund was succeeded as king by his brother Eadred, king from 946 until 955. Edmund's sons later ruled England as:

Eadwig, King of England from 955 until 957, king of only Wessex and Kent from 957 until his death on 1 October 959.
Edgar the Peaceful, king of Mercia and Northumbria from 957 until his brother's death in 959, then king of England from 959 until 975.

Buried:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glastonbury_Abbey

Edmund married Aelfgifu of Shaftsbury. Aelfgifu was born in (~914); died in 944; was buried in Shaftesbury Abbey, Dorset, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1420833.

Aelfgifu of Shaftsbury was born in (~914); died in 944; was buried in Shaftesbury Abbey, Dorset, England.

Notes:

Saint ¥lfgifu of Shaftesbury, also known as Saint Elgiva[1] (died 944) was the first wife of Edmund I (r. 939–946), by whom she bore two future kings, Eadwig (r. 955–959) and Edgar (r. 959–975). Like her mother Wynflaed, she had a close and special if unknown connection with the royal nunnery of Shaftesbury (Dorset), founded by King Alfred,[2] where she was buried and soon revered as a saint. According to a pre-Conquest tradition from Winchester, her feast day is 18 May.[3][4]

Queen consort of England
Tenure 939 - 944
Died 944
Burial Shaftesbury Abbey
Spouse Edmund I, King of England
Issue Eadwig, King of England
Edgar, King of England
Mother Wynflaed

Family background

Will of Wynflµd (British Library Cotton Charters viii. 38)[5]
Her mother appears to have been an associate of Shaftesbury Abbey called Wynflaed (also Wynnflµd). The vital clue comes from a charter of King Edgar, in which he confirmed the grant of an estate at Uppidelen (Piddletrenthide, Dorset) made by his grandmother (ava) Wynflµd to Shaftesbury.[6] She may well be the nun or vowess (religiosa femina) of this name in a charter dated 942 and preserved in the abbey's chartulary. It records that she received and retrieved from King Edmund a handful of estates in Dorset, namely Cheselbourne and Winterbourne Tomson, which somehow ended up in the possession of the community.[7]

Since no father or siblings are known, further speculation on ¥lfgifu's background has largely depended on the identity of her mother, whose relatively uncommon name has invited further guesswork. H. P. R. Finberg suggests that she was the Wynflµd who drew up a will, supposedly sometime in the mid-10th century, after ¥lfgifu's death. This lady held many estates scattered across Wessex (in Somerset, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Hampshire) and was well connected with the nunneries at Wilton and Shaftesbury, both of which were royal foundations. On that basis, a number of relatives have been proposed for ¥lfgifu, including a sister called ¥thelflµd, a brother called Eadmµr, and a grandmother called Brihtwyn.[8]

There is, however, no consensus among scholars about Finberg's suggestion. Simon Keynes and Gale R. Owen object that there is no sign of royal relatives or connections in Wynflµd's will and Finberg's assumptions about ¥lfgifu's family therefore stand on shaky ground.[9] Andrew Wareham is less troubled about this and suggests that different kinship strategies may account for it.[10] Much of the issue of identification also seems to hang on the number of years by which Wynflµd can plausibly have outlived her daughter. In this light, it is significant that on palaeographical grounds, David Dumville has rejected the conventional date of c. 950 for the will, which he considers “speculative and too early” (and that one Wynflµd was still alive in 967).[11]

Married life

The sources do not record the date of ¥lfgifu's marriage to Edmund. The eldest son Eadwig, who had barely reached majority on his accession in 955, may have been born around 940, which gives us only a very rough terminus ante quem for the betrothal. Although as the mother of two future kings, ¥lfgifu proved to be an important royal bed companion, there is no strictly contemporary evidence that she was ever consecrated as queen. In a charter of doubtful authenticity dated 942-946, she attests as the king's concubine (concubina regis).[12] but later in the century ¥thelweard the Chronicler styles her queen (regina).

The remains of the Norman buildings which replaced the earlier ones at Shaftesbury Abbey.
Much of ¥lfgifu's claim to fame derives from her association with Shaftesbury. Her patronage of the community is suggested by a charter of King ¥thelred, dated 984, according to which the abbey exchanged with King Edmund the large estate at Tisbury (Wiltshire) for Butticanlea (unidentified). ¥lfgifu received it from her husband and intended to bequeath it back to the nunnery, but such had not yet come to pass (her son Eadwig demanded that Butticanlea was returned to the royal family first).[13]

¥lfgifu predeceased her husband in 944.[14] In the early 12th century, William of Malmesbury wrote that she suffered from an illness during the last few years of her life, but there may have been some confusion with details of ¥thelgifu's life as recorded in a forged foundation charter of the late 11th or 12th century (see below).[15] Her body was buried and enshrined at the nunnery.[16]

Sainthood

¥lfgifu was venerated as a saint soon after her burial at Shaftesbury. ¥thelweard reports that many miracles had taken place at her tomb up to his day,[17] and these were apparently attracting some local attention. Lantfred of Winchester, who wrote in the 970's and so can be called the earliest known witness of her cult, tells of a young man from Collingbourne (possibly Collingbourne Kingston, Wiltshire), who in the hope of being cured of blindness travelled to Shaftesbury and kept vigil. What led him there was the reputation of “the venerable St ¥lfgifu [...] at whose tomb many bodies of sick person receive medication through the omnipotence of God”.[18] Despite the new prominence of Edward the Martyr as a saint interred at Shaftesbury, her cult continued to flourish in later Anglo-Saxon England, as evidenced by her inclusion in a list of saints' resting places, at least 8 pre-Conquest calendars and 3 or 4 litanies from Winchester.[19]

¥lfgifu is styled a saint (Sancte ¥lfgife) in the D-text of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (mid-11th century) at the point where it specifies Eadwig's and Edgar's royal parentage.[20] Her cult may have been fostered and used to enhance the status of the royal lineage, more narrowly that of her descendants.[21] Lantfred attributes her healing power both to her own merits and those of her son Edgar. It may have been due to her association that in 979 the supposed body of her murdered grandson Edward the Martyr was exhumed and in a spectacular ceremony, received at the nunnery of Shaftesbury, under the supervision of ealdorman ¥lfhere.[22]

According to William of Malmesbury, ¥lfgifu would secretly redeem those who were publicly condemned to severe judgment, she gave expensive clothes to the poor, and she also had prophetic powers as well as powers of healing. [23]

¥lfgifu's fame at Shaftesbury seems to have eclipsed that of its first abbess, King Alfred's daughter ¥thelgifu,[24] so much so perhaps that William of Malmesbury wrote contradictory reports on the abbey's early history. In the Gesta regum, he correctly identifies the first abbess as Alfred's daughter, following Asser, although he gives her the name of ¥lfgifu (Elfgiva),[25] while in his Gesta pontificum, he credits Edmund's wife ¥lfgifu with the foundation.[26] Either William encountered conflicting information, or he meant to say that ¥lfgifu refounded the nunnery.[27] In any event, William would have had access to local traditions at Shaftesbury, since he probably wrote a now lost metrical Life for the community, a fragment of which he included in his Gesta pontificum:[28]

Latin text Translation
Nam nonnullis passa annis morborum molestiam,
defecatam et excoctam Deo dedit animam.
Functas ergo uitae fato beatas exuuias
infinitis clemens signis illustrabat Deitas.
Inops uisus et auditus si adorant tumulum,
sanitati restituti probant sanctae meritum.
Rectum gressum refert domum qui accessit loripes,
mente captus redit sanus, boni sensus locuples

For some years she suffered from illness,
And gave to God a soul that it had purged and purified
When she died, God brought lustre to her blessed remains
In his clemency with countless miracles.
If a blind man or a deaf worship at her tomb,
They are restored to health and prove the saint's merits.
He who went there lame comes home firm of step,
The madman returns sane, rich in good sense.[29]

See also

¥lfgifu of Exeter; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86lfgifu_of_Exeter

Children:

710416. Edgar the Peaceful, King of England was born about 943 in (Wessex) England; died on 8 Jul 0975 in Winchester, Hampshire, England; was buried in Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset, England.

1421008.

Igor of Kiev, Prince of the Rus' was born in ~900 in (Kiev, Ukraine) (son of Rurik, Prince of Ladoga and Novgorod); died in 945 in Korosten, Ukraine.

Other Events and Attributes:

Religion: Norse Pagan

Notes:

Igor I (Old East Slavic: ?????, Igor'; Old Norse: Ingvar R²riksen; Ukrainian: ????, translit. Ihor ['i??r]; Russian: ?????, translit. Igor' ['ig?r?]; Belarusian: ????, translit. Ihar ['i?ar]) was a Varangian ruler of Kievan Rus' from 912 to 945. (Varangian defined: http://thehennesseefamily.com/showmedia.php?mediaID=3071&medialinkID=3073)

Ingvar the Rus
Prince of the Rus'
Igor RC.png
Ingvar the Rus. Illumination from the Radziwill Chronicle
Reign 914–945
Coronation 914
Predecessor Oleg
Successor Sviatoslav the Brave
Died 945
Iskorosten
Burial ?
Wife
Saint Olga
Issue Sviatoslav the Brave
Full name
Ingvar Roriksen
Dynasty Rurik Dynasty
Father Rurik
Religion Norse Pagan

Biography

Information about Igor comes mostly from the Primary Chronicle. This document has Igor as the son of Rurik, the first ruler of Kievan Rus':

6378–6387 (870–879). On his deathbed, Rurik bequeathed his realm to Oleg, who belonged to his kin, and entrusted to Oleg's hands his son Igor', for he was very young.

6388–6390 (880–882). Oleg set forth, taking with him many warriors from among the Varangians, the Chuds, the Slavs, the Merians and all the Krivichians. He thus arrived with his Krivichians before Smolensk, captured the city, and set up a garrison there. Thence he went on and captured Lyubech, where he also set up a garrison. He then came to the hills of Kiev, and saw how Askold and Dir reigned there. He hid his warriors in the boats, left some others behind, and went forward himself bearing the child Igor'. He thus came to the foot of the Hungarian hill, and after concealing his troops, he sent messengers to Askold and Dir, representing himself as a stranger on his way to Greece on an errand for Oleg and for Igor', the prince's son, and requesting that they should come forth to greet them as members of their race. Askold and Dir straightway came forth. Then all the soldiery jumped out of the boats, and Oleg said to Askold and Dir, "You are not princes nor even of princely stock, but I am of princely birth." Igor' was then brought forward, and Oleg announced that he was the son of Rurik. They killed Askold and Dir, and after carrying them to the hill, they buried them there, on the hill now known as Hungarian, where the castle of Ol'ma now stands.[1]

Igor' twice besieged Constantinople, in 941 and 944, and although Greek fire destroyed part of his fleet, he concluded with the Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine VII a favourable treaty (945), the text of which the chronicle has preserved. In 913 and 944 the Rus' plundered the Arabs in the Caspian Sea during the Caspian expeditions of the Rus', but it remains unclear whether Igor' had anything to do with these campaigns.

Prince Igor Exacting Tribute from the Drevlyans, by Klavdiy Lebedev (1852-1916).
Igor was killed while collecting tribute from the Drevlians in 945. The Byzantine historian and chronicler, Leo the Deacon (born ca 950), describes how Igor met his death: "They had bent down two birch trees to the prince's feet and tied them to his legs; then they let the trees straighten again, thus tearing the prince's body apart."[2] Igor's wife, Olga of Kiev, avenged his death by punishing the Drevlians. The Primary Chronicle blames his death on his own excessive greed, indicating that he tried to collect tribute for a second time in a month. As a result, Olga changed the system of tribute gathering (poliudie) in what may be regarded as the first legal reform recorded in Eastern Europe.

Controversy
Drastically revising the chronology of the Primary Chronicle, Constantin Zuckerman argues that Igor actually reigned for three years, between summer 941 and his death in early 945. He explains the epic 33-year span of his reign in the chronicle to be the result of its author's faulty interpretation of Byzantine sources.[3] Indeed, none of Igor's activities are recorded in the chronicle before 941.

See also

List of Ukrainian rulers
List of Russian rulers

References

Translated and edited by Cross, S. H. and Sherbowitz-Wetzor, O. P. (1953). "The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text" (PDF). Crimson Printing Company, Cambridge, Massachusetts. pp. 60–61. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
Tarasenko, Leonid (27 February 2008). "Korosten (Iskorosten): A small town with a great history". geocities.com. Archived from the original on 26 October 2009. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
Zuckerman, Constantin (1995). "On the Date of the Khazars' Conversion to Judaism and the Chronology of the Kings of the Rus Oleg and Igor: A Study of the Anonymous Khazar Letter from the Genizah of Cairo" (PDF). Volume 53. Revue des âetudes byzantines (1): 237–270. doi:10.3406/rebyz.1995.1906. ISSN 0766-5598. Retrieved 5 July 2016.

end of biography

Igor married Olga of Kiev in 903. Olga was born in (Pskov) Russia; died on 11 Jul 0969 in Kiev, Ukraine. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1421009.

Olga of Kiev was born in (Pskov) Russia; died on 11 Jul 0969 in Kiev, Ukraine.

Other Events and Attributes:

Religion: Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church

Notes:

Saint Olga (Church Slavonic: ?????, died 969 AD in Kiev) was a regent of Kievan Rus' for her son Svyatoslav from 945 until 960. She is known for her obliteration of the Drevlians, a tribe that had killed her husband Igor of Kiev. Even though it would be her grandson Vladimir that would convert the entire nation to Christianity, for her efforts to spread Christianity through the Rus' Olga is venerated as a saint. While her birthdate is unknown, it could be as early as AD 890 and as late as 5 June 925.[1]

Grand Princess of Kiev, Equal to the Apostles
Born Pskov
Died 11 July 969
Kiev
Venerated in Roman Catholicism
Eastern Catholicism, especially in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
Eastern Orthodoxy
Feast July 11/24

Early life
Olga was reportedly from Pskov. The Primary Chronicle gives 879 as her date of birth, which is unlikely, given the birth of her only son probably some 65 years after that date. She was, hypothetically, of Varangian extraction.

She married the future Igor of Kiev arguably in 903, but perhaps as early as 901-902.

Regency
After Igor's death on 945, Olga ruled Kievan Rus as regent on behalf of their son Svyatoslav.[2]

In 947, Princess Olga launched a punitive expedition against the tribal elites between the Luga and the Msta River.[3] Following this successful campaign, a number of forts were erected at Olga’s orders. One of them is supposed to be Gorodets in the Luga region[4] a fortification dated to the middle of the 10th century. Because of its isolated location, Gorodets does not seem to have been in any way associated with the pre-existing settlement pattern. Moreover, the fort produced another example of square timber frames designed to consolidate the rampart that was seen at Rurikovo Gorodische. The same building technique was in use a century later in the Novgorod fortifications.

Olga remained regent ruler of Kievan Rus with the support of the army and her people. She changed the system of tribute gathering (poliudie) in the first legal reform recorded in Eastern Europe. She continued to evade proposals of marriage, defended the city during the Siege of Kiev in 968, and saved the power of the throne for her son.

Drevlian Uprising

The following account is taken from the Primary Chronicle. Princess Olga was the wife of Igor of Kiev, who was killed by the Drevlians. At the time of her husband's death, their son Svyatoslav was three years old, making Olga the official ruler of Kievan Rus' until he reached adulthood. The Drevlians wanted Olga to marry their Prince Mal, making him the ruler of Kievan Rus', but Olga was determined to remain in power and preserve it for her son.

The Drevlians sent twenty of their best men to persuade Olga to marry their Prince Mal and give up her rule of Kievan Rus'. She had them buried alive. Then she sent word to Prince Mal that she accepted the proposal, but required their most distinguished men to accompany her on the journey in order for her people to accept the offer of marriage. The Drevlians sent the best men who governed their land. Upon their arrival, she offered them a warm welcome and an invitation to clean up after their long journey in a bathhouse. After they entered, she locked the doors and set fire to the building, burning them alive.

With the best and wisest men out of the way, she planned to destroy the remaining Drevlians. She invited them to a funeral feast so she could mourn over her husband's grave. Her servants waited on them, and after the Drevlians were drunk, Olga's soldiers killed over 5,000 of them.[2] She then placed the city under siege.[2] She asked for three pigeons and three sparrows from each house; she claimed she did not want to burden the villagers any further after the siege.[2] They were happy to comply with the request.

Now Olga gave to each soldier in her army a pigeon or a sparrow, and ordered them to attach by thread to each bird a piece of sulfur bound with small pieces of cloth. When night fell, Olga bade her soldiers release the pigeons and the sparrows. So the birds flew to their nests, the pigeons to the cotes, and the sparrows under the eaves. The dove-cotes, the coops, the porches, and the haymows were set on fire. There was not a house that was not consumed, and it was impossible to extinguish the flames because all the houses caught on fire at once. The people fled from the city, and Olga ordered her soldiers to catch them. Thus she took the city and burned it, and captured the elders of the city. Some of the other captives she killed, while some she gave as slaves to her followers. The remnant she left to pay tribute.[5]

The story, however, is most likely a myth.[2]

Relations with the Holy Roman Emperor

Seven Latin sources document Olga's embassy to Holy Roman Emperor Otto I in 959. The continuation of Regino of Prèum mentions that the envoys requested the emperor to appoint a bishop and priests for their nation. The chronicler accuses the envoys of lies, commenting that their trick was not exposed until later. Thietmar of Merseburg says that the first archbishop of Magdeburg, Saint Adalbert of Magdeburg, before being promoted to this high rank, was sent by Emperor Otto to the country of the Rus' (Rusciae) as a simple bishop but was expelled by pagan allies of Svyatoslav I. The same data is repeated in the annals of Quedlinburg and Hildesheim.

Christianity

Princess Olga meets the body of her husband. A sketch by Vasily Surikov.
Olga was the first ruler of Rus' to convert to Christianity, done in either 945 or 957. The ceremonies of her formal reception in Constantinople were detailed by Emperor Constantine VII in his book De Ceremoniis. Following her baptism, Olga took the Christian name Yelena, after the reigning Empress Helena Lekapena. The Slavonic chronicles add apocryphal details to the account of her baptism, such as the story of how she charmed and "outwitted" Constantine and spurned his proposals of marriage. In actuality, at the time of her baptism, Olga was an old woman, while Constantine already had a wife.

Olga was one of the first people of Rus' to be proclaimed a saint for her efforts to spread Christianity throughout the country. Because of her proselytizing influence, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church, and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church call Saint Olga by the honorific Isapâostolos, "Equal to the Apostles". She is also a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. However, she failed to convert Svyatoslav, and it was left to Vladimir I, her grandson and pupil, to make Christianity the lasting state religion. During her son's prolonged military campaigns, she remained in charge of Kiev, residing in the castle of Vyshgorod with her grandsons. She died in 969, soon after the Pechenegs' siege of the city.[6][7]

Gallery

Illuminations from the Radziwill Chronicle

Olga's revenge for her husband's death

Fourth revenge of Olga: Burning of Derevlian capital Iskorosten

Reception of Olga by Constantine VII

Notes

"Princess Olga of Kiev". Russiapedia. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
Clements 2012, p. 7.
Laurentian Codex (1997:60)
Lebedev 1982:225-238; Zalevskaia 1982:49-54
Russian Primary Chronicle
extracts of the Primary Chronicle in English translation, University of Oregon
Primary Sources - A collection of translated excerpts on Medieval Rus, University of Washington Faculty Web Server (November 6, 2004)
References
Clements, Barbara Evans (2012). A History of Women in Russia: From Earliest Times to the Present. Indiana University Press.
See also
Order of Princess Olga (established in Ukraine in 1997)
Christianization of Kievan Rus'
A Perfect Absolution - concept album by French band Gorod about Olga of Kiev
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Olga of Kiev.

end of biography

Children:

710504. Sviatoslav, I, Grand Prince of Kiev was born in ~941 in Kiev, Ukraine; died on 26 Mar 972 in Khortytsia, Dnieper, Ukraine.

1421012.

Ulf Tostesson, Jarl of Skara was born in 930 in Gothland, Sweden (son of Skagul Toste, King of Sweden); died in 950 in (Kiev, Ukraine).

Notes:

Ulf Tostesson was a jarl and the son of the legendary Viking Skogul Toste. He was the brother of Sigrid the Haughty, and his son, Ragnvald Ulfsson, a jarl, was the father of Stenkil, who was elected king when the old House of Munsèo died out.

end of biography

Ulf "den gamle" Tostesson
Born 0930 in Vestgotalnd, Sweden
ANCESTORS ancestors
Son of Skoglar Skagul Toste and [mother unknown]
Brother of Ulf (UNKNOWN) Tostesson av Skara and Sigrid Storrada
[spouse(s) unknown]
[children unknown]
Died 0950 in Sweden

Relationships between historical figures could have been simplified or even fabricated in the text to give the impression that succession remained within the same family….Precise chronology is also difficult to assess from the Sagas….The conclusion must be that the tight family network described in the Sagas is unlikely to be correct and that the relationships shown below should be treated with considerable caution.

Biography
(English below Swedish version.)

Ulf Tostesson var enligt de islèandska sagorna jarl och son till den legendariske vikingen Skoglar-Toste och bror till den historiskt omtvistade Sigrid Storrêada. Genom sonen Ragnvald Ulfsson pêastêas han ha varit farfar till Stenkil som blev vald till kung efter Emund den gamles dèod. Ulf ska ha varit gift med Ingeborg.

Fèodelse- och dèodsdatum fêar ses som vèaldigt osèakra. (Har lêatit dem vara kvar som en referens om vilket êarhundrade som avses). I originalbiografin fanns èaven "av Skara" i namnet

Barn: Ragnvald Ulfsson, (jarl av Vèastergèotland och uppgiven far till kung Stenkil av Svitjod)

Enligt svenska Wikipedia fèor "sonen" Ragnvald: Att Ragnvald hette Ulfsson och var jarl èar "fèorfalskningar" skapade av Snorre Sturlasson i Olav den heliges historia.[kèalla behèovs] Snorre uppger att Ragnvald var jarl i Skara i Vèastergèotland och bland annat fick en son vid namn Ulf som blev jarl. Austrfararvâisur èar en samtida (1000-tal) primèarkèalla och dèarmed mycket mer pêalitlig èan Snorres sekundèar/tertièara fantastiska kèallmaterial frêan 1200-tal.

Ulf Tostesson is said to be a "jarl" and the son of the legendary viking Skogul Toste. He was the brother of Sigrid the Haughty, and his son, Ragnvald Ulfsson, a jarl, was the father of Stenkil, who was elected king when the king Edmund died. Ulf is said to be married to Ingeborg.

The birth and death years should be considered as very uncertain. They should however be left to indicate what period of time this profile is referred to.

"Den gamle" translates to "the old/er".

There is some argumentation that the son Ragnvald really was a "jarl" and the son of Ulf, that it actually could be a "forgery" made by Snorre Sturlasson, it seems Snorre is the one mentioning that Ragnvald as a " jarl" in Skara (Vèastergèotland). Austrfararvâisur is an earlier source (1000-tal) that does not mention these facts.

Click here for EARLY KINGS OF SWEDEN [1] on WikiTree.

Sources

See also:

Book: Strinnholm, Anders Magnus (1834). Svenska folkets historia frêan èaldsta till nèarvarande tider. Bd 1, Skandinavien under hedna-êaldern, afd. 1. Stockholm. sid. 389. Libris 294689
Wikipedia pêa svenska:
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulf_Tostesson
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnvald_Ulfsson
Wikipedia in English:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulf_Tostesson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnvald_Ulfsson

Ulf married Ingeborg. Ingeborg was born in (Gothland, Sweden); died in (Kiev, Ukraine). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1421013.
Ingeborg was born in (Gothland, Sweden); died in (Kiev, Ukraine).
Children:

710506. Rogvolod, Prince of Polotsk was born in ~920 in Gothland, Sweden; died in 978 in Polotsk, Belarus.

387104.

Notes:

Richard I (28 August 932 – 20 November 996), also known as Richard the Fearless (French: Richard Sans-Peur; Old Norse: Jarl Richart), was the Count of Rouen or Jarl of Rouen from 942 to 996.[1] Dudo of Saint-Quentin, whom Richard commissioned to write the "De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum" (Latin, "On the Customs and Deeds of the First Dukes of Normandy"), called him a Dux. However, this use of the word may have been in the context of Richard's renowned leadership in war, and not as a reference to a title of nobility.[2][3] Richard either introduced feudalism into Normandy or he greatly expanded it. By the end of his reign, most important Norman landholders held their lands in feudal tenure.[4]

Birth
Richard was born to William Longsword, princeps (chieftain or ruler)[5] of Normandy, and Sprota.[1] His mother was a Breton concubine captured in war and bound to William by a more danico marriage.[6] He was also the grandson of the famous Rollo. William was told of the birth of a son after the battle with Riouf and other Viking rebels, but his existence was kept secret until a few years later when William Longsword first met his son Richard. After kissing the boy and declaring him his heir, William sent Richard to be raised in Bayeux.[7] Richard was about ten years old when his father was killed on 17 December 942.[1] After William was killed, Sprota became the wife of Esperleng, a wealthy miller. Rodulf of Ivry was their son and Richard's half-brother.[8]

Life
With the death of Richard's father in 942, King Louis IV of France installed the boy, Richard, in his father's office. Under the influence of Arnulf I, Count of Flanders the King took him into Frankish territory[9]:32–4 and placing him in the custody of the count of Ponthieu before the King reneged and seized the lands of the Duchy of Normandy.[10] He then split up the Duchy, giving its lands in lower Normandy to Hugh the Great. Louis IV thereafter kept Richard in close confinement at Lãaon,[11] but the youth escaped from imprisonment[9]:36–7 with assistance of Osmond de Centville, Bernard de Senlis (who had been a companion of Rollo of Normandy), Ivo de Belláesme, and Bernard the Dane[12] (ancestor to the families of Harcourt and Beaumont).[a]

In 946, at the age of 14, Richard allied himself with the Norman and Viking leaders in France and with men sent by King Harold of Denmark. A battle was fought after which Louis IV was captured. Hostages were taken and held until King Louis recognised Richard as Duke, returning Normandy to him.[9]:37–41 Richard agreed to "commend" himself to Hugh, the Count of Paris, Hugh resolved to form a permanent alliance with Richard and promised his daughter Emma, who was just a child, as a bride, the marriage would take place in 960.[9]:41–2

Louis IV working with Arnulf I, Count of Flanders persuaded Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor to attack Richard and Hugh. The combined armies of Otto, Arnulf and Louis IV were driven from the gates of Rouen, fleeing to Amiens and being decisively defeated in 947.[9]:41–2[13] A period of peace ensued, Louis IV dying in 954, 13 year old Lothair becoming King. The middle aged Hugh appointed Richard as guardian of his 15-year-old son, Hugh Capet in 955.[9]:44

In 962, Theobald I, Count of Blois, attempted a renewed invasion of Rouen, Richard's stronghold, but his troops were summarily routed by Normans under Richard's command, and forced to retreat before ever having crossed the Seine river.[14][15] Lothair, the king of the West Franks, was fearful that Richard's retaliation could destabilize a large part of West Francia so he stepped in to prevent any further war between the two.[16] In 987 Hugh Capet became King of the Franks.

For the last 30 years until his death in 996 in Fâecamp, Richard concentrated on Normandy itself, and participated less in Frankish politics and its petty wars. In lieu of building up the Norman Empire by expansion, he stabilized the realm and reunited the Normans, forging the reclaimed Duchy of his father and grandfather into West Francia's most cohesive and formidable principality.[17]

Richard was succeeded in November 996 by his 33-year-old son, Richard II, Duke of Normandy.

Relationships with France, England and the Church
Richard used marriage to build strong alliances. His marriage to Emma of Paris connected him directly to the House of Capet. His second wife, Gunnora, from a rival Viking group in the Cotentin, formed an alliance to that group, while her sisters formed the core group that were to provide loyal followers to him and his successors.[18]

His daughters forged valuable marriage alliances with powerful neighboring counts as well as to the king of England.[18] Emma marrying firstly ¥thelred the Unready and after his death in 1016, the invader, Cnut the Great. Her children included three English kings, Edward the Confessor, Alfred Aetheling and with Cnut, Harthacnut so completing a major link between the Duke of Normandy and the Crown of England that would add validity to the claim by the future William the Conqueror to the throne of England.

Richard also built on his relationship with the church, undertaking acts of piety,[19]:lv restoring their lands and ensuring the great monasteries flourished in Normandy. His further reign was marked by an extended period of peace and tranquility.[18][20]

Marriages

Richard & his children
His first marriage in 960 was to Emma, daughter of Hugh "The Great" of France,[1][21] and Hedwig von Sachsen.[21] They were betrothed when both were very young. She died after 19 March 968, with no issue.[1]

According to Robert of Torigni, not long after Emma's death, Duke Richard went out hunting and stopped at the house of a local forester. He became enamored with the forester's wife, Seinfreda, but she was a virtuous woman and suggested he court her unmarried sister, Gunnor, instead. Gunnor became his mistress and her family rose to prominence. Her brother, Herfast de Crepon, may have been involved in a controversial heresy trial. Gunnor was, like Richard, of Viking descent, being a Dane by blood. Richard finally married her to legitimize their children:[b]

Richard II "the Good", Duke of Normandy[1]
Robert, Archbishop of Rouen, Count of Evreux[1]
Mauger, Count of Corbeil[1]
Emma of Normandy, wife of two kings of England[1]
Maud of Normandy, wife of Odo II of Blois, Count of Blois, Champagne and Chartres[1]
Hawise of Normandy m. Geoffrey I, Duke of Brittany[1]
Papia of Normandy
Orielda (963-1031) wife of Fulk Seigneur de Guernanville, Dean of Evreax [22][23]
Illegitimate children

Richard was known to have had several other mistresses and had children with many of them. Known children are:

Geoffrey, Count of Eu[1][24]
William, Count of Eu (ca. 972-26 January 1057/58),[24] m. Lasceline de Turqueville (d. 26 January 1057/58).
Beatrice of Normandy, Abbess of Montvilliers d.1034 m. Ebles of Turenne[1] (d.1030 (divorced)
Possible children
Muriella, married Tancred de Hauteville[1][25][26]
Fressenda or Fredesenda (ca. 995-ca. 1057), second wife of Tancred de Hauteville.[1][26][27]
Guimara (Wimarc(a)) (b. circa 986), died Abbey of Montivilliers, Seine-Inferieure, Normandy, wife of Ansfred (Ansfroi) II "le Dane" le Goz, vicomte of Exmes and Falaise, mother of Robert FitzWimarc[28]
Death
Richard died of natural causes in Fecamp, France, on 20 November 996.[29]

Depictions in fiction
The Little Duke, a Victorian juvenile novel by Charlotte Mary Yonge, is a fictionalized account of Richard's boyhood and early struggles.

Count of Rouen
Reign 17 December 942 – 20 November 996
Predecessor William Longsword
Successor Richard II
Born 28 August 932
Fâecamp Normandy, France
Died 20 November 996 (aged 64)
Fâecamp Normandy, France
Spouse Emma of Paris
Gunnor
Issue Richard II of Normandy
Robert II (Archbishop of Rouen)
Mauger, Count of Corbeil
Robert Danus
Willam?
Emma of Normandy
Maud of Normandy
Hawise of Normandy
Geoffrey, Count of Eu (illegitimate)
William, Count of Eu (illegitimate)
Beatrice of Normandy (illegitimate)
Robert (illegitimate)
Papia (illegitimate)
House House of Normandy
Father William I Longsword
Mother Sprota

end of biography

387105.

Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy was born in 936-941 in Rouen, France (daughter of Harold Gormsen, VII, King of Denmark and Gunhild von Denmark); died on 5 Jan 1031 in Normandie, France.

Notes:

Gunnora (or Gunnor) (circa 936 – 5 Jan 1031) was a Duchess of Normandy and the wife of Richard I of Normandy.

Life

The names of Gunnora's parents are unknown, but Robert of Torigni wrote that her father was a forester from the Pays de Caux and according to Dudo of Saint-Quentin she was of noble Danish origin.[2] Gunnora was probably born c.? 950.[3] Her family held sway in western Normandy and Gunnora herself was said to be very wealthy.[4] Her marriage to Richard I was of great political importance, both to her husband[b] and her progeny.[5] Her brother, Herfast de Crepon, was progenitor of a great Norman family.[4] Her sisters and nieces[c] married some of the most important nobles in Normandy.[6]

Robert of Torigni recounts a story of how Richard met Gunnora.[7] She was living with her sister Seinfreda, the wife of a local forester, when Richard, hunting nearby, heard of the beauty of the forester's wife. He is said to have ordered Seinfreda to come to his bed, but the lady substituted her unmarried sister, Gunnora. Richard, it is said, was pleased that by this subterfuge he had been saved from committing adultery and together they had three sons and three daughters.[d][8] Unlike other territorial rulers, the Normans recognized marriage by cohabitation or more danico. But when Richard was prevented from nominating their son Robert to be Archbishop of Rouen, the two were married, "according to the Christian custom", making their children legitimate in the eyes of the church.[8]

Gunnora attested ducal charters up into the 1020s, was skilled in languages and was said to have had an excellent memory.[9] She was one of the most important sources of information on Norman history for Dudo of St. Quentin.[10] As Richard's widow she is mentioned accompanying her sons on numerous occasions.[9] That her husband depended on her is shown in the couple's charters where she is variously regent of Normandy, a mediator and judge, and in the typical role of a medieval aristocratic mother, an arbitrator between her husband and their oldest son Richard II.[9]

Gunnora was a founder and supporter of Coutances Cathedral and laid its first stone.[11] In one of her own charters after Richard's death she gave two alods to the abbey of Mont Saint-Michel, namely Britavilla and Domjean, given to her by her husband in dower, which she gave for the soul of her husband, and the weal of her own soul and that of her sons "count Richard, archbishop Robert, and others..."[12] She also attested a charter, c.?1024–26, to that same abbey by her son, Richard II, shown as Gonnor matris comitis (mother of the count).[13] Gunnora, both as wife and countess,[e] was able to use her influence to see her kin favored, and several of the most prominent Anglo-Norman families on both sides of the English Channel are descended from her, her sisters and nieces.[9] Gunnora died c.?1031.[3]

Family

Richard and Gunnora were parents to several children:

Richard II "the Good", Duke of Normandy[14]
Robert, Archbishop of Rouen, Count of Evreux, died 1037[14]
Mauger, Count of Corbeil[14]
Emma of Normandy (c.?985–1052), married first to ¥thelred, King of England and secondly Cnut the Great, King of England.[14]
Hawise of Normandy, wife of Geoffrey I, Duke of Brittany[14]
Maud of Normandy, wife of Odo II of Blois, Count of Blois, Champagne and Chartres[14]

end of biography

Children:

385096. Richard de Normandie, II was born on 23 Aug 963 in Normandie, France; died on 28 Aug 1027 in Normandie, France.
Emma of Normandy, Queen consort of England was born in ~985 in Normandie, France; died on 6 Mar 1052 in Winchester, Hampshire, England; was buried in Winchester Cathedral, Winchester, Hampshire, England.
355300. Robert d'Evereux, Comte d'Evreux was born in Normandie, France; died on 16 Mar 1037 in Seine-Inferieure, Normandy, France.
Hawise of Normandy, Duchess of Brittany

387106.

Conan of Rennes, I, Count of Rennes, Duke of Brittany was born in 927 in (Rennes, France); died on 27 Jun 992.

Notes:

Conan I le Tort of Rennes, Count of Rennes, Duke of Brittany, was born 927 to Judicael Berengar (-bef979) and died 27 June 992 at the Battle of Conquereuil of unspecified causes. He married Ermengarde of Anjou (bef967-) .

Conan may have married his second cousin once removed: Herbert I, Count of Vermandois (c848-907) may have been his great-grandfather and was his wife's great-great-grandfather.

Conan married Ermengarde of Anjou. Ermengarde (daughter of Geoffrey of Anjou and Adele of Meaux) was born before 967 in (Anjou, France). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

387107.

Ermengarde of Anjou was born before 967 in (Anjou, France) (daughter of Geoffrey of Anjou and Adele of Meaux).

Children:

193553. Judith de Bretagne was born in 982 in Rennes, France; died in 1017 in Normandy, France.

2841664.

Edward the Elder, King of the Anglo-Saxons was born in ~874 in (Wantage, Berkshire) England (son of Alfred the Great, King of Wessex and Ealhswith); died on 17 Jul 924 in Farndon, Cheshire, England; was buried in Winchester, Hampshire, England.

Notes:

Edward the Elder (c. 874 – 17 July 924) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death. He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith. When Edward succeeded, he had to defeat a challenge from his cousin ¥thelwold, who had a strong claim to the throne as the son of Alfred's elder brother and predecessor as king, ¥thelred.

Alfred had succeeded ¥thelred as king of Wessex in 871, and almost faced defeat against the Danish Vikings until his decisive victory at the Battle of Edington in 878. After the battle, the Vikings still ruled Northumbria, East Anglia and eastern Mercia, with only Wessex and western Mercia under Anglo-Saxon control. In the early 880s ¥thelred, Lord of the Mercians, the ruler of western Mercia, accepted Alfred's lordship and married his daughter ¥thelflµd, and around 886 Alfred adopted the new title 'King of the Anglo-Saxons' as the ruler of all Anglo-Saxons not subject to Danish rule.

In 910 a Mercian and West Saxon army inflicted a decisive defeat on an invading Northumbrian army, ending the threat from the northern Vikings. In the 910s, Edward conquered Viking ruled southern England in partnership with his sister ¥thelflµd, who had succeeded as Lady of the Mercians following the death of her husband in 911. Historians dispute how far Mercia was dominated by Wessex during this period, and after ¥thelflµd's death in June 918 her daughter ¥lfwynn briefly became second Lady of the Mercians, but in December Edward took her into Wessex and imposed direct rule on Mercia. By the end of the 910s he ruled Wessex, Mercia and East Anglia, and only Northumbria remained under Viking rule. In 924 he faced a Mercian and Welsh revolt at Chester, and after putting it down he died at Farndon in Cheshire on 17 July 924. He was succeeded by his eldest son ¥thelstan.

Edward has been described as "perhaps the most neglected of English kings", partly because few primary sources for his reign survive. His reputation among historians rose in the late twentieth century, and he is seen as destroying the power of the Vikings in southern England, and laying the foundations for a south-centred united English kingdom.

King of the Anglo-Saxons
Reign 26 October 899 – 17 July 924
Coronation 8 June 900 Kingston upon Thames or Winchester
Predecessor Alfred the Great
Successor ¥thelstan
Born c.?874
Died 17 July 924
Farndon, Cheshire, England
Burial New Minster, Winchester, later translated to Hyde Abbey
Spouse Ecgwynn
¥lfflµd
Eadgifu
Issue
Detail
See list[show]
House Wessex
Father Alfred the Great
Mother Ealhswith

Background

Mercia was the dominant kingdom in southern England in the eighth century and maintained its position until it suffered a decisive defeat by Wessex at the Battle of Ellandun in 825. Thereafter the two kingdoms became allies, which was to be an important factor in English resistance to the Vikings.[1] In 865 the Danish Viking Great Heathen Army landed in East Anglia and used this as a starting point for an invasion. The East Anglians were forced to buy peace and the following year the Vikings invaded Northumbria, where they appointed a puppet king in 867. They then moved on Mercia, where they spent the winter of 867–868. King Burgred of Mercia was joined by King ¥thelred of Wessex and his brother, the future King Alfred, for a combined attack on the Vikings, who refused an engagement; in the end the Mercians bought peace with them. The following year, the Danes conquered East Anglia, and in 874 they expelled King Burgred, and Ceolwulf became the last King of Mercia with their support. In 877 the Vikings partitioned Mercia, taking the eastern regions for themselves and allowing Ceolwulf to keep the western ones. The situation was transformed the following year when Alfred won a decisive victory over the Danes at the Battle of Edington. He was thus able to prevent the Vikings from taking Wessex and western Mercia, although they still occupied Northumbria, East Anglia and eastern Mercia.[2]

Childhood

A page from the will of Alfred the Great, which left the bulk of his estate to Edward
Alfred the Great married Ealhswith in 868. Her father was ¥thelred Mucel, Ealdorman of the Gaini, and her mother, Eadburh, was a member of the Mercian royal family. Alfred and Ealhswith had five children who survived childhood. The oldest was ¥thelflµd, who married ¥thelred, Lord of the Mercians, and ruled as Lady of the Mercians after his death. Edward was next, and the second daughter, ¥thelgifu, became abbess of Shaftesbury. The third daughter, ¥lfthryth, married Baldwin, Count of Flanders, and the younger son, ¥thelweard, was given a scholarly education, including learning Latin. This would usually suggest that he was intended for the church, but it is unlikely in ¥thelweard's case as he had sons. There were also an unknown number of children who died young. Neither part of Edward's name, which means 'protector of wealth', had been used previously by the West Saxon royal house, and Barbara Yorke suggests that he may have been named after his maternal grandmother Eadburh, reflecting the West Saxon policy of strengthening links with Mercia.[3]

¥thelflµd was probably born about a year after her parents' marriage, and Edward was brought up with his youngest sister, ¥lfthryth. Yorke argues that he was therefore probably nearer in age to ¥lfthryth than ¥thelflµd. However, he led troops in battle in 893, and he must have been of marriagable age in that year as his oldest son ¥thelstan was born about 894, so Edward was probably born in the mid-870s.[4] According to Asser in his Life of King Alfred, Edward and ¥lfthryth were educated at court by male and female tutors, and read ecclesiastical and secular works in English, such as the Psalms and Old English poems. They were taught the courtly qualities of gentleness and humility, and Asser wrote that they were obedient to their father and friendly to visitors. This is the only known case of an Anglo-Saxon prince and princess receiving the same upbringing.[5]

¥theling

As a son of a king, Edward was an µtheling, a prince of the royal house who was eligible for kingship. However, even though he had the advantage of being the eldest son of the reigning king, his accession was not assured, as he had cousins who had a strong claim to the throne. ¥thelhelm and ¥thelwold were sons of ¥thelred, Alfred's older brother and predecessor as king, but they had been passed over because they were infants when their father died. More is known about Edward's childhood than about that of other Anglo-Saxon princes, providing information about the training of a prince in a period of Carolingian influence, and Yorke suggest that we may know so much due to Alfred's efforts to portray his son as the most throneworthy µtheling.[6]

¥thelhelm is only recorded in Alfred's will of the mid-880s, and probably died at some time in the next decade, but ¥thelwold is listed above Edward in the only charter where he appears, probably indicating a higher status. ¥thelwold may also have had an advantage because his mother Wulfthryth witnessed a charter as queen, whereas Edward's mother Ealhswith never had a higher status than king's wife.[7] However, Alfred was in a position to give his own son considerable advantages. In his will, he only left a handful of estates to his brother's sons, and the bulk of his property to Edward, including all his booklands (landed vested in a charter which could be alienated by the holder, as opposed to folkland, which had to pass to heirs of the body) in Kent.[8] Alfred also advanced men who could be depended on to support his plans for his succession, such as his brother-in-law, a Mercian ealdorman called ¥thelwulf, and his son-in-law ¥thelred. Edward witnessed several of his father's charters, and often accompanied him on royal peregrinations.[9] In a Kentish charter of 898 Edward witnessed as rex Saxonum, suggesting that Alfred may have followed the strategy adopted by his grandfather Egbert of strengthening his son's claim to succeed to the West Saxon throne by making him sub-king of Kent.[10]

Once Edward grew up Alfred was able to give him military commands and experience of royal business.[11] The English defeated renewed Viking attacks in 893 to 896, and in Richard Abels' view, the glory belonged to ¥thelred and Edward rather than Alfred himself. In 893 Edward defeated the Vikings in the Battle of Farnham, although he was unable to follow up his victory as his troops' period of service had expired and he had to release them. The situation was saved by the arrival of troops from London led by ¥thelred.[12] Yorke argues that although Alfred packed the witan with members whose interests lay in the continuation of Alfred's line, that may not have been sufficient to ensure Edward's accession if he had not displayed his fitness for kingship.[13]

In about 893 Edward probably married Ecgwynn, who bore him two children, the future King ¥thelstan and a daughter who married Sitric, a Viking King of York. The twelfth-century chronicler William of Malmesbury described Ecgwynn as an illustris femina, and stated that Edward chose ¥thelstan as his heir as king. She may have been related to St Dunstan, the aristocratic tenth-century Archbishop of Canterbury. However, William also stated that ¥thelstan's accession in 924 was opposed by a nobleman who claimed that his mother was a concubine of low birth.[14] The suggestion that Ecgwynn was Edward's mistress is accepted by some historians such as Simon Keynes and Richard Abels,[15] but Yorke and ¥thelstan's biographer, Sarah Foot, disagree, arguing that the allegations should be seen in the context of the disputed succession in 924, and were not an issue in the 890s.[16] Ecgwynn probably died by 899, as around the time of Alfred's death Edward married ¥lfflµd, the daughter of Ealdorman ¥thelhelm, probably of Wiltshire.[17]

Janet Nelson suggests that there was conflict between Alfred and Edward in the 890s. She points out that the contemporary Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, produced under court auspices in the 890s, does not mention Edward's military successes. These are only known from the late tenth century chronicle of ¥thelweard, such as his account of the Battle of Farnham, in which in Nelson's view "Edward's military prowess, and popularity with a following of young warriors, are highlighted". Towards the end of his life Alfred invested his young grandson ¥thelstan in a ceremony which historians see as designation as eventual successor to the kingship. Nelson argues that while this may have been proposed by Edward to support the accession of his own son, on the other hand it may have been intended by Alfred as part of a scheme to divide the kingdom between his son and grandson. ¥thelstan was sent to be brought up in Mercia by ¥thelflµd and ¥thelred, but it is not known whether this was Alfred's idea or Edward's. Alfred's wife Ealhswith was ignored in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in her husband's lifetime, but emerged from obscurity when her son acceded. This may be because she supported her son against her husband.[18]

¥thelwold's revolt

Further information: ¥thelwold's Revolt; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86thelwold%27s_Revolt

Coin of Edward the Elder
Alfred died on 26 October 899 and Edward succeeded to the throne, but ¥thelwold disputed the succession.[19] He seized the royal estates of Wimborne, symbolically important as the place where his father was buried, and Christchurch. Edward marched with his army to the nearby Iron Age hillfort at Badbury Rings. ¥thelwold declared that he would live or die at Wimborne, but then left in the night and rode to Northumbria, where the Danes accepted him as king.[20] Edward was crowned on 8 June 900 at Kingston upon Thames or Winchester.[a]

In 901, ¥thelwold came with a fleet to Essex, and the following year he persuaded the East Anglian Danes to invade English Mercia and northern Wessex, where his army looted and then returned home. Edward retaliated by ravaging East Anglia, but when he retreated the men of Kent disobeyed the order to retire, and were intercepted by the Danish army. The two sides met at the Battle of the Holme (perhaps Holme in Huntingdonshire) on 13 December 902. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Danes "kept the place of slaughter", meaning that they won the battle, but they suffered heavy losses, including ¥thelwold and a King Eohric, possibly of the East Anglian Danes. Kentish losses included Sigehelm, ealdorman of Kent and father of Edward's third wife, Eadgifu. ¥thelwold's death ended the threat to Edward's throne.[22]

King of the Anglo-Saxons

In London in 886 Alfred had received the formal submission of "all the English people that were not under subjection to the Danes", and thereafter he adopted the title Anglorum Saxonum rex (King of the Anglo-Saxons), which is used in his later charters and all but two of Edward's. This is seen by Keynes as "the invention of a wholly new and distinctive polity", covering both West Saxons and Mercians, which was inherited by Edward with the support of Mercians at the West Saxon court, of whom the most important was Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury. In 903 Edward issued several charters concerning land in Mercia. Three of them are witnessed by the Mercian leaders and their daughter ¥lfwynn, and they all contain a statement that ¥thelred and ¥thelflµd "then held rulership and power over the race of the Mercians, under the aforesaid king". Other charters were issued by the Mercian leades which did not contain any acknowledgment of Edward's authority, but they did not issue their own coinage.[23] This view of Edward's status is accepted by Martin Ryan, who states that ¥thelred and ¥thelflµd had "a considerable but ultimately subordinate share of royal authority" in English Mercia.[24]

Other historians disagree. Pauline Stafford describes ¥thelflµd as "the last Mercian queen",[25] while in Charles Insley's view Mercia kept its independence until ¥thelflµd's death in 918.[26] Michael Davidson contrasts the 903 charters with one of 901 in which the Mercian rulers were "by grace of God, holding, governing and defending the monarchy of the Mercians". Davidson comments that "the evidence for Mercian subordination is decidedly mixed. Ultimately, the ideology of the 'Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons' may have been less successful in achieving the absorption of Mercia and more something which I would see as a murky political coup." The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was compiled at the West Saxon court from the 890s, and the entries for the late ninth and early tenth centuries are seen by historians as reflecting the West Saxon viewpoint; Davidson observes that "Alfred and Edward possessed skilled 'spin doctors'".[27] However, some versions of the Chronicle incorporate part of a lost Mercian Register, which gives a Mercian perspective and details of ¥thelfµd's campaign against the Vikings.[24]

In the late ninth and early tenth centuries connection with the West Saxon royal house was seen as prestigious by continental rulers. In the mid-890s Alfred had married his daughter ¥lfthryth to Baldwin II of Flanders, and in 919 Edward married his daughter Eadgifu to Charles the Simple, King of West Francia. In 925, after Edward's death, another daughter Eadgyth married Otto, the future King of Germany and (after Eadgyth's death) Holy Roman Emperor.[28]

Conquest of the southern Danelaw

No battles are recorded between the Anglo-Saxons and the Danish Vikings for several years after the Battle of the Holme, but in 906 Edward agreed peace with the East Anglian and Northumbrian Danes, suggesting that there had been conflict. According to one version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle he made peace "of necessity", which implies that he was forced to buy them off.[19] He encouraged Englishmen to purchase land in Danish territory, and two charters survive relating to estates in Bedfordshire and Derbyshire.[29] In 909 Edward sent a combined West Saxon and Mercian army which harassed the Northumbria]]n Danes, and seized the bones of the Northumbrian royal saint Oswald from Bardney Abbey in [[Lincolnshire. Oswald was translated to a new Mercian minster established by ¥thelred and ¥thelfµd in Gloucester and the Danes were compelled to accept peace on Edward's terms.[30] In the following year, the Northumbrian Danes retaliated by raiding Mercia, but on their way home they were met by a combined Mercian and West Saxon army at the Battle of Tettenhall, where the Vikings suffered a disastrous defeat. After that, the Northumbrian Danes never ventured south of the River Humber, and Edward and his Mercian allies were able to concentrate on conquering the southern Danelaw in East Anglia and the Five Boroughs of Viking east Mercia: Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stamford.[19] In 911 ¥thelred, Lord of the Mercians, died, and Edward took control of the Mercian lands around London and Oxford. ¥thelred was succeeded as ruler by his widow ¥thelflµd as Lady of the Mercians, and she had probably been acting as ruler for several years as ¥thelred seems to have been incapacitated in later life.[31]

Edward and ¥thelflµd then began the construction of fortresses to guard against Viking attacks and protect territory captured from them. In November 911 he constructed a fort on the north bank of the River Lea at Hertford to guard against attack by the Danes of Bedford and Cambridge. In 912 he marched with his army to Maldon in Essex, and ordered the building of a fort at Witham and a second fort at Hertford, which protected London from attack and encouraged many English living under Danish rule in Essex to submit to him. In 913 there was a pause in his activities, although ¥thelflµd continued her fortress building in Mercia.[32] In 914 a Viking army sailed from Brittany and ravaged the Severn estuary. It then attacked Ergyng in south-east Wales (now Archenfield in Herefordshire) and captured Bishop Cyfeilliog. Edward ransomed him for the large sum of forty pounds of silver. The Vikings were defeated by the armies of Hereford and Gloucester, and gave hostages and oaths to keep the peace. Edward kept an army on the south side of the estuary in case the Vikings broke their promises, and he twice had to repel attacks. In the autumn the Vikings moved on to Ireland. The episode suggests that south-east Wales fell within the West Saxon sphere of power, unlike Brycheiniog just to the north, where Mercia was dominant.[33] In late 914 Edward built two forts at Buckingham, and Earl Thurketil, the leader of the Danish army at Bedford submitted to him. The following year he occupied Bedford, and constructed another fortification on the south bank of the River Great Ouse against a Viking one on the north bank. In 916 Edward returned to Essex and built a fort at Maldon to bolster the defence of Witham. He also helped Earl Thurketil and his followers to leave England, reducing the number of Viking armies in the Midlands.[34]

The decisive year in the war was 917. In April Edward built a fort at Towcester as a defence against the Danes of Northampton, and another at an unidentified place called Wigingamere. The Danes launched unsuccessful attacks on Towcester, Bedford and Wigingamere, while ¥thelflµd captured Derby, showing the value of the English defensive measures, which were aided by disunity and a lack of coordination among the Viking armies. The Danes had built their own fortress at Tempsford in Bedfordshire, but at the end of the summer the English stormed it and killed the last Danish king of East Anglia. The English then took Colchester, although they did not try to hold it. The Danes retaliated by sending a large army to lay siege to Maldon, but the garrison held out until it was relieved and the retreating army was heavily defeated. Edward then returned to Towcester and reinforced its fort with a stone wall, and the Danes of nearby Northampton submitted to him. The armies of Cambridge and East Anglia also submitted, and by the end of the year the only Danish armies still holding out were those of four of the Five Boroughs, Leicester, Stamford, Nottingham, and Lincoln.[35]

In early 918, ¥thelflµd secured the submission of Leicester without a fight, and the Danes of Northumbrian York offered her their allegiance, probably for protection against Norse (Norwegian) Vikings who had invaded Northumbria from Ireland, but she died on 12 June before she could take up the proposal. The same offer is not known to have been made to Edward, and the Norse Vikings took York in 919. According to the main West Saxon version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, after ¥thelflµd's death the Mercians submitted to Edward, but the Mercian version (the Mercian Register) states that in December 918 her daughter ¥lfwynn, "was deprived of all authority in Mercia and taken into Wessex". Mercia may have made a bid for continued semi-independence which was suppressed by Edward, and it then came under his direct rule. Stamford had surrendered to Edward before ¥thelflµd's death, and Nottingham did the same shortly afterwards. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 918, "all the people who had settled in Mercia, both Danish and English, submitted to him". This would mean that he ruled all England south of the Humber, but it is not clear whether Lincoln was an exception, as coins of Viking York in the early 920s were probably minted at Lincoln.[36] Some Danish jarls were allowed to keep their estates, although Edward probably also rewarded his supporters with land, and some he kept in his own hands. Coin evidence suggests that his authority was stronger in the East Midlands than in East Anglia.[37] Three Welsh kings, Hywel Dda, Clydog and Idwal Foel, who had previously been subject to ¥thelflµd, now gave their allegiance to Edward.[38]

Coinage

The principal currency was the silver penny, and some coins carried a stylised portrait of the king. Royal coins had "EADVVEARD REX" on the obverse and the name of the moneyer on the reverse. The places of issue were not shown in his reign, but they were in that of his son ¥thelstan, allowing the location of many moneyers of Edward's reign to be established. There were mints in Bath, Canterbury, Chester, Chichester, Derby, Exeter, Hereford, London, Oxford, Shaftesbury, Shrewsbury, Southampton, Stafford, Wallingford, Wareham, Winchester and probably other towns. No coins were struck in the name of ¥thelred or ¥thelflµd, but from around 910 mints in English Mercia produced coins with an unusual decorative design on the reverse. This ceased before 920, and probably represents ¥thelflµd's way of distinguishing her coinage from that of her brother. There was also a minor issue of coins in the name of Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury. There was a dramatic increase in the number of moneyers over Edward's reign, with less than 25 in the south in the first ten years rising to 67 in the last ten years, around 5 in English Mercia rising to 23, plus 27 in the conquered Danelaw.[39]

Church

In 908, Plegmund conveyed the alms of the English king and people to the Pope, the first visit to Rome by an Archbishop of Canterbury for almost a century, and the journey may have been to seek papal approval for a proposed re-organisation of the West Saxon sees.[40] When Edward came to the throne Wessex had two dioceses, Winchester, held by Denewulf, and Sherborne, held by Asser.[41] In 908 Denewulf died and was replaced the following year by Frithestan; soon afterwards Winchester was divided into two sees, with the creation of the diocese of Ramsbury covering Wiltshire and Berkshire, while Winchester was left with Hampshire and Surrrey. Forged charters date the division to 909, but this may not be correct. Asser died in the same year, and at some date between 909 and 918 Sherborne was divided into three sees, with Crediton covering Devon and Cornwall, and Wells covering Somerset, while Sherborne was left with Dorset.[42] The effect of the changes were to strengthen the status of Canterbury compared with Winchester and Sherborne, but the division may have been related to a change in the secular functions of West Saxon bishops, to become agents of royal government in shires rather than provinces, assisting in defence and taking part in shire courts.[43]

At the beginning of Edward's reign, his mother Ealhswith founded the abbey of St Mary for nuns, known as the Nunnaminster, in Winchester.[44] Edward's daughter Eadburh became a nun there, and she was venerated as a saint and the subject of a hagiography by Osbert of Clare in the twelfth century.[45] In 901 Edward started building a major monastery for men, probably in accordance of his father's wishes. The monastery was next to Winchester Cathedral, which became known as the Old Minster, while Edward's foundation was called the New Minster. It was much larger than the Old Minster, and was probably intended as a royal mausoleum.[46] It acquired relics of the Breton Saint Judoc, which probably arrived in England from Ponthieu in 901, and the body of one of Alfred's closest advisers, Grimbald, who died in the same year and who was soon venerated as a saint. Edward's mother died in 902, and he buried her and Alfred there, moving his father's body from the Old Minster. Burials in the early 920s included Edward himself, his brother ¥thelweard, and his son ¥lfweard. However, when ¥thelstan became king in 924, he did not show any favour to his father's foundation, probably because Winchester sided against him when the throne was disputed after Edward's death. The only other king buried at the New Minster was Eadwig in 959.[47]

Edward's decision not to expand the Old Minster, but rather to overshadow it with a much larger building, suggests animosity towards Bishop Denewulf, and this was compounded by forcing the Old Minster to cede both land for the new site, and an estate of 70 hides at Beddington to provide an income for the New Minster. Edward was remembered by the New Minster as a benefactor, but at the Old Minster as rex avidus (greedy king).[48] Alan Thacker comments:

Edward's method of endowing New Minster was of a piece with his ecclesiastical policy in general. Like his father he gave little to the church — indeed, judging by the dearth of charters for much of his reign he seems to have given away little at all...More than any other, Edward's kingship seems to epitomise the new hard-nosed monarchy of Wessex, determined to exploit all its resources, lay and ecclesiastical, for its own benefit.[49]
Patrick Wormald observes: "The thought occurs that neither Alfred nor Edward was greatly beloved at Winchester Cathedral; and one reason for Edward's moving his father's body into the new family shrine next door was that he was surer of sincere prayers there."[50]

Learning and culture

The standard of Anglo-Saxon learning declined severely in the ninth century, particularly in Wessex, and Mercian scholars such as Plegmund played a prominent part in the revival of learning initiated by Alfred. Mercians were prominent at the courts of Alfred and Edward, and the Mercian dialect and scholarship commanded West Saxon respect.[51] It is uncertain how far Alfred's programmes continued during his son's reign. English translations of works in Latin made during Alfred's reign continued to be copied, but few original works are known. The script known as Anglo-Saxon Square minuscule reached maturity in the 930s, and its earliest phases date to Edward's reign. The main scholarly and scriptorial centres were the cathedral centres of Canterbury, Winchester and Worcester; monasteries did not make a significant contribution until ¥thelstan's reign.[52] Very little survives of the manuscript production of Edward's reign.[53]

The only surviving large scale embroideries which were certainly made in Anglo-Saxon England date to Edward's reign. They are a stole, a maniple and a possible girdle removed from the shrine of St Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral in the nineteenth century. They were donated to the shrine by ¥thelstan in 934, but inscriptions on the embroideries show that they were commissioned by Edward's second wife, ¥lfflµd, as a gift to Frithestan, Bishop of Winchester. They probably did not reach their intended destination because ¥thelstan was on bad terms with Winchester.[54]

Law and administration

Almost all surviving charters from Edward's reign are later copies, and the only surviving original is not a charter of Edward himself, but a grant by ¥thelred and ¥thelflµd in 901.[55] In the same year a meeting at Southampton was attended by his brother and sons, his household thegns and nearly all bishops, but no ealdormen. It was on this occasion that the king acquired land from the Bishop of Winchester for the foundation of the New Minster, Winchester. No charters survive for the period from 910 to the king's death in 924, much to the puzzlement and distress of historians. Charters were usually issued when the king made grants of land, and it is possible that Edward followed a policy of retaining property which came into his hands in order to help finance his campaigns against the Vikings.[56] Charters rarely survive unless they concerned property which passed to the church and were preserved in their archives, and another possibility is that Edward was only making grants of property on terms which ensured that they returned to male members of the royal house; such charters would not be found in church archives.[57]

Clause 3 of the law code called I Edward provides that people convincingly charged with perjury shall not be allowed to clear themselves by oath, but only by ordeal. This is the start of the continuous history in England of trial by ordeal; it is probably mentioned in the laws of King Ine (688 to 726),[b] but not in later codes such as those of Alfred.[58] The administrative and legal system in Edward's reign may have depended extensively on written records, almost none of which survive.[59] Edward was one of the few Anglo-Saxon kings to issue laws about bookland. There was increasing confusion in the period as to what was really bookland, and Edward urged prompt settlement in bookland/folkland disputes, and laid down that jurisdiction belonged to the king and his officers.[60]

Later life

Silver brooch imitating a coin of Edward the Elder, c. 920, found in Rome, Italy. British Museum.
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, there was a general submission of rulers in Britain to Edward in 920:

Then [Edward] went from there into the Peak District to Bakewell and ordered a borough to be built in the neighbourhood and manned. And then the king of the Scots and all the people of the Scots, and Rµgnald and the sons of Eadwulf[c] and all who live in Northumbria, both English and Danish, Norsemen and others, and also the king of the Strathclyde Welsh and all the Strathclyde Welsh, chose him as father and lord.[62]
This passage was regarded as a straightforward report by most historians until the late twentieth century,[63] and Frank Stenton observed that "each of the rulers named in this list had something definite to gain from an acknowledgement of Edward's overlordship".[64] Since the 1980s the 'submission' has been viewed with increasing scepticism, particularly as the passage in the Chronicle is the only evidence for it, unlike other submissions such as that one in 927 to ¥thelstan, for which there is independent support from literary sources and coins.[65] Alfred Smyth points out that Edward was not in a position to impose the same conditions on the Scots and the Northumbrians as he could on conquered Vikings, and argues that the Chronicle presented a treaty between kings as a submission to Wessex.[66] Stafford observes that the rulers had met at Bakewell on the border between Mercia and Northumbria, and that meetings on borders were generally considered to avoid any implication of submission by either side.[67] Davidson points out that the wording "chosen as father and lord" applied to conquered army groups and burhs, not relations with other kings. In his view:

The idea that this meeting represented a 'submission', while it must remain a possibility, does however seem unlikely. The textual context of the chronicler's passage makes his interpretation of the meeting suspect, and ultimately, Edward was in no position to force the subordination of, or dictate terms to, his fellow kings in Britain.[68]
Edward continued ¥thelflµd's policy of founding burhs in the north-west, with ones at Thelwall and Manchester in 919, and Cledematha (Rhuddlan) at the mouth of the River Clwyd in North Wales in 921.[69]

Nothing is known of his relations with the Mercians between 919 and the last year of his life, when he put down a Mercian and Welsh revolt at Chester. Mercia and the eastern Danelaw were organised into shires at an unknown date in the tenth century, ignoring traditional boundaries, and historians such as Sean Miller and David Griffiths suggest that Edward's imposition of direct control from 919 is a likely context for a change which ignored Mercian sensibilities. Resentment at the changes, at the imposition of rule by distant Wessex, and at fiscal demands by Edward's reeves, may have provoked the revolt at Chester. He died at the royal estate of Farndon, twelve miles south of Chester, on 24 July 924, shortly after putting down the revolt, and was buried in the New Minster, Winchester.[70] In 1109, the New Minster was moved outside the city walls to become Hyde Abbey, and the following year Edward and his parents were translated to the new church.[71]

Reputation

According to William of Malmesbury, Edward was "much inferior to his father in the cultivation of letters" but "incomparably more glorious in the power of his rule". Other medieval chroniclers expressed similar views, and he was generally seen as inferior in book learning, but superior in military success. John of Worcester described him as "the most invincible King Edward the Elder". However, even as war leader he was only one of a succession of successful kings; his achievements were overshadowed because he did not have a famous victory like Alfred's at Edington and ¥thelstan's at Brunanburh, and William qualified his praise by saying that "the chief prize of victory, in my judgment, is due to his father". Edward has also been overshadowed by chroniclers' admiration for his highly regarded sister, ¥thelflµd.[72]

A principal reason for the neglect of Edward is that very few primary sources for his reign survive, whereas there are many for Alfred. He was largely ignored by historians until the late twentieth century, but he is now highly regarded. He is described by Keynes as "far more than the bellicose bit between Alfred and ¥thelstan",[73] and according to Nick Higham: "Edward the Elder is perhaps the most neglected of English kings. He ruled an expanding realm for twenty-five years and arguably did as much as any other individual to construct a single, south-centred, Anglo-Saxon kingdom, yet posthumously his achievements have been all but forgotten." In 1999 a conference on his reign was held at the University of Manchester, and the papers given on this occasion were published as a book in 2001. Prior to this conference, no monographs had been published on Edward's reign, whereas his father has been the subject of numerous biographies and other studies.[74]

In the view of F. T. Wainwright: "Without detracting from the achievements of Alfred, it is well to remember that it was Edward who reconquered the Danish Midlands and gave England nearly a century of respite from serious Danish attacks."[75] Higham summarises Edward's legacy as follows:

Under Edward's leadership, the scale of alternative centres of power diminished markedly: the separate court of Mercia was dissolved; the Danish leaders were in large part brought to heel or expelled; the Welsh princes were constrained from aggression of the borders and even the West Saxon bishoprics divided. Late Anglo-Saxon England is often described as the most centralised polity in western Europe at the time, with its shires, its shire-reeves and its systems of regional courts and royal taxation. If so — and the matter remains debatable — much of that centrality derives from Edward's activities, and he has as good a claim as any other to be considered the architect of medieval England.[76]
Edward's cognomen 'the Elder' was first used in Wulfstan's Life of St ¥thelwold at the end of the tenth century, to distinguish him from King Edward the Martyr.[19]

Marriages and children[edit]
Edward had about fourteen children from three marriages.[d]

He first married Ecgwynn around 893.[82] Their children were:

¥thelstan, King of England 924–939[19]
A daughter, perhaps called Edith, married Sihtric Câaech, Viking King of York in 926, who died in 927. Possibly Saint Edith of Polesworth[83]
In c. 900, Edward married ¥lfflµd, daughter of Ealdorman ¥thelhelm, probably of Wiltshire.[17] Their children were:

¥lfweard, died August 924, a month after his father; possibly King of Wessex for that month[84]
Edwin, drowned at sea 933[85]
¥thelhild, lay sister at Wilton Abbey[86]
Eadgifu (died in or after 951), married Charles the Simple, King of the West Franks, c. 918[87]
Eadflµd, nun at Wilton Abbey[86]
Eadhild, married Hugh the Great, Duke of the Franks in 926[88]
Eadgyth (died 946), in 929/30 married Otto I, future King of the East Franks, and (after Eadgyth's death) Holy Roman Emperor[89]
¥lfgifu, married "a prince near the Alps", perhaps Louis, brother of King Rudolph II of Burgundy[90]
Edward married for a third time, about 919, Eadgifu, the daughter of Sigehelm, Ealdorman of Kent.[91] Their children were

Edmund, King of England 939–946[77]
Eadred, King of England 946–955[77]
Eadburh (died c. 952), Benedictine nun at Nunnaminster, Winchester, and saint[92]
Eadgifu, existence uncertain, possibly the same person as ¥lfgifu[93]

Buried:
New Minster, Winchester, later translated to Hyde Abbey

Edward married Eadgifu of Kent in ~919. Eadgifu was born in C. 903 in England; died in C. 966. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

2841665.

Eadgifu of Kent was born in C. 903 in England; died in C. 966.

Notes:

Eadgifu of Kent (also Edgiva or Ediva) (in or before 903 – in or after 966) was the third wife of Edward the Elder, King of the Anglo-Saxons.

Biography

Eadgifu was the daughter of Sigehelm, Ealdorman of Kent, who died at the Battle of the Holme in 902.[1] She married Edward in about 919 and became the mother of two sons, Edmund I of England, later King Edmund I, and Eadred of England, later King Eadred, and two daughters, Saint Eadburh of Winchester and Eadgifu.[2] She survived Edward by many years, dying in the reign of her grandson Edgar.

According to a narrative written in the early 960s, her father had given Cooling in Kent to a man called Goda as security for a loan. She claimed that her father had repaid the loan and left the land to her, but Goda denied receiving payment and refused to surrender the land. She got possession of Cooling six years after her father's death, when her friends persuaded King Edward to threaten to dispossess Goda of his property unless he gave up the estate. Edward later declared Goda's lands forfeit and gave the charters to Eadgifu, but she returned most of the estates to Goda, although retained the charters. Some time after this her marriage to Edward took place. After his death King ¥thelstan required Eadgifu to return the charters to Goda, perhaps because the king was on bad terms with his stepmother.[3]

She disappeared from court during the reign of her step-son, King ¥thelstan, but she was prominent and influential during the reign of her two sons.[2] As queen dowager, her position seem to have been higher than that of her daughter-in-law; In a Kentish charter datable between 942 and 944, her daughter-in-law ¥lfgifu of Shaftesbury subscribes herself as the king's concubine (concubina regis), with a place assigned to her between the bishops and ealdormen. By comparison, Eadgifu subscribes higher up in the witness list as mater regis, after her sons Edmund and Eadred but before the archbishops and bishops.[4]

Following the death of her younger son Eadred in 955, she was deprived of her lands by her eldest grandson, King Eadwig, perhaps because she took the side of his younger brother, Edgar, in the struggle between them. When Edgar succeeded on Eadwig's death in 959 she recovered some lands and received generous gifts from her grandson, but she never returned to her prominent position at court. She is last recorded as a witness to a charter in 966.[2]

She was known as a supporter of saintly churchmen and a benefactor of churches.[2]

See also

House of Wessex family tree; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_of_Wessex#House_of_Wessex_family_tree

Children:

1420832. Edmund I, King of the English was born in ~921 in Wessex, England; died on 26 May 946 in Pucklechurch, Gloucestershire, England; was buried in Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset, England.

2842016.

Rurik, Prince of Ladoga and Novgorod was born in ~830 in Jutland, Denmark; died in 879 in Novgorod, Ukraine.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Staraya Lagoda, Russia

Notes:

Rurik (also Riurik; Old Church Slavonic ?????? Rjuriku, from Old Norse Hr²râik?; c. 830 – 879), according to the 12th-century Primary Chronicle, was a Varangian chieftain of the Rus' who in the year 862 gained control of Ladoga, and built the Holmgard settlement near Novgorod (Varangian defined: http://thehennesseefamily.com/showmedia.php?mediaID=3071&medialinkID=3073). He is the founder of the Rurik Dynasty, which ruled the Kievan Rus' and its successor states, including the Grand Duchy of Moscow and the Tsardom of Russia, until the 17th century.[1]

The only information about Rurik is contained in the 12th-century Primary Chronicle written by one Nestor, which states that Chuds, Eastern Slavs, Merias, Veses, and Krivichs "...drove the Varangians back beyond the sea, refused to pay them tribute, and set out to govern themselves". Afterwards the tribes started fighting each other and decided to invite the Varangians, led by Rurik, to reestablish order. Rurik came in 860-862 along with his brothers Sineus and Truvor and a large retinue.

According to the Primary Chronicle, Rurik was one of the Rus', a Varangian tribe likened by the chronicler to Danes, Swedes, Angles, and Gotlanders.

Sineus established himself at Beloozero (now Belozersk), on the shores of lake Beloye, and Truvor at Izborsk (or at Pskov). Truvor and Sineus died shortly after the establishment of their territories, and Rurik consolidated these lands into his own territory.

According to the entries in the Radzivil and Hypatian Chronicles[2] under the years 862–864, Rurik’s first residence was in Ladoga. He later moved his seat of power to Novgorod, a fort built not far from the source of the Volkhov River. The meaning of this place name in medieval Russian is 'new fortification', while the current meaning ('new city') developed later.

Rurik remained in power until his death in 879. On his deathbed, Rurik bequeathed his realm to Oleg, who belonged to his kin, and entrusted to Oleg's hands his son Igor, for he was very young. His successors (the Rurik Dynasty) moved the capital to Kiev and founded the state of Kievan Rus', which persisted until the Mongol invasion in 1240. A number of extant princely families are patrilineally descended from Rurik, although the last Rurikid to rule Russia, Vasily IV, died in 1612.

Historicity debate
Archaeological evidence

In the 20th century, archaeologists partly corroborated the chronicle's version of events. It was discovered that the settlement of Ladoga, whose foundation has been ascribed to Rurik, was actually established in the mid-9th century, although doubt is now cast on this by the dendrochronological evidence that Ladoga existed by the mid-8th century.[citation needed] Earthenware, household utensils, and types of buildings from the period of Rurik's purported foundation correspond to patterns then prevalent in Jutland.[citation needed] but mostly the excavations denied most of the chronicle's data about Rurik's arrival when it was apparent that the old settlement stretched to the mid-8th century and the excavated objects were mostly of Finno-Ugric and Slavic origin, dated to the mid-8th century, which showed the settlement was not Scandinavian from the beginning.[3][page needed]

Hypothesis of identity with Rorik of Dorestad
Main article: Rorik of Dorestad

Rorik of Dorestad, as conceived by H. W. Koekkoek
The only similarly named figure described in the Carolingian Annales Fuldenses and Annales Bertiniani was Rorik of Dorestad (also spelled R²rik, Rèorik, Roerik, Hrèorek, etc.), a Germanic king from the royal Scylding house of Haithabu in the Jutland Peninsula. Since the 19th century, there have been attempts to identify him with the Rurik of Russian chronicles.

Rorik of Dorestad was born about ca. 810–820 to Ali Anulo, 9th king of Haithabu. Frankish chroniclers mention that he received lands in Friesland from Emperor Louis I. This was not enough for him, and he started to plunder neighbouring lands: he took Dorestad in 850, captured Haithabu in 857, and looted Bremen in 859. The Emperor was enraged and stripped him of all his possessions in 860. After that, Rorik disappears from the Western sources for a considerable period of time, while only two years later, in 862, the Russian chronicle's Rurik arrives in the eastern Baltic, builds the fortress of Ladoga, and later moves to Novgorod.

Rorik of Dorestad reappeared in Frankish chronicles in 870, when his Friesland demesne was returned to him by Charles the Bald; in 882 Rorik of Dorestad is mentioned as dead (without a date of death specified). The Russian chronicle places the death of Rurik of Novgorod at 879, a three year gap prior than the Frankish chronicles. According to Western sources, the ruler of Friesland was converted to Christianity by the Franks. This may have parallels with the Christianization of the Rus', as reported by Patriarch Photius in 867.

The idea of identifying the Rurik of Nestor's chronicle with Rorik of Dorestad of the Carolingian chronicles was revived by the anti-Normanists Boris Rybakov and Anatoly H. Kirpichnikov in the mid-20th century,[4] while modern scholars like Alexander Nazarenko object to it.[5] The hypothesis of their identity currently lacks support among scholars,[6] though support for a "Normannic" (i.e. Norse, rather than Slavic) origin of the Rus' has increased.

Legacy

Further information: Rurikid dynasty

Rurik and his brothers Sineus and Truvor arrive at Ladoga
The Rurik dynasty (or Rurikids) went on to rule the Kievan Rus', and ultimately the Tsardom of Russia, until 1598, and numerous noble Russian and Ruthenian families claim a male-line descent from Rurik. Vasily Tatishchev (a Rurikid himself) claimed that Rurik was of Wendish extraction and went so far as to name Rurik's wife, Efanda of Norway (Edvina); mother, Umila; his maternal grandfather, Gostomysl; and a cousin, Vadim (apparently basing his account on the lost Ioachim Chronicle).[citation needed]

References

Christian Raffensperger and Norman W. Ingham, "Rurik and the First Rurikids," The American Genealogist, 82 (2007), 1–13, 111–19.
Ipat’ievskaia letopis’ 1962:14; Radzivilovskaia letopis’ 1989:16
Kirpichnikov, Anatoliy N. (2004). "A Viking Period workshop in Staraya Ladoga, excavated in 1997" (PDF). Journal of Swedish Antiquarian Research. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
Kirpichnikov, Anatoly H. "???????? ? ????????? ???????. ?????? ? ??????????? ?????????". ?????? ????????????? ??????, ???; 1997; ch. 7–18.
Nazarenko, Alexander. "Rjurik ? Riis Th., Rorik", Lexikon des Mittelalters, VII; Munich, 1995; pp. 880, 1026.
Andrei Mozzhukhin (5 October 2014). «????? — ??? ???????» ["Rurik – is a legend"] (in Russian). Russian Planet. Retrieved 12 November 2014. Interview with Igor Danilevsky.

end of this biography

Alternative Titles: Hrorekr, Rorik, Rurik of Jutland, Ryurik

Rurik, also spelled Rorik or Hrorekr, Russian Ryurik, (died AD 879), the semilegendary founder of the Rurik dynasty of Kievan Rus.

(Rurik Dynasty, princes of Kievan Rus and, later, Muscovy who, according to tradition, were descendants of the Varangian prince Rurik, who had been invited by the people of Novgorod to rule that city (c. 862); the Rurik princes maintained their control over Kievan Rus and, later, Muscovy until 1598.

Rurik’s successor Oleg (d. 912) conquered Kiev (c. 882) and established control of the trade route extending from Novgorod, along the Dnieper River, to the Black Sea. Igor (allegedly Rurik’s son; reigned 912–945) and his successors—his wife, St. Olga (regent 945–969), and their son Svyatoslav (reigned 945–972)—further extended their territories; Svyatoslav’s son Vladimir I (St. Vladimir; reigned c. 980–1015) consolidated the dynasty’s rule.

Vladimir compiled the first Kievan Rus law code and introduced Christianity into the country. He also organized the Kievan Rus lands into a cohesive confederation by distributing the major cities among his sons; the eldest was to be grand prince of Kiev, and the brothers were to succeed each other, moving up the hierarchy of cities toward Kiev, filling vacancies left by the advancement or death of an elder brother. The youngest brother was to be succeeded as grand prince by his eldest nephew whose father had been a grand prince. This succession pattern was generally followed through the reigns of Svyatopolk (1015–19); Yaroslav the Wise (1019–54); his sons Izyaslav (1054–68; 1069–73; and 1077–78), Svyatoslav (1073–76), and Vsevolod (1078–93); and Svyatopolk II (son of Izyaslav; reigned 1093–1113).

The successions were accomplished, however, amid continual civil wars. In addition to the princes’ unwillingness to adhere to the pattern and readiness to seize their positions by force instead, the system was upset whenever a city rejected the prince designated to rule it. It was also undermined by the tendency of the princes to settle in regions they ruled rather than move from city to city to become the prince of Kiev.)

Rurik was a Viking, or Varangian, prince. His story is told in the The Russian Primary Chronicle (compiled at the beginning of the 12th century) but is not accepted at face value by modern historians. According to the chronicle, the people of Novgorod, tired of political strife, invited the Varangians about AD 862 to establish an orderly and just government there. Hence, Rurik came with his two brothers and a large retinue (druzhina) and became ruler of the city and region of Novgorod.

Some historians think that Rurik came from the Scandinavian peninsula or from Jutland (now in Denmark) and seized the town of Ladoga, on Lake Ladoga. After establishing a stronghold there (c. 855), he may have gone southward along the Volkhov and captured Novgorod. Another possibility is that Rurik and his army were mercenaries, hired to guard the Volkhov-Dnieper waterway, who turned against their employers.

Rurik’s kinsman Oleg founded the grand principality of Kiev. Oleg’s successor, Igor, believed to be Rurik’s son, is considered the real founder of the Russian princely house.

end of this biography

HISTORY

Rurik or Riurik ( from the Nordic East Rorik, means "famous leader") (?30 - ?79) was a Varangian who gained control of Ladoga in ?62 and built the Holmgard settlement (Rurikovo Gorodische) in Novgorod.

Rurik name is the Slavic name being the same Germanic name as the modern English Roderick, or Spanish and Portuguese Rodrigo. In Germanic languages: Hrodric in (Old High German), Hroºricus in (Old English). In Old Norse, Hrœrekr (Norwegian, Icelandic) and Hr²rikr or Rorik (Danish, Swedish), which is derived from Rurik. It also appears in Beowulf as Hreºrik.

Princes of Kievan Rus and later on, of Muscovy that, according to tradition, were descendants of Rurik Varangian Prince, who had been invited by the people of Novgorod to rule that town (C. 862), the Princes of Rurik remained their control over Kievan Rus and, later, Muscovy until 1598.

The successor Oleg (D. 912) conquered Kiev Rurik (C. 882) and established control of the trade route that stretched from Novgorod, along the Dnieper River, to the Black Sea. Igor (alleged son of Rurik, reigned from 912 to 945) and his successor, to her wife, Olga or St. Olga Olga (ruler from 945 - to 969), and later his son Svyatoslav (945-972) - hereinafter extended their territories; Vladimir, son of Svyatoslav I (St. Vladimir; reigned from 980-1015) thus well consolidated the Varegiana Dynasty.
Vladimir compiled the first law code of Kievan Rus and introduced Christianity to the country.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY. RUSSIA

Russia means "Land of Rus'. Before the tenth century, Russia was formed by scattered cities which fought between them. In the year 862, an extranger warrior gripped the state of Novgorod and joined several cities under its power. Some say that he arrived under invitation to restore order and others say that he reached power by force. This legendary Viking was a warrior. His name was Rurik and belonged to the family of the Rus. Rurik and his two brothers Truvor and Sineus imposed their control over the Slavs of the area. Rurik's followers are also known as Varangians. "Varangians" means "allies". "Rus" comes from the Swedish rosti, which means "oar", since we know the Vikings were driving paddle boats. Then Russia means "Land of Oars".

SLAVIC AND nORMANDS

Does not seem being any doubt about the Indo-European affiliation descent of the Slavs, but there are little news about them because the Germans isolated them of the Roman Empire. When there were invasions that ended the Empire, the displacement of the Germans allowed the Slavic movement westward, and so, in the sixth century, penetrations were already seen by peoples of this race in present Poland and Bohemia, and Brandenburg (Germany). Furthermore the Slavic incursions also came to the South, settling on the Adriatic coast of the Balkans.

In the seventh century,the penetration of barbarians folks, as well as the Avars in Central Europe, disconnected thus these Slavs from their racial brothers, becoming known by the name of South Slavs, who still nowadays make up the most of the population of Yugoslavia.

The Slavs who remained in the current western Russia were limited in their expansion to the east and to south by the establishment of other barbarians folks: the Khazars (or Kazars), the Pechenegs and Magyars. But taking as the axis of their residence the Dnieper River, became merchants carrying southward, to the country of the Khazars and even the Byzantine Empire, skins, honey and wax.

Rurik-Russia-Rurikovich-History

At the mid-ninth century already existed in this territory a true urban culture, while in Western Europe began The Feudalism. A number of towns located in the axis just spoken ensured the commercial link between the Baltic See and the Byzantine Empire: Kiev, Smolensk, Novgorod, Tchernigov, Minsk, Ryazan, Pskov Iaroslav and were the main ones.

For the same time lies the penetration of Vikings groups from Sweden, called "Varangians". These Vikings took upon themselves trade and defense of Slav cities against attacks from other nations. And according the oldest Russian chronicle, was a Varangian, Rurik, the first prince who ruled that fusion of Slavs and Vikings, in which it seems certain that the Vikings were absorbed by the Slavs, being in the history of Russia as a mere episode.

The successors of Rurik, Oleg (879-912) and Igor (912-944), alternated trade relations with Byzantium and the attacks on the capital of the Empire, until that Olga times (945-965) succeeded to Byzantine influence when became that princess to Christianity in 955 by the name of Elena in a trip she did to Constantinople.
From then on, Kiev had already surpassed the importance of Novgorod, and the princes of that city dominated the other, which, however, left some autonomy on the condition that they pay taxes regularly. The same soldiers who perceive them-in-kind were engaged then transfer them for sale in the Byzantine Empire.

The fullness of the rising state was in the last third of the tenth century, under the rule of Prince of Kiev, Sviatoslav (965-973), son of Olga, who, still pagan, was the first to conceive the idea of reaching out to an open sea - the Mediterranean in this case - so repeatedly present since then on this Russian policy of all time. The distribution of territories that Sviatoslav did on his death caused struggle between his sons, in which the winner was Vladimir the Great (973-1015), who married a Byzantine princess, Anna, was converted to Christianity in 988 forcing his subjects to embrace mass.

The bad policy of dividing the kingdom, repeated by his successors, caused the decline of the bright state, which finished at casting down new Asian nomadic invasions. Among these princes can still be noted to Yaroslav, founder of the archbishop of Kiev in 1035 and editor of the Russian law code called Russkaya Pravda.

From Rurik was born the famous dynasty of Russian Tsars that ruled Russia for over 750 years. At the beginning of the tenth century the military company of the Princes of Novgorod from Constantinople to protect trade relations with Byzantium were concluded by the integration of East-Slavic tribes in the ancient state of Kievan Rus.

The title of Tzar, Czar or Csar, (????) was first adopted by Ivan IV as a symbol of the changing nature of the Russian Monarchy in 1547.

Ivan IV Vasilyevich (???? ?????????? IV), also known as Ivan the Terrible (Kolomenskoie, Russia, August 25, 1530 - Moscow, March 18, 1584) Tsar of Russia (1547-1584). Considered one of the creators of the Russian state. He married at least seven times, but his most important marriage was the first one, with Anastasia Romanova in 1547. His greatest contributions were Russian conquest of Siberia, creating a new legal code, the Sudiâebnik, the centralization of the power in the capital, the creation of institutions with popular participation, the conquest of the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan Tatars, the destruction of the Teutonic Order and big internal reforms, including the reform of the army and the revision of the legal code.

His Early years:

Grandson of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich III the Great and son of Vasily III and Elena Glinskaya, belongs to the lineage Varangian of Rurik and princess of Lithuania. According to the legend he was born with two teeth. He was crowned Grand Prince of Moscow within three years after the death of his father. However, the kingdom was administered by his mother, who was poisoned five years after the coronation of boyars clans who vied for power. He was recluded to the humiliation of the boyars, which overshadowed his character. He was held in the Kremlin Palace of living almost as a beggar. This fact led in Ivan a great hatred against boyars, and has as a consequence the constant persecution and massacres that he organized against these clans. In these early years Ivan suffered mental ramblings, now irreversibles, which led him to give vent to their anger and throwing torturing dogs from the towers. It is known that he had a deaf brother who nothing more is known.

With 13 years people began to respect him and ordered to one of his loyal groups to capture the Prince Andrei Shuisky in order to throw a pack of dogs against him, which brutaly tore him. With 16 years already stated in writing and was an avid reader of books, besides of being and a big, muscular young. He studied rhetoric from the hand of Bishop Macarius. During this time it was deeply religious.

To be respected as Tsar, Macario determined that Ivan came (according to a family tree) of the lineage of the first Roman Caesars.

© Sovereign Royal and Imperial House of Rurikovich

end of narrative

Residence:
Russian meaning, "Old Lagoda"...

Its history & map ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staraya_Ladoga

Died:
Rulers of Russia family tree - the Rurik Dynasty through the Romanovs (last of the Tsars):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rulers_of_Russia_family_tree

Children:

1421008. Igor of Kiev, Prince of the Rus' was born in ~900 in (Kiev, Ukraine); died in 945 in Korosten, Ukraine.

2842024.

Skagul Toste, King of Sweden was born in 910 in Vein, Germany; died in 975 in Gothland, Sweden.

Notes:

Skoglar Toste or Skoglar Tosti (there are several variations) was a legendary chieftain from the Swedish province of West Gèotaland. His name (skoglar, skauglar or skagul) was reportedly due to his experience in battle. [1]

Toste is mentioned in several sagas, most notable in Heimskringla. According to Snorri Sturluson, he was the father of Sigrid the Haughty. For some time he gave refuge to Harald Grenske, who later came back to woo Sigrid, only to be killed by her for his persistence. According to the sagas, Skagul Toste was also the father of Ulf Tostesson, father of Ragnvald Ulfsson and grandfather of Stenkil who became the King of Sweden in 1060.[2]

Toste is said to have collected great riches when he demanded danegeld as he led a Viking army to England in 970. At Vallentuna, near Stockholm, the runestone of Orkesta (U 344) reads:

in ulfr hafir onklati * ´ru kialtakat ´it uas fursta ´is tursti * ´a ---´urktil * ´a kalt knutr

Translation: "And Ulf of Borresta (Ulf) has taken three payments in England. That was the first that Toste (tursti) paid. Then Thorkell the Tall (´urktil ) paid. Then Canute the Great (knutr) paid. [3]

References

"Skoglar Toste". Bergans Historiasidor. May 15, 2015. Retrieved October 24, 2015.
Claus Krag. "Harald Grenske, Smêakonge". Norsk biografisk leksikon. Retrieved October 24, 2015.
"Runes and Runic". An English Dictionary of Runic Inscriptions. May 5, 2006. Retrieved October 24, 2015.

Other sources

Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Lines: 241-5, 243A-20

end of biography

Skoglar Skagul "King of Sweden" Toste
Born 0910 in Venden, Tyskland (Vein, Germany)map
Son of Rane UNKNOWN and [mother unknown]
[sibling(s) unknown]
[spouse(s) unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Father of Ulf Tostesson, Ulf (UNKNOWN) Tostesson av Skara and Sigrid Storrada
Died 0975 in Svitjod, Vèastergèotland, Swedenmap
Profile managers: Katherine Patterson private message [send private message] and Sheri Sturm private message [send private message]
Profile last modified 10 Nov 2017 | Created 5 Jul 2011
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Children:

1421012. Ulf Tostesson, Jarl of Skara was born in 930 in Gothland, Sweden; died in 950 in (Kiev, Ukraine).

355252.

Vladimir, Czar of Russia was born in 956 in Kiev, Ukraine (son of Sviatoslav, I, Grand Prince of Kiev and Malusha); died on 15 Jul 1015 in Kiev, Ukraine.

Notes:

Vladimir the Great (also (Saint) Vladimir of Kiev; Old East Slavic: ?????????? ????????????, Volodimer? Svetoslavic?,[3] Old Norse Valdamarr gamli;[4] c. 958 – 15 July 1015, Berestove) was a prince of Novgorod, grand prince of Kiev, and ruler of Kievan Rus' from 980 to 1015.[5][6]

Vladimir's father was prince Sviatoslav of the Rurik dynasty.[7] After the death of his father in 972, Vladimir, who was then prince of Novgorod, was forced to flee to Scandinavia in 976 after his brother Yaropolk had murdered his other brother Oleg and conquered Rus'. In Sweden, with the help from his relative Ladejarl Hêakon Sigurdsson, ruler of Norway, he assembled a Varangian army and reconquered Novgorod from Yaropolk.[8] By 980, Vladimir had consolidated the Kievan realm from modern-day Belarus, Russia and Ukraine to the Baltic Sea and had solidified the frontiers against incursions of Bulgarian, Baltic tribes and Eastern nomads. Originally a follower of Slavic paganism, Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988[9][10][11] and Christianized the Kievan Rus'.[12]

Rise to power

Born in 958, Vladimir was the natural son and youngest son of Sviatoslav I of Kiev by his housekeeper Malusha. Malusha is described in the Norse sagas as a prophetess who lived to the age of 100 and was brought from her cave to the palace to predict the future. Malusha's brother Dobrynya was Vladimir's tutor and most trusted advisor. Hagiographic tradition of dubious authenticity also connects his childhood with the name of his grandmother, Olga of Kiev, who was Christian and governed the capital during Sviatoslav's frequent military campaigns. His place of birth is identified by different authors either as Budyatychi (modern Volyn Oblast, Ukraine)[13][14][15] or Budnik (ru:?????? (???????); modern Pskov Oblast, Russia).[16]

Transferring his capital to Pereyaslavets in 969, Sviatoslav designated Vladimir ruler of Novgorod the Great but gave Kiev to his legitimate son Yaropolk. After Sviatoslav's death at the hands of the Pechenegs in 972, a fratricidal war erupted in 976 between Yaropolk and his younger brother Oleg, ruler of the Drevlians. In 977, Vladimir fled to his kinsman Haakon Sigurdsson, ruler of Norway, collecting as many Norse warriors as he could to assist him to recover Novgorod. On his return the next year, he marched against Yaropolk. On his way to Kiev he sent ambassadors to Rogvolod (Norse: Ragnvald), prince of Polotsk, to sue for the hand of his daughter Rogneda (Norse: Ragnhild). The high-born princess refused to affiance herself to the son of a bondswoman, so Vladimir attacked Polotsk, slew Rogvolod, and took Ragnhild by force. Polotsk was a key fortress on the way to Kiev, and capturing Polotsk and Smolensk facilitated the taking of Kiev in 978, where he slew Yaropolk by treachery and was proclaimed knyaz of all Kievan Rus.[17]

Years of pagan rule

Vladimir continued to expand his territories beyond his father's extensive domain. In 981, he seized the Cherven towns from the Poles; in 981–982, he suppressed a Vyatichi rebellion; in 983, he subdued the Yatvingians; in 984, he conquered the Radimichs; and in 985, he conducted a military campaign against the Volga Bulgars,[18][19] planting numerous fortresses and colonies on his way.

Although Christianity spread in the region under Oleg's rule, Vladimir had remained a thoroughgoing pagan, taking eight hundred concubines (along with numerous wives) and erecting pagan statues and shrines to gods.[20]

He may have attempted to reform Slavic paganism in an attempt to identify himself with the various gods worshipped by his subjects. He built a pagan temple on the a hill in Kiev dedicated to six gods: Perun - the god of thunder and war "a Norse god favored by members of the prince’s druzhina (military retinue)". Slav gods Stribog and Dazhd'bog; Mokosh - a goddess representing Mother Nature "worshipped by Finnish tribes"; Khors and Simargl, "both of which had Iranian origins, were included, probably to appeal to the Poliane."[21]

Open abuse of the deities that most people in Rus' revered triggered widespread indignation. A mob killed the Christian Fyodor and his son Ioann (later, after the overall christening of Kievan Rus', people came to regard these two as the first Christian martyrs in Rus', and the Orthodox Church[citation needed] set a day to commemorate them, 25 July). Immediately after the murder of Fyodor and Ioann, early medieval Rus' saw persecutions against Christians, many of whom escaped or concealed their belief.[22]

However, Prince Vladimir mused over the incident long after, and not least for political considerations. According to the early Slavic chronicle called Tale of Bygone Years, which describes life in Kievan Rus' up to the year 1110, he sent his envoys throughout the civilized world to judge first hand the major religions of the time, Islam, Roman Catholicism, Judaism, and Byzantine Orthodoxy. They were most impressed with their visit to Constantinople, saying, "We knew not whether we were in Heaven or on Earth… We only know that God dwells there among the people, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other nations."[23]

Christianization of the Kievan Rus'
Main article: Christianization of Kievan Rus'

The Baptism of Saint Prince Vladimir, by Viktor Vasnetsov (1890)

The Primary Chronicle reports that in the year 987, after consultation with his boyars, Vladimir the Great sent envoys to study the religions of the various neighboring nations whose representatives had been urging him to embrace their respective faiths. The result is described by the chronicler Nestor. Of the Muslim Bulgarians of the Volga the envoys reported there is no gladness among them, only sorrow and a great stench. He also reported that Islam was undesirable due to its taboo against alcoholic beverages and pork.[24] Vladimir remarked on the occasion: "Drinking is the joy of all Rus'. We cannot exist without that pleasure."[25] Ukrainian and Russian sources also describe Vladimir consulting with Jewish envoys and questioning them about their religion, but ultimately rejecting it as well, saying that their loss of Jerusalem was evidence that they had been abandoned by God.

His emissaries also visited pre-schism Latin Rite Christian and Eastern Rite Christian missionaries.[citation needed] Ultimately Vladimir settled on Eastern Orthodox Christianity. In the churches of the Germans his emissaries saw no beauty; but at Constantinople, where the full festival ritual of the Byzantine Church was set in motion to impress them, they found their ideal: "We no longer knew whether we were in heaven or on earth", they reported, describing a majestic Divine Liturgy in Hagia Sophia, "nor such beauty, and we know not how to tell of it." If Vladimir was impressed by this account of his envoys, he was even more attracted by the political gains of the Byzantine alliance.

Saint Vladimir Monument on Saint Vladimir Hill in Kiev, often depicted in paintings and photographs of the city

In 988, having taken the town of Chersonesos in Crimea, he boldly negotiated for the hand of emperor Basil II's sister, Anna.[26] Never before had a Byzantine imperial princess, and one "born in the purple" at that, married a barbarian, as matrimonial offers of French kings and German emperors had been peremptorily rejected. In short, to marry the 27-year-old princess to a pagan Slav seemed impossible. Vladimir was baptized at Chersonesos, however, taking the Christian name of Basil out of compliment to his imperial brother-in-law; the sacrament was followed by his wedding to Anna. Returning to Kiev in triumph, he destroyed pagan monuments and established many churches, starting with a church dedicated to St. Basil,[27] and the Church of the Tithes (989).

Arab sources, both Muslim and Christian, present a different story of Vladimir's conversion. Yahya of Antioch, al-Rudhrawari, al-Makin, Al-Dimashqi, and ibn al-Athir all give essentially the same account.[28] In 987, Bardas Sclerus and Bardas Phocas revolted against the Byzantine emperor Basil II. Both rebels briefly joined forces, but then Bardas Phocas proclaimed himself emperor on 14 September 987. Basil II turned to the Kievan Rus' for assistance, even though they were considered enemies at that time. Vladimir agreed, in exchange for a marital tie; he also agreed to accept Christianity as his religion and to Christianize his people. When the wedding arrangements were settled, Vladimir dispatched 6,000 troops to the Byzantine Empire, and they helped to put down the revolt.[29]

In 988 and 991, he baptized Pecheneg princes Metiga and Kuchug, respectively.[30]

Christian reign

The Pontic steppes, c. 1015

Vladimir then formed a great council out of his boyars and set his twelve sons over his subject principalities. According to the Primary Chronicle, he founded the city of Belgorod in 991. In 992, he went on a campaign against the Croats, most likely the White Croats that lived on the border of modern Ukraine. This campaign was cut short by the attacks of the Pechenegs on and around Kiev.

In his later years he lived in a relative peace with his other neighbors: Boleslav I of Poland, Stephen I of Hungary, and Andrikh the Czech (questionable character mentioned in A Tale of the Bygone Years). After Anna's death, he married again, likely to a granddaughter of Otto the Great.

In 1014, his son Yaroslav the Wise stopped paying tribute. Vladimir decided to chastise the insolence of his son and began gathering troops against him. Vladimir fell ill, however, most likely of old age, and died at Berestove, near Kiev. The various parts of his dismembered body were distributed among his numerous sacred foundations and were venerated as relics.

During his Christian reign, Vladimir lived the teachings of the Bible through acts of charity. He would hand out food and drink to the less fortunate, and made an effort to go out to the people who could not reach him. His work was based on the impulse to help one’s neighbors by sharing the burden of carrying their cross.[31]

Family

Main article: Family life and children of Vladimir I

Vladimir and Rogneda (1770)

The fate of all Vladimir's daughters, whose number is around nine, is uncertain.

Olava or Allogia (Varangian or Czech), speculative she might have been mother of Vysheslav while others claim that it is a confusion with Helena Lekapena[citation needed]
Vysheslav (~977 – ~1010), Prince of Novgorod (988–1010)
a widow of Yaropolk I, a Greek nun
Sviatopolk the Accursed (~979), possibly the surviving son of Yaropolk
Rogneda (the daughter of Rogvolod), later upon divorce she entered a convent taking the Christian name of Anastasia
Izyaslav of Polotsk (~979, Kiev), Prince of Polotsk (989–1001)
Yaroslav the Wise (no earlier than 983), Prince of Rostov (987–1010), Prince of Novgorod (1010–1034), Grand Prince of Kiev (1016–1018, 1019–1054). Possibly he was a son of Anna rather than Rogneda. Another interesting fact that he was younger than Sviatopolk according to the words of Boris in the Tale of Bygone Years and not as it was officially known. Also the fact of him being the Prince of Rostov is highly doubtful although not discarded.
Vsevolod (~984–1013), possibly the Swedish Prince Wissawald of Volyn (~1000), was perhaps the first husband of Estrid Svendsdatter
Mstislav, other Mstislav that possibly died as an infant if he was ever born
Mstislav of Chernigov (~983), Prince of Tmutarakan (990–1036), Prince of Chernigov (1024–1036), other sources claim him to be son of other mothers (Adela, Malfrida, or some other Bulgarian wife)
Predslava, a concubine of Boleslaw I Chrobry according to Gesta principum Polonorum
Premislava, (?–1015), some source state that she was a wife of the Duke Laszlo (Vladislav) "the Bald" of Arpadians
Mstislava, in 1018 was taken by Boleslaw I Chrobry among the other daughters
Bulgarian Adela, some sources claim that Adela is not necessarily Bulgarian as Boris and Gleb were born from some other wife
Boris (~986), Prince of Rostov (~1010–1015), remarkable is the fact that Rostov Principality as well as the Principality of Murom used to border the territory of Volga Bolgars
Gleb (~987), Prince of Murom (1013–1015), as Boris, Gleb is being also claimed the son of Anna Porphyrogenita
Stanislav (~985–1015), Prince of Smolensk (988–1015), possible of another wife and a fate of whom is not certain
Sudislav (?–1063), Prince of Pskov (1014–1036), possible of another wife, but he is mentioned in Nikon's Chronicles. He spent 35 years in prison and later before dying turned into a monk.
Malfrida
Sviatoslav (~982–1015), Prince of Drevlians (990–1015)
Anna Porphyrogenita
Theofana, a wife of Novgorod posadnik Ostromir, a grandson of semi-legendary Dobrynya (highly doubtful is the fact of her being Anna's offspring)
a granddaughter of Otto the Great (possibly Rechlinda Otona [Regelindis])
Maria Dobroniega of Kiev (~1012), the Duchess of Poland (1040–1087), married around 1040 to Casimir I the Restorer, Duke of Poland, her maternity as daughter of this wife is deduced from her apparent age
other possible family
Vladimirovna, an out-of-marriage daughter (d. 1044), married to Bernard, Margrave of the Nordmark.
Pozvizd (prior to 988–?), a son of Vladimir according to Hustyn Chronicles. He, possibly, was the Prince Khrisokhir mentioned by Niketas Choniates.
Significance and legacy

Vladimir the Great portrait on obverse ?1 bill circa 2006

The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate the feast day of St. Vladimir on 15 July.[32]

The town Volodymyr-Volynskyi in north-western Ukraine was founded by Vladimir and is named after him.[33] The foundation of another town, Vladimir in Russia, is usually attributed to Vladimir Monomakh. However some researchers argue that it was also founded by Vladimir the Great.[34]

St Volodymyr's Cathedral, one of the largest cathedrals in Kiev, is dedicated to Vladimir the Great, as was originally the University of Kiev. The Imperial Russian Order of St. Vladimir and Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in the United States are also named after him.

The memory of Vladimir was also kept alive by innumerable Russian folk ballads and legends, which refer to him as Krasno Solnyshko (the Fair (or Red) Sun). The Varangian period of Eastern Slavic history ceases with Vladimir, and the Christian period begins. The appropriation of Kievan Rus' as part of national history has also been a topic of contention in Ukrainophile vs. Russophile schools of historiography since the Soviet era.[35]

During his leadership, all branches of the economy prospered under him.[36] He was able to mint coins and regulated foreign affairs with other countries such as trade. Through trade he brought in Greek wines, Baghdad spices, and Arab horses to trade at the markets of Kiev.

Vladimir the Great on the Millennium of Russia monument in Novgorod

Monument to Vladimir the Great and the monk Fyodor at Pushkin Park in Vladimir, Russia

Vladimir as a symbol of Ukrainian nationalism: "St Volodymyr – Ruler of Ukraine, 980–1015, erected by Ukrainians in Great Britain in 1988 to celebrate the establishment of Christianity in Ukraine by St. Volodymir in 988"

See also

Saints portal
List of Russian rulers
List of Ukrainian rulers
Family life and children of Vladimir I
List of people known as The Great
Saint Vladimir Monument
Prince Vladimir, Russian animated feature film (2006)
Viking (film)
Vladimir Putin

Notes

Dyba, Yury (2012). Aleksandrovych V.; Voitovych, Leontii; et al., eds. ?????????-?????? ?????? ???????? ??????????? ???????????? ??? ?????????? ????? ?????????? ??????????????: ??????????? ?????????? ???? [Historical-geographic figurative context of the chronicled report about the birth of Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavovich: localisation of a busy village] (PDF). ????? ????: ??????? ? ???????? [Era of the Princes: history and culture] (in Ukrainian). Lviv. 6. ISSN 2221-6294. Retrieved 7 January 2018.
Harvard Ukrainian studies, Vol. 12–13, p. 190, Harvard Ukrainian studies, 1990
Volodimer? is the East Slavic form of the given name; this form was influenced and partially replaced by the Old Bulgarian (Old Church Slavonic) form Vladimer? (by folk etymology later also Vladimir?; in modern East Slavic, the given name is rendered Ukrainian: ????????? Volodymyr, Russian: ?????´??? Vladimir, Belarusian: ?????i?i? Uladzimir. See Vladimir (name) for details.
Fagrskinna ch. 21 (ed. Finnur Jâonsson 1902–8, p. 108).
Companion to the Calendar: A Guide to the Saints and Mysteries of the Christian Calendar, p. 105, Mary Ellen Hynes, Ed. Peter Mazar, LiturgyTrainingPublications, 1993
National geographic, Vol. 167, p. 290, National Geographic Society, 1985
Vladimir I (Grand Prince of Kiev), Encyclopµdia Britannica
Den hellige Vladimir av Kiev (~956–1015), Den katolske kirke website
Vladimir the Great, Encyclopedia of Ukraine
Saint Vladimir the Baptizer: Wetting cultural appetites for the Gospel, Dr. Alexander Roman, Ukrainian Orthodoxy website
Ukrainian Catholic Church: part 1., The Free Library
Vladimir I, Encyclopµdia Britannica
???? ?. ?????????-???????????? ???????? ??????????? ???????????? ??? ?????????? ????? ?????????? ??????????????: ??????????? ?????????? ???? // ????? ????. ??????? ? ????????. ?????: ???????? ??????????????? ??. ?. ????'??????? ??? ???????. — ???. VI. — ?. 37-70

References

Golden, P. B. (2006) "Rus." Encyclopaedia of Islam (Brill Online). Eds.: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Vladimir, St". Encyclopµdia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Some historical analysis and political insights on the state affairs of Vladimir the Great (in Russian)
Moss, Walter G. (2002) "A History of Russia Volume I: To 1917" (London: Anthem Press).
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Vladimir I of Kiev.
Velychenko, Stephen, How Valdamarr Sveinaldsson got to Moscow (krytyka.com), 9 November 2015.

Vladimir I Sviatoslavich
SuffixSuggest a change for this event Czar of Russia
BornSuggest a change for this event 960 , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Gender Male
NameSuggest a change for this event Vladimir I "The Great" Sviatoslavich
ReligionSuggest a change for this event Abt 989 , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Converted to Christianity
DiedSuggest a change for this event 15 Jul 1015 , Berestovo, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
BuriedSuggest a change for this event Church of Tithes, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Headstones Submit Headstone Photo Submit Headstone Photo
Person ID I3910 Full Tree
Last Modified 27 Sep 2013

Father Sviatoslav I Igorovich, Czar of Russia
b. 942, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 972, , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Mother Duchess Malusha von Lèubeck
b. Abt 944, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1002
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 959 , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location [1, 2, 6]
StatusSuggest a change for this event Concubinage
Family ID F1903 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 1 Adlaga de Kiev, Grand Duchess of Kiev
b. Abt 959, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 976 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
1. Vysheslav Vladimirovich, Duke of Novgorod
b. Abt 977, of, Novgorod, Novgorod Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1010
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1818 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 2 Olava de Kiev, Grand Duchess of Kiev
b. Abt 953, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 977 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1819 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 3 Predislava de Kiev, Grand Duchess of Kiev
b. Abt 960, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
MarriedSuggest a change for this event 980 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1820 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 4 Milolika Asen, Princess of Bulgaria
b. Abt 963, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Bef 982 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
1. Boris David Vladimirovich, Duke of Rostov
b. Abt 982, of, Rostov-Yaroslavski, Yaroslavski Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 24 Jul 1015
2. Gleb Roman Vladimirovich, Duke of Murom
b. Abt 983, of, Murom, Vladimir Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Abt 5 Aug 1015
3. Stanslav Vladimirovich, Duke of Smolensk
b. Abt 984, of, Smolensk, Smolensk Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 1015
4. Pozvizd Vladimirovich, Duke of Vladimir-Volnysk
b. Abt 985, of, Vladimir-Volynski, Volyn Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 1015
5. Sudislav Vladimirovich, Duke of Pskov
b. Abt 986, of, Pskov, Pskov Oblast, Russia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1063-1065
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1821 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 5 Malfriede Premysl, Princess of Bohemia
b. Abt 960, of, Prague, Praha, Czechoslovakia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 987 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
1. Svyatoslav Vladimirovich, Duke of Drevlians
b. Abt 988, of, Ovruch, Zhitomir Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 15 Jul 1015
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1823 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 6 Miss Oehringen
b. Abt 991, of Oehringen, Jagstkreis, Baden-Wèurttemberg, Schwaben, Germany Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 14 Aug 1018
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 1013 of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1824 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 7 Princess Rogneda zu Polotsk
b. Abt 962, of, Polotsk, Polotsk Oblast, Byelorussia Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1002
MarriedSuggest a change for this event Abt 977 of, Polotsk, Polotsk Oblast, Byelorussia Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
+ 1. Iszyaslav Vladimirovich, Duke of Polotsk
b. Abt 978, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1001
2. Vsevolod Vladimirovich, Prince of Vladimir
b. Abt 979, of, Vladimir-Volynski, Volyn Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1015
+ 3. Yaroslav I Vladimirovich, Czar of Russia
b. 980, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 20 Feb 1054, , Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
4. Prâemieslawa Vladimirovna, Princess of Kiev
b. Abt 984, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Aft 1018
5. Mstislav Vladimirovich, Duke of Chernigov
b. Abt 988, of, Chernigov, Chernigov Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1035-1036, , Chernigov, Chernigov Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1828 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Wife 8 Anna Lekapene, Princess of the Byzantine Empire
b. 13 Mar 963, of, Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantium Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1011
MarriedSuggest a change for this event 989 , Kherson, Kherson Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
MARRIAGE: Married 7 Pagan wives (Rogneide was one) by whom he had 22 children (prior to Anna) [7]
Children
+ 1. Arlogia Vladimirovna, Countess of Orkney
b. Abt 1011, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. Yes, date unknown
+ 2. Dobronegra Mariya Vladimirovna, Princess of Kiev
b. Abt 1012, of, Kiev, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine Find all individuals with events at this location
d. 1087
Last Modified 17 Aug 2010
Family ID F1933

Volodymyr the Great (Valdamar, Volodimer, Vladimir), b ca 956, d 15 July 1015 in Vyshhorod, near Kyiv. Grand prince of Kyiv from 980; son of Sviatoslav I Ihorovych and Malusha; half-brother of Yaropolk I Sviatoslavych and Oleh Sviatoslavych; and father of 11 princes by five wives, including Sviatopolk I, Yaroslav the Wise, Mstyslav Volodymyrovych, and Saints Borys and Hlib. In 969 Grand Prince Sviatoslav I named his son Volodymyr the prince of Novgorod the Great, where the latter ruled under the guidance of his uncle, Dobrynia. In 977 a struggle for power broke out among Sviatoslav's sons. Yaropolk I, who was then the grand prince of Kyiv, seized the Derevlianian land and Novgorod, thereby forcing Volodymyr to flee to Scandinavia. In 980 Volodymyr returned to Rus’ with a Varangian force, expelled Yaropolk's governors from Novgorod, and took Polatsk after a battle in which Prince Rogvolod of Polatsk was slain. Volodymyr took Rogvolod's daughter, Rohnida, as his wife. Later that year he captured Kyiv and had Yaropolk murdered, thereby becoming the grand prince , and married Yaropolk's Greek widow.

Over the next 35 years Volodymyr expanded the borders of Kyivan Rus’ and turned it into one of the most powerful states in Eastern Europe. After taking the Cherven towns and Peremyshl from Poland (981) and waging successful wars against the Viatichians (981–2) and Radimichians (984) he united the remaining East Slavic tribes, divided his realm into lands, and installed his sons or viceroys to govern them, dispense princely justice, and collect tribute. In 983 Volodymyr waged war against the Yatvingians and thereby gained access to the Baltic Sea. In 985 he defeated the Khazars and Volga Bulgars and secured his state's eastern frontier. Volodymyr devoted considerable attention to defending his southern borders against the nomadic Pechenegs and Chorni Klobuky. He had lines of fortifications built along the Irpin River, the Stuhna River, the Trubizh River, and the Sula River and founded fortified towns (eg, Vasylkiv, Voin, and Bilhorod) that were joined by earthen ramparts.

Volodymyr attributed his victory over Yaropolk I Sviatoslavych to the support he received from pagan forces, and had idols of the deities Perun, Khors, Dazhboh, Stryboh, Symarhl, and Mokosh erected on a hill overlooking his palace in Kyiv. Later he became convinced that a monotheistic religion would consolidate his power, as Christianity and Islam had done for neighboring rulers. His choice was determined after the Byzantine emperor Basil II turned to him for help in defeating his rival, Bardas Phocas. Volodymyr offered military aid only if he was allowed to marry Basil's sister, Anna, and Basil agreed to the marriage only after Volodymyr promised to convert himself and his subjects to Christianity. Volodymyr, his family, and his closest associates were baptized in December 987, when he took the Christian name Vasylii (Basil). Soon afterward he ordered the destruction of all pagan idols. The mass baptism of the citizens of Kyiv took place on 1 August 988 (see Christianization of Ukraine), and the remaining population of Rus’ was slowly converted, sometimes by force. In 988 Volodymyr sent several thousand warriors to help Basil regain power and married Anna, and in 989 he besieged Chersonese Taurica, took it from Bardas Phocas, and returned it to Basil.

The Christianization of Rus’ was essentially engineered by Byzantium. Byzantium supplied the first hierarchs and other missionary clergy in Rus’ and introduced Byzantine art, education, and literature there. During Volodymyr's reign the first schools and churches were built, notably the Church of the Tithes in Kyiv. The adoption of Christianity as the official religion facilitated the unification of the Rus’ tribes and the establishment of foreign dynastic, political, cultural, religious, and commercial relations, particularly with the Byzantine Empire, Bulgaria, and Germany. Relations with Poland improved after Volodymyr's son Sviatopolk I married the daughter of Prince Boleslaw I the Brave in 992. Volodymyr received papal emissaries in 986, 988, 991, 992, and 1000 and sent his own envoys to Rome in 993 and 1001.

After Anna's death in 1011, Volodymyr married the daughter of Count Kuno von Enningen. Toward the end of his life his sons Sviatopolk of Turiv and Yaroslav the Wise of Novgorod challenged his rule. Having defeated Sviatopolk, Volodymyr died while preparing a campaign against Yaroslav and was buried in the Church of the Tithes. He was succeeded briefly by Sviatopolk.

The Rus’ clergy venerated Volodymyr because of his support of the church, but he was canonized only after 1240. Thereafter he was referred to as ‘the holy, equal to the Apostles, grand prince of Kyiv.’ The oldest extant mention of him as Saint Volodymyr is found in the Hypatian Chronicle under the year 1254, and his feast day, 28 July (15 July OS), was first celebrated in 1263.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Zavitnevich, V. Vladimir Sviatoi kak politicheskii deiatel’ (Kyiv 1888)
Nazarko, I. Sviatyi Volodymyr Velykyi, Volodar i Khrystytel’ Rusy-Ukraèiny (960–1015) (Rome 1954)
Poppe, A. ‘The Political Background to the Baptism of Rus’: Byzantine-Russian Relations between 986 and 989,’ Dumbarton Oaks Papers, no. 30 (1976); repr in his Rise of Christian Russia (London 1982)
Volkoff, V. Vladimir the Russian Viking ([London] 1984)
Tolochko, Petro. Sviatyi Volodymyr; Iaroslav Mudryi (Kyiv 1996)

Birth:
What is the meaning of the word, "Ukraine"?

In most Slavic languages, "kraina" means "country" or "land". The word "krai" in Russian is used this way too (several regions within Russia are categorized as "krai"), but its second meaning "edge"/"boundary" is often pitched by Russia to interpret the word "Ukraine" as "borderlands" (of Russia, of course).

Source: https://www.quora.com/What-does-Ukraine-for-Ukrainians-mean

What is the meaning of the word, "Russia"?

1530s, from Medieval Latin Russi "the people of Russia," from Rus, the native name of the people and the country (source of Arabic Rus, Medieval Greek Rhos), originally the name of a group of Swedish merchant/warriors who established themselves around Kiev 9c.

Source: https://www.etymonline.com/word/russia

Religion:
converted to Christianity

355253.

Rogneda of Polotsk, Princess Consort of Rus was born in 0Apr 962 in Polotsk, Russia (daughter of Rogvolod, Prince of Polotsk); died in 1002 in Berestovo, Kiev, Ukraine.

Notes:

Rogneda of Polotsk (962–1002) is the Slavic name for Ragnhild, was a Princess consort of Rus. She was the daughter of Ragnvald (Slavic: Rogvolod) came from Scandinavia and established himself at Polatsk in the mid-10th century.

Life

It has been speculated that Rogneda belonged to the Ynglings royal family of Norway. In or about 980, Vladimir, on learning that she was betrothed to his half-brother Yaropolk I of Kiev, took Polotsk and forced Rogneda to marry him. Having raped Rogneda in the presence of her parents, he ordered them to be killed, along with two of Rogneda's brothers.

Rogneda gave him several children. The four sons were Yaroslav the Wise, Vsevolod, Mstislav of Chernigov, and Izyaslav of Polotsk. She also bore two daughters, one of whom is named by Nestor the Chronicler as Predslava (taken as a concubine of Boleslaus I of Poland, according to Gallus). A later chronicle tells a story, most likely taken from a Norse saga, of Rogneda plotting against Vladimir and asking her elder son, Izyaslav, to kill him. As was the Norse royal custom, she was sent with her elder son to govern the land of her parents, i.e. Polotsk. Izyaslav's line continued to rule Polotsk and the newly found town of Izyaslavl until the Mongol invasion.

After Vladimir converted to Christianity and took Anna Porphyrogeneta as his wife, he had to divorce all his previous wives, including Rogneda. After that, she entered the convent and took the name Anastasia.

Legacy

Around 1825 Kondraty Ryleev wrote a narrative poem entitled Rogneda. This poem became a literary source for her portrayal in the nationalist Russian opera Rogneda by Alexander Serov, which premiered in 1865.

See also

Family life and children of Vladimir I
List of rape victims from history and mythology

Princess Consort of Rus
Rahvalod, Rahnieda (Polacak). ????????, ??????? (???????).jpg
Matchmakers Vladimir Svyatoslavich in Rogvolod (left side); Rogvolod talks with Rogneda (right side).
Reign 980–988
Predecessor Unknown wife of Yaropolk I
Successor Anna Porphyrogeneta
Born 962
Died 1002 [aged 40]
Spouse Vladimir the Great (divorced)
Issue Izyaslav of Polotsk
Yaroslav the Wise
Mstislav of Chernigov
Predlava
Premislava
Mstislava
Father Rogvolod

end of biography

end of biography

Notes:

Married:
List of rape victims from ancient history and mythology:

Rogneda of Polotsk from Belarus/Scandinavian history; raped by Vladimir, half-brother of her betrothed Yaropolk I of Kiev, in the presence of her parents (10th century)

... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rape_victims_from_ancient_history_and_mythology

Children:

177626. Yaroslav, I, Czar of Russia was born in 976 in Kiev, Ukraine; died on 20 Feb 1054 in Kiev, Ukraine.

355254.

Olof Skotkonung, King of Sweden was born in ~980 in (Sweden); died in 1022 in Husaby, Sweden.

Olof married Estrid of the Obotrites, Queen Consort of Sweden(Sweden). Estrid was born in ~979 in (Schleswig-Holstein, Germany); died in 1035 in (Sweden). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

355255.

Estrid of the Obotrites, Queen Consort of Sweden was born in ~979 in (Schleswig-Holstein, Germany); died in 1035 in (Sweden).

Notes:

Estrid (or Astrid) of the Obotrites (c. 979 – 1035) was a Viking age Swedish queen and West Slavic princess, married to Olof Skèotkonung, the King of Sweden, c. 1000–1022, mother of King Anund Jacob of Sweden and the Kievan Rus' saint and grand princess Ingegerd Olofsdotter.

Biography
Legend says that Estrid was taken back to Sweden from a war in the West Slavic area of Mecklenburg as a war-prize. She was most likely given by her father, a tribal chief of the Polabian Obotrites, as a peace offering in a marriage to seal the peace, and she is thought to have brought with her a great dowry, as a great Slavic influence is represented in Sweden from her time, mainly among craftsmen.

Her husband also had a mistress, Edla, who came from the same area in Europe as herself, and who was possibly taken to Sweden at the same time. The king treated Edla and Estrid the same way and gave his son and his two daughters with Edla the same privileges as the children he had with Estrid, though it was Estrid he married and made queen.

Queen Estrid was baptised with her husband, their children and large numbers of the Swedish royal court in 1008, when the Swedish royal family converted to Christianity, although the king promised to respect the freedom of religion - Sweden was not to be Christian until the last religious war between Inge the Elder and Blot-Sweyn of 1084-1088.

Snorre Sturlasson wrote about her, that Estrid was unkind to the children (Emund, Astrid and Holmfrid) of her husband's mistress Edla;

" Queen Estrid was arrogant and not kind towards her stepchildren, and therefore the king sent his son Emund to Vendland, where he was brought up by his maternal relatives".
Not much is known of Estrid as a person. Snorre Sturlasson mentions her as a lover of pomp and luxury, and as hard and strict towards her servants.

Children
Ingegerd Olofsdotter (c. 1001-1054), Grand Princess of Kiev, in Kievan Rus' called Anna, married Yaroslav I the Wise, prince of Novgorod and Kiev.
Anund Jacob (c. 1010-1050), king of Sweden, succeeded Olof as king in c. 1022.
References
êAke Ohlmarks: "Alla Sveriges drottningar" (All the queens of Sweden) (In Swedish)
Snorri Sturluson

end of this biography

Children:

177627. Ingigerd Olofsdottir, Princess of Sweden was born in ~1001 in Sigtuna, Sweden; died on 10 Feb 1050 in Kiev, Ukraine.
Anund Jacob, King of Sweden was born in ~1010 in (Sweden); died in 1050 in (Sweden).

708708.

Notes:

Kenneth II (a.k.a. Cinâaed mac Maâil Choluim) lived from 932 to 995 and was King of Alba from 971 to 995. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline. Kenneth was the son of Malcolm I and brother to King Duff, who had ruled until 966. He became King of Alba on the killing of his predecessor, King Culen, by the Britons of Strathclyde, though it was no until he killed Culen's brother Amlaib in 977 that he was able to rule unchallenged.

Kenneth II spent much of his reign in conflict. He first fought the Britons of Strathclyde, before turning his attention to Northumbria, where he further secured Alba's hold on the lands between the River Forth and the River Tweed against the ever present threat of King Edgar's English forces.

In the north, Scottish claims were being constantly challenged by Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, and much of Caithness, Easter Ross and Inverness-Shire were under Viking control. Kenneth strengthened his ties with the Irish nobility by marrying a Princess of Leinster. They had at least one son, who went on to become Malcolm II.

After a reign of 24 years Kenneth was killed in Fettercairn. According to the chronciles of John of Fordun, this was as a result of a plot mounted by Lady Finella, the daughter of the Earl of Angus. After the murder Finella fled to St Cyrus before being caught and executed. Kenneth II was buried in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel on the Isle of Iona. Kenneth II was succeeded by his third cousin Constantine III, son of King Culen.

end of biography

Cinâaed mac Maâil Coluim (Modern Gaelic: Coinneach mac Mhaoil Chaluim[1] anglicised as Kenneth II, and nicknamed An Fionnghalach, "The Fratricide";[2] died 995) was King of Scots (Alba). The son of Malcolm I (Mâael Coluim mac Domnaill), he succeeded King Cuilâen (Cuilâen mac Iduilb) on the latter's death at the hands of Rhydderch ap Dyfnwal in 971.

Primary sources

The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba was compiled in Kenneth's reign, but many of the place names mentioned are entirely corrupt, if not fictitious.[3] Whatever the reality, the Chronicle states that "[h]e immediately plundered [Strathclyde] in part. Kenneth's infantry were slain with very great slaughter in Moin Uacoruar." The Chronicle further states that Kenneth plundered Northumbria three times, first as far as Stainmore, then to Cluiam and lastly to the River Dee by Chester. These raids may belong to around 980, when the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records attacks on Cheshire.[4]

In 973, the Chronicle of Melrose reports that Kenneth, with Mâael Coluim I (Mâael Coluim mac Domnaill), the King of Strathclyde, "Maccus, king of very many islands" (i.e. Magnus Haraldsson (Maccus mac Arailt), King of Mann and the Isles) and other kings, Welsh and Norse, came to Chester to acknowledge the overlordship of the English king Edgar the Peaceable[5] at a council in Chester. It may be that Edgar here regulated the frontier between the southern lands of the kingdom of Alba and the northern lands of his English kingdom. Cumbria was English, the western frontier lay on the Solway. In the east, the frontier lay somewhere in later Lothian, south of Edinburgh.[6]

The Annals of Tigernach, in an aside, name three of the Mormaers of Alba in Kenneth's reign in entry in 976: Cellach mac Fâindgaine, Cellach mac Baireda and Donnchad mac Morgaâind. The third of these, if not an error for Domnall mac Morgaâind, is very likely a brother of Domnall, and thus the Mormaer of Moray. The Mormaerdoms or kingdoms ruled by the two Cellachs cannot be identified.

The feud which had persisted since the death of King Indulf (Idulb mac Causantâin) between his descendants and Kenneth's family persisted. In 977 the Annals of Ulster report that "Amlaâib mac Iduilb [Amlaâib, son of Indulf], King of Scotland, was killed by Cinâaed mac Domnaill." The Annals of Tigernach give the correct name of Amlaâib's killer: Cinâaed mac Maâil Coluim, or Kenneth II. Thus, even if only for a short time, Kenneth had been overthrown by the brother of the previous king.[7]

Adam of Bremen tells that Sweyn Forkbeard found exile in Scotland at this time, but whether this was with Kenneth, or one of the other kings in Scotland, is unknown. Also at this time, Njal's Saga, the Orkneyinga Saga and other sources recount wars between "the Scots" and the Northmen, but these are more probably wars between Sigurd Hlodvisson, Earl of Orkney, and the Mormaers, or Kings, of Moray.[8]

The Chronicle says that Kenneth founded a great monastery at Brechin.

Kenneth was killed in 995, the Annals of Ulster say "by deceit" and the Annals of Tigernach say "by his subjects". Some later sources, such as the Chronicle of Melrose, John of Fordun and Andrew of Wyntoun provide more details, accurately or not. The simplest account is that he was killed by his own men in Fettercairn, through the treachery of Finnguala (also called Fimberhele or Fenella), daughter of Cuncar, Mormaer of Angus, in revenge for the killing of her only son.[9]

The Prophecy of Berchâan adds little to our knowledge, except that it names Kenneth "the kinslayer", and states he died in Strathmore.[10]

Children

Kenneth's son Malcolm II (Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda) was later king of Alba. Kenneth may have had a second son, named either Dâungal or Gille Coemgâain.[11] Sources differ as to whether Boite mac Cinâaeda should be counted a son of Kenneth II or of Kenneth III (Cinâaed mac Duib).[12] Another son of Kenneth may have been Suibne mac Cinâaeda, a king of the Gall Gaidheil who died in 1034.
Interpretation

Kenneth's rival Amlaâib, King of Scotland is omitted by the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba and later Scottish king-lists. The Irish Annals of Tigernach appear to better reflect contemporary events. Amlaâib could be a direct predecessor of Kenneth who suffered damnatio memoriae, or the rival king recognized in parts of Scotland. A period of divided kingship appears likely.[13]

Amlaâib was the heir of his brother Cuilâen, who was killed in a hall-burning. He might have served as a regent north of the River Forth, during the absence of his brother. Kenneth was brother to the deceased Dub, King of Scotland and was most likely an exile. He could claim the throne due to the support of friends and maternal kin. He was likely older and more experienced than his rival king.[13] Amlaâib is the Gaelic form of Ólâafr, suggesting maternal descent from Norsemen. He could possibly claim descent from the Uâi Ímair dynasty. Alex Woolf suggests he was a grandson of Amlaâib Cuarâan, King of Dublin or his cousin Olaf Guthfrithson, which suggests his own group of supporters.[13]

Death

According to John of Fordun (14th century), Kenneth II of Scotland (reigned 971-995) attempted to change the succession rules, allowing "the nearest survivor in blood to the deceased king to succeed", thus securing the throne for his own descendants. He reportedly did so to specifically exclude Constantine (III) and Kenneth (III), called Gryme in this source. The two men then jointly conspired against him, convincing Lady Finella, daughter of Cuncar, Mormaer of Angus, to kill the king. She reportedly did so to achieve personal revenge, as Kenneth II had killed her own son. Entries in the Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, collected by William Forbes Skene, provide the account of Finnela killing Kenneth II in revenge, but not her affiliation to Constantine or his cousins. These entries date to the 12th and 13th centuries.[14][15] The Annals of Ulster simply record "Cinaed son of Mael Coluim [Kenneth, son of Malcolm], king of Scotland, was deceitfully killed", with no indication of who killed him.[16][17]

In the account of John of Fordun, Constantine the Bald, son of King Cullen and Gryme were "plotting unceasingly the death of the king and his son". One day, Kenneth II and his companions went hunting into the woods, "at no great distance from his own abode". The hunt took him to Fettercairn, where Finella resided. She approached him to proclaim her loyalty and invited him to visit her residence, whispering into his ear that she had information about a conspiracy plot. She managed to lure him to "an out-of-the-way little cottage", where a booby trap was hidden. Inside the cottage was a statue, connected by strings to a number of crossbows. If anyone touched or moved the statue, he would trigger the crossbows and fall victim to their arrows. Kenneth II gently touched the statue and "was shot though by arrows sped from all sides, and fell without uttering another word." Finella escaped through the woods and managed to join her abettors, Constantine III and Gryme. The hunting companions soon discovered the bloody king. They were unable to locate Finella, but burned Fettercairn to the ground.[18] Smyth dismisses the elaborate plotting and the mechanical contraption as mere fables, but accepts the basic details of the story, that the succession plans of Kenneth II caused his assassination.[19] Alan Orr Anderson raised his own doubts concerning the story of Finella, which he considered "semi-mythical". He noted that the feminine name Finnguala or Findguala means "white shoulders", but suggested it derived from "find-ela" (white swan). The name figures in toponyms such as Finella Hill (near Fordoun) and Finella Den (near St Cyrus), while local tradition in The Mearns (Kincardineshire) has Finella walking atop the treetops from one location to the other. Anderson thus theorized that Finella could be a mythical figure, suggesting she was a local stream-goddess.[20] A later passage of John of Fordun mentions Finele as mother of Macbeth, King of Scotland (reigned 1040–1057), but this is probably an error based on the similarity of names. Macbeth was son of Findlâaech of Moray, not of a woman called Finella.[20][21]

end of biography

Buried:
in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel... https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/iona/storanschapel/index.html

View images and more history of St Oran's; https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/iona/storanschapel/index.html, (images: https://www.google.com/search?q=Saint+Oran%27s+Chapel+image&client=firefox-b-1-ab&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjcxPKjgIraAhUL71MKHcCmCYoQ7AkIQA&biw=1224&bih=826)

Kenneth married a Princess of Leinster. a was born in (Leinster, Ireland); died in (Scotland). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

708709.

a Princess of Leinster was born in (Leinster, Ireland); died in (Scotland).

Children:

354354. Malcolm II of Scotland, High King of Scotland was born in ~0954 in Scotland; died on 25 Nov 1034 in Glamis, Scotland; was buried in Isle of Iona, Scotland.

710416.

Notes:

Edgar (Old English: Eadgar; c.?943—8 July 975), known as the Peaceful or the Peaceable, was King of England from 959 until his death. He was the younger son of Edmund I and ¥lfgifu of Shaftesbury, and came to the throne as a teenager, following the death of his older brother Eadwig. As king, Edgar further consolidated the political unity achieved by his predecessors, with his reign being noted for its relative stability. His most trusted advisor was Dunstan, whom he recalled from exile and made Archbishop of Canterbury. The pinnacle of Edgar's reign was his coronation at Bath in 973, which was organised by Dunstan and forms the basis for the current coronation ceremony. After his death he was succeeded by his son Edward, although the succession was disputed.

King of the English
Reign 1 October 959 – 8 July 975
Predecessor Eadwig
Successor Edward
Born 943/944
Died 8 July 975 (aged 31/32)
Winchester, Hampshire
Burial Glastonbury Abbey
Spouse ¥thelflµd[1]
Wulfthryth[1]
¥lfthryth
Issue Edward, King of England
Eadgyth[1]
Edmund[2]
¥thelred, King of England
House Wessex
Father Edmund, King of England
Mother ¥lfgifu of Shaftesbury
Religion Christianity

Early years and accession

Edgar was the son of Edmund I and ¥lfgifu of Shaftesbury. Upon the death of King Edmund in 946, Edgar's uncle, Eadred, ruled until 955. Eadred was succeeded by his nephew, Eadwig, the son of Edmund and Edgar's older brother.

Eadwig was not a popular king, and his reign was marked by conflict with nobles and the Church, primarily St Dunstan and Archbishop Oda. In 957, the thanes of Mercia and Northumbria changed their allegiance to Edgar.[3] A conclave of nobles declared Edgar as king of the territory north of the Thames.[4] Edgar became King of England upon Eadwig's death in October 959, aged just 16.

Government

One of Edgar's first actions was to recall Dunstan from exile and have him made Bishop of Worcester (and subsequently Bishop of London and later, Archbishop of Canterbury). Dunstan remained Edgar's advisor throughout his reign. While Edgar may not have been a particularly peaceable man[citation needed], his reign was peaceful. The Kingdom of England was well established, and Edgar consolidated the political unity achieved by his predecessors. By the end of his reign, England was sufficiently unified in that it was unlikely to regress back to a state of division among rival kingships, as it had to an extent under the reign of Eadred. William Blackstone mentions that King Edgar standardised measure throughout the realm.[5] According to George Molyneaux, Edgar's reign, "far more than the reigns of either Alfred or ¥thelstan, was probably the most pivotal phase in the development of the institutional structures that were fundamental to royal rule in the eleventh-century kingdom".[6] Indeed, an early eleventh century king Cnut the Great states in a letter to his subjects that ''it is my will that all the nation, ecclesiastical and lay, shall steadfastly observe Edgar's laws, which all men have chosen and sworn at Oxford''.[7]

Benedictine reform

A coin of Edgar, struck in Winchcombe (c. 973-75).
The Monastic Reform Movement that introduced the Benedictine Rule to England's monastic communities peaked during the era of Dunstan, ¥thelwold, and Oswald (historians continue to debate the extent and significance of this movement).[8]

Dead Man's Plack

In 963, Edgar allegedly killed Earl ¥thelwald, his rival in love, near present-day Longparish, Hampshire.[9] The event was commemorated by the Dead Man's Plack, erected in 1825.[9] In 1875, Edward Augustus Freeman debunked the story as a "tissue of romance" in his book, Historic Essays;[10] however, his arguments were rebutted by naturalist William Henry Hudson in his 1920 book Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn.[4]

Coronation at Bath

Edgar was crowned at Bath and along with his wife ¥lfthryth was anointed, setting a precedent for a coronation of a queen in England itself.[11] Edgar's coronation did not happen until 973, in an imperial ceremony planned not as the initiation, but as the culmination of his reign (a move that must have taken a great deal of preliminary diplomacy). This service, devised by Dunstan himself and celebrated with a poem in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, forms the basis of the present-day British coronation ceremony.

Main article: King Edgar's council at Chester
The symbolic coronation was an important step; other kings of Britain came and gave their allegiance to Edgar shortly afterwards at Chester. Six kings in Britain, including the King of Scots and the King of Strathclyde, pledged their faith that they would be the king's liege-men on sea and land. Later chroniclers made the kings into eight, all plying the oars of Edgar's state barge on the River Dee.[12] Such embellishments may not be factual, and what actually happened is unclear.[13]

Death

Edgar died on 8 July 975 at Winchester, Hampshire. He left behind Edward, who was probably his illegitimate son by ¥thelflµd (not to be confused with the Lady of the Mercians), and ¥thelred, the younger, the child of his wife ¥lfthryth. He was succeeded by Edward. Edgar also had a possibly illegitimate daughter by Wulfthryth, who later became abbess of Wilton. She was joined there by her daughter, Edith of Wilton, who lived there as a nun until her death. Both women were later regarded as saints.[14][15]

Appearance

"[H]e was extremely small both in stature and bulk..."[16]

See also

House of Wessex family tree; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_of_Wessex#House_of_Wessex_family_tree

Edgar married Aelfthryth. Aelfthryth was born about 945; died in 1000-1001. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

710417.

Aelfthryth was born about 945; died in 1000-1001.

Children:

355208. Aethelred the Unready, King of the English was born about 966 in (Wessex) England; died on 23 Apr 1016 in London, England; was buried in London, England.

710418.

Thored Gunnarsson, Earl of Southern Northumbria was born in 938 in Wessex, England; died in 992-994 in Northumberland, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Death: 992, Wessex, England

Notes:

Thored (Old English: £oreº or ´oreº; fl. 979–992) was a 10th-century ealdorman of York, ruler of the southern half of the old Kingdom of Northumbria on behalf of the king of England. He was the son of either Gunnar or Oslac, northern ealdormen. If he was the former, he may have attained adulthood by the 960s, when a man of his name raided Westmorland. Other potential appearances in the records are likewise uncertain until 979, the point from which Thored's period as ealdorman can be accurately dated.

Although historians differ in their opinions about his relationship, if any, to Kings Edgar the Peaceable and Edward the Martyr, it is generally thought that he enjoyed a good relationship with King ¥thelred II. His daughter ¥lfgifu married ¥thelred. Thored was ealdorman in Northumbria for much of his reign, disappearing from the sources in 992 after being appointed by ¥thelred to lead an expedition against the Vikings.

Ealdorman of York
Reign c. 964/974x979–992x994
Predecessor Oslac (?)
Successor ¥lfhelm
Born unknown
unknown
Died 992 or 994
Burial unknown
Issue ¥lfgifu (died 1002)
¥thelstan (died 1010)
Father Gunnar (probable)/
Oslac (potential)
Mother unknown

Origins

The area shaded under "Jorvik" (York), probably corresponds very roughly with Thored's territory of southern Northumbria; it should be noted that the Danelaw as a territory is a modern construct, though Yorkshire was in the area where Dena lagu ("Scandinavian law") was practised

Thored appears to have been of at least partially Scandinavian origin, suggested by the title applied to him in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 992. Here, the ealdorman of Hampshire is called by the English title "ealdorman", while Thored himself is styled by the Scandinavian word eorl (i.e. Earl).[1]

Two accounts of Thored's origins have been offered by modern historians. The first is that he was a son of Oslac, ealdorman of York from 966 until his exile in 975.[2] This argument is partly based on the assertion by the Historia Eliensis, that Oslac had a son named Thorth (i.e. "Thored").[3] The other suggestion, favoured by most historians, is that he was the son of a man named Gunnar.[4] This Gunnar is known to have held land in the East and North Ridings of Yorkshire.[5]

If the latter suggestion is correct, then Thored's first appearance in history is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recension D (EF)'s entry for 966, which recorded the accession of Oslac to the ealdormanry of southern Northumbria:

In this year, Thored, Gunnar's son, harried Westmoringa land, and, in this same year, Oslac succeeded to the office of ealdorman.[6]

The Anglo-Saxon scholar Frank Stenton believed that this was an act of regional faction-fighting, rather than, as had been suggested by others, Thored carrying out the orders of King Edgar the Peaceable.[7] This entry is, incidentally, the first mention of Westmoringa land, that is, Westmorland.[7] Gunnar seems to have been ealdorman earlier in the decade, for in one charter (surviving only in a later cartulary) dated to 963 and three Abingdon charters dated to 965, an ealdorman (dux) called Gunnar is mentioned.[8]

Thored may be the Thored who appears for the first time in charter attestations during the reign of King Edgar (959–75), his earliest possible appearance being in 964, witnessing a grant of land in Kent by King Edgar to St Peter's, Ghent. This is uncertain because the authenticity of this particular charter is unclear.[9] A charter issued by Edgar in 966, granting land in Oxfordshire to a woman named ¥lfgifu, has an illegible ealdorman witness signature beginning with ´, which may be Thored.[10]

Ealdorman

Coin of ¥thelred the Unready.jpgAethelred rev2.jpg
O: Draped bust of ¥thelred II left. +¥£ELRED REX ANGLOR R: Long cross. +EAD?OLD MO C¥NT
'LonCross' penny of ¥thelred II, moneyer Eadwold, Canterbury, c. 997-1003. The cross made cutting the coin into half-pennies or farthings (quarter-pennies) easier. (Note spelling Ead?old in inscription, using Anglo-Saxon letter wynn in place of modern w.)
Thored's governorship as ealdorman, based on charter attestations, cannot be securely dated before 979.[11] He did attest royal charters during the reign of ¥thelred II, the first in 979,[12] six in 983,[13] one in 984,[14] three in 985,[15] one in 988,[16] appearing in such attestations for the last time in 989.[12] It is possible that such appearances represent more than one Thored, though that is not a generally accepted theory.[17] His definite predecessor, Oslac, was expelled from England in 975.[18] The historian Richard Fletcher thought that Oslac's downfall may have been the result of opposing the succession of Edward the Martyr, enemy and brother of ¥thelred II.[19] What is known about Thored's time as ealdorman is that he did not have a good relationship with Oswald, Archbishop of York (971–92). In a memorandum written by Oswald, a group of estates belonging to the archdiocese of York was listed, and Oswald noted that "I held them all until Thored came to power; then was St Peter [to whom York was dedicated] robbed".[20] One of the estates allegedly lost was Newbald, an estate given by King Edgar to a man named Gunnar, suggesting to historian Dorothy Whitelock that Thored may just have been reclaiming land "wrongly alienated from his family".[21]

His relationship with King Edgar is unclear, particularly given the uncertainty of Thored's paternity, Oslac being banished from England in 975, the year of Edgar's death.[2] Richard Fletcher, who thought Thored was the son of Gunnar, argued that Thored's raid on Westmorland was caused by resentment derived from losing out on the ealdormanry to Oslac, and that Edgar thereafter confiscated various territories as punishment.[5] The evidence for this is that Newbald, granted by Edgar to Gunnar circa 963, was bought by Archbishop Osketel from the king sometime before 971, implying that the king had seized the land.[5]

Thored's relationship with the English monarchy under ¥thelred II seems to have been good. ¥lfgifu, the first wife of King ¥thelred II, was probably Thored's daughter.[22] Evidence for this is that in the 1150s Ailred of Rievaulx in his De genealogia regum Anglorum wrote that the wife of ¥thelred II was the daughter of an ealdorman (comes) called Thored (Thorth).[23] Historian Pauline Stafford argued that this marriage was evidence that Thored had been a local rather than royal appointment to the ealdormanry of York, and that ¥thelred II's marriage was an attempt to woo Thored.[24] Stafford was supported in this argument by Richard Fletcher.[25]

Death

Modern imaginative depiction of the ship of Ólâafr Tryggvason, the "Long Serpent" (Illustration by Halfan Egedius)
The date of Thored's death is uncertain, but his last historical appearance came in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, recension C (D, E), under the year 992, which reported the death of Archbishop Oswald and an expedition against a marauding Scandinavian fleet:

In this year the holy Archbishop Oswald left this life and attained the heavenly life, and Ealdorman ¥thelwine [of East Anglia] died in the same year. Then the king and all his counsellors decreed that all the ships that were any use should be assembled at London. And the king then entrusted the expedition to the leadership of Ealdorman ¥lfric (of Hampshire), Earl Thored and Bishop ¥lfstan [.of London or of Rochester.] and Bishop ¥scwig [of Dorchester], and they were to try if they could entrap the Danish army anywhere at sea. Then Ealdorman ¥lfric sent someone to warn the enemy, and then in the night before the day on which they were to have joined battle, he absconded by night from the army, to his own disgrace, and then the enemy escaped, except that the crew of one ship was slain. And then the Danish army encountered the ships from East Anglia and from London, and they made a great slaughter there and captured the ship, all armed and equipped, on which the ealdorman was.[26]

Scandinavians led by Ólâafr Tryggvason had been raiding England's coast since the previous year, when they killed Ealdorman Brihtnoth of Essex at the Battle of Maldon.[27]

Historians think that Thored was either killed fighting these Scandinavians, or else survived, but became disgraced through defeat or treachery.[28] Fletcher speculated that Thored was removed from office and replaced by the Mercian ¥lfhelm as a result of his failure against the Scandinavians.[29] Another historian, William Kapelle, believed Thored was removed because of his Scandinavian descent, an argument based on the Worcester Chronicle's claim, added to the text borrowed from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, that Frµna, Godwine and Frythegyst fled a battle against the Danes in the following year because "they were Danish on their father's side".[30]

A man named ¥thelstan who died at the Battle of Ringmere in 1010, "the king's a¤um", was probably Thored's son.[31] The term a¤um means either "son-in-law" or "brother-in-law", so this ¥thelstan could also have been Thored's grandson by an unknown intermediary.[32] Thored's immediate successor was ¥lfhelm, who appears witnessing charters as ealdorman from 994.[33]

Thored married Hilda LNU(Wessex, England). Hilda was born in 948 in Wessex, England; died in 970 in England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

710419.

