Ancestral Trails 2016 » ROBERT de MORTAINE (1031-1095)

Données personnelles ROBERT de MORTAINE 

• Il est né en l'an 1031 dans Mortaigne-au-Perche, Orne, Normandie, France.
• Titre: Count of Mortaine
• Titre: 2nd Earl of Cornwall
• (Alternative Name) : Robert De Mortaigne.
• Il est décédé le 8 décembre 1095 dans Berkhamstead Castle, Hertfordshire, il avait 64 ans.
• Il est enterré en l'an 1096 dans Abbey of St Grestain, Normandie, France.
• Un enfant de HERLUIN de CONTEVILLE et HERLEVA de FALAISE

Famille de ROBERT de MORTAINE

(1) Il est marié avec MATILDA MONTGOMERY.

Ils se sont mariés en l'an 1056 à Conteville, Calvados, Basse-Normandie, France, il avait 25 ans.

Enfant(s):

1. AGNES de MORTAINE  1066-???? 
2. EMMA de MORTAINE  1058-1080 
3. WILLIAM de FALAISE  1057-1140 
4. Denise de MORTAINE  1060-????

• Le couple a des ancêtres communs.



(2) Il a/avait une relation avec ALMODIS de la MARCHE.




Enfant(s):

1. Adelbert III MONTGOMERY  1079-????


• Le couple a des ancêtres communs.



Notes par ROBERT de MORTAINE

Robert, Count of Mortain, 2nd Earl of Cornwall (c. 1031-1090) was a Norman nobleman and the uterine half-brother of King William the Conqueror. He was one of the very few proven companions of William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings and as recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 was one of the greatest landholders in his half-brother's new Kingdom of England.

Robert was the son of Herluin de Conteville and Herleva of Falaise and brother of Odo of Bayeux. Robert was born c. 1031 in Normandy, a half-brother of William the Conqueror. and was probably not more than a year or so younger than his brother Odo, born c. 1030. About 1035, Herluin, as Vicomte of Conteville, along with his wife Herleva and Robert, founded Grestain Abbey.

Count of Mortain
In c. 1049 his brother Duke William made him Count of Mortain, in place of William Werlenc, who had been banished by Duke William; according to Orderic Vitalis, on a single word. William Werlenc was a grandson of Duke Richard I and therefore a cousin once removed to William, Duke of Normandy. Securing the southern border of Normandy was critical to Duke William and Robert was entrusted with this key county which guarded the borders of Brittany and Bellême.

Conquest of England
In early 1066, Robert was present at both the first council of Lillebonne, that of William's inner circle, and the second larger council held to discuss the Duke's planned conquest of England. Robert agreed to provide 120 ships to the invasion fleet, which was more than any other of William's magnates. Robert was one of those few known to have been at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. He is pictured at a dinner at Pevensey on the Bayeux Tapestry, seated with his brothers William and Odo on the day of the landing in England. When granting the monastery of St Michael's Mount to the Norman monastery on the Mont Saint-Michel Robert recorded that he had fought at the Battle of Hastings under the banner of St Michel (habens in bello Sancti Michaelis vexillum).

Lands granted by William the Conqueror
Robert's contribution to the success of the invasion was clearly regarded as highly significant by the Conqueror, who awarded him a large share of the spoils; in total 797 manors at the time of Domesday. The greatest concentration of his honours lay in Cornwall where he held virtually all of that county and was considered by some the Earl of Cornwall. While Robert held lands in twenty counties, the majority of his holdings in certain counties was as few as five manors. The overall worth of his estates was £2100. He administered most of his southwestern holdings from Launceston, Cornwall, and Montacute in Somerset. The holding of single greatest importance was the rape of Pevensey (east Sussex) which protected one of the more vulnerable parts of the south coast of England.

