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William I, usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087. A descendant of Rollo, he was Duke of Normandy from 1035 onward. By 1060, following a long struggle to establish his throne, his hold on Normandy was secure. In 1066, following the death of Edward the Confessor, William invaded England, 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. The rest of his life was marked by struggles to consolidate his hold over England and his continental lands, and by difficulties with his eldest son, Robert Curthose.
Earl is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. The title originates in the Old English word eorl, meaning "a man of noble birth or rank". The word is cognate with the Scandinavian form jarl, and meant "chieftain", particularly a chieftain set to rule a territory in a king's stead. After the Norman Conquest, it became the equivalent of the continental count. Alternative names for the rank equivalent to "earl" or "count" in the nobility structure are used in other countries, such as the hakushaku (伯爵) of the post-restoration Japanese Imperial era.
William de St-Calais was a medieval Norman monk, abbot of the abbey of Saint-Vincent in Le Mans in Maine, who was nominated by King William I of England as Bishop of Durham in 1080. During his term as bishop, St-Calais replaced the canons of his cathedral chapter with monks, and began the construction of Durham Cathedral. In addition to his ecclesiastical duties, he served as a commissioner for the Domesday Book of 1086. He was also a councillor and advisor to both King William I and his son, King William II, known as William Rufus. Following William Rufus' accession to the throne in 1087, St-Calais is considered by scholars to have been the new king's chief advisor.
Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria was the last of the Anglo-Saxon earls and the only English aristocrat to be executed during the reign of William I.
Roger de Montgomery, also known as Roger the Great, was the first Earl of Shrewsbury, and Earl of Arundel, in Sussex. His father was Roger de Montgomery, seigneur of Montgomery, a member of the House of Montgomerie, and was probably a grandnephew of the Duchess Gunnor, wife of Duke Richard I of Normandy, the great-grandfather of William the Conqueror. The elder Roger had large landholdings in central Normandy, chiefly in the valley of the River Dives, which the younger Roger inherited.
Geoffrey de Montbray, bishop of Coutances, also known as Geoffrey of Coutances, was a Norman nobleman, trusted adviser of William the Conqueror and a great secular prelate, warrior and administrator.
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Siward or Sigurd was an important earl of 11th-century northern England. The Old Norse nickname Digri and its Latin translation Grossus are given to him by near-contemporary texts. It is possible Siward may have been of Scandinavian or Anglo-Scandinavian origin, perhaps a relative of Earl Ulf, although this is speculative and unclear. He emerged as a powerful regional strongman in England during the reign of Cnut. 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.
Gospatric or Cospatric, , was Earl of Northumbria, or of Bernicia, and later lord of sizable estates around Dunbar. His male-line descendants held the Earldom of Dunbar, later known as the Earldom of March, in south-east Scotland until 1435, and the Lordship and Earldom of Home from 1473 until the present day.
Robert de Mowbray, a Norman, was Earl of Northumbria from 1086 until 1095. Robert joined the 1088 rebellion against King William II on behalf of Robert Curthose, but was pardoned and later led the army that killed Malcolm III of Scotland at Alnwick. In 1095, he conspired to put Stephen of Aumale on the throne, was besieged by the king, and captured. As punishment, his marriage was dissolved and his lands confiscated, given to the new husband of his former wife, while Mowbray was imprisoned for life and later became a monk.
Walcher was the bishop of Durham from 1071, a Lotharingian and the first Prince-bishop. He was the first non-Englishman to hold that see and an appointee of William the Conqueror following the Harrying of the North. He was murdered in 1080, which led William to send an army into Northumbria to harry the region again.
The House of Clare was a prominent Anglo-Norman noble house that held at various times the earldoms of Pembroke, Hertford and Gloucester in England and Wales, as well as playing a prominent role in the Norman invasion of Ireland.
Nigel d'Aubigny, was a Norman Lord and English baron who was the son of Roger d'Aubigny and Amice or Avice de Mowbray. His paternal uncle William was lord of Aubigny, while his father was an avid supporter of Henry I of England. His brother William d'Aubigny Pincerna was the king's Butler and father of the 1st Earl of Arundel. He was the founder of the noble House of Mowbray.
Events from the 1080s in England.
Urse d'Abetot was a Norman who followed King William I to England, and became Sheriff of Worcestershire and a royal official under him and Kings William II and Henry I. He was a native of Normandy and moved to England shortly after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, and was appointed sheriff in about 1069. Little is known of his family in Normandy, who were not prominent, but he probably got his name from the village Abetot. Although Urse's lord in Normandy was present at the Battle of Hastings, there is no evidence that Urse took part in the invasion of England in 1066.
Siward Barn was an 11th-century English thegn and landowner-warrior. He appears in the extant sources in the period following the Norman Conquest of England, joining the northern resistance to William the Conqueror by the end of the 1060s. Siward's resistance continued until his capture on the Isle of Ely alongside Æthelwine, Bishop of Durham, Earl Morcar, and Hereward as cited in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Siward and his confiscated properties in central and northern England were mentioned in Domesday Book, and from this it is clear that he was one of the main antecessors of Henry de Ferrers, father of Robert de Ferrers, the first Earl of Derby.
The House of de Vere were an English aristocratic family who derived their surname from Ver, in Lower Normandy, France. The family's Norman founder in England, Aubrey (Albericus) de Vere, appears in Domesday Book (1086) as the holder of a large fief in Essex, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire. His son and heir Aubrey II became Lord Great Chamberlain of England, an hereditary office, in 1133. His grandson Aubrey III became Earl of Oxford in the reign of King Stephen, but while his earldom had been granted by the Empress Matilda and eventually recognised by Stephen, it was not until January 1156 that it was formally recognised by Henry II and he began to receive the third penny of justice from Oxfordshire.
Ligulf was an Anglo-Danish nobleman with landholdings in the north of England.
The de Warenne family were a noble family in England that included the first Earls of Surrey, created by William the Conqueror in 1088 for William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, who was among his companions at the Battle of Hastings. The family originated in Normandy and as Earls, held land there and throughout England. When the senior male-line ended in the mid-12th century, the descendants of their heiress adopted the Warenne surname and continue as Earls of Surrey for another two centuries. Several junior lines also held land or prominent offices in England and Normandy.
References
- 1 2 K.S.B. Keats-Rohan, Domesday People, A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066-1166, Vol. I, Domesday Book (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1999), p. 131
- ↑ Judith A. Green (2002), The Aristocracy of Norman England, Cambridge University Press, pp. 42-3.
- ↑ Frank Stenton (1971) Anglo-Saxon England Third Edition. Oxford University Press, p. 614
- ↑ William M. Aird, Robert de Mowbray, Online Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004
- ↑ Symeonis monachi Opera omnia: Historia regum, Ed. Thomas Arnold, Vol II (London: Longmans & Co., 1885), p. 199
- ↑ Bates, David (2004). William the Conqueror. Stroud, UK: Tempus. p. 266. ISBN 0-7524-1980-3.