Hilda LNU was born in 948 in Wessex, England; died in 970 in England.

Children:

355209. Aelfgifu of York, Queen Consort of England was born in ~970 in (Yorkshire) England; died in 1002.

193552.

Richard de Normandie, II was born on 23 Aug 963 in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, I and Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy); died on 28 Aug 1027 in Normandie, France.

Notes:

Richard II of Normandy, Duke of Normandy, was born 23 August 963 in Normandy, France to Richard I, Duke of Normandy (933-996) and Gunnora, Duchess of Normandy (c936-1031) and died 28 August 1027 in Normandy, France of unspecified causes. He married Judith of Brittany (982-1017) 996 JL . He married Papia of Envermeu . Ancestors are from France.
Contents[show]

Children

Offspring of Richard II of Normandy and Judith of Brittany (982-1017)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Richard III of Normandy (997-1027) 997 1027 Adáele of France (1009-1079)

Adelaide of Normandy (1002-1038) 1002 1038 Renaud I de Bourgogne (c990-1057)

Robert II, Duke of Normandy (c1000-1035) 1000 Normandy, France 22 July 1035 Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050)
Estrid of Normandy (1001)

William of Normandy (c1008-aft1025) 1008 1025
Eleanor of Normandy (c1012-aft1071) 1012 1071 Baldwin IV of Flanders (980-1036)

Matilda of Normandy (c1014-aft1033) 1014 1033

Offspring of Richard II of Normandy and Papia of Envermeu
Name Birth Death Joined with
Mauger de Rouen (c1019-c1055) 1019 1055
Guillaume de Talou (c1022-aft1054) 1022 1054 Beatrice de Ponthieu (c1035-c1082)

Noteworthy descendants include

Henry II of England (1133-1189)
William I of England (1027-1087)
Namesakes of Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027)

193553.

Judith de Bretagne was born in 982 in Rennes, France (daughter of Conan of Rennes, I, Count of Rennes, Duke of Brittany and Ermengarde of Anjou); died in 1017 in Normandy, France.

Notes:

Judith of Brittany was born 982 to Conan I of Rennes (927-992) and Ermengarde of Anjou (bef967-) and died 1017 of unspecified causes. She married Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027) 996 JL . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]
Judith is a 10th generation descendant of Charlemagne (747-814) through her mother. There are two disputed lines (through her father and her maternal grandfather) that place her in generations 9.

Children

Offspring of Judith of Brittany and Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Richard III of Normandy (997-1027) 997 1027 Adáele of France (1009-1079)

Adelaide of Normandy (1002-1038) 1002 1038 Renaud I de Bourgogne (c990-1057)

Robert II, Duke of Normandy (c1000-1035) 1000 Normandy, France 22 July 1035 Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050)
Estrid of Normandy (1001)

William of Normandy (c1008-aft1025) 1008 1025
Eleanor of Normandy (c1012-aft1071) 1012 1071 Baldwin IV of Flanders (980-1036)

Matilda of Normandy (c1014-aft1033) 1014 1033

Noteworthy descendants include

Henry II of England (1133-1189)
William I of England (1027-1087)

Children:

192550. Richard Normandie was born in ~0997 in Normandie, France; died on 6 Aug 1027 in (Normandy, France).
96776. Duke Robert de Normandie, II was born in ~1005 in Normandie, France; died on 22 Jul 1035 in Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey.

3096832.

Ragnvald Eysteinsson, Earl of Mar was born in 825 in Jamtland, Sweden; died in 890-894 in Giske, Norway; was buried in Giske, Norway.

Notes:

Rognvald Eysteinsson (fl. 865) was the founding Jarl (or Earl) of M²re in Norway, and a close relative and ally of Harald Fairhair, the earliest known King of Norway. In the Norse language he is known as Rognvaldr Eysteinsson and in modern Norwegian as Ragnvald M²rejarl. He is sometimes referred to with bynames that may be translated into modern English as "Rognvald the Wise" or "Rognvald the Powerful".

The earliest available sources regarding Rognvald are mutually contradictory and were compiled long after he died. The best known are the Norse Sagas, although modern scholars highlight many inconsistencies and improbable claims regarding Rognvald in the sagas, and believe that they must be treated with caution:[2] The texts of the sagas were compiled three centuries after the events described and their accuracy in regard to Rognvald's life and historical significance is now questioned. Hence some scholars instead emphasise other accounts, closer to the historical period in question, such as Irish and Scottish sources.

While Rognvald does appear to have had some kind of role in the founding of the Norse Earldom of Orkney, most historians now doubt claims in the Sagas that Rognvald led one particular "great voyage" - a Norwegian expedition that attacked rebel vikings, who had been raiding Norway from bases on Orkney and Shetland, before raiding the Scottish mainland, Ireland and the Isle of Man. It is now generally believed that any such expedition would have occurred after Rognvald's lifetime. A modern authority on Orcadian history, William P. L. Thomson, comments that the story of the "great voyage is so thoroughly ingrained in popular and scholarly history, both ancient and modern, that it comes as a bit of a shock to realise that it might not be true."[3]

Modern scholars also highlight inconsistencies and improbable claims in the sagas' claims regarding: the relationship between Rognvald and Harald; the names and biographies of Rognvald's immediate family, and; the founding of the earldom of M²re.

Rognvald was the father of Torf-Einarr (d. circa 910) an earl of Orkney. Some Norse accounts claimed that another son, Hrâolfr, settled in France and, under the name Rollo (d. 930), founded the Duchy of Normandy. However, French sources suggest that Rollo's father was an unnamed Danish or Norwegian nobleman, or a viking named Ketill.

Contents
1 Traditional accounts
1.1 Sources
1.2 Family
1.3 Death and legacy
2 Modern interpretations
2.1 Harald Fairhair and the voyage to the west
2.2 Founding of the earldom of Orkney
2.3 Rognvald's brother and sons
2.4 Similarities to Ragnall ua Ímair
2.5 Broad themes
3 References
4 External links
Traditional accounts

Sources

The oldest account that may refer to Rognvald and the Earldom of Orkney appears to be the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. These annals are believed to date from the lifetime of Donnchad mac Gilla Pâatraic, who died in 1039,[4] although they survive only as incomplete copies made by Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh (17th century).

...for it was not long before this that there had been every war and every trouble in Norway, and this was the source of that war in Norway: two younger sons of Albdan, king of Norway, drove out the eldest son, i.e. Ragnall son of Albdan, for fear that he would seize the kingship of Norway after their father. So Ragnall came with his three sons to the Orkney Islands. Ragnall stayed there then, with his youngest son.
Fragmentary Annals of Ireland, FA 330. Edited and translated by Joan N. Radnor.
These events are placed after an account of the devastation of Fortriu, dated to around 866,[5] and the mention of an eclipse confirms a date of 865.[6]

Dating the Orkneyinga saga has proven to be controversial but a recent analysis has the "majority of scholars in favour of dates between 1170 and 1220"[7] whilst admitting that "it remains to be established when, why, where, for whom and by whom it was written".[8] Much of the information it contains is "hard to corroborate".[2]

Rognvald is also referred to in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla (written c. 1230), written in Iceland.

Christian Krohg's portrait of Snorri Sturluson, 13th century compiler of the Heimskringla. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Snorre_Sturluson-Christian_Krohg.jpg
While the Historia Norvegiae (written c. 1505) includes an account of the foundation of the Orkney earldom, as well as some questionable details about pre-Viking Orkney, it has relatively little to say about Rognvald.

Family

It is not certain that the Ragnall of the Irish annals is synonymous with Rognvald Eysteinsson. The relevant entry goes on to describe Ragnall's older sons raiding in Spain and North Africa, but there is no specific mention of the Earldom of Orkney. There is also a separate piece of circumstantial evidence, suggesting a link between Ragnall and the 9th century figure Ragnar Lodbrok: runic inscriptions found inside Maeshowe, dating from the 12th century, state that the mound was "built before Loºbrâok".[6]

There is no agreement in the available sources on Rognvald's parentage. According to the Irish annals, Ragnall was the son of "Halfdan, King of Lochlann". This is generally understood to mean Halfdan the Black, which would make Ragnall the brother of King Harald Fairhair. This is contradicted by later Norse sagas, which suggest that Halfdan was Rognvald's grandfather.[9] The Orkneyinga saga says that Rognvald was the son of Eystein Ivarsson and grandson of Ívarr Upplendingajarl.[10]

He was married, according to the Orkneyinga saga to Ragnhild, the daughter of a man named Hrâolfr Nose,[11] although in the Heimskringla his wife is named Hild.[12]

Both sagas refer to six sons. The oldest, "by concubines", were Hallad, Einarr and Hrollaug, who were "grown men when their brothers born in marriage were still children".[11][12] The latter were Ivar, Hrâolfr, and Thorir the Silent. Hrâolfr, who "was so big that no horse could carry him", hence his byname of "Ganger-Hrâolf",[11] is identified by the saga writers with Rollo, founder of Duchy of Normandy (in 911).[12]

In the Orkneyinga saga Rognvald was made the Earl of M²re by Harald Fairhair. The Saga of Harald Fairhair in Heimskringla recounts that Rognvald caused Harald Fairhair to be given his byname by cutting and dressing his hair, which had been uncut for ten years on account of his vow never to cut it until he was ruler of all Norway.[13] Rognvald accompanied the king on a great military expedition. First the islands of Shetland and Orkney were cleared of vikings who had been raiding Norway and then continued on to Scotland, Ireland and the Isle of Man. During this campaign Rognvald's son Ivarr was killed and in compensation Harald granted Rognvald Orkney and Shetland.

Rognvald thereafter returned to Norway, giving the northern isles to his brother Sigurd Eysteinsson.[14][11] Sigurd had been the forecastleman on Harald's ship and after sailing back east the king "gave Sigurd the title of earl".[11] However, the Heimskringla states specifically that Sigurd was the first Earl of Orkney.[15] According to the Orkneyinga Saga, after Sigurd became earl he died in a curious fashion, following a battle with Mâael Brigte of Moray. Sigurd's son Gurthorm ruled for a single winter after this and died childless.[16][17] Rognvald's son Hallad then inherited the title. However, unable to constrain Danish raids on Orkney, he gave up the earldom and returned to Norway, which "everyone thought was a huge joke."[18] Still, there is a tradition among the folk at Strath Halladale, Sutherland, which is named for Hallad, that he returned and was slain in battle at the beginning of the tenth century and was buried near the battle site in a circular trench ten or twelve feet wide. His sword, it is said, was placed beside him in the grave, and a stone was placed in the center of the circle, part of which was still visible at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The site was near a little town called Dal Halladha, Halladha's field.[19]

A page from the Orkneyinga saga, as it appears in the 14th century Flateyjarbâok. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6a/Flatey_Book%2C_Orkneyinga_saga.jpg/220px-Flatey_Book%2C_Orkneyinga_saga.jpg
The Danish raids caused Rognvald to fly into a rage and summon his sons Thorir and Hrolluag. He predicted that Thorir's path would keep him in Norway and that Hrolluag was destined seek his fortune in Iceland. Turf-Einar, the youngest, then came forward and offered to go to the islands. Rognvald said: "Considering the kind of mother you have, slave-born on each side of her family, you are not likely to make much of a ruler. But I agree, the sooner you leave and the later you return the happier I'll be."[20] His father's misgivings notwithstanding, Torf-Einarr succeeded in defeating the Danes and founded a dynasty which retained control of the islands for centuries after his death.[21]

Historia Norvegiae includes some questionable details about pre-Viking Orkney - such as an account of the Picts as a small people who hid in the daytime - as well as the foundation of the Orkney earldom,.

In the days of Harald Fairhair, king of Norway, certain pirates, of the family of the most vigorous prince Ronald [Rognvald], set out with a great fleet, and crossed the Solundic sea..., and subdued the islands to themselves. And being there provided with safe winter seats, they went in summer-time working tyranny upon the English, and the Scots, and sometimes also upon the Irish, so that they took under their rule, from England, Northumbria; from Scotland, Caithness; from Ireland, Dublin, and the other sea-side towns.[22]

This account does not specifically associate Rognvald with the earldom, attributing the "dominion" of the islands to the anonymous kinfolk of his son Hrâolfr.[23]

Death and legacy
Rognvald was killed by King Harald's son Halfdan Hêalegg and Gudrod Gleam, who engineered a sudden attack, surrounding the house in which Rognvald was staying, and burned it to the ground with the earl and 60 of his men inside it. Harald "flew into a rage" when he heard about this and sent out a "great force" against Gudrod who was then banished. Halfdan escaped into the western seas and Rognvald's death was later avenged by Torf-Einarr, who killed him on North Ronaldsay and then made peace with Harald. Rognvald's son Thorir was then made Earl of M²re by Harald, who also gave Thorir his daughter Alof in marriage.[24][25][26]

The sagas thus identify Rognvald as the apical figure of the Norse Earls of Orkney who controlled the islands until the early 13th century, and a forerunner of important Icelandic families. Furthermore, through his son Hrolfr, Rognvald is portrayed as an ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy who, following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, became the kings of England.[11]

Modern interpretations
Harald Fairhair and the voyage to the west
Black and white drawing of a snapshot showing shipmasts with flags and warriors marching below. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/Kong-magnus-berrfott-menn.jpg/170px-Kong-magnus-berrfott-menn.jpg
Magnus Barefoot's army in Ireland. Magnus' actions in the west clearly form the basis of the saga narrative about the submission of Orkney and Shetland to Harald Fairhair's fleet.[27]
Rognvald's life occurs within the first eight short chapters within the Orkneyinga saga and it is clear that in this early period it contains generally less detail and historical accuracy than in the later events it describes.[28] Recorded in the 13th century, the sagas are informed by Norwegian politics of the day.

Harald Fairhair's supposed expeditions to the west, recounted by Snorri Sturluson in Heimskringla are no longer accepted as historical realities by many modern historians, including Thomson.[3] Later (mid-13th century) rivalry between the Norwegians and the Kings of the Scots over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man are seen to have driven Sturluson's account.[29] At least in part, the sagas aim to legitimise Norwegian claims to both the Northern Isles and the Kingdom of the Isles in the west.[27] The situation faced by Earl Harald Maddadsson of Orkney in 1195, when he was forced to submit himself to royal authority after an ill-judged intervention in Norwegian affairs, would have made legendary material of this nature of considerable interest in Orkney, at the time that the sagas were written.[30]

It is also clear that elements in the narrative are drawn from the much later expeditions undertaken by Magnus Barefoot.[27]

Nonetheless, the view that the Orkney earldom was created by "members of the M²re family" continues to receive academic support.[31]

Harald Fairhair's victory in the Battle of Hafrsfjord, which gave him dominion over parts of Norway, is traditionally dated to 872, but was probably later, perhaps as late as 900.[32] What little is known of Scottish events in the period from the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba would correspond equally well with Harald's attacks on Scotland in the reign of Domnall mac Causantâin (ruled 889-900).[33] However, this would not correspond with the sequence in the earliest account of the origins of the Orkney earldom, which places this a generation earlier. The entry in the Fragmentary Annals at an early date also makes it difficult to reconcile the saga claims that Harald Fairhair was involved in Rognvald's conquest of the northern isles.

The monument at Haraldshaugen, erected to celebrate the millennial anniversary of Norway's unification under the rule of King Harald Fairhair after the Battle of Hafrsfjord. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Haraldshaugen.JPG/220px-Haraldshaugen.JPG
Other saga material provides an alternative description. In the Eyrbyggja saga the same story of a great expedition to punish unruly Vikings who were raiding Norway is undertaken, but here it is Ketil flatnefr (Ketil Flatnose) who leads it. Although this is apparently done at Harald's behest, Ketil then claims the islands as his own. Once again, the chronology is flawed by Harald's inclusion in the tale as other information provided about Ketil gives him a floruit of the mid, rather than late, 9th century.[3]

Furthermore, contemporary Irish sources have a great deal to say about Viking raids on the coasts of Ireland and southern Scotland and those who led them, but none mention King Harald. The earliest of the large expeditions again belong to a period-the 840s-that pre-dates the time of Harald's kingship.[34]

Smyth (1984) credits the launching of the great voyage to the west to Olaf the White, whom he provides with a royal Vestfold origin along with various military activities in Scotland and for whom, assuming an identification of Olaf with Amlaib "Conung" the King of Dublin, there is a contemporary Irish reference dating to 853.[35] Icelandic sources also have Olaf marrying Aud the Deep-Minded, Ketil flatnefr's daughter, and the ''Annals of Ulster'' record what may be dynastic in-fighting between Olaf and his father-in-law in 857.[36][Note 1]

Founding of the earldom of Orkney
By implication the Orkneyinga saga identifies Rognvald as the founder of the earldom, although Heimskringla has his brother Sigurd as the first to formally hold the title. Other sources are less specific (see above) and the sagas have been interpreted in various other ways. Smyth (1984), having banished King Harald's role in the voyage to the west to the realms of myth concludes that the role of the brothers Eysteinsson can be similarly so dispatched and that Torf-Einarr "may be regarded as the first historical earl of Orkney".[38]

Drawing on Adam of Bremen's assertion that Orkney was not conquered until the time of Harald Hardrada, who ruled Norway from 1043-66, Woolf (2007) speculates that Sigurd "the Stout" Hlodvirsson, Torf-Einarr's great-grandson, may have been the first Earl of Orkney [39]

Rognvald's brother and sons

Orkney and Shetland at centre, in relation to nearby territories https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/45/Shetland_and_surrounding_lands.png/220px-Shetland_and_surrounding_lands.png
The notion that Rognvald could hand over his Northern Isles estates to his brother has been interpreted in various ways. For example, it may be that he was aware of ongoing Viking raiding in the area and considered the gift from the king as a mixed blessing.[40] This is also one of a number of instances in which the writer of the Orkneyinga saga attempts to reconcile the conflicting themes of independence from Norway (Rognvald gifts the islands to Sigurd) and dependence on royal authority (Harald formalises the process by confirming Sigurd as earl).[41] Beuermann (2011) speculates that Rognvald's transfer of power to his brother may have been an attempt by the saga writers to imply that the Orkney earldom had more independence from Norway than that of M²re[42] and that Rognvald's holdings in Caithness may have allowed for an even greater degree of freedom of action. Such implications are more likely to be rooted in the writer's interest in emphasising Orcadian independence at the time of writing rather than the 9th/10th century events they purport to describe.[43]

After Hallad's failure in Orkney there is a dialogue between father and sons that has been interpreted as being about Rognvald's desire to cement his own position as Earl of M²re and an allusion to the early history of Iceland, where the sagas were written. Thorir is a compliant son who Rognvald is happy to keep at home. Hrolluag is portrayed as a man of peace who will go to Iceland. Einarr is aggressive and a threat to his father's position so can be spared for the dangers of Orkney.[44] In the Landnâamabâok version the equally aggressive Hrolfr is also present, and his destiny is anticipated to be in conveniently far-away Normandy.[45][Note 2]

Similarities to Ragnall ua Ímair
Alex Woolf suggests that saga authors may have synthesised elements of the life of Ragnall ua Ímair, a later figure, into the figure of Rognvald Eysteinsson of M²re. Ragnall ua Ímair, who was active between 914 and 921 in the Irish Sea region, was a grandson of Ímar, the "king of the Northmen of all Britain and Ireland", whose death is recorded in the Annals of Ulster in 873.[46]

There are at least two major similarities between the two figures include: both are grandsons of an Ímar/Ivarr and; like Rognvald, a close relative of Ragnall named Ímar was killed in battle in Scotland (Ímar ua Ímair, d. 904).[47]

Broad themes
There are several recurring themes in the Orkneyinga saga, including strife between brothers, relationships between the jarls and the Norwegian crown, and raiding in the Hebrides,[48] all of which are touched on during the saga's coverage of Rognvald's life and times. In part, the saga's purpose was to "explore such social and psychological tensions as these in the history of the people of Orkney, and to help them understand themselves through a knowledge of their origins".[49]

References
Notes
More controversially, Smyth also identifies Olaf the White with Olaf Geirstad-Alf, a legendary Norwegian king of the House of Yngling - a suggestion dismissed by Ó Corrâain (1979).[37]
In the Heimskringla Hrolfr is banished by King Harald.[12]
Footnotes
Muir (2005) Preface: Genealogical table of the Earls of Orkney.
Woolf (2007) p. 242
Thomson (2008) p. 25
Radner (1999) p. 322-23
Anderson (1990) p. 296; Annals of Ulster, s.a. 865.
Thomson (2008) p. 22
Phelpstead (2001) p. xvi
Phelpstead (2001) p. ix, quoting Inger Ekrem.
Crawford (1987) pp. 53-54
Orkneyinga saga (1981) Chapter 3 - "The Sea-Kings" p. 25-26
Orkneyinga saga (1981) Chapter 4 - " To Shetland and Orkney" pp. 26-27
Saga of Harald Fairhair Chapter 24 - Rolf Ganger Driven Into Banishment.
Saga of Harald Fairhair, cc. 4 & 23
Anderson (1990) pp. 332-334; Saga of Harald Fairhair Chapter 22- King Harald's Voyage To The West.
Heimskringla. "Chapter 99 - History Of The Earls Of Orkney".
Thomson (2008) p. 28.
Orkneyinga saga (1981) Chapter 5 - "A poisoned tooth" pp. 27-28
Thomson (2008) p. 30 quoting chapter 5 of the Orkneyinga saga.
Pinkerton, John (1809). A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages and in All Parts of the World, Vol. 3. London. p. 152. Retrieved 15 April 2017.
Orkneyinga saga (1981) Chapter 6 - "Forecasts" pp. 28-29.
Thomson (2008) p. 29
Anderson (1990) pp. 330-331
Phelpstead (2001) p. 9
Saga of Harald Fairhair, cc. 29-30
Orkneyinga saga (1981) Chapter 8 - "Troublemakers from Norway" pp. 29-33
Heimskringla. "Harald Harfager's Saga, Part 30 - Earl Ragnvald Burnt In His House".
Thomson (2008) p. 27
Pâalsson and Edwards (1981) "Introduction" p. 11
Crawford (1987) pp. 52-53.
Thomson (2008) pp. 27-28
Helle, Knut (2006) "Earls of Orkney": The Vikings and Scotland - Impact and Influence, Royal Society of Edinburgh Conference 22-26 September 2006. Edinburgh (Rapporteur: Andrew Heald); retrieved 27 January 2014.
Crawford (1987) p. 55-56.
Anderson (1990) pp. 395-396.
Thomson (2008) p. 26
Smyth (1984) pp. 152-53
Smyth (1984) p. 156
Ó Corrâain (1979) p. 298
Smyth (1984) p. 153
Woolf (2007) p. 307
Muir (2005) p. 6
Thomson (2008) p. 31
Beuermann (2011) p. 120
Beuermann (2011) p. 121
Pâalsson and Edwards (1981) "Introduction" p. 13
Pâalsson and Edwards (1981) "Introduction" p. 14
Ó Corrâain (1998) p. 37
Woolf (2007) pp. 300-303
Pâalsson and Edwards (1981) "Introduction" pp. 15-16
Pâalsson and Edwards (1981) "Introduction" p. 19
General references
Anderson, Alan Orr (1990) Early Sources of Scottish History A.D 500-1286, volume 1. Reprinted with corrections. Paul Watkins, Stamford. ISBN 1-871615-03-8
Beuermann, Ian "Jarla Sogur Orkneyja. Status and power of the earls of Orkney according to their sagas" in Steinsland, Gro; Sigurºsson, Jâon Viºar; Rekda, Jan Erik and Beuermann, Ian (eds) (2011) Ideology and power in the viking and middle ages: Scandinavia, Iceland, Ireland, Orkney and the Faeroes . The Northern World: North Europe and the Baltic c. 400-1700 A.D. Peoples, Economics and Cultures. 52. Leiden. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-20506-2
Crawford, Barbara (1987) Scandinavian Scotland. Leicester University Press, Leicester. ISBN 0-7185-1282-0
Muir, Tom (2005) Orkney in the Sagas: The Story of the Earldom of Orkney as told in the Icelandic Sagas. The Orcadian. Kirkwall. ISBN 0954886232.
Ó Corrâain, Donnchadh (Mar 1979) "High-Kings, Vikings and Other Kings". Irish Historical Studies 22 No. 83 pp. 283-323. Irish Historical Studies Publications.
Ó Corrâain, Donnchadh (1998) Vikings in Ireland and Scotland in the Ninth Century CELT. Retrieved 21 January 2014.
Pâalsson, Hermann and Edwards, Paul Geoffrey (1981). Orkneyinga Saga: The History of the Earls of Orkney. Penguin Classics. ISBN 0-14-044383-5
Phelpstead, Karl (ed) (2001) A History of Norway and The Passion and Miracles of the Blessed Ólâafr. (pdf) Translated by Devar Kunin. Viking Society for Northern Research Text Series. XIII. University of London.
Radner, Joan N. (editor and translator). "Fragmentary Annals of Ireland". CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts. University College Cork. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
Radner, Joan N. (1999) "Writing history: Early Irish historiography and the significance of form" (PDF), Celtica. 23, pp. 312-325.
Smyth, Alfred P. (1984) Warlords and Holy Men: Scotland AD 80-1000. Edinburgh University Press. Edinburgh. ISBN 0-7486-0100-7
Sturluson, Snorri (1992) Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway, translated Lee M. Hollander. Reprinted University of Texas Press, Austin. ISBN 0-292-73061-6
Sturlson, Snorri Heimskringla. Wisdom Library ;retrieved 21 January 2014.
Thomson, William P. L. (2008) The New History of Orkney. Edinburgh. Birlinn. ISBN 978-1-84158-696-0
Woolf, Alex (2007) From Pictland to Alba, 789-1070. Edinburgh. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-1234-5

end of this biography

Ragnvald Eysteinsson, Earl of M²re
Norwegian: Ragnvald Eysteinsson, M²rejarl
Also Known As: "R²gnvald", "Rognvaldr Mœrajarl", "son Eysteins glumru", "den Rêadsnare", "Ragnvald ¢ysteinsson", "Rognvald I Eysteinsson", "Rèognvaldr Mœrajarl"
Birthdate: 825
Birthplace: Vestfold, Norway or, êAre Municipality, Jèamtland County, Sweden
Death: 894 (69)
Giske, M²re og Romsdal, Norway (Norway, Ragnvald, With 60 of His Men, Die In A Longhouse When Two of Harald's Jealous Sons Burned It Down With Them In It)
Place of Burial: Giske, M²re og Romsdal, Norway

Ragnvald is the 37th great grandfather of David Michael Cornett ... http://thehennesseefamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I848&tree=hennessee

Immediate Family:

Ragnvald is the 32nd through the 37th great grandfather to Martha Ann Millsaps

Son of Eystein Ivarsson «the Noisy» Glumra and N.N.
Husband of Ragnhild Hrâolfsdâottir
Partner of NN Frille (Mistress/es) of Ragnvald M²rejarl, mother/s of Torf-Einar, Hrollaug and Hallad
Father of Hallad Ragnvaldsson, Orkneyjarl; Einarr "Turf" Rognvaldsson, Orkneyjarl; Hrollager Rognvaldsson; Hrollaug Ragnvaldsson Eyjafjèorºur, Íslands; Ivar Ragnvaldsson M²rejarl and 3 others
Brother of Sigurd Eysteinsson, I, Jarl of Orkney and Svanhild Eysteinsdotter
Occupation: M²rejarl, Earl of M²re and Romsdal, Earl of More and Romsdal, Earl of More, also "The Wise", Earl of Shetland and Orkney, Count of Maer, Jarl of North and South More and Of Ramsdal, Jarl âa Mµri., Jarl âa Mµri, EARL OF MORE, Earl, Jarl
Managed by: Harald Tveit Alvestrand
Last Updated: January 22, 2019

Immediate Family

NN Frille (Mistress/es) of Ragnv...partner

Hallad Ragnvaldsson, Orkneyjarl, son

Einarr "Turf" Rognvaldsson, Orkn..., son

Hrollager Rognvaldsson, son

Hrollaug Ragnvaldsson Eyjafjèor..., son

Ragnhild Hrâolfsdâottir, wife

Ivar Ragnvaldsson M²rejarl, son

Gange-Hrâolfr 'Rollo' Ragnvaldsson, son

Tore "Teiande" Ragnvaldsson, son

Gutum Ragnvaldson, son

Eystein Ivarsson «the Noisy» G...father

N.N., mother
About Ragnvald Eysteinsson, Earl of M²re
Rognvaldr Mèorejarl, son Eysteins glumru. Earl of M²re and father of Gange-Hrolf Rollo of Normandie.

Basics
Father: Eystein "Glumra" Ivarsson
Mother: Asdis (Ascrida) (undocumented)
Concubines: Names unknown
Son: Hallad
Son: Hrollaug, who settled in Iceland
Son: Torf-Einar, who settled in Orkney
Wife: Ragnhild (also called Hild) Hrolfsdatter
Son: Gange-Rolf, who settled in Normandie
Son: Ivar, killed in battle
Son: Tore Teiande, who became a jarl in Norway
LInks and notes
http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/NORWEGIAN%20NOBILITY.htm#Ragnvalddied894A http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnvald_M%C3%B8rejarl http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnvald_Eysteinsson http://lind.no/nor/index.asp?lang=&emne=nor&person=Ragnvald%20%D8ysteinsson

D²d omkring 892. Han var s²nn av ¢ystein Glumra. Ragnvald var gift med Hild Rolvsdatter. De hadde barna: 1. Gange-Rolv Ragnvaldson av Normandie. F²dt mellom 860 og 866. D²d 931. 2. Tore Teiande Ragnvaldson M²rejarl. F²dt omkring 862. D²d mellom 938 og 940.
I henhold til Orkn²yingenes saga gêar Ragnvalds µtt tilbake til «Heite Gors s²nn var far til Sveide sj²konge, far til Halvdan den gamle, far til Ivar Opplendingejarl, far til ¢ystein Glumra, far til Ragnvald jarl den mektige og den rêadsnare». Den samme sagaen strekker hans µtt tilbake til en mytologisk opprinnelse til skikkelse ved navn Fornjot fra Finland eller Kvenland.

Ragnvald levde pêa Harald Hêarfagres tid, og ble av ham forlenet med Nordm²re, Romsdal og Sundm²re i 865. Han var av sine samtidige h²yt ansett for sin klokskap og ble kalt «den mektige». Det var han som klipte Haralds hêar, som da ikke var klippet pêa 10 êar. ----------------------------- RAGNVALD "the Wise", son of [EYSTEIN "Glumra/Clatterer" Jarl in Norway & his wife ---] (-[894]). Orkneyinga Saga names “Eystein the Clatterer, father of the wise counsellor Earl Rognwald the Powerful…”, adding that “Earl Rognwald campaigned with King Harald Fine-Hair who gave him charge of North More, South More and Romsdale”[141].

Snorre names "Ragnvald Earl of More, a son of Eystein "Glumra" when recording that he had become a supporter of King Harald who had invested him with the districts of North More and Raumsdal[142]. Snorre records that he was created Jarl of North and South Mèore and of Raumsdal in Norway by Harald I "Hêarfagre" King of Norway after his victory at Solskiel [869] against Hunthiof King of Mèore and Nokve King of Raumsdal[143].

Orkneyinga Saga and Snorre both record that King Harald granted Shetland and Orkney to Ragnvald in compensation for the death of his son Ivar[144]. The Historia Norwegie records that "principi Rogwaldi" crossed the Solund Sea, destroyed the peoples of the Orkney islands, in the days of "Haraldi Comati regis…Norwegie"[145].

Orkneyinga Saga records that “Halfdan Long-Leg and Gudrod Gleam, King Harald´s sons by Snµfrid” attacked “Earl Rognvald of More, killed him and assumed his authority”[146].

Snorre records that Ragnvald was ambushed in his hall and burned alive by Halfdan Haaleg and Gudred Liomi, two of King Harald's sons[147].

m [RAGNHILD, daughter of HROLF “Nevja/Nose” & his wife ---. Orkneyinga Saga records that “Earl Rognwald” married “Ragnhild the daughter of Hrolf Nose”[148]. Snorre names "Hild, a daughter of Rolf Nefia" as the wife of "Earl Ragnvald"[149].]

[Ragnvald & his wife had three children:]

1. [IVAR (-killed in battle either Hafrsfiord [872] or Orkney [874]). Orkneyinga Saga names “Ivar and Thorer the Silent” as the two other sons of “Earl Rognwald” and his wife “Ragnhild the daughter of Hrolf Nose”, adding that Ivar was killed in battle fighting with Harald I "Hêarfagre" King of Norway in Scotland[150]. Snorre names "Ivar, a son of Ragnvald Earl of More" when recording his death in battle during a Viking campaign against the Scottish islands[151]. The Complete Peerage dates the appointment of Sigurd (Ivar´s reported paternal uncle) as Jarl of Orkney to [875][152], which means that Ivar must have been killed shortly before this date. However, as explained below this causes considerable chronological difficulties with the reported events in the career of Turf-Einar, Ivar´s youngest illegitimate half-brother, so should be considered as extremely approximate.

2. [ROLLO [Hrolf "Ganger/the Walker"] (-[928]). Orkneyinga Saga names “Hrolf who conquered Normandy” as son of “Earl Rognwald” and his wife “Ragnhild the daughter of Hrolf Nose”, adding that he was so big that no horse could carry him, giving rise to his name “Gèongu-Hrolf”[153]. Snorre names "Rolf and Thorer" as the two sons of "Earl Ragnvald" and his wife Hild, recording that Rolf was banished from Norway by King Harald and travelled to the Hebrides, settling first in Orkney before moving southwards through Scotland, and eventually conquering Normandy[154]. The Historia Norwegie records that, after Orkney was conquered by "principi Rogwaldi" and his followers, "de quorum collegio…Rodulfus" captured Rouen in Normandy, commenting that he was known as "Gongurolfr" because he was obliged to walk as he was too large to travel on horseback[155]. This source makes no reference to any blood relationship between Rollo and "principi Rogwaldi". According to Dudo of Saint-Quentin, Rollo arrived in northern France in 876[156], although there is some debate about [900] being a more likely date[157]. William of Jumiáeges records that Rollo was chosen by lot to be leader of the Viking colonists[158]. Viking raids intensified in northern France. Although they were defeated after raiding Chartres [911], Charles III "le Simple" King of the West Franks granted the Normans land around Rouen in which to settle[159]. The uncertain nature of the demise was the source of future problems between the French crown, which claimed that it was an enfeofment for which the ruler owed allegiance, and the later Dukes of Normandy who claimed it was an unconditional allod for which no allegiance was owed. A charter dated 14 Mar 918 which granted land to the monastery of Saint-Germain-des-Prâes "except that part…which we have granted to the Normans of the Seine, namely to Rollo and his companions"[160]. He was later known as ROBERT I Comte [de Normandie].]

3. [THORE Ragnvaldsson "Tause/the Silent". Orkneyinga Saga names “Ivar and Thorer the Silent” as the two other sons of “Earl Rognwald” and his wife “Ragnhild the daughter of Hrolf Nose”[161]. Snorre names "Rolf and Thorer" as the two sons of "Earl Ragnvald" and his wife Hild[162]. He succeeded his father in [894] as Jarl of Mèore, having dispossessed Gudrod "Ljome", son of King Harald, who had seized Mèore on the death of Jarl Ragnvald[163].

m ([890]) ALOF "Aarbod/Season-bettering", daughter of HARALD I "Hêarfagre/Harfagri/Fairhair" King of Norway & his second wife Gyda of Hordaland. Snorre records that King Harald gave Jarl Thore his daughter "Alof, called Arbot" after the king confirmed him as Jarl of Mèore[164].] [Thore & his wife had one child:]

a) [BERGLJOT Thoresdatter. The Historia Norwegie names "Bergliota filia Thoris Tacentis", from "nobilissima Morensium ac Halogensium comitum prosapia", as the wife of "Siwardo"[165]. Snorre names "Bergljot, a daughter of Earl Thorer the Silent" & his wife as the wife of Sigurd[166].

m SIGURD Jarl, son of HAAKON Grjotgardson Jarl of Haalogaland & his wife -- (-murdered Oglo 962).]

[Ragnvald had three illegitimate children by unknown mistresses:]

4. [HALLAD . Orkneyinga Saga names “Hallad, Hrollaug and the youngest Einar” as “natural sons” of “Earl Rognwald”[167]. Snorre names "Hallad, the second Einar, the third Hrollaug" as the three sons of "Earl Ragnvald" by concubines, adding that they were all "grown men" when their legitimate brothers were still children[168]. Orkneyinga Saga records that Ragnvald sent “his son Hallad west to the islands” after hearing of the death of his brother and nephew, and that Harald I "Hêarfagre" King of Norway gave “the title of earl” to Hallad who “came to Orkney and took up residence on Mainland”[169]. Snorre records that Earl Ragnvald installed his son Hallad as Jarl of Orkney after the death of his brother Sigurd, but that he resigned the earldom and returned to Norway[170]. Orkneyinga Saga records that, following complaints by farmers about Viking raids, Hallad “tiring of his rule, gave up the earldom and went back to Norway as a common landholder” which “made him a laughing stock”[171].

5. [HROLLAUG . Orkneyinga Saga names “Hallad, Hrollaug and the youngest Einar” as “natural sons” of “Earl Rognwald”[172]. Snorre names "Hallad, the second Einar, the third Hrollaug" as the three sons of "Earl Ragnvald" by concubines, adding that they were all "grown men" when their legitimate brothers were still children[173].

Orkneyinga Saga records that Ragnvald told his son Hrollaug that “your fate will take you to Iceland [where] you´ll have plenty of descendants”[174]. His alleged descendants in Iceland shown below are as stated in Thorstein Side-Hallum's Saga and Flatey-book's St Olaf's Saga[175] but the accuracy of this information, which has not been corroborated in other sources, is unknown. m ---. The name of Hrollaug´s wife is not known.] [Hrollaug & his wife had one child:]

a) [JON Ozur . m ---. The name of Jon´s wife is not known.] [Jon & his wife had one child:]

i) [THOREY . m ---. The name of Thorey´s wife is not known.] [Thorey & his wife had one child:]

(a) [HALL of Sida . m ---. The name of Hall´s wife is not known.] [Hall & his wife had two children:]

(1) [THORSTEIN . Aged 20 at the battle of Clontarf 1014.

(2) [THORDIS . Orkneyinga Saga records that “the mother of…Ospak was Thordis, daughter of Hall of Sida”[176]. m ---. The name of Thordis´s husband is not known.] Thordis & her husband had one child:

a. USPAK . Orkneyinga Saga records that “Earl Erlend Thorfinnson” married “Thora, the daughter of Sumarlidi Ospaksson”, adding that “the mother of…Ospak was Thordis, daughter of Hall of Sida”[177]. m ---. The name of Uspak´s wife is not known. Uspak & his wife had one child:

(i) SOMERLED . Orkneyinga Saga records that “Earl Erlend Thorfinnson” married “Thora, the daughter of Sumarlidi Ospaksson”[178]. m ---. The name of Somerled´s wife is not known. Somerled & his wife had one child:

(a) THORA . Orkneyinga Saga records that “Earl Erlend Thorfinnson” married “Thora, the daughter of Sumarlidi Ospaksson”, adding that “the mother of this Ospak was Thordis, daughter of Hall of Sida”[179]. Orkneyinga Saga records that “his mother was married…to a man called Sigurd” when her son Magnus returned to Orkney, adding that she and her second husband had a son “Hakon Karl…[and] a farm at Paplay”[180]. m firstly ERLEND Thorfinsson Jarl of Orkney, son of THORFINN "the Black" Jarl of Orkney & his wife Ingibjèorg Finnsdatter (-in prison Nidaros 1098, bur Nidaros). m secondly SIGURD of Paplay .

b) [HALLBERA . m ASBIORN, son of HRAFUNKEL of Steinrodar-Stadir in Iceland.]

6. [EINAR "Turf-Einar” . Orkneyinga Saga names “Hallad, Hrollaug and the youngest Einar” as “natural sons” of “Earl Rognwald”[181]. Snorre names "Hallad, the second Einar, the third Hrollaug" as the three sons of "Earl Ragnvald" by concubines, adding that they were all "grown men" when their legitimate brothers were still children[182].

Orkneyinga Saga records that Ragnvald sent his “youngest son Einar” to “the islands” after his brother Hallad returned to Norway and that Harald I "Hêarfagre" King of Norway gave “the title of earl”, adding that his mother was “slave-born on each side of her family”, and stating that he killed “Thorir Tree-Beard and Kalf Scurvy” and succeeded in imposing his authority in Orkney where “he was the first man to dig peat for fuel…at Tarbat Ness in Scotland”, and that he “was tall and ugly…and…one-eyed”[183]. It should be noted that there are considerable chronological difficulties with the career of Turf-Einar and his sons, as reported in Orkneyinga Saga.

The starting point for the analysis of these problems is the date of the battle in Northumbria in which Turf-Einar´s two oldest sons were killed, which can with reasonable accuracy be placed in the early 950s. If these two sons were at least in their late thirties or forties when they died (a difficult assumption to make considering that they had no reported direct heirs), their births could not be placed before [905/15] at the earliest. The likelihood would then be that their father, Turf-Einar, was not born much earlier than [975/95]. The difficulty is that this date is completely incompatible with (a) the fact that the illegitimate sons of Ragnvald were reported as “grown men” when their legitimate half-brothers were children, and (b) that the date when Ivar, the oldest legitimate son, was killed is estimated to [874].

----------------------------- Snorre Sturlason: Harald Hêarfagres saga: «10. ... Ragnvald M²rejarl, s²nn til ¢ystein Glumra, var blitt kong Haralds mann da om sommeren. Kong Harald satte ham til h²vding over disse to fylkene, Nordm²re og Romsdal, og ga ham rett til hjelp bêade av stormenn og b²nder, likesêa skip nok til êa verge landet for ufred. Han ble kalt Ragnvald jarl den mektige eller den rêadsnare, og de sier at begge navnene var sanne. Kong Harald var i Trondheimen vinteren som fulgte.»

«23. Kong Harald var i gjestebud pêa M²re hos Ragnvald jarl; da hadde han lagt hele landet under seg. Da gikk kongen i bad der. Og nêa lot kong Harald hêaret sitt greie, og Ragnvald jarl skar hêaret hans; da hadde det ikke vµrt skêaret eller kjemmet pêa ti êar. F²r kalte de ham Harald Luva, men nêa ga Ragnvald jarl ham nytt navn, og kalte ham Harald Hêarfagre. Alle som sêa ham, sa at det var virkelig et sant navn, for han hadde et hêar som var bêade stort og vakkert.»

Ragnvald ble innebrent pêa sin gêard sammen med 60 mann av Halvdan Hêalegg og Gudr²d Ljome, to av Haralds s²nner, som vill vµre jarler over M²re. 1)

1). Snorre Sturlason: Harald Hêarfagres saga, avsnitt 10, 23-24. Snorre Sturlason: Olav den helliges saga, avsnitt 96. Mogens Bugge: Vêare forfedre, nr. 278. Bent og Vidar Billing Hansen: Rosensverdslektens forfedre, side 50, 76. ----------------------------------------------- Ragnvald's life is described by Snorri Sturluson in The Saga of Harald Hêarfagre (Fairhair): http://lind.no/nor/index.asp?lang=no&emne=asatru&person=&list=&vis=s_e_harald_harfagre#43 --------------------------------------- About the name Ragnvald in various versions: http://www.nordicnames.de/pojk_r/Ragnvald.html

Ragnvald ¢ysteinsson M²rejarl (norr²nt Rèognvaldr Mœrajarl) (circa 830 - 892) var en jarl pêa nordvestlandet i Norge pêa midten av 800-tallet, tilsvarende det omrêadet som i dag heter M²re og Romsdal.
Ragnvalds µtt Ragnvald var s²nn av ¢ystein Ivarsson som ble kalt for ¢ystein Glumra. I henhold til Orkn²yingenes saga gêar Ragnvalds µtt tilbake til «Heite Gors s²nn var far til Sveide sj²konge, far til Halvdan den gamle, far til Ivar Opplendingejarl, far til ¢ystein Glumra, far til Ragnvald jarl den mektige og den rêadsnare». Den samme sagaen strekker hans µtt tilbake til en mytologisk opprinnelse til skikkelse ved navn Fornjot fra Finland eller Kvenland.

Snorre Sturlasson skriver i Harald Hêarfagres saga i Heimskringla: «Ragnvald M²rejarl var den kjµreste venn kong Harald hadde, og kongen satte ham h²yt. Ragnvald jarl var gift med Hild, datter til Rolv Nevja; deres s²nner var Rolv og Tore. Ragnvald jarl hadde noen frilles²nner ogsêa; en het Hallad; en annen Einar og en tredje Rollaug; de var voksne da de ektef²dte br²drene deres var barn ennêa. Rolv var en stor viking; han var sêa svµr til vekst at ingen hest kunne bµre ham, derfor gikk han til fots overalt. Han ble kalt for Gange-Rolv. Han herjet ofte i austerveg.»

Ragnvald var sêaledes far til sagnomsuste Gange-Rolf som i sagalitteraturen er blitt identifisert som den nordbo som franskmennene kaller for «Rollo» og som grunnla et jarld²mme i Normandie. Dette har imidlertid aldri blitt historisk dokumentert. Via s²nnen Torv-Einar ble Ragnvalds µtt giftet inn i det skotske kongehuset.

Den rêadsnare If²lge Snorre satte Harald Hêarfagre Ragnvald til êa vµre jarl over Nordm²re og Romsdal (og etter hvert Sunnm²re). Kongen gav ham rett til hjelp av bêade stormenn og b²nder, likesêa skip nok til êa verge landet for ufred. Ragnvald ble ogsêa kalt Ragnvald jarl den mektige eller den rêadsnare, og det ble sagt at begge navnene var sanne.

Kongen skal ha betraktet Ragnvald som en av sine viktigste menn og legenden sier at Ragnvald var den som klippet kongens hêar da han etter ti êar var blitt konge over alle i Norge. F²r ble kongen kalt for «Harald Luva» (Lurvehode), men etter at hêaret var skêaret, ga Ragnvald ham et nytt navn, «Hêarfagre».

Orkn²yene Snorre forteller at Ragnvald sendte s²nnen Hallad vestover etter at broren Sigurd var blitt drept, men han ble sêa plaget av vikinger og ransmenn at han ble lei og kom tilbake. Faren ble da sint og skjelte ham ut for ikke êa ligne pêa forfedrene sine. Den andre s²nnen, Einar, lovte da at han kunne reise til Orkn²yene og aldri komme tilbake til Norge mer. Ragnvald jarl skal da ha sagt at det var like greit om han aldri kom tilbake igjen: «For jeg har ikke st²rre hêap om at dine frender fêar µre av deg, for alle i morsµtta di er trellbêarne».

Ragnvald utstyrte s²nnen med skip og mannskap og lot ham dro vestover hvor han kom i kamp med vikinger og drepte dem. Pêa Orkn²yene ble han kalt for Torv-Einar for han lot skjµre torv som brensel for det vokste ikke trµr der. Han ble jarl pêa Orkn²yene og en mektig mann, en²yd og stygg êa se pêa.

Innebrent Da Harald Hêarfagre tok til êa eldes ble s²nnene hans Halvdan Hêalegg og Gudr²d Ljome stadig mer misforn²yd med at de selv ikke hadde noe rike mens faren hadde innsatt jarler rundt om i fylkene. De besluttet da êa ikke vente mer pêa odelen sin. Snorre skriver at «de dro ut med en stor flokk og kom uventet over Ragnvald M²rejarl, kringsatte huset hans og brente ham inne med seksti mann.»

Da kongen h²rte dette dro han med en stor hµr mot Gudr²d som overga seg og ble sendt til Agder. Kongen innsatte sêa Tore Teiande, s²nn av Ragnvald M²rejarl, som ny jarl og giftet ham med datteren êAlov. Kongsdatteren ble siden kalt «êArbot». Halvdan Hêalegg dro derimot over til Orkn²yene, kom uventet pêa Torv-Einar som mêatte flykte, men samme h²st kom Torv-Einar tilbake og overrasket Halvdan og fikk ham drept.

Original text: Snorri, Heimskringla, Haralds saga hins hâarfagra: "Rèognvaldr Mœrajarl, son Eysteins glumru, hafºi ¤âa um sumarit gerzt maºr Haralds konungs. Haraldr konungr setti hann hèofºingja yfir ¤essi tvau fylki, Norºmœri ok Raumsdal, ok fâekk honum ¤ar styrk til bµºi af râikismèonnum ok bâondum, svâa ok skipakost at verja landit fyrir âufriºi. Hann var kallaºr Rèognvaldr hinn râiki eºa hinn râaºsvinni, ok segja menn at hvâarrtveggja vµri sannnefni. Haraldr konungr var um vetrinn eptir âi ´râandheimi."
[...]

"12. Brenna Vemundar konungs.

Eptir ¤at lagºi Haraldr konungr undir sik Sunnmœri. Vemundr, brâoºir Auºbjarnar konungs, hâelt Firºafylki ok gerºist konungr yfir. ´etta var sâiºla um haust, ok gera menn ¤at râaº meº Haraldi konungi, at hann skyldi eigi fara suºr um Staº âa haustdegi. ´âa setti Haraldr konungr Rèognvald jarl yfir Mœri hvâaratveggju ok Raumsdal, ok hafºi hann ¤âa um sik mikit fjèolmenni. Haraldr konungr sneri ¤âa norºr aptr til ´râandheims. ´ann sama vetr fâor Rèognvaldr jarl hit iºra um Eiº, ok svâa suºr um Fjèorºu. Hann hafºi njâosn af Vemundi konungi, ok kom um nâott ¤ar sem heitir Naustdalr; Var Vemundr konungr ¤ar âa veizlu. Rèognvaldr jarl tâok hâus âa ¤eim, ok brendi konung inni meº nâiutigi manna. Eptir ¤at kom Berºlukâari til Rèognvalds jarls meº langskip alskipat, ok fâoru ¤eir bâaºir norºr âa Mœri. Tâok Rèognvaldr jarl skip ¤au, er âatt hafºi Vemundr konungr, ok alt lausafâe ¤at er hann fâekk. Berºlukâari fâor norºr til ´râandheims âa fund Haralds konungs ok gerºist hans maºr; hann var berserkr mikill."

Ragnvald Eysteinsson, The Wise (830-890), Earl of Sunnm²re, Nordm²re and Romsdal, was born in Maer Nord-Tr²ndelag, Norway and died at the Orkney Islands.
He was son of Eystein Glumra the Noisy, Earl of Oppland, and grandson of Halfdan the Old.

His second wife was Ragnhild Ragnhild Hrolfsdottir (Raghldr (Hldr) Hrolfsdâottir) daughter of Hrolfr Nefjaa. Ragnvald was the father of Hrolf Ganger, the founder of Normandy. He was also the father of Turf-Einar, the ancestor of the jarls of Orkney.

He was the direct ancestor to William I of England, Edward III of England, James I of England, and, therefore, Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. He is therefore the ancestor of most of the royal families of Europe.

Ragnvald Eystemssèon, allmèant kallad Mèorejarl. norsk storman i 9:de êarh., êatnjèot i hèog grad Harald Hêarfagres fèortroende och styrde sêasom hans jarl Mèorerne (Nord- och Sèondmèore samt Romsdalen). R. blef genom sin ene son. Torv-Einar, stamfader fèor Orkenèo-jarlarna och genom den andre, Gêange-Rolf, stamfader fèor hertigarna af Normandie. Af sina samtida kallades han den »rêadmilde» och den »mèaktige». Trots sin êadagalagda trohet mot konungen èoverfèolls och drèaptes han af dennes sèoner omkr. 890. Y. s.
Frêan Nordisk Familjebok

Rognvald "The Wise" Eysteinsson (son of Eystein Ivarsson) is the founder of the Earldom of Orkney in the Norse Sagas. Three quite different accounts of the creation of the Norse earldom on Orkney and Shetland exist. The best known is that found in the Heimskringla, but other older traditions are found in the Historia Norvegiae and the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland.
The saga accounts are the best known, and the latest, of the three surviving traditions concerning Rognvald and the foundation of the Earldom of Orkney. Recorded in the 13th century, their views are informed by Norwegian politics of the day. Once, historians could write that no-one denied the reality of Harald Fairhair's expeditions to the west recounted in Heimskringla, but this is no longer the case. The Norwegian contest with the Kings of Scots over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man in the middle 13th century underlies the sagas.[1]

In the Heimskringla, Rognvald is Earl of M²re. He accompanies Harald Fairhair on his great expeditions to the west, to Ireland and to Scotland. Here, Rognvald's son Ivarr is killed. In compensation King Harald grants Rognvald Orkney and Shetland. Rognvald himself returns to Norway, giving the northern isles to his brother Sigurd Eysteinsson.[2]

The Heimskringla recounts other tales of Rognvald. It tells how he causes Harald Finehair to be given his byname Fairhair by cutting and dressing his hair, which had been uncut for ten years on account of Harald's vow never to cut it until he was ruler of all Norway,[3] and it makes him the father of Ganger-Hrâolf, identified by saga writers with the Rollo (Hrâolfr), ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy, who was said to have been established as Count of Rouen by King Charles the Simple in 931.[4]

Earl Rognvald is killed by Harald's son Halfdan Hêalegg. Rognvald's death is avenged by his son, Earl Turf-Einar, from whom later Orkney earls claimed descent, who kills Halfdan on North Ronaldsay.[5]

The Historia Norvegiae's account of Rognvald and the foundation of the Orkney earldom is the next oldest, probably dating from the 12th century. This account contains much curious detail on Orkney, including the earliest account of the Picts as small people who hid in the daytime, but it has little to say about Rognvald.

In the days of Harald Fairhair, king of Norway, certain pirates, of the family of the most vigorous prince Ronald [Rognvald], set out with a great fleet, and crossed the Solundic sea..., and subdued the islands to themselves. And being there provided with safe winter seats, they went in summer-time working tyranny upon the English, and the Scots, and sometimes also upon the Irish, so that they took under their rule, from England, Northumbria; from Scotland, Caithness; from Ireland, Dublin, and the other sea-side towns.[6]

This account does not associate Rognvald with the earldom, but instead attributes it to his anonymous kinfolk.

The oldest account of the Rognvald and the earldom of Orkney is that found in the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. The annals survive only in incomplete copies made by Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh in the 17th century, but the original annals are believed to date from the lifetime of Donnchad mac Gilla Pâatraic (died 1039). The annals are known to have had an influence on later writings in Iceland.

The annals make Rognvald the son of "Halfdan, King of Lochlann". This is generally understood to mean Halfdan the Black, which would make the Rognvald of the annals the brother of Harald Finehair. However, the sagas claim that Rognvald's grandfather was named Halfdan.[7]

These events are placed after an account of the devastation of Fortriu, dated to around 866,[8] and the fall of York, reliably dated to late 867. However, such an early date makes it difficult to reconcile the saga claims that Harald Fairhair was involved in Rognvald's conquest of the northern isles.

Harald Finehair's victory in the Battle of Hafrsfjord, which gave him dominion over parts of Norway, is traditionally dated to 872, but was probably later, perhaps as late as 900.[9] What little is known of Scottish events in the period from the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba would correspond equally well with Harald's attacks on Scotland in the reign of Domnall mac Causantâin (ruled 889–900).[10] However, this would not correspond with the sequence in the earliest account of the origins of the Orkney earldom, which places this a generation earlier.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rognvald_Eysteinsson

Ragnvald I 'the Wise' Eysteinsson, Earl of More (1) M, #104777 Last Edited=28 Oct 2002
Ragnvald I 'the Wise' Eysteinsson, Earl of More is the son of Eystein 'the Noisy' Glumra, Jarl of the Uplanders and Ascrida Ragnvaldsdottir. (1) He died circa 890, burnt to death in his house. Ragnvald I 'the Wise' Eysteinsson, Earl of More gained the title of Earl of More. Ragnvald I 'the Wise' Eysteinsson, Earl of More also went by the nick-name of 'The Mighty'.
Children of Ragnvald I 'the Wise' Eysteinsson, Earl of More and Groa (?) -1. Hallad Ragnvaldsson, Earl of Orkney (1) -2. Turf-Einar Ragnvaldsson, Earl of Orkney (1) -3. Hrollaug Ragnvaldsson (1) Children of Ragnvald I 'the Wise' Eysteinsson, Earl of More and Ragnhild Hrolfsdottir -1. Ivar Ragnvaldsson (1) -2. Thori 'the Silent' Ragnvaldsson, Jarl of More+ (1) -3. Rollo Ragnvaldsson, 1st Duc de Normandie+ b. c 846, d. c 931 (1)

Forrâas: http://www.thepeerage.com/p10478.htm#i104777

Rognvald "The Wise" Eysteinsson (son of Eystein Ivarsson) is the founder of the Earldom of Orkney in the Norse Sagas. Three quite different accounts of the creation of the Norse earldom on Orkney and Shetland exist. The best known is that found in the Heimskringla, but other older traditions are found in the Historia Norvegiae and the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland.

Contents [hide] 1 Sagas 2 Historia Norvegiae 3 Fragmentary Annals of Ireland 4 Notes 5 References

[edit] Sagas The saga accounts are the best known, and the latest, of the three surviving traditions concerning Rognvald and the foundation of the Earldom of Orkney. Recorded in the 13th century, their views are informed by Norwegian politics of the day. Once, historians could write that no-one denied the reality of Harald Fairhair's expeditions to the west recounted in Heimskringla, but this is no longer the case. The Norwegian contest with the Kings of Scots over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man in the middle 13th century underlies the sagas.[1]

In the Heimskringla, Rognvald is Earl of M²re. He accompanies Harald Fairhair on his great expeditions to the west, to Ireland and to Scotland. Here, Rognvald's son Ivarr is killed. In compensation King Harald grants Rognvald the Orkneys and Shetlands. Rognvald himself returns to Norway, giving the northern isles to his brother Sigurd Eysteinsson[2]

The Heimskringla recounts other tales of Rognvald. It tells how he causes Harald Finehair to be given his byname Fairhair by cutting and dressing his hair, which had been uncut for ten years on account of Harald's vow never to cut it until he was ruler of all Norway,[3] and it makes him the father of Ganger-Hrâolf, identified by saga writers with the Rollo (Hrâolfr), ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy, who was said to have been established as Count of Rouen by King Charles the Simple in 931.[4]

Earl Rognvald is killed by Harald's son Halfdan Hêalegg. Rognvald's death is avenged by his son, Earl Turf-Einar, from whom later Orkney earls claimed descent, who kills Halfdan on North Ronaldsay.[5]

[edit] Historia Norvegiae The Historia Norvegiae's account of Rognvald and the foundation of the Orkney earldom is the next oldest, probably dating from the 12th century. This account contains much curious detail on Orkney, including the earliest account of the Picts as small people who hid in the daytime, but it has little to say about Rognvald.

In the days of Harald Fairhair, king of Norway, certain pirates, of the family of the most vigorous prince Ronald [Rognvald], set out with a great fleet, and crossed the Solundic sea..., and subdued the islands to themselves. And being there provided with safe winter seats, they went in summer-time working tyranny upon the English, and the Scots, and sometimes also upon the Irish, so that they took under their rule, from England, Northumbria; from Scotland, Caithness; from Ireland, Dublin, and the other sea-side towns.[6]

This account does not associate Rognvald with the earldom, but instead attributes it to his anonymous sons.

[edit] Fragmentary Annals of Ireland ...for it was not long before this that there had been every war and every trouble in Norway, and this was the source of that war in Norway: two younger sons of Albdan, king of Norway, drove out the eldest son, i.e. Ragnall son of Albdan, for fear that he would seize the kingship of Norway after their father. So Ragnall came with his three sons to the Orkneys. Ragnall stayed there then, with his youngest son. Fragmentary Annals of Ireland , FA 330. Edited and translated by Joan N. Radnor. The oldest account of the Rognvald and the earldom of Orkney is that found in the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. The annals survive only in incomplete copies made by Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh in the 17th century, but the original annals are believed to date from the lifetime of Donnchad mac Gilla Patrâaic (died 1039). The annals are known to have had an influence on later writings in Iceland.

The annals make Rognvald the son of "Halfdan, King of Lochlann". This is generally understood to mean Halfdan the Black, which would make the Rognvald of the annals the brother of Harald Finehair. However, the sagas claim that Rognvald's grandfather was named Halfdan.[7]

These events are placed after an account of the devastation of Fortriu, dated to around 866,[8] and the fall of York, reliably dated to late 867. However, such an early date makes it difficult to reconcile the saga claims that Harald Fairhair was involved in Rognvald's conquest of the northern isles.

Harald Finehair's victory in the Battle of Hafrsfjord, which gave him dominion over parts of Norway, is traditionally dated to 872, but was probably later, perhaps as late as 900.[9] What little is known of Scottish events in the period from the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba would correspond equally well with Harald's attacks on Scotland in the reign of Domnall mac Causantâin (ruled 889–900).[10] However, this would not correspond with the sequence in the earliest account of the origins of the Orkney earldom, which places this a generation earlier.

[edit] Notes ^ Crawford, pp. 52–53. ^ Anderson, pp. 332–334; Saga of Harald Fairhair, c. 22. ^ Saga of Harald Fairhair, cc. 4 & 23. ^ Saga of Harald Fairhair, c. 24. ^ Saga of Harald Fairhair, cc. 29–30. ^ Anderson, pp. 330–331. ^ Crawford, pp. 53–54. ^ Anderson, p. 296; Annals of Ulster, s.a. 865. ^ Crawford, p. 55–56. ^ Anderson, pp. 395–396.

[edit] References Anderson, Alan Orr. Early Sources of Scottish History A.D 500–1286, volume 1. Reprinted with corrections. Paul Watkins, Stamford, 1990. ISBN 1-871615-03-8 Crawford, Barbara. Scandinavian Scotland. Leicester University Press, Leicester, 1987. ISBN 0-7185-1282-0 Ó Corrain, Donnchad. "The Vikings in Scotland and Ireland in the Ninth Century", Peritia, vol 12, pp296–339. (etext (pdf) Radner, Joan N. (editor and translator). Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts. University College Cork. Retrieved on 2007-03-10. Radner, Joan N. "Writing history: Early Irish historiography and the significance of form", Celtica, volume 23, pp. 312–325. (etext (pdf)) Smyth, Alfred P. Warlords and Holy Men: Scotland AD 80–1000. Reprinted, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1998. ISBN 0-7486-0100-7 Sturluson, Snorri. Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway, translated Lee M. Hollander. Reprinted University of Texas Press, Austin, 1992. ISBN 0-292-73061-6

Ragnvald ¢ysteinsson M²rejarl (norr²nt Rèognvaldr Mœrajarl) (circa 830 - 892) var en jarl pêa nordvestlandet i Norge pêa midten av 800-tallet, tilsvarende det omrêadet som i dag heter M²re og Romsdal.
Innhold [skjul] 1 Ragnvalds µtt 2 Den rêadsnare 3 Orkn²yene 4 Innebrent

[rediger] Ragnvalds µtt Ragnvald var s²nn av ¢ystein Ivarsson som ble kalt for ¢ystein Glumra. I henhold til Orkn²yingenes saga gêar Ragnvalds µtt tilbake til «Heite Gors s²nn var far til Sveide sj²konge, far til Halvdan den gamle, far til Ivar Opplendingejarl, far til ¢ystein Glumra, far til Ragnvald jarl den mektige og den rêadsnare». Den samme sagaen strekker hans µtt tilbake til en mytologisk opprinnelse til skikkelse ved navn Fornjot fra Finland eller Kvenland.

Snorre Sturlasson skriver i Harald Hêarfagres saga i Heimskringla: «Ragnvald M²rejarl var den kjµreste venn kong Harald hadde, og kongen satte ham h²yt. Ragnvald jarl var gift med Hild, datter til Rolv Nevja; deres s²nner var Rolv og Tore. Ragnvald jarl hadde noen frilles²nner ogsêa; en het Hallad; en annen Einar og en tredje Rollaug; de var voksne da de ektef²dte br²drene deres var barn ennêa. Rolv var en stor viking; han var sêa svµr til vekst at ingen hest kunne bµre ham, derfor gikk han til fots overalt. Han ble kalt for Gange-Rolv. Han herjet ofte i austerveg.»

Ragnvald var sêaledes far til sagnomsuste Gange-Rolf som i sagalitteraturen er blitt identifisert som den nordbo som franskmennene kaller for «Rollo» og som grunnla et jarld²mme i Normandie. Dette har imidlertid aldri blitt historisk dokumentert. Via s²nnen Torv-Einar ble Ragnvalds µtt giftet inn i det skotske kongehuset.

[rediger] Den rêadsnare If²lge Snorre satte Harald Hêarfagre Ragnvald til êa vµre jarl over Nordm²re og Romsdal (og etter hvert Sunnm²re). Kongen gav ham rett til hjelp av bêade stormenn og b²nder, likesêa skip nok til êa verge landet for ufred. Ragnvald ble ogsêa kalt Ragnvald jarl den mektige eller den rêadsnare, og det ble sagt at begge navnene var sanne.

Kongen skal ha betraktet Ragnvald som en av sine viktigste menn og legenden sier at Ragnvald var den som klippet kongens hêar da han etter ti êar var blitt konge over alle i Norge. F²r ble kongen kalt for «Harald Luva» (Lurvehode), men etter at hêaret var skêaret, ga Ragnvald ham et nytt navn, «Hêarfagre».

[rediger] Orkn²yene Snorre forteller at Ragnvald sendte s²nnen Hallad vestover etter at broren Sigurd var blitt drept, men han ble sêa plaget av vikinger og ransmenn at han ble lei og kom tilbake. Faren ble da sint og skjelte ham ut for ikke êa ligne pêa forfedrene sine. Den andre s²nnen, Einar, lovte da at han kunne reise til Orkn²yene og aldri komme tilbake til Norge mer. Ragnvald jarl skal da ha sagt at det var like greit om han aldri kom tilbake igjen: «For jeg har ikke st²rre hêap om at dine frender fêar µre av deg, for alle i morsµtta di er trellbêarne».

Ragnvald utstyrte s²nnen med skip og mannskap og lot ham dro vestover hvor han kom i kamp med vikinger og drepte dem. Pêa Orkn²yene ble han kalt for Torv-Einar for han lot skjµre torv som brensel for det vokste ikke trµr der. Han ble jarl pêa Orkn²yene og en mektig mann, en²yd og stygg êa se pêa.

[rediger] Innebrent Da Harald Hêarfagre tok til êa eldes ble s²nnene hans Halvdan Hêalegg og Gudr²d Ljome stadig mer misforn²yd med at de selv ikke hadde noe rike mens faren hadde innsatt jarler rundt om i fylkene. De besluttet da êa ikke vente mer pêa odelen sin. Snorre skriver at «de dro ut med en stor flokk og kom uventet over Ragnvald M²rejarl, kringsatte huset hans og brente ham inne med seksti mann.»

Da kongen h²rte dette dro han med en stor hµr mot Gudr²d som overga seg og ble sendt til Agder. Kongen innsatte sêa Tore Teiande, s²nn av Ragnvald M²rejarl, som ny jarl og giftet ham med datteren êAlov. Kongsdatteren ble siden kalt «êArbot». Halvdan Hêalegg dro derimot over til Orkn²yene, kom uventet pêa Torv-Einar som mêatte flykte, men samme h²st kom Torv-Einar tilbake og overrasket Halvdan og fikk ham drept.

Forgjenger:

- Jarl av M²re
(865–892) Etterf²lger:

Tore Teiande
Hentet fra «http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnvald_M%C3%B8rejarl»

Rognvald Eysteinsson "the Wise" Earl of More (830-) [Pedigree]

Son of Eystein Glumra Ivarsson Jarl of Hedemarken (810-) and Aseda Rognvaldsdottir (812-)

REF RFC. A Norwegian viking. Jarl of More b. ABT 830, Maer, Norway b. Abt 0857 r. Upland, Denmark d. 890, Orkney, Orkney Islands, Scotland d. ABT 890, Maer, Norway
Married first Rognhild (Hildir) Hrolfsdotter (848-892)

Children:

1. Rollo the Dane 1st Duke of Normandy (-927) m(1) Poppa de_Valois Duchess of Norway (872-)
Married second Ermina

Children:

1. Hrollager Rognvaldsson (874-)
Sources:

1. "Royalty for Commoners",

Roderick W. Stuart, 1992, 2nd edition. This book lists all of the known ancestors of John of Gaunt, which amounts to most of the Medieval royalty of Europe. Also see the following article: "A Mediaeval Miscellany: Commentaries on Roderick W. Stuart's Royalty for Commoners," The American Genealogist 69 (April 1994)
2. "Europaische Stammtafeln",

Isenburg.
3. "Plantagenet Ancestry",

Turton.
Ragnvald I Eysteinsson , 1st Earl of Orkne

B: abt 0825 Maer, Nord Trondelag, Norway S: Rognvald Mere-Earl and Ragnvald "the wise" S: abt 0872 as Jarl of More and 1st Earl of Orkney D: 0894 Orkney Islands, Orkney, Scotland M: abt 0852

http://www.geneajourney.com/nrmndy.html
Eystein Glumra, Jarl of the Upplands, b abt 803, of Norway. The identity of his wife is not known. Known children of Eystein Glumra were: • Ragnvald I, the Wise, Jarl of North and South More and of Ramsdal, b abt 832. • Swanhild b abt 846, of Norway. She md Harald I, "Fairhair, 1st King of Norway, abt 866, son of Halfdan, "the Black, King of Vestfold, and Ragnhild. Ragnvald I, "the Wise", Jarl of North and South More and of Ramsdal, b abt 832, Norway, d 890. He md Hiltrude abt 850, daughter of Hrolf Nefia. She was b abt 834. Child of Ragnvald the Wise and Hiltrude was: Rollo/Robert I of Normandy [a], 1st Duke of Normandy, aka Ganger Rolf, b abt 855, Norway, d abt 927-931, prob Normandy, France. He md Poppa of Bayeux abt 886, daughter of Berenger,Count of Bayeux. She was b abt 876.

Ragnvald var jarl i Mèore, Norge, och èar nog inte lika omtalad som flera av sina sèoner. En son èar sannolikt 'Gêange-Rolf', som blev stamfader fèor hertigar och kungar i Normandie, Frankrike, och det engelska kungahuset samt den som skapade hertigdèomet Normandie. En annan son 'Torv-Einar' blev jarl pêa Orkneyèoarna liksom hans broder Hallad. Ragnvald var gift med med Ragnhild Rolfsdotter, men hade ocksêa barn med frillan Groa. Ragnvalds syster Svanhild blev gift med Harald 'Hêarfager'. Ragnvald (Mèorejarl) blev mèordad (innebrèand) av Harald 'Hêarfagers' sèoner Halvdan 'Hêalegg' og Gudrèod 'Ljome'. Jarl, dèod ca 890. Ragnvald var jarl pêa Mèore. Hans far skall ha varit èOystein 'Glumra'. Han levde pêa Harald Hêarfagers tid, och blev av honom fèorlèanad med Nordmèore, Romsdal og Sundmèore êar 865. Han var av sina samtida hèogt ansedd fèor sin klokskap och blev kallad 'den mèaktige'. Det var han som klippte Haralds hêar, som dêa icke varit klippt pêa 10 êar.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kèallor

1) Directory of Royal Genealogical Data, Hull, England
Ragnvald ¢ysteinsson M²rejarl (norr²nt Rèognvaldr Mœrajarl) (circa 830 - 892) var en jarl pêa nordvestlandet i Norge pêa midten av 800-tallet, tilsvarende det omrêadet som i dag heter M²re og Romsdal.

Ragnvald var s²nn av ¢ystein Ivarsson som ble kalt for ¢ystein Glumra. I henhold til Orkn²yingenes saga gêar Ragnvalds µtt tilbake til «Heite Gors s²nn var far til Sveide sj²konge, far til Halvdan den gamle, far til Ivar Opplendingejarl, far til ¢ystein Glumra, far til Ragnvald jarl den mektige og den rêadsnare». Den samme sagaen strekker hans µtt tilbake til en mytologisk opprinnelse til skikkelse ved navn Fornjot fra Finland eller Kvenland.

Snorre Sturlasson skriver i Harald Hêarfagres saga i Heimskringla: «Ragnvald M²rejarl var den kjµreste venn kong Harald hadde, og kongen satte ham h²yt. Ragnvald jarl var gift med Hild, datter til Rolv Nevja; deres s²nner var Rolv og Tore. Ragnvald jarl hadde noen frilles²nner ogsêa; en het Hallad; en annen Einar og en tredje Rollaug; de var voksne da de ektef²dte br²drene deres var barn ennêa. Rolv var en stor viking; han var sêa svµr til vekst at ingen hest kunne bµre ham, derfor gikk han til fots overalt. Han ble kalt for Gange-Rolv. Han herjet ofte i austerveg.»

Ragnvald var sêaledes far til sagnomsuste Gange-Rolf som i sagalitteraturen er blitt identifisert som den nordbo som franskmennene kaller for «Rollo» og som grunnla et jarld²mme i Normandie. Dette har imidlertid aldri blitt historisk dokumentert ettersom kildene spriker i alle retninger, en av dem som stiller seg bak de tidligere nevnte tradisjonene er Jâon Viºar Sigurºsson i boken Norsk Historie 800 - 1300 (Det Norske Samlaget, 1999). Via s²nnen Torv-Einar ble Ragnvalds µtt giftet inn i det skotske kongehuset.

Den rêadsnare

If²lge Snorre satte Harald Hêarfagre Ragnvald til êa vµre jarl over Nordm²re og Romsdal (og etter hvert Sunnm²re). Kongen gav ham rett til hjelp av bêade stormenn og b²nder, likesêa skip nok til êa verge landet for ufred. Ragnvald ble ogsêa kalt Ragnvald jarl den mektige eller den rêadsnare, og det ble sagt at begge navnene var sanne.

Kongen skal ha betraktet Ragnvald som en av sine viktigste menn og legenden sier at Ragnvald var den som klippet kongens hêar da han etter ti êar var blitt konge over alle i Norge. F²r ble kongen kalt for «Harald Luva» (Lurvehode), men etter at hêaret var skêaret, ga Ragnvald ham et nytt navn, «Hêarfagre».

Orkn²yene

Snorre forteller at Ragnvald sendte s²nnen Hallad vestover etter at broren Sigurd var blitt drept, men han ble sêa plaget av vikinger og ransmenn at han ble lei og kom tilbake. Faren ble da sint og skjelte ham ut for ikke êa ligne pêa forfedrene sine. Den andre s²nnen, Einar, lovte da at han kunne reise til Orkn²yene og aldri komme tilbake til Norge mer. Ragnvald jarl skal da ha sagt at det var like greit om han aldri kom tilbake igjen: «For jeg har ikke st²rre hêap om at dine frender fêar µre av deg, for alle i morsµtta di er trellbêarne».

Ragnvald utstyrte s²nnen med skip og mannskap og lot ham dro vestover hvor han kom i kamp med vikinger og drepte dem. Pêa Orkn²yene ble han kalt for Torv-Einar for han lot skjµre torv som brensel for det vokste ikke trµr der. Han ble jarl pêa Orkn²yene og en mektig mann, en²yd og stygg êa se pêa.

Innebrent

Da Harald Hêarfagre tok til êa eldes ble s²nnene hans Halvdan Hêalegg og Gudr²d Ljome stadig mer misforn²yd med at de selv ikke hadde noe rike mens faren hadde innsatt jarler rundt om i fylkene. De besluttet da êa ikke vente mer pêa odelen sin. Snorre skriver at «de dro ut med en stor flokk og kom uventet over Ragnvald M²rejarl, kringsatte huset hans og brente ham inne med seksti mann.»

Da kongen h²rte dette dro han med en stor hµr mot Gudr²d som overga seg og ble sendt til Agder. Kongen innsatte sêa Tore Teiande, s²nn av Ragnvald M²rejarl, som ny jarl og giftet ham med datteren êAlov. Kongsdatteren ble siden kalt «êArbot». Halvdan Hêalegg dro derimot over til Orkn²yene, kom uventet pêa Torv-Einar som mêatte flykte, men samme h²st kom Torv-Einar tilbake og overrasket Halvdan og fikk ham drept.

http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnvald_M%C3%B8rejarl

ROGNVALD I ~
Rognvald , The Wise, Jarl (Earl) of More, Norway, the first Jarl of Orkney and a near relative of King Harold Fairhair.

The house of Rognvald was one of the oldest lines of rulers in Norway.

Rognvald "The Wise" Eysteinsson (son of Eystein Ivarsson) is the founder of the Earldom of Orkney in the Norse Sagas. Three quite different accounts of the creation of the Norse earldom on Orkney and Shetland exist. The best known is that found in the Heimskringla, but other older traditions are found in the Historia Norvegiae and the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland.
The saga accounts are the best known, and the latest, of the three surviving traditions concerning Rognvald and the foundation of the Earldom of Orkney. Recorded in the 13th century, their views are informed by Norwegian politics of the day. Once, historians could write that no-one denied the reality of Harald Fairhair's expeditions to the west recounted in Heimskringla, but this is no longer the case. The Norwegian contest with the Kings of Scots over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man in the middle 13th century underlies the sagas.

In the Heimskringla, Rognvald is Earl of M²re. He accompanies Harald Fairhair on his great expeditions to the west, to Ireland and to Scotland. Here, Rognvald's son Ivarr is killed. In compensation King Harald grants Rognvald Orkney and Shetland. Rognvald himself returns to Norway, giving the northern isles to his brother Sigurd Eysteinsson.

The Heimskringla recounts other tales of Rognvald. It tells how he causes Harald Finehair to be given his byname Fairhair by cutting and dressing his hair, which had been uncut for ten years on account of Harald's vow never to cut it until he was ruler of all Norway, and it makes him the father of Ganger-Hrâolf, identified by saga writers with the Rollo (Hrâolfr), ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy, who was said to have been established as Count of Rouen by King Charles the Simple in 931.

Earl Rognvald is killed by Harald's son Halfdan Hêalegg. Rognvald's death is avenged by his son, Earl Turf-Einar, from whom later Orkney earls claimed descent, who kills Halfdan on North Ronaldsay.

Ragnvald ¢ysteinsson M²rejarl (norr²nt Rèognvaldr Mœrajarl) (circa 830 - 892) var en jarl pêa nordvestlandet i Norge pêa midten av 800-tallet, tilsvarende det omrêadet som i dag heter M²re og Romsdal.
Ragnvald var s²nn av ¢ystein Ivarsson som ble kalt for ¢ystein Glumra. I henhold til Orkn²yingenes saga gêar Ragnvalds µtt tilbake til «Heite Gors s²nn var far til Sveide sj²konge, far til Halvdan den gamle, far til Ivar Opplendingejarl, far til ¢ystein Glumra, far til Ragnvald jarl den mektige og den rêadsnare». Den samme sagaen strekker hans µtt tilbake til en mytologisk opprinnelse til skikkelse ved navn Fornjot fra Finland eller Kvenland.

Snorre Sturlasson skriver i Harald Hêarfagres saga i Heimskringla: «Ragnvald M²rejarl var den kjµreste venn kong Harald hadde, og kongen satte ham h²yt. Ragnvald jarl var gift med Hild, datter til Rolv Nevja; deres s²nner var Rolv og Tore. Ragnvald jarl hadde noen frilles²nner ogsêa; en het Hallad; en annen Einar og en tredje Rollaug; de var voksne da de ektef²dte br²drene deres var barn ennêa. Rolv var en stor viking; han var sêa svµr til vekst at ingen hest kunne bµre ham, derfor gikk han til fots overalt. Han ble kalt for Gange-Rolv. Han herjet ofte i austerveg.»

Ragnvald var sêaledes far til sagnomsuste Gange-Rolf som i sagalitteraturen er blitt identifisert som den nordbo som franskmennene kaller for «Rollo» og som grunnla et jarld²mme i Normandie. Dette har imidlertid aldri blitt historisk dokumentert ettersom kildene spriker i alle retninger, en av dem som stiller seg bak de tidligere nevnte tradisjonene er Jâon Viºar Sigurºsson i boken Norsk Historie 800 - 1300 (Det Norske Samlaget, 1999). Via s²nnen Torv-Einar ble Ragnvalds µtt giftet inn i det skotske kongehuset.

Den rêadsnare

If²lge Snorre satte Harald Hêarfagre Ragnvald til êa vµre jarl over Nordm²re og Romsdal (og etter hvert Sunnm²re). Kongen gav ham rett til hjelp av bêade stormenn og b²nder, likesêa skip nok til êa verge landet for ufred. Ragnvald ble ogsêa kalt Ragnvald jarl den mektige eller den rêadsnare, og det ble sagt at begge navnene var sanne.

Kongen skal ha betraktet Ragnvald som en av sine viktigste menn og legenden sier at Ragnvald var den som klippet kongens hêar da han etter ti êar var blitt konge over alle i Norge. F²r ble kongen kalt for «Harald Luva» (Lurvehode), men etter at hêaret var skêaret, ga Ragnvald ham et nytt navn, «Hêarfagre».

Orkn²yene

Snorre forteller at Ragnvald sendte s²nnen Hallad vestover etter at broren Sigurd var blitt drept, men han ble sêa plaget av vikinger og ransmenn at han ble lei og kom tilbake. Faren ble da sint og skjelte ham ut for ikke êa ligne pêa forfedrene sine. Den andre s²nnen, Einar, lovte da at han kunne reise til Orkn²yene og aldri komme tilbake til Norge mer. Ragnvald jarl skal da ha sagt at det var like greit om han aldri kom tilbake igjen: «For jeg har ikke st²rre hêap om at dine frender fêar µre av deg, for alle i morsµtta di er trellbêarne».

Ragnvald utstyrte s²nnen med skip og mannskap og lot ham dro vestover hvor han kom i kamp med vikinger og drepte dem. Pêa Orkn²yene ble han kalt for Torv-Einar for han lot skjµre torv som brensel for det vokste ikke trµr der. Han ble jarl pêa Orkn²yene og en mektig mann, en²yd og stygg êa se pêa.

Innebrent

Da Harald Hêarfagre tok til êa eldes ble s²nnene hans Halvdan Hêalegg og Gudr²d Ljome stadig mer misforn²yd med at de selv ikke hadde noe rike mens faren hadde innsatt jarler rundt om i fylkene. De besluttet da êa ikke vente mer pêa odelen sin. Snorre skriver at «de dro ut med en stor flokk og kom uventet over Ragnvald M²rejarl, kringsatte huset hans og brente ham inne med seksti mann.»

Da kongen h²rte dette dro han med en stor hµr mot Gudr²d som overga seg og ble sendt til Agder. Kongen innsatte sêa Tore Teiande, s²nn av Ragnvald M²rejarl, som ny jarl og giftet ham med datteren êAlov. Kongsdatteren ble siden kalt «êArbot». Halvdan Hêalegg dro derimot over til Orkn²yene, kom uventet pêa Torv-Einar som mêatte flykte, men samme h²st kom Torv-Einar tilbake og overrasket Halvdan og fikk ham drept.

Also known as Count Regnvald ("the Rich") and as "The Wise", Earl of North and South More, of Raumsdale in Norway.{"Royal Ancestors of Magna Charta Barons," Carr P. Collins, Jr., Dallas, 1959, p.201-02, states that he died about 894. (Rogenwald = Regnvald = Rognald)}

Earl of More/Moer in Norway and Jarl of Orkney and Shetland. He had his name Gallicized to Reginald. He supported King Harold Fairhair in an attempt to unify Norway. Norr: Jarl Rognwald (Rogvald, Raonwald, Regvald, Rouis), created Earl of Moer in 885. Roll: Rognwald, Earl of Maere. Norr: Jarl Rogwald (Raowald, Regvald, Rouis), Earl of Moer 885. Married Hilder. Beyond Rognvald, things get pretty confused. Norr has about 25 generations going back to Oden. RC doesn't agree. But some RC names coming down from RC's Odin agree in the upper portion. But the dates are some 250 years different. RC and Kraentzler agree in taking Rognvald back three more generations. Russell goes way back to Olaf the Sharp-eyed, King of Rerik.

Rognvald Eysteinsson Rognvald "The Wise" Eysteinsson (son of Eystein Ivarsson) is the founder of the Earldom of Orkney in the Norse Sagas. Three quite different accounts of the creation of the Norse earldom on Orkney and Shetland exist. The best known is that found in the Heimskringla, but other older traditions are found in the Historia Norvegiae and the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland.

[edit] Sagas The saga accounts are the best known, and the latest, of the three surviving traditions concerning Rognvald and the foundation of the Earldom of Orkney. Recorded in the 13th century, their views are informed by Norwegian politics of the day. Once, historians could write that no-one denied the reality of Harald Fairhair's expeditions to the west recounted in Heimskringla, but this is no longer the case. The Norwegian contest with the Kings of Scots over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man in the middle 13th century underlies the sagas.[1]

In the Heimskringla, Rognvald is Earl of M²re. He accompanies Harald Fairhair on his great expeditions to the west, to Ireland and to Scotland. Here, Rognvald's son Ivarr is killed. In compensation King Harald grants Rognvald the Orkneys and Shetlands. Rognvald himself returns to Norway, giving the northern isles to his brother Sigurd Eysteinsson[2]

The Heimskringla recounts other tales of Rognvald. It tells how he causes Harald Finehair to be given his byname Fairhair by cutting and dressing his hair, which had been uncut for ten years on account of Harald's vow never to cut it until he was ruler of all Norway,[3] and it makes him the father of Ganger-Hrâolf, identified by saga writers with the Rollo (Hrâolfr), ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy, who was said to have been established as Count of Rouen by King Charles the Simple in 931.[4]

Earl Rognvald is killed by Harald's son Halfdan Hêalegg. Rognvald's death is avenged by his son, Earl Turf-Einar, from whom later Orkney earls claimed descent, who kills Halfdan on North Ronaldsay.[5]

[edit] Historia Norvegiae The Historia Norvegiae's account of Rognvald and the foundation of the Orkney earldom is the next oldest, probably dating from the 12th century. This account contains much curious detail on Orkney, including the earliest account of the Picts as small people who hid in the daytime, but it has little to say about Rognvald.

In the days of Harald Fairhair, king of Norway, certain pirates, of the family of the most vigorous prince Ronald [Rognvald], set out with a great fleet, and crossed the Solundic sea..., and subdued the islands to themselves. And being there provided with safe winter seats, they went in summer-time working tyranny upon the English, and the Scots, and sometimes also upon the Irish, so that they took under their rule, from England, Northumbria; from Scotland, Caithness; from Ireland, Dublin, and the other sea-side towns.[6]

This account does not associate Rognvald with the earldom, but instead attributes it to his anonymous sons.

[edit] Fragmentary Annals of Ireland ...for it was not long before this that there had been every war and every trouble in Norway, and this was the source of that war in Norway: two younger sons of Albdan, king of Norway, drove out the eldest son, i.e. Ragnall son of Albdan, for fear that he would seize the kingship of Norway after their father. So Ragnall came with his three sons to the Orkneys. Ragnall stayed there then, with his youngest son. Fragmentary Annals of Ireland , FA 330. Edited and translated by Joan N. Radnor. The oldest account of the Rognvald and the earldom of Orkney is that found in the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. The annals survive only in incomplete copies made by Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh in the 17th century, but the original annals are believed to date from the lifetime of Donnchad mac Gilla Pâatraic (died 1039). The annals are known to have had an influence on later writings in Iceland.

The annals make Rognvald the son of "Halfdan, King of Lochlann". This is generally understood to mean Halfdan the Black, which would make the Rognvald of the annals the brother of Harald Finehair. However, the sagas claim that Rognvald's grandfather was named Halfdan.[7]

These events are placed after an account of the devastation of Fortriu, dated to around 866,[8] and the fall of York, reliably dated to late 867. However, such an early date makes it difficult to reconcile the saga claims that Harald Fairhair was involved in Rognvald's conquest of the northern isles.

Harald Finehair's victory in the Battle of Hafrsfjord, which gave him dominion over parts of Norway, is traditionally dated to 872, but was probably later, perhaps as late as 900.[9] What little is known of Scottish events in the period from the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba would correspond equally well with Harald's attacks on Scotland in the reign of Domnall mac Causantâin (ruled 889–900).[10] However, this would not correspond with the sequence in the earliest account of the origins of the Orkney earldom, which places this a generation earlier.

Rognvald "The Wise" Eysteinsson (son of Eystein Ivarsson) is the founder of the Earldom of Orkney in the Norse Sagas. Three quite different accounts of the creation of the Norse earldom on Orkney and Shetland exist. The best known is that found in the Heimskringla, but other older traditions are found in the Historia Norvegiae and the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland.

The saga accounts are the best known, and the latest, of the three surviving traditions concerning Rognvald and the foundation of the Earldom of Orkney. Recorded in the 13th century, their views are informed by Norwegian politics of the day. Once, historians could write that no-one denied the reality of Harald Fairhair's expeditions to the west recounted in Heimskringla, but this is no longer the case. The Norwegian contest with the the Kings of Scots over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man in the middle 13th century underlies the sagas.[1]

In the Heimskringla, Rognvald is Earl of M²re. He accompanies Harald Fairhair on his great expeditions to the west, to Ireland and to Scotland. Here, Rognvald's son Ivarr is killed. In compensation King Harald grants Rognvald the Orkneys and Shetlands. Rognvald himself returns to Norway, giving the northern isles to his brother Sigurd Eysteinsson[2]

The Heimskringla recounts other tales of Rognvald. It tells how he causes Harald Finehair to be given his byname Fairhair by cutting and dressing his hair, which had been uncut for ten years on account of Harald's vow never to cut it until he was ruler of all Norway,[3] and it makes him the father of Ganger-Hrâolf, identified by saga writers with the Rollo (Hrâolfr), ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy, who was established as Count of Rouen by King Charles the Simple in 931.[4]

Earl Rognvald is killed by Harald's son Halfdan Hêalegg. Rognvald's death is avenged by his son, Earl Turf-Einar, from whom later Orkney earls claimed descent, who kills Halfdan on North Ronaldsay.[5]

[edit] Historia Norvegiae The Historia Norvegiae's account of Rognvald and the foundation of the Orkney earldom is the next oldest, probably dating from the 12th century. This account contains much curious detail on Orkney, including the earliest account of the Picts as small people who hid in the daytime, but it has little to say about Rognvald.

In the days of Harald Fairhair, king of Norway, certain pirates, of the family of the most vigorous prince Ronald [Rognvald], set out with a great fleet, and crossed the Solundic sea..., and subdued the islands to themselves. And being there provided with safe winter seats, they went in summer-time working tyranny upon the English, and the Scots, and sometimes also upon the Irish, so that they took under their rule, from England, Northumbria; from Scotland, Caithness; from Ireland, Dublin, and the other sea-side towns.[6]

This account does not associate Rognvald with the earldom, but instead attributes it to his anonymous sons.

[edit] Fragmentary Annals of Ireland ...for it was not long before this that there had been every war and every trouble in Norway, and this was the source of that war in Norway: two younger sons of Albdan, king of Norway, drove out the eldest son, i.e. Ragnall son of Albdan, for fear that he would seize the kingship of Norway after their father. So Ragnall came with his three sons to the Orkneys. Ragnall stayed there then, with his youngest son. Fragmentary Annals of Ireland , FA 330. Edited and translated by Joan N. Radnor. The oldest account of the Rognvald and the earldom of Orkney is that found in the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. The annals survive only in incomplete copies made by Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh in the 17th century, but the original annals are believed to date from the lifetime of Donnchad mac Gilla Patraic (died 1039). The annals are known to have had been influential in later writings on Iceland.

The annals make Rognvald the son of "Halfdan, King of Lochlann". This is generally understood to mean Halfdan the Black, which would make the Rognvald of the annals the brother of Harald Finehair. However, the sagas claim that Rognvald's grandfather was named Halfdan.[7]

These events are placed after an account of the devastation of Fortriu, dated to around 866,[8] and the fall of York, reliably dated to late 867. However, such an early date makes it difficult to reconcile the saga claims that Harald Fairhair was involved in Rognvald's conquest of the northern isles.

Harald Finehair's victory in the Battle of Hafrsfjord, which gave him dominion over parts of Norway, is traditionally dated to 872, but was probably later, perhaps as late as 900.[9] What little is known of Scottish events in the period from the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba would correspond equally well with Harald's attacks on Scotland in the reign of Domnall mac Causantâin (ruled 889–900).[10] However, this would not correspond with the sequence in the earliest account of the origins of the Orkney earldom, which places this a generation earlier.

Earl of More

Born: abt 830 Maer, Nord Trondelag, Norway Died: 890 Orkney Islands, Orkney, Scotland
Rèognvaldr Eysteinsson, M²rejarl1,2,3 b. circa 830, d. 894 Rèognvaldr Eysteinsson, M²rejarl|b. c 830\nd. 894|p314.htm#i5205|Eysteinn Glumra, Jarl of the Uplanders|b. c 800|p6.htm#i8264|Aseda Rèognvaldsdâottir||p67.htm#i8832|Ivarr O., Jarl of the Uplanders|b. c 760\nd. a 800|p305.htm#i8265|N. N. of Throndheim|b. c 780|p67.htm#i8831|Rèognvaldr H. H. Ó., King of Vestfold||p278.htm#i9457|Thâora Sigurdsdâottir||p111.htm#i13338| Father Eysteinn Glumra, Jarl of the Uplanders4,5 b. circa 800 Mother Aseda Rèognvaldsdâottir

Also called Jarl Ragnald I of Orkney.6 Rèognvaldr Eysteinsson, M²rejarl was King Harald Fairhair's dearest friend, and the king had the greatest regard for him.4 Also called Jarl Rognvaldr of M²re.7 He was per late Icelandic sources, for which there is no good reason to believe that these generations are historical, a son of Eysteinn Glumra, son of Ívarr, son of Hâalfdan the Old.7 Rèognvaldr Eysteinsson, M²rejarl also went by the name of Ragnvald "the Wise".4,5 He associated with unknown , a concubine.8 Rèognvaldr Eysteinsson, M²rejarl was born circa 830 at Maer, Norway. He was the son of Eysteinn Glumra, Jarl of the Uplanders and Aseda Rèognvaldsdâottir.4,5 Rèognvaldr Eysteinsson, M²rejarl became one of H

Earl Rognvald joined Harold fair-hair when he seized the land, but he (Harold) gave him lordship over both the Mµren and Romsdale; (7) he had to wife Ragnhilda the daughter of Hrolf nosy; their son was Hrolf who won Normandy, he was so tall that horses could not carry him; for that he was called Ganging-Hrolf; from him are come the Rouen Jarls and the English Kings; their son was also Ivar, and Thorir the silent.

Rognvald had also base-born sons, their names were Hallad and Hrollaug and Einar, he was the youngest.

end of this commentary

Ragnvald married Ragnhild Hrâolfsdâottir, Countess of MarVestfold, Norway. Ragnhild was born in 848 in Vestfold, Norway; died in 892 in Norway. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

3096833.

Ragnhild Hrâolfsdâottir, Countess of Mar was born in 848 in Vestfold, Norway; died in 892 in Norway.

Notes:

Name Ragnhild 'Hild' Hrâolfsdâottir
Born 848 County of Vestfold, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location
Sex Woman
Baptism ca. 848
Age: About 0
Employment Countess of More, Countess of Maer, Condesa de More, Countess., Comtesse de Moer, COUNTESS OF MORE
Death 892 Norway Find all individuals with events at this location
Buried ca. 892 Norway Find all individuals with events at this location
Person ID I2578 My Family Genealogy | The Ravnholdt & Hansen family
Last modified Aug 1 2018

Family Ragnvald Eysteinsson, of M²re , b. 825, Vestfold county, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location, d. 892, Giske, M²re and Romsdal county, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 67 years)
Married ca. 845 County of Vestfold, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
1. Hallad Ragnvaldsson Mœrajarl, Orkneyjarl , b. 850, Sunnm²re, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location, d. 894, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 44 years)
2. Ivar Ragnvaldsson M²rejarl , b. 850, Sunnm²re, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location, d. 872, Orkney, Scotland Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 22 years)
3. Einarr Rognvaldsson, Orkneyjarl , b. 852, M²re og Romsdal county, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location, d. 910, Orkney, Scotland Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 58 years)
4. Hrollaug Ragnvaldsson Mœrajarls , b. 859, Giske, M²re og Romsdal county, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location, d. 896, Eyjafjèorºur, Iceland Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 37 years)
+ 5. Rollo Ragnvaldsson , f. Ml. 860 and 866, d. Ca. 931, Rouen, Seine-Maritime, Haute-Normandie, France Find all individuals with events at this location (Age ~ 71 years)
+ 6. Tore Teiande Ragnvaldsson Rèognvaldsson , f. Ca. 862, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location, d. Ca. 939, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location (Age ~ 77 years)
7. Gutum Ragnvaldson , d. 875

end of this profile

Children:

1548416. Rollo was born in 846 in Maer, Norway; died in 931; was buried in Rouen Cathedral, Rouen, Normandy, France.

3096834.

Berengar II of Neustria, Count of Bayeux died in 0896.

Notes:

Berengar II (died 896) was the Count of Bayeux and Rennes and Margrave of the Breton March from 886 until his death a decade later.

In 874, Brittany's internal politics were thrown into turmoil when King Salomon was murdered by a rival. The resulting surge of Viking attacks made possible by the power vacuum was narrowly held at bay by a hasty Breton-Frankish alliance between Alan the Great of Vannes and Berengar of Rennes. Between 889-90, the Seine Vikings moved into Brittany, hard on the heels of the Loire fleet that Alan and Berengar had successfully driven out (this latter force had broken up into several small flotillas and sailed west). Alain again joined forces with Berengar of Rennes and led two Breton armies into the field. Finding their retreat down the Marne blocked, the Vikings hauled their ships overland to the Vire and besieged Saint-Lo, where the Bretons virtually annihilated the fleet.

Berengar's kin became the first Gallo-speaking lords holding residence within Brittany (Rennes and Penthiáevre, rather than the Loire Valley-predominant Nantes or Vannes), as a consequence of the Breton nobility being more or less broken under the Norman invasions of the 880s and as a reward for holding his ground against their attacks.

Berengar is speculated to have married the daughter of Gurvand, Duke of Brittany, by which relationship he attained the countship of Rennes. This would make him brother-in-law of Judicael, Duke of Brittany. He is thought to be the Berengar of Bayeux whose daughter Poppa was captured in a raid and married to Rollo of Normandy. Various reconstructions make him father, grandfather, or great-grandfather of Judicael Berengar, later Count of Rennes.

References

This article does not cite any sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Sources

Price, Neil (1989). The Vikings in Brittany (PDF). Retrieved July 2012. Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
Arthur de la Borderie (1898). Histoire de Bretagne. p. 334.
Musset, Lucien (1965). Les invasions: le second assaut contre I'Europe Chrâetienne.
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 890.

end of biography

Berengar married unnamed spouse. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

3096835.
unnamed spouse
Children:

1548417. Lady Poppa of Bayeux was born in (850) in Bayeux, France; was buried in Rouen Cathedral, Rouen, Normandy, France.

3096842.

Aethelstan, King of the East Angles was born in ~838 in Wantage, Berkshire, England (son of Aethelwulf of Wessex, King of Wessex and Osburga, Queen Consort of Wessex); died in 890.

Notes:

Guthrum or Guºrum (died c. 890), christened ¥thelstan on his conversion to Christianity in 878, was King of the Danish Vikings in the Danelaw. He is mainly known for his conflict with Alfred the Great.

Guthrum, founder of the Danelaw

It is not known how Guthrum consolidated his rule as king over the other Danish chieftains of the Danelaw (Danish-ruled territory of England), but by 874 he was able to wage a war against Wessex and its King, Alfred.

In 875, the Danish forces, then under Guthrum and Halfdan Ragnarsson, divided, Halfdan's contingent returning north to Northumbria, while Guthrum's forces went to East Anglia, quartering themselves at Cambridge for the year.

By 876, Guthrum had acquired various parts of the kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria and then turned his attention to acquiring Wessex, where his first confrontation with Alfred took place on the south coast. Guthrum sailed his army around Poole Harbour and linked up with another Viking army that was invading the area between the Frome and Piddle rivers which was ruled by Alfred.[1] According to the historian Asser, Guthrum won his initial battle with Alfred, and he captured the castellum as well as the ancient square earthworks known as the Wareham, where there was a convent of nuns.

Alfred successfully brokered a peace settlement, but by 877 this peace was broken as Guthrum led his army raiding further into Wessex, thus forcing Alfred to confront him in a series of skirmishes that Guthrum continued to win. At Exeter, which Guthrum had also captured, Alfred made a peace treaty, with the result that Guthrum left Wessex to winter in Gloucester.

Surprise attack

Silver penny of ¥thelstan
On Epiphany, 6 January 878, Guthrum made a surprise night-time attack on Alfred and his court at Chippenham, Wiltshire. It being a Christian feast day the Saxons were presumably taken by surprise—indeed it is possible that Wulfhere, the Ealdorman of Wiltshire, allowed the attack either through negligence or intent, for on Alfred's return to power later in 878 Wulfhere was stripped of his role as Ealdorman.

Alfred fled the attack with a few retainers and took shelter in the marshes of Somerset, staying in the small village of Athelney. Over the next few months he built up his force and waged a guerrilla war against Guthrum from his fastness in the fens. After a few months Alfred called his loyal men to Egbert's Stone, and from there they travelled to Edington to fight the invaders.

Defeat by Alfred

Guthrum's hopes of conquering all of Wessex came to an end with his defeat at the hands of Alfred at the Battle of Edington in 878. At Edington, Guthrum’s entire army was routed by Alfred's and fled to their encampment where they were besieged by Alfred's fyrd for two weeks. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Guthrum’s army was able to negotiate a peace treaty known as the Treaty of Wedmore.[2] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded the event:

“Then the raiding army granted him (Alfred) hostages and great oaths that they would leave his kingdom and also promised him that their king (Guthrum) would receive baptism; and they fulfilled it. And three weeks later the king Guthrum came to him, one of thirty of the most honourable men who were in the raiding army, at Aller - and that is near Athelney - and the king received him at baptism; and his chrism loosing was at Wedmore.” [2]
Conversion to Christianity and peace
Under the Treaty of Wedmore the borders dividing the lands of Alfred and Guthrum were established,[3] and perhaps more importantly, Guthrum converted to Christianity and took on the Christian name ¥thelstan with Alfred as his godfather.

Guthrum upheld his end of the treaty and left the boundary that separated the Danelaw from English England unmolested. Guthrum, although failing to conquer Wessex, turned towards the lands to the east that the treaty had allotted under his control. Guthrum withdrew his army from the western borders facing Alfred's territory and moved eastward before eventually settling in the Kingdom of Guthrum in East Anglia in 879. He lived out the remainder of his life there until his death in 890. According to the Annals of St Neots, a chronicle compiled in Bury St Edmunds, Guthrum was buried at Headleage, which is usually identified as Hadleigh, Suffolk.[4]

Popular culture

Guthrum appears in several works of fiction, including:

G. K. Chesterton's poem The Ballad of the White Horse.
C. Walter Hodges' juvenile historical novels The Namesake and The Marsh King.
Bernard Cornwell's first three novels of The Saxon Stories series The Last Kingdom, and The Pale Horseman, and The Lords of the North.
On screen, he was portrayed by Brian Blessed in episode 4 ("King Alfred") of Churchill's People, by Michael York in the 1969 film Alfred the Great, and Thomas W. Gabrielsson in The Last Kingdom.

References
Collingwood, M. A. and Powell, F. Y. Scandinavian Britain (New York: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1908), p. 94.
Anglo Saxon Chronicle Trans. by M. J. Swanton (New York, Routledge: 1996).
Davis, R. H. C. From Alfred the Great to Stephen (London, The Hambledon Press: 1991) p. 48.
Dumville, David; Lapidge, Michael (1985). The Annals of St Neots with Vita Prima Sancti Neoti, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a Collaborative Edition. Cambridge. ISBN 978-0-85991-117-7.

end of biography

Aethelstan married unnamed spouse. unnamed was born in ~0842 in (Wantage, Berkshire, England). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

3096843.

unnamed spouse was born in ~0842 in (Wantage, Berkshire, England).

Children:

1548421. Elgiva of Wessex, Queen of Denmark was born in ~872 in Wantage, Berkshire, England; died in ~935 in Jellinge, Vejle, Denmark; was buried in Gormshoj, Jellinge, Vejle, Denmark.

3096860.

Herbert de Vermandois, II, Count of Meaux was born in 884 in Vermandois, France (son of Herbert de Vermandois, I, Count of Vermandois and Bertha de Morvois); died on 23 Feb 943 in St Quentin, Peronne, Somme, France.

Notes:

Herbert II Carolingian de Vermandois, Count of Vermandois, Count of Meaux, was born 884 to Herbert I de Vermandois (c848-907) and Bertha de Morvois (c850-c907) and died 23 February 943 of unspecified causes. Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]

Children

Offspring of Herbert II de Vermandois and Hildebranda of France (895-931)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Adele de Vermandois (910-960) 910 960 Arnulf I of Flanders (c890-965)

Eudes d'Amiens (910-aft946) 910 946
Robert de Vermandois (918-968) 920 968 Seine-et-Marne, France Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967)

Hugues de Reims (920-962) 920 962
Liutgarde de Vermandois (c920-978) 920 9 February 978 William Longsword, 2nd Duke of Normandy (893-942)
Thibaut I de Blois (913-975)

Herbert III de Vermandois (c913-c982) 913 982 Eadgifu of Wessex (902-aft955)

Albert I de Vermandois (915-987) 915 Saint-Quentin 8 September 987 Gerberge de Lorraine (c935-978)
Siblings
Siblings

Offspring of Herbert I de Vermandois and Bertha de Morvois (c850-c907)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Bâeatrice of Vermandois (c880-931) 880 Paris, France 26 March 931 Soissons, France Robert I of France (866-923)

Herbert II de Vermandois (884-943) 884 23 February 943 Hildebranda of France (895-931)

Cunigunde of Vermandois (-943) 943 Udo I von der Wetterau (c900-949)

Adele of Vermandois (?-?) Gebhard von Ufgau (?-c947)

Berengar of Bayeaux (?-?) Daughter of Gurvand, Duke of Brittany

Herbert married Hildebranda of France(France). Hildebranda was born in 895 in (France); died in 931 in (France). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

3096861.

Hildebranda of France was born in 895 in (France); died in 931 in (France).

Notes:

Hildebranda of France was born 895 to Robert I of France (866-923) and Aelis and died 931 of unspecified causes. Ancestors are from Germany, France.

Children

Offspring of Hildebranda Capet and Herbert II de Vermandois (884-943)

Name Birth Death Joined with

Adele de Vermandois (910-960) 910 960 Arnulf I of Flanders (c890-965)

Eudes d'Amiens (910-aft946) 910 946
Robert de Vermandois (918-968) 920 968 Seine-et-Marne, France Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967)

Hugues de Reims (920-962) 920 962
Liutgarde de Vermandois (c920-978) 920 9 February 978 William Longsword, 2nd Duke of Normandy (893-942)
Thibaut I de Blois (913-975)

Herbert III de Vermandois (c913-c982) 913 982 Eadgifu of Wessex (902-aft955)

Albert I de Vermandois (915-987) 915 Saint-Quentin 8 September 987 Gerberge de Lorraine (c935-978)

Children:

1548430. Robert De Vermandois, Count of Meaux was born in 918 in (France); died on 29 Aug 968 in Seine-et-Marne, France.

385096.

Richard de Normandie, II was born on 23 Aug 963 in Normandie, France (son of Richard de Normandie, I and Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy); died on 28 Aug 1027 in Normandie, France.

Notes:

Richard II of Normandy, Duke of Normandy, was born 23 August 963 in Normandy, France to Richard I, Duke of Normandy (933-996) and Gunnora, Duchess of Normandy (c936-1031) and died 28 August 1027 in Normandy, France of unspecified causes. He married Judith of Brittany (982-1017) 996 JL . He married Papia of Envermeu . Ancestors are from France.
Contents[show]

Children

Offspring of Richard II of Normandy and Judith of Brittany (982-1017)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Richard III of Normandy (997-1027) 997 1027 Adáele of France (1009-1079)

Adelaide of Normandy (1002-1038) 1002 1038 Renaud I de Bourgogne (c990-1057)

Robert II, Duke of Normandy (c1000-1035) 1000 Normandy, France 22 July 1035 Nicaea, Bithynia, Turkey Herleva of Falaise (1003-1050)
Estrid of Normandy (1001)

William of Normandy (c1008-aft1025) 1008 1025
Eleanor of Normandy (c1012-aft1071) 1012 1071 Baldwin IV of Flanders (980-1036)

Matilda of Normandy (c1014-aft1033) 1014 1033

Offspring of Richard II of Normandy and Papia of Envermeu
Name Birth Death Joined with
Mauger de Rouen (c1019-c1055) 1019 1055
Guillaume de Talou (c1022-aft1054) 1022 1054 Beatrice de Ponthieu (c1035-c1082)

Noteworthy descendants include

Henry II of England (1133-1189)
William I of England (1027-1087)
Namesakes of Richard II, Duke of Normandy (963-1027)

Richard married Papia Envermeu in 1017-1026 in (Normandy, France). Papia was born in 997 in (Normandy, France); died after 1047. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

385097.
Papia Envermeu was born in 997 in (Normandy, France); died after 1047.
Children:

192548. Mauger Normandie was born in ~1020 in Normandie, France; died in 1055 in (Normandy, France).

354354.

Notes:

Malcolm (Gaelic: Mâael Coluim; c. 954 - 25 November 1034)[1] was King of the Scots from 1005 until his death.[2] He was a son of King Kenneth II; the Prophecy of Berchâan says that his mother was a woman of Leinster and refers to him as Forranach, "the Destroyer".[3]

To the Irish annals which recorded his death, Malcolm was ard râi Alban, High King of Scotland. In the same way that Brian Bâoruma, High King of Ireland, was not the only king in Ireland, Malcolm was one of several kings within the geographical boundaries of modern Scotland: his fellow kings included the king of Strathclyde, who ruled much of the south-west, various Norse-Gael kings on the western coast and the Hebrides and, nearest and most dangerous rivals, the kings or Mormaers of Moray. To the south, in the Kingdom of England, the Earls of Bernicia and Northumbria, whose predecessors as kings of Northumbria had once ruled most of southern Scotland, still controlled large parts of the southeast.[4]

Early years

Malcolm II was born to Kenneth II of Scotland. He was grandson of Malcolm I of Scotland. In 997, the killer of Constantine is credited as being Kenneth, son of Malcolm. Since there is no known and relevant Kenneth alive at that time (King Kenneth having died in 995), it is considered an error for either Kenneth III, who succeeded Constantine, or, possibly, Malcolm himself, the son of Kenneth II.[5] Whether Malcolm killed Constantine or not, there is no doubt that in 1005 he killed Constantine's successor Kenneth III in battle at Monzievaird in Strathearn.[6]

John of Fordun writes that Malcolm defeated a Norwegian army "in almost the first days after his coronation", but this is not reported elsewhere. Fordun says that the Bishopric of Mortlach (later moved to Aberdeen) was founded in thanks for this victory over the Norwegians.[7]
Children

Malcolm demonstrated a rare ability to survive among early Scottish kings by reigning for twenty-nine years. He was a clever and ambitious man. Brehon tradition provided that the successor to Malcolm was to be selected by him from among the descendants of King Aedh, with the consent of Malcolm's ministers and of the church. Ostensibly in an attempt to end the devastating feuds in the north of Scotland, but obviously influenced by the Norman feudal model, Malcolm ignored tradition and determined to retain the succession within his own line. But since Malcolm had no son of his own, he undertook to negotiate a series of dynastic marriages of his three daughters to men who might otherwise be his rivals, while securing the loyalty of the principal chiefs, their relatives. First he married his daughter Bethoc to Crinan, Thane of The Isles, head of the house of Atholl and secular Abbot of Dunkeld; then his youngest daughter, Olith, to Sigurd, Earl of Orkney. His middle daughter, Donada, was married to Finlay, Earl of Moray, Thane of Ross and Cromarty and a descendant of Loarn of Dalriada. This was risky business under the rules of succession of the Gael, but he thereby secured his rear and, taking advantage of the renewal of Viking attacks on England, marched south to fight the English. He defeated the Angles at Carham in 1018 and installed his grandson, Duncan, son of the Abbot of Dunkeld and his choice as Tanist, in Carlisle as King of Cumbria that same year.[8]
Bernicia

The first reliable report of Malcolm II's reign is of an invasion of Bernicia in 1006, perhaps the customary crech râig (literally royal prey, a raid by a new king made to demonstrate prowess in war), which involved a siege of Durham. This appears to have resulted in a heavy defeat by the Northumbrians, led by Uhtred of Bamburgh, later Earl of Bernicia, which is reported by the Annals of Ulster.[9]

A second war in Bernicia, probably in 1018, was more successful. The Battle of Carham, by the River Tweed, was a victory for the Scots led by Malcolm II and the men of Strathclyde led by their king, Owen the Bald. By this time Earl Uchtred may have been dead, and Eirâikr Hâakonarson was appointed Earl of Northumbria by his brother-in-law Cnut the Great, although his authority seems to have been limited to the south, the former kingdom of Deira, and he took no action against the Scots so far as is known.[10] The work De obsessione Dunelmi (The siege of Durham, associated with Symeon of Durham) claims that Uchtred's brother Eadwulf Cudel surrendered Lothian to Malcolm II, presumably in the aftermath of the defeat at Carham. This is likely to have been the lands between Dunbar and the Tweed as other parts of Lothian had been under Scots control before this time. It has been suggested that Cnut received tribute from the Scots for Lothian, but as he had likely received none from the Bernician Earls this is not very probable.[11]
Cnut

Cnut, reports the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, led an army into Scotland on his return from pilgrimage to Rome. The Chronicle dates this to 1031, but there are reasons to suppose that it should be dated to 1027.[12] Burgundian chronicler Rodulfus Glaber recounts the expedition soon afterwards, describing Malcolm as "powerful in resources and arms … very Christian in faith and deed."[13] Ralph claims that peace was made between Malcolm and Cnut through the intervention of Richard, Duke of Normandy, brother of Cnut's wife Emma. Richard died in about 1027 and Rodulfus wrote close in time to the events.[14]

It has been suggested that the root of the quarrel between Cnut and Malcolm lies in Cnut's pilgrimage to Rome, and the coronation of Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II, where Cnut and Rudolph III, King of Burgundy had the place of honour. If Malcolm were present, and the repeated mentions of his piety in the annals make it quite possible that he made a pilgrimage to Rome, as did Mac Bethad mac Findlâaich ("Macbeth") in later times, then the coronation would have allowed Malcolm to publicly snub Cnut's claims to overlordship.[15]

Cnut obtained rather less than previous English kings, a promise of peace and friendship rather than the promise of aid on land and sea that Edgar and others had obtained. The sources say that Malcolm was accompanied by one or two other kings, certainly Mac Bethad, and perhaps Echmarcach mac Ragnaill, King of Mann and the Isles, and of Galloway.[16] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle remarks of the submission "but he [Malcolm] adhered to that for only a little while".[17] Cnut was soon occupied in Norway against Olaf Haraldsson and appears to have had no further involvement with Scotland.
Orkney and Moray

Olith a daughter of Malcolm, married Sigurd Hlodvisson, Earl of Orkney.[18] Their son Thorfinn Sigurdsson was said to be five years old when Sigurd was killed on 23 April 1014 in the Battle of Clontarf. The Orkneyinga Saga says that Thorfinn was raised at Malcolm's court and was given the Mormaerdom of Caithness by his grandfather. Thorfinn says in the Heimskringla that he was the ally of the king of Scots, and counted on Malcolm's support to resist the "tyranny" of Norwegian King Olaf Haraldsson.[19] (Thorfinn's older step brother had died while a hostage to King Olaf.) The chronology of Thorfinn's life is problematic, and he may have had a share in the Earldom of Orkney while still a child, if he was indeed only five in 1014.[20] Whatever the exact chronology, before Malcolm's death a client of the king of Scots was in control of Caithness and Orkney, although, as with all such relationships, it is unlikely to have lasted beyond his death.

If Malcolm exercised control over Moray, which is far from being generally accepted, then the annals record a number of events pointing to a struggle for power in the north. In 1020, Mac Bethad's father Findlâaech mac Ruaidrâi was killed by the sons of his brother Mâael Brigte.[21] It seems that Mâael Coluim mac Mâail Brigti took control of Moray, for his death is reported in 1029.[22]

Despite the accounts of the Irish annals, English and Scandinavian writers appear to see Mac Bethad as the rightful king of Moray: this is clear from their descriptions of the meeting with Cnut in 1027, before the death of Malcolm mac Mâail Brigti. Malcolm was followed as king or earl by his brother Gillecomgan, husband of Gruoch, a granddaughter of King Kenneth III. It has been supposed that Mac Bethad was responsible for the killing of Gille Coemgâain in 1032, but if Mac Bethad had a cause for feud in the killing of his father in 1020, Malcolm too had reason to see Gille Coemgâain dead. Not only had Gillecomgan's ancestors killed many of Malcolm's kin, but Gillecomgan and his son Lulach might be rivals for the throne. Malcolm had no living sons, and the threat to his plans for the succession was obvious. As a result, the following year Gruoch's brother or nephew, who might have eventually become king, was killed by Malcolm.[23]
Strathclyde and the succession

It has traditionally been supposed that King Owen the Bald of Strathclyde died at the Battle of Carham and that the kingdom passed into the hands of the Scots afterwards. This rests on some very weak evidence. It is far from certain that Owen died at Carham, and it is reasonably certain that there were kings of Strathclyde as late as 1054, when Edward the Confessor sent Earl Siward to install "Malcolm son of the king of the Cumbrians". The confusion is old, probably inspired by William of Malmesbury and embellished by John of Fordun, but there is no firm evidence that the kingdom of Strathclyde was a part of the kingdom of the Scots, rather than a loosely subjected kingdom, before the time of Malcolm II of Scotland's great-grandson Malcolm Canmore.[24]

By the 1030s Malcolm's sons, if he had any, were dead. The only evidence that he did have a son or sons is in Rodulfus Glaber's chronicle where Cnut is said to have stood as godfather to a son of Malcolm.[25] His grandson Thorfinn would have been unlikely to be accepted as king by the Scots, and he chose the sons of his other daughter, Bethâoc, who was married to Crâinâan, lay abbot of Dunkeld, and perhaps Mormaer of Atholl. It may be no more than coincidence, but in 1027 the Irish annals had reported the burning of Dunkeld, although no mention is made of the circumstances.[26] Malcolm's chosen heir, and the first tâanaise râig certainly known in Scotland, was Duncan.

It is possible that a third daughter of Malcolm married Findlâaech mac Ruaidrâi and that Mac Bethad was thus his grandson, but this rests on relatively weak evidence.[27]
Death and posterity
19th-century engraving of "King Malcolm's grave stone" (Glamis no. 2) at Glamis

Malcolm died in 1034, Marianus Scotus giving the date as 25 November 1034. The king lists say that he died at Glamis, variously describing him as a "most glorious" or "most victorious" king. The Annals of Tigernach report that "Malcolm mac Cinâaeda, king of Scotland, the honour of all the west of Europe, died." The Prophecy of Berchâan, perhaps the inspiration for John of Fordun and Andrew of Wyntoun's accounts where Malcolm is killed fighting bandits, says that he died by violence, fighting "the parricides", suggested to be the sons of Mâael Brigte of Moray.[28]

Perhaps the most notable feature of Malcolm's death is the account of Marianus, matched by the silence of the Irish annals, which tells us that Duncan I became king and ruled for five years and nine months. Given that his death in 1040 is described as being "at an immature age" in the Annals of Tigernach, he must have been a young man in 1034. The absence of any opposition suggests that Malcolm had dealt thoroughly with any likely opposition in his own lifetime.[29]

Tradition, dating from Fordun's time if not earlier, knew the Pictish stone now called "Glamis 2" as "King Malcolm's grave stone". The stone is a Class II stone, apparently formed by re-using a Bronze Age standing stone. Its dating is uncertain, with dates from the 8th century onwards having been proposed. While an earlier date is favoured, an association with accounts of Malcolm's has been proposed on the basis of the iconography of the carvings.[30]

On the question of Malcolm's putative pilgrimage, pilgrimages to Rome, or other long-distance journeys, were far from unusual. Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Cnut and Mac Bethad have already been mentioned. Rognvald Kali Kolsson is known to have gone crusading in the Mediterranean in the 12th century. Nearer in time, Dyfnwal of Strathclyde died on pilgrimage to Rome in 975 as did Mâael Ruanaid uâa Mâaele Doraid, King of the Cenâel Conaill, in 1025.

Not a great deal is known of Malcolm's activities beyond the wars and killings. The Book of Deer records that Malcolm "gave a king's dues in Biffie and in Pett Meic-Gobraig, and two davochs" to the monastery of Old Deer.[31] He was also probably not the founder of the Bishopric of Mortlach-Aberdeen. John of Fordun has a peculiar tale to tell, related to the supposed "Laws of Malcolm MacKenneth", saying that Malcolm gave away all of Scotland, except for the Moot Hill at Scone, which is unlikely to have any basis in fact.[32]

end of biography

Malcolm II (a.k.a. Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda) lived from 954 to 25 November 1034 and was King of Alba from 25 March 1005 to 25 November 1034. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline.

Until Malcolm's rule, the Crown of Alba had passed backwards and forwards between different strands of the House of Alpin under the law of tanistry, under which the extended family elected the successor from candidates across the family.

Malcolm changed this by the simple expedient of wiping out all competition to his own line anywhere in the family (or so he thought at the time). He succeeded to the throne by killing his predecessor Kenneth III (and Kenneth's son Giric) at the Battle of Monzievaird on 25 March 1005. This took place just north of Crieff, close to the location of today's Glenturret Distillery. He later had Kenneth's grandson killed.

Malcolm's reasons for killing the competiton was straightforward. He himself had three daughters, and while they had all married well, his grandsons could not compete the more direct claims to the Crown of Alba of those he eliminated.

Malcolm II's rule started badly, with a loss in battle against the English near Durham in 1006. He put this right with an alliance with Strathclyde and a victory over the English at the Battle of Carham, on the River Tweed, in 1018. This greatly strengthened his grip on Lothian: in effect the east side of Scotland from the Forth to the Tweed. Scottish soverignty over Lothian seems to have been subsequently acknowledged by King Canute during a visit to Scotland in 1031.

In the north, Malcolm II formed an alliance with the Vikings which included the marriage of one of his daughters to the Norse Earl Sigurd of Orkney. The situation in Strathclyde was more troublesome. Malcolm's ally, King Owen, died without an heir, and Malcolm tried to place his grandson Duncan (later Duncan I of Alba) on the throne of Strathclyde. This displeased the Britons and led to Malcolm's assassination at Glamis on 25 November 1034. He was buried in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel on the Isle of Iona.

Malcolm's three daughters had between them produced three notable sons. One married Earl Sigurd of Orkney, and their son Earl Thorfinn went on to bring much of Caithness and Sutherland into Scotland. One married Crâinâan, the Abbot of Dunkeld, and their son Duncan went on to succeed Malcom II as Duncan I. And the third married Findláaech, the sub-king of Moray, and their son Macbeth went on to kill Duncan (with Thorfinn's help) and become King Macbeth.

end of biography

Buried:
in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel...

View images and more history of St Oran's; https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/iona/storanschapel/index.html

Malcolm married Aefgifu. Aefgifu was born in Ossory, Ireland; died in (Scotland). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

354355.

Aefgifu was born in Ossory, Ireland; died in (Scotland).

Children:

177177. Bethoc was born in 984 in Perthshire, Scotland; died on 15 Sep 1049 in Dunkeld, Perthshire, Scotland.
Donalda was born in Scotland.
a daughter of Malcolm, II was born in (Scotland).

355208.

Notes:

¥thelred II (Old English: ¥¤elrµd, pronounced [µºelrµ?d];[1] c. 966 – 23 April 1016), known as the Unready, was King of the English from 978 to 1013 and again from 1014 until his death. His epithet does not derive from the modern word "unready", but rather from the Old English unrµd (meaning "poorly advised"); it is a pun on his name, which means "well advised".

¥thelred was the son of King Edgar and Queen ¥lfthryth. He came to the throne at about the age of 12, following the assassination of his older half-brother, Edward the Martyr. His brother's murder was carried out by supporters of his own claim to the throne, although he was too young to have any personal involvement. The chief problem of ¥thelred's reign was conflict with the Danes. After several decades of relative peace, Danish raids on English territory began again in earnest in the 980s. Following the Battle of Maldon in 991, ¥thelred paid tribute, or Danegeld, to the Danish king. In 1002, ¥thelred ordered what became known as the St. Brice's Day massacre of Danish settlers. In 1013, King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark invaded England, as a result of which ¥thelred fled to Normandy in 1013 and was replaced by Sweyn. However, he returned as king for two years after Sweyn's death in 1014. ¥thelred's 37-year reign was the longest of any Anglo-Saxon king of England, and was only surpassed in the 13th century, by Henry III. ¥thelred was briefly succeeded by his son, Edmund Ironside, but he died after a few months and was replaced by Sweyn's son, Cnut. Another of his sons, Edward the Confessor, became king in 1042.

King of the English
Reign 18 March 978 – 1013 (first time)
Predecessor Edward the Martyr
Successor Sweyn Forkbeard
Reign 1014 – 23 April 1016
(second time)
Predecessor Sweyn Forkbeard
Successor Edmund Ironside
Born c. 966
Died 23 April 1016 (aged about 50)
London, England
Burial Old St Paul's Cathedral, London, now lost
Spouse ¥lfgifu of York
Emma of Normandy
Issue
Detail
See list[show]
House Wessex
Father Edgar, King of England
Mother ¥lfthryth
Religion Christianity

Name

¥thelred's first name, composed of the elements µºele, "noble", and rµd, "counsel, advice",[2] is typical of the compound names of those who belonged to the royal House of Wessex, and it characteristically alliterates with the names of his ancestors, like ¥thelwulf ("noble-wolf"), ¥lfred ("elf-counsel"), Eadweard ("rich-protection"), and Eadgar ("rich-spear").[3]

The story of ¥thelred's notorious nickname, Old English Unrµd, goes a long way toward explaining how his reputation has declined through history[dubious – discuss] It is usually translated into present-day English as "The Unready" (less often, though less confusingly, as "The Redeless").[4] The Anglo-Saxon noun unrµd means "evil counsel", "bad plan", or "folly".[2] It most often describes decisions and deeds, and once refers to the nature of Satan's deceit. The element rµd in unrµd is the element in ¥thelred's name which means "counsel". Thus ¥¤elrµd Unrµd is a pun meaning "Noble counsel, No counsel". The nickname has alternatively been taken adjectivally as "ill-advised", "ill-prepared", "indecisive", thus "¥thelred the ill-advised".

Because the nickname was first recorded in the 1180s, more than 150 years after ¥thelred's death, it is doubtful that it carries any implications for how the king was seen by his contemporaries or near contemporaries.[5]

Early life

Gold mancus of ¥thelred wearing armour, 1003–1006.
Sir Frank Stenton remarked that "much that has brought condemnation of historians on King ¥thelred may well be due in the last resort to the circumstances under which he became king."[6] ¥thelred's father, King Edgar, had died suddenly in July 975, leaving two young sons behind. The elder, Edward (later Edward the Martyr), was probably illegitimate,[7] and was "still a youth on the verge of manhood" in 975.[8] The younger son was ¥thelred, whose mother, ¥lfthryth, Edgar had married in 964. ¥lfthryth was the daughter of Ordgar, ealdorman of Devon, and widow of ¥thelwold, Ealdorman of East Anglia. At the time of his father's death, ¥thelred could have been no more than 10 years old. As the elder of Edgar's sons, Edward – reportedly a young man given to frequent violent outbursts – probably would have naturally succeeded to the throne of England despite his young age, had not he "offended many important persons by his intolerable violence of speech and behaviour."[8] In any case, a number of English nobles took to opposing Edward's succession and to defending ¥thelred's claim to the throne; ¥thelred was, after all, the son of Edgar's last, living wife, and no rumour of illegitimacy is known to have plagued ¥thelred's birth, as it might have his elder brother's.[9] Both boys, ¥thelred certainly, were too young to have played any significant part in the political manoeuvring which followed Edgar's death. It was the brothers' supporters, and not the brothers themselves, who were responsible for the turmoil which accompanied the choice of a successor to the throne. ¥thelred's cause was led by his mother and included ¥lfhere, Ealdorman of Mercia and Bishop ¥thelwold of Winchester,[10] while Edward's claim was supported by Dunstan, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Oswald, the Archbishop of York[11] among other noblemen, notably ¥thelwine, Ealdorman of East Anglia, and Byrhtnoth, ealdorman of Essex. In the end, Edward's supporters proved the more powerful and persuasive, and he was crowned king at Kingston upon Thames before the year was out.

Edward reigned for only three years before he was murdered by members of his brother's household.[12] Though little is known about Edward's short reign, it is known that it was marked by political turmoil. Edgar had made extensive grants of land to monasteries which pursued the new monastic ideals of ecclesiastical reform, but these disrupted aristocratic families' traditional patronage. The end of his firm rule saw a reversal of this policy, with aristocrats recovering their lost properties or seizing new ones. This was opposed by Dunstan, but according to Cyril Hart, "The presence of supporters of church reform on both sides indicates that the conflict between them depended as much on issues of land ownership and local power as on ecclesiastical legitimacy. Adherents of both Edward and ¥thelred can be seen appropriating, or recovering, monastic lands."[7] Nevertheless, favour for Edward must have been strong among the monastic communities. When Edward was killed at ¥thelred's estate at Corfe Castle in Dorset in March 978, the job of recording the event, as well as reactions to it, fell to monastic writers. Stenton offers a summary of the earliest account of Edward's murder, which comes from a work praising the life of St Oswald: "On the surface his [Edward's] relations with ¥thelred his half-brother and ¥lfthryth his stepmother were friendly, and he was visiting them informally when he was killed. [¥thelred's] retainers came out to meet him with ostentatious signs of respect, and then, before he had dismounted, surrounded him, seized his hands, and stabbed him. ... So far as can be seen the murder was planned and carried out by ¥thelred's household men in order that their young master might become king. There is nothing to support the allegation, which first appears in writing more than a century later, that Queen ¥lfthryth had plotted her stepson's death. No one was punished for a part in the crime, and ¥thelred, who was crowned a month after the murder, began to reign in an atmosphere of suspicion which destroyed the prestige of the crown. It was never fully restored in his lifetime."[13] Nevertheless, at first, the outlook of the new king's officers and counsellors seems in no way to have been bleak. According to one chronicler, the coronation of ¥thelred took place with much rejoicing by the councillors of the English people.[14] Simon Keynes notes that "Byrhtferth of Ramsey states similarly that when ¥thelred was consecrated king, by Archbishop Dunstan and Archbishop Oswald, 'there was great joy at his consecration’, and describes the king in this connection as 'a young man in respect of years, elegant in his manners, with an attractive face and handsome appearance'."[14] ¥thelred could not have been older than 13 years of age in this year.

During these early years, ¥thelred was developing a close relationship to ¥thelwold, bishop of Winchester, one who had supported his unsuccessful claim to the throne. When ¥thelwold died, on 1 August 984, ¥thelred deeply lamented the loss, and he wrote later in a charter from 993 that the event had deprived the country of one "whose industry and pastoral care administered not only to my interest but also to that of all inhabitants of the country."[14]

Conflict with the Danes

England had experienced a period of peace after the reconquest of the Danelaw in the mid-10th century by King Edgar, ¥thelred's father. However, beginning in 980, when ¥thelred could not have been more than 14 years old, small companies of Danish adventurers carried out a series of coastline raids against England. Hampshire, Thanet and Cheshire were attacked in 980, Devon and Cornwall in 981, and Dorset in 982. A period of six years then passed before, in 988, another coastal attack is recorded as having taken place to the south-west, though here a famous battle was fought between the invaders and the thegns of Devon. Stenton notes that, though this series of isolated raids had no lasting effect on England itself, "their chief historical importance is that they brought England for the first time into diplomatic contact with Normandy."[15] During this period, the Normans, who remembered their origins as a Scandinavian people, were well-disposed to their Danish cousins who, occasionally returning from a raid on England, sought port in Normandy. This led to grave tension between the English and Norman courts, and word of their enmity eventually reached Pope John XV. The pope was disposed to dissolve their hostility towards each other, and took steps to engineer a peace between England and Normandy, which was ratified in Rouen in 991.

Battle of Maldon

However, in August of that same year, a sizeable Danish fleet began a sustained campaign in the south-east of England. It arrived off Folkestone, in Kent, and made its way around the south-east coast and up the River Blackwater, coming eventually to its estuary and occupying Northey Island.[14] About 2 kilometres (1 mile) west of Northey lies the coastal town of Maldon, where Byrhtnoth, ealdorman of Essex, was stationed with a company of thegns. The battle that followed between English and Danes is immortalised by the Old English poem The Battle of Maldon, which describes the doomed but heroic attempt of Byrhtnoth to defend the coast of Essex against overwhelming odds. Stenton summarises the events of the poem: "For access to the mainland they (the Danes) depended on a causeway, flooded at high tide, which led from Northey to the flats along the southern margin of the estuary. Before they (the Danes) had left their camp on the island[,] Byrhtnoth, with his retainers and a force of local militia, had taken possession of the landward end of the causeway. Refusing a demand for tribute, shouted across the water while the tide was high, Byrhtnoth drew up his men along the bank, and waited for the ebb. As the water fell the raiders began to stream out along the causeway. But three of Byrthnoth's retainers held it against them, and at last they asked to be allowed to cross unhindered and fight on equal terms on the mainland. With what even those who admired him most called 'over-courage', Byrhtnoth agreed to this; the pirates rushed through the falling tide, and battle was joined. Its issue was decided by Byrhtnoth's fall. Many even of his own men immediately took to flight and the English ranks were broken. What gives enduring interest to the battle is the superb courage with which a group of Byrhtnoth's thegns, knowing that the fight was lost, deliberately gave themselves to death in order that they might avenge their lord."[16] This was the first of a series of crushing defeats felt by the English: beaten first by Danish raiders, and later by organised Danish armies.

England begins tributes

In 991, ¥thelred was around 24 years old. In the aftermath of Maldon, it was decided that the English should grant the tribute to the Danes that they desired, and so a gafol of ¹10,000 was paid them for their peace. Yet it was presumably the Danish fleet that had beaten Byrhtnoth at Maldon that continued to ravage the English coast from 991 to 993. In 994, the Danish fleet, which had swollen in ranks since 991, turned up the Thames estuary and headed toward London. The battle fought there was inconclusive. It was about this time that ¥thelred met with the leaders of the fleet, foremost among them Olaf Tryggvason[clarification needed] and arranged an uneasy accord. A treaty was signed between ¥thelred and Olaf that provided for seemingly civilised arrangements between the then-settled Danish companies and the English government, such as regulation settlement disputes and trade. But the treaty also stipulated that the ravaging and slaughter of the previous year would be forgotten, and ended abruptly by stating that ¹22,000 of gold and silver had been paid to the raiders as the price of peace.[17] In 994, Olaf Tryggvason, already a baptised Christian, was confirmed as Christian in a ceremony at Andover; King ¥thelred stood as his sponsor. After receiving gifts, Olaf promised "that he would never come back to England in hostility."[14] Olaf then left England for Norway and never returned, though "other component parts of the Viking force appear to have decided to stay in England, for it is apparent from the treaty that some had chosen to enter into King ¥thelred's service as mercenaries, based presumably on the Isle of Wight."[14]

Renewed Danish raids

In 997, Danish raids began again. According to Keynes, "there is no suggestion that this was a new fleet or army, and presumably the mercenary force created in 994 from the residue of the raiding army of 991 had turned on those whom it had been hired to protect."[14] It harried Cornwall, Devon, western Somerset and south Wales in 997, Dorset, Hampshire and Sussex in 998. In 999, it raided Kent, and, in 1000, it left England for Normandy, perhaps because the English had refused in this latest wave of attacks to acquiesce to the Danish demands for gafol or tribute, which would come to be known as Danegeld, 'Dane-payment'. This sudden relief from attack ¥thelred used to gather his thoughts, resources, and armies: the fleet's departure in 1000 "allowed ¥thelred to carry out a devastation of Strathclyde, the motive for which is part of the lost history of the north."[18]

In 1001, a Danish fleet – perhaps the same fleet from 1000 – returned and ravaged west Sussex. During its movements, the fleet regularly returned to its base in the Isle of Wight. There was later an attempted attack in the south of Devon, though the English mounted a successful defence at Exeter. Nevertheless, ¥thelred must have felt at a loss, and, in the Spring of 1002, the English bought a truce for ¹24,000. ¥thelred's frequent payments of immense Danegelds are often held up as exemplary of the incompetency of his government and his own short-sightedness. However, Keynes points out that such payments had been practice for at least a century, and had been adopted by Alfred the Great, Charles the Bald and many others. Indeed, in some cases it "may have seemed the best available way of protecting the people against loss of life, shelter, livestock and crops. Though undeniably burdensome, it constituted a measure for which the king could rely on widespread support."[14]

St. Brice's Day massacre of 1002

Main article: St. Brice's Day massacre
¥thelred ordered the massacre of all Danish men in England to take place on 13 November 1002, St Brice's Day. No order of this kind could be carried out in more than a third of England, where the Danes were too strong, but Gunhilde, sister of Sweyn Forkbeard, King of Denmark, was said to have been among the victims. It is likely that a wish to avenge her was a principal motive for Sweyn's invasion of western England the following year.[19] By 1004 Sweyn was in East Anglia, where he sacked Norwich. In this year, a nobleman of East Anglia, Ulfcytel Snillingr met Sweyn in force, and made an impression on the until-then rampant Danish expedition. Though Ulfcytel was eventually defeated, outside Thetford, he caused the Danes heavy losses and was nearly able to destroy their ships. The Danish army left England for Denmark in 1005, perhaps because of their injuries sustained in East Anglia, perhaps from the very severe famine which afflicted the continent and the British Isles in that year.[14]

An expedition the following year was bought off in early 1007 by tribute money of ¹36,000, and for the next two years England was free from attack. In 1008, the government created a new fleet of warships, organised on a national scale, but this was weakened when one of its commanders took to piracy, and the king and his council decided not to risk it in a general action. In Stenton's view: "The history of England in the next generation was really determined between 1009 and 1012...the ignominious collapse of the English defence caused a loss of morale which was irreparable." The Danish army of 1009, led by Thorkell the Tall and his brother Hemming, was the most formidable force to invade England since ¥thelred became king. It harried England until it was bought off by ¹48,000 in April 1012.[20]

Invasion of 1013

Sweyn then launched an invasion in 1013 intending to crown himself king of England, during which he proved himself to be a general greater than any other Viking leader of his generation. By the end of 1013 English resistance had collapsed and Sweyn had conquered the country, forcing ¥thelred into exile in Normandy. But the situation changed suddenly when Sweyn died on 3 February 1014. The crews of the Danish ships in the Trent that had supported Sweyn immediately swore their allegiance to Sweyn's son Cnut the Great, but leading English noblemen sent a deputation to ¥thelred to negotiate his restoration to the throne. He was required to declare his loyalty to them, to bring in reforms regarding everything that they disliked and to forgive all that had been said and done against him in his previous reign. The terms of this agreement are of great constitutional interest in early English History as they are the first recorded pact between a King and his subjects and are also widely regarded as showing that many English noblemen had submitted to Sweyn simply because of their distrust of ¥thelred.[21] According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:

they [the counsellors] said that no lord was dearer to them than their natural (gecynde) lord, if he would govern them more justly than he did before. Then the king sent his son Edward hither with his messengers and bade them greet all his people and said that he would be a gracious (hold) lord to them, and reform all the things which they hated; and all the things which had been said and done against him should be forgiven on condition that they all unanimously turned to him (to him gecyrdon) without treachery. And complete friendship was then established with oath and pledge (mid worde and mid wµdde) on both sides, and they pronounced every Danish king an exile from England forever.[22]
¥thelred then launched an expedition against Cnut and his allies. It was only the people of the Kingdom of Lindsey (modern North Lincolnshire) who supported Cnut. ¥thelred first set out to recapture London apparently with the help of the Norwegian Olaf Haraldsson. According to the Icelandic historian, Snorri Sturluson, Ólaf led a successful attack on London bridge with a fleet of ships. He then went on to help ¥thelred retake London and other parts of the country. Cnut and his army decided to withdraw from England, in April 1014, leaving his Lindsey allies to suffer ¥thelred's revenge. In about 1016 it is thought that Ólaf left to concentrate on raiding western Europe.[23] In the same year, Cnut returned to find a complex and volatile situation unfolding in England.[23] ¥thelred's son, Edmund Ironside, had revolted against his father and established himself in the Danelaw, which was angry at Cnut and ¥thelred for the ravaging of Lindsey and was prepared to support Edmund in any uprising against both of them

Death and burial

Over the next few months Cnut conquered most of England, while Edmund rejoined ¥thelred to defend London when ¥thelred died on 23 April 1016. The subsequent war between Edmund and Cnut ended in a decisive victory for Cnut at the Battle of Ashingdon on 18 October 1016. Edmund's reputation as a warrior was such that Cnut nevertheless agreed to divide England, Edmund taking Wessex and Cnut the whole of the country beyond the Thames. However, Edmund died on 30 November and Cnut became king of the whole country.[24]

¥thelred was buried in Old St Paul's Cathedral, London. The tomb and his monument were destroyed along with the cathedral in the Great Fire of London in 1666.[25] A modern monument in the crypt lists his among the important graves lost.

Legislation

A charter of ¥thelred's in 1003 to his follower, ¥thelred. British Library, London.
¥thelred's government produced extensive legislation, which he "ruthlessly enforced."[26] Records of at least six legal codes survive from his reign, covering a range of topics.[27] Notably, one of the members of his council (known as the Witan) was Wulfstan II, Archbishop of York, a well-known homilist. The three latest codes from ¥thelred's reign seemed to have been drafted by Wulfstan.[28] These codes are extensively concerned with ecclesiastical affairs. They also exhibit the characteristics of Wulfstan's highly rhetorical style. Wulfstan went on to draft codes for King Cnut, and recycled there many of the laws which were used in ¥thelred's codes.[29]

Despite the failure of his government in the face of the Danish threat, ¥thelred's reign was not without some important institutional achievements. The quality of the coinage, a good indicator of the prevailing economic conditions, significantly improved during his reign due to his numerous coinage reform laws.[30]

Legacy

Later perspectives of ¥thelred have been less than flattering. Numerous legends and anecdotes have sprung up to explain his shortcomings, often elaborating abusively on his character and failures. One such anecdote is given by William of Malmesbury (lived c. 1080–c. 1143), who reports that ¥thelred had defecated in the baptismal font as a child, which led St Dunstan to prophesy that the English monarchy would be overthrown during his reign. This story is, however, a fabrication, and a similar story is told of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine Copronymus, another mediaeval monarch who was unpopular among certain of his subjects.

Efforts to rehabilitate ¥thelred's reputation have gained momentum since about 1980. Chief among the rehabilitators has been Simon Keynes, who has often argued that our poor impression of ¥thelred is almost entirely based upon after-the-fact accounts of, and later accretions to, the narrative of events during ¥thelred's long and complex reign. Chief among the culprits is in fact one of the most important sources for the history of the period, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which, as it reports events with a retrospect of 15 years, cannot help but interpret events with the eventual English defeat a foregone conclusion. Yet, as virtually no strictly contemporary narrative account of the events of ¥thelred's reign exists, historians are forced to rely on what evidence there is. Keynes and others thus draw attention to some of the inevitable snares of investigating the history of a man whom later popular opinion has utterly damned. Recent cautious assessments of ¥thelred's reign have more often uncovered reasons to doubt, rather than uphold, ¥thelred's later infamy. Though the failures of his government will always put ¥thelred's reign in the shadow of the reigns of kings Edgar, Aethelstan, and Alfred, historians' current impression of ¥thelred's personal character is certainly not as unflattering as it once was: "¥thelred's misfortune as a ruler was owed not so much to any supposed defects of his imagined character, as to a combination of circumstances which anyone would have found difficult to control."[31]

Origin of the jury

¥thelred has been credited with the formation of a local investigative body made up of twelve thegns who were charged with publishing the names of any notorious or wicked men in their respective districts. Because the members of these bodies were under solemn oath to act in accordance with the law and their own good consciences, they have been seen by some legal historians as the prototype for the English Grand Jury.[32] ¥thelred makes provision for such a body in a law code he enacted at Wantage in 997, which states:

¤µt man habbe gemot on µlcum wµpentace; & gan ut ¤a yldestan XII ¤egnas & se gerefa mid, & swerian on ¤am haligdome, ¤e heom man on hand sylle, ¤µt hig nellan nµnne sacleasan man forsecgean ne nµnne sacne forhelan. & niman ¤onne ¤a tihtbysian men, ¤e mid ¤am gerefan habbaº, & heora µlc sylle VI healfmarc wedd, healf landrican & healf wµpentake.[33]

that there shall be an assembly in every wapentake,[34] and in that assembly shall go forth the twelve eldest thegns and the reeve along with them, and let them swear on holy relics, which shall be placed in their hands, that they will never knowingly accuse an innocent man nor conceal a guilty man. And thereafter let them seize those notorious [lit. "charge-laden"] men, who have business with the reeve, and let each of them give a security of 6 half-marks, half of which shall go to the lord of that district, and half to the wapentake.

