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Person Info

• Name: Gundred
• Sex: F
• Death: 27 May 1085 in Castle Acre, Norfolk ^d
• Burial: Chapter House, Lewes ^u


Parents:

• Father:
  
• Gherbod The Fleming, Advocate Of St. Bertins

Family:
Marriage:

• William De Warrene, Earl Of Surrey on 1070 .^m1
  
• William De Warrene, Earl Of Surrey Birth: Abt 1055 in Varenne, Seine-Martime, Cant Bellencombre Death: 24 Jun 1088 in Lewes

Children:

1. William II De Warrene, Earl Of Surrey Birth: 1071 Death: 11 May 1138
2. Reginald De WARENNE Birth: 2 Death: Abt 1106
3. Edith De WARENNE

Bibliography

Sources for birth and parent Information

father:

[Ref: CP XII/1 p494, Douglas WmConqueror p267, Richardson RoyalAnc v3p93, Weis MC #158],

brother:

Gerbod the Fleming [Ref: CP XII/1 p494, Keats-Rohan DD p777, Keats-Rohan DP p480, Richardson RoyalAnc v5p272]

Gherbod Earl of Cheater [Ref: Paget HRHCharles p170]

Gherbod Earl of Chester [Ref: Sanders Baronies p128(12)]

Sources with Inaccurate birth and parent Information

parents:

William the Conqueror (#10326) & Matilda of Flanders (#10327) [Ref: Foss Judges p704, Wurts MCBarons p205]

Sources for death Information

date:

[Ref: CP XII/1 p494, DNB v23p338, ES III.4 #699, Holloway WENTWORTH p27, Keats-Rohan DD p777, Keats-Rohan DP p480, Moriarty Plantagenet p184, Paget HRHCharles p170, Watney WALLOP #1026, Weis MC #158]

1085 [Ref: DNB v59p373, Wagner PedigreeProgress #46],

place:

[Ref: CP XII/1 p494, ES III.4 #699, Keats-Rohan DP p480, Watney WALLOP #1026]

Sources for burial Information

place:

[Ref: CP XII/1 p494, Keats-Rohan DP p480]

Lewes priory [Ref: Keats-Rohan DD p777]

Sources with Information about marriage to William De Warrene, Earl Of Surrey

date:

[Ref: ES III.4 #699]

before 1077 [Ref: DNB v23p338, Weis MC #158]

first marriage of William [Ref: CP XII/1 p494, Keats-Rohan DP p480],

names:

[Ref: Sanders Baronies p128(12)],

child:

[Ref: CP IV AppH p671, CP XII/1 p495, DNB v59p373, ES III.4 #699, Holloway WENTWORTH p27, Keats-Rohan DD p776, Keats-Rohan DD p777, Keats-Rohan DP p480, Moriarty Plantagenet p151, Moriarty Plantagenet p184, Richardson RoyalAnc v3p93, Wagner PedigreeProgress #46, Watney WALLOP #1026, Weis AR7 #50, Weis AR7 #82, Weis MC #158]

Research Notes:
daughter of Gherbod the Fleming [Ref: Weis MC #158]

brother of Gherbod Earl of Chester [Ref: Sanders Baronies p128(12)]

[??] step-daughter of William the Conquerer [Ref: Holloway WENTWORTH p27]

was called "daughter of the Conqueror," although no evidence was advanced. Elsewhere she is called a sister of Gherbod the Fleming, a child of Mathilda (William's Queen) by an earlier marriage, or her bastard, and lastly a legitimate child of William and Mathilda. These identifications are now disproved; and it is thougth that her father may have been Gerbod, heriditary advocate of the Abbey of St. Bertin at St. Omer. [Ref: Sheppard RoyalByeBlowsI p95]

an attempt has lately been made to prove that she was the daughter of Matilda by a former marriage with Gerbodo, an avoue of St Bertin, at St Omer (Archaeol Journ iii 1, 26), but the hypothesis is fully and satisfactorily overturned by an able paper in the 'Archaeologis (xxxii, 108). [Ref: Foss Judges p704]

