Tancred of Hauteville

For other people with this name, see Tancred.

Tancred of Hauteville
Seigneur of Hauteville-la-Guichard
Statue of Tancred outside Coutances Cathedral, dated to 1875
Successor	Serlo I
Born	c. 980
Died	1041
Noble family	Hauteville
Spouse(s)	Muriella Fressenda
Issue	see below

Tancred of Hauteville (c. 980 – 1041^[citation needed]) was an 11th-century Norman lord. Little is known about him, and he is best remembered by the achievements of his twelve sons. Various legends arose about Tancred, but they have no supporting contemporary evidence that has survived the ages.

Life and marriages

Tancred was a minor landowner in Normandy. Goffredo Malaterra says that he was a knight of very noble lineage, who inherited the village of Hauteville (probably Hauteville-la-Guichard, north-west of Coutances, in Normandy) from his ancestors.[1][2][3] On the other hand, Anna Komnene, in the Alexiad, describes his son Robert as of insignificant origin.[4]

In his youth, Tancred dedicated himself to his military abilities, and jumped through a number of different courts. Supposedly, while residing at the court of Richard II, Duke of Normandy, he went hunting with him, and heroically killed a boar. Instead of being punished (as it was medieval custom that only the duke could slay the hunt’s target), Tancred was praised for his actions. From then on, he served in the duke’s court, commanding a small group of ten knights on his behalf. Aside from this tale, little else is known about him, and he doesn't seem to have had any exceptional characteristic, aside from his persistent fecundity.[2][5]

His first wife was a certain Muriella, whom Malaterra records being "distinguished for her morals and noble birth". When Muriella died, Tancred married Fressenda, whom, according to Malaterra, "in birth and morals was by no means inferior to his first wife". Malaterra specifies the reasons of Tancred's choice to remarry:

Since he was not yet old, he did not feel ready to practice continence, but being an honest man and abhorring illicit relationships, he took a second wife. In fact, remembering the words of [ Paul ] the Apostle: "to avoid fornication, every man should have his own wife, and then the Lord will judge the libertines and adulterers", he preferred to content himself with a legitimate wife rather than be tainted by the embraces of concubines.[2]

Issue

Main article: Hauteville family § Genealogy

Coat-of-arms of Hauteville

With his first wife, Muriella, he had at least five sons:

• Serlo I, succeeded him as Seigneur of Hauteville-la-Guichard[2][6]
• Geoffrey, Count of the Capitanate[2][6]
• William Iron Arm, Count of Apulia (d. 1046)[7][6]
• Drogo, Count of Apulia and Calabria (d. 1051)[7][6]
• Humphrey, Count of Apulia and Calabria (d. 1057)[7][6]

With his second wife, Fressenda,[8] he had at least eight more sons and one daughter:

• Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia and Calabria (d. 1085)[8][6]
• Mauger, count of the Capitanate (d. 1064)[2][6]
• Fressenda, who married Richard I, Prince of Capua[2] [6]
• William, count of the Principate (d. 1080)[2][6]
• Aubrey[2][6]
• Hubert[2][6]
• Tancred[2][6]
• Frumentin[6]
• Roger, count of Sicily (d. 1101)[8][6]

Finally, the Annales of Romuald Guarna state that Tancred had three daughters, but without naming them or stating by which marriage they were born. One of these daughters is the Fressenda named above, who married Richard I of Capua. One of the two remaining daughters is sometimes given the name Beatrice, and has been erroneously identified as the mother of Geoffrey, Count of Conversano. All of the informations regarding her are dubious.[9][10][11]

References

1. Stanley Ferber, Islam and the Medieval West, vol. 2 (1979), p. 46: "the sons of Tancred of Hauteville-le-Guichard, a petty landowner in Normandy..."
2. Norwich, John Julius; Rospigliosi, Elena Lante (2021-11-11). I normanni nel Sud: 1016-1130 (in Italian). Sellerio Editore. ISBN 978-88-389-4288-4.
3. Goffredo Malaterra – De rebus gestis: Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae comitis et Roberti Guiscardi
4. "The Alexiad/Book I - Wikisource, the free online library". en.wikisource.org. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
5. Houts, Elisabeth M. C. Van (2000-12-15). The Normans in Europe. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-4751-0.
6. "SICILY". fmg.ac. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
7. [https://archive.org/details/zeittafelnderdeu00rich "...Wilhelm, Drogo und Humfred, den 3 ältesten Söhnen Tancreds von Hauteville." Zeittafeln der deutschen Geschichte im Mittelalter von der Gründung des fränkischen Reichs bis zum Ausgang der Hohenstaufen mit durchgängiger Erläuterung aus den Quellen. Dr. Gustav Richter. Halle a. S., Verlag- der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses. 1881. Page 58. Accessed 20 August 2023.
8. The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 4, C.1024-c.1198, Part II, ed. David Luscombe and Jonathan Riley-Smith, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 760.
9. Romoaldi Annales 1057, MGH SS XIX, p. 405
10. Guerrieri, G. ´I conti normanni di Bardò e di Brindisi (1092-1130)´, Archivio storico per le province Napoletane, Anno XXVI, Fascicolo II (Naples, 1901), p. 285.
11. Coniglio, Giuseppe. Goffredo normanno, conte di Conversano e signore di Brindisi (PDF) (in Italian).