Ancestral Trails 2016 » Sybilla di CONVERSANO (± 1054-????)

Personal data Sybilla di CONVERSANO 

• She was born about 1054 in Conversano, Bari, Puglia, Italy.
• She died on March 18, 1102/03 in Rouen, Seine-Maritime, Haute-Normandie, France.
• A child of Geoffroi di CONVERSANO

Household of Sybilla di CONVERSANO

She had a relationship with Robert Curthose de NORMANDY.

Child(ren):

1. William CLITO  1102-1128

Notes about Sybilla di CONVERSANO

Sybilla of Conversano († 1103), was a wealthy Italian heiress and Duchess consort of Normandy, as the wife of Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy.

She was the daughter of Geoffrey of Brindisi, Count of Conversano (and a grandniece of Robert Guiscard. During the winter of 1096-97 while Robert Curthose was in Apulia awaiting transport on the First Crusade, he probably began negotiations to marry the heiress, Sibyl of Conversano. Orderic Vitalis claims Robert 'fell in love with Sibyl and further the chronicler called her 'truly good in character' and also wrote she was 'endowed with many virtues and lovable to all who knew her'[a]. On Robert's return from the Crusade he married Sibylla in Apulia in 1100.

Shortly after returning to Normandy, Robert and Sybilla undertook a pilgrimage to Mont Saint-Michel to give thanks for his safe return from the Crusade. It is clear that writers of the time were quite taken with Sybilla, praising both her beauty and intelligence.

During Curthose's absence, Robert of Torigni noted that the new duchess administered Normandy better than the duke did. On 25 October 1102, their son was born. He was named William for William, Archbishop of Rouen who presided over his baptism, this according to Orderic. William of Malmesbury suggested he was named after his grandfather, William the Conqueror. On 18 March 1103, less than six months after the birth of her only child, she died at Rouen, Caux, and was buried, amid universal sorrow, in the cathedral church, Archbishop William Bonne-Ame performing the funeral rites. Sybilla was admired and often praised by chroniclers of the time; William of Malmesbury claims she died as a result of binding her breasts too tightly while both Robert of Torigny and Orderic Vitalis suggest she was murdered by a group of noblewomen led by her husband's mistress, Agnes de Ribemont.[b]

Robert and Sybilla had one son:
William Clito, (1102-27 July 1128), Count of Flanders.

Notes
[a]This is somewhat uncharacteristic of Orderic to speak in praise of an aristocratic woman in this manner. See: Marjorie Chibnall, "Women in Orderic Vitalis', The Haskins Society Journal Studies in Medieval History, Volume 2 (1990), pp. 105-21.
[b]Agnes de Ribemont was the widow of Walter Giffard, 1st Earl of Buckingham, and the sister of Anselm de Ribemont, who had died on crusade. It remains unclear if or when she and Robert even had an affair, but the story goes that she promised that if he would marry her he'd have the support of her powerful family. William of Malmsebury loved a good story, even if untrue; and in one version of his Gesta Regum, he credits Sybilla's death to Robert's "mistress", and in a later version he stated "mid-wife". However plausible it may have been that she was Robert's mistress, it remains less than plausible that Robert allowed his new wife, the mother of his infant son, to be poisoned while he sat idly by. Orderic may have seen such a story as further evidence Robert Curthose was unfit to rule Normandy. The mysterious story also has a chronological problem in that Agnes de Ribemont may not even have been a widow at the time of Sybilla's death. According to Europäische Stammtäfeln, III/4, Tafel 695, Walter died 15 July 1102.
SOURCE: Wikipedia

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