But the wording here suggests that ¥thelred was perhaps revamping or re-confirming a custom which had already existed. He may actually have been expanding an established English custom for use among the Danish citizens in the North (the Danelaw). Previously, King Edgar had legislated along similar lines in his Whitbordesstan code:

ic wille, ¤µt µlc mon sy under borge ge binnan burgum ge buton burgum. & gewitnes sy geset to µlcere byrig & to µlcum hundrode. To µlcere byrig XXXVI syn gecorone to gewitnesse; to smalum burgum & to µlcum hundrode XII, buton ge ma willan. & µlc mon mid heora gewitnysse bigcge & sylle µlc ¤ara ceapa, ¤e he bigcge oººe sylle a¤er oººe burge oººe on wµpengetace. & heora µlc, ¤onne hine man µrest to gewitnysse gecysº, sylle ¤µne aº, ¤µt he nµfre, ne for feo ne for lufe ne for ege, ne µtsace nanes ¤ara ¤inga, ¤e he to gewitnysse wµs, & nan oºer ¤ingc on gewitnysse ne cyºe buton ¤µt an, ¤µt he geseah oººe gehyrde. & swa geµ¤dera manna syn on µlcum ceape twegen oººe ¤ry to gewitnysse.[35]

It is my wish that each person be in surety, both within settled areas and without. And 'witnessing' shall be established in each city and each hundred. To each city let there be 36 chosen for witnessing; to small towns and to each hundred let there be 12, unless they desire more. And everybody shall purchase and sell their goods in the presence a witness, whether he is buying or selling something, whether in a city or a wapentake. And each of them, when they first choose to become a witness, shall give an oath that he will never, neither for wealth nor love nor fear, deny any of those things which he will be a witness to, and will not, in his capacity as a witness, make known any thing except that which he saw and heard. And let there be either two or three of these sworn witnesses at every sale of goods.

The 'legend' of an Anglo-Saxon origin to the jury was first challenged seriously by Heinrich Brunner in 1872, who claimed that evidence of the jury was only seen for the first time during the reign of Henry II, some 200 years after the end of the Anglo-Saxon period, and that the practice had originated with the Franks, who in turn had influenced the Normans, who thence introduced it to England.[36] Since Brunner's thesis, the origin of the English jury has been much disputed. Throughout the 20th century, legal historians disagreed about whether the practice was English in origin, or was introduced, directly or indirectly, from either Scandinavia or Francia.[32] Recently, the legal historians Patrick Wormald and Michael Macnair have reasserted arguments in favour of finding in practices current during the Anglo-Saxon period traces of the Angevin practice of conducting inquests using bodies of sworn, private witnesses. Wormald has gone as far as to present evidence suggesting that the English practice outlined in ¥thelred's Wantage code is at least as old as, if not older than, 975, and ultimately traces it back to a Carolingian model (something Brinner had done).[37] However, no scholarly consensus has yet been reached.

Appearance and character

"[A] youth of graceful manners, handsome countenance and fine person..."[38] as well as "[A] tall, handsome man, elegant in manners, beautiful in countenance and interesting in his deportment."[39]

Marriages and issue

¥thelred married first ¥lfgifu, daughter of Thored, earl of Northumbria, in about 985.[14] Their known children are:

¥thelstan ¥theling (died 1014)
Ecgberht ¥theling (died c. 1005)[40]
Edmund Ironside (died 1016)
Eadred ¥theling (died before 1013)
Eadwig ¥theling (executed by Cnut 1017)
Edgar ¥theling (died c. 1008)[40]
Eadgyth or Edith (married Eadric Streona)
¥lfgifu (married Uchtred the Bold, ealdorman of Northumbria)
Wulfhilda? (married Ulfcytel Snillingr)
Abbess of Wherwell Abbey?
In 1002 ¥thelred married Emma of Normandy, sister of Richard II, Duke of Normandy. Their children were:

Edward the Confessor (died 1066)
¥lfred ¥theling (died 1036–7)
Goda of England (married 1. Drogo of Mantes and 2. Eustace II, Count of Boulogne)
All of ¥thelred's sons were named after predecessors of ¥thelred on the throne.[41]

Buried:
Old St Paul's Cathedral, London, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_St_Paul%27s_Cathedral, now lost

355209.

Aelfgifu of York, Queen Consort of England was born in ~970 in (Yorkshire) England (daughter of Thored Gunnarsson, Earl of Southern Northumbria and Hilda LNU); died in 1002.

Notes:

¥lfgifu of York (fl. c. 970 – 1002) was the first wife of ¥thelred the Unready (r. 968–1016), by whom she bore many offspring, including Edmund Ironside. It is most probable that she was a daughter of Thored, Earl of southern Northumbria.

Queen consort of England
Tenure 980s–1002
Born fl. c. 970
Died c. 1002
Spouse ¥thelred the Unready
Issue ¥thelstan ¥theling
Ecgberht of England
Edmund, King of England
Eadred ¥theling
Eadwig ¥theling
Edgar of England
Edith, Lady of the Mercians
¥lfgifu, Lady of Northumbria
Wulfhilda, Lady of East Anglia
Father

Identity and background

Her name and paternity do not surface in the sources until sometime after the Conquest. The first to offer any information at all, Sulcard of Westminster (fl. 1080s), merely describes her as being “of very noble English stock” (ex nobilioribus Anglis), without naming her,[1] while in the early 12th century, William of Malmesbury has nothing to report. All primary evidence comes from two Anglo-Norman historians. John of Worcester, also writing in the early 12th century, states that ¥thelred's first wife was ¥lfgifu, daughter of the nobleman ¥thelberht (comes Agelberhtus) and the mother of Edmund, ¥thelstan, Eadwig and Eadgyth.[2] Writing in the 1150s, Ailred of Rievaulx identifies her as a daughter of earl (comes) Thored and the mother of Edmund, though he supplies no name.[3] Ailred had been seneschal at the court of King David I of Scotland (r. 1124–53), whose mother Margaret descended from King ¥thelred and his first wife. Although his testimony is late, his proximity to the royal family may have given him access to genuine information.[4]

Problem of fatherhood

These two accounts are irreconcilable at the point of ascribing two different fathers to ¥thelred's first wife (in both cases, Edmund's mother). One way out of it would be to assume the existence of two different wives before the arrival of Queen Emma, ¥thelred's Norman wife, although this interpretation presents difficulties of its own, especially as the sources envisage a single woman.[5] Historians generally favour the view that John of Worcester was in error about the father's name, as ¥thelberht's very existence is under suspicion:[6] if Latin comes is to be interpreted as a gloss on the office of ealdorman, only two doubtful references to one or two duces (ealdormen) of this name can be put forward that would fit the description.[7] All in all, the combined evidence suggests that ¥thelred's first wife was ¥lfgifu, the daughter of Earl Thored. This magnate is likely to have been the Thored who was a son of Gunnar and earl of (southern) Northumbria.[8]

Marriage and children[edit]
Based largely on the careers of her sons, ¥lfgifu's marriage has been dated approximately to the (mid-)980s.[8] Considering Thored's authority as earl of York and apparently, the tenure of that office without royal appointment, the union would have signified an important step for the West-Saxon royal family by which it secured a foothold in the north.[9] Such a politically weighty union would help explain the close connections maintained by ¥lfgifu's eldest sons Edmund and ¥thelstan with noble families based in the northern Danelaw.[10]

The marriage produced six sons, all of whom were named after ¥thelred's predecessors, and an unknown number of daughters. The eldest sons ¥thelstan, Ecgberht, Eadred and Edmund first attest charters in 993, while the younger sons Eadwig and Edgar first make an appearance in them in 997 and 1001 respectively.[11] Some of these sons seem to have spent part of their childhood in fosterage elsewhere, possibly with ¥thelred's mother ¥lfthryth.[12]

Out of ¥lfgifu's six sons, only Edmund Ironside outlived his father and became king. In 1016 he suffered several defeats against Cnut and in October they agreed to share the kingdom, but Edmund died within six weeks and Cnut became king of all England. ¥thelred gave three of his daughters in marriage to ealdormen, presumably in order to secure the loyalties of his nobles and so to consolidate a defence system against Viking attacks.[13]

Sons

¥thelstan (born before 993, d. 1014)
Ecgberht (born before 993, d. 1005)
Edmund (II) Ironside (born before 993, d. 1016)
Eadred (d. 1012 x 1015)
Eadwig (born before 997, exiled and killed 1017)
Edgar (born before 1001, d. 1012 x 1015)

Daughters

Eadgyth (born before 993), married Eadric Streona, ealdorman of Mercia.[14]
¥lfgifu, married ealdorman Uhtred of Northumbria.[15]
(possibly) Wulfhild, who married Ulfcytel (Snillingr) (d. 1016), apparently ealdorman of East Anglia.[16]
possibly an unnamed daughter who married the ¥thelstan who was killed fighting the Danes at the Battle of Ringmere in 1010. He is called ¥thelred's aºum, meaning either son-in-law or brother-in-law.[16] Ann Williams, however, argues that the latter meaning is the appropriate one and refers to ¥thelstan as being ¥lfgifu's brother.[8]
possibly unnamed daughter, who became abbess of Wherwell.[17]

Life and death

Unlike her mother-in-law, ¥lfthryth, ¥lfgifu was not anointed queen and never signed charters.[18] She did, however, make at least some impression on the contemporary record. In a will issued between 975/980 and 987, the thegn Beorhtric and his wife bequeathed to their “lady” (hlµfdige) an armlet worth 30 gold mancuses and a stallion, calling upon her authority to oversee the implementation of the arrangements set out by will.[19] In a will of later date (AD 990 x 1001), in which she is addressed as “my lady” (mire hlµfdian), the noblewoman ¥thelgifu promised a bequest of 30 mancuses of gold.[20] Just as little is known of ¥lfgifu's life, so the precise date and circumstances of her death cannot be recovered.[21] In any event, she appears to have died by 1002, possibly in childbirth, when ¥thelred took to wife Emma of Normandy, daughter of Count Richard of Rouen, who received or adopted her predecessor's Anglo-Saxon name, ¥lfgifu.

Children:

177604. Edmund II, King of the English was born in 990 in (Wessex) England; died on 30 Nov 1016 in (London) England; was buried in Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset, England.

Generation: 23

3096832.

Ragnvald Eysteinsson, Earl of Mar was born in 825 in Jamtland, Sweden; died in 890-894 in Giske, Norway; was buried in Giske, Norway.

Notes:

Rognvald Eysteinsson (fl. 865) was the founding Jarl (or Earl) of M²re in Norway, and a close relative and ally of Harald Fairhair, the earliest known King of Norway. In the Norse language he is known as Rognvaldr Eysteinsson and in modern Norwegian as Ragnvald M²rejarl. He is sometimes referred to with bynames that may be translated into modern English as "Rognvald the Wise" or "Rognvald the Powerful".

The earliest available sources regarding Rognvald are mutually contradictory and were compiled long after he died. The best known are the Norse Sagas, although modern scholars highlight many inconsistencies and improbable claims regarding Rognvald in the sagas, and believe that they must be treated with caution:[2] The texts of the sagas were compiled three centuries after the events described and their accuracy in regard to Rognvald's life and historical significance is now questioned. Hence some scholars instead emphasise other accounts, closer to the historical period in question, such as Irish and Scottish sources.

While Rognvald does appear to have had some kind of role in the founding of the Norse Earldom of Orkney, most historians now doubt claims in the Sagas that Rognvald led one particular "great voyage" - a Norwegian expedition that attacked rebel vikings, who had been raiding Norway from bases on Orkney and Shetland, before raiding the Scottish mainland, Ireland and the Isle of Man. It is now generally believed that any such expedition would have occurred after Rognvald's lifetime. A modern authority on Orcadian history, William P. L. Thomson, comments that the story of the "great voyage is so thoroughly ingrained in popular and scholarly history, both ancient and modern, that it comes as a bit of a shock to realise that it might not be true."[3]

Modern scholars also highlight inconsistencies and improbable claims in the sagas' claims regarding: the relationship between Rognvald and Harald; the names and biographies of Rognvald's immediate family, and; the founding of the earldom of M²re.

Rognvald was the father of Torf-Einarr (d. circa 910) an earl of Orkney. Some Norse accounts claimed that another son, Hrâolfr, settled in France and, under the name Rollo (d. 930), founded the Duchy of Normandy. However, French sources suggest that Rollo's father was an unnamed Danish or Norwegian nobleman, or a viking named Ketill.

Contents
1 Traditional accounts
1.1 Sources
1.2 Family
1.3 Death and legacy
2 Modern interpretations
2.1 Harald Fairhair and the voyage to the west
2.2 Founding of the earldom of Orkney
2.3 Rognvald's brother and sons
2.4 Similarities to Ragnall ua Ímair
2.5 Broad themes
3 References
4 External links
Traditional accounts

Sources

The oldest account that may refer to Rognvald and the Earldom of Orkney appears to be the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. These annals are believed to date from the lifetime of Donnchad mac Gilla Pâatraic, who died in 1039,[4] although they survive only as incomplete copies made by Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh (17th century).

...for it was not long before this that there had been every war and every trouble in Norway, and this was the source of that war in Norway: two younger sons of Albdan, king of Norway, drove out the eldest son, i.e. Ragnall son of Albdan, for fear that he would seize the kingship of Norway after their father. So Ragnall came with his three sons to the Orkney Islands. Ragnall stayed there then, with his youngest son.
Fragmentary Annals of Ireland, FA 330. Edited and translated by Joan N. Radnor.
These events are placed after an account of the devastation of Fortriu, dated to around 866,[5] and the mention of an eclipse confirms a date of 865.[6]

Dating the Orkneyinga saga has proven to be controversial but a recent analysis has the "majority of scholars in favour of dates between 1170 and 1220"[7] whilst admitting that "it remains to be established when, why, where, for whom and by whom it was written".[8] Much of the information it contains is "hard to corroborate".[2]

Rognvald is also referred to in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla (written c. 1230), written in Iceland.

Christian Krohg's portrait of Snorri Sturluson, 13th century compiler of the Heimskringla. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Snorre_Sturluson-Christian_Krohg.jpg
While the Historia Norvegiae (written c. 1505) includes an account of the foundation of the Orkney earldom, as well as some questionable details about pre-Viking Orkney, it has relatively little to say about Rognvald.

Family

It is not certain that the Ragnall of the Irish annals is synonymous with Rognvald Eysteinsson. The relevant entry goes on to describe Ragnall's older sons raiding in Spain and North Africa, but there is no specific mention of the Earldom of Orkney. There is also a separate piece of circumstantial evidence, suggesting a link between Ragnall and the 9th century figure Ragnar Lodbrok: runic inscriptions found inside Maeshowe, dating from the 12th century, state that the mound was "built before Loºbrâok".[6]

There is no agreement in the available sources on Rognvald's parentage. According to the Irish annals, Ragnall was the son of "Halfdan, King of Lochlann". This is generally understood to mean Halfdan the Black, which would make Ragnall the brother of King Harald Fairhair. This is contradicted by later Norse sagas, which suggest that Halfdan was Rognvald's grandfather.[9] The Orkneyinga saga says that Rognvald was the son of Eystein Ivarsson and grandson of Ívarr Upplendingajarl.[10]

He was married, according to the Orkneyinga saga to Ragnhild, the daughter of a man named Hrâolfr Nose,[11] although in the Heimskringla his wife is named Hild.[12]

Both sagas refer to six sons. The oldest, "by concubines", were Hallad, Einarr and Hrollaug, who were "grown men when their brothers born in marriage were still children".[11][12] The latter were Ivar, Hrâolfr, and Thorir the Silent. Hrâolfr, who "was so big that no horse could carry him", hence his byname of "Ganger-Hrâolf",[11] is identified by the saga writers with Rollo, founder of Duchy of Normandy (in 911).[12]

In the Orkneyinga saga Rognvald was made the Earl of M²re by Harald Fairhair. The Saga of Harald Fairhair in Heimskringla recounts that Rognvald caused Harald Fairhair to be given his byname by cutting and dressing his hair, which had been uncut for ten years on account of his vow never to cut it until he was ruler of all Norway.[13] Rognvald accompanied the king on a great military expedition. First the islands of Shetland and Orkney were cleared of vikings who had been raiding Norway and then continued on to Scotland, Ireland and the Isle of Man. During this campaign Rognvald's son Ivarr was killed and in compensation Harald granted Rognvald Orkney and Shetland.

Rognvald thereafter returned to Norway, giving the northern isles to his brother Sigurd Eysteinsson.[14][11] Sigurd had been the forecastleman on Harald's ship and after sailing back east the king "gave Sigurd the title of earl".[11] However, the Heimskringla states specifically that Sigurd was the first Earl of Orkney.[15] According to the Orkneyinga Saga, after Sigurd became earl he died in a curious fashion, following a battle with Mâael Brigte of Moray. Sigurd's son Gurthorm ruled for a single winter after this and died childless.[16][17] Rognvald's son Hallad then inherited the title. However, unable to constrain Danish raids on Orkney, he gave up the earldom and returned to Norway, which "everyone thought was a huge joke."[18] Still, there is a tradition among the folk at Strath Halladale, Sutherland, which is named for Hallad, that he returned and was slain in battle at the beginning of the tenth century and was buried near the battle site in a circular trench ten or twelve feet wide. His sword, it is said, was placed beside him in the grave, and a stone was placed in the center of the circle, part of which was still visible at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The site was near a little town called Dal Halladha, Halladha's field.[19]

A page from the Orkneyinga saga, as it appears in the 14th century Flateyjarbâok. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6a/Flatey_Book%2C_Orkneyinga_saga.jpg/220px-Flatey_Book%2C_Orkneyinga_saga.jpg
The Danish raids caused Rognvald to fly into a rage and summon his sons Thorir and Hrolluag. He predicted that Thorir's path would keep him in Norway and that Hrolluag was destined seek his fortune in Iceland. Turf-Einar, the youngest, then came forward and offered to go to the islands. Rognvald said: "Considering the kind of mother you have, slave-born on each side of her family, you are not likely to make much of a ruler. But I agree, the sooner you leave and the later you return the happier I'll be."[20] His father's misgivings notwithstanding, Torf-Einarr succeeded in defeating the Danes and founded a dynasty which retained control of the islands for centuries after his death.[21]

Historia Norvegiae includes some questionable details about pre-Viking Orkney - such as an account of the Picts as a small people who hid in the daytime - as well as the foundation of the Orkney earldom,.

In the days of Harald Fairhair, king of Norway, certain pirates, of the family of the most vigorous prince Ronald [Rognvald], set out with a great fleet, and crossed the Solundic sea..., and subdued the islands to themselves. And being there provided with safe winter seats, they went in summer-time working tyranny upon the English, and the Scots, and sometimes also upon the Irish, so that they took under their rule, from England, Northumbria; from Scotland, Caithness; from Ireland, Dublin, and the other sea-side towns.[22]

This account does not specifically associate Rognvald with the earldom, attributing the "dominion" of the islands to the anonymous kinfolk of his son Hrâolfr.[23]

Death and legacy
Rognvald was killed by King Harald's son Halfdan Hêalegg and Gudrod Gleam, who engineered a sudden attack, surrounding the house in which Rognvald was staying, and burned it to the ground with the earl and 60 of his men inside it. Harald "flew into a rage" when he heard about this and sent out a "great force" against Gudrod who was then banished. Halfdan escaped into the western seas and Rognvald's death was later avenged by Torf-Einarr, who killed him on North Ronaldsay and then made peace with Harald. Rognvald's son Thorir was then made Earl of M²re by Harald, who also gave Thorir his daughter Alof in marriage.[24][25][26]

The sagas thus identify Rognvald as the apical figure of the Norse Earls of Orkney who controlled the islands until the early 13th century, and a forerunner of important Icelandic families. Furthermore, through his son Hrolfr, Rognvald is portrayed as an ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy who, following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, became the kings of England.[11]

Modern interpretations
Harald Fairhair and the voyage to the west
Black and white drawing of a snapshot showing shipmasts with flags and warriors marching below. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/Kong-magnus-berrfott-menn.jpg/170px-Kong-magnus-berrfott-menn.jpg
Magnus Barefoot's army in Ireland. Magnus' actions in the west clearly form the basis of the saga narrative about the submission of Orkney and Shetland to Harald Fairhair's fleet.[27]
Rognvald's life occurs within the first eight short chapters within the Orkneyinga saga and it is clear that in this early period it contains generally less detail and historical accuracy than in the later events it describes.[28] Recorded in the 13th century, the sagas are informed by Norwegian politics of the day.

Harald Fairhair's supposed expeditions to the west, recounted by Snorri Sturluson in Heimskringla are no longer accepted as historical realities by many modern historians, including Thomson.[3] Later (mid-13th century) rivalry between the Norwegians and the Kings of the Scots over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man are seen to have driven Sturluson's account.[29] At least in part, the sagas aim to legitimise Norwegian claims to both the Northern Isles and the Kingdom of the Isles in the west.[27] The situation faced by Earl Harald Maddadsson of Orkney in 1195, when he was forced to submit himself to royal authority after an ill-judged intervention in Norwegian affairs, would have made legendary material of this nature of considerable interest in Orkney, at the time that the sagas were written.[30]

It is also clear that elements in the narrative are drawn from the much later expeditions undertaken by Magnus Barefoot.[27]

Nonetheless, the view that the Orkney earldom was created by "members of the M²re family" continues to receive academic support.[31]

Harald Fairhair's victory in the Battle of Hafrsfjord, which gave him dominion over parts of Norway, is traditionally dated to 872, but was probably later, perhaps as late as 900.[32] What little is known of Scottish events in the period from the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba would correspond equally well with Harald's attacks on Scotland in the reign of Domnall mac Causantâin (ruled 889-900).[33] However, this would not correspond with the sequence in the earliest account of the origins of the Orkney earldom, which places this a generation earlier. The entry in the Fragmentary Annals at an early date also makes it difficult to reconcile the saga claims that Harald Fairhair was involved in Rognvald's conquest of the northern isles.

The monument at Haraldshaugen, erected to celebrate the millennial anniversary of Norway's unification under the rule of King Harald Fairhair after the Battle of Hafrsfjord. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Haraldshaugen.JPG/220px-Haraldshaugen.JPG
Other saga material provides an alternative description. In the Eyrbyggja saga the same story of a great expedition to punish unruly Vikings who were raiding Norway is undertaken, but here it is Ketil flatnefr (Ketil Flatnose) who leads it. Although this is apparently done at Harald's behest, Ketil then claims the islands as his own. Once again, the chronology is flawed by Harald's inclusion in the tale as other information provided about Ketil gives him a floruit of the mid, rather than late, 9th century.[3]

Furthermore, contemporary Irish sources have a great deal to say about Viking raids on the coasts of Ireland and southern Scotland and those who led them, but none mention King Harald. The earliest of the large expeditions again belong to a period-the 840s-that pre-dates the time of Harald's kingship.[34]

Smyth (1984) credits the launching of the great voyage to the west to Olaf the White, whom he provides with a royal Vestfold origin along with various military activities in Scotland and for whom, assuming an identification of Olaf with Amlaib "Conung" the King of Dublin, there is a contemporary Irish reference dating to 853.[35] Icelandic sources also have Olaf marrying Aud the Deep-Minded, Ketil flatnefr's daughter, and the ''Annals of Ulster'' record what may be dynastic in-fighting between Olaf and his father-in-law in 857.[36][Note 1]

Founding of the earldom of Orkney
By implication the Orkneyinga saga identifies Rognvald as the founder of the earldom, although Heimskringla has his brother Sigurd as the first to formally hold the title. Other sources are less specific (see above) and the sagas have been interpreted in various other ways. Smyth (1984), having banished King Harald's role in the voyage to the west to the realms of myth concludes that the role of the brothers Eysteinsson can be similarly so dispatched and that Torf-Einarr "may be regarded as the first historical earl of Orkney".[38]

Drawing on Adam of Bremen's assertion that Orkney was not conquered until the time of Harald Hardrada, who ruled Norway from 1043-66, Woolf (2007) speculates that Sigurd "the Stout" Hlodvirsson, Torf-Einarr's great-grandson, may have been the first Earl of Orkney [39]

Rognvald's brother and sons

Orkney and Shetland at centre, in relation to nearby territories https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/45/Shetland_and_surrounding_lands.png/220px-Shetland_and_surrounding_lands.png
The notion that Rognvald could hand over his Northern Isles estates to his brother has been interpreted in various ways. For example, it may be that he was aware of ongoing Viking raiding in the area and considered the gift from the king as a mixed blessing.[40] This is also one of a number of instances in which the writer of the Orkneyinga saga attempts to reconcile the conflicting themes of independence from Norway (Rognvald gifts the islands to Sigurd) and dependence on royal authority (Harald formalises the process by confirming Sigurd as earl).[41] Beuermann (2011) speculates that Rognvald's transfer of power to his brother may have been an attempt by the saga writers to imply that the Orkney earldom had more independence from Norway than that of M²re[42] and that Rognvald's holdings in Caithness may have allowed for an even greater degree of freedom of action. Such implications are more likely to be rooted in the writer's interest in emphasising Orcadian independence at the time of writing rather than the 9th/10th century events they purport to describe.[43]

After Hallad's failure in Orkney there is a dialogue between father and sons that has been interpreted as being about Rognvald's desire to cement his own position as Earl of M²re and an allusion to the early history of Iceland, where the sagas were written. Thorir is a compliant son who Rognvald is happy to keep at home. Hrolluag is portrayed as a man of peace who will go to Iceland. Einarr is aggressive and a threat to his father's position so can be spared for the dangers of Orkney.[44] In the Landnâamabâok version the equally aggressive Hrolfr is also present, and his destiny is anticipated to be in conveniently far-away Normandy.[45][Note 2]

Similarities to Ragnall ua Ímair
Alex Woolf suggests that saga authors may have synthesised elements of the life of Ragnall ua Ímair, a later figure, into the figure of Rognvald Eysteinsson of M²re. Ragnall ua Ímair, who was active between 914 and 921 in the Irish Sea region, was a grandson of Ímar, the "king of the Northmen of all Britain and Ireland", whose death is recorded in the Annals of Ulster in 873.[46]

There are at least two major similarities between the two figures include: both are grandsons of an Ímar/Ivarr and; like Rognvald, a close relative of Ragnall named Ímar was killed in battle in Scotland (Ímar ua Ímair, d. 904).[47]

Broad themes
There are several recurring themes in the Orkneyinga saga, including strife between brothers, relationships between the jarls and the Norwegian crown, and raiding in the Hebrides,[48] all of which are touched on during the saga's coverage of Rognvald's life and times. In part, the saga's purpose was to "explore such social and psychological tensions as these in the history of the people of Orkney, and to help them understand themselves through a knowledge of their origins".[49]

References
Notes
More controversially, Smyth also identifies Olaf the White with Olaf Geirstad-Alf, a legendary Norwegian king of the House of Yngling - a suggestion dismissed by Ó Corrâain (1979).[37]
In the Heimskringla Hrolfr is banished by King Harald.[12]
Footnotes
Muir (2005) Preface: Genealogical table of the Earls of Orkney.
Woolf (2007) p. 242
Thomson (2008) p. 25
Radner (1999) p. 322-23
Anderson (1990) p. 296; Annals of Ulster, s.a. 865.
Thomson (2008) p. 22
Phelpstead (2001) p. xvi
Phelpstead (2001) p. ix, quoting Inger Ekrem.
Crawford (1987) pp. 53-54
Orkneyinga saga (1981) Chapter 3 - "The Sea-Kings" p. 25-26
Orkneyinga saga (1981) Chapter 4 - " To Shetland and Orkney" pp. 26-27
Saga of Harald Fairhair Chapter 24 - Rolf Ganger Driven Into Banishment.
Saga of Harald Fairhair, cc. 4 & 23
Anderson (1990) pp. 332-334; Saga of Harald Fairhair Chapter 22- King Harald's Voyage To The West.
Heimskringla. "Chapter 99 - History Of The Earls Of Orkney".
Thomson (2008) p. 28.
Orkneyinga saga (1981) Chapter 5 - "A poisoned tooth" pp. 27-28
Thomson (2008) p. 30 quoting chapter 5 of the Orkneyinga saga.
Pinkerton, John (1809). A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages and in All Parts of the World, Vol. 3. London. p. 152. Retrieved 15 April 2017.
Orkneyinga saga (1981) Chapter 6 - "Forecasts" pp. 28-29.
Thomson (2008) p. 29
Anderson (1990) pp. 330-331
Phelpstead (2001) p. 9
Saga of Harald Fairhair, cc. 29-30
Orkneyinga saga (1981) Chapter 8 - "Troublemakers from Norway" pp. 29-33
Heimskringla. "Harald Harfager's Saga, Part 30 - Earl Ragnvald Burnt In His House".
Thomson (2008) p. 27
Pâalsson and Edwards (1981) "Introduction" p. 11
Crawford (1987) pp. 52-53.
Thomson (2008) pp. 27-28
Helle, Knut (2006) "Earls of Orkney": The Vikings and Scotland - Impact and Influence, Royal Society of Edinburgh Conference 22-26 September 2006. Edinburgh (Rapporteur: Andrew Heald); retrieved 27 January 2014.
Crawford (1987) p. 55-56.
Anderson (1990) pp. 395-396.
Thomson (2008) p. 26
Smyth (1984) pp. 152-53
Smyth (1984) p. 156
Ó Corrâain (1979) p. 298
Smyth (1984) p. 153
Woolf (2007) p. 307
Muir (2005) p. 6
Thomson (2008) p. 31
Beuermann (2011) p. 120
Beuermann (2011) p. 121
Pâalsson and Edwards (1981) "Introduction" p. 13
Pâalsson and Edwards (1981) "Introduction" p. 14
Ó Corrâain (1998) p. 37
Woolf (2007) pp. 300-303
Pâalsson and Edwards (1981) "Introduction" pp. 15-16
Pâalsson and Edwards (1981) "Introduction" p. 19
General references
Anderson, Alan Orr (1990) Early Sources of Scottish History A.D 500-1286, volume 1. Reprinted with corrections. Paul Watkins, Stamford. ISBN 1-871615-03-8
Beuermann, Ian "Jarla Sogur Orkneyja. Status and power of the earls of Orkney according to their sagas" in Steinsland, Gro; Sigurºsson, Jâon Viºar; Rekda, Jan Erik and Beuermann, Ian (eds) (2011) Ideology and power in the viking and middle ages: Scandinavia, Iceland, Ireland, Orkney and the Faeroes . The Northern World: North Europe and the Baltic c. 400-1700 A.D. Peoples, Economics and Cultures. 52. Leiden. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-20506-2
Crawford, Barbara (1987) Scandinavian Scotland. Leicester University Press, Leicester. ISBN 0-7185-1282-0
Muir, Tom (2005) Orkney in the Sagas: The Story of the Earldom of Orkney as told in the Icelandic Sagas. The Orcadian. Kirkwall. ISBN 0954886232.
Ó Corrâain, Donnchadh (Mar 1979) "High-Kings, Vikings and Other Kings". Irish Historical Studies 22 No. 83 pp. 283-323. Irish Historical Studies Publications.
Ó Corrâain, Donnchadh (1998) Vikings in Ireland and Scotland in the Ninth Century CELT. Retrieved 21 January 2014.
Pâalsson, Hermann and Edwards, Paul Geoffrey (1981). Orkneyinga Saga: The History of the Earls of Orkney. Penguin Classics. ISBN 0-14-044383-5
Phelpstead, Karl (ed) (2001) A History of Norway and The Passion and Miracles of the Blessed Ólâafr. (pdf) Translated by Devar Kunin. Viking Society for Northern Research Text Series. XIII. University of London.
Radner, Joan N. (editor and translator). "Fragmentary Annals of Ireland". CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts. University College Cork. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
Radner, Joan N. (1999) "Writing history: Early Irish historiography and the significance of form" (PDF), Celtica. 23, pp. 312-325.
Smyth, Alfred P. (1984) Warlords and Holy Men: Scotland AD 80-1000. Edinburgh University Press. Edinburgh. ISBN 0-7486-0100-7
Sturluson, Snorri (1992) Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway, translated Lee M. Hollander. Reprinted University of Texas Press, Austin. ISBN 0-292-73061-6
Sturlson, Snorri Heimskringla. Wisdom Library ;retrieved 21 January 2014.
Thomson, William P. L. (2008) The New History of Orkney. Edinburgh. Birlinn. ISBN 978-1-84158-696-0
Woolf, Alex (2007) From Pictland to Alba, 789-1070. Edinburgh. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-1234-5

end of this biography

Ragnvald Eysteinsson, Earl of M²re
Norwegian: Ragnvald Eysteinsson, M²rejarl
Also Known As: "R²gnvald", "Rognvaldr Mœrajarl", "son Eysteins glumru", "den Rêadsnare", "Ragnvald ¢ysteinsson", "Rognvald I Eysteinsson", "Rèognvaldr Mœrajarl"
Birthdate: 825
Birthplace: Vestfold, Norway or, êAre Municipality, Jèamtland County, Sweden
Death: 894 (69)
Giske, M²re og Romsdal, Norway (Norway, Ragnvald, With 60 of His Men, Die In A Longhouse When Two of Harald's Jealous Sons Burned It Down With Them In It)
Place of Burial: Giske, M²re og Romsdal, Norway

Ragnvald is the 37th great grandfather of David Michael Cornett ... http://thehennesseefamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I848&tree=hennessee

Immediate Family:

Ragnvald is the 32nd through the 37th great grandfather to Martha Ann Millsaps

Son of Eystein Ivarsson «the Noisy» Glumra and N.N.
Husband of Ragnhild Hrâolfsdâottir
Partner of NN Frille (Mistress/es) of Ragnvald M²rejarl, mother/s of Torf-Einar, Hrollaug and Hallad
Father of Hallad Ragnvaldsson, Orkneyjarl; Einarr "Turf" Rognvaldsson, Orkneyjarl; Hrollager Rognvaldsson; Hrollaug Ragnvaldsson Eyjafjèorºur, Íslands; Ivar Ragnvaldsson M²rejarl and 3 others
Brother of Sigurd Eysteinsson, I, Jarl of Orkney and Svanhild Eysteinsdotter
Occupation: M²rejarl, Earl of M²re and Romsdal, Earl of More and Romsdal, Earl of More, also "The Wise", Earl of Shetland and Orkney, Count of Maer, Jarl of North and South More and Of Ramsdal, Jarl âa Mµri., Jarl âa Mµri, EARL OF MORE, Earl, Jarl
Managed by: Harald Tveit Alvestrand
Last Updated: January 22, 2019

Immediate Family

NN Frille (Mistress/es) of Ragnv...partner

Hallad Ragnvaldsson, Orkneyjarl, son

Einarr "Turf" Rognvaldsson, Orkn..., son

Hrollager Rognvaldsson, son

Hrollaug Ragnvaldsson Eyjafjèor..., son

Ragnhild Hrâolfsdâottir, wife

Ivar Ragnvaldsson M²rejarl, son

Gange-Hrâolfr 'Rollo' Ragnvaldsson, son

Tore "Teiande" Ragnvaldsson, son

Gutum Ragnvaldson, son

Eystein Ivarsson «the Noisy» G...father

N.N., mother
About Ragnvald Eysteinsson, Earl of M²re
Rognvaldr Mèorejarl, son Eysteins glumru. Earl of M²re and father of Gange-Hrolf Rollo of Normandie.

Basics
Father: Eystein "Glumra" Ivarsson
Mother: Asdis (Ascrida) (undocumented)
Concubines: Names unknown
Son: Hallad
Son: Hrollaug, who settled in Iceland
Son: Torf-Einar, who settled in Orkney
Wife: Ragnhild (also called Hild) Hrolfsdatter
Son: Gange-Rolf, who settled in Normandie
Son: Ivar, killed in battle
Son: Tore Teiande, who became a jarl in Norway
LInks and notes
http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/NORWEGIAN%20NOBILITY.htm#Ragnvalddied894A http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnvald_M%C3%B8rejarl http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnvald_Eysteinsson http://lind.no/nor/index.asp?lang=&emne=nor&person=Ragnvald%20%D8ysteinsson

D²d omkring 892. Han var s²nn av ¢ystein Glumra. Ragnvald var gift med Hild Rolvsdatter. De hadde barna: 1. Gange-Rolv Ragnvaldson av Normandie. F²dt mellom 860 og 866. D²d 931. 2. Tore Teiande Ragnvaldson M²rejarl. F²dt omkring 862. D²d mellom 938 og 940.
I henhold til Orkn²yingenes saga gêar Ragnvalds µtt tilbake til «Heite Gors s²nn var far til Sveide sj²konge, far til Halvdan den gamle, far til Ivar Opplendingejarl, far til ¢ystein Glumra, far til Ragnvald jarl den mektige og den rêadsnare». Den samme sagaen strekker hans µtt tilbake til en mytologisk opprinnelse til skikkelse ved navn Fornjot fra Finland eller Kvenland.

Ragnvald levde pêa Harald Hêarfagres tid, og ble av ham forlenet med Nordm²re, Romsdal og Sundm²re i 865. Han var av sine samtidige h²yt ansett for sin klokskap og ble kalt «den mektige». Det var han som klipte Haralds hêar, som da ikke var klippet pêa 10 êar. ----------------------------- RAGNVALD "the Wise", son of [EYSTEIN "Glumra/Clatterer" Jarl in Norway & his wife ---] (-[894]). Orkneyinga Saga names “Eystein the Clatterer, father of the wise counsellor Earl Rognwald the Powerful…”, adding that “Earl Rognwald campaigned with King Harald Fine-Hair who gave him charge of North More, South More and Romsdale”[141].

Snorre names "Ragnvald Earl of More, a son of Eystein "Glumra" when recording that he had become a supporter of King Harald who had invested him with the districts of North More and Raumsdal[142]. Snorre records that he was created Jarl of North and South Mèore and of Raumsdal in Norway by Harald I "Hêarfagre" King of Norway after his victory at Solskiel [869] against Hunthiof King of Mèore and Nokve King of Raumsdal[143].

Orkneyinga Saga and Snorre both record that King Harald granted Shetland and Orkney to Ragnvald in compensation for the death of his son Ivar[144]. The Historia Norwegie records that "principi Rogwaldi" crossed the Solund Sea, destroyed the peoples of the Orkney islands, in the days of "Haraldi Comati regis…Norwegie"[145].

Orkneyinga Saga records that “Halfdan Long-Leg and Gudrod Gleam, King Harald´s sons by Snµfrid” attacked “Earl Rognvald of More, killed him and assumed his authority”[146].

Snorre records that Ragnvald was ambushed in his hall and burned alive by Halfdan Haaleg and Gudred Liomi, two of King Harald's sons[147].

m [RAGNHILD, daughter of HROLF “Nevja/Nose” & his wife ---. Orkneyinga Saga records that “Earl Rognwald” married “Ragnhild the daughter of Hrolf Nose”[148]. Snorre names "Hild, a daughter of Rolf Nefia" as the wife of "Earl Ragnvald"[149].]

[Ragnvald & his wife had three children:]

1. [IVAR (-killed in battle either Hafrsfiord [872] or Orkney [874]). Orkneyinga Saga names “Ivar and Thorer the Silent” as the two other sons of “Earl Rognwald” and his wife “Ragnhild the daughter of Hrolf Nose”, adding that Ivar was killed in battle fighting with Harald I "Hêarfagre" King of Norway in Scotland[150]. Snorre names "Ivar, a son of Ragnvald Earl of More" when recording his death in battle during a Viking campaign against the Scottish islands[151]. The Complete Peerage dates the appointment of Sigurd (Ivar´s reported paternal uncle) as Jarl of Orkney to [875][152], which means that Ivar must have been killed shortly before this date. However, as explained below this causes considerable chronological difficulties with the reported events in the career of Turf-Einar, Ivar´s youngest illegitimate half-brother, so should be considered as extremely approximate.

2. [ROLLO [Hrolf "Ganger/the Walker"] (-[928]). Orkneyinga Saga names “Hrolf who conquered Normandy” as son of “Earl Rognwald” and his wife “Ragnhild the daughter of Hrolf Nose”, adding that he was so big that no horse could carry him, giving rise to his name “Gèongu-Hrolf”[153]. Snorre names "Rolf and Thorer" as the two sons of "Earl Ragnvald" and his wife Hild, recording that Rolf was banished from Norway by King Harald and travelled to the Hebrides, settling first in Orkney before moving southwards through Scotland, and eventually conquering Normandy[154]. The Historia Norwegie records that, after Orkney was conquered by "principi Rogwaldi" and his followers, "de quorum collegio…Rodulfus" captured Rouen in Normandy, commenting that he was known as "Gongurolfr" because he was obliged to walk as he was too large to travel on horseback[155]. This source makes no reference to any blood relationship between Rollo and "principi Rogwaldi". According to Dudo of Saint-Quentin, Rollo arrived in northern France in 876[156], although there is some debate about [900] being a more likely date[157]. William of Jumiáeges records that Rollo was chosen by lot to be leader of the Viking colonists[158]. Viking raids intensified in northern France. Although they were defeated after raiding Chartres [911], Charles III "le Simple" King of the West Franks granted the Normans land around Rouen in which to settle[159]. The uncertain nature of the demise was the source of future problems between the French crown, which claimed that it was an enfeofment for which the ruler owed allegiance, and the later Dukes of Normandy who claimed it was an unconditional allod for which no allegiance was owed. A charter dated 14 Mar 918 which granted land to the monastery of Saint-Germain-des-Prâes "except that part…which we have granted to the Normans of the Seine, namely to Rollo and his companions"[160]. He was later known as ROBERT I Comte [de Normandie].]

3. [THORE Ragnvaldsson "Tause/the Silent". Orkneyinga Saga names “Ivar and Thorer the Silent” as the two other sons of “Earl Rognwald” and his wife “Ragnhild the daughter of Hrolf Nose”[161]. Snorre names "Rolf and Thorer" as the two sons of "Earl Ragnvald" and his wife Hild[162]. He succeeded his father in [894] as Jarl of Mèore, having dispossessed Gudrod "Ljome", son of King Harald, who had seized Mèore on the death of Jarl Ragnvald[163].

m ([890]) ALOF "Aarbod/Season-bettering", daughter of HARALD I "Hêarfagre/Harfagri/Fairhair" King of Norway & his second wife Gyda of Hordaland. Snorre records that King Harald gave Jarl Thore his daughter "Alof, called Arbot" after the king confirmed him as Jarl of Mèore[164].] [Thore & his wife had one child:]

a) [BERGLJOT Thoresdatter. The Historia Norwegie names "Bergliota filia Thoris Tacentis", from "nobilissima Morensium ac Halogensium comitum prosapia", as the wife of "Siwardo"[165]. Snorre names "Bergljot, a daughter of Earl Thorer the Silent" & his wife as the wife of Sigurd[166].

m SIGURD Jarl, son of HAAKON Grjotgardson Jarl of Haalogaland & his wife -- (-murdered Oglo 962).]

[Ragnvald had three illegitimate children by unknown mistresses:]

4. [HALLAD . Orkneyinga Saga names “Hallad, Hrollaug and the youngest Einar” as “natural sons” of “Earl Rognwald”[167]. Snorre names "Hallad, the second Einar, the third Hrollaug" as the three sons of "Earl Ragnvald" by concubines, adding that they were all "grown men" when their legitimate brothers were still children[168]. Orkneyinga Saga records that Ragnvald sent “his son Hallad west to the islands” after hearing of the death of his brother and nephew, and that Harald I "Hêarfagre" King of Norway gave “the title of earl” to Hallad who “came to Orkney and took up residence on Mainland”[169]. Snorre records that Earl Ragnvald installed his son Hallad as Jarl of Orkney after the death of his brother Sigurd, but that he resigned the earldom and returned to Norway[170]. Orkneyinga Saga records that, following complaints by farmers about Viking raids, Hallad “tiring of his rule, gave up the earldom and went back to Norway as a common landholder” which “made him a laughing stock”[171].

5. [HROLLAUG . Orkneyinga Saga names “Hallad, Hrollaug and the youngest Einar” as “natural sons” of “Earl Rognwald”[172]. Snorre names "Hallad, the second Einar, the third Hrollaug" as the three sons of "Earl Ragnvald" by concubines, adding that they were all "grown men" when their legitimate brothers were still children[173].

Orkneyinga Saga records that Ragnvald told his son Hrollaug that “your fate will take you to Iceland [where] you´ll have plenty of descendants”[174]. His alleged descendants in Iceland shown below are as stated in Thorstein Side-Hallum's Saga and Flatey-book's St Olaf's Saga[175] but the accuracy of this information, which has not been corroborated in other sources, is unknown. m ---. The name of Hrollaug´s wife is not known.] [Hrollaug & his wife had one child:]

a) [JON Ozur . m ---. The name of Jon´s wife is not known.] [Jon & his wife had one child:]

i) [THOREY . m ---. The name of Thorey´s wife is not known.] [Thorey & his wife had one child:]

(a) [HALL of Sida . m ---. The name of Hall´s wife is not known.] [Hall & his wife had two children:]

(1) [THORSTEIN . Aged 20 at the battle of Clontarf 1014.

(2) [THORDIS . Orkneyinga Saga records that “the mother of…Ospak was Thordis, daughter of Hall of Sida”[176]. m ---. The name of Thordis´s husband is not known.] Thordis & her husband had one child:

a. USPAK . Orkneyinga Saga records that “Earl Erlend Thorfinnson” married “Thora, the daughter of Sumarlidi Ospaksson”, adding that “the mother of…Ospak was Thordis, daughter of Hall of Sida”[177]. m ---. The name of Uspak´s wife is not known. Uspak & his wife had one child:

(i) SOMERLED . Orkneyinga Saga records that “Earl Erlend Thorfinnson” married “Thora, the daughter of Sumarlidi Ospaksson”[178]. m ---. The name of Somerled´s wife is not known. Somerled & his wife had one child:

(a) THORA . Orkneyinga Saga records that “Earl Erlend Thorfinnson” married “Thora, the daughter of Sumarlidi Ospaksson”, adding that “the mother of this Ospak was Thordis, daughter of Hall of Sida”[179]. Orkneyinga Saga records that “his mother was married…to a man called Sigurd” when her son Magnus returned to Orkney, adding that she and her second husband had a son “Hakon Karl…[and] a farm at Paplay”[180]. m firstly ERLEND Thorfinsson Jarl of Orkney, son of THORFINN "the Black" Jarl of Orkney & his wife Ingibjèorg Finnsdatter (-in prison Nidaros 1098, bur Nidaros). m secondly SIGURD of Paplay .

b) [HALLBERA . m ASBIORN, son of HRAFUNKEL of Steinrodar-Stadir in Iceland.]

6. [EINAR "Turf-Einar” . Orkneyinga Saga names “Hallad, Hrollaug and the youngest Einar” as “natural sons” of “Earl Rognwald”[181]. Snorre names "Hallad, the second Einar, the third Hrollaug" as the three sons of "Earl Ragnvald" by concubines, adding that they were all "grown men" when their legitimate brothers were still children[182].

Orkneyinga Saga records that Ragnvald sent his “youngest son Einar” to “the islands” after his brother Hallad returned to Norway and that Harald I "Hêarfagre" King of Norway gave “the title of earl”, adding that his mother was “slave-born on each side of her family”, and stating that he killed “Thorir Tree-Beard and Kalf Scurvy” and succeeded in imposing his authority in Orkney where “he was the first man to dig peat for fuel…at Tarbat Ness in Scotland”, and that he “was tall and ugly…and…one-eyed”[183]. It should be noted that there are considerable chronological difficulties with the career of Turf-Einar and his sons, as reported in Orkneyinga Saga.

The starting point for the analysis of these problems is the date of the battle in Northumbria in which Turf-Einar´s two oldest sons were killed, which can with reasonable accuracy be placed in the early 950s. If these two sons were at least in their late thirties or forties when they died (a difficult assumption to make considering that they had no reported direct heirs), their births could not be placed before [905/15] at the earliest. The likelihood would then be that their father, Turf-Einar, was not born much earlier than [975/95]. The difficulty is that this date is completely incompatible with (a) the fact that the illegitimate sons of Ragnvald were reported as “grown men” when their legitimate half-brothers were children, and (b) that the date when Ivar, the oldest legitimate son, was killed is estimated to [874].

----------------------------- Snorre Sturlason: Harald Hêarfagres saga: «10. ... Ragnvald M²rejarl, s²nn til ¢ystein Glumra, var blitt kong Haralds mann da om sommeren. Kong Harald satte ham til h²vding over disse to fylkene, Nordm²re og Romsdal, og ga ham rett til hjelp bêade av stormenn og b²nder, likesêa skip nok til êa verge landet for ufred. Han ble kalt Ragnvald jarl den mektige eller den rêadsnare, og de sier at begge navnene var sanne. Kong Harald var i Trondheimen vinteren som fulgte.»

«23. Kong Harald var i gjestebud pêa M²re hos Ragnvald jarl; da hadde han lagt hele landet under seg. Da gikk kongen i bad der. Og nêa lot kong Harald hêaret sitt greie, og Ragnvald jarl skar hêaret hans; da hadde det ikke vµrt skêaret eller kjemmet pêa ti êar. F²r kalte de ham Harald Luva, men nêa ga Ragnvald jarl ham nytt navn, og kalte ham Harald Hêarfagre. Alle som sêa ham, sa at det var virkelig et sant navn, for han hadde et hêar som var bêade stort og vakkert.»

Ragnvald ble innebrent pêa sin gêard sammen med 60 mann av Halvdan Hêalegg og Gudr²d Ljome, to av Haralds s²nner, som vill vµre jarler over M²re. 1)

1). Snorre Sturlason: Harald Hêarfagres saga, avsnitt 10, 23-24. Snorre Sturlason: Olav den helliges saga, avsnitt 96. Mogens Bugge: Vêare forfedre, nr. 278. Bent og Vidar Billing Hansen: Rosensverdslektens forfedre, side 50, 76. ----------------------------------------------- Ragnvald's life is described by Snorri Sturluson in The Saga of Harald Hêarfagre (Fairhair): http://lind.no/nor/index.asp?lang=no&emne=asatru&person=&list=&vis=s_e_harald_harfagre#43 --------------------------------------- About the name Ragnvald in various versions: http://www.nordicnames.de/pojk_r/Ragnvald.html

Ragnvald ¢ysteinsson M²rejarl (norr²nt Rèognvaldr Mœrajarl) (circa 830 - 892) var en jarl pêa nordvestlandet i Norge pêa midten av 800-tallet, tilsvarende det omrêadet som i dag heter M²re og Romsdal.
Ragnvalds µtt Ragnvald var s²nn av ¢ystein Ivarsson som ble kalt for ¢ystein Glumra. I henhold til Orkn²yingenes saga gêar Ragnvalds µtt tilbake til «Heite Gors s²nn var far til Sveide sj²konge, far til Halvdan den gamle, far til Ivar Opplendingejarl, far til ¢ystein Glumra, far til Ragnvald jarl den mektige og den rêadsnare». Den samme sagaen strekker hans µtt tilbake til en mytologisk opprinnelse til skikkelse ved navn Fornjot fra Finland eller Kvenland.

Snorre Sturlasson skriver i Harald Hêarfagres saga i Heimskringla: «Ragnvald M²rejarl var den kjµreste venn kong Harald hadde, og kongen satte ham h²yt. Ragnvald jarl var gift med Hild, datter til Rolv Nevja; deres s²nner var Rolv og Tore. Ragnvald jarl hadde noen frilles²nner ogsêa; en het Hallad; en annen Einar og en tredje Rollaug; de var voksne da de ektef²dte br²drene deres var barn ennêa. Rolv var en stor viking; han var sêa svµr til vekst at ingen hest kunne bµre ham, derfor gikk han til fots overalt. Han ble kalt for Gange-Rolv. Han herjet ofte i austerveg.»

Ragnvald var sêaledes far til sagnomsuste Gange-Rolf som i sagalitteraturen er blitt identifisert som den nordbo som franskmennene kaller for «Rollo» og som grunnla et jarld²mme i Normandie. Dette har imidlertid aldri blitt historisk dokumentert. Via s²nnen Torv-Einar ble Ragnvalds µtt giftet inn i det skotske kongehuset.

Den rêadsnare If²lge Snorre satte Harald Hêarfagre Ragnvald til êa vµre jarl over Nordm²re og Romsdal (og etter hvert Sunnm²re). Kongen gav ham rett til hjelp av bêade stormenn og b²nder, likesêa skip nok til êa verge landet for ufred. Ragnvald ble ogsêa kalt Ragnvald jarl den mektige eller den rêadsnare, og det ble sagt at begge navnene var sanne.

Kongen skal ha betraktet Ragnvald som en av sine viktigste menn og legenden sier at Ragnvald var den som klippet kongens hêar da han etter ti êar var blitt konge over alle i Norge. F²r ble kongen kalt for «Harald Luva» (Lurvehode), men etter at hêaret var skêaret, ga Ragnvald ham et nytt navn, «Hêarfagre».

Orkn²yene Snorre forteller at Ragnvald sendte s²nnen Hallad vestover etter at broren Sigurd var blitt drept, men han ble sêa plaget av vikinger og ransmenn at han ble lei og kom tilbake. Faren ble da sint og skjelte ham ut for ikke êa ligne pêa forfedrene sine. Den andre s²nnen, Einar, lovte da at han kunne reise til Orkn²yene og aldri komme tilbake til Norge mer. Ragnvald jarl skal da ha sagt at det var like greit om han aldri kom tilbake igjen: «For jeg har ikke st²rre hêap om at dine frender fêar µre av deg, for alle i morsµtta di er trellbêarne».

Ragnvald utstyrte s²nnen med skip og mannskap og lot ham dro vestover hvor han kom i kamp med vikinger og drepte dem. Pêa Orkn²yene ble han kalt for Torv-Einar for han lot skjµre torv som brensel for det vokste ikke trµr der. Han ble jarl pêa Orkn²yene og en mektig mann, en²yd og stygg êa se pêa.

Innebrent Da Harald Hêarfagre tok til êa eldes ble s²nnene hans Halvdan Hêalegg og Gudr²d Ljome stadig mer misforn²yd med at de selv ikke hadde noe rike mens faren hadde innsatt jarler rundt om i fylkene. De besluttet da êa ikke vente mer pêa odelen sin. Snorre skriver at «de dro ut med en stor flokk og kom uventet over Ragnvald M²rejarl, kringsatte huset hans og brente ham inne med seksti mann.»

Da kongen h²rte dette dro han med en stor hµr mot Gudr²d som overga seg og ble sendt til Agder. Kongen innsatte sêa Tore Teiande, s²nn av Ragnvald M²rejarl, som ny jarl og giftet ham med datteren êAlov. Kongsdatteren ble siden kalt «êArbot». Halvdan Hêalegg dro derimot over til Orkn²yene, kom uventet pêa Torv-Einar som mêatte flykte, men samme h²st kom Torv-Einar tilbake og overrasket Halvdan og fikk ham drept.

Original text: Snorri, Heimskringla, Haralds saga hins hâarfagra: "Rèognvaldr Mœrajarl, son Eysteins glumru, hafºi ¤âa um sumarit gerzt maºr Haralds konungs. Haraldr konungr setti hann hèofºingja yfir ¤essi tvau fylki, Norºmœri ok Raumsdal, ok fâekk honum ¤ar styrk til bµºi af râikismèonnum ok bâondum, svâa ok skipakost at verja landit fyrir âufriºi. Hann var kallaºr Rèognvaldr hinn râiki eºa hinn râaºsvinni, ok segja menn at hvâarrtveggja vµri sannnefni. Haraldr konungr var um vetrinn eptir âi ´râandheimi."
[...]

"12. Brenna Vemundar konungs.

Eptir ¤at lagºi Haraldr konungr undir sik Sunnmœri. Vemundr, brâoºir Auºbjarnar konungs, hâelt Firºafylki ok gerºist konungr yfir. ´etta var sâiºla um haust, ok gera menn ¤at râaº meº Haraldi konungi, at hann skyldi eigi fara suºr um Staº âa haustdegi. ´âa setti Haraldr konungr Rèognvald jarl yfir Mœri hvâaratveggju ok Raumsdal, ok hafºi hann ¤âa um sik mikit fjèolmenni. Haraldr konungr sneri ¤âa norºr aptr til ´râandheims. ´ann sama vetr fâor Rèognvaldr jarl hit iºra um Eiº, ok svâa suºr um Fjèorºu. Hann hafºi njâosn af Vemundi konungi, ok kom um nâott ¤ar sem heitir Naustdalr; Var Vemundr konungr ¤ar âa veizlu. Rèognvaldr jarl tâok hâus âa ¤eim, ok brendi konung inni meº nâiutigi manna. Eptir ¤at kom Berºlukâari til Rèognvalds jarls meº langskip alskipat, ok fâoru ¤eir bâaºir norºr âa Mœri. Tâok Rèognvaldr jarl skip ¤au, er âatt hafºi Vemundr konungr, ok alt lausafâe ¤at er hann fâekk. Berºlukâari fâor norºr til ´râandheims âa fund Haralds konungs ok gerºist hans maºr; hann var berserkr mikill."

Ragnvald Eysteinsson, The Wise (830-890), Earl of Sunnm²re, Nordm²re and Romsdal, was born in Maer Nord-Tr²ndelag, Norway and died at the Orkney Islands.
He was son of Eystein Glumra the Noisy, Earl of Oppland, and grandson of Halfdan the Old.

His second wife was Ragnhild Ragnhild Hrolfsdottir (Raghldr (Hldr) Hrolfsdâottir) daughter of Hrolfr Nefjaa. Ragnvald was the father of Hrolf Ganger, the founder of Normandy. He was also the father of Turf-Einar, the ancestor of the jarls of Orkney.

He was the direct ancestor to William I of England, Edward III of England, James I of England, and, therefore, Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. He is therefore the ancestor of most of the royal families of Europe.

Ragnvald Eystemssèon, allmèant kallad Mèorejarl. norsk storman i 9:de êarh., êatnjèot i hèog grad Harald Hêarfagres fèortroende och styrde sêasom hans jarl Mèorerne (Nord- och Sèondmèore samt Romsdalen). R. blef genom sin ene son. Torv-Einar, stamfader fèor Orkenèo-jarlarna och genom den andre, Gêange-Rolf, stamfader fèor hertigarna af Normandie. Af sina samtida kallades han den »rêadmilde» och den »mèaktige». Trots sin êadagalagda trohet mot konungen èoverfèolls och drèaptes han af dennes sèoner omkr. 890. Y. s.
Frêan Nordisk Familjebok

Rognvald "The Wise" Eysteinsson (son of Eystein Ivarsson) is the founder of the Earldom of Orkney in the Norse Sagas. Three quite different accounts of the creation of the Norse earldom on Orkney and Shetland exist. The best known is that found in the Heimskringla, but other older traditions are found in the Historia Norvegiae and the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland.
The saga accounts are the best known, and the latest, of the three surviving traditions concerning Rognvald and the foundation of the Earldom of Orkney. Recorded in the 13th century, their views are informed by Norwegian politics of the day. Once, historians could write that no-one denied the reality of Harald Fairhair's expeditions to the west recounted in Heimskringla, but this is no longer the case. The Norwegian contest with the Kings of Scots over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man in the middle 13th century underlies the sagas.[1]

In the Heimskringla, Rognvald is Earl of M²re. He accompanies Harald Fairhair on his great expeditions to the west, to Ireland and to Scotland. Here, Rognvald's son Ivarr is killed. In compensation King Harald grants Rognvald Orkney and Shetland. Rognvald himself returns to Norway, giving the northern isles to his brother Sigurd Eysteinsson.[2]

The Heimskringla recounts other tales of Rognvald. It tells how he causes Harald Finehair to be given his byname Fairhair by cutting and dressing his hair, which had been uncut for ten years on account of Harald's vow never to cut it until he was ruler of all Norway,[3] and it makes him the father of Ganger-Hrâolf, identified by saga writers with the Rollo (Hrâolfr), ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy, who was said to have been established as Count of Rouen by King Charles the Simple in 931.[4]

Earl Rognvald is killed by Harald's son Halfdan Hêalegg. Rognvald's death is avenged by his son, Earl Turf-Einar, from whom later Orkney earls claimed descent, who kills Halfdan on North Ronaldsay.[5]

The Historia Norvegiae's account of Rognvald and the foundation of the Orkney earldom is the next oldest, probably dating from the 12th century. This account contains much curious detail on Orkney, including the earliest account of the Picts as small people who hid in the daytime, but it has little to say about Rognvald.

In the days of Harald Fairhair, king of Norway, certain pirates, of the family of the most vigorous prince Ronald [Rognvald], set out with a great fleet, and crossed the Solundic sea..., and subdued the islands to themselves. And being there provided with safe winter seats, they went in summer-time working tyranny upon the English, and the Scots, and sometimes also upon the Irish, so that they took under their rule, from England, Northumbria; from Scotland, Caithness; from Ireland, Dublin, and the other sea-side towns.[6]

This account does not associate Rognvald with the earldom, but instead attributes it to his anonymous kinfolk.

The oldest account of the Rognvald and the earldom of Orkney is that found in the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. The annals survive only in incomplete copies made by Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh in the 17th century, but the original annals are believed to date from the lifetime of Donnchad mac Gilla Pâatraic (died 1039). The annals are known to have had an influence on later writings in Iceland.

The annals make Rognvald the son of "Halfdan, King of Lochlann". This is generally understood to mean Halfdan the Black, which would make the Rognvald of the annals the brother of Harald Finehair. However, the sagas claim that Rognvald's grandfather was named Halfdan.[7]

These events are placed after an account of the devastation of Fortriu, dated to around 866,[8] and the fall of York, reliably dated to late 867. However, such an early date makes it difficult to reconcile the saga claims that Harald Fairhair was involved in Rognvald's conquest of the northern isles.

Harald Finehair's victory in the Battle of Hafrsfjord, which gave him dominion over parts of Norway, is traditionally dated to 872, but was probably later, perhaps as late as 900.[9] What little is known of Scottish events in the period from the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba would correspond equally well with Harald's attacks on Scotland in the reign of Domnall mac Causantâin (ruled 889–900).[10] However, this would not correspond with the sequence in the earliest account of the origins of the Orkney earldom, which places this a generation earlier.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rognvald_Eysteinsson

Ragnvald I 'the Wise' Eysteinsson, Earl of More (1) M, #104777 Last Edited=28 Oct 2002
Ragnvald I 'the Wise' Eysteinsson, Earl of More is the son of Eystein 'the Noisy' Glumra, Jarl of the Uplanders and Ascrida Ragnvaldsdottir. (1) He died circa 890, burnt to death in his house. Ragnvald I 'the Wise' Eysteinsson, Earl of More gained the title of Earl of More. Ragnvald I 'the Wise' Eysteinsson, Earl of More also went by the nick-name of 'The Mighty'.
Children of Ragnvald I 'the Wise' Eysteinsson, Earl of More and Groa (?) -1. Hallad Ragnvaldsson, Earl of Orkney (1) -2. Turf-Einar Ragnvaldsson, Earl of Orkney (1) -3. Hrollaug Ragnvaldsson (1) Children of Ragnvald I 'the Wise' Eysteinsson, Earl of More and Ragnhild Hrolfsdottir -1. Ivar Ragnvaldsson (1) -2. Thori 'the Silent' Ragnvaldsson, Jarl of More+ (1) -3. Rollo Ragnvaldsson, 1st Duc de Normandie+ b. c 846, d. c 931 (1)

Forrâas: http://www.thepeerage.com/p10478.htm#i104777

Rognvald "The Wise" Eysteinsson (son of Eystein Ivarsson) is the founder of the Earldom of Orkney in the Norse Sagas. Three quite different accounts of the creation of the Norse earldom on Orkney and Shetland exist. The best known is that found in the Heimskringla, but other older traditions are found in the Historia Norvegiae and the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland.

Contents [hide] 1 Sagas 2 Historia Norvegiae 3 Fragmentary Annals of Ireland 4 Notes 5 References

[edit] Sagas The saga accounts are the best known, and the latest, of the three surviving traditions concerning Rognvald and the foundation of the Earldom of Orkney. Recorded in the 13th century, their views are informed by Norwegian politics of the day. Once, historians could write that no-one denied the reality of Harald Fairhair's expeditions to the west recounted in Heimskringla, but this is no longer the case. The Norwegian contest with the Kings of Scots over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man in the middle 13th century underlies the sagas.[1]

In the Heimskringla, Rognvald is Earl of M²re. He accompanies Harald Fairhair on his great expeditions to the west, to Ireland and to Scotland. Here, Rognvald's son Ivarr is killed. In compensation King Harald grants Rognvald the Orkneys and Shetlands. Rognvald himself returns to Norway, giving the northern isles to his brother Sigurd Eysteinsson[2]

The Heimskringla recounts other tales of Rognvald. It tells how he causes Harald Finehair to be given his byname Fairhair by cutting and dressing his hair, which had been uncut for ten years on account of Harald's vow never to cut it until he was ruler of all Norway,[3] and it makes him the father of Ganger-Hrâolf, identified by saga writers with the Rollo (Hrâolfr), ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy, who was said to have been established as Count of Rouen by King Charles the Simple in 931.[4]

Earl Rognvald is killed by Harald's son Halfdan Hêalegg. Rognvald's death is avenged by his son, Earl Turf-Einar, from whom later Orkney earls claimed descent, who kills Halfdan on North Ronaldsay.[5]

[edit] Historia Norvegiae The Historia Norvegiae's account of Rognvald and the foundation of the Orkney earldom is the next oldest, probably dating from the 12th century. This account contains much curious detail on Orkney, including the earliest account of the Picts as small people who hid in the daytime, but it has little to say about Rognvald.

In the days of Harald Fairhair, king of Norway, certain pirates, of the family of the most vigorous prince Ronald [Rognvald], set out with a great fleet, and crossed the Solundic sea..., and subdued the islands to themselves. And being there provided with safe winter seats, they went in summer-time working tyranny upon the English, and the Scots, and sometimes also upon the Irish, so that they took under their rule, from England, Northumbria; from Scotland, Caithness; from Ireland, Dublin, and the other sea-side towns.[6]

This account does not associate Rognvald with the earldom, but instead attributes it to his anonymous sons.

[edit] Fragmentary Annals of Ireland ...for it was not long before this that there had been every war and every trouble in Norway, and this was the source of that war in Norway: two younger sons of Albdan, king of Norway, drove out the eldest son, i.e. Ragnall son of Albdan, for fear that he would seize the kingship of Norway after their father. So Ragnall came with his three sons to the Orkneys. Ragnall stayed there then, with his youngest son. Fragmentary Annals of Ireland , FA 330. Edited and translated by Joan N. Radnor. The oldest account of the Rognvald and the earldom of Orkney is that found in the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. The annals survive only in incomplete copies made by Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh in the 17th century, but the original annals are believed to date from the lifetime of Donnchad mac Gilla Patrâaic (died 1039). The annals are known to have had an influence on later writings in Iceland.

The annals make Rognvald the son of "Halfdan, King of Lochlann". This is generally understood to mean Halfdan the Black, which would make the Rognvald of the annals the brother of Harald Finehair. However, the sagas claim that Rognvald's grandfather was named Halfdan.[7]

These events are placed after an account of the devastation of Fortriu, dated to around 866,[8] and the fall of York, reliably dated to late 867. However, such an early date makes it difficult to reconcile the saga claims that Harald Fairhair was involved in Rognvald's conquest of the northern isles.

Harald Finehair's victory in the Battle of Hafrsfjord, which gave him dominion over parts of Norway, is traditionally dated to 872, but was probably later, perhaps as late as 900.[9] What little is known of Scottish events in the period from the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba would correspond equally well with Harald's attacks on Scotland in the reign of Domnall mac Causantâin (ruled 889–900).[10] However, this would not correspond with the sequence in the earliest account of the origins of the Orkney earldom, which places this a generation earlier.

[edit] Notes ^ Crawford, pp. 52–53. ^ Anderson, pp. 332–334; Saga of Harald Fairhair, c. 22. ^ Saga of Harald Fairhair, cc. 4 & 23. ^ Saga of Harald Fairhair, c. 24. ^ Saga of Harald Fairhair, cc. 29–30. ^ Anderson, pp. 330–331. ^ Crawford, pp. 53–54. ^ Anderson, p. 296; Annals of Ulster, s.a. 865. ^ Crawford, p. 55–56. ^ Anderson, pp. 395–396.

[edit] References Anderson, Alan Orr. Early Sources of Scottish History A.D 500–1286, volume 1. Reprinted with corrections. Paul Watkins, Stamford, 1990. ISBN 1-871615-03-8 Crawford, Barbara. Scandinavian Scotland. Leicester University Press, Leicester, 1987. ISBN 0-7185-1282-0 Ó Corrain, Donnchad. "The Vikings in Scotland and Ireland in the Ninth Century", Peritia, vol 12, pp296–339. (etext (pdf) Radner, Joan N. (editor and translator). Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts. University College Cork. Retrieved on 2007-03-10. Radner, Joan N. "Writing history: Early Irish historiography and the significance of form", Celtica, volume 23, pp. 312–325. (etext (pdf)) Smyth, Alfred P. Warlords and Holy Men: Scotland AD 80–1000. Reprinted, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1998. ISBN 0-7486-0100-7 Sturluson, Snorri. Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway, translated Lee M. Hollander. Reprinted University of Texas Press, Austin, 1992. ISBN 0-292-73061-6

Ragnvald ¢ysteinsson M²rejarl (norr²nt Rèognvaldr Mœrajarl) (circa 830 - 892) var en jarl pêa nordvestlandet i Norge pêa midten av 800-tallet, tilsvarende det omrêadet som i dag heter M²re og Romsdal.
Innhold [skjul] 1 Ragnvalds µtt 2 Den rêadsnare 3 Orkn²yene 4 Innebrent

[rediger] Ragnvalds µtt Ragnvald var s²nn av ¢ystein Ivarsson som ble kalt for ¢ystein Glumra. I henhold til Orkn²yingenes saga gêar Ragnvalds µtt tilbake til «Heite Gors s²nn var far til Sveide sj²konge, far til Halvdan den gamle, far til Ivar Opplendingejarl, far til ¢ystein Glumra, far til Ragnvald jarl den mektige og den rêadsnare». Den samme sagaen strekker hans µtt tilbake til en mytologisk opprinnelse til skikkelse ved navn Fornjot fra Finland eller Kvenland.

Snorre Sturlasson skriver i Harald Hêarfagres saga i Heimskringla: «Ragnvald M²rejarl var den kjµreste venn kong Harald hadde, og kongen satte ham h²yt. Ragnvald jarl var gift med Hild, datter til Rolv Nevja; deres s²nner var Rolv og Tore. Ragnvald jarl hadde noen frilles²nner ogsêa; en het Hallad; en annen Einar og en tredje Rollaug; de var voksne da de ektef²dte br²drene deres var barn ennêa. Rolv var en stor viking; han var sêa svµr til vekst at ingen hest kunne bµre ham, derfor gikk han til fots overalt. Han ble kalt for Gange-Rolv. Han herjet ofte i austerveg.»

Ragnvald var sêaledes far til sagnomsuste Gange-Rolf som i sagalitteraturen er blitt identifisert som den nordbo som franskmennene kaller for «Rollo» og som grunnla et jarld²mme i Normandie. Dette har imidlertid aldri blitt historisk dokumentert. Via s²nnen Torv-Einar ble Ragnvalds µtt giftet inn i det skotske kongehuset.

[rediger] Den rêadsnare If²lge Snorre satte Harald Hêarfagre Ragnvald til êa vµre jarl over Nordm²re og Romsdal (og etter hvert Sunnm²re). Kongen gav ham rett til hjelp av bêade stormenn og b²nder, likesêa skip nok til êa verge landet for ufred. Ragnvald ble ogsêa kalt Ragnvald jarl den mektige eller den rêadsnare, og det ble sagt at begge navnene var sanne.

Kongen skal ha betraktet Ragnvald som en av sine viktigste menn og legenden sier at Ragnvald var den som klippet kongens hêar da han etter ti êar var blitt konge over alle i Norge. F²r ble kongen kalt for «Harald Luva» (Lurvehode), men etter at hêaret var skêaret, ga Ragnvald ham et nytt navn, «Hêarfagre».

[rediger] Orkn²yene Snorre forteller at Ragnvald sendte s²nnen Hallad vestover etter at broren Sigurd var blitt drept, men han ble sêa plaget av vikinger og ransmenn at han ble lei og kom tilbake. Faren ble da sint og skjelte ham ut for ikke êa ligne pêa forfedrene sine. Den andre s²nnen, Einar, lovte da at han kunne reise til Orkn²yene og aldri komme tilbake til Norge mer. Ragnvald jarl skal da ha sagt at det var like greit om han aldri kom tilbake igjen: «For jeg har ikke st²rre hêap om at dine frender fêar µre av deg, for alle i morsµtta di er trellbêarne».

Ragnvald utstyrte s²nnen med skip og mannskap og lot ham dro vestover hvor han kom i kamp med vikinger og drepte dem. Pêa Orkn²yene ble han kalt for Torv-Einar for han lot skjµre torv som brensel for det vokste ikke trµr der. Han ble jarl pêa Orkn²yene og en mektig mann, en²yd og stygg êa se pêa.

[rediger] Innebrent Da Harald Hêarfagre tok til êa eldes ble s²nnene hans Halvdan Hêalegg og Gudr²d Ljome stadig mer misforn²yd med at de selv ikke hadde noe rike mens faren hadde innsatt jarler rundt om i fylkene. De besluttet da êa ikke vente mer pêa odelen sin. Snorre skriver at «de dro ut med en stor flokk og kom uventet over Ragnvald M²rejarl, kringsatte huset hans og brente ham inne med seksti mann.»

Da kongen h²rte dette dro han med en stor hµr mot Gudr²d som overga seg og ble sendt til Agder. Kongen innsatte sêa Tore Teiande, s²nn av Ragnvald M²rejarl, som ny jarl og giftet ham med datteren êAlov. Kongsdatteren ble siden kalt «êArbot». Halvdan Hêalegg dro derimot over til Orkn²yene, kom uventet pêa Torv-Einar som mêatte flykte, men samme h²st kom Torv-Einar tilbake og overrasket Halvdan og fikk ham drept.

Forgjenger:

- Jarl av M²re
(865–892) Etterf²lger:

Tore Teiande
Hentet fra «http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnvald_M%C3%B8rejarl»

Rognvald Eysteinsson "the Wise" Earl of More (830-) [Pedigree]

Son of Eystein Glumra Ivarsson Jarl of Hedemarken (810-) and Aseda Rognvaldsdottir (812-)

REF RFC. A Norwegian viking. Jarl of More b. ABT 830, Maer, Norway b. Abt 0857 r. Upland, Denmark d. 890, Orkney, Orkney Islands, Scotland d. ABT 890, Maer, Norway
Married first Rognhild (Hildir) Hrolfsdotter (848-892)

Children:

1. Rollo the Dane 1st Duke of Normandy (-927) m(1) Poppa de_Valois Duchess of Norway (872-)
Married second Ermina

Children:

1. Hrollager Rognvaldsson (874-)
Sources:

1. "Royalty for Commoners",

Roderick W. Stuart, 1992, 2nd edition. This book lists all of the known ancestors of John of Gaunt, which amounts to most of the Medieval royalty of Europe. Also see the following article: "A Mediaeval Miscellany: Commentaries on Roderick W. Stuart's Royalty for Commoners," The American Genealogist 69 (April 1994)
2. "Europaische Stammtafeln",

Isenburg.
3. "Plantagenet Ancestry",

Turton.
Ragnvald I Eysteinsson , 1st Earl of Orkne

B: abt 0825 Maer, Nord Trondelag, Norway S: Rognvald Mere-Earl and Ragnvald "the wise" S: abt 0872 as Jarl of More and 1st Earl of Orkney D: 0894 Orkney Islands, Orkney, Scotland M: abt 0852

http://www.geneajourney.com/nrmndy.html
Eystein Glumra, Jarl of the Upplands, b abt 803, of Norway. The identity of his wife is not known. Known children of Eystein Glumra were: • Ragnvald I, the Wise, Jarl of North and South More and of Ramsdal, b abt 832. • Swanhild b abt 846, of Norway. She md Harald I, "Fairhair, 1st King of Norway, abt 866, son of Halfdan, "the Black, King of Vestfold, and Ragnhild. Ragnvald I, "the Wise", Jarl of North and South More and of Ramsdal, b abt 832, Norway, d 890. He md Hiltrude abt 850, daughter of Hrolf Nefia. She was b abt 834. Child of Ragnvald the Wise and Hiltrude was: Rollo/Robert I of Normandy [a], 1st Duke of Normandy, aka Ganger Rolf, b abt 855, Norway, d abt 927-931, prob Normandy, France. He md Poppa of Bayeux abt 886, daughter of Berenger,Count of Bayeux. She was b abt 876.

Ragnvald var jarl i Mèore, Norge, och èar nog inte lika omtalad som flera av sina sèoner. En son èar sannolikt 'Gêange-Rolf', som blev stamfader fèor hertigar och kungar i Normandie, Frankrike, och det engelska kungahuset samt den som skapade hertigdèomet Normandie. En annan son 'Torv-Einar' blev jarl pêa Orkneyèoarna liksom hans broder Hallad. Ragnvald var gift med med Ragnhild Rolfsdotter, men hade ocksêa barn med frillan Groa. Ragnvalds syster Svanhild blev gift med Harald 'Hêarfager'. Ragnvald (Mèorejarl) blev mèordad (innebrèand) av Harald 'Hêarfagers' sèoner Halvdan 'Hêalegg' og Gudrèod 'Ljome'. Jarl, dèod ca 890. Ragnvald var jarl pêa Mèore. Hans far skall ha varit èOystein 'Glumra'. Han levde pêa Harald Hêarfagers tid, och blev av honom fèorlèanad med Nordmèore, Romsdal og Sundmèore êar 865. Han var av sina samtida hèogt ansedd fèor sin klokskap och blev kallad 'den mèaktige'. Det var han som klippte Haralds hêar, som dêa icke varit klippt pêa 10 êar.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kèallor

1) Directory of Royal Genealogical Data, Hull, England
Ragnvald ¢ysteinsson M²rejarl (norr²nt Rèognvaldr Mœrajarl) (circa 830 - 892) var en jarl pêa nordvestlandet i Norge pêa midten av 800-tallet, tilsvarende det omrêadet som i dag heter M²re og Romsdal.

Ragnvald var s²nn av ¢ystein Ivarsson som ble kalt for ¢ystein Glumra. I henhold til Orkn²yingenes saga gêar Ragnvalds µtt tilbake til «Heite Gors s²nn var far til Sveide sj²konge, far til Halvdan den gamle, far til Ivar Opplendingejarl, far til ¢ystein Glumra, far til Ragnvald jarl den mektige og den rêadsnare». Den samme sagaen strekker hans µtt tilbake til en mytologisk opprinnelse til skikkelse ved navn Fornjot fra Finland eller Kvenland.

Snorre Sturlasson skriver i Harald Hêarfagres saga i Heimskringla: «Ragnvald M²rejarl var den kjµreste venn kong Harald hadde, og kongen satte ham h²yt. Ragnvald jarl var gift med Hild, datter til Rolv Nevja; deres s²nner var Rolv og Tore. Ragnvald jarl hadde noen frilles²nner ogsêa; en het Hallad; en annen Einar og en tredje Rollaug; de var voksne da de ektef²dte br²drene deres var barn ennêa. Rolv var en stor viking; han var sêa svµr til vekst at ingen hest kunne bµre ham, derfor gikk han til fots overalt. Han ble kalt for Gange-Rolv. Han herjet ofte i austerveg.»

Ragnvald var sêaledes far til sagnomsuste Gange-Rolf som i sagalitteraturen er blitt identifisert som den nordbo som franskmennene kaller for «Rollo» og som grunnla et jarld²mme i Normandie. Dette har imidlertid aldri blitt historisk dokumentert ettersom kildene spriker i alle retninger, en av dem som stiller seg bak de tidligere nevnte tradisjonene er Jâon Viºar Sigurºsson i boken Norsk Historie 800 - 1300 (Det Norske Samlaget, 1999). Via s²nnen Torv-Einar ble Ragnvalds µtt giftet inn i det skotske kongehuset.

Den rêadsnare

If²lge Snorre satte Harald Hêarfagre Ragnvald til êa vµre jarl over Nordm²re og Romsdal (og etter hvert Sunnm²re). Kongen gav ham rett til hjelp av bêade stormenn og b²nder, likesêa skip nok til êa verge landet for ufred. Ragnvald ble ogsêa kalt Ragnvald jarl den mektige eller den rêadsnare, og det ble sagt at begge navnene var sanne.

Kongen skal ha betraktet Ragnvald som en av sine viktigste menn og legenden sier at Ragnvald var den som klippet kongens hêar da han etter ti êar var blitt konge over alle i Norge. F²r ble kongen kalt for «Harald Luva» (Lurvehode), men etter at hêaret var skêaret, ga Ragnvald ham et nytt navn, «Hêarfagre».

Orkn²yene

Snorre forteller at Ragnvald sendte s²nnen Hallad vestover etter at broren Sigurd var blitt drept, men han ble sêa plaget av vikinger og ransmenn at han ble lei og kom tilbake. Faren ble da sint og skjelte ham ut for ikke êa ligne pêa forfedrene sine. Den andre s²nnen, Einar, lovte da at han kunne reise til Orkn²yene og aldri komme tilbake til Norge mer. Ragnvald jarl skal da ha sagt at det var like greit om han aldri kom tilbake igjen: «For jeg har ikke st²rre hêap om at dine frender fêar µre av deg, for alle i morsµtta di er trellbêarne».

Ragnvald utstyrte s²nnen med skip og mannskap og lot ham dro vestover hvor han kom i kamp med vikinger og drepte dem. Pêa Orkn²yene ble han kalt for Torv-Einar for han lot skjµre torv som brensel for det vokste ikke trµr der. Han ble jarl pêa Orkn²yene og en mektig mann, en²yd og stygg êa se pêa.

Innebrent

Da Harald Hêarfagre tok til êa eldes ble s²nnene hans Halvdan Hêalegg og Gudr²d Ljome stadig mer misforn²yd med at de selv ikke hadde noe rike mens faren hadde innsatt jarler rundt om i fylkene. De besluttet da êa ikke vente mer pêa odelen sin. Snorre skriver at «de dro ut med en stor flokk og kom uventet over Ragnvald M²rejarl, kringsatte huset hans og brente ham inne med seksti mann.»

Da kongen h²rte dette dro han med en stor hµr mot Gudr²d som overga seg og ble sendt til Agder. Kongen innsatte sêa Tore Teiande, s²nn av Ragnvald M²rejarl, som ny jarl og giftet ham med datteren êAlov. Kongsdatteren ble siden kalt «êArbot». Halvdan Hêalegg dro derimot over til Orkn²yene, kom uventet pêa Torv-Einar som mêatte flykte, men samme h²st kom Torv-Einar tilbake og overrasket Halvdan og fikk ham drept.

http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnvald_M%C3%B8rejarl

ROGNVALD I ~
Rognvald , The Wise, Jarl (Earl) of More, Norway, the first Jarl of Orkney and a near relative of King Harold Fairhair.

The house of Rognvald was one of the oldest lines of rulers in Norway.

Rognvald "The Wise" Eysteinsson (son of Eystein Ivarsson) is the founder of the Earldom of Orkney in the Norse Sagas. Three quite different accounts of the creation of the Norse earldom on Orkney and Shetland exist. The best known is that found in the Heimskringla, but other older traditions are found in the Historia Norvegiae and the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland.
The saga accounts are the best known, and the latest, of the three surviving traditions concerning Rognvald and the foundation of the Earldom of Orkney. Recorded in the 13th century, their views are informed by Norwegian politics of the day. Once, historians could write that no-one denied the reality of Harald Fairhair's expeditions to the west recounted in Heimskringla, but this is no longer the case. The Norwegian contest with the Kings of Scots over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man in the middle 13th century underlies the sagas.

In the Heimskringla, Rognvald is Earl of M²re. He accompanies Harald Fairhair on his great expeditions to the west, to Ireland and to Scotland. Here, Rognvald's son Ivarr is killed. In compensation King Harald grants Rognvald Orkney and Shetland. Rognvald himself returns to Norway, giving the northern isles to his brother Sigurd Eysteinsson.

The Heimskringla recounts other tales of Rognvald. It tells how he causes Harald Finehair to be given his byname Fairhair by cutting and dressing his hair, which had been uncut for ten years on account of Harald's vow never to cut it until he was ruler of all Norway, and it makes him the father of Ganger-Hrâolf, identified by saga writers with the Rollo (Hrâolfr), ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy, who was said to have been established as Count of Rouen by King Charles the Simple in 931.

Earl Rognvald is killed by Harald's son Halfdan Hêalegg. Rognvald's death is avenged by his son, Earl Turf-Einar, from whom later Orkney earls claimed descent, who kills Halfdan on North Ronaldsay.

Ragnvald ¢ysteinsson M²rejarl (norr²nt Rèognvaldr Mœrajarl) (circa 830 - 892) var en jarl pêa nordvestlandet i Norge pêa midten av 800-tallet, tilsvarende det omrêadet som i dag heter M²re og Romsdal.
Ragnvald var s²nn av ¢ystein Ivarsson som ble kalt for ¢ystein Glumra. I henhold til Orkn²yingenes saga gêar Ragnvalds µtt tilbake til «Heite Gors s²nn var far til Sveide sj²konge, far til Halvdan den gamle, far til Ivar Opplendingejarl, far til ¢ystein Glumra, far til Ragnvald jarl den mektige og den rêadsnare». Den samme sagaen strekker hans µtt tilbake til en mytologisk opprinnelse til skikkelse ved navn Fornjot fra Finland eller Kvenland.

Snorre Sturlasson skriver i Harald Hêarfagres saga i Heimskringla: «Ragnvald M²rejarl var den kjµreste venn kong Harald hadde, og kongen satte ham h²yt. Ragnvald jarl var gift med Hild, datter til Rolv Nevja; deres s²nner var Rolv og Tore. Ragnvald jarl hadde noen frilles²nner ogsêa; en het Hallad; en annen Einar og en tredje Rollaug; de var voksne da de ektef²dte br²drene deres var barn ennêa. Rolv var en stor viking; han var sêa svµr til vekst at ingen hest kunne bµre ham, derfor gikk han til fots overalt. Han ble kalt for Gange-Rolv. Han herjet ofte i austerveg.»

Ragnvald var sêaledes far til sagnomsuste Gange-Rolf som i sagalitteraturen er blitt identifisert som den nordbo som franskmennene kaller for «Rollo» og som grunnla et jarld²mme i Normandie. Dette har imidlertid aldri blitt historisk dokumentert ettersom kildene spriker i alle retninger, en av dem som stiller seg bak de tidligere nevnte tradisjonene er Jâon Viºar Sigurºsson i boken Norsk Historie 800 - 1300 (Det Norske Samlaget, 1999). Via s²nnen Torv-Einar ble Ragnvalds µtt giftet inn i det skotske kongehuset.

Den rêadsnare

If²lge Snorre satte Harald Hêarfagre Ragnvald til êa vµre jarl over Nordm²re og Romsdal (og etter hvert Sunnm²re). Kongen gav ham rett til hjelp av bêade stormenn og b²nder, likesêa skip nok til êa verge landet for ufred. Ragnvald ble ogsêa kalt Ragnvald jarl den mektige eller den rêadsnare, og det ble sagt at begge navnene var sanne.

Kongen skal ha betraktet Ragnvald som en av sine viktigste menn og legenden sier at Ragnvald var den som klippet kongens hêar da han etter ti êar var blitt konge over alle i Norge. F²r ble kongen kalt for «Harald Luva» (Lurvehode), men etter at hêaret var skêaret, ga Ragnvald ham et nytt navn, «Hêarfagre».

Orkn²yene

Snorre forteller at Ragnvald sendte s²nnen Hallad vestover etter at broren Sigurd var blitt drept, men han ble sêa plaget av vikinger og ransmenn at han ble lei og kom tilbake. Faren ble da sint og skjelte ham ut for ikke êa ligne pêa forfedrene sine. Den andre s²nnen, Einar, lovte da at han kunne reise til Orkn²yene og aldri komme tilbake til Norge mer. Ragnvald jarl skal da ha sagt at det var like greit om han aldri kom tilbake igjen: «For jeg har ikke st²rre hêap om at dine frender fêar µre av deg, for alle i morsµtta di er trellbêarne».

Ragnvald utstyrte s²nnen med skip og mannskap og lot ham dro vestover hvor han kom i kamp med vikinger og drepte dem. Pêa Orkn²yene ble han kalt for Torv-Einar for han lot skjµre torv som brensel for det vokste ikke trµr der. Han ble jarl pêa Orkn²yene og en mektig mann, en²yd og stygg êa se pêa.

Innebrent

Da Harald Hêarfagre tok til êa eldes ble s²nnene hans Halvdan Hêalegg og Gudr²d Ljome stadig mer misforn²yd med at de selv ikke hadde noe rike mens faren hadde innsatt jarler rundt om i fylkene. De besluttet da êa ikke vente mer pêa odelen sin. Snorre skriver at «de dro ut med en stor flokk og kom uventet over Ragnvald M²rejarl, kringsatte huset hans og brente ham inne med seksti mann.»

Da kongen h²rte dette dro han med en stor hµr mot Gudr²d som overga seg og ble sendt til Agder. Kongen innsatte sêa Tore Teiande, s²nn av Ragnvald M²rejarl, som ny jarl og giftet ham med datteren êAlov. Kongsdatteren ble siden kalt «êArbot». Halvdan Hêalegg dro derimot over til Orkn²yene, kom uventet pêa Torv-Einar som mêatte flykte, men samme h²st kom Torv-Einar tilbake og overrasket Halvdan og fikk ham drept.

Also known as Count Regnvald ("the Rich") and as "The Wise", Earl of North and South More, of Raumsdale in Norway.{"Royal Ancestors of Magna Charta Barons," Carr P. Collins, Jr., Dallas, 1959, p.201-02, states that he died about 894. (Rogenwald = Regnvald = Rognald)}

Earl of More/Moer in Norway and Jarl of Orkney and Shetland. He had his name Gallicized to Reginald. He supported King Harold Fairhair in an attempt to unify Norway. Norr: Jarl Rognwald (Rogvald, Raonwald, Regvald, Rouis), created Earl of Moer in 885. Roll: Rognwald, Earl of Maere. Norr: Jarl Rogwald (Raowald, Regvald, Rouis), Earl of Moer 885. Married Hilder. Beyond Rognvald, things get pretty confused. Norr has about 25 generations going back to Oden. RC doesn't agree. But some RC names coming down from RC's Odin agree in the upper portion. But the dates are some 250 years different. RC and Kraentzler agree in taking Rognvald back three more generations. Russell goes way back to Olaf the Sharp-eyed, King of Rerik.

Rognvald Eysteinsson Rognvald "The Wise" Eysteinsson (son of Eystein Ivarsson) is the founder of the Earldom of Orkney in the Norse Sagas. Three quite different accounts of the creation of the Norse earldom on Orkney and Shetland exist. The best known is that found in the Heimskringla, but other older traditions are found in the Historia Norvegiae and the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland.

[edit] Sagas The saga accounts are the best known, and the latest, of the three surviving traditions concerning Rognvald and the foundation of the Earldom of Orkney. Recorded in the 13th century, their views are informed by Norwegian politics of the day. Once, historians could write that no-one denied the reality of Harald Fairhair's expeditions to the west recounted in Heimskringla, but this is no longer the case. The Norwegian contest with the Kings of Scots over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man in the middle 13th century underlies the sagas.[1]

In the Heimskringla, Rognvald is Earl of M²re. He accompanies Harald Fairhair on his great expeditions to the west, to Ireland and to Scotland. Here, Rognvald's son Ivarr is killed. In compensation King Harald grants Rognvald the Orkneys and Shetlands. Rognvald himself returns to Norway, giving the northern isles to his brother Sigurd Eysteinsson[2]

The Heimskringla recounts other tales of Rognvald. It tells how he causes Harald Finehair to be given his byname Fairhair by cutting and dressing his hair, which had been uncut for ten years on account of Harald's vow never to cut it until he was ruler of all Norway,[3] and it makes him the father of Ganger-Hrâolf, identified by saga writers with the Rollo (Hrâolfr), ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy, who was said to have been established as Count of Rouen by King Charles the Simple in 931.[4]

Earl Rognvald is killed by Harald's son Halfdan Hêalegg. Rognvald's death is avenged by his son, Earl Turf-Einar, from whom later Orkney earls claimed descent, who kills Halfdan on North Ronaldsay.[5]

[edit] Historia Norvegiae The Historia Norvegiae's account of Rognvald and the foundation of the Orkney earldom is the next oldest, probably dating from the 12th century. This account contains much curious detail on Orkney, including the earliest account of the Picts as small people who hid in the daytime, but it has little to say about Rognvald.

In the days of Harald Fairhair, king of Norway, certain pirates, of the family of the most vigorous prince Ronald [Rognvald], set out with a great fleet, and crossed the Solundic sea..., and subdued the islands to themselves. And being there provided with safe winter seats, they went in summer-time working tyranny upon the English, and the Scots, and sometimes also upon the Irish, so that they took under their rule, from England, Northumbria; from Scotland, Caithness; from Ireland, Dublin, and the other sea-side towns.[6]

This account does not associate Rognvald with the earldom, but instead attributes it to his anonymous sons.

[edit] Fragmentary Annals of Ireland ...for it was not long before this that there had been every war and every trouble in Norway, and this was the source of that war in Norway: two younger sons of Albdan, king of Norway, drove out the eldest son, i.e. Ragnall son of Albdan, for fear that he would seize the kingship of Norway after their father. So Ragnall came with his three sons to the Orkneys. Ragnall stayed there then, with his youngest son. Fragmentary Annals of Ireland , FA 330. Edited and translated by Joan N. Radnor. The oldest account of the Rognvald and the earldom of Orkney is that found in the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. The annals survive only in incomplete copies made by Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh in the 17th century, but the original annals are believed to date from the lifetime of Donnchad mac Gilla Pâatraic (died 1039). The annals are known to have had an influence on later writings in Iceland.

The annals make Rognvald the son of "Halfdan, King of Lochlann". This is generally understood to mean Halfdan the Black, which would make the Rognvald of the annals the brother of Harald Finehair. However, the sagas claim that Rognvald's grandfather was named Halfdan.[7]

These events are placed after an account of the devastation of Fortriu, dated to around 866,[8] and the fall of York, reliably dated to late 867. However, such an early date makes it difficult to reconcile the saga claims that Harald Fairhair was involved in Rognvald's conquest of the northern isles.

Harald Finehair's victory in the Battle of Hafrsfjord, which gave him dominion over parts of Norway, is traditionally dated to 872, but was probably later, perhaps as late as 900.[9] What little is known of Scottish events in the period from the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba would correspond equally well with Harald's attacks on Scotland in the reign of Domnall mac Causantâin (ruled 889–900).[10] However, this would not correspond with the sequence in the earliest account of the origins of the Orkney earldom, which places this a generation earlier.

Rognvald "The Wise" Eysteinsson (son of Eystein Ivarsson) is the founder of the Earldom of Orkney in the Norse Sagas. Three quite different accounts of the creation of the Norse earldom on Orkney and Shetland exist. The best known is that found in the Heimskringla, but other older traditions are found in the Historia Norvegiae and the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland.

The saga accounts are the best known, and the latest, of the three surviving traditions concerning Rognvald and the foundation of the Earldom of Orkney. Recorded in the 13th century, their views are informed by Norwegian politics of the day. Once, historians could write that no-one denied the reality of Harald Fairhair's expeditions to the west recounted in Heimskringla, but this is no longer the case. The Norwegian contest with the the Kings of Scots over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man in the middle 13th century underlies the sagas.[1]

In the Heimskringla, Rognvald is Earl of M²re. He accompanies Harald Fairhair on his great expeditions to the west, to Ireland and to Scotland. Here, Rognvald's son Ivarr is killed. In compensation King Harald grants Rognvald the Orkneys and Shetlands. Rognvald himself returns to Norway, giving the northern isles to his brother Sigurd Eysteinsson[2]

The Heimskringla recounts other tales of Rognvald. It tells how he causes Harald Finehair to be given his byname Fairhair by cutting and dressing his hair, which had been uncut for ten years on account of Harald's vow never to cut it until he was ruler of all Norway,[3] and it makes him the father of Ganger-Hrâolf, identified by saga writers with the Rollo (Hrâolfr), ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy, who was established as Count of Rouen by King Charles the Simple in 931.[4]

Earl Rognvald is killed by Harald's son Halfdan Hêalegg. Rognvald's death is avenged by his son, Earl Turf-Einar, from whom later Orkney earls claimed descent, who kills Halfdan on North Ronaldsay.[5]

[edit] Historia Norvegiae The Historia Norvegiae's account of Rognvald and the foundation of the Orkney earldom is the next oldest, probably dating from the 12th century. This account contains much curious detail on Orkney, including the earliest account of the Picts as small people who hid in the daytime, but it has little to say about Rognvald.

In the days of Harald Fairhair, king of Norway, certain pirates, of the family of the most vigorous prince Ronald [Rognvald], set out with a great fleet, and crossed the Solundic sea..., and subdued the islands to themselves. And being there provided with safe winter seats, they went in summer-time working tyranny upon the English, and the Scots, and sometimes also upon the Irish, so that they took under their rule, from England, Northumbria; from Scotland, Caithness; from Ireland, Dublin, and the other sea-side towns.[6]

This account does not associate Rognvald with the earldom, but instead attributes it to his anonymous sons.

[edit] Fragmentary Annals of Ireland ...for it was not long before this that there had been every war and every trouble in Norway, and this was the source of that war in Norway: two younger sons of Albdan, king of Norway, drove out the eldest son, i.e. Ragnall son of Albdan, for fear that he would seize the kingship of Norway after their father. So Ragnall came with his three sons to the Orkneys. Ragnall stayed there then, with his youngest son. Fragmentary Annals of Ireland , FA 330. Edited and translated by Joan N. Radnor. The oldest account of the Rognvald and the earldom of Orkney is that found in the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. The annals survive only in incomplete copies made by Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh in the 17th century, but the original annals are believed to date from the lifetime of Donnchad mac Gilla Patraic (died 1039). The annals are known to have had been influential in later writings on Iceland.

The annals make Rognvald the son of "Halfdan, King of Lochlann". This is generally understood to mean Halfdan the Black, which would make the Rognvald of the annals the brother of Harald Finehair. However, the sagas claim that Rognvald's grandfather was named Halfdan.[7]

These events are placed after an account of the devastation of Fortriu, dated to around 866,[8] and the fall of York, reliably dated to late 867. However, such an early date makes it difficult to reconcile the saga claims that Harald Fairhair was involved in Rognvald's conquest of the northern isles.

Harald Finehair's victory in the Battle of Hafrsfjord, which gave him dominion over parts of Norway, is traditionally dated to 872, but was probably later, perhaps as late as 900.[9] What little is known of Scottish events in the period from the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba would correspond equally well with Harald's attacks on Scotland in the reign of Domnall mac Causantâin (ruled 889–900).[10] However, this would not correspond with the sequence in the earliest account of the origins of the Orkney earldom, which places this a generation earlier.

Earl of More

Born: abt 830 Maer, Nord Trondelag, Norway Died: 890 Orkney Islands, Orkney, Scotland
Rèognvaldr Eysteinsson, M²rejarl1,2,3 b. circa 830, d. 894 Rèognvaldr Eysteinsson, M²rejarl|b. c 830\nd. 894|p314.htm#i5205|Eysteinn Glumra, Jarl of the Uplanders|b. c 800|p6.htm#i8264|Aseda Rèognvaldsdâottir||p67.htm#i8832|Ivarr O., Jarl of the Uplanders|b. c 760\nd. a 800|p305.htm#i8265|N. N. of Throndheim|b. c 780|p67.htm#i8831|Rèognvaldr H. H. Ó., King of Vestfold||p278.htm#i9457|Thâora Sigurdsdâottir||p111.htm#i13338| Father Eysteinn Glumra, Jarl of the Uplanders4,5 b. circa 800 Mother Aseda Rèognvaldsdâottir

Also called Jarl Ragnald I of Orkney.6 Rèognvaldr Eysteinsson, M²rejarl was King Harald Fairhair's dearest friend, and the king had the greatest regard for him.4 Also called Jarl Rognvaldr of M²re.7 He was per late Icelandic sources, for which there is no good reason to believe that these generations are historical, a son of Eysteinn Glumra, son of Ívarr, son of Hâalfdan the Old.7 Rèognvaldr Eysteinsson, M²rejarl also went by the name of Ragnvald "the Wise".4,5 He associated with unknown , a concubine.8 Rèognvaldr Eysteinsson, M²rejarl was born circa 830 at Maer, Norway. He was the son of Eysteinn Glumra, Jarl of the Uplanders and Aseda Rèognvaldsdâottir.4,5 Rèognvaldr Eysteinsson, M²rejarl became one of H

Earl Rognvald joined Harold fair-hair when he seized the land, but he (Harold) gave him lordship over both the Mµren and Romsdale; (7) he had to wife Ragnhilda the daughter of Hrolf nosy; their son was Hrolf who won Normandy, he was so tall that horses could not carry him; for that he was called Ganging-Hrolf; from him are come the Rouen Jarls and the English Kings; their son was also Ivar, and Thorir the silent.

Rognvald had also base-born sons, their names were Hallad and Hrollaug and Einar, he was the youngest.

end of this commentary

Ragnvald married Ragnhild Hrâolfsdâottir, Countess of MarVestfold, Norway. Ragnhild was born in 848 in Vestfold, Norway; died in 892 in Norway. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

3096833.

Ragnhild Hrâolfsdâottir, Countess of Mar was born in 848 in Vestfold, Norway; died in 892 in Norway.

Notes:

Name Ragnhild 'Hild' Hrâolfsdâottir
Born 848 County of Vestfold, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location
Sex Woman
Baptism ca. 848
Age: About 0
Employment Countess of More, Countess of Maer, Condesa de More, Countess., Comtesse de Moer, COUNTESS OF MORE
Death 892 Norway Find all individuals with events at this location
Buried ca. 892 Norway Find all individuals with events at this location
Person ID I2578 My Family Genealogy | The Ravnholdt & Hansen family
Last modified Aug 1 2018

Family Ragnvald Eysteinsson, of M²re , b. 825, Vestfold county, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location, d. 892, Giske, M²re and Romsdal county, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 67 years)
Married ca. 845 County of Vestfold, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
1. Hallad Ragnvaldsson Mœrajarl, Orkneyjarl , b. 850, Sunnm²re, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location, d. 894, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 44 years)
2. Ivar Ragnvaldsson M²rejarl , b. 850, Sunnm²re, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location, d. 872, Orkney, Scotland Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 22 years)
3. Einarr Rognvaldsson, Orkneyjarl , b. 852, M²re og Romsdal county, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location, d. 910, Orkney, Scotland Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 58 years)
4. Hrollaug Ragnvaldsson Mœrajarls , b. 859, Giske, M²re og Romsdal county, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location, d. 896, Eyjafjèorºur, Iceland Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 37 years)
+ 5. Rollo Ragnvaldsson , f. Ml. 860 and 866, d. Ca. 931, Rouen, Seine-Maritime, Haute-Normandie, France Find all individuals with events at this location (Age ~ 71 years)
+ 6. Tore Teiande Ragnvaldsson Rèognvaldsson , f. Ca. 862, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location, d. Ca. 939, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location (Age ~ 77 years)
7. Gutum Ragnvaldson , d. 875

end of this profile

Children:

1548416. Rollo was born in 846 in Maer, Norway; died in 931; was buried in Rouen Cathedral, Rouen, Normandy, France.

3096834.

Berengar II of Neustria, Count of Bayeux died in 0896.

Notes:

Berengar II (died 896) was the Count of Bayeux and Rennes and Margrave of the Breton March from 886 until his death a decade later.

In 874, Brittany's internal politics were thrown into turmoil when King Salomon was murdered by a rival. The resulting surge of Viking attacks made possible by the power vacuum was narrowly held at bay by a hasty Breton-Frankish alliance between Alan the Great of Vannes and Berengar of Rennes. Between 889-90, the Seine Vikings moved into Brittany, hard on the heels of the Loire fleet that Alan and Berengar had successfully driven out (this latter force had broken up into several small flotillas and sailed west). Alain again joined forces with Berengar of Rennes and led two Breton armies into the field. Finding their retreat down the Marne blocked, the Vikings hauled their ships overland to the Vire and besieged Saint-Lo, where the Bretons virtually annihilated the fleet.

Berengar's kin became the first Gallo-speaking lords holding residence within Brittany (Rennes and Penthiáevre, rather than the Loire Valley-predominant Nantes or Vannes), as a consequence of the Breton nobility being more or less broken under the Norman invasions of the 880s and as a reward for holding his ground against their attacks.

Berengar is speculated to have married the daughter of Gurvand, Duke of Brittany, by which relationship he attained the countship of Rennes. This would make him brother-in-law of Judicael, Duke of Brittany. He is thought to be the Berengar of Bayeux whose daughter Poppa was captured in a raid and married to Rollo of Normandy. Various reconstructions make him father, grandfather, or great-grandfather of Judicael Berengar, later Count of Rennes.

References

This article does not cite any sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Sources

Price, Neil (1989). The Vikings in Brittany (PDF). Retrieved July 2012. Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
Arthur de la Borderie (1898). Histoire de Bretagne. p. 334.
Musset, Lucien (1965). Les invasions: le second assaut contre I'Europe Chrâetienne.
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 890.

end of biography

Berengar married unnamed spouse. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

3096835.
unnamed spouse
Children:

1548417. Lady Poppa of Bayeux was born in (850) in Bayeux, France; was buried in Rouen Cathedral, Rouen, Normandy, France.

3096842.

Aethelstan, King of the East Angles was born in ~838 in Wantage, Berkshire, England (son of Aethelwulf of Wessex, King of Wessex and Osburga, Queen Consort of Wessex); died in 890.

Notes:

Guthrum or Guºrum (died c. 890), christened ¥thelstan on his conversion to Christianity in 878, was King of the Danish Vikings in the Danelaw. He is mainly known for his conflict with Alfred the Great.

Guthrum, founder of the Danelaw

It is not known how Guthrum consolidated his rule as king over the other Danish chieftains of the Danelaw (Danish-ruled territory of England), but by 874 he was able to wage a war against Wessex and its King, Alfred.

In 875, the Danish forces, then under Guthrum and Halfdan Ragnarsson, divided, Halfdan's contingent returning north to Northumbria, while Guthrum's forces went to East Anglia, quartering themselves at Cambridge for the year.

By 876, Guthrum had acquired various parts of the kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria and then turned his attention to acquiring Wessex, where his first confrontation with Alfred took place on the south coast. Guthrum sailed his army around Poole Harbour and linked up with another Viking army that was invading the area between the Frome and Piddle rivers which was ruled by Alfred.[1] According to the historian Asser, Guthrum won his initial battle with Alfred, and he captured the castellum as well as the ancient square earthworks known as the Wareham, where there was a convent of nuns.

Alfred successfully brokered a peace settlement, but by 877 this peace was broken as Guthrum led his army raiding further into Wessex, thus forcing Alfred to confront him in a series of skirmishes that Guthrum continued to win. At Exeter, which Guthrum had also captured, Alfred made a peace treaty, with the result that Guthrum left Wessex to winter in Gloucester.

Surprise attack

Silver penny of ¥thelstan
On Epiphany, 6 January 878, Guthrum made a surprise night-time attack on Alfred and his court at Chippenham, Wiltshire. It being a Christian feast day the Saxons were presumably taken by surprise—indeed it is possible that Wulfhere, the Ealdorman of Wiltshire, allowed the attack either through negligence or intent, for on Alfred's return to power later in 878 Wulfhere was stripped of his role as Ealdorman.

Alfred fled the attack with a few retainers and took shelter in the marshes of Somerset, staying in the small village of Athelney. Over the next few months he built up his force and waged a guerrilla war against Guthrum from his fastness in the fens. After a few months Alfred called his loyal men to Egbert's Stone, and from there they travelled to Edington to fight the invaders.

Defeat by Alfred

Guthrum's hopes of conquering all of Wessex came to an end with his defeat at the hands of Alfred at the Battle of Edington in 878. At Edington, Guthrum’s entire army was routed by Alfred's and fled to their encampment where they were besieged by Alfred's fyrd for two weeks. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Guthrum’s army was able to negotiate a peace treaty known as the Treaty of Wedmore.[2] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded the event:

“Then the raiding army granted him (Alfred) hostages and great oaths that they would leave his kingdom and also promised him that their king (Guthrum) would receive baptism; and they fulfilled it. And three weeks later the king Guthrum came to him, one of thirty of the most honourable men who were in the raiding army, at Aller - and that is near Athelney - and the king received him at baptism; and his chrism loosing was at Wedmore.” [2]
Conversion to Christianity and peace
Under the Treaty of Wedmore the borders dividing the lands of Alfred and Guthrum were established,[3] and perhaps more importantly, Guthrum converted to Christianity and took on the Christian name ¥thelstan with Alfred as his godfather.

Guthrum upheld his end of the treaty and left the boundary that separated the Danelaw from English England unmolested. Guthrum, although failing to conquer Wessex, turned towards the lands to the east that the treaty had allotted under his control. Guthrum withdrew his army from the western borders facing Alfred's territory and moved eastward before eventually settling in the Kingdom of Guthrum in East Anglia in 879. He lived out the remainder of his life there until his death in 890. According to the Annals of St Neots, a chronicle compiled in Bury St Edmunds, Guthrum was buried at Headleage, which is usually identified as Hadleigh, Suffolk.[4]

Popular culture

Guthrum appears in several works of fiction, including:

G. K. Chesterton's poem The Ballad of the White Horse.
C. Walter Hodges' juvenile historical novels The Namesake and The Marsh King.
Bernard Cornwell's first three novels of The Saxon Stories series The Last Kingdom, and The Pale Horseman, and The Lords of the North.
On screen, he was portrayed by Brian Blessed in episode 4 ("King Alfred") of Churchill's People, by Michael York in the 1969 film Alfred the Great, and Thomas W. Gabrielsson in The Last Kingdom.

References
Collingwood, M. A. and Powell, F. Y. Scandinavian Britain (New York: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1908), p. 94.
Anglo Saxon Chronicle Trans. by M. J. Swanton (New York, Routledge: 1996).
Davis, R. H. C. From Alfred the Great to Stephen (London, The Hambledon Press: 1991) p. 48.
Dumville, David; Lapidge, Michael (1985). The Annals of St Neots with Vita Prima Sancti Neoti, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a Collaborative Edition. Cambridge. ISBN 978-0-85991-117-7.

end of biography

Aethelstan married unnamed spouse. unnamed was born in ~0842 in (Wantage, Berkshire, England). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

3096843.

unnamed spouse was born in ~0842 in (Wantage, Berkshire, England).

Children:

1548421. Elgiva of Wessex, Queen of Denmark was born in ~872 in Wantage, Berkshire, England; died in ~935 in Jellinge, Vejle, Denmark; was buried in Gormshoj, Jellinge, Vejle, Denmark.

3096860.

Notes:

Herbert II Carolingian de Vermandois, Count of Vermandois, Count of Meaux, was born 884 to Herbert I de Vermandois (c848-907) and Bertha de Morvois (c850-c907) and died 23 February 943 of unspecified causes. Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]

Children

Offspring of Herbert II de Vermandois and Hildebranda of France (895-931)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Adele de Vermandois (910-960) 910 960 Arnulf I of Flanders (c890-965)

Eudes d'Amiens (910-aft946) 910 946
Robert de Vermandois (918-968) 920 968 Seine-et-Marne, France Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967)

Hugues de Reims (920-962) 920 962
Liutgarde de Vermandois (c920-978) 920 9 February 978 William Longsword, 2nd Duke of Normandy (893-942)
Thibaut I de Blois (913-975)

Herbert III de Vermandois (c913-c982) 913 982 Eadgifu of Wessex (902-aft955)

Albert I de Vermandois (915-987) 915 Saint-Quentin 8 September 987 Gerberge de Lorraine (c935-978)
Siblings
Siblings

Offspring of Herbert I de Vermandois and Bertha de Morvois (c850-c907)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Bâeatrice of Vermandois (c880-931) 880 Paris, France 26 March 931 Soissons, France Robert I of France (866-923)

Herbert II de Vermandois (884-943) 884 23 February 943 Hildebranda of France (895-931)

Cunigunde of Vermandois (-943) 943 Udo I von der Wetterau (c900-949)

Adele of Vermandois (?-?) Gebhard von Ufgau (?-c947)

Berengar of Bayeaux (?-?) Daughter of Gurvand, Duke of Brittany

Herbert married Hildebranda of France(France). Hildebranda was born in 895 in (France); died in 931 in (France). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

3096861.

Hildebranda of France was born in 895 in (France); died in 931 in (France).

Notes:

Hildebranda of France was born 895 to Robert I of France (866-923) and Aelis and died 931 of unspecified causes. Ancestors are from Germany, France.

Children

Offspring of Hildebranda Capet and Herbert II de Vermandois (884-943)

Name Birth Death Joined with

Adele de Vermandois (910-960) 910 960 Arnulf I of Flanders (c890-965)

Eudes d'Amiens (910-aft946) 910 946
Robert de Vermandois (918-968) 920 968 Seine-et-Marne, France Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967)

Hugues de Reims (920-962) 920 962
Liutgarde de Vermandois (c920-978) 920 9 February 978 William Longsword, 2nd Duke of Normandy (893-942)
Thibaut I de Blois (913-975)

Herbert III de Vermandois (c913-c982) 913 982 Eadgifu of Wessex (902-aft955)

Albert I de Vermandois (915-987) 915 Saint-Quentin 8 September 987 Gerberge de Lorraine (c935-978)

Children:

1548430. Robert De Vermandois, Count of Meaux was born in 918 in (France); died on 29 Aug 968 in Seine-et-Marne, France.

1548416.

Rollo was born in 846 in Maer, Norway (son of Ragnvald Eysteinsson, Earl of Mar and Ragnhild Hrâolfsdâottir, Countess of Mar); died in 931; was buried in Rouen Cathedral, Rouen, Normandy, France.

Notes:

Rollo or Gaange Rolf[1] (Norman: Rou; Old Norse: Hrâolfr; French: Rollon; c. 846 – c. 930 AD) was a Viking who became the first ruler of Normandy, a region of France. He is sometimes called the 1st Duke of Normandy. His Scandinavian name Rolf was extended to Gaange Rolf because he as an adult became too heavy for a horse to carry, therefore he had to walk ("gaa" in older Dano-Norwegian). Rollo emerged as the outstanding personality among the Norsemen who had secured a permanent foothold on Frankish soil in the valley of the lower Seine. Charles the Simple, the king of West Francia, ceded them lands between the mouth of the Seine and what is now the city of Rouen in exchange for Rollo agreeing to end his brigandage, and provide the Franks with protection against future Viking raids.[2]

Rollo is first recorded as the leader of these Viking settlers in a charter of 918, and he continued to reign over the region of Normandy until at least 928. He was succeeded by his son, William Longsword in the Duchy of Normandy that he had founded.[3] The offspring of Rollo and his followers became known as the Normans. After the Norman conquest of England and their conquest of southern Italy and Sicily over the following two centuries, their descendants came to rule Norman England (the House of Normandy), the Kingdom of Sicily (the Kings of Sicily) as well as the Principality of Antioch from the 10th to 12th century, leaving behind an enduring legacy in the historical developments of Europe and the Near East.[4]

Name

The name Rollo is generally presumed to be a latinisation of the Old Norse name Hrâolfr – a theory that is supported by the rendition of Hrâolfr as Roluo in the Gesta Danorum. It is also sometimes suggested that Rollo may be a Latinised version of another Norse name, Hrollaugr.[5]

Rollo is generally identified with one Viking in particular – a man of high social status mentioned in Icelandic sagas, which refer to him by the Old Norse name Gèongu-Hrâolfr, meaning "Hrâolfr the Walker". (Gèongu-Hrâolfr is also widely known by an Old Danish variant, Ganger-Hrolf.) The byname "Walker" is usually understood to suggest that Rollo was so physically imposing that he could not be carried by a horse and was obliged to travel on foot. Norman and other French sources do not use the name Hrâolfr, and the identification of Rollo with Gèongu-Hrâolfr is based upon similarities between circumstances and actions ascribed to both figures.[citation needed]

The 10th-century Norman historian Dudo records that Rollo took the baptismal name Robert.[6] A variant spelling, Roul, is used in the 12th-century Norman French Roman de la Rou, which was compiled by Wace and commissioned by King Henry II of England (a descendant of Rollo).[citation needed]

Origins and historiography
Rollo was born in the latter half of the 9th century; his place of birth is unknown.

The earliest well-attested historical event associated with Rollo is his leadership of Vikings who besieged Paris in 885–886.[7]

Perhaps the earliest known source to mention Rollo's early life is the French chronicler Richer of Reims, who claims (in the 10th century) that Rollo was the son of a Viking named Ketill.[8] In terms of onomastics, it is interesting that Richer also names – without explicitly linking him to Rollo – a man named Ketill as being the leader of subsequent Viking raids (in 888), against areas on the coast of West Francia, between the Seine and the Loire.

Medieval sources contradict each other regarding whether Rollo's family was Norwegian or Danish in origin. In part, this disparity may result from the indifferent and interchangeable usage in Europe, at the time, of terms such as "Vikings", "Northmen", "Danes", "Norwegians" and so on (in the Medieval Latin texts Dani vel Nortmanni means "Danes or Northmen").

A biography of Rollo, written by the cleric Dudo of Saint-Quentin in the late 10th Century, claimed that Rollo was from Denmark. One of Rollo's great-grandsons and a contemporary of Dudo was known as Robert the Dane. However, Dudo's Historia Normannorum (or Libri III de moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum) was commissioned by Rollo's grandson, Richard I of Normandy and – while Dudo likely had access to family members and/or other people with a living memory of Rollo – this fact must be weighed against the text's potential biases, as an official biography. According to Dudo, an unnamed king of Denmark was antagonistic to Rollo's family, including his father – an unnamed Danish nobleman – and Rollo's brother Gurim. Following the death of Rollo and Gurim's father, Gurim was killed and Rollo was forced to leave Denmark.[9] Dudo appears to have been the main source for William of Jumiáeges (after 1066) and Orderic Vitalis (early 12th century), although both include additional details.[10]

A Norwegian background for Rollo was first explicitly claimed by Goffredo Malaterra (Geoffrey Malaterra), an 11th-century Benedictine monk and historian, who wrote: "Rollo sailed boldly from Norway with his fleet to the Christian coast."[11] Likewise, the 12th-century English historian William of Malmesbury stated that Rollo was "born of noble lineage among the Norwegians".[12]

A chronicler named Benoãit (probably Benoãit de Sainte-More) wrote in the mid-12th Century Chronique des ducs de Normandie that Rollo had been born in a town named "Fasge". This has since been variously interpreted as referring to Faxe, in Sjµlland (Denmark), Fauske, in Hêalogaland (Norway), or perhaps a more obscure settlement that has since been abandoned or renamed. Benoãit also repeated the claim that Rollo had been persecuted by a local ruler and had fled from there to "Scanza island", by which Benoãit probably means Scania (Swedish Skêane). While Faxe was physically much closer to Scania, the mountainous scenery of "Fasge", described by Benoãit, would seem to be more like Fauske.

The claim that Rollo was the brother of a King of Norway, Harald Finehair was made by an anonymous 12th-century Welsh author, in The Life of Gruffudd ap Cynan.[13]

Rollo was first explicitly identified with Hrâolf the Walker (Norse Gèongu-Hrâolfr; Danish Ganger-Hrâolf) by the 13th-century Icelandic sagas, Heimskringla and Orkneyinga Saga. Hrâolf the Walker was so named because he "was so big that no horse could carry him".[14] The Icelandic sources claim that Hrâolfr was born in M²re, western Norway, in the late 9th century and that his parents were the Norwegian jarl Rognvald Eysteinsson ("Rognvald the Wise") and a noblewoman from M²re named Hildr Hrâolfsdâottir. However, these claims were made three centuries after the history commissioned by Rollo's own grandson.

There may be circumstantial evidence for kinship between Rollo and his historical contemporary, Ketill Flatnose, King of the Isles – a Norse realm centred on the Western Isles of Scotland. If, as Richer suggested, Rollo's father was also named Ketill and as Dudo suggested, Rollo had a brother named Gurim, such names are onomastic evidence for a family connection: Icelandic sources name Ketill Flatnose's father as Bjèorn Grâimsson,[15] and "Grim" – the implied name of Ketill Flatnose's paternal grandfather – was likely cognate with Gurim. In addition, both Irish and Icelandic sources suggest that Rollo, as a young man, visited or lived in Scotland, where he had a daughter named Cadlinar (Kaºlâin; Kathleen).[16][17] Moreover, Ketill Flatnose's ancestors were said to have come from M²re – Rollo's ancestral home in the Icelandic sources. However, Ketill was a common name in Norse societies,[18] as were names like Gurim and Grim. It is also possible that the later sources were attempting to suggest an otherwise undocumented link between the historical figures of Rollo and Ketill Flatnose, by way of little-known, possibly apocryphal figures like Grim, Gurim and the Ketill said to be Rollo's father.[citation needed]

Biography

Statue of Rollo in Rouen. There are two bronze replicas of this statue: one at êAlesund (Norway) and the other one at Fargo, North Dakota (United States)
Dudo tells us that Rollo seized Rouen in 876. He is supported by the contemporary chronicler Flodoard, who records that Robert of the Breton March waged a campaign against the Vikings, who nearly levelled Rouen and other settlements; eventually, he conceded "certain coastal provinces" to them.[19]

According to Dudo, Rollo struck up a friendship in England with a king that Dudo calls Alstem. This has puzzled many historians, but recently the puzzle has been resolved by recognition that this refers to Guthrum, the Danish leader whom Alfred the Great baptised with the baptismal name Athelstan, and then recognised as king of the East Angles in 880.[20]

Dudo records that when Rollo took Bayeux by force, he carried off with him the beautiful Popa or Poppa, a daughter of Berenger, Count of Rennes, took her in marriage and with her had their son and Rollo's heir, William Longsword.[21]

Rollo's grave at the Cathedral of Rouen

There are few contemporary mentions of Rollo. The earliest record is from 918, in a charter of Charles III to an abbey, which referred to an earlier grant to "the Normans of the Seine", namely "Rollo and his associates" for "the protection of the kingdom." [22] Dudo retrospectively stated that this pact took place in 911 at Saint-Clair-sur-Epte. In return for formal recognition of the lands he possessed, Rollo agreed to be baptised and assist the king in the defence of the realm. Rollo took the baptismal name Robert. The seal of agreement was to be marriage between Rollo and Gisla, daughter of Charles. Dudo claims that Gisla was a legitimate daughter of Charles.[23] Since Charles first married in 907, that would mean that Gisla was at most 5 years old at the time of the treaty of 911 which offered her in marriage.[24] It has therefore been speculated that she could have been an illegitimate daughter.[25] However a diplomatic child betrothal need not be doubted.[26]

After pledging his fealty to Charles III as part of the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, Rollo divided the lands between the rivers Epte and Risle among his chieftains, and settled with a de facto capital in Rouen.[27]

Charles was overthrown by a revolt in 923, and his successor, Robert I, was killed by the Vikings in 923. His successor, Ralph, conceded the Bessin and Maine to Rollo shortly afterwards, the chronicler Flodoard tells us.[28]

Rollo died sometime between a final mention of him by Flodoard in 928, and 933, the year in which a third grant of land, usually identified as being the Cotentin and Avranchin areas, was made to his son and successor William.[29]

Descendants

A genealogical chart of the Norman dynasty
Rollo's son and heir, William Longsword, and grandchild, Richard the Fearless, forged the Duchy of Normandy into West Francia's most cohesive and formidable principality.[30] The descendants of Rollo and his men assimilated with their maternal Frankish-Catholic culture and became known as the Normans, lending their name to the region of Normandy.

Rollo is the great-great-great-grandfather of William the Conqueror, or William I of England. Through William, he is one of the ancestors of the present-day British royal family, as well as an ancestor of all current European monarchs and a great many claimants to abolished European thrones.

One daughter of Rollo, Gerloc (also known as Adele), who married William III, Duke of Aquitaine, was mentioned by Dudo. According to William of Jumiáeges, writing in the latter half of the 11th century, Gerloc's mother was named Poppa.[31]

According to the medieval Irish text An Banshenchas and Icelandic sources, another daughter, Cadlinar (Kaºlâin; Kathleen) was born in Scotland (probably to a Scots mother) and married an Irish prince named Beollâan mac Ciarmaic, later King of South Brega (Lagore). A daughter of Cadlinar and Beollâan named Nithbeorg was abducted by an Icelandic Viking named Helgi Ottarsson,[32][33] and became the mother of the poet Einarr Helgason and grandmother of Guºrâun Ósvâifrsdâottir (protagonist of the Laxdœla saga).

A genetic investigation into the remains of Rollo's grandson, Richard the Fearless, and his great-grandson, Richard the Good, was announced in 2011 with the intention of discerning the origins of the historic Viking leader.[34] On 29 February 2016 Norwegian researchers opened Richard the Good's tomb and found his lower jaw with eight teeth in it.[35] Unfortunately, the skeletal remains in both graves turned out to significantly predate Rollo and therefore are not related to him.[36]

Depictions in fiction

Rollo is the subject of the seventeenth-century play Rollo Duke of Normandy, written by John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, Ben Jonson, and George Chapman.

A character, broadly inspired by the historical Rollo but including many events before the real Rollo was born, played by Clive Standen, is Ragnar Lothbrok's brother in the History Channel television series Vikings.[37]

end of biography

Also known as Hrolf the Ganger or Rollon, 1st Duke of Normandy from 911 to 927, called also Rolf the Walker, because, being so tall, he preferred to go afoot rather than ride the little Norwegian horses. Also shown as Rollon, Row, or Robert. Originally a Norse Viking, he was noted for strength and martial prowess. In the reign of Charles II the Bald, he sailed up the Seine River and took Rouen, which he kept as a base of operations. He gained a number of victories over the Franks, and extorted the cession of the province since called Normandy.

By the famous treaty which Charles the Bald, http://thehennesseefamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I53974&tree=hennessee, and Rollo signed the latter agreed to adopt Christianity. He was born in 846 and died in 932, and was buried in the Cathedral at Rouen.
-------------------------------------------------------
From: http://sbaldw.home.mindspring.com/hproject/prov/rollo000.htm

Commentary
Supposed father: Rognvaldr, jarl of M²re.

Supposed mother: Ragnhildr or Hildr.

The origin of Rollo is contraversial. There are several medieval sources which claim to give information about the origin of Rollo, the most widely repeated of which would make him a son of Rognvaldr, jarl of M²re by Ragnhildr or Hildr. As can be seen from the following brief notices, the various primary sources offer very contradictory information about Rollo's origin.

The earliest author to attribute an explicit origin to Rollo was Richer of Rheims, writing between 996 and 998, who called Rollo the son of another Viking invader of France named Catillus (presumably representing the Norse name Ketil) [Richer i, 28 (see PL 138: 35)]. Since Catillus appears to be a legendary individual, this account has generally been discredited, probably correctly [see Douglas 420-1].

According to Dudo of St. Quentin (writing early 11th century), author of the earliest history of the Normans, Rollo had a younger brother named Gurim, presumed to be the familiar name Gorm. Dudo states that Rollo and Gurim were sons of a man who held many lands in "Dacia" (Dudo's word for Denmark, following other authors), and that after the death of the (unnamed) father of Rollo and Gurim, the king of Dacia fought against the sons, killing Gurim and driving Rollo out [Dudo ii, 2-4 (pp. 26-7)]. Dudo later refers to duke Richard I as being related to a "king of Dacia" named Haigrold [Dudo iv, 84-88 (pp. 114-20 passim)], who must have been the Viking raider of France of that name [Flodoard's Annals, s.a. 945, see PL 135: 463-4, van Houts 51], and not king Harald "Bluetooth" of Denmark. Note that Gurim cannot be the famous Gorm "the Old" of Denmark, who survived Rollo by many years.

William of Malmesbury (early 12th century) appears to be the earliest author to attribute a Norwegian origin to Rollo [WM ii, 5 (p. 125)].

As is well known, the Orkneyinga Saga (late twelfth century) [OrkS 4 (pp. 29-30)], followed by other Icelandic sources (such as the well known Heimskringla and Landnâamabâok), gives Rollo the name Hrâolfr, and make him a son of Rognvaldr, jarl of M²re, and brother of (among others) jarl Torf-Einarr of the Orkneys [OI 1: 187]. Earlier sources, such as Ari's Íslendingabâok (early to middle 12th century), mention Rognvald of M²re and his son Hrollaugr who settled in Iceland, but not the supposed connection to the dukes of Normandy [Ari 49, 61]. A poem allegedly written by Einar mentions his brothers, including a Hrâolfr, but does not connect Hrâolfr to Normandy, and does not name a Gorm among the brothers. (See the page on Rognvaldr for more on this poem.)

Historia Gruffud vab Kenan (ca. 1250), apparently a Welsh translation and/or revision of an earlier Latin life of Gruffudd ap Cynan, gives Haraldr Hâarfagri of Norway ("Harald Harfagyr") a brother named Rodulf (i.e., the Latin form of Hrâolfr) who is called the founder of Normandy [HGK, 3-4]. However, this is evidently a corrupt version of the Scandinavian version, and the suggestion that Rollo was a brother of Haraldr Hâarfagri need not be given any credence.

The most prominent argument of the case for accepting the Scandinavian account that Rollo was the same person as Hrâolfr, son of Rognvaldr of M²re, was given by D. C. Douglas [Douglas 419-23], and those who accept this identification have generally followed the same arguments. On the other side, arguments against the identification were given by Viggo Starcke in his book Denmark in World History [Starcke 222-7].

Most of the argument of Douglas consists of accepting the tale of the sagas and rejecting evidence from the Norman sources which contradict the saga version, while explaining away the problems (on which more below). The evidence which Douglas puts forward as "a powerful, if not a conclusive, argument in favor of the identity of Rollo with Ganger-Rolf" concerns a passage in Landnâaamabâok that refers to a daughter of Gongu-Hrâolfr:

"... Annarr son Óttars vas Helge; hann herjaºe âa Skottland, ok feck ¤ar at herfange Niºbiorgo, dâottor Beolans konungs ok Caºlâinar, dâottor Gongo-Hrâolfs" (Another son of Óttarr was Helge. He harried in Scotland, and won there as his booty Niºbjorg, daughter of king Beolan and Caºlâin, daughter of Gongu-Hrâolfr.) [OI 1: 66-7]

This passage, which Douglas attributed to "Ari the Learned" (who may or may not have been the author), is then compared with a passage from the nearly contemporary Plaintsong of Rollo's son William "Longsword" which was written soon after William's death:

"Hic in orbe transmarino natus patre
in errore paganorum permanente
matre quoque consignata alma fide
sacra fuit lotus unda"
(Born overseas from a father who stuck to the pagan error and from a mother who was devoted to the sweet religion, he was blessed with the holy chrism.)
[Douglas 422 (Latin); van Houts 41 (English translation)]

After explaining that the two stories are consistent with one another, Douglas then state that "[t]he suggestion of the Landnâamabâok is thus confirmed by an epic poem composed in Gaul in the tenth century." While it is true that the two accounts as they stand are consistent with each other and with the claim that Rollo and Gongu-Hrâolfr were the same man (ignoring all other evidence), it is surely a gross overstatement to claim that the Plaintsong "confirms" the other account, for there is not a single statement in the passage from Landnâamabâok that is confirmed by the Plaintsong. This is a clear case of circular reasoning, for without first assuming that Rollo and Gongu-Hrâolfr were the same man, there is no evidence that the two passages have any relation whatsoever. Douglas's case is further undermined by the fact that another source [Laxdœla Saga chapter 32, see OI 1: 246] makes Niºbjorg's mother Caºlâin a daughter of Gongu-Hrâolfr, son of Oxna-´âorir, directly contradicting the thesis that Caºlâin was supposedly a granddaughter of Rognvaldr of M²re. Yet, Douglas apparently regarded this as the strongest part of his argument.

There are three main strands of evidence (somewhat related to each other) against the identification of Rollo with Hrâolfr son of Rognvaldr:

1. The discrepancies between the Norman and Icelandic sources.
Among other contradictions, the Norman sources give Rollo a brother named Gurim, while the Icelandic sources give Hrâolfr several brothers, none of them named Gormr (the presumed Old-Norse form for Gurim). Although both of the sources have their problems, earlier native sources would seem to have a higher priority than later foreign sources. While many elements of the Dudo's account are clearly legendary, there appears to be no clear motive on the part of Dudo (writing less than a century after Rollo's death) to invent a younger brother for Rollo who is then immediately killed off.

2. The general unreliability of Norse source for the early tenth century.
For the period under consideration, i.e., the early ninth century, the sagas have a poor record for reliability, even for Scandinavian history. For example, consider the following words of Peter Sawyer (written with regard to a different matter, but true in general), a well known expert on early Viking history: "... These sagas cannot, however, be accepted as reliable sources for the tenth century. The only trustworthy evidence for the tenth century in those sagas are the contemporary verses around which the saga writers wove their tales." [Sawyer 42] None of these verses confirm the identity of Rollo and Hrâolfr. The suspicion is made even larger by the fact that the Icelandic sources show no knowledge of Norman history other than the fact (well known throughout Europe at the time) that William the Conqueror was a descendant of the dukes of Normandy.

3. Rollo and Hrâolfr appear to be different names.
The natural Latinization of the name Hrâolfr would be Radulfus or Rodulfus. Yet, the Frankish and Norman sources consistently refer to the founder of Normandy as Rollo. Since these sources also include numerous individuals named Rodulfus, and consistently separate the two names, it appears that the names were regarded as different. Douglas explained this by suggesting a hypothetical hypochoristic form "Hrolle" of the name "Hroºwulf" as the basis for the name Rollo, and provides a single charter in which Rollo is referred to as "Rolphus" as evidence that the names were the same, acknowledging, however, that the charter itself was "not above suspicion." If the names were really regarded as the same, it would be expected that more convincing evidence to this effect could be offered.

Personally, I am inclined to believe that the identification of Hrâolfr and Rollo has no basis in fact, that it was likely to have been invented by a saga writer who wanted to give the jarls of Orkney some famous relatives (i.e., the kings of England), and that whatever the confusing Norman sources say are probably about the closest we are going to get to Rollo's origin. However, based on the surviving evidence, it is not possible to come to any definitive conclusion one way or the other, and Rollo's parentage should be listed as "unknown" unless further evidence becomes available.

Supposed second wife:

Gisla, said to be daughter of Charles the Simple, king of France [Dudo, 46-7, 53]. She is unknown in the Frankish sources. The fact that Charles the Simple's kinsman Charles the Fat had a daughter also named Gisla who married a Viking (Godefridus) in the ninth century has led to the natural suspicion that this Gisla is an invention based on the earlier woman of the name. If she existed at all, there is no reason to believe that she was a mother of any of Rollo's children.

Supposed additional child:

Caºlin (Kathleen), said by Norse sources to have married a certain king Beolan, who is otherwise unidentified. As discussed above, the evidence for her is less than satisfactory.

end of commentary

Rollo Ragnvaldsson
French: Robert Rognvalsson De Heidmark, Norwegian: Hrolf Ragnvaldsson, Norse, Old: Gange-Hrâolfr Ragnvaldsson
Also Known As: "Hrolf", "Rolf", "Rollo", "Gange-Rolv", "Gange-Rolf", "Gèongu-Hrâolfr", "le marcheur", "the walker", "the dane", "duke of normandy", "Rollo the Walker", "Viking", "Gange Rolf"
Birthdate: circa 860 (71)
Death: 931 (67-75)
Rouen, Seine-Maritime, Haute-Normandie, France
Place of Burial: Rouen, Haute-Normandie, France
Immediate Family:
Son of Ragnvald Eysteinsson, Earl of M²re and Ragnhild 'Hild' Hrâolfsdâottir, of More
Husband of Poppa of Bayeux and Gisáele
Partner of Kaºlin's mother
Father of William "Longsword"; Adáele of Normandy and Kaºlin
Brother of Gutum Ragnvaldson
Half brother of Hrollager Rognvaldsson; Hallad Ragnvaldsson Orkneyjarl, .; Einarr "Turf" Rognvaldsson, Orkneyjarl and Hrollaug Ragnvaldsson Eyjafjèorºur, Íslands
Occupation: Duc de Normandie, Comte de Rouen, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Normandy (911 - 932), duc de Normandie, Earl of Normandy, Viking chief, Count of Normandy, 'Agongah-woekh' Aeuello (Rollo Rognvaldsson), First Duke of Normandy, Duke of Normandy 1st, Norse Viking
Managed by: Private User
Last Updated: October 12, 2017

About Gange-Hrâolfr 'Rollo' of Normandy
http://www.friesian.com/flanders.htm#norman

http://genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00020055&tree=LEO

Duke of Normandy was the title given to the rulers of the Duchy of Normandy in northwestern France, which has its origins as the County of Rouen, a fief created in 911 by King Charles III "the Simple" of France for Rollo, a Norwegian nobleman and Viking leader of Northmen.

Gangu-Hrâolfr Ragnvaldsson, or Rollo de Normandie was a Norse nobleman and the founder and first ruler of the Viking principality in what soon became known as Normandy. The name "Rollo" is a Frankish-Latin name probably taken from the Old Norse name Hrâolfr, modern Scandinavian name Rolf (cf. the latinization of Hrâolfr into the similar Roluo in the Gesta Danorum).

Parents: Ragnvald Eysteinsson M²rejarl & Hild Nefja (uncertain, see below)
Spouses:
1. Poppa de Bayeux
Children:
Vilhjalm Langaspjâot (Guillaume Longue âEpâee)
Geirlaug (Gerloc) who later took the name Adela
2. Gisela de France (betrothal, no children)
According to Landnâama (The book of Settlers in Iceland, written in the 12th century), Rollo had a daughter named Kaºlâin (Kathlin or Cathlin) her mother is not named (Notes by Anna Petursdottir):

Kaºlin (Kathlin)
Kaºlâin is mentioned along with her father Rollo in chapter 33 in Landnâamabâok (The Book of Settlers) and her father, Rollo, and his brothers, also their father, Ragnvald are mentioned in chapert 82 : https://www.snerpa.is/net/snorri/landnama.htm

BIG NEWS
French and Norwegian scientists within several fields go together in a project to extract DNA from the remains of Rollo's grandson and great grandson in Fâecamp. This might give us the final answer to Rollo's origin (Note from Anna Petursdottir: Provided that the remains that are being researched, are in fact the persons in question and also are legitimate grandsons of Rollo). Excavations are expected in July 2011, results sometime autumn 2011.

Links and Resources
Snorre's saga
Dudo's account (eng): http://the-orb.arlima.net/orb_done/dudo/dudindex.html
Store Norske Leksikon
MEDIEVAL LANDS
[ROLLO [Hrolf "Ganger/the Walker"] (-[928]). Orkneyinga Saga names “Hrolf who conquered Normandy” as son of “Earl Rognwald” and his wife “Ragnhild the daughter of Hrolf Nose”, adding that he was so big that no horse could carry him, giving rise to his name “Gèongu-Hrolf”[153]. Snorre names "Rolf and Thorer" as the two sons of "Earl Ragnvald" and his wife Hild, recording that Rolf was banished from Norway by King Harald and travelled to the Hebrides, settling first in Orkney before moving southwards through Scotland, and eventually conquering Normandy[154]. The Historia Norwegie records that, after Orkney was conquered by "principi Rogwaldi" and his followers, "de quorum collegio…Rodulfus" captured Rouen in Normandy, commenting that he was known as "Gongurolfr" because he was obliged to walk as he was too large to travel on horseback[155]. This source makes no reference to any blood relationship between Rollo and "principi Rogwaldi".

According to Dudo of Saint-Quentin, Rollo arrived in northern France in 876[156], although there is some debate about [900] being a more likely date[157]. William of Jumiáeges records that Rollo was chosen by lot to be leader of the Viking colonists[158]. Viking raids intensified in northern France. Although they were defeated after raiding Chartres [911], Charles III "le Simple" King of the West Franks granted the Normans land around Rouen in which to settle[159]. The uncertain nature of the demise was the source of future problems between the French crown, which claimed that it was an enfeofment for which the ruler owed allegiance, and the later Dukes of Normandy who claimed it was an unconditional allod for which no allegiance was owed. A charter dated 14 Mar 918 which granted land to the monastery of Saint-Germain-des-Prâes "except that part…which we have granted to the Normans of the Seine, namely to Rollo and his companions"[160]. He was later known as ROBERT I Comte [de Normandie].

ROLLO ["Ganger" Hrolf], son of [RAGNVALD "the Wise" Jarl of Mèore in Norway & his wife Ragnhild ---] (-Rouen [928/33], bur ---, transferred [1064] to Rouen Cathedral[6]). The parentage of Rollo/Rolf is uncertain and the chronology of his life confused. Richer names "Rollone filio Catilli" as leader of the Vikings who raided along the Loire and against whom "Robertus Celticµ Galliµ dux" campaigned[7]. No further reference has been found to "Catillus/Ketel". Flodoard provides no information on Rollo´s ancestry. The early 12th century William of Malmesbury states that "Rollo…[was] born of noble lineage among the Norwegians, though obsolete from its extreme antiquity" and adds that he was "banished by the king´s command from his own country"[8]. The later Orkneyinga Saga is more specific, naming “Hrolf who conquered Normandy” as son of “Earl Rognwald” and his wife “Ragnhild the daughter of Hrolf Nose”, adding that he was so big that no horse could carry him, giving rise to his name “Gèongu-Hrolf”[9]. Snorre names "Rolf and Thorer" as the two sons of "Earl Ragnvald" and his wife Hild, recording that Rolf was banished from Norway by King Harald and travelled to the Hebrides, settling first in Orkney before moving southwards through Scotland, and eventually conquering Normandy[10]. The Historia Norwegie records that, after Orkney was conquered by "principi Rogwaldi" and his followers, "de quorum collegio…Rodulfus" captured Rouen in Normandy, commenting that he was known as "Gongurolfr" because he was obliged to walk as he was too large to travel on horseback[11]. This source makes no reference to any blood relationship between Rollo and "principi Rogwaldi". Guillaume de Jumiáeges accords a Danish origin to Rollo, stating that his father "possâedant presque en totalitâe le royaume de Dacie, conquit en outre les territoires limitrophes de la Dacie et de l´Alanie" and left "deux fils…l´aãinâe Rollon et le plus jeune Gurim"[12]. He records that the king of Denmark defeated the two brothers and killed Gorm, and that Rollo fled the country, first landing in England, where he made peace with "le roi…Alstem"[13]. If this refers to ¥thelstan King of Wessex, the account must be confused given King ¥thelstan´s succession in 924. Freeman suggests that Guillaume de Jumiáeges must be referring to "Guthrum-¥thelstan of East-Anglia"[14], although this does not resolve the chronological problems assuming that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is correct in recording Guthrum´s death in 890[15]. After recording Rollo´s expeditions in Frisia, Guillaume de Jumiáeges states that Rollo landed at Jumiáeges after sailing up the Seine in 876[16], another suspect date which Houts suggests should be corrected to [900][17]. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that Rollo defeated "Renaud duc de toute la France", captured "le chãateau de Meulan", defeated and killed Duke Renaud in another campaign, besieged Paris, captured Bayeux, and attacked Paris again while his other troops devastated Evreux where they killed "son âevãeque…Sibor"[18]. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that Rollo attacked Chartres but withdrew after being defeated by "Richard duc de Bourgogne" and "Anselme l âevãeque"[19].

William of Malmesbury records that "Rollo…experienced a check at Chartres" but escaped the "plentiful slaughter" of the Vikings by the townspeople, before capturing Rouen "in 876"[20]. Guillaume of Jumiáeges records that Charles III "le Simple" King of the West Franks granted Rollo "tout le territoire maritime qui s´âetend depuis la riviáere d´Epte jusqu´aux confines de la Bretagne" together with "sa fille…Gisáele", that "les princes de cette province…Bâeranger et Alain" swore allegiance to Rollo, and that Rollo was baptised in 912 by "l´archâevãeque Francon", adopting the name ROBERT after "le duc Robert" who acted as his sponsor[21].

