Robert (Eu)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert provides part of the fleet that will bring the future victors of the Battle of Hastings to England.

Robert von Eu († 1089/1093), Earl of Eu and Lord of Hastings , was an Anglo- Norman baron.

Life

Robert was the son and successor of William I , Count of Eu, and his wife Lesceline. It is controversial whether he immediately followed his father or his brother Wilhelm Busac after his uprising against Duke Richard II , which ended with Wilhelm's expropriation and exile.

Battle of Mortemer

When King Henry I of France invaded Normandy with an army in 1054, Duke Wilhelm sent parts of his forces against Eudes, the king's brother, under the leadership of Robert von Eu and Gautier Giffard . Robert was thus one of the Norman commanders who defeated the French army at the Battle of Mortemer in late 1054.

Conquest of England

He participated with 60 ships in the fleet, which made the landing and the Norman conquest of England possible. Around 1068/1070 William the Conqueror entrusted him with the rape of Hastings and the areas dependent on it; H. east of Sussex after Onfroy de Tilleul, Hugues de Grandmesnil's brother-in-law , hastily returned to Normandy. The Domesday Book (1086) shows that in England Robert and his son Wilhelm owned land in separate counties. The annual income that the lands of the two men generate amounts to around 690 pounds sterling , whereby they do not belong to the top group of the richest barons of English barons.

In 1069 he was commissioned by the king, together with Robert de Mortain , to monitor the Danes, whose fleet was anchored in the Humber , while the latter was suppressing the uprising in the west, which was instigated by Eadric Cild . When the Danes left their retreat to loot the neighborhood, the two barons and their army unexpectedly attacked and beat them, after which the survivors were forced to flee by sea. (see also Harrying of the North ) After the death of King Wilhelm, Robert von Eu temporarily joined his son Robert Curthose , but, like other Norman nobles, turned to Wilhelm II , whose soldiers he was repelled by his weakness and debauchery accepted his castles as an occupation. When Wilhelm II tried to occupy Normandy in February 1091, he was one of his supporters. He died after these events and before 1093 when his son was already ruling the county.

In his piety he made donations to the church all his life, especially property to the abbey of Saint-Trinité du Mont in Rouen (1051). As the widower of Béatrix de Falaise, he married Mathilde de Hauteville (1062-1094), daughter of Roger I , Count of Sicily , and Judith von Évreux, second cousin of William the Conqueror. He repudiated her in 1080, after which she married 1080 Raimund IV of Toulouse († 1105).

Between 1057 and 1066, in memory of his first wife and at the suggestion of Duke Wilhelm and Maurillius, Archbishop of Rouen , he founded the Abbey of Saint-Michel de Tréport , where he was also buried.

family

Six children are known from his marriage to Béatrix, who was perhaps a sister of Arlette de Falaise :

literature

  • Frank Barlow, William Rufus , Yale University Press, 2000, pp. 273, 282.
  • George Edward Cokayne , The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, or Dormant , Volume 5, London: St. Catherine Press, 1910, p. 153, Los Angeles Public Library, 929.721 C682.
  • David C. Douglas , The Earliest Norman Counts , in: The English Historical Review, Oxford University Press. Volume 61, No. 240, May 1946
  • Brian Golding, Robert of Mortain , in: Anglo-Normans Studies XIII, Proceedings of the Battle Conference, ed. by Marjorie Chibnall , Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 1990, p. 120
  • Charles Warren Hollister , The Greater Domesday Tenants-in-Chief , Domesday Studies, ed. by James Clarke Holt (Woodbridge), 1987
  • Ordericus Vitalis , Histoire de Normandie , Éd. Guizot, 1826, Volume 2, Book IV, p. 186.
  • Eleanor M. Seale, The Abbey of the Conquerors , Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1979, by Reginald Allen Brown, Boydell & Brewer, 1980, p. 157, ISBN 0851151264
  • Frank Merry Stenton , Anglo-Saxon England , Oxford University Press, 3rd edition, 1971, p. 604.

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b c Barlow
  2. ↑ Hollister, p. 244
  3. ↑ Seale
  4. ↑ a b Hollister, p. 226
  5. ↑ Stenton
  6. ↑ Golding
  7. ^ Ordericus Vitalis
  8. ^ Cokayne
personal data
SURNAME Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Earl of Eu, Lord of Hastings
DATE OF BIRTH 11th century
DATE OF DEATH uncertain: between 1089 and 1093