Stephen Henry was the count of Blois and Count of Chartres. He led an army during the First Crusade, was at the surrender of the city of Nicaea, and directed the siege of Antioch. Returning home without fulfilling his crusader vows, Stephen joined the crusade of 1101. Making his way to Jerusalem, he fought in the Second Battle of Ramla, where he was captured and later executed.
The Earldom of Chester was one of the most powerful earldoms in medieval England, extending principally over the counties of Cheshire and Flintshire. Since 1301 the title has generally been granted to heirs apparent to the English throne, and after 1707 the British throne. From the late 14th century, it has been given only in conjunction with that of Prince of Wales.
Hugh d'Avranches, nicknamed le Gros or Lupus, was from 1071 the second Norman Earl of Chester and one of the great magnates of early Norman England.
Avranches is a commune in the Manche department, and the region of Normandy, northwestern France. It is a subprefecture of the department. The inhabitants are called Avranchinais.
Hugh of Cyfeiliog, 5th Earl of Chester, also written Hugh de Kevilioc, was an Anglo-Norman magnate who was active in England, Wales, Ireland and France during the reign of King Henry II of England.
Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester, Count of Meulan, also known as Robert of Meulan, was a powerful Norman nobleman, one of the very few proven Companions of William the Conqueror during the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, and was revered as one of the wisest men of his age. Chroniclers spoke highly of his eloquence and his learning, and three kings of England valued his counsel. He was granted immense land-holdings in England by William the Conqueror and by Henry I and was created Earl of Leicester.
Richard d'Avranches, 2nd Earl of Chester was the son of Hugh d'Avranches, 1st Earl of Chester, and his wife, Ermentrude of Clermont.
Ranulf de Blondeville, 6th Earl of Chester and 1st Earl of Lincoln, known in some references as the 4th Earl of Chester, was one of the "old school" of Anglo-Norman barons whose loyalty to the Angevin dynasty was consistent but contingent on the receipt of lucrative favours. He has been described as "almost the last relic of the great feudal aristocracy of the Conquest".
William II, Count of Eu, feudal baron of Hastings was a first generation Anglo-Norman nobleman, Count of Eu.
John of Avranches was bishop of Avranches from 1060 to 1067, and archbishop of Rouen from 1067 to 1079. He was a Norman churchman, son of Rodulf of Ivry, and brother of Hugh of Bayeux. He appears in the Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges, and may have been one of the sources William used.
Ranulf le Meschin, 3rd Earl of Chester (1070–1129) was a Norman magnate based in northern and central England. Originating in Bessin in Normandy, Ranulf made his career in England thanks to his kinship with Hugh d'Avranches - the Earl of Chester, the patronage of kings William II Rufus and Henry I Beauclerc, and his marriage to Lucy, heiress of the Bolingbroke-Spalding estates in Lincolnshire.
Ranulf de Briquessart was an 11th-century Norman magnate and viscount.
The l'Aigle family was a Norman family that derived from the town of L'Aigle, on the southeastern borders of the Duchy of Normandy. They first appear during the rule of Duke Richard II of Normandy, in the early 11th century, and they would hold L'Aigle for the Norman Dukes and Kings of England until the first half of the 13th century, when with the fall of Normandy to the French crown the last of the line was forced to abandon the ancestral French lands, only to die in England a few years later without surviving English heirs. Their position on the borderlands, and near the headwaters of three rivers, the Risle, Iton and Avre, gave their small holding a special importance, as did a set of marriage connections that provided this relatively minor Norman noble family with a more elevated historical visibility. Having been neighbors and benefactors of the Abbey of Saint-Evroul, the family receive mostly favourable coverage in the 12th-century chronicle of Orderic Vitalis.
William I (Willame) de Percy, 1st feudal baron of Topcliffe in North Yorkshire, known as Willame als gernons, was a Norman nobleman who arrived in England immediately after the Norman Conquest of 1066. He was the founder via an early 13th-century female line of the powerful English House of Percy, Earls of Northumberland, and via an 18th-century female line of the Dukes of Northumberland.
William Meschin was an Anglo-Norman nobleman and baron. The brother of the earl of Chester, he participated in the First Crusade. After returning to England, he acquired lands from King Henry I of England and by his marriage to an heiress. He built Egremont Castle on one parcel and with his wife funded two religious foundations. After he died, his estates were divided amongst his three daughter's descendants.
The White Ship disaster on 25 November 1120 claimed the lives of numerous high-ranking people of Norman England.
The siege of the castle at Saint-Suzanne took place in a four-year period from 1083 to 1086, when the forces of William the Conqueror attempted to quell a rebellion led by Hubert de Beaumont-au-Maine and his liege lords against the rule of William. This was the only castle in Normandy that William did not succeed in taking.
The army of Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, left for the Holy Land on the First Crusade. Robert was the eldest son of William the Conqueror and brother to William Rufus, king of England. He was reportedly so poor that he often had to stay in bed for lack of clothes. In order to raise money for the crusade he mortgaged his duchy to his brother William II of England. His army joined the contingent of Robert II, Count of Flanders, and Stephen, Count of Blois.
The Constable of Chester was a mediaeval hereditary office held by the Barons of Halton. The functions of the Constable are unclear, possibly they related to the custody of Chester Castle, as was the main function of most mediaeval constables, but Sanders (1960) says the office-holder was constable for the entire County Palatine.
The Domesday Book of 1086 AD identifies King William the Conqueror's tenants-in-chief in Cestrescire (Cheshire), following the Norman Conquest of England. At the time, the County of Cheshire included South Lancashire and most of modern Flintshire and Wrexham counties in north Wales.