27 May 1085: died in childbirth [Ref: Keats-Rohan DD p777]

at one time it was held that when William sought her hand, Matilda was already the wife of a certain Gerbod, by whom she had a daughter, who later became the wife of William of Warenne, the first Earl of Surrey. This however, has now been finally disproved, and it is in the hightest degree improbable that Matilda was married to anyone before the Conqueror. Further details and sources in Appendix C [Ref: Douglas WmConqueror p76]

long supposed to hae been a daughter of William the Conqueror and his queen Matilda of Flanders, or of Matilda by an earlier marriage with Gerbod, advocate of St. Bertin. There is however no contemporary evidence for either of these hypotheses, while there is a good deal that tells strongly, though indiretly, against both. All that is really known is that she was sister to Gerbod the Fleming, Earl of Chester 1070-71, and therefore probably daughter of another Gerbod who was advocate of St. Bertin 1026-67. [Ref: DNB v23p338]

"Ordericus Vitalis, an old chronicler, who wrote a century after the event, asserts that Gundreda was sister of one Gherbord, a Fleming, and in this is followed by Dugdale, Mr. Stapleton, F.S.A., and Mr. Freeman, author of "The Norman Conquest", notwithstanding the almost unanimous opinion of the old genealogists and chroniclers, that she was the daughter of William the Conqueror and his queen Matilda....Mr. Blaauw, in "Archoeologia" states that Ordericus wrote his chronicle when a very old man, that in matters of royal pedigree he has fallen into numerous acknowledged errors;...so that in the face of the generally-received opinion, Ordericus's statement is discounted. Sir George Duckett, Bart., who has made a special study of the Charters of Lewes, has produced evidence to the fact that Gundreda is described as Matilda's daughter, and the queen does not seem to have had a husband previous to William the Conqueror, to whom she came as a young, unmarried girl....Among the benefactors of Lewes Priory, Matilda is described as the mother of King Henry and of the Countess Gundreda, while in the Charter of William I of the Manor of Walton, in Norfolk, to Lewes Priory he calls Gundreda his daughter (filioe meoe)....Again in the Ledger Book of Lewes, speaking of William de Warrenne, it is said he married the Conqueror's daughter (conjus filiam desponsavit)....so that we are disposed to accept the conclusion of Sir H. Ellis in his introduction to Domesday Book that Gundreda was really daughter of the Conqueror."
- A History and Genealogy of the Warren Family, pp. 5-6, by Rev. Thomas Warren, F.R.S.A. Ireland, printed for private circulation 1902. [Ref: SFulton100 SGM 12/31/1997-212937]

See C. T. Clay, *Early Yorkshire Charters*, vol VIII, appendix A (pp. 40-46) for the proof that Gundred, wife of William de Warenne, was not a child of William the Conqueror, or of his wife. She was, instead, a sister of Gerbod the Fleming, Earl of Chester, and possibly a daughter of Gerbod, hereditary advocate of the abbey of St. Bertin at St. Omer. This was published more than seventy years ago, but apparently not everybody has kept up. [Ref: William Reitwiesner SGM 4/8/1997]

The 1085 charter ["William de Warenne calls in 1085 Queen Mathilde the mother of his wife."] was spurious. This is clear from both internal and external evidence. As William Addams Reitwiesner pointed out in a previous post, there is a very detailed discussion of this in Early Yorkshire Charters, v. 8, which covers the Honour of Warenne.
The motivation for making Gundred daughter of William the Conqueror was to connect Lewes Priory with a famous origin. The spurious 1085 charter you refer to was part of their foundation charter, which itself is spurious. Many foundation charters are spurious, such as St. Werburg in Chester, St. Mary's Tyntern, co. Monmouth, etc. So one has to examine the internal and external evidence carefully.
Dugdale, writing in the seventeenth century, was not foolish enough to follow the erroneous account of Gundred's parentage in his Baronage (1:74). Citing Orderic, he stated simply she was "Sister of Gherbode, a Fleming, to whom King William the First had given the City and Earldom of Chester [Rex Guillelmus ... et Guillelmo de Guarenna, qui Gundreda, sororem Gherbodi conjugem habebat, dedit Sutregiam. Orderic, ii, 221.].'
So if Dugdale was not led astray, it was simply the aspirations and stupidity of later scholars that carried them off onto the wrong path. The Chronicle of Hyde Abbey (Roll Series, p. 296), says of the Earl of Chester, "Quo tempore comes Cistrensis decessit Gerbodo, frater Gondradae comitissae. Flandriamque veniens...." So one main argument against a connection with the Conqueror or his wife was that they, as very important people, were completely omitted in these references (odd indeed if you are familiar with such source material).
Another main argument was a discovery of Chester Waters, published in 1884. Archbishop Anselm had written Henry I (about 1107) stating that one of the kIng's daughters should not be married to William de Warenne because they were distantly related [cum ipse et filia vestra ex una parte sint cognati in quarta generatione, et ex altera in sexta (one was fourth in descent from a common ancestor, the other sixth)]. If Gundred had been Queen Maud's daughter, her son would have been first cousin of King Henry's daughter. That would have been the relationship objected to in 1107 if it were the fact, not some distant connection.
The English historian Freeman (who had a high reputation for his day, but that has not stood the test of time) finally admitteded false the theory that Gundred was daughter of the Conqueror or his wife Queen Maud in the English Historical Review (1888). He examined the Lewes documents afresh "and stated that there was no ground either for the old belief that Gundreda was the daughter of king William and queen Maud, or ... that she was the daughter of the queen but not the daughter of the king.... There is nothing to show that Gundreda was the daughter either of King William or Queen Matilda; there is a great deal to show that she was not."
EYC 8:43-44 (and attached appendices) summarizes the internal evidence of this (ONE, not two or more) charter that caused the controversy.
(1) It is a document from a fifteenth-century chartulary purporting to be the foundation charter of Lewes priory, and states, "pro salute domine mee Matildis regine matris uxoris mee." ["This document is not the transcript of a genuine charter; and there is strong evidence to show that it was the copy of a compilation of a later date."]