William of Malmesbury records that "it was determined by treaty, that [Rollo] should be baptised, and hold the country of the king as his lord"[22]. The charter which confirms the original grant (assuming that there was such a document) has not survived. However, the grant of land is inferred from a charter dated 14 Mar 918, under which land was donated to the monastery of Saint-Germain-des-Prâes specifying that the donation excluded "that part…which we have granted to the Normans of the Seine, namely to Rollo and his companions"[23]. The uncertain nature of the demise was the source of future problems between the French crown, which claimed that Normandy was an enfeofment for which the ruling duke owed allegiance, and the later dukes of Normandy, who claimed that it was an unconditional allod for which no allegiance was owed[24].

The version of events recorded by Flodoard provides a different slant and names two Viking leaders. Firstly, Flodoard records that in 923 "Ragenoldus princeps Nortmannorum" who occupied "in fluvio Ligeri" devastated "Franciam trans Isaram", that "Nortmanni" made peace in 924 "cum Francis", that King Raoul granted them "Cinomannis et Baiocµ" [Maine and Bayeux], but that "Raginoldus cum suis Nortmannis" devasted the land between the Loire and the Seine[25]. This passage makes no mention of the supposed earlier grant of land along the shore. Secondly, the same source records that "Raginoldus cum suis Nortmannis" devasted Burgundy in 925, that Hâeribert [II] Comte de Vermandois besieged Norman castles "super Sequanam", that "Nortmanni" devastated "pagum Belvacensem atque Ambianensem" [Beauvais and Amboise], while Comte Hâeribert and Arnoul Count of Flanders forced "Rollo princeps" from his strongholds[26]. Thirdly, Flodoard states that "Hugo filius Rotberti et Heribertus comes" campaigned against "Nortmannos" in 927, that "filius Rollonis" did homage to ex-king Charles at "castellum…Auga", and that "Rollo" held "filius Heriberti Odo" as a hostage in 928, which suggests some sort of alliance between Rollo and Comte Hâeribert[27]. William of Malmesbury records that Rollo died at Rouen[28]. The date of his death is uncertain: Flodoard names Rollo as living in 928 (see above) but the same source names "Willelmus princeps Nortmannorum" in 933[29]. Orderic Vitalis implies that the transfer of Robert's body to Rouen Cathedral took place after the "the ninth year" in office of Archbishop Maurilius, who had succeeded Mauger de Normandie[30], which would date the event to [1064]. He is known to history as ROBERT I Comte [de Normandie], although no early source has been identified which refers to him by this name or title.

[m] [firstly] ---. The identity of Rollo´s first wife or concubine is not known.

m [secondly] ([886] or after, repudiated, remarried after 912) POPPA, daughter of BERENGAR Comte de Bayeux & his wife ---. Guillaume of Jumiáeges records that Rollo took "Popa, fille de Bâerenger, homme illustre" when he captured Bayeux and "s´unit avec elle, áa la maniáere des Danois"[31]. According to Orderic Vitalis, Rollo "stormed and captured Bayeux, slew its count Berengar and took to wife his daughter Poppa"[32]. In another passage, the same source records that Rollo besieged Paris, captured Bayeux, killed "Berengarium comitem" and married his daughter Popa, in 886[33], although this date appears early in light of the likely birth date range of the couple's son Guillaume. The Chronico Rotomagensis records that "mortua a Gisla, accepit Rollo propriam uxorem filiam comitis Silvanectensis Widonis"[34]. Robert of Torigny combines the information, recording that "Rollo dux Northmannorum" married "Popam prius repudiatam uxorem…filiam…Berengarii comitis Baiocensis neptem vero Widonis comitis Silvanectensis"[35]. The Historia Norwegie records that, after capturing Rouen, "Rodulfus" married the daughter of its deceased count by whom he was father of "Willelmum…Longosped"[36]. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that "le comte Bernard" welcomed "son neveu Richard" (grandson of Rollo) at Senlis after his escape from captivity[37], although in another passage he describes how Rollo captured Bayeux and took "une tráes-noble jeune fille Popa, fille de Bâerenger" in the town, marrying her "áa la maniáere des Danois"[38], in a later passage adding that Rollo married Poppa, whom he had previously repudiated, a second time after the death of his wife[39]. It would be possible to reconcile the different versions if Comte Bernard's mother was married twice, her first husband being Bâerenger Comte de Bayeux.

m thirdly (912) GISELA, daughter of CHARLES III "le Simple" King of the West Franks & his first wife Frederuna --- ([908/16]-before her husband). The Genealogica Arnulfi Comitis names (in order) "Hyrmintrudim, Frederunam, Adelheidim, Gislam, Rotrudim et Hildegardim" as the children of "Karolus rex…ex Frederuna regina"[40]. Guillaume of Jumiáeges records that Charles III "le Simple" King of the West Franks granted Rollo "tout le territoire maritime qui s´âetend depuis la riviáere d´Epte jusqu´aux confines de la Bretagne" together with "sa fille…Gisáele", and their marriage which took place after Rollo´s baptism[41]. Her marriage is recorded in the Norman annals for 912, which state that she died without issue, presumably soon after the marriage when Gisla must still have been an infant. The chronicle of Dudo of Saint-Quentin[42] describes her as of "tall stature, most elegant…", which is of course inconsistent with her supposed birth date range. The Liber Modernorum Regum Francorum records the marriage of "filiam suam [=rex Karolus] nomine Gillam" to "Rollo"[43]. Settipani considers that the marriage did not occur, and that the Norman sources confused it with the marriage of Gisela, daughter of Lothaire II King of Lotharingia, to the Viking leader Gotfrid[44].

Rollo & his [first wife] had two children:

1. [KADLINE . Her parentage and marriage are confirmed by the Landnâama-Boc which records that "son of Oht-here…Helge" captured and married [her daughter] "Nidh-beorg, daughter of king Beolan and Cadh-lina, daughter of Walking-Rolf [Gongo-Hrâolfs]" when he "harried in Scotland", and also records their descendants[45]. No other record has been found of "king Beolan" and the accuracy of this report is unknown. m BEOLAN King [in Scotland].]

2. [NIEDERGA . Niederga is shown in Europèaische Stammtafeln[46] as the second daughter of Rollo by his first wife but the primary source on which this is based has not been identified.]

Robert & his [second] wife had two children:

3. GUILLAUME (Rouen [900/05]-murdered Pequigny 17 Dec 942, bur ---, transferred [1064] to Rouen Cathedral[47]). Guillaume de Jumiáeges names "Guillaume et…Gerloc" as children of Rollo and Poppa[48]. However, the Planctus for William Longsword[49], composed shortly after the murder of Guillaume, states that he had a Christian mother of overseas origin. Dudo of Saint-Quentin states that he was born in Rouen and, in a later passage, describes him as a "young man" one year before his father's death[50]. His father chose him as heir one year before his death[51]. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that he was born before his father's marriage to Gisela and his remarriage with Popa after Gisela's death[52]. Flodoard records that "filius Rollonis" did homage to ex-king Charles III "le Simple" at "castellum…Auga" in 927[53]. He succeeded his father in [928/33] as GUILLAUME I "Longuespee" Comte [de Normandie]. Flodoard names "Willelmus princeps Nortmannorum" in 933[54]. He quelled a rebellion by the Viking chief Riulf after the latter besieged Rouen[55]. In return for swearing allegiance to Raoul King of France, he appears to have been granted rights to further territory along the coast in 933, maybe the Cotentin and Avranchin. If this is correct, it would have created rivalry with the dukes of Brittany. Dudo of Saint-Quentin describes Comte Guillaume's invasion of Brittany shortly after his accession to quell a rebellion against him, and his defeat of the rebels at Bayeux[56]. Responding to raids by Comte Guillaume, Arnoul I Count of Flanders invaded Ponthieu and in 939 captured Montreuil from Herluin Comte de Ponthieu, although it was recaptured by Comte Guillaume's forces. In 939, Guillaume joined the alliance against Louis IV King of France which was led by Otto I "der GroÏe" King of Germany who raided Frankish territory. Comte Guillaume, however, met King Louis at Amiens, receiving a confirmation of the grant of his lands in Normandy. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that Guillaume was tricked into a meeting on the river Seine at Pecquigny by Arnoul Count of Flanders to settle their dispute over the castle of Montreuil, but was murdered on Count Arnoul's orders, recording his death on 17 Dec[57]. The Annalibus Rotomagensibus record that "Willermus dux Normannorum filius Rollonis" was killed "943 XVI Kal Jan"[58]. Orderic Vitalis implies that the transfer of his body to Rouen Cathedral took place after the "the ninth year" in office of Archbishop Maurilius, who had succeeded Mauger de Normandie[59], which would date the event to [1064].

[m] firstly SPROTA, daughter of ---. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that Guillaume married "une tráes-noble jeune fille Sprota…selon l'usage des Danois"[60]. From Brittany. It is possible that Sprota was Count Guillaume's concubine rather than wife, particularly as no reference has been found to a dissolution of any marriage before she married Esperleng. She married Esperleng de Pãitres, by whom she had Rodulf [Raoul] Comte d'Ivry.

m secondly ([940]) as her first husband, LUITGARDIS de Vermandois, daughter of HERIBERT II Comte de Vermandois & his wife Adela [Capet] (before 925-14 Nov after 985, bur Chartres, Abbaye de Saint-Páere). Rodulfus Glauber refers to the wife of Comte Guillaume as "sororem [Heribertum Trecorum comitem]", specifying that she was childless by her first husband, when recording her second marriage to "Tetbaldus"[61]. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records the marriage of Guillaume and the daughter of Heribert, specifying that it was arranged by Hugues "le Grand"[62]. The source which confirms her name has not yet been identified. She married secondly Thibaut I Comte de Blois. "Hugonis ducis, Odonis comitis, Hugonis sanctµ Bituricensis archiprµsulis, Letgardis comitissµ, Bertµ comitissµ, Gauzfridi vicecomitis…" subscribed the charter dated 985 under which "Robertus" donated property to "Sancti Petri Carnotensis", on the advice of "Odonem, simul cum sua matre Ledgarde, pariterque dominam meam Bertam, ipsius µque coniugem"[63]. The necrology of Chartres cathedral records the death "XVIII Kal Dec" of "Letgardis comitissa"[64]. Guillaume & his first wife had one child:

a) RICHARD (Fâecamp [932]-20 Nov 996, bur Fâecamp). Guillaume de Jumiáeges names Richard as son of Guillaume and Sprota, recording that news of his birth was brought to his father when he was returning from his victory against the rebels led by "Riulf"[65]. After the death of Richard's father, Louis IV "d'Outremer" King of the West Franks briefly controlled Rouen, and kept Richard prisoner, before the latter was able to escape, whereupon he succeeded as RICHARD I "Sans Peur" Comte [de Normandie].

4. GERLOC (-after 969). Guillaume de Jumiáeges names "Guillaume et…Gerloc" as children of Rollo and Poppa, in a later passage records her marriage to "Guillaume comte de Poitou"[66]. Robert of Torigny also names "Willermum Longum Spatam et Gerloch" as children of "Rollo dux Northmannorum" and Poppa[67]. The Chronico Richardi Pictavensis records that "Heblus…Pictavorum Comes et Dux Aquitaniµ duxit Adelam filiam Rolli Rothomagensis"[68], although this is presumably an error for Guillaume son of Ebles. She adopted the name ADELA when baptised. "Guillelmi comitis, Adeleidis comitisse" subscribed a charter recording a donation to Cluny dated [963][69]. Lothaire King of France granted her 14 Oct 962 the right to dispose of extensive property in Poitiers, la Cour de Faye, this grant effectively putting an end to the long dispute between her husband and the family of Hugues "Capet". She used the property to found the Monastery of Sainte-Trinitâe[70]. m (935) GUILLAUME I "Tãete d'Etoupe" Comte de Poitou, son of EBLES "Mancer" Comte de Poitou, Duke of Aquitaine & his first wife Aremburga ([900]-3 Apr 963). He succeeded in 959 as GUILLAUME III Duke of Aquitaine.

Rollo's origin
He is named as Rollo and said to have come from Dacia by Dudo of St. Quentin (c. 965-after 1043), the historian of the Norman dukes and the earliest source. Dudo does not name Rollo's parents. The Orkneyinga saga, a later source (c. 1230), identifies him with Hrolf Gange, who is said to have been a son of Ragnvald Eysteinsson, jarl of M²re. Modern scholars generally doubt the identification with Hrolf. See, for example, Stewart Baldwin, "Rollo of Normany" in soc.genealogy.medieval, Mar. 16, 1998.

There is much support for the claim of Rollo's homeland being Sykkylven in Sunnm²re (M²re), Norway.

Dacia, the country Dudo refers to as Rollo's homeland, was what people outside Scandinavia called the Nordic countries as a unity: Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Iceland together. Dudo describes Dacia as a country of high mountains, surrounding Rollo's estate - just like Gange-Hrolf's Fauske in Sykkylven. (see photos)

At the time the language, Old Norse (called dèonsk tunga by Snorri and others) was still the same and had not started to divide into separate dialects or languages.

Fasge, the place Adam of Bremen describes as Rollo's home, can easily be placed in Sykkylven where Gangu-Hrolfr had his estate at the farm called Fauske, Aure or Aurum. The Danish historian Steenstrup identified (works from 1876-82) Fasge with the town Faxe in Denmark, but linguistic argument shows that this consonant change is highly unlikely, and that the Norwegian place-name Fauske is more probable.

The outstanding linguist Hêakon Melberg argued in his dissertation that linguistic studies could shed light on the origin of the Scandinavian people and their history. In particular he opposes Steenstrup's analysis and points at several discrepancies, making Denmark improbable as Gange-Hrolf's origin.

http://books.google.com/books?hl=no&id=KGIeAAAAMAAJ&q=fauske#search_anchor

Sources
Linge, Per Eldar: Gangerolvs mektige M²re, Sunnm²rsposten forlag 1992.
More here: http://www.eutopia.no/Gangerolv.html

Melberg, Hêakon: Origin of the Scandinavian Nations and Languages : An Introduction (doctoral dissertation). University of Oslo, 1952.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A5kon_Melberg http://books.google.com/books?id=KGIeAAAAMAAJ&hl=no&pgis=1 http://ask.bibsys.no/ask/action/show?pid=921271042&kid=biblio

Languages
Gangu-Hrolf's Languages: Old French and Old Norse (the language spoken in the Nordic countries at the time):

"Danish tounge", dansk tunga, would be the language spoken in all of Scandinavia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Norse_language

dèonsk tunga: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Icelandic_language#The_Scandinavian_period_.28550.E2.80.931050.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_French

Snorri Sturlusson
From Heimskringla, Snorri: "24. ROLF GANGER DRIVEN INTO BANISHMENT.

Earl Ragnvald was King Harald's dearest friend, and the king had the greatest regard for him. He was married to Hild, a daughter of Rolf Nefia, and their sons were Rolf and Thorer. Earl Ragnvald had also three sons by concubines, -- the one called Hallad, the second Einar, the third Hrollaug; and all three were grown men when their brothers born in marriage were still children Rolf became a great viking, and was of so stout a growth that no horse could carry him, and wheresoever he went he must go on foot; and therefore he was called Rolf Ganger. He plundered much in the East sea. One summer, as he was coming from the eastward on a viking's expedition to the coast of Viken, he landed there and made a cattle foray. As King Harald happened, just at that time, to be in Viken, he heard of it, and was in a great rage; for he had forbid, by the greatest punishment, the plundering within the bounds of the country. The king assembled a Thing, and had Rolf declared an outlaw over all Norway. When Rolf's mother, Hild heard of it she hastened to the king, and entreated peace for Rolf; but the king was so enraged that here entreaty was of no avail. Then Hild spake these lines: --

"Think'st thou, King Harald, in thy anger, To drive away my brave Rolf Ganger Like a mad wolf, from out the land? Why, Harald, raise thy mighty hand? Why banish Nefia's gallant name-son, The brother of brave udal-men? Why is thy cruelty so fell? Bethink thee, monarch, it is ill With such a wolf at wolf to play, Who, driven to the wild woods away May make the king's best deer his prey."

Rolf Ganger went afterwards over sea to the West to the Hebrides, or Sudreys; and at last farther west to Valland, where he plundered and subdued for himself a great earldom, which he peopled with Northmen, from which that land is called Normandy. Rolf Ganger's son was William, father to Richard, and grandfather to another Richard, who was the father of Robert Longspear, and grandfather of William the Bastard, from whom all the following English kings are descended. From Rolf Ganger also are descended the earls in Normandy. Queen Ragnhild the Mighty lived three years after she came to Norway; and, after her death, her son and King Harald's was taken to the herse Thorer Hroaldson, and Eirik was fostered by him." (Snorri Sturlasson )

Gange-Rolv (Gèongu-Hrâolfr), var en norsk vikingh²vding og sagafigur som egentlig het Hrâolfr Rèognvaldsson (ca 860-932) og var s²nn av Ragnvald M²rejarl, kjent som jarlen som klippet Harald Hêarfagre etter at Norge var samlet til ett rike.

Gange-Rolv fikk tilnavnet fordi han var sêa stor at han alltid mêatte gêa til fots, underforstêatt at hesten ble for liten. I f²lge norsk og islandsk tradisjon er denne personen identisk med den historiske Rollo, som i 911 ble utnevnt til hertug over Normandie. Rollos opphav er imidlertid omdiskutert og nok umulig êa stadfeste helt sikkert ettersom kildene spriker i alle retninger. En sannsynlig slektning, Vilhelm Erobreren av Normandie, inntok England i 1066 og grunnla et nytt normannisk kongehus i der.

Gange-Rolv var med pêa mange tokt i Austerled, men ble forvist fra landet av Harald Hêarfagre etter et strandhogg han gjorde i Viken (Norge). I henhold til Snorre dro Rolv til Valland (Frankrike) etter landsforvisningen. Der ble han blant annet ble gift med kongsdatteren Gisela, og han skal ha blitt d²pt i Saint-Clair-katedralen.

WIKIPEDIA (Eng)
Rollo (c. 860 - c. 932) was the founder and first ruler of the Viking principality in what soon became known as Normandy. He is also in some later sources known as Robert of Normandy.

The name Rollo is a Frankish-Latin name probably taken from Scandinavian name Hrâolf (cf. the latinization of Hrâolf Kraki into the similar Roluo in the Gesta Danorum).

Historical evidence Rollo was a Viking leader of contested origin. Dudo of St. Quentin, in his De moribus et actis primorum Normannorum ducum (Latin), tells of a powerful Danish nobleman at loggerheads with the king of Dacia, who then died and left his two sons, Gurim and Rollo, leaving Rollo to be expelled and Gurim killed. William of Jumiáeges also mentions Rollo's prehistory in his Gesta Normannorum Ducum however he states that he was from the Danish town of Fasge. Wace, writing some 300 years after the event in his Roman de Rou, also mentions the two brothers (as Rou and Garin), as does the Orkneyinga Saga.

Norwegian and Icelandic historians identified this Rollo with a son of Rognvald Eysteinsson, Earl of M²re, in Western Norway, based on medieval Norwegian and Icelandic sagas that mention a Ganger Hrolf (Hrolf, the Walker). The oldest source of this version is the Latin Historia Norvegiae, written in Norway at the end of the 12th century. This Hrolf fell foul of the Norwegian king Harald Fairhair, and became a Jarl in Iceland. The nickname of that character came from being so big that no horse could carry him. [1]

The question of Rollo's Danish or Norwegian origins was a matter of heated dispute between Norwegian and Danish historians of the 19th and early 20th century, particularly in the run-up to Normandy's 1000-year-anniversary in 1911. Today, historians still disagree on this question, but most would now agree that a certain conclusion can never be reached.'

Invasion of France In 885, Rollo was one of the lesser leaders of the Viking fleet which besieged Paris under Sigfred. Legend has it that an emissary was sent by the king to find the chieftain and negotiate terms. When he asked for this information, the Vikings replied that they were all chieftains in their own right. In 886, when Sigfred retreated in return for tribute, Rollo stayed behind and was eventually bought off and sent to harry Burgundy.

Later, he returned to the Seine with his followers (known as Danes, or Norsemen). He invaded the area of northern France now known as Normandy.

Rather than pay Rollo to leave, as was customary, the Frankish king, Charles the Simple, understood that he could no longer hold back their onslaught, and decided to give Rollo the coastal lands they occupied under the condition that he defend against other raiding Vikings.

In the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte (911) with King Charles, Rollo pledged feudal allegiance to the king, changed his name to the Frankish version, and converted to Christianity, probably with the baptismal name Robert. In return, and in admission of defeat, King Charles granted Rollo the lower Seine area (today's upper Normandy) and the titular rulership of Normandy, centred around the city of Rouen. There exists some argument among historians as to whether Rollo was a "duke" (dux) or whether his position was equivalent to that of a "count" under Charlemagne. According to legend, when required to kiss the foot of King Charles, as a condition of the treaty, he refused to perform so great a humiliation, and when Charles extended his foot to Rollo, Rollo ordered one of his warriors to do so in his place. His warrior then lifted Charles' foot up to his mouth causing him to fall to the ground. [2]

Settlement Initially, Rollo stayed true to his word of defending the shores of the Seine river in accordance to the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, but in time he and his followers had very different ideas. Rollo began to divide the land between the Epte and Risle rivers among his chieftains and settled there with a de facto capital in Rouen. With these settlements, Rollo began to further raid other Frankish lands, now from the security of a settled homeland, rather than a mobile fleet. Eventually, however, Rollo's men intermarried with the local women, and became more settled as Frenchmen. At the time of his death, Rollo's expansion of his territory had extended as far west as the Vire River.

Death Sometime around 927, Rollo passed the fief in Normandy to his son, William Longsword. Rollo may have lived for a few years after that, but certainly died before 933. According to the historian Adhemar, 'As Rollo's death drew near, he went mad and had a hundred Christian prisoners beheaded in front of him in honour of the gods whom he had worshipped,[citation needed] and in the end distributed a hundred pounds of gold around the churches in honour of the true God in whose name he had accepted baptism.' Even though Rollo had converted to Christianity, some of his pagan roots surfaced at the end.

Legacy Rollo is a direct ancestor of William the Conqueror. Through William, he is a direct ancestor and predecessor of the present-day British royal family, including Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The "Clameur de Haro" in the Channel Islands is, supposedly, an appeal to Rollo.

Depictions in Fiction Rollo is the subject of the 17th Century play Rollo Duke of Normandy written by John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, Ben Jonson, and George Chapman.

References ^ Gèongu-Hrâolfs saga in Old Norse from heimskringla.no ^ Holden, A.J. (1970). Le Roman de Rou de Wace. Paris: âEditions A.J. Picard. p.54. Lines 1147-1156 D.C. Douglas, "Rollo of Normandy", English Historical Review, Vol. 57 (1942), pp. 414-436 Robert Helmerichs, [Rollo as Historical Figure] Rosamond McKitterick, The Frankish Kingdom under the Carolingians, 751-987, (Longman) 1983 Dudonis gesta Normannorum - Dudo of St. Quentin Gesta Normannorum Latin version at Bibliotheca Augustana Dudo of St. Quentin's Gesta Normannorum - An English Translation Gwyn Jones. Second edition: A History of the Vikings. Oxford University Press. (1984). William W. Fitzhugh and Elizabeth Ward. Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. Smithsonian Institute Press. (2000) Eric Christiansen. The Norsemen in the Viking Age. Blackwell Publishers Ltd. (2002) Agnus Konstam. Historical Atlas of the Viking World. Checkmark Books. (2002) Holgar Arbman. Ancient People and Places: The Vikings. Thames and Husdson. (1961) Eric Oxenstierna. The Norsemen, New York Graphics Society Publishers, Ltd. (1965)

TEXT - SOURCE? Rollo was a Viking leader, probably (based on Icelandic sources) from Norway, the son of Ragnvald, Earl of Moer; sagas mention a Hrolf, son of Ragnvald jarl of Moer. However, the latinization Rollo has in no known instance been applied to a Hrolf, and in the texts which speak of him, numerous latinized Hrolfs are included. Dudo of St. Quentin (by most accounts a more reliable source, and at least more recent and living nearer the regions concerned), in his Gesta Normannorum, tells of a powerful Dacian nobleman at loggerheads with the king of Dacia, who then died and left his two sons, Gurim and Rollo, leaving Rollo to be expelled and Gurim killed.(1) With his followers (known as Normans, or northmen), Rollo invaded the area of northern France now known as Normandy. Wace, writing some 300 years after the event, gives a Scandinavian origin, as does the Orkneyinga Saga, Danish or Norwegian most likely.

Unlike most Vikings whose intentions were to plunder Frankish lands, Rollo's true intentions were to look for lands to settle. Upon arrival in France, and after many battles with the Vikings, Charles the Simple understood that he could no longer hold back their advances, and decided as a tempory measure to give Rollo land around Rouen, as he did with his other barons, but under the condition that he would convert to Christianity and defend the Seine River from other raiding Vikings. In the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte (911) with the French King Charles the Simple, "for the protection of the realm," Rollo pledged feudal allegiance to the king, changed his name to the Frankish version, and converted to Christianity, probably with the baptismal name Robert. In return, and in admission of defeat, King Charles granted Rollo the lower Seine area (today's upper Normandy) and the titular rulership of Normandy, centred around the city of Rouen. There exists some argument among historians as to whether Rollo was a "duke" (dux) or whether his position was equivalent to that of a "count" under Charlemagne. According to legend, when required, in conformity with general usage, to kiss the foot of King Charles, he refused to stoop to what he considered so great a degradation; yet as the homage could not be dispensed with, he ordered one of his warriors to perform it for him. The latter, as proud as his chief, instead of stooping to the royal foot, raised it so high, that the King fell to the ground. It is important to note that Rollo did stay true to his word of defending the shores of the Seine river in accordance to the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, but in time Rollo and his followers had very different ideas. Rollo began to divide the land between the Epte and Risle rivers among his chieftains and settled there with a de-facto capital in Rouen. With these settlements, Rollo began to further raid other Frankish lands, now from the security of a settled homeland, rather than a mobile fleet.

Rollo expanded his territory as far west as the Vire River and sometime around 927 he passed the Duchy of Normandy to his son, William Longsword. Rollo may have lived for a few years after that, but certainly died before 933. According to the historian Adhemar, 'As Rollo's death drew near, he went mad and had a hundred Christian prisoners beheaded in front of him in honour of the gods whom he had worshiped, and in the end distributed a hundred pounds of gold around the churches in honour of the true god in whose name he had accepted baptism.' Even though Rollo had converted to Christianity, at the end, some of Rollo's pagan roots eventually came to the surface. He was a direct ancestor of William the Conqueror. By William, he was a direct ancestor of the present-day British royal family, including Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The "clameur de haro" on the Channel Islands is, supposedly, an appeal to Rollo.

TEXT - SOURCE??? Rollo (later Robert) "of Normandy" Viking leader in France, d. 932.

Although he is often referred to as the first Duke of Normandy, that title is an anachronism. Probably about 911, King Charles the Simple of France ceded a district around the city of Rouen to Rollo, which eventually evolved into the duchy of Normandy. He is said to have been baptized in 912, assuming the Christian name Robert. He was still living in 928, when he was holding Eudes, son of Heribert of Vermandois, as a captive and was probably dead by 932, when his son William was mentioned as leading the Normans.

end of biography

ROLLO THE VIKING

DIED 931 A.D.

For more than two hundred years during the Middle Ages the Christian countries of Europe were attacked on the southwest by the Saracens of Spain, and on the northwest by the Norsemen, or Northmen. The Northmen were so called because they came into Middle Europe from the north. Sometimes they were called Vikings, or pirates, because they were adventurous sea-robbers who plundered all countries which they could reach by sea.

Their ships were long and swift In the center was placed a single mast, which carried one large sail. For the most part, however, the Norsemen depended on rowing, not on the wind, and sometimes there were twenty rowers in one vessel.

The Vikings were a terror to all their neighbors; but the two regions that suffered most from their attacks were the Island of Britain and that part of Charlemagne's empire in which the Franks were settled.

endof commentary

Nearly fifty times in two hundred years the lands of the Franks were invaded. The Vikings sailed up the large rivers into the heart of the region which we now call France and captured and pillaged cities and towns. Some years after Charlemagne's death they went as far as his capital, Aix, took the place, and stabled their horses in the cathedral which the great emperor had built.

In the year 860 they discovered Iceland and made a settlement upon its shores. A few years later they sailed as far as Greenland, and there established settlements which existed for about a century.

These Vikings were the first discoverers of the continent on which we live. Ancient books found in Iceland tell the story of the discovery. It is related that a Viking ship was driven during a storm to a strange coast, which is thought to have been that part of America now known as Labrador.

When the captain of the ship returned home he told what he had seen. His tale so excited the curiosity of a young Viking prince, called Leif the Lucky, that he sailed to the newly discovered coast.

Going ashore, he found that the country abounded in wild grapes; and so he called it Vinland, or the land of Vines. Vinland is thought to have been a part of what is now the Rhode Island coast.

The Vikings were not aware that they had found a great unknown continent. No one in the more civilized parts of Europe knew anything about their discovery; and after a while the story of the Vinland voyages seems to have been forgotten, even among the Vikings themselves.

So it is not to them that we owe the discovery of America, but to Columbus; because his discovery, though nearly five hundred years later than that of the Norsemen, actually made known to all Europe, for all time, the existence of the New World.

II

THE Vikings had many able chieftains. One of the most famous was Rollo the Walker, so called because he was such a giant that no horse strong enough to carry him could be found, and therefore he always had to walk. However, he did on foot what few could do on horseback.

In 885 seven hundred ships, commanded by Rollo and other Viking chiefs, left the harbors of Norway, sailed to the mouth of the Seine, and started up the river to capture the city of Paris.

Rollo and his men stopped on the way at Rouen, which also was on the Seine, but nearer its mouth. The citizens had heard of the giant, and when they saw the river covered by his fleet they were dismayed. However, the bishop of Rouen told them that Rollo could be as noble and generous as he was fierce; and he advised them to open their gates and trust to the mercy of the Viking chief. This was done, and Rollo marched into Rouen and took possession of it. The bishop had given good advice, for Rollo treated the people very kindly.

Soon after capturing Rouen he left the place, sailed up the river to Paris, and joined the other Viking chiefs. And now for six long miles the beautiful Seine was covered with Viking vessels, which carried an army of thirty thousand men.

A noted warrior named Eudes was Count of Paris, and he had advised the Parisians to fortify the city. So not long before the arrival of Rollo and his companions, two walls with strong gates had been built round Paris.

It was no easy task for even Vikings to capture a strongly walled city. We are told that Rollo and his men built a high tower and rolled it on wheels up to the walls. At its top was a floor well manned with soldiers. But the people within the city shot hundreds of arrows at the besiegers, and threw down rocks, or poured boiling oil and pitch upon them.

The Vikings thought to starve the Parisians, and for thirteen months they encamped round the city. At length food became very scarce, and Count Eudes determined to go for help. He went out through one of the gates on a dark, stormy night, and rode post-haste to the king. He told him that something must be done to save the people of Paris.

So the king gathered an army and marched to the city. No battle was fought--the Vikings seemed to have been afraid to risk one. They gave up the siege, and Paris was relieved.

Rollo and his men went to the Duchy of Burgundy, where, as now, the finest crops were raised and the best of wines were made.

III

PERHAPS after a time Rollo and his Vikings went home; but we do not know what he did for about twenty-five years. We do know that he abandoned his old home in Norway in 911. Then he and his people sailed from the icy shore of Norway and again went up the Seine in hundreds of Viking vessels.

Of course, on arriving in the land of the Franks, Rollo at once began to plunder towns and farms.

Charles, then king of the Franks, although his people called him the Simple, or Senseless, had sense enough to see that this must be stopped.

So he sent a message to Rollo and proposed that they should have a talk about peace. Rollo agreed and accordingly they met. The king and his troops stood on one side of a little river, and Rollo with his Vikings stood on the other. Messages passed between them. The king asked Rollo what he wanted.

"Let me and my people live in the land of the Franks; let us make ourselves home here, and I and my Vikings will become your vassals," answered Rollo. He asked for Rouen and the neighboring land. So the king gave him that part of Francia; and ever since it has been called Normandy, the land of the Northmen.

When it was decided that the Vikings should settle in Francia and be subjects of the Frankish king, Rollo was told that he must kiss the foot of Charles in token that he would be the king's vassal. The haughty Viking refused. "Never," said he, "will I bend my knee before any man, and no man's foot will I kiss." After some persuasion, however, he ordered one of his men to perform the act of homage for him. The king was on horseback and the Norseman, standing by the side of the horse, suddenly seized the king's foot and drew it up to his lips. This almost made the king fall from his horse, to the great amusement of the Norsemen.

Becoming a vassal to the king meant that if the king went to war Rollo would be obliged to join his army and bring a certain number of armed men--one thousand or more.

Rollo now granted parts of Normandy to his leading men on condition that they would bring soldiers to his army and fight under him. They became his vassals, as he was the king's vassal.

The lands granted to vassals in this way were called feuds, and this plan of holding lands was called the Feudal System.

It was established in every country of Europe during the Middle Ages.

The poorest people were called serfs. They were almost slaves and were never permitted to leave the estate to which they belonged. They did all the work. They worked chiefly for the landlords, but partly for themselves.

Having been a robber himself, Rollo knew what a shocking thing it was to ravage and plunder, and he determined to change his people's habits. He made strict laws and hanged robbers. His duchy thus became one of the safest parts of Europe.

The Northmen learned the language of the Franks and adopted their religion.

The story of Rollo is especially interesting to us, because Rollo was the forefather of that famous Duke of Normandy who, less than a hundred and fifty years later, conquered England and brought into that country the Norman nobles with their French language and customs.

The Vikings in Normandy:
Timeline
Pre-Norman France map, http://www.viking.no/e/france/norm_col_gb.gif The chronology of the Vikings in Normandy can be encapsulated by a division into two successive centuries:

From AD 820 to c. AD 920, the Viking incursions on the lower Seine became more and more frequent, resulting finally in some permanent colonisation.
From c. AD 920 to AD 1020 was a consolidation period for Normandy, with the influx of numerous Scandinavian settlers, before turning increasingly to the Kingdom of France.

Timeline showing the Viking raids on the river Seine

820 Thirteen ships reach the Seine Bay. A force of Vikings lands but, having to face the shore guard, they are forced to re-embark, leaving five of their number dead on the Neustrian shore.
841 Asgeir's fleet sails up the River Seine (from 12th May), takes the city of Rouen (14th May) and burns it down. The loot is enormous. Aesgir's army continues its penetration of the Seine, plunders and burns the rich Jumiáege monastery (24th May). The nearby monastery of Fontenelle (the future Saint-Wandrille) is also assaulted and held to ransom. In this expedition, sixty-eight captives are taken and then returned on payment of a ransom by the monks of Saint-Denis (28th May).
845 Ragnar's fleet of 120 ships (therefore c. 6000 men) sails up the Seine and besieges Paris (28th March). Charles the Bald pays 7000 livres in order to spare Paris.
851 Asgeir and his men, back on the Seine, this time devastate the monastery of Fontenelle (13th October) and return there eighty-nine days later (9th January 852) and, finding nothing to plunder, burn it down.
852 Asgeir and his force raid on foot in the Beauvais region (Flanders county), from their base in Rouen. Engaged by a Frankish army, they have to withdraw and camp for the winter on Jeufosse island, securely controlling the entrance to the Seine. They stay there up to the 5th June. By the end of this year, a new group of Vikings, mainly Norwegians led by Sigtrygg (back from Ireland) and Godfrid, sails up the Seine to Jeufosse to establish their own base there. The Frankish army of Charles the Bald besieges the island.
853 (beg.) Charles the Bald negotiates with Godfrid, who afterwards retires. As for Sigtrygg, he stays to plunder and burn numerous places up to March.
855 Sigtrygg returns (18th July) to attempt to destroy a Frankish fort located on the Seine shore on the approach to Paris. He is reinforced by Bjèorn, leading a powerful fleet (17th August). The two armies join and carry out a raid in the south of the Seine, as far as Chartres, where they are stopped by the Frankish army of Charles the Bald. They have to withdraw to the Seine after heavy losses.
857 Again from Jeufosse, which has now become an established base, Sigtrygg's and Bjèorn's armies attack Paris (January). Chartres is assaulted again (12th June); on this occasion, revenging the reverse of AD 855, they take it, plunder it, and slaughter all its population. During the summer they also attack Evreux and many other places, the action taking place generally around Jeufosse island. Finally, Sigtrygg retires with his men.
858 Bjèorn is joined by a new group of Danes, led by Hasting (9th January). They lay again into the abbey of Fontenelle, which they burn down. Leading a mounted force, Bjèorn surrounds Paris and demands a ransom of the Parisian monasteries. Charles the Bald is defeated when he reacts and tries again to besiege the Viking base of Jeufosse.
859 The attacks from the Seine valley are redoubled. Charles the Bald is engaged in a struggle with his brother, Louis the German. The Vikings take advantage of this to attack freely far from their bases: Bayeux, Laon and Beauvais, where the bishops are executed.
860 The Viking chief, Veland, is paid 3000 silver livres by Charles the Bald to try to drive out the Vikings of the lower Seine.
861 From May, Veland besieges Jeufosse island, leading 200 Viking ships. The Vikings of Jeufosse have to retire from the Seine, with some 100 ships. This fleet then joins Veland's. Taking advantage of several years of respite, Charles the Bald builds forts which control the Seine at Pont-de-l'Arche.
865 Fifty Viking ships settle at Pãitres (near Pont-de-l'Arche), on the Seine.
876 100 new Viking ships make an incursion into the Seine. They sail away again after a payment of 5000 livres by Charles the Bald.
885 A huge fleet sails up the Seine (one report tells of some 700 ships) to besiege Paris. Losses are severe on both sides. The new Frankish king, Charles the Big, relieves the city by paying a heavy ransom to the besiegers.
887-911 Rolf (Rollo/Rollon) imposes himself as chief of the Vikings settled in the lower Seine region. He repels the Franks, pushing right up to the doors of the Ile-de-France. He attacks Chartres but, repulsed, withdraws again to the Seine.
911 Seeking to block the lower Seine, which had become a real "motorway" for the Viking invasions of the Kingdom of Frankia, the new king, Charles the Simple, concludes an agreement with Rolf at Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, conceding to him the suzerainty of the territory of the lower Seine which, de facto, Rolf had already had for several years.

Timeline showing the Viking Raids in Western Neustria

From AD 836 Bjèorn and Hasting lead numerous raids in Cotentin and Avranchin.
860-989 There are no more resident bishops in Cotentin and Avranchin nor any ecclesiastical infrastructures in these bishoprics. Whole areas are deserted by the native population as they become untenable, particularly in Cotentin.
867 The Frankish king, Charles the Bald, concedes Cotentin and Avranchin to the Bretons, so that they might defend these territories.
889, 890 and 891 Respectively, Saint-Lão, Coutances and Avranches are plundered or burnt down.
890-892 Rolf makes several raids in Bessin (Bayeux).
905 Vire is plundered.
907 Since Brittany is too devastated by the Viking raids, the Breton sovereignty of Cotentin and Avranchin exists only theoretically.
911 Since Rolf is now Jarl of Rouen, and since they refuse to convert to Christianity, and seek new conquests, many of Rolf's companions settle in Cotentin and Bessin.
916 From Cotentin and Bessin, where they have settled, numerous Scandinavian forces attack the whole eastern region of Brittany.
924 Bessin is added to Rolf's territory.
925 Some unsubdued Scandinavian troops of Bessin, united with native Saxons, devastate the western part of the Seine colony.
927-928 Rolf erect many fortifications (Bayeux, Exmes, Saint-Lão, Brionne, etc.) to face a huge influx of new Viking contingents, resistant to his authority in Cotentin (Danes from the Danelaw, and Hiberno-Norse from Ireland) and in Bessin (especially Danes from the Danelaw).
931 Brittany is totally subdued: on the east by the Normans of the Seine and on the west by Normans who have settled on the River Loire. The Normans of the Seine take advantage of this to get a foothold in Cotentin and Avranchin, and on the Channel Islands, in order to control the Scandinavian troops which have to submit to the Jarl of Rouen's authority.
933 Cotentin and Avranchin are conceded officially by the King of France, Raoul, to the Normans of the Seine, who are also appointed to the protectorate of Brittany.

1548417.

Lady Poppa of Bayeux was born in (850) in Bayeux, France (daughter of Berengar II of Neustria, Count of Bayeux and unnamed spouse); was buried in Rouen Cathedral, Rouen, Normandy, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Place de Gaulle, Bayeux, France

Notes:

Poppa of Bayeux was the Christian wife or mistress[1] (perhaps more danico)[2] of the Viking conqueror Rollo.

She was the mother of William I Longsword and grandmother of Richard the Fearless, who forged the Duchy of Normandy into a great fief of medieval France.[3]

Dudo of Saint-Quentin, in his panegyric of the Norman dukes, describes her as the daughter of a "Count Berengar", the dominant prince of that region, who was captured at Bayeux by Rollo in 885 or 889.[4]

This has led to speculation that she was the daughter of Berengar II of Neustria. Despite the uncertainty of her parentage, she undoubtedly was a member of the Frankish aristocracy.[5]

A statue of Poppa stands at the Place de Gaulle in Bayeux.

Notes:

Married:
Poppa was captured in a raid and married to Rollo of Normandy.

Children:

774208. William of Normandy, I, Duke of Normandy was born in ~893 in Normandy, France; died on 17 Dec 942 in Piquigny, France.

1548420.

Gorm the Old, King of Denmark was born in 860 in Jellinge, Denmark; died in 931 in Jellinge, Denmark; was buried in Jellinge, Denmark.

Notes:

Gorm the Old (Danish: Gorm den Gamle, Old Norse: Gormr gamli, Latin: Gormus Senex[1][2]), also called Gorm the Languid (Danish: Gorm L²ge, Gorm den Dvaske), was the first historically recognized ruler of Denmark, reigning from c.? 936 to his death c.? 958.[3] He ruled from Jelling, and made the oldest of the Jelling Stones in honour of his wife Thyra. Gorm was born before 900 and died c.? 958.[3]

Ancestry and reign

Gorm is the reported son of semi-legendary Danish king Harthacnut. Chronicler Adam of Bremen says that Harthacnut came from Northmannia to Denmark and seized power in the early 10th century.[4] He deposed the young king Sigtrygg Gnupasson, reigning over Western Denmark.[3] When Harthacnut died, Gorm ascended the throne.

Heimskringla reports Gorm taking at least part of the kingdom by force from Gnupa, and Adam himself suggests that the kingdom had been divided prior to Gorm's time. Gorm is first mentioned as the host of Archbishop Unni of Hamburg and Bremen in 936.[4] According to the Jelling Stones, Gorm's son, Harald Bluetooth, "won all of Denmark", so it is speculated that Gorm only ruled Jutland from his seat in Jelling.[4]

Marriage to Thyra

Runic stone for Thyra, back side
Gorm married Thyra, who is given conflicting and chronologically dubious parentage by late sources, but no contemporary indication of her parentage survives. Gorm raised one of the great burial mounds at Jelling as well as the oldest of the Jelling Stones for her, calling her tanmarkar but ("Denmark's Salvation" or "Denmark's Adornment"). Gorm was the father of three sons, Toke, Knut and Harald, later King Harald Bluetooth.[5]

His wife, Thyra, is credited with the completion of the Danevirke, a wall between Denmark's southern border and its unfriendly Saxon neighbors to the south. The wall was not new, but it was expanded with a ditch and earthen foundation topped by a timber stockade above it. The Danevirke ran between the Schlei and the Treene river, across what is now Schleswig.[6]

Death, burial and reburial

Gorm died in the winter of 958–959[5] and dendrochronology shows that his burial chamber was made from wood of timbers felled in 958.[7] Arild Huitfeldt explains how in Danmarks Riges Kr²nike:[citation needed]

Runic stone for Thyra, front side
The three sons were Vikings in the truest sense, departing Denmark each summer to raid and pillage. Harald came back to the royal enclosure at Jelling with the news that his son Canute had been killed in an attempt to capture Dublin, Ireland. Canute was shot with a coward's arrow while watching some games at night. No one would tell the king in view of the oath the king had made. Queen Thyra ordered the royal hall hung with black cloth and that no one was to say a single word. When Gorm entered the hall, he was astonished and asked what the mourning colors meant. Queen Thyra spoke up: "Lord King, you had two falcons, one white and the other gray. The white one flew far afield and was set upon by other birds which tore off its beautiful feathers and is now useless to you. Meanwhile the gray falcon continues to catch fowl for the king's table." Gorm understood immediately the Queen's metaphor and cried out, "My son is surely dead, since all of Denmark mourns!" "You have said it, your majesty," Thyra announced, "Not I, but what you have said is true." According to the story Gorm was so grieved by Canute's death that he died the following day.

This account would contradict information on the Jelling Stones which point to Queen Thyra dying before Gorm. Some archaeologists and historians have suggested that Gorm was buried first in Queen Thyra's grave mound at Jelling, and later moved by his son, Harald Bluetooth, into the original wooden church in Jelling.[3] According to this theory it is believed, that the skeleton found at the site of the first Christian church of Jelling is in fact Gorm the Old, though the theory is still much debated. During the reign of Gorm, most Danes still worshipped the Norse gods, but during the reign of Gorm's son, Harold Bluetooth, Denmark officially converted to Christianity. Harald, accordingly, left the hill where Gorm had originally been interred as a memorial.

Legacy

Gorm was "old" in the sense that he was considered the traditional ancestral "head" of the Danish monarchy. Saxo Grammaticus in the Gesta Danorum asserts that Gorm was older than other monarchs and having lived so long was blind by the time his son Canute was killed.

end of biography

Gorm's pedigree: https://fabpedigree.com/s038/f790309.htm

end of comment

Buried:
Gormshoj, Jellinge, Vejle, Denmark

1548421.

Children:

774210. Harold Gormsen, VII, King of Denmark was born in ~0895 in Blauzahn, Bavaria, Schwaben, Germany; died on 1 Sep 0986 in Gormshoj, Denmark.

1548430.

Robert De Vermandois, Count of Meaux was born in 918 in (France) (son of Herbert de Vermandois, II, Count of Meaux and Hildebranda of France); died on 29 Aug 968 in Seine-et-Marne, France.

Notes:

Robert Carolingian Vermandois de Meaux, Count of Meaux, Count of Troyes, was born circa 920 to Herbert II de Vermandois (884-943) and Hildebranda of France (895-931) and died circa 968 in Seine-et-Marne, France of unspecified causes. He married Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967) . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.

Children

Offspring of Robert de Vermandois and Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Herbert III of Meaux (c950-995) 950 995
Adele of Meaux (c950-c980) 950 980 Lambert de Chalon (930-979)
Geoffrey I of Anjou (-987)

Adelaide de Troyes (c955-c991) 955 991 Charles, Duke of Lower Lorraine (953-993)
Noteworthy descendants include

William I of England (1027-1087)

Namesakes of Robert de Vermandois (918-968)

Birth place
Death place
Father
Mother
Joined with
Robert de Vermandois (918-968) Seine-et-Marne, France Herbert II de Vermandois (884-943) Hildebranda of France (895-931) Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967)
Robert I of Senlis (?-1004) Bernard of Senlis (919-947)
Robert II of Senlis (?-1028) Robert I of Senlis (?-1004)

Robert married Adelaide-Werra de Chaton in 953 in Vermandois, France. Adelaide-Werra was born in 920 in (France); died in 967 in (France). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1548431.

Adelaide-Werra de Chaton was born in 920 in (France); died in 967 in (France).

Notes:

Adele Carolingian of Meaux was born 950 to Robert de Vermandois (918-968) and Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967) and died 980 of unspecified causes. She married Lambert de Chalon (930-979) . She married Geoffrey I of Anjou (-987) . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]

The French Wikipedia has her first husband marry her mother,[1] which is unlikely, given her age. The same source has her a daughter Gerberge marry King Adalberto of Italy. This would make Adele a grandmother at the age of 12. However, in the reconstruction shown here, Adele is married to two men at once, with her youngest daughter from her first marriage born around 972 and her eldest daughter from her second marriage born around 965.

Note that Genealogie Quebec merges her with her sister.[2]

Children

Offspring of Adele of Meaux and Lambert de Chalon (930-979)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Hugh I de Chalon (?-1039)
Mahaut de Chalon (?-1019) Henri I de Bourgogne (c948-1002)
Geoffroi de Semur (?-c990)

Aelis of Chalon (?-?) Guy I de Macon (975-1006)

Elizabeth de Chalon (970-1014)

Offspring of Adele of Meaux and Geoffrey I of Anjou (-987)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Gottfried of Anjou (?-987) 987
Fulk III, Count of Anjou (972-1040) 972 21 June 1040 Metz, France âElisabeth de Vendãome (c979-999)
Hildegarde de Beaugency (c990-)

Ermengarde of Anjou (bef967-) 967 Conan I of Rennes (927-992)

Gerberge of Anjou (965-1041) 965 1041 Guillaume III Taillefer of Angoulãeme (960-1028)
^ wikipedia:fr:Lambert de Chalon
^ http://genealogiequebec.info/testphp/info.php?no=23981

Children:

774215. Adele of Meaux was born in ~950 in Meaux, France; died in ~980.

1421008.

Igor of Kiev, Prince of the Rus' was born in ~900 in (Kiev, Ukraine) (son of Rurik, Prince of Ladoga and Novgorod); died in 945 in Korosten, Ukraine.

Other Events and Attributes:

Religion: Norse Pagan

Notes:

Igor I (Old East Slavic: ?????, Igor'; Old Norse: Ingvar R²riksen; Ukrainian: ????, translit. Ihor ['i??r]; Russian: ?????, translit. Igor' ['ig?r?]; Belarusian: ????, translit. Ihar ['i?ar]) was a Varangian ruler of Kievan Rus' from 912 to 945. (Varangian defined: http://thehennesseefamily.com/showmedia.php?mediaID=3071&medialinkID=3073)

Ingvar the Rus
Prince of the Rus'
Igor RC.png
Ingvar the Rus. Illumination from the Radziwill Chronicle
Reign 914–945
Coronation 914
Predecessor Oleg
Successor Sviatoslav the Brave
Died 945
Iskorosten
Burial ?
Wife
Saint Olga
Issue Sviatoslav the Brave
Full name
Ingvar Roriksen
Dynasty Rurik Dynasty
Father Rurik
Religion Norse Pagan

Biography

Information about Igor comes mostly from the Primary Chronicle. This document has Igor as the son of Rurik, the first ruler of Kievan Rus':

6378–6387 (870–879). On his deathbed, Rurik bequeathed his realm to Oleg, who belonged to his kin, and entrusted to Oleg's hands his son Igor', for he was very young.

6388–6390 (880–882). Oleg set forth, taking with him many warriors from among the Varangians, the Chuds, the Slavs, the Merians and all the Krivichians. He thus arrived with his Krivichians before Smolensk, captured the city, and set up a garrison there. Thence he went on and captured Lyubech, where he also set up a garrison. He then came to the hills of Kiev, and saw how Askold and Dir reigned there. He hid his warriors in the boats, left some others behind, and went forward himself bearing the child Igor'. He thus came to the foot of the Hungarian hill, and after concealing his troops, he sent messengers to Askold and Dir, representing himself as a stranger on his way to Greece on an errand for Oleg and for Igor', the prince's son, and requesting that they should come forth to greet them as members of their race. Askold and Dir straightway came forth. Then all the soldiery jumped out of the boats, and Oleg said to Askold and Dir, "You are not princes nor even of princely stock, but I am of princely birth." Igor' was then brought forward, and Oleg announced that he was the son of Rurik. They killed Askold and Dir, and after carrying them to the hill, they buried them there, on the hill now known as Hungarian, where the castle of Ol'ma now stands.[1]

Igor' twice besieged Constantinople, in 941 and 944, and although Greek fire destroyed part of his fleet, he concluded with the Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine VII a favourable treaty (945), the text of which the chronicle has preserved. In 913 and 944 the Rus' plundered the Arabs in the Caspian Sea during the Caspian expeditions of the Rus', but it remains unclear whether Igor' had anything to do with these campaigns.

Prince Igor Exacting Tribute from the Drevlyans, by Klavdiy Lebedev (1852-1916).
Igor was killed while collecting tribute from the Drevlians in 945. The Byzantine historian and chronicler, Leo the Deacon (born ca 950), describes how Igor met his death: "They had bent down two birch trees to the prince's feet and tied them to his legs; then they let the trees straighten again, thus tearing the prince's body apart."[2] Igor's wife, Olga of Kiev, avenged his death by punishing the Drevlians. The Primary Chronicle blames his death on his own excessive greed, indicating that he tried to collect tribute for a second time in a month. As a result, Olga changed the system of tribute gathering (poliudie) in what may be regarded as the first legal reform recorded in Eastern Europe.

Controversy
Drastically revising the chronology of the Primary Chronicle, Constantin Zuckerman argues that Igor actually reigned for three years, between summer 941 and his death in early 945. He explains the epic 33-year span of his reign in the chronicle to be the result of its author's faulty interpretation of Byzantine sources.[3] Indeed, none of Igor's activities are recorded in the chronicle before 941.

See also

List of Ukrainian rulers
List of Russian rulers

References

Translated and edited by Cross, S. H. and Sherbowitz-Wetzor, O. P. (1953). "The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text" (PDF). Crimson Printing Company, Cambridge, Massachusetts. pp. 60–61. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
Tarasenko, Leonid (27 February 2008). "Korosten (Iskorosten): A small town with a great history". geocities.com. Archived from the original on 26 October 2009. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
Zuckerman, Constantin (1995). "On the Date of the Khazars' Conversion to Judaism and the Chronology of the Kings of the Rus Oleg and Igor: A Study of the Anonymous Khazar Letter from the Genizah of Cairo" (PDF). Volume 53. Revue des âetudes byzantines (1): 237–270. doi:10.3406/rebyz.1995.1906. ISSN 0766-5598. Retrieved 5 July 2016.

end of biography

Igor married Olga of Kiev in 903. Olga was born in (Pskov) Russia; died on 11 Jul 0969 in Kiev, Ukraine. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1421009.

Olga of Kiev was born in (Pskov) Russia; died on 11 Jul 0969 in Kiev, Ukraine.

Other Events and Attributes:

Religion: Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church

Notes:

Saint Olga (Church Slavonic: ?????, died 969 AD in Kiev) was a regent of Kievan Rus' for her son Svyatoslav from 945 until 960. She is known for her obliteration of the Drevlians, a tribe that had killed her husband Igor of Kiev. Even though it would be her grandson Vladimir that would convert the entire nation to Christianity, for her efforts to spread Christianity through the Rus' Olga is venerated as a saint. While her birthdate is unknown, it could be as early as AD 890 and as late as 5 June 925.[1]

Grand Princess of Kiev, Equal to the Apostles
Born Pskov
Died 11 July 969
Kiev
Venerated in Roman Catholicism
Eastern Catholicism, especially in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
Eastern Orthodoxy
Feast July 11/24

Early life
Olga was reportedly from Pskov. The Primary Chronicle gives 879 as her date of birth, which is unlikely, given the birth of her only son probably some 65 years after that date. She was, hypothetically, of Varangian extraction.

She married the future Igor of Kiev arguably in 903, but perhaps as early as 901-902.

Regency
After Igor's death on 945, Olga ruled Kievan Rus as regent on behalf of their son Svyatoslav.[2]

In 947, Princess Olga launched a punitive expedition against the tribal elites between the Luga and the Msta River.[3] Following this successful campaign, a number of forts were erected at Olga’s orders. One of them is supposed to be Gorodets in the Luga region[4] a fortification dated to the middle of the 10th century. Because of its isolated location, Gorodets does not seem to have been in any way associated with the pre-existing settlement pattern. Moreover, the fort produced another example of square timber frames designed to consolidate the rampart that was seen at Rurikovo Gorodische. The same building technique was in use a century later in the Novgorod fortifications.

Olga remained regent ruler of Kievan Rus with the support of the army and her people. She changed the system of tribute gathering (poliudie) in the first legal reform recorded in Eastern Europe. She continued to evade proposals of marriage, defended the city during the Siege of Kiev in 968, and saved the power of the throne for her son.

Drevlian Uprising

The following account is taken from the Primary Chronicle. Princess Olga was the wife of Igor of Kiev, who was killed by the Drevlians. At the time of her husband's death, their son Svyatoslav was three years old, making Olga the official ruler of Kievan Rus' until he reached adulthood. The Drevlians wanted Olga to marry their Prince Mal, making him the ruler of Kievan Rus', but Olga was determined to remain in power and preserve it for her son.

The Drevlians sent twenty of their best men to persuade Olga to marry their Prince Mal and give up her rule of Kievan Rus'. She had them buried alive. Then she sent word to Prince Mal that she accepted the proposal, but required their most distinguished men to accompany her on the journey in order for her people to accept the offer of marriage. The Drevlians sent the best men who governed their land. Upon their arrival, she offered them a warm welcome and an invitation to clean up after their long journey in a bathhouse. After they entered, she locked the doors and set fire to the building, burning them alive.

With the best and wisest men out of the way, she planned to destroy the remaining Drevlians. She invited them to a funeral feast so she could mourn over her husband's grave. Her servants waited on them, and after the Drevlians were drunk, Olga's soldiers killed over 5,000 of them.[2] She then placed the city under siege.[2] She asked for three pigeons and three sparrows from each house; she claimed she did not want to burden the villagers any further after the siege.[2] They were happy to comply with the request.

Now Olga gave to each soldier in her army a pigeon or a sparrow, and ordered them to attach by thread to each bird a piece of sulfur bound with small pieces of cloth. When night fell, Olga bade her soldiers release the pigeons and the sparrows. So the birds flew to their nests, the pigeons to the cotes, and the sparrows under the eaves. The dove-cotes, the coops, the porches, and the haymows were set on fire. There was not a house that was not consumed, and it was impossible to extinguish the flames because all the houses caught on fire at once. The people fled from the city, and Olga ordered her soldiers to catch them. Thus she took the city and burned it, and captured the elders of the city. Some of the other captives she killed, while some she gave as slaves to her followers. The remnant she left to pay tribute.[5]

The story, however, is most likely a myth.[2]

Relations with the Holy Roman Emperor

Seven Latin sources document Olga's embassy to Holy Roman Emperor Otto I in 959. The continuation of Regino of Prèum mentions that the envoys requested the emperor to appoint a bishop and priests for their nation. The chronicler accuses the envoys of lies, commenting that their trick was not exposed until later. Thietmar of Merseburg says that the first archbishop of Magdeburg, Saint Adalbert of Magdeburg, before being promoted to this high rank, was sent by Emperor Otto to the country of the Rus' (Rusciae) as a simple bishop but was expelled by pagan allies of Svyatoslav I. The same data is repeated in the annals of Quedlinburg and Hildesheim.

Christianity

Princess Olga meets the body of her husband. A sketch by Vasily Surikov.
Olga was the first ruler of Rus' to convert to Christianity, done in either 945 or 957. The ceremonies of her formal reception in Constantinople were detailed by Emperor Constantine VII in his book De Ceremoniis. Following her baptism, Olga took the Christian name Yelena, after the reigning Empress Helena Lekapena. The Slavonic chronicles add apocryphal details to the account of her baptism, such as the story of how she charmed and "outwitted" Constantine and spurned his proposals of marriage. In actuality, at the time of her baptism, Olga was an old woman, while Constantine already had a wife.

Olga was one of the first people of Rus' to be proclaimed a saint for her efforts to spread Christianity throughout the country. Because of her proselytizing influence, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church, and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church call Saint Olga by the honorific Isapâostolos, "Equal to the Apostles". She is also a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. However, she failed to convert Svyatoslav, and it was left to Vladimir I, her grandson and pupil, to make Christianity the lasting state religion. During her son's prolonged military campaigns, she remained in charge of Kiev, residing in the castle of Vyshgorod with her grandsons. She died in 969, soon after the Pechenegs' siege of the city.[6][7]

Gallery

Illuminations from the Radziwill Chronicle

Olga's revenge for her husband's death

Fourth revenge of Olga: Burning of Derevlian capital Iskorosten

Reception of Olga by Constantine VII

Notes

"Princess Olga of Kiev". Russiapedia. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
Clements 2012, p. 7.
Laurentian Codex (1997:60)
Lebedev 1982:225-238; Zalevskaia 1982:49-54
Russian Primary Chronicle
extracts of the Primary Chronicle in English translation, University of Oregon
Primary Sources - A collection of translated excerpts on Medieval Rus, University of Washington Faculty Web Server (November 6, 2004)
References
Clements, Barbara Evans (2012). A History of Women in Russia: From Earliest Times to the Present. Indiana University Press.
See also
Order of Princess Olga (established in Ukraine in 1997)
Christianization of Kievan Rus'
A Perfect Absolution - concept album by French band Gorod about Olga of Kiev
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Olga of Kiev.

end of biography

Children:

710504. Sviatoslav, I, Grand Prince of Kiev was born in ~941 in Kiev, Ukraine; died on 26 Mar 972 in Khortytsia, Dnieper, Ukraine.

1421012.

Ulf Tostesson, Jarl of Skara was born in 930 in Gothland, Sweden (son of Skagul Toste, King of Sweden); died in 950 in (Kiev, Ukraine).

Notes:

Ulf Tostesson was a jarl and the son of the legendary Viking Skogul Toste. He was the brother of Sigrid the Haughty, and his son, Ragnvald Ulfsson, a jarl, was the father of Stenkil, who was elected king when the old House of Munsèo died out.

end of biography

Ulf "den gamle" Tostesson
Born 0930 in Vestgotalnd, Sweden
ANCESTORS ancestors
Son of Skoglar Skagul Toste and [mother unknown]
Brother of Ulf (UNKNOWN) Tostesson av Skara and Sigrid Storrada
[spouse(s) unknown]
[children unknown]
Died 0950 in Sweden

Relationships between historical figures could have been simplified or even fabricated in the text to give the impression that succession remained within the same family….Precise chronology is also difficult to assess from the Sagas….The conclusion must be that the tight family network described in the Sagas is unlikely to be correct and that the relationships shown below should be treated with considerable caution.

Biography
(English below Swedish version.)

Ulf Tostesson var enligt de islèandska sagorna jarl och son till den legendariske vikingen Skoglar-Toste och bror till den historiskt omtvistade Sigrid Storrêada. Genom sonen Ragnvald Ulfsson pêastêas han ha varit farfar till Stenkil som blev vald till kung efter Emund den gamles dèod. Ulf ska ha varit gift med Ingeborg.

Fèodelse- och dèodsdatum fêar ses som vèaldigt osèakra. (Har lêatit dem vara kvar som en referens om vilket êarhundrade som avses). I originalbiografin fanns èaven "av Skara" i namnet

Barn: Ragnvald Ulfsson, (jarl av Vèastergèotland och uppgiven far till kung Stenkil av Svitjod)

Enligt svenska Wikipedia fèor "sonen" Ragnvald: Att Ragnvald hette Ulfsson och var jarl èar "fèorfalskningar" skapade av Snorre Sturlasson i Olav den heliges historia.[kèalla behèovs] Snorre uppger att Ragnvald var jarl i Skara i Vèastergèotland och bland annat fick en son vid namn Ulf som blev jarl. Austrfararvâisur èar en samtida (1000-tal) primèarkèalla och dèarmed mycket mer pêalitlig èan Snorres sekundèar/tertièara fantastiska kèallmaterial frêan 1200-tal.

Ulf Tostesson is said to be a "jarl" and the son of the legendary viking Skogul Toste. He was the brother of Sigrid the Haughty, and his son, Ragnvald Ulfsson, a jarl, was the father of Stenkil, who was elected king when the king Edmund died. Ulf is said to be married to Ingeborg.

The birth and death years should be considered as very uncertain. They should however be left to indicate what period of time this profile is referred to.

"Den gamle" translates to "the old/er".

There is some argumentation that the son Ragnvald really was a "jarl" and the son of Ulf, that it actually could be a "forgery" made by Snorre Sturlasson, it seems Snorre is the one mentioning that Ragnvald as a " jarl" in Skara (Vèastergèotland). Austrfararvâisur is an earlier source (1000-tal) that does not mention these facts.

Click here for EARLY KINGS OF SWEDEN [1] on WikiTree.

Sources

See also:

Book: Strinnholm, Anders Magnus (1834). Svenska folkets historia frêan èaldsta till nèarvarande tider. Bd 1, Skandinavien under hedna-êaldern, afd. 1. Stockholm. sid. 389. Libris 294689
Wikipedia pêa svenska:
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulf_Tostesson
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnvald_Ulfsson
Wikipedia in English:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulf_Tostesson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnvald_Ulfsson

Ulf married Ingeborg. Ingeborg was born in (Gothland, Sweden); died in (Kiev, Ukraine). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1421013.
Ingeborg was born in (Gothland, Sweden); died in (Kiev, Ukraine).
Children:

710506. Rogvolod, Prince of Polotsk was born in ~920 in Gothland, Sweden; died in 978 in Polotsk, Belarus.

2834832.

Donald of Scotland, II, King of Alba was born in (850-860) in (Scotland); died in 900 in Forres, Scotland; was buried in Isle of Iona, Scotland.

Notes:

Donald II (a.k.a. Domnall mac Causantâin and Domnall II) lived from 862 to 900 and was King of Alba from 889 to 900. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline.

Donald II was the son of King Constantine I of the Picts and Scots, and it is arguable that he should have succeeded to the throne on the death of his uncle, King Aedh. However, Aedh's murder in 878 was followed by the joint rule of Eochaid and Giric. In 889 Eochaid tried to gain sole control of the crown by commissioning Donald to kill Giric. This Donald did, at Dundurn near St Fillans at the eastern end of Loch Earn. He then went on to exile Eochaid, before taking the crown for himself.

However dubious Eochaid's claims to the Crown of the Picts and Scots had been, he claim to be King of Strathclyde was much stronger. When Eochaid was exiled by Donald II to Gwynedd in Wales most of the nobility of Strathclyde left with him, and Donald II combined the Crowns of the Picts and Scots and the Crown of Strathclyde, becoming the first person to be referred to in his own time as King of Alba. Alba had been an entity since the merging of the Crowns of the Picts and the Scots by Kenneth I in 843; but until Donald, Kings had taken the title King of Picts or King of the Picts and Scots.

Donald II's reign was a turbulent one. During it, much of northern Scotland fell under the control of the Vikings under Sigurd the Mighty. He was also the first Scottish King (though not the last) to be recorded as fighting against Highlanders.

Donald was killed in battle by the Danes at Dunnottar, in 900 and was buried in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel on the Isle of Iona. His successor was his cousin, King Constantine II. Donald's son, Malcolm, later became King Malcolm I.

end of biography

Domnall mac Causantâin (Modern Gaelic: Dáomhnall mac Cháoiseim),[1] anglicised as Donald II (died 900) was King of the Picts or King of Scotland (Alba) in the late 9th century. He was the son of Constantine I (Causantâin mac Cinâaeda). Donald is given the epithet Dâasachtach, "the Madman", by The Prophecy of Berchâan.[2]

Life

Donald became king on the death or deposition of Giric (Giric mac Dâungail), the date of which is not certainly known but usually placed in 889. The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba reports:

Doniualdus son of Constantini held the kingdom for 11 years [889–900]. The Northmen wasted Pictland at this time. In his reign a battle occurred between Danes and Scots at Innisibsolian where the Scots had victory. He was killed at Opidum Fother [modern Dunnottar] by the Gentiles.[3]

It has been suggested that the attack on Dunnottar, rather than being a small raid by a handful of pirates, may be associated with the ravaging of Scotland attributed to Harald Fairhair in the Heimskringla.[4] The Prophecy of Berchâan places Donald's death at Dunnottar, but appears to attribute it to Gaels rather than Norsemen; other sources report he died at Forres.[5] Donald's death is dated to 900 by the Annals of Ulster and the Chronicon Scotorum, where he is called king of Alba, rather than king of the Picts. He was buried on Iona. Like his father, Constantine, he died a violent death at a premature age.

The change from king of the Picts to king of Alba is seen as indicating a step towards the kingdom of the Scots, but historians, while divided as to when this change should be placed, do not generally attribute it to Donald in view of his epithet.[6] The consensus view is that the key changes occurred in the reign of Constantine II (Causantâin mac Áeda),[7] but the reign of Giric has also been proposed.[8]

The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba has Donald succeeded by his cousin Constantine II. Donald's son Malcolm (Mâael Coluim mac Domnall) was later king as Malcolm I. The Prophecy of Berchâan appears to suggest that another king reigned for a short while between Donald II and Constantine II, saying "half a day will he take sovereignty". Possible confirmation of this exists in the Chronicon Scotorum, where the death of "Ead, king of the Picts" in battle against the Uâi Ímair is reported in 904. This, however, is thought to be an error, referring perhaps to ¥dwulf, the ruler of Bernicia, whose death is reported in 913 by the other Irish annals.[9]

end of biography

Timeline: Prehistory to 1000

8500 BC: The date of the oldest human settlement yet found in Scotland, at Cramond, near Edinburgh.

3000 BC: Maeshowe chambered tomb is built on Orkney.

3000 BC: Alleged date of origin of the Fortingall Yew, probably the world's oldest living thing.

3000 BC: Occupation of what may be the first Crannog or artificial islet residence, on the islet Eilean Domhnuill on Loch Olabhat in North Uist.

2500 BC to 2000 BC: Stone village of Skara Brae on Orkney in occupation.

1400 BC: The era of Scota, the daughter of an Egyptian Pharaoh, who features in the foundation myth of Ireland an Scotland, and who Scotland is named after.

500 BC: Crannogs, houses built on stilts or artificial islets, begin to appear widely on Scottish lochs.

200 BC: According to Irish legend, the "School for Heroes" is run by the warrior queen Scâathach, or Sgathach, at her fortress Dâun Scâaith, near Tarskavaig on Skye.

200 BC to AD 200: Building and occupation of Brochs, circular stone defensive towers.

20 BC: Pontius Pilate, later to become the Prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, is born at Fortingall.

AD 80: Julius Agricola Roman Governor of Britain, invades Scotland, reaching a line between the Rivers Clyde and Forth by AD 82.

AD 83: Julius Agricola invades northern Scotland.

AD 84: The Battle of Mons Graupius takes place at a location still uncertain. The Romans under Julius Agricola convincingly defeat the Caledonians under Calgacus. They fail to press home their advantage, however, and instead establish a defensive line of forts extending north east from Loch Lomond to Stonehaven to guard the exits from the main highland glens.

AD 105: The Romans withdraw from Scotland to a defensive line between the Rivers Solway and Tyne. This is fortified as Hadrian's Wall from AD 121.

AD 139: The Romans advance again, to a line between the Forth and Clyde and build the Antonine Wall.

AD 170: The Romans withdraw to Hadrian's Wall once more.

AD 208: Roman Emperor Septimius Severus launches the last campaign intended to conquer Scotland, establishing a major base at Cramond, on the site of a fort built in AD 142.

AD 211: Septimius Severus dies in York. His successor Caracalla abandons territory north of Hadrians Wall and in 212 the Romans withdraw from what will later become Scotland for the final time.

AD 250: The first raids take place in western Scotland by the strong Irish tribe, the Scots.

AD 367: The Picti, or the Picts, push the Romans back from Hadrian's Wall. "Picti" is the Romans' disparaging slang for their northern neighbours, meaning the painted (or tattooed) ones.

AD 397: Saint Ninian dedicates the first Christian church in Scotland, the Candida Casa at Whithorn, to St Martin.

AD 500: Increased migration of Scoti or Scots from Ireland to Scotland leads to the establishment of the kingdom of Dalriada in what is now Argyll, with its capital at Dunadd in Kilmartin Glen.

AD 500: King of the Scots of Dalriada, Fergus Mor fights both the Picts to the east and the Britons of Strathclyde to the south for land.

10 March 520: St Kessog, the original patron saint of Scotland, is killed at Bandry, on the western shore of Loch Lomond.

7 December 521: The birth in County Donegal in Ireland of the man who would go on to become Saint Columba.

AD 550: The Angles establish Bernicia, later called Northumbria, with boundaries extending south to Yorkshire.

AD 552: St Mungo or St Kentigern founds a church on part of the site that later became Glasgow Cathedral.

AD 562: St Moluag founds a settlement on the Isle of Lismore in the mouth of Loch Linnhe.

12 May 563: Saint Columba and twelve companions land on the island of Iona to establish a monastery.

25 June 592: St Moluag dies in Rosemarkie.

9 June 597: St Columba dies in his monastery at Iona.

13 January 614: St Mungo or St Kentigern dies, and is buried at his church in Clas-gu which later becomes Glasgow.

17 April 617: Saint Donan and 52 of his followers are murdered during a raid on their monastery on the Island of Eigg.

AD 638: Edinburgh - Din Eidyn - is overrun by the Angles of the Kingdom of Northumbria.

3 January 642: The birth in Ireland of Saint Maelrubha, a monk who founded a monastery at what is now Applecross.

5 August 642: The death at the Battle of Maserfield (near modern Oswestry) of King Oswald of Northumbria, later known as St Oswald.

31 August 651: The death in what is now St Aidan's Church in Bamburgh of St Aidan of Lindisfarne, the Apostle of Northumbria.

AD 672: A Pictish uprising against the Kingdom of Northumbria is suppressed.

AD 678: St Nathalan dies on Deeside.

Clickable Index Map

8500 BC: The date of the oldest human settlement yet found in Scotland, at Cramond, near Edinburgh.

3000 BC: Maeshowe chambered tomb is built on Orkney.

3000 BC: Alleged date of origin of the Fortingall Yew, probably the world's oldest living thing.

3000 BC: Occupation of what may be the first Crannog or artificial islet residence, on the islet Eilean Domhnuill on Loch Olabhat in North Uist.

2500 BC to 2000 BC: Stone village of Skara Brae on Orkney in occupation.

1400 BC: The era of Scota, the daughter of an Egyptian Pharaoh, who features in the foundation myth of Ireland an Scotland, and who Scotland is named after.

500 BC: Crannogs, houses built on stilts or artificial islets, begin to appear widely on Scottish lochs.

200 BC: According to Irish legend, the "School for Heroes" is run by the warrior queen Scâathach, or Sgathach, at her fortress Dâun Scâaith, near Tarskavaig on Skye.

200 BC to AD 200: Building and occupation of Brochs, circular stone defensive towers.

20 BC: Pontius Pilate, later to become the Prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, is born at Fortingall.

AD 80: Julius Agricola Roman Governor of Britain, invades Scotland, reaching a line between the Rivers Clyde and Forth by AD 82.

AD 83: Julius Agricola invades northern Scotland.

AD 84: The Battle of Mons Graupius takes place at a location still uncertain. The Romans under Julius Agricola convincingly defeat the Caledonians under Calgacus. They fail to press home their advantage, however, and instead establish a defensive line of forts extending north east from Loch Lomond to Stonehaven to guard the exits from the main highland glens.

AD 105: The Romans withdraw from Scotland to a defensive line between the Rivers Solway and Tyne. This is fortified as Hadrian's Wall from AD 121.

AD 139: The Romans advance again, to a line between the Forth and Clyde and build the Antonine Wall.

AD 170: The Romans withdraw to Hadrian's Wall once more.

AD 208: Roman Emperor Septimius Severus launches the last campaign intended to conquer Scotland, establishing a major base at Cramond, on the site of a fort built in AD 142.

AD 211: Septimius Severus dies in York. His successor Caracalla abandons territory north of Hadrians Wall and in 212 the Romans withdraw from what will later become Scotland for the final time.

AD 250: The first raids take place in western Scotland by the strong Irish tribe, the Scots.

AD 367: The Picti, or the Picts, push the Romans back from Hadrian's Wall. "Picti" is the Romans' disparaging slang for their northern neighbours, meaning the painted (or tattooed) ones.

AD 397: Saint Ninian dedicates the first Christian church in Scotland, the Candida Casa at Whithorn, to St Martin.

AD 500: Increased migration of Scoti or Scots from Ireland to Scotland leads to the establishment of the kingdom of Dalriada in what is now Argyll, with its capital at Dunadd in Kilmartin Glen.

AD 500: King of the Scots of Dalriada, Fergus Mor fights both the Picts to the east and the Britons of Strathclyde to the south for land.

10 March 520: St Kessog, the original patron saint of Scotland, is killed at Bandry, on the western shore of Loch Lomond.

7 December 521: The birth in County Donegal in Ireland of the man who would go on to become Saint Columba.

AD 550: The Angles establish Bernicia, later called Northumbria, with boundaries extending south to Yorkshire.

AD 552: St Mungo or St Kentigern founds a church on part of the site that later became Glasgow Cathedral.

AD 562: St Moluag founds a settlement on the Isle of Lismore in the mouth of Loch Linnhe.

12 May 563: Saint Columba and twelve companions land on the island of Iona to establish a monastery.

25 June 592: St Moluag dies in Rosemarkie.

9 June 597: St Columba dies in his monastery at Iona.

13 January 614: St Mungo or St Kentigern dies, and is buried at his church in Clas-gu which later becomes Glasgow.

17 April 617: Saint Donan and 52 of his followers are murdered during a raid on their monastery on the Island of Eigg.

AD 638: Edinburgh - Din Eidyn - is overrun by the Angles of the Kingdom of Northumbria.

3 January 642: The birth in Ireland of Saint Maelrubha, a monk who founded a monastery at what is now Applecross.

5 August 642: The death at the Battle of Maserfield (near modern Oswestry) of King Oswald of Northumbria, later known as St Oswald.

31 August 651: The death in what is now St Aidan's Church in Bamburgh of St Aidan of Lindisfarne, the Apostle of Northumbria.

AD 672: A Pictish uprising against the Kingdom of Northumbria is suppressed.

AD 678: St Nathalan dies on Deeside.

20 May 685: The Battle of Dunnichen or Nechtansmere, near Forfar. King Ecgfrith of Northumbria is decisively defeated by the Picts, paving the way for the development of a separate Scottish nation. The battle is later depicted on a cross slab at Aberlemno Kirk.

20 March 687: The death on Inner Farne Island of St Cuthbert, the a monk, bishop and hermit regarded as the patron saint of northern England.

23 September 704: The death of Adomnâan of Iona, also known as Saint Adomnâan. He was Abbot of Iona, the author of the Life of Columba and the promoter of the hugely influential Law of Adomnâan.

6 March 757: The death on Bass Rock of Saint Baldred of Tyninghame.

8 June 793: The monastery at Lindisfarne suffers its first raid by Vikings. Others will follow, leading to the abandonment of the monastery in 875.

795: First recorded Viking raid (probably from Orkney), on Iona, which is raided twice more in the following decade.

839: The Picts, who have controlled all of Scotland north of the Forth and Clyde except for Argyll, suffer a heavy defeat at the hands of the Vikings. Most of the Pictish nobility is wiped out in the defeat, including King Bridei VI.

843: Kenneth Mac Alpin becomes King of the Scots of Dalriada; and later becomes King of the Picts of Pictland as well, unifying the main groups in Scotland north of the Forth-Clyde line for the first time within the Kingdom of Alba.

850: Viking pressure leads to the relocation of the capital of Alba from Argyll to Scone, near Perth. The religious centre, and the relics of St Columba, moves from Iona to Dunkeld.

850: Kenneth Mac Alpin, also known as Kenneth I, raids Northumbria six times in the 850s.

858: Kenneth Mac Alpin is succeeded by Donald I.

863: Donald I is succeeded by Constantine I.

870: Following a 15 week siege the Vikings capture the fortress at Dumbarton Rock guarding the entrance to the Clyde and the British Kingdom of Strathclyde.

872: Constantine I arranges the death of the King of Strathclyde in 872. He replaces him with his own brother in law, Rhun: effectively making Strathclyde a subordinate kingdom to Alba.

877: Constantine I is succeeded by King Aedh.

878: King Aedh is succeeded by the joint rule of Kings Eochaid and Giric.

889: Kings Eochaid and Giric are succeeded by Donald II.

890: The Vikings capture the Pictish fortress at Dunnottar, near Stonehaven.

900: Constantine II succeeds Donald II and helps incorporate Viking settlers into the emerging Kingdom of Scotland.

937: A joint army comprising Constantine II's Scots and Olaf III Guthfrithson's Vikings is defeated at the Battle of Brunanburh by King Athelstan of England in 937: largely securing the future of what is to become England.

943: Constantine II is succeeded by Malcolm I.

945: Edmund, a Danish King ruling Northumbria, gives Cumbria to Malcolm I of Scotland in return for military support.

954: Malcolm I is succeeded by King Indulf.

962: King Indulf is succeeded by King Duff.

967: King Duff is succeeded by King Culen.

971: King Culen is succeeded by Kenneth II.

995: Kenneth II is succeeded by Constantine III.

997: Constantine III is succeeded by Kenneth III.

end of timeline

Died:
A brief history and overview of Forres; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forres

The earliest written reference to Forres may be the ????a? e?s??s?? (Ouâarar eâischysis, 'Varar Estuary') mentioned in the second century Geography of Claudius Ptolemy. A royal castle was present in the area from at least 900 AD, and around 1140 AD Forres became a royal burgh. Royal burghs were founded by the Kings of Scots of the 12th century to encourage trade and economic improvement. The local abbey was plundered by the Wolf of Badenoch.

On 23 June 1496 King James IV of Scotland issued a Royal Charter laying down the rights and privileges that the town's people are believed to have held by an earlier charter since the reign of King David I some 300 years earlier.

Buried:
was buried in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel... https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/iona/storanschapel/index.html

View images and more history of St Oran's; https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/iona/storanschapel/index.html, (images: https://www.google.com/search?q=Saint+Oran%27s+Chapel+image&client=firefox-b-1-ab&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjcxPKjgIraAhUL71MKHcCmCYoQ7AkIQA&biw=1224&bih=826)

Donald married unnamed spouse. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

2834833.
unnamed spouse
Children:

1417416. Malcolm I of Scotland, King of Alba was born in 897 in Scotland; died in 954 in Auldearn, Scotland; was buried in Isle of Iona, Scotland.

2841664.

Notes:

Edward the Elder (c. 874 – 17 July 924) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death. He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith. When Edward succeeded, he had to defeat a challenge from his cousin ¥thelwold, who had a strong claim to the throne as the son of Alfred's elder brother and predecessor as king, ¥thelred.

Alfred had succeeded ¥thelred as king of Wessex in 871, and almost faced defeat against the Danish Vikings until his decisive victory at the Battle of Edington in 878. After the battle, the Vikings still ruled Northumbria, East Anglia and eastern Mercia, with only Wessex and western Mercia under Anglo-Saxon control. In the early 880s ¥thelred, Lord of the Mercians, the ruler of western Mercia, accepted Alfred's lordship and married his daughter ¥thelflµd, and around 886 Alfred adopted the new title 'King of the Anglo-Saxons' as the ruler of all Anglo-Saxons not subject to Danish rule.

In 910 a Mercian and West Saxon army inflicted a decisive defeat on an invading Northumbrian army, ending the threat from the northern Vikings. In the 910s, Edward conquered Viking ruled southern England in partnership with his sister ¥thelflµd, who had succeeded as Lady of the Mercians following the death of her husband in 911. Historians dispute how far Mercia was dominated by Wessex during this period, and after ¥thelflµd's death in June 918 her daughter ¥lfwynn briefly became second Lady of the Mercians, but in December Edward took her into Wessex and imposed direct rule on Mercia. By the end of the 910s he ruled Wessex, Mercia and East Anglia, and only Northumbria remained under Viking rule. In 924 he faced a Mercian and Welsh revolt at Chester, and after putting it down he died at Farndon in Cheshire on 17 July 924. He was succeeded by his eldest son ¥thelstan.

Edward has been described as "perhaps the most neglected of English kings", partly because few primary sources for his reign survive. His reputation among historians rose in the late twentieth century, and he is seen as destroying the power of the Vikings in southern England, and laying the foundations for a south-centred united English kingdom.

King of the Anglo-Saxons
Reign 26 October 899 – 17 July 924
Coronation 8 June 900 Kingston upon Thames or Winchester
Predecessor Alfred the Great
Successor ¥thelstan
Born c.?874
Died 17 July 924
Farndon, Cheshire, England
Burial New Minster, Winchester, later translated to Hyde Abbey
Spouse Ecgwynn
¥lfflµd
Eadgifu
Issue
Detail
See list[show]
House Wessex
Father Alfred the Great
Mother Ealhswith

Background

Mercia was the dominant kingdom in southern England in the eighth century and maintained its position until it suffered a decisive defeat by Wessex at the Battle of Ellandun in 825. Thereafter the two kingdoms became allies, which was to be an important factor in English resistance to the Vikings.[1] In 865 the Danish Viking Great Heathen Army landed in East Anglia and used this as a starting point for an invasion. The East Anglians were forced to buy peace and the following year the Vikings invaded Northumbria, where they appointed a puppet king in 867. They then moved on Mercia, where they spent the winter of 867–868. King Burgred of Mercia was joined by King ¥thelred of Wessex and his brother, the future King Alfred, for a combined attack on the Vikings, who refused an engagement; in the end the Mercians bought peace with them. The following year, the Danes conquered East Anglia, and in 874 they expelled King Burgred, and Ceolwulf became the last King of Mercia with their support. In 877 the Vikings partitioned Mercia, taking the eastern regions for themselves and allowing Ceolwulf to keep the western ones. The situation was transformed the following year when Alfred won a decisive victory over the Danes at the Battle of Edington. He was thus able to prevent the Vikings from taking Wessex and western Mercia, although they still occupied Northumbria, East Anglia and eastern Mercia.[2]

Childhood

A page from the will of Alfred the Great, which left the bulk of his estate to Edward
Alfred the Great married Ealhswith in 868. Her father was ¥thelred Mucel, Ealdorman of the Gaini, and her mother, Eadburh, was a member of the Mercian royal family. Alfred and Ealhswith had five children who survived childhood. The oldest was ¥thelflµd, who married ¥thelred, Lord of the Mercians, and ruled as Lady of the Mercians after his death. Edward was next, and the second daughter, ¥thelgifu, became abbess of Shaftesbury. The third daughter, ¥lfthryth, married Baldwin, Count of Flanders, and the younger son, ¥thelweard, was given a scholarly education, including learning Latin. This would usually suggest that he was intended for the church, but it is unlikely in ¥thelweard's case as he had sons. There were also an unknown number of children who died young. Neither part of Edward's name, which means 'protector of wealth', had been used previously by the West Saxon royal house, and Barbara Yorke suggests that he may have been named after his maternal grandmother Eadburh, reflecting the West Saxon policy of strengthening links with Mercia.[3]

¥thelflµd was probably born about a year after her parents' marriage, and Edward was brought up with his youngest sister, ¥lfthryth. Yorke argues that he was therefore probably nearer in age to ¥lfthryth than ¥thelflµd. However, he led troops in battle in 893, and he must have been of marriagable age in that year as his oldest son ¥thelstan was born about 894, so Edward was probably born in the mid-870s.[4] According to Asser in his Life of King Alfred, Edward and ¥lfthryth were educated at court by male and female tutors, and read ecclesiastical and secular works in English, such as the Psalms and Old English poems. They were taught the courtly qualities of gentleness and humility, and Asser wrote that they were obedient to their father and friendly to visitors. This is the only known case of an Anglo-Saxon prince and princess receiving the same upbringing.[5]

¥theling

As a son of a king, Edward was an µtheling, a prince of the royal house who was eligible for kingship. However, even though he had the advantage of being the eldest son of the reigning king, his accession was not assured, as he had cousins who had a strong claim to the throne. ¥thelhelm and ¥thelwold were sons of ¥thelred, Alfred's older brother and predecessor as king, but they had been passed over because they were infants when their father died. More is known about Edward's childhood than about that of other Anglo-Saxon princes, providing information about the training of a prince in a period of Carolingian influence, and Yorke suggest that we may know so much due to Alfred's efforts to portray his son as the most throneworthy µtheling.[6]

¥thelhelm is only recorded in Alfred's will of the mid-880s, and probably died at some time in the next decade, but ¥thelwold is listed above Edward in the only charter where he appears, probably indicating a higher status. ¥thelwold may also have had an advantage because his mother Wulfthryth witnessed a charter as queen, whereas Edward's mother Ealhswith never had a higher status than king's wife.[7] However, Alfred was in a position to give his own son considerable advantages. In his will, he only left a handful of estates to his brother's sons, and the bulk of his property to Edward, including all his booklands (landed vested in a charter which could be alienated by the holder, as opposed to folkland, which had to pass to heirs of the body) in Kent.[8] Alfred also advanced men who could be depended on to support his plans for his succession, such as his brother-in-law, a Mercian ealdorman called ¥thelwulf, and his son-in-law ¥thelred. Edward witnessed several of his father's charters, and often accompanied him on royal peregrinations.[9] In a Kentish charter of 898 Edward witnessed as rex Saxonum, suggesting that Alfred may have followed the strategy adopted by his grandfather Egbert of strengthening his son's claim to succeed to the West Saxon throne by making him sub-king of Kent.[10]

Once Edward grew up Alfred was able to give him military commands and experience of royal business.[11] The English defeated renewed Viking attacks in 893 to 896, and in Richard Abels' view, the glory belonged to ¥thelred and Edward rather than Alfred himself. In 893 Edward defeated the Vikings in the Battle of Farnham, although he was unable to follow up his victory as his troops' period of service had expired and he had to release them. The situation was saved by the arrival of troops from London led by ¥thelred.[12] Yorke argues that although Alfred packed the witan with members whose interests lay in the continuation of Alfred's line, that may not have been sufficient to ensure Edward's accession if he had not displayed his fitness for kingship.[13]

In about 893 Edward probably married Ecgwynn, who bore him two children, the future King ¥thelstan and a daughter who married Sitric, a Viking King of York. The twelfth-century chronicler William of Malmesbury described Ecgwynn as an illustris femina, and stated that Edward chose ¥thelstan as his heir as king. She may have been related to St Dunstan, the aristocratic tenth-century Archbishop of Canterbury. However, William also stated that ¥thelstan's accession in 924 was opposed by a nobleman who claimed that his mother was a concubine of low birth.[14] The suggestion that Ecgwynn was Edward's mistress is accepted by some historians such as Simon Keynes and Richard Abels,[15] but Yorke and ¥thelstan's biographer, Sarah Foot, disagree, arguing that the allegations should be seen in the context of the disputed succession in 924, and were not an issue in the 890s.[16] Ecgwynn probably died by 899, as around the time of Alfred's death Edward married ¥lfflµd, the daughter of Ealdorman ¥thelhelm, probably of Wiltshire.[17]

Janet Nelson suggests that there was conflict between Alfred and Edward in the 890s. She points out that the contemporary Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, produced under court auspices in the 890s, does not mention Edward's military successes. These are only known from the late tenth century chronicle of ¥thelweard, such as his account of the Battle of Farnham, in which in Nelson's view "Edward's military prowess, and popularity with a following of young warriors, are highlighted". Towards the end of his life Alfred invested his young grandson ¥thelstan in a ceremony which historians see as designation as eventual successor to the kingship. Nelson argues that while this may have been proposed by Edward to support the accession of his own son, on the other hand it may have been intended by Alfred as part of a scheme to divide the kingdom between his son and grandson. ¥thelstan was sent to be brought up in Mercia by ¥thelflµd and ¥thelred, but it is not known whether this was Alfred's idea or Edward's. Alfred's wife Ealhswith was ignored in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in her husband's lifetime, but emerged from obscurity when her son acceded. This may be because she supported her son against her husband.[18]

¥thelwold's revolt

Further information: ¥thelwold's Revolt; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86thelwold%27s_Revolt

Coin of Edward the Elder
Alfred died on 26 October 899 and Edward succeeded to the throne, but ¥thelwold disputed the succession.[19] He seized the royal estates of Wimborne, symbolically important as the place where his father was buried, and Christchurch. Edward marched with his army to the nearby Iron Age hillfort at Badbury Rings. ¥thelwold declared that he would live or die at Wimborne, but then left in the night and rode to Northumbria, where the Danes accepted him as king.[20] Edward was crowned on 8 June 900 at Kingston upon Thames or Winchester.[a]

In 901, ¥thelwold came with a fleet to Essex, and the following year he persuaded the East Anglian Danes to invade English Mercia and northern Wessex, where his army looted and then returned home. Edward retaliated by ravaging East Anglia, but when he retreated the men of Kent disobeyed the order to retire, and were intercepted by the Danish army. The two sides met at the Battle of the Holme (perhaps Holme in Huntingdonshire) on 13 December 902. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Danes "kept the place of slaughter", meaning that they won the battle, but they suffered heavy losses, including ¥thelwold and a King Eohric, possibly of the East Anglian Danes. Kentish losses included Sigehelm, ealdorman of Kent and father of Edward's third wife, Eadgifu. ¥thelwold's death ended the threat to Edward's throne.[22]

King of the Anglo-Saxons

In London in 886 Alfred had received the formal submission of "all the English people that were not under subjection to the Danes", and thereafter he adopted the title Anglorum Saxonum rex (King of the Anglo-Saxons), which is used in his later charters and all but two of Edward's. This is seen by Keynes as "the invention of a wholly new and distinctive polity", covering both West Saxons and Mercians, which was inherited by Edward with the support of Mercians at the West Saxon court, of whom the most important was Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury. In 903 Edward issued several charters concerning land in Mercia. Three of them are witnessed by the Mercian leaders and their daughter ¥lfwynn, and they all contain a statement that ¥thelred and ¥thelflµd "then held rulership and power over the race of the Mercians, under the aforesaid king". Other charters were issued by the Mercian leades which did not contain any acknowledgment of Edward's authority, but they did not issue their own coinage.[23] This view of Edward's status is accepted by Martin Ryan, who states that ¥thelred and ¥thelflµd had "a considerable but ultimately subordinate share of royal authority" in English Mercia.[24]

Other historians disagree. Pauline Stafford describes ¥thelflµd as "the last Mercian queen",[25] while in Charles Insley's view Mercia kept its independence until ¥thelflµd's death in 918.[26] Michael Davidson contrasts the 903 charters with one of 901 in which the Mercian rulers were "by grace of God, holding, governing and defending the monarchy of the Mercians". Davidson comments that "the evidence for Mercian subordination is decidedly mixed. Ultimately, the ideology of the 'Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons' may have been less successful in achieving the absorption of Mercia and more something which I would see as a murky political coup." The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was compiled at the West Saxon court from the 890s, and the entries for the late ninth and early tenth centuries are seen by historians as reflecting the West Saxon viewpoint; Davidson observes that "Alfred and Edward possessed skilled 'spin doctors'".[27] However, some versions of the Chronicle incorporate part of a lost Mercian Register, which gives a Mercian perspective and details of ¥thelfµd's campaign against the Vikings.[24]

In the late ninth and early tenth centuries connection with the West Saxon royal house was seen as prestigious by continental rulers. In the mid-890s Alfred had married his daughter ¥lfthryth to Baldwin II of Flanders, and in 919 Edward married his daughter Eadgifu to Charles the Simple, King of West Francia. In 925, after Edward's death, another daughter Eadgyth married Otto, the future King of Germany and (after Eadgyth's death) Holy Roman Emperor.[28]

Conquest of the southern Danelaw

No battles are recorded between the Anglo-Saxons and the Danish Vikings for several years after the Battle of the Holme, but in 906 Edward agreed peace with the East Anglian and Northumbrian Danes, suggesting that there had been conflict. According to one version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle he made peace "of necessity", which implies that he was forced to buy them off.[19] He encouraged Englishmen to purchase land in Danish territory, and two charters survive relating to estates in Bedfordshire and Derbyshire.[29] In 909 Edward sent a combined West Saxon and Mercian army which harassed the Northumbria]]n Danes, and seized the bones of the Northumbrian royal saint Oswald from Bardney Abbey in [[Lincolnshire. Oswald was translated to a new Mercian minster established by ¥thelred and ¥thelfµd in Gloucester and the Danes were compelled to accept peace on Edward's terms.[30] In the following year, the Northumbrian Danes retaliated by raiding Mercia, but on their way home they were met by a combined Mercian and West Saxon army at the Battle of Tettenhall, where the Vikings suffered a disastrous defeat. After that, the Northumbrian Danes never ventured south of the River Humber, and Edward and his Mercian allies were able to concentrate on conquering the southern Danelaw in East Anglia and the Five Boroughs of Viking east Mercia: Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stamford.[19] In 911 ¥thelred, Lord of the Mercians, died, and Edward took control of the Mercian lands around London and Oxford. ¥thelred was succeeded as ruler by his widow ¥thelflµd as Lady of the Mercians, and she had probably been acting as ruler for several years as ¥thelred seems to have been incapacitated in later life.[31]

Edward and ¥thelflµd then began the construction of fortresses to guard against Viking attacks and protect territory captured from them. In November 911 he constructed a fort on the north bank of the River Lea at Hertford to guard against attack by the Danes of Bedford and Cambridge. In 912 he marched with his army to Maldon in Essex, and ordered the building of a fort at Witham and a second fort at Hertford, which protected London from attack and encouraged many English living under Danish rule in Essex to submit to him. In 913 there was a pause in his activities, although ¥thelflµd continued her fortress building in Mercia.[32] In 914 a Viking army sailed from Brittany and ravaged the Severn estuary. It then attacked Ergyng in south-east Wales (now Archenfield in Herefordshire) and captured Bishop Cyfeilliog. Edward ransomed him for the large sum of forty pounds of silver. The Vikings were defeated by the armies of Hereford and Gloucester, and gave hostages and oaths to keep the peace. Edward kept an army on the south side of the estuary in case the Vikings broke their promises, and he twice had to repel attacks. In the autumn the Vikings moved on to Ireland. The episode suggests that south-east Wales fell within the West Saxon sphere of power, unlike Brycheiniog just to the north, where Mercia was dominant.[33] In late 914 Edward built two forts at Buckingham, and Earl Thurketil, the leader of the Danish army at Bedford submitted to him. The following year he occupied Bedford, and constructed another fortification on the south bank of the River Great Ouse against a Viking one on the north bank. In 916 Edward returned to Essex and built a fort at Maldon to bolster the defence of Witham. He also helped Earl Thurketil and his followers to leave England, reducing the number of Viking armies in the Midlands.[34]

The decisive year in the war was 917. In April Edward built a fort at Towcester as a defence against the Danes of Northampton, and another at an unidentified place called Wigingamere. The Danes launched unsuccessful attacks on Towcester, Bedford and Wigingamere, while ¥thelflµd captured Derby, showing the value of the English defensive measures, which were aided by disunity and a lack of coordination among the Viking armies. The Danes had built their own fortress at Tempsford in Bedfordshire, but at the end of the summer the English stormed it and killed the last Danish king of East Anglia. The English then took Colchester, although they did not try to hold it. The Danes retaliated by sending a large army to lay siege to Maldon, but the garrison held out until it was relieved and the retreating army was heavily defeated. Edward then returned to Towcester and reinforced its fort with a stone wall, and the Danes of nearby Northampton submitted to him. The armies of Cambridge and East Anglia also submitted, and by the end of the year the only Danish armies still holding out were those of four of the Five Boroughs, Leicester, Stamford, Nottingham, and Lincoln.[35]

In early 918, ¥thelflµd secured the submission of Leicester without a fight, and the Danes of Northumbrian York offered her their allegiance, probably for protection against Norse (Norwegian) Vikings who had invaded Northumbria from Ireland, but she died on 12 June before she could take up the proposal. The same offer is not known to have been made to Edward, and the Norse Vikings took York in 919. According to the main West Saxon version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, after ¥thelflµd's death the Mercians submitted to Edward, but the Mercian version (the Mercian Register) states that in December 918 her daughter ¥lfwynn, "was deprived of all authority in Mercia and taken into Wessex". Mercia may have made a bid for continued semi-independence which was suppressed by Edward, and it then came under his direct rule. Stamford had surrendered to Edward before ¥thelflµd's death, and Nottingham did the same shortly afterwards. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 918, "all the people who had settled in Mercia, both Danish and English, submitted to him". This would mean that he ruled all England south of the Humber, but it is not clear whether Lincoln was an exception, as coins of Viking York in the early 920s were probably minted at Lincoln.[36] Some Danish jarls were allowed to keep their estates, although Edward probably also rewarded his supporters with land, and some he kept in his own hands. Coin evidence suggests that his authority was stronger in the East Midlands than in East Anglia.[37] Three Welsh kings, Hywel Dda, Clydog and Idwal Foel, who had previously been subject to ¥thelflµd, now gave their allegiance to Edward.[38]

Coinage

The principal currency was the silver penny, and some coins carried a stylised portrait of the king. Royal coins had "EADVVEARD REX" on the obverse and the name of the moneyer on the reverse. The places of issue were not shown in his reign, but they were in that of his son ¥thelstan, allowing the location of many moneyers of Edward's reign to be established. There were mints in Bath, Canterbury, Chester, Chichester, Derby, Exeter, Hereford, London, Oxford, Shaftesbury, Shrewsbury, Southampton, Stafford, Wallingford, Wareham, Winchester and probably other towns. No coins were struck in the name of ¥thelred or ¥thelflµd, but from around 910 mints in English Mercia produced coins with an unusual decorative design on the reverse. This ceased before 920, and probably represents ¥thelflµd's way of distinguishing her coinage from that of her brother. There was also a minor issue of coins in the name of Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury. There was a dramatic increase in the number of moneyers over Edward's reign, with less than 25 in the south in the first ten years rising to 67 in the last ten years, around 5 in English Mercia rising to 23, plus 27 in the conquered Danelaw.[39]

Church

In 908, Plegmund conveyed the alms of the English king and people to the Pope, the first visit to Rome by an Archbishop of Canterbury for almost a century, and the journey may have been to seek papal approval for a proposed re-organisation of the West Saxon sees.[40] When Edward came to the throne Wessex had two dioceses, Winchester, held by Denewulf, and Sherborne, held by Asser.[41] In 908 Denewulf died and was replaced the following year by Frithestan; soon afterwards Winchester was divided into two sees, with the creation of the diocese of Ramsbury covering Wiltshire and Berkshire, while Winchester was left with Hampshire and Surrrey. Forged charters date the division to 909, but this may not be correct. Asser died in the same year, and at some date between 909 and 918 Sherborne was divided into three sees, with Crediton covering Devon and Cornwall, and Wells covering Somerset, while Sherborne was left with Dorset.[42] The effect of the changes were to strengthen the status of Canterbury compared with Winchester and Sherborne, but the division may have been related to a change in the secular functions of West Saxon bishops, to become agents of royal government in shires rather than provinces, assisting in defence and taking part in shire courts.[43]

At the beginning of Edward's reign, his mother Ealhswith founded the abbey of St Mary for nuns, known as the Nunnaminster, in Winchester.[44] Edward's daughter Eadburh became a nun there, and she was venerated as a saint and the subject of a hagiography by Osbert of Clare in the twelfth century.[45] In 901 Edward started building a major monastery for men, probably in accordance of his father's wishes. The monastery was next to Winchester Cathedral, which became known as the Old Minster, while Edward's foundation was called the New Minster. It was much larger than the Old Minster, and was probably intended as a royal mausoleum.[46] It acquired relics of the Breton Saint Judoc, which probably arrived in England from Ponthieu in 901, and the body of one of Alfred's closest advisers, Grimbald, who died in the same year and who was soon venerated as a saint. Edward's mother died in 902, and he buried her and Alfred there, moving his father's body from the Old Minster. Burials in the early 920s included Edward himself, his brother ¥thelweard, and his son ¥lfweard. However, when ¥thelstan became king in 924, he did not show any favour to his father's foundation, probably because Winchester sided against him when the throne was disputed after Edward's death. The only other king buried at the New Minster was Eadwig in 959.[47]

Edward's decision not to expand the Old Minster, but rather to overshadow it with a much larger building, suggests animosity towards Bishop Denewulf, and this was compounded by forcing the Old Minster to cede both land for the new site, and an estate of 70 hides at Beddington to provide an income for the New Minster. Edward was remembered by the New Minster as a benefactor, but at the Old Minster as rex avidus (greedy king).[48] Alan Thacker comments:

Edward's method of endowing New Minster was of a piece with his ecclesiastical policy in general. Like his father he gave little to the church — indeed, judging by the dearth of charters for much of his reign he seems to have given away little at all...More than any other, Edward's kingship seems to epitomise the new hard-nosed monarchy of Wessex, determined to exploit all its resources, lay and ecclesiastical, for its own benefit.[49]
Patrick Wormald observes: "The thought occurs that neither Alfred nor Edward was greatly beloved at Winchester Cathedral; and one reason for Edward's moving his father's body into the new family shrine next door was that he was surer of sincere prayers there."[50]

Learning and culture

The standard of Anglo-Saxon learning declined severely in the ninth century, particularly in Wessex, and Mercian scholars such as Plegmund played a prominent part in the revival of learning initiated by Alfred. Mercians were prominent at the courts of Alfred and Edward, and the Mercian dialect and scholarship commanded West Saxon respect.[51] It is uncertain how far Alfred's programmes continued during his son's reign. English translations of works in Latin made during Alfred's reign continued to be copied, but few original works are known. The script known as Anglo-Saxon Square minuscule reached maturity in the 930s, and its earliest phases date to Edward's reign. The main scholarly and scriptorial centres were the cathedral centres of Canterbury, Winchester and Worcester; monasteries did not make a significant contribution until ¥thelstan's reign.[52] Very little survives of the manuscript production of Edward's reign.[53]

The only surviving large scale embroideries which were certainly made in Anglo-Saxon England date to Edward's reign. They are a stole, a maniple and a possible girdle removed from the shrine of St Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral in the nineteenth century. They were donated to the shrine by ¥thelstan in 934, but inscriptions on the embroideries show that they were commissioned by Edward's second wife, ¥lfflµd, as a gift to Frithestan, Bishop of Winchester. They probably did not reach their intended destination because ¥thelstan was on bad terms with Winchester.[54]

Law and administration

Almost all surviving charters from Edward's reign are later copies, and the only surviving original is not a charter of Edward himself, but a grant by ¥thelred and ¥thelflµd in 901.[55] In the same year a meeting at Southampton was attended by his brother and sons, his household thegns and nearly all bishops, but no ealdormen. It was on this occasion that the king acquired land from the Bishop of Winchester for the foundation of the New Minster, Winchester. No charters survive for the period from 910 to the king's death in 924, much to the puzzlement and distress of historians. Charters were usually issued when the king made grants of land, and it is possible that Edward followed a policy of retaining property which came into his hands in order to help finance his campaigns against the Vikings.[56] Charters rarely survive unless they concerned property which passed to the church and were preserved in their archives, and another possibility is that Edward was only making grants of property on terms which ensured that they returned to male members of the royal house; such charters would not be found in church archives.[57]

Clause 3 of the law code called I Edward provides that people convincingly charged with perjury shall not be allowed to clear themselves by oath, but only by ordeal. This is the start of the continuous history in England of trial by ordeal; it is probably mentioned in the laws of King Ine (688 to 726),[b] but not in later codes such as those of Alfred.[58] The administrative and legal system in Edward's reign may have depended extensively on written records, almost none of which survive.[59] Edward was one of the few Anglo-Saxon kings to issue laws about bookland. There was increasing confusion in the period as to what was really bookland, and Edward urged prompt settlement in bookland/folkland disputes, and laid down that jurisdiction belonged to the king and his officers.[60]

Later life

Silver brooch imitating a coin of Edward the Elder, c. 920, found in Rome, Italy. British Museum.
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, there was a general submission of rulers in Britain to Edward in 920:

Then [Edward] went from there into the Peak District to Bakewell and ordered a borough to be built in the neighbourhood and manned. And then the king of the Scots and all the people of the Scots, and Rµgnald and the sons of Eadwulf[c] and all who live in Northumbria, both English and Danish, Norsemen and others, and also the king of the Strathclyde Welsh and all the Strathclyde Welsh, chose him as father and lord.[62]
This passage was regarded as a straightforward report by most historians until the late twentieth century,[63] and Frank Stenton observed that "each of the rulers named in this list had something definite to gain from an acknowledgement of Edward's overlordship".[64] Since the 1980s the 'submission' has been viewed with increasing scepticism, particularly as the passage in the Chronicle is the only evidence for it, unlike other submissions such as that one in 927 to ¥thelstan, for which there is independent support from literary sources and coins.[65] Alfred Smyth points out that Edward was not in a position to impose the same conditions on the Scots and the Northumbrians as he could on conquered Vikings, and argues that the Chronicle presented a treaty between kings as a submission to Wessex.[66] Stafford observes that the rulers had met at Bakewell on the border between Mercia and Northumbria, and that meetings on borders were generally considered to avoid any implication of submission by either side.[67] Davidson points out that the wording "chosen as father and lord" applied to conquered army groups and burhs, not relations with other kings. In his view:

The idea that this meeting represented a 'submission', while it must remain a possibility, does however seem unlikely. The textual context of the chronicler's passage makes his interpretation of the meeting suspect, and ultimately, Edward was in no position to force the subordination of, or dictate terms to, his fellow kings in Britain.[68]
Edward continued ¥thelflµd's policy of founding burhs in the north-west, with ones at Thelwall and Manchester in 919, and Cledematha (Rhuddlan) at the mouth of the River Clwyd in North Wales in 921.[69]

Nothing is known of his relations with the Mercians between 919 and the last year of his life, when he put down a Mercian and Welsh revolt at Chester. Mercia and the eastern Danelaw were organised into shires at an unknown date in the tenth century, ignoring traditional boundaries, and historians such as Sean Miller and David Griffiths suggest that Edward's imposition of direct control from 919 is a likely context for a change which ignored Mercian sensibilities. Resentment at the changes, at the imposition of rule by distant Wessex, and at fiscal demands by Edward's reeves, may have provoked the revolt at Chester. He died at the royal estate of Farndon, twelve miles south of Chester, on 24 July 924, shortly after putting down the revolt, and was buried in the New Minster, Winchester.[70] In 1109, the New Minster was moved outside the city walls to become Hyde Abbey, and the following year Edward and his parents were translated to the new church.[71]

Reputation

According to William of Malmesbury, Edward was "much inferior to his father in the cultivation of letters" but "incomparably more glorious in the power of his rule". Other medieval chroniclers expressed similar views, and he was generally seen as inferior in book learning, but superior in military success. John of Worcester described him as "the most invincible King Edward the Elder". However, even as war leader he was only one of a succession of successful kings; his achievements were overshadowed because he did not have a famous victory like Alfred's at Edington and ¥thelstan's at Brunanburh, and William qualified his praise by saying that "the chief prize of victory, in my judgment, is due to his father". Edward has also been overshadowed by chroniclers' admiration for his highly regarded sister, ¥thelflµd.[72]

A principal reason for the neglect of Edward is that very few primary sources for his reign survive, whereas there are many for Alfred. He was largely ignored by historians until the late twentieth century, but he is now highly regarded. He is described by Keynes as "far more than the bellicose bit between Alfred and ¥thelstan",[73] and according to Nick Higham: "Edward the Elder is perhaps the most neglected of English kings. He ruled an expanding realm for twenty-five years and arguably did as much as any other individual to construct a single, south-centred, Anglo-Saxon kingdom, yet posthumously his achievements have been all but forgotten." In 1999 a conference on his reign was held at the University of Manchester, and the papers given on this occasion were published as a book in 2001. Prior to this conference, no monographs had been published on Edward's reign, whereas his father has been the subject of numerous biographies and other studies.[74]

In the view of F. T. Wainwright: "Without detracting from the achievements of Alfred, it is well to remember that it was Edward who reconquered the Danish Midlands and gave England nearly a century of respite from serious Danish attacks."[75] Higham summarises Edward's legacy as follows:

Under Edward's leadership, the scale of alternative centres of power diminished markedly: the separate court of Mercia was dissolved; the Danish leaders were in large part brought to heel or expelled; the Welsh princes were constrained from aggression of the borders and even the West Saxon bishoprics divided. Late Anglo-Saxon England is often described as the most centralised polity in western Europe at the time, with its shires, its shire-reeves and its systems of regional courts and royal taxation. If so — and the matter remains debatable — much of that centrality derives from Edward's activities, and he has as good a claim as any other to be considered the architect of medieval England.[76]
Edward's cognomen 'the Elder' was first used in Wulfstan's Life of St ¥thelwold at the end of the tenth century, to distinguish him from King Edward the Martyr.[19]

Marriages and children[edit]
Edward had about fourteen children from three marriages.[d]

He first married Ecgwynn around 893.[82] Their children were:

¥thelstan, King of England 924–939[19]
A daughter, perhaps called Edith, married Sihtric Câaech, Viking King of York in 926, who died in 927. Possibly Saint Edith of Polesworth[83]
In c. 900, Edward married ¥lfflµd, daughter of Ealdorman ¥thelhelm, probably of Wiltshire.[17] Their children were:

¥lfweard, died August 924, a month after his father; possibly King of Wessex for that month[84]
Edwin, drowned at sea 933[85]
¥thelhild, lay sister at Wilton Abbey[86]
Eadgifu (died in or after 951), married Charles the Simple, King of the West Franks, c. 918[87]
Eadflµd, nun at Wilton Abbey[86]
Eadhild, married Hugh the Great, Duke of the Franks in 926[88]
Eadgyth (died 946), in 929/30 married Otto I, future King of the East Franks, and (after Eadgyth's death) Holy Roman Emperor[89]
¥lfgifu, married "a prince near the Alps", perhaps Louis, brother of King Rudolph II of Burgundy[90]
Edward married for a third time, about 919, Eadgifu, the daughter of Sigehelm, Ealdorman of Kent.[91] Their children were

Edmund, King of England 939–946[77]
Eadred, King of England 946–955[77]
Eadburh (died c. 952), Benedictine nun at Nunnaminster, Winchester, and saint[92]
Eadgifu, existence uncertain, possibly the same person as ¥lfgifu[93]

Buried:
New Minster, Winchester, later translated to Hyde Abbey

Edward married Eadgifu of Kent in ~919. Eadgifu was born in C. 903 in England; died in C. 966. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

2841665.

Eadgifu of Kent was born in C. 903 in England; died in C. 966.

Notes:

Eadgifu of Kent (also Edgiva or Ediva) (in or before 903 – in or after 966) was the third wife of Edward the Elder, King of the Anglo-Saxons.

Biography

Eadgifu was the daughter of Sigehelm, Ealdorman of Kent, who died at the Battle of the Holme in 902.[1] She married Edward in about 919 and became the mother of two sons, Edmund I of England, later King Edmund I, and Eadred of England, later King Eadred, and two daughters, Saint Eadburh of Winchester and Eadgifu.[2] She survived Edward by many years, dying in the reign of her grandson Edgar.

According to a narrative written in the early 960s, her father had given Cooling in Kent to a man called Goda as security for a loan. She claimed that her father had repaid the loan and left the land to her, but Goda denied receiving payment and refused to surrender the land. She got possession of Cooling six years after her father's death, when her friends persuaded King Edward to threaten to dispossess Goda of his property unless he gave up the estate. Edward later declared Goda's lands forfeit and gave the charters to Eadgifu, but she returned most of the estates to Goda, although retained the charters. Some time after this her marriage to Edward took place. After his death King ¥thelstan required Eadgifu to return the charters to Goda, perhaps because the king was on bad terms with his stepmother.[3]

She disappeared from court during the reign of her step-son, King ¥thelstan, but she was prominent and influential during the reign of her two sons.[2] As queen dowager, her position seem to have been higher than that of her daughter-in-law; In a Kentish charter datable between 942 and 944, her daughter-in-law ¥lfgifu of Shaftesbury subscribes herself as the king's concubine (concubina regis), with a place assigned to her between the bishops and ealdormen. By comparison, Eadgifu subscribes higher up in the witness list as mater regis, after her sons Edmund and Eadred but before the archbishops and bishops.[4]

Following the death of her younger son Eadred in 955, she was deprived of her lands by her eldest grandson, King Eadwig, perhaps because she took the side of his younger brother, Edgar, in the struggle between them. When Edgar succeeded on Eadwig's death in 959 she recovered some lands and received generous gifts from her grandson, but she never returned to her prominent position at court. She is last recorded as a witness to a charter in 966.[2]

She was known as a supporter of saintly churchmen and a benefactor of churches.[2]

See also

House of Wessex family tree; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_of_Wessex#House_of_Wessex_family_tree

Children:

1420832. Edmund I, King of the English was born in ~921 in Wessex, England; died on 26 May 946 in Pucklechurch, Gloucestershire, England; was buried in Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset, England.

2842016.

Rurik, Prince of Ladoga and Novgorod was born in ~830 in Jutland, Denmark; died in 879 in Novgorod, Ukraine.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Staraya Lagoda, Russia

Notes:

Rurik (also Riurik; Old Church Slavonic ?????? Rjuriku, from Old Norse Hr²râik?; c. 830 – 879), according to the 12th-century Primary Chronicle, was a Varangian chieftain of the Rus' who in the year 862 gained control of Ladoga, and built the Holmgard settlement near Novgorod (Varangian defined: http://thehennesseefamily.com/showmedia.php?mediaID=3071&medialinkID=3073). He is the founder of the Rurik Dynasty, which ruled the Kievan Rus' and its successor states, including the Grand Duchy of Moscow and the Tsardom of Russia, until the 17th century.[1]

The only information about Rurik is contained in the 12th-century Primary Chronicle written by one Nestor, which states that Chuds, Eastern Slavs, Merias, Veses, and Krivichs "...drove the Varangians back beyond the sea, refused to pay them tribute, and set out to govern themselves". Afterwards the tribes started fighting each other and decided to invite the Varangians, led by Rurik, to reestablish order. Rurik came in 860-862 along with his brothers Sineus and Truvor and a large retinue.

According to the Primary Chronicle, Rurik was one of the Rus', a Varangian tribe likened by the chronicler to Danes, Swedes, Angles, and Gotlanders.

Sineus established himself at Beloozero (now Belozersk), on the shores of lake Beloye, and Truvor at Izborsk (or at Pskov). Truvor and Sineus died shortly after the establishment of their territories, and Rurik consolidated these lands into his own territory.

According to the entries in the Radzivil and Hypatian Chronicles[2] under the years 862–864, Rurik’s first residence was in Ladoga. He later moved his seat of power to Novgorod, a fort built not far from the source of the Volkhov River. The meaning of this place name in medieval Russian is 'new fortification', while the current meaning ('new city') developed later.

Rurik remained in power until his death in 879. On his deathbed, Rurik bequeathed his realm to Oleg, who belonged to his kin, and entrusted to Oleg's hands his son Igor, for he was very young. His successors (the Rurik Dynasty) moved the capital to Kiev and founded the state of Kievan Rus', which persisted until the Mongol invasion in 1240. A number of extant princely families are patrilineally descended from Rurik, although the last Rurikid to rule Russia, Vasily IV, died in 1612.

Historicity debate
Archaeological evidence

In the 20th century, archaeologists partly corroborated the chronicle's version of events. It was discovered that the settlement of Ladoga, whose foundation has been ascribed to Rurik, was actually established in the mid-9th century, although doubt is now cast on this by the dendrochronological evidence that Ladoga existed by the mid-8th century.[citation needed] Earthenware, household utensils, and types of buildings from the period of Rurik's purported foundation correspond to patterns then prevalent in Jutland.[citation needed] but mostly the excavations denied most of the chronicle's data about Rurik's arrival when it was apparent that the old settlement stretched to the mid-8th century and the excavated objects were mostly of Finno-Ugric and Slavic origin, dated to the mid-8th century, which showed the settlement was not Scandinavian from the beginning.[3][page needed]

Hypothesis of identity with Rorik of Dorestad
Main article: Rorik of Dorestad

Rorik of Dorestad, as conceived by H. W. Koekkoek
The only similarly named figure described in the Carolingian Annales Fuldenses and Annales Bertiniani was Rorik of Dorestad (also spelled R²rik, Rèorik, Roerik, Hrèorek, etc.), a Germanic king from the royal Scylding house of Haithabu in the Jutland Peninsula. Since the 19th century, there have been attempts to identify him with the Rurik of Russian chronicles.

Rorik of Dorestad was born about ca. 810–820 to Ali Anulo, 9th king of Haithabu. Frankish chroniclers mention that he received lands in Friesland from Emperor Louis I. This was not enough for him, and he started to plunder neighbouring lands: he took Dorestad in 850, captured Haithabu in 857, and looted Bremen in 859. The Emperor was enraged and stripped him of all his possessions in 860. After that, Rorik disappears from the Western sources for a considerable period of time, while only two years later, in 862, the Russian chronicle's Rurik arrives in the eastern Baltic, builds the fortress of Ladoga, and later moves to Novgorod.

Rorik of Dorestad reappeared in Frankish chronicles in 870, when his Friesland demesne was returned to him by Charles the Bald; in 882 Rorik of Dorestad is mentioned as dead (without a date of death specified). The Russian chronicle places the death of Rurik of Novgorod at 879, a three year gap prior than the Frankish chronicles. According to Western sources, the ruler of Friesland was converted to Christianity by the Franks. This may have parallels with the Christianization of the Rus', as reported by Patriarch Photius in 867.

The idea of identifying the Rurik of Nestor's chronicle with Rorik of Dorestad of the Carolingian chronicles was revived by the anti-Normanists Boris Rybakov and Anatoly H. Kirpichnikov in the mid-20th century,[4] while modern scholars like Alexander Nazarenko object to it.[5] The hypothesis of their identity currently lacks support among scholars,[6] though support for a "Normannic" (i.e. Norse, rather than Slavic) origin of the Rus' has increased.

Legacy

Further information: Rurikid dynasty

Rurik and his brothers Sineus and Truvor arrive at Ladoga
The Rurik dynasty (or Rurikids) went on to rule the Kievan Rus', and ultimately the Tsardom of Russia, until 1598, and numerous noble Russian and Ruthenian families claim a male-line descent from Rurik. Vasily Tatishchev (a Rurikid himself) claimed that Rurik was of Wendish extraction and went so far as to name Rurik's wife, Efanda of Norway (Edvina); mother, Umila; his maternal grandfather, Gostomysl; and a cousin, Vadim (apparently basing his account on the lost Ioachim Chronicle).[citation needed]

References

Christian Raffensperger and Norman W. Ingham, "Rurik and the First Rurikids," The American Genealogist, 82 (2007), 1–13, 111–19.
Ipat’ievskaia letopis’ 1962:14; Radzivilovskaia letopis’ 1989:16
Kirpichnikov, Anatoliy N. (2004). "A Viking Period workshop in Staraya Ladoga, excavated in 1997" (PDF). Journal of Swedish Antiquarian Research. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
Kirpichnikov, Anatoly H. "???????? ? ????????? ???????. ?????? ? ??????????? ?????????". ?????? ????????????? ??????, ???; 1997; ch. 7–18.
Nazarenko, Alexander. "Rjurik ? Riis Th., Rorik", Lexikon des Mittelalters, VII; Munich, 1995; pp. 880, 1026.
Andrei Mozzhukhin (5 October 2014). «????? — ??? ???????» ["Rurik – is a legend"] (in Russian). Russian Planet. Retrieved 12 November 2014. Interview with Igor Danilevsky.

end of this biography

Alternative Titles: Hrorekr, Rorik, Rurik of Jutland, Ryurik

Rurik, also spelled Rorik or Hrorekr, Russian Ryurik, (died AD 879), the semilegendary founder of the Rurik dynasty of Kievan Rus.

(Rurik Dynasty, princes of Kievan Rus and, later, Muscovy who, according to tradition, were descendants of the Varangian prince Rurik, who had been invited by the people of Novgorod to rule that city (c. 862); the Rurik princes maintained their control over Kievan Rus and, later, Muscovy until 1598.

Rurik’s successor Oleg (d. 912) conquered Kiev (c. 882) and established control of the trade route extending from Novgorod, along the Dnieper River, to the Black Sea. Igor (allegedly Rurik’s son; reigned 912–945) and his successors—his wife, St. Olga (regent 945–969), and their son Svyatoslav (reigned 945–972)—further extended their territories; Svyatoslav’s son Vladimir I (St. Vladimir; reigned c. 980–1015) consolidated the dynasty’s rule.

Vladimir compiled the first Kievan Rus law code and introduced Christianity into the country. He also organized the Kievan Rus lands into a cohesive confederation by distributing the major cities among his sons; the eldest was to be grand prince of Kiev, and the brothers were to succeed each other, moving up the hierarchy of cities toward Kiev, filling vacancies left by the advancement or death of an elder brother. The youngest brother was to be succeeded as grand prince by his eldest nephew whose father had been a grand prince. This succession pattern was generally followed through the reigns of Svyatopolk (1015–19); Yaroslav the Wise (1019–54); his sons Izyaslav (1054–68; 1069–73; and 1077–78), Svyatoslav (1073–76), and Vsevolod (1078–93); and Svyatopolk II (son of Izyaslav; reigned 1093–1113).

The successions were accomplished, however, amid continual civil wars. In addition to the princes’ unwillingness to adhere to the pattern and readiness to seize their positions by force instead, the system was upset whenever a city rejected the prince designated to rule it. It was also undermined by the tendency of the princes to settle in regions they ruled rather than move from city to city to become the prince of Kiev.)

Rurik was a Viking, or Varangian, prince. His story is told in the The Russian Primary Chronicle (compiled at the beginning of the 12th century) but is not accepted at face value by modern historians. According to the chronicle, the people of Novgorod, tired of political strife, invited the Varangians about AD 862 to establish an orderly and just government there. Hence, Rurik came with his two brothers and a large retinue (druzhina) and became ruler of the city and region of Novgorod.

Some historians think that Rurik came from the Scandinavian peninsula or from Jutland (now in Denmark) and seized the town of Ladoga, on Lake Ladoga. After establishing a stronghold there (c. 855), he may have gone southward along the Volkhov and captured Novgorod. Another possibility is that Rurik and his army were mercenaries, hired to guard the Volkhov-Dnieper waterway, who turned against their employers.

Rurik’s kinsman Oleg founded the grand principality of Kiev. Oleg’s successor, Igor, believed to be Rurik’s son, is considered the real founder of the Russian princely house.

end of this biography

HISTORY

Rurik or Riurik ( from the Nordic East Rorik, means "famous leader") (?30 - ?79) was a Varangian who gained control of Ladoga in ?62 and built the Holmgard settlement (Rurikovo Gorodische) in Novgorod.

Rurik name is the Slavic name being the same Germanic name as the modern English Roderick, or Spanish and Portuguese Rodrigo. In Germanic languages: Hrodric in (Old High German), Hroºricus in (Old English). In Old Norse, Hrœrekr (Norwegian, Icelandic) and Hr²rikr or Rorik (Danish, Swedish), which is derived from Rurik. It also appears in Beowulf as Hreºrik.

Princes of Kievan Rus and later on, of Muscovy that, according to tradition, were descendants of Rurik Varangian Prince, who had been invited by the people of Novgorod to rule that town (C. 862), the Princes of Rurik remained their control over Kievan Rus and, later, Muscovy until 1598.

The successor Oleg (D. 912) conquered Kiev Rurik (C. 882) and established control of the trade route that stretched from Novgorod, along the Dnieper River, to the Black Sea. Igor (alleged son of Rurik, reigned from 912 to 945) and his successor, to her wife, Olga or St. Olga Olga (ruler from 945 - to 969), and later his son Svyatoslav (945-972) - hereinafter extended their territories; Vladimir, son of Svyatoslav I (St. Vladimir; reigned from 980-1015) thus well consolidated the Varegiana Dynasty.
Vladimir compiled the first law code of Kievan Rus and introduced Christianity to the country.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY. RUSSIA

Russia means "Land of Rus'. Before the tenth century, Russia was formed by scattered cities which fought between them. In the year 862, an extranger warrior gripped the state of Novgorod and joined several cities under its power. Some say that he arrived under invitation to restore order and others say that he reached power by force. This legendary Viking was a warrior. His name was Rurik and belonged to the family of the Rus. Rurik and his two brothers Truvor and Sineus imposed their control over the Slavs of the area. Rurik's followers are also known as Varangians. "Varangians" means "allies". "Rus" comes from the Swedish rosti, which means "oar", since we know the Vikings were driving paddle boats. Then Russia means "Land of Oars".

SLAVIC AND nORMANDS

Does not seem being any doubt about the Indo-European affiliation descent of the Slavs, but there are little news about them because the Germans isolated them of the Roman Empire. When there were invasions that ended the Empire, the displacement of the Germans allowed the Slavic movement westward, and so, in the sixth century, penetrations were already seen by peoples of this race in present Poland and Bohemia, and Brandenburg (Germany). Furthermore the Slavic incursions also came to the South, settling on the Adriatic coast of the Balkans.

In the seventh century,the penetration of barbarians folks, as well as the Avars in Central Europe, disconnected thus these Slavs from their racial brothers, becoming known by the name of South Slavs, who still nowadays make up the most of the population of Yugoslavia.

The Slavs who remained in the current western Russia were limited in their expansion to the east and to south by the establishment of other barbarians folks: the Khazars (or Kazars), the Pechenegs and Magyars. But taking as the axis of their residence the Dnieper River, became merchants carrying southward, to the country of the Khazars and even the Byzantine Empire, skins, honey and wax.

Rurik-Russia-Rurikovich-History

At the mid-ninth century already existed in this territory a true urban culture, while in Western Europe began The Feudalism. A number of towns located in the axis just spoken ensured the commercial link between the Baltic See and the Byzantine Empire: Kiev, Smolensk, Novgorod, Tchernigov, Minsk, Ryazan, Pskov Iaroslav and were the main ones.

For the same time lies the penetration of Vikings groups from Sweden, called "Varangians". These Vikings took upon themselves trade and defense of Slav cities against attacks from other nations. And according the oldest Russian chronicle, was a Varangian, Rurik, the first prince who ruled that fusion of Slavs and Vikings, in which it seems certain that the Vikings were absorbed by the Slavs, being in the history of Russia as a mere episode.

The successors of Rurik, Oleg (879-912) and Igor (912-944), alternated trade relations with Byzantium and the attacks on the capital of the Empire, until that Olga times (945-965) succeeded to Byzantine influence when became that princess to Christianity in 955 by the name of Elena in a trip she did to Constantinople.
From then on, Kiev had already surpassed the importance of Novgorod, and the princes of that city dominated the other, which, however, left some autonomy on the condition that they pay taxes regularly. The same soldiers who perceive them-in-kind were engaged then transfer them for sale in the Byzantine Empire.

The fullness of the rising state was in the last third of the tenth century, under the rule of Prince of Kiev, Sviatoslav (965-973), son of Olga, who, still pagan, was the first to conceive the idea of reaching out to an open sea - the Mediterranean in this case - so repeatedly present since then on this Russian policy of all time. The distribution of territories that Sviatoslav did on his death caused struggle between his sons, in which the winner was Vladimir the Great (973-1015), who married a Byzantine princess, Anna, was converted to Christianity in 988 forcing his subjects to embrace mass.

The bad policy of dividing the kingdom, repeated by his successors, caused the decline of the bright state, which finished at casting down new Asian nomadic invasions. Among these princes can still be noted to Yaroslav, founder of the archbishop of Kiev in 1035 and editor of the Russian law code called Russkaya Pravda.

From Rurik was born the famous dynasty of Russian Tsars that ruled Russia for over 750 years. At the beginning of the tenth century the military company of the Princes of Novgorod from Constantinople to protect trade relations with Byzantium were concluded by the integration of East-Slavic tribes in the ancient state of Kievan Rus.

The title of Tzar, Czar or Csar, (????) was first adopted by Ivan IV as a symbol of the changing nature of the Russian Monarchy in 1547.

Ivan IV Vasilyevich (???? ?????????? IV), also known as Ivan the Terrible (Kolomenskoie, Russia, August 25, 1530 - Moscow, March 18, 1584) Tsar of Russia (1547-1584). Considered one of the creators of the Russian state. He married at least seven times, but his most important marriage was the first one, with Anastasia Romanova in 1547. His greatest contributions were Russian conquest of Siberia, creating a new legal code, the Sudiâebnik, the centralization of the power in the capital, the creation of institutions with popular participation, the conquest of the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan Tatars, the destruction of the Teutonic Order and big internal reforms, including the reform of the army and the revision of the legal code.

His Early years:

Grandson of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich III the Great and son of Vasily III and Elena Glinskaya, belongs to the lineage Varangian of Rurik and princess of Lithuania. According to the legend he was born with two teeth. He was crowned Grand Prince of Moscow within three years after the death of his father. However, the kingdom was administered by his mother, who was poisoned five years after the coronation of boyars clans who vied for power. He was recluded to the humiliation of the boyars, which overshadowed his character. He was held in the Kremlin Palace of living almost as a beggar. This fact led in Ivan a great hatred against boyars, and has as a consequence the constant persecution and massacres that he organized against these clans. In these early years Ivan suffered mental ramblings, now irreversibles, which led him to give vent to their anger and throwing torturing dogs from the towers. It is known that he had a deaf brother who nothing more is known.

With 13 years people began to respect him and ordered to one of his loyal groups to capture the Prince Andrei Shuisky in order to throw a pack of dogs against him, which brutaly tore him. With 16 years already stated in writing and was an avid reader of books, besides of being and a big, muscular young. He studied rhetoric from the hand of Bishop Macarius. During this time it was deeply religious.

To be respected as Tsar, Macario determined that Ivan came (according to a family tree) of the lineage of the first Roman Caesars.

© Sovereign Royal and Imperial House of Rurikovich

end of narrative

Residence:
Russian meaning, "Old Lagoda"...

Its history & map ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staraya_Ladoga

Died:
Rulers of Russia family tree - the Rurik Dynasty through the Romanovs (last of the Tsars):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rulers_of_Russia_family_tree

Children:

1421008. Igor of Kiev, Prince of the Rus' was born in ~900 in (Kiev, Ukraine); died in 945 in Korosten, Ukraine.

2842024.

Skagul Toste, King of Sweden was born in 910 in Vein, Germany; died in 975 in Gothland, Sweden.

Notes:

Skoglar Toste or Skoglar Tosti (there are several variations) was a legendary chieftain from the Swedish province of West Gèotaland. His name (skoglar, skauglar or skagul) was reportedly due to his experience in battle. [1]

Toste is mentioned in several sagas, most notable in Heimskringla. According to Snorri Sturluson, he was the father of Sigrid the Haughty. For some time he gave refuge to Harald Grenske, who later came back to woo Sigrid, only to be killed by her for his persistence. According to the sagas, Skagul Toste was also the father of Ulf Tostesson, father of Ragnvald Ulfsson and grandfather of Stenkil who became the King of Sweden in 1060.[2]

Toste is said to have collected great riches when he demanded danegeld as he led a Viking army to England in 970. At Vallentuna, near Stockholm, the runestone of Orkesta (U 344) reads:

in ulfr hafir onklati * ´ru kialtakat ´it uas fursta ´is tursti * ´a ---´urktil * ´a kalt knutr

Translation: "And Ulf of Borresta (Ulf) has taken three payments in England. That was the first that Toste (tursti) paid. Then Thorkell the Tall (´urktil ) paid. Then Canute the Great (knutr) paid. [3]

References

"Skoglar Toste". Bergans Historiasidor. May 15, 2015. Retrieved October 24, 2015.
Claus Krag. "Harald Grenske, Smêakonge". Norsk biografisk leksikon. Retrieved October 24, 2015.
"Runes and Runic". An English Dictionary of Runic Inscriptions. May 5, 2006. Retrieved October 24, 2015.

Other sources

Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Lines: 241-5, 243A-20

end of biography

Skoglar Skagul "King of Sweden" Toste
Born 0910 in Venden, Tyskland (Vein, Germany)map
Son of Rane UNKNOWN and [mother unknown]
[sibling(s) unknown]
[spouse(s) unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Father of Ulf Tostesson, Ulf (UNKNOWN) Tostesson av Skara and Sigrid Storrada
Died 0975 in Svitjod, Vèastergèotland, Swedenmap
Profile managers: Katherine Patterson private message [send private message] and Sheri Sturm private message [send private message]
Profile last modified 10 Nov 2017 | Created 5 Jul 2011
This page has been accessed 1,118 times.

Children:

1421012. Ulf Tostesson, Jarl of Skara was born in 930 in Gothland, Sweden; died in 950 in (Kiev, Ukraine).

774208.

William of Normandy, I, Duke of Normandy was born in ~893 in Normandy, France (son of Rollo and Lady Poppa of Bayeux); died on 17 Dec 942 in Piquigny, France.

Notes:

William Longsword (French: Guillaume Longue-âEpâee, Latin: Willermus Longa Spata, Old Norse: Vilhjâalmr Langaspjâot; c. 893 – 17 December 942) was the second ruler of Normandy, from 927 until his assassination in 942.[1]

He is sometimes anachronistically dubbed "Duke of Normandy", even though the title duke (dux) did not come into common usage until the 11th century.[2] Longsword was known at the time by the title Count (Latin comes) of Rouen.[3][4] Flodoard—always detailed about titles—consistently referred to both Rollo and his son William as principes (chieftains) of the Norse.[5]

Birth

William Longsword was born "overseas"[a][6] to the Viking Rollo (while he was still a pagan) and his Christian wife Poppa of Bayeux.[7][8] Dudo of Saint-Quentin in his panegyric of the Norman dukes describes Poppa as the daughter of a Count Beranger, the dominant prince of that region.[9] In the 11th century Annales Rouennaises (Annals of Rouen), she is called the daughter of Guy, Count of Senlis,[10] otherwise unknown to history.[b] Despite the uncertainty of her parentage she was undoubtedly a member of the Frankish aristocracy.[11] According to the Longsword's planctus, he was baptized a Christian probably at the same time as his father,[12] which Orderic Vitalis stated was in 912, by Franco, Archbishop of Rouen.[13]

Life

Longsword succeeded Rollo (who would continue to live for about another 5 years) in 927[14] and, early in his reign, faced a rebellion from Normans[15] who felt he had become too Gallicised and too soft.[16] According to Orderic Vitalis, the leader was Riouf of Evreux,[16][17][18] who was besieging Longsword in Rouen. Sallying forth, Longsword won a decisive battle, proving his authority to be Duke.[19]:25-6 At the time of this 933 rebellion Longsword sent his pregnant wife by custom, Sprota, to Fâecamp where their son Richard was born.[20]

In 933 Longsword recognized Raoul as King of Western Francia, who was struggling to assert his authority in Northern France. In turn Raoul gave him lordship over much of the lands of the Bretons including Avranches, the Cotentin Peninsula and the Channel Islands.[21][22][23]:lii The Bretons did not agree to these changes and resistance to the Normans was led by Alan Wrybeard, Duke of Brittany and Count Berenger of Rennes but ended shortly with great slaughter and Breton castles being razed to the ground,[19]:24 Alan fleeing to England and Beranger seeking reconciliation.[24]

In 935, Longsword married Luitgarde,[1] daughter of Count Herbert II of Vermandois whose dowry gave him the lands of Longueville, Coudres and Illiers l'Eveque.[18] Longsword also contracted a marriage between his sister Adela (Gerloc was her Norse name) and William, Count of Poitou with the approval of Hugh the Great.[25] In addition to supporting King Raoul, he was now a loyal ally of his father-in-law, Herbert II, both of whom his father Rollo had opposed.[26] In January 936 King Raoul died and the 16 year old Louis IV, who was living in exile in England, was persuaded by a promise of loyalty by Longsword, to return and became King. The Bretons returned to recover the lands taken by the Normans, resulting in fighting in the expanded Norman lands.[23]:lii

The funerary monument of William Longsword in the cathedral of Rouen, France. The monument is from the 14th century.
The new King was not capable of controlling his Barons and after Longsword's brother in law, Herluin II, Count of Montreuil, was attacked by Flanders, Longsword went to their assistance in 939,[19]:28-9 Arnulf I, Count of Flanders retaliated by attacking Normandy. Arnulf captured the castle of Montreuil-sur-Mer expelling Herluin. Herluin and Longsword cooperated to retake the castle.[27][28] Longsword was excommunicated for his actions in attacking and destroying several estates belonging to Arnulf.[29]

Longsword pledged his loyalty to King Louis IV when they met in 940 and, in return, he was confirmed in lands that had been given to his father, Rollo.[30] [23]:liii In 941 a peace treaty was signed between the Bretons and Normans, brokered in Rouen by King Louis IV which limited the Norman expansion into Breton lands.[23]:liii The following year, on 17 December 942 at Picquigny on an island on the Somme, Longsword was ambushed and killed by followers of Arnulf while at a peace conference to settle their differences.[18][28] Longsword's son, Richard becoming the next Duke of Normandy.

Family
Longsword had no children with his wife Luitgarde.[31] He fathered his son, Richard the Fearless, with Sprota [c] who was a Breton captive and his concubine.[32] Richard, then aged 10, succeeded him as Duke of Normandy in December 942.[31]

end of biography

William married Sprota. Sprota was born in 0911 in Bretagne, France; died in 0940. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

774209.

Sprota was born in 0911 in Bretagne, France; died in 0940.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Fecamp, Normandie, France

Notes:

Sprota was the name of a Breton captive who William I, Duke of Normandy took as a wife in the Viking fashion (more danico)[1][2] and by her had a son, Richard I, Duke of Normandy. After the death of her husband William, she became the wife of Esperleng and mother of Rodulf of Ivry.[3][4][5]

Life

The first mention of her is by Flodoard of Reims and although he doesn't name her he identifies her under the year [943] as the mother of "William’s son [Richard] born of a Breton concubine".[6] Her Breton origins could mean she was of Breton, Scandinavian, or Frankish origin, the latter being the most likely based on her name spelling.[7] Elisabeth van Houts wrote "on this reference rests the identification of Sprota, William Longsword’s wife 'according to the Danish custom', as of Breton origin".[8] The first to provide her name was William of Jumiáeges.[9][10] The irregular nature (as per the Church) of her relationship with William served as the basis for her son by him being the subject of ridicule, the French King Louis "abused the boy with bitter insults", calling him "the son of a whore who had seduced another woman's husband."[11][12]

At the time of the birth of her first son Richard, she was living in her own household at Bayeux, under William's protection.[4] William, having just quashed a rebellion at Prâe-de Bataille (c.936),[a] received the news by a messenger that Sprota had just given birth to a son; delighted at the news William ordered his son to be baptized and given the personal name of Richard.[10] William's steward Boto became the boy's godfather.[13]

After the death of William Longsword and the captivity of her son Richard, she had been 'collected' from her dangerous situation by the 'immensely wealthy' Esperleng.[3] Robert of Torigni identified Sprota's second husband[b] as Esperleng, a wealthy landowner who operated mills at Pãitres.[4][14]

Children:

387104. Richard de Normandie, I was born on 28 Aug 932 in Fecamp, Normandie, France; died on 20 Nov 996 in Fecamp, France; was buried in Fecamp, France.

774210.

Harold married Gunhild von Denmark in ~935 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Gunhild was born in ~0920 in Copenhagen, Denmark. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

774211.

Gunhild von Denmark was born in ~0920 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Children:

387105. Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy was born in 936-941 in Rouen, France; died on 5 Jan 1031 in Normandie, France.

774214.

Geoffrey married Adele of Meaux. Adele (daughter of Robert De Vermandois, Count of Meaux and Adelaide-Werra de Chaton) was born in ~950 in Meaux, France; died in ~980. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

774215.

Adele of Meaux was born in ~950 in Meaux, France (daughter of Robert De Vermandois, Count of Meaux and Adelaide-Werra de Chaton); died in ~980.

Notes:

Adele Carolingian of Meaux was born 950 to Robert de Vermandois (918-968) and Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967) and died 980 of unspecified causes. She married Lambert de Chalon (930-979) . She married Geoffrey I of Anjou (-987) . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]

The French Wikipedia has her first husband marry her mother,[1] which is unlikely, given her age. The same source has her a daughter Gerberge marry King Adalberto of Italy. This would make Adele a grandmother at the age of 12. However, in the reconstruction shown here, Adele is married to two men at once, with her youngest daughter from her first marriage born around 972 and her eldest daughter from her second marriage born around 965.

Note that Genealogie Quebec merges her with her sister.[2]

Children

Offspring of Adele of Meaux and Lambert de Chalon (930-979)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Hugh I de Chalon (?-1039)
Mahaut de Chalon (?-1019) Henri I de Bourgogne (c948-1002)
Geoffroi de Semur (?-c990)

Aelis of Chalon (?-?) Guy I de Macon (975-1006)

Elizabeth de Chalon (970-1014)

Offspring of Adele of Meaux and Geoffrey I of Anjou (-987)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Gottfried of Anjou (?-987) 987
Fulk III, Count of Anjou (972-1040) 972 21 June 1040 Metz, France âElisabeth de Vendãome (c979-999)
Hildegarde de Beaugency (c990-)

Ermengarde of Anjou (bef967-) 967 Conan I of Rennes (927-992)

Gerberge of Anjou (965-1041) 965 1041 Guillaume III Taillefer of Angoulãeme (960-1028)
^ wikipedia:fr:Lambert de Chalon
^ http://genealogiequebec.info/testphp/info.php?no=23981

Noteworthy descendants include

William I of England (1027-1087)

Children:

387107. Ermengarde of Anjou was born before 967 in (Anjou, France).

5683328.

Alfred the Great, King of Wessex was born on 23 Apr 849 in Wantage, Berkshire, England (son of Aethelwulf of Wessex, King of Wessex and Osburga, Queen Consort of Wessex); died on 26 Oct 899 in Winchester, Hampshire, England; was buried in Hyde Abbey, Winchester, Hampshire, England.

Notes:

Alfred the Great (849-899)

Alfred the Great of Wessex was born 23 April 849 in Wantage, Berkshire, England, United Kingdom to ¥thelwulf of Wessex (c795-858) and Osburga (-bef856) and died 26 October 899 in Winchester, Hampshire, England, United Kingdom of unspecified causes. He married Ealhswith (c852-905) 868 JL . Ancestors are from France.
Contents[show]

Biography

King Alfred (or more properly ¥lfred) is the only English king ever to receive the title "The Great" which epithet he earned for his stalwart resistance to the Danes, his wise government, his law-making, and his revival of English arts and culture and education. He was the first King of Wessex to be called "King of England". Reign: 871-899.

