Tancred of Hauteville (c. 980 – 1041) was an 11th-century

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

petty lord about whom little is known. He was a minor noble near

Coutances Coutances () is a commune in the Manche department in Normandy in north-western France. History Capital of the Unelli, a Gaulish tribe, the town was given the name of ''Constantia'' in 298 during the reign of Roman emperor Constantius Chlor ...

in the

Cotentin The Cotentin Peninsula (, ; nrf, Cotentîn ), also known as the Cherbourg Peninsula, is a peninsula in Normandy that forms part of the northwest coast of France. It extends north-westward into the English Channel, towards Great Britain. To its w ...

. Tancred is also known by the achievements of his twelve sons. Various legends arose about Tancred which have no supporting contemporary evidence that has survived the ages.

Ancestors

The

Hauteville family The Hauteville ( it, Altavilla) was a Norman family originally of seigneurial rank from the Cotentin. The Hautevilles rose to prominence through their part in the Norman conquest of southern Italy. By 1130, one of their members, Roger II, was mad ...

was said by later traditions to descend from Hiallt, a Norseman active in 920, who is credited with founding the village of ''Hialtus Villa'' (Hauteville) in the

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

. Tancred is a supposed descendant of Hiallt, from whom the village of Hauteville and the family drew their name. This cannot be identified with certainty, and some modern scholarship favours

Hauteville-la-Guichard Hauteville-la-Guichard () is a commune in the Manche department in Normandy in north-western France (population: 425 in 2006). It is thought to be the original stronghold of the Hauteville family who made their fortunes in southern Italy and Sic ...

over Hauteville in Cotentin.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..."

Family and descendants

With his two wives, he had twelve sons and several daughters, almost all of whom left Normandy for Southern Italy and acquired some prominence there. With his first wife, Muriella, he had five sons and one daughter: * Serlo (stayed in Normandy) *Beatrix (d. 1101), married first to Armand de Mortain, son of

Robert, Count of Eu Robert, Count of Eu and Lord of Hastings (d. between 1089-1093), son of William I, Count of Eu, and his wife Lesceline. Count of Eu and Lord of Hastings. Robert commanded 60 ships in the fleet supporting the landing of William I of England and t ...

, and second to a Roger (family unknown) * Geoffrey, lord of Hauteville, count of

Loritello Loritello was an Italo-Norman county along the Adriatic north of the Gargano, now called Rotello, in the Molise region. It was carved out of the eastern seaboard of the Principality of Benevento following the Battle of Civitate in 1053 by members of ...

(d. 1063) *

William Iron Arm William I of Hauteville (before 1010 – 1046), known as William Iron Arm,Guillaume Bras-de-fer in French, Guglielmo Braccio di Ferro in Italian and Gugghiermu Vrazzu di Ferru in Sicilian. was a Norman adventurer who was the founder of the ...

count of Apulia and Calabria The County of Apulia and Calabria (), later the Duchy of Apulia and Calabria (), was a Norman state founded by William of Hauteville in 1042 in the territories of Gargano, Capitanata, Apulia, Vulture, and most of Campania. It became a duchy wh ...

(d. 1046) * Drogo,

(d. 1051) *

Humphrey Humphrey is both a masculine given name and a surname. An earlier form, not attested since Medieval times, was Hunfrid. Notable people with the name include: People with the given name Medieval period :''Ordered chronologically'' * Hunfrid of ...

(d. 1057) According to the Italian chronicler of the Norman feats in the south,

Amatus of Montecassino Amatus of Montecassino ( la, Amatus Casinensis), (11th century) was a Benedictine monk of the Abbey of Montecassino who is best known for his historical chronicles of his era. His ''History of the Normans'' (which has survived only in its medieval ...

, Tancred was a morally upright man, who would not carry on a sinful relationship and being unable also to live out his life in perfect celibacy, he remarried. With his second wife, Fressenda (or Fredesenda),''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. he had seven more sons and at least one daughter: * Robert Guiscard de Hauteville,

(1057), then duke of Apulia, Calabria and

Sicily Sicily ( it, Sicilia , ) is the list of islands in the Mediterranean, largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. The Strait of Messina divides it from the region of Calabria in Southern Italy. I ...

(d. 1085) * Mauger, (d. 1064), count of the

Capitanate The Province of Foggia ( it, Provincia di Foggia ; Foggiano: ) is a province in the Apulia (Puglia) region of southern Italy. This province is also known as Daunia, after the Daunians, an Iapygian pre-Roman tribe living in Tavoliere plain, an ...

(part of the Province of Foggia, within Apulia) *

William William is a male Male (symbol: ♂) is the sex of an organism that produces the gamete (sex cell) known as sperm, which fuses with the larger female gamete, or ovum, in the process of fertilization. A male organism cannot reproduce sex ...

, count of the

Principate The Principate is the name sometimes given to the first period of the Roman Empire from the beginning of the reign of Augustus in 27 BC to the end of the Crisis of the Third Century in AD 284, after which it evolved into the so-called Dominate. ...

(d. 1080) *Aubrey (Alberic or Alvared, ''Alveredus'' in Latin, sometimes called Alvred or Alfred) (stayed in Normandy) *Humbert (Hubert) (stayed in Normandy) *Tancred (stayed in Normandy) * Roger de Hauteville, count of

from 1062 (d. 1101) *Fressenda, who married

Richard I Richard I (8 September 1157 – 6 April 1199) was King of England from 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, and Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and was ove ...

(dead in 1078), count of

Aversa Aversa () is a city and ''comune'' in the Province of Caserta in Campania, southern Italy, about 24 km north of Naples. It is the centre of an agricultural district, the ''Agro Aversano'', producing wine and cheese (famous for the typical buf ...

and prince of Capua

Other Tancred of Hauteville

Tancred's great-grandson, also bearing the same name,

Tancred, Prince of Galilee Tancred (1075 – December 5 or December 12, 1112) was an Italo-Norman leader of the First Crusade who later became Prince of Galilee and regent of the Principality of Antioch. Tancred came from the house of Hauteville and was the great-grandson ...

, was a leader in the

First Crusade The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic rul ...

. The line of descent was: *Tancred the elder *son

Robert Guiscard Robert Guiscard (; Modern ; – 17 July 1085) was a Norman adventurer remembered for the conquest of southern Italy and Sicily. Robert was born into the Hauteville family in Normandy, went on to become count and then duke of Apulia and Calabria ...

(Duke Robert d'Hauteville) *granddaughter Emma of Hauteville *great-grandson Tancred of Hauteville, who became

Prince of Galilee The principality of Galilee was one of the four major seigneuries of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, according to 13th-century commentator John of Ibelin, grandson of Balian. The direct holdings of the principality centred around Tiberias, ...

and regent of the

Principality of Antioch The Principality of Antioch was one of the crusader states created during the First Crusade which included parts of modern-day Turkey and Syria. The principality was much smaller than the County of Edessa or the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It extende ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hauteville, Tancred Of 11th-century Normans 980s births 1041 deaths Tancred