Re: Val-es-dunes debunked

["John S. Quarterman" <jsq@quarterman.org>]

>
>http://sinclair.quarterman.org/timeline.html
>http://sinclair.quarterman.org/sinclair/history/med/battleofvalesdunes.html
>     states; 1047 Battle of Val-es-Dunes St. Clairs vs. William the Bastard
>Hamo and Walderne St. Clair killed.

I have added this new material about the battle of Val-es-Dunes to the
above web pages.

>E.A. Freeman was definitively William's principal panegyrist. He makes no
>memtion of any St Clair rebels.

It's not clear why he should, since surnames were not in common use then.

In any case, in the previous writeups, Laurel never says that Walderne
was at Val-es-Dunes.  Niven apparently did say that.

>Hamon was killed Val-es-dunes he was Lord of Creully, Torigny, Evrecy and
>Thaon. He was not the Comte (Earl) of Corbeil or Mortain.
>The first three Counts were;
>(1)    996 to 1032 Mauger de Normandie, comte de Mortain et de Corbeil
>(2)   1032 to 1048 Guillaume 1er de Normandie, surnommé Werleng ou Guerleng,
>comte de Mortain et de Corbeil
>(3)   1049 to 1104 Robert 1er de Conteville, comte de Mortain et de
>Cornouailles

This is very interesting, but I'm not sure who said he was the Comte
of Crobeil or Mortain, or what that has to do with anything.  Please
clarify.

>Le nom de Thaon apparaît très tôt dans les archives de Normandie.
>Hamon-aux-dents, seigneur de Creully, de Torigny, d'Evrecy et de Thaon fut
>l'un des féodaux rebelles lors du soulèvement qui fut mâté par Guillaume le
>Bâtard à Val-es-Dunes (1047). Comme le rappelait Léchaudé d'Anisy dans sa
>Notice historique sur la baronnie et l'église de Thaon (1) il est mentionné
>par Wace dans son Roman de Rou.

Is this French passage a quotation?  If so, from which source?

>(The name of Thaon appears very early in archives of Normandy. Hamon of the
>Teeth, Lord of Creully, Torigny, Evrecy and Thaon was one of the feudal
>rebels at the time of the uprising that was defeated by William the Bastard
>at Val - es-dunes (1047).  Léchaudé of Anisy in his notes on the barony and
>the church of Thaon  it is mentioned by Wace  Roman de Rou.)
>His father was  Malger  his Mother: Coeur-en-Auge

Laurel said his father was Mauger; presumably the same person.

She also wrote that Mauger's father was Richard I.  What about this?

>In 1035, Robert, Duke of Normandy died. Although William was illegitimate,
>he was Robert's only living son, and so inherited the father's title.
>Gilbert, Count of Brionne, became William's guardian. A number of Norman
>barons would not accept an illegitimate son as their leader and in 1040 an
>attempt was made to kill William. The plot failed by they did manage to kill
>Gilbert.
>
>William was a Norman born and bred.  William's cousin Guy of Burgundy, his
>rival was in every sense a Frenchman.

Well, except for being Burgundian....

> His connexion with the ducal house was
>on distaff side, but uncontested legitimacy.

What was the connection?  Was Guy a son of a daughter of Richard_III?
Or of a daughter of Richard_II?

> This gave him an excuse for
>claiming the duchy in opposition to the bastard.. William after the death of
>Gilbert, gave the island fortress of Brionne in the Risle to Guy. The
>partition of the duchy was Guy's aim. William was to be dispossessed; Guy
>was to be duke in the lands east of Dive; the great lords of Western
>Normandy were to be left independent. St Clair fiefs lay to the North and
>East of a line from  Rouen to Caen. The lords of the Bessin and the Cotentin
>revolted, their leader being Neal, Viscount of Saint-Sauveur in the
>Cotentin.

The location of these lands is interesting, but supporters of a different
duke might come from anywhere.

>The victory at Val-es-dunes was decisive, and the French King, whose help
>had done so much to win it, left William to follow it up. He met with but
>little resistance except at the stronghold of Brionne. Guy himself vanishes
>from Norman history. William had now conquered his own duchy, and conquered
>it by French help. For once King Henry had kept his word.
>
>The Conqueror's  battle at Val-es-dunes was a tourney of horsemen on an open
>table-land just within the land of the rebels between Caen and Mezidon.
>William with the aid of Henry, King of France, William gained a great
>victory at Val-ès-Dunes, which led, to the capture of the two strong castles
>of Alençon and Domfront.

Very interesting.  There seem to be more questions.

>Sinclair
>
>REF: Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest, III, IV, V (Oxford, 1870-76);
>see also
>William the Conqueror E.A. Freeman 1913 Macmillan and Co, London
> Lingard, History of England, I (London, 1849);
>Davis, England under the Normans and Angevins (London, 1905);
>Adams in Political History of England, II (London, 1905);
>Hunt in Dictionary of Nat. Biography, s. v.;
>Stenton, William the Conqueror (London, 1908);
>Dupont, Etudes Anglo-Françaises (Saint-Servan, 1908)..
>Léchaudé D'Anisy, " Notice historique sur la baronnie et l'église de Thaon

[ Excess quotations omitted. ]

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