House of Wessex

He was of the royal English dynasty called House of Wessex, a family originating in the southwest corner of England and gradually increasing in power and prestige. The House became rulers of all the country with the reign of Alfred the Great in 871 and they lasting until Edmund Ironside in 1016. This period of the English monarchy is known as the Saxon period.

Rome pilgrimage 853

Young Alfred probably never expected to be king, being the fifth son of King Athelwulf of Wessex, and he even had three brothers precede him to the kingship.

Young Alfred made two trips to Rome, first in 853 and again in 855, where his father sought the blessings of the pope (Pope Leo IV (847-855)))and the Christian church in his ongoing battles against the pagan Danes. Legend has it that during one of these visits, the pope anointed him to be a great ruler. During these trips he spent some time with the court of Charles the Bald (823-877) and learned much about the grandeur of Charles's grandfather, Charlemagne (747-814).

"The Great Heathen Army of 865"

Detailed map of Danish battles; http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Alfred_the_Great_(849-899)?file=EGA2016a.png

Danish Invasion of England in 865.

After his father's death in 858, young Alfred started getting much military training in the armies of his brothers ( Athelbald (858-860), Athelbert (860-865) and Athelred (865-861) in their ongoing battles against the Danes (Norsemen, Vikings, etc).

In the mid 860's a Danish 'Great Army' under Ivar the Boneless invaded eastern England and occupied Northumbria. At first their attention was directed northwards against Mercia and Northumbria and they made many conquests there.

In 871, the Danes turned their attention towards Wessex and the armies of Alfred and his brother ¥thelred of Wessex (c847-871), and thus began the great "Year of Battles". During the course of these battles Athelred died and Alfred became King. By this time Alfred was a highly experienced military leader.

After a major battle at Wilton in May 871, a peace was made between Wessex and the Danes, who turned their attention back northward. They returned to do battle in the late 870s under Guthrum, King of East Anglia,

more information on Guthrum:

https://fabpedigree.com/s056/f161237.htm
http://thehennesseefamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I50855&tree=hennessee

and again in the 890s under Haesten.

But as he grew older and wiser, Alfred adopted more cautious tactics and stronger defences for holding back the Danes. He would besiege their fortifications, conduct guerrilla warfare on their transports, and build up the local militia in each shire.

Most famously, Alfred built a fleet of warships and is traditionally regarded as the father of the English Navy. (He is also called the father of the American navy, which named its first revolutionary warship, USS Alfred, for him.)

From Treaty of 889, setting the border between English and Danelaw:

"This is the peace which King Alfred and King Guthrum...have agreed on...First concerning our boundaries: up the Thames, and then up the Lea, and along the Lea to its source, then in a straight line to Bedford, then up the Ouse to the Watling Street."

Marriage and family

Alfredjewel

The Alfred Jewel, discovered near North Petherton, Somerset in 1693. Dates from the late 9th Century with inscription "AELFRED MEC HEFT GEWYRCAN", old English for "Alfred ordered me made." Probably a pointer for following text in a book.

In 868, Alfred married Ealhswith (c852-905), daughter of a Mercian nobleman, ¥thelred Mucil, Ealdorman of the Gaini. The Gaini were probably one of the tribal groups of the Mercians. Ealhswith's mother, Eadburh, was a member of the Mercian royal family.

They had five or six children together, including Edward the Elder (c870-924), who succeeded his father as king, ¥thelflµd (c872-918), who became Lady (ruler) of the Mercians in her own right, and ¥lfthryth of Wessex (c872-929), who married Baldwin II the Count of Flanders. In 2008 the skeleton of Queen Eadgyth, granddaughter of Alfred the Great, was found in Magdeburg Cathedral in Germany. It was confirmed in 2010 that these remains belong to her — one of the earliest members of the English royal family.

Osferth was described as a relative in King Alfred's will and he attested charters in a high position until 934. A charter of King Edward's reign described him as the king's brother, "mistakenly" according to Keynes and Lapidge; however, in the view of Janet Nelson, he probably was an illegitimate son of King Alfred.

¥thelflµd (c872-918) - Married c 886, ¥thelred, Lord of the Mercians d. 911; had children
Edward the Elder (c870-924) - succeeded his father as King of England, ruling from 899 to 924.
¥thelgifu, Abbess of Shaftesbury (?-?) - Abbess of Shaftesbury
¥lfthryth of Wessex (c872-929) - Married and had children
¥thelwµrd (c880-922) - Married Baldwin II d. 918, Count of Flanders; had children

end of biography

Alfred the Great (Old English: ¥lfred,[a] ¥lfr?d[b], "elf counsel" or "wise elf"; 849 – 26 October 899) was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.

King of the Anglo-Saxons
Reign 23 April 871 – 26 October 899
Predecessor ¥thelred
Successor Edward the Elder
Born 849
Wantage, then in Berkshire, now Oxfordshire
Died 26 October 899 (around 50) Winchester
Burial c. 1100
Hyde Abbey, Winchester, Hampshire, now lost

Spouse Ealhswith

Issue

¥thelflµd, Lady of the Mercians
Edward, King of Wessex
¥thelgifu, abbess of Shaftesbury
¥thelweard of Wessex
¥lfthryth, Countess of Flanders
Full name
¥lfred of Wessex
House Wessex
Father ¥thelwulf, King of Wessex
Mother Osburh
Religion Catholic

Alfred was the youngest son of King ¥thelwulf of Wessex. Taking the throne after the death of his brother ¥thelred, Alfred spent several years dealing with Viking invasions. After a decisive victory in the Battle of Edington in 878 Alfred made a deal with the Vikings, creating what was known as Danelaw in the North of England. Alfred also oversaw the conversion of the Viking leader, Guthrum.

Alfred successfully defended his kingdom against the Viking attempt at conquest, and by the time of his death had become the dominant ruler in England.[1] He is one of only two English monarchs to be given the epithet "the Great", the other being the Scandinavian Cnut the Great. He was also the first King of the West Saxons to style himself "King of the Anglo-Saxons". Details of Alfred's life are described in a work by the 9th-century Welsh scholar and bishop Asser.

Alfred had a reputation as a learned and merciful man of a gracious and level-headed nature who encouraged education, proposing that primary education be taught in English rather than Latin, and improved his kingdom's legal system, military structure and his people's quality of life. In 2002 Alfred was ranked number 14 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.

Childhood

Further information: House of Wessex family tree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_of_Wessex#House_of_Wessex_family_tree

Alfred was born in the village of Wanating, now Wantage, historically in Berkshire but now in Oxfordshire. He was the youngest son of King ¥thelwulf of Wessex by his first wife, Osburh.[c]

In 853, at the age of four, Alfred is reported by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to have been sent to Rome where he was confirmed by Pope Leo IV, who "anointed him as king".[3] Victorian writers later interpreted this as an anticipatory coronation in preparation for his eventual succession to the throne of Wessex. This is unlikely; his succession could not have been foreseen at the time as Alfred had three living elder brothers. A letter of Leo IV shows that Alfred was made a "consul"; a misinterpretation of this investiture, deliberate or accidental, could explain later confusion.[4] It may also be based on Alfred's later having accompanied his father on a pilgrimage to Rome where he spent some time at the court of Charles the Bald, King of the Franks, around 854–855.

On their return from Rome in 856 ¥thelwulf was deposed by his son ¥thelbald. With civil war looming the magnates of the realm met in council to hammer out a compromise. ¥thelbald would retain the western shires (i.e. historical Wessex), and ¥thelwulf would rule in the east. When King ¥thelwulf died in 858 Wessex was ruled by three of Alfred's brothers in succession: ¥thelbald, ¥thelberht and ¥thelred.[5]

Bishop Asser tells the story of how as a child Alfred won as a prize a book of Saxon poems, offered by his mother to the first of her children able to memorize it.[6] Legend also has it that the young Alfred spent time in Ireland seeking healing. Alfred was troubled by health problems throughout his life. It is thought that he may have suffered from Crohn's disease.[7] Statues of Alfred in Winchester and Wantage portray him as a great warrior. Evidence suggests he was not physically strong and, though not lacking in courage, he was noted more for his intellect than as a warlike character.[8]

Reigns of Alfred's brothers

A map of the route taken by the Viking Great Heathen Army which arrived in England from Denmark, Norway, and southern Sweden in 865.
Alfred is not mentioned during the short reigns of his older brothers ¥thelbald of Wessex and ¥thelberht of Wessex. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes the Great Heathen Army, an army of Danes, landing in East Anglia with the intent of conquering the four kingdoms that constituted Anglo-Saxon England in 865.[9] Alfred's public life began at age 16 with the accession of his third brother, 18 year old King ¥thelred of Wessex in 865.

During this period, Bishop Asser applied to Alfred the unique title of "secundarius", which may indicate a position similar to the Celtic "tanist", a recognised successor closely associated with the reigning monarch. This arrangement may have been sanctioned by Alfred's father or by the Witan to guard against the danger of a disputed succession should ¥thelred fall in battle. It is well known among other Germanic peoples to crown a successor as royal prince and military commander, such as among the Swedes and Franks, to whom the Anglo-Saxons were closely related.

Fighting the Viking invasion

In 868, Alfred is recorded as fighting beside ¥thelred in an unsuccessful attempt to keep the Great Heathen Army led by Ivar the Boneless out of the adjoining Kingdom of Mercia.[10] The Danes arrived in his homeland at the end of 870, and nine engagements were fought in the following year, with varying outcomes, though the places and dates of two of these battles have not been recorded.

A successful skirmish at the Battle of Englefield in Berkshire on 31 December 870 was followed by a severe defeat at the siege and Battle of Reading by Ivar's brother Halfdan Ragnarsson on 5 January 871. Four days later, the Anglo-Saxons won a brilliant victory at the Battle of Ashdown on the Berkshire Downs, possibly near Compton or Aldworth. Alfred is particularly credited with the success of this last battle.[11]

The Saxons were defeated at the Battle of Basing on 22 January. They were defeated again on 22 March at the Battle of Merton (perhaps Marden in Wiltshire or Martin in Dorset).[11] ¥thelred died shortly afterwards on 23 April.

King at war

Early struggles, defeat and flight

In April 871 King ¥thelred died and Alfred succeeded to the throne of Wessex and the burden of its defence, even though ¥thelred left two under-age sons, ¥thelhelm and ¥thelwold. This was in accordance with the agreement that ¥thelred and Alfred had made earlier that year in an assembly at "Swinbeorg". The brothers had agreed that whichever of them outlived the other would inherit the personal property that King ¥thelwulf had left jointly to his sons in his will. The deceased's sons would receive only whatever property and riches their father had settled upon them, and whatever additional lands their uncle had acquired. The unstated premise was that the surviving brother would be king. Given the ongoing Danish invasion, and the youth of his nephews, Alfred's accession probably went uncontested.

While he was busy with the burial ceremonies for his brother, the Danes defeated the Saxon army in his absence at an unnamed spot, and then again in his presence at Wilton in May.[11] The defeat at Wilton smashed any remaining hope that Alfred could drive the invaders from his kingdom. He was forced instead to make peace with them, according to sources that do not tell what the terms of the peace were. Bishop Asser claimed that the pagans agreed to vacate the realm and made good their promise.[12]

Indeed, the Viking army did withdraw from Reading in the autumn of 871 to take up winter quarters in Mercian London. Although not mentioned by Asser, or by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Alfred probably also paid the Vikings cash to leave, much as the Mercians were to do in the following year.[12] Hoards dating to the Viking occupation of London in 871/2 have been excavated at Croydon, Gravesend, and Waterloo Bridge. These finds hint at the cost involved in making peace with the Vikings. For the next five years the Danes occupied other parts of England.[13]

In 876 under their new leader, Guthrum, the Danes slipped past the Saxon army and attacked and occupied Wareham in Dorset. Alfred blockaded them but was unable to take Wareham by assault.[11] Accordingly, he negotiated a peace which involved an exchange of hostages and oaths, which the Danes swore on a "holy ring"[14] associated with the worship of Thor.[15] The Danes broke their word and, after killing all the hostages, slipped away under cover of night to Exeter in Devon.[16]

Alfred blockaded the Viking ships in Devon and, with a relief fleet having been scattered by a storm, the Danes were forced to submit. The Danes withdrew to Mercia. In January 878 the Danes made a sudden attack on Chippenham, a royal stronghold in which Alfred had been staying over Christmas, "and most of the people they killed, except the King Alfred, and he with a little band made his way by wood and swamp, and after Easter he made a fort at Athelney in the marshes of Somerset, and from that fort kept fighting against the foe."[17] From his fort at Athelney, an island in the marshes near North Petherton, Alfred was able to mount an effective resistance movement, rallying the local militias from Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire.[11]

A legend, originating from 12th century chronicles,[2] tells how when he first fled to the Somerset Levels, Alfred was given shelter by a peasant woman who, unaware of his identity, left him to watch some wheaten cakes she had left cooking on the fire. Preoccupied with the problems of his kingdom Alfred accidentally let the cakes burn and was roundly scolded by the woman upon her return.

878 was the low-water mark in the history of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. With all the other kingdoms having fallen to the Vikings Wessex alone was still resisting.[18]

Counter-attack and victory

King Alfred's Tower (1772) on the supposed site of "Egbert's Stone", the mustering place before the Battle of Edington.[d]
In the seventh week after Easter (4–10 May 878), around Whitsuntide, Alfred rode to Egbert's Stone east of Selwood where he was met by "all the people of Somerset and of Wiltshire and of that part of Hampshire which is on this side of the sea (that is, west of Southampton Water), and they rejoiced to see him".[17] Alfred's emergence from his marshland stronghold was part of a carefully planned offensive that entailed raising the fyrds of three shires. This meant not only that the king had retained the loyalty of ealdormen, royal reeves and king's thegns, who were charged with levying and leading these forces, but that they had maintained their positions of authority in these localities well enough to answer his summons to war. Alfred's actions also suggest a system of scouts and messengers.[19]

Alfred won a decisive victory in the ensuing Battle of Edington which may have been fought near Westbury, Wiltshire.[11] He then pursued the Danes to their stronghold at Chippenham and starved them into submission. One of the terms of the surrender was that Guthrum convert to Christianity. Three weeks later the Danish king and 29 of his chief men were baptised at Alfred's court at Aller, near Athelney, with Alfred receiving Guthrum as his spiritual son.[11]

According to Asser:

The unbinding of the Chrisom [e] took place with great ceremony eight days later at the royal estate at Wedmore[21]

While at Wedmore Alfred and Guthrum negotiated what some historians have called the Treaty of Wedmore, but it was to be some years after the cessation of hostilities that a formal treaty was signed.[22] Under the terms of the so-called Treaty of Wedmore the converted Guthrum was required to leave Wessex and return to East Anglia. Consequently, in 879 the Viking army left Chippenham and made its way to Cirencester. [21] The formal Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum, preserved in Old English in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Manuscript 383), and in a Latin compilation known as "Quadripartitus", was negotiated later, perhaps in 879 or 880, when King Ceolwulf II of Mercia was deposed.[23]

That treaty divided up the kingdom of Mercia. By its terms the boundary between Alfred's and Guthrum's kingdoms was to run up the River Thames to the River Lea, follow the Lea to its source (near Luton), from there extend in a straight line to Bedford, and from Bedford follow the River Ouse to Watling Street.[24]

In other words, Alfred succeeded to Ceolwulf's kingdom consisting of western Mercia, and Guthrum incorporated the eastern part of Mercia into an enlarged kingdom of East Anglia (henceforward known as the Danelaw). By terms of the treaty, moreover, Alfred was to have control over the Mercian city of London and its mints—at least for the time being.[25] The disposition of Essex, held by West Saxon kings since the days of Egbert, is unclear from the treaty though, given Alfred's political and military superiority, it would have been surprising if he had conceded any disputed territory to his new godson.

Quiet years, restoration of London (880s)

Further information: Londinium and Anglo-Saxon London

With the signing of the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum, an event most commonly held to have taken place around 880 when Guthrum's people began settling East Anglia, Guthrum was neutralised as a threat.[26] The Viking army, which had stayed at Fulham during the winter of 878–879, sailed for Ghent and was active on the continent from 879–892.[27][28]

Alfred was still forced to contend with a number of Danish threats. A year later, in 881, Alfred fought a small sea battle against four Danish ships "on the high seas",[27] Two of the ships were destroyed and the others surrendered to Alfred's forces.[29] Similar small skirmishes with independent Viking raiders would have occurred for much of the period, as they had for decades.

In 883—though there is some debate over the year—King Alfred, because of his support and his donation of alms to Rome, received a number of gifts from Pope Marinus.[30] Among these gifts was reputed to be a piece of the true cross, a great treasure for the devout Saxon king. According to Asser, because of Pope Marinus' friendship with King Alfred, the pope granted an exemption to any Anglo-Saxons residing within Rome from tax or tribute.[31]

After the signing of the treaty with Guthrum, Alfred was spared any large-scale conflicts for some time. Despite this relative peace the king was still forced to deal with a number of Danish raids and incursions. Among these was a raid in Kent, an allied kingdom in South East England, during the year 885, which was quite possibly the largest raid since the battles with Guthrum. Asser's account of the raid places the Danish raiders at the Saxon city of Rochester[27] where they built a temporary fortress in order to besiege the city. In response to this incursion Alfred led an Anglo-Saxon force against the Danes who, instead of engaging the army of Wessex, fled to their beached ships and sailed to another part of Britain. The retreating Danish force supposedly left Britain the following summer.[32]

Not long after the failed Danish raid in Kent, Alfred dispatched his fleet to East Anglia. The purpose of this expedition is debated, though Asser claims that it was for the sake of plunder.[32] After travelling up the River Stour the fleet was met by Danish vessels that numbered 13 or 16 (sources vary on the number) and a battle ensued.[32] The Anglo-Saxon fleet emerged victorious and, as Huntingdon accounts, "laden with spoils".[33] The victorious fleet was then caught unawares when attempting to leave the River Stour and was attacked by a Danish force at the mouth of the river. The Danish fleet defeated Alfred's fleet, which may have been weakened in the previous engagement.[34]

A plaque in the City of London noting the restoration of the Roman walled city by Alfred.
A year later, in 886, Alfred reoccupied the city of London and set out to make it habitable again.[35] Alfred entrusted the city to the care of his son-in-law ¥thelred, ealdorman of Mercia. The restoration of London progressed through the latter half of the 880s and is believed to have revolved around: a new street plan; added fortifications in addition to the existing Roman walls; and, some believe, the construction of matching fortifications on the south bank of the River Thames.[36]

This is also the period in which almost all chroniclers agree that the Saxon people of pre-unification England submitted to Alfred.[37] This was not, however, the point at which Alfred came to be known as King of England; in fact he would never adopt the title for himself.

Between the restoration of London and the resumption of large-scale Danish attacks in the early 890s, Alfred's reign was rather uneventful. The relative peace of the late 880s was marred by the death of Alfred's sister, ¥thelswith, en route to Rome in 888.[38] In the same year the Archbishop of Canterbury, ¥thelred, also died. One year later Guthrum, or Athelstan by his baptismal name, Alfred's former enemy and king of East Anglia, died and was buried in Hadleigh, Suffolk.[39]

Map of Britain in 886
Guthrum's passing changed the political landscape for Alfred. The resulting power vacuum stirred up other power–hungry warlords eager to take his place in the following years. The quiet years of Alfred's life were coming to a close and war was on the horizon.[40]

Further Viking attacks repelled (890s)

After another lull, in the autumn of 892 or 893, the Danes attacked again. Finding their position in mainland Europe precarious, they crossed to England in 330 ships in two divisions. They entrenched themselves, the larger body, at Appledore, Kent, and the lesser under Hastein, at Milton, also in Kent. The invaders brought their wives and children with them indicating a meaningful attempt at conquest and colonisation. Alfred, in 893 or 894, took up a position from which he could observe both forces.[41]

While he was in talks with Hastein, the Danes at Appledore broke out and struck northwestwards. They were overtaken by Alfred's eldest son, Edward, and were defeated in a general engagement at Farnham in Surrey. They took refuge on an island at Thorney, on the River Colne between Buckinghamshire and Middlesex, where they were blockaded and forced to give hostages and promise to leave Wessex.[42][41] They then went to Essex and, after suffering another defeat at Benfleet, joined with Hastein's force at Shoebury.[42]

Alfred had been on his way to relieve his son at Thorney when he heard that the Northumbrian and East Anglian Danes were besieging Exeter and an unnamed stronghold on the North Devon shore. Alfred at once hurried westward and raised the Siege of Exeter. The fate of the other place is not recorded.[43]

Meanwhile, the force under Hastein set out to march up the Thames Valley, possibly with the idea of assisting their friends in the west. They were met by a large force under the three great ealdormen of Mercia, Wiltshire and Somerset and, forced to head off to the northwest, being finally overtaken and blockaded at Buttington. (Some identify this with Buttington Tump at the mouth of the River Wye, others with Buttington near Welshpool.) An attempt to break through the English lines was defeated. Those who escaped retreated to Shoebury. After collecting reinforcements, they made a sudden dash across England and occupied the ruined Roman walls of Chester. The English did not attempt a winter blockade but contented themselves with destroying all the supplies in the district.[43]

Early in 894 or 895 lack of food obliged the Danes to retire once more to Essex. At the end of the year the Danes drew their ships up the River Thames and the River Lea and fortified themselves twenty miles (32 km) north of London. A direct attack on the Danish lines failed but, later in the year, Alfred saw a means of obstructing the river so as to prevent the egress of the Danish ships. The Danes realised that they were outmanoeuvred. They struck off north-westwards and wintered at Cwatbridge near Bridgnorth. The next year, 896 (or 897), they gave up the struggle. Some retired to Northumbria, some to East Anglia. Those who had no connections in England withdrew back to the continent.[43]

Military reorganisation

Alfred the Great silver offering penny, 871–899. Legend: AELFRED REX SAXONUM "¥lfred King of the Saxons".
The Germanic tribes who invaded Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries relied upon the unarmoured infantry supplied by their tribal levy, or fyrd, and it was upon this system that the military power of the several kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England depended.[44] The fyrd was a local militia in the Anglo-Saxon shire in which all freemen had to serve; those who refused military service were subject to fines or loss of their land.[45] According to the law code of King Ine of Wessex, issued in about 694:

If a nobleman who holds land neglects military service, he shall pay 120 shillings and forfeit his land; a nobleman who holds no land shall pay 60 shillings; a commoner shall pay a fine of 30 shillings for neglecting military service.[46]

Wessex's history of failures preceding his success in 878 emphasised to Alfred that the traditional system of battle he had inherited played to the Danes' advantage. While both the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes attacked settlements to seize wealth and other resources, they employed very different strategies. In their raids the Anglo-Saxons traditionally preferred to attack head-on by assembling their forces in a shield wall, advancing against their target and overcoming the oncoming wall marshaled against them in defence.[47]

In contrast the Danes preferred to choose easy targets, mapping cautious forays designed to avoid risking all their accumulated plunder with high-stake attacks for more. Alfred determined their strategy was to launch smaller scaled attacks from a secure and reinforced defensible base to which they could retreat should their raiders meet strong resistance.[47]

These bases were prepared in advance, often by capturing an estate and augmenting its defences with surrounding ditches, ramparts and palisades. Once inside the fortification, Alfred realised, the Danes enjoyed the advantage, better situated to outlast their opponents or crush them with a counter-attack as the provisions and stamina of the besieging forces waned.[47]

The means by which the Anglo-Saxons marshaled forces to defend against marauders also left them vulnerable to the Vikings. It was the responsibility of the shire fyrd to deal with local raids. The king could call up the national militia to defend the kingdom but, in the case of the Viking hit-and-run raids, problems with communication, and raising supplies meant that the national militia could not be mustered quickly enough. It was only after the raids were underway that a call went out to landowners to gather their men for battle. Large regions could be devastated before the fyrd could assemble and arrive. And although the landowners were obliged to the king to supply these men when called, during the attacks in 878 many of them opportunistically abandoned their king and collaborated with Guthrum.[48][49]

With these lessons in mind Alfred capitalised on the relatively peaceful years immediately following his victory at Edington by focusing on an ambitious restructuring of his kingdom's military defences. On a trip to Rome Alfred had stayed with Charles the Bald and it is possible that he may have studied how the Carolingian kings had dealt with the Viking problem. Learning from their experiences he was able to put together a system of taxation and defence for his own kingdom. Also there had been a system of fortifications in pre-Viking Mercia that may have been an influence. So when the Viking raids resumed in 892 Alfred was better prepared to confront them with a standing, mobile field army, a network of garrisons, and a small fleet of ships navigating the rivers and estuaries.[50][51][52]

Administration and taxation

Tenants in Anglo-Saxon England had a threefold obligation based on their landholding: the so-called "common burdens" of military service, fortress work, and bridge repair. This threefold obligation has traditionally been called "trinoda neccessitas" or "trimoda neccessitas".[53] The Old English name for the fine due for neglecting military service was "fierdwite" or "fyrdwitee".[46]

To maintain the burhs, and to reorganise the fyrd as a standing army, Alfred expanded the tax and conscription system based on the productivity of a tenant's landholding. The "hide" was the basic unit of the system on which the tenant's public obligations were assessed. A "hide" is thought to represent the amount of land required to support one family. The "hide" would differ in size according to the value and resources of the land, and the landowner would have to provide service based on how many "hides" he owned.[53][54]

Burghal system

See also: Burghal Hidage

A map of burhs named in the Burghal Hidage.
At the centre of Alfred's reformed military defence system was the network of burhs, distributed at strategic points throughout the kingdom.[55] There were thirty-three in total, spaced approximately 30 kilometres (19 miles) apart, enabling the military to confront attacks anywhere in the kingdom within a single day.[56][57]

Alfred's burhs (later termed boroughs) ranged from former Roman towns, such as Winchester, where the stone walls were repaired and ditches added, to massive earthen walls surrounded by wide ditches, probably reinforced with wooden revetments and palisades, such as at Burpham, Sussex.[58][59] The size of the burhs ranged from tiny outposts such as Pilton to large fortifications in established towns, the largest being at Winchester.[60]

A contemporary document now known as the Burghal Hidage provides an insight into how the system worked. It lists the "hidage" for each of the fortified towns contained in the document. For example, Wallingford had a "hidage" of 2400, which meant that the landowners there were responsible for supplying and feeding 2,400 men, the number sufficient for maintaining 9,900 feet (3.0 kilometres) of wall.[61] A total of 27,071 soldiers were needed system-wide, or approximately one in four of all the free men in Wessex.[62]

Many of the burhs were twin towns that straddled a river and were connected by a fortified bridge, like those built by Charles the Bald a generation before.[51] The double-burh blocked passage on the river, forcing Viking ships to navigate under a garrisoned bridge lined with men armed with stones, spears, or arrows. Other burhs were sited near fortified royal villas, allowing the king better control over his strongholds.[63] The burhs were also interconnected by a road system maintained for army use (known as "herepaths"). These roads would allow an army to be quickly assembled, sometimes from more than one burh, to confront the Viking invader.[64] This network posed significant obstacles to Viking invaders, especially those laden with booty. The system threatened Viking routes and communications making it far more dangerous for the Viking raiders. The Vikings lacked both the equipment necessary to undertake a siege against a burh and a developed doctrine of siegecraft, having tailored their methods of fighting to rapid strikes and unimpeded retreats to well-defended fortifications. The only means left to them was to starve the burh into submission, but this gave the king time to send his mobile field army or garrisons from neighbouring burhs along the well-maintained army roads. In such cases the Vikings were extremely vulnerable to pursuit by the king's joint military forces.[65] Alfred's burh system posed such a formidable challenge against Viking attack that when the Vikings returned in 892, and successfully stormed a half-made, poorly garrisoned fortress up the Lympne estuary in Kent, the Anglo-Saxons were able to limit their penetration to the outer frontiers of Wessex and Mercia.[66]

Alfred's burghal system was revolutionary in its strategic conception and potentially expensive in its execution. His contemporary biographer Asser wrote that many nobles balked at the new demands placed upon them even though they were for "the common needs of the kingdom".[67][68]

English navy

Alfred also tried his hand at naval design. In 896[69] he ordered the construction of a small fleet, perhaps a dozen or so longships that, at 60 oars, were twice the size of Viking warships. This was not, as the Victorians asserted, the birth of the English Navy. Wessex had possessed a royal fleet before this. King Athelstan of Kent and Ealdorman Ealhhere had defeated a Viking fleet in 851 capturing nine ships,[70] and Alfred himself had conducted naval actions in 882.[71]

Nevertheless, 897 clearly marked an important development in the naval power of Wessex. The author of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle related that Alfred's ships were larger, swifter, steadier and rode higher in the water than either Danish or Frisian ships. It is probable that, under the classical tutelage of Asser, Alfred utilised the design of Greek and Roman warships, with high sides, designed for fighting rather than for navigation.[72]

Alfred had seapower in mind—if he could intercept raiding fleets before they landed, he could spare his kingdom from being ravaged. Alfred's ships may have been superior in conception. In practice they proved to be too large to manoeuvre well in the close waters of estuaries and rivers, the only places in which a naval battle could occur.[73]

The warships of the time were not designed to be ship killers but rather troop carriers. It has been suggested that, like sea battles in late Viking age Scandinavia, these battles may have entailed a ship coming alongside an enemy vessel, lashing the two ships together and then boarding the enemy craft. The result was effectively a land battle involving hand-to-hand fighting on board the two lashed vessels.[74]

In the one recorded naval engagement in 896[75][69] Alfred's new fleet of nine ships intercepted six Viking ships at the mouth of an unidentified river in the south of England. The Danes had beached half their ships and gone inland. Alfred's ships immediately moved to block their escape. The three Viking ships afloat attempted to break through the English lines. Only one made it; Alfred's ships intercepted the other two.[69] Lashing the Viking boats to their own, the English crew boarded and proceeded to kill the Vikings. One ship escaped, because Alfred's heavy ships became grounded when the tide went out.[74] A land battle ensued between the crews. The Danes were heavily outnumbered, but as the tide rose they returned to their boats which, with shallower drafts, were freed first. The English watched as the Vikings rowed past them.[74] But they had suffered so many casualties (120 dead against 62 Frisians and English) that they had difficulty putting out to sea. All were too damaged to row around Sussex and two were driven against the Sussex coast (possibly at Selsey Bill).[69][74] The shipwrecked crew were brought before Alfred at Winchester and hanged.[69]

Legal reform:

In the late 880s or early 890s Alfred issued a long domboc or law code consisting of his "own" laws, followed by a code issued by his late seventh-century predecessor King Ine of Wessex.[76] Together these laws are arranged into 120 chapters. In his introduction Alfred explains that he gathered together the laws he found in many "synod-books" and "ordered to be written many of the ones that our forefathers observed—those that pleased me; and many of the ones that did not please me, I rejected with the advice of my councillors, and commanded them to be observed in a different way".[77]

Alfred singled out in particular the laws that he "found in the days of Ine, my kinsman, or Offa, king of the Mercians, or King ¥thelberht of Kent who first among the English people received baptism". He appended, rather than integrated, the laws of Ine into his code and, although he included, as had ¥thelbert, a scale of payments in compensation for injuries to various body parts the two injury tariffs are not aligned. Offa is not known to have issued a law code leading historian Patrick Wormald to speculate that Alfred had in mind the legatine capitulary of 786 that was presented to Offa by two papal legates.[78]

About a fifth of the law code is taken up by Alfred's introduction which includes translations into English of the Ten Commandments, a few chapters from the Book of Exodus, and the "Apostolic Letter" from the Acts of the Apostles (15:23–29). The Introduction may best be understood as Alfred's meditation upon the meaning of Christian law.[79] It traces the continuity between God's gift of law to Moses to Alfred's own issuance of law to the West Saxon people. By doing so, it linked the holy past to the historical present and represented Alfred's law-giving as a type of divine legislation.[80]

Similarly Alfred divided his code into 120 chapters because 120 was the age at which Moses died and, in the number-symbolism of early medieval biblical exegetes, 120 stood for law.[81] The link between the Mosaic Law and Alfred's code is the "Apostolic Letter" which explained that Christ "had come not to shatter or annul the commandments but to fulfill them; and he taught mercy and meekness". (Intro, 49.1) The mercy that Christ infused into Mosaic Law underlies the injury tariffs that figure so prominently in barbarian law codes since Christian synods "established, through that mercy which Christ taught, that for almost every misdeed at the first offence secular lords might with their permission receive without sin the monetary compensation which they then fixed".[82]

The only crime that could not be compensated with a payment of money was treachery to a lord "since Almighty God adjudged none for those who despised Him, nor did Christ, the Son of God, adjudge any for the one who betrayed Him to death; and He commanded everyone to love his lord as Himself".[82] Alfred's transformation of Christ's commandment, from "Love your neighbour as yourself" (Matt. 22:39–40) to love your secular lord as you would love the Lord Christ himself, underscores the importance that Alfred placed upon lordship which he understood as a sacred bond instituted by God for the governance of man.[83]

When one turns from the domboc's introduction to the laws themselves it is difficult to uncover any logical arrangement. The impression one receives is of a hodgepodge of miscellaneous laws. The law code, as it has been preserved, is singularly unsuitable for use in lawsuits. In fact several of Alfred's laws contradicted the laws of Ine that form an integral part of the code. Patrick Wormald's explanation is that Alfred's law code should be understood not as a legal manual but as an ideological manifesto of kingship "designed more for symbolic impact than for practical direction".[84] In practical terms the most important law in the code may well have been the very first: "We enjoin, what is most necessary, that each man keep carefully his oath and his pledge" which expresses a fundamental tenet of Anglo-Saxon law.[85]

Alfred devoted considerable attention and thought to judicial matters. Asser underscores his concern for judicial fairness. Alfred, according to Asser, insisted upon reviewing contested judgments made by his ealdormen and reeves and "would carefully look into nearly all the judgements which were passed [issued] in his absence anywhere in the realm to see whether they were just or unjust".[86] A charter from the reign of his son Edward the Elder depicts Alfred as hearing one such appeal in his chamber while washing his hands.[87]

Asser represents Alfred as a Solomonic judge, painstaking in his own judicial investigations and critical of royal officials who rendered unjust or unwise judgments. Although Asser never mentions Alfred's law code he does say that Alfred insisted that his judges be literate so that they could apply themselves "to the pursuit of wisdom". The failure to comply with this royal order was to be punished by loss of office.[88]

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, commissioned at the time of Alfred, was probably written to promote unification of England,[89] whereas Asser's The Life of King Alfred promoted Alfred's achievements and personal qualities. It was possible that the document was designed this way so that it could be disseminated in Wales, as Alfred had recently acquired overlordship of that country.[89]

Foreign relations

Asser speaks grandiosely of Alfred's relations with foreign powers but little definite information is available.[43] His interest in foreign countries is shown by the insertions which he made in his translation of Orosius. He corresponded with Elias III, the Patriarch of Jerusalem,[43] and embassies to Rome conveying the English alms to the Pope were fairly frequent.[51][f] Around 890 Wulfstan of Hedeby undertook a journey from Hedeby on Jutland along the Baltic Sea to the Prussian trading town of Truso. Alfred personally collected details of this trip.[90]

Alfred's relations with the Celtic princes in the western half of Britain are clearer. Comparatively early in his reign, according to Asser, the southern Welsh princes, owing to the pressure on them from North Wales and Mercia, commended themselves to Alfred. Later in his reign the North Welsh followed their example and the latter cooperated with the English in the campaign of 893 (or 894). That Alfred sent alms to Irish and Continental monasteries may be taken on Asser's authority. The visit of the three pilgrim "Scots" (i.e. Irish) to Alfred in 891 is undoubtedly authentic. The story that he himself in his childhood was sent to Ireland to be healed by Saint Modwenna, though mythical, may show Alfred's interest in that island.[43]

Religion and culture

King Alfred the Great pictured in a stained glass window in the West Window of the South Transept of Bristol Cathedral.
In the 880s, at the same time that he was "cajoling and threatening" his nobles to build and man the burhs, Alfred, perhaps inspired by the example of Charlemagne almost a century before, undertook an equally ambitious effort to revive learning.[43] During this time period the Viking raids were often seen as a divine punishment and Alfred may have wished to revive religious awe in order to appease God's wrath.[91] This revival entailed the recruitment of clerical scholars from Mercia, Wales and abroad to enhance the tenor of the court and of the episcopacy; the establishment of a court school to educate his own children, the sons of his nobles, and intellectually promising boys of lesser birth; an attempt to require literacy in those who held offices of authority; a series of translations into the vernacular of Latin works the king deemed "most necessary for all men to know";[92] the compilation of a chronicle detailing the rise of Alfred's kingdom and house, with a genealogy that stretched back to Adam, thus giving the West Saxon kings a biblical ancestry.[93]

Very little is known of the church under Alfred. The Danish attacks had been particularly damaging to the monasteries. Although Alfred founded monasteries at Athelney and Shaftesbury, these were the first new monastic houses in Wessex since the beginning of the eighth century.[94] According to Asser, Alfred enticed foreign monks to England for his monastery at Athelney as there was little interest for the locals to take up the monastic life.[95]

Alfred undertook no systematic reform of ecclesiastical institutions or religious practices in Wessex. For him the key to the kingdom's spiritual revival was to appoint pious, learned, and trustworthy bishops and abbots. As king he saw himself as responsible for both the temporal and spiritual welfare of his subjects. Secular and spiritual authority were not distinct categories for Alfred.[96][97]

He was equally comfortable distributing his translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care to his bishops so that they might better train and supervise priests and using those same bishops as royal officials and judges. Nor did his piety prevent him from expropriating strategically sited church lands, especially estates along the border with the Danelaw, and transferring them to royal thegns and officials who could better defend them against Viking attacks.[97][98]

Impact of Danish raids on education

The Danish raids had a devastating effect on learning in England. Alfred lamented in the preface to his translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care that "learning had declined so thoroughly in England that there were very few men on this side of the Humber who could understand their divine services in English or even translate a single letter from Latin into English: and I suppose that there were not many beyond the Humber either".[99] Alfred undoubtedly exaggerated, for dramatic effect, the abysmal state of learning in England during his youth.[100] That Latin learning had not been obliterated is evidenced by the presence in his court of learned Mercian and West Saxon clerics such as Plegmund, Wµferth, and Wulfsige.[101]

Manuscript production in England dropped off precipitously around the 860s when the Viking invasions began in earnest, not to be revived until the end of the century.[102] Numerous Anglo-Saxon manuscripts burnt up along with the churches that housed them. And a solemn diploma from Christ Church, Canterbury, dated 873, is so poorly constructed and written that historian Nicholas Brooks posited a scribe who was either so blind he could not read what he wrote or who knew little or no Latin. "It is clear", Brooks concludes, "that the metropolitan church [of Canterbury] must have been quite unable to provide any effective training in the scriptures or in Christian worship".[103]

Establishment of a court school

Following the example of Charlemagne, Alfred established a court school for the education of his own children, those of the nobility, and "a good many of lesser birth".[92] There they studied books in both English and Latin and "devoted themselves to writing, to such an extent ... they were seen to be devoted and intelligent students of the liberal arts".[104] He recruited scholars from the Continent and from Britain to aid in the revival of Christian learning in Wessex and to provide the king personal instruction. Grimbald and John the Saxon came from Francia; Plegmund (whom Alfred appointed archbishop of Canterbury in 890), Bishop Werferth of Worcester, ¥thelstan, and the royal chaplains Werwulf, from Mercia; and Asser, from St David's in southwestern Wales.[105]

Advocacy of education in the English language:

Alfred's educational ambitions seem to have extended beyond the establishment of a court school. Believing that without Christian wisdom there can be neither prosperity nor success in war, Alfred aimed "to set to learning (as long as they are not useful for some other employment) all the free-born young men now in England who have the means to apply themselves to it".[106] Conscious of the decay of Latin literacy in his realm Alfred proposed that primary education be taught in English, with those wishing to advance to holy orders to continue their studies in Latin.[107]

There were few "books of wisdom" written in English. Alfred sought to remedy this through an ambitious court-centred programme of translating into English the books he deemed "most necessary for all men to know".[107] It is unknown when Alfred launched this programme but it may have been during the 880s when Wessex was enjoying a respite from Viking attacks. Alfred was, until recently, often considered to have been the author of many of the translations but this is now considered doubtful in almost all cases. Scholars more often refer to translations as "Alfredian" indicating that they probably had something to do with his patronage but are unlikely to be his own work.[108]

Apart from the lost Handboc or Encheiridio, which seems to have been a commonplace book kept by the king, the earliest work to be translated was the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, a book greatly popular in the Middle Ages. The translation was undertaken at Alfred's command by Werferth, Bishop of Worcester, with the king merely furnishing a preface.[43] Remarkably Alfred, undoubtedly with the advice and aid of his court scholars, translated four works himself: Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy", St. Augustine's Soliloquies and the first fifty psalms of the Psalter.[109]

One might add to this list the translation, in Alfred's law code, of excerpts from the Vulgate Book of Exodus. The Old English versions of Orosius's Histories against the Pagans and Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People are no longer accepted by scholars as Alfred's own translations because of lexical and stylistic differences.[109] Nonetheless the consensus remains that they were part of the Alfredian programme of translation. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge suggest this also for Bald's Leechbook and the anonymous Old English Martyrology.[110]

The preface of Alfred's translation of Pope Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care explained why he thought it necessary to translate works such as this from Latin into English. Although he described his method as translating "sometimes word for word, sometimes sense for sense", the translation actually keeps very close to the original although, through his choice of language, he blurred throughout the distinction between spiritual and secular authority. Alfred meant the translation to be used, and circulated it to all his bishops.[111] Interest in Alfred's translation of Pastoral Care was so enduring that copies were still being made in the 11th century.[112]

Boethius'Consolation of Philosophy was the most popular philosophical handbook of the Middle Ages. Unlike the translation of the Pastoral Care the Alfredian text deals very freely with the original and, though the late Dr. G. Schepss showed that many of the additions to the text are to be traced not to the translator himself[113] but to the glosses and commentaries which he used, still there is much in the work which is distinctive to the translation and has been taken to reflect philosophies of kingship in Alfred's milieu. It is in the Boethius that the oft-quoted sentence occurs: "To speak briefly: I desired to live worthily as long as I lived, and after my life to leave to them that should come after, my memory in good works."[114] The book has come down to us in two manuscripts only. In one of these[115] the writing is prose, in the other[116] a combination of prose and alliterating verse. The latter manuscript was severely damaged in the 18th and 19th centuries.[117]

The last of the Alfredian works is one which bears the name Blostman, i.e. "Blooms" or Anthology. The first half is based mainly on the Soliloquies of St Augustine of Hippo, the remainder is drawn from various sources. The material has traditionally been thought to contain much that is Alfred's own and highly characteristic of him. The last words of it may be quoted; they form a fitting epitaph for the noblest of English kings. "Therefore, he seems to me a very foolish man, and truly wretched, who will not increase his understanding while he is in the world, and ever wish and long to reach that endless life where all shall be made clear."[111] Alfred appears as a character in the twelfth- or thirteenth-century poem The Owl and the Nightingale where his wisdom and skill with proverbs is praised. The Proverbs of Alfred, a thirteenth-century work, contains sayings that are not likely to have originated with Alfred but attest to his posthumous medieval reputation for wisdom.[118]

2A drawing of the Alfred Jewel.

The Alfred Jewel, in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, commissioned by Alfred:

Interesting article about, "The Alfred Jewel", contributed January 14th, 2018 by Martha Ann Millsaps;

The Alfred jewel, discovered in Somerset in 1693, has long been associated with King Alfred because of its Old English inscription AELFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN (Alfred ordered me to be made). The jewel is about 2 1/2 inches (6.4 centimetres) long, made of filigreed gold, enclosing a highly polished piece of quartz crystal beneath which is set in a cloisonnâe enamel plaque with an enamelled image of a man holding floriate sceptres, perhaps personifying Sight or the Wisdom of God.[119]

It was at one time attached to a thin rod or stick based on the hollow socket at its base. The jewel certainly dates from Alfred's reign. Although its function is unknown it has been often suggested that the jewel was one of the "µstels"—pointers for reading—that Alfred ordered sent to every bishopric accompanying a copy of his translation of the Pastoral Care. Each "µstel" was worth the princely sum of 50 mancuses which fits in well with the quality workmanship and expensive materials of the Alfred jewel".[120]

Historian Richard Abels sees Alfred's educational and military reforms as complementary. Restoring religion and learning in Wessex, Abels contends, was to Alfred's mind as essential to the defence of his realm as the building of the burhs.[121] As Alfred observed in the preface to his English translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, kings who fail to obey their divine duty to promote learning can expect earthly punishments to befall their people.[122] The pursuit of wisdom, he assured his readers of the Boethius, was the surest path to power: "Study Wisdom, then, and, when you have learned it, condemn it not, for I tell you that by its means you may without fail attain to power, yea, even though not desiring it".[123]

The portrayal of the West-Saxon resistance to the Vikings by Asser and the chronicler as a Christian holy war was more than mere rhetoric or 'propaganda'. It reflected Alfred's own belief in a doctrine of divine rewards and punishments rooted in a vision of a hierarchical Christian world order in which God is the Lord to whom kings owe obedience and through whom they derive their authority over their followers. The need to persuade his nobles to undertake work for the 'common good' led Alfred and his court scholars to strengthen and deepen the conception of Christian kingship that he had inherited by building upon the legacy of earlier kings such as Offa as well as clerical writers such as Bede, Alcuin and the other luminaries of the Carolingian renaissance. This was not a cynical use of religion to manipulate his subjects into obedience but an intrinsic element in Alfred's worldview. He believed, as did other kings in ninth-century England and Francia, that God had entrusted him with the spiritual as well as physical welfare of his people. If the Christian faith fell into ruin in his kingdom, if the clergy were too ignorant to understand the Latin words they butchered in their offices and liturgies, if the ancient monasteries and collegiate churches lay deserted out of indifference, he was answerable before God, as Josiah had been. Alfred's ultimate responsibility was the pastoral care of his people.[121]

Now, he was greatly loved, more than all his brothers, by his father and mother—indeed, by everybody—with a universal and profound love, and he was always brought up in the royal court and nowhere else. ... [He] was seen to be more comely in appearance than his other brothers, and more pleasing in manner, speech and behaviour ... [and] in spite of all the demands of the present life, it has been the desire for wisdom, more than anything else, together with the nobility of his birth, which have characterized the nature of his noble mind.[124]

It is also written by Asser that Alfred did not learn to read until he was twelve years old or later, which is described as "shameful negligence" of his parents and tutors. Alfred was an excellent listener and had an incredible memory and he retained poetry and psalms very well. A story is told by Asser about how his mother held up a book of Saxon poetry to him and his brothers, and said; "I shall give this book to whichever one of you can learn it the fastest." After excitedly asking, "Will you really give this book to the one of us who can understand it the soonest and recite it to you?" Alfred then took it to his teacher, learned it, and recited it back to his mother.[125]

Alfred is also noted as carrying around a small book, probably a medieval version of a small pocket notebook, which contained psalms and many prayers that he often collected. Asser writes: these "he collected in a single book, as I have seen for myself; amid all the affairs of the present life he took it around with him everywhere for the sake of prayer, and was inseparable from it."[125]

An excellent hunter in every branch of the sport, Alfred is remembered as an enthusiastic huntsman against whom nobody’s skills could compare.[125]

Although he was the youngest of his brothers, he was probably the most open-minded. He was an early advocate for education. His desire for learning could have come from his early love of English poetry and inability to read or physically record it until later in life. Asser writes that Alfred "could not satisfy his craving for what he desired the most, namely the liberal arts; for, as he used to say, there were no good scholars in the entire kingdom of the West Saxons at that time".[125]

Family

In 868 Alfred married Ealhswith, daughter of a Mercian nobleman, ¥thelred Mucel, Ealdorman of the Gaini. The Gaini were probably one of the tribal groups of the Mercians. Ealhswith's mother, Eadburh, was a member of the Mercian royal family.[126]

They had five or six children together including: Edward the Elder who succeeded his father as king; ¥thelflµd who became Lady (ruler) of the Mercians in her own right; and ¥lfthryth who married Baldwin II the Count of Flanders. His mother was Osburga, daughter of Oslac of the Isle of Wight, Chief Butler of England. Asser, in his Vita ¥lfredi asserts that this shows his lineage from the Jutes of the Isle of Wight. This is unlikely as Bede tells us that they were all slaughtered by the Saxons under Cµdwalla. In 2008 the skeleton of Queen Eadgyth, granddaughter of Alfred the Great was found in Magdeburg Cathedral in Germany. It was confirmed in 2010 that these remains belong to her—one of the earliest members of the English royal family.[127]

Osferth was described as a relative in King Alfred's will and he attested charters in a high position until 934. A charter of King Edward's reign described him as the king's brother, "mistakenly" according to Keynes and Lapidge, but in the view of Janet Nelson he probably was an illegitimate son of King Alfred.[128][129]

Name Birth Death Notes
¥thelflµd 12 June 918 Married c 886, ¥thelred, Lord of the Mercians d. 911; had issue
Edward c. 874 17 July 924 Married (1) Ecgwynn, (2) ¥lfflµd, (3) 919 Eadgifu
¥thelgifu Abbess of Shaftesbury
¥thelweard 16 October 922(?) Married and had issue
¥lfthryth 929 Married Baldwin II d. 918; had issue

Ancestry[edit]

[show]Ancestors of Alfred the Great

Death, burial and fate of remains[edit]

Alfred's will:
Alfred died on 26 October 899. How he died is unknown, although he suffered throughout his life with a painful and unpleasant illness. His biographer Asser gave a detailed description of Alfred's symptoms and this has allowed modern doctors to provide a possible diagnosis. It is thought that he had either Crohn's disease or haemorrhoidal disease.[7][131] His grandson King Eadred seems to have suffered from a similar illness.[132][g]

Alfred was originally buried temporarily in the Old Minster in Winchester. Four years after his death he was moved to the New Minster (perhaps built especially to receive his body). When the New Minster moved to Hyde, a little north of the city, in 1110, the monks were transferred to Hyde Abbey along with Alfred's body and those of his wife and children, which were presumably interred before the high altar. Soon after the dissolution of the abbey in 1539, during the reign of Henry VIII, the church was demolished, leaving the graves intact.[134]

The royal graves and many others were probably rediscovered by chance in 1788 when a prison was being constructed by convicts on the site. Prisoners dug across the width of the altar area in order to dispose of rubble left at the dissolution. Coffins were stripped of lead, and bones were scattered and lost. The prison was demolished between 1846 and 1850.[135] Further excavations in 1866 and 1897 were inconclusive.[134][136] In 1866 amateur antiquarian John Mellor claimed to have recovered a number of bones from the site which he said were those of Alfred. These later came into the possession of the vicar of nearby St Bartholomew's Church who reburied them in an unmarked grave in the church graveyard.[135]

Excavations conducted by the Winchester Museums Service of the Hyde Abbey site in 1999 located a second pit dug in front of where the high altar would have been located, which was identified as probably dating to Mellor's 1886 excavation.[134] The 1999 archeological excavation uncovered the foundations of the abbey buildings and some bones. Bones suggested at the time to be those of Alfred proved instead to belong to an elderly woman.[137]

In March 2013 the Diocese of Winchester exhumed the bones from the unmarked grave at St Bartholomew's and placed them in secure storage. The diocese made no claim they were the bones of Alfred, but intended to secure them for later analysis, and from the attentions of people whose interest may have been sparked by the recent identification of the remains of King Richard III.[137][138] The bones were radiocarbon-dated but the results showed that they were from the 1300s and therefore unrelated to Alfred. In January 2014, a fragment of pelvis unearthed in the 1999 excavation of the Hyde site, which had subsequently lain in a Winchester museum store room, was radiocarbon-dated to the correct period. It has been suggested that this bone may belong to either Alfred or his son Edward, but this remains unproven.[139][140]

end of biography

More...

"The Last Kingdom"

The Last Kingdom is a British television series, an eight-part adaptation of Bernard Cornwell's historical novels series The Saxon Stories.[1] The series premiered on 10 October 2015 on BBC America,[2] and on BBC Two in the UK on 22 October 2015.

Set in the late ninth century AD, when what is known as England today was several separate kingdoms. The Anglo-Saxon lands are attacked and, in many instances, ruled by Danes. The Kingdom of Wessex has been left standing alone.

The protagonist Uhtred, the orphaned son of a Saxon nobleman, is captured by viking Danes and reared as one of them. Forced to choose between a kingdom that shares his ancestry and the people of his upbringing, his loyalties are constantly tested.[4]

The first series' storyline roughly covers the plot of the original two novels, The Last Kingdom and The Pale Horseman although condensed for the purposes of television ...http://www.bbcamerica.com/shows/the-last-kingdom

For a more complete genealogy including ancestors and descendants, see House of Wessex family tree ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_the_Peaceful

Alfred Saxon, King of England is the 5 x great uncle of William I Normandie, King of England ... http://www.ourfamilyhistories.org/relationship.php?altprimarypersonID=&savedpersonID=I3527&secondpersonID=I3527&maxrels=1&disallowspouses=1&generations=9&tree=00&primarypersonID=I4276

Alfred Saxon, King of England is the 4 x great grandfather of the wife of William I Normandie, King of England ... http://www.ourfamilyhistories.org/relationship.php?altprimarypersonID=&savedpersonID=I3527&secondpersonID=I3527&maxrels=1&disallowspouses=0&generations=9&tree=00&primarypersonID=I4276

More history on King Alfred of Wessex, the first English king ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/conquest/wessex_kings/birth_england_wessex_05.shtml

"Alfred the Great" ... his history & issue; http://thehennesseefamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I50596&tree=hennessee

"...Before Alfred arrived on the scene, England had consisted of a number of small kingdoms, but these were simply overrun and their royal families wiped out by the Vikings by the end of the 860s.
At this point, the Vikings threatened to overrun the whole of England, and the King of Mercia fled overseas, as did a number of well-to-do West Saxons.

But on the verge of total disaster, something happened which became part of the English myth in the Anglo-Saxon period, and still is. In early 878, Alfred the Great was surrounded in the marshes of Athelney in Somerset, almost finished. 'England' was on the ropes before it had even come into being..."

end of comment

Guthrum or Guºrum (died c. 890), christened ¥thelstan on his conversion to Christianity in 878, was King of the Danish Vikings in the Danelaw. He is mainly known for his conflict with Alfred the Great.

Guthrum, founder of the Danelaw

It is not known how Guthrum consolidated his rule as king over the other Danish chieftains of the Danelaw (Danish-ruled territory of England), but by 874 he was able to wage a war against Wessex and its King, Alfred.

In 875, the Danish forces, then under Guthrum and Halfdan Ragnarsson, divided, Halfdan's contingent returning north to Northumbria, while Guthrum's forces went to East Anglia, quartering themselves at Cambridge for the year.

By 876, Guthrum had acquired various parts of the kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria and then turned his attention to acquiring Wessex, where his first confrontation with Alfred took place on the south coast. Guthrum sailed his army around Poole Harbour and linked up with another Viking army that was invading the area between the Frome and Piddle rivers which was ruled by Alfred.[1] According to the historian Asser, Guthrum won his initial battle with Alfred, and he captured the castellum as well as the ancient square earthworks known as the Wareham, where there was a convent of nuns.

Alfred successfully brokered a peace settlement, but by 877 this peace was broken as Guthrum led his army raiding further into Wessex, thus forcing Alfred to confront him in a series of skirmishes that Guthrum continued to win. At Exeter, which Guthrum had also captured, Alfred made a peace treaty, with the result that Guthrum left Wessex to winter in Gloucester.

Surprise attack

Silver penny of ¥thelstan: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/49/KENT-338E94._Early_Medieval_silver_coin%2C_penny_of_Aethelstan_II_Guthran._%28FindID_132251%29.jpg/220px-KENT-338E94._Early_Medieval_silver_coin%2C_penny_of_Aethelstan_II_Guthran._%28FindID_132251%29.jpg

On Epiphany, 6 January 878, Guthrum made a surprise night-time attack on Alfred and his court at Chippenham, Wiltshire. It being a Christian feast day the Saxons were presumably taken by surprise—indeed it is possible that Wulfhere, the Ealdorman of Wiltshire, allowed the attack either through negligence or intent, for on Alfred's return to power later in 878 Wulfhere was stripped of his role as Ealdorman.

Alfred fled the attack with a few retainers and took shelter in the marshes of Somerset, staying in the small village of Athelney. Over the next few months he built up his force and waged a guerrilla war against Guthrum from his fastness in the fens. After a few months Alfred called his loyal men to Egbert's Stone, and from there they travelled to Edington to fight the invaders.

Defeat by Alfred

Guthrum's hopes of conquering all of Wessex came to an end with his defeat at the hands of Alfred at the Battle of Edington in 878. At Edington, Guthrum’s entire army was routed by Alfred's and fled to their encampment where they were besieged by Alfred's fyrd for two weeks. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Guthrum’s army was able to negotiate a peace treaty known as the Treaty of Wedmore.[2] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded the event:

“Then the raiding army granted him (Alfred) hostages and great oaths that they would leave his kingdom and also promised him that their king (Guthrum) would receive baptism; and they fulfilled it. And three weeks later the king Guthrum came to him, one of thirty of the most honourable men who were in the raiding army, at Aller - and that is near Athelney - and the king received him at baptism; and his chrism loosing was at Wedmore.” [2]
Conversion to Christianity and peace
Under the Treaty of Wedmore the borders dividing the lands of Alfred and Guthrum were established,[3] and perhaps more importantly, Guthrum converted to Christianity and took on the Christian name ¥thelstan with Alfred as his godfather.

Guthrum upheld his end of the treaty and left the boundary that separated the Danelaw from English England unmolested. Guthrum, although failing to conquer Wessex, turned towards the lands to the east that the treaty had allotted under his control. Guthrum withdrew his army from the western borders facing Alfred's territory and moved eastward before eventually settling in the Kingdom of Guthrum in East Anglia in 879. He lived out the remainder of his life there until his death in 890. According to the Annals of St Neots, a chronicle compiled in Bury St Edmunds, Guthrum was buried at Headleage, which is usually identified as Hadleigh, Suffolk.[4]

Popular culture

Guthrum appears in several works of fiction, including:

G. K. Chesterton's poem The Ballad of the White Horse.
C. Walter Hodges' juvenile historical novels The Namesake and The Marsh King.
Bernard Cornwell's first three novels of The Saxon Stories series The Last Kingdom, and The Pale Horseman, and The Lords of the North.
On screen, he was portrayed by Brian Blessed in episode 4 ("King Alfred") of Churchill's People, by Michael York in the 1969 film Alfred the Great, and Thomas W. Gabrielsson in The Last Kingdom.

References

Collingwood, M. A. and Powell, F. Y. Scandinavian Britain (New York: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1908), p. 94.
Anglo Saxon Chronicle Trans. by M. J. Swanton (New York, Routledge: 1996).
Davis, R. H. C. From Alfred the Great to Stephen (London, The Hambledon Press: 1991) p. 48.
Dumville, David; Lapidge, Michael (1985). The Annals of St Neots with Vita Prima Sancti Neoti, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a Collaborative Edition. Cambridge. ISBN 978-0-85991-117-7.

External links

Guthrum 1 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England

English royalty

Preceded by
¥thelred King of East Anglia 879– 890

Succeeded by Eohric

Alfred the Great had a crippling disability...

When we look up at the statue of King Alfred of Wessex in Winchester, we are confronted by an image of our national ‘superhero’: the valiant defender of a Christian realm against the heathen Viking marauders. There is no doubt that Alfred fully deserves this accolade as ‘England’s darling’, but there was another side to him that is less well known.

Alfred never expected to be king – he had three older brothers – but when he was four years old on a visit to Rome the pope seemed to have granted him special favour when his father presented him to the pontiff. As he grew up, Alfred was constantly troubled by illness, including irritating and painful piles – a real problem in an age where a prince was constantly in the saddle. Asser, the Welshman who became his biographer, relates that Alfred suffered from another painful, draining malady that is not specified. Some people believe it was Crohn’s Disease, others that it may have been a sexually transmitted disease, or even severe depression.

The truth is we don’t know exactly what Alfred’s mystery ailment was. Whatever it was, it is incredible to think that Alfred’s extraordinary achievements were accomplished in the face of a daily struggle with debilitating and chronic illness.

end of commentary

Alfred married Ealhswith in 868. Ealhswith was born in ~852 in England; died on 5 Dec 0902; was buried in Winchester, Hampshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

5683329.

Ealhswith was born in ~852 in England; died on 5 Dec 0902; was buried in Winchester, Hampshire, England.

Notes:

Ealhswith or Ealswitha (died 5 December 902) was the wife of King Alfred the Great. Her father was a Mercian nobleman, ¥thelred Mucel, Ealdorman of the Gaini, which is thought to be an old Mercian tribal group. Her mother was Eadburh, a member of the Mercian royal family, and according to the historian Cyril Hart she was a descendant of King Coenwulf of Mercia.[1] She is commemorated as a saint in the Christian East and the West on July 20.[2]

Reign 23 April 871 – 26 October 899
Died 902
Burial New Minster, Winchester
Spouse Alfred, King of Wessex
Issue ¥thelflµd, Lady of the Mercians
Edward, King of England
¥thelgifu
¥thelweard of Wessex
¥lfthryth, Countess of Flanders
Father ¥thelred Mucel
Mother Eadburh

Life[edit]
She was married to Alfred in 868 at Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. His elder brother ¥thelred was then king, and Alfred was regarded as heir apparent.[3][4] The Danes occupied the Mercian town of Nottingham in that year, and the marriage was probably connected with an alliance between Wessex and Mercia.[5] Alfred became king on his brother's death in 871.

Ealhswith is very obscure in contemporary sources. She did not witness any known charters, and Asser did not even mention her name in his life of King Alfred. In accordance with ninth century West Saxon custom, she was not given the title of queen. According to King Alfred, this was because of the infamous conduct of a former queen of Wessex called Eadburh, who had accidentally poisoned her husband.[6]

Alfred left his wife three important symbolic estates in his will, Edington in Wiltshire, the site of one important victory over the Vikings, Lambourn in Berkshire, which was near another, and Wantage, his birthplace. These were all part of his bookland, and they stayed in royal possession after her death.[4]

It was probably after Alfred's death in 899 that Ealhswith founded the convent of St Mary's Abbey, Winchester, known as the Nunnaminster. She died on 5 December 902, and was buried in her son Edward's new Benedictine abbey, the New Minster, Winchester. She is commemorated in two early tenth century manuscripts as "the true and dear lady of the English".[4]

Ealhswith had a brother called ¥thelwulf,[4] who was ealdorman of western and possibly central Mercia under his niece's husband, ¥thelred, Lord of the Mercians, in the 890s.[7] He died in 901.[8]

Children

Alfred and Ealhswith had five children who survived to adulthood.[4]

¥thelflµd (d. 918), Lady of the Mercians, married ¥thelred, Lord of the Mercians
Edward the Elder (d. 924), King of the Anglo-Saxons
¥thelgifu, made abbess of her foundation at Shaftesbury by her father
¥lfthryth, Countess of Flanders (d. 929), married Baldwin II, Count of Flanders
¥thelweard (d. c.920)

Buried:
at New Minster...

Children:

Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians was born in ~870 in (Wessex) England; died on 12 Jun 918 in Tamworth, Gloucester, England; was buried in St Oswald's Priory, Gloucester, England.
2841664. Edward the Elder, King of the Anglo-Saxons was born in ~874 in (Wantage, Berkshire) England; died on 17 Jul 924 in Farndon, Cheshire, England; was buried in Winchester, Hampshire, England.

710504.

Sviatoslav, I, Grand Prince of Kiev was born in ~941 in Kiev, Ukraine (son of Igor of Kiev, Prince of the Rus' and Olga of Kiev); died on 26 Mar 972 in Khortytsia, Dnieper, Ukraine.

Notes:

Sviatoslav I Igorevich (Old East Slavic: ?~??????? / ??????????[1] ?????????, Sventoslavu / Svantoslavu Igorevici; Old Norse: Sveinald Ingvarsson) (c. 942 – 26 March 972), also spelled Svyatoslav was a Grand prince of Kiev[2][3] famous for his persistent campaigns in the east and south, which precipitated the collapse of two great powers of Eastern Europe, Khazaria and the First Bulgarian Empire. He also conquered numerous East Slavic tribes, defeated the Alans and attacked the Volga Bulgars,[4][5] and at times was allied with the Pechenegs and Magyars.

His decade-long reign over the Kievan Rus' was marked by rapid expansion into the Volga River valley, the Pontic steppe, and the Balkans. By the end of his short life, Sviatoslav carved out for himself the largest state in Europe, eventually moving his capital in 969 from Kiev (modern-day Ukraine) to Pereyaslavets (identified as the modern village of Nufaru, Romania)[6] on the Danube.

In contrast with his mother's conversion to Christianity, Sviatoslav remained a staunch pagan all of his life.

Due to his abrupt death in ambush, his conquests, for the most part, were not consolidated into a functioning empire, while his failure to establish a stable succession led to a fratricidal feud among his three sons, resulting in two of them being killed.

Reign 945–972
Coronation 964
Predecessor Igor
Successor Yaropolk I
Born 942? AD
Kiev
Died 26 March 972 AD [aged ~30]
The island of Khortytsa Dnieper
Wives
Predslava
Malusha
Issue With unknown woman:
Yaropolk I
Oleg

With Malusha:
Vladimir the Great
Full name
Sviatoslav Igorevich
Dynasty Rurik Dynasty
Father Igor
Mother Saint Olga (regent 945-964)

Name

The Primary Chronicle records Sviatoslav as the first ruler of the Kievan Rus' with a name of Slavic origin (as opposed to his predecessors, whose names had Old Norse forms). The name Sviatoslav, however, is not recorded in other medieval Slavic countries. Nevertheless, Sveinald is the Old East Norse cognate with the Slavic form as attested in the Old East Norse patronymic of Sviatoslav's son Vladimir: Valdamarr Sveinaldsson. This patronymic naming convention continues in Icelandic and in East Slavic languages. Even in Rus', it was attested only among the members of the house of Rurik, as were the names of Sviatoslav's immediate successors: Vladimir, Yaroslav, and Mstislav.[7][need quotation to verify] Some scholars see the name of Sviatoslav, composed of the Slavic roots for "holy" and "glory", as an artificial derivation combining the names of his predecessors Oleg and Rurik (whose names mean "holy" and "glorious" in Old Norse, respectively).[8]

Early life and personality

Virtually nothing is known about Sviatoslav's childhood and youth, which he spent reigning in Novgorod. Sviatoslav's father, Igor, was killed by the Drevlians around 945, and his mother, Olga, ruled as regent in Kiev until Sviatoslav reached maturity (ca. 963).[9] Sviatoslav was tutored by a Varangian named Asmud.[10] The tradition of employing Varangian tutors for the sons of ruling princes survived well into the 11th century. Sviatoslav appears to have had little patience for administration. His life was spent with his druzhina (roughly, "company") in permanent warfare against neighboring states. According to the Primary Chronicle, he carried on his expeditions neither wagons nor kettles, and he boiled no meat, rather cutting off small strips of horseflesh, game, or beef to eat after roasting it on the coals. Nor did he have a tent, rather spreading out a horse-blanket under him and setting his saddle under his head, and all his retinue did likewise.[11]

Illustration of Sviatoslav wearing a vyshyvanka, by Fedor Solntsev

Sviatoslav's appearance has been described very clearly by Leo the Deacon, who himself attended the meeting of Sviatoslav with John I Tzimiskes. Following Deacon's memories, Sviatoslav was a blue-eyed man of average height but of stalwart build, much more sturdy than Tzimiskes. He shaved his blond head and his beard but wore a bushy mustache and a sidelock as a sign of his nobility.[12] He preferred to dress in white, and it was noted that his garments were much cleaner than those of his men, although he had a lot in common with his warriors. He wore a single large gold earring bearing a carbuncle and two pearls.[13]

Religious beliefs

Sviatoslav's mother, Olga, converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity at the court of Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus in 957,[14] at the approximate age of 67. However, Sviatoslav remained a pagan all of his life. In the treaty of 971 between Sviatoslav and the Byzantine emperor John I Tzimiskes, the Rus' are swearing by Perun and Veles.[15] According to the Primary Chronicle, he believed that his warriors (druzhina) would lose respect for him and mock him if he became a Christian.[16] The allegiance of his warriors was of paramount importance in his conquest of an empire that stretched from the Volga to the Danube.

Family

Svjatoslav's mother, Olga, with her escort in Constantinople, a miniature from the late 11th century chronicle of John Skylitzes.
Very little is known of Sviatoslav's family life. It is possible that he was not the only (or the eldest) son of his parents. The Russo-Byzantine treaty of 945 mentions a certain Predslava, Volodislav's wife, as the noblest of the Rus' women after Olga. The fact that Predslava was Oleg's mother is presented by Vasily Tatishchev. He also speculated that Predslava was of a Hungarian nobility. George Vernadsky was among many historians to speculate that Volodislav was Igor's eldest son and heir who died at some point during Olga's regency. Another chronicle told that Oleg (? - 944?) was the eldest son of Igor. At the time of Igor's death, Sviatoslav was still a child, and he was raised by his mother or under her instructions. Her influence, however, did not extend to his religious observance.

Sviatoslav I in the Tsarsky Titulyarnik, 1672

Sviatoslav had several children, but the origin of his wives is not specified in the chronicle. By his wives, he had Yaropolk and Oleg.[17] By Malusha, a woman of indeterminate origins,[18] Sviatoslav had Vladimir, who would ultimately break with his father's paganism and convert Rus' to Christianity. John Skylitzes reported that Vladimir had a brother named Sfengus; whether this Sfengus was a son of Sviatoslav, a son of Malusha by a prior or subsequent husband, or an unrelated Rus' nobleman is unclear.[19]

Eastern campaigns

The Kievan Rus' at the beginning of Sviatoslav's reign (in red), showing his sphere of influence to 972 (in orange)
Shortly after his accession to the throne, Sviatoslav began campaigning to expand Rus' control over the Volga valley and the Pontic steppe region. His greatest success was the conquest of Khazaria, which for centuries had been one of the strongest states of Eastern Europe. The sources are not clear about the roots of the conflict between Khazaria and Rus', so several possibilities have been suggested. The Rus' had an interest in removing the Khazar hold on the Volga trade route because the Khazars collected duties from the goods transported by the Volga. Historians have suggested that the Byzantine Empire may have incited the Rus' against the Khazars, who fell out with the Byzantines after the persecutions of the Jews in the reign of Romanus I Lecapenus.[20]

Sviatoslav began by rallying the East Slavic vassal tribes of the Khazars to his cause. Those who would not join him, such as the Vyatichs, were attacked and forced to pay tribute to the Kievan Rus' rather than to the Khazars.[21] According to a legend recorded in the Primary Chronicle, Sviatoslav sent a message to the Vyatich rulers, consisting of a single phrase: "I want to come at you!" (Old East Slavic: "???? ?? ?? ???")[22] This phrase is used in modern Russian (usually misquoted as "??? ?? ??") and in modern Ukrainian ("??? ?? ??") to denote an unequivocal declaration of one's intentions. Proceeding by the Oka and Volga rivers, he attacked Volga Bulgaria. He employed Oghuz and Pecheneg mercenaries in this campaign, perhaps to counter the superior cavalry of the Khazars and Bulgars.[23]

Sviatoslav's Council of War by Boris Chorikov

Sviatoslav destroyed the Khazar city of Sarkel around 965, possibly sacking (but not occupying) the Khazar city of Kerch on the Crimea as well.[24] At Sarkel he established a Rus' settlement called Belaya Vyezha ("the white tower" or "the white fortress", the East Slavic translation for "Sarkel").[25] He subsequently destroyed the Khazar capital of Atil.[26] A visitor to Atil wrote soon after Sviatoslav's campaign: "The Rus' attacked, and no grape or raisin remained, not a leaf on a branch."[27] The exact chronology of his Khazar campaign is uncertain and disputed; for example, Mikhail Artamonov and David Christian proposed that the sack of Sarkel came after the destruction of Atil.[28]

Although Ibn Haukal reports the sack of Samandar by Sviatoslav, the Rus' leader did not bother to occupy the Khazar heartlands north of the Caucasus Mountains permanently. On his way back to Kiev, Sviatoslav chose to strike against the Ossetians and force them into subservience.[29] Therefore, Khazar successor statelets continued their precarious existence in the region.[30] The destruction of Khazar imperial power paved the way for Kievan Rus' to dominate north-south trade routes through the steppe and across the Black Sea, routes that formerly had been a major source of revenue for the Khazars. Moreover, Sviatoslav's campaigns led to increased Slavic settlement in the region of the Saltovo-Mayaki culture, greatly changing the demographics and culture of the transitional area between the forest and the steppe.[31]

Campaigns in the Balkans

Main article: Sviatoslav's invasion of Bulgaria

Sviatoslav invading Bulgaria, Manasses Chronicle
The annihilation of Khazaria was undertaken against the background of the Rus'-Byzantine alliance, concluded in the wake of Igor's Byzantine campaign in 944.[32] Close military ties between the Rus' and Byzantium are illustrated by the fact, reported by John Skylitzes, that a Rus' detachment accompanied Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros Phokas in his victorious naval expedition to Crete.

In 967 or 968,[33] Nikephoros sent to Sviatoslav his agent, Kalokyros, with the task of talking Sviatoslav into assisting him in a war against Bulgaria.[34] Sviatoslav was paid 15,000 pounds of gold and set sail with an army of 60,000 men, including thousands of Pecheneg mercenaries.[35][36]

Sviatoslav defeated the Bulgarian ruler Boris II[37] and proceeded to occupy the whole of northern Bulgaria. Meanwhile, the Byzantines bribed the Pechenegs to attack and besiege Kiev, where Olga stayed with Sviatoslav's son Vladimir. The siege was relieved by the druzhina of Pretich, and immediately following the Pecheneg retreat, Olga sent a reproachful letter to Sviatoslav. He promptly returned and defeated the Pechenegs, who continued to threaten Kiev.

[show] v t e
Rus'–Byzantine Wars
Sviatoslav refused to turn his Balkan conquests over to the Byzantines, and the parties fell out as a result. To the chagrin of his boyars and his mother (who died within three days after learning about his decision), Sviatoslav decided to move his capital to Pereyaslavets in the mouth of the Danube due to the great potential of that location as a commercial hub. In the Primary Chronicle record for 969, Sviatoslav explains that it is to Pereyaslavets, the centre of his lands, "all the riches flow: gold, silks, wine, and various fruits from Greece, silver and horses from Hungary and Bohemia, and from Rus' furs, wax, honey, and slaves".

Pursuit of Sviatoslav's warriors by the Byzantine army, a miniature from 11th century chronicles of John Skylitzes.

In summer 969, Sviatoslav left Rus' again, dividing his dominion into three parts, each under a nominal rule of one of his sons. At the head of an army that included Pecheneg and Magyar auxiliary troops, he invaded Bulgaria again, devastating Thrace, capturing the city of Philippopolis, and massacring its inhabitants. Nikephoros responded by repairing the defenses of Constantinople and raising new squadrons of armored cavalry. In the midst of his preparations, Nikephoros was overthrown and killed by John Tzimiskes, who thus became the new Byzantine emperor.[38]

Madrid Skylitzes, meeting between John Tzimiskes and Sviatoslav.

John Tzimiskes first attempted to persuade Sviatoslav into leaving Bulgaria, but he was unsuccessful. Challenging the Byzantine authority, Sviatoslav crossed the Danube and laid siege to Adrianople, causing panic on the streets of Constantinople in summer 970.[39] Later that year, the Byzantines launched a counteroffensive. Being occupied with suppressing a revolt of Bardas Phokas in Asia Minor, John Tzimiskes sent his commander-in-chief, Bardas Skleros, who defeated the coalition of Rus', Pechenegs, Magyars, and Bulgarians in the Battle of Arcadiopolis.[40] Meanwhile, John, having quelled the revolt of Bardas Phokas, came to the Balkans with a large army and promoting himself as the liberator of Bulgaria from Sviatoslav, penetrated the impracticable mountain passes and shortly thereafter captured Marcianopolis, where the Rus' were holding a number of Bulgar princes hostage.

Siege of Durostorum in Manasses Chronicle

Sviatoslav retreated to Dorostolon, which the Byzantine armies besieged for sixty-five days. Cut off and surrounded, Sviatoslav came to terms with John and agreed to abandon the Balkans, renounce his claims to the southern Crimea, and return west of the Dnieper River. In return, the Byzantine emperor supplied the Rus' with food and safe passage home. Sviatoslav and his men set sail and landed on Berezan Island at the mouth of the Dnieper, where they made camp for the winter. Several months later, their camp was devastated by famine, so that even a horse's head could not be bought for less than a half-grivna, reports the Kievan chronicler of the Primary Chronicle.[41] While Sviatoslav's campaign brought no tangible results for the Rus', it weakened the Bulgarian statehood and left it vulnerable to the attacks of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer four decades later.

Death and aftermath

The Death of Sviatoslav by Boris Chorikov
Fearing that the peace with Sviatoslav would not endure, the Byzantine emperor induced the Pecheneg khan Kurya to kill Sviatoslav before he reached Kiev. This was in line with the policy outlined by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in De Administrando Imperio of fomenting strife between the Rus' and the Pechenegs.[42] According to the Slavic chronicle, Sveneld attempted to warn Sviatoslav to avoid the Dnieper rapids, but the prince slighted his wise advice and was ambushed and slain by the Pechenegs when he tried to cross the cataracts near Khortitsa early in 972. The Primary Chronicle reports that his skull was made into a chalice by the Pecheneg khan.[43]

Following Sviatoslav's death, tensions between his sons grew. A war broke out between his legitimate sons, Oleg and Yaropolk, in 976, at the conclusion of which Oleg was killed. In 977 Vladimir fled Novgorod to escape Oleg's fate and went to Scandinavia, where he raised an army of Varangians and returned in 980. Yaropolk was killed, and Vladimir became the sole ruler of Kievan Rus'.

Art and literature

Ivan Akimov. Sviatoslav's Return from the Danube to His Family in Kiev (1773)
Sviatoslav has long been a hero of Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian patriots due to his great military successes. His figure first attracted attention of Russian artists and poets during the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774), which provided obvious parallels with Sviatoslav's push towards Constantinople. Russia's southward expansion and the imperialistic ventures of Catherine II in the Balkans seemed to have been legitimized by Sviatoslav's campaigns eight centuries earlier.

Among the works created during the war was Yakov Knyazhnin's tragedy Olga (1772). The Russian playwright chose to introduce Sviatoslav as his protagonist, although his active participation in the events following Igor's death is out of sync with the traditional chronology. Knyazhnin's rival Nikolai Nikolev (1758–1815) also wrote a play on the subject of Sviatoslav's life. Ivan Akimov's painting Sviatoslav's Return from the Danube to Kiev (1773) explores the conflict between military honour and family attachment. It is a vivid example of Poussinesque rendering of early medieval subject matter.

Interest in Sviatoslav's career increased in the 19th century. Klavdiy Lebedev depicted an episode of Sviatoslav's meeting with Emperor John in his well-known painting, while Eugene Lanceray sculpted an equestrian statue of Sviatoslav in the early 20th century.[44] Sviatoslav appears in the 1913 poem of Velimir Khlebnikov Written before the war (#70. ?????????? ?? ?????)[45] as an epitome of militant Slavdom:

?????????? ??? ?????, Pouring the famed juice of the Danube
??????? ? ????? ?????, Into the depth of my head,
????? ???? ?, ????????? I shall drink and remember
??????? ????: "??? ?? ??!". The cry of the bright ones: "I come at you!"[46]
Sviatoslav is the villain of the novel The Lost Kingdom, or the Passing of the Khazars, by Samuel Gordon,[47] a fictionalised account of the destruction of Khazaria by the Rus'. The Slavic warrior figures in a more positive context in the story "Chernye Strely Vyaticha" by Vadim Viktorovich Kargalov; the story is included in his book Istoricheskie povesti.[48]

In 2005, reports circulated that a village in the Belgorod region had erected a monument to Sviatoslav's victory over the Khazars by the Russian sculptor Vyacheslav Klykov. The reports described the 13-meter tall statue as depicting a Rus' cavalryman trampling a supine Khazar bearing a Star of David and Kolovrat. This created an outcry within the Jewish community of Russia. The controversy was further exacerbated by Klykov's connections with Pamyat and other anti-Semitic organizations, as well as by his involvement in the "letter of 500", a controversial appeal to the Prosecutor General to review all Jewish organizations in Russia for extremism.[49] The Press Centre of the Belgorod Regional Administration responded by stating that a planned monument to Sviatoslav had not yet been constructed but would show "respect towards representatives of all nationalities and religions."[50] When the statue was unveiled, the shield bore a twelve-pointed star.

Sviatoslav is the main character of the books "Knyaz" ("?????") and "The Hero" ("?????"), written by Russian writer Alexander Mazin.

On 7 November 2011, a Ukrainian fisherman found a one metre long sword in the waters of the Dnieper on Khortytsia near where Sviatoslav is believed to have been killed in 972. The handle is made out of four different metals including gold and silver, and could possibly have belonged to Sviatoslav himself.[51]

end of biography

Sviatoslav married Malusha. Malusha was born in (0944) in (Kiev, Ukraine); died in (1002). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

710505.

Malusha was born in (0944) in (Kiev, Ukraine); died in (1002).

Notes:

Malusha/Malfrida[1][2] (Old Ruthenian: ?????a, Old Norse: Mâalfrâiºr)[3] historically is known as a servant (kholopka) for Olga of Kiev and wife of Sviatoslav I of Kiev. According to Slavonic chronicles, she was the mother of Vladimir the Great and sister of Dobrynya. The Norse sagas describe Vladimir's mother as a prophetess who lived to the age of 100 and was brought from her cave to the palace to predict the future. Malusha monuments in Korosten, Ukraine, with her young son Vladimir.[1]

Origin
As the chronicles are silent on the subject of Malusha's pedigree, 19th-century Russian and Ukrainian historians devised various theories to explain her parentage and name.

Alexei Shakhmatov considered Malusha to be the daughter of Mstisha Sveneldovich, son of Sveneld, a Varangian warlord. He believed that the name Malusha was a slavinized version of a Scandinavian name Malfried.[4] In this case, Malusha was of Norse origin.[5] The Primary Chronicle records that a certain Malfried died in 1000. This record follows that of Rogneda's death. Since Rogneda was Vladimir's wife, historians assume that Malfried was another close relative of the ruling prince, preferably his wife or mother.

The anti-Normanist historian Dmitry Ilovaisky managed to draw an opposite conclusion: that the Slavic name Malusha was turned into a Scandinavian Malfried. This claim received no wider support. Dmitry Prozorovsky believed that Malusha was the daughter of Mal, a Drevlyan leader.[6] The same one that wanted to marry Olga of Kiev after she became a widow.[7]

References
Vladimir Plougin: Russian Intelligence Services: The Early Years, 9th-11th Centuries, Algora Publ., 2000
History of Ukraine-Rus': From prehistory to the eleventh century, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 1997
Mâalfrâiºr nordicnames.de
Vladimir Plougin: Russian Intelligence Services: The Early Years, 9th-11th Centuries, Algora Publ., 2000
Harvard Ukrainian studies, Volumer 12-13, Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1990
?. ?. ???????. ?????? ??????? ? ?????????? ????????? ? ???????????? ?????. ISBN 9785860075351. Page 90.
Dixon-Kennedy, Mike (1998). Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio. p. 210. ISBN 1-57607-063-8.

end of biography

Children:

355252. Vladimir, Czar of Russia was born in 956 in Kiev, Ukraine; died on 15 Jul 1015 in Kiev, Ukraine.
Oleg

710506.

Rogvolod, Prince of Polotsk was born in ~920 in Gothland, Sweden (son of Ulf Tostesson, Jarl of Skara and Ingeborg); died in 978 in Polotsk, Belarus.

Notes:

Ragnvald Ulfsson the Old (beginning 11th century) was a jarl of Vèastergèotland or èOstergèotland, and married to a sister of Olav Tryggvason.[1]

Ragnvald is mentioned in the skaldic poem Austrfaravâisur, ascribed to Sigvatr ´âorºarson, skald of King Olaf Haraldsson of Norway (Olaf the Holy), who had been on a diplomatic mission to Sweden. This poem is quoted in the 13th century sagas Fagrskinna and Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla. In addition to the poem, Fagrskinna only briefly mentions Ragnvald, while Heimskringla contains a more elaborate account of him. This 13th-century prose text is not considered historically reliable.

According to Snorri, Ragnvald was the son of jarl Ulf Tostesson and Ingeborg and the foster-son of ´orgnýr the Lawspeaker. He was the cousin of Olof Skèotkonung, through his aunt Sigrid the Haughty, and he was married to Ingeborg Tryggvasdotter.

During his days the Norwegians pillaged in Vèastergèotland, but then the Norwegian king, Olaf the Holy, proposed to the Swedish princess Ingigerd Olofsdotter, the daughter of Sweden's king Olof Skèotkonung. This pleased Ragnvald who was related to both.

However, at the Thing at Gamla Uppsala, Ragnvald and his foster-father ´orgnýr the Lawspeaker had to force Olof, the Swedish king, to promise his daughter to Olaf, the Norwegian king, whom he did not like. When the Swedish king failed to deliver his daughter, Ragnvald realized that he was in trouble. He has not only fallen out of grace with the Swedish king, but he could also expect the revenge of the Norwegians.

During a visit by the skald Sigvatr ´âorºarson, Ragnvald learned that Prince Jaroslav of Kievan Rus' has proposed to Ingigerd, and so he had the idea that Olaf the Holy should marry the illegitimate daughter of Olof Skèotkonung, Astrid, who was staying with Ragnvald. Sigvat promised to deliver the message, and the Norwegian king accepted.

Ragnvald and Astrid arrive at Sarpsborg.
Ragnvald delivered Astrid at Sarpsborg in Norway and she married the king after Christmas of 1019.

Olof Skèotkonung was now so upset that he intended to hang Ragnvald at the next Thing. However, when Ingigerd Olofsdotter married Jaroslav, Ingigerd managed to arrange that Ragnvald became the jarl of Staraja Ladoga (Aldeigjuborg) and Ingria, and Olof let him depart with Ingigerd in the summer of 1019.

Fagrskinna's account of Olaf the Holy's betrothal to Ingigerd, and eventual wedding with Astrid, differs significantly from the account in Heimskringla. In Fagrskinna's account, Ragnvald is not given a prominent role in the proceedings.

Married to Ingeborg Tryggvasdotter. Children:

Ulf Ragnvaldsson Jarl
Eilif Ragnvaldsson Jarl
Ostrida Ragnvalsdatter
He is considered to have fathered king Stenkil,[2] with Astrid Nialsdotter from Norway, but this is based on later Icelandic sources,[3] and the identification of Ragnvald with Ragnvald the Old of Hervarar saga.[4]

Notes

Winroth 1995–1997:616
The entry Stenkil in Larsson 2000:33
Stenkil anses ha varit son till Ragnvald jal i Vèastergèotland. Translation: Stenkil is considered to have been the son of earl Ragnvald in Vèastergèotland.
Lagerquist 1997:41
Den nye kungen hette Stenkil och den ganska kortlivade dynasti han grundade kallas efter honom den stenkilska. Enligt senare islèandska uppgifter var han son till jarlen Ragnvald i Vèastergèotland och Astrid Nialsdotter frêan Norge. Translation: The name of the new king was Stenkil and the rather shortlived dynasty that he founded is named the House of Stenkil after him. According to later Icelandic reports, he was the son of the earl Ragnvald in Vèastergèotland and Astrid Nialsdotter from Norway.
Larsson 2002:154–157
[...] ingenting om Ragnvald den gamle eller den norska hèovdingadottern Astrid som var Stenkils fèorèaldrar enligt den fornislèandska Hervararsagan. [...] Och lika lite kan jag fêa veta ifall Stenkils far Ragnvald var identisk med vèastgèotajarlen med samma namn, som det ofta pêastêas i den historiska literaturen - en hypotes som i och fèor sig ocksêa skulle leda till slèaktskap med den gamla kungaèatten genom att Ragnvald enligt sagorna var kusin till Olof Skèotkonung. Translation: [...] nothing on Ragnvald the Old or the Norwegian chieftain's daughter Astrid who were Stenkil's parents according to the Old Icelandic Hervarar saga. [...] And just as little can I be informed whether Stenkil's father Ragnvald was identical to the Vèastergèotland jarl by the same name, as it is often stated in history books - a hypothesis which, as it were, would lead to kinship with the old dynasty through the fact that Ragnvald according to the sagas was the cousin of Olof Skèotkonung.
Literature
Larsson, Lars-Ove (1993, 2000). Vem èar vem i svensk historia, frêan êar 1000 till 1900. Prisma, Stockholm. ISBN 91-518-3427-8
Larsson, Mats G (2002). Gèotarnas Riken : Upptèacktsfèarder Till Sveriges Enande. Bokfèorlaget Atlantis AB ISBN 978-91-7486-641-4
Lagerquist, Lars O. (1997). Sveriges Regenter, frêan forntid till nutid. Norstedts, Stockholm. ISBN 91-1-963882-5
Winroth, Anders (1995–1997) "Ragnvald Ulfsson", Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon, volume 29, page 616.
Wisâen, Theodor, revised by Erik Brate (1915), "Ragnvald Ulfsson", Nordisk familjebok, volume 22, 913–914

Rogvolod (Russian: ????????, Rogvolod; Belarusian: ????????, Rahvalod) (c. 920 – 978) was first chronicled prince of Polatsk (945–978). In the Russian Primary Chronicle, he is known as ??????????, probably a slavicized version of the Old Norse name Ragnvald. He came from overseas (i.e., from Scandinavia or Southern Baltic) and established himself at Polatsk in the mid-10th century. According to the Russian Primary Chronicle, Vladimir the Great sought an alliance with him in 980 by marrying his daughter Rogneda, but she insultingly refused, prompting Vladimir to attack Rogvolod and his sons and kill them, after which he forcibly took Rogneda as his wife.[1]

References
Janet Martin, Medieval Russia 980-1584 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 1.
External links
Oleg Latyszonek, Ales’ Bely. On the Scandinavian origin of Rahvalod // Annus Albaruthenicus/??? ????????? ?6. 2005.

end of biography

Children:

355253. Rogneda of Polotsk, Princess Consort of Rus was born in 0Apr 962 in Polotsk, Russia; died in 1002 in Berestovo, Kiev, Ukraine.
Stenkil

1417416.

Notes:

Mâael Coluim mac Domnaill (anglicised Malcolm I) (died 954) was king of Scots (before 943 – 954), becoming king when his cousin Causantâin mac Áeda abdicated to become a monk. He was the son of Domnall mac Causantâin.

Mâael Coluim was probably born during his father's reign (889–900).[1] By the 940s, he was no longer a young man, and may have become impatient in awaiting the throne. Willingly or not—the 11th-century Prophecy of Berchâan, a verse history in the form of a supposed prophecy, states that it was not a voluntary decision that Constantine II abdicated in 943 and entered a monastery, leaving the kingdom to Mâael Coluim.[2]

Seven years later, the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba says:

[Malcolm I] plundered the English as far as the River Tees, and he seized a multitude of people and many herds of cattle: and the Scots called this the raid of Albidosorum, that is, Nainndisi. But others say that Constantine made this raid, asking of the king, Malcolm, that the kingship should be given to him for a week's time, so that he could visit the English. In fact, it was Malcolm who made the raid, but Constantine incited him, as I have said.[3]

Woolf suggests that the association of Constantine with the raid is a late addition, one derived from a now-lost saga or poem.[4]

He died in the shield wall next to his men.[citation needed] Mâael Coluim would be the third in his immediate family to die violently, his father Donald II and grandfather Constantine I both having met similar fates 54 years earlier in 900 and 77 years earlier in 877 respectively.

In 945, Edmund I of England, having expelled Amlaâib Cuaran (Olaf Sihtricsson) from Northumbria, devastated Cumbria and blinded two sons of Domnall mac Eâogain, king of Strathclyde. It is said that he then "let" or "commended" Strathclyde to Mâael Coluim in return for an alliance.[5] What is to be understood by "let" or "commended" is unclear, but it may well mean that Mâael Coluim had been the overlord of Strathclyde and that Edmund recognised this while taking lands in southern Cumbria for himself.[6]

The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba says that Mâael Coluim took an army into Moray "and slew Cellach". Cellach is not named in the surviving genealogies of the rulers of Moray, and his identity is unknown.[7]

Mâael Coluim appears to have kept his agreement with the late English king, which may have been renewed with the new king, Edmund having been murdered in 946 and succeeded by his brother Edred. Eric Bloodaxe took York in 948, before being driven out by Edred, and when Amlaâib Cuaran again took York in 949–950, Mâael Coluim raided Northumbria as far south as the Tees taking "a multitude of people and many herds of cattle" according to the Chronicle.[8] The Annals of Ulster for 952 report a battle between "the men of Alba and the Britons [of Strathclyde] and the English" against the foreigners, i.e. the Northmen or the Norse-Gaels. This battle is not reported by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and it is unclear whether it should be related to the expulsion of Amlaâib Cuaran from York or the return of Eric Bloodaxe.[9]

The Annals of Ulster report that Mâael Coluim was killed in 954. Other sources place this most probably in the Mearns, either at Fetteresso following the Chronicle, or at Dunnottar following the Prophecy of Berchâan. He was buried on Iona.[10] Mâael Coluim's sons Dub and Cinâaed were later kings.

end of biography

Malcolm I (a.k.a. Mâael Coluim mac Domnaill) lived from 897 to 954 and was King of Alba from 943 to 954. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline.

Malcolm I was the son of Donald II of Alba, and succeeded to he throne on the abdication of his father's cousin, King Constantine II.

Malcolm gained a reputation for his wisdom and Edmund I of England sought him out as an ally against the Vikings, giving Malcolm the province of Cumbria in return for an alliance. The alliance was invoked by Edmund's successor, who wanted Malcolm's support against King Anlaf of Northumberland which at that time still included the Lothians.

In 954 Malcolm I was faced with a revolt by the men of Moray led by their maormor (or earl), Cellach. The revolt was suppressed, and Cellach was killed. But shortly afterwards Malcolm I was himself killed by one of Cellach's supporters at Auldearn. He was buried, as was now traditional for Scottish Kings, in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel on the Isle of Iona.

Malcolm I was succeeded by King Indulf, his second cousin and son of King Constantine II.

end of biography

Buried:
in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel...

View images and more history of St Oran's; https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/iona/storanschapel/index.html, (images: https://www.google.com/search?q=Saint+Oran%27s+Chapel+image&client=firefox-b-1-ab&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjcxPKjgIraAhUL71MKHcCmCYoQ7AkIQA&biw=1224&bih=826)

Malcolm married unnamed spouse. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1417417.
unnamed spouse
Children:

708708. Kenneth II of Scotland, King of Alba was born in 932 in Scotland; died in 995 in Fettercairn, Scotland; was buried in Isle of Iona, Scotland.

1420832.

Notes:

Edmund I (Old English: Eadmund, pronounced [µ??dmund]; 921 – 26 May 946) was King of the English from 939 until his death. His epithets include the Elder, the Deed-doer, the Just, and the Magnificent.

Edmund was the son of Edward the Elder and his third wife Eadgifu of Kent, and a grandson of Alfred the Great. His father died when he was young, and was succeeded by his oldest son ¥thelstan. Edmund came to the throne upon the death of his half-brother in 939, apparently with little opposition. His reign was marked by almost constant warfare, including conquests or reconquests of the Midlands, Northumbria, and Strathclyde (the last of which was ceded to Malcolm I of Scotland). Edmund was assassinated after six-and-a-half years as king, while attending mass in Pucklechurch, Gloucestershire. He was initially succeeded by his brother Eadred, but his two sons – Eadwig and Edgar the Peaceful – both later came to the throne.

King of the English
Tenure 27 October 939 – 26 May 946
Coronation c. 29 November 939
probably at Kingston upon Thames[1]
Predecessor ¥thelstan
Successor Eadred
Born 921
Wessex, England
Died 26 May 946 (aged 24–25)
Pucklechurch, Gloucestershire, England
Burial Glastonbury Abbey
Spouse ¥lfgifu of Shaftesbury
¥thelflµd of Damerham
Issue Eadwig, King of England
Edgar, King of England
House Wessex
Father Edward the Elder
Mother Eadgifu of Kent
Religion Roman Catholic

Early life and military threats

Edmund came to the throne as the son of Edward the Elder,[2] and therefore the grandson of Alfred the Great, great-grandson of ¥thelwulf of Wessex and great-great grandson of Egbert of Wessex, who was the first of the house of Wessex to start dominating the Anglo Saxon realms. However, being born when his father was already a middle aged man, Edmund lost his father when he was a toddler, in 924, which saw his 30 year old half brother Athelstan come to the throne. Edmund would grow up in the reign of Athelstan, even participating in the Battle of Brunanburgh in his adolescence in 937.[citation needed]

Athelstan died in the year 939, which saw young Edmund come to the throne. Shortly after his proclamation as king, he had to face several military threats. King Olaf III Guthfrithson conquered Northumbria and invaded the Midlands; when Olaf died in 942, Edmund reconquered the Midlands.[2] In 943, Edmund became the god-father of King Olaf of York. In 944, Edmund was successful in reconquering Northumbria.[3] In the same year, his ally Olaf of York lost his throne and left for Dublin in Ireland. Olaf became the king of Dublin as Amlaâib Cuarâan and continued to be allied to his god-father. In 945, Edmund conquered Strathclyde but ceded the territory to King Malcolm I of Scotland in exchange for a treaty of mutual military support.[3] Edmund thus established a policy of safe borders and peaceful relationships with Scotland. During his reign, the revival of monasteries in England began.

Louis IV of France

One of Edmund's last political movements of which there is some knowledge is his role in the restoration of Louis IV of France to the throne. Louis, son of Charles the Simple and Edmund's half-sister Eadgifu, had resided at the West-Saxon court for some time until 936, when he returned to be crowned King of France. In the summer of 945, he was captured by the Norsemen of Rouen and subsequently released to Duke Hugh the Great, who held him in custody. The chronicler Richerus claims that Eadgifu wrote letters both to Edmund and to Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor in which she requested support for her son. Edmund responded to her plea by sending angry threats to Hugh.[4] Flodoard's Annales, one of Richerus' sources, report:

Edmund, king of the English, sent messengers to Duke Hugh about the restoration of King Louis, and the duke accordingly made a public agreement with his nephews and other leading men of his kingdom. [...] Hugh, duke of the Franks, allying himself with Hugh the Black, son of Richard, and the other leading men of the kingdom, restored to the kingdom King Louis.[5][6]

Death and succession

On 26 May 946, Edmund was murdered by Leofa, an exiled thief, while attending St Augustine's Day mass in Pucklechurch (South Gloucestershire).[7] John of Worcester and William of Malmesbury add some lively detail by suggesting that Edmund had been feasting with his nobles, when he spotted Leofa in the crowd. He attacked the intruder in person, but in the event, Leofa killed him. Leofa was killed on the spot by those present.[8] A recent article re-examines Edmund's death and dismisses the later chronicle accounts as fiction. It suggests the king was the victim of a political assassination.[9]

Edmund's sister Eadgyth, the wife of Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, died earlier the same year, as Flodoard's Annales for 946 report.[10]

Edmund was succeeded as king by his brother Eadred, king from 946 until 955. Edmund's sons later ruled England as:

Eadwig, King of England from 955 until 957, king of only Wessex and Kent from 957 until his death on 1 October 959.
Edgar the Peaceful, king of Mercia and Northumbria from 957 until his brother's death in 959, then king of England from 959 until 975.

Buried:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glastonbury_Abbey

Edmund married Aelfgifu of Shaftsbury. Aelfgifu was born in (~914); died in 944; was buried in Shaftesbury Abbey, Dorset, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1420833.

Aelfgifu of Shaftsbury was born in (~914); died in 944; was buried in Shaftesbury Abbey, Dorset, England.

Notes:

Saint ¥lfgifu of Shaftesbury, also known as Saint Elgiva[1] (died 944) was the first wife of Edmund I (r. 939–946), by whom she bore two future kings, Eadwig (r. 955–959) and Edgar (r. 959–975). Like her mother Wynflaed, she had a close and special if unknown connection with the royal nunnery of Shaftesbury (Dorset), founded by King Alfred,[2] where she was buried and soon revered as a saint. According to a pre-Conquest tradition from Winchester, her feast day is 18 May.[3][4]

Queen consort of England
Tenure 939 - 944
Died 944
Burial Shaftesbury Abbey
Spouse Edmund I, King of England
Issue Eadwig, King of England
Edgar, King of England
Mother Wynflaed

Family background

Will of Wynflµd (British Library Cotton Charters viii. 38)[5]
Her mother appears to have been an associate of Shaftesbury Abbey called Wynflaed (also Wynnflµd). The vital clue comes from a charter of King Edgar, in which he confirmed the grant of an estate at Uppidelen (Piddletrenthide, Dorset) made by his grandmother (ava) Wynflµd to Shaftesbury.[6] She may well be the nun or vowess (religiosa femina) of this name in a charter dated 942 and preserved in the abbey's chartulary. It records that she received and retrieved from King Edmund a handful of estates in Dorset, namely Cheselbourne and Winterbourne Tomson, which somehow ended up in the possession of the community.[7]

Since no father or siblings are known, further speculation on ¥lfgifu's background has largely depended on the identity of her mother, whose relatively uncommon name has invited further guesswork. H. P. R. Finberg suggests that she was the Wynflµd who drew up a will, supposedly sometime in the mid-10th century, after ¥lfgifu's death. This lady held many estates scattered across Wessex (in Somerset, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Hampshire) and was well connected with the nunneries at Wilton and Shaftesbury, both of which were royal foundations. On that basis, a number of relatives have been proposed for ¥lfgifu, including a sister called ¥thelflµd, a brother called Eadmµr, and a grandmother called Brihtwyn.[8]

There is, however, no consensus among scholars about Finberg's suggestion. Simon Keynes and Gale R. Owen object that there is no sign of royal relatives or connections in Wynflµd's will and Finberg's assumptions about ¥lfgifu's family therefore stand on shaky ground.[9] Andrew Wareham is less troubled about this and suggests that different kinship strategies may account for it.[10] Much of the issue of identification also seems to hang on the number of years by which Wynflµd can plausibly have outlived her daughter. In this light, it is significant that on palaeographical grounds, David Dumville has rejected the conventional date of c. 950 for the will, which he considers “speculative and too early” (and that one Wynflµd was still alive in 967).[11]

Married life

The sources do not record the date of ¥lfgifu's marriage to Edmund. The eldest son Eadwig, who had barely reached majority on his accession in 955, may have been born around 940, which gives us only a very rough terminus ante quem for the betrothal. Although as the mother of two future kings, ¥lfgifu proved to be an important royal bed companion, there is no strictly contemporary evidence that she was ever consecrated as queen. In a charter of doubtful authenticity dated 942-946, she attests as the king's concubine (concubina regis).[12] but later in the century ¥thelweard the Chronicler styles her queen (regina).

The remains of the Norman buildings which replaced the earlier ones at Shaftesbury Abbey.
Much of ¥lfgifu's claim to fame derives from her association with Shaftesbury. Her patronage of the community is suggested by a charter of King ¥thelred, dated 984, according to which the abbey exchanged with King Edmund the large estate at Tisbury (Wiltshire) for Butticanlea (unidentified). ¥lfgifu received it from her husband and intended to bequeath it back to the nunnery, but such had not yet come to pass (her son Eadwig demanded that Butticanlea was returned to the royal family first).[13]

¥lfgifu predeceased her husband in 944.[14] In the early 12th century, William of Malmesbury wrote that she suffered from an illness during the last few years of her life, but there may have been some confusion with details of ¥thelgifu's life as recorded in a forged foundation charter of the late 11th or 12th century (see below).[15] Her body was buried and enshrined at the nunnery.[16]

Sainthood

¥lfgifu was venerated as a saint soon after her burial at Shaftesbury. ¥thelweard reports that many miracles had taken place at her tomb up to his day,[17] and these were apparently attracting some local attention. Lantfred of Winchester, who wrote in the 970's and so can be called the earliest known witness of her cult, tells of a young man from Collingbourne (possibly Collingbourne Kingston, Wiltshire), who in the hope of being cured of blindness travelled to Shaftesbury and kept vigil. What led him there was the reputation of “the venerable St ¥lfgifu [...] at whose tomb many bodies of sick person receive medication through the omnipotence of God”.[18] Despite the new prominence of Edward the Martyr as a saint interred at Shaftesbury, her cult continued to flourish in later Anglo-Saxon England, as evidenced by her inclusion in a list of saints' resting places, at least 8 pre-Conquest calendars and 3 or 4 litanies from Winchester.[19]

¥lfgifu is styled a saint (Sancte ¥lfgife) in the D-text of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (mid-11th century) at the point where it specifies Eadwig's and Edgar's royal parentage.[20] Her cult may have been fostered and used to enhance the status of the royal lineage, more narrowly that of her descendants.[21] Lantfred attributes her healing power both to her own merits and those of her son Edgar. It may have been due to her association that in 979 the supposed body of her murdered grandson Edward the Martyr was exhumed and in a spectacular ceremony, received at the nunnery of Shaftesbury, under the supervision of ealdorman ¥lfhere.[22]

According to William of Malmesbury, ¥lfgifu would secretly redeem those who were publicly condemned to severe judgment, she gave expensive clothes to the poor, and she also had prophetic powers as well as powers of healing. [23]

¥lfgifu's fame at Shaftesbury seems to have eclipsed that of its first abbess, King Alfred's daughter ¥thelgifu,[24] so much so perhaps that William of Malmesbury wrote contradictory reports on the abbey's early history. In the Gesta regum, he correctly identifies the first abbess as Alfred's daughter, following Asser, although he gives her the name of ¥lfgifu (Elfgiva),[25] while in his Gesta pontificum, he credits Edmund's wife ¥lfgifu with the foundation.[26] Either William encountered conflicting information, or he meant to say that ¥lfgifu refounded the nunnery.[27] In any event, William would have had access to local traditions at Shaftesbury, since he probably wrote a now lost metrical Life for the community, a fragment of which he included in his Gesta pontificum:[28]

Latin text Translation
Nam nonnullis passa annis morborum molestiam,
defecatam et excoctam Deo dedit animam.
Functas ergo uitae fato beatas exuuias
infinitis clemens signis illustrabat Deitas.
Inops uisus et auditus si adorant tumulum,
sanitati restituti probant sanctae meritum.
Rectum gressum refert domum qui accessit loripes,
mente captus redit sanus, boni sensus locuples

For some years she suffered from illness,
And gave to God a soul that it had purged and purified
When she died, God brought lustre to her blessed remains
In his clemency with countless miracles.
If a blind man or a deaf worship at her tomb,
They are restored to health and prove the saint's merits.
He who went there lame comes home firm of step,
The madman returns sane, rich in good sense.[29]

See also

¥lfgifu of Exeter; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86lfgifu_of_Exeter

Children:

710416. Edgar the Peaceful, King of England was born about 943 in (Wessex) England; died on 8 Jul 0975 in Winchester, Hampshire, England; was buried in Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset, England.

387104.

Notes:

Richard I (28 August 932 – 20 November 996), also known as Richard the Fearless (French: Richard Sans-Peur; Old Norse: Jarl Richart), was the Count of Rouen or Jarl of Rouen from 942 to 996.[1] Dudo of Saint-Quentin, whom Richard commissioned to write the "De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum" (Latin, "On the Customs and Deeds of the First Dukes of Normandy"), called him a Dux. However, this use of the word may have been in the context of Richard's renowned leadership in war, and not as a reference to a title of nobility.[2][3] Richard either introduced feudalism into Normandy or he greatly expanded it. By the end of his reign, most important Norman landholders held their lands in feudal tenure.[4]

Birth
Richard was born to William Longsword, princeps (chieftain or ruler)[5] of Normandy, and Sprota.[1] His mother was a Breton concubine captured in war and bound to William by a more danico marriage.[6] He was also the grandson of the famous Rollo. William was told of the birth of a son after the battle with Riouf and other Viking rebels, but his existence was kept secret until a few years later when William Longsword first met his son Richard. After kissing the boy and declaring him his heir, William sent Richard to be raised in Bayeux.[7] Richard was about ten years old when his father was killed on 17 December 942.[1] After William was killed, Sprota became the wife of Esperleng, a wealthy miller. Rodulf of Ivry was their son and Richard's half-brother.[8]

Life
With the death of Richard's father in 942, King Louis IV of France installed the boy, Richard, in his father's office. Under the influence of Arnulf I, Count of Flanders the King took him into Frankish territory[9]:32–4 and placing him in the custody of the count of Ponthieu before the King reneged and seized the lands of the Duchy of Normandy.[10] He then split up the Duchy, giving its lands in lower Normandy to Hugh the Great. Louis IV thereafter kept Richard in close confinement at Lãaon,[11] but the youth escaped from imprisonment[9]:36–7 with assistance of Osmond de Centville, Bernard de Senlis (who had been a companion of Rollo of Normandy), Ivo de Belláesme, and Bernard the Dane[12] (ancestor to the families of Harcourt and Beaumont).[a]

In 946, at the age of 14, Richard allied himself with the Norman and Viking leaders in France and with men sent by King Harold of Denmark. A battle was fought after which Louis IV was captured. Hostages were taken and held until King Louis recognised Richard as Duke, returning Normandy to him.[9]:37–41 Richard agreed to "commend" himself to Hugh, the Count of Paris, Hugh resolved to form a permanent alliance with Richard and promised his daughter Emma, who was just a child, as a bride, the marriage would take place in 960.[9]:41–2

Louis IV working with Arnulf I, Count of Flanders persuaded Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor to attack Richard and Hugh. The combined armies of Otto, Arnulf and Louis IV were driven from the gates of Rouen, fleeing to Amiens and being decisively defeated in 947.[9]:41–2[13] A period of peace ensued, Louis IV dying in 954, 13 year old Lothair becoming King. The middle aged Hugh appointed Richard as guardian of his 15-year-old son, Hugh Capet in 955.[9]:44

In 962, Theobald I, Count of Blois, attempted a renewed invasion of Rouen, Richard's stronghold, but his troops were summarily routed by Normans under Richard's command, and forced to retreat before ever having crossed the Seine river.[14][15] Lothair, the king of the West Franks, was fearful that Richard's retaliation could destabilize a large part of West Francia so he stepped in to prevent any further war between the two.[16] In 987 Hugh Capet became King of the Franks.

For the last 30 years until his death in 996 in Fâecamp, Richard concentrated on Normandy itself, and participated less in Frankish politics and its petty wars. In lieu of building up the Norman Empire by expansion, he stabilized the realm and reunited the Normans, forging the reclaimed Duchy of his father and grandfather into West Francia's most cohesive and formidable principality.[17]

Richard was succeeded in November 996 by his 33-year-old son, Richard II, Duke of Normandy.

Relationships with France, England and the Church
Richard used marriage to build strong alliances. His marriage to Emma of Paris connected him directly to the House of Capet. His second wife, Gunnora, from a rival Viking group in the Cotentin, formed an alliance to that group, while her sisters formed the core group that were to provide loyal followers to him and his successors.[18]

His daughters forged valuable marriage alliances with powerful neighboring counts as well as to the king of England.[18] Emma marrying firstly ¥thelred the Unready and after his death in 1016, the invader, Cnut the Great. Her children included three English kings, Edward the Confessor, Alfred Aetheling and with Cnut, Harthacnut so completing a major link between the Duke of Normandy and the Crown of England that would add validity to the claim by the future William the Conqueror to the throne of England.

Richard also built on his relationship with the church, undertaking acts of piety,[19]:lv restoring their lands and ensuring the great monasteries flourished in Normandy. His further reign was marked by an extended period of peace and tranquility.[18][20]

Marriages

Richard & his children
His first marriage in 960 was to Emma, daughter of Hugh "The Great" of France,[1][21] and Hedwig von Sachsen.[21] They were betrothed when both were very young. She died after 19 March 968, with no issue.[1]

According to Robert of Torigni, not long after Emma's death, Duke Richard went out hunting and stopped at the house of a local forester. He became enamored with the forester's wife, Seinfreda, but she was a virtuous woman and suggested he court her unmarried sister, Gunnor, instead. Gunnor became his mistress and her family rose to prominence. Her brother, Herfast de Crepon, may have been involved in a controversial heresy trial. Gunnor was, like Richard, of Viking descent, being a Dane by blood. Richard finally married her to legitimize their children:[b]

Richard II "the Good", Duke of Normandy[1]
Robert, Archbishop of Rouen, Count of Evreux[1]
Mauger, Count of Corbeil[1]
Emma of Normandy, wife of two kings of England[1]
Maud of Normandy, wife of Odo II of Blois, Count of Blois, Champagne and Chartres[1]
Hawise of Normandy m. Geoffrey I, Duke of Brittany[1]
Papia of Normandy
Orielda (963-1031) wife of Fulk Seigneur de Guernanville, Dean of Evreax [22][23]
Illegitimate children

Richard was known to have had several other mistresses and had children with many of them. Known children are:

Geoffrey, Count of Eu[1][24]
William, Count of Eu (ca. 972-26 January 1057/58),[24] m. Lasceline de Turqueville (d. 26 January 1057/58).
Beatrice of Normandy, Abbess of Montvilliers d.1034 m. Ebles of Turenne[1] (d.1030 (divorced)
Possible children
Muriella, married Tancred de Hauteville[1][25][26]
Fressenda or Fredesenda (ca. 995-ca. 1057), second wife of Tancred de Hauteville.[1][26][27]
Guimara (Wimarc(a)) (b. circa 986), died Abbey of Montivilliers, Seine-Inferieure, Normandy, wife of Ansfred (Ansfroi) II "le Dane" le Goz, vicomte of Exmes and Falaise, mother of Robert FitzWimarc[28]
Death
Richard died of natural causes in Fecamp, France, on 20 November 996.[29]

Depictions in fiction
The Little Duke, a Victorian juvenile novel by Charlotte Mary Yonge, is a fictionalized account of Richard's boyhood and early struggles.

Count of Rouen
Reign 17 December 942 – 20 November 996
Predecessor William Longsword
Successor Richard II
Born 28 August 932
Fâecamp Normandy, France
Died 20 November 996 (aged 64)
Fâecamp Normandy, France
Spouse Emma of Paris
Gunnor
Issue Richard II of Normandy
Robert II (Archbishop of Rouen)
Mauger, Count of Corbeil
Robert Danus
Willam?
Emma of Normandy
Maud of Normandy
Hawise of Normandy
Geoffrey, Count of Eu (illegitimate)
William, Count of Eu (illegitimate)
Beatrice of Normandy (illegitimate)
Robert (illegitimate)
Papia (illegitimate)
House House of Normandy
Father William I Longsword
Mother Sprota

end of biography

387105.

Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy was born in 936-941 in Rouen, France (daughter of Harold Gormsen, VII, King of Denmark and Gunhild von Denmark); died on 5 Jan 1031 in Normandie, France.

Notes:

Gunnora (or Gunnor) (circa 936 – 5 Jan 1031) was a Duchess of Normandy and the wife of Richard I of Normandy.

Life

The names of Gunnora's parents are unknown, but Robert of Torigni wrote that her father was a forester from the Pays de Caux and according to Dudo of Saint-Quentin she was of noble Danish origin.[2] Gunnora was probably born c.? 950.[3] Her family held sway in western Normandy and Gunnora herself was said to be very wealthy.[4] Her marriage to Richard I was of great political importance, both to her husband[b] and her progeny.[5] Her brother, Herfast de Crepon, was progenitor of a great Norman family.[4] Her sisters and nieces[c] married some of the most important nobles in Normandy.[6]

Robert of Torigni recounts a story of how Richard met Gunnora.[7] She was living with her sister Seinfreda, the wife of a local forester, when Richard, hunting nearby, heard of the beauty of the forester's wife. He is said to have ordered Seinfreda to come to his bed, but the lady substituted her unmarried sister, Gunnora. Richard, it is said, was pleased that by this subterfuge he had been saved from committing adultery and together they had three sons and three daughters.[d][8] Unlike other territorial rulers, the Normans recognized marriage by cohabitation or more danico. But when Richard was prevented from nominating their son Robert to be Archbishop of Rouen, the two were married, "according to the Christian custom", making their children legitimate in the eyes of the church.[8]

Gunnora attested ducal charters up into the 1020s, was skilled in languages and was said to have had an excellent memory.[9] She was one of the most important sources of information on Norman history for Dudo of St. Quentin.[10] As Richard's widow she is mentioned accompanying her sons on numerous occasions.[9] That her husband depended on her is shown in the couple's charters where she is variously regent of Normandy, a mediator and judge, and in the typical role of a medieval aristocratic mother, an arbitrator between her husband and their oldest son Richard II.[9]

Gunnora was a founder and supporter of Coutances Cathedral and laid its first stone.[11] In one of her own charters after Richard's death she gave two alods to the abbey of Mont Saint-Michel, namely Britavilla and Domjean, given to her by her husband in dower, which she gave for the soul of her husband, and the weal of her own soul and that of her sons "count Richard, archbishop Robert, and others..."[12] She also attested a charter, c.?1024–26, to that same abbey by her son, Richard II, shown as Gonnor matris comitis (mother of the count).[13] Gunnora, both as wife and countess,[e] was able to use her influence to see her kin favored, and several of the most prominent Anglo-Norman families on both sides of the English Channel are descended from her, her sisters and nieces.[9] Gunnora died c.?1031.[3]

Family

Richard and Gunnora were parents to several children:

Richard II "the Good", Duke of Normandy[14]
Robert, Archbishop of Rouen, Count of Evreux, died 1037[14]
Mauger, Count of Corbeil[14]
Emma of Normandy (c.?985–1052), married first to ¥thelred, King of England and secondly Cnut the Great, King of England.[14]
Hawise of Normandy, wife of Geoffrey I, Duke of Brittany[14]
Maud of Normandy, wife of Odo II of Blois, Count of Blois, Champagne and Chartres[14]

end of biography

Children:

385096. Richard de Normandie, II was born on 23 Aug 963 in Normandie, France; died on 28 Aug 1027 in Normandie, France.
Emma of Normandy, Queen consort of England was born in ~985 in Normandie, France; died on 6 Mar 1052 in Winchester, Hampshire, England; was buried in Winchester Cathedral, Winchester, Hampshire, England.
Robert d'Evereux, Comte d'Evreux was born in Normandie, France; died on 16 Mar 1037 in Seine-Inferieure, Normandy, France.
Hawise of Normandy, Duchess of Brittany

387106.

Conan of Rennes, I, Count of Rennes, Duke of Brittany was born in 927 in (Rennes, France); died on 27 Jun 992.

Notes:

Conan I le Tort of Rennes, Count of Rennes, Duke of Brittany, was born 927 to Judicael Berengar (-bef979) and died 27 June 992 at the Battle of Conquereuil of unspecified causes. He married Ermengarde of Anjou (bef967-) .

Conan may have married his second cousin once removed: Herbert I, Count of Vermandois (c848-907) may have been his great-grandfather and was his wife's great-great-grandfather.

Conan married Ermengarde of Anjou. Ermengarde (daughter of Geoffrey of Anjou and Adele of Meaux) was born before 967 in (Anjou, France). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

387107.

Ermengarde of Anjou was born before 967 in (Anjou, France) (daughter of Geoffrey of Anjou and Adele of Meaux).

Children:

193553. Judith de Bretagne was born in 982 in Rennes, France; died in 1017 in Normandy, France.

6193684.

Aethelwulf of Wessex, King of Wessex was born in (~820) in Wessex, England (son of Egbert of Wessex, King of Wessex and Redburga); died on 13 Jan 0858; was buried in Winchester, Hampshire, England.

Notes:

¥thelwulf (Old English for "Noble Wolf";[2] died 13 January 858) was King of Wessex from 839 to 858.[a] In 825, his father, King Egbert, defeated King Beornwulf of Mercia, ending a long Mercian dominance over Anglo-Saxon England south of the Humber. Egbert sent ¥thelwulf with an army to Kent, where he expelled the Mercian sub-king and was himself appointed sub-king. After 830, Egbert maintained good relations with Mercia, and this was continued by ¥thelwulf when he became king in 839, the first son to succeed his father as West Saxon king since 641.

The Vikings were not a major threat to Wessex during ¥thelwulf's reign. In 843, he was defeated in a battle against the Vikings at Carhampton in Somerset, but he achieved a major victory at the Battle of Aclea in 851. In 853 he joined a successful Mercian expedition to Wales to restore the traditional Mercian hegemony, and in the same year his daughter ¥thelswith married King Burgred of Mercia. In 855 ¥thelwulf went on pilgrimage to Rome. In preparation he gave a "decimation", donating a tenth of his personal property to his subjects; he appointed his eldest surviving son ¥thelbald to act as King of Wessex in his absence, and his next son ¥thelberht to rule Kent and the south-east. ¥thelwulf spent a year in Rome, and on his way back he married Judith, the daughter of the West Frankish King Charles the Bald.

When ¥thelwulf returned to England, ¥thelbald refused to surrender the West Saxon throne, and ¥thelwulf agreed to divide the kingdom, taking the east and leaving the west in ¥thelbald's hands. On ¥thelwulf's death in 858 he left Wessex to ¥thelbald and Kent to ¥thelberht, but ¥thelbald's death only two years later led to the reunification of the kingdom.

In the 20th century ¥thelwulf's reputation among historians was poor: he was seen as excessively pious and impractical, and his pilgrimage was viewed as a desertion of his duties. Historians in the 21st century see him very differently, as a king who consolidated and extended the power of his dynasty, commanded respect on the continent, and dealt more effectively than most of his contemporaries with Viking attacks. He is regarded as one of the most successful West Saxon kings, who laid the foundations for the success of his son, Alfred the Great.

King of Wessex
Reign 839–858
Predecessor Egbert
Successor ¥thelbald
Died 13 January 858
Burial Steyning then Old Minster, Winchester; remains may now be in Winchester Cathedral[1]
Spouse Osburh
Judith
Issue ¥thelstan, King of Kent
¥thelswith, Queen of Mercia
¥thelbald, King of Wessex
¥thelberht, King of Wessex
¥thelred, King of Wessex
Alfred, King of Wessex
House House of Wessex
Father Egbert

Background

Southern British Isles 9th century
Southern Britain in the middle of the ninth century
At the beginning of the 9th century, England was almost completely under the control of the Anglo-Saxons, with Mercia and Wessex the most important southern kingdoms. Mercia was dominant until the 820s, and it exercised overlordship over East Anglia and Kent, but Wessex was able to maintain its independence from its more powerful neighbour. Offa, King of Mercia from 757 to 796, was the dominant figure of the second half of the 8th century. King Beorhtric of Wessex (786–802), married Offa's daughter in 789. Beorhtric and Offa drove ¥thelwulf's father Egbert into exile, and he spent several years at the court of Charlemagne in Francia. Egbert was the son of Ealhmund, who had briefly been King of Kent in 784. Following Offa's death, King Coenwulf of Mercia (796–821) maintained Mercian dominance, but it is uncertain whether Beorhtric ever accepted political subordination, and when he died in 802 Egbert became king, perhaps with the support of Charlemagne.[5] For two hundred years three kindreds had fought for the West Saxon throne, and no son had followed his father as king. Egbert's best claim was that he was the great-great-grandson of Ingild, brother of King Ine (688–726), and in 802 it would have seemed very unlikely that he would establish a lasting dynasty.[6]

Almost nothing is recorded of the first twenty years of Egbert's reign, apart from campaigns against the Cornish in the 810s.[7] The historian Richard Abels argues that the silence of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was probably intentional, concealing Egbert's purge of Beorhtric's magnates and suppression of rival royal lines.[8] Relations between Mercian kings and their Kentish subjects were distant. Kentish ealdormen did not attend the court of King Coenwulf, who quarrelled with Archbishop Wulfred of Canterbury (805–832) over the control of Kentish monasteries; Coenwulf's primary concern seems to have been to gain access to the wealth of Kent. His successors Ceolwulf I (821–23) and Beornwulf (823–26) restored relations with Archbishop Wulfred, and Beornwulf appointed a sub-king of Kent, Baldred.[9]

England had suffered Viking raids in the late 8th century, but no attacks are recorded between 794 and 835, when the Isle of Sheppey in Kent was ravaged.[10] In 836 Egbert was defeated by the Vikings at Carhampton in Somerset,[7] but in 838 he was victorious over an alliance of Cornishmen and Vikings at the Battle of Hingston Down, reducing Cornwall to the status of a client kingdom.[11]

Family

¥thelwulf was the son of Egbert, King of Wessex from 802 to 839. His mother's name is unknown, and he had no recorded siblings. He is known to have had two wives in succession, and so far as is known, Osburh, the senior of the two, was the mother of all his children. She was the daughter of Oslac, described by Asser, biographer of their son Alfred the Great, as "King ¥thelwulf's famous butler",[b] a man who was descended from Jutes who had ruled the Isle of Wight.[13][14] ¥thelwulf had six known children. His eldest son, ¥thelstan, was old enough to be appointed King of Kent in 839, so he must have been born by the early 820s, and he died in the early 850s.[c] The second son, ¥thelbald, is first recorded as a charter witness in 841, and if, like Alfred, he began to attest when he was around six, he would have been born around 835; he was King of Wessex from 858 to 860. ¥thelwulf's third son, ¥thelberht, was probably born around 839 and was king from 860 to 865. The only daughter, ¥thelswith, married Burgred, King of Mercia, in 853.[16] The other two sons were much younger: ¥thelred was born around 848 and was king from 865 to 871, and Alfred was born around 849 and was king from 871 to 899.[17] In 856 ¥thelwulf married Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, King of West Francia and future Holy Roman Emperor, and his wife Ermentrude. Osburh had probably died, although it is possible that she had been repudiated.[d] There were no children from ¥thelwulf's marriage to Judith, and after his death she married his eldest surviving son and successor, ¥thelbald.[13]

Early life

¥thelwulf was first recorded in 825, when Egbert won the crucial Battle of Ellandun against King Beornwulf of Mercia, ending the long Mercian ascendancy over southern England. Egbert followed it up by sending ¥thelwulf with Eahlstan, Bishop of Sherborne, and Wulfheard, Ealdorman of Hampshire, with a large army into Kent to expel sub-king Baldred.[e] ¥thelwulf was descended from kings of Kent, and he was sub-king of Kent, and of Surrey, Sussex and Essex, which were then included in the sub-kingdom, until he inherited the throne of Wessex in 839.[22] His sub-kingship is recorded in charters, in some of which King Egbert acted with his son's permission,[13] such as a grant in 838 to Bishop Beornmod of Rochester, and ¥thelwulf himself issued a charter as King of Kent in the same year.[23] Unlike their Mercian predecessors, who alienated the Kentish people by ruling from a distance, ¥thelwulf and his father successfully cultivated local support by governing through Kentish ealdormen and promoting their interests.[24] In Abels' view, Egbert and ¥thelwulf rewarded their friends and purged Mercian supporters.[25][f] Historians take differing views on the attitude of the new regime to the Kentish church. At Canterbury in 828 Egbert granted privileges to the bishopric of Rochester, and according to the historian of Anglo-Saxon England Simon Keynes, Egbert and ¥thelwulf took steps to secure the support of Archbishop Wulfred.[27] However, the medievalist Nicholas Brooks argues that Wulfred's Mercian origin and connections proved a liability. ¥thelwulf seized an estate in East Malling from the Canterbury church on the ground that it had only been granted by Baldred when he was in flight from the West Saxon forces; the issue of archiepiscopal coinage was suspended for several years; and the only estate Wulfred was granted after 825 he received from King Wiglaf of Mercia.[28]

In 829 Egbert conquered Mercia, only for Wiglaf to recover his kingdom a year later.[29] The scholar D. P. Kirby sees Wiglaf's restoration in 830 as a dramatic reversal for Egbert, which was probably followed by his loss of control of the London mint and the Mercian recovery of Essex and Berkshire,[30] and the historian Heather Edwards states that his "immense conquest could not be maintained".[7] However, in the view of Keynes:

It is interesting ... that both Egbert and his son ¥thelwulf appear to have respected the separate identity of Kent and its associated provinces, as if there appears to have been no plan at this stage to absorb the southeast into an enlarged kingdom stretching across the whole of southern England. Nor does it seem to have been the intention of Egbert and his successors to maintain supremacy of any kind over the kingdom of Mercia ... It is quite possible that Egbert had relinquished Mercia of his own volition; and there is no suggestion that any residual antagonism affected relations between the rulers of Wessex and Mercia thereafter.[31]

In 838 King Egbert held an assembly at Kingston in Surrey, where ¥thelwulf may have been consecrated as king by the archbishop. Egbert restored the East Malling estate to Wulfred's successor as Archbishop of Canterbury, Ceolnoth, in return for a promise of "firm and unbroken friendship" for himself and ¥thelwulf and their heirs, and the same condition is specified in a grant to the see of Winchester. Egbert thus ensured support for ¥thelwulf, who became the first son to succeed his father as West Saxon king since 641.[32] At the same meeting Kentish monasteries chose ¥thelwulf as their lord, and he undertook that, after his death, they would have freedom to elect their heads. Wulfred had devoted his archiepiscopate to fighting against secular power over Kentish monasteries, but Ceolnoth now surrendered effective control to ¥thelwulf, whose offer of freedom from control after his death was unlikely to be honoured by his successors. Kentish ecclesiastics and laymen now looked for protection against Viking attacks to West Saxon rather than Mercian royal power. [33]

Egbert's conquests brought him wealth far greater than his predecessors had enjoyed, and enabled him to purchase the support which secured the West Saxon throne for his descendants.[34] The stability brought by the dynastic succession of Egbert and ¥thelwulf led to an expansion of commercial and agrarian resources, and to an expansion of royal income.[35] The wealth of the West Saxon kings was also increased by the agreement in 838–39 with Archbishop Ceolnoth for the previously independent West Saxon minsters to accept the king as their secular lord in return for his protection.[36] However, there was no certainty that the hegemony of Wessex would prove more permanent than that of Mercia.[37]

King of Wessex

13th century depiction of ¥thelwulf
Depiction of ¥thelwulf in the late-13th-century Genealogical Chronicle of the English Kings
When ¥thelwulf succeeded to the throne of Wessex in 839, his experience as sub-king of Kent had given him valuable training in kingship, and he in turn made his own sons sub-kings.[38] According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, on his accession "he gave to his son ¥thelstan the kingdom of the people of Kent, and the kingdom of the East Saxons [Essex] and of the people of Surrey and of the South Saxons [Sussex]". However, ¥thelwulf did not give ¥thelstan the same power as his father had given him, and although ¥thelstan attested his father's charters[g] as king, he does not appear to have been given the power to issue his own charters. ¥thelwulf exercised authority in the south-east and made regular visits there. He governed Wessex and Kent as separate spheres, and assemblies in each kingdom were only attended by the nobility of that country. The historian Janet Nelson says that "¥thelwulf ran a Carolingian-style family firm of plural realms, held together by his own authority as father-king, and by the consent of distinct âelites." He maintained his father's policy of governing Kent through ealdormen appointed from the local nobility and advancing their interests, but gave less support to the church.[39] In 843 ¥thelwulf granted ten hides at Little Chart to ¥thelmod, the brother of the leading Kentish ealdorman Ealhere, and ¥thelmod succeeded to the post on his brother's death in 853.[40] In 844 ¥thelwulf granted land at Horton in Kent to Ealdorman Eadred, with permission to transfer parts of it to local landowners; in a culture of reciprocity, this created a network of mutual friendships and obligations between the beneficiaries and the king.[41] Archbishops of Canterbury were firmly in the West Saxon king's sphere. His ealdormen enjoyed a high status, and were sometimes placed higher than the king's sons in lists of witnesses to charters.[42] His reign is the first for which there is evidence of royal priests,[43] and Malmesbury Abbey regarded him as an important benefactor, who is said to have been the donor of a shrine for the relics of Saint Aldhelm.[44]

After 830, Egbert had followed a policy of maintaining good relations with Mercia, and this was continued by ¥thelwulf when he became king. London was traditionally a Mercian town, but in the 830s it was under West Saxon control; soon after ¥thelwulf's accession it reverted to Mercian control.[45] King Wiglaf of Mercia died in 839 and his successor, Berhtwulf, revived the Mercian mint in London; the two kingdoms appear to have struck a joint issue in the mid-840s, possibly indicating West Saxon help in reviving Mercian coinage, and showing the friendly relations between the two powers. Berkshire was still Mercian in 844, but by 849 it was part of Wessex, as Alfred was born in that year at the West Saxon royal estate in Wantage, then in Berkshire.[46][h] However, the local Mercian ealdorman, also called ¥thelwulf, retained his position under the West Saxon kings.[48] Berhtwulf died in 852 and cooperation with Wessex continued under Burgred, his successor as King of Mercia, who married ¥thelwulf's daughter ¥thelswith in 853. In the same year ¥thelwulf assisted Burgred in a successful attack on Wales to restore the traditional Mercian hegemony over the Welsh.[49]

In 9th-century Mercia and Kent, royal charters were produced by religious houses, each with its own style, but in Wessex there was a single royal diplomatic tradition, probably by a single agency acting for the king. This may have originated in Egbert's reign, and it becomes clear in the 840s, when ¥thelwulf had a Frankish secretary called Felix.[50] There were strong contacts between the West Saxon and Carolingian courts. The Annals of St Bertin took particular interest in Viking attacks on Britain, and in 852 Lupus, the Abbot of Ferriáeres and a protâegâe of Charles the Bald, wrote to ¥thelwulf congratulating him on his victory over the Vikings and requesting a gift of lead to cover his church roof. Lupus also wrote to his "most beloved friend" Felix, asking him to manage the transport of the lead.[51] Unlike Canterbury and the south-east, Wessex did not see a sharp decline in the standard of Latin in charters in the mid-9th century, and this may have been partly due to Felix and his continental contacts.[52] Lupus thought that Felix had great influence over the King.[13] Charters were mainly issued from royal estates in counties which were the heartland of ancient Wessex, namely Hampshire, Somerset, Wiltshire and Dorset, with a few in Kent.[53]

An ancient division between east and west Wessex continued to be important in the 9th century; the boundary was Selwood Forest on the borders of Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire. The two bishoprics of Wessex were Selborne in the west and Winchester in the east. ¥thelwulf's family connections seem to have been west of Selwood, but his patronage was concentrated further east, particularly on Winchester, where his father was buried, and where he appointed Swithun to succeed Helmstan as bishop in 852–853. However, he made a grant of land in Somerset to his leading ealdorman, Eanwulf, and on 26 December 846 he granted a large estate to himself in South Hams in west Devon. He thus changed it from royal demesne, which he was obliged to pass on to his successor as king, to bookland, which could be transferred as the owner pleased, so he could make land grants to followers to improve security in a frontier zone.[54]

Viking threat

Viking raids increased in the early 840s on both sides of the English Channel, and in 843 ¥thelwulf was defeated by the companies of 35 Danish ships at Carhampton in Somerset. In 850 sub-king ¥thelstan and Ealdorman Ealhhere of Kent won a naval victory over a large Viking fleet off Sandwich in Kent, capturing nine ships and driving off the rest. ¥thelwulf granted Ealhhere a large estate in Kent, but ¥thelstan is not heard of again, and probably died soon afterwards. The following year the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records five different attacks on southern England. A Danish fleet of 350 Viking ships took London and Canterbury, and when King Berhtwulf of Mercia went to their relief he was defeated. The Vikings then moved on to Surrey, where they were defeated by ¥thelwulf and his son ¥thelbald at the Battle of Aclea. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle the West Saxon levies "there made the greatest slaughter of a heathen that we have heard tell of up to the present day". The Chronicle frequently reported victories during ¥thelwulf's reign won by levies led by ealdormen, unlike the 870s when royal command was emphasised, reflecting a more consensual style of leadership in the earlier period.[55]

In 850 a Danish army wintered on Thanet, and in 853 ealdormen Ealhhere of Kent and Huda of Surrey were killed in a battle against the Vikings, also on Thanet. In 855 Danish Vikings stayed over the winter on Sheppey, before carrying on their pillaging of eastern England.[56] However, during ¥thelwulf's reign Viking attacks were contained and did not present a major threat.[57]

Coinage

Coin of King ¥thelwulf
Coin of King ¥thelwulf: "E£ELVVLF REX", moneyer Manna, Canterbury[58]
The silver penny was almost the only coin used in middle and later Anglo-Saxon England. ¥thelwulf's coinage came from a main mint in Canterbury and a secondary one at Rochester; both had been used by Egbert for his own coinage after he gained control of Kent. During ¥thelwulf's reign, there were four main phases of the coinage distinguishable at both mints, though they are not exactly parallel and it is uncertain when the transitions took place. The first issue at Canterbury carried a design known as Saxoniorum, which had been used by Egbert for one of his own issues. This was replaced by a portrait design in about 843, which can be subdivided further; the earliest coins have cruder designs than the later ones. At the Rochester mint the sequence was reversed, with an initial portrait design replaced, also in about 843, by a non-portrait design carrying a cross-and-wedges pattern on the obverse.[13][59]

In about 848 both mints switched to a common design known as Dor¯b¯/Cant – the characters "Dor¯b¯" on the obverse of these coins indicate either Dorobernia (Canterbury) or Dorobrevia (Rochester), and "Cant", referring to Kent, appeared on the reverse. It is possible that the Canterbury mint continued to produce portrait coins at the same time. The Canterbury issue seems to have been ended in 850–851 by Viking raids, though it is possible that Rochester was spared, and the issue may have continued there. The final issue, again at both mints, was introduced in about 852; it has an inscribed cross on the reverse and a portrait on the obverse. ¥thelwulf's coinage became debased by the end of his reign, and though the problem became worse after his death it is possible that the debasement prompted the changes in coin type from as early as 850.[60]

¥thelwulf's first Rochester coinage may have begun when he was still sub-king of Kent, under Egbert. A hoard of coins deposited at the beginning of ¥thelwulf's reign in about 840, found in the Middle Temple in London, contained 22 coins from Rochester and two from Canterbury of the first issue of each mint. Some numismatists argue that the high proportion of Rochester coins means that the issue must have commenced before Egbert's death, but an alternative explanation is that whoever hoarded the coins simply happened to have access to more Rochester coins. No coins were issued by ¥thelwulf's sons during his reign.[61]

Ceolnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury throughout ¥thelwulf's reign, also minted coins of his own at Canterbury: there were three different portrait designs, thought to be contemporary with each of the first three of ¥thelwulf's Canterbury issues. These were followed by an inscribed cross design that was uniform with ¥thelwulf's final coinage. At Rochester, Bishop Beornmod produced only one issue, a cross-and-wedges design which was contemporary with ¥thelwulf's Saxoniorum issue.[62]

In the view of the numismatists Philip Grierson and Mark Blackburn, the mints of Wessex, Mercia and East Anglia were not greatly affected by changes in political control: "the remarkable continuity of moneyers which can be seen at each of these mints suggests that the actual mint organisation was largely independent of the royal administration and was founded in the stable trading communities of each city".[63]

Decimation Charters
Charter of King ¥thelwulf
Charter S 316 dated 855, in which ¥thelwulf granted land at Ulaham in Kent to his minister Ealdhere.[64]
The early 20th-century historian W. H. Stevenson observed that: "Few things in our early history have led to so much discussion" as ¥thelwulf's Decimation Charters;[65] a hundred years later the charter expert Susan Kelly described them as "one of the most controversial groups of Anglo-Saxon diplomas".[66] Both Asser and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle say that ¥thelwulf gave a decimation,[i] in 855, shortly before leaving on pilgrimage to Rome. According to the Chronicle "King ¥thelwulf conveyed by charter the tenth part of his land throughout all his kingdom to the praise of God and to his own eternal salvation". However, Asser states that "¥thelwulf, the esteemed king, freed the tenth part of his whole kingdom from royal service and tribute, and as an everlasting inheritance he made it over on the cross of Christ to the triune God, for the redemption of his soul and those of his predecessors."[68] According to Keynes, Asser's version may just be a "loose translation" of the Chronicle, and his implication that ¥thelwulf released a tenth of all land from secular burdens was probably not intended. All land could be regarded as the king's land, so the Chronicle reference to "his land" does not necessarily refer to royal property, and since the booking of land – conveying it by charter – was always regarded as a pious act, Asser's statement that he made it over to God does not necessarily mean that the charters were in favour of the church.[69]

The Decimation Charters are divided by Susan Kelly into four groups:

Two dated at Winchester on 5 November 844. In a charter in the Malmesbury archive, ¥thelwulf refers in the proem to the perilous state of his kingdom as the result of the assaults of pagans and barbarians. For the sake of his soul and in return for masses for the king and ealdormen each Wednesday, "I have decided to give in perpetual liberty some portion of hereditary lands to all those ranks previously in possession, both to God's servants and handmaidens serving God and to laymen, always the tenth hide, and where it is less, then the tenth part."[j]
Six dated at Wilton on Easter Day, 22 April 854. In the common text of these charters, ¥thelwulf states that "for the sake of his soul and the prosperity of the kingdom and [the salvation of] the people assigned to him by God, he has acted upon the advice given to him by his bishops, comites, and all his nobles. He has granted the tenth part of the lands throughout his kingdom, not only to the churches, but also to his thegns. The land is granted in perpetual liberty, so that it will remain free of royal services and all secular burdens. In return there will be liturgical commemoration of the king and of his bishops and ealdormen."[k]
Five from Old Minster, Winchester, connected with the Wilton meeting but generally considered spurious.[l]
One from Kent dated 855, the only one to have the same date as the decimation according to Chronicle and Asser. The king grants to his thegn Dunn property in Rochester "on account of the decimation of lands which by God's gift I have decided to do". Dunn left the land to his wife with reversion to Rochester Cathedral.[m][72]
None of the charters are original, and Stevenson dismissed all of them as fraudulent apart from the Kentish one of 855. Stevenson saw the decimation as a donation of royal demesne to churches and laymen, with those grants which were made to laymen being on the understanding that there would be reversion to a religious institution.[73] Up to the 1990s, his view on the authenticity of the charters was generally accepted by scholars, with the exception of the historian H. P. R. Finberg, who argued in 1964 that most are based on authentic diplomas. Finberg coined the terms the 'First Decimation' of 844, which he saw as the removal of public dues on a tenth of all bookland, and the 'Second Decimation' of 854, the donation of a tenth of "the private domain of the royal house" to the churches. He considered it unlikely that the First Decimation had been carried into effect, probably due to the threat from the Vikings. Finberg's terminology has been adopted, but his defence of the First Decimation generally rejected. In 1994 Keynes defended the Wilton charters in group 2, and his arguments have been widely accepted.[74]

Historians have been divided on how to interpret the Second Decimation, and in 1994 Keynes described it as "one of the most perplexing problems" in the study of 9th-century charters. He set out three alternatives:

It conveyed a tenth of the royal demesne – the lands of the crown as opposed to the personal property of the sovereign – into the hands of churches, ecclesiastics and laymen. In Anglo-Saxon England property was either folkland or bookland. The transmission of folkland was governed by the customary rights of kinsmen, subject to the king's approval, whereas bookland was established by the grant of a royal charter, and could be disposed of freely by the owner. Booking land thus converted it by charter from folkland to bookland. The royal demesne was the crown's folkland, whereas the king's bookland was his own personal property which he could leave by will as he chose. In the decimation ¥thelwulf may have conveyed royal folkland by charter to become bookland, in some cases to laymen who already leased the land.[75]
It was the booking of a tenth of folkland to its owners, who would then be free to convey it to a church.[76]
It was a reduction of one tenth in the secular burdens on lands already in the possession of landowners.[76] The secular burdens would have included the provision of supplies for the king and his officials, and payment of various taxes.[77]
Some scholars, for example Frank Stenton, author of the standard history of Anglo-Saxon England, along with Keynes and Abels, see the Second Decimation as a donation of royal demesne. In Abels' view ¥thelwulf sought loyalty from the aristocracy and church during the king's forthcoming absence from Wessex, and displayed a sense of dynastic insecurity also evident in his father's generosity towards the Kentish church in 838, and in an "avid attention" in this period to compiling and revising royal genealogies.[78] Keynes suggests that "¥thelwulf's purpose was presumably to earn divine assistance in his struggles against the Vikings",[79] and the mid-20th-century historian Eric John observes that "a lifetime of medieval studies teaches one that an early medieval king was never so political as when he was on his knees".[80] The view that the decimation was a donation of the king's own personal estate is supported by the Anglo-Saxonist Alfred Smyth, who argues that these were the only lands the king was entitled to alienate by book.[81][n] The historian Martin Ryan prefers the view that ¥thelwulf freed a tenth part of land owned by laymen from secular obligations, who could now endow churches under their own patronage. Ryan sees it as part of a campaign of religious devotion.[84] According to the historian David Pratt, it "is best interpreted as a strategic 'tax cut', designed to encourage cooperation in defensive measures through a partial remission of royal dues".[85] Nelson states that the decimation took place in two phases, in Wessex in 854 and Kent in 855, reflecting that they remained separate kingdoms.[86]

Kelly argues that most charters were based on genuine originals, including the First Decimation of 844. She says: "Commentators have been unkind [and] the 844 version has not been given the benefit of the doubt". In her view ¥thelwulf then gave a 10% tax reduction on bookland, and ten years later he took the more generous step of "a widespread distribution of royal lands". Unlike Finberg, she believes that both decimations were carried out, although the second one may not have been completed due to opposition from ¥thelwulf's son ¥thelbald. She thinks that the grants of bookland to laymen in the Second Decimation were unconditional, not with reversion to religious houses as Stevenson had argued.[87] However, Keynes is not convinced by Kelly's arguments, and thinks that the First Decimation charters were 11th or early 12th century fabrications.[88]

Pilgrimage to Rome and later life

In the early 850s ¥thelwulf went on pilgrimage to Rome. According to Abels: "¥thelwulf was at the height of his power and prestige. It was a propitious time for the West Saxon king to claim a place of honour among the kings and emperors of christendom."[89] His eldest surviving sons ¥thelbald and ¥thelberht were then adults, while ¥thelred and Alfred were still young children. In 853 ¥thelwulf sent his younger sons to Rome, perhaps accompanying envoys in connection with his own forthcoming visit. Alfred, and possibly ¥thelred as well, were invested with the "belt of consulship". ¥thelred's part in the journey is only known from a contemporary record in the liber vitae of San Salvatore, Brescia, as later records such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle were only interested in recording the honour paid to Alfred.[13] Abels sees the embassy as paving the way for ¥thelwulf's pilgrimage, and the presence of Alfred, his youngest and therefore most expendable son, as a gesture of goodwill to the papacy; confirmation by Pope Leo IV made Alfred his spiritual son, and thus created a spiritual link between the two "fathers".[90][o] Kirby argues that the journey may indicate that Alfred was intended for the church,[92] while Nelson on the contrary sees ¥thelwulf's purpose as affirming his younger sons' throneworthiness, thus protecting them against being tonsured by their elder brothers, which would have rendered them ineligible for kingship.[93]

¥thelwulf set out for Rome in the spring of 855, accompanied by Alfred and a large retinue.[94] The King left Wessex in the care of his oldest surviving son, ¥thelbald, and the sub-kingdom of Kent to the rule of ¥thelberht, and thereby confirmed that they were to succeed to the two kingdoms.[25] On the way the party stayed with Charles the Bald in Francia, where there were the usual banquets and exchange of gifts. ¥thelwulf stayed a year in Rome,[95] and his gifts to the Diocese of Rome included a gold crown weighing 4 pounds (1.8 kg), two gold goblets, a sword bound with gold, four silver-gilt bowls, two silk tunics and two gold-interwoven veils. He also gave gold to the clergy and leading men and silver to the people of Rome. According to the historian Joanna Story, his gifts rivalled those of Carolingian donors and the Byzantine emperor and "were clearly chosen to reflect the personal generosity and spiritual wealth of the West Saxon king; here was no Germanic 'hillbilly' from the backwoods of the Christian world but, rather, a sophisticated, wealthy and utterly contemporary monarch".[96] According to the 12th-century chronicler William of Malmesbury, he helped to pay for the restoration of the Saxon quarter, which had recently been destroyed by fire, for English pilgrims.[97]

The pilgrimage puzzles historians and Kelly comments that "it is extraordinary that an early medieval king could consider his position safe enough to abandon his kingdom in a time of extreme crisis". She suggests that ¥thelwulf may have been motivated by a personal religious impulse.[98] Ryan sees it as an attempt to placate the divine wrath displayed by Viking attacks,[84] whereas Nelson thinks he aimed to enhance his prestige in dealing with the demands of his adult sons.[99] In Kirby's view:

¥thelwulf's journey to Rome is of great interest for it did not signify abdication and a retreat from the world as their journeys to Rome had for Cµdwalla and Ine and other Anglo-Saxon kings. It was more a display of the king's international standing and a demonstration of the prestige his dynasty enjoyed in Frankish and papal circles.[100]

On his way back from Rome ¥thelwulf again stayed with King Charles the Bald, and may have joined him on a campaign against a Viking warband.[101] On 1 October 856 ¥thelwulf married Charles's daughter, Judith, aged 12 or 13, at Verberie. The marriage was considered extraordinary by contemporaries and by modern historians. Carolingian princesses rarely married and were usually sent to nunneries, and it was almost unknown for them to marry foreigners. Judith was crowned queen and anointed by Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims. Although empresses had been anointed before, this is the first definitely known anointing of a Carolingian queen. In addition West Saxon custom, described by Asser as "perverse and detestable", was that the wife of a king of Wessex could not be called queen or sit on the throne with her husband – she was just the king's wife.[102]

¥thelwulf returned to Wessex to face a revolt by ¥thelbald, who attempted to prevent his father from recovering his throne. Historians give varying explanations for both the rebellion and the marriage. In Nelson's view, ¥thelwulf's marriage to Judith added the West Saxon king to the family of kings and princely allies which Charles was creating.[103] Charles was under attack both from Vikings and from a rising among his own nobility, and ¥thelwulf had great prestige due to his victories over the Vikings; some historians such as Kirby and Pauline Stafford see the marriage as sealing an anti-Viking alliance. The marriage gave ¥thelwulf a share in Carolingian prestige, and Kirby describes the anointing of Judith as "a charismatic sanctification which enhanced her status, blessed her womb and conferred additional throne-worthiness on her male offspring." These marks of a special status implied that a son of hers would succeed to at least part of ¥thelwulf's kingdom, and explain ¥thelbald's decision to rebel.[104] The historian Michael Enright denies that an anti-Viking alliance between two such distant kingdoms could serve any useful purpose, and argues that the marriage was ¥thelwulf's response to news that his son was planning to rebel; his son by an anointed Carolingian queen would be in a strong position to succeed as king of Wessex instead of the rebellious ¥thelbald.[105] Abels suggests that ¥thelwulf sought Judith's hand because he needed her father's money and support to overcome his son's rebellion,[106] but Kirby and Smyth argue that it is extremely unlikely that Charles the Bald would have agreed to marry his daughter to a ruler who was known to be in serious political difficulty.[107] ¥thelbald may also have acted out of resentment at the loss of patrimony he suffered as a result of the decimation.[98]

¥thelbald's rebellion was supported by Ealhstan, Bishop of Sherborne, and Eanwulf, ealdorman of Somerset, even though they appear to have been two of the king's most trusted advisers.[108] According to Asser, the plot was concerted "in the western part of Selwood", and western nobles may have backed ¥thelbald because they resented the patronage ¥thelwulf gave to eastern Wessex.[109] Asser also stated that ¥thelwulf agreed to give up the western part of his kingdom in order to avoid a civil war. Some historians such as Keynes and Abels think that his rule was then confined to the south-east,[110] while others such as Kirby think it is more likely that it was Wessex itself which was divided, with ¥thelbald keeping Wessex west of Selwood, ¥thelwulf holding the centre and east, and ¥thelberht keeping the south-east.[111] ¥thelwulf insisted that Judith should sit beside him on the throne until the end of his life, and according to Asser this was "without any disagreement or dissatisfaction on the part of his nobles".[112]

King ¥thelwulf's ring
King ¥thelwulf's ring was found in a cart rut in Laverstock in Wiltshire in about August 1780 by one William Petty, who sold it to a silversmith in Salisbury. The silversmith sold it to the Earl of Radnor, and the earl's son, William, donated it to the British Museum in 1829. The ring, together with a similar ring of ¥thelwulf's daughter ¥thelswith, is one of two key examples of nielloed 9th-century metalwork. They appear to represent the emergence of a "court style" of West Saxon metalwork, characterised by an unusual Christian iconography, such as a pair of peacocks at the Fountain of Life on the ¥thelwulf ring, associated with Christian immortality. The ring is inscribed "¥thelwulf Rex", firmly associating it with the King, and the inscription forms part of the design, so it cannot have been added later. Many of its features are typical of 9th-century metalwork, such as the design of two birds, beaded and speckled borders, and a saltire with arrow-like terminals on the back. It was probably manufactured in Wessex, but was typical of the uniformity of animal ornament in England in the 9th century. In the view of Leslie Webster, an expert on medieval art: "Its fine Trewhiddle style ornament would certainly fit a mid ninth-century date."[113] In Nelson's view, "it was surely made to be a gift from this royal lord to a brawny follower: the sign of a successful ninth-century kingship".[13] The art historian David Wilson sees it as a survival of the pagan tradition of the generous king as the "ring-giver".[114]

¥thelwulf's will

King Alfred's will
A page from King Alfred's will
¥thelwulf's will has not survived, but Alfred's has and it provides some information about his father's intentions. The kingdom was to be divided between the two oldest surviving sons, with ¥thelbald getting Wessex and ¥thelberht Kent and the south-east. The survivor of ¥thelbald, ¥thelred and Alfred was to inherit their father's bookland – his personal property as opposed to the royal lands which went with the kingship – and Abels and Yorke argue that this probably means that the survivor was to inherit the throne of Wessex as well.[115] Other historians disagree. Nelson states that the provision regarding the personal property had nothing to do with the kingship,[13] and Kirby comments: "Such an arrangement would have led to fratricidal strife. With three older brothers, Alfred's chances of reaching adulthood would, one feels, have been minimal."[116] ¥thelwulf's moveable wealth, such as gold and silver, was to be divided between "children, nobles and the needs of the king's soul".[13] For the latter, he left one tenth of his hereditary land to be set aside to feed the poor, and he ordered that three hundred mancuses be sent to Rome each year, one hundred to be spent on lighting the lamps in St Peter's at Easter, one hundred for the lights of St Paul's, and one hundred for the pope.[117]

Death and succession

¥thelwulf died on 13 January 858. According to the Annals of St Neots, he was buried at Steyning in Sussex, but his body was later transferred to Winchester, probably by Alfred.[118] ¥thelwulf was succeeded by ¥thelbald in Wessex and ¥thelberht in Kent and the south-east. The prestige conferred by a Frankish marriage was so great that ¥thelbald then wedded his step-mother Judith, to Asser's retrospective horror; he described the marriage as a "great disgrace", and "against God's prohibition and Christian dignity".[13] When ¥thelbald died only two years later, ¥thelberht became King of Wessex as well as Kent, and ¥thelwulf's intention of dividing his kingdoms between his sons was thus set aside. In the view of Yorke and Abels this was because ¥thelred and Alfred were too young to rule, and ¥thelberht agreed in return that his younger brothers would inherit the whole kingdom on his death,[119] whereas Kirby and Nelson think that ¥thelberht just became the trustee for his younger brothers' share of the bookland.[120]

After ¥thelbald's death Judith sold her possessions and returned to her father, but two years later she eloped with Baldwin, Count of Flanders. In the 890s their son, also called Baldwin, married ¥thelwulf's granddaughter ¥lfthryth.[13]

Historiography

¥thelwulf's reputation among historians was poor in the twentieth century. In 1935 the historian R. H. Hodgkin attributed his pilgrimage to Rome to "the unpractical piety which had led him to desert his kingdom at a time of great danger", and described his marriage to Judith as "the folly of a man senile before his time".[121] To Stenton in the 1960s he was "a religious and unambitious man, for whom engagement in war and politics was an unwelcome consequence of rank".[122] One dissenter was Finberg, who in 1964 described him as "a king whose valour in war and princely munificence recalled the figures of the heroic age",[123] but in 1979 Enright said: "More than anything else he appears to have been an impractical religious enthusiast."[124] Early medieval writers, especially Asser, emphasise his religiosity and his preference for consensus, seen in the concessions made to avert a civil war on his return from Rome.[p] In Story's view "his legacy has been clouded by accusations of excessive piety which (to modern sensibilities at least) has seemed at odds with the demands of early medieval kingship". In 839 an unnamed Anglo-Saxon king wrote to the Holy Roman Emperor Louis the Pious asking for permission to travel through his territory on the way to Rome, and relating an English priest's dream which foretold disaster unless Christians abandoned their sins. This is now believed to have been an unrealised project of Egbert at the end of his life, but it was formerly attributed to ¥thelwulf, and seen as exhibiting what Story calls his reputation for "dramatic piety", and irresponsibility for planning to abandon his kingdom at the beginning of his reign.[126]

In the twenty-first century he is seen very differently by historians. ¥thelwulf is not listed in the index of Peter Hunter Blair's An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England, first published in 1956, but in a new introduction to the 2003 edition Keynes listed him among people "who have not always been accorded the attention they might be thought to deserve ... for it was he, more than any other, who secured the political fortune of his people in the ninth century, and who opened up channels of communication which led through Frankish realms and across the Alps to Rome".[127] According to Story: "¥thelwulf acquired and cultivated a reputation both in Francia and Rome which is unparalleled in the sources since the height of Offa's and Coenwulf's power at the turn of the ninth century".[128]

Nelson describes him as "one of the great underrated among Anglo-Saxons", and complains that she was only allowed 2,500 words for him in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, compared with 15,000 for Edward II and 35,000 for Elizabeth I.[129] She says:

¥thelwulf's reign has been relatively under-appreciated in modern scholarship. Yet he laid the foundations for Alfred's success. To the perennial problems of husbanding the kingdom's resources, containing conflicts within the royal family, and managing relations with neighbouring kingdoms, ¥thelwulf found new as well as traditional answers. He consolidated old Wessex, and extended his reach over what is now Devon and Cornwall. He ruled Kent, working with the grain of its political community. He borrowed ideological props from Mercians and Franks alike, and went to Rome, not to die there, like his predecessor Ine, ... but to return, as Charlemagne had, with enhanced prestige. ¥thelwulf coped more effectively with Scandinavian attacks than did most contemporary rulers.[13]

Buried:
Steyning then Old Minster, Winchester; remains may now be in Winchester Cathedral

Aethelwulf married Osburga, Queen Consort of Wessex. Osburga (daughter of Oslac and unnamed spouse) was born in ~810 in Wessex, England; died in ~849. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

6193685.

