Tancred of Hauteville
Tancred of Hauteville (980 – 1041) was an 11th-century Norman petty lord about whom little is known. His historical importance comes entirely from the accomplishments of his sons and later descendants. He was a minor noble near Coutances in the Cotentin.
Various legends arose about Tancred which have no supporting contemporary evidence.
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[edit] Ancestors
The Hauteville family may descend from Hiallt, a Norseman born in 920 who settled in the Cotentin and founded the village of Hialtus Villa (Hauteville) from which the family takes its name.[1][2] Tancred was Hiallt's great grandson.[3] From which village of Hauteville the family drew its name is hard to identify with certainty, though modern scholarship favours Hauteville-la-Guichard.
[edit] Family and descendants
He had 12 sons by his two wives (both of them have been said to be daughters of Duke Richard I of Normandy, based on late testimony of dubious reliability[4]) and several daughters, almost all of whom left Normandy for southern Italy and acquired some prominence there.
By his first wife Muriella he had five sons:
- Serlo (stayed in Normandy)
- Beatrix (d. 1101), married first Armand de Mortain and second Roger
- Geoffrey, lord of Hauteville, count of Loritello (d. 1063)
- William Iron Arm, count of Apulia (d. 1046)
- Drogo, count of Apulia (d. 1051)
- Humphrey, count of Apulia (d. 1057)
According to the Italian chronicler of the Norman feats in the south, Amatus of Montecassino, Tancred was a morally upright man who would not carry on a sinful relationship and so remarried, being unable also to live out his life in perfect celibacy. By his second wife Fressenda (or Fredesenda) he had seven sons and at least one daughter:
- Robert Guiscard de Hauteville, count of Apulia (1057), then duke of Apulia and Sicily (d. 1085)
- Mauger, count of the Capitanate (d. 1064)
- William, count of the Principate (d. 1080)
- Aubrey (Alberic or Alvared, Alveredus in Latin; sometimes called Alvred or Alfred) (stayed in Normandy)
- Humbert (Hubert) (stayed in Normandy)
- Tancred (stayed in Normandy)
- Roger de Hauteville, count of Sicily from 1062 (d. 1101)
- Fressenda, who married Richard I (dead in 1078), count of Aversa and prince of Capua
[edit] Other Tancred of Hauteville
Tancred's great-grandson, also named Tancred, was a leader in the First Crusade. The line of succession was:
- Tancred the elder
- son Robert Guiscard (Duke Robert d'Hauteville)
- granddaughter Emma of Hauteville
- great-grandson Tancred of Hauteville, who became Prince of Galilee and regent of the Principality of Antioch.
[edit] See also
- Normans
- Italo-Norman, his offspring.
[edit] References
- ^ Hill, James S. The place-names of Somerset. St. Stephen's printing works, 1914, Princeton University. Page 256
- ^ Revue de l'Avranchin et du pays de Granville, Volume 31, Issue 174, Parts 3-4. Société d'archéologie, de littérature, sciences et arts d'Avranches, Mortain, Granville. the University of Michigan.
- ^ Google books, The British Chronicles, Volume 2 By David Hughes, Page 527
- ^ http://sbaldw.home.mindspring.com/hproject/prov/richa001.htm
"Medieval Lands Project: Genealogy of the Counts of Apulia". Foundation for Medieval Genealogy. http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/SICILY.htm#_Toc174790026. Retrieved 2009-01-02.
