Roger DE MONTGOMERY
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Roger DE MONTGOMERY II (1022-1094)

Name: Roger DE MONTGOMERY 1,2,3,4
Sex: Male
Name Suffix: II
Father: Roger DE MONTGOMERY (998?-aft1040)
Mother: Josceline DE PONT-AUDEMER HARCOURT (975?-1068)

Individual Events and Attributes

Birth 1022 St-Germain-de-Montgomery, Calvados, Norway
Title Earl of Shrewsbury, Viscount of the Hiesmois, Seigneur of Montgommeri in Normandy
Occupation frm 1074 to 1094 (age 51-72) Earl of Shrewsbury
Child Count 10
Marriage Count 2
Death 27 Jul 1094 (age 71-72) Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England

Marriage

Spouse Mabel TALVAS (1026?-1079)
Children Mathilda DE MONTGOMERY ( - )
Arnulph DE MONTGOMERY ( - )
Sybil DE MONTGOMERY ( - )

Individual Note

Roger de Montgomerie (died 1094), also known as Roger the Great de Montgomery, was the first Earl of Shrewsbury. His father was also Roger de Montgomerie, and was a relative, probably a grandnephew, of the Duchess Gunnor, wife of Duke Richard I of Normandy. The elder Roger had large holdings in central Normandy, chiefly in the valley of the Dives, which the younger Roger inherited.

 

Roger was one of William the Conqueror's principal counsellors. He did not fight in the initial invasion of England in 1066, instead staying behind to help govern Normandy [Some controversy here- Neil Ludlow (Pembroke Castle) states the Earl led the Norman right flank at the Battle of Hastings].[citation needed] Afterwards he was entrusted with land in two places critical for the defense of England, receiving the rape of Arundel at the end of 1067 (or in early 1068), and in November 1071 he was created Earl of Shrewsbury; a few historians believe that while he received the Shropshire territories in 1071 he was not created Earl until a few years later.

 

Roger was thus one of the half dozen greatest magnates in England during William the Conqueror's reign. William gave Earl Roger nearly all of what is now the county of West Sussex, which at the time of the Domesday Survey was the Rape of Arundel.[1] The Rape of Arundel was eventually split into two rapes, one continuing with the name Rape of Arundel and the other became the Rape of Chichester.[1] Besides the 83 manors, in Sussex, his possessions also included seven-eighths of Shropshire which was associated with the earldom of Shrewsbury, he had estates in Surrey (4 manors), Hampshire (9 manors), Wiltshire (3 manors), Middlesex (8 manors), Gloucestershire (1 manor), Worcestershire (2 manors), Cambridgeshire (8 manors), Warwickshire (11 manors) and Staffordshire (30 manors).[2] The income from Roger’s estates would amount to about £2000 per year, in 1086 the landed wealth for England was around £72,000, so it would have represented almost 3% of the nation’s GDP.[3]

 

After William I's death in 1087, Roger joined with other rebels to overthrow the newly crowned King William II in the Rebellion of 1088. However, William was able to convince Roger to abandon the rebellion and side with him. This worked out favourably for Roger, as the rebels were beaten and lost their land holdings in England.

 

Roger first married Mabel of Bellême, who was heiress to a large territory on both sides of the border between Normandy and Maine. The medieval chronicler Orderic Vitalis paints a picture of Mabel of Bellême being a scheming and cruel woman.[4] She was murdered by Hugh Bunel and his brothers, who in December 1077? rode into her castle of Bures-sur-Dive and cut off her head as she lay in bed.[4][5] Their motive for the murder being that Mabel had deprived them of their paternal inheritance.[6] Roger and Mabel had 10 children:

 

By Mabel Talvas (Mabel of Bellême).

- Roger Montgomery 1066

- Robert of Bellême 1052 c. 1130 3rd Earl of Shrewsbury

- Hugh of Montgomery 1098 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury

- Roger the Poitevin ca. 1065 before 1140

- Philip 'the Grammarian' 1099 Died while on crusade at the Siege of - Antioch

- Arnulf of Montgomery c. 1068

- Emma, abbess of Almenchêches

- Matilda m. Robert, Count of Mortain

- Mabel m. Hugh of Châteauneuf-en-Thimerais

- Sibyl m. Robert Fitzhamon

 

Roger then married Adelaide de Le Puiset, by whom he had one son, Everard, who entered the Church.

 

After his death, Roger's estates were divided. The eldest surviving son, Robert, received the bulk of the Norman estates (as well as his mother's estates); the next son, Hugh, received the bulk of the English estates and the Earldom of Shrewsbury. After Hugh's death the elder son Robert inherited the earldom.

 

NOTES:

1 a b Salzmann.'The rape of Chichester: Introduction', A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 4: The Rape of Chichester (1953), pp. 1-2. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=41682 Date accessed: 08 August 2010

2 Horsfield. History of Sussex. pp.76 - 77

3 Domesday Pase

4 a b Vitalis.The ecclesiastical history of Orderic Vitalis, Volume 2 Book 3. pp.49-55

5 Vitalis. The ecclesiastical history of Orderic Vitalis, Volume 2 Book 3. Footnote pp.54-55. Discussion on date of death of Mabel of Bellême, 1077 and 1079 being the most likely.

6 Allen Brown. Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman studies: 1978. p.41.

 

SOURCES:

Allen Brown, R.; Majorie Chibnall (1979). Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman studies: 1978. London: Boydell Press. ISBN 0851151078.

J. F. A. Mason, "Roger de Montgomery and His Sons (1067–1102)", Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series vol. 13 (1963) 1-28

Horsfield, Thomas Walker (1835 Facsimile Ed 2009). The History, Antiquities and Topography of the County of Sussex Vol I. Country Books. ISBN 978-1-906789-16-9.

"Earl Roger - Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England". www.pase.ac.uk. http://www.pase.ac.uk. Retrieved 11 July 2010.

"Genealogy of Roger of Shrewsbury". rootsweb.com. http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=maclaren&id=I06620. Retrieved 29 December 2010.

Kathleen Thompson, "The Norman Aristocracy before 1066: the Example of the Montgomerys", Historical Research 60 (1987) 251-263

Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis Lines: 124-26, 185-1

Stirnet: Montgomery01

Vitalis, Oderic (1975). Majorie Chibnall. ed. The ecclesiastical history of Orderic Vitalis, Volume 2 Book 3.. Oxford: OUP. ISBN 0198222327.5

Sources

1Weis, Frederick Lewis & Sheppard, Walter Lee, Jr, "Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America before 1700: Lineages from Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, Robert the Strong, and other Historical Individuals". p 169, 178-3; 175, 185-1.
2Moriarity, George Andrews, "The Plantagenet Ancestry" (Genealogical Publishing Comp, Baltimore, 1928 (reproduced 1993)). p 44; ES III, 4/637,694B. Assessment: Primary evidence.
3George Edward Cokayne, "The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, or Dormant, Volume 6" (London: St. Catherine Press, 1910). CP III: 427-7, XI: 687.
4"rootsweb.com". http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=:1899347&id=I517574334 .
5"Wikipedia". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_de_Montgomery.