Osburga, Queen Consort of Wessex was born in ~810 in Wessex, England (daughter of Oslac and unnamed spouse); died in ~849.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: ~831, (Wessex) England
Alt Death: ~854

Notes:

Osburh or Osburga was the first wife of King ¥thelwulf of Wessex and mother of Alfred the Great. Alfred's biographer, Asser, described her as "a most religious woman, noble in character and noble by birth".[1]

Osburh's existence is known only from Asser's Life of King Alfred. She is not named as witness to any charters, nor is her death reported in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. So far as is known, she was the mother of all ¥thelwulf's children, his five sons ¥thelstan, ¥thelbald, ¥thelberht, ¥thelred and Alfred the Great, and his daughter ¥thelswith, wife of King Burgred of Mercia.

The Boyhood of Alfred the Great (1913).jpg
She is best known for Asser's story about a book of Saxon songs which she showed to Alfred and his brothers, offering to give the book to whoever could first memorise it, a challenge which Alfred took up and won. This exhibits the interest of high status ninth-century women in books, and their role in educating their children.[2]

Osburh was the daughter of Oslac (who is also only known from Asser's Life), King ¥thelwulf's pincerna (butler), an important figure in the royal court and household.[3] Oslac is described as a descendant of King Cerdic's Jutish nephews, Stuf and Wihtgar, who conquered the Isle of Wight.[4] and, by this, is also ascribed Geatish/Gothic ancestry.

Queen consort of Wessex
Tenure c. 839 – c. 854
Spouse ¥thelwulf, King of Wessex
Issue ¥thelstan of Wessex
¥thelswith, Queen of Mercia
¥thelbald, King of Wessex
¥thelbert, King of Wessex
¥thelred, King of Wessex
Alfred, King of Wessex
House House of Wessex (by marriage)
Father Oslac

Issue[edit]
Name Birth Death Notes
¥thelstan 851–855
¥thelswith 888 Married, Burgred of Mercia; no issue
¥thelbald 20 December 860 Married, Judith
¥thelbert Autumn 865
¥thelred c.847 23 April 871 Had issue
Alfred 849 26 October 899 Married 868, Ealhswith; had issue

See also

House of Wessex family tree; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_of_Wessex#House_of_Wessex_family_tree

Notes

Jump up ^ Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge eds, Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources, London, Penguin Classics, 1983, p. 68
Jump up ^ Janet L. Nelson, Osburh, 2004, Oxford Online Dictionary of National Biography In Nelson's view, Osburh may have been dead by 856 or may have been repudiated.
Jump up ^ Keynes and Lapidge, pp. 68, 229.
Jump up ^ Asser states that Oslac was a Goth, but this is regarded by historians as an error as Stuf and Wightgar were Jutes. Keynes and Lapidge pp. 229-30 and Frank Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, Oxford, Oxford UP, 3rd edition 1971, p. 23-4

References

Asser's Life of King Alfred; http://omacl.org/KingAlfred/

Lees, Clare A. & Gillian R. Overing (eds), Double Agents: Women and Clerical Culture in Anglo-Saxon England. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2001. ISBN 0-8122-3628-9

end of biography

The PEDIGREE of
Osburga OSLACING of ISLE OF WIGHT

(1st wife); (Osburh Osburgh; of JUTIE)
Born: abt. 810 Died: aft. 876

HM George I's 23-Great Grandmother. HRE Ferdinand I's 20-Great Grandmother. U.S. President [WASHINGTON]'s 26-Great Grandmother. Poss. PM Churchill's 24-Great Grandmother. Wm. von Bismarck's 28-Great Grandmother. Agnes Harris's 25-Great Grandmother. Poss. `Osawatomie' Brown's 24-Great Grandmother.
Husband/Partner: Ethelwulf (2nd King) of ENGLAND
Children: Alfred `the Great' (1st/3rd King) of ENGLAND ; Aethelred I (King) of WESSEX (& ENGLAND) ; Judith of WESSEX ; Ethelbald (King) of ENGLAND ; Ethelswith ; Ethelbert (King) ; Athelstan (King)
_______ _______ _______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ _____ ____ ____
/ -- Gebolf of the JUTES
/ -- Wihtgar (King) of the ISLE OF WIGHT (? - 544?)
| \ / -- Freawine of ANCIENT S. + ==&=> [ 221 ,,qD,&]
| | / | (skip this generation?)
| | / -- Wig (Uvigg Wigga) of ANCIENT SAXONY
| | / -- poss. Gewis (Gewisch) of ANCIENT SAXONY
| | / | or: poss. Eafa (Effa) I of ANCIENT SAXONY
| | / -- Esla (Esle) of ANCIENT SAXONY (411? - ?)
| | / | or: Effa II (Esla's son)
| | / -- poss. Elesa (Elistus) of ANCIENT SAXONY
| | | \ / -- Gevar (Sea-King) in DENMARK
| | / \ -- poss. daughter of Gevar
/ \ -- daughter of Elesa
/ -- (NN) ... (NN) of the ISLE OF WIGHT
| \ | ( many missing generations)
| | / -- Frithugar DEIRA of A. + ==&=> [ 220 ,,qD,&]
| | / -- Freawine (Freovin) of ANCIENT SAXONY
| | / | (skip this generation?)
| | / -- Wig (Uvigg Wigga) of ANCIENT SAXONY
| | / -- poss. Gewis (Gewisch) of ANCIENT SAXONY
| | / | or: poss. Eafa (Effa) I of ANCIENT SAXONY
| | / -- Esla (Esle) of ANCIENT SAXONY (411? - ?)
| | / | or: Effa II (Esla's son)
| | / -- poss. Elesa (Elistus) of ANCIENT SAXONY
| | | \ / -- Gevar (Sea-King) in DENMARK
| | / \ -- poss. daughter of Gevar
/ \ -- poss. sister of Cerdic
/ -- Oslac (Thane) of the ISLE OF WIGHT (785? - ?)
/
- Osburga OSLACING of ISLE OF WIGHT
\
\ -- (NN), first wife

Her (poss.) Grandchildren: Elgiva of WESSEX [alt ped] ; Edward (I) `the Elder' (King) of ENGLAND ; Aefthryth (Elfrida) of WESSEX ; Aethelflaed (Lady) of MERCIA ; Aethelweald (King) of NORTHUMBRIA ; Aethelhelm (Earldorman) of WILTSHIRE ; Elgiva of WESSEX ; Henry `with the Golden Wagon' of ALTDORF

[ Start ]
FabPed Genealogy Vers. 85 © Jamie, 1997-2018

Children:

3096842. Aethelstan, King of the East Angles was born in ~838 in Wantage, Berkshire, England; died in 890.
Aethelred of Wessex, King of Mercia was born in ~847 in Wessex, England; died in 911; was buried in Wimborne Minster, Dorset, England.
Alfred the Great, King of Wessex was born on 23 Apr 849 in Wantage, Berkshire, England; died on 26 Oct 899 in Winchester, Hampshire, England; was buried in Hyde Abbey, Winchester, Hampshire, England.

6193720.

Herbert de Vermandois, I, Count of Vermandois was born in 848 in Paris, France (son of Pepin de Vermandois, Count of Vermandois and unnamed spouse); died in 907 in Soissons, France.

Notes:

Herbert I Carolingian de Vermandois, Count of Vermandois, Count of Meaux, was born 848 in Paris, France to Pepin de Vermandois (c815-aft848) and died 907 in Soissons, Aisne, Picardie, France of Assassinated by Baldwin II, Count of Flanders, for the capture (by Herbert) in 896 and murder of Baldwin's brother Raoul. He married Bertha de Morvois (c850-c907) . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]
Herbert forcibly took the county of Vermandois from his third cousin Rodulf of Flanders (c869-896).

Children

Offspring of Herbert I de Vermandois and Bertha de Morvois (c850-c907)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Bâeatrice of Vermandois (c880-931) 880 Paris, France 26 March 931 Soissons, France Robert I of France (866-923)

Herbert II de Vermandois (884-943) 884 23 February 943 Hildebranda of France (895-931)

Cunigunde of Vermandois (-943) 943 Udo I von der Wetterau (c900-949)

Adele of Vermandois (?-?) Gebhard von Ufgau (?-c947)

Berengar of Bayeaux (?-?) Daughter of Gurvand, Duke of Brittany
Noteworthy descendants include

Hugh Capet (c940-996)
Namesakes of Herbert I de Vermandois (c848-907)

Birth place
Death place
Father
Mother
Joined with
Herbert I de Vermandois (c848-907) Paris, France Soissons, Aisne, Picardie, France Pepin de Vermandois (c815-aft848) Bertha de Morvois (c850-c907)
Herbert III of Meaux (c950-995) Robert de Vermandois (918-968) Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967)
Herbert III de Vermandois (c913-c982) Herbert II de Vermandois (884-943) Hildebranda of France (895-931) Eadgifu of Wessex (902-aft955)
Herbert III de Vermandois (953-1015) Saint-Quentin Albert I de Vermandois (915-987) Gerberge de Lorraine (c935-978) Ermengard de Bar (946-aft1035)
Herbert IV de Vermandois (1032-1080) Otto de Vermandois (c1000-1045) Pavie de Ham (c990-1058) Adáele de Valois (c1052-c1096)

Herbert married Bertha de Morvois(France). Bertha was born in ~850. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

6193721.

Bertha de Morvois was born in ~850.

Children:

3096860. Herbert de Vermandois, II, Count of Meaux was born in 884 in Vermandois, France; died on 23 Feb 943 in St Quentin, Peronne, Somme, France.

708708.

Notes:

Kenneth II (a.k.a. Cinâaed mac Maâil Choluim) lived from 932 to 995 and was King of Alba from 971 to 995. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline. Kenneth was the son of Malcolm I and brother to King Duff, who had ruled until 966. He became King of Alba on the killing of his predecessor, King Culen, by the Britons of Strathclyde, though it was no until he killed Culen's brother Amlaib in 977 that he was able to rule unchallenged.

Kenneth II spent much of his reign in conflict. He first fought the Britons of Strathclyde, before turning his attention to Northumbria, where he further secured Alba's hold on the lands between the River Forth and the River Tweed against the ever present threat of King Edgar's English forces.

In the north, Scottish claims were being constantly challenged by Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, and much of Caithness, Easter Ross and Inverness-Shire were under Viking control. Kenneth strengthened his ties with the Irish nobility by marrying a Princess of Leinster. They had at least one son, who went on to become Malcolm II.

After a reign of 24 years Kenneth was killed in Fettercairn. According to the chronciles of John of Fordun, this was as a result of a plot mounted by Lady Finella, the daughter of the Earl of Angus. After the murder Finella fled to St Cyrus before being caught and executed. Kenneth II was buried in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel on the Isle of Iona. Kenneth II was succeeded by his third cousin Constantine III, son of King Culen.

end of biography

Cinâaed mac Maâil Coluim (Modern Gaelic: Coinneach mac Mhaoil Chaluim[1] anglicised as Kenneth II, and nicknamed An Fionnghalach, "The Fratricide";[2] died 995) was King of Scots (Alba). The son of Malcolm I (Mâael Coluim mac Domnaill), he succeeded King Cuilâen (Cuilâen mac Iduilb) on the latter's death at the hands of Rhydderch ap Dyfnwal in 971.

Primary sources

The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba was compiled in Kenneth's reign, but many of the place names mentioned are entirely corrupt, if not fictitious.[3] Whatever the reality, the Chronicle states that "[h]e immediately plundered [Strathclyde] in part. Kenneth's infantry were slain with very great slaughter in Moin Uacoruar." The Chronicle further states that Kenneth plundered Northumbria three times, first as far as Stainmore, then to Cluiam and lastly to the River Dee by Chester. These raids may belong to around 980, when the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records attacks on Cheshire.[4]

In 973, the Chronicle of Melrose reports that Kenneth, with Mâael Coluim I (Mâael Coluim mac Domnaill), the King of Strathclyde, "Maccus, king of very many islands" (i.e. Magnus Haraldsson (Maccus mac Arailt), King of Mann and the Isles) and other kings, Welsh and Norse, came to Chester to acknowledge the overlordship of the English king Edgar the Peaceable[5] at a council in Chester. It may be that Edgar here regulated the frontier between the southern lands of the kingdom of Alba and the northern lands of his English kingdom. Cumbria was English, the western frontier lay on the Solway. In the east, the frontier lay somewhere in later Lothian, south of Edinburgh.[6]

The Annals of Tigernach, in an aside, name three of the Mormaers of Alba in Kenneth's reign in entry in 976: Cellach mac Fâindgaine, Cellach mac Baireda and Donnchad mac Morgaâind. The third of these, if not an error for Domnall mac Morgaâind, is very likely a brother of Domnall, and thus the Mormaer of Moray. The Mormaerdoms or kingdoms ruled by the two Cellachs cannot be identified.

The feud which had persisted since the death of King Indulf (Idulb mac Causantâin) between his descendants and Kenneth's family persisted. In 977 the Annals of Ulster report that "Amlaâib mac Iduilb [Amlaâib, son of Indulf], King of Scotland, was killed by Cinâaed mac Domnaill." The Annals of Tigernach give the correct name of Amlaâib's killer: Cinâaed mac Maâil Coluim, or Kenneth II. Thus, even if only for a short time, Kenneth had been overthrown by the brother of the previous king.[7]

Adam of Bremen tells that Sweyn Forkbeard found exile in Scotland at this time, but whether this was with Kenneth, or one of the other kings in Scotland, is unknown. Also at this time, Njal's Saga, the Orkneyinga Saga and other sources recount wars between "the Scots" and the Northmen, but these are more probably wars between Sigurd Hlodvisson, Earl of Orkney, and the Mormaers, or Kings, of Moray.[8]

The Chronicle says that Kenneth founded a great monastery at Brechin.

Kenneth was killed in 995, the Annals of Ulster say "by deceit" and the Annals of Tigernach say "by his subjects". Some later sources, such as the Chronicle of Melrose, John of Fordun and Andrew of Wyntoun provide more details, accurately or not. The simplest account is that he was killed by his own men in Fettercairn, through the treachery of Finnguala (also called Fimberhele or Fenella), daughter of Cuncar, Mormaer of Angus, in revenge for the killing of her only son.[9]

The Prophecy of Berchâan adds little to our knowledge, except that it names Kenneth "the kinslayer", and states he died in Strathmore.[10]

Children

Kenneth's son Malcolm II (Mâael Coluim mac Cinâaeda) was later king of Alba. Kenneth may have had a second son, named either Dâungal or Gille Coemgâain.[11] Sources differ as to whether Boite mac Cinâaeda should be counted a son of Kenneth II or of Kenneth III (Cinâaed mac Duib).[12] Another son of Kenneth may have been Suibne mac Cinâaeda, a king of the Gall Gaidheil who died in 1034.
Interpretation

Kenneth's rival Amlaâib, King of Scotland is omitted by the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba and later Scottish king-lists. The Irish Annals of Tigernach appear to better reflect contemporary events. Amlaâib could be a direct predecessor of Kenneth who suffered damnatio memoriae, or the rival king recognized in parts of Scotland. A period of divided kingship appears likely.[13]

Amlaâib was the heir of his brother Cuilâen, who was killed in a hall-burning. He might have served as a regent north of the River Forth, during the absence of his brother. Kenneth was brother to the deceased Dub, King of Scotland and was most likely an exile. He could claim the throne due to the support of friends and maternal kin. He was likely older and more experienced than his rival king.[13] Amlaâib is the Gaelic form of Ólâafr, suggesting maternal descent from Norsemen. He could possibly claim descent from the Uâi Ímair dynasty. Alex Woolf suggests he was a grandson of Amlaâib Cuarâan, King of Dublin or his cousin Olaf Guthfrithson, which suggests his own group of supporters.[13]

Death

According to John of Fordun (14th century), Kenneth II of Scotland (reigned 971-995) attempted to change the succession rules, allowing "the nearest survivor in blood to the deceased king to succeed", thus securing the throne for his own descendants. He reportedly did so to specifically exclude Constantine (III) and Kenneth (III), called Gryme in this source. The two men then jointly conspired against him, convincing Lady Finella, daughter of Cuncar, Mormaer of Angus, to kill the king. She reportedly did so to achieve personal revenge, as Kenneth II had killed her own son. Entries in the Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, collected by William Forbes Skene, provide the account of Finnela killing Kenneth II in revenge, but not her affiliation to Constantine or his cousins. These entries date to the 12th and 13th centuries.[14][15] The Annals of Ulster simply record "Cinaed son of Mael Coluim [Kenneth, son of Malcolm], king of Scotland, was deceitfully killed", with no indication of who killed him.[16][17]

In the account of John of Fordun, Constantine the Bald, son of King Cullen and Gryme were "plotting unceasingly the death of the king and his son". One day, Kenneth II and his companions went hunting into the woods, "at no great distance from his own abode". The hunt took him to Fettercairn, where Finella resided. She approached him to proclaim her loyalty and invited him to visit her residence, whispering into his ear that she had information about a conspiracy plot. She managed to lure him to "an out-of-the-way little cottage", where a booby trap was hidden. Inside the cottage was a statue, connected by strings to a number of crossbows. If anyone touched or moved the statue, he would trigger the crossbows and fall victim to their arrows. Kenneth II gently touched the statue and "was shot though by arrows sped from all sides, and fell without uttering another word." Finella escaped through the woods and managed to join her abettors, Constantine III and Gryme. The hunting companions soon discovered the bloody king. They were unable to locate Finella, but burned Fettercairn to the ground.[18] Smyth dismisses the elaborate plotting and the mechanical contraption as mere fables, but accepts the basic details of the story, that the succession plans of Kenneth II caused his assassination.[19] Alan Orr Anderson raised his own doubts concerning the story of Finella, which he considered "semi-mythical". He noted that the feminine name Finnguala or Findguala means "white shoulders", but suggested it derived from "find-ela" (white swan). The name figures in toponyms such as Finella Hill (near Fordoun) and Finella Den (near St Cyrus), while local tradition in The Mearns (Kincardineshire) has Finella walking atop the treetops from one location to the other. Anderson thus theorized that Finella could be a mythical figure, suggesting she was a local stream-goddess.[20] A later passage of John of Fordun mentions Finele as mother of Macbeth, King of Scotland (reigned 1040–1057), but this is probably an error based on the similarity of names. Macbeth was son of Findlâaech of Moray, not of a woman called Finella.[20][21]

end of biography

Buried:
in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel... https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/iona/storanschapel/index.html

View images and more history of St Oran's; https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/iona/storanschapel/index.html, (images: https://www.google.com/search?q=Saint+Oran%27s+Chapel+image&client=firefox-b-1-ab&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjcxPKjgIraAhUL71MKHcCmCYoQ7AkIQA&biw=1224&bih=826)

Kenneth married a Princess of Leinster. a was born in (Leinster, Ireland); died in (Scotland). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

708709.

a Princess of Leinster was born in (Leinster, Ireland); died in (Scotland).

Children:

354354. Malcolm II of Scotland, High King of Scotland was born in ~0954 in Scotland; died on 25 Nov 1034 in Glamis, Scotland; was buried in Isle of Iona, Scotland.

710416.

Notes:

Edgar (Old English: Eadgar; c.?943—8 July 975), known as the Peaceful or the Peaceable, was King of England from 959 until his death. He was the younger son of Edmund I and ¥lfgifu of Shaftesbury, and came to the throne as a teenager, following the death of his older brother Eadwig. As king, Edgar further consolidated the political unity achieved by his predecessors, with his reign being noted for its relative stability. His most trusted advisor was Dunstan, whom he recalled from exile and made Archbishop of Canterbury. The pinnacle of Edgar's reign was his coronation at Bath in 973, which was organised by Dunstan and forms the basis for the current coronation ceremony. After his death he was succeeded by his son Edward, although the succession was disputed.

King of the English
Reign 1 October 959 – 8 July 975
Predecessor Eadwig
Successor Edward
Born 943/944
Died 8 July 975 (aged 31/32)
Winchester, Hampshire
Burial Glastonbury Abbey
Spouse ¥thelflµd[1]
Wulfthryth[1]
¥lfthryth
Issue Edward, King of England
Eadgyth[1]
Edmund[2]
¥thelred, King of England
House Wessex
Father Edmund, King of England
Mother ¥lfgifu of Shaftesbury
Religion Christianity

Early years and accession

Edgar was the son of Edmund I and ¥lfgifu of Shaftesbury. Upon the death of King Edmund in 946, Edgar's uncle, Eadred, ruled until 955. Eadred was succeeded by his nephew, Eadwig, the son of Edmund and Edgar's older brother.

Eadwig was not a popular king, and his reign was marked by conflict with nobles and the Church, primarily St Dunstan and Archbishop Oda. In 957, the thanes of Mercia and Northumbria changed their allegiance to Edgar.[3] A conclave of nobles declared Edgar as king of the territory north of the Thames.[4] Edgar became King of England upon Eadwig's death in October 959, aged just 16.

Government

One of Edgar's first actions was to recall Dunstan from exile and have him made Bishop of Worcester (and subsequently Bishop of London and later, Archbishop of Canterbury). Dunstan remained Edgar's advisor throughout his reign. While Edgar may not have been a particularly peaceable man[citation needed], his reign was peaceful. The Kingdom of England was well established, and Edgar consolidated the political unity achieved by his predecessors. By the end of his reign, England was sufficiently unified in that it was unlikely to regress back to a state of division among rival kingships, as it had to an extent under the reign of Eadred. William Blackstone mentions that King Edgar standardised measure throughout the realm.[5] According to George Molyneaux, Edgar's reign, "far more than the reigns of either Alfred or ¥thelstan, was probably the most pivotal phase in the development of the institutional structures that were fundamental to royal rule in the eleventh-century kingdom".[6] Indeed, an early eleventh century king Cnut the Great states in a letter to his subjects that ''it is my will that all the nation, ecclesiastical and lay, shall steadfastly observe Edgar's laws, which all men have chosen and sworn at Oxford''.[7]

Benedictine reform

A coin of Edgar, struck in Winchcombe (c. 973-75).
The Monastic Reform Movement that introduced the Benedictine Rule to England's monastic communities peaked during the era of Dunstan, ¥thelwold, and Oswald (historians continue to debate the extent and significance of this movement).[8]

Dead Man's Plack

In 963, Edgar allegedly killed Earl ¥thelwald, his rival in love, near present-day Longparish, Hampshire.[9] The event was commemorated by the Dead Man's Plack, erected in 1825.[9] In 1875, Edward Augustus Freeman debunked the story as a "tissue of romance" in his book, Historic Essays;[10] however, his arguments were rebutted by naturalist William Henry Hudson in his 1920 book Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn.[4]

Coronation at Bath

Edgar was crowned at Bath and along with his wife ¥lfthryth was anointed, setting a precedent for a coronation of a queen in England itself.[11] Edgar's coronation did not happen until 973, in an imperial ceremony planned not as the initiation, but as the culmination of his reign (a move that must have taken a great deal of preliminary diplomacy). This service, devised by Dunstan himself and celebrated with a poem in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, forms the basis of the present-day British coronation ceremony.

Main article: King Edgar's council at Chester
The symbolic coronation was an important step; other kings of Britain came and gave their allegiance to Edgar shortly afterwards at Chester. Six kings in Britain, including the King of Scots and the King of Strathclyde, pledged their faith that they would be the king's liege-men on sea and land. Later chroniclers made the kings into eight, all plying the oars of Edgar's state barge on the River Dee.[12] Such embellishments may not be factual, and what actually happened is unclear.[13]

Death

Edgar died on 8 July 975 at Winchester, Hampshire. He left behind Edward, who was probably his illegitimate son by ¥thelflµd (not to be confused with the Lady of the Mercians), and ¥thelred, the younger, the child of his wife ¥lfthryth. He was succeeded by Edward. Edgar also had a possibly illegitimate daughter by Wulfthryth, who later became abbess of Wilton. She was joined there by her daughter, Edith of Wilton, who lived there as a nun until her death. Both women were later regarded as saints.[14][15]

Appearance

"[H]e was extremely small both in stature and bulk..."[16]

See also

House of Wessex family tree; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_of_Wessex#House_of_Wessex_family_tree

Edgar married Aelfthryth. Aelfthryth was born about 945; died in 1000-1001. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

710417.

Aelfthryth was born about 945; died in 1000-1001.

Children:

355208. Aethelred the Unready, King of the English was born about 966 in (Wessex) England; died on 23 Apr 1016 in London, England; was buried in London, England.

710418.

Thored Gunnarsson, Earl of Southern Northumbria was born in 938 in Wessex, England; died in 992-994 in Northumberland, England.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Death: 992, Wessex, England

Notes:

Thored (Old English: £oreº or ´oreº; fl. 979–992) was a 10th-century ealdorman of York, ruler of the southern half of the old Kingdom of Northumbria on behalf of the king of England. He was the son of either Gunnar or Oslac, northern ealdormen. If he was the former, he may have attained adulthood by the 960s, when a man of his name raided Westmorland. Other potential appearances in the records are likewise uncertain until 979, the point from which Thored's period as ealdorman can be accurately dated.

Although historians differ in their opinions about his relationship, if any, to Kings Edgar the Peaceable and Edward the Martyr, it is generally thought that he enjoyed a good relationship with King ¥thelred II. His daughter ¥lfgifu married ¥thelred. Thored was ealdorman in Northumbria for much of his reign, disappearing from the sources in 992 after being appointed by ¥thelred to lead an expedition against the Vikings.

Ealdorman of York
Reign c. 964/974x979–992x994
Predecessor Oslac (?)
Successor ¥lfhelm
Born unknown
unknown
Died 992 or 994
Burial unknown
Issue ¥lfgifu (died 1002)
¥thelstan (died 1010)
Father Gunnar (probable)/
Oslac (potential)
Mother unknown

Origins

The area shaded under "Jorvik" (York), probably corresponds very roughly with Thored's territory of southern Northumbria; it should be noted that the Danelaw as a territory is a modern construct, though Yorkshire was in the area where Dena lagu ("Scandinavian law") was practised

Thored appears to have been of at least partially Scandinavian origin, suggested by the title applied to him in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 992. Here, the ealdorman of Hampshire is called by the English title "ealdorman", while Thored himself is styled by the Scandinavian word eorl (i.e. Earl).[1]

Two accounts of Thored's origins have been offered by modern historians. The first is that he was a son of Oslac, ealdorman of York from 966 until his exile in 975.[2] This argument is partly based on the assertion by the Historia Eliensis, that Oslac had a son named Thorth (i.e. "Thored").[3] The other suggestion, favoured by most historians, is that he was the son of a man named Gunnar.[4] This Gunnar is known to have held land in the East and North Ridings of Yorkshire.[5]

If the latter suggestion is correct, then Thored's first appearance in history is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recension D (EF)'s entry for 966, which recorded the accession of Oslac to the ealdormanry of southern Northumbria:

In this year, Thored, Gunnar's son, harried Westmoringa land, and, in this same year, Oslac succeeded to the office of ealdorman.[6]

The Anglo-Saxon scholar Frank Stenton believed that this was an act of regional faction-fighting, rather than, as had been suggested by others, Thored carrying out the orders of King Edgar the Peaceable.[7] This entry is, incidentally, the first mention of Westmoringa land, that is, Westmorland.[7] Gunnar seems to have been ealdorman earlier in the decade, for in one charter (surviving only in a later cartulary) dated to 963 and three Abingdon charters dated to 965, an ealdorman (dux) called Gunnar is mentioned.[8]

Thored may be the Thored who appears for the first time in charter attestations during the reign of King Edgar (959–75), his earliest possible appearance being in 964, witnessing a grant of land in Kent by King Edgar to St Peter's, Ghent. This is uncertain because the authenticity of this particular charter is unclear.[9] A charter issued by Edgar in 966, granting land in Oxfordshire to a woman named ¥lfgifu, has an illegible ealdorman witness signature beginning with ´, which may be Thored.[10]

Ealdorman

Coin of ¥thelred the Unready.jpgAethelred rev2.jpg
O: Draped bust of ¥thelred II left. +¥£ELRED REX ANGLOR R: Long cross. +EAD?OLD MO C¥NT
'LonCross' penny of ¥thelred II, moneyer Eadwold, Canterbury, c. 997-1003. The cross made cutting the coin into half-pennies or farthings (quarter-pennies) easier. (Note spelling Ead?old in inscription, using Anglo-Saxon letter wynn in place of modern w.)
Thored's governorship as ealdorman, based on charter attestations, cannot be securely dated before 979.[11] He did attest royal charters during the reign of ¥thelred II, the first in 979,[12] six in 983,[13] one in 984,[14] three in 985,[15] one in 988,[16] appearing in such attestations for the last time in 989.[12] It is possible that such appearances represent more than one Thored, though that is not a generally accepted theory.[17] His definite predecessor, Oslac, was expelled from England in 975.[18] The historian Richard Fletcher thought that Oslac's downfall may have been the result of opposing the succession of Edward the Martyr, enemy and brother of ¥thelred II.[19] What is known about Thored's time as ealdorman is that he did not have a good relationship with Oswald, Archbishop of York (971–92). In a memorandum written by Oswald, a group of estates belonging to the archdiocese of York was listed, and Oswald noted that "I held them all until Thored came to power; then was St Peter [to whom York was dedicated] robbed".[20] One of the estates allegedly lost was Newbald, an estate given by King Edgar to a man named Gunnar, suggesting to historian Dorothy Whitelock that Thored may just have been reclaiming land "wrongly alienated from his family".[21]

His relationship with King Edgar is unclear, particularly given the uncertainty of Thored's paternity, Oslac being banished from England in 975, the year of Edgar's death.[2] Richard Fletcher, who thought Thored was the son of Gunnar, argued that Thored's raid on Westmorland was caused by resentment derived from losing out on the ealdormanry to Oslac, and that Edgar thereafter confiscated various territories as punishment.[5] The evidence for this is that Newbald, granted by Edgar to Gunnar circa 963, was bought by Archbishop Osketel from the king sometime before 971, implying that the king had seized the land.[5]

Thored's relationship with the English monarchy under ¥thelred II seems to have been good. ¥lfgifu, the first wife of King ¥thelred II, was probably Thored's daughter.[22] Evidence for this is that in the 1150s Ailred of Rievaulx in his De genealogia regum Anglorum wrote that the wife of ¥thelred II was the daughter of an ealdorman (comes) called Thored (Thorth).[23] Historian Pauline Stafford argued that this marriage was evidence that Thored had been a local rather than royal appointment to the ealdormanry of York, and that ¥thelred II's marriage was an attempt to woo Thored.[24] Stafford was supported in this argument by Richard Fletcher.[25]

Death

Modern imaginative depiction of the ship of Ólâafr Tryggvason, the "Long Serpent" (Illustration by Halfan Egedius)
The date of Thored's death is uncertain, but his last historical appearance came in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, recension C (D, E), under the year 992, which reported the death of Archbishop Oswald and an expedition against a marauding Scandinavian fleet:

In this year the holy Archbishop Oswald left this life and attained the heavenly life, and Ealdorman ¥thelwine [of East Anglia] died in the same year. Then the king and all his counsellors decreed that all the ships that were any use should be assembled at London. And the king then entrusted the expedition to the leadership of Ealdorman ¥lfric (of Hampshire), Earl Thored and Bishop ¥lfstan [.of London or of Rochester.] and Bishop ¥scwig [of Dorchester], and they were to try if they could entrap the Danish army anywhere at sea. Then Ealdorman ¥lfric sent someone to warn the enemy, and then in the night before the day on which they were to have joined battle, he absconded by night from the army, to his own disgrace, and then the enemy escaped, except that the crew of one ship was slain. And then the Danish army encountered the ships from East Anglia and from London, and they made a great slaughter there and captured the ship, all armed and equipped, on which the ealdorman was.[26]

Scandinavians led by Ólâafr Tryggvason had been raiding England's coast since the previous year, when they killed Ealdorman Brihtnoth of Essex at the Battle of Maldon.[27]

Historians think that Thored was either killed fighting these Scandinavians, or else survived, but became disgraced through defeat or treachery.[28] Fletcher speculated that Thored was removed from office and replaced by the Mercian ¥lfhelm as a result of his failure against the Scandinavians.[29] Another historian, William Kapelle, believed Thored was removed because of his Scandinavian descent, an argument based on the Worcester Chronicle's claim, added to the text borrowed from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, that Frµna, Godwine and Frythegyst fled a battle against the Danes in the following year because "they were Danish on their father's side".[30]

A man named ¥thelstan who died at the Battle of Ringmere in 1010, "the king's a¤um", was probably Thored's son.[31] The term a¤um means either "son-in-law" or "brother-in-law", so this ¥thelstan could also have been Thored's grandson by an unknown intermediary.[32] Thored's immediate successor was ¥lfhelm, who appears witnessing charters as ealdorman from 994.[33]

Thored married Hilda LNU(Wessex, England). Hilda was born in 948 in Wessex, England; died in 970 in England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

710419.

Hilda LNU was born in 948 in Wessex, England; died in 970 in England.

Children:

355209. Aelfgifu of York, Queen Consort of England was born in ~970 in (Yorkshire) England; died in 1002.

Generation: 24

6193684.

Aethelwulf of Wessex, King of Wessex was born in (~820) in Wessex, England (son of Egbert of Wessex, King of Wessex and Redburga); died on 13 Jan 0858; was buried in Winchester, Hampshire, England.

Notes:

¥thelwulf (Old English for "Noble Wolf";[2] died 13 January 858) was King of Wessex from 839 to 858.[a] In 825, his father, King Egbert, defeated King Beornwulf of Mercia, ending a long Mercian dominance over Anglo-Saxon England south of the Humber. Egbert sent ¥thelwulf with an army to Kent, where he expelled the Mercian sub-king and was himself appointed sub-king. After 830, Egbert maintained good relations with Mercia, and this was continued by ¥thelwulf when he became king in 839, the first son to succeed his father as West Saxon king since 641.

The Vikings were not a major threat to Wessex during ¥thelwulf's reign. In 843, he was defeated in a battle against the Vikings at Carhampton in Somerset, but he achieved a major victory at the Battle of Aclea in 851. In 853 he joined a successful Mercian expedition to Wales to restore the traditional Mercian hegemony, and in the same year his daughter ¥thelswith married King Burgred of Mercia. In 855 ¥thelwulf went on pilgrimage to Rome. In preparation he gave a "decimation", donating a tenth of his personal property to his subjects; he appointed his eldest surviving son ¥thelbald to act as King of Wessex in his absence, and his next son ¥thelberht to rule Kent and the south-east. ¥thelwulf spent a year in Rome, and on his way back he married Judith, the daughter of the West Frankish King Charles the Bald.

When ¥thelwulf returned to England, ¥thelbald refused to surrender the West Saxon throne, and ¥thelwulf agreed to divide the kingdom, taking the east and leaving the west in ¥thelbald's hands. On ¥thelwulf's death in 858 he left Wessex to ¥thelbald and Kent to ¥thelberht, but ¥thelbald's death only two years later led to the reunification of the kingdom.

In the 20th century ¥thelwulf's reputation among historians was poor: he was seen as excessively pious and impractical, and his pilgrimage was viewed as a desertion of his duties. Historians in the 21st century see him very differently, as a king who consolidated and extended the power of his dynasty, commanded respect on the continent, and dealt more effectively than most of his contemporaries with Viking attacks. He is regarded as one of the most successful West Saxon kings, who laid the foundations for the success of his son, Alfred the Great.

King of Wessex
Reign 839–858
Predecessor Egbert
Successor ¥thelbald
Died 13 January 858
Burial Steyning then Old Minster, Winchester; remains may now be in Winchester Cathedral[1]
Spouse Osburh
Judith
Issue ¥thelstan, King of Kent
¥thelswith, Queen of Mercia
¥thelbald, King of Wessex
¥thelberht, King of Wessex
¥thelred, King of Wessex
Alfred, King of Wessex
House House of Wessex
Father Egbert

Background

Southern British Isles 9th century
Southern Britain in the middle of the ninth century
At the beginning of the 9th century, England was almost completely under the control of the Anglo-Saxons, with Mercia and Wessex the most important southern kingdoms. Mercia was dominant until the 820s, and it exercised overlordship over East Anglia and Kent, but Wessex was able to maintain its independence from its more powerful neighbour. Offa, King of Mercia from 757 to 796, was the dominant figure of the second half of the 8th century. King Beorhtric of Wessex (786–802), married Offa's daughter in 789. Beorhtric and Offa drove ¥thelwulf's father Egbert into exile, and he spent several years at the court of Charlemagne in Francia. Egbert was the son of Ealhmund, who had briefly been King of Kent in 784. Following Offa's death, King Coenwulf of Mercia (796–821) maintained Mercian dominance, but it is uncertain whether Beorhtric ever accepted political subordination, and when he died in 802 Egbert became king, perhaps with the support of Charlemagne.[5] For two hundred years three kindreds had fought for the West Saxon throne, and no son had followed his father as king. Egbert's best claim was that he was the great-great-grandson of Ingild, brother of King Ine (688–726), and in 802 it would have seemed very unlikely that he would establish a lasting dynasty.[6]

Almost nothing is recorded of the first twenty years of Egbert's reign, apart from campaigns against the Cornish in the 810s.[7] The historian Richard Abels argues that the silence of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was probably intentional, concealing Egbert's purge of Beorhtric's magnates and suppression of rival royal lines.[8] Relations between Mercian kings and their Kentish subjects were distant. Kentish ealdormen did not attend the court of King Coenwulf, who quarrelled with Archbishop Wulfred of Canterbury (805–832) over the control of Kentish monasteries; Coenwulf's primary concern seems to have been to gain access to the wealth of Kent. His successors Ceolwulf I (821–23) and Beornwulf (823–26) restored relations with Archbishop Wulfred, and Beornwulf appointed a sub-king of Kent, Baldred.[9]

England had suffered Viking raids in the late 8th century, but no attacks are recorded between 794 and 835, when the Isle of Sheppey in Kent was ravaged.[10] In 836 Egbert was defeated by the Vikings at Carhampton in Somerset,[7] but in 838 he was victorious over an alliance of Cornishmen and Vikings at the Battle of Hingston Down, reducing Cornwall to the status of a client kingdom.[11]

Family

¥thelwulf was the son of Egbert, King of Wessex from 802 to 839. His mother's name is unknown, and he had no recorded siblings. He is known to have had two wives in succession, and so far as is known, Osburh, the senior of the two, was the mother of all his children. She was the daughter of Oslac, described by Asser, biographer of their son Alfred the Great, as "King ¥thelwulf's famous butler",[b] a man who was descended from Jutes who had ruled the Isle of Wight.[13][14] ¥thelwulf had six known children. His eldest son, ¥thelstan, was old enough to be appointed King of Kent in 839, so he must have been born by the early 820s, and he died in the early 850s.[c] The second son, ¥thelbald, is first recorded as a charter witness in 841, and if, like Alfred, he began to attest when he was around six, he would have been born around 835; he was King of Wessex from 858 to 860. ¥thelwulf's third son, ¥thelberht, was probably born around 839 and was king from 860 to 865. The only daughter, ¥thelswith, married Burgred, King of Mercia, in 853.[16] The other two sons were much younger: ¥thelred was born around 848 and was king from 865 to 871, and Alfred was born around 849 and was king from 871 to 899.[17] In 856 ¥thelwulf married Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, King of West Francia and future Holy Roman Emperor, and his wife Ermentrude. Osburh had probably died, although it is possible that she had been repudiated.[d] There were no children from ¥thelwulf's marriage to Judith, and after his death she married his eldest surviving son and successor, ¥thelbald.[13]

Early life

¥thelwulf was first recorded in 825, when Egbert won the crucial Battle of Ellandun against King Beornwulf of Mercia, ending the long Mercian ascendancy over southern England. Egbert followed it up by sending ¥thelwulf with Eahlstan, Bishop of Sherborne, and Wulfheard, Ealdorman of Hampshire, with a large army into Kent to expel sub-king Baldred.[e] ¥thelwulf was descended from kings of Kent, and he was sub-king of Kent, and of Surrey, Sussex and Essex, which were then included in the sub-kingdom, until he inherited the throne of Wessex in 839.[22] His sub-kingship is recorded in charters, in some of which King Egbert acted with his son's permission,[13] such as a grant in 838 to Bishop Beornmod of Rochester, and ¥thelwulf himself issued a charter as King of Kent in the same year.[23] Unlike their Mercian predecessors, who alienated the Kentish people by ruling from a distance, ¥thelwulf and his father successfully cultivated local support by governing through Kentish ealdormen and promoting their interests.[24] In Abels' view, Egbert and ¥thelwulf rewarded their friends and purged Mercian supporters.[25][f] Historians take differing views on the attitude of the new regime to the Kentish church. At Canterbury in 828 Egbert granted privileges to the bishopric of Rochester, and according to the historian of Anglo-Saxon England Simon Keynes, Egbert and ¥thelwulf took steps to secure the support of Archbishop Wulfred.[27] However, the medievalist Nicholas Brooks argues that Wulfred's Mercian origin and connections proved a liability. ¥thelwulf seized an estate in East Malling from the Canterbury church on the ground that it had only been granted by Baldred when he was in flight from the West Saxon forces; the issue of archiepiscopal coinage was suspended for several years; and the only estate Wulfred was granted after 825 he received from King Wiglaf of Mercia.[28]

In 829 Egbert conquered Mercia, only for Wiglaf to recover his kingdom a year later.[29] The scholar D. P. Kirby sees Wiglaf's restoration in 830 as a dramatic reversal for Egbert, which was probably followed by his loss of control of the London mint and the Mercian recovery of Essex and Berkshire,[30] and the historian Heather Edwards states that his "immense conquest could not be maintained".[7] However, in the view of Keynes:

It is interesting ... that both Egbert and his son ¥thelwulf appear to have respected the separate identity of Kent and its associated provinces, as if there appears to have been no plan at this stage to absorb the southeast into an enlarged kingdom stretching across the whole of southern England. Nor does it seem to have been the intention of Egbert and his successors to maintain supremacy of any kind over the kingdom of Mercia ... It is quite possible that Egbert had relinquished Mercia of his own volition; and there is no suggestion that any residual antagonism affected relations between the rulers of Wessex and Mercia thereafter.[31]

In 838 King Egbert held an assembly at Kingston in Surrey, where ¥thelwulf may have been consecrated as king by the archbishop. Egbert restored the East Malling estate to Wulfred's successor as Archbishop of Canterbury, Ceolnoth, in return for a promise of "firm and unbroken friendship" for himself and ¥thelwulf and their heirs, and the same condition is specified in a grant to the see of Winchester. Egbert thus ensured support for ¥thelwulf, who became the first son to succeed his father as West Saxon king since 641.[32] At the same meeting Kentish monasteries chose ¥thelwulf as their lord, and he undertook that, after his death, they would have freedom to elect their heads. Wulfred had devoted his archiepiscopate to fighting against secular power over Kentish monasteries, but Ceolnoth now surrendered effective control to ¥thelwulf, whose offer of freedom from control after his death was unlikely to be honoured by his successors. Kentish ecclesiastics and laymen now looked for protection against Viking attacks to West Saxon rather than Mercian royal power. [33]

Egbert's conquests brought him wealth far greater than his predecessors had enjoyed, and enabled him to purchase the support which secured the West Saxon throne for his descendants.[34] The stability brought by the dynastic succession of Egbert and ¥thelwulf led to an expansion of commercial and agrarian resources, and to an expansion of royal income.[35] The wealth of the West Saxon kings was also increased by the agreement in 838–39 with Archbishop Ceolnoth for the previously independent West Saxon minsters to accept the king as their secular lord in return for his protection.[36] However, there was no certainty that the hegemony of Wessex would prove more permanent than that of Mercia.[37]

King of Wessex

13th century depiction of ¥thelwulf
Depiction of ¥thelwulf in the late-13th-century Genealogical Chronicle of the English Kings
When ¥thelwulf succeeded to the throne of Wessex in 839, his experience as sub-king of Kent had given him valuable training in kingship, and he in turn made his own sons sub-kings.[38] According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, on his accession "he gave to his son ¥thelstan the kingdom of the people of Kent, and the kingdom of the East Saxons [Essex] and of the people of Surrey and of the South Saxons [Sussex]". However, ¥thelwulf did not give ¥thelstan the same power as his father had given him, and although ¥thelstan attested his father's charters[g] as king, he does not appear to have been given the power to issue his own charters. ¥thelwulf exercised authority in the south-east and made regular visits there. He governed Wessex and Kent as separate spheres, and assemblies in each kingdom were only attended by the nobility of that country. The historian Janet Nelson says that "¥thelwulf ran a Carolingian-style family firm of plural realms, held together by his own authority as father-king, and by the consent of distinct âelites." He maintained his father's policy of governing Kent through ealdormen appointed from the local nobility and advancing their interests, but gave less support to the church.[39] In 843 ¥thelwulf granted ten hides at Little Chart to ¥thelmod, the brother of the leading Kentish ealdorman Ealhere, and ¥thelmod succeeded to the post on his brother's death in 853.[40] In 844 ¥thelwulf granted land at Horton in Kent to Ealdorman Eadred, with permission to transfer parts of it to local landowners; in a culture of reciprocity, this created a network of mutual friendships and obligations between the beneficiaries and the king.[41] Archbishops of Canterbury were firmly in the West Saxon king's sphere. His ealdormen enjoyed a high status, and were sometimes placed higher than the king's sons in lists of witnesses to charters.[42] His reign is the first for which there is evidence of royal priests,[43] and Malmesbury Abbey regarded him as an important benefactor, who is said to have been the donor of a shrine for the relics of Saint Aldhelm.[44]

After 830, Egbert had followed a policy of maintaining good relations with Mercia, and this was continued by ¥thelwulf when he became king. London was traditionally a Mercian town, but in the 830s it was under West Saxon control; soon after ¥thelwulf's accession it reverted to Mercian control.[45] King Wiglaf of Mercia died in 839 and his successor, Berhtwulf, revived the Mercian mint in London; the two kingdoms appear to have struck a joint issue in the mid-840s, possibly indicating West Saxon help in reviving Mercian coinage, and showing the friendly relations between the two powers. Berkshire was still Mercian in 844, but by 849 it was part of Wessex, as Alfred was born in that year at the West Saxon royal estate in Wantage, then in Berkshire.[46][h] However, the local Mercian ealdorman, also called ¥thelwulf, retained his position under the West Saxon kings.[48] Berhtwulf died in 852 and cooperation with Wessex continued under Burgred, his successor as King of Mercia, who married ¥thelwulf's daughter ¥thelswith in 853. In the same year ¥thelwulf assisted Burgred in a successful attack on Wales to restore the traditional Mercian hegemony over the Welsh.[49]

In 9th-century Mercia and Kent, royal charters were produced by religious houses, each with its own style, but in Wessex there was a single royal diplomatic tradition, probably by a single agency acting for the king. This may have originated in Egbert's reign, and it becomes clear in the 840s, when ¥thelwulf had a Frankish secretary called Felix.[50] There were strong contacts between the West Saxon and Carolingian courts. The Annals of St Bertin took particular interest in Viking attacks on Britain, and in 852 Lupus, the Abbot of Ferriáeres and a protâegâe of Charles the Bald, wrote to ¥thelwulf congratulating him on his victory over the Vikings and requesting a gift of lead to cover his church roof. Lupus also wrote to his "most beloved friend" Felix, asking him to manage the transport of the lead.[51] Unlike Canterbury and the south-east, Wessex did not see a sharp decline in the standard of Latin in charters in the mid-9th century, and this may have been partly due to Felix and his continental contacts.[52] Lupus thought that Felix had great influence over the King.[13] Charters were mainly issued from royal estates in counties which were the heartland of ancient Wessex, namely Hampshire, Somerset, Wiltshire and Dorset, with a few in Kent.[53]

An ancient division between east and west Wessex continued to be important in the 9th century; the boundary was Selwood Forest on the borders of Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire. The two bishoprics of Wessex were Selborne in the west and Winchester in the east. ¥thelwulf's family connections seem to have been west of Selwood, but his patronage was concentrated further east, particularly on Winchester, where his father was buried, and where he appointed Swithun to succeed Helmstan as bishop in 852–853. However, he made a grant of land in Somerset to his leading ealdorman, Eanwulf, and on 26 December 846 he granted a large estate to himself in South Hams in west Devon. He thus changed it from royal demesne, which he was obliged to pass on to his successor as king, to bookland, which could be transferred as the owner pleased, so he could make land grants to followers to improve security in a frontier zone.[54]

Viking threat

Viking raids increased in the early 840s on both sides of the English Channel, and in 843 ¥thelwulf was defeated by the companies of 35 Danish ships at Carhampton in Somerset. In 850 sub-king ¥thelstan and Ealdorman Ealhhere of Kent won a naval victory over a large Viking fleet off Sandwich in Kent, capturing nine ships and driving off the rest. ¥thelwulf granted Ealhhere a large estate in Kent, but ¥thelstan is not heard of again, and probably died soon afterwards. The following year the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records five different attacks on southern England. A Danish fleet of 350 Viking ships took London and Canterbury, and when King Berhtwulf of Mercia went to their relief he was defeated. The Vikings then moved on to Surrey, where they were defeated by ¥thelwulf and his son ¥thelbald at the Battle of Aclea. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle the West Saxon levies "there made the greatest slaughter of a heathen that we have heard tell of up to the present day". The Chronicle frequently reported victories during ¥thelwulf's reign won by levies led by ealdormen, unlike the 870s when royal command was emphasised, reflecting a more consensual style of leadership in the earlier period.[55]

In 850 a Danish army wintered on Thanet, and in 853 ealdormen Ealhhere of Kent and Huda of Surrey were killed in a battle against the Vikings, also on Thanet. In 855 Danish Vikings stayed over the winter on Sheppey, before carrying on their pillaging of eastern England.[56] However, during ¥thelwulf's reign Viking attacks were contained and did not present a major threat.[57]

Coinage

Coin of King ¥thelwulf
Coin of King ¥thelwulf: "E£ELVVLF REX", moneyer Manna, Canterbury[58]
The silver penny was almost the only coin used in middle and later Anglo-Saxon England. ¥thelwulf's coinage came from a main mint in Canterbury and a secondary one at Rochester; both had been used by Egbert for his own coinage after he gained control of Kent. During ¥thelwulf's reign, there were four main phases of the coinage distinguishable at both mints, though they are not exactly parallel and it is uncertain when the transitions took place. The first issue at Canterbury carried a design known as Saxoniorum, which had been used by Egbert for one of his own issues. This was replaced by a portrait design in about 843, which can be subdivided further; the earliest coins have cruder designs than the later ones. At the Rochester mint the sequence was reversed, with an initial portrait design replaced, also in about 843, by a non-portrait design carrying a cross-and-wedges pattern on the obverse.[13][59]

In about 848 both mints switched to a common design known as Dor¯b¯/Cant – the characters "Dor¯b¯" on the obverse of these coins indicate either Dorobernia (Canterbury) or Dorobrevia (Rochester), and "Cant", referring to Kent, appeared on the reverse. It is possible that the Canterbury mint continued to produce portrait coins at the same time. The Canterbury issue seems to have been ended in 850–851 by Viking raids, though it is possible that Rochester was spared, and the issue may have continued there. The final issue, again at both mints, was introduced in about 852; it has an inscribed cross on the reverse and a portrait on the obverse. ¥thelwulf's coinage became debased by the end of his reign, and though the problem became worse after his death it is possible that the debasement prompted the changes in coin type from as early as 850.[60]

¥thelwulf's first Rochester coinage may have begun when he was still sub-king of Kent, under Egbert. A hoard of coins deposited at the beginning of ¥thelwulf's reign in about 840, found in the Middle Temple in London, contained 22 coins from Rochester and two from Canterbury of the first issue of each mint. Some numismatists argue that the high proportion of Rochester coins means that the issue must have commenced before Egbert's death, but an alternative explanation is that whoever hoarded the coins simply happened to have access to more Rochester coins. No coins were issued by ¥thelwulf's sons during his reign.[61]

Ceolnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury throughout ¥thelwulf's reign, also minted coins of his own at Canterbury: there were three different portrait designs, thought to be contemporary with each of the first three of ¥thelwulf's Canterbury issues. These were followed by an inscribed cross design that was uniform with ¥thelwulf's final coinage. At Rochester, Bishop Beornmod produced only one issue, a cross-and-wedges design which was contemporary with ¥thelwulf's Saxoniorum issue.[62]

In the view of the numismatists Philip Grierson and Mark Blackburn, the mints of Wessex, Mercia and East Anglia were not greatly affected by changes in political control: "the remarkable continuity of moneyers which can be seen at each of these mints suggests that the actual mint organisation was largely independent of the royal administration and was founded in the stable trading communities of each city".[63]

Decimation Charters
Charter of King ¥thelwulf
Charter S 316 dated 855, in which ¥thelwulf granted land at Ulaham in Kent to his minister Ealdhere.[64]
The early 20th-century historian W. H. Stevenson observed that: "Few things in our early history have led to so much discussion" as ¥thelwulf's Decimation Charters;[65] a hundred years later the charter expert Susan Kelly described them as "one of the most controversial groups of Anglo-Saxon diplomas".[66] Both Asser and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle say that ¥thelwulf gave a decimation,[i] in 855, shortly before leaving on pilgrimage to Rome. According to the Chronicle "King ¥thelwulf conveyed by charter the tenth part of his land throughout all his kingdom to the praise of God and to his own eternal salvation". However, Asser states that "¥thelwulf, the esteemed king, freed the tenth part of his whole kingdom from royal service and tribute, and as an everlasting inheritance he made it over on the cross of Christ to the triune God, for the redemption of his soul and those of his predecessors."[68] According to Keynes, Asser's version may just be a "loose translation" of the Chronicle, and his implication that ¥thelwulf released a tenth of all land from secular burdens was probably not intended. All land could be regarded as the king's land, so the Chronicle reference to "his land" does not necessarily refer to royal property, and since the booking of land – conveying it by charter – was always regarded as a pious act, Asser's statement that he made it over to God does not necessarily mean that the charters were in favour of the church.[69]

The Decimation Charters are divided by Susan Kelly into four groups:

Two dated at Winchester on 5 November 844. In a charter in the Malmesbury archive, ¥thelwulf refers in the proem to the perilous state of his kingdom as the result of the assaults of pagans and barbarians. For the sake of his soul and in return for masses for the king and ealdormen each Wednesday, "I have decided to give in perpetual liberty some portion of hereditary lands to all those ranks previously in possession, both to God's servants and handmaidens serving God and to laymen, always the tenth hide, and where it is less, then the tenth part."[j]
Six dated at Wilton on Easter Day, 22 April 854. In the common text of these charters, ¥thelwulf states that "for the sake of his soul and the prosperity of the kingdom and [the salvation of] the people assigned to him by God, he has acted upon the advice given to him by his bishops, comites, and all his nobles. He has granted the tenth part of the lands throughout his kingdom, not only to the churches, but also to his thegns. The land is granted in perpetual liberty, so that it will remain free of royal services and all secular burdens. In return there will be liturgical commemoration of the king and of his bishops and ealdormen."[k]
Five from Old Minster, Winchester, connected with the Wilton meeting but generally considered spurious.[l]
One from Kent dated 855, the only one to have the same date as the decimation according to Chronicle and Asser. The king grants to his thegn Dunn property in Rochester "on account of the decimation of lands which by God's gift I have decided to do". Dunn left the land to his wife with reversion to Rochester Cathedral.[m][72]
None of the charters are original, and Stevenson dismissed all of them as fraudulent apart from the Kentish one of 855. Stevenson saw the decimation as a donation of royal demesne to churches and laymen, with those grants which were made to laymen being on the understanding that there would be reversion to a religious institution.[73] Up to the 1990s, his view on the authenticity of the charters was generally accepted by scholars, with the exception of the historian H. P. R. Finberg, who argued in 1964 that most are based on authentic diplomas. Finberg coined the terms the 'First Decimation' of 844, which he saw as the removal of public dues on a tenth of all bookland, and the 'Second Decimation' of 854, the donation of a tenth of "the private domain of the royal house" to the churches. He considered it unlikely that the First Decimation had been carried into effect, probably due to the threat from the Vikings. Finberg's terminology has been adopted, but his defence of the First Decimation generally rejected. In 1994 Keynes defended the Wilton charters in group 2, and his arguments have been widely accepted.[74]

Historians have been divided on how to interpret the Second Decimation, and in 1994 Keynes described it as "one of the most perplexing problems" in the study of 9th-century charters. He set out three alternatives:

It conveyed a tenth of the royal demesne – the lands of the crown as opposed to the personal property of the sovereign – into the hands of churches, ecclesiastics and laymen. In Anglo-Saxon England property was either folkland or bookland. The transmission of folkland was governed by the customary rights of kinsmen, subject to the king's approval, whereas bookland was established by the grant of a royal charter, and could be disposed of freely by the owner. Booking land thus converted it by charter from folkland to bookland. The royal demesne was the crown's folkland, whereas the king's bookland was his own personal property which he could leave by will as he chose. In the decimation ¥thelwulf may have conveyed royal folkland by charter to become bookland, in some cases to laymen who already leased the land.[75]
It was the booking of a tenth of folkland to its owners, who would then be free to convey it to a church.[76]
It was a reduction of one tenth in the secular burdens on lands already in the possession of landowners.[76] The secular burdens would have included the provision of supplies for the king and his officials, and payment of various taxes.[77]
Some scholars, for example Frank Stenton, author of the standard history of Anglo-Saxon England, along with Keynes and Abels, see the Second Decimation as a donation of royal demesne. In Abels' view ¥thelwulf sought loyalty from the aristocracy and church during the king's forthcoming absence from Wessex, and displayed a sense of dynastic insecurity also evident in his father's generosity towards the Kentish church in 838, and in an "avid attention" in this period to compiling and revising royal genealogies.[78] Keynes suggests that "¥thelwulf's purpose was presumably to earn divine assistance in his struggles against the Vikings",[79] and the mid-20th-century historian Eric John observes that "a lifetime of medieval studies teaches one that an early medieval king was never so political as when he was on his knees".[80] The view that the decimation was a donation of the king's own personal estate is supported by the Anglo-Saxonist Alfred Smyth, who argues that these were the only lands the king was entitled to alienate by book.[81][n] The historian Martin Ryan prefers the view that ¥thelwulf freed a tenth part of land owned by laymen from secular obligations, who could now endow churches under their own patronage. Ryan sees it as part of a campaign of religious devotion.[84] According to the historian David Pratt, it "is best interpreted as a strategic 'tax cut', designed to encourage cooperation in defensive measures through a partial remission of royal dues".[85] Nelson states that the decimation took place in two phases, in Wessex in 854 and Kent in 855, reflecting that they remained separate kingdoms.[86]

Kelly argues that most charters were based on genuine originals, including the First Decimation of 844. She says: "Commentators have been unkind [and] the 844 version has not been given the benefit of the doubt". In her view ¥thelwulf then gave a 10% tax reduction on bookland, and ten years later he took the more generous step of "a widespread distribution of royal lands". Unlike Finberg, she believes that both decimations were carried out, although the second one may not have been completed due to opposition from ¥thelwulf's son ¥thelbald. She thinks that the grants of bookland to laymen in the Second Decimation were unconditional, not with reversion to religious houses as Stevenson had argued.[87] However, Keynes is not convinced by Kelly's arguments, and thinks that the First Decimation charters were 11th or early 12th century fabrications.[88]

Pilgrimage to Rome and later life

In the early 850s ¥thelwulf went on pilgrimage to Rome. According to Abels: "¥thelwulf was at the height of his power and prestige. It was a propitious time for the West Saxon king to claim a place of honour among the kings and emperors of christendom."[89] His eldest surviving sons ¥thelbald and ¥thelberht were then adults, while ¥thelred and Alfred were still young children. In 853 ¥thelwulf sent his younger sons to Rome, perhaps accompanying envoys in connection with his own forthcoming visit. Alfred, and possibly ¥thelred as well, were invested with the "belt of consulship". ¥thelred's part in the journey is only known from a contemporary record in the liber vitae of San Salvatore, Brescia, as later records such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle were only interested in recording the honour paid to Alfred.[13] Abels sees the embassy as paving the way for ¥thelwulf's pilgrimage, and the presence of Alfred, his youngest and therefore most expendable son, as a gesture of goodwill to the papacy; confirmation by Pope Leo IV made Alfred his spiritual son, and thus created a spiritual link between the two "fathers".[90][o] Kirby argues that the journey may indicate that Alfred was intended for the church,[92] while Nelson on the contrary sees ¥thelwulf's purpose as affirming his younger sons' throneworthiness, thus protecting them against being tonsured by their elder brothers, which would have rendered them ineligible for kingship.[93]

¥thelwulf set out for Rome in the spring of 855, accompanied by Alfred and a large retinue.[94] The King left Wessex in the care of his oldest surviving son, ¥thelbald, and the sub-kingdom of Kent to the rule of ¥thelberht, and thereby confirmed that they were to succeed to the two kingdoms.[25] On the way the party stayed with Charles the Bald in Francia, where there were the usual banquets and exchange of gifts. ¥thelwulf stayed a year in Rome,[95] and his gifts to the Diocese of Rome included a gold crown weighing 4 pounds (1.8 kg), two gold goblets, a sword bound with gold, four silver-gilt bowls, two silk tunics and two gold-interwoven veils. He also gave gold to the clergy and leading men and silver to the people of Rome. According to the historian Joanna Story, his gifts rivalled those of Carolingian donors and the Byzantine emperor and "were clearly chosen to reflect the personal generosity and spiritual wealth of the West Saxon king; here was no Germanic 'hillbilly' from the backwoods of the Christian world but, rather, a sophisticated, wealthy and utterly contemporary monarch".[96] According to the 12th-century chronicler William of Malmesbury, he helped to pay for the restoration of the Saxon quarter, which had recently been destroyed by fire, for English pilgrims.[97]

The pilgrimage puzzles historians and Kelly comments that "it is extraordinary that an early medieval king could consider his position safe enough to abandon his kingdom in a time of extreme crisis". She suggests that ¥thelwulf may have been motivated by a personal religious impulse.[98] Ryan sees it as an attempt to placate the divine wrath displayed by Viking attacks,[84] whereas Nelson thinks he aimed to enhance his prestige in dealing with the demands of his adult sons.[99] In Kirby's view:

¥thelwulf's journey to Rome is of great interest for it did not signify abdication and a retreat from the world as their journeys to Rome had for Cµdwalla and Ine and other Anglo-Saxon kings. It was more a display of the king's international standing and a demonstration of the prestige his dynasty enjoyed in Frankish and papal circles.[100]

On his way back from Rome ¥thelwulf again stayed with King Charles the Bald, and may have joined him on a campaign against a Viking warband.[101] On 1 October 856 ¥thelwulf married Charles's daughter, Judith, aged 12 or 13, at Verberie. The marriage was considered extraordinary by contemporaries and by modern historians. Carolingian princesses rarely married and were usually sent to nunneries, and it was almost unknown for them to marry foreigners. Judith was crowned queen and anointed by Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims. Although empresses had been anointed before, this is the first definitely known anointing of a Carolingian queen. In addition West Saxon custom, described by Asser as "perverse and detestable", was that the wife of a king of Wessex could not be called queen or sit on the throne with her husband – she was just the king's wife.[102]

¥thelwulf returned to Wessex to face a revolt by ¥thelbald, who attempted to prevent his father from recovering his throne. Historians give varying explanations for both the rebellion and the marriage. In Nelson's view, ¥thelwulf's marriage to Judith added the West Saxon king to the family of kings and princely allies which Charles was creating.[103] Charles was under attack both from Vikings and from a rising among his own nobility, and ¥thelwulf had great prestige due to his victories over the Vikings; some historians such as Kirby and Pauline Stafford see the marriage as sealing an anti-Viking alliance. The marriage gave ¥thelwulf a share in Carolingian prestige, and Kirby describes the anointing of Judith as "a charismatic sanctification which enhanced her status, blessed her womb and conferred additional throne-worthiness on her male offspring." These marks of a special status implied that a son of hers would succeed to at least part of ¥thelwulf's kingdom, and explain ¥thelbald's decision to rebel.[104] The historian Michael Enright denies that an anti-Viking alliance between two such distant kingdoms could serve any useful purpose, and argues that the marriage was ¥thelwulf's response to news that his son was planning to rebel; his son by an anointed Carolingian queen would be in a strong position to succeed as king of Wessex instead of the rebellious ¥thelbald.[105] Abels suggests that ¥thelwulf sought Judith's hand because he needed her father's money and support to overcome his son's rebellion,[106] but Kirby and Smyth argue that it is extremely unlikely that Charles the Bald would have agreed to marry his daughter to a ruler who was known to be in serious political difficulty.[107] ¥thelbald may also have acted out of resentment at the loss of patrimony he suffered as a result of the decimation.[98]

¥thelbald's rebellion was supported by Ealhstan, Bishop of Sherborne, and Eanwulf, ealdorman of Somerset, even though they appear to have been two of the king's most trusted advisers.[108] According to Asser, the plot was concerted "in the western part of Selwood", and western nobles may have backed ¥thelbald because they resented the patronage ¥thelwulf gave to eastern Wessex.[109] Asser also stated that ¥thelwulf agreed to give up the western part of his kingdom in order to avoid a civil war. Some historians such as Keynes and Abels think that his rule was then confined to the south-east,[110] while others such as Kirby think it is more likely that it was Wessex itself which was divided, with ¥thelbald keeping Wessex west of Selwood, ¥thelwulf holding the centre and east, and ¥thelberht keeping the south-east.[111] ¥thelwulf insisted that Judith should sit beside him on the throne until the end of his life, and according to Asser this was "without any disagreement or dissatisfaction on the part of his nobles".[112]

King ¥thelwulf's ring
King ¥thelwulf's ring was found in a cart rut in Laverstock in Wiltshire in about August 1780 by one William Petty, who sold it to a silversmith in Salisbury. The silversmith sold it to the Earl of Radnor, and the earl's son, William, donated it to the British Museum in 1829. The ring, together with a similar ring of ¥thelwulf's daughter ¥thelswith, is one of two key examples of nielloed 9th-century metalwork. They appear to represent the emergence of a "court style" of West Saxon metalwork, characterised by an unusual Christian iconography, such as a pair of peacocks at the Fountain of Life on the ¥thelwulf ring, associated with Christian immortality. The ring is inscribed "¥thelwulf Rex", firmly associating it with the King, and the inscription forms part of the design, so it cannot have been added later. Many of its features are typical of 9th-century metalwork, such as the design of two birds, beaded and speckled borders, and a saltire with arrow-like terminals on the back. It was probably manufactured in Wessex, but was typical of the uniformity of animal ornament in England in the 9th century. In the view of Leslie Webster, an expert on medieval art: "Its fine Trewhiddle style ornament would certainly fit a mid ninth-century date."[113] In Nelson's view, "it was surely made to be a gift from this royal lord to a brawny follower: the sign of a successful ninth-century kingship".[13] The art historian David Wilson sees it as a survival of the pagan tradition of the generous king as the "ring-giver".[114]

¥thelwulf's will

King Alfred's will
A page from King Alfred's will
¥thelwulf's will has not survived, but Alfred's has and it provides some information about his father's intentions. The kingdom was to be divided between the two oldest surviving sons, with ¥thelbald getting Wessex and ¥thelberht Kent and the south-east. The survivor of ¥thelbald, ¥thelred and Alfred was to inherit their father's bookland – his personal property as opposed to the royal lands which went with the kingship – and Abels and Yorke argue that this probably means that the survivor was to inherit the throne of Wessex as well.[115] Other historians disagree. Nelson states that the provision regarding the personal property had nothing to do with the kingship,[13] and Kirby comments: "Such an arrangement would have led to fratricidal strife. With three older brothers, Alfred's chances of reaching adulthood would, one feels, have been minimal."[116] ¥thelwulf's moveable wealth, such as gold and silver, was to be divided between "children, nobles and the needs of the king's soul".[13] For the latter, he left one tenth of his hereditary land to be set aside to feed the poor, and he ordered that three hundred mancuses be sent to Rome each year, one hundred to be spent on lighting the lamps in St Peter's at Easter, one hundred for the lights of St Paul's, and one hundred for the pope.[117]

Death and succession

¥thelwulf died on 13 January 858. According to the Annals of St Neots, he was buried at Steyning in Sussex, but his body was later transferred to Winchester, probably by Alfred.[118] ¥thelwulf was succeeded by ¥thelbald in Wessex and ¥thelberht in Kent and the south-east. The prestige conferred by a Frankish marriage was so great that ¥thelbald then wedded his step-mother Judith, to Asser's retrospective horror; he described the marriage as a "great disgrace", and "against God's prohibition and Christian dignity".[13] When ¥thelbald died only two years later, ¥thelberht became King of Wessex as well as Kent, and ¥thelwulf's intention of dividing his kingdoms between his sons was thus set aside. In the view of Yorke and Abels this was because ¥thelred and Alfred were too young to rule, and ¥thelberht agreed in return that his younger brothers would inherit the whole kingdom on his death,[119] whereas Kirby and Nelson think that ¥thelberht just became the trustee for his younger brothers' share of the bookland.[120]

After ¥thelbald's death Judith sold her possessions and returned to her father, but two years later she eloped with Baldwin, Count of Flanders. In the 890s their son, also called Baldwin, married ¥thelwulf's granddaughter ¥lfthryth.[13]

Historiography

¥thelwulf's reputation among historians was poor in the twentieth century. In 1935 the historian R. H. Hodgkin attributed his pilgrimage to Rome to "the unpractical piety which had led him to desert his kingdom at a time of great danger", and described his marriage to Judith as "the folly of a man senile before his time".[121] To Stenton in the 1960s he was "a religious and unambitious man, for whom engagement in war and politics was an unwelcome consequence of rank".[122] One dissenter was Finberg, who in 1964 described him as "a king whose valour in war and princely munificence recalled the figures of the heroic age",[123] but in 1979 Enright said: "More than anything else he appears to have been an impractical religious enthusiast."[124] Early medieval writers, especially Asser, emphasise his religiosity and his preference for consensus, seen in the concessions made to avert a civil war on his return from Rome.[p] In Story's view "his legacy has been clouded by accusations of excessive piety which (to modern sensibilities at least) has seemed at odds with the demands of early medieval kingship". In 839 an unnamed Anglo-Saxon king wrote to the Holy Roman Emperor Louis the Pious asking for permission to travel through his territory on the way to Rome, and relating an English priest's dream which foretold disaster unless Christians abandoned their sins. This is now believed to have been an unrealised project of Egbert at the end of his life, but it was formerly attributed to ¥thelwulf, and seen as exhibiting what Story calls his reputation for "dramatic piety", and irresponsibility for planning to abandon his kingdom at the beginning of his reign.[126]

In the twenty-first century he is seen very differently by historians. ¥thelwulf is not listed in the index of Peter Hunter Blair's An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England, first published in 1956, but in a new introduction to the 2003 edition Keynes listed him among people "who have not always been accorded the attention they might be thought to deserve ... for it was he, more than any other, who secured the political fortune of his people in the ninth century, and who opened up channels of communication which led through Frankish realms and across the Alps to Rome".[127] According to Story: "¥thelwulf acquired and cultivated a reputation both in Francia and Rome which is unparalleled in the sources since the height of Offa's and Coenwulf's power at the turn of the ninth century".[128]

Nelson describes him as "one of the great underrated among Anglo-Saxons", and complains that she was only allowed 2,500 words for him in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, compared with 15,000 for Edward II and 35,000 for Elizabeth I.[129] She says:

¥thelwulf's reign has been relatively under-appreciated in modern scholarship. Yet he laid the foundations for Alfred's success. To the perennial problems of husbanding the kingdom's resources, containing conflicts within the royal family, and managing relations with neighbouring kingdoms, ¥thelwulf found new as well as traditional answers. He consolidated old Wessex, and extended his reach over what is now Devon and Cornwall. He ruled Kent, working with the grain of its political community. He borrowed ideological props from Mercians and Franks alike, and went to Rome, not to die there, like his predecessor Ine, ... but to return, as Charlemagne had, with enhanced prestige. ¥thelwulf coped more effectively with Scandinavian attacks than did most contemporary rulers.[13]

Buried:
Steyning then Old Minster, Winchester; remains may now be in Winchester Cathedral

Aethelwulf married Osburga, Queen Consort of Wessex. Osburga (daughter of Oslac and unnamed spouse) was born in ~810 in Wessex, England; died in ~849. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

6193685.

Osburga, Queen Consort of Wessex was born in ~810 in Wessex, England (daughter of Oslac and unnamed spouse); died in ~849.

Other Events and Attributes:

Alt Birth: ~831, (Wessex) England
Alt Death: ~854

Notes:

Osburh or Osburga was the first wife of King ¥thelwulf of Wessex and mother of Alfred the Great. Alfred's biographer, Asser, described her as "a most religious woman, noble in character and noble by birth".[1]

Osburh's existence is known only from Asser's Life of King Alfred. She is not named as witness to any charters, nor is her death reported in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. So far as is known, she was the mother of all ¥thelwulf's children, his five sons ¥thelstan, ¥thelbald, ¥thelberht, ¥thelred and Alfred the Great, and his daughter ¥thelswith, wife of King Burgred of Mercia.

The Boyhood of Alfred the Great (1913).jpg
She is best known for Asser's story about a book of Saxon songs which she showed to Alfred and his brothers, offering to give the book to whoever could first memorise it, a challenge which Alfred took up and won. This exhibits the interest of high status ninth-century women in books, and their role in educating their children.[2]

Osburh was the daughter of Oslac (who is also only known from Asser's Life), King ¥thelwulf's pincerna (butler), an important figure in the royal court and household.[3] Oslac is described as a descendant of King Cerdic's Jutish nephews, Stuf and Wihtgar, who conquered the Isle of Wight.[4] and, by this, is also ascribed Geatish/Gothic ancestry.

Queen consort of Wessex
Tenure c. 839 – c. 854
Spouse ¥thelwulf, King of Wessex
Issue ¥thelstan of Wessex
¥thelswith, Queen of Mercia
¥thelbald, King of Wessex
¥thelbert, King of Wessex
¥thelred, King of Wessex
Alfred, King of Wessex
House House of Wessex (by marriage)
Father Oslac

Issue[edit]
Name Birth Death Notes
¥thelstan 851–855
¥thelswith 888 Married, Burgred of Mercia; no issue
¥thelbald 20 December 860 Married, Judith
¥thelbert Autumn 865
¥thelred c.847 23 April 871 Had issue
Alfred 849 26 October 899 Married 868, Ealhswith; had issue

See also

House of Wessex family tree; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_of_Wessex#House_of_Wessex_family_tree

Notes

Jump up ^ Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge eds, Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources, London, Penguin Classics, 1983, p. 68
Jump up ^ Janet L. Nelson, Osburh, 2004, Oxford Online Dictionary of National Biography In Nelson's view, Osburh may have been dead by 856 or may have been repudiated.
Jump up ^ Keynes and Lapidge, pp. 68, 229.
Jump up ^ Asser states that Oslac was a Goth, but this is regarded by historians as an error as Stuf and Wightgar were Jutes. Keynes and Lapidge pp. 229-30 and Frank Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, Oxford, Oxford UP, 3rd edition 1971, p. 23-4

References

Asser's Life of King Alfred; http://omacl.org/KingAlfred/

Lees, Clare A. & Gillian R. Overing (eds), Double Agents: Women and Clerical Culture in Anglo-Saxon England. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2001. ISBN 0-8122-3628-9

end of biography

The PEDIGREE of
Osburga OSLACING of ISLE OF WIGHT

(1st wife); (Osburh Osburgh; of JUTIE)
Born: abt. 810 Died: aft. 876

HM George I's 23-Great Grandmother. HRE Ferdinand I's 20-Great Grandmother. U.S. President [WASHINGTON]'s 26-Great Grandmother. Poss. PM Churchill's 24-Great Grandmother. Wm. von Bismarck's 28-Great Grandmother. Agnes Harris's 25-Great Grandmother. Poss. `Osawatomie' Brown's 24-Great Grandmother.
Husband/Partner: Ethelwulf (2nd King) of ENGLAND
Children: Alfred `the Great' (1st/3rd King) of ENGLAND ; Aethelred I (King) of WESSEX (& ENGLAND) ; Judith of WESSEX ; Ethelbald (King) of ENGLAND ; Ethelswith ; Ethelbert (King) ; Athelstan (King)
_______ _______ _______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ _____ ____ ____
/ -- Gebolf of the JUTES
/ -- Wihtgar (King) of the ISLE OF WIGHT (? - 544?)
| \ / -- Freawine of ANCIENT S. + ==&=> [ 221 ,,qD,&]
| | / | (skip this generation?)
| | / -- Wig (Uvigg Wigga) of ANCIENT SAXONY
| | / -- poss. Gewis (Gewisch) of ANCIENT SAXONY
| | / | or: poss. Eafa (Effa) I of ANCIENT SAXONY
| | / -- Esla (Esle) of ANCIENT SAXONY (411? - ?)
| | / | or: Effa II (Esla's son)
| | / -- poss. Elesa (Elistus) of ANCIENT SAXONY
| | | \ / -- Gevar (Sea-King) in DENMARK
| | / \ -- poss. daughter of Gevar
/ \ -- daughter of Elesa
/ -- (NN) ... (NN) of the ISLE OF WIGHT
| \ | ( many missing generations)
| | / -- Frithugar DEIRA of A. + ==&=> [ 220 ,,qD,&]
| | / -- Freawine (Freovin) of ANCIENT SAXONY
| | / | (skip this generation?)
| | / -- Wig (Uvigg Wigga) of ANCIENT SAXONY
| | / -- poss. Gewis (Gewisch) of ANCIENT SAXONY
| | / | or: poss. Eafa (Effa) I of ANCIENT SAXONY
| | / -- Esla (Esle) of ANCIENT SAXONY (411? - ?)
| | / | or: Effa II (Esla's son)
| | / -- poss. Elesa (Elistus) of ANCIENT SAXONY
| | | \ / -- Gevar (Sea-King) in DENMARK
| | / \ -- poss. daughter of Gevar
/ \ -- poss. sister of Cerdic
/ -- Oslac (Thane) of the ISLE OF WIGHT (785? - ?)
/
- Osburga OSLACING of ISLE OF WIGHT
\
\ -- (NN), first wife

Her (poss.) Grandchildren: Elgiva of WESSEX [alt ped] ; Edward (I) `the Elder' (King) of ENGLAND ; Aefthryth (Elfrida) of WESSEX ; Aethelflaed (Lady) of MERCIA ; Aethelweald (King) of NORTHUMBRIA ; Aethelhelm (Earldorman) of WILTSHIRE ; Elgiva of WESSEX ; Henry `with the Golden Wagon' of ALTDORF

[ Start ]
FabPed Genealogy Vers. 85 © Jamie, 1997-2018

Children:

3096842. Aethelstan, King of the East Angles was born in ~838 in Wantage, Berkshire, England; died in 890.
Aethelred of Wessex, King of Mercia was born in ~847 in Wessex, England; died in 911; was buried in Wimborne Minster, Dorset, England.
5683328. Alfred the Great, King of Wessex was born on 23 Apr 849 in Wantage, Berkshire, England; died on 26 Oct 899 in Winchester, Hampshire, England; was buried in Hyde Abbey, Winchester, Hampshire, England.

6193720.

Herbert de Vermandois, I, Count of Vermandois was born in 848 in Paris, France (son of Pepin de Vermandois, Count of Vermandois and unnamed spouse); died in 907 in Soissons, France.

Notes:

Herbert I Carolingian de Vermandois, Count of Vermandois, Count of Meaux, was born 848 in Paris, France to Pepin de Vermandois (c815-aft848) and died 907 in Soissons, Aisne, Picardie, France of Assassinated by Baldwin II, Count of Flanders, for the capture (by Herbert) in 896 and murder of Baldwin's brother Raoul. He married Bertha de Morvois (c850-c907) . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]
Herbert forcibly took the county of Vermandois from his third cousin Rodulf of Flanders (c869-896).

Children

Offspring of Herbert I de Vermandois and Bertha de Morvois (c850-c907)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Bâeatrice of Vermandois (c880-931) 880 Paris, France 26 March 931 Soissons, France Robert I of France (866-923)

Herbert II de Vermandois (884-943) 884 23 February 943 Hildebranda of France (895-931)

Cunigunde of Vermandois (-943) 943 Udo I von der Wetterau (c900-949)

Adele of Vermandois (?-?) Gebhard von Ufgau (?-c947)

Berengar of Bayeaux (?-?) Daughter of Gurvand, Duke of Brittany
Noteworthy descendants include

Hugh Capet (c940-996)
Namesakes of Herbert I de Vermandois (c848-907)

Birth place
Death place
Father
Mother
Joined with
Herbert I de Vermandois (c848-907) Paris, France Soissons, Aisne, Picardie, France Pepin de Vermandois (c815-aft848) Bertha de Morvois (c850-c907)
Herbert III of Meaux (c950-995) Robert de Vermandois (918-968) Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967)
Herbert III de Vermandois (c913-c982) Herbert II de Vermandois (884-943) Hildebranda of France (895-931) Eadgifu of Wessex (902-aft955)
Herbert III de Vermandois (953-1015) Saint-Quentin Albert I de Vermandois (915-987) Gerberge de Lorraine (c935-978) Ermengard de Bar (946-aft1035)
Herbert IV de Vermandois (1032-1080) Otto de Vermandois (c1000-1045) Pavie de Ham (c990-1058) Adáele de Valois (c1052-c1096)

Herbert married Bertha de Morvois(France). Bertha was born in ~850. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

6193721.

Bertha de Morvois was born in ~850.

Children:

3096860. Herbert de Vermandois, II, Count of Meaux was born in 884 in Vermandois, France; died on 23 Feb 943 in St Quentin, Peronne, Somme, France.

3096832.

Ragnvald Eysteinsson, Earl of Mar was born in 825 in Jamtland, Sweden; died in 890-894 in Giske, Norway; was buried in Giske, Norway.

Notes:

Rognvald Eysteinsson (fl. 865) was the founding Jarl (or Earl) of M²re in Norway, and a close relative and ally of Harald Fairhair, the earliest known King of Norway. In the Norse language he is known as Rognvaldr Eysteinsson and in modern Norwegian as Ragnvald M²rejarl. He is sometimes referred to with bynames that may be translated into modern English as "Rognvald the Wise" or "Rognvald the Powerful".

The earliest available sources regarding Rognvald are mutually contradictory and were compiled long after he died. The best known are the Norse Sagas, although modern scholars highlight many inconsistencies and improbable claims regarding Rognvald in the sagas, and believe that they must be treated with caution:[2] The texts of the sagas were compiled three centuries after the events described and their accuracy in regard to Rognvald's life and historical significance is now questioned. Hence some scholars instead emphasise other accounts, closer to the historical period in question, such as Irish and Scottish sources.

While Rognvald does appear to have had some kind of role in the founding of the Norse Earldom of Orkney, most historians now doubt claims in the Sagas that Rognvald led one particular "great voyage" - a Norwegian expedition that attacked rebel vikings, who had been raiding Norway from bases on Orkney and Shetland, before raiding the Scottish mainland, Ireland and the Isle of Man. It is now generally believed that any such expedition would have occurred after Rognvald's lifetime. A modern authority on Orcadian history, William P. L. Thomson, comments that the story of the "great voyage is so thoroughly ingrained in popular and scholarly history, both ancient and modern, that it comes as a bit of a shock to realise that it might not be true."[3]

Modern scholars also highlight inconsistencies and improbable claims in the sagas' claims regarding: the relationship between Rognvald and Harald; the names and biographies of Rognvald's immediate family, and; the founding of the earldom of M²re.

Rognvald was the father of Torf-Einarr (d. circa 910) an earl of Orkney. Some Norse accounts claimed that another son, Hrâolfr, settled in France and, under the name Rollo (d. 930), founded the Duchy of Normandy. However, French sources suggest that Rollo's father was an unnamed Danish or Norwegian nobleman, or a viking named Ketill.

Contents
1 Traditional accounts
1.1 Sources
1.2 Family
1.3 Death and legacy
2 Modern interpretations
2.1 Harald Fairhair and the voyage to the west
2.2 Founding of the earldom of Orkney
2.3 Rognvald's brother and sons
2.4 Similarities to Ragnall ua Ímair
2.5 Broad themes
3 References
4 External links
Traditional accounts

Sources

The oldest account that may refer to Rognvald and the Earldom of Orkney appears to be the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. These annals are believed to date from the lifetime of Donnchad mac Gilla Pâatraic, who died in 1039,[4] although they survive only as incomplete copies made by Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh (17th century).

...for it was not long before this that there had been every war and every trouble in Norway, and this was the source of that war in Norway: two younger sons of Albdan, king of Norway, drove out the eldest son, i.e. Ragnall son of Albdan, for fear that he would seize the kingship of Norway after their father. So Ragnall came with his three sons to the Orkney Islands. Ragnall stayed there then, with his youngest son.
Fragmentary Annals of Ireland, FA 330. Edited and translated by Joan N. Radnor.
These events are placed after an account of the devastation of Fortriu, dated to around 866,[5] and the mention of an eclipse confirms a date of 865.[6]

Dating the Orkneyinga saga has proven to be controversial but a recent analysis has the "majority of scholars in favour of dates between 1170 and 1220"[7] whilst admitting that "it remains to be established when, why, where, for whom and by whom it was written".[8] Much of the information it contains is "hard to corroborate".[2]

Rognvald is also referred to in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla (written c. 1230), written in Iceland.

Christian Krohg's portrait of Snorri Sturluson, 13th century compiler of the Heimskringla. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Snorre_Sturluson-Christian_Krohg.jpg
While the Historia Norvegiae (written c. 1505) includes an account of the foundation of the Orkney earldom, as well as some questionable details about pre-Viking Orkney, it has relatively little to say about Rognvald.

Family

It is not certain that the Ragnall of the Irish annals is synonymous with Rognvald Eysteinsson. The relevant entry goes on to describe Ragnall's older sons raiding in Spain and North Africa, but there is no specific mention of the Earldom of Orkney. There is also a separate piece of circumstantial evidence, suggesting a link between Ragnall and the 9th century figure Ragnar Lodbrok: runic inscriptions found inside Maeshowe, dating from the 12th century, state that the mound was "built before Loºbrâok".[6]

There is no agreement in the available sources on Rognvald's parentage. According to the Irish annals, Ragnall was the son of "Halfdan, King of Lochlann". This is generally understood to mean Halfdan the Black, which would make Ragnall the brother of King Harald Fairhair. This is contradicted by later Norse sagas, which suggest that Halfdan was Rognvald's grandfather.[9] The Orkneyinga saga says that Rognvald was the son of Eystein Ivarsson and grandson of Ívarr Upplendingajarl.[10]

He was married, according to the Orkneyinga saga to Ragnhild, the daughter of a man named Hrâolfr Nose,[11] although in the Heimskringla his wife is named Hild.[12]

Both sagas refer to six sons. The oldest, "by concubines", were Hallad, Einarr and Hrollaug, who were "grown men when their brothers born in marriage were still children".[11][12] The latter were Ivar, Hrâolfr, and Thorir the Silent. Hrâolfr, who "was so big that no horse could carry him", hence his byname of "Ganger-Hrâolf",[11] is identified by the saga writers with Rollo, founder of Duchy of Normandy (in 911).[12]

In the Orkneyinga saga Rognvald was made the Earl of M²re by Harald Fairhair. The Saga of Harald Fairhair in Heimskringla recounts that Rognvald caused Harald Fairhair to be given his byname by cutting and dressing his hair, which had been uncut for ten years on account of his vow never to cut it until he was ruler of all Norway.[13] Rognvald accompanied the king on a great military expedition. First the islands of Shetland and Orkney were cleared of vikings who had been raiding Norway and then continued on to Scotland, Ireland and the Isle of Man. During this campaign Rognvald's son Ivarr was killed and in compensation Harald granted Rognvald Orkney and Shetland.

Rognvald thereafter returned to Norway, giving the northern isles to his brother Sigurd Eysteinsson.[14][11] Sigurd had been the forecastleman on Harald's ship and after sailing back east the king "gave Sigurd the title of earl".[11] However, the Heimskringla states specifically that Sigurd was the first Earl of Orkney.[15] According to the Orkneyinga Saga, after Sigurd became earl he died in a curious fashion, following a battle with Mâael Brigte of Moray. Sigurd's son Gurthorm ruled for a single winter after this and died childless.[16][17] Rognvald's son Hallad then inherited the title. However, unable to constrain Danish raids on Orkney, he gave up the earldom and returned to Norway, which "everyone thought was a huge joke."[18] Still, there is a tradition among the folk at Strath Halladale, Sutherland, which is named for Hallad, that he returned and was slain in battle at the beginning of the tenth century and was buried near the battle site in a circular trench ten or twelve feet wide. His sword, it is said, was placed beside him in the grave, and a stone was placed in the center of the circle, part of which was still visible at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The site was near a little town called Dal Halladha, Halladha's field.[19]

A page from the Orkneyinga saga, as it appears in the 14th century Flateyjarbâok. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6a/Flatey_Book%2C_Orkneyinga_saga.jpg/220px-Flatey_Book%2C_Orkneyinga_saga.jpg
The Danish raids caused Rognvald to fly into a rage and summon his sons Thorir and Hrolluag. He predicted that Thorir's path would keep him in Norway and that Hrolluag was destined seek his fortune in Iceland. Turf-Einar, the youngest, then came forward and offered to go to the islands. Rognvald said: "Considering the kind of mother you have, slave-born on each side of her family, you are not likely to make much of a ruler. But I agree, the sooner you leave and the later you return the happier I'll be."[20] His father's misgivings notwithstanding, Torf-Einarr succeeded in defeating the Danes and founded a dynasty which retained control of the islands for centuries after his death.[21]

Historia Norvegiae includes some questionable details about pre-Viking Orkney - such as an account of the Picts as a small people who hid in the daytime - as well as the foundation of the Orkney earldom,.

In the days of Harald Fairhair, king of Norway, certain pirates, of the family of the most vigorous prince Ronald [Rognvald], set out with a great fleet, and crossed the Solundic sea..., and subdued the islands to themselves. And being there provided with safe winter seats, they went in summer-time working tyranny upon the English, and the Scots, and sometimes also upon the Irish, so that they took under their rule, from England, Northumbria; from Scotland, Caithness; from Ireland, Dublin, and the other sea-side towns.[22]

This account does not specifically associate Rognvald with the earldom, attributing the "dominion" of the islands to the anonymous kinfolk of his son Hrâolfr.[23]

Death and legacy
Rognvald was killed by King Harald's son Halfdan Hêalegg and Gudrod Gleam, who engineered a sudden attack, surrounding the house in which Rognvald was staying, and burned it to the ground with the earl and 60 of his men inside it. Harald "flew into a rage" when he heard about this and sent out a "great force" against Gudrod who was then banished. Halfdan escaped into the western seas and Rognvald's death was later avenged by Torf-Einarr, who killed him on North Ronaldsay and then made peace with Harald. Rognvald's son Thorir was then made Earl of M²re by Harald, who also gave Thorir his daughter Alof in marriage.[24][25][26]

The sagas thus identify Rognvald as the apical figure of the Norse Earls of Orkney who controlled the islands until the early 13th century, and a forerunner of important Icelandic families. Furthermore, through his son Hrolfr, Rognvald is portrayed as an ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy who, following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, became the kings of England.[11]

Modern interpretations
Harald Fairhair and the voyage to the west
Black and white drawing of a snapshot showing shipmasts with flags and warriors marching below. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/Kong-magnus-berrfott-menn.jpg/170px-Kong-magnus-berrfott-menn.jpg
Magnus Barefoot's army in Ireland. Magnus' actions in the west clearly form the basis of the saga narrative about the submission of Orkney and Shetland to Harald Fairhair's fleet.[27]
Rognvald's life occurs within the first eight short chapters within the Orkneyinga saga and it is clear that in this early period it contains generally less detail and historical accuracy than in the later events it describes.[28] Recorded in the 13th century, the sagas are informed by Norwegian politics of the day.

Harald Fairhair's supposed expeditions to the west, recounted by Snorri Sturluson in Heimskringla are no longer accepted as historical realities by many modern historians, including Thomson.[3] Later (mid-13th century) rivalry between the Norwegians and the Kings of the Scots over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man are seen to have driven Sturluson's account.[29] At least in part, the sagas aim to legitimise Norwegian claims to both the Northern Isles and the Kingdom of the Isles in the west.[27] The situation faced by Earl Harald Maddadsson of Orkney in 1195, when he was forced to submit himself to royal authority after an ill-judged intervention in Norwegian affairs, would have made legendary material of this nature of considerable interest in Orkney, at the time that the sagas were written.[30]

It is also clear that elements in the narrative are drawn from the much later expeditions undertaken by Magnus Barefoot.[27]

Nonetheless, the view that the Orkney earldom was created by "members of the M²re family" continues to receive academic support.[31]

Harald Fairhair's victory in the Battle of Hafrsfjord, which gave him dominion over parts of Norway, is traditionally dated to 872, but was probably later, perhaps as late as 900.[32] What little is known of Scottish events in the period from the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba would correspond equally well with Harald's attacks on Scotland in the reign of Domnall mac Causantâin (ruled 889-900).[33] However, this would not correspond with the sequence in the earliest account of the origins of the Orkney earldom, which places this a generation earlier. The entry in the Fragmentary Annals at an early date also makes it difficult to reconcile the saga claims that Harald Fairhair was involved in Rognvald's conquest of the northern isles.

The monument at Haraldshaugen, erected to celebrate the millennial anniversary of Norway's unification under the rule of King Harald Fairhair after the Battle of Hafrsfjord. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Haraldshaugen.JPG/220px-Haraldshaugen.JPG
Other saga material provides an alternative description. In the Eyrbyggja saga the same story of a great expedition to punish unruly Vikings who were raiding Norway is undertaken, but here it is Ketil flatnefr (Ketil Flatnose) who leads it. Although this is apparently done at Harald's behest, Ketil then claims the islands as his own. Once again, the chronology is flawed by Harald's inclusion in the tale as other information provided about Ketil gives him a floruit of the mid, rather than late, 9th century.[3]

Furthermore, contemporary Irish sources have a great deal to say about Viking raids on the coasts of Ireland and southern Scotland and those who led them, but none mention King Harald. The earliest of the large expeditions again belong to a period-the 840s-that pre-dates the time of Harald's kingship.[34]

Smyth (1984) credits the launching of the great voyage to the west to Olaf the White, whom he provides with a royal Vestfold origin along with various military activities in Scotland and for whom, assuming an identification of Olaf with Amlaib "Conung" the King of Dublin, there is a contemporary Irish reference dating to 853.[35] Icelandic sources also have Olaf marrying Aud the Deep-Minded, Ketil flatnefr's daughter, and the ''Annals of Ulster'' record what may be dynastic in-fighting between Olaf and his father-in-law in 857.[36][Note 1]

Founding of the earldom of Orkney
By implication the Orkneyinga saga identifies Rognvald as the founder of the earldom, although Heimskringla has his brother Sigurd as the first to formally hold the title. Other sources are less specific (see above) and the sagas have been interpreted in various other ways. Smyth (1984), having banished King Harald's role in the voyage to the west to the realms of myth concludes that the role of the brothers Eysteinsson can be similarly so dispatched and that Torf-Einarr "may be regarded as the first historical earl of Orkney".[38]

Drawing on Adam of Bremen's assertion that Orkney was not conquered until the time of Harald Hardrada, who ruled Norway from 1043-66, Woolf (2007) speculates that Sigurd "the Stout" Hlodvirsson, Torf-Einarr's great-grandson, may have been the first Earl of Orkney [39]

Rognvald's brother and sons

Orkney and Shetland at centre, in relation to nearby territories https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/45/Shetland_and_surrounding_lands.png/220px-Shetland_and_surrounding_lands.png
The notion that Rognvald could hand over his Northern Isles estates to his brother has been interpreted in various ways. For example, it may be that he was aware of ongoing Viking raiding in the area and considered the gift from the king as a mixed blessing.[40] This is also one of a number of instances in which the writer of the Orkneyinga saga attempts to reconcile the conflicting themes of independence from Norway (Rognvald gifts the islands to Sigurd) and dependence on royal authority (Harald formalises the process by confirming Sigurd as earl).[41] Beuermann (2011) speculates that Rognvald's transfer of power to his brother may have been an attempt by the saga writers to imply that the Orkney earldom had more independence from Norway than that of M²re[42] and that Rognvald's holdings in Caithness may have allowed for an even greater degree of freedom of action. Such implications are more likely to be rooted in the writer's interest in emphasising Orcadian independence at the time of writing rather than the 9th/10th century events they purport to describe.[43]

After Hallad's failure in Orkney there is a dialogue between father and sons that has been interpreted as being about Rognvald's desire to cement his own position as Earl of M²re and an allusion to the early history of Iceland, where the sagas were written. Thorir is a compliant son who Rognvald is happy to keep at home. Hrolluag is portrayed as a man of peace who will go to Iceland. Einarr is aggressive and a threat to his father's position so can be spared for the dangers of Orkney.[44] In the Landnâamabâok version the equally aggressive Hrolfr is also present, and his destiny is anticipated to be in conveniently far-away Normandy.[45][Note 2]

Similarities to Ragnall ua Ímair
Alex Woolf suggests that saga authors may have synthesised elements of the life of Ragnall ua Ímair, a later figure, into the figure of Rognvald Eysteinsson of M²re. Ragnall ua Ímair, who was active between 914 and 921 in the Irish Sea region, was a grandson of Ímar, the "king of the Northmen of all Britain and Ireland", whose death is recorded in the Annals of Ulster in 873.[46]

There are at least two major similarities between the two figures include: both are grandsons of an Ímar/Ivarr and; like Rognvald, a close relative of Ragnall named Ímar was killed in battle in Scotland (Ímar ua Ímair, d. 904).[47]

Broad themes
There are several recurring themes in the Orkneyinga saga, including strife between brothers, relationships between the jarls and the Norwegian crown, and raiding in the Hebrides,[48] all of which are touched on during the saga's coverage of Rognvald's life and times. In part, the saga's purpose was to "explore such social and psychological tensions as these in the history of the people of Orkney, and to help them understand themselves through a knowledge of their origins".[49]

References
Notes
More controversially, Smyth also identifies Olaf the White with Olaf Geirstad-Alf, a legendary Norwegian king of the House of Yngling - a suggestion dismissed by Ó Corrâain (1979).[37]
In the Heimskringla Hrolfr is banished by King Harald.[12]
Footnotes
Muir (2005) Preface: Genealogical table of the Earls of Orkney.
Woolf (2007) p. 242
Thomson (2008) p. 25
Radner (1999) p. 322-23
Anderson (1990) p. 296; Annals of Ulster, s.a. 865.
Thomson (2008) p. 22
Phelpstead (2001) p. xvi
Phelpstead (2001) p. ix, quoting Inger Ekrem.
Crawford (1987) pp. 53-54
Orkneyinga saga (1981) Chapter 3 - "The Sea-Kings" p. 25-26
Orkneyinga saga (1981) Chapter 4 - " To Shetland and Orkney" pp. 26-27
Saga of Harald Fairhair Chapter 24 - Rolf Ganger Driven Into Banishment.
Saga of Harald Fairhair, cc. 4 & 23
Anderson (1990) pp. 332-334; Saga of Harald Fairhair Chapter 22- King Harald's Voyage To The West.
Heimskringla. "Chapter 99 - History Of The Earls Of Orkney".
Thomson (2008) p. 28.
Orkneyinga saga (1981) Chapter 5 - "A poisoned tooth" pp. 27-28
Thomson (2008) p. 30 quoting chapter 5 of the Orkneyinga saga.
Pinkerton, John (1809). A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages and in All Parts of the World, Vol. 3. London. p. 152. Retrieved 15 April 2017.
Orkneyinga saga (1981) Chapter 6 - "Forecasts" pp. 28-29.
Thomson (2008) p. 29
Anderson (1990) pp. 330-331
Phelpstead (2001) p. 9
Saga of Harald Fairhair, cc. 29-30
Orkneyinga saga (1981) Chapter 8 - "Troublemakers from Norway" pp. 29-33
Heimskringla. "Harald Harfager's Saga, Part 30 - Earl Ragnvald Burnt In His House".
Thomson (2008) p. 27
Pâalsson and Edwards (1981) "Introduction" p. 11
Crawford (1987) pp. 52-53.
Thomson (2008) pp. 27-28
Helle, Knut (2006) "Earls of Orkney": The Vikings and Scotland - Impact and Influence, Royal Society of Edinburgh Conference 22-26 September 2006. Edinburgh (Rapporteur: Andrew Heald); retrieved 27 January 2014.
Crawford (1987) p. 55-56.
Anderson (1990) pp. 395-396.
Thomson (2008) p. 26
Smyth (1984) pp. 152-53
Smyth (1984) p. 156
Ó Corrâain (1979) p. 298
Smyth (1984) p. 153
Woolf (2007) p. 307
Muir (2005) p. 6
Thomson (2008) p. 31
Beuermann (2011) p. 120
Beuermann (2011) p. 121
Pâalsson and Edwards (1981) "Introduction" p. 13
Pâalsson and Edwards (1981) "Introduction" p. 14
Ó Corrâain (1998) p. 37
Woolf (2007) pp. 300-303
Pâalsson and Edwards (1981) "Introduction" pp. 15-16
Pâalsson and Edwards (1981) "Introduction" p. 19
General references
Anderson, Alan Orr (1990) Early Sources of Scottish History A.D 500-1286, volume 1. Reprinted with corrections. Paul Watkins, Stamford. ISBN 1-871615-03-8
Beuermann, Ian "Jarla Sogur Orkneyja. Status and power of the earls of Orkney according to their sagas" in Steinsland, Gro; Sigurºsson, Jâon Viºar; Rekda, Jan Erik and Beuermann, Ian (eds) (2011) Ideology and power in the viking and middle ages: Scandinavia, Iceland, Ireland, Orkney and the Faeroes . The Northern World: North Europe and the Baltic c. 400-1700 A.D. Peoples, Economics and Cultures. 52. Leiden. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-20506-2
Crawford, Barbara (1987) Scandinavian Scotland. Leicester University Press, Leicester. ISBN 0-7185-1282-0
Muir, Tom (2005) Orkney in the Sagas: The Story of the Earldom of Orkney as told in the Icelandic Sagas. The Orcadian. Kirkwall. ISBN 0954886232.
Ó Corrâain, Donnchadh (Mar 1979) "High-Kings, Vikings and Other Kings". Irish Historical Studies 22 No. 83 pp. 283-323. Irish Historical Studies Publications.
Ó Corrâain, Donnchadh (1998) Vikings in Ireland and Scotland in the Ninth Century CELT. Retrieved 21 January 2014.
Pâalsson, Hermann and Edwards, Paul Geoffrey (1981). Orkneyinga Saga: The History of the Earls of Orkney. Penguin Classics. ISBN 0-14-044383-5
Phelpstead, Karl (ed) (2001) A History of Norway and The Passion and Miracles of the Blessed Ólâafr. (pdf) Translated by Devar Kunin. Viking Society for Northern Research Text Series. XIII. University of London.
Radner, Joan N. (editor and translator). "Fragmentary Annals of Ireland". CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts. University College Cork. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
Radner, Joan N. (1999) "Writing history: Early Irish historiography and the significance of form" (PDF), Celtica. 23, pp. 312-325.
Smyth, Alfred P. (1984) Warlords and Holy Men: Scotland AD 80-1000. Edinburgh University Press. Edinburgh. ISBN 0-7486-0100-7
Sturluson, Snorri (1992) Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway, translated Lee M. Hollander. Reprinted University of Texas Press, Austin. ISBN 0-292-73061-6
Sturlson, Snorri Heimskringla. Wisdom Library ;retrieved 21 January 2014.
Thomson, William P. L. (2008) The New History of Orkney. Edinburgh. Birlinn. ISBN 978-1-84158-696-0
Woolf, Alex (2007) From Pictland to Alba, 789-1070. Edinburgh. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-1234-5

end of this biography

Ragnvald Eysteinsson, Earl of M²re
Norwegian: Ragnvald Eysteinsson, M²rejarl
Also Known As: "R²gnvald", "Rognvaldr Mœrajarl", "son Eysteins glumru", "den Rêadsnare", "Ragnvald ¢ysteinsson", "Rognvald I Eysteinsson", "Rèognvaldr Mœrajarl"
Birthdate: 825
Birthplace: Vestfold, Norway or, êAre Municipality, Jèamtland County, Sweden
Death: 894 (69)
Giske, M²re og Romsdal, Norway (Norway, Ragnvald, With 60 of His Men, Die In A Longhouse When Two of Harald's Jealous Sons Burned It Down With Them In It)
Place of Burial: Giske, M²re og Romsdal, Norway

Ragnvald is the 37th great grandfather of David Michael Cornett ... http://thehennesseefamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I848&tree=hennessee

Immediate Family:

Ragnvald is the 32nd through the 37th great grandfather to Martha Ann Millsaps

Son of Eystein Ivarsson «the Noisy» Glumra and N.N.
Husband of Ragnhild Hrâolfsdâottir
Partner of NN Frille (Mistress/es) of Ragnvald M²rejarl, mother/s of Torf-Einar, Hrollaug and Hallad
Father of Hallad Ragnvaldsson, Orkneyjarl; Einarr "Turf" Rognvaldsson, Orkneyjarl; Hrollager Rognvaldsson; Hrollaug Ragnvaldsson Eyjafjèorºur, Íslands; Ivar Ragnvaldsson M²rejarl and 3 others
Brother of Sigurd Eysteinsson, I, Jarl of Orkney and Svanhild Eysteinsdotter
Occupation: M²rejarl, Earl of M²re and Romsdal, Earl of More and Romsdal, Earl of More, also "The Wise", Earl of Shetland and Orkney, Count of Maer, Jarl of North and South More and Of Ramsdal, Jarl âa Mµri., Jarl âa Mµri, EARL OF MORE, Earl, Jarl
Managed by: Harald Tveit Alvestrand
Last Updated: January 22, 2019

Immediate Family

NN Frille (Mistress/es) of Ragnv...partner

Hallad Ragnvaldsson, Orkneyjarl, son

Einarr "Turf" Rognvaldsson, Orkn..., son

Hrollager Rognvaldsson, son

Hrollaug Ragnvaldsson Eyjafjèor..., son

Ragnhild Hrâolfsdâottir, wife

Ivar Ragnvaldsson M²rejarl, son

Gange-Hrâolfr 'Rollo' Ragnvaldsson, son

Tore "Teiande" Ragnvaldsson, son

Gutum Ragnvaldson, son

Eystein Ivarsson «the Noisy» G...father

N.N., mother
About Ragnvald Eysteinsson, Earl of M²re
Rognvaldr Mèorejarl, son Eysteins glumru. Earl of M²re and father of Gange-Hrolf Rollo of Normandie.

Basics
Father: Eystein "Glumra" Ivarsson
Mother: Asdis (Ascrida) (undocumented)
Concubines: Names unknown
Son: Hallad
Son: Hrollaug, who settled in Iceland
Son: Torf-Einar, who settled in Orkney
Wife: Ragnhild (also called Hild) Hrolfsdatter
Son: Gange-Rolf, who settled in Normandie
Son: Ivar, killed in battle
Son: Tore Teiande, who became a jarl in Norway
LInks and notes
http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/NORWEGIAN%20NOBILITY.htm#Ragnvalddied894A http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnvald_M%C3%B8rejarl http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnvald_Eysteinsson http://lind.no/nor/index.asp?lang=&emne=nor&person=Ragnvald%20%D8ysteinsson

D²d omkring 892. Han var s²nn av ¢ystein Glumra. Ragnvald var gift med Hild Rolvsdatter. De hadde barna: 1. Gange-Rolv Ragnvaldson av Normandie. F²dt mellom 860 og 866. D²d 931. 2. Tore Teiande Ragnvaldson M²rejarl. F²dt omkring 862. D²d mellom 938 og 940.
I henhold til Orkn²yingenes saga gêar Ragnvalds µtt tilbake til «Heite Gors s²nn var far til Sveide sj²konge, far til Halvdan den gamle, far til Ivar Opplendingejarl, far til ¢ystein Glumra, far til Ragnvald jarl den mektige og den rêadsnare». Den samme sagaen strekker hans µtt tilbake til en mytologisk opprinnelse til skikkelse ved navn Fornjot fra Finland eller Kvenland.

Ragnvald levde pêa Harald Hêarfagres tid, og ble av ham forlenet med Nordm²re, Romsdal og Sundm²re i 865. Han var av sine samtidige h²yt ansett for sin klokskap og ble kalt «den mektige». Det var han som klipte Haralds hêar, som da ikke var klippet pêa 10 êar. ----------------------------- RAGNVALD "the Wise", son of [EYSTEIN "Glumra/Clatterer" Jarl in Norway & his wife ---] (-[894]). Orkneyinga Saga names “Eystein the Clatterer, father of the wise counsellor Earl Rognwald the Powerful…”, adding that “Earl Rognwald campaigned with King Harald Fine-Hair who gave him charge of North More, South More and Romsdale”[141].

Snorre names "Ragnvald Earl of More, a son of Eystein "Glumra" when recording that he had become a supporter of King Harald who had invested him with the districts of North More and Raumsdal[142]. Snorre records that he was created Jarl of North and South Mèore and of Raumsdal in Norway by Harald I "Hêarfagre" King of Norway after his victory at Solskiel [869] against Hunthiof King of Mèore and Nokve King of Raumsdal[143].

Orkneyinga Saga and Snorre both record that King Harald granted Shetland and Orkney to Ragnvald in compensation for the death of his son Ivar[144]. The Historia Norwegie records that "principi Rogwaldi" crossed the Solund Sea, destroyed the peoples of the Orkney islands, in the days of "Haraldi Comati regis…Norwegie"[145].

Orkneyinga Saga records that “Halfdan Long-Leg and Gudrod Gleam, King Harald´s sons by Snµfrid” attacked “Earl Rognvald of More, killed him and assumed his authority”[146].

Snorre records that Ragnvald was ambushed in his hall and burned alive by Halfdan Haaleg and Gudred Liomi, two of King Harald's sons[147].

m [RAGNHILD, daughter of HROLF “Nevja/Nose” & his wife ---. Orkneyinga Saga records that “Earl Rognwald” married “Ragnhild the daughter of Hrolf Nose”[148]. Snorre names "Hild, a daughter of Rolf Nefia" as the wife of "Earl Ragnvald"[149].]

[Ragnvald & his wife had three children:]

1. [IVAR (-killed in battle either Hafrsfiord [872] or Orkney [874]). Orkneyinga Saga names “Ivar and Thorer the Silent” as the two other sons of “Earl Rognwald” and his wife “Ragnhild the daughter of Hrolf Nose”, adding that Ivar was killed in battle fighting with Harald I "Hêarfagre" King of Norway in Scotland[150]. Snorre names "Ivar, a son of Ragnvald Earl of More" when recording his death in battle during a Viking campaign against the Scottish islands[151]. The Complete Peerage dates the appointment of Sigurd (Ivar´s reported paternal uncle) as Jarl of Orkney to [875][152], which means that Ivar must have been killed shortly before this date. However, as explained below this causes considerable chronological difficulties with the reported events in the career of Turf-Einar, Ivar´s youngest illegitimate half-brother, so should be considered as extremely approximate.

2. [ROLLO [Hrolf "Ganger/the Walker"] (-[928]). Orkneyinga Saga names “Hrolf who conquered Normandy” as son of “Earl Rognwald” and his wife “Ragnhild the daughter of Hrolf Nose”, adding that he was so big that no horse could carry him, giving rise to his name “Gèongu-Hrolf”[153]. Snorre names "Rolf and Thorer" as the two sons of "Earl Ragnvald" and his wife Hild, recording that Rolf was banished from Norway by King Harald and travelled to the Hebrides, settling first in Orkney before moving southwards through Scotland, and eventually conquering Normandy[154]. The Historia Norwegie records that, after Orkney was conquered by "principi Rogwaldi" and his followers, "de quorum collegio…Rodulfus" captured Rouen in Normandy, commenting that he was known as "Gongurolfr" because he was obliged to walk as he was too large to travel on horseback[155]. This source makes no reference to any blood relationship between Rollo and "principi Rogwaldi". According to Dudo of Saint-Quentin, Rollo arrived in northern France in 876[156], although there is some debate about [900] being a more likely date[157]. William of Jumiáeges records that Rollo was chosen by lot to be leader of the Viking colonists[158]. Viking raids intensified in northern France. Although they were defeated after raiding Chartres [911], Charles III "le Simple" King of the West Franks granted the Normans land around Rouen in which to settle[159]. The uncertain nature of the demise was the source of future problems between the French crown, which claimed that it was an enfeofment for which the ruler owed allegiance, and the later Dukes of Normandy who claimed it was an unconditional allod for which no allegiance was owed. A charter dated 14 Mar 918 which granted land to the monastery of Saint-Germain-des-Prâes "except that part…which we have granted to the Normans of the Seine, namely to Rollo and his companions"[160]. He was later known as ROBERT I Comte [de Normandie].]

3. [THORE Ragnvaldsson "Tause/the Silent". Orkneyinga Saga names “Ivar and Thorer the Silent” as the two other sons of “Earl Rognwald” and his wife “Ragnhild the daughter of Hrolf Nose”[161]. Snorre names "Rolf and Thorer" as the two sons of "Earl Ragnvald" and his wife Hild[162]. He succeeded his father in [894] as Jarl of Mèore, having dispossessed Gudrod "Ljome", son of King Harald, who had seized Mèore on the death of Jarl Ragnvald[163].

m ([890]) ALOF "Aarbod/Season-bettering", daughter of HARALD I "Hêarfagre/Harfagri/Fairhair" King of Norway & his second wife Gyda of Hordaland. Snorre records that King Harald gave Jarl Thore his daughter "Alof, called Arbot" after the king confirmed him as Jarl of Mèore[164].] [Thore & his wife had one child:]

a) [BERGLJOT Thoresdatter. The Historia Norwegie names "Bergliota filia Thoris Tacentis", from "nobilissima Morensium ac Halogensium comitum prosapia", as the wife of "Siwardo"[165]. Snorre names "Bergljot, a daughter of Earl Thorer the Silent" & his wife as the wife of Sigurd[166].

m SIGURD Jarl, son of HAAKON Grjotgardson Jarl of Haalogaland & his wife -- (-murdered Oglo 962).]

[Ragnvald had three illegitimate children by unknown mistresses:]

4. [HALLAD . Orkneyinga Saga names “Hallad, Hrollaug and the youngest Einar” as “natural sons” of “Earl Rognwald”[167]. Snorre names "Hallad, the second Einar, the third Hrollaug" as the three sons of "Earl Ragnvald" by concubines, adding that they were all "grown men" when their legitimate brothers were still children[168]. Orkneyinga Saga records that Ragnvald sent “his son Hallad west to the islands” after hearing of the death of his brother and nephew, and that Harald I "Hêarfagre" King of Norway gave “the title of earl” to Hallad who “came to Orkney and took up residence on Mainland”[169]. Snorre records that Earl Ragnvald installed his son Hallad as Jarl of Orkney after the death of his brother Sigurd, but that he resigned the earldom and returned to Norway[170]. Orkneyinga Saga records that, following complaints by farmers about Viking raids, Hallad “tiring of his rule, gave up the earldom and went back to Norway as a common landholder” which “made him a laughing stock”[171].

5. [HROLLAUG . Orkneyinga Saga names “Hallad, Hrollaug and the youngest Einar” as “natural sons” of “Earl Rognwald”[172]. Snorre names "Hallad, the second Einar, the third Hrollaug" as the three sons of "Earl Ragnvald" by concubines, adding that they were all "grown men" when their legitimate brothers were still children[173].

Orkneyinga Saga records that Ragnvald told his son Hrollaug that “your fate will take you to Iceland [where] you´ll have plenty of descendants”[174]. His alleged descendants in Iceland shown below are as stated in Thorstein Side-Hallum's Saga and Flatey-book's St Olaf's Saga[175] but the accuracy of this information, which has not been corroborated in other sources, is unknown. m ---. The name of Hrollaug´s wife is not known.] [Hrollaug & his wife had one child:]

a) [JON Ozur . m ---. The name of Jon´s wife is not known.] [Jon & his wife had one child:]

i) [THOREY . m ---. The name of Thorey´s wife is not known.] [Thorey & his wife had one child:]

(a) [HALL of Sida . m ---. The name of Hall´s wife is not known.] [Hall & his wife had two children:]

(1) [THORSTEIN . Aged 20 at the battle of Clontarf 1014.

(2) [THORDIS . Orkneyinga Saga records that “the mother of…Ospak was Thordis, daughter of Hall of Sida”[176]. m ---. The name of Thordis´s husband is not known.] Thordis & her husband had one child:

a. USPAK . Orkneyinga Saga records that “Earl Erlend Thorfinnson” married “Thora, the daughter of Sumarlidi Ospaksson”, adding that “the mother of…Ospak was Thordis, daughter of Hall of Sida”[177]. m ---. The name of Uspak´s wife is not known. Uspak & his wife had one child:

(i) SOMERLED . Orkneyinga Saga records that “Earl Erlend Thorfinnson” married “Thora, the daughter of Sumarlidi Ospaksson”[178]. m ---. The name of Somerled´s wife is not known. Somerled & his wife had one child:

(a) THORA . Orkneyinga Saga records that “Earl Erlend Thorfinnson” married “Thora, the daughter of Sumarlidi Ospaksson”, adding that “the mother of this Ospak was Thordis, daughter of Hall of Sida”[179]. Orkneyinga Saga records that “his mother was married…to a man called Sigurd” when her son Magnus returned to Orkney, adding that she and her second husband had a son “Hakon Karl…[and] a farm at Paplay”[180]. m firstly ERLEND Thorfinsson Jarl of Orkney, son of THORFINN "the Black" Jarl of Orkney & his wife Ingibjèorg Finnsdatter (-in prison Nidaros 1098, bur Nidaros). m secondly SIGURD of Paplay .

b) [HALLBERA . m ASBIORN, son of HRAFUNKEL of Steinrodar-Stadir in Iceland.]

6. [EINAR "Turf-Einar” . Orkneyinga Saga names “Hallad, Hrollaug and the youngest Einar” as “natural sons” of “Earl Rognwald”[181]. Snorre names "Hallad, the second Einar, the third Hrollaug" as the three sons of "Earl Ragnvald" by concubines, adding that they were all "grown men" when their legitimate brothers were still children[182].

Orkneyinga Saga records that Ragnvald sent his “youngest son Einar” to “the islands” after his brother Hallad returned to Norway and that Harald I "Hêarfagre" King of Norway gave “the title of earl”, adding that his mother was “slave-born on each side of her family”, and stating that he killed “Thorir Tree-Beard and Kalf Scurvy” and succeeded in imposing his authority in Orkney where “he was the first man to dig peat for fuel…at Tarbat Ness in Scotland”, and that he “was tall and ugly…and…one-eyed”[183]. It should be noted that there are considerable chronological difficulties with the career of Turf-Einar and his sons, as reported in Orkneyinga Saga.

The starting point for the analysis of these problems is the date of the battle in Northumbria in which Turf-Einar´s two oldest sons were killed, which can with reasonable accuracy be placed in the early 950s. If these two sons were at least in their late thirties or forties when they died (a difficult assumption to make considering that they had no reported direct heirs), their births could not be placed before [905/15] at the earliest. The likelihood would then be that their father, Turf-Einar, was not born much earlier than [975/95]. The difficulty is that this date is completely incompatible with (a) the fact that the illegitimate sons of Ragnvald were reported as “grown men” when their legitimate half-brothers were children, and (b) that the date when Ivar, the oldest legitimate son, was killed is estimated to [874].

----------------------------- Snorre Sturlason: Harald Hêarfagres saga: «10. ... Ragnvald M²rejarl, s²nn til ¢ystein Glumra, var blitt kong Haralds mann da om sommeren. Kong Harald satte ham til h²vding over disse to fylkene, Nordm²re og Romsdal, og ga ham rett til hjelp bêade av stormenn og b²nder, likesêa skip nok til êa verge landet for ufred. Han ble kalt Ragnvald jarl den mektige eller den rêadsnare, og de sier at begge navnene var sanne. Kong Harald var i Trondheimen vinteren som fulgte.»

«23. Kong Harald var i gjestebud pêa M²re hos Ragnvald jarl; da hadde han lagt hele landet under seg. Da gikk kongen i bad der. Og nêa lot kong Harald hêaret sitt greie, og Ragnvald jarl skar hêaret hans; da hadde det ikke vµrt skêaret eller kjemmet pêa ti êar. F²r kalte de ham Harald Luva, men nêa ga Ragnvald jarl ham nytt navn, og kalte ham Harald Hêarfagre. Alle som sêa ham, sa at det var virkelig et sant navn, for han hadde et hêar som var bêade stort og vakkert.»

Ragnvald ble innebrent pêa sin gêard sammen med 60 mann av Halvdan Hêalegg og Gudr²d Ljome, to av Haralds s²nner, som vill vµre jarler over M²re. 1)

1). Snorre Sturlason: Harald Hêarfagres saga, avsnitt 10, 23-24. Snorre Sturlason: Olav den helliges saga, avsnitt 96. Mogens Bugge: Vêare forfedre, nr. 278. Bent og Vidar Billing Hansen: Rosensverdslektens forfedre, side 50, 76. ----------------------------------------------- Ragnvald's life is described by Snorri Sturluson in The Saga of Harald Hêarfagre (Fairhair): http://lind.no/nor/index.asp?lang=no&emne=asatru&person=&list=&vis=s_e_harald_harfagre#43 --------------------------------------- About the name Ragnvald in various versions: http://www.nordicnames.de/pojk_r/Ragnvald.html

Ragnvald ¢ysteinsson M²rejarl (norr²nt Rèognvaldr Mœrajarl) (circa 830 - 892) var en jarl pêa nordvestlandet i Norge pêa midten av 800-tallet, tilsvarende det omrêadet som i dag heter M²re og Romsdal.
Ragnvalds µtt Ragnvald var s²nn av ¢ystein Ivarsson som ble kalt for ¢ystein Glumra. I henhold til Orkn²yingenes saga gêar Ragnvalds µtt tilbake til «Heite Gors s²nn var far til Sveide sj²konge, far til Halvdan den gamle, far til Ivar Opplendingejarl, far til ¢ystein Glumra, far til Ragnvald jarl den mektige og den rêadsnare». Den samme sagaen strekker hans µtt tilbake til en mytologisk opprinnelse til skikkelse ved navn Fornjot fra Finland eller Kvenland.

Snorre Sturlasson skriver i Harald Hêarfagres saga i Heimskringla: «Ragnvald M²rejarl var den kjµreste venn kong Harald hadde, og kongen satte ham h²yt. Ragnvald jarl var gift med Hild, datter til Rolv Nevja; deres s²nner var Rolv og Tore. Ragnvald jarl hadde noen frilles²nner ogsêa; en het Hallad; en annen Einar og en tredje Rollaug; de var voksne da de ektef²dte br²drene deres var barn ennêa. Rolv var en stor viking; han var sêa svµr til vekst at ingen hest kunne bµre ham, derfor gikk han til fots overalt. Han ble kalt for Gange-Rolv. Han herjet ofte i austerveg.»

Ragnvald var sêaledes far til sagnomsuste Gange-Rolf som i sagalitteraturen er blitt identifisert som den nordbo som franskmennene kaller for «Rollo» og som grunnla et jarld²mme i Normandie. Dette har imidlertid aldri blitt historisk dokumentert. Via s²nnen Torv-Einar ble Ragnvalds µtt giftet inn i det skotske kongehuset.

Den rêadsnare If²lge Snorre satte Harald Hêarfagre Ragnvald til êa vµre jarl over Nordm²re og Romsdal (og etter hvert Sunnm²re). Kongen gav ham rett til hjelp av bêade stormenn og b²nder, likesêa skip nok til êa verge landet for ufred. Ragnvald ble ogsêa kalt Ragnvald jarl den mektige eller den rêadsnare, og det ble sagt at begge navnene var sanne.

Kongen skal ha betraktet Ragnvald som en av sine viktigste menn og legenden sier at Ragnvald var den som klippet kongens hêar da han etter ti êar var blitt konge over alle i Norge. F²r ble kongen kalt for «Harald Luva» (Lurvehode), men etter at hêaret var skêaret, ga Ragnvald ham et nytt navn, «Hêarfagre».

Orkn²yene Snorre forteller at Ragnvald sendte s²nnen Hallad vestover etter at broren Sigurd var blitt drept, men han ble sêa plaget av vikinger og ransmenn at han ble lei og kom tilbake. Faren ble da sint og skjelte ham ut for ikke êa ligne pêa forfedrene sine. Den andre s²nnen, Einar, lovte da at han kunne reise til Orkn²yene og aldri komme tilbake til Norge mer. Ragnvald jarl skal da ha sagt at det var like greit om han aldri kom tilbake igjen: «For jeg har ikke st²rre hêap om at dine frender fêar µre av deg, for alle i morsµtta di er trellbêarne».

Ragnvald utstyrte s²nnen med skip og mannskap og lot ham dro vestover hvor han kom i kamp med vikinger og drepte dem. Pêa Orkn²yene ble han kalt for Torv-Einar for han lot skjµre torv som brensel for det vokste ikke trµr der. Han ble jarl pêa Orkn²yene og en mektig mann, en²yd og stygg êa se pêa.

Innebrent Da Harald Hêarfagre tok til êa eldes ble s²nnene hans Halvdan Hêalegg og Gudr²d Ljome stadig mer misforn²yd med at de selv ikke hadde noe rike mens faren hadde innsatt jarler rundt om i fylkene. De besluttet da êa ikke vente mer pêa odelen sin. Snorre skriver at «de dro ut med en stor flokk og kom uventet over Ragnvald M²rejarl, kringsatte huset hans og brente ham inne med seksti mann.»

Da kongen h²rte dette dro han med en stor hµr mot Gudr²d som overga seg og ble sendt til Agder. Kongen innsatte sêa Tore Teiande, s²nn av Ragnvald M²rejarl, som ny jarl og giftet ham med datteren êAlov. Kongsdatteren ble siden kalt «êArbot». Halvdan Hêalegg dro derimot over til Orkn²yene, kom uventet pêa Torv-Einar som mêatte flykte, men samme h²st kom Torv-Einar tilbake og overrasket Halvdan og fikk ham drept.

Original text: Snorri, Heimskringla, Haralds saga hins hâarfagra: "Rèognvaldr Mœrajarl, son Eysteins glumru, hafºi ¤âa um sumarit gerzt maºr Haralds konungs. Haraldr konungr setti hann hèofºingja yfir ¤essi tvau fylki, Norºmœri ok Raumsdal, ok fâekk honum ¤ar styrk til bµºi af râikismèonnum ok bâondum, svâa ok skipakost at verja landit fyrir âufriºi. Hann var kallaºr Rèognvaldr hinn râiki eºa hinn râaºsvinni, ok segja menn at hvâarrtveggja vµri sannnefni. Haraldr konungr var um vetrinn eptir âi ´râandheimi."
[...]

"12. Brenna Vemundar konungs.

Eptir ¤at lagºi Haraldr konungr undir sik Sunnmœri. Vemundr, brâoºir Auºbjarnar konungs, hâelt Firºafylki ok gerºist konungr yfir. ´etta var sâiºla um haust, ok gera menn ¤at râaº meº Haraldi konungi, at hann skyldi eigi fara suºr um Staº âa haustdegi. ´âa setti Haraldr konungr Rèognvald jarl yfir Mœri hvâaratveggju ok Raumsdal, ok hafºi hann ¤âa um sik mikit fjèolmenni. Haraldr konungr sneri ¤âa norºr aptr til ´râandheims. ´ann sama vetr fâor Rèognvaldr jarl hit iºra um Eiº, ok svâa suºr um Fjèorºu. Hann hafºi njâosn af Vemundi konungi, ok kom um nâott ¤ar sem heitir Naustdalr; Var Vemundr konungr ¤ar âa veizlu. Rèognvaldr jarl tâok hâus âa ¤eim, ok brendi konung inni meº nâiutigi manna. Eptir ¤at kom Berºlukâari til Rèognvalds jarls meº langskip alskipat, ok fâoru ¤eir bâaºir norºr âa Mœri. Tâok Rèognvaldr jarl skip ¤au, er âatt hafºi Vemundr konungr, ok alt lausafâe ¤at er hann fâekk. Berºlukâari fâor norºr til ´râandheims âa fund Haralds konungs ok gerºist hans maºr; hann var berserkr mikill."

Ragnvald Eysteinsson, The Wise (830-890), Earl of Sunnm²re, Nordm²re and Romsdal, was born in Maer Nord-Tr²ndelag, Norway and died at the Orkney Islands.
He was son of Eystein Glumra the Noisy, Earl of Oppland, and grandson of Halfdan the Old.

His second wife was Ragnhild Ragnhild Hrolfsdottir (Raghldr (Hldr) Hrolfsdâottir) daughter of Hrolfr Nefjaa. Ragnvald was the father of Hrolf Ganger, the founder of Normandy. He was also the father of Turf-Einar, the ancestor of the jarls of Orkney.

He was the direct ancestor to William I of England, Edward III of England, James I of England, and, therefore, Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. He is therefore the ancestor of most of the royal families of Europe.

Ragnvald Eystemssèon, allmèant kallad Mèorejarl. norsk storman i 9:de êarh., êatnjèot i hèog grad Harald Hêarfagres fèortroende och styrde sêasom hans jarl Mèorerne (Nord- och Sèondmèore samt Romsdalen). R. blef genom sin ene son. Torv-Einar, stamfader fèor Orkenèo-jarlarna och genom den andre, Gêange-Rolf, stamfader fèor hertigarna af Normandie. Af sina samtida kallades han den »rêadmilde» och den »mèaktige». Trots sin êadagalagda trohet mot konungen èoverfèolls och drèaptes han af dennes sèoner omkr. 890. Y. s.
Frêan Nordisk Familjebok

Rognvald "The Wise" Eysteinsson (son of Eystein Ivarsson) is the founder of the Earldom of Orkney in the Norse Sagas. Three quite different accounts of the creation of the Norse earldom on Orkney and Shetland exist. The best known is that found in the Heimskringla, but other older traditions are found in the Historia Norvegiae and the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland.
The saga accounts are the best known, and the latest, of the three surviving traditions concerning Rognvald and the foundation of the Earldom of Orkney. Recorded in the 13th century, their views are informed by Norwegian politics of the day. Once, historians could write that no-one denied the reality of Harald Fairhair's expeditions to the west recounted in Heimskringla, but this is no longer the case. The Norwegian contest with the Kings of Scots over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man in the middle 13th century underlies the sagas.[1]

In the Heimskringla, Rognvald is Earl of M²re. He accompanies Harald Fairhair on his great expeditions to the west, to Ireland and to Scotland. Here, Rognvald's son Ivarr is killed. In compensation King Harald grants Rognvald Orkney and Shetland. Rognvald himself returns to Norway, giving the northern isles to his brother Sigurd Eysteinsson.[2]

The Heimskringla recounts other tales of Rognvald. It tells how he causes Harald Finehair to be given his byname Fairhair by cutting and dressing his hair, which had been uncut for ten years on account of Harald's vow never to cut it until he was ruler of all Norway,[3] and it makes him the father of Ganger-Hrâolf, identified by saga writers with the Rollo (Hrâolfr), ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy, who was said to have been established as Count of Rouen by King Charles the Simple in 931.[4]

Earl Rognvald is killed by Harald's son Halfdan Hêalegg. Rognvald's death is avenged by his son, Earl Turf-Einar, from whom later Orkney earls claimed descent, who kills Halfdan on North Ronaldsay.[5]

The Historia Norvegiae's account of Rognvald and the foundation of the Orkney earldom is the next oldest, probably dating from the 12th century. This account contains much curious detail on Orkney, including the earliest account of the Picts as small people who hid in the daytime, but it has little to say about Rognvald.

