Petronilla de Grandmesnil
chris phillips
> 8.Revised the descent of Petronilla de Grandmesnil (RIN 860) from her
>great grandfather, Hugh de
>Grandmesnil, to reflect the latest scholarship on this still debated point.
I should be grateful for any references to the latest scholarship on
Petronilla's parentage.
Crouch, 'The Beaumont Twins' (p.91), cites a charter of Petronilla's to
St-Evroult, which commemorates her father by name as William [citing Ctl
St-Evroult, ii, fo 33v], disproving the tentative suggestion in the
complete Peerage that he might have been called Hugh. Crouch says that
there seems to be no other record of this William. I'd be interested to see
the evidence (or the argument) in favour of his being a son of the William
who went to Apulia, rather than a son of Robert, Hugh de Grandmesnil's
eldest son, as suggested by Complete Peerage.
Many thanks
Chris Phillips
Todd A. Farmerie
I don't recall CP naming William as son of Robert. There was a recent
account of the Grandmesnil family and their exploits in Italy. I don't
have the reference handy, but I am sure a quick look at the archives
will turn up the details.
Just off the top of my head, Robert rebelled, and was deprived. William
was the next oldest brother, and perhaps it fell to him in this manner.
taf
chris phillips
>I don't recall CP naming William as son of Robert. There was a recent
>account of the Grandmesnil family and their exploits in Italy. I don't
>have the reference handy, but I am sure a quick look at the archives
>will turn up the details.
>
>Just off the top of my head, Robert rebelled, and was deprived. William
>was the next oldest brother, and perhaps it fell to him in this manner.
Thank you for your response; I think I have tracked down the previous
discussion of this topic, in February 1998, and will have a careful look at
it.
Sorry if my previous message vis-a-vis William being son of Robert was
ambiguous. I only meant that CP suggested that Petronilla's father (unknown
to the authors of the CP article, but now known to have been called
William) was most likely to be a son of Robert.
Admittedly, CP's argument seems to be based entirely on Petronilla's having
inherited the Norman Honor of Grandmesnil, which Robert had inherited from
his father. Obviously, if the Honor had been taken from Robert for
rebellion (or for that matter if his heirs were extinct by the mid-twelfth
century), this argument would lose its force.
Many thanks
Chris Phillips
Cristopher Nash
I suspect that the >account of the Grandmesnil family and their exploits in
Italy< to which Todd refers may be an article (forgive me - I haven't the
piece in front of me) in _1994 - Les Normands en Mediterranée_, Colloque de
Cerisy-la-Salle (Univ. of Caen, direction P Bouet & F Neveux, 1994). See
Chart pp 124-125, accompanying an essay on Grentemesnil fam.
If sheer recency of account were the only criterion, this would leave the
matter a bit more open than Chris (and a lot of us) would like, since it
still holds undetermined which is her father, but asserts him to be one of
the brothers Yves II or Hugues [<-Yves I d. 1102 <-Hugues bef. 1014-1094].
(Yes, the Crouch did seem persuasive; he's been 'casual' sometimes in
reciting previous and even conflicting summaries, but his recourse to a
specific source here was encouraging. There _was_, I have to say, always a
bit of ambiguity in his report, since he called Petronilla 'the heiress'
[p.90], not 'daughter', of William, and said only that the charter
'commemorates him by name' [p.91].) I apologize for not having on hand the
argument put at the colloquium, and am not encouraged by my rough memory
that it was both firm and minimal. Back to the library.
(Chris -- I've had a thought or two more about Aguillon et al., haven't
forgotten; will get back to you as soon as I can unravel my head -- and
notes -- following a stint abroad. Cheers!)
Cris
Richard Borthwick
I am a bit puzzled by at least one of the foregoing remarks. I was under
the possibly mistaken impression that Crouch does not identify that William
who was the last lord of Grandmesnil (and to whom Petronilla was heir) with
the William she names as her father. Crouch points out in p.91 note 140 in
reference to William (P's father) that apart from Pernel's commemoration of
him "there does not seem to be any other record of this William de
Grandmesnil". By comparison William lord of G is relatively well attested.