Later life
In 1069, together with Robert of Eu, he led an army against a force of Danes in Lindsay and effected great slaughter against them. After that there is little mention of Robert who appears to have been an absentee landholder spending the majority of his time in Normandy. Along with his brother Odo he participated in a revolt in 1088 against William II but afterwards he was pardoned. On 8 December 1090 Robert died and chose to be buried at the Abbey of Grestain, near his father and next to his first wife Matilda.

Character
He was described by William of Malmesbury in his Gesta Regum as a man of stupid dull disposition (crassi et hebetis ingenii). William the Conqueror considered him one of his greatest supporters and trusted him with the important county of Mortain. Further clues to his character are found in the Vita of Vitalis of Savigny, a very wise monk who Robert sought out as his chaplain. One incident tells of Robert beating his wife and Vital, intervening, threatened to end the marriage if Robert did not repent. In still another entry Vital tells of his leaving Robert's service abruptly and after being escorted back to him, Robert begged for Vital's pardon for his actions. Overall, Robert was proficient in every duty William assigned him, he was a religious man yet ill-tempered enough to beat his wife, but was not known as a man of great wisdom.

Family
Robert was married to Matilda, daughter of Roger de Montgomery, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, before 1066 and together they had:

William, Count of Mortain, who succeeded him.
Agnes who married André de Vitré, seigneur of Vitré.
Denise, married in 1078 to Guy, 3rd Sire de La Val.
Emma of Mortain, the wife of William IV of Toulouse.

After Matilda de Montgomery's death c. 1085[ Robert secondly married Almodis. The couple had no children.
SOURCE: Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert,_Count_of_Mortain

"Resistance to the Norman Conquest persisted strongly in south Somerset and north Dorset, and was fanned into flame by the castle at Montacute built in c. 1068 by Robert count of Mortain - half-brother of the Conqueror - for this was a spot with particularly hallowed associations for the English. It was here on top of a conical hill, the Mons Acutus, that earlier in the eleventh century a fragment of the Holy Cross was said to have been discovered, ... The estate at Montacute belonged to the wealthy Saxon landowner, Tofig, ... the Holy Rood ... became an object of popular veneration and pilgrimage. `Holy Cross' was the battle-cry of Harold's successful army at Stamfordbridge and of the defeated English at Hastings. ... The building of a Norman castle on the very spot where the legendary relic had been found was seen as a final insult to a defeated race, and produced a fierce local reaction. The castle was besieged by the English during 1069, ... a considerable force had to be assembled to relieve it by the Norman bishop Geoffrey of Coutances whose large grants of land ... were directly threatened ... The ferocity with which the attack on Montacute was suppressed and the devastation in the surrounding area which followed the English defeat may explain why so many manors in south Somerset are recorded in the Domesday Survey as having decreased in value." (Wessex).

Castle Montacute consisted of a conical hill scarped to form a large oval motte (artificial hill) with three baileys (circular castle walls) on the slope. The hill had been called Biscopeston by the Saxons.

Montacute's military role was abandoned between 1093-1104, and it became a Clunic Priory.

The Domesday Book describes Montacute in 1086 thus:
The Count holds `BISHOPSTONE' himself, in lordship. His castle, called Montacute, is there. This manor paid tax for 9 hides before 1066; it was (part) of Athelney Abbey and for it the Count gave that church the manor called (Purse) Caundle. In this manor (of) `Bishopstone', land for 7 ploughs, of which 2 1/2 hides are in lordship; 2 ploughs there; 4 slaves;
4 villagers and 3 smallholders with 2 ploughs & 1 hide.
A mill which pays 50d; meadow, 15 acres. 1 cob; 100 sheep.
Of these 9 hides Alfred the Butler holds 1 1/2 hides from the Count, Drogo 1 hide, Bretel 1 hide, Duncan 1 hide. 5 ploughs there, with 1 slave; 19 smallholders.
Value of this manor to the Count £6; to the men-at-arms £3 3s.
Sources: Wessex from AD 1000. Castellarium Anglicanum.[DMKC]. The Domesday Book.


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