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He gained the title of Count of Mortain between 1049 and 1056. He gained the title of Earl of Cornwall between 1066 and 1067.

Robert, Count of Mortain (c. 1031-1090) was a Norman nobleman and the half-brother of William I of England. He was one of the known participants at the Battle of Hastings and the time of the Domesday Book he was one of the greatest landholders in England.

Life

Robert was the son of Herluin de Conteville and Herleva of Falaise and brother of Odo of Bayeux. Robert was born c. 1031 in Normandy, a half-brother of William the Conqueror. and was probably not more than a year or so younger than his brother Odo, born c. 1030. About 1035, Herluin, as Vicomte of Conteville, along with his wife Herleva and Robert founded Grestain Abbey.

Count of Mortain

In c. 1049 his brother Duke William made him Count of Mortain, in place of William Warlenc, who had been banished by Duke William; according to Orderic Vitalis, on a single word. William Warlenc was a grandson of Duke Richard I and therefore a cousin once removed to William, Duke of Normandy. Securing the southern border of Normandy was critical to Duke William and Robert was entrusted with this key county which guarded the borders of Brittany and Bellême.

Conquest of England

In early 1066, Robert was present at both the first council, that of William's inner circle, and the second larger council held to discuss the Duke's planned conquest of England. Robert agreed to provide 120 ships to the invasion fleet, which was more than any other of William's magnates. Robert was one of those few known to have been at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. He is pictured at a dinner at Pevensey on the Bayeux Tapestry, seated with his brothers William and Odo on the day of the landing in England. When granting the monastery of St Michael's Mount to the Norman monastery on the Mont Saint-Michel Robert recorded that he had fought at the Battle of Hastings under the banner of St Michel (habens in bello Sancti Michaelis vexillum).

Lands granted by William the Conqueror

Robert's contribution to the success of the invasion was clearly regarded as highly significant by the Conqueror who awarded him a large share of the spoils; in total 797 manors at the time of Domesday. However the greatest concentration of his honors lay in Cornwall where he held virtually all of that county and was considered by some the Earl of Cornwall. While Robert held lands in twenty counties, the majority of his holdings in certain counties was as few as five manors. The overall worth of his estates was £2100. He administered most of his southwestern holdings from Launceston, Cornwall and Montacute in Somerset. The holding of single greatest importance, however, was the rape of Pevensey (east Sussex) which protected one of the more vulnerable parts of the south coast of England.

Later life

In 1069, when together with Robert of Eu, he led an army against a force of Danes in Lindsay and affected great slaughter against them. After that there is little mention of Robert who appears to have been an absentee landholder spending the majority of his time in Normandy. Along with his brother Odo he participated in a revolt in 1088 against William II but afterwards he was pardoned. On 8 December 1090 Robert died and chose to be buried at the Abbey of Grestain, near his father and next to his first wife Matilda.

Character

He was described by William of Malmesbury in his Gesta Regum as a man of stupid dull disposition (crassi et hebetis ingenii).. But William the Conqueror considered him one of his greatest supporters and trusted him with the important county of Mortain. This was a trust he would hardly place in someone who was in any way incompetent. Further clues to his character are found in the Vita of Vitalis of Savigny, a very wise monk who Robert sought out as his chaplain. Once incident tells of Robert beating his wife and Vital intervening, threatened to end the marriage if Robert did not repent. In still another entry Vital tells of his leaving Robert's service abruptly and after being escorted back to him, Robert begged for Vital's pardon for his actions. Overall, Robert was proficient in every duty William assigned him, he was a religious man yet ill-tempered enough to beat his wife, but not himself known as a man of great wisdom.

Family

Robert was married to Matilda, daughter of Roger de Montgomerie, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, before 1066 and together they had:

William, Count of Mortain, who succeeded him.
Agnes who married André de Vitry.
Denise, married in 1078 to Guy, 3rd Sire de La Val.
Emma of Mortain, the wife of William IV of Toulouse.

After Matilda de Montgomerie's death c. 1085 Robert secondly married Almodis. The couple had no children.

Robert married Matilda de Montgomery Bef 1066. [Group Sheet]

1. Emma of Mortain

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Herluin de Conteville (1001-1066), also sometimes listed as Herlevin or Herlwin of Conteville, was the stepfather of William the Conqueror, and the father of Odo of Bayeux and Robert, Count of Mortain, both of whom became prominent during William's reign.

Conteville and Sainte-Marie Église

No contemporary record provides the parentage for Herluin, although much later sources have assigned him parents (such as the otherwise unknown Jean de Conteville (965) and Harlette de Meulan). Herluin was a lord of moderate income and some land on the south side of the river Seine. He was viscount of Conteville, probably so created by his stepson, and held the honour of Sainte-Marie Église, a portion of the county of Mortain. There he founded the Grestain Abbey around 1050 with his son Robert.

Herluin's marriage to Herleva

Towards the beginning of the 11th century, Conteville and its dependencies appear to be in the hands of Herluin, who married Herleva, the mistress of Robert I, Duke of Normandy and already mother of William the Bastard, called William the Conqueror later. Herluin and Herleva had two sons and one daughter: Odo or Eudes, who became Bishop of Bayeux, and Robert who became Count of Mortain; both were prominent in the reign of their half-brother William. The daughter, sometimes called Muriel, married Guillaume, Seigneur de la Ferté-Macé. Herluin is said to have loyally borne William's body to his grave at Caen after he died in the burning of Mantes.

