ERCHEMBALD THE FLEMING

The early clan chiefs of Normandy held power through alliances with those of competing claim. It was an act of political proportion, as if attempting to ride two horses, with feet in two stirrups, as many sharp twists and turns were to be attempted.

William Longsword’s first alliance was with Sprotta, of unknown lineage; his partner through ‘Danish rite’ – one without religious ties, and a strong feature in Norman history. Of the five generations of Norman chiefs, from Rollo to William the Bastard, only the children of Richard I. were born of a marriage sanctioned by the Church, and were, thus, ‘legal’.

The looser arrangements, however, came with obligations – a legally recognised concubine could not choose to leave her husband, and was given ‘wifely’ status until he chose to seek another concubine or wife. The Church would assert the superiority of a wife married according to its rites, and children of ‘Danish rite’ were not necessarily looked upon as the legal heirs of their father, though would be if the alliance that they represented was still of importance.

It should be realised that concubines also came from families of high status; tales of chance meetings in a forrest (Richard I. and Gunnor’s sister) are simply allegorical, making mythical connections between the Norman elite and the heroes of earlier, classical dynasties. Gunnor was undoubtedly of a high status, Scandinavian family who were among the wave of successive incursions into Normandy by different factions. It is a mistake to believe that successive colonisers were entirely of a Scandinavian origin; they were a synthesis of various racial groupings, many long-since intermarried as a way of guaranteeing peace treaties.

The invaders of Normandy were referred to as Marchmen, describing an origin between the Elbe and Eyder, that is, of “the march”, the boundary between Germany and Denmark. The letters the invaders brought with them were expressly called Marcomannic; and it was the Marcomanni who sacked Rouen. Another term for the invaders was Nordalbingian, which, as Marchman, meant a person from beyond the Elbe. These terms point to a Marcomanni settlement in “the march”, in Saxon Holstein and Danish Sleswick. The Danish side of “the march” was controlled by the family of Gorm the Old, a king in southern Denmark , that is, Jutland, who also had “holdings in Norway.” He was the son of someone identified by Adam of Bremen as “Hardegon filius Suein”, that is, Harthaknutr, son of Svein.

Gunnor’s marriage to Richard I. was about building alliances to counteract those who might usurp his clan’s rule.

William Longsword found it expedient to marry Leutgard, a sister of Herbert of Vermandois. (Her sister married Arnulf, a party in William’s murder). His object was to gain the favour of the Frankish nobles, solemised by closer connexion with the Church. This would have alienated some of his allies and relations, and accounts for the bitter internecine strife of this period. It was not the case that William’s son by Sprotta, Richard I., was ‘forced’ to marry his concubine, Gunnor; it was expedient to do so in relation to the advantages of the alliance he legalised.

Sprotta’s later alliance with Asperling brought about (with a number of daughters), Rodulph d’Ivri, uterine brother of Richard 1., and of great importance in the defense of Richard’s clan. This trust did not stem from association with Asperling, but from common connection to their mother’s faction.

1. Sprotta, m. (2) Asperling.
1.1. Rodolph d’ Ivri, m. Eremberg.
1.1.1. Emma d’Ivri, later Abbess of St Amand, m. Osbern, son of Herfast, brother of Gunnor, wife of Richard I. Her kinsman, Baldwin FitzGilbert, was raised by Emma at Rouen, and he made a donation to St Amand in memory of his mother (pancarte, line 32). Emma’s brother-in-law, Richard de Beaufour (Bellofago), made donations on behalf of his daughters (filias plures), who may have joined Emma at St. Amand as nuns. Baldwin FitzGilbert was the son Gilbert de Brionne, the founder of the Abbey of Bec (the son of Godfrey, son of Richard I., by a concubine), and the patron of Gilbert Crispin 1.

Another niece was probably the mother of Gilbert de Brionne; another of Gilbert Crispin I.; another was certainly the wife of Hugh de Montfort-sur-Risle; their issue being: Alice de Montfort-sur-Risle, married to Gilbert de Gand. By a second wife, Hugh de Montfort-sur-Risle, was the father of Adeline de Montfort-sur-Risle, who married William of Breteuil, eldest son of William FitzOsbern.

Heather J. Tanner (Medieval Elite Women and the Exercise of Power, 1100–1400, p. 105), conjectured that the Gilbert who made a donation to St Amand on the occasion of his wife becoming a nun there (lines 35-39), was the son of Vicecomes Erchambald, and thus, a fidelis of Emma, and her husband, Osbern. Gilbert was wounded on the night of Osbern’s murder, and he later made a gift to La Trinite du Monte in Osbern’s memory, a gift witnessed and approved of by Emma (Receuil, ed. Fauroux, no. 82).

