Roger "the Poitevin" de Montgomery

Notes:

Comte de la Marche.

Roger married Almodis before 1091. Almodis (daughter of Adelbert II and Ponce) died about 1117. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Pontia de la Marche

Notes:

Earl of Shrewsbury. Also styled, variously, as Earl of Arundel, of Chichester, of Sussex, and of Shropshire. Regent in Normandy during the Conquest. A loyal servant to the dukes of Normandy, he became an important administrator in post-Conquest England and Wales, and (following the disgrace of bishop Odo) the richest of William's tenants-in-chief. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography points out that "Alone of all the Conqueror's vassals, Roger de Montgomery gave his name to a British county, appropriately in Wales." He died as a monk.

Roger married Mabel de Bellême about 1050. Mabel (daughter of William I Talvas and Hildeburg) died in Dec 1077 in Bures-sur-Dives, Normandy, France; was buried in Troarn, Calvados, Normandy, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 2 Dec 1079

Notes:

Also called Mabel Talvas; Dame de Alencon, de Seez, and Belleme; Countess of Shrewsbury and Lady of Arundel.

From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

Earl Roger's first wife, Mabel de Bellême, has been depicted unforgettably for posterity by Orderic Vitalis, though that historian never saw her. He describes her as 'a forceful and worldly woman, cunning, garrulous, and extremely cruel', 'a perfidious woman', and 'a cruel woman, who had shed the blood of many and had forcibly disinherited many lords'; and he recounts several stories to her discredit related to him by colleagues at St Evroult. Whatever allowances can be made for Mabel there must have been something particularly aggressive and brutal about her for four of her vassals to ride at night into her castle at Bures [-sur-Dives] and cut off her head as she lay in bed after a bath. Her murderer Hugh Bunel was among those whom she had disinherited and was never caught. The date of the murder must be December 1077, not 1082 as long accepted from a marginal note in the editio princeps of Orderic. There is evidence that Mabel, like a very few other baronial wives, was a tenant-in-chief in England, but no evidence that she ever visited that land or the Montgomery estates there.

Roger married Emma. Emma died after 1067. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Between 1055 and 1060
• Alternate death: 1070

William married Hildeburg. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Hugh married Joscelina d'Equiqueville. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, quoting "a letter written a century later by Ivo, bishop of Chartres, to prevent a marriage within the prohibited degrees", has her as a daughter of Wevie, not her sister Senfrie. We follow Todd A. Farmerie's model, linked from the citation below.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 963
• Alternate death: 1028

Notes:

Seigneur de Belleme and d'Alencon.

Guillaume married Mathilde de Condé-sur-Noireau. Mathilde died about 1033. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

(Unknown) married Senfrie. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Senfria; Seinfreda.

Ivo married Godehilde. Godehilde died after 1005. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Herbastus, Forester of Arque; Arfastus. His actual name is unknown; he appears in history only as the father of several people known to have been siblings.