Richard de Rouen, Vicomte de Rouen

http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/cp/surrey.shtml Some corrections and additions to the Complete Peerage: Volume 12, Part 1: Surrey

Volume 12, Part 1, pages 491-3 (as modified by volume 14):

RODULF DE WARENNE I ... is said to have held land outside the walls of Rouen under Robert I, Duke of Normandy (d. 1035) ... He also held land at Vascoeuil (dept. Eure), which he gave about 1053 to the abbey of St. Pierre des Préaux,(c) and in the pays de Caux, north of Rouen, where he sold 4 churches with tithes to the Holy Trinity in 1059, and gave another church, also with tithes, in 1074. He m. Beatrice, whose mother was almost certainly a sister of Gotmund Rufus DE VASCOEUIL, [and] da. of Tesselin, Vicomte of Rouen.(f) She was living about 1053.

RODULF DE WARENNE II, 1st s. and h., is known only from his subscriptions to two charters of his father for the Holy Trinity of Rouen. As his father's lands near Rouen and in the pays de Caux did not pass to his son William or William's descendants, it is likely that Rodulf suc. to them on his father's death; he m. Emma, whose parentage is unknown.(d)

1. WILLIAM DE WARENNE I was 1st s. of Rodulf II.

• Page 491, note g (continuation on p. 492):
• The entries for Rodulf I and Rodulf II need considerable revision, see "Aspects of Robert of Torigny's Genealogies revisited", K.S.B. Keats-Rohan, Nottingham Med. Studies, vol. 37, 1993, pp. 21-4.
• Page 492, note c:
• Stapleton, Archaeological Journal, vol. iii, p. 11. His 1st wife Beatrice consented. Loyd points out that Vascoeuil had formed part of the ducal demesne (op. cit., p. 98); and it seems likely that the land there was brought in by Beatrice.
• Note f:
• Keats-Rohan, op. cit. above, p. 24. Beatrice is there shown to have probably been a great-niece of Gunnor, 2nd wife of Richard I, Duke of Normandy.
• Page 493, note d:
• See Keats-Rohan, op. cit., p. 22.

Keats-Rohan's suggestion that Beatrice was a great niece of Gunnor must be viewed as somewhat conjectural. It is an attempt to explain Robert de Torigny's statement that William de Warenne I's (unnamed) mother was a niece of Gunnor, which is chronologically difficult because it seems to leave too few generations between Gunnor and William. Keats-Rohan's suggestion relies on the evidence that Beatrice was the daughter of Tesselin, vicomte of Rouen, in conjunction with Robert de Torigny's statement that a (different) niece of Gunnor married a vicomte of Rouen. But he actually specifies Richard, vicomte of Rouen, who was Tesselin's son. (An alternative conjecture might be that William de Warenne's mother Emma was a great niece, rather than a niece, of Gunnor.)

In Keats-Rohan's revised version, the dates originally given in relation to Rodulf I and his supposed 2nd wife, now apply to the marriage of Rodulf II and his wife Emma - they were married in or before 1059, and were both living in 1074 [cf. vol. 12, part 1, p. 492, notes h and i, citing Cart. Ste Trinité, nos xxix and xxxv]. The charter evidence shows that Rodulf II and Emma had an elder son Rodulf III and a younger son William I. The statement about the Warenne lands in Normandy relates to Rodulf III, and should read something like this (with the original conclusion restored): As Rodulf II's lands near Rouen and in the pays de Caux did not pass to his younger son William I or William's descendants, it is likely that his elder son Rodulf III suc. to them on Rodulf II's death; and as part of these lands had passed to the barons of Esneval by 1152, it is likely that Rodulf III married and left issue.

[Stewart Baldwin pointed out Keats-Rohan's revision in June 1996; the problem was subsequently discussed by Alan Wilson, Todd Farmerie and others.]