1.1.1.1. William FitzOsbern.’In the 1040’s, Emma’s son, William de Breteuil, made a donation to La Trinite of lands held by the vicecomites Erchembald and Turold, the chamberlain of Countess Gunnor (pancarte, no. 118). ‘These donations illustrate the importance of female family connections and hint at their associated networks of patronage‘ (ibid., p. 104). In this sense, men fought in battles when women could not hold the peace.
1.1.1.1.1. William de Breteuil confirmed the donations to the Abbey of Bec of his father, including:
(1) What he himself possessed in the suburbs of Brionne.
(2) The fiefs given to Bec by William Crispin the elder, including the tithe of the church of Blangy and its domain.
(3) The tithe of the church of Livarot, including its domain and the sixth part of its mills.
(4) The tithe of the mill and the domain of Mesnil-Foubert Le Faulq, canton of Blangy, held by William Crispin the younger.

Thus, the earliest landholdings of the Crispin family were held of their kinsfolk, the FitzOsberns. This is not to say that these landholdings originated with them, for those of closely connected kinship gifted land to each other, as in the case of Hugh d’Ivri gifting some of La Chapelle-Bayvel to his nephew, William FitzOsbern, whose mother, Hugh’s sister, held land of the patrimony of her father (with the approval of Gunnor, her mentor), of the tenantship of her brother, and of his gift. It is not the case that lineage can be adduced from tenurial associations, for such were underpinned by a variety of formats; one of which may have included a gift to Baldwin FitzGilbert from Emma d’Ivri, his guardian, and probable aunt.

1. …
1.1. Harfast. Dudo of Saint-Quentin claimed she was of noble Danish origin, without specifying whether this was a paternal association. A clue as to his place of origin is given in the orthgography of Herfast; which is a form of Haerfest (OE), Herbist (OHG); Herfst (Dutch). These are Saxon terms meaning harvest, and are seen in the statements ‘god sumer’, ‘god harfest’. They represent a distinctly Saxon form of harvest, being distinguishable from the Scandinavian forms Haust (ON), Hdst (OSw.); Host (OD).
1.1.1. Osborn, dapifer. Guillaume of Jumièges records that a sister married Osmund de Conteville, their son being Foulques d’Anet. ‘Neptes vero plures predicto Gunnor habuit quarta Osmundo de Centumvillis Vicecomiti Vernonii, ex qua natus est primus Fulco de Aneio et plures filia, quarum una mater fuit primi Baldewini de Revers’.
1.1.2. Osborn’s sister, m. Osmund de Conteville – Contevillam, Conteville-sur-Risle.
1.1.2.1. Gunnor de Centvilles, et de Livarot, m. Gilbert Crispin I.
1.1.2.1.1. Hesilia Crispin, m. William Malet (Monasticon 3. 405); he gaining Conteville as maritagium.
1.1.2.1.1.1. Robert Malet, held the fief of Collavilla, near Harfleur, Seine-Inf., from whence his cousins, William and Gilbert Crispin were endowed. Robert Malet held land of Gilbert Crispin I. in Mesnil Josselin, canton de Broglie, which was donated to Bec; a place of ironworks.
1.1.2.1.1.2. Gilbert Malet, whose son was William Malet II. (E.H. Bates, ed., Two Cartularies of the Benedictine Abbeys of Muchelney and Athelney, Somerset Rec. Soc. 14, 1899: see Subsidiary Indices i., ii).
1.1.2.1.1.2.1. William Malet: Between 1117-1121: ‘Anno ab incarnatione Domini millesimo centesimo vicesimo primo Willelmus Malet dedit Deo et Sancte Marie Becci Contevillam, ita quietam et integram sicuti eam tenuerunt ipse et antecessors ejus, et hoc pro salute anime sue et omnium parentum suorum. … ‘Guillelmus Malet monachus Becci terram sive prædium quod vocatur Mesnil Josselin dedit monasterio Beccensi’. (See Gallia Christiana, vol. xi. p. 301).
1.1.2.1.1.2. Beatrix Malet, m. William d’ Arques, as follows.