In the days of Harald Fairhair, king of Norway, certain pirates, of the family of the most vigorous prince Ronald [Rognvald], set out with a great fleet, and crossed the Solundic sea..., and subdued the islands to themselves. And being there provided with safe winter seats, they went in summer-time working tyranny upon the English, and the Scots, and sometimes also upon the Irish, so that they took under their rule, from England, Northumbria; from Scotland, Caithness; from Ireland, Dublin, and the other sea-side towns.[6]

This account does not associate Rognvald with the earldom, but instead attributes it to his anonymous kinfolk.

The oldest account of the Rognvald and the earldom of Orkney is that found in the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. The annals survive only in incomplete copies made by Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh in the 17th century, but the original annals are believed to date from the lifetime of Donnchad mac Gilla Pâatraic (died 1039). The annals are known to have had an influence on later writings in Iceland.

The annals make Rognvald the son of "Halfdan, King of Lochlann". This is generally understood to mean Halfdan the Black, which would make the Rognvald of the annals the brother of Harald Finehair. However, the sagas claim that Rognvald's grandfather was named Halfdan.[7]

These events are placed after an account of the devastation of Fortriu, dated to around 866,[8] and the fall of York, reliably dated to late 867. However, such an early date makes it difficult to reconcile the saga claims that Harald Fairhair was involved in Rognvald's conquest of the northern isles.

Harald Finehair's victory in the Battle of Hafrsfjord, which gave him dominion over parts of Norway, is traditionally dated to 872, but was probably later, perhaps as late as 900.[9] What little is known of Scottish events in the period from the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba would correspond equally well with Harald's attacks on Scotland in the reign of Domnall mac Causantâin (ruled 889–900).[10] However, this would not correspond with the sequence in the earliest account of the origins of the Orkney earldom, which places this a generation earlier.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rognvald_Eysteinsson

Ragnvald I 'the Wise' Eysteinsson, Earl of More (1) M, #104777 Last Edited=28 Oct 2002
Ragnvald I 'the Wise' Eysteinsson, Earl of More is the son of Eystein 'the Noisy' Glumra, Jarl of the Uplanders and Ascrida Ragnvaldsdottir. (1) He died circa 890, burnt to death in his house. Ragnvald I 'the Wise' Eysteinsson, Earl of More gained the title of Earl of More. Ragnvald I 'the Wise' Eysteinsson, Earl of More also went by the nick-name of 'The Mighty'.
Children of Ragnvald I 'the Wise' Eysteinsson, Earl of More and Groa (?) -1. Hallad Ragnvaldsson, Earl of Orkney (1) -2. Turf-Einar Ragnvaldsson, Earl of Orkney (1) -3. Hrollaug Ragnvaldsson (1) Children of Ragnvald I 'the Wise' Eysteinsson, Earl of More and Ragnhild Hrolfsdottir -1. Ivar Ragnvaldsson (1) -2. Thori 'the Silent' Ragnvaldsson, Jarl of More+ (1) -3. Rollo Ragnvaldsson, 1st Duc de Normandie+ b. c 846, d. c 931 (1)

Forrâas: http://www.thepeerage.com/p10478.htm#i104777

Rognvald "The Wise" Eysteinsson (son of Eystein Ivarsson) is the founder of the Earldom of Orkney in the Norse Sagas. Three quite different accounts of the creation of the Norse earldom on Orkney and Shetland exist. The best known is that found in the Heimskringla, but other older traditions are found in the Historia Norvegiae and the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland.

Contents [hide] 1 Sagas 2 Historia Norvegiae 3 Fragmentary Annals of Ireland 4 Notes 5 References

[edit] Sagas The saga accounts are the best known, and the latest, of the three surviving traditions concerning Rognvald and the foundation of the Earldom of Orkney. Recorded in the 13th century, their views are informed by Norwegian politics of the day. Once, historians could write that no-one denied the reality of Harald Fairhair's expeditions to the west recounted in Heimskringla, but this is no longer the case. The Norwegian contest with the Kings of Scots over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man in the middle 13th century underlies the sagas.[1]

In the Heimskringla, Rognvald is Earl of M²re. He accompanies Harald Fairhair on his great expeditions to the west, to Ireland and to Scotland. Here, Rognvald's son Ivarr is killed. In compensation King Harald grants Rognvald the Orkneys and Shetlands. Rognvald himself returns to Norway, giving the northern isles to his brother Sigurd Eysteinsson[2]

The Heimskringla recounts other tales of Rognvald. It tells how he causes Harald Finehair to be given his byname Fairhair by cutting and dressing his hair, which had been uncut for ten years on account of Harald's vow never to cut it until he was ruler of all Norway,[3] and it makes him the father of Ganger-Hrâolf, identified by saga writers with the Rollo (Hrâolfr), ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy, who was said to have been established as Count of Rouen by King Charles the Simple in 931.[4]

Earl Rognvald is killed by Harald's son Halfdan Hêalegg. Rognvald's death is avenged by his son, Earl Turf-Einar, from whom later Orkney earls claimed descent, who kills Halfdan on North Ronaldsay.[5]

[edit] Historia Norvegiae The Historia Norvegiae's account of Rognvald and the foundation of the Orkney earldom is the next oldest, probably dating from the 12th century. This account contains much curious detail on Orkney, including the earliest account of the Picts as small people who hid in the daytime, but it has little to say about Rognvald.

In the days of Harald Fairhair, king of Norway, certain pirates, of the family of the most vigorous prince Ronald [Rognvald], set out with a great fleet, and crossed the Solundic sea..., and subdued the islands to themselves. And being there provided with safe winter seats, they went in summer-time working tyranny upon the English, and the Scots, and sometimes also upon the Irish, so that they took under their rule, from England, Northumbria; from Scotland, Caithness; from Ireland, Dublin, and the other sea-side towns.[6]

This account does not associate Rognvald with the earldom, but instead attributes it to his anonymous sons.

[edit] Fragmentary Annals of Ireland ...for it was not long before this that there had been every war and every trouble in Norway, and this was the source of that war in Norway: two younger sons of Albdan, king of Norway, drove out the eldest son, i.e. Ragnall son of Albdan, for fear that he would seize the kingship of Norway after their father. So Ragnall came with his three sons to the Orkneys. Ragnall stayed there then, with his youngest son. Fragmentary Annals of Ireland , FA 330. Edited and translated by Joan N. Radnor. The oldest account of the Rognvald and the earldom of Orkney is that found in the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. The annals survive only in incomplete copies made by Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh in the 17th century, but the original annals are believed to date from the lifetime of Donnchad mac Gilla Patrâaic (died 1039). The annals are known to have had an influence on later writings in Iceland.

The annals make Rognvald the son of "Halfdan, King of Lochlann". This is generally understood to mean Halfdan the Black, which would make the Rognvald of the annals the brother of Harald Finehair. However, the sagas claim that Rognvald's grandfather was named Halfdan.[7]

These events are placed after an account of the devastation of Fortriu, dated to around 866,[8] and the fall of York, reliably dated to late 867. However, such an early date makes it difficult to reconcile the saga claims that Harald Fairhair was involved in Rognvald's conquest of the northern isles.

Harald Finehair's victory in the Battle of Hafrsfjord, which gave him dominion over parts of Norway, is traditionally dated to 872, but was probably later, perhaps as late as 900.[9] What little is known of Scottish events in the period from the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba would correspond equally well with Harald's attacks on Scotland in the reign of Domnall mac Causantâin (ruled 889–900).[10] However, this would not correspond with the sequence in the earliest account of the origins of the Orkney earldom, which places this a generation earlier.

[edit] Notes ^ Crawford, pp. 52–53. ^ Anderson, pp. 332–334; Saga of Harald Fairhair, c. 22. ^ Saga of Harald Fairhair, cc. 4 & 23. ^ Saga of Harald Fairhair, c. 24. ^ Saga of Harald Fairhair, cc. 29–30. ^ Anderson, pp. 330–331. ^ Crawford, pp. 53–54. ^ Anderson, p. 296; Annals of Ulster, s.a. 865. ^ Crawford, p. 55–56. ^ Anderson, pp. 395–396.

[edit] References Anderson, Alan Orr. Early Sources of Scottish History A.D 500–1286, volume 1. Reprinted with corrections. Paul Watkins, Stamford, 1990. ISBN 1-871615-03-8 Crawford, Barbara. Scandinavian Scotland. Leicester University Press, Leicester, 1987. ISBN 0-7185-1282-0 Ó Corrain, Donnchad. "The Vikings in Scotland and Ireland in the Ninth Century", Peritia, vol 12, pp296–339. (etext (pdf) Radner, Joan N. (editor and translator). Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts. University College Cork. Retrieved on 2007-03-10. Radner, Joan N. "Writing history: Early Irish historiography and the significance of form", Celtica, volume 23, pp. 312–325. (etext (pdf)) Smyth, Alfred P. Warlords and Holy Men: Scotland AD 80–1000. Reprinted, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1998. ISBN 0-7486-0100-7 Sturluson, Snorri. Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway, translated Lee M. Hollander. Reprinted University of Texas Press, Austin, 1992. ISBN 0-292-73061-6

Ragnvald ¢ysteinsson M²rejarl (norr²nt Rèognvaldr Mœrajarl) (circa 830 - 892) var en jarl pêa nordvestlandet i Norge pêa midten av 800-tallet, tilsvarende det omrêadet som i dag heter M²re og Romsdal.
Innhold [skjul] 1 Ragnvalds µtt 2 Den rêadsnare 3 Orkn²yene 4 Innebrent

[rediger] Ragnvalds µtt Ragnvald var s²nn av ¢ystein Ivarsson som ble kalt for ¢ystein Glumra. I henhold til Orkn²yingenes saga gêar Ragnvalds µtt tilbake til «Heite Gors s²nn var far til Sveide sj²konge, far til Halvdan den gamle, far til Ivar Opplendingejarl, far til ¢ystein Glumra, far til Ragnvald jarl den mektige og den rêadsnare». Den samme sagaen strekker hans µtt tilbake til en mytologisk opprinnelse til skikkelse ved navn Fornjot fra Finland eller Kvenland.

Snorre Sturlasson skriver i Harald Hêarfagres saga i Heimskringla: «Ragnvald M²rejarl var den kjµreste venn kong Harald hadde, og kongen satte ham h²yt. Ragnvald jarl var gift med Hild, datter til Rolv Nevja; deres s²nner var Rolv og Tore. Ragnvald jarl hadde noen frilles²nner ogsêa; en het Hallad; en annen Einar og en tredje Rollaug; de var voksne da de ektef²dte br²drene deres var barn ennêa. Rolv var en stor viking; han var sêa svµr til vekst at ingen hest kunne bµre ham, derfor gikk han til fots overalt. Han ble kalt for Gange-Rolv. Han herjet ofte i austerveg.»

Ragnvald var sêaledes far til sagnomsuste Gange-Rolf som i sagalitteraturen er blitt identifisert som den nordbo som franskmennene kaller for «Rollo» og som grunnla et jarld²mme i Normandie. Dette har imidlertid aldri blitt historisk dokumentert. Via s²nnen Torv-Einar ble Ragnvalds µtt giftet inn i det skotske kongehuset.

[rediger] Den rêadsnare If²lge Snorre satte Harald Hêarfagre Ragnvald til êa vµre jarl over Nordm²re og Romsdal (og etter hvert Sunnm²re). Kongen gav ham rett til hjelp av bêade stormenn og b²nder, likesêa skip nok til êa verge landet for ufred. Ragnvald ble ogsêa kalt Ragnvald jarl den mektige eller den rêadsnare, og det ble sagt at begge navnene var sanne.

Kongen skal ha betraktet Ragnvald som en av sine viktigste menn og legenden sier at Ragnvald var den som klippet kongens hêar da han etter ti êar var blitt konge over alle i Norge. F²r ble kongen kalt for «Harald Luva» (Lurvehode), men etter at hêaret var skêaret, ga Ragnvald ham et nytt navn, «Hêarfagre».

[rediger] Orkn²yene Snorre forteller at Ragnvald sendte s²nnen Hallad vestover etter at broren Sigurd var blitt drept, men han ble sêa plaget av vikinger og ransmenn at han ble lei og kom tilbake. Faren ble da sint og skjelte ham ut for ikke êa ligne pêa forfedrene sine. Den andre s²nnen, Einar, lovte da at han kunne reise til Orkn²yene og aldri komme tilbake til Norge mer. Ragnvald jarl skal da ha sagt at det var like greit om han aldri kom tilbake igjen: «For jeg har ikke st²rre hêap om at dine frender fêar µre av deg, for alle i morsµtta di er trellbêarne».

Ragnvald utstyrte s²nnen med skip og mannskap og lot ham dro vestover hvor han kom i kamp med vikinger og drepte dem. Pêa Orkn²yene ble han kalt for Torv-Einar for han lot skjµre torv som brensel for det vokste ikke trµr der. Han ble jarl pêa Orkn²yene og en mektig mann, en²yd og stygg êa se pêa.

[rediger] Innebrent Da Harald Hêarfagre tok til êa eldes ble s²nnene hans Halvdan Hêalegg og Gudr²d Ljome stadig mer misforn²yd med at de selv ikke hadde noe rike mens faren hadde innsatt jarler rundt om i fylkene. De besluttet da êa ikke vente mer pêa odelen sin. Snorre skriver at «de dro ut med en stor flokk og kom uventet over Ragnvald M²rejarl, kringsatte huset hans og brente ham inne med seksti mann.»

Da kongen h²rte dette dro han med en stor hµr mot Gudr²d som overga seg og ble sendt til Agder. Kongen innsatte sêa Tore Teiande, s²nn av Ragnvald M²rejarl, som ny jarl og giftet ham med datteren êAlov. Kongsdatteren ble siden kalt «êArbot». Halvdan Hêalegg dro derimot over til Orkn²yene, kom uventet pêa Torv-Einar som mêatte flykte, men samme h²st kom Torv-Einar tilbake og overrasket Halvdan og fikk ham drept.

Forgjenger:

- Jarl av M²re
(865–892) Etterf²lger:

Tore Teiande
Hentet fra «http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnvald_M%C3%B8rejarl»

Rognvald Eysteinsson "the Wise" Earl of More (830-) [Pedigree]

Son of Eystein Glumra Ivarsson Jarl of Hedemarken (810-) and Aseda Rognvaldsdottir (812-)

REF RFC. A Norwegian viking. Jarl of More b. ABT 830, Maer, Norway b. Abt 0857 r. Upland, Denmark d. 890, Orkney, Orkney Islands, Scotland d. ABT 890, Maer, Norway
Married first Rognhild (Hildir) Hrolfsdotter (848-892)

Children:

1. Rollo the Dane 1st Duke of Normandy (-927) m(1) Poppa de_Valois Duchess of Norway (872-)
Married second Ermina

Children:

1. Hrollager Rognvaldsson (874-)
Sources:

1. "Royalty for Commoners",

Roderick W. Stuart, 1992, 2nd edition. This book lists all of the known ancestors of John of Gaunt, which amounts to most of the Medieval royalty of Europe. Also see the following article: "A Mediaeval Miscellany: Commentaries on Roderick W. Stuart's Royalty for Commoners," The American Genealogist 69 (April 1994)
2. "Europaische Stammtafeln",

Isenburg.
3. "Plantagenet Ancestry",

Turton.
Ragnvald I Eysteinsson , 1st Earl of Orkne

B: abt 0825 Maer, Nord Trondelag, Norway S: Rognvald Mere-Earl and Ragnvald "the wise" S: abt 0872 as Jarl of More and 1st Earl of Orkney D: 0894 Orkney Islands, Orkney, Scotland M: abt 0852

http://www.geneajourney.com/nrmndy.html
Eystein Glumra, Jarl of the Upplands, b abt 803, of Norway. The identity of his wife is not known. Known children of Eystein Glumra were: • Ragnvald I, the Wise, Jarl of North and South More and of Ramsdal, b abt 832. • Swanhild b abt 846, of Norway. She md Harald I, "Fairhair, 1st King of Norway, abt 866, son of Halfdan, "the Black, King of Vestfold, and Ragnhild. Ragnvald I, "the Wise", Jarl of North and South More and of Ramsdal, b abt 832, Norway, d 890. He md Hiltrude abt 850, daughter of Hrolf Nefia. She was b abt 834. Child of Ragnvald the Wise and Hiltrude was: Rollo/Robert I of Normandy [a], 1st Duke of Normandy, aka Ganger Rolf, b abt 855, Norway, d abt 927-931, prob Normandy, France. He md Poppa of Bayeux abt 886, daughter of Berenger,Count of Bayeux. She was b abt 876.

Ragnvald var jarl i Mèore, Norge, och èar nog inte lika omtalad som flera av sina sèoner. En son èar sannolikt 'Gêange-Rolf', som blev stamfader fèor hertigar och kungar i Normandie, Frankrike, och det engelska kungahuset samt den som skapade hertigdèomet Normandie. En annan son 'Torv-Einar' blev jarl pêa Orkneyèoarna liksom hans broder Hallad. Ragnvald var gift med med Ragnhild Rolfsdotter, men hade ocksêa barn med frillan Groa. Ragnvalds syster Svanhild blev gift med Harald 'Hêarfager'. Ragnvald (Mèorejarl) blev mèordad (innebrèand) av Harald 'Hêarfagers' sèoner Halvdan 'Hêalegg' og Gudrèod 'Ljome'. Jarl, dèod ca 890. Ragnvald var jarl pêa Mèore. Hans far skall ha varit èOystein 'Glumra'. Han levde pêa Harald Hêarfagers tid, och blev av honom fèorlèanad med Nordmèore, Romsdal og Sundmèore êar 865. Han var av sina samtida hèogt ansedd fèor sin klokskap och blev kallad 'den mèaktige'. Det var han som klippte Haralds hêar, som dêa icke varit klippt pêa 10 êar.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kèallor

1) Directory of Royal Genealogical Data, Hull, England
Ragnvald ¢ysteinsson M²rejarl (norr²nt Rèognvaldr Mœrajarl) (circa 830 - 892) var en jarl pêa nordvestlandet i Norge pêa midten av 800-tallet, tilsvarende det omrêadet som i dag heter M²re og Romsdal.

Ragnvald var s²nn av ¢ystein Ivarsson som ble kalt for ¢ystein Glumra. I henhold til Orkn²yingenes saga gêar Ragnvalds µtt tilbake til «Heite Gors s²nn var far til Sveide sj²konge, far til Halvdan den gamle, far til Ivar Opplendingejarl, far til ¢ystein Glumra, far til Ragnvald jarl den mektige og den rêadsnare». Den samme sagaen strekker hans µtt tilbake til en mytologisk opprinnelse til skikkelse ved navn Fornjot fra Finland eller Kvenland.

Snorre Sturlasson skriver i Harald Hêarfagres saga i Heimskringla: «Ragnvald M²rejarl var den kjµreste venn kong Harald hadde, og kongen satte ham h²yt. Ragnvald jarl var gift med Hild, datter til Rolv Nevja; deres s²nner var Rolv og Tore. Ragnvald jarl hadde noen frilles²nner ogsêa; en het Hallad; en annen Einar og en tredje Rollaug; de var voksne da de ektef²dte br²drene deres var barn ennêa. Rolv var en stor viking; han var sêa svµr til vekst at ingen hest kunne bµre ham, derfor gikk han til fots overalt. Han ble kalt for Gange-Rolv. Han herjet ofte i austerveg.»

Ragnvald var sêaledes far til sagnomsuste Gange-Rolf som i sagalitteraturen er blitt identifisert som den nordbo som franskmennene kaller for «Rollo» og som grunnla et jarld²mme i Normandie. Dette har imidlertid aldri blitt historisk dokumentert ettersom kildene spriker i alle retninger, en av dem som stiller seg bak de tidligere nevnte tradisjonene er Jâon Viºar Sigurºsson i boken Norsk Historie 800 - 1300 (Det Norske Samlaget, 1999). Via s²nnen Torv-Einar ble Ragnvalds µtt giftet inn i det skotske kongehuset.

Den rêadsnare

If²lge Snorre satte Harald Hêarfagre Ragnvald til êa vµre jarl over Nordm²re og Romsdal (og etter hvert Sunnm²re). Kongen gav ham rett til hjelp av bêade stormenn og b²nder, likesêa skip nok til êa verge landet for ufred. Ragnvald ble ogsêa kalt Ragnvald jarl den mektige eller den rêadsnare, og det ble sagt at begge navnene var sanne.

Kongen skal ha betraktet Ragnvald som en av sine viktigste menn og legenden sier at Ragnvald var den som klippet kongens hêar da han etter ti êar var blitt konge over alle i Norge. F²r ble kongen kalt for «Harald Luva» (Lurvehode), men etter at hêaret var skêaret, ga Ragnvald ham et nytt navn, «Hêarfagre».

Orkn²yene

Snorre forteller at Ragnvald sendte s²nnen Hallad vestover etter at broren Sigurd var blitt drept, men han ble sêa plaget av vikinger og ransmenn at han ble lei og kom tilbake. Faren ble da sint og skjelte ham ut for ikke êa ligne pêa forfedrene sine. Den andre s²nnen, Einar, lovte da at han kunne reise til Orkn²yene og aldri komme tilbake til Norge mer. Ragnvald jarl skal da ha sagt at det var like greit om han aldri kom tilbake igjen: «For jeg har ikke st²rre hêap om at dine frender fêar µre av deg, for alle i morsµtta di er trellbêarne».

Ragnvald utstyrte s²nnen med skip og mannskap og lot ham dro vestover hvor han kom i kamp med vikinger og drepte dem. Pêa Orkn²yene ble han kalt for Torv-Einar for han lot skjµre torv som brensel for det vokste ikke trµr der. Han ble jarl pêa Orkn²yene og en mektig mann, en²yd og stygg êa se pêa.

Innebrent

Da Harald Hêarfagre tok til êa eldes ble s²nnene hans Halvdan Hêalegg og Gudr²d Ljome stadig mer misforn²yd med at de selv ikke hadde noe rike mens faren hadde innsatt jarler rundt om i fylkene. De besluttet da êa ikke vente mer pêa odelen sin. Snorre skriver at «de dro ut med en stor flokk og kom uventet over Ragnvald M²rejarl, kringsatte huset hans og brente ham inne med seksti mann.»

Da kongen h²rte dette dro han med en stor hµr mot Gudr²d som overga seg og ble sendt til Agder. Kongen innsatte sêa Tore Teiande, s²nn av Ragnvald M²rejarl, som ny jarl og giftet ham med datteren êAlov. Kongsdatteren ble siden kalt «êArbot». Halvdan Hêalegg dro derimot over til Orkn²yene, kom uventet pêa Torv-Einar som mêatte flykte, men samme h²st kom Torv-Einar tilbake og overrasket Halvdan og fikk ham drept.

http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnvald_M%C3%B8rejarl

ROGNVALD I ~
Rognvald , The Wise, Jarl (Earl) of More, Norway, the first Jarl of Orkney and a near relative of King Harold Fairhair.

The house of Rognvald was one of the oldest lines of rulers in Norway.

Rognvald "The Wise" Eysteinsson (son of Eystein Ivarsson) is the founder of the Earldom of Orkney in the Norse Sagas. Three quite different accounts of the creation of the Norse earldom on Orkney and Shetland exist. The best known is that found in the Heimskringla, but other older traditions are found in the Historia Norvegiae and the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland.
The saga accounts are the best known, and the latest, of the three surviving traditions concerning Rognvald and the foundation of the Earldom of Orkney. Recorded in the 13th century, their views are informed by Norwegian politics of the day. Once, historians could write that no-one denied the reality of Harald Fairhair's expeditions to the west recounted in Heimskringla, but this is no longer the case. The Norwegian contest with the Kings of Scots over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man in the middle 13th century underlies the sagas.

In the Heimskringla, Rognvald is Earl of M²re. He accompanies Harald Fairhair on his great expeditions to the west, to Ireland and to Scotland. Here, Rognvald's son Ivarr is killed. In compensation King Harald grants Rognvald Orkney and Shetland. Rognvald himself returns to Norway, giving the northern isles to his brother Sigurd Eysteinsson.

The Heimskringla recounts other tales of Rognvald. It tells how he causes Harald Finehair to be given his byname Fairhair by cutting and dressing his hair, which had been uncut for ten years on account of Harald's vow never to cut it until he was ruler of all Norway, and it makes him the father of Ganger-Hrâolf, identified by saga writers with the Rollo (Hrâolfr), ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy, who was said to have been established as Count of Rouen by King Charles the Simple in 931.

Earl Rognvald is killed by Harald's son Halfdan Hêalegg. Rognvald's death is avenged by his son, Earl Turf-Einar, from whom later Orkney earls claimed descent, who kills Halfdan on North Ronaldsay.

Ragnvald ¢ysteinsson M²rejarl (norr²nt Rèognvaldr Mœrajarl) (circa 830 - 892) var en jarl pêa nordvestlandet i Norge pêa midten av 800-tallet, tilsvarende det omrêadet som i dag heter M²re og Romsdal.
Ragnvald var s²nn av ¢ystein Ivarsson som ble kalt for ¢ystein Glumra. I henhold til Orkn²yingenes saga gêar Ragnvalds µtt tilbake til «Heite Gors s²nn var far til Sveide sj²konge, far til Halvdan den gamle, far til Ivar Opplendingejarl, far til ¢ystein Glumra, far til Ragnvald jarl den mektige og den rêadsnare». Den samme sagaen strekker hans µtt tilbake til en mytologisk opprinnelse til skikkelse ved navn Fornjot fra Finland eller Kvenland.

Snorre Sturlasson skriver i Harald Hêarfagres saga i Heimskringla: «Ragnvald M²rejarl var den kjµreste venn kong Harald hadde, og kongen satte ham h²yt. Ragnvald jarl var gift med Hild, datter til Rolv Nevja; deres s²nner var Rolv og Tore. Ragnvald jarl hadde noen frilles²nner ogsêa; en het Hallad; en annen Einar og en tredje Rollaug; de var voksne da de ektef²dte br²drene deres var barn ennêa. Rolv var en stor viking; han var sêa svµr til vekst at ingen hest kunne bµre ham, derfor gikk han til fots overalt. Han ble kalt for Gange-Rolv. Han herjet ofte i austerveg.»

Ragnvald var sêaledes far til sagnomsuste Gange-Rolf som i sagalitteraturen er blitt identifisert som den nordbo som franskmennene kaller for «Rollo» og som grunnla et jarld²mme i Normandie. Dette har imidlertid aldri blitt historisk dokumentert ettersom kildene spriker i alle retninger, en av dem som stiller seg bak de tidligere nevnte tradisjonene er Jâon Viºar Sigurºsson i boken Norsk Historie 800 - 1300 (Det Norske Samlaget, 1999). Via s²nnen Torv-Einar ble Ragnvalds µtt giftet inn i det skotske kongehuset.

Den rêadsnare

If²lge Snorre satte Harald Hêarfagre Ragnvald til êa vµre jarl over Nordm²re og Romsdal (og etter hvert Sunnm²re). Kongen gav ham rett til hjelp av bêade stormenn og b²nder, likesêa skip nok til êa verge landet for ufred. Ragnvald ble ogsêa kalt Ragnvald jarl den mektige eller den rêadsnare, og det ble sagt at begge navnene var sanne.

Kongen skal ha betraktet Ragnvald som en av sine viktigste menn og legenden sier at Ragnvald var den som klippet kongens hêar da han etter ti êar var blitt konge over alle i Norge. F²r ble kongen kalt for «Harald Luva» (Lurvehode), men etter at hêaret var skêaret, ga Ragnvald ham et nytt navn, «Hêarfagre».

Orkn²yene

Snorre forteller at Ragnvald sendte s²nnen Hallad vestover etter at broren Sigurd var blitt drept, men han ble sêa plaget av vikinger og ransmenn at han ble lei og kom tilbake. Faren ble da sint og skjelte ham ut for ikke êa ligne pêa forfedrene sine. Den andre s²nnen, Einar, lovte da at han kunne reise til Orkn²yene og aldri komme tilbake til Norge mer. Ragnvald jarl skal da ha sagt at det var like greit om han aldri kom tilbake igjen: «For jeg har ikke st²rre hêap om at dine frender fêar µre av deg, for alle i morsµtta di er trellbêarne».

Ragnvald utstyrte s²nnen med skip og mannskap og lot ham dro vestover hvor han kom i kamp med vikinger og drepte dem. Pêa Orkn²yene ble han kalt for Torv-Einar for han lot skjµre torv som brensel for det vokste ikke trµr der. Han ble jarl pêa Orkn²yene og en mektig mann, en²yd og stygg êa se pêa.

Innebrent

Da Harald Hêarfagre tok til êa eldes ble s²nnene hans Halvdan Hêalegg og Gudr²d Ljome stadig mer misforn²yd med at de selv ikke hadde noe rike mens faren hadde innsatt jarler rundt om i fylkene. De besluttet da êa ikke vente mer pêa odelen sin. Snorre skriver at «de dro ut med en stor flokk og kom uventet over Ragnvald M²rejarl, kringsatte huset hans og brente ham inne med seksti mann.»

Da kongen h²rte dette dro han med en stor hµr mot Gudr²d som overga seg og ble sendt til Agder. Kongen innsatte sêa Tore Teiande, s²nn av Ragnvald M²rejarl, som ny jarl og giftet ham med datteren êAlov. Kongsdatteren ble siden kalt «êArbot». Halvdan Hêalegg dro derimot over til Orkn²yene, kom uventet pêa Torv-Einar som mêatte flykte, men samme h²st kom Torv-Einar tilbake og overrasket Halvdan og fikk ham drept.

Also known as Count Regnvald ("the Rich") and as "The Wise", Earl of North and South More, of Raumsdale in Norway.{"Royal Ancestors of Magna Charta Barons," Carr P. Collins, Jr., Dallas, 1959, p.201-02, states that he died about 894. (Rogenwald = Regnvald = Rognald)}

Earl of More/Moer in Norway and Jarl of Orkney and Shetland. He had his name Gallicized to Reginald. He supported King Harold Fairhair in an attempt to unify Norway. Norr: Jarl Rognwald (Rogvald, Raonwald, Regvald, Rouis), created Earl of Moer in 885. Roll: Rognwald, Earl of Maere. Norr: Jarl Rogwald (Raowald, Regvald, Rouis), Earl of Moer 885. Married Hilder. Beyond Rognvald, things get pretty confused. Norr has about 25 generations going back to Oden. RC doesn't agree. But some RC names coming down from RC's Odin agree in the upper portion. But the dates are some 250 years different. RC and Kraentzler agree in taking Rognvald back three more generations. Russell goes way back to Olaf the Sharp-eyed, King of Rerik.

Rognvald Eysteinsson Rognvald "The Wise" Eysteinsson (son of Eystein Ivarsson) is the founder of the Earldom of Orkney in the Norse Sagas. Three quite different accounts of the creation of the Norse earldom on Orkney and Shetland exist. The best known is that found in the Heimskringla, but other older traditions are found in the Historia Norvegiae and the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland.

[edit] Sagas The saga accounts are the best known, and the latest, of the three surviving traditions concerning Rognvald and the foundation of the Earldom of Orkney. Recorded in the 13th century, their views are informed by Norwegian politics of the day. Once, historians could write that no-one denied the reality of Harald Fairhair's expeditions to the west recounted in Heimskringla, but this is no longer the case. The Norwegian contest with the Kings of Scots over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man in the middle 13th century underlies the sagas.[1]

In the Heimskringla, Rognvald is Earl of M²re. He accompanies Harald Fairhair on his great expeditions to the west, to Ireland and to Scotland. Here, Rognvald's son Ivarr is killed. In compensation King Harald grants Rognvald the Orkneys and Shetlands. Rognvald himself returns to Norway, giving the northern isles to his brother Sigurd Eysteinsson[2]

The Heimskringla recounts other tales of Rognvald. It tells how he causes Harald Finehair to be given his byname Fairhair by cutting and dressing his hair, which had been uncut for ten years on account of Harald's vow never to cut it until he was ruler of all Norway,[3] and it makes him the father of Ganger-Hrâolf, identified by saga writers with the Rollo (Hrâolfr), ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy, who was said to have been established as Count of Rouen by King Charles the Simple in 931.[4]

Earl Rognvald is killed by Harald's son Halfdan Hêalegg. Rognvald's death is avenged by his son, Earl Turf-Einar, from whom later Orkney earls claimed descent, who kills Halfdan on North Ronaldsay.[5]

[edit] Historia Norvegiae The Historia Norvegiae's account of Rognvald and the foundation of the Orkney earldom is the next oldest, probably dating from the 12th century. This account contains much curious detail on Orkney, including the earliest account of the Picts as small people who hid in the daytime, but it has little to say about Rognvald.

In the days of Harald Fairhair, king of Norway, certain pirates, of the family of the most vigorous prince Ronald [Rognvald], set out with a great fleet, and crossed the Solundic sea..., and subdued the islands to themselves. And being there provided with safe winter seats, they went in summer-time working tyranny upon the English, and the Scots, and sometimes also upon the Irish, so that they took under their rule, from England, Northumbria; from Scotland, Caithness; from Ireland, Dublin, and the other sea-side towns.[6]

This account does not associate Rognvald with the earldom, but instead attributes it to his anonymous sons.

[edit] Fragmentary Annals of Ireland ...for it was not long before this that there had been every war and every trouble in Norway, and this was the source of that war in Norway: two younger sons of Albdan, king of Norway, drove out the eldest son, i.e. Ragnall son of Albdan, for fear that he would seize the kingship of Norway after their father. So Ragnall came with his three sons to the Orkneys. Ragnall stayed there then, with his youngest son. Fragmentary Annals of Ireland , FA 330. Edited and translated by Joan N. Radnor. The oldest account of the Rognvald and the earldom of Orkney is that found in the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. The annals survive only in incomplete copies made by Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh in the 17th century, but the original annals are believed to date from the lifetime of Donnchad mac Gilla Pâatraic (died 1039). The annals are known to have had an influence on later writings in Iceland.

The annals make Rognvald the son of "Halfdan, King of Lochlann". This is generally understood to mean Halfdan the Black, which would make the Rognvald of the annals the brother of Harald Finehair. However, the sagas claim that Rognvald's grandfather was named Halfdan.[7]

These events are placed after an account of the devastation of Fortriu, dated to around 866,[8] and the fall of York, reliably dated to late 867. However, such an early date makes it difficult to reconcile the saga claims that Harald Fairhair was involved in Rognvald's conquest of the northern isles.

Harald Finehair's victory in the Battle of Hafrsfjord, which gave him dominion over parts of Norway, is traditionally dated to 872, but was probably later, perhaps as late as 900.[9] What little is known of Scottish events in the period from the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba would correspond equally well with Harald's attacks on Scotland in the reign of Domnall mac Causantâin (ruled 889–900).[10] However, this would not correspond with the sequence in the earliest account of the origins of the Orkney earldom, which places this a generation earlier.

Rognvald "The Wise" Eysteinsson (son of Eystein Ivarsson) is the founder of the Earldom of Orkney in the Norse Sagas. Three quite different accounts of the creation of the Norse earldom on Orkney and Shetland exist. The best known is that found in the Heimskringla, but other older traditions are found in the Historia Norvegiae and the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland.

The saga accounts are the best known, and the latest, of the three surviving traditions concerning Rognvald and the foundation of the Earldom of Orkney. Recorded in the 13th century, their views are informed by Norwegian politics of the day. Once, historians could write that no-one denied the reality of Harald Fairhair's expeditions to the west recounted in Heimskringla, but this is no longer the case. The Norwegian contest with the the Kings of Scots over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man in the middle 13th century underlies the sagas.[1]

In the Heimskringla, Rognvald is Earl of M²re. He accompanies Harald Fairhair on his great expeditions to the west, to Ireland and to Scotland. Here, Rognvald's son Ivarr is killed. In compensation King Harald grants Rognvald the Orkneys and Shetlands. Rognvald himself returns to Norway, giving the northern isles to his brother Sigurd Eysteinsson[2]

The Heimskringla recounts other tales of Rognvald. It tells how he causes Harald Finehair to be given his byname Fairhair by cutting and dressing his hair, which had been uncut for ten years on account of Harald's vow never to cut it until he was ruler of all Norway,[3] and it makes him the father of Ganger-Hrâolf, identified by saga writers with the Rollo (Hrâolfr), ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy, who was established as Count of Rouen by King Charles the Simple in 931.[4]

Earl Rognvald is killed by Harald's son Halfdan Hêalegg. Rognvald's death is avenged by his son, Earl Turf-Einar, from whom later Orkney earls claimed descent, who kills Halfdan on North Ronaldsay.[5]

[edit] Historia Norvegiae The Historia Norvegiae's account of Rognvald and the foundation of the Orkney earldom is the next oldest, probably dating from the 12th century. This account contains much curious detail on Orkney, including the earliest account of the Picts as small people who hid in the daytime, but it has little to say about Rognvald.

In the days of Harald Fairhair, king of Norway, certain pirates, of the family of the most vigorous prince Ronald [Rognvald], set out with a great fleet, and crossed the Solundic sea..., and subdued the islands to themselves. And being there provided with safe winter seats, they went in summer-time working tyranny upon the English, and the Scots, and sometimes also upon the Irish, so that they took under their rule, from England, Northumbria; from Scotland, Caithness; from Ireland, Dublin, and the other sea-side towns.[6]

This account does not associate Rognvald with the earldom, but instead attributes it to his anonymous sons.

[edit] Fragmentary Annals of Ireland ...for it was not long before this that there had been every war and every trouble in Norway, and this was the source of that war in Norway: two younger sons of Albdan, king of Norway, drove out the eldest son, i.e. Ragnall son of Albdan, for fear that he would seize the kingship of Norway after their father. So Ragnall came with his three sons to the Orkneys. Ragnall stayed there then, with his youngest son. Fragmentary Annals of Ireland , FA 330. Edited and translated by Joan N. Radnor. The oldest account of the Rognvald and the earldom of Orkney is that found in the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. The annals survive only in incomplete copies made by Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh in the 17th century, but the original annals are believed to date from the lifetime of Donnchad mac Gilla Patraic (died 1039). The annals are known to have had been influential in later writings on Iceland.

The annals make Rognvald the son of "Halfdan, King of Lochlann". This is generally understood to mean Halfdan the Black, which would make the Rognvald of the annals the brother of Harald Finehair. However, the sagas claim that Rognvald's grandfather was named Halfdan.[7]

These events are placed after an account of the devastation of Fortriu, dated to around 866,[8] and the fall of York, reliably dated to late 867. However, such an early date makes it difficult to reconcile the saga claims that Harald Fairhair was involved in Rognvald's conquest of the northern isles.

Harald Finehair's victory in the Battle of Hafrsfjord, which gave him dominion over parts of Norway, is traditionally dated to 872, but was probably later, perhaps as late as 900.[9] What little is known of Scottish events in the period from the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba would correspond equally well with Harald's attacks on Scotland in the reign of Domnall mac Causantâin (ruled 889–900).[10] However, this would not correspond with the sequence in the earliest account of the origins of the Orkney earldom, which places this a generation earlier.

Earl of More

Born: abt 830 Maer, Nord Trondelag, Norway Died: 890 Orkney Islands, Orkney, Scotland
Rèognvaldr Eysteinsson, M²rejarl1,2,3 b. circa 830, d. 894 Rèognvaldr Eysteinsson, M²rejarl|b. c 830\nd. 894|p314.htm#i5205|Eysteinn Glumra, Jarl of the Uplanders|b. c 800|p6.htm#i8264|Aseda Rèognvaldsdâottir||p67.htm#i8832|Ivarr O., Jarl of the Uplanders|b. c 760\nd. a 800|p305.htm#i8265|N. N. of Throndheim|b. c 780|p67.htm#i8831|Rèognvaldr H. H. Ó., King of Vestfold||p278.htm#i9457|Thâora Sigurdsdâottir||p111.htm#i13338| Father Eysteinn Glumra, Jarl of the Uplanders4,5 b. circa 800 Mother Aseda Rèognvaldsdâottir

Also called Jarl Ragnald I of Orkney.6 Rèognvaldr Eysteinsson, M²rejarl was King Harald Fairhair's dearest friend, and the king had the greatest regard for him.4 Also called Jarl Rognvaldr of M²re.7 He was per late Icelandic sources, for which there is no good reason to believe that these generations are historical, a son of Eysteinn Glumra, son of Ívarr, son of Hâalfdan the Old.7 Rèognvaldr Eysteinsson, M²rejarl also went by the name of Ragnvald "the Wise".4,5 He associated with unknown , a concubine.8 Rèognvaldr Eysteinsson, M²rejarl was born circa 830 at Maer, Norway. He was the son of Eysteinn Glumra, Jarl of the Uplanders and Aseda Rèognvaldsdâottir.4,5 Rèognvaldr Eysteinsson, M²rejarl became one of H

Earl Rognvald joined Harold fair-hair when he seized the land, but he (Harold) gave him lordship over both the Mµren and Romsdale; (7) he had to wife Ragnhilda the daughter of Hrolf nosy; their son was Hrolf who won Normandy, he was so tall that horses could not carry him; for that he was called Ganging-Hrolf; from him are come the Rouen Jarls and the English Kings; their son was also Ivar, and Thorir the silent.

Rognvald had also base-born sons, their names were Hallad and Hrollaug and Einar, he was the youngest.

end of this commentary

Ragnvald married Ragnhild Hrâolfsdâottir, Countess of MarVestfold, Norway. Ragnhild was born in 848 in Vestfold, Norway; died in 892 in Norway. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

3096833.

Ragnhild Hrâolfsdâottir, Countess of Mar was born in 848 in Vestfold, Norway; died in 892 in Norway.

Notes:

Name Ragnhild 'Hild' Hrâolfsdâottir
Born 848 County of Vestfold, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location
Sex Woman
Baptism ca. 848
Age: About 0
Employment Countess of More, Countess of Maer, Condesa de More, Countess., Comtesse de Moer, COUNTESS OF MORE
Death 892 Norway Find all individuals with events at this location
Buried ca. 892 Norway Find all individuals with events at this location
Person ID I2578 My Family Genealogy | The Ravnholdt & Hansen family
Last modified Aug 1 2018

Family Ragnvald Eysteinsson, of M²re , b. 825, Vestfold county, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location, d. 892, Giske, M²re and Romsdal county, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 67 years)
Married ca. 845 County of Vestfold, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location
Children
1. Hallad Ragnvaldsson Mœrajarl, Orkneyjarl , b. 850, Sunnm²re, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location, d. 894, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 44 years)
2. Ivar Ragnvaldsson M²rejarl , b. 850, Sunnm²re, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location, d. 872, Orkney, Scotland Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 22 years)
3. Einarr Rognvaldsson, Orkneyjarl , b. 852, M²re og Romsdal county, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location, d. 910, Orkney, Scotland Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 58 years)
4. Hrollaug Ragnvaldsson Mœrajarls , b. 859, Giske, M²re og Romsdal county, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location, d. 896, Eyjafjèorºur, Iceland Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 37 years)
+ 5. Rollo Ragnvaldsson , f. Ml. 860 and 866, d. Ca. 931, Rouen, Seine-Maritime, Haute-Normandie, France Find all individuals with events at this location (Age ~ 71 years)
+ 6. Tore Teiande Ragnvaldsson Rèognvaldsson , f. Ca. 862, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location, d. Ca. 939, Norway Find all individuals with events at this location (Age ~ 77 years)
7. Gutum Ragnvaldson , d. 875

end of this profile

Children:

1548416. Rollo was born in 846 in Maer, Norway; died in 931; was buried in Rouen Cathedral, Rouen, Normandy, France.

3096834.

Berengar II of Neustria, Count of Bayeux died in 0896.

Notes:

Berengar II (died 896) was the Count of Bayeux and Rennes and Margrave of the Breton March from 886 until his death a decade later.

In 874, Brittany's internal politics were thrown into turmoil when King Salomon was murdered by a rival. The resulting surge of Viking attacks made possible by the power vacuum was narrowly held at bay by a hasty Breton-Frankish alliance between Alan the Great of Vannes and Berengar of Rennes. Between 889-90, the Seine Vikings moved into Brittany, hard on the heels of the Loire fleet that Alan and Berengar had successfully driven out (this latter force had broken up into several small flotillas and sailed west). Alain again joined forces with Berengar of Rennes and led two Breton armies into the field. Finding their retreat down the Marne blocked, the Vikings hauled their ships overland to the Vire and besieged Saint-Lo, where the Bretons virtually annihilated the fleet.

Berengar's kin became the first Gallo-speaking lords holding residence within Brittany (Rennes and Penthiáevre, rather than the Loire Valley-predominant Nantes or Vannes), as a consequence of the Breton nobility being more or less broken under the Norman invasions of the 880s and as a reward for holding his ground against their attacks.

Berengar is speculated to have married the daughter of Gurvand, Duke of Brittany, by which relationship he attained the countship of Rennes. This would make him brother-in-law of Judicael, Duke of Brittany. He is thought to be the Berengar of Bayeux whose daughter Poppa was captured in a raid and married to Rollo of Normandy. Various reconstructions make him father, grandfather, or great-grandfather of Judicael Berengar, later Count of Rennes.

References

This article does not cite any sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Sources

Price, Neil (1989). The Vikings in Brittany (PDF). Retrieved July 2012. Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
Arthur de la Borderie (1898). Histoire de Bretagne. p. 334.
Musset, Lucien (1965). Les invasions: le second assaut contre I'Europe Chrâetienne.
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 890.

end of biography

Berengar married unnamed spouse. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

3096835.
unnamed spouse
Children:

1548417. Lady Poppa of Bayeux was born in (850) in Bayeux, France; was buried in Rouen Cathedral, Rouen, Normandy, France.

3096842.

Aethelstan, King of the East Angles was born in ~838 in Wantage, Berkshire, England (son of Aethelwulf of Wessex, King of Wessex and Osburga, Queen Consort of Wessex); died in 890.

Notes:

Guthrum or Guºrum (died c. 890), christened ¥thelstan on his conversion to Christianity in 878, was King of the Danish Vikings in the Danelaw. He is mainly known for his conflict with Alfred the Great.

Guthrum, founder of the Danelaw

It is not known how Guthrum consolidated his rule as king over the other Danish chieftains of the Danelaw (Danish-ruled territory of England), but by 874 he was able to wage a war against Wessex and its King, Alfred.

In 875, the Danish forces, then under Guthrum and Halfdan Ragnarsson, divided, Halfdan's contingent returning north to Northumbria, while Guthrum's forces went to East Anglia, quartering themselves at Cambridge for the year.

By 876, Guthrum had acquired various parts of the kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria and then turned his attention to acquiring Wessex, where his first confrontation with Alfred took place on the south coast. Guthrum sailed his army around Poole Harbour and linked up with another Viking army that was invading the area between the Frome and Piddle rivers which was ruled by Alfred.[1] According to the historian Asser, Guthrum won his initial battle with Alfred, and he captured the castellum as well as the ancient square earthworks known as the Wareham, where there was a convent of nuns.

Alfred successfully brokered a peace settlement, but by 877 this peace was broken as Guthrum led his army raiding further into Wessex, thus forcing Alfred to confront him in a series of skirmishes that Guthrum continued to win. At Exeter, which Guthrum had also captured, Alfred made a peace treaty, with the result that Guthrum left Wessex to winter in Gloucester.

Surprise attack

Silver penny of ¥thelstan
On Epiphany, 6 January 878, Guthrum made a surprise night-time attack on Alfred and his court at Chippenham, Wiltshire. It being a Christian feast day the Saxons were presumably taken by surprise—indeed it is possible that Wulfhere, the Ealdorman of Wiltshire, allowed the attack either through negligence or intent, for on Alfred's return to power later in 878 Wulfhere was stripped of his role as Ealdorman.

Alfred fled the attack with a few retainers and took shelter in the marshes of Somerset, staying in the small village of Athelney. Over the next few months he built up his force and waged a guerrilla war against Guthrum from his fastness in the fens. After a few months Alfred called his loyal men to Egbert's Stone, and from there they travelled to Edington to fight the invaders.

Defeat by Alfred

Guthrum's hopes of conquering all of Wessex came to an end with his defeat at the hands of Alfred at the Battle of Edington in 878. At Edington, Guthrum’s entire army was routed by Alfred's and fled to their encampment where they were besieged by Alfred's fyrd for two weeks. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Guthrum’s army was able to negotiate a peace treaty known as the Treaty of Wedmore.[2] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded the event:

“Then the raiding army granted him (Alfred) hostages and great oaths that they would leave his kingdom and also promised him that their king (Guthrum) would receive baptism; and they fulfilled it. And three weeks later the king Guthrum came to him, one of thirty of the most honourable men who were in the raiding army, at Aller - and that is near Athelney - and the king received him at baptism; and his chrism loosing was at Wedmore.” [2]
Conversion to Christianity and peace
Under the Treaty of Wedmore the borders dividing the lands of Alfred and Guthrum were established,[3] and perhaps more importantly, Guthrum converted to Christianity and took on the Christian name ¥thelstan with Alfred as his godfather.

Guthrum upheld his end of the treaty and left the boundary that separated the Danelaw from English England unmolested. Guthrum, although failing to conquer Wessex, turned towards the lands to the east that the treaty had allotted under his control. Guthrum withdrew his army from the western borders facing Alfred's territory and moved eastward before eventually settling in the Kingdom of Guthrum in East Anglia in 879. He lived out the remainder of his life there until his death in 890. According to the Annals of St Neots, a chronicle compiled in Bury St Edmunds, Guthrum was buried at Headleage, which is usually identified as Hadleigh, Suffolk.[4]

Popular culture

Guthrum appears in several works of fiction, including:

G. K. Chesterton's poem The Ballad of the White Horse.
C. Walter Hodges' juvenile historical novels The Namesake and The Marsh King.
Bernard Cornwell's first three novels of The Saxon Stories series The Last Kingdom, and The Pale Horseman, and The Lords of the North.
On screen, he was portrayed by Brian Blessed in episode 4 ("King Alfred") of Churchill's People, by Michael York in the 1969 film Alfred the Great, and Thomas W. Gabrielsson in The Last Kingdom.

References
Collingwood, M. A. and Powell, F. Y. Scandinavian Britain (New York: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1908), p. 94.
Anglo Saxon Chronicle Trans. by M. J. Swanton (New York, Routledge: 1996).
Davis, R. H. C. From Alfred the Great to Stephen (London, The Hambledon Press: 1991) p. 48.
Dumville, David; Lapidge, Michael (1985). The Annals of St Neots with Vita Prima Sancti Neoti, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a Collaborative Edition. Cambridge. ISBN 978-0-85991-117-7.

end of biography

Aethelstan married unnamed spouse. unnamed was born in ~0842 in (Wantage, Berkshire, England). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

3096843.

unnamed spouse was born in ~0842 in (Wantage, Berkshire, England).

Children:

1548421. Elgiva of Wessex, Queen of Denmark was born in ~872 in Wantage, Berkshire, England; died in ~935 in Jellinge, Vejle, Denmark; was buried in Gormshoj, Jellinge, Vejle, Denmark.

3096860.

Notes:

Herbert II Carolingian de Vermandois, Count of Vermandois, Count of Meaux, was born 884 to Herbert I de Vermandois (c848-907) and Bertha de Morvois (c850-c907) and died 23 February 943 of unspecified causes. Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]

Children

Offspring of Herbert II de Vermandois and Hildebranda of France (895-931)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Adele de Vermandois (910-960) 910 960 Arnulf I of Flanders (c890-965)

Eudes d'Amiens (910-aft946) 910 946
Robert de Vermandois (918-968) 920 968 Seine-et-Marne, France Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967)

Hugues de Reims (920-962) 920 962
Liutgarde de Vermandois (c920-978) 920 9 February 978 William Longsword, 2nd Duke of Normandy (893-942)
Thibaut I de Blois (913-975)

Herbert III de Vermandois (c913-c982) 913 982 Eadgifu of Wessex (902-aft955)

Albert I de Vermandois (915-987) 915 Saint-Quentin 8 September 987 Gerberge de Lorraine (c935-978)
Siblings
Siblings

Offspring of Herbert I de Vermandois and Bertha de Morvois (c850-c907)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Bâeatrice of Vermandois (c880-931) 880 Paris, France 26 March 931 Soissons, France Robert I of France (866-923)

Herbert II de Vermandois (884-943) 884 23 February 943 Hildebranda of France (895-931)

Cunigunde of Vermandois (-943) 943 Udo I von der Wetterau (c900-949)

Adele of Vermandois (?-?) Gebhard von Ufgau (?-c947)

Berengar of Bayeaux (?-?) Daughter of Gurvand, Duke of Brittany

Herbert married Hildebranda of France(France). Hildebranda was born in 895 in (France); died in 931 in (France). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

3096861.

Hildebranda of France was born in 895 in (France); died in 931 in (France).

Notes:

Hildebranda of France was born 895 to Robert I of France (866-923) and Aelis and died 931 of unspecified causes. Ancestors are from Germany, France.

Children

Offspring of Hildebranda Capet and Herbert II de Vermandois (884-943)

Name Birth Death Joined with

Adele de Vermandois (910-960) 910 960 Arnulf I of Flanders (c890-965)

Eudes d'Amiens (910-aft946) 910 946
Robert de Vermandois (918-968) 920 968 Seine-et-Marne, France Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967)

Hugues de Reims (920-962) 920 962
Liutgarde de Vermandois (c920-978) 920 9 February 978 William Longsword, 2nd Duke of Normandy (893-942)
Thibaut I de Blois (913-975)

Herbert III de Vermandois (c913-c982) 913 982 Eadgifu of Wessex (902-aft955)

Albert I de Vermandois (915-987) 915 Saint-Quentin 8 September 987 Gerberge de Lorraine (c935-978)

Children:

1548430. Robert De Vermandois, Count of Meaux was born in 918 in (France); died on 29 Aug 968 in Seine-et-Marne, France.

2842016.

Rurik, Prince of Ladoga and Novgorod was born in ~830 in Jutland, Denmark; died in 879 in Novgorod, Ukraine.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Staraya Lagoda, Russia

Notes:

Rurik (also Riurik; Old Church Slavonic ?????? Rjuriku, from Old Norse Hr²râik?; c. 830 – 879), according to the 12th-century Primary Chronicle, was a Varangian chieftain of the Rus' who in the year 862 gained control of Ladoga, and built the Holmgard settlement near Novgorod (Varangian defined: http://thehennesseefamily.com/showmedia.php?mediaID=3071&medialinkID=3073). He is the founder of the Rurik Dynasty, which ruled the Kievan Rus' and its successor states, including the Grand Duchy of Moscow and the Tsardom of Russia, until the 17th century.[1]

The only information about Rurik is contained in the 12th-century Primary Chronicle written by one Nestor, which states that Chuds, Eastern Slavs, Merias, Veses, and Krivichs "...drove the Varangians back beyond the sea, refused to pay them tribute, and set out to govern themselves". Afterwards the tribes started fighting each other and decided to invite the Varangians, led by Rurik, to reestablish order. Rurik came in 860-862 along with his brothers Sineus and Truvor and a large retinue.

According to the Primary Chronicle, Rurik was one of the Rus', a Varangian tribe likened by the chronicler to Danes, Swedes, Angles, and Gotlanders.

Sineus established himself at Beloozero (now Belozersk), on the shores of lake Beloye, and Truvor at Izborsk (or at Pskov). Truvor and Sineus died shortly after the establishment of their territories, and Rurik consolidated these lands into his own territory.

According to the entries in the Radzivil and Hypatian Chronicles[2] under the years 862–864, Rurik’s first residence was in Ladoga. He later moved his seat of power to Novgorod, a fort built not far from the source of the Volkhov River. The meaning of this place name in medieval Russian is 'new fortification', while the current meaning ('new city') developed later.

Rurik remained in power until his death in 879. On his deathbed, Rurik bequeathed his realm to Oleg, who belonged to his kin, and entrusted to Oleg's hands his son Igor, for he was very young. His successors (the Rurik Dynasty) moved the capital to Kiev and founded the state of Kievan Rus', which persisted until the Mongol invasion in 1240. A number of extant princely families are patrilineally descended from Rurik, although the last Rurikid to rule Russia, Vasily IV, died in 1612.

Historicity debate
Archaeological evidence

In the 20th century, archaeologists partly corroborated the chronicle's version of events. It was discovered that the settlement of Ladoga, whose foundation has been ascribed to Rurik, was actually established in the mid-9th century, although doubt is now cast on this by the dendrochronological evidence that Ladoga existed by the mid-8th century.[citation needed] Earthenware, household utensils, and types of buildings from the period of Rurik's purported foundation correspond to patterns then prevalent in Jutland.[citation needed] but mostly the excavations denied most of the chronicle's data about Rurik's arrival when it was apparent that the old settlement stretched to the mid-8th century and the excavated objects were mostly of Finno-Ugric and Slavic origin, dated to the mid-8th century, which showed the settlement was not Scandinavian from the beginning.[3][page needed]

Hypothesis of identity with Rorik of Dorestad
Main article: Rorik of Dorestad

Rorik of Dorestad, as conceived by H. W. Koekkoek
The only similarly named figure described in the Carolingian Annales Fuldenses and Annales Bertiniani was Rorik of Dorestad (also spelled R²rik, Rèorik, Roerik, Hrèorek, etc.), a Germanic king from the royal Scylding house of Haithabu in the Jutland Peninsula. Since the 19th century, there have been attempts to identify him with the Rurik of Russian chronicles.

Rorik of Dorestad was born about ca. 810–820 to Ali Anulo, 9th king of Haithabu. Frankish chroniclers mention that he received lands in Friesland from Emperor Louis I. This was not enough for him, and he started to plunder neighbouring lands: he took Dorestad in 850, captured Haithabu in 857, and looted Bremen in 859. The Emperor was enraged and stripped him of all his possessions in 860. After that, Rorik disappears from the Western sources for a considerable period of time, while only two years later, in 862, the Russian chronicle's Rurik arrives in the eastern Baltic, builds the fortress of Ladoga, and later moves to Novgorod.

Rorik of Dorestad reappeared in Frankish chronicles in 870, when his Friesland demesne was returned to him by Charles the Bald; in 882 Rorik of Dorestad is mentioned as dead (without a date of death specified). The Russian chronicle places the death of Rurik of Novgorod at 879, a three year gap prior than the Frankish chronicles. According to Western sources, the ruler of Friesland was converted to Christianity by the Franks. This may have parallels with the Christianization of the Rus', as reported by Patriarch Photius in 867.

The idea of identifying the Rurik of Nestor's chronicle with Rorik of Dorestad of the Carolingian chronicles was revived by the anti-Normanists Boris Rybakov and Anatoly H. Kirpichnikov in the mid-20th century,[4] while modern scholars like Alexander Nazarenko object to it.[5] The hypothesis of their identity currently lacks support among scholars,[6] though support for a "Normannic" (i.e. Norse, rather than Slavic) origin of the Rus' has increased.

Legacy

Further information: Rurikid dynasty

Rurik and his brothers Sineus and Truvor arrive at Ladoga
The Rurik dynasty (or Rurikids) went on to rule the Kievan Rus', and ultimately the Tsardom of Russia, until 1598, and numerous noble Russian and Ruthenian families claim a male-line descent from Rurik. Vasily Tatishchev (a Rurikid himself) claimed that Rurik was of Wendish extraction and went so far as to name Rurik's wife, Efanda of Norway (Edvina); mother, Umila; his maternal grandfather, Gostomysl; and a cousin, Vadim (apparently basing his account on the lost Ioachim Chronicle).[citation needed]

References

Christian Raffensperger and Norman W. Ingham, "Rurik and the First Rurikids," The American Genealogist, 82 (2007), 1–13, 111–19.
Ipat’ievskaia letopis’ 1962:14; Radzivilovskaia letopis’ 1989:16
Kirpichnikov, Anatoliy N. (2004). "A Viking Period workshop in Staraya Ladoga, excavated in 1997" (PDF). Journal of Swedish Antiquarian Research. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
Kirpichnikov, Anatoly H. "???????? ? ????????? ???????. ?????? ? ??????????? ?????????". ?????? ????????????? ??????, ???; 1997; ch. 7–18.
Nazarenko, Alexander. "Rjurik ? Riis Th., Rorik", Lexikon des Mittelalters, VII; Munich, 1995; pp. 880, 1026.
Andrei Mozzhukhin (5 October 2014). «????? — ??? ???????» ["Rurik – is a legend"] (in Russian). Russian Planet. Retrieved 12 November 2014. Interview with Igor Danilevsky.

end of this biography

Alternative Titles: Hrorekr, Rorik, Rurik of Jutland, Ryurik

Rurik, also spelled Rorik or Hrorekr, Russian Ryurik, (died AD 879), the semilegendary founder of the Rurik dynasty of Kievan Rus.

(Rurik Dynasty, princes of Kievan Rus and, later, Muscovy who, according to tradition, were descendants of the Varangian prince Rurik, who had been invited by the people of Novgorod to rule that city (c. 862); the Rurik princes maintained their control over Kievan Rus and, later, Muscovy until 1598.

Rurik’s successor Oleg (d. 912) conquered Kiev (c. 882) and established control of the trade route extending from Novgorod, along the Dnieper River, to the Black Sea. Igor (allegedly Rurik’s son; reigned 912–945) and his successors—his wife, St. Olga (regent 945–969), and their son Svyatoslav (reigned 945–972)—further extended their territories; Svyatoslav’s son Vladimir I (St. Vladimir; reigned c. 980–1015) consolidated the dynasty’s rule.

Vladimir compiled the first Kievan Rus law code and introduced Christianity into the country. He also organized the Kievan Rus lands into a cohesive confederation by distributing the major cities among his sons; the eldest was to be grand prince of Kiev, and the brothers were to succeed each other, moving up the hierarchy of cities toward Kiev, filling vacancies left by the advancement or death of an elder brother. The youngest brother was to be succeeded as grand prince by his eldest nephew whose father had been a grand prince. This succession pattern was generally followed through the reigns of Svyatopolk (1015–19); Yaroslav the Wise (1019–54); his sons Izyaslav (1054–68; 1069–73; and 1077–78), Svyatoslav (1073–76), and Vsevolod (1078–93); and Svyatopolk II (son of Izyaslav; reigned 1093–1113).

The successions were accomplished, however, amid continual civil wars. In addition to the princes’ unwillingness to adhere to the pattern and readiness to seize their positions by force instead, the system was upset whenever a city rejected the prince designated to rule it. It was also undermined by the tendency of the princes to settle in regions they ruled rather than move from city to city to become the prince of Kiev.)

Rurik was a Viking, or Varangian, prince. His story is told in the The Russian Primary Chronicle (compiled at the beginning of the 12th century) but is not accepted at face value by modern historians. According to the chronicle, the people of Novgorod, tired of political strife, invited the Varangians about AD 862 to establish an orderly and just government there. Hence, Rurik came with his two brothers and a large retinue (druzhina) and became ruler of the city and region of Novgorod.

Some historians think that Rurik came from the Scandinavian peninsula or from Jutland (now in Denmark) and seized the town of Ladoga, on Lake Ladoga. After establishing a stronghold there (c. 855), he may have gone southward along the Volkhov and captured Novgorod. Another possibility is that Rurik and his army were mercenaries, hired to guard the Volkhov-Dnieper waterway, who turned against their employers.

Rurik’s kinsman Oleg founded the grand principality of Kiev. Oleg’s successor, Igor, believed to be Rurik’s son, is considered the real founder of the Russian princely house.

end of this biography

HISTORY

Rurik or Riurik ( from the Nordic East Rorik, means "famous leader") (?30 - ?79) was a Varangian who gained control of Ladoga in ?62 and built the Holmgard settlement (Rurikovo Gorodische) in Novgorod.

Rurik name is the Slavic name being the same Germanic name as the modern English Roderick, or Spanish and Portuguese Rodrigo. In Germanic languages: Hrodric in (Old High German), Hroºricus in (Old English). In Old Norse, Hrœrekr (Norwegian, Icelandic) and Hr²rikr or Rorik (Danish, Swedish), which is derived from Rurik. It also appears in Beowulf as Hreºrik.

Princes of Kievan Rus and later on, of Muscovy that, according to tradition, were descendants of Rurik Varangian Prince, who had been invited by the people of Novgorod to rule that town (C. 862), the Princes of Rurik remained their control over Kievan Rus and, later, Muscovy until 1598.

The successor Oleg (D. 912) conquered Kiev Rurik (C. 882) and established control of the trade route that stretched from Novgorod, along the Dnieper River, to the Black Sea. Igor (alleged son of Rurik, reigned from 912 to 945) and his successor, to her wife, Olga or St. Olga Olga (ruler from 945 - to 969), and later his son Svyatoslav (945-972) - hereinafter extended their territories; Vladimir, son of Svyatoslav I (St. Vladimir; reigned from 980-1015) thus well consolidated the Varegiana Dynasty.
Vladimir compiled the first law code of Kievan Rus and introduced Christianity to the country.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY. RUSSIA

Russia means "Land of Rus'. Before the tenth century, Russia was formed by scattered cities which fought between them. In the year 862, an extranger warrior gripped the state of Novgorod and joined several cities under its power. Some say that he arrived under invitation to restore order and others say that he reached power by force. This legendary Viking was a warrior. His name was Rurik and belonged to the family of the Rus. Rurik and his two brothers Truvor and Sineus imposed their control over the Slavs of the area. Rurik's followers are also known as Varangians. "Varangians" means "allies". "Rus" comes from the Swedish rosti, which means "oar", since we know the Vikings were driving paddle boats. Then Russia means "Land of Oars".

SLAVIC AND nORMANDS

Does not seem being any doubt about the Indo-European affiliation descent of the Slavs, but there are little news about them because the Germans isolated them of the Roman Empire. When there were invasions that ended the Empire, the displacement of the Germans allowed the Slavic movement westward, and so, in the sixth century, penetrations were already seen by peoples of this race in present Poland and Bohemia, and Brandenburg (Germany). Furthermore the Slavic incursions also came to the South, settling on the Adriatic coast of the Balkans.

In the seventh century,the penetration of barbarians folks, as well as the Avars in Central Europe, disconnected thus these Slavs from their racial brothers, becoming known by the name of South Slavs, who still nowadays make up the most of the population of Yugoslavia.

The Slavs who remained in the current western Russia were limited in their expansion to the east and to south by the establishment of other barbarians folks: the Khazars (or Kazars), the Pechenegs and Magyars. But taking as the axis of their residence the Dnieper River, became merchants carrying southward, to the country of the Khazars and even the Byzantine Empire, skins, honey and wax.

Rurik-Russia-Rurikovich-History

At the mid-ninth century already existed in this territory a true urban culture, while in Western Europe began The Feudalism. A number of towns located in the axis just spoken ensured the commercial link between the Baltic See and the Byzantine Empire: Kiev, Smolensk, Novgorod, Tchernigov, Minsk, Ryazan, Pskov Iaroslav and were the main ones.

For the same time lies the penetration of Vikings groups from Sweden, called "Varangians". These Vikings took upon themselves trade and defense of Slav cities against attacks from other nations. And according the oldest Russian chronicle, was a Varangian, Rurik, the first prince who ruled that fusion of Slavs and Vikings, in which it seems certain that the Vikings were absorbed by the Slavs, being in the history of Russia as a mere episode.

The successors of Rurik, Oleg (879-912) and Igor (912-944), alternated trade relations with Byzantium and the attacks on the capital of the Empire, until that Olga times (945-965) succeeded to Byzantine influence when became that princess to Christianity in 955 by the name of Elena in a trip she did to Constantinople.
From then on, Kiev had already surpassed the importance of Novgorod, and the princes of that city dominated the other, which, however, left some autonomy on the condition that they pay taxes regularly. The same soldiers who perceive them-in-kind were engaged then transfer them for sale in the Byzantine Empire.

The fullness of the rising state was in the last third of the tenth century, under the rule of Prince of Kiev, Sviatoslav (965-973), son of Olga, who, still pagan, was the first to conceive the idea of reaching out to an open sea - the Mediterranean in this case - so repeatedly present since then on this Russian policy of all time. The distribution of territories that Sviatoslav did on his death caused struggle between his sons, in which the winner was Vladimir the Great (973-1015), who married a Byzantine princess, Anna, was converted to Christianity in 988 forcing his subjects to embrace mass.

The bad policy of dividing the kingdom, repeated by his successors, caused the decline of the bright state, which finished at casting down new Asian nomadic invasions. Among these princes can still be noted to Yaroslav, founder of the archbishop of Kiev in 1035 and editor of the Russian law code called Russkaya Pravda.

From Rurik was born the famous dynasty of Russian Tsars that ruled Russia for over 750 years. At the beginning of the tenth century the military company of the Princes of Novgorod from Constantinople to protect trade relations with Byzantium were concluded by the integration of East-Slavic tribes in the ancient state of Kievan Rus.

The title of Tzar, Czar or Csar, (????) was first adopted by Ivan IV as a symbol of the changing nature of the Russian Monarchy in 1547.

Ivan IV Vasilyevich (???? ?????????? IV), also known as Ivan the Terrible (Kolomenskoie, Russia, August 25, 1530 - Moscow, March 18, 1584) Tsar of Russia (1547-1584). Considered one of the creators of the Russian state. He married at least seven times, but his most important marriage was the first one, with Anastasia Romanova in 1547. His greatest contributions were Russian conquest of Siberia, creating a new legal code, the Sudiâebnik, the centralization of the power in the capital, the creation of institutions with popular participation, the conquest of the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan Tatars, the destruction of the Teutonic Order and big internal reforms, including the reform of the army and the revision of the legal code.

His Early years:

Grandson of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich III the Great and son of Vasily III and Elena Glinskaya, belongs to the lineage Varangian of Rurik and princess of Lithuania. According to the legend he was born with two teeth. He was crowned Grand Prince of Moscow within three years after the death of his father. However, the kingdom was administered by his mother, who was poisoned five years after the coronation of boyars clans who vied for power. He was recluded to the humiliation of the boyars, which overshadowed his character. He was held in the Kremlin Palace of living almost as a beggar. This fact led in Ivan a great hatred against boyars, and has as a consequence the constant persecution and massacres that he organized against these clans. In these early years Ivan suffered mental ramblings, now irreversibles, which led him to give vent to their anger and throwing torturing dogs from the towers. It is known that he had a deaf brother who nothing more is known.

With 13 years people began to respect him and ordered to one of his loyal groups to capture the Prince Andrei Shuisky in order to throw a pack of dogs against him, which brutaly tore him. With 16 years already stated in writing and was an avid reader of books, besides of being and a big, muscular young. He studied rhetoric from the hand of Bishop Macarius. During this time it was deeply religious.

To be respected as Tsar, Macario determined that Ivan came (according to a family tree) of the lineage of the first Roman Caesars.

© Sovereign Royal and Imperial House of Rurikovich

end of narrative

Residence:
Russian meaning, "Old Lagoda"...

Its history & map ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staraya_Ladoga

Died:
Rulers of Russia family tree - the Rurik Dynasty through the Romanovs (last of the Tsars):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rulers_of_Russia_family_tree

Children:

1421008. Igor of Kiev, Prince of the Rus' was born in ~900 in (Kiev, Ukraine); died in 945 in Korosten, Ukraine.

2842024.

Skagul Toste, King of Sweden was born in 910 in Vein, Germany; died in 975 in Gothland, Sweden.

Notes:

Skoglar Toste or Skoglar Tosti (there are several variations) was a legendary chieftain from the Swedish province of West Gèotaland. His name (skoglar, skauglar or skagul) was reportedly due to his experience in battle. [1]

Toste is mentioned in several sagas, most notable in Heimskringla. According to Snorri Sturluson, he was the father of Sigrid the Haughty. For some time he gave refuge to Harald Grenske, who later came back to woo Sigrid, only to be killed by her for his persistence. According to the sagas, Skagul Toste was also the father of Ulf Tostesson, father of Ragnvald Ulfsson and grandfather of Stenkil who became the King of Sweden in 1060.[2]

Toste is said to have collected great riches when he demanded danegeld as he led a Viking army to England in 970. At Vallentuna, near Stockholm, the runestone of Orkesta (U 344) reads:

in ulfr hafir onklati * ´ru kialtakat ´it uas fursta ´is tursti * ´a ---´urktil * ´a kalt knutr

Translation: "And Ulf of Borresta (Ulf) has taken three payments in England. That was the first that Toste (tursti) paid. Then Thorkell the Tall (´urktil ) paid. Then Canute the Great (knutr) paid. [3]

References

"Skoglar Toste". Bergans Historiasidor. May 15, 2015. Retrieved October 24, 2015.
Claus Krag. "Harald Grenske, Smêakonge". Norsk biografisk leksikon. Retrieved October 24, 2015.
"Runes and Runic". An English Dictionary of Runic Inscriptions. May 5, 2006. Retrieved October 24, 2015.

Other sources

Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Lines: 241-5, 243A-20

end of biography

Skoglar Skagul "King of Sweden" Toste
Born 0910 in Venden, Tyskland (Vein, Germany)map
Son of Rane UNKNOWN and [mother unknown]
[sibling(s) unknown]
[spouse(s) unknown]
DESCENDANTS descendants
Father of Ulf Tostesson, Ulf (UNKNOWN) Tostesson av Skara and Sigrid Storrada
Died 0975 in Svitjod, Vèastergèotland, Swedenmap
Profile managers: Katherine Patterson private message [send private message] and Sheri Sturm private message [send private message]
Profile last modified 10 Nov 2017 | Created 5 Jul 2011
This page has been accessed 1,118 times.

Children:

1421012. Ulf Tostesson, Jarl of Skara was born in 930 in Gothland, Sweden; died in 950 in (Kiev, Ukraine).

5683328.

Notes:

Alfred the Great (849-899)

Alfred the Great of Wessex was born 23 April 849 in Wantage, Berkshire, England, United Kingdom to ¥thelwulf of Wessex (c795-858) and Osburga (-bef856) and died 26 October 899 in Winchester, Hampshire, England, United Kingdom of unspecified causes. He married Ealhswith (c852-905) 868 JL . Ancestors are from France.
Contents[show]

Biography

King Alfred (or more properly ¥lfred) is the only English king ever to receive the title "The Great" which epithet he earned for his stalwart resistance to the Danes, his wise government, his law-making, and his revival of English arts and culture and education. He was the first King of Wessex to be called "King of England". Reign: 871-899.

House of Wessex

He was of the royal English dynasty called House of Wessex, a family originating in the southwest corner of England and gradually increasing in power and prestige. The House became rulers of all the country with the reign of Alfred the Great in 871 and they lasting until Edmund Ironside in 1016. This period of the English monarchy is known as the Saxon period.

Rome pilgrimage 853

Young Alfred probably never expected to be king, being the fifth son of King Athelwulf of Wessex, and he even had three brothers precede him to the kingship.

Young Alfred made two trips to Rome, first in 853 and again in 855, where his father sought the blessings of the pope (Pope Leo IV (847-855)))and the Christian church in his ongoing battles against the pagan Danes. Legend has it that during one of these visits, the pope anointed him to be a great ruler. During these trips he spent some time with the court of Charles the Bald (823-877) and learned much about the grandeur of Charles's grandfather, Charlemagne (747-814).

"The Great Heathen Army of 865"

Detailed map of Danish battles; http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Alfred_the_Great_(849-899)?file=EGA2016a.png

Danish Invasion of England in 865.

After his father's death in 858, young Alfred started getting much military training in the armies of his brothers ( Athelbald (858-860), Athelbert (860-865) and Athelred (865-861) in their ongoing battles against the Danes (Norsemen, Vikings, etc).

In the mid 860's a Danish 'Great Army' under Ivar the Boneless invaded eastern England and occupied Northumbria. At first their attention was directed northwards against Mercia and Northumbria and they made many conquests there.

In 871, the Danes turned their attention towards Wessex and the armies of Alfred and his brother ¥thelred of Wessex (c847-871), and thus began the great "Year of Battles". During the course of these battles Athelred died and Alfred became King. By this time Alfred was a highly experienced military leader.

After a major battle at Wilton in May 871, a peace was made between Wessex and the Danes, who turned their attention back northward. They returned to do battle in the late 870s under Guthrum, King of East Anglia,

more information on Guthrum:

https://fabpedigree.com/s056/f161237.htm
http://thehennesseefamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I50855&tree=hennessee

and again in the 890s under Haesten.

But as he grew older and wiser, Alfred adopted more cautious tactics and stronger defences for holding back the Danes. He would besiege their fortifications, conduct guerrilla warfare on their transports, and build up the local militia in each shire.

Most famously, Alfred built a fleet of warships and is traditionally regarded as the father of the English Navy. (He is also called the father of the American navy, which named its first revolutionary warship, USS Alfred, for him.)

From Treaty of 889, setting the border between English and Danelaw:

"This is the peace which King Alfred and King Guthrum...have agreed on...First concerning our boundaries: up the Thames, and then up the Lea, and along the Lea to its source, then in a straight line to Bedford, then up the Ouse to the Watling Street."

Marriage and family

Alfredjewel

The Alfred Jewel, discovered near North Petherton, Somerset in 1693. Dates from the late 9th Century with inscription "AELFRED MEC HEFT GEWYRCAN", old English for "Alfred ordered me made." Probably a pointer for following text in a book.

In 868, Alfred married Ealhswith (c852-905), daughter of a Mercian nobleman, ¥thelred Mucil, Ealdorman of the Gaini. The Gaini were probably one of the tribal groups of the Mercians. Ealhswith's mother, Eadburh, was a member of the Mercian royal family.

They had five or six children together, including Edward the Elder (c870-924), who succeeded his father as king, ¥thelflµd (c872-918), who became Lady (ruler) of the Mercians in her own right, and ¥lfthryth of Wessex (c872-929), who married Baldwin II the Count of Flanders. In 2008 the skeleton of Queen Eadgyth, granddaughter of Alfred the Great, was found in Magdeburg Cathedral in Germany. It was confirmed in 2010 that these remains belong to her — one of the earliest members of the English royal family.

Osferth was described as a relative in King Alfred's will and he attested charters in a high position until 934. A charter of King Edward's reign described him as the king's brother, "mistakenly" according to Keynes and Lapidge; however, in the view of Janet Nelson, he probably was an illegitimate son of King Alfred.

¥thelflµd (c872-918) - Married c 886, ¥thelred, Lord of the Mercians d. 911; had children
Edward the Elder (c870-924) - succeeded his father as King of England, ruling from 899 to 924.
¥thelgifu, Abbess of Shaftesbury (?-?) - Abbess of Shaftesbury
¥lfthryth of Wessex (c872-929) - Married and had children
¥thelwµrd (c880-922) - Married Baldwin II d. 918, Count of Flanders; had children

end of biography

Alfred the Great (Old English: ¥lfred,[a] ¥lfr?d[b], "elf counsel" or "wise elf"; 849 – 26 October 899) was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.

King of the Anglo-Saxons
Reign 23 April 871 – 26 October 899
Predecessor ¥thelred
Successor Edward the Elder
Born 849
Wantage, then in Berkshire, now Oxfordshire
Died 26 October 899 (around 50) Winchester
Burial c. 1100
Hyde Abbey, Winchester, Hampshire, now lost

Spouse Ealhswith

Issue

¥thelflµd, Lady of the Mercians
Edward, King of Wessex
¥thelgifu, abbess of Shaftesbury
¥thelweard of Wessex
¥lfthryth, Countess of Flanders
Full name
¥lfred of Wessex
House Wessex
Father ¥thelwulf, King of Wessex
Mother Osburh
Religion Catholic

Alfred was the youngest son of King ¥thelwulf of Wessex. Taking the throne after the death of his brother ¥thelred, Alfred spent several years dealing with Viking invasions. After a decisive victory in the Battle of Edington in 878 Alfred made a deal with the Vikings, creating what was known as Danelaw in the North of England. Alfred also oversaw the conversion of the Viking leader, Guthrum.

Alfred successfully defended his kingdom against the Viking attempt at conquest, and by the time of his death had become the dominant ruler in England.[1] He is one of only two English monarchs to be given the epithet "the Great", the other being the Scandinavian Cnut the Great. He was also the first King of the West Saxons to style himself "King of the Anglo-Saxons". Details of Alfred's life are described in a work by the 9th-century Welsh scholar and bishop Asser.

Alfred had a reputation as a learned and merciful man of a gracious and level-headed nature who encouraged education, proposing that primary education be taught in English rather than Latin, and improved his kingdom's legal system, military structure and his people's quality of life. In 2002 Alfred was ranked number 14 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.

Childhood

Further information: House of Wessex family tree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_of_Wessex#House_of_Wessex_family_tree

Alfred was born in the village of Wanating, now Wantage, historically in Berkshire but now in Oxfordshire. He was the youngest son of King ¥thelwulf of Wessex by his first wife, Osburh.[c]

In 853, at the age of four, Alfred is reported by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to have been sent to Rome where he was confirmed by Pope Leo IV, who "anointed him as king".[3] Victorian writers later interpreted this as an anticipatory coronation in preparation for his eventual succession to the throne of Wessex. This is unlikely; his succession could not have been foreseen at the time as Alfred had three living elder brothers. A letter of Leo IV shows that Alfred was made a "consul"; a misinterpretation of this investiture, deliberate or accidental, could explain later confusion.[4] It may also be based on Alfred's later having accompanied his father on a pilgrimage to Rome where he spent some time at the court of Charles the Bald, King of the Franks, around 854–855.

On their return from Rome in 856 ¥thelwulf was deposed by his son ¥thelbald. With civil war looming the magnates of the realm met in council to hammer out a compromise. ¥thelbald would retain the western shires (i.e. historical Wessex), and ¥thelwulf would rule in the east. When King ¥thelwulf died in 858 Wessex was ruled by three of Alfred's brothers in succession: ¥thelbald, ¥thelberht and ¥thelred.[5]

Bishop Asser tells the story of how as a child Alfred won as a prize a book of Saxon poems, offered by his mother to the first of her children able to memorize it.[6] Legend also has it that the young Alfred spent time in Ireland seeking healing. Alfred was troubled by health problems throughout his life. It is thought that he may have suffered from Crohn's disease.[7] Statues of Alfred in Winchester and Wantage portray him as a great warrior. Evidence suggests he was not physically strong and, though not lacking in courage, he was noted more for his intellect than as a warlike character.[8]

Reigns of Alfred's brothers

A map of the route taken by the Viking Great Heathen Army which arrived in England from Denmark, Norway, and southern Sweden in 865.
Alfred is not mentioned during the short reigns of his older brothers ¥thelbald of Wessex and ¥thelberht of Wessex. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes the Great Heathen Army, an army of Danes, landing in East Anglia with the intent of conquering the four kingdoms that constituted Anglo-Saxon England in 865.[9] Alfred's public life began at age 16 with the accession of his third brother, 18 year old King ¥thelred of Wessex in 865.

During this period, Bishop Asser applied to Alfred the unique title of "secundarius", which may indicate a position similar to the Celtic "tanist", a recognised successor closely associated with the reigning monarch. This arrangement may have been sanctioned by Alfred's father or by the Witan to guard against the danger of a disputed succession should ¥thelred fall in battle. It is well known among other Germanic peoples to crown a successor as royal prince and military commander, such as among the Swedes and Franks, to whom the Anglo-Saxons were closely related.

Fighting the Viking invasion

In 868, Alfred is recorded as fighting beside ¥thelred in an unsuccessful attempt to keep the Great Heathen Army led by Ivar the Boneless out of the adjoining Kingdom of Mercia.[10] The Danes arrived in his homeland at the end of 870, and nine engagements were fought in the following year, with varying outcomes, though the places and dates of two of these battles have not been recorded.

A successful skirmish at the Battle of Englefield in Berkshire on 31 December 870 was followed by a severe defeat at the siege and Battle of Reading by Ivar's brother Halfdan Ragnarsson on 5 January 871. Four days later, the Anglo-Saxons won a brilliant victory at the Battle of Ashdown on the Berkshire Downs, possibly near Compton or Aldworth. Alfred is particularly credited with the success of this last battle.[11]

The Saxons were defeated at the Battle of Basing on 22 January. They were defeated again on 22 March at the Battle of Merton (perhaps Marden in Wiltshire or Martin in Dorset).[11] ¥thelred died shortly afterwards on 23 April.

King at war

Early struggles, defeat and flight

In April 871 King ¥thelred died and Alfred succeeded to the throne of Wessex and the burden of its defence, even though ¥thelred left two under-age sons, ¥thelhelm and ¥thelwold. This was in accordance with the agreement that ¥thelred and Alfred had made earlier that year in an assembly at "Swinbeorg". The brothers had agreed that whichever of them outlived the other would inherit the personal property that King ¥thelwulf had left jointly to his sons in his will. The deceased's sons would receive only whatever property and riches their father had settled upon them, and whatever additional lands their uncle had acquired. The unstated premise was that the surviving brother would be king. Given the ongoing Danish invasion, and the youth of his nephews, Alfred's accession probably went uncontested.

While he was busy with the burial ceremonies for his brother, the Danes defeated the Saxon army in his absence at an unnamed spot, and then again in his presence at Wilton in May.[11] The defeat at Wilton smashed any remaining hope that Alfred could drive the invaders from his kingdom. He was forced instead to make peace with them, according to sources that do not tell what the terms of the peace were. Bishop Asser claimed that the pagans agreed to vacate the realm and made good their promise.[12]

Indeed, the Viking army did withdraw from Reading in the autumn of 871 to take up winter quarters in Mercian London. Although not mentioned by Asser, or by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Alfred probably also paid the Vikings cash to leave, much as the Mercians were to do in the following year.[12] Hoards dating to the Viking occupation of London in 871/2 have been excavated at Croydon, Gravesend, and Waterloo Bridge. These finds hint at the cost involved in making peace with the Vikings. For the next five years the Danes occupied other parts of England.[13]

In 876 under their new leader, Guthrum, the Danes slipped past the Saxon army and attacked and occupied Wareham in Dorset. Alfred blockaded them but was unable to take Wareham by assault.[11] Accordingly, he negotiated a peace which involved an exchange of hostages and oaths, which the Danes swore on a "holy ring"[14] associated with the worship of Thor.[15] The Danes broke their word and, after killing all the hostages, slipped away under cover of night to Exeter in Devon.[16]

Alfred blockaded the Viking ships in Devon and, with a relief fleet having been scattered by a storm, the Danes were forced to submit. The Danes withdrew to Mercia. In January 878 the Danes made a sudden attack on Chippenham, a royal stronghold in which Alfred had been staying over Christmas, "and most of the people they killed, except the King Alfred, and he with a little band made his way by wood and swamp, and after Easter he made a fort at Athelney in the marshes of Somerset, and from that fort kept fighting against the foe."[17] From his fort at Athelney, an island in the marshes near North Petherton, Alfred was able to mount an effective resistance movement, rallying the local militias from Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire.[11]

A legend, originating from 12th century chronicles,[2] tells how when he first fled to the Somerset Levels, Alfred was given shelter by a peasant woman who, unaware of his identity, left him to watch some wheaten cakes she had left cooking on the fire. Preoccupied with the problems of his kingdom Alfred accidentally let the cakes burn and was roundly scolded by the woman upon her return.

878 was the low-water mark in the history of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. With all the other kingdoms having fallen to the Vikings Wessex alone was still resisting.[18]

Counter-attack and victory

King Alfred's Tower (1772) on the supposed site of "Egbert's Stone", the mustering place before the Battle of Edington.[d]
In the seventh week after Easter (4–10 May 878), around Whitsuntide, Alfred rode to Egbert's Stone east of Selwood where he was met by "all the people of Somerset and of Wiltshire and of that part of Hampshire which is on this side of the sea (that is, west of Southampton Water), and they rejoiced to see him".[17] Alfred's emergence from his marshland stronghold was part of a carefully planned offensive that entailed raising the fyrds of three shires. This meant not only that the king had retained the loyalty of ealdormen, royal reeves and king's thegns, who were charged with levying and leading these forces, but that they had maintained their positions of authority in these localities well enough to answer his summons to war. Alfred's actions also suggest a system of scouts and messengers.[19]

Alfred won a decisive victory in the ensuing Battle of Edington which may have been fought near Westbury, Wiltshire.[11] He then pursued the Danes to their stronghold at Chippenham and starved them into submission. One of the terms of the surrender was that Guthrum convert to Christianity. Three weeks later the Danish king and 29 of his chief men were baptised at Alfred's court at Aller, near Athelney, with Alfred receiving Guthrum as his spiritual son.[11]

According to Asser:

The unbinding of the Chrisom [e] took place with great ceremony eight days later at the royal estate at Wedmore[21]

While at Wedmore Alfred and Guthrum negotiated what some historians have called the Treaty of Wedmore, but it was to be some years after the cessation of hostilities that a formal treaty was signed.[22] Under the terms of the so-called Treaty of Wedmore the converted Guthrum was required to leave Wessex and return to East Anglia. Consequently, in 879 the Viking army left Chippenham and made its way to Cirencester. [21] The formal Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum, preserved in Old English in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Manuscript 383), and in a Latin compilation known as "Quadripartitus", was negotiated later, perhaps in 879 or 880, when King Ceolwulf II of Mercia was deposed.[23]

That treaty divided up the kingdom of Mercia. By its terms the boundary between Alfred's and Guthrum's kingdoms was to run up the River Thames to the River Lea, follow the Lea to its source (near Luton), from there extend in a straight line to Bedford, and from Bedford follow the River Ouse to Watling Street.[24]

In other words, Alfred succeeded to Ceolwulf's kingdom consisting of western Mercia, and Guthrum incorporated the eastern part of Mercia into an enlarged kingdom of East Anglia (henceforward known as the Danelaw). By terms of the treaty, moreover, Alfred was to have control over the Mercian city of London and its mints—at least for the time being.[25] The disposition of Essex, held by West Saxon kings since the days of Egbert, is unclear from the treaty though, given Alfred's political and military superiority, it would have been surprising if he had conceded any disputed territory to his new godson.

Quiet years, restoration of London (880s)

Further information: Londinium and Anglo-Saxon London

With the signing of the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum, an event most commonly held to have taken place around 880 when Guthrum's people began settling East Anglia, Guthrum was neutralised as a threat.[26] The Viking army, which had stayed at Fulham during the winter of 878–879, sailed for Ghent and was active on the continent from 879–892.[27][28]

Alfred was still forced to contend with a number of Danish threats. A year later, in 881, Alfred fought a small sea battle against four Danish ships "on the high seas",[27] Two of the ships were destroyed and the others surrendered to Alfred's forces.[29] Similar small skirmishes with independent Viking raiders would have occurred for much of the period, as they had for decades.

In 883—though there is some debate over the year—King Alfred, because of his support and his donation of alms to Rome, received a number of gifts from Pope Marinus.[30] Among these gifts was reputed to be a piece of the true cross, a great treasure for the devout Saxon king. According to Asser, because of Pope Marinus' friendship with King Alfred, the pope granted an exemption to any Anglo-Saxons residing within Rome from tax or tribute.[31]

After the signing of the treaty with Guthrum, Alfred was spared any large-scale conflicts for some time. Despite this relative peace the king was still forced to deal with a number of Danish raids and incursions. Among these was a raid in Kent, an allied kingdom in South East England, during the year 885, which was quite possibly the largest raid since the battles with Guthrum. Asser's account of the raid places the Danish raiders at the Saxon city of Rochester[27] where they built a temporary fortress in order to besiege the city. In response to this incursion Alfred led an Anglo-Saxon force against the Danes who, instead of engaging the army of Wessex, fled to their beached ships and sailed to another part of Britain. The retreating Danish force supposedly left Britain the following summer.[32]

Not long after the failed Danish raid in Kent, Alfred dispatched his fleet to East Anglia. The purpose of this expedition is debated, though Asser claims that it was for the sake of plunder.[32] After travelling up the River Stour the fleet was met by Danish vessels that numbered 13 or 16 (sources vary on the number) and a battle ensued.[32] The Anglo-Saxon fleet emerged victorious and, as Huntingdon accounts, "laden with spoils".[33] The victorious fleet was then caught unawares when attempting to leave the River Stour and was attacked by a Danish force at the mouth of the river. The Danish fleet defeated Alfred's fleet, which may have been weakened in the previous engagement.[34]

A plaque in the City of London noting the restoration of the Roman walled city by Alfred.
A year later, in 886, Alfred reoccupied the city of London and set out to make it habitable again.[35] Alfred entrusted the city to the care of his son-in-law ¥thelred, ealdorman of Mercia. The restoration of London progressed through the latter half of the 880s and is believed to have revolved around: a new street plan; added fortifications in addition to the existing Roman walls; and, some believe, the construction of matching fortifications on the south bank of the River Thames.[36]

This is also the period in which almost all chroniclers agree that the Saxon people of pre-unification England submitted to Alfred.[37] This was not, however, the point at which Alfred came to be known as King of England; in fact he would never adopt the title for himself.

Between the restoration of London and the resumption of large-scale Danish attacks in the early 890s, Alfred's reign was rather uneventful. The relative peace of the late 880s was marred by the death of Alfred's sister, ¥thelswith, en route to Rome in 888.[38] In the same year the Archbishop of Canterbury, ¥thelred, also died. One year later Guthrum, or Athelstan by his baptismal name, Alfred's former enemy and king of East Anglia, died and was buried in Hadleigh, Suffolk.[39]

Map of Britain in 886
Guthrum's passing changed the political landscape for Alfred. The resulting power vacuum stirred up other power–hungry warlords eager to take his place in the following years. The quiet years of Alfred's life were coming to a close and war was on the horizon.[40]

Further Viking attacks repelled (890s)

After another lull, in the autumn of 892 or 893, the Danes attacked again. Finding their position in mainland Europe precarious, they crossed to England in 330 ships in two divisions. They entrenched themselves, the larger body, at Appledore, Kent, and the lesser under Hastein, at Milton, also in Kent. The invaders brought their wives and children with them indicating a meaningful attempt at conquest and colonisation. Alfred, in 893 or 894, took up a position from which he could observe both forces.[41]

While he was in talks with Hastein, the Danes at Appledore broke out and struck northwestwards. They were overtaken by Alfred's eldest son, Edward, and were defeated in a general engagement at Farnham in Surrey. They took refuge on an island at Thorney, on the River Colne between Buckinghamshire and Middlesex, where they were blockaded and forced to give hostages and promise to leave Wessex.[42][41] They then went to Essex and, after suffering another defeat at Benfleet, joined with Hastein's force at Shoebury.[42]

Alfred had been on his way to relieve his son at Thorney when he heard that the Northumbrian and East Anglian Danes were besieging Exeter and an unnamed stronghold on the North Devon shore. Alfred at once hurried westward and raised the Siege of Exeter. The fate of the other place is not recorded.[43]

Meanwhile, the force under Hastein set out to march up the Thames Valley, possibly with the idea of assisting their friends in the west. They were met by a large force under the three great ealdormen of Mercia, Wiltshire and Somerset and, forced to head off to the northwest, being finally overtaken and blockaded at Buttington. (Some identify this with Buttington Tump at the mouth of the River Wye, others with Buttington near Welshpool.) An attempt to break through the English lines was defeated. Those who escaped retreated to Shoebury. After collecting reinforcements, they made a sudden dash across England and occupied the ruined Roman walls of Chester. The English did not attempt a winter blockade but contented themselves with destroying all the supplies in the district.[43]

Early in 894 or 895 lack of food obliged the Danes to retire once more to Essex. At the end of the year the Danes drew their ships up the River Thames and the River Lea and fortified themselves twenty miles (32 km) north of London. A direct attack on the Danish lines failed but, later in the year, Alfred saw a means of obstructing the river so as to prevent the egress of the Danish ships. The Danes realised that they were outmanoeuvred. They struck off north-westwards and wintered at Cwatbridge near Bridgnorth. The next year, 896 (or 897), they gave up the struggle. Some retired to Northumbria, some to East Anglia. Those who had no connections in England withdrew back to the continent.[43]

Military reorganisation

Alfred the Great silver offering penny, 871–899. Legend: AELFRED REX SAXONUM "¥lfred King of the Saxons".
The Germanic tribes who invaded Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries relied upon the unarmoured infantry supplied by their tribal levy, or fyrd, and it was upon this system that the military power of the several kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England depended.[44] The fyrd was a local militia in the Anglo-Saxon shire in which all freemen had to serve; those who refused military service were subject to fines or loss of their land.[45] According to the law code of King Ine of Wessex, issued in about 694:

If a nobleman who holds land neglects military service, he shall pay 120 shillings and forfeit his land; a nobleman who holds no land shall pay 60 shillings; a commoner shall pay a fine of 30 shillings for neglecting military service.[46]

Wessex's history of failures preceding his success in 878 emphasised to Alfred that the traditional system of battle he had inherited played to the Danes' advantage. While both the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes attacked settlements to seize wealth and other resources, they employed very different strategies. In their raids the Anglo-Saxons traditionally preferred to attack head-on by assembling their forces in a shield wall, advancing against their target and overcoming the oncoming wall marshaled against them in defence.[47]

In contrast the Danes preferred to choose easy targets, mapping cautious forays designed to avoid risking all their accumulated plunder with high-stake attacks for more. Alfred determined their strategy was to launch smaller scaled attacks from a secure and reinforced defensible base to which they could retreat should their raiders meet strong resistance.[47]

These bases were prepared in advance, often by capturing an estate and augmenting its defences with surrounding ditches, ramparts and palisades. Once inside the fortification, Alfred realised, the Danes enjoyed the advantage, better situated to outlast their opponents or crush them with a counter-attack as the provisions and stamina of the besieging forces waned.[47]

The means by which the Anglo-Saxons marshaled forces to defend against marauders also left them vulnerable to the Vikings. It was the responsibility of the shire fyrd to deal with local raids. The king could call up the national militia to defend the kingdom but, in the case of the Viking hit-and-run raids, problems with communication, and raising supplies meant that the national militia could not be mustered quickly enough. It was only after the raids were underway that a call went out to landowners to gather their men for battle. Large regions could be devastated before the fyrd could assemble and arrive. And although the landowners were obliged to the king to supply these men when called, during the attacks in 878 many of them opportunistically abandoned their king and collaborated with Guthrum.[48][49]

With these lessons in mind Alfred capitalised on the relatively peaceful years immediately following his victory at Edington by focusing on an ambitious restructuring of his kingdom's military defences. On a trip to Rome Alfred had stayed with Charles the Bald and it is possible that he may have studied how the Carolingian kings had dealt with the Viking problem. Learning from their experiences he was able to put together a system of taxation and defence for his own kingdom. Also there had been a system of fortifications in pre-Viking Mercia that may have been an influence. So when the Viking raids resumed in 892 Alfred was better prepared to confront them with a standing, mobile field army, a network of garrisons, and a small fleet of ships navigating the rivers and estuaries.[50][51][52]

Administration and taxation

Tenants in Anglo-Saxon England had a threefold obligation based on their landholding: the so-called "common burdens" of military service, fortress work, and bridge repair. This threefold obligation has traditionally been called "trinoda neccessitas" or "trimoda neccessitas".[53] The Old English name for the fine due for neglecting military service was "fierdwite" or "fyrdwitee".[46]

To maintain the burhs, and to reorganise the fyrd as a standing army, Alfred expanded the tax and conscription system based on the productivity of a tenant's landholding. The "hide" was the basic unit of the system on which the tenant's public obligations were assessed. A "hide" is thought to represent the amount of land required to support one family. The "hide" would differ in size according to the value and resources of the land, and the landowner would have to provide service based on how many "hides" he owned.[53][54]

Burghal system

See also: Burghal Hidage

A map of burhs named in the Burghal Hidage.
At the centre of Alfred's reformed military defence system was the network of burhs, distributed at strategic points throughout the kingdom.[55] There were thirty-three in total, spaced approximately 30 kilometres (19 miles) apart, enabling the military to confront attacks anywhere in the kingdom within a single day.[56][57]

Alfred's burhs (later termed boroughs) ranged from former Roman towns, such as Winchester, where the stone walls were repaired and ditches added, to massive earthen walls surrounded by wide ditches, probably reinforced with wooden revetments and palisades, such as at Burpham, Sussex.[58][59] The size of the burhs ranged from tiny outposts such as Pilton to large fortifications in established towns, the largest being at Winchester.[60]

A contemporary document now known as the Burghal Hidage provides an insight into how the system worked. It lists the "hidage" for each of the fortified towns contained in the document. For example, Wallingford had a "hidage" of 2400, which meant that the landowners there were responsible for supplying and feeding 2,400 men, the number sufficient for maintaining 9,900 feet (3.0 kilometres) of wall.[61] A total of 27,071 soldiers were needed system-wide, or approximately one in four of all the free men in Wessex.[62]

Many of the burhs were twin towns that straddled a river and were connected by a fortified bridge, like those built by Charles the Bald a generation before.[51] The double-burh blocked passage on the river, forcing Viking ships to navigate under a garrisoned bridge lined with men armed with stones, spears, or arrows. Other burhs were sited near fortified royal villas, allowing the king better control over his strongholds.[63] The burhs were also interconnected by a road system maintained for army use (known as "herepaths"). These roads would allow an army to be quickly assembled, sometimes from more than one burh, to confront the Viking invader.[64] This network posed significant obstacles to Viking invaders, especially those laden with booty. The system threatened Viking routes and communications making it far more dangerous for the Viking raiders. The Vikings lacked both the equipment necessary to undertake a siege against a burh and a developed doctrine of siegecraft, having tailored their methods of fighting to rapid strikes and unimpeded retreats to well-defended fortifications. The only means left to them was to starve the burh into submission, but this gave the king time to send his mobile field army or garrisons from neighbouring burhs along the well-maintained army roads. In such cases the Vikings were extremely vulnerable to pursuit by the king's joint military forces.[65] Alfred's burh system posed such a formidable challenge against Viking attack that when the Vikings returned in 892, and successfully stormed a half-made, poorly garrisoned fortress up the Lympne estuary in Kent, the Anglo-Saxons were able to limit their penetration to the outer frontiers of Wessex and Mercia.[66]

Alfred's burghal system was revolutionary in its strategic conception and potentially expensive in its execution. His contemporary biographer Asser wrote that many nobles balked at the new demands placed upon them even though they were for "the common needs of the kingdom".[67][68]

English navy

Alfred also tried his hand at naval design. In 896[69] he ordered the construction of a small fleet, perhaps a dozen or so longships that, at 60 oars, were twice the size of Viking warships. This was not, as the Victorians asserted, the birth of the English Navy. Wessex had possessed a royal fleet before this. King Athelstan of Kent and Ealdorman Ealhhere had defeated a Viking fleet in 851 capturing nine ships,[70] and Alfred himself had conducted naval actions in 882.[71]

Nevertheless, 897 clearly marked an important development in the naval power of Wessex. The author of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle related that Alfred's ships were larger, swifter, steadier and rode higher in the water than either Danish or Frisian ships. It is probable that, under the classical tutelage of Asser, Alfred utilised the design of Greek and Roman warships, with high sides, designed for fighting rather than for navigation.[72]

Alfred had seapower in mind—if he could intercept raiding fleets before they landed, he could spare his kingdom from being ravaged. Alfred's ships may have been superior in conception. In practice they proved to be too large to manoeuvre well in the close waters of estuaries and rivers, the only places in which a naval battle could occur.[73]

The warships of the time were not designed to be ship killers but rather troop carriers. It has been suggested that, like sea battles in late Viking age Scandinavia, these battles may have entailed a ship coming alongside an enemy vessel, lashing the two ships together and then boarding the enemy craft. The result was effectively a land battle involving hand-to-hand fighting on board the two lashed vessels.[74]

In the one recorded naval engagement in 896[75][69] Alfred's new fleet of nine ships intercepted six Viking ships at the mouth of an unidentified river in the south of England. The Danes had beached half their ships and gone inland. Alfred's ships immediately moved to block their escape. The three Viking ships afloat attempted to break through the English lines. Only one made it; Alfred's ships intercepted the other two.[69] Lashing the Viking boats to their own, the English crew boarded and proceeded to kill the Vikings. One ship escaped, because Alfred's heavy ships became grounded when the tide went out.[74] A land battle ensued between the crews. The Danes were heavily outnumbered, but as the tide rose they returned to their boats which, with shallower drafts, were freed first. The English watched as the Vikings rowed past them.[74] But they had suffered so many casualties (120 dead against 62 Frisians and English) that they had difficulty putting out to sea. All were too damaged to row around Sussex and two were driven against the Sussex coast (possibly at Selsey Bill).[69][74] The shipwrecked crew were brought before Alfred at Winchester and hanged.[69]

Legal reform:

In the late 880s or early 890s Alfred issued a long domboc or law code consisting of his "own" laws, followed by a code issued by his late seventh-century predecessor King Ine of Wessex.[76] Together these laws are arranged into 120 chapters. In his introduction Alfred explains that he gathered together the laws he found in many "synod-books" and "ordered to be written many of the ones that our forefathers observed—those that pleased me; and many of the ones that did not please me, I rejected with the advice of my councillors, and commanded them to be observed in a different way".[77]

Alfred singled out in particular the laws that he "found in the days of Ine, my kinsman, or Offa, king of the Mercians, or King ¥thelberht of Kent who first among the English people received baptism". He appended, rather than integrated, the laws of Ine into his code and, although he included, as had ¥thelbert, a scale of payments in compensation for injuries to various body parts the two injury tariffs are not aligned. Offa is not known to have issued a law code leading historian Patrick Wormald to speculate that Alfred had in mind the legatine capitulary of 786 that was presented to Offa by two papal legates.[78]

About a fifth of the law code is taken up by Alfred's introduction which includes translations into English of the Ten Commandments, a few chapters from the Book of Exodus, and the "Apostolic Letter" from the Acts of the Apostles (15:23–29). The Introduction may best be understood as Alfred's meditation upon the meaning of Christian law.[79] It traces the continuity between God's gift of law to Moses to Alfred's own issuance of law to the West Saxon people. By doing so, it linked the holy past to the historical present and represented Alfred's law-giving as a type of divine legislation.[80]

Similarly Alfred divided his code into 120 chapters because 120 was the age at which Moses died and, in the number-symbolism of early medieval biblical exegetes, 120 stood for law.[81] The link between the Mosaic Law and Alfred's code is the "Apostolic Letter" which explained that Christ "had come not to shatter or annul the commandments but to fulfill them; and he taught mercy and meekness". (Intro, 49.1) The mercy that Christ infused into Mosaic Law underlies the injury tariffs that figure so prominently in barbarian law codes since Christian synods "established, through that mercy which Christ taught, that for almost every misdeed at the first offence secular lords might with their permission receive without sin the monetary compensation which they then fixed".[82]

The only crime that could not be compensated with a payment of money was treachery to a lord "since Almighty God adjudged none for those who despised Him, nor did Christ, the Son of God, adjudge any for the one who betrayed Him to death; and He commanded everyone to love his lord as Himself".[82] Alfred's transformation of Christ's commandment, from "Love your neighbour as yourself" (Matt. 22:39–40) to love your secular lord as you would love the Lord Christ himself, underscores the importance that Alfred placed upon lordship which he understood as a sacred bond instituted by God for the governance of man.[83]

When one turns from the domboc's introduction to the laws themselves it is difficult to uncover any logical arrangement. The impression one receives is of a hodgepodge of miscellaneous laws. The law code, as it has been preserved, is singularly unsuitable for use in lawsuits. In fact several of Alfred's laws contradicted the laws of Ine that form an integral part of the code. Patrick Wormald's explanation is that Alfred's law code should be understood not as a legal manual but as an ideological manifesto of kingship "designed more for symbolic impact than for practical direction".[84] In practical terms the most important law in the code may well have been the very first: "We enjoin, what is most necessary, that each man keep carefully his oath and his pledge" which expresses a fundamental tenet of Anglo-Saxon law.[85]

Alfred devoted considerable attention and thought to judicial matters. Asser underscores his concern for judicial fairness. Alfred, according to Asser, insisted upon reviewing contested judgments made by his ealdormen and reeves and "would carefully look into nearly all the judgements which were passed [issued] in his absence anywhere in the realm to see whether they were just or unjust".[86] A charter from the reign of his son Edward the Elder depicts Alfred as hearing one such appeal in his chamber while washing his hands.[87]

Asser represents Alfred as a Solomonic judge, painstaking in his own judicial investigations and critical of royal officials who rendered unjust or unwise judgments. Although Asser never mentions Alfred's law code he does say that Alfred insisted that his judges be literate so that they could apply themselves "to the pursuit of wisdom". The failure to comply with this royal order was to be punished by loss of office.[88]

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, commissioned at the time of Alfred, was probably written to promote unification of England,[89] whereas Asser's The Life of King Alfred promoted Alfred's achievements and personal qualities. It was possible that the document was designed this way so that it could be disseminated in Wales, as Alfred had recently acquired overlordship of that country.[89]

Foreign relations

Asser speaks grandiosely of Alfred's relations with foreign powers but little definite information is available.[43] His interest in foreign countries is shown by the insertions which he made in his translation of Orosius. He corresponded with Elias III, the Patriarch of Jerusalem,[43] and embassies to Rome conveying the English alms to the Pope were fairly frequent.[51][f] Around 890 Wulfstan of Hedeby undertook a journey from Hedeby on Jutland along the Baltic Sea to the Prussian trading town of Truso. Alfred personally collected details of this trip.[90]

Alfred's relations with the Celtic princes in the western half of Britain are clearer. Comparatively early in his reign, according to Asser, the southern Welsh princes, owing to the pressure on them from North Wales and Mercia, commended themselves to Alfred. Later in his reign the North Welsh followed their example and the latter cooperated with the English in the campaign of 893 (or 894). That Alfred sent alms to Irish and Continental monasteries may be taken on Asser's authority. The visit of the three pilgrim "Scots" (i.e. Irish) to Alfred in 891 is undoubtedly authentic. The story that he himself in his childhood was sent to Ireland to be healed by Saint Modwenna, though mythical, may show Alfred's interest in that island.[43]

Religion and culture

King Alfred the Great pictured in a stained glass window in the West Window of the South Transept of Bristol Cathedral.
In the 880s, at the same time that he was "cajoling and threatening" his nobles to build and man the burhs, Alfred, perhaps inspired by the example of Charlemagne almost a century before, undertook an equally ambitious effort to revive learning.[43] During this time period the Viking raids were often seen as a divine punishment and Alfred may have wished to revive religious awe in order to appease God's wrath.[91] This revival entailed the recruitment of clerical scholars from Mercia, Wales and abroad to enhance the tenor of the court and of the episcopacy; the establishment of a court school to educate his own children, the sons of his nobles, and intellectually promising boys of lesser birth; an attempt to require literacy in those who held offices of authority; a series of translations into the vernacular of Latin works the king deemed "most necessary for all men to know";[92] the compilation of a chronicle detailing the rise of Alfred's kingdom and house, with a genealogy that stretched back to Adam, thus giving the West Saxon kings a biblical ancestry.[93]

Very little is known of the church under Alfred. The Danish attacks had been particularly damaging to the monasteries. Although Alfred founded monasteries at Athelney and Shaftesbury, these were the first new monastic houses in Wessex since the beginning of the eighth century.[94] According to Asser, Alfred enticed foreign monks to England for his monastery at Athelney as there was little interest for the locals to take up the monastic life.[95]

Alfred undertook no systematic reform of ecclesiastical institutions or religious practices in Wessex. For him the key to the kingdom's spiritual revival was to appoint pious, learned, and trustworthy bishops and abbots. As king he saw himself as responsible for both the temporal and spiritual welfare of his subjects. Secular and spiritual authority were not distinct categories for Alfred.[96][97]

He was equally comfortable distributing his translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care to his bishops so that they might better train and supervise priests and using those same bishops as royal officials and judges. Nor did his piety prevent him from expropriating strategically sited church lands, especially estates along the border with the Danelaw, and transferring them to royal thegns and officials who could better defend them against Viking attacks.[97][98]

Impact of Danish raids on education

The Danish raids had a devastating effect on learning in England. Alfred lamented in the preface to his translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care that "learning had declined so thoroughly in England that there were very few men on this side of the Humber who could understand their divine services in English or even translate a single letter from Latin into English: and I suppose that there were not many beyond the Humber either".[99] Alfred undoubtedly exaggerated, for dramatic effect, the abysmal state of learning in England during his youth.[100] That Latin learning had not been obliterated is evidenced by the presence in his court of learned Mercian and West Saxon clerics such as Plegmund, Wµferth, and Wulfsige.[101]

Manuscript production in England dropped off precipitously around the 860s when the Viking invasions began in earnest, not to be revived until the end of the century.[102] Numerous Anglo-Saxon manuscripts burnt up along with the churches that housed them. And a solemn diploma from Christ Church, Canterbury, dated 873, is so poorly constructed and written that historian Nicholas Brooks posited a scribe who was either so blind he could not read what he wrote or who knew little or no Latin. "It is clear", Brooks concludes, "that the metropolitan church [of Canterbury] must have been quite unable to provide any effective training in the scriptures or in Christian worship".[103]

Establishment of a court school

Following the example of Charlemagne, Alfred established a court school for the education of his own children, those of the nobility, and "a good many of lesser birth".[92] There they studied books in both English and Latin and "devoted themselves to writing, to such an extent ... they were seen to be devoted and intelligent students of the liberal arts".[104] He recruited scholars from the Continent and from Britain to aid in the revival of Christian learning in Wessex and to provide the king personal instruction. Grimbald and John the Saxon came from Francia; Plegmund (whom Alfred appointed archbishop of Canterbury in 890), Bishop Werferth of Worcester, ¥thelstan, and the royal chaplains Werwulf, from Mercia; and Asser, from St David's in southwestern Wales.[105]

Advocacy of education in the English language:

Alfred's educational ambitions seem to have extended beyond the establishment of a court school. Believing that without Christian wisdom there can be neither prosperity nor success in war, Alfred aimed "to set to learning (as long as they are not useful for some other employment) all the free-born young men now in England who have the means to apply themselves to it".[106] Conscious of the decay of Latin literacy in his realm Alfred proposed that primary education be taught in English, with those wishing to advance to holy orders to continue their studies in Latin.[107]

There were few "books of wisdom" written in English. Alfred sought to remedy this through an ambitious court-centred programme of translating into English the books he deemed "most necessary for all men to know".[107] It is unknown when Alfred launched this programme but it may have been during the 880s when Wessex was enjoying a respite from Viking attacks. Alfred was, until recently, often considered to have been the author of many of the translations but this is now considered doubtful in almost all cases. Scholars more often refer to translations as "Alfredian" indicating that they probably had something to do with his patronage but are unlikely to be his own work.[108]

Apart from the lost Handboc or Encheiridio, which seems to have been a commonplace book kept by the king, the earliest work to be translated was the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, a book greatly popular in the Middle Ages. The translation was undertaken at Alfred's command by Werferth, Bishop of Worcester, with the king merely furnishing a preface.[43] Remarkably Alfred, undoubtedly with the advice and aid of his court scholars, translated four works himself: Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy", St. Augustine's Soliloquies and the first fifty psalms of the Psalter.[109]

One might add to this list the translation, in Alfred's law code, of excerpts from the Vulgate Book of Exodus. The Old English versions of Orosius's Histories against the Pagans and Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People are no longer accepted by scholars as Alfred's own translations because of lexical and stylistic differences.[109] Nonetheless the consensus remains that they were part of the Alfredian programme of translation. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge suggest this also for Bald's Leechbook and the anonymous Old English Martyrology.[110]

The preface of Alfred's translation of Pope Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care explained why he thought it necessary to translate works such as this from Latin into English. Although he described his method as translating "sometimes word for word, sometimes sense for sense", the translation actually keeps very close to the original although, through his choice of language, he blurred throughout the distinction between spiritual and secular authority. Alfred meant the translation to be used, and circulated it to all his bishops.[111] Interest in Alfred's translation of Pastoral Care was so enduring that copies were still being made in the 11th century.[112]

Boethius'Consolation of Philosophy was the most popular philosophical handbook of the Middle Ages. Unlike the translation of the Pastoral Care the Alfredian text deals very freely with the original and, though the late Dr. G. Schepss showed that many of the additions to the text are to be traced not to the translator himself[113] but to the glosses and commentaries which he used, still there is much in the work which is distinctive to the translation and has been taken to reflect philosophies of kingship in Alfred's milieu. It is in the Boethius that the oft-quoted sentence occurs: "To speak briefly: I desired to live worthily as long as I lived, and after my life to leave to them that should come after, my memory in good works."[114] The book has come down to us in two manuscripts only. In one of these[115] the writing is prose, in the other[116] a combination of prose and alliterating verse. The latter manuscript was severely damaged in the 18th and 19th centuries.[117]

The last of the Alfredian works is one which bears the name Blostman, i.e. "Blooms" or Anthology. The first half is based mainly on the Soliloquies of St Augustine of Hippo, the remainder is drawn from various sources. The material has traditionally been thought to contain much that is Alfred's own and highly characteristic of him. The last words of it may be quoted; they form a fitting epitaph for the noblest of English kings. "Therefore, he seems to me a very foolish man, and truly wretched, who will not increase his understanding while he is in the world, and ever wish and long to reach that endless life where all shall be made clear."[111] Alfred appears as a character in the twelfth- or thirteenth-century poem The Owl and the Nightingale where his wisdom and skill with proverbs is praised. The Proverbs of Alfred, a thirteenth-century work, contains sayings that are not likely to have originated with Alfred but attest to his posthumous medieval reputation for wisdom.[118]

2A drawing of the Alfred Jewel.

The Alfred Jewel, in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, commissioned by Alfred:

Interesting article about, "The Alfred Jewel", contributed January 14th, 2018 by Martha Ann Millsaps;

The Alfred jewel, discovered in Somerset in 1693, has long been associated with King Alfred because of its Old English inscription AELFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN (Alfred ordered me to be made). The jewel is about 2 1/2 inches (6.4 centimetres) long, made of filigreed gold, enclosing a highly polished piece of quartz crystal beneath which is set in a cloisonnâe enamel plaque with an enamelled image of a man holding floriate sceptres, perhaps personifying Sight or the Wisdom of God.[119]

It was at one time attached to a thin rod or stick based on the hollow socket at its base. The jewel certainly dates from Alfred's reign. Although its function is unknown it has been often suggested that the jewel was one of the "µstels"—pointers for reading—that Alfred ordered sent to every bishopric accompanying a copy of his translation of the Pastoral Care. Each "µstel" was worth the princely sum of 50 mancuses which fits in well with the quality workmanship and expensive materials of the Alfred jewel".[120]

Historian Richard Abels sees Alfred's educational and military reforms as complementary. Restoring religion and learning in Wessex, Abels contends, was to Alfred's mind as essential to the defence of his realm as the building of the burhs.[121] As Alfred observed in the preface to his English translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, kings who fail to obey their divine duty to promote learning can expect earthly punishments to befall their people.[122] The pursuit of wisdom, he assured his readers of the Boethius, was the surest path to power: "Study Wisdom, then, and, when you have learned it, condemn it not, for I tell you that by its means you may without fail attain to power, yea, even though not desiring it".[123]

The portrayal of the West-Saxon resistance to the Vikings by Asser and the chronicler as a Christian holy war was more than mere rhetoric or 'propaganda'. It reflected Alfred's own belief in a doctrine of divine rewards and punishments rooted in a vision of a hierarchical Christian world order in which God is the Lord to whom kings owe obedience and through whom they derive their authority over their followers. The need to persuade his nobles to undertake work for the 'common good' led Alfred and his court scholars to strengthen and deepen the conception of Christian kingship that he had inherited by building upon the legacy of earlier kings such as Offa as well as clerical writers such as Bede, Alcuin and the other luminaries of the Carolingian renaissance. This was not a cynical use of religion to manipulate his subjects into obedience but an intrinsic element in Alfred's worldview. He believed, as did other kings in ninth-century England and Francia, that God had entrusted him with the spiritual as well as physical welfare of his people. If the Christian faith fell into ruin in his kingdom, if the clergy were too ignorant to understand the Latin words they butchered in their offices and liturgies, if the ancient monasteries and collegiate churches lay deserted out of indifference, he was answerable before God, as Josiah had been. Alfred's ultimate responsibility was the pastoral care of his people.[121]

Now, he was greatly loved, more than all his brothers, by his father and mother—indeed, by everybody—with a universal and profound love, and he was always brought up in the royal court and nowhere else. ... [He] was seen to be more comely in appearance than his other brothers, and more pleasing in manner, speech and behaviour ... [and] in spite of all the demands of the present life, it has been the desire for wisdom, more than anything else, together with the nobility of his birth, which have characterized the nature of his noble mind.[124]

It is also written by Asser that Alfred did not learn to read until he was twelve years old or later, which is described as "shameful negligence" of his parents and tutors. Alfred was an excellent listener and had an incredible memory and he retained poetry and psalms very well. A story is told by Asser about how his mother held up a book of Saxon poetry to him and his brothers, and said; "I shall give this book to whichever one of you can learn it the fastest." After excitedly asking, "Will you really give this book to the one of us who can understand it the soonest and recite it to you?" Alfred then took it to his teacher, learned it, and recited it back to his mother.[125]

Alfred is also noted as carrying around a small book, probably a medieval version of a small pocket notebook, which contained psalms and many prayers that he often collected. Asser writes: these "he collected in a single book, as I have seen for myself; amid all the affairs of the present life he took it around with him everywhere for the sake of prayer, and was inseparable from it."[125]

An excellent hunter in every branch of the sport, Alfred is remembered as an enthusiastic huntsman against whom nobody’s skills could compare.[125]

Although he was the youngest of his brothers, he was probably the most open-minded. He was an early advocate for education. His desire for learning could have come from his early love of English poetry and inability to read or physically record it until later in life. Asser writes that Alfred "could not satisfy his craving for what he desired the most, namely the liberal arts; for, as he used to say, there were no good scholars in the entire kingdom of the West Saxons at that time".[125]

Family

In 868 Alfred married Ealhswith, daughter of a Mercian nobleman, ¥thelred Mucel, Ealdorman of the Gaini. The Gaini were probably one of the tribal groups of the Mercians. Ealhswith's mother, Eadburh, was a member of the Mercian royal family.[126]

They had five or six children together including: Edward the Elder who succeeded his father as king; ¥thelflµd who became Lady (ruler) of the Mercians in her own right; and ¥lfthryth who married Baldwin II the Count of Flanders. His mother was Osburga, daughter of Oslac of the Isle of Wight, Chief Butler of England. Asser, in his Vita ¥lfredi asserts that this shows his lineage from the Jutes of the Isle of Wight. This is unlikely as Bede tells us that they were all slaughtered by the Saxons under Cµdwalla. In 2008 the skeleton of Queen Eadgyth, granddaughter of Alfred the Great was found in Magdeburg Cathedral in Germany. It was confirmed in 2010 that these remains belong to her—one of the earliest members of the English royal family.[127]

Osferth was described as a relative in King Alfred's will and he attested charters in a high position until 934. A charter of King Edward's reign described him as the king's brother, "mistakenly" according to Keynes and Lapidge, but in the view of Janet Nelson he probably was an illegitimate son of King Alfred.[128][129]

Name Birth Death Notes
¥thelflµd 12 June 918 Married c 886, ¥thelred, Lord of the Mercians d. 911; had issue
Edward c. 874 17 July 924 Married (1) Ecgwynn, (2) ¥lfflµd, (3) 919 Eadgifu
¥thelgifu Abbess of Shaftesbury
¥thelweard 16 October 922(?) Married and had issue
¥lfthryth 929 Married Baldwin II d. 918; had issue

Ancestry[edit]

[show]Ancestors of Alfred the Great

Death, burial and fate of remains[edit]

Alfred's will:
Alfred died on 26 October 899. How he died is unknown, although he suffered throughout his life with a painful and unpleasant illness. His biographer Asser gave a detailed description of Alfred's symptoms and this has allowed modern doctors to provide a possible diagnosis. It is thought that he had either Crohn's disease or haemorrhoidal disease.[7][131] His grandson King Eadred seems to have suffered from a similar illness.[132][g]

Alfred was originally buried temporarily in the Old Minster in Winchester. Four years after his death he was moved to the New Minster (perhaps built especially to receive his body). When the New Minster moved to Hyde, a little north of the city, in 1110, the monks were transferred to Hyde Abbey along with Alfred's body and those of his wife and children, which were presumably interred before the high altar. Soon after the dissolution of the abbey in 1539, during the reign of Henry VIII, the church was demolished, leaving the graves intact.[134]

The royal graves and many others were probably rediscovered by chance in 1788 when a prison was being constructed by convicts on the site. Prisoners dug across the width of the altar area in order to dispose of rubble left at the dissolution. Coffins were stripped of lead, and bones were scattered and lost. The prison was demolished between 1846 and 1850.[135] Further excavations in 1866 and 1897 were inconclusive.[134][136] In 1866 amateur antiquarian John Mellor claimed to have recovered a number of bones from the site which he said were those of Alfred. These later came into the possession of the vicar of nearby St Bartholomew's Church who reburied them in an unmarked grave in the church graveyard.[135]

Excavations conducted by the Winchester Museums Service of the Hyde Abbey site in 1999 located a second pit dug in front of where the high altar would have been located, which was identified as probably dating to Mellor's 1886 excavation.[134] The 1999 archeological excavation uncovered the foundations of the abbey buildings and some bones. Bones suggested at the time to be those of Alfred proved instead to belong to an elderly woman.[137]

In March 2013 the Diocese of Winchester exhumed the bones from the unmarked grave at St Bartholomew's and placed them in secure storage. The diocese made no claim they were the bones of Alfred, but intended to secure them for later analysis, and from the attentions of people whose interest may have been sparked by the recent identification of the remains of King Richard III.[137][138] The bones were radiocarbon-dated but the results showed that they were from the 1300s and therefore unrelated to Alfred. In January 2014, a fragment of pelvis unearthed in the 1999 excavation of the Hyde site, which had subsequently lain in a Winchester museum store room, was radiocarbon-dated to the correct period. It has been suggested that this bone may belong to either Alfred or his son Edward, but this remains unproven.[139][140]

end of biography

More...

"The Last Kingdom"

The Last Kingdom is a British television series, an eight-part adaptation of Bernard Cornwell's historical novels series The Saxon Stories.[1] The series premiered on 10 October 2015 on BBC America,[2] and on BBC Two in the UK on 22 October 2015.

Set in the late ninth century AD, when what is known as England today was several separate kingdoms. The Anglo-Saxon lands are attacked and, in many instances, ruled by Danes. The Kingdom of Wessex has been left standing alone.

The protagonist Uhtred, the orphaned son of a Saxon nobleman, is captured by viking Danes and reared as one of them. Forced to choose between a kingdom that shares his ancestry and the people of his upbringing, his loyalties are constantly tested.[4]

The first series' storyline roughly covers the plot of the original two novels, The Last Kingdom and The Pale Horseman although condensed for the purposes of television ...http://www.bbcamerica.com/shows/the-last-kingdom

For a more complete genealogy including ancestors and descendants, see House of Wessex family tree ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_the_Peaceful

Alfred Saxon, King of England is the 5 x great uncle of William I Normandie, King of England ... http://www.ourfamilyhistories.org/relationship.php?altprimarypersonID=&savedpersonID=I3527&secondpersonID=I3527&maxrels=1&disallowspouses=1&generations=9&tree=00&primarypersonID=I4276

Alfred Saxon, King of England is the 4 x great grandfather of the wife of William I Normandie, King of England ... http://www.ourfamilyhistories.org/relationship.php?altprimarypersonID=&savedpersonID=I3527&secondpersonID=I3527&maxrels=1&disallowspouses=0&generations=9&tree=00&primarypersonID=I4276

More history on King Alfred of Wessex, the first English king ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/conquest/wessex_kings/birth_england_wessex_05.shtml

"Alfred the Great" ... his history & issue; http://thehennesseefamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I50596&tree=hennessee

"...Before Alfred arrived on the scene, England had consisted of a number of small kingdoms, but these were simply overrun and their royal families wiped out by the Vikings by the end of the 860s.
At this point, the Vikings threatened to overrun the whole of England, and the King of Mercia fled overseas, as did a number of well-to-do West Saxons.

But on the verge of total disaster, something happened which became part of the English myth in the Anglo-Saxon period, and still is. In early 878, Alfred the Great was surrounded in the marshes of Athelney in Somerset, almost finished. 'England' was on the ropes before it had even come into being..."

end of comment

Guthrum or Guºrum (died c. 890), christened ¥thelstan on his conversion to Christianity in 878, was King of the Danish Vikings in the Danelaw. He is mainly known for his conflict with Alfred the Great.

Guthrum, founder of the Danelaw

It is not known how Guthrum consolidated his rule as king over the other Danish chieftains of the Danelaw (Danish-ruled territory of England), but by 874 he was able to wage a war against Wessex and its King, Alfred.

In 875, the Danish forces, then under Guthrum and Halfdan Ragnarsson, divided, Halfdan's contingent returning north to Northumbria, while Guthrum's forces went to East Anglia, quartering themselves at Cambridge for the year.

By 876, Guthrum had acquired various parts of the kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria and then turned his attention to acquiring Wessex, where his first confrontation with Alfred took place on the south coast. Guthrum sailed his army around Poole Harbour and linked up with another Viking army that was invading the area between the Frome and Piddle rivers which was ruled by Alfred.[1] According to the historian Asser, Guthrum won his initial battle with Alfred, and he captured the castellum as well as the ancient square earthworks known as the Wareham, where there was a convent of nuns.

Alfred successfully brokered a peace settlement, but by 877 this peace was broken as Guthrum led his army raiding further into Wessex, thus forcing Alfred to confront him in a series of skirmishes that Guthrum continued to win. At Exeter, which Guthrum had also captured, Alfred made a peace treaty, with the result that Guthrum left Wessex to winter in Gloucester.

Surprise attack

Silver penny of ¥thelstan: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/49/KENT-338E94._Early_Medieval_silver_coin%2C_penny_of_Aethelstan_II_Guthran._%28FindID_132251%29.jpg/220px-KENT-338E94._Early_Medieval_silver_coin%2C_penny_of_Aethelstan_II_Guthran._%28FindID_132251%29.jpg

On Epiphany, 6 January 878, Guthrum made a surprise night-time attack on Alfred and his court at Chippenham, Wiltshire. It being a Christian feast day the Saxons were presumably taken by surprise—indeed it is possible that Wulfhere, the Ealdorman of Wiltshire, allowed the attack either through negligence or intent, for on Alfred's return to power later in 878 Wulfhere was stripped of his role as Ealdorman.

Alfred fled the attack with a few retainers and took shelter in the marshes of Somerset, staying in the small village of Athelney. Over the next few months he built up his force and waged a guerrilla war against Guthrum from his fastness in the fens. After a few months Alfred called his loyal men to Egbert's Stone, and from there they travelled to Edington to fight the invaders.

Defeat by Alfred

Guthrum's hopes of conquering all of Wessex came to an end with his defeat at the hands of Alfred at the Battle of Edington in 878. At Edington, Guthrum’s entire army was routed by Alfred's and fled to their encampment where they were besieged by Alfred's fyrd for two weeks. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Guthrum’s army was able to negotiate a peace treaty known as the Treaty of Wedmore.[2] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded the event:

“Then the raiding army granted him (Alfred) hostages and great oaths that they would leave his kingdom and also promised him that their king (Guthrum) would receive baptism; and they fulfilled it. And three weeks later the king Guthrum came to him, one of thirty of the most honourable men who were in the raiding army, at Aller - and that is near Athelney - and the king received him at baptism; and his chrism loosing was at Wedmore.” [2]
Conversion to Christianity and peace
Under the Treaty of Wedmore the borders dividing the lands of Alfred and Guthrum were established,[3] and perhaps more importantly, Guthrum converted to Christianity and took on the Christian name ¥thelstan with Alfred as his godfather.

Guthrum upheld his end of the treaty and left the boundary that separated the Danelaw from English England unmolested. Guthrum, although failing to conquer Wessex, turned towards the lands to the east that the treaty had allotted under his control. Guthrum withdrew his army from the western borders facing Alfred's territory and moved eastward before eventually settling in the Kingdom of Guthrum in East Anglia in 879. He lived out the remainder of his life there until his death in 890. According to the Annals of St Neots, a chronicle compiled in Bury St Edmunds, Guthrum was buried at Headleage, which is usually identified as Hadleigh, Suffolk.[4]

Popular culture

Guthrum appears in several works of fiction, including:

G. K. Chesterton's poem The Ballad of the White Horse.
C. Walter Hodges' juvenile historical novels The Namesake and The Marsh King.
Bernard Cornwell's first three novels of The Saxon Stories series The Last Kingdom, and The Pale Horseman, and The Lords of the North.
On screen, he was portrayed by Brian Blessed in episode 4 ("King Alfred") of Churchill's People, by Michael York in the 1969 film Alfred the Great, and Thomas W. Gabrielsson in The Last Kingdom.

References

Collingwood, M. A. and Powell, F. Y. Scandinavian Britain (New York: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1908), p. 94.
Anglo Saxon Chronicle Trans. by M. J. Swanton (New York, Routledge: 1996).
Davis, R. H. C. From Alfred the Great to Stephen (London, The Hambledon Press: 1991) p. 48.
Dumville, David; Lapidge, Michael (1985). The Annals of St Neots with Vita Prima Sancti Neoti, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a Collaborative Edition. Cambridge. ISBN 978-0-85991-117-7.

External links

Guthrum 1 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England

English royalty

Preceded by
¥thelred King of East Anglia 879– 890

Succeeded by Eohric

Alfred the Great had a crippling disability...

When we look up at the statue of King Alfred of Wessex in Winchester, we are confronted by an image of our national ‘superhero’: the valiant defender of a Christian realm against the heathen Viking marauders. There is no doubt that Alfred fully deserves this accolade as ‘England’s darling’, but there was another side to him that is less well known.

Alfred never expected to be king – he had three older brothers – but when he was four years old on a visit to Rome the pope seemed to have granted him special favour when his father presented him to the pontiff. As he grew up, Alfred was constantly troubled by illness, including irritating and painful piles – a real problem in an age where a prince was constantly in the saddle. Asser, the Welshman who became his biographer, relates that Alfred suffered from another painful, draining malady that is not specified. Some people believe it was Crohn’s Disease, others that it may have been a sexually transmitted disease, or even severe depression.

The truth is we don’t know exactly what Alfred’s mystery ailment was. Whatever it was, it is incredible to think that Alfred’s extraordinary achievements were accomplished in the face of a daily struggle with debilitating and chronic illness.

end of commentary

Alfred married Ealhswith in 868. Ealhswith was born in ~852 in England; died on 5 Dec 0902; was buried in Winchester, Hampshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

5683329.

Ealhswith was born in ~852 in England; died on 5 Dec 0902; was buried in Winchester, Hampshire, England.

Notes:

Ealhswith or Ealswitha (died 5 December 902) was the wife of King Alfred the Great. Her father was a Mercian nobleman, ¥thelred Mucel, Ealdorman of the Gaini, which is thought to be an old Mercian tribal group. Her mother was Eadburh, a member of the Mercian royal family, and according to the historian Cyril Hart she was a descendant of King Coenwulf of Mercia.[1] She is commemorated as a saint in the Christian East and the West on July 20.[2]

Reign 23 April 871 – 26 October 899
Died 902
Burial New Minster, Winchester
Spouse Alfred, King of Wessex
Issue ¥thelflµd, Lady of the Mercians
Edward, King of England
¥thelgifu
¥thelweard of Wessex
¥lfthryth, Countess of Flanders
Father ¥thelred Mucel
Mother Eadburh

Life[edit]
She was married to Alfred in 868 at Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. His elder brother ¥thelred was then king, and Alfred was regarded as heir apparent.[3][4] The Danes occupied the Mercian town of Nottingham in that year, and the marriage was probably connected with an alliance between Wessex and Mercia.[5] Alfred became king on his brother's death in 871.

Ealhswith is very obscure in contemporary sources. She did not witness any known charters, and Asser did not even mention her name in his life of King Alfred. In accordance with ninth century West Saxon custom, she was not given the title of queen. According to King Alfred, this was because of the infamous conduct of a former queen of Wessex called Eadburh, who had accidentally poisoned her husband.[6]

Alfred left his wife three important symbolic estates in his will, Edington in Wiltshire, the site of one important victory over the Vikings, Lambourn in Berkshire, which was near another, and Wantage, his birthplace. These were all part of his bookland, and they stayed in royal possession after her death.[4]

It was probably after Alfred's death in 899 that Ealhswith founded the convent of St Mary's Abbey, Winchester, known as the Nunnaminster. She died on 5 December 902, and was buried in her son Edward's new Benedictine abbey, the New Minster, Winchester. She is commemorated in two early tenth century manuscripts as "the true and dear lady of the English".[4]

Ealhswith had a brother called ¥thelwulf,[4] who was ealdorman of western and possibly central Mercia under his niece's husband, ¥thelred, Lord of the Mercians, in the 890s.[7] He died in 901.[8]

Children

Alfred and Ealhswith had five children who survived to adulthood.[4]

¥thelflµd (d. 918), Lady of the Mercians, married ¥thelred, Lord of the Mercians
Edward the Elder (d. 924), King of the Anglo-Saxons
¥thelgifu, made abbess of her foundation at Shaftesbury by her father
¥lfthryth, Countess of Flanders (d. 929), married Baldwin II, Count of Flanders
¥thelweard (d. c.920)

Buried:
at New Minster...

Children:

Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians was born in ~870 in (Wessex) England; died on 12 Jun 918 in Tamworth, Gloucester, England; was buried in St Oswald's Priory, Gloucester, England.
2841664. Edward the Elder, King of the Anglo-Saxons was born in ~874 in (Wantage, Berkshire) England; died on 17 Jul 924 in Farndon, Cheshire, England; was buried in Winchester, Hampshire, England.

1548416.

Rollo was born in 846 in Maer, Norway (son of Ragnvald Eysteinsson, Earl of Mar and Ragnhild Hrâolfsdâottir, Countess of Mar); died in 931; was buried in Rouen Cathedral, Rouen, Normandy, France.

Notes:

Rollo or Gaange Rolf[1] (Norman: Rou; Old Norse: Hrâolfr; French: Rollon; c. 846 – c. 930 AD) was a Viking who became the first ruler of Normandy, a region of France. He is sometimes called the 1st Duke of Normandy. His Scandinavian name Rolf was extended to Gaange Rolf because he as an adult became too heavy for a horse to carry, therefore he had to walk ("gaa" in older Dano-Norwegian). Rollo emerged as the outstanding personality among the Norsemen who had secured a permanent foothold on Frankish soil in the valley of the lower Seine. Charles the Simple, the king of West Francia, ceded them lands between the mouth of the Seine and what is now the city of Rouen in exchange for Rollo agreeing to end his brigandage, and provide the Franks with protection against future Viking raids.[2]

Rollo is first recorded as the leader of these Viking settlers in a charter of 918, and he continued to reign over the region of Normandy until at least 928. He was succeeded by his son, William Longsword in the Duchy of Normandy that he had founded.[3] The offspring of Rollo and his followers became known as the Normans. After the Norman conquest of England and their conquest of southern Italy and Sicily over the following two centuries, their descendants came to rule Norman England (the House of Normandy), the Kingdom of Sicily (the Kings of Sicily) as well as the Principality of Antioch from the 10th to 12th century, leaving behind an enduring legacy in the historical developments of Europe and the Near East.[4]

Name

The name Rollo is generally presumed to be a latinisation of the Old Norse name Hrâolfr – a theory that is supported by the rendition of Hrâolfr as Roluo in the Gesta Danorum. It is also sometimes suggested that Rollo may be a Latinised version of another Norse name, Hrollaugr.[5]

Rollo is generally identified with one Viking in particular – a man of high social status mentioned in Icelandic sagas, which refer to him by the Old Norse name Gèongu-Hrâolfr, meaning "Hrâolfr the Walker". (Gèongu-Hrâolfr is also widely known by an Old Danish variant, Ganger-Hrolf.) The byname "Walker" is usually understood to suggest that Rollo was so physically imposing that he could not be carried by a horse and was obliged to travel on foot. Norman and other French sources do not use the name Hrâolfr, and the identification of Rollo with Gèongu-Hrâolfr is based upon similarities between circumstances and actions ascribed to both figures.[citation needed]

The 10th-century Norman historian Dudo records that Rollo took the baptismal name Robert.[6] A variant spelling, Roul, is used in the 12th-century Norman French Roman de la Rou, which was compiled by Wace and commissioned by King Henry II of England (a descendant of Rollo).[citation needed]

Origins and historiography
Rollo was born in the latter half of the 9th century; his place of birth is unknown.

The earliest well-attested historical event associated with Rollo is his leadership of Vikings who besieged Paris in 885–886.[7]

Perhaps the earliest known source to mention Rollo's early life is the French chronicler Richer of Reims, who claims (in the 10th century) that Rollo was the son of a Viking named Ketill.[8] In terms of onomastics, it is interesting that Richer also names – without explicitly linking him to Rollo – a man named Ketill as being the leader of subsequent Viking raids (in 888), against areas on the coast of West Francia, between the Seine and the Loire.

Medieval sources contradict each other regarding whether Rollo's family was Norwegian or Danish in origin. In part, this disparity may result from the indifferent and interchangeable usage in Europe, at the time, of terms such as "Vikings", "Northmen", "Danes", "Norwegians" and so on (in the Medieval Latin texts Dani vel Nortmanni means "Danes or Northmen").

A biography of Rollo, written by the cleric Dudo of Saint-Quentin in the late 10th Century, claimed that Rollo was from Denmark. One of Rollo's great-grandsons and a contemporary of Dudo was known as Robert the Dane. However, Dudo's Historia Normannorum (or Libri III de moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum) was commissioned by Rollo's grandson, Richard I of Normandy and – while Dudo likely had access to family members and/or other people with a living memory of Rollo – this fact must be weighed against the text's potential biases, as an official biography. According to Dudo, an unnamed king of Denmark was antagonistic to Rollo's family, including his father – an unnamed Danish nobleman – and Rollo's brother Gurim. Following the death of Rollo and Gurim's father, Gurim was killed and Rollo was forced to leave Denmark.[9] Dudo appears to have been the main source for William of Jumiáeges (after 1066) and Orderic Vitalis (early 12th century), although both include additional details.[10]

A Norwegian background for Rollo was first explicitly claimed by Goffredo Malaterra (Geoffrey Malaterra), an 11th-century Benedictine monk and historian, who wrote: "Rollo sailed boldly from Norway with his fleet to the Christian coast."[11] Likewise, the 12th-century English historian William of Malmesbury stated that Rollo was "born of noble lineage among the Norwegians".[12]

A chronicler named Benoãit (probably Benoãit de Sainte-More) wrote in the mid-12th Century Chronique des ducs de Normandie that Rollo had been born in a town named "Fasge". This has since been variously interpreted as referring to Faxe, in Sjµlland (Denmark), Fauske, in Hêalogaland (Norway), or perhaps a more obscure settlement that has since been abandoned or renamed. Benoãit also repeated the claim that Rollo had been persecuted by a local ruler and had fled from there to "Scanza island", by which Benoãit probably means Scania (Swedish Skêane). While Faxe was physically much closer to Scania, the mountainous scenery of "Fasge", described by Benoãit, would seem to be more like Fauske.

The claim that Rollo was the brother of a King of Norway, Harald Finehair was made by an anonymous 12th-century Welsh author, in The Life of Gruffudd ap Cynan.[13]

Rollo was first explicitly identified with Hrâolf the Walker (Norse Gèongu-Hrâolfr; Danish Ganger-Hrâolf) by the 13th-century Icelandic sagas, Heimskringla and Orkneyinga Saga. Hrâolf the Walker was so named because he "was so big that no horse could carry him".[14] The Icelandic sources claim that Hrâolfr was born in M²re, western Norway, in the late 9th century and that his parents were the Norwegian jarl Rognvald Eysteinsson ("Rognvald the Wise") and a noblewoman from M²re named Hildr Hrâolfsdâottir. However, these claims were made three centuries after the history commissioned by Rollo's own grandson.

There may be circumstantial evidence for kinship between Rollo and his historical contemporary, Ketill Flatnose, King of the Isles – a Norse realm centred on the Western Isles of Scotland. If, as Richer suggested, Rollo's father was also named Ketill and as Dudo suggested, Rollo had a brother named Gurim, such names are onomastic evidence for a family connection: Icelandic sources name Ketill Flatnose's father as Bjèorn Grâimsson,[15] and "Grim" – the implied name of Ketill Flatnose's paternal grandfather – was likely cognate with Gurim. In addition, both Irish and Icelandic sources suggest that Rollo, as a young man, visited or lived in Scotland, where he had a daughter named Cadlinar (Kaºlâin; Kathleen).[16][17] Moreover, Ketill Flatnose's ancestors were said to have come from M²re – Rollo's ancestral home in the Icelandic sources. However, Ketill was a common name in Norse societies,[18] as were names like Gurim and Grim. It is also possible that the later sources were attempting to suggest an otherwise undocumented link between the historical figures of Rollo and Ketill Flatnose, by way of little-known, possibly apocryphal figures like Grim, Gurim and the Ketill said to be Rollo's father.[citation needed]

Biography

Statue of Rollo in Rouen. There are two bronze replicas of this statue: one at êAlesund (Norway) and the other one at Fargo, North Dakota (United States)
Dudo tells us that Rollo seized Rouen in 876. He is supported by the contemporary chronicler Flodoard, who records that Robert of the Breton March waged a campaign against the Vikings, who nearly levelled Rouen and other settlements; eventually, he conceded "certain coastal provinces" to them.[19]

According to Dudo, Rollo struck up a friendship in England with a king that Dudo calls Alstem. This has puzzled many historians, but recently the puzzle has been resolved by recognition that this refers to Guthrum, the Danish leader whom Alfred the Great baptised with the baptismal name Athelstan, and then recognised as king of the East Angles in 880.[20]

Dudo records that when Rollo took Bayeux by force, he carried off with him the beautiful Popa or Poppa, a daughter of Berenger, Count of Rennes, took her in marriage and with her had their son and Rollo's heir, William Longsword.[21]

Rollo's grave at the Cathedral of Rouen

There are few contemporary mentions of Rollo. The earliest record is from 918, in a charter of Charles III to an abbey, which referred to an earlier grant to "the Normans of the Seine", namely "Rollo and his associates" for "the protection of the kingdom." [22] Dudo retrospectively stated that this pact took place in 911 at Saint-Clair-sur-Epte. In return for formal recognition of the lands he possessed, Rollo agreed to be baptised and assist the king in the defence of the realm. Rollo took the baptismal name Robert. The seal of agreement was to be marriage between Rollo and Gisla, daughter of Charles. Dudo claims that Gisla was a legitimate daughter of Charles.[23] Since Charles first married in 907, that would mean that Gisla was at most 5 years old at the time of the treaty of 911 which offered her in marriage.[24] It has therefore been speculated that she could have been an illegitimate daughter.[25] However a diplomatic child betrothal need not be doubted.[26]

After pledging his fealty to Charles III as part of the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, Rollo divided the lands between the rivers Epte and Risle among his chieftains, and settled with a de facto capital in Rouen.[27]

Charles was overthrown by a revolt in 923, and his successor, Robert I, was killed by the Vikings in 923. His successor, Ralph, conceded the Bessin and Maine to Rollo shortly afterwards, the chronicler Flodoard tells us.[28]

Rollo died sometime between a final mention of him by Flodoard in 928, and 933, the year in which a third grant of land, usually identified as being the Cotentin and Avranchin areas, was made to his son and successor William.[29]

Descendants

A genealogical chart of the Norman dynasty
Rollo's son and heir, William Longsword, and grandchild, Richard the Fearless, forged the Duchy of Normandy into West Francia's most cohesive and formidable principality.[30] The descendants of Rollo and his men assimilated with their maternal Frankish-Catholic culture and became known as the Normans, lending their name to the region of Normandy.