Herluin's marriage to Fredesendis

Herluin later married Fredesendis, who is named as a benefactor of the Grestain Abbey, and as Herluin's wife in the confirmation charter of the abbey, dated 1189. The abbey was founded by Herluin himself around 1050, in hopes of achieving a cure to his leprosy or some similar disease. Herluin and Fredesendis had two sons: Raoul de Conteville (d. aft. 1089), who later held land in Somerset and Devon, and Jean de Conteville. Little is known of the sons of his second marriage.

Herluin married Herleva de Falaise Between 1029 and 1035. Herleva (daughter of Fulbert of Falaise and Duxia) was born Between 1003 and 1012; died Abt 1050, France; was buried France. [Group Sheet]

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She was also known as Herleve, Arlotta and Arlette.

Herleva (c. 1003 - c. 1050) also known as Herleve, Arlette, Arletta and Arlotte, had three sons - William I of England, who was fathered by Robert I, Duke of Normandy, and Odo of Bayeux and Robert, Count of Mortain, who were both fathered by Herluin de Conteville. All became prominent in William's realm.

Life

The background of Herleva and the circumstances of William's birth are shrouded in mystery. The written evidence dates from a generation or two later, and is not entirely consistent. The most commonly accepted version says that she was the daughter of a tanner named Fulbert from the town of Falaise, in Normandy. Translation being somewhat uncertain, Fulbert may instead have been a furrier, embalmer, apothecary, or a person who laid out corpses for burial.

It is argued by some that Herleva's father was not a tanner but rather a member of the burgher class. The idea is supported by the fact that her brothers appear in a later document as attestors for an under-age William. Also, the Count of Flanders later accepted Herleva as a proper guardian for his own daughter. Both facts would be nearly impossible if Herleva's father (and therefore her brothers) was a tanner, which would place his standing as little more than a peasant.

Orderic Vitalis described Herleva's father Fulbert as being the Duke's Chamberlain (cubicularii ducis).

Relationship with Robert the Magnificent

According to one legend, still recounted by tour guides at Falaise, it all started when Robert, the young Duke of Normandy saw Herleva from the roof of his castle tower. The walkway on the roof still looks down on the dyeing trenches cut into stone in the courtyard below, which can be seen to this day from the tower ramparts above. The traditional way of dyeing leather or garments was for individuals to trample barefoot on the garments which were awash in the dyeing liquid in these trenches. Herleva, legend goes, seeing the Duke on his ramparts above, raised her skirts perhaps a bit more than necessary in order to attract the Duke's eye. The latter was immediately smitten and ordered her brought in (as was customary for any woman that caught the Duke's eye) through the back door. Herleva refused, saying she would only enter the Duke's castle on horseback through the front gate, and not as an ordinary commoner. The Duke, filled with lust, could only agree. In a few days, Herleva, dressed in the finest her father could provide, and sitting on a white horse, rode proudly through the front gate, her head held high. This gave Herleva a semi-official status as the Duke's mistress.

She later gave birth to his son, William, in 1027 or 1028.

Marriage to Herluin de Conteville

Herleva later married Herluin de Conteville in 1031. Some accounts however, maintain that Robert always loved her, but the gap in their social status made marriage impossible, so, to give her a good life, he married her off to one of his favourite noblemen.

Another source suggests that Herleva did not marry Herluin until after Robert died because there is no record of Robert ensuing another relationship, whereas Herluin married another woman, Fredesendis, by the time he founded the abbey of Grestain.

From her marriage to Herluin she had two sons: Odo, who later became Bishop of Bayeux, and Robert, who became Count of Mortain. Both became prominent during William's reign. They also had at least two daughters, Emma, who married Richard LeGoz or Richard Goz (count or viscount of Avranches), and a daughter of unknown name who married William, lord of la Ferté-Macé.

Death

According to Robert of Torigni, Herleva was buried at the abbey of Grestain, which was founded by Herluin and their son Robert around 1050. This would put Herleva in her forties around the time of her death. However, David C. Douglas suggests that Herleva probably died before Herluin founded the abbey because her name does not appear on the list of benefactors, whereas the name of Herluin's second wife, Fredesendis, does.

Notes:

He was a tanner at Falaise, Normandy, France.

Fulbert of Falaise (fl. 11th century) was the father of Herleva, mother of the illegitimate William the Conqueror, the 11th-century Duke of Normandy and King of England. The Walter of Falaise named by Orderic Vitalis is likely a son.

Fulbert has traditionally been held to be a tanner, based on translations of Orderic's additions to the Gesta Normannorum Ducum. He writes that during the siege of Alençon (1051-2), the natives had been mutilated by William after they called him a pelliciarius (pelterer), because his mother's kinsmen had been pollinctores (corpse preparers). One later poetic source interpreted the occupation to be that of tailor, but in part due to flawed transcripts of the original, many historians have concluded he was a tanner. Others have favored a more literal reading, that Herleva's family had been undertakers or embalmers.

Orderic also added to the Gesta that Fulbert served as the Duke's chamberlain (cubicularii ducis). It has been suggested that this occurred after William's birth. Perhaps linking Orderic's two additions, contemporary practice made the chamberlain one of the persons responsible for burials.

Fulbert — Duxia. [Group Sheet]