It is almost certain that Gilbert Crispin I. married a sister of Fulco d’’Anet, who donated to Bec: ‘Saint-Julienen-de-Mailloc, canton d’Orbec; le Mesnil-Simon, canton de Vernon; where Anquetil donated to Bec that which had been Osmonds, confirmed by ‘Guillaume de Vernon, tenant en chef‘ (who had possibly married a daughter of Osbern – M.S). A confirmation charter of Henry II. informs that property in Mesnil Simon was included in a grant to Bec by Emma, second wife of Baldwin FitzGilbert, aforesaid.

1.1.2. Hugh d’Ivri, Archbishop of Bayeux: Between 1042-1049, Hugh gave Celloville, that is Serlos villa (Seine-Maritime, cant. de Boos), and Sahurs (Seine-Maritime, cant. Grand-Couronne) to St Amand. (See Pierre Bauduin, ‘La première Normandie’, p. 206, 2004). The territorty of Boos was formerly held by Gosselin, vicecomes of Rouen, and likely to have been Hugh’s uncle. Vicecomes Erchembald, on entering La Trinité du Mont, gave to the house his meadow in Sahurs, and all that he held by hereditary right in Celloville. (RADN, no. 82, 1030-1035). I suggest that ‘hereditary right’ related to a gift by Hugh d’Ivri to a niece, wife of Erchembald; that is, hereditary right in its wider context. Gilbert Crispin I., by this account, may have been the great-grandson of Rodolph d’ Ivri, and great-great grandson of Sprotta.

1.1.3. Emmenie d’Ivri (see François Farin, et al., Histoire de la ville de Rouen, p. 131, 1731), m. Richard de Beaufour.
1.1.3.1. ….. de Beaufour, m. Erchembald, vicecomes of Rouen, fidelis of Richard I. (Beaufour, Calvados, cant. de Cambremer, held by Hugh d’Ivri).
1.1.3.1.1. Gilbert Crispin, nephew of Emma and Hugh d’ Ivri, fidelis of Osbern, dapifer, filius Herfasti. As stated, Gilbert was wounded on the night of Osbern’s murder, and he later made a gift (la vallée de Richer ou Riquier, et les prés de Rieux) to La Trinite in Osbern’s memory.

For him to be Gilbert Crispin I., he can not have died soon after this event, in that Gilbert is recorded in a charter of ca. 1056 in which he donates the fief of Hauville (held of William I.) to Jumieges. Hauville is situated near Montfort-sur-Risle.

Gilbert Crispin I. was noted by Milo Crispin as being ‘of renowned origin and nobility’ (Milo Crispin, How The Holy Virgin Appeared To William Crispin The Elder And On The Origin Of The Crispin Family, ed. Migne, cols. 735-744, 1856).

His descendants were of the ‘Rouennais‘: Adolphe Chéruel, Histoire de Rouen: ‘L’archevêque de Rouen, Hugues d’Amiens, les évêques de Bayeux et de Lisieux, un grand nombre de nobles, Gauthier, comte de Meulan, Robert de Neubourg, Richer de l’Aigle, Guillaume de Vernon, Baudry du Bosc, Amaury, Gislebert et Gosselin Crespin, Henri de Ferrières, Robert de Torcy, Richard de la Haye, Eugène et Alexandre de Bohun, Geoffroi de Clères, Hugues de Monfort, et plusieurs autres barons, s’étaient solennellement portés garans de la charte concédée aux Rouennais par le duc de Normandie’, ca. 1150.

1.2. A uterine sister of Richard I., one of the ‘plures filia’, from which ‘sprang many families of noble birth‘. (Of the ducal clan).
1.2.1. Emmeline, m. Gosselin (vicecomes of Rouen – i.e. sheriff of that vicinity), the founder of the monasteries of the Holy Trinity of the Mount (1030), and of St. Amand, both near Rouen.
1.2.1.1. Godfrid, vicecomes d’ Arques, m. a dau. of Avelina (sister of Gunnor, wife of Richard I.) and Osbern de Bolbec. Richard I’s illigitimate son, Godfrey, being the father of Gilbert de Brionne, patron of Gilbert Crispin I.
1.2.1.1.1. William d’ Arques, m. Beatrix Malet, dau. of Hesilia Crispin, and granddaughter of Gilbert Crispin I.

This is a traditional narrative. Jean-François Pommeraye, Histoire de l’abbaye royale de S. Ouen de Rouen, 1662, gives an alternative and no less plausible version, stating that Godfrid was the brother or nephew of Gosselin, Gosselin and his children being dead by 1058. He added: William and Osbern, sons of Osbern and Emma d’Ivri, gave to La Trinite what they possessed at Val Richer; ‘at the place called ‘Sahurs’.

copyright m stanhope 2019