Rollo is the great-great-great-grandfather of William the Conqueror, or William I of England. Through William, he is one of the ancestors of the present-day British royal family, as well as an ancestor of all current European monarchs and a great many claimants to abolished European thrones.

One daughter of Rollo, Gerloc (also known as Adele), who married William III, Duke of Aquitaine, was mentioned by Dudo. According to William of Jumiáeges, writing in the latter half of the 11th century, Gerloc's mother was named Poppa.[31]

According to the medieval Irish text An Banshenchas and Icelandic sources, another daughter, Cadlinar (Kaºlâin; Kathleen) was born in Scotland (probably to a Scots mother) and married an Irish prince named Beollâan mac Ciarmaic, later King of South Brega (Lagore). A daughter of Cadlinar and Beollâan named Nithbeorg was abducted by an Icelandic Viking named Helgi Ottarsson,[32][33] and became the mother of the poet Einarr Helgason and grandmother of Guºrâun Ósvâifrsdâottir (protagonist of the Laxdœla saga).

A genetic investigation into the remains of Rollo's grandson, Richard the Fearless, and his great-grandson, Richard the Good, was announced in 2011 with the intention of discerning the origins of the historic Viking leader.[34] On 29 February 2016 Norwegian researchers opened Richard the Good's tomb and found his lower jaw with eight teeth in it.[35] Unfortunately, the skeletal remains in both graves turned out to significantly predate Rollo and therefore are not related to him.[36]

Depictions in fiction

Rollo is the subject of the seventeenth-century play Rollo Duke of Normandy, written by John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, Ben Jonson, and George Chapman.

A character, broadly inspired by the historical Rollo but including many events before the real Rollo was born, played by Clive Standen, is Ragnar Lothbrok's brother in the History Channel television series Vikings.[37]

end of biography

Also known as Hrolf the Ganger or Rollon, 1st Duke of Normandy from 911 to 927, called also Rolf the Walker, because, being so tall, he preferred to go afoot rather than ride the little Norwegian horses. Also shown as Rollon, Row, or Robert. Originally a Norse Viking, he was noted for strength and martial prowess. In the reign of Charles II the Bald, he sailed up the Seine River and took Rouen, which he kept as a base of operations. He gained a number of victories over the Franks, and extorted the cession of the province since called Normandy.

By the famous treaty which Charles the Bald, http://thehennesseefamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I53974&tree=hennessee, and Rollo signed the latter agreed to adopt Christianity. He was born in 846 and died in 932, and was buried in the Cathedral at Rouen.
-------------------------------------------------------
From: http://sbaldw.home.mindspring.com/hproject/prov/rollo000.htm

Commentary
Supposed father: Rognvaldr, jarl of M²re.

Supposed mother: Ragnhildr or Hildr.

The origin of Rollo is contraversial. There are several medieval sources which claim to give information about the origin of Rollo, the most widely repeated of which would make him a son of Rognvaldr, jarl of M²re by Ragnhildr or Hildr. As can be seen from the following brief notices, the various primary sources offer very contradictory information about Rollo's origin.

The earliest author to attribute an explicit origin to Rollo was Richer of Rheims, writing between 996 and 998, who called Rollo the son of another Viking invader of France named Catillus (presumably representing the Norse name Ketil) [Richer i, 28 (see PL 138: 35)]. Since Catillus appears to be a legendary individual, this account has generally been discredited, probably correctly [see Douglas 420-1].

According to Dudo of St. Quentin (writing early 11th century), author of the earliest history of the Normans, Rollo had a younger brother named Gurim, presumed to be the familiar name Gorm. Dudo states that Rollo and Gurim were sons of a man who held many lands in "Dacia" (Dudo's word for Denmark, following other authors), and that after the death of the (unnamed) father of Rollo and Gurim, the king of Dacia fought against the sons, killing Gurim and driving Rollo out [Dudo ii, 2-4 (pp. 26-7)]. Dudo later refers to duke Richard I as being related to a "king of Dacia" named Haigrold [Dudo iv, 84-88 (pp. 114-20 passim)], who must have been the Viking raider of France of that name [Flodoard's Annals, s.a. 945, see PL 135: 463-4, van Houts 51], and not king Harald "Bluetooth" of Denmark. Note that Gurim cannot be the famous Gorm "the Old" of Denmark, who survived Rollo by many years.

William of Malmesbury (early 12th century) appears to be the earliest author to attribute a Norwegian origin to Rollo [WM ii, 5 (p. 125)].

As is well known, the Orkneyinga Saga (late twelfth century) [OrkS 4 (pp. 29-30)], followed by other Icelandic sources (such as the well known Heimskringla and Landnâamabâok), gives Rollo the name Hrâolfr, and make him a son of Rognvaldr, jarl of M²re, and brother of (among others) jarl Torf-Einarr of the Orkneys [OI 1: 187]. Earlier sources, such as Ari's Íslendingabâok (early to middle 12th century), mention Rognvald of M²re and his son Hrollaugr who settled in Iceland, but not the supposed connection to the dukes of Normandy [Ari 49, 61]. A poem allegedly written by Einar mentions his brothers, including a Hrâolfr, but does not connect Hrâolfr to Normandy, and does not name a Gorm among the brothers. (See the page on Rognvaldr for more on this poem.)

Historia Gruffud vab Kenan (ca. 1250), apparently a Welsh translation and/or revision of an earlier Latin life of Gruffudd ap Cynan, gives Haraldr Hâarfagri of Norway ("Harald Harfagyr") a brother named Rodulf (i.e., the Latin form of Hrâolfr) who is called the founder of Normandy [HGK, 3-4]. However, this is evidently a corrupt version of the Scandinavian version, and the suggestion that Rollo was a brother of Haraldr Hâarfagri need not be given any credence.

The most prominent argument of the case for accepting the Scandinavian account that Rollo was the same person as Hrâolfr, son of Rognvaldr of M²re, was given by D. C. Douglas [Douglas 419-23], and those who accept this identification have generally followed the same arguments. On the other side, arguments against the identification were given by Viggo Starcke in his book Denmark in World History [Starcke 222-7].

Most of the argument of Douglas consists of accepting the tale of the sagas and rejecting evidence from the Norman sources which contradict the saga version, while explaining away the problems (on which more below). The evidence which Douglas puts forward as "a powerful, if not a conclusive, argument in favor of the identity of Rollo with Ganger-Rolf" concerns a passage in Landnâaamabâok that refers to a daughter of Gongu-Hrâolfr:

"... Annarr son Óttars vas Helge; hann herjaºe âa Skottland, ok feck ¤ar at herfange Niºbiorgo, dâottor Beolans konungs ok Caºlâinar, dâottor Gongo-Hrâolfs" (Another son of Óttarr was Helge. He harried in Scotland, and won there as his booty Niºbjorg, daughter of king Beolan and Caºlâin, daughter of Gongu-Hrâolfr.) [OI 1: 66-7]

This passage, which Douglas attributed to "Ari the Learned" (who may or may not have been the author), is then compared with a passage from the nearly contemporary Plaintsong of Rollo's son William "Longsword" which was written soon after William's death:

"Hic in orbe transmarino natus patre
in errore paganorum permanente
matre quoque consignata alma fide
sacra fuit lotus unda"
(Born overseas from a father who stuck to the pagan error and from a mother who was devoted to the sweet religion, he was blessed with the holy chrism.)
[Douglas 422 (Latin); van Houts 41 (English translation)]

After explaining that the two stories are consistent with one another, Douglas then state that "[t]he suggestion of the Landnâamabâok is thus confirmed by an epic poem composed in Gaul in the tenth century." While it is true that the two accounts as they stand are consistent with each other and with the claim that Rollo and Gongu-Hrâolfr were the same man (ignoring all other evidence), it is surely a gross overstatement to claim that the Plaintsong "confirms" the other account, for there is not a single statement in the passage from Landnâamabâok that is confirmed by the Plaintsong. This is a clear case of circular reasoning, for without first assuming that Rollo and Gongu-Hrâolfr were the same man, there is no evidence that the two passages have any relation whatsoever. Douglas's case is further undermined by the fact that another source [Laxdœla Saga chapter 32, see OI 1: 246] makes Niºbjorg's mother Caºlâin a daughter of Gongu-Hrâolfr, son of Oxna-´âorir, directly contradicting the thesis that Caºlâin was supposedly a granddaughter of Rognvaldr of M²re. Yet, Douglas apparently regarded this as the strongest part of his argument.

There are three main strands of evidence (somewhat related to each other) against the identification of Rollo with Hrâolfr son of Rognvaldr:

1. The discrepancies between the Norman and Icelandic sources.
Among other contradictions, the Norman sources give Rollo a brother named Gurim, while the Icelandic sources give Hrâolfr several brothers, none of them named Gormr (the presumed Old-Norse form for Gurim). Although both of the sources have their problems, earlier native sources would seem to have a higher priority than later foreign sources. While many elements of the Dudo's account are clearly legendary, there appears to be no clear motive on the part of Dudo (writing less than a century after Rollo's death) to invent a younger brother for Rollo who is then immediately killed off.

2. The general unreliability of Norse source for the early tenth century.
For the period under consideration, i.e., the early ninth century, the sagas have a poor record for reliability, even for Scandinavian history. For example, consider the following words of Peter Sawyer (written with regard to a different matter, but true in general), a well known expert on early Viking history: "... These sagas cannot, however, be accepted as reliable sources for the tenth century. The only trustworthy evidence for the tenth century in those sagas are the contemporary verses around which the saga writers wove their tales." [Sawyer 42] None of these verses confirm the identity of Rollo and Hrâolfr. The suspicion is made even larger by the fact that the Icelandic sources show no knowledge of Norman history other than the fact (well known throughout Europe at the time) that William the Conqueror was a descendant of the dukes of Normandy.

3. Rollo and Hrâolfr appear to be different names.
The natural Latinization of the name Hrâolfr would be Radulfus or Rodulfus. Yet, the Frankish and Norman sources consistently refer to the founder of Normandy as Rollo. Since these sources also include numerous individuals named Rodulfus, and consistently separate the two names, it appears that the names were regarded as different. Douglas explained this by suggesting a hypothetical hypochoristic form "Hrolle" of the name "Hroºwulf" as the basis for the name Rollo, and provides a single charter in which Rollo is referred to as "Rolphus" as evidence that the names were the same, acknowledging, however, that the charter itself was "not above suspicion." If the names were really regarded as the same, it would be expected that more convincing evidence to this effect could be offered.

Personally, I am inclined to believe that the identification of Hrâolfr and Rollo has no basis in fact, that it was likely to have been invented by a saga writer who wanted to give the jarls of Orkney some famous relatives (i.e., the kings of England), and that whatever the confusing Norman sources say are probably about the closest we are going to get to Rollo's origin. However, based on the surviving evidence, it is not possible to come to any definitive conclusion one way or the other, and Rollo's parentage should be listed as "unknown" unless further evidence becomes available.

Supposed second wife:

Gisla, said to be daughter of Charles the Simple, king of France [Dudo, 46-7, 53]. She is unknown in the Frankish sources. The fact that Charles the Simple's kinsman Charles the Fat had a daughter also named Gisla who married a Viking (Godefridus) in the ninth century has led to the natural suspicion that this Gisla is an invention based on the earlier woman of the name. If she existed at all, there is no reason to believe that she was a mother of any of Rollo's children.

Supposed additional child:

Caºlin (Kathleen), said by Norse sources to have married a certain king Beolan, who is otherwise unidentified. As discussed above, the evidence for her is less than satisfactory.

end of commentary

Rollo Ragnvaldsson
French: Robert Rognvalsson De Heidmark, Norwegian: Hrolf Ragnvaldsson, Norse, Old: Gange-Hrâolfr Ragnvaldsson
Also Known As: "Hrolf", "Rolf", "Rollo", "Gange-Rolv", "Gange-Rolf", "Gèongu-Hrâolfr", "le marcheur", "the walker", "the dane", "duke of normandy", "Rollo the Walker", "Viking", "Gange Rolf"
Birthdate: circa 860 (71)
Death: 931 (67-75)
Rouen, Seine-Maritime, Haute-Normandie, France
Place of Burial: Rouen, Haute-Normandie, France
Immediate Family:
Son of Ragnvald Eysteinsson, Earl of M²re and Ragnhild 'Hild' Hrâolfsdâottir, of More
Husband of Poppa of Bayeux and Gisáele
Partner of Kaºlin's mother
Father of William "Longsword"; Adáele of Normandy and Kaºlin
Brother of Gutum Ragnvaldson
Half brother of Hrollager Rognvaldsson; Hallad Ragnvaldsson Orkneyjarl, .; Einarr "Turf" Rognvaldsson, Orkneyjarl and Hrollaug Ragnvaldsson Eyjafjèorºur, Íslands
Occupation: Duc de Normandie, Comte de Rouen, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Normandy (911 - 932), duc de Normandie, Earl of Normandy, Viking chief, Count of Normandy, 'Agongah-woekh' Aeuello (Rollo Rognvaldsson), First Duke of Normandy, Duke of Normandy 1st, Norse Viking
Managed by: Private User
Last Updated: October 12, 2017

About Gange-Hrâolfr 'Rollo' of Normandy
http://www.friesian.com/flanders.htm#norman

http://genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00020055&tree=LEO

Duke of Normandy was the title given to the rulers of the Duchy of Normandy in northwestern France, which has its origins as the County of Rouen, a fief created in 911 by King Charles III "the Simple" of France for Rollo, a Norwegian nobleman and Viking leader of Northmen.

Gangu-Hrâolfr Ragnvaldsson, or Rollo de Normandie was a Norse nobleman and the founder and first ruler of the Viking principality in what soon became known as Normandy. The name "Rollo" is a Frankish-Latin name probably taken from the Old Norse name Hrâolfr, modern Scandinavian name Rolf (cf. the latinization of Hrâolfr into the similar Roluo in the Gesta Danorum).

Parents: Ragnvald Eysteinsson M²rejarl & Hild Nefja (uncertain, see below)
Spouses:
1. Poppa de Bayeux
Children:
Vilhjalm Langaspjâot (Guillaume Longue âEpâee)
Geirlaug (Gerloc) who later took the name Adela
2. Gisela de France (betrothal, no children)
According to Landnâama (The book of Settlers in Iceland, written in the 12th century), Rollo had a daughter named Kaºlâin (Kathlin or Cathlin) her mother is not named (Notes by Anna Petursdottir):

Kaºlin (Kathlin)
Kaºlâin is mentioned along with her father Rollo in chapter 33 in Landnâamabâok (The Book of Settlers) and her father, Rollo, and his brothers, also their father, Ragnvald are mentioned in chapert 82 : https://www.snerpa.is/net/snorri/landnama.htm

BIG NEWS
French and Norwegian scientists within several fields go together in a project to extract DNA from the remains of Rollo's grandson and great grandson in Fâecamp. This might give us the final answer to Rollo's origin (Note from Anna Petursdottir: Provided that the remains that are being researched, are in fact the persons in question and also are legitimate grandsons of Rollo). Excavations are expected in July 2011, results sometime autumn 2011.

Links and Resources
Snorre's saga
Dudo's account (eng): http://the-orb.arlima.net/orb_done/dudo/dudindex.html
Store Norske Leksikon
MEDIEVAL LANDS
[ROLLO [Hrolf "Ganger/the Walker"] (-[928]). Orkneyinga Saga names “Hrolf who conquered Normandy” as son of “Earl Rognwald” and his wife “Ragnhild the daughter of Hrolf Nose”, adding that he was so big that no horse could carry him, giving rise to his name “Gèongu-Hrolf”[153]. Snorre names "Rolf and Thorer" as the two sons of "Earl Ragnvald" and his wife Hild, recording that Rolf was banished from Norway by King Harald and travelled to the Hebrides, settling first in Orkney before moving southwards through Scotland, and eventually conquering Normandy[154]. The Historia Norwegie records that, after Orkney was conquered by "principi Rogwaldi" and his followers, "de quorum collegio…Rodulfus" captured Rouen in Normandy, commenting that he was known as "Gongurolfr" because he was obliged to walk as he was too large to travel on horseback[155]. This source makes no reference to any blood relationship between Rollo and "principi Rogwaldi".

According to Dudo of Saint-Quentin, Rollo arrived in northern France in 876[156], although there is some debate about [900] being a more likely date[157]. William of Jumiáeges records that Rollo was chosen by lot to be leader of the Viking colonists[158]. Viking raids intensified in northern France. Although they were defeated after raiding Chartres [911], Charles III "le Simple" King of the West Franks granted the Normans land around Rouen in which to settle[159]. The uncertain nature of the demise was the source of future problems between the French crown, which claimed that it was an enfeofment for which the ruler owed allegiance, and the later Dukes of Normandy who claimed it was an unconditional allod for which no allegiance was owed. A charter dated 14 Mar 918 which granted land to the monastery of Saint-Germain-des-Prâes "except that part…which we have granted to the Normans of the Seine, namely to Rollo and his companions"[160]. He was later known as ROBERT I Comte [de Normandie].

ROLLO ["Ganger" Hrolf], son of [RAGNVALD "the Wise" Jarl of Mèore in Norway & his wife Ragnhild ---] (-Rouen [928/33], bur ---, transferred [1064] to Rouen Cathedral[6]). The parentage of Rollo/Rolf is uncertain and the chronology of his life confused. Richer names "Rollone filio Catilli" as leader of the Vikings who raided along the Loire and against whom "Robertus Celticµ Galliµ dux" campaigned[7]. No further reference has been found to "Catillus/Ketel". Flodoard provides no information on Rollo´s ancestry. The early 12th century William of Malmesbury states that "Rollo…[was] born of noble lineage among the Norwegians, though obsolete from its extreme antiquity" and adds that he was "banished by the king´s command from his own country"[8]. The later Orkneyinga Saga is more specific, naming “Hrolf who conquered Normandy” as son of “Earl Rognwald” and his wife “Ragnhild the daughter of Hrolf Nose”, adding that he was so big that no horse could carry him, giving rise to his name “Gèongu-Hrolf”[9]. Snorre names "Rolf and Thorer" as the two sons of "Earl Ragnvald" and his wife Hild, recording that Rolf was banished from Norway by King Harald and travelled to the Hebrides, settling first in Orkney before moving southwards through Scotland, and eventually conquering Normandy[10]. The Historia Norwegie records that, after Orkney was conquered by "principi Rogwaldi" and his followers, "de quorum collegio…Rodulfus" captured Rouen in Normandy, commenting that he was known as "Gongurolfr" because he was obliged to walk as he was too large to travel on horseback[11]. This source makes no reference to any blood relationship between Rollo and "principi Rogwaldi". Guillaume de Jumiáeges accords a Danish origin to Rollo, stating that his father "possâedant presque en totalitâe le royaume de Dacie, conquit en outre les territoires limitrophes de la Dacie et de l´Alanie" and left "deux fils…l´aãinâe Rollon et le plus jeune Gurim"[12]. He records that the king of Denmark defeated the two brothers and killed Gorm, and that Rollo fled the country, first landing in England, where he made peace with "le roi…Alstem"[13]. If this refers to ¥thelstan King of Wessex, the account must be confused given King ¥thelstan´s succession in 924. Freeman suggests that Guillaume de Jumiáeges must be referring to "Guthrum-¥thelstan of East-Anglia"[14], although this does not resolve the chronological problems assuming that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is correct in recording Guthrum´s death in 890[15]. After recording Rollo´s expeditions in Frisia, Guillaume de Jumiáeges states that Rollo landed at Jumiáeges after sailing up the Seine in 876[16], another suspect date which Houts suggests should be corrected to [900][17]. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that Rollo defeated "Renaud duc de toute la France", captured "le chãateau de Meulan", defeated and killed Duke Renaud in another campaign, besieged Paris, captured Bayeux, and attacked Paris again while his other troops devastated Evreux where they killed "son âevãeque…Sibor"[18]. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that Rollo attacked Chartres but withdrew after being defeated by "Richard duc de Bourgogne" and "Anselme l âevãeque"[19].

William of Malmesbury records that "Rollo…experienced a check at Chartres" but escaped the "plentiful slaughter" of the Vikings by the townspeople, before capturing Rouen "in 876"[20]. Guillaume of Jumiáeges records that Charles III "le Simple" King of the West Franks granted Rollo "tout le territoire maritime qui s´âetend depuis la riviáere d´Epte jusqu´aux confines de la Bretagne" together with "sa fille…Gisáele", that "les princes de cette province…Bâeranger et Alain" swore allegiance to Rollo, and that Rollo was baptised in 912 by "l´archâevãeque Francon", adopting the name ROBERT after "le duc Robert" who acted as his sponsor[21].

William of Malmesbury records that "it was determined by treaty, that [Rollo] should be baptised, and hold the country of the king as his lord"[22]. The charter which confirms the original grant (assuming that there was such a document) has not survived. However, the grant of land is inferred from a charter dated 14 Mar 918, under which land was donated to the monastery of Saint-Germain-des-Prâes specifying that the donation excluded "that part…which we have granted to the Normans of the Seine, namely to Rollo and his companions"[23]. The uncertain nature of the demise was the source of future problems between the French crown, which claimed that Normandy was an enfeofment for which the ruling duke owed allegiance, and the later dukes of Normandy, who claimed that it was an unconditional allod for which no allegiance was owed[24].

The version of events recorded by Flodoard provides a different slant and names two Viking leaders. Firstly, Flodoard records that in 923 "Ragenoldus princeps Nortmannorum" who occupied "in fluvio Ligeri" devastated "Franciam trans Isaram", that "Nortmanni" made peace in 924 "cum Francis", that King Raoul granted them "Cinomannis et Baiocµ" [Maine and Bayeux], but that "Raginoldus cum suis Nortmannis" devasted the land between the Loire and the Seine[25]. This passage makes no mention of the supposed earlier grant of land along the shore. Secondly, the same source records that "Raginoldus cum suis Nortmannis" devasted Burgundy in 925, that Hâeribert [II] Comte de Vermandois besieged Norman castles "super Sequanam", that "Nortmanni" devastated "pagum Belvacensem atque Ambianensem" [Beauvais and Amboise], while Comte Hâeribert and Arnoul Count of Flanders forced "Rollo princeps" from his strongholds[26]. Thirdly, Flodoard states that "Hugo filius Rotberti et Heribertus comes" campaigned against "Nortmannos" in 927, that "filius Rollonis" did homage to ex-king Charles at "castellum…Auga", and that "Rollo" held "filius Heriberti Odo" as a hostage in 928, which suggests some sort of alliance between Rollo and Comte Hâeribert[27]. William of Malmesbury records that Rollo died at Rouen[28]. The date of his death is uncertain: Flodoard names Rollo as living in 928 (see above) but the same source names "Willelmus princeps Nortmannorum" in 933[29]. Orderic Vitalis implies that the transfer of Robert's body to Rouen Cathedral took place after the "the ninth year" in office of Archbishop Maurilius, who had succeeded Mauger de Normandie[30], which would date the event to [1064]. He is known to history as ROBERT I Comte [de Normandie], although no early source has been identified which refers to him by this name or title.

[m] [firstly] ---. The identity of Rollo´s first wife or concubine is not known.

m [secondly] ([886] or after, repudiated, remarried after 912) POPPA, daughter of BERENGAR Comte de Bayeux & his wife ---. Guillaume of Jumiáeges records that Rollo took "Popa, fille de Bâerenger, homme illustre" when he captured Bayeux and "s´unit avec elle, áa la maniáere des Danois"[31]. According to Orderic Vitalis, Rollo "stormed and captured Bayeux, slew its count Berengar and took to wife his daughter Poppa"[32]. In another passage, the same source records that Rollo besieged Paris, captured Bayeux, killed "Berengarium comitem" and married his daughter Popa, in 886[33], although this date appears early in light of the likely birth date range of the couple's son Guillaume. The Chronico Rotomagensis records that "mortua a Gisla, accepit Rollo propriam uxorem filiam comitis Silvanectensis Widonis"[34]. Robert of Torigny combines the information, recording that "Rollo dux Northmannorum" married "Popam prius repudiatam uxorem…filiam…Berengarii comitis Baiocensis neptem vero Widonis comitis Silvanectensis"[35]. The Historia Norwegie records that, after capturing Rouen, "Rodulfus" married the daughter of its deceased count by whom he was father of "Willelmum…Longosped"[36]. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that "le comte Bernard" welcomed "son neveu Richard" (grandson of Rollo) at Senlis after his escape from captivity[37], although in another passage he describes how Rollo captured Bayeux and took "une tráes-noble jeune fille Popa, fille de Bâerenger" in the town, marrying her "áa la maniáere des Danois"[38], in a later passage adding that Rollo married Poppa, whom he had previously repudiated, a second time after the death of his wife[39]. It would be possible to reconcile the different versions if Comte Bernard's mother was married twice, her first husband being Bâerenger Comte de Bayeux.

m thirdly (912) GISELA, daughter of CHARLES III "le Simple" King of the West Franks & his first wife Frederuna --- ([908/16]-before her husband). The Genealogica Arnulfi Comitis names (in order) "Hyrmintrudim, Frederunam, Adelheidim, Gislam, Rotrudim et Hildegardim" as the children of "Karolus rex…ex Frederuna regina"[40]. Guillaume of Jumiáeges records that Charles III "le Simple" King of the West Franks granted Rollo "tout le territoire maritime qui s´âetend depuis la riviáere d´Epte jusqu´aux confines de la Bretagne" together with "sa fille…Gisáele", and their marriage which took place after Rollo´s baptism[41]. Her marriage is recorded in the Norman annals for 912, which state that she died without issue, presumably soon after the marriage when Gisla must still have been an infant. The chronicle of Dudo of Saint-Quentin[42] describes her as of "tall stature, most elegant…", which is of course inconsistent with her supposed birth date range. The Liber Modernorum Regum Francorum records the marriage of "filiam suam [=rex Karolus] nomine Gillam" to "Rollo"[43]. Settipani considers that the marriage did not occur, and that the Norman sources confused it with the marriage of Gisela, daughter of Lothaire II King of Lotharingia, to the Viking leader Gotfrid[44].

Rollo & his [first wife] had two children:

1. [KADLINE . Her parentage and marriage are confirmed by the Landnâama-Boc which records that "son of Oht-here…Helge" captured and married [her daughter] "Nidh-beorg, daughter of king Beolan and Cadh-lina, daughter of Walking-Rolf [Gongo-Hrâolfs]" when he "harried in Scotland", and also records their descendants[45]. No other record has been found of "king Beolan" and the accuracy of this report is unknown. m BEOLAN King [in Scotland].]

2. [NIEDERGA . Niederga is shown in Europèaische Stammtafeln[46] as the second daughter of Rollo by his first wife but the primary source on which this is based has not been identified.]

Robert & his [second] wife had two children:

3. GUILLAUME (Rouen [900/05]-murdered Pequigny 17 Dec 942, bur ---, transferred [1064] to Rouen Cathedral[47]). Guillaume de Jumiáeges names "Guillaume et…Gerloc" as children of Rollo and Poppa[48]. However, the Planctus for William Longsword[49], composed shortly after the murder of Guillaume, states that he had a Christian mother of overseas origin. Dudo of Saint-Quentin states that he was born in Rouen and, in a later passage, describes him as a "young man" one year before his father's death[50]. His father chose him as heir one year before his death[51]. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that he was born before his father's marriage to Gisela and his remarriage with Popa after Gisela's death[52]. Flodoard records that "filius Rollonis" did homage to ex-king Charles III "le Simple" at "castellum…Auga" in 927[53]. He succeeded his father in [928/33] as GUILLAUME I "Longuespee" Comte [de Normandie]. Flodoard names "Willelmus princeps Nortmannorum" in 933[54]. He quelled a rebellion by the Viking chief Riulf after the latter besieged Rouen[55]. In return for swearing allegiance to Raoul King of France, he appears to have been granted rights to further territory along the coast in 933, maybe the Cotentin and Avranchin. If this is correct, it would have created rivalry with the dukes of Brittany. Dudo of Saint-Quentin describes Comte Guillaume's invasion of Brittany shortly after his accession to quell a rebellion against him, and his defeat of the rebels at Bayeux[56]. Responding to raids by Comte Guillaume, Arnoul I Count of Flanders invaded Ponthieu and in 939 captured Montreuil from Herluin Comte de Ponthieu, although it was recaptured by Comte Guillaume's forces. In 939, Guillaume joined the alliance against Louis IV King of France which was led by Otto I "der GroÏe" King of Germany who raided Frankish territory. Comte Guillaume, however, met King Louis at Amiens, receiving a confirmation of the grant of his lands in Normandy. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that Guillaume was tricked into a meeting on the river Seine at Pecquigny by Arnoul Count of Flanders to settle their dispute over the castle of Montreuil, but was murdered on Count Arnoul's orders, recording his death on 17 Dec[57]. The Annalibus Rotomagensibus record that "Willermus dux Normannorum filius Rollonis" was killed "943 XVI Kal Jan"[58]. Orderic Vitalis implies that the transfer of his body to Rouen Cathedral took place after the "the ninth year" in office of Archbishop Maurilius, who had succeeded Mauger de Normandie[59], which would date the event to [1064].

[m] firstly SPROTA, daughter of ---. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records that Guillaume married "une tráes-noble jeune fille Sprota…selon l'usage des Danois"[60]. From Brittany. It is possible that Sprota was Count Guillaume's concubine rather than wife, particularly as no reference has been found to a dissolution of any marriage before she married Esperleng. She married Esperleng de Pãitres, by whom she had Rodulf [Raoul] Comte d'Ivry.

m secondly ([940]) as her first husband, LUITGARDIS de Vermandois, daughter of HERIBERT II Comte de Vermandois & his wife Adela [Capet] (before 925-14 Nov after 985, bur Chartres, Abbaye de Saint-Páere). Rodulfus Glauber refers to the wife of Comte Guillaume as "sororem [Heribertum Trecorum comitem]", specifying that she was childless by her first husband, when recording her second marriage to "Tetbaldus"[61]. Guillaume de Jumiáeges records the marriage of Guillaume and the daughter of Heribert, specifying that it was arranged by Hugues "le Grand"[62]. The source which confirms her name has not yet been identified. She married secondly Thibaut I Comte de Blois. "Hugonis ducis, Odonis comitis, Hugonis sanctµ Bituricensis archiprµsulis, Letgardis comitissµ, Bertµ comitissµ, Gauzfridi vicecomitis…" subscribed the charter dated 985 under which "Robertus" donated property to "Sancti Petri Carnotensis", on the advice of "Odonem, simul cum sua matre Ledgarde, pariterque dominam meam Bertam, ipsius µque coniugem"[63]. The necrology of Chartres cathedral records the death "XVIII Kal Dec" of "Letgardis comitissa"[64]. Guillaume & his first wife had one child:

a) RICHARD (Fâecamp [932]-20 Nov 996, bur Fâecamp). Guillaume de Jumiáeges names Richard as son of Guillaume and Sprota, recording that news of his birth was brought to his father when he was returning from his victory against the rebels led by "Riulf"[65]. After the death of Richard's father, Louis IV "d'Outremer" King of the West Franks briefly controlled Rouen, and kept Richard prisoner, before the latter was able to escape, whereupon he succeeded as RICHARD I "Sans Peur" Comte [de Normandie].

4. GERLOC (-after 969). Guillaume de Jumiáeges names "Guillaume et…Gerloc" as children of Rollo and Poppa, in a later passage records her marriage to "Guillaume comte de Poitou"[66]. Robert of Torigny also names "Willermum Longum Spatam et Gerloch" as children of "Rollo dux Northmannorum" and Poppa[67]. The Chronico Richardi Pictavensis records that "Heblus…Pictavorum Comes et Dux Aquitaniµ duxit Adelam filiam Rolli Rothomagensis"[68], although this is presumably an error for Guillaume son of Ebles. She adopted the name ADELA when baptised. "Guillelmi comitis, Adeleidis comitisse" subscribed a charter recording a donation to Cluny dated [963][69]. Lothaire King of France granted her 14 Oct 962 the right to dispose of extensive property in Poitiers, la Cour de Faye, this grant effectively putting an end to the long dispute between her husband and the family of Hugues "Capet". She used the property to found the Monastery of Sainte-Trinitâe[70]. m (935) GUILLAUME I "Tãete d'Etoupe" Comte de Poitou, son of EBLES "Mancer" Comte de Poitou, Duke of Aquitaine & his first wife Aremburga ([900]-3 Apr 963). He succeeded in 959 as GUILLAUME III Duke of Aquitaine.

Rollo's origin
He is named as Rollo and said to have come from Dacia by Dudo of St. Quentin (c. 965-after 1043), the historian of the Norman dukes and the earliest source. Dudo does not name Rollo's parents. The Orkneyinga saga, a later source (c. 1230), identifies him with Hrolf Gange, who is said to have been a son of Ragnvald Eysteinsson, jarl of M²re. Modern scholars generally doubt the identification with Hrolf. See, for example, Stewart Baldwin, "Rollo of Normany" in soc.genealogy.medieval, Mar. 16, 1998.

There is much support for the claim of Rollo's homeland being Sykkylven in Sunnm²re (M²re), Norway.

Dacia, the country Dudo refers to as Rollo's homeland, was what people outside Scandinavia called the Nordic countries as a unity: Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Iceland together. Dudo describes Dacia as a country of high mountains, surrounding Rollo's estate - just like Gange-Hrolf's Fauske in Sykkylven. (see photos)

At the time the language, Old Norse (called dèonsk tunga by Snorri and others) was still the same and had not started to divide into separate dialects or languages.

Fasge, the place Adam of Bremen describes as Rollo's home, can easily be placed in Sykkylven where Gangu-Hrolfr had his estate at the farm called Fauske, Aure or Aurum. The Danish historian Steenstrup identified (works from 1876-82) Fasge with the town Faxe in Denmark, but linguistic argument shows that this consonant change is highly unlikely, and that the Norwegian place-name Fauske is more probable.

The outstanding linguist Hêakon Melberg argued in his dissertation that linguistic studies could shed light on the origin of the Scandinavian people and their history. In particular he opposes Steenstrup's analysis and points at several discrepancies, making Denmark improbable as Gange-Hrolf's origin.

http://books.google.com/books?hl=no&id=KGIeAAAAMAAJ&q=fauske#search_anchor

Sources
Linge, Per Eldar: Gangerolvs mektige M²re, Sunnm²rsposten forlag 1992.
More here: http://www.eutopia.no/Gangerolv.html

Melberg, Hêakon: Origin of the Scandinavian Nations and Languages : An Introduction (doctoral dissertation). University of Oslo, 1952.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A5kon_Melberg http://books.google.com/books?id=KGIeAAAAMAAJ&hl=no&pgis=1 http://ask.bibsys.no/ask/action/show?pid=921271042&kid=biblio

Languages
Gangu-Hrolf's Languages: Old French and Old Norse (the language spoken in the Nordic countries at the time):

"Danish tounge", dansk tunga, would be the language spoken in all of Scandinavia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Norse_language

dèonsk tunga: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Icelandic_language#The_Scandinavian_period_.28550.E2.80.931050.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_French

Snorri Sturlusson
From Heimskringla, Snorri: "24. ROLF GANGER DRIVEN INTO BANISHMENT.

Earl Ragnvald was King Harald's dearest friend, and the king had the greatest regard for him. He was married to Hild, a daughter of Rolf Nefia, and their sons were Rolf and Thorer. Earl Ragnvald had also three sons by concubines, -- the one called Hallad, the second Einar, the third Hrollaug; and all three were grown men when their brothers born in marriage were still children Rolf became a great viking, and was of so stout a growth that no horse could carry him, and wheresoever he went he must go on foot; and therefore he was called Rolf Ganger. He plundered much in the East sea. One summer, as he was coming from the eastward on a viking's expedition to the coast of Viken, he landed there and made a cattle foray. As King Harald happened, just at that time, to be in Viken, he heard of it, and was in a great rage; for he had forbid, by the greatest punishment, the plundering within the bounds of the country. The king assembled a Thing, and had Rolf declared an outlaw over all Norway. When Rolf's mother, Hild heard of it she hastened to the king, and entreated peace for Rolf; but the king was so enraged that here entreaty was of no avail. Then Hild spake these lines: --

"Think'st thou, King Harald, in thy anger, To drive away my brave Rolf Ganger Like a mad wolf, from out the land? Why, Harald, raise thy mighty hand? Why banish Nefia's gallant name-son, The brother of brave udal-men? Why is thy cruelty so fell? Bethink thee, monarch, it is ill With such a wolf at wolf to play, Who, driven to the wild woods away May make the king's best deer his prey."

Rolf Ganger went afterwards over sea to the West to the Hebrides, or Sudreys; and at last farther west to Valland, where he plundered and subdued for himself a great earldom, which he peopled with Northmen, from which that land is called Normandy. Rolf Ganger's son was William, father to Richard, and grandfather to another Richard, who was the father of Robert Longspear, and grandfather of William the Bastard, from whom all the following English kings are descended. From Rolf Ganger also are descended the earls in Normandy. Queen Ragnhild the Mighty lived three years after she came to Norway; and, after her death, her son and King Harald's was taken to the herse Thorer Hroaldson, and Eirik was fostered by him." (Snorri Sturlasson )

Gange-Rolv (Gèongu-Hrâolfr), var en norsk vikingh²vding og sagafigur som egentlig het Hrâolfr Rèognvaldsson (ca 860-932) og var s²nn av Ragnvald M²rejarl, kjent som jarlen som klippet Harald Hêarfagre etter at Norge var samlet til ett rike.

Gange-Rolv fikk tilnavnet fordi han var sêa stor at han alltid mêatte gêa til fots, underforstêatt at hesten ble for liten. I f²lge norsk og islandsk tradisjon er denne personen identisk med den historiske Rollo, som i 911 ble utnevnt til hertug over Normandie. Rollos opphav er imidlertid omdiskutert og nok umulig êa stadfeste helt sikkert ettersom kildene spriker i alle retninger. En sannsynlig slektning, Vilhelm Erobreren av Normandie, inntok England i 1066 og grunnla et nytt normannisk kongehus i der.

Gange-Rolv var med pêa mange tokt i Austerled, men ble forvist fra landet av Harald Hêarfagre etter et strandhogg han gjorde i Viken (Norge). I henhold til Snorre dro Rolv til Valland (Frankrike) etter landsforvisningen. Der ble han blant annet ble gift med kongsdatteren Gisela, og han skal ha blitt d²pt i Saint-Clair-katedralen.

WIKIPEDIA (Eng)
Rollo (c. 860 - c. 932) was the founder and first ruler of the Viking principality in what soon became known as Normandy. He is also in some later sources known as Robert of Normandy.

The name Rollo is a Frankish-Latin name probably taken from Scandinavian name Hrâolf (cf. the latinization of Hrâolf Kraki into the similar Roluo in the Gesta Danorum).

Historical evidence Rollo was a Viking leader of contested origin. Dudo of St. Quentin, in his De moribus et actis primorum Normannorum ducum (Latin), tells of a powerful Danish nobleman at loggerheads with the king of Dacia, who then died and left his two sons, Gurim and Rollo, leaving Rollo to be expelled and Gurim killed. William of Jumiáeges also mentions Rollo's prehistory in his Gesta Normannorum Ducum however he states that he was from the Danish town of Fasge. Wace, writing some 300 years after the event in his Roman de Rou, also mentions the two brothers (as Rou and Garin), as does the Orkneyinga Saga.

Norwegian and Icelandic historians identified this Rollo with a son of Rognvald Eysteinsson, Earl of M²re, in Western Norway, based on medieval Norwegian and Icelandic sagas that mention a Ganger Hrolf (Hrolf, the Walker). The oldest source of this version is the Latin Historia Norvegiae, written in Norway at the end of the 12th century. This Hrolf fell foul of the Norwegian king Harald Fairhair, and became a Jarl in Iceland. The nickname of that character came from being so big that no horse could carry him. [1]

The question of Rollo's Danish or Norwegian origins was a matter of heated dispute between Norwegian and Danish historians of the 19th and early 20th century, particularly in the run-up to Normandy's 1000-year-anniversary in 1911. Today, historians still disagree on this question, but most would now agree that a certain conclusion can never be reached.'

Invasion of France In 885, Rollo was one of the lesser leaders of the Viking fleet which besieged Paris under Sigfred. Legend has it that an emissary was sent by the king to find the chieftain and negotiate terms. When he asked for this information, the Vikings replied that they were all chieftains in their own right. In 886, when Sigfred retreated in return for tribute, Rollo stayed behind and was eventually bought off and sent to harry Burgundy.

Later, he returned to the Seine with his followers (known as Danes, or Norsemen). He invaded the area of northern France now known as Normandy.

Rather than pay Rollo to leave, as was customary, the Frankish king, Charles the Simple, understood that he could no longer hold back their onslaught, and decided to give Rollo the coastal lands they occupied under the condition that he defend against other raiding Vikings.

In the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte (911) with King Charles, Rollo pledged feudal allegiance to the king, changed his name to the Frankish version, and converted to Christianity, probably with the baptismal name Robert. In return, and in admission of defeat, King Charles granted Rollo the lower Seine area (today's upper Normandy) and the titular rulership of Normandy, centred around the city of Rouen. There exists some argument among historians as to whether Rollo was a "duke" (dux) or whether his position was equivalent to that of a "count" under Charlemagne. According to legend, when required to kiss the foot of King Charles, as a condition of the treaty, he refused to perform so great a humiliation, and when Charles extended his foot to Rollo, Rollo ordered one of his warriors to do so in his place. His warrior then lifted Charles' foot up to his mouth causing him to fall to the ground. [2]

Settlement Initially, Rollo stayed true to his word of defending the shores of the Seine river in accordance to the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, but in time he and his followers had very different ideas. Rollo began to divide the land between the Epte and Risle rivers among his chieftains and settled there with a de facto capital in Rouen. With these settlements, Rollo began to further raid other Frankish lands, now from the security of a settled homeland, rather than a mobile fleet. Eventually, however, Rollo's men intermarried with the local women, and became more settled as Frenchmen. At the time of his death, Rollo's expansion of his territory had extended as far west as the Vire River.

Death Sometime around 927, Rollo passed the fief in Normandy to his son, William Longsword. Rollo may have lived for a few years after that, but certainly died before 933. According to the historian Adhemar, 'As Rollo's death drew near, he went mad and had a hundred Christian prisoners beheaded in front of him in honour of the gods whom he had worshipped,[citation needed] and in the end distributed a hundred pounds of gold around the churches in honour of the true God in whose name he had accepted baptism.' Even though Rollo had converted to Christianity, some of his pagan roots surfaced at the end.

Legacy Rollo is a direct ancestor of William the Conqueror. Through William, he is a direct ancestor and predecessor of the present-day British royal family, including Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The "Clameur de Haro" in the Channel Islands is, supposedly, an appeal to Rollo.

Depictions in Fiction Rollo is the subject of the 17th Century play Rollo Duke of Normandy written by John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, Ben Jonson, and George Chapman.

References ^ Gèongu-Hrâolfs saga in Old Norse from heimskringla.no ^ Holden, A.J. (1970). Le Roman de Rou de Wace. Paris: âEditions A.J. Picard. p.54. Lines 1147-1156 D.C. Douglas, "Rollo of Normandy", English Historical Review, Vol. 57 (1942), pp. 414-436 Robert Helmerichs, [Rollo as Historical Figure] Rosamond McKitterick, The Frankish Kingdom under the Carolingians, 751-987, (Longman) 1983 Dudonis gesta Normannorum - Dudo of St. Quentin Gesta Normannorum Latin version at Bibliotheca Augustana Dudo of St. Quentin's Gesta Normannorum - An English Translation Gwyn Jones. Second edition: A History of the Vikings. Oxford University Press. (1984). William W. Fitzhugh and Elizabeth Ward. Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. Smithsonian Institute Press. (2000) Eric Christiansen. The Norsemen in the Viking Age. Blackwell Publishers Ltd. (2002) Agnus Konstam. Historical Atlas of the Viking World. Checkmark Books. (2002) Holgar Arbman. Ancient People and Places: The Vikings. Thames and Husdson. (1961) Eric Oxenstierna. The Norsemen, New York Graphics Society Publishers, Ltd. (1965)

TEXT - SOURCE? Rollo was a Viking leader, probably (based on Icelandic sources) from Norway, the son of Ragnvald, Earl of Moer; sagas mention a Hrolf, son of Ragnvald jarl of Moer. However, the latinization Rollo has in no known instance been applied to a Hrolf, and in the texts which speak of him, numerous latinized Hrolfs are included. Dudo of St. Quentin (by most accounts a more reliable source, and at least more recent and living nearer the regions concerned), in his Gesta Normannorum, tells of a powerful Dacian nobleman at loggerheads with the king of Dacia, who then died and left his two sons, Gurim and Rollo, leaving Rollo to be expelled and Gurim killed.(1) With his followers (known as Normans, or northmen), Rollo invaded the area of northern France now known as Normandy. Wace, writing some 300 years after the event, gives a Scandinavian origin, as does the Orkneyinga Saga, Danish or Norwegian most likely.

Unlike most Vikings whose intentions were to plunder Frankish lands, Rollo's true intentions were to look for lands to settle. Upon arrival in France, and after many battles with the Vikings, Charles the Simple understood that he could no longer hold back their advances, and decided as a tempory measure to give Rollo land around Rouen, as he did with his other barons, but under the condition that he would convert to Christianity and defend the Seine River from other raiding Vikings. In the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte (911) with the French King Charles the Simple, "for the protection of the realm," Rollo pledged feudal allegiance to the king, changed his name to the Frankish version, and converted to Christianity, probably with the baptismal name Robert. In return, and in admission of defeat, King Charles granted Rollo the lower Seine area (today's upper Normandy) and the titular rulership of Normandy, centred around the city of Rouen. There exists some argument among historians as to whether Rollo was a "duke" (dux) or whether his position was equivalent to that of a "count" under Charlemagne. According to legend, when required, in conformity with general usage, to kiss the foot of King Charles, he refused to stoop to what he considered so great a degradation; yet as the homage could not be dispensed with, he ordered one of his warriors to perform it for him. The latter, as proud as his chief, instead of stooping to the royal foot, raised it so high, that the King fell to the ground. It is important to note that Rollo did stay true to his word of defending the shores of the Seine river in accordance to the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, but in time Rollo and his followers had very different ideas. Rollo began to divide the land between the Epte and Risle rivers among his chieftains and settled there with a de-facto capital in Rouen. With these settlements, Rollo began to further raid other Frankish lands, now from the security of a settled homeland, rather than a mobile fleet.

Rollo expanded his territory as far west as the Vire River and sometime around 927 he passed the Duchy of Normandy to his son, William Longsword. Rollo may have lived for a few years after that, but certainly died before 933. According to the historian Adhemar, 'As Rollo's death drew near, he went mad and had a hundred Christian prisoners beheaded in front of him in honour of the gods whom he had worshiped, and in the end distributed a hundred pounds of gold around the churches in honour of the true god in whose name he had accepted baptism.' Even though Rollo had converted to Christianity, at the end, some of Rollo's pagan roots eventually came to the surface. He was a direct ancestor of William the Conqueror. By William, he was a direct ancestor of the present-day British royal family, including Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The "clameur de haro" on the Channel Islands is, supposedly, an appeal to Rollo.

TEXT - SOURCE??? Rollo (later Robert) "of Normandy" Viking leader in France, d. 932.

Although he is often referred to as the first Duke of Normandy, that title is an anachronism. Probably about 911, King Charles the Simple of France ceded a district around the city of Rouen to Rollo, which eventually evolved into the duchy of Normandy. He is said to have been baptized in 912, assuming the Christian name Robert. He was still living in 928, when he was holding Eudes, son of Heribert of Vermandois, as a captive and was probably dead by 932, when his son William was mentioned as leading the Normans.

end of biography

ROLLO THE VIKING

DIED 931 A.D.

For more than two hundred years during the Middle Ages the Christian countries of Europe were attacked on the southwest by the Saracens of Spain, and on the northwest by the Norsemen, or Northmen. The Northmen were so called because they came into Middle Europe from the north. Sometimes they were called Vikings, or pirates, because they were adventurous sea-robbers who plundered all countries which they could reach by sea.

Their ships were long and swift In the center was placed a single mast, which carried one large sail. For the most part, however, the Norsemen depended on rowing, not on the wind, and sometimes there were twenty rowers in one vessel.

The Vikings were a terror to all their neighbors; but the two regions that suffered most from their attacks were the Island of Britain and that part of Charlemagne's empire in which the Franks were settled.

endof commentary

Nearly fifty times in two hundred years the lands of the Franks were invaded. The Vikings sailed up the large rivers into the heart of the region which we now call France and captured and pillaged cities and towns. Some years after Charlemagne's death they went as far as his capital, Aix, took the place, and stabled their horses in the cathedral which the great emperor had built.

In the year 860 they discovered Iceland and made a settlement upon its shores. A few years later they sailed as far as Greenland, and there established settlements which existed for about a century.

These Vikings were the first discoverers of the continent on which we live. Ancient books found in Iceland tell the story of the discovery. It is related that a Viking ship was driven during a storm to a strange coast, which is thought to have been that part of America now known as Labrador.

When the captain of the ship returned home he told what he had seen. His tale so excited the curiosity of a young Viking prince, called Leif the Lucky, that he sailed to the newly discovered coast.

Going ashore, he found that the country abounded in wild grapes; and so he called it Vinland, or the land of Vines. Vinland is thought to have been a part of what is now the Rhode Island coast.

The Vikings were not aware that they had found a great unknown continent. No one in the more civilized parts of Europe knew anything about their discovery; and after a while the story of the Vinland voyages seems to have been forgotten, even among the Vikings themselves.

So it is not to them that we owe the discovery of America, but to Columbus; because his discovery, though nearly five hundred years later than that of the Norsemen, actually made known to all Europe, for all time, the existence of the New World.

II

THE Vikings had many able chieftains. One of the most famous was Rollo the Walker, so called because he was such a giant that no horse strong enough to carry him could be found, and therefore he always had to walk. However, he did on foot what few could do on horseback.

In 885 seven hundred ships, commanded by Rollo and other Viking chiefs, left the harbors of Norway, sailed to the mouth of the Seine, and started up the river to capture the city of Paris.

Rollo and his men stopped on the way at Rouen, which also was on the Seine, but nearer its mouth. The citizens had heard of the giant, and when they saw the river covered by his fleet they were dismayed. However, the bishop of Rouen told them that Rollo could be as noble and generous as he was fierce; and he advised them to open their gates and trust to the mercy of the Viking chief. This was done, and Rollo marched into Rouen and took possession of it. The bishop had given good advice, for Rollo treated the people very kindly.

Soon after capturing Rouen he left the place, sailed up the river to Paris, and joined the other Viking chiefs. And now for six long miles the beautiful Seine was covered with Viking vessels, which carried an army of thirty thousand men.

A noted warrior named Eudes was Count of Paris, and he had advised the Parisians to fortify the city. So not long before the arrival of Rollo and his companions, two walls with strong gates had been built round Paris.

It was no easy task for even Vikings to capture a strongly walled city. We are told that Rollo and his men built a high tower and rolled it on wheels up to the walls. At its top was a floor well manned with soldiers. But the people within the city shot hundreds of arrows at the besiegers, and threw down rocks, or poured boiling oil and pitch upon them.

The Vikings thought to starve the Parisians, and for thirteen months they encamped round the city. At length food became very scarce, and Count Eudes determined to go for help. He went out through one of the gates on a dark, stormy night, and rode post-haste to the king. He told him that something must be done to save the people of Paris.

So the king gathered an army and marched to the city. No battle was fought--the Vikings seemed to have been afraid to risk one. They gave up the siege, and Paris was relieved.

Rollo and his men went to the Duchy of Burgundy, where, as now, the finest crops were raised and the best of wines were made.

III

PERHAPS after a time Rollo and his Vikings went home; but we do not know what he did for about twenty-five years. We do know that he abandoned his old home in Norway in 911. Then he and his people sailed from the icy shore of Norway and again went up the Seine in hundreds of Viking vessels.

Of course, on arriving in the land of the Franks, Rollo at once began to plunder towns and farms.

Charles, then king of the Franks, although his people called him the Simple, or Senseless, had sense enough to see that this must be stopped.

So he sent a message to Rollo and proposed that they should have a talk about peace. Rollo agreed and accordingly they met. The king and his troops stood on one side of a little river, and Rollo with his Vikings stood on the other. Messages passed between them. The king asked Rollo what he wanted.

"Let me and my people live in the land of the Franks; let us make ourselves home here, and I and my Vikings will become your vassals," answered Rollo. He asked for Rouen and the neighboring land. So the king gave him that part of Francia; and ever since it has been called Normandy, the land of the Northmen.

When it was decided that the Vikings should settle in Francia and be subjects of the Frankish king, Rollo was told that he must kiss the foot of Charles in token that he would be the king's vassal. The haughty Viking refused. "Never," said he, "will I bend my knee before any man, and no man's foot will I kiss." After some persuasion, however, he ordered one of his men to perform the act of homage for him. The king was on horseback and the Norseman, standing by the side of the horse, suddenly seized the king's foot and drew it up to his lips. This almost made the king fall from his horse, to the great amusement of the Norsemen.

Becoming a vassal to the king meant that if the king went to war Rollo would be obliged to join his army and bring a certain number of armed men--one thousand or more.

Rollo now granted parts of Normandy to his leading men on condition that they would bring soldiers to his army and fight under him. They became his vassals, as he was the king's vassal.

The lands granted to vassals in this way were called feuds, and this plan of holding lands was called the Feudal System.

It was established in every country of Europe during the Middle Ages.

The poorest people were called serfs. They were almost slaves and were never permitted to leave the estate to which they belonged. They did all the work. They worked chiefly for the landlords, but partly for themselves.

Having been a robber himself, Rollo knew what a shocking thing it was to ravage and plunder, and he determined to change his people's habits. He made strict laws and hanged robbers. His duchy thus became one of the safest parts of Europe.

The Northmen learned the language of the Franks and adopted their religion.

The story of Rollo is especially interesting to us, because Rollo was the forefather of that famous Duke of Normandy who, less than a hundred and fifty years later, conquered England and brought into that country the Norman nobles with their French language and customs.

The Vikings in Normandy:
Timeline
Pre-Norman France map, http://www.viking.no/e/france/norm_col_gb.gif The chronology of the Vikings in Normandy can be encapsulated by a division into two successive centuries:

From AD 820 to c. AD 920, the Viking incursions on the lower Seine became more and more frequent, resulting finally in some permanent colonisation.
From c. AD 920 to AD 1020 was a consolidation period for Normandy, with the influx of numerous Scandinavian settlers, before turning increasingly to the Kingdom of France.

Timeline showing the Viking raids on the river Seine

820 Thirteen ships reach the Seine Bay. A force of Vikings lands but, having to face the shore guard, they are forced to re-embark, leaving five of their number dead on the Neustrian shore.
841 Asgeir's fleet sails up the River Seine (from 12th May), takes the city of Rouen (14th May) and burns it down. The loot is enormous. Aesgir's army continues its penetration of the Seine, plunders and burns the rich Jumiáege monastery (24th May). The nearby monastery of Fontenelle (the future Saint-Wandrille) is also assaulted and held to ransom. In this expedition, sixty-eight captives are taken and then returned on payment of a ransom by the monks of Saint-Denis (28th May).
845 Ragnar's fleet of 120 ships (therefore c. 6000 men) sails up the Seine and besieges Paris (28th March). Charles the Bald pays 7000 livres in order to spare Paris.
851 Asgeir and his men, back on the Seine, this time devastate the monastery of Fontenelle (13th October) and return there eighty-nine days later (9th January 852) and, finding nothing to plunder, burn it down.
852 Asgeir and his force raid on foot in the Beauvais region (Flanders county), from their base in Rouen. Engaged by a Frankish army, they have to withdraw and camp for the winter on Jeufosse island, securely controlling the entrance to the Seine. They stay there up to the 5th June. By the end of this year, a new group of Vikings, mainly Norwegians led by Sigtrygg (back from Ireland) and Godfrid, sails up the Seine to Jeufosse to establish their own base there. The Frankish army of Charles the Bald besieges the island.
853 (beg.) Charles the Bald negotiates with Godfrid, who afterwards retires. As for Sigtrygg, he stays to plunder and burn numerous places up to March.
855 Sigtrygg returns (18th July) to attempt to destroy a Frankish fort located on the Seine shore on the approach to Paris. He is reinforced by Bjèorn, leading a powerful fleet (17th August). The two armies join and carry out a raid in the south of the Seine, as far as Chartres, where they are stopped by the Frankish army of Charles the Bald. They have to withdraw to the Seine after heavy losses.
857 Again from Jeufosse, which has now become an established base, Sigtrygg's and Bjèorn's armies attack Paris (January). Chartres is assaulted again (12th June); on this occasion, revenging the reverse of AD 855, they take it, plunder it, and slaughter all its population. During the summer they also attack Evreux and many other places, the action taking place generally around Jeufosse island. Finally, Sigtrygg retires with his men.
858 Bjèorn is joined by a new group of Danes, led by Hasting (9th January). They lay again into the abbey of Fontenelle, which they burn down. Leading a mounted force, Bjèorn surrounds Paris and demands a ransom of the Parisian monasteries. Charles the Bald is defeated when he reacts and tries again to besiege the Viking base of Jeufosse.
859 The attacks from the Seine valley are redoubled. Charles the Bald is engaged in a struggle with his brother, Louis the German. The Vikings take advantage of this to attack freely far from their bases: Bayeux, Laon and Beauvais, where the bishops are executed.
860 The Viking chief, Veland, is paid 3000 silver livres by Charles the Bald to try to drive out the Vikings of the lower Seine.
861 From May, Veland besieges Jeufosse island, leading 200 Viking ships. The Vikings of Jeufosse have to retire from the Seine, with some 100 ships. This fleet then joins Veland's. Taking advantage of several years of respite, Charles the Bald builds forts which control the Seine at Pont-de-l'Arche.
865 Fifty Viking ships settle at Pãitres (near Pont-de-l'Arche), on the Seine.
876 100 new Viking ships make an incursion into the Seine. They sail away again after a payment of 5000 livres by Charles the Bald.
885 A huge fleet sails up the Seine (one report tells of some 700 ships) to besiege Paris. Losses are severe on both sides. The new Frankish king, Charles the Big, relieves the city by paying a heavy ransom to the besiegers.
887-911 Rolf (Rollo/Rollon) imposes himself as chief of the Vikings settled in the lower Seine region. He repels the Franks, pushing right up to the doors of the Ile-de-France. He attacks Chartres but, repulsed, withdraws again to the Seine.
911 Seeking to block the lower Seine, which had become a real "motorway" for the Viking invasions of the Kingdom of Frankia, the new king, Charles the Simple, concludes an agreement with Rolf at Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, conceding to him the suzerainty of the territory of the lower Seine which, de facto, Rolf had already had for several years.

Timeline showing the Viking Raids in Western Neustria

From AD 836 Bjèorn and Hasting lead numerous raids in Cotentin and Avranchin.
860-989 There are no more resident bishops in Cotentin and Avranchin nor any ecclesiastical infrastructures in these bishoprics. Whole areas are deserted by the native population as they become untenable, particularly in Cotentin.
867 The Frankish king, Charles the Bald, concedes Cotentin and Avranchin to the Bretons, so that they might defend these territories.
889, 890 and 891 Respectively, Saint-Lão, Coutances and Avranches are plundered or burnt down.
890-892 Rolf makes several raids in Bessin (Bayeux).
905 Vire is plundered.
907 Since Brittany is too devastated by the Viking raids, the Breton sovereignty of Cotentin and Avranchin exists only theoretically.
911 Since Rolf is now Jarl of Rouen, and since they refuse to convert to Christianity, and seek new conquests, many of Rolf's companions settle in Cotentin and Bessin.
916 From Cotentin and Bessin, where they have settled, numerous Scandinavian forces attack the whole eastern region of Brittany.
924 Bessin is added to Rolf's territory.
925 Some unsubdued Scandinavian troops of Bessin, united with native Saxons, devastate the western part of the Seine colony.
927-928 Rolf erect many fortifications (Bayeux, Exmes, Saint-Lão, Brionne, etc.) to face a huge influx of new Viking contingents, resistant to his authority in Cotentin (Danes from the Danelaw, and Hiberno-Norse from Ireland) and in Bessin (especially Danes from the Danelaw).
931 Brittany is totally subdued: on the east by the Normans of the Seine and on the west by Normans who have settled on the River Loire. The Normans of the Seine take advantage of this to get a foothold in Cotentin and Avranchin, and on the Channel Islands, in order to control the Scandinavian troops which have to submit to the Jarl of Rouen's authority.
933 Cotentin and Avranchin are conceded officially by the King of France, Raoul, to the Normans of the Seine, who are also appointed to the protectorate of Brittany.

1548417.

Lady Poppa of Bayeux was born in (850) in Bayeux, France (daughter of Berengar II of Neustria, Count of Bayeux and unnamed spouse); was buried in Rouen Cathedral, Rouen, Normandy, France.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Place de Gaulle, Bayeux, France

Notes:

Poppa of Bayeux was the Christian wife or mistress[1] (perhaps more danico)[2] of the Viking conqueror Rollo.

She was the mother of William I Longsword and grandmother of Richard the Fearless, who forged the Duchy of Normandy into a great fief of medieval France.[3]

Dudo of Saint-Quentin, in his panegyric of the Norman dukes, describes her as the daughter of a "Count Berengar", the dominant prince of that region, who was captured at Bayeux by Rollo in 885 or 889.[4]

This has led to speculation that she was the daughter of Berengar II of Neustria. Despite the uncertainty of her parentage, she undoubtedly was a member of the Frankish aristocracy.[5]

A statue of Poppa stands at the Place de Gaulle in Bayeux.

Notes:

Married:
Poppa was captured in a raid and married to Rollo of Normandy.

Children:

774208. William of Normandy, I, Duke of Normandy was born in ~893 in Normandy, France; died on 17 Dec 942 in Piquigny, France.

1548420.

Gorm the Old, King of Denmark was born in 860 in Jellinge, Denmark; died in 931 in Jellinge, Denmark; was buried in Jellinge, Denmark.

Notes:

Gorm the Old (Danish: Gorm den Gamle, Old Norse: Gormr gamli, Latin: Gormus Senex[1][2]), also called Gorm the Languid (Danish: Gorm L²ge, Gorm den Dvaske), was the first historically recognized ruler of Denmark, reigning from c.? 936 to his death c.? 958.[3] He ruled from Jelling, and made the oldest of the Jelling Stones in honour of his wife Thyra. Gorm was born before 900 and died c.? 958.[3]

Ancestry and reign

Gorm is the reported son of semi-legendary Danish king Harthacnut. Chronicler Adam of Bremen says that Harthacnut came from Northmannia to Denmark and seized power in the early 10th century.[4] He deposed the young king Sigtrygg Gnupasson, reigning over Western Denmark.[3] When Harthacnut died, Gorm ascended the throne.

Heimskringla reports Gorm taking at least part of the kingdom by force from Gnupa, and Adam himself suggests that the kingdom had been divided prior to Gorm's time. Gorm is first mentioned as the host of Archbishop Unni of Hamburg and Bremen in 936.[4] According to the Jelling Stones, Gorm's son, Harald Bluetooth, "won all of Denmark", so it is speculated that Gorm only ruled Jutland from his seat in Jelling.[4]

Marriage to Thyra

Runic stone for Thyra, back side
Gorm married Thyra, who is given conflicting and chronologically dubious parentage by late sources, but no contemporary indication of her parentage survives. Gorm raised one of the great burial mounds at Jelling as well as the oldest of the Jelling Stones for her, calling her tanmarkar but ("Denmark's Salvation" or "Denmark's Adornment"). Gorm was the father of three sons, Toke, Knut and Harald, later King Harald Bluetooth.[5]

His wife, Thyra, is credited with the completion of the Danevirke, a wall between Denmark's southern border and its unfriendly Saxon neighbors to the south. The wall was not new, but it was expanded with a ditch and earthen foundation topped by a timber stockade above it. The Danevirke ran between the Schlei and the Treene river, across what is now Schleswig.[6]

Death, burial and reburial

Gorm died in the winter of 958–959[5] and dendrochronology shows that his burial chamber was made from wood of timbers felled in 958.[7] Arild Huitfeldt explains how in Danmarks Riges Kr²nike:[citation needed]

Runic stone for Thyra, front side
The three sons were Vikings in the truest sense, departing Denmark each summer to raid and pillage. Harald came back to the royal enclosure at Jelling with the news that his son Canute had been killed in an attempt to capture Dublin, Ireland. Canute was shot with a coward's arrow while watching some games at night. No one would tell the king in view of the oath the king had made. Queen Thyra ordered the royal hall hung with black cloth and that no one was to say a single word. When Gorm entered the hall, he was astonished and asked what the mourning colors meant. Queen Thyra spoke up: "Lord King, you had two falcons, one white and the other gray. The white one flew far afield and was set upon by other birds which tore off its beautiful feathers and is now useless to you. Meanwhile the gray falcon continues to catch fowl for the king's table." Gorm understood immediately the Queen's metaphor and cried out, "My son is surely dead, since all of Denmark mourns!" "You have said it, your majesty," Thyra announced, "Not I, but what you have said is true." According to the story Gorm was so grieved by Canute's death that he died the following day.

This account would contradict information on the Jelling Stones which point to Queen Thyra dying before Gorm. Some archaeologists and historians have suggested that Gorm was buried first in Queen Thyra's grave mound at Jelling, and later moved by his son, Harald Bluetooth, into the original wooden church in Jelling.[3] According to this theory it is believed, that the skeleton found at the site of the first Christian church of Jelling is in fact Gorm the Old, though the theory is still much debated. During the reign of Gorm, most Danes still worshipped the Norse gods, but during the reign of Gorm's son, Harold Bluetooth, Denmark officially converted to Christianity. Harald, accordingly, left the hill where Gorm had originally been interred as a memorial.

Legacy

Gorm was "old" in the sense that he was considered the traditional ancestral "head" of the Danish monarchy. Saxo Grammaticus in the Gesta Danorum asserts that Gorm was older than other monarchs and having lived so long was blind by the time his son Canute was killed.

end of biography

Gorm's pedigree: https://fabpedigree.com/s038/f790309.htm

end of comment

Buried:
Gormshoj, Jellinge, Vejle, Denmark

1548421.

Children:

774210. Harold Gormsen, VII, King of Denmark was born in ~0895 in Blauzahn, Bavaria, Schwaben, Germany; died on 1 Sep 0986 in Gormshoj, Denmark.

1548430.

Robert De Vermandois, Count of Meaux was born in 918 in (France) (son of Herbert de Vermandois, II, Count of Meaux and Hildebranda of France); died on 29 Aug 968 in Seine-et-Marne, France.

Notes:

Robert Carolingian Vermandois de Meaux, Count of Meaux, Count of Troyes, was born circa 920 to Herbert II de Vermandois (884-943) and Hildebranda of France (895-931) and died circa 968 in Seine-et-Marne, France of unspecified causes. He married Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967) . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.

Children

Offspring of Robert de Vermandois and Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Herbert III of Meaux (c950-995) 950 995
Adele of Meaux (c950-c980) 950 980 Lambert de Chalon (930-979)
Geoffrey I of Anjou (-987)

Adelaide de Troyes (c955-c991) 955 991 Charles, Duke of Lower Lorraine (953-993)
Noteworthy descendants include

William I of England (1027-1087)

Namesakes of Robert de Vermandois (918-968)

Birth place
Death place
Father
Mother
Joined with
Robert de Vermandois (918-968) Seine-et-Marne, France Herbert II de Vermandois (884-943) Hildebranda of France (895-931) Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967)
Robert I of Senlis (?-1004) Bernard of Senlis (919-947)
Robert II of Senlis (?-1028) Robert I of Senlis (?-1004)

Robert married Adelaide-Werra de Chaton in 953 in Vermandois, France. Adelaide-Werra was born in 920 in (France); died in 967 in (France). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1548431.

Adelaide-Werra de Chaton was born in 920 in (France); died in 967 in (France).

Notes:

Adele Carolingian of Meaux was born 950 to Robert de Vermandois (918-968) and Adelaide-Werra de Chalon (920-967) and died 980 of unspecified causes. She married Lambert de Chalon (930-979) . She married Geoffrey I of Anjou (-987) . Notable ancestors include Charlemagne (747-814). Ancestors are from France, Germany, Belgium.
Contents[show]

The French Wikipedia has her first husband marry her mother,[1] which is unlikely, given her age. The same source has her a daughter Gerberge marry King Adalberto of Italy. This would make Adele a grandmother at the age of 12. However, in the reconstruction shown here, Adele is married to two men at once, with her youngest daughter from her first marriage born around 972 and her eldest daughter from her second marriage born around 965.

Note that Genealogie Quebec merges her with her sister.[2]

Children

Offspring of Adele of Meaux and Lambert de Chalon (930-979)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Hugh I de Chalon (?-1039)
Mahaut de Chalon (?-1019) Henri I de Bourgogne (c948-1002)
Geoffroi de Semur (?-c990)

Aelis of Chalon (?-?) Guy I de Macon (975-1006)

Elizabeth de Chalon (970-1014)

Offspring of Adele of Meaux and Geoffrey I of Anjou (-987)
Name Birth Death Joined with
Gottfried of Anjou (?-987) 987
Fulk III, Count of Anjou (972-1040) 972 21 June 1040 Metz, France âElisabeth de Vendãome (c979-999)
Hildegarde de Beaugency (c990-)

Ermengarde of Anjou (bef967-) 967 Conan I of Rennes (927-992)

Gerberge of Anjou (965-1041) 965 1041 Guillaume III Taillefer of Angoulãeme (960-1028)
^ wikipedia:fr:Lambert de Chalon
^ http://genealogiequebec.info/testphp/info.php?no=23981

Children:

774215. Adele of Meaux was born in ~950 in Meaux, France; died in ~980.

1421008.

Igor of Kiev, Prince of the Rus' was born in ~900 in (Kiev, Ukraine) (son of Rurik, Prince of Ladoga and Novgorod); died in 945 in Korosten, Ukraine.

Other Events and Attributes:

Religion: Norse Pagan

Notes:

Igor I (Old East Slavic: ?????, Igor'; Old Norse: Ingvar R²riksen; Ukrainian: ????, translit. Ihor ['i??r]; Russian: ?????, translit. Igor' ['ig?r?]; Belarusian: ????, translit. Ihar ['i?ar]) was a Varangian ruler of Kievan Rus' from 912 to 945. (Varangian defined: http://thehennesseefamily.com/showmedia.php?mediaID=3071&medialinkID=3073)

Ingvar the Rus
Prince of the Rus'
Igor RC.png
Ingvar the Rus. Illumination from the Radziwill Chronicle
Reign 914–945
Coronation 914
Predecessor Oleg
Successor Sviatoslav the Brave
Died 945
Iskorosten
Burial ?
Wife
Saint Olga
Issue Sviatoslav the Brave
Full name
Ingvar Roriksen
Dynasty Rurik Dynasty
Father Rurik
Religion Norse Pagan

Biography

Information about Igor comes mostly from the Primary Chronicle. This document has Igor as the son of Rurik, the first ruler of Kievan Rus':

6378–6387 (870–879). On his deathbed, Rurik bequeathed his realm to Oleg, who belonged to his kin, and entrusted to Oleg's hands his son Igor', for he was very young.

6388–6390 (880–882). Oleg set forth, taking with him many warriors from among the Varangians, the Chuds, the Slavs, the Merians and all the Krivichians. He thus arrived with his Krivichians before Smolensk, captured the city, and set up a garrison there. Thence he went on and captured Lyubech, where he also set up a garrison. He then came to the hills of Kiev, and saw how Askold and Dir reigned there. He hid his warriors in the boats, left some others behind, and went forward himself bearing the child Igor'. He thus came to the foot of the Hungarian hill, and after concealing his troops, he sent messengers to Askold and Dir, representing himself as a stranger on his way to Greece on an errand for Oleg and for Igor', the prince's son, and requesting that they should come forth to greet them as members of their race. Askold and Dir straightway came forth. Then all the soldiery jumped out of the boats, and Oleg said to Askold and Dir, "You are not princes nor even of princely stock, but I am of princely birth." Igor' was then brought forward, and Oleg announced that he was the son of Rurik. They killed Askold and Dir, and after carrying them to the hill, they buried them there, on the hill now known as Hungarian, where the castle of Ol'ma now stands.[1]

Igor' twice besieged Constantinople, in 941 and 944, and although Greek fire destroyed part of his fleet, he concluded with the Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine VII a favourable treaty (945), the text of which the chronicle has preserved. In 913 and 944 the Rus' plundered the Arabs in the Caspian Sea during the Caspian expeditions of the Rus', but it remains unclear whether Igor' had anything to do with these campaigns.

Prince Igor Exacting Tribute from the Drevlyans, by Klavdiy Lebedev (1852-1916).
Igor was killed while collecting tribute from the Drevlians in 945. The Byzantine historian and chronicler, Leo the Deacon (born ca 950), describes how Igor met his death: "They had bent down two birch trees to the prince's feet and tied them to his legs; then they let the trees straighten again, thus tearing the prince's body apart."[2] Igor's wife, Olga of Kiev, avenged his death by punishing the Drevlians. The Primary Chronicle blames his death on his own excessive greed, indicating that he tried to collect tribute for a second time in a month. As a result, Olga changed the system of tribute gathering (poliudie) in what may be regarded as the first legal reform recorded in Eastern Europe.

Controversy
Drastically revising the chronology of the Primary Chronicle, Constantin Zuckerman argues that Igor actually reigned for three years, between summer 941 and his death in early 945. He explains the epic 33-year span of his reign in the chronicle to be the result of its author's faulty interpretation of Byzantine sources.[3] Indeed, none of Igor's activities are recorded in the chronicle before 941.

See also

List of Ukrainian rulers
List of Russian rulers

References

Translated and edited by Cross, S. H. and Sherbowitz-Wetzor, O. P. (1953). "The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text" (PDF). Crimson Printing Company, Cambridge, Massachusetts. pp. 60–61. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
Tarasenko, Leonid (27 February 2008). "Korosten (Iskorosten): A small town with a great history". geocities.com. Archived from the original on 26 October 2009. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
Zuckerman, Constantin (1995). "On the Date of the Khazars' Conversion to Judaism and the Chronology of the Kings of the Rus Oleg and Igor: A Study of the Anonymous Khazar Letter from the Genizah of Cairo" (PDF). Volume 53. Revue des âetudes byzantines (1): 237–270. doi:10.3406/rebyz.1995.1906. ISSN 0766-5598. Retrieved 5 July 2016.

end of biography

Igor married Olga of Kiev in 903. Olga was born in (Pskov) Russia; died on 11 Jul 0969 in Kiev, Ukraine. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1421009.

Olga of Kiev was born in (Pskov) Russia; died on 11 Jul 0969 in Kiev, Ukraine.

Other Events and Attributes:

Religion: Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church

Notes:

Saint Olga (Church Slavonic: ?????, died 969 AD in Kiev) was a regent of Kievan Rus' for her son Svyatoslav from 945 until 960. She is known for her obliteration of the Drevlians, a tribe that had killed her husband Igor of Kiev. Even though it would be her grandson Vladimir that would convert the entire nation to Christianity, for her efforts to spread Christianity through the Rus' Olga is venerated as a saint. While her birthdate is unknown, it could be as early as AD 890 and as late as 5 June 925.[1]

Grand Princess of Kiev, Equal to the Apostles
Born Pskov
Died 11 July 969
Kiev
Venerated in Roman Catholicism
Eastern Catholicism, especially in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
Eastern Orthodoxy
Feast July 11/24

Early life
Olga was reportedly from Pskov. The Primary Chronicle gives 879 as her date of birth, which is unlikely, given the birth of her only son probably some 65 years after that date. She was, hypothetically, of Varangian extraction.

She married the future Igor of Kiev arguably in 903, but perhaps as early as 901-902.

Regency
After Igor's death on 945, Olga ruled Kievan Rus as regent on behalf of their son Svyatoslav.[2]

In 947, Princess Olga launched a punitive expedition against the tribal elites between the Luga and the Msta River.[3] Following this successful campaign, a number of forts were erected at Olga’s orders. One of them is supposed to be Gorodets in the Luga region[4] a fortification dated to the middle of the 10th century. Because of its isolated location, Gorodets does not seem to have been in any way associated with the pre-existing settlement pattern. Moreover, the fort produced another example of square timber frames designed to consolidate the rampart that was seen at Rurikovo Gorodische. The same building technique was in use a century later in the Novgorod fortifications.

Olga remained regent ruler of Kievan Rus with the support of the army and her people. She changed the system of tribute gathering (poliudie) in the first legal reform recorded in Eastern Europe. She continued to evade proposals of marriage, defended the city during the Siege of Kiev in 968, and saved the power of the throne for her son.

Drevlian Uprising

The following account is taken from the Primary Chronicle. Princess Olga was the wife of Igor of Kiev, who was killed by the Drevlians. At the time of her husband's death, their son Svyatoslav was three years old, making Olga the official ruler of Kievan Rus' until he reached adulthood. The Drevlians wanted Olga to marry their Prince Mal, making him the ruler of Kievan Rus', but Olga was determined to remain in power and preserve it for her son.

The Drevlians sent twenty of their best men to persuade Olga to marry their Prince Mal and give up her rule of Kievan Rus'. She had them buried alive. Then she sent word to Prince Mal that she accepted the proposal, but required their most distinguished men to accompany her on the journey in order for her people to accept the offer of marriage. The Drevlians sent the best men who governed their land. Upon their arrival, she offered them a warm welcome and an invitation to clean up after their long journey in a bathhouse. After they entered, she locked the doors and set fire to the building, burning them alive.

With the best and wisest men out of the way, she planned to destroy the remaining Drevlians. She invited them to a funeral feast so she could mourn over her husband's grave. Her servants waited on them, and after the Drevlians were drunk, Olga's soldiers killed over 5,000 of them.[2] She then placed the city under siege.[2] She asked for three pigeons and three sparrows from each house; she claimed she did not want to burden the villagers any further after the siege.[2] They were happy to comply with the request.

Now Olga gave to each soldier in her army a pigeon or a sparrow, and ordered them to attach by thread to each bird a piece of sulfur bound with small pieces of cloth. When night fell, Olga bade her soldiers release the pigeons and the sparrows. So the birds flew to their nests, the pigeons to the cotes, and the sparrows under the eaves. The dove-cotes, the coops, the porches, and the haymows were set on fire. There was not a house that was not consumed, and it was impossible to extinguish the flames because all the houses caught on fire at once. The people fled from the city, and Olga ordered her soldiers to catch them. Thus she took the city and burned it, and captured the elders of the city. Some of the other captives she killed, while some she gave as slaves to her followers. The remnant she left to pay tribute.[5]

The story, however, is most likely a myth.[2]

Relations with the Holy Roman Emperor

Seven Latin sources document Olga's embassy to Holy Roman Emperor Otto I in 959. The continuation of Regino of Prèum mentions that the envoys requested the emperor to appoint a bishop and priests for their nation. The chronicler accuses the envoys of lies, commenting that their trick was not exposed until later. Thietmar of Merseburg says that the first archbishop of Magdeburg, Saint Adalbert of Magdeburg, before being promoted to this high rank, was sent by Emperor Otto to the country of the Rus' (Rusciae) as a simple bishop but was expelled by pagan allies of Svyatoslav I. The same data is repeated in the annals of Quedlinburg and Hildesheim.

Christianity

Princess Olga meets the body of her husband. A sketch by Vasily Surikov.
Olga was the first ruler of Rus' to convert to Christianity, done in either 945 or 957. The ceremonies of her formal reception in Constantinople were detailed by Emperor Constantine VII in his book De Ceremoniis. Following her baptism, Olga took the Christian name Yelena, after the reigning Empress Helena Lekapena. The Slavonic chronicles add apocryphal details to the account of her baptism, such as the story of how she charmed and "outwitted" Constantine and spurned his proposals of marriage. In actuality, at the time of her baptism, Olga was an old woman, while Constantine already had a wife.

Olga was one of the first people of Rus' to be proclaimed a saint for her efforts to spread Christianity throughout the country. Because of her proselytizing influence, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church, and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church call Saint Olga by the honorific Isapâostolos, "Equal to the Apostles". She is also a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. However, she failed to convert Svyatoslav, and it was left to Vladimir I, her grandson and pupil, to make Christianity the lasting state religion. During her son's prolonged military campaigns, she remained in charge of Kiev, residing in the castle of Vyshgorod with her grandsons. She died in 969, soon after the Pechenegs' siege of the city.[6][7]

Gallery

Illuminations from the Radziwill Chronicle

Olga's revenge for her husband's death

Fourth revenge of Olga: Burning of Derevlian capital Iskorosten

Reception of Olga by Constantine VII

Notes

"Princess Olga of Kiev". Russiapedia. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
Clements 2012, p. 7.
Laurentian Codex (1997:60)
Lebedev 1982:225-238; Zalevskaia 1982:49-54
Russian Primary Chronicle
extracts of the Primary Chronicle in English translation, University of Oregon
Primary Sources - A collection of translated excerpts on Medieval Rus, University of Washington Faculty Web Server (November 6, 2004)
References
Clements, Barbara Evans (2012). A History of Women in Russia: From Earliest Times to the Present. Indiana University Press.
See also
Order of Princess Olga (established in Ukraine in 1997)
Christianization of Kievan Rus'
A Perfect Absolution - concept album by French band Gorod about Olga of Kiev
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Olga of Kiev.

end of biography

Children:

710504. Sviatoslav, I, Grand Prince of Kiev was born in ~941 in Kiev, Ukraine; died on 26 Mar 972 in Khortytsia, Dnieper, Ukraine.

1421012.

Ulf Tostesson, Jarl of Skara was born in 930 in Gothland, Sweden (son of Skagul Toste, King of Sweden); died in 950 in (Kiev, Ukraine).

Notes:

Ulf Tostesson was a jarl and the son of the legendary Viking Skogul Toste. He was the brother of Sigrid the Haughty, and his son, Ragnvald Ulfsson, a jarl, was the father of Stenkil, who was elected king when the old House of Munsèo died out.

end of biography

Ulf "den gamle" Tostesson
Born 0930 in Vestgotalnd, Sweden
ANCESTORS ancestors
Son of Skoglar Skagul Toste and [mother unknown]
Brother of Ulf (UNKNOWN) Tostesson av Skara and Sigrid Storrada
[spouse(s) unknown]
[children unknown]
Died 0950 in Sweden

Relationships between historical figures could have been simplified or even fabricated in the text to give the impression that succession remained within the same family….Precise chronology is also difficult to assess from the Sagas….The conclusion must be that the tight family network described in the Sagas is unlikely to be correct and that the relationships shown below should be treated with considerable caution.

Biography
(English below Swedish version.)

Ulf Tostesson var enligt de islèandska sagorna jarl och son till den legendariske vikingen Skoglar-Toste och bror till den historiskt omtvistade Sigrid Storrêada. Genom sonen Ragnvald Ulfsson pêastêas han ha varit farfar till Stenkil som blev vald till kung efter Emund den gamles dèod. Ulf ska ha varit gift med Ingeborg.

Fèodelse- och dèodsdatum fêar ses som vèaldigt osèakra. (Har lêatit dem vara kvar som en referens om vilket êarhundrade som avses). I originalbiografin fanns èaven "av Skara" i namnet

Barn: Ragnvald Ulfsson, (jarl av Vèastergèotland och uppgiven far till kung Stenkil av Svitjod)

Enligt svenska Wikipedia fèor "sonen" Ragnvald: Att Ragnvald hette Ulfsson och var jarl èar "fèorfalskningar" skapade av Snorre Sturlasson i Olav den heliges historia.[kèalla behèovs] Snorre uppger att Ragnvald var jarl i Skara i Vèastergèotland och bland annat fick en son vid namn Ulf som blev jarl. Austrfararvâisur èar en samtida (1000-tal) primèarkèalla och dèarmed mycket mer pêalitlig èan Snorres sekundèar/tertièara fantastiska kèallmaterial frêan 1200-tal.

Ulf Tostesson is said to be a "jarl" and the son of the legendary viking Skogul Toste. He was the brother of Sigrid the Haughty, and his son, Ragnvald Ulfsson, a jarl, was the father of Stenkil, who was elected king when the king Edmund died. Ulf is said to be married to Ingeborg.

The birth and death years should be considered as very uncertain. They should however be left to indicate what period of time this profile is referred to.

"Den gamle" translates to "the old/er".

There is some argumentation that the son Ragnvald really was a "jarl" and the son of Ulf, that it actually could be a "forgery" made by Snorre Sturlasson, it seems Snorre is the one mentioning that Ragnvald as a " jarl" in Skara (Vèastergèotland). Austrfararvâisur is an earlier source (1000-tal) that does not mention these facts.

Click here for EARLY KINGS OF SWEDEN [1] on WikiTree.

Sources

See also:

Book: Strinnholm, Anders Magnus (1834). Svenska folkets historia frêan èaldsta till nèarvarande tider. Bd 1, Skandinavien under hedna-êaldern, afd. 1. Stockholm. sid. 389. Libris 294689
Wikipedia pêa svenska:
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulf_Tostesson
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnvald_Ulfsson
Wikipedia in English:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulf_Tostesson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnvald_Ulfsson

Ulf married Ingeborg. Ingeborg was born in (Gothland, Sweden); died in (Kiev, Ukraine). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1421013.
Ingeborg was born in (Gothland, Sweden); died in (Kiev, Ukraine).
Children:

710506. Rogvolod, Prince of Polotsk was born in ~920 in Gothland, Sweden; died in 978 in Polotsk, Belarus.

2834832.

Donald of Scotland, II, King of Alba was born in (850-860) in (Scotland); died in 900 in Forres, Scotland; was buried in Isle of Iona, Scotland.

Notes:

Donald II (a.k.a. Domnall mac Causantâin and Domnall II) lived from 862 to 900 and was King of Alba from 889 to 900. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline.

Donald II was the son of King Constantine I of the Picts and Scots, and it is arguable that he should have succeeded to the throne on the death of his uncle, King Aedh. However, Aedh's murder in 878 was followed by the joint rule of Eochaid and Giric. In 889 Eochaid tried to gain sole control of the crown by commissioning Donald to kill Giric. This Donald did, at Dundurn near St Fillans at the eastern end of Loch Earn. He then went on to exile Eochaid, before taking the crown for himself.

However dubious Eochaid's claims to the Crown of the Picts and Scots had been, he claim to be King of Strathclyde was much stronger. When Eochaid was exiled by Donald II to Gwynedd in Wales most of the nobility of Strathclyde left with him, and Donald II combined the Crowns of the Picts and Scots and the Crown of Strathclyde, becoming the first person to be referred to in his own time as King of Alba. Alba had been an entity since the merging of the Crowns of the Picts and the Scots by Kenneth I in 843; but until Donald, Kings had taken the title King of Picts or King of the Picts and Scots.

Donald II's reign was a turbulent one. During it, much of northern Scotland fell under the control of the Vikings under Sigurd the Mighty. He was also the first Scottish King (though not the last) to be recorded as fighting against Highlanders.

Donald was killed in battle by the Danes at Dunnottar, in 900 and was buried in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel on the Isle of Iona. His successor was his cousin, King Constantine II. Donald's son, Malcolm, later became King Malcolm I.

end of biography

Domnall mac Causantâin (Modern Gaelic: Dáomhnall mac Cháoiseim),[1] anglicised as Donald II (died 900) was King of the Picts or King of Scotland (Alba) in the late 9th century. He was the son of Constantine I (Causantâin mac Cinâaeda). Donald is given the epithet Dâasachtach, "the Madman", by The Prophecy of Berchâan.[2]

Life

Donald became king on the death or deposition of Giric (Giric mac Dâungail), the date of which is not certainly known but usually placed in 889. The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba reports:

Doniualdus son of Constantini held the kingdom for 11 years [889–900]. The Northmen wasted Pictland at this time. In his reign a battle occurred between Danes and Scots at Innisibsolian where the Scots had victory. He was killed at Opidum Fother [modern Dunnottar] by the Gentiles.[3]

It has been suggested that the attack on Dunnottar, rather than being a small raid by a handful of pirates, may be associated with the ravaging of Scotland attributed to Harald Fairhair in the Heimskringla.[4] The Prophecy of Berchâan places Donald's death at Dunnottar, but appears to attribute it to Gaels rather than Norsemen; other sources report he died at Forres.[5] Donald's death is dated to 900 by the Annals of Ulster and the Chronicon Scotorum, where he is called king of Alba, rather than king of the Picts. He was buried on Iona. Like his father, Constantine, he died a violent death at a premature age.

The change from king of the Picts to king of Alba is seen as indicating a step towards the kingdom of the Scots, but historians, while divided as to when this change should be placed, do not generally attribute it to Donald in view of his epithet.[6] The consensus view is that the key changes occurred in the reign of Constantine II (Causantâin mac Áeda),[7] but the reign of Giric has also been proposed.[8]

The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba has Donald succeeded by his cousin Constantine II. Donald's son Malcolm (Mâael Coluim mac Domnall) was later king as Malcolm I. The Prophecy of Berchâan appears to suggest that another king reigned for a short while between Donald II and Constantine II, saying "half a day will he take sovereignty". Possible confirmation of this exists in the Chronicon Scotorum, where the death of "Ead, king of the Picts" in battle against the Uâi Ímair is reported in 904. This, however, is thought to be an error, referring perhaps to ¥dwulf, the ruler of Bernicia, whose death is reported in 913 by the other Irish annals.[9]

end of biography

Timeline: Prehistory to 1000

8500 BC: The date of the oldest human settlement yet found in Scotland, at Cramond, near Edinburgh.

3000 BC: Maeshowe chambered tomb is built on Orkney.

3000 BC: Alleged date of origin of the Fortingall Yew, probably the world's oldest living thing.

3000 BC: Occupation of what may be the first Crannog or artificial islet residence, on the islet Eilean Domhnuill on Loch Olabhat in North Uist.

2500 BC to 2000 BC: Stone village of Skara Brae on Orkney in occupation.

1400 BC: The era of Scota, the daughter of an Egyptian Pharaoh, who features in the foundation myth of Ireland an Scotland, and who Scotland is named after.

500 BC: Crannogs, houses built on stilts or artificial islets, begin to appear widely on Scottish lochs.

200 BC: According to Irish legend, the "School for Heroes" is run by the warrior queen Scâathach, or Sgathach, at her fortress Dâun Scâaith, near Tarskavaig on Skye.

200 BC to AD 200: Building and occupation of Brochs, circular stone defensive towers.

20 BC: Pontius Pilate, later to become the Prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, is born at Fortingall.

AD 80: Julius Agricola Roman Governor of Britain, invades Scotland, reaching a line between the Rivers Clyde and Forth by AD 82.

AD 83: Julius Agricola invades northern Scotland.

AD 84: The Battle of Mons Graupius takes place at a location still uncertain. The Romans under Julius Agricola convincingly defeat the Caledonians under Calgacus. They fail to press home their advantage, however, and instead establish a defensive line of forts extending north east from Loch Lomond to Stonehaven to guard the exits from the main highland glens.

AD 105: The Romans withdraw from Scotland to a defensive line between the Rivers Solway and Tyne. This is fortified as Hadrian's Wall from AD 121.

AD 139: The Romans advance again, to a line between the Forth and Clyde and build the Antonine Wall.

AD 170: The Romans withdraw to Hadrian's Wall once more.

AD 208: Roman Emperor Septimius Severus launches the last campaign intended to conquer Scotland, establishing a major base at Cramond, on the site of a fort built in AD 142.

AD 211: Septimius Severus dies in York. His successor Caracalla abandons territory north of Hadrians Wall and in 212 the Romans withdraw from what will later become Scotland for the final time.

AD 250: The first raids take place in western Scotland by the strong Irish tribe, the Scots.

AD 367: The Picti, or the Picts, push the Romans back from Hadrian's Wall. "Picti" is the Romans' disparaging slang for their northern neighbours, meaning the painted (or tattooed) ones.

AD 397: Saint Ninian dedicates the first Christian church in Scotland, the Candida Casa at Whithorn, to St Martin.

AD 500: Increased migration of Scoti or Scots from Ireland to Scotland leads to the establishment of the kingdom of Dalriada in what is now Argyll, with its capital at Dunadd in Kilmartin Glen.

AD 500: King of the Scots of Dalriada, Fergus Mor fights both the Picts to the east and the Britons of Strathclyde to the south for land.

10 March 520: St Kessog, the original patron saint of Scotland, is killed at Bandry, on the western shore of Loch Lomond.

7 December 521: The birth in County Donegal in Ireland of the man who would go on to become Saint Columba.

AD 550: The Angles establish Bernicia, later called Northumbria, with boundaries extending south to Yorkshire.

AD 552: St Mungo or St Kentigern founds a church on part of the site that later became Glasgow Cathedral.

AD 562: St Moluag founds a settlement on the Isle of Lismore in the mouth of Loch Linnhe.

12 May 563: Saint Columba and twelve companions land on the island of Iona to establish a monastery.

25 June 592: St Moluag dies in Rosemarkie.

9 June 597: St Columba dies in his monastery at Iona.

13 January 614: St Mungo or St Kentigern dies, and is buried at his church in Clas-gu which later becomes Glasgow.

17 April 617: Saint Donan and 52 of his followers are murdered during a raid on their monastery on the Island of Eigg.

AD 638: Edinburgh - Din Eidyn - is overrun by the Angles of the Kingdom of Northumbria.

3 January 642: The birth in Ireland of Saint Maelrubha, a monk who founded a monastery at what is now Applecross.

5 August 642: The death at the Battle of Maserfield (near modern Oswestry) of King Oswald of Northumbria, later known as St Oswald.

31 August 651: The death in what is now St Aidan's Church in Bamburgh of St Aidan of Lindisfarne, the Apostle of Northumbria.

AD 672: A Pictish uprising against the Kingdom of Northumbria is suppressed.

AD 678: St Nathalan dies on Deeside.

Clickable Index Map

8500 BC: The date of the oldest human settlement yet found in Scotland, at Cramond, near Edinburgh.

3000 BC: Maeshowe chambered tomb is built on Orkney.

3000 BC: Alleged date of origin of the Fortingall Yew, probably the world's oldest living thing.

3000 BC: Occupation of what may be the first Crannog or artificial islet residence, on the islet Eilean Domhnuill on Loch Olabhat in North Uist.

2500 BC to 2000 BC: Stone village of Skara Brae on Orkney in occupation.

1400 BC: The era of Scota, the daughter of an Egyptian Pharaoh, who features in the foundation myth of Ireland an Scotland, and who Scotland is named after.

500 BC: Crannogs, houses built on stilts or artificial islets, begin to appear widely on Scottish lochs.

200 BC: According to Irish legend, the "School for Heroes" is run by the warrior queen Scâathach, or Sgathach, at her fortress Dâun Scâaith, near Tarskavaig on Skye.

200 BC to AD 200: Building and occupation of Brochs, circular stone defensive towers.

20 BC: Pontius Pilate, later to become the Prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, is born at Fortingall.

AD 80: Julius Agricola Roman Governor of Britain, invades Scotland, reaching a line between the Rivers Clyde and Forth by AD 82.

AD 83: Julius Agricola invades northern Scotland.

AD 84: The Battle of Mons Graupius takes place at a location still uncertain. The Romans under Julius Agricola convincingly defeat the Caledonians under Calgacus. They fail to press home their advantage, however, and instead establish a defensive line of forts extending north east from Loch Lomond to Stonehaven to guard the exits from the main highland glens.

AD 105: The Romans withdraw from Scotland to a defensive line between the Rivers Solway and Tyne. This is fortified as Hadrian's Wall from AD 121.

AD 139: The Romans advance again, to a line between the Forth and Clyde and build the Antonine Wall.

AD 170: The Romans withdraw to Hadrian's Wall once more.

AD 208: Roman Emperor Septimius Severus launches the last campaign intended to conquer Scotland, establishing a major base at Cramond, on the site of a fort built in AD 142.

AD 211: Septimius Severus dies in York. His successor Caracalla abandons territory north of Hadrians Wall and in 212 the Romans withdraw from what will later become Scotland for the final time.

AD 250: The first raids take place in western Scotland by the strong Irish tribe, the Scots.

AD 367: The Picti, or the Picts, push the Romans back from Hadrian's Wall. "Picti" is the Romans' disparaging slang for their northern neighbours, meaning the painted (or tattooed) ones.

AD 397: Saint Ninian dedicates the first Christian church in Scotland, the Candida Casa at Whithorn, to St Martin.

AD 500: Increased migration of Scoti or Scots from Ireland to Scotland leads to the establishment of the kingdom of Dalriada in what is now Argyll, with its capital at Dunadd in Kilmartin Glen.

AD 500: King of the Scots of Dalriada, Fergus Mor fights both the Picts to the east and the Britons of Strathclyde to the south for land.

10 March 520: St Kessog, the original patron saint of Scotland, is killed at Bandry, on the western shore of Loch Lomond.

7 December 521: The birth in County Donegal in Ireland of the man who would go on to become Saint Columba.

AD 550: The Angles establish Bernicia, later called Northumbria, with boundaries extending south to Yorkshire.

AD 552: St Mungo or St Kentigern founds a church on part of the site that later became Glasgow Cathedral.

AD 562: St Moluag founds a settlement on the Isle of Lismore in the mouth of Loch Linnhe.

12 May 563: Saint Columba and twelve companions land on the island of Iona to establish a monastery.

25 June 592: St Moluag dies in Rosemarkie.

9 June 597: St Columba dies in his monastery at Iona.

13 January 614: St Mungo or St Kentigern dies, and is buried at his church in Clas-gu which later becomes Glasgow.

17 April 617: Saint Donan and 52 of his followers are murdered during a raid on their monastery on the Island of Eigg.

AD 638: Edinburgh - Din Eidyn - is overrun by the Angles of the Kingdom of Northumbria.

3 January 642: The birth in Ireland of Saint Maelrubha, a monk who founded a monastery at what is now Applecross.

5 August 642: The death at the Battle of Maserfield (near modern Oswestry) of King Oswald of Northumbria, later known as St Oswald.

31 August 651: The death in what is now St Aidan's Church in Bamburgh of St Aidan of Lindisfarne, the Apostle of Northumbria.

AD 672: A Pictish uprising against the Kingdom of Northumbria is suppressed.

AD 678: St Nathalan dies on Deeside.

20 May 685: The Battle of Dunnichen or Nechtansmere, near Forfar. King Ecgfrith of Northumbria is decisively defeated by the Picts, paving the way for the development of a separate Scottish nation. The battle is later depicted on a cross slab at Aberlemno Kirk.

20 March 687: The death on Inner Farne Island of St Cuthbert, the a monk, bishop and hermit regarded as the patron saint of northern England.

23 September 704: The death of Adomnâan of Iona, also known as Saint Adomnâan. He was Abbot of Iona, the author of the Life of Columba and the promoter of the hugely influential Law of Adomnâan.

6 March 757: The death on Bass Rock of Saint Baldred of Tyninghame.

8 June 793: The monastery at Lindisfarne suffers its first raid by Vikings. Others will follow, leading to the abandonment of the monastery in 875.

795: First recorded Viking raid (probably from Orkney), on Iona, which is raided twice more in the following decade.

839: The Picts, who have controlled all of Scotland north of the Forth and Clyde except for Argyll, suffer a heavy defeat at the hands of the Vikings. Most of the Pictish nobility is wiped out in the defeat, including King Bridei VI.

843: Kenneth Mac Alpin becomes King of the Scots of Dalriada; and later becomes King of the Picts of Pictland as well, unifying the main groups in Scotland north of the Forth-Clyde line for the first time within the Kingdom of Alba.

850: Viking pressure leads to the relocation of the capital of Alba from Argyll to Scone, near Perth. The religious centre, and the relics of St Columba, moves from Iona to Dunkeld.

850: Kenneth Mac Alpin, also known as Kenneth I, raids Northumbria six times in the 850s.

858: Kenneth Mac Alpin is succeeded by Donald I.

863: Donald I is succeeded by Constantine I.

870: Following a 15 week siege the Vikings capture the fortress at Dumbarton Rock guarding the entrance to the Clyde and the British Kingdom of Strathclyde.

872: Constantine I arranges the death of the King of Strathclyde in 872. He replaces him with his own brother in law, Rhun: effectively making Strathclyde a subordinate kingdom to Alba.

877: Constantine I is succeeded by King Aedh.

878: King Aedh is succeeded by the joint rule of Kings Eochaid and Giric.

889: Kings Eochaid and Giric are succeeded by Donald II.

890: The Vikings capture the Pictish fortress at Dunnottar, near Stonehaven.

900: Constantine II succeeds Donald II and helps incorporate Viking settlers into the emerging Kingdom of Scotland.

937: A joint army comprising Constantine II's Scots and Olaf III Guthfrithson's Vikings is defeated at the Battle of Brunanburh by King Athelstan of England in 937: largely securing the future of what is to become England.

943: Constantine II is succeeded by Malcolm I.

945: Edmund, a Danish King ruling Northumbria, gives Cumbria to Malcolm I of Scotland in return for military support.

954: Malcolm I is succeeded by King Indulf.

962: King Indulf is succeeded by King Duff.

967: King Duff is succeeded by King Culen.

971: King Culen is succeeded by Kenneth II.

995: Kenneth II is succeeded by Constantine III.

997: Constantine III is succeeded by Kenneth III.

end of timeline

Died:
A brief history and overview of Forres; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forres

The earliest written reference to Forres may be the ????a? e?s??s?? (Ouâarar eâischysis, 'Varar Estuary') mentioned in the second century Geography of Claudius Ptolemy. A royal castle was present in the area from at least 900 AD, and around 1140 AD Forres became a royal burgh. Royal burghs were founded by the Kings of Scots of the 12th century to encourage trade and economic improvement. The local abbey was plundered by the Wolf of Badenoch.

On 23 June 1496 King James IV of Scotland issued a Royal Charter laying down the rights and privileges that the town's people are believed to have held by an earlier charter since the reign of King David I some 300 years earlier.

Buried:
was buried in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel... https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/iona/storanschapel/index.html

View images and more history of St Oran's; https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/iona/storanschapel/index.html, (images: https://www.google.com/search?q=Saint+Oran%27s+Chapel+image&client=firefox-b-1-ab&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjcxPKjgIraAhUL71MKHcCmCYoQ7AkIQA&biw=1224&bih=826)

Donald married unnamed spouse. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

2834833.
unnamed spouse
Children:

1417416. Malcolm I of Scotland, King of Alba was born in 897 in Scotland; died in 954 in Auldearn, Scotland; was buried in Isle of Iona, Scotland.

2841664.

Notes:

Edward the Elder (c. 874 – 17 July 924) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death. He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith. When Edward succeeded, he had to defeat a challenge from his cousin ¥thelwold, who had a strong claim to the throne as the son of Alfred's elder brother and predecessor as king, ¥thelred.

Alfred had succeeded ¥thelred as king of Wessex in 871, and almost faced defeat against the Danish Vikings until his decisive victory at the Battle of Edington in 878. After the battle, the Vikings still ruled Northumbria, East Anglia and eastern Mercia, with only Wessex and western Mercia under Anglo-Saxon control. In the early 880s ¥thelred, Lord of the Mercians, the ruler of western Mercia, accepted Alfred's lordship and married his daughter ¥thelflµd, and around 886 Alfred adopted the new title 'King of the Anglo-Saxons' as the ruler of all Anglo-Saxons not subject to Danish rule.

In 910 a Mercian and West Saxon army inflicted a decisive defeat on an invading Northumbrian army, ending the threat from the northern Vikings. In the 910s, Edward conquered Viking ruled southern England in partnership with his sister ¥thelflµd, who had succeeded as Lady of the Mercians following the death of her husband in 911. Historians dispute how far Mercia was dominated by Wessex during this period, and after ¥thelflµd's death in June 918 her daughter ¥lfwynn briefly became second Lady of the Mercians, but in December Edward took her into Wessex and imposed direct rule on Mercia. By the end of the 910s he ruled Wessex, Mercia and East Anglia, and only Northumbria remained under Viking rule. In 924 he faced a Mercian and Welsh revolt at Chester, and after putting it down he died at Farndon in Cheshire on 17 July 924. He was succeeded by his eldest son ¥thelstan.

Edward has been described as "perhaps the most neglected of English kings", partly because few primary sources for his reign survive. His reputation among historians rose in the late twentieth century, and he is seen as destroying the power of the Vikings in southern England, and laying the foundations for a south-centred united English kingdom.

King of the Anglo-Saxons
Reign 26 October 899 – 17 July 924
Coronation 8 June 900 Kingston upon Thames or Winchester
Predecessor Alfred the Great
Successor ¥thelstan
Born c.?874
Died 17 July 924
Farndon, Cheshire, England
Burial New Minster, Winchester, later translated to Hyde Abbey
Spouse Ecgwynn
¥lfflµd
Eadgifu
Issue
Detail
See list[show]
House Wessex
Father Alfred the Great
Mother Ealhswith

Background

Mercia was the dominant kingdom in southern England in the eighth century and maintained its position until it suffered a decisive defeat by Wessex at the Battle of Ellandun in 825. Thereafter the two kingdoms became allies, which was to be an important factor in English resistance to the Vikings.[1] In 865 the Danish Viking Great Heathen Army landed in East Anglia and used this as a starting point for an invasion. The East Anglians were forced to buy peace and the following year the Vikings invaded Northumbria, where they appointed a puppet king in 867. They then moved on Mercia, where they spent the winter of 867–868. King Burgred of Mercia was joined by King ¥thelred of Wessex and his brother, the future King Alfred, for a combined attack on the Vikings, who refused an engagement; in the end the Mercians bought peace with them. The following year, the Danes conquered East Anglia, and in 874 they expelled King Burgred, and Ceolwulf became the last King of Mercia with their support. In 877 the Vikings partitioned Mercia, taking the eastern regions for themselves and allowing Ceolwulf to keep the western ones. The situation was transformed the following year when Alfred won a decisive victory over the Danes at the Battle of Edington. He was thus able to prevent the Vikings from taking Wessex and western Mercia, although they still occupied Northumbria, East Anglia and eastern Mercia.[2]

Childhood

A page from the will of Alfred the Great, which left the bulk of his estate to Edward
Alfred the Great married Ealhswith in 868. Her father was ¥thelred Mucel, Ealdorman of the Gaini, and her mother, Eadburh, was a member of the Mercian royal family. Alfred and Ealhswith had five children who survived childhood. The oldest was ¥thelflµd, who married ¥thelred, Lord of the Mercians, and ruled as Lady of the Mercians after his death. Edward was next, and the second daughter, ¥thelgifu, became abbess of Shaftesbury. The third daughter, ¥lfthryth, married Baldwin, Count of Flanders, and the younger son, ¥thelweard, was given a scholarly education, including learning Latin. This would usually suggest that he was intended for the church, but it is unlikely in ¥thelweard's case as he had sons. There were also an unknown number of children who died young. Neither part of Edward's name, which means 'protector of wealth', had been used previously by the West Saxon royal house, and Barbara Yorke suggests that he may have been named after his maternal grandmother Eadburh, reflecting the West Saxon policy of strengthening links with Mercia.[3]

¥thelflµd was probably born about a year after her parents' marriage, and Edward was brought up with his youngest sister, ¥lfthryth. Yorke argues that he was therefore probably nearer in age to ¥lfthryth than ¥thelflµd. However, he led troops in battle in 893, and he must have been of marriagable age in that year as his oldest son ¥thelstan was born about 894, so Edward was probably born in the mid-870s.[4] According to Asser in his Life of King Alfred, Edward and ¥lfthryth were educated at court by male and female tutors, and read ecclesiastical and secular works in English, such as the Psalms and Old English poems. They were taught the courtly qualities of gentleness and humility, and Asser wrote that they were obedient to their father and friendly to visitors. This is the only known case of an Anglo-Saxon prince and princess receiving the same upbringing.[5]

¥theling

As a son of a king, Edward was an µtheling, a prince of the royal house who was eligible for kingship. However, even though he had the advantage of being the eldest son of the reigning king, his accession was not assured, as he had cousins who had a strong claim to the throne. ¥thelhelm and ¥thelwold were sons of ¥thelred, Alfred's older brother and predecessor as king, but they had been passed over because they were infants when their father died. More is known about Edward's childhood than about that of other Anglo-Saxon princes, providing information about the training of a prince in a period of Carolingian influence, and Yorke suggest that we may know so much due to Alfred's efforts to portray his son as the most throneworthy µtheling.[6]

¥thelhelm is only recorded in Alfred's will of the mid-880s, and probably died at some time in the next decade, but ¥thelwold is listed above Edward in the only charter where he appears, probably indicating a higher status. ¥thelwold may also have had an advantage because his mother Wulfthryth witnessed a charter as queen, whereas Edward's mother Ealhswith never had a higher status than king's wife.[7] However, Alfred was in a position to give his own son considerable advantages. In his will, he only left a handful of estates to his brother's sons, and the bulk of his property to Edward, including all his booklands (landed vested in a charter which could be alienated by the holder, as opposed to folkland, which had to pass to heirs of the body) in Kent.[8] Alfred also advanced men who could be depended on to support his plans for his succession, such as his brother-in-law, a Mercian ealdorman called ¥thelwulf, and his son-in-law ¥thelred. Edward witnessed several of his father's charters, and often accompanied him on royal peregrinations.[9] In a Kentish charter of 898 Edward witnessed as rex Saxonum, suggesting that Alfred may have followed the strategy adopted by his grandfather Egbert of strengthening his son's claim to succeed to the West Saxon throne by making him sub-king of Kent.[10]

Once Edward grew up Alfred was able to give him military commands and experience of royal business.[11] The English defeated renewed Viking attacks in 893 to 896, and in Richard Abels' view, the glory belonged to ¥thelred and Edward rather than Alfred himself. In 893 Edward defeated the Vikings in the Battle of Farnham, although he was unable to follow up his victory as his troops' period of service had expired and he had to release them. The situation was saved by the arrival of troops from London led by ¥thelred.[12] Yorke argues that although Alfred packed the witan with members whose interests lay in the continuation of Alfred's line, that may not have been sufficient to ensure Edward's accession if he had not displayed his fitness for kingship.[13]

In about 893 Edward probably married Ecgwynn, who bore him two children, the future King ¥thelstan and a daughter who married Sitric, a Viking King of York. The twelfth-century chronicler William of Malmesbury described Ecgwynn as an illustris femina, and stated that Edward chose ¥thelstan as his heir as king. She may have been related to St Dunstan, the aristocratic tenth-century Archbishop of Canterbury. However, William also stated that ¥thelstan's accession in 924 was opposed by a nobleman who claimed that his mother was a concubine of low birth.[14] The suggestion that Ecgwynn was Edward's mistress is accepted by some historians such as Simon Keynes and Richard Abels,[15] but Yorke and ¥thelstan's biographer, Sarah Foot, disagree, arguing that the allegations should be seen in the context of the disputed succession in 924, and were not an issue in the 890s.[16] Ecgwynn probably died by 899, as around the time of Alfred's death Edward married ¥lfflµd, the daughter of Ealdorman ¥thelhelm, probably of Wiltshire.[17]

Janet Nelson suggests that there was conflict between Alfred and Edward in the 890s. She points out that the contemporary Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, produced under court auspices in the 890s, does not mention Edward's military successes. These are only known from the late tenth century chronicle of ¥thelweard, such as his account of the Battle of Farnham, in which in Nelson's view "Edward's military prowess, and popularity with a following of young warriors, are highlighted". Towards the end of his life Alfred invested his young grandson ¥thelstan in a ceremony which historians see as designation as eventual successor to the kingship. Nelson argues that while this may have been proposed by Edward to support the accession of his own son, on the other hand it may have been intended by Alfred as part of a scheme to divide the kingdom between his son and grandson. ¥thelstan was sent to be brought up in Mercia by ¥thelflµd and ¥thelred, but it is not known whether this was Alfred's idea or Edward's. Alfred's wife Ealhswith was ignored in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in her husband's lifetime, but emerged from obscurity when her son acceded. This may be because she supported her son against her husband.[18]

¥thelwold's revolt

Further information: ¥thelwold's Revolt; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86thelwold%27s_Revolt

Coin of Edward the Elder
Alfred died on 26 October 899 and Edward succeeded to the throne, but ¥thelwold disputed the succession.[19] He seized the royal estates of Wimborne, symbolically important as the place where his father was buried, and Christchurch. Edward marched with his army to the nearby Iron Age hillfort at Badbury Rings. ¥thelwold declared that he would live or die at Wimborne, but then left in the night and rode to Northumbria, where the Danes accepted him as king.[20] Edward was crowned on 8 June 900 at Kingston upon Thames or Winchester.[a]

In 901, ¥thelwold came with a fleet to Essex, and the following year he persuaded the East Anglian Danes to invade English Mercia and northern Wessex, where his army looted and then returned home. Edward retaliated by ravaging East Anglia, but when he retreated the men of Kent disobeyed the order to retire, and were intercepted by the Danish army. The two sides met at the Battle of the Holme (perhaps Holme in Huntingdonshire) on 13 December 902. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Danes "kept the place of slaughter", meaning that they won the battle, but they suffered heavy losses, including ¥thelwold and a King Eohric, possibly of the East Anglian Danes. Kentish losses included Sigehelm, ealdorman of Kent and father of Edward's third wife, Eadgifu. ¥thelwold's death ended the threat to Edward's throne.[22]

King of the Anglo-Saxons

In London in 886 Alfred had received the formal submission of "all the English people that were not under subjection to the Danes", and thereafter he adopted the title Anglorum Saxonum rex (King of the Anglo-Saxons), which is used in his later charters and all but two of Edward's. This is seen by Keynes as "the invention of a wholly new and distinctive polity", covering both West Saxons and Mercians, which was inherited by Edward with the support of Mercians at the West Saxon court, of whom the most important was Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury. In 903 Edward issued several charters concerning land in Mercia. Three of them are witnessed by the Mercian leaders and their daughter ¥lfwynn, and they all contain a statement that ¥thelred and ¥thelflµd "then held rulership and power over the race of the Mercians, under the aforesaid king". Other charters were issued by the Mercian leades which did not contain any acknowledgment of Edward's authority, but they did not issue their own coinage.[23] This view of Edward's status is accepted by Martin Ryan, who states that ¥thelred and ¥thelflµd had "a considerable but ultimately subordinate share of royal authority" in English Mercia.[24]

Other historians disagree. Pauline Stafford describes ¥thelflµd as "the last Mercian queen",[25] while in Charles Insley's view Mercia kept its independence until ¥thelflµd's death in 918.[26] Michael Davidson contrasts the 903 charters with one of 901 in which the Mercian rulers were "by grace of God, holding, governing and defending the monarchy of the Mercians". Davidson comments that "the evidence for Mercian subordination is decidedly mixed. Ultimately, the ideology of the 'Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons' may have been less successful in achieving the absorption of Mercia and more something which I would see as a murky political coup." The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was compiled at the West Saxon court from the 890s, and the entries for the late ninth and early tenth centuries are seen by historians as reflecting the West Saxon viewpoint; Davidson observes that "Alfred and Edward possessed skilled 'spin doctors'".[27] However, some versions of the Chronicle incorporate part of a lost Mercian Register, which gives a Mercian perspective and details of ¥thelfµd's campaign against the Vikings.[24]

In the late ninth and early tenth centuries connection with the West Saxon royal house was seen as prestigious by continental rulers. In the mid-890s Alfred had married his daughter ¥lfthryth to Baldwin II of Flanders, and in 919 Edward married his daughter Eadgifu to Charles the Simple, King of West Francia. In 925, after Edward's death, another daughter Eadgyth married Otto, the future King of Germany and (after Eadgyth's death) Holy Roman Emperor.[28]

Conquest of the southern Danelaw

No battles are recorded between the Anglo-Saxons and the Danish Vikings for several years after the Battle of the Holme, but in 906 Edward agreed peace with the East Anglian and Northumbrian Danes, suggesting that there had been conflict. According to one version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle he made peace "of necessity", which implies that he was forced to buy them off.[19] He encouraged Englishmen to purchase land in Danish territory, and two charters survive relating to estates in Bedfordshire and Derbyshire.[29] In 909 Edward sent a combined West Saxon and Mercian army which harassed the Northumbria]]n Danes, and seized the bones of the Northumbrian royal saint Oswald from Bardney Abbey in [[Lincolnshire. Oswald was translated to a new Mercian minster established by ¥thelred and ¥thelfµd in Gloucester and the Danes were compelled to accept peace on Edward's terms.[30] In the following year, the Northumbrian Danes retaliated by raiding Mercia, but on their way home they were met by a combined Mercian and West Saxon army at the Battle of Tettenhall, where the Vikings suffered a disastrous defeat. After that, the Northumbrian Danes never ventured south of the River Humber, and Edward and his Mercian allies were able to concentrate on conquering the southern Danelaw in East Anglia and the Five Boroughs of Viking east Mercia: Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stamford.[19] In 911 ¥thelred, Lord of the Mercians, died, and Edward took control of the Mercian lands around London and Oxford. ¥thelred was succeeded as ruler by his widow ¥thelflµd as Lady of the Mercians, and she had probably been acting as ruler for several years as ¥thelred seems to have been incapacitated in later life.[31]

Edward and ¥thelflµd then began the construction of fortresses to guard against Viking attacks and protect territory captured from them. In November 911 he constructed a fort on the north bank of the River Lea at Hertford to guard against attack by the Danes of Bedford and Cambridge. In 912 he marched with his army to Maldon in Essex, and ordered the building of a fort at Witham and a second fort at Hertford, which protected London from attack and encouraged many English living under Danish rule in Essex to submit to him. In 913 there was a pause in his activities, although ¥thelflµd continued her fortress building in Mercia.[32] In 914 a Viking army sailed from Brittany and ravaged the Severn estuary. It then attacked Ergyng in south-east Wales (now Archenfield in Herefordshire) and captured Bishop Cyfeilliog. Edward ransomed him for the large sum of forty pounds of silver. The Vikings were defeated by the armies of Hereford and Gloucester, and gave hostages and oaths to keep the peace. Edward kept an army on the south side of the estuary in case the Vikings broke their promises, and he twice had to repel attacks. In the autumn the Vikings moved on to Ireland. The episode suggests that south-east Wales fell within the West Saxon sphere of power, unlike Brycheiniog just to the north, where Mercia was dominant.[33] In late 914 Edward built two forts at Buckingham, and Earl Thurketil, the leader of the Danish army at Bedford submitted to him. The following year he occupied Bedford, and constructed another fortification on the south bank of the River Great Ouse against a Viking one on the north bank. In 916 Edward returned to Essex and built a fort at Maldon to bolster the defence of Witham. He also helped Earl Thurketil and his followers to leave England, reducing the number of Viking armies in the Midlands.[34]

The decisive year in the war was 917. In April Edward built a fort at Towcester as a defence against the Danes of Northampton, and another at an unidentified place called Wigingamere. The Danes launched unsuccessful attacks on Towcester, Bedford and Wigingamere, while ¥thelflµd captured Derby, showing the value of the English defensive measures, which were aided by disunity and a lack of coordination among the Viking armies. The Danes had built their own fortress at Tempsford in Bedfordshire, but at the end of the summer the English stormed it and killed the last Danish king of East Anglia. The English then took Colchester, although they did not try to hold it. The Danes retaliated by sending a large army to lay siege to Maldon, but the garrison held out until it was relieved and the retreating army was heavily defeated. Edward then returned to Towcester and reinforced its fort with a stone wall, and the Danes of nearby Northampton submitted to him. The armies of Cambridge and East Anglia also submitted, and by the end of the year the only Danish armies still holding out were those of four of the Five Boroughs, Leicester, Stamford, Nottingham, and Lincoln.[35]

In early 918, ¥thelflµd secured the submission of Leicester without a fight, and the Danes of Northumbrian York offered her their allegiance, probably for protection against Norse (Norwegian) Vikings who had invaded Northumbria from Ireland, but she died on 12 June before she could take up the proposal. The same offer is not known to have been made to Edward, and the Norse Vikings took York in 919. According to the main West Saxon version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, after ¥thelflµd's death the Mercians submitted to Edward, but the Mercian version (the Mercian Register) states that in December 918 her daughter ¥lfwynn, "was deprived of all authority in Mercia and taken into Wessex". Mercia may have made a bid for continued semi-independence which was suppressed by Edward, and it then came under his direct rule. Stamford had surrendered to Edward before ¥thelflµd's death, and Nottingham did the same shortly afterwards. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 918, "all the people who had settled in Mercia, both Danish and English, submitted to him". This would mean that he ruled all England south of the Humber, but it is not clear whether Lincoln was an exception, as coins of Viking York in the early 920s were probably minted at Lincoln.[36] Some Danish jarls were allowed to keep their estates, although Edward probably also rewarded his supporters with land, and some he kept in his own hands. Coin evidence suggests that his authority was stronger in the East Midlands than in East Anglia.[37] Three Welsh kings, Hywel Dda, Clydog and Idwal Foel, who had previously been subject to ¥thelflµd, now gave their allegiance to Edward.[38]

Coinage

The principal currency was the silver penny, and some coins carried a stylised portrait of the king. Royal coins had "EADVVEARD REX" on the obverse and the name of the moneyer on the reverse. The places of issue were not shown in his reign, but they were in that of his son ¥thelstan, allowing the location of many moneyers of Edward's reign to be established. There were mints in Bath, Canterbury, Chester, Chichester, Derby, Exeter, Hereford, London, Oxford, Shaftesbury, Shrewsbury, Southampton, Stafford, Wallingford, Wareham, Winchester and probably other towns. No coins were struck in the name of ¥thelred or ¥thelflµd, but from around 910 mints in English Mercia produced coins with an unusual decorative design on the reverse. This ceased before 920, and probably represents ¥thelflµd's way of distinguishing her coinage from that of her brother. There was also a minor issue of coins in the name of Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury. There was a dramatic increase in the number of moneyers over Edward's reign, with less than 25 in the south in the first ten years rising to 67 in the last ten years, around 5 in English Mercia rising to 23, plus 27 in the conquered Danelaw.[39]

Church

In 908, Plegmund conveyed the alms of the English king and people to the Pope, the first visit to Rome by an Archbishop of Canterbury for almost a century, and the journey may have been to seek papal approval for a proposed re-organisation of the West Saxon sees.[40] When Edward came to the throne Wessex had two dioceses, Winchester, held by Denewulf, and Sherborne, held by Asser.[41] In 908 Denewulf died and was replaced the following year by Frithestan; soon afterwards Winchester was divided into two sees, with the creation of the diocese of Ramsbury covering Wiltshire and Berkshire, while Winchester was left with Hampshire and Surrrey. Forged charters date the division to 909, but this may not be correct. Asser died in the same year, and at some date between 909 and 918 Sherborne was divided into three sees, with Crediton covering Devon and Cornwall, and Wells covering Somerset, while Sherborne was left with Dorset.[42] The effect of the changes were to strengthen the status of Canterbury compared with Winchester and Sherborne, but the division may have been related to a change in the secular functions of West Saxon bishops, to become agents of royal government in shires rather than provinces, assisting in defence and taking part in shire courts.[43]

At the beginning of Edward's reign, his mother Ealhswith founded the abbey of St Mary for nuns, known as the Nunnaminster, in Winchester.[44] Edward's daughter Eadburh became a nun there, and she was venerated as a saint and the subject of a hagiography by Osbert of Clare in the twelfth century.[45] In 901 Edward started building a major monastery for men, probably in accordance of his father's wishes. The monastery was next to Winchester Cathedral, which became known as the Old Minster, while Edward's foundation was called the New Minster. It was much larger than the Old Minster, and was probably intended as a royal mausoleum.[46] It acquired relics of the Breton Saint Judoc, which probably arrived in England from Ponthieu in 901, and the body of one of Alfred's closest advisers, Grimbald, who died in the same year and who was soon venerated as a saint. Edward's mother died in 902, and he buried her and Alfred there, moving his father's body from the Old Minster. Burials in the early 920s included Edward himself, his brother ¥thelweard, and his son ¥lfweard. However, when ¥thelstan became king in 924, he did not show any favour to his father's foundation, probably because Winchester sided against him when the throne was disputed after Edward's death. The only other king buried at the New Minster was Eadwig in 959.[47]

Edward's decision not to expand the Old Minster, but rather to overshadow it with a much larger building, suggests animosity towards Bishop Denewulf, and this was compounded by forcing the Old Minster to cede both land for the new site, and an estate of 70 hides at Beddington to provide an income for the New Minster. Edward was remembered by the New Minster as a benefactor, but at the Old Minster as rex avidus (greedy king).[48] Alan Thacker comments:

Edward's method of endowing New Minster was of a piece with his ecclesiastical policy in general. Like his father he gave little to the church — indeed, judging by the dearth of charters for much of his reign he seems to have given away little at all...More than any other, Edward's kingship seems to epitomise the new hard-nosed monarchy of Wessex, determined to exploit all its resources, lay and ecclesiastical, for its own benefit.[49]
Patrick Wormald observes: "The thought occurs that neither Alfred nor Edward was greatly beloved at Winchester Cathedral; and one reason for Edward's moving his father's body into the new family shrine next door was that he was surer of sincere prayers there."[50]

Learning and culture

The standard of Anglo-Saxon learning declined severely in the ninth century, particularly in Wessex, and Mercian scholars such as Plegmund played a prominent part in the revival of learning initiated by Alfred. Mercians were prominent at the courts of Alfred and Edward, and the Mercian dialect and scholarship commanded West Saxon respect.[51] It is uncertain how far Alfred's programmes continued during his son's reign. English translations of works in Latin made during Alfred's reign continued to be copied, but few original works are known. The script known as Anglo-Saxon Square minuscule reached maturity in the 930s, and its earliest phases date to Edward's reign. The main scholarly and scriptorial centres were the cathedral centres of Canterbury, Winchester and Worcester; monasteries did not make a significant contribution until ¥thelstan's reign.[52] Very little survives of the manuscript production of Edward's reign.[53]

The only surviving large scale embroideries which were certainly made in Anglo-Saxon England date to Edward's reign. They are a stole, a maniple and a possible girdle removed from the shrine of St Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral in the nineteenth century. They were donated to the shrine by ¥thelstan in 934, but inscriptions on the embroideries show that they were commissioned by Edward's second wife, ¥lfflµd, as a gift to Frithestan, Bishop of Winchester. They probably did not reach their intended destination because ¥thelstan was on bad terms with Winchester.[54]

Law and administration

Almost all surviving charters from Edward's reign are later copies, and the only surviving original is not a charter of Edward himself, but a grant by ¥thelred and ¥thelflµd in 901.[55] In the same year a meeting at Southampton was attended by his brother and sons, his household thegns and nearly all bishops, but no ealdormen. It was on this occasion that the king acquired land from the Bishop of Winchester for the foundation of the New Minster, Winchester. No charters survive for the period from 910 to the king's death in 924, much to the puzzlement and distress of historians. Charters were usually issued when the king made grants of land, and it is possible that Edward followed a policy of retaining property which came into his hands in order to help finance his campaigns against the Vikings.[56] Charters rarely survive unless they concerned property which passed to the church and were preserved in their archives, and another possibility is that Edward was only making grants of property on terms which ensured that they returned to male members of the royal house; such charters would not be found in church archives.[57]

Clause 3 of the law code called I Edward provides that people convincingly charged with perjury shall not be allowed to clear themselves by oath, but only by ordeal. This is the start of the continuous history in England of trial by ordeal; it is probably mentioned in the laws of King Ine (688 to 726),[b] but not in later codes such as those of Alfred.[58] The administrative and legal system in Edward's reign may have depended extensively on written records, almost none of which survive.[59] Edward was one of the few Anglo-Saxon kings to issue laws about bookland. There was increasing confusion in the period as to what was really bookland, and Edward urged prompt settlement in bookland/folkland disputes, and laid down that jurisdiction belonged to the king and his officers.[60]

Later life

Silver brooch imitating a coin of Edward the Elder, c. 920, found in Rome, Italy. British Museum.
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, there was a general submission of rulers in Britain to Edward in 920:

Then [Edward] went from there into the Peak District to Bakewell and ordered a borough to be built in the neighbourhood and manned. And then the king of the Scots and all the people of the Scots, and Rµgnald and the sons of Eadwulf[c] and all who live in Northumbria, both English and Danish, Norsemen and others, and also the king of the Strathclyde Welsh and all the Strathclyde Welsh, chose him as father and lord.[62]
This passage was regarded as a straightforward report by most historians until the late twentieth century,[63] and Frank Stenton observed that "each of the rulers named in this list had something definite to gain from an acknowledgement of Edward's overlordship".[64] Since the 1980s the 'submission' has been viewed with increasing scepticism, particularly as the passage in the Chronicle is the only evidence for it, unlike other submissions such as that one in 927 to ¥thelstan, for which there is independent support from literary sources and coins.[65] Alfred Smyth points out that Edward was not in a position to impose the same conditions on the Scots and the Northumbrians as he could on conquered Vikings, and argues that the Chronicle presented a treaty between kings as a submission to Wessex.[66] Stafford observes that the rulers had met at Bakewell on the border between Mercia and Northumbria, and that meetings on borders were generally considered to avoid any implication of submission by either side.[67] Davidson points out that the wording "chosen as father and lord" applied to conquered army groups and burhs, not relations with other kings. In his view:

The idea that this meeting represented a 'submission', while it must remain a possibility, does however seem unlikely. The textual context of the chronicler's passage makes his interpretation of the meeting suspect, and ultimately, Edward was in no position to force the subordination of, or dictate terms to, his fellow kings in Britain.[68]
Edward continued ¥thelflµd's policy of founding burhs in the north-west, with ones at Thelwall and Manchester in 919, and Cledematha (Rhuddlan) at the mouth of the River Clwyd in North Wales in 921.[69]

Nothing is known of his relations with the Mercians between 919 and the last year of his life, when he put down a Mercian and Welsh revolt at Chester. Mercia and the eastern Danelaw were organised into shires at an unknown date in the tenth century, ignoring traditional boundaries, and historians such as Sean Miller and David Griffiths suggest that Edward's imposition of direct control from 919 is a likely context for a change which ignored Mercian sensibilities. Resentment at the changes, at the imposition of rule by distant Wessex, and at fiscal demands by Edward's reeves, may have provoked the revolt at Chester. He died at the royal estate of Farndon, twelve miles south of Chester, on 24 July 924, shortly after putting down the revolt, and was buried in the New Minster, Winchester.[70] In 1109, the New Minster was moved outside the city walls to become Hyde Abbey, and the following year Edward and his parents were translated to the new church.[71]

Reputation

According to William of Malmesbury, Edward was "much inferior to his father in the cultivation of letters" but "incomparably more glorious in the power of his rule". Other medieval chroniclers expressed similar views, and he was generally seen as inferior in book learning, but superior in military success. John of Worcester described him as "the most invincible King Edward the Elder". However, even as war leader he was only one of a succession of successful kings; his achievements were overshadowed because he did not have a famous victory like Alfred's at Edington and ¥thelstan's at Brunanburh, and William qualified his praise by saying that "the chief prize of victory, in my judgment, is due to his father". Edward has also been overshadowed by chroniclers' admiration for his highly regarded sister, ¥thelflµd.[72]

A principal reason for the neglect of Edward is that very few primary sources for his reign survive, whereas there are many for Alfred. He was largely ignored by historians until the late twentieth century, but he is now highly regarded. He is described by Keynes as "far more than the bellicose bit between Alfred and ¥thelstan",[73] and according to Nick Higham: "Edward the Elder is perhaps the most neglected of English kings. He ruled an expanding realm for twenty-five years and arguably did as much as any other individual to construct a single, south-centred, Anglo-Saxon kingdom, yet posthumously his achievements have been all but forgotten." In 1999 a conference on his reign was held at the University of Manchester, and the papers given on this occasion were published as a book in 2001. Prior to this conference, no monographs had been published on Edward's reign, whereas his father has been the subject of numerous biographies and other studies.[74]

In the view of F. T. Wainwright: "Without detracting from the achievements of Alfred, it is well to remember that it was Edward who reconquered the Danish Midlands and gave England nearly a century of respite from serious Danish attacks."[75] Higham summarises Edward's legacy as follows:

Under Edward's leadership, the scale of alternative centres of power diminished markedly: the separate court of Mercia was dissolved; the Danish leaders were in large part brought to heel or expelled; the Welsh princes were constrained from aggression of the borders and even the West Saxon bishoprics divided. Late Anglo-Saxon England is often described as the most centralised polity in western Europe at the time, with its shires, its shire-reeves and its systems of regional courts and royal taxation. If so — and the matter remains debatable — much of that centrality derives from Edward's activities, and he has as good a claim as any other to be considered the architect of medieval England.[76]
Edward's cognomen 'the Elder' was first used in Wulfstan's Life of St ¥thelwold at the end of the tenth century, to distinguish him from King Edward the Martyr.[19]

Marriages and children[edit]
Edward had about fourteen children from three marriages.[d]

He first married Ecgwynn around 893.[82] Their children were:

¥thelstan, King of England 924–939[19]
A daughter, perhaps called Edith, married Sihtric Câaech, Viking King of York in 926, who died in 927. Possibly Saint Edith of Polesworth[83]
In c. 900, Edward married ¥lfflµd, daughter of Ealdorman ¥thelhelm, probably of Wiltshire.[17] Their children were:

¥lfweard, died August 924, a month after his father; possibly King of Wessex for that month[84]
Edwin, drowned at sea 933[85]
¥thelhild, lay sister at Wilton Abbey[86]
Eadgifu (died in or after 951), married Charles the Simple, King of the West Franks, c. 918[87]
Eadflµd, nun at Wilton Abbey[86]
Eadhild, married Hugh the Great, Duke of the Franks in 926[88]
Eadgyth (died 946), in 929/30 married Otto I, future King of the East Franks, and (after Eadgyth's death) Holy Roman Emperor[89]
¥lfgifu, married "a prince near the Alps", perhaps Louis, brother of King Rudolph II of Burgundy[90]
Edward married for a third time, about 919, Eadgifu, the daughter of Sigehelm, Ealdorman of Kent.[91] Their children were

Edmund, King of England 939–946[77]
Eadred, King of England 946–955[77]
Eadburh (died c. 952), Benedictine nun at Nunnaminster, Winchester, and saint[92]
Eadgifu, existence uncertain, possibly the same person as ¥lfgifu[93]

Buried:
New Minster, Winchester, later translated to Hyde Abbey

Edward married Eadgifu of Kent in ~919. Eadgifu was born in C. 903 in England; died in C. 966. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

2841665.

Eadgifu of Kent was born in C. 903 in England; died in C. 966.

Notes:

Eadgifu of Kent (also Edgiva or Ediva) (in or before 903 – in or after 966) was the third wife of Edward the Elder, King of the Anglo-Saxons.

Biography

Eadgifu was the daughter of Sigehelm, Ealdorman of Kent, who died at the Battle of the Holme in 902.[1] She married Edward in about 919 and became the mother of two sons, Edmund I of England, later King Edmund I, and Eadred of England, later King Eadred, and two daughters, Saint Eadburh of Winchester and Eadgifu.[2] She survived Edward by many years, dying in the reign of her grandson Edgar.

According to a narrative written in the early 960s, her father had given Cooling in Kent to a man called Goda as security for a loan. She claimed that her father had repaid the loan and left the land to her, but Goda denied receiving payment and refused to surrender the land. She got possession of Cooling six years after her father's death, when her friends persuaded King Edward to threaten to dispossess Goda of his property unless he gave up the estate. Edward later declared Goda's lands forfeit and gave the charters to Eadgifu, but she returned most of the estates to Goda, although retained the charters. Some time after this her marriage to Edward took place. After his death King ¥thelstan required Eadgifu to return the charters to Goda, perhaps because the king was on bad terms with his stepmother.[3]

She disappeared from court during the reign of her step-son, King ¥thelstan, but she was prominent and influential during the reign of her two sons.[2] As queen dowager, her position seem to have been higher than that of her daughter-in-law; In a Kentish charter datable between 942 and 944, her daughter-in-law ¥lfgifu of Shaftesbury subscribes herself as the king's concubine (concubina regis), with a place assigned to her between the bishops and ealdormen. By comparison, Eadgifu subscribes higher up in the witness list as mater regis, after her sons Edmund and Eadred but before the archbishops and bishops.[4]

Following the death of her younger son Eadred in 955, she was deprived of her lands by her eldest grandson, King Eadwig, perhaps because she took the side of his younger brother, Edgar, in the struggle between them. When Edgar succeeded on Eadwig's death in 959 she recovered some lands and received generous gifts from her grandson, but she never returned to her prominent position at court. She is last recorded as a witness to a charter in 966.[2]

She was known as a supporter of saintly churchmen and a benefactor of churches.[2]

See also

House of Wessex family tree; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_of_Wessex#House_of_Wessex_family_tree

Children:

1420832. Edmund I, King of the English was born in ~921 in Wessex, England; died on 26 May 946 in Pucklechurch, Gloucestershire, England; was buried in Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset, England.

774208.

William of Normandy, I, Duke of Normandy was born in ~893 in Normandy, France (son of Rollo and Lady Poppa of Bayeux); died on 17 Dec 942 in Piquigny, France.

Notes:

William Longsword (French: Guillaume Longue-âEpâee, Latin: Willermus Longa Spata, Old Norse: Vilhjâalmr Langaspjâot; c. 893 – 17 December 942) was the second ruler of Normandy, from 927 until his assassination in 942.[1]

He is sometimes anachronistically dubbed "Duke of Normandy", even though the title duke (dux) did not come into common usage until the 11th century.[2] Longsword was known at the time by the title Count (Latin comes) of Rouen.[3][4] Flodoard—always detailed about titles—consistently referred to both Rollo and his son William as principes (chieftains) of the Norse.[5]

Birth

William Longsword was born "overseas"[a][6] to the Viking Rollo (while he was still a pagan) and his Christian wife Poppa of Bayeux.[7][8] Dudo of Saint-Quentin in his panegyric of the Norman dukes describes Poppa as the daughter of a Count Beranger, the dominant prince of that region.[9] In the 11th century Annales Rouennaises (Annals of Rouen), she is called the daughter of Guy, Count of Senlis,[10] otherwise unknown to history.[b] Despite the uncertainty of her parentage she was undoubtedly a member of the Frankish aristocracy.[11] According to the Longsword's planctus, he was baptized a Christian probably at the same time as his father,[12] which Orderic Vitalis stated was in 912, by Franco, Archbishop of Rouen.[13]

Life

Longsword succeeded Rollo (who would continue to live for about another 5 years) in 927[14] and, early in his reign, faced a rebellion from Normans[15] who felt he had become too Gallicised and too soft.[16] According to Orderic Vitalis, the leader was Riouf of Evreux,[16][17][18] who was besieging Longsword in Rouen. Sallying forth, Longsword won a decisive battle, proving his authority to be Duke.[19]:25-6 At the time of this 933 rebellion Longsword sent his pregnant wife by custom, Sprota, to Fâecamp where their son Richard was born.[20]

In 933 Longsword recognized Raoul as King of Western Francia, who was struggling to assert his authority in Northern France. In turn Raoul gave him lordship over much of the lands of the Bretons including Avranches, the Cotentin Peninsula and the Channel Islands.[21][22][23]:lii The Bretons did not agree to these changes and resistance to the Normans was led by Alan Wrybeard, Duke of Brittany and Count Berenger of Rennes but ended shortly with great slaughter and Breton castles being razed to the ground,[19]:24 Alan fleeing to England and Beranger seeking reconciliation.[24]

In 935, Longsword married Luitgarde,[1] daughter of Count Herbert II of Vermandois whose dowry gave him the lands of Longueville, Coudres and Illiers l'Eveque.[18] Longsword also contracted a marriage between his sister Adela (Gerloc was her Norse name) and William, Count of Poitou with the approval of Hugh the Great.[25] In addition to supporting King Raoul, he was now a loyal ally of his father-in-law, Herbert II, both of whom his father Rollo had opposed.[26] In January 936 King Raoul died and the 16 year old Louis IV, who was living in exile in England, was persuaded by a promise of loyalty by Longsword, to return and became King. The Bretons returned to recover the lands taken by the Normans, resulting in fighting in the expanded Norman lands.[23]:lii

The funerary monument of William Longsword in the cathedral of Rouen, France. The monument is from the 14th century.
The new King was not capable of controlling his Barons and after Longsword's brother in law, Herluin II, Count of Montreuil, was attacked by Flanders, Longsword went to their assistance in 939,[19]:28-9 Arnulf I, Count of Flanders retaliated by attacking Normandy. Arnulf captured the castle of Montreuil-sur-Mer expelling Herluin. Herluin and Longsword cooperated to retake the castle.[27][28] Longsword was excommunicated for his actions in attacking and destroying several estates belonging to Arnulf.[29]

Longsword pledged his loyalty to King Louis IV when they met in 940 and, in return, he was confirmed in lands that had been given to his father, Rollo.[30] [23]:liii In 941 a peace treaty was signed between the Bretons and Normans, brokered in Rouen by King Louis IV which limited the Norman expansion into Breton lands.[23]:liii The following year, on 17 December 942 at Picquigny on an island on the Somme, Longsword was ambushed and killed by followers of Arnulf while at a peace conference to settle their differences.[18][28] Longsword's son, Richard becoming the next Duke of Normandy.

Family
Longsword had no children with his wife Luitgarde.[31] He fathered his son, Richard the Fearless, with Sprota [c] who was a Breton captive and his concubine.[32] Richard, then aged 10, succeeded him as Duke of Normandy in December 942.[31]

end of biography

William married Sprota. Sprota was born in 0911 in Bretagne, France; died in 0940. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

774209.

Sprota was born in 0911 in Bretagne, France; died in 0940.

Other Events and Attributes:

Residence: Fecamp, Normandie, France

Notes:

Sprota was the name of a Breton captive who William I, Duke of Normandy took as a wife in the Viking fashion (more danico)[1][2] and by her had a son, Richard I, Duke of Normandy. After the death of her husband William, she became the wife of Esperleng and mother of Rodulf of Ivry.[3][4][5]

Life

The first mention of her is by Flodoard of Reims and although he doesn't name her he identifies her under the year [943] as the mother of "William’s son [Richard] born of a Breton concubine".[6] Her Breton origins could mean she was of Breton, Scandinavian, or Frankish origin, the latter being the most likely based on her name spelling.[7] Elisabeth van Houts wrote "on this reference rests the identification of Sprota, William Longsword’s wife 'according to the Danish custom', as of Breton origin".[8] The first to provide her name was William of Jumiáeges.[9][10] The irregular nature (as per the Church) of her relationship with William served as the basis for her son by him being the subject of ridicule, the French King Louis "abused the boy with bitter insults", calling him "the son of a whore who had seduced another woman's husband."[11][12]

At the time of the birth of her first son Richard, she was living in her own household at Bayeux, under William's protection.[4] William, having just quashed a rebellion at Prâe-de Bataille (c.936),[a] received the news by a messenger that Sprota had just given birth to a son; delighted at the news William ordered his son to be baptized and given the personal name of Richard.[10] William's steward Boto became the boy's godfather.[13]

After the death of William Longsword and the captivity of her son Richard, she had been 'collected' from her dangerous situation by the 'immensely wealthy' Esperleng.[3] Robert of Torigni identified Sprota's second husband[b] as Esperleng, a wealthy landowner who operated mills at Pãitres.[4][14]

Children:

387104. Richard de Normandie, I was born on 28 Aug 932 in Fecamp, Normandie, France; died on 20 Nov 996 in Fecamp, France; was buried in Fecamp, France.

774210.

Harold married Gunhild von Denmark in ~935 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Gunhild was born in ~0920 in Copenhagen, Denmark. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

774211.

Gunhild von Denmark was born in ~0920 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Children:

387105. Gonor de Crepon, Duchess of Normandy was born in 936-941 in Rouen, France; died on 5 Jan 1031 in Normandie, France.

774214.