(2) "In a genuine charter of the Conqueror to Lewes priory there is an erasure after the mention of Gundreda over which had been written in a later hand the words "filie mee." In other words, it was added to an original charter (yes, they do sometimes exist) at a later date.
(3) There is actually a genuine charter dated c. 1078-1082 which predates the supposed foundation charter (original in Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale. Ecole des Chartes, lithograph facsimiles, no. 549), in which William de Warenne and his wife Gundreda give the abbey of Cluny land and the church of St. Pancras, at Lewes, with the assent of King William I (who retained his lordship therein, as holder in chief). It is signed with the crosses of "Willelmi regis Anglonorum, M[athildis] regine Anglorum, Willelmi comitis filii regis, Willelmi de Warenna, Gundrede uxoris W. de Warenna, Robert de Bellomonte" and others, but no mention of relationship between William de Warenne and his wife and William the Conqueror, his wife or son William is made. This is the genuine foundation charter, and predates the forgery. "The latest date for the present charter is 1083, when queen Maud died. Another charter dated 1081-3 (EYC 8:56-7, no. 4) is a confirmation by William I of the manor of Heacham, co. Norfolk (held by William de Warenne) given to Lewes priory to pray for the souls of King Edward, count Robert the king's father, the king himself and his wife queen Maid, his sons and successors, and then seperately for the souls of William de Warenne and Gundreda his wife. William II also later confirmed this (no. 5).
(4) So the fictitious foundation charter of 1085 was not the first or even second charter. "A detailed examination of its contents confirms the suspicions which are invited by its general character and trend. After an invocation of the Trinity it proceeds to a discursive account of how William and his wife went to Cluny" [etc.] and "the grantor had caused king William II in his council at Winchester to confirm the charter and witness it by the sign of the cross with his own hand and by the signs of the bishops, earls and barons then with him. There are in fact no subscriptions. Speaking generally it is difficult to conceive anything more dissimilar in form and tone to the genuine eleventh-century charters which have come down to us."
Several general tests are then applied to the charter. "The first discloses an anachronism which cannot be explained away, and which is fatal to the authenticity of the charter. The grantor states that after the death of Gundreda his wife he gave to the monks of Lewes the manor of Heacham in Norfolk ... and that King William II had confirmed the gift.... But [in the actual original which I referred to above] it is there stated that Heacham was to be possessed by the monks as William de Warenne held it on the day when he was alive and dead." So the fictitious charter says that William de Warenne himself was alive when King William II confirmed it, but the original confirmation of William II which does survive states that William de Warenne was dead. There is further discussion of internal evidence which also proves the foundation charter of 1085 to be spurious, but I will not go on here.
Further evidence of the fraud of the account in the Lewes Chartulary (which was compiled in 1444, but there is a copy at the Biblioteque National dated 1417) is that in its account for the year 1085 it records, "Obiit Gundrad Cometissa." Yet her husband was not made an Earl until 1088.
The point to be made in all of this is that the 1085 charter purporting Gundred to be daughter of William the Conqueror is spurious. It has all the hallmarks of being a later invention. The TWO charters we have discussed from the Bradenstoke Cartulary are completely different. They HAVE been examined on the basis of external and internal evidence, and there is no reason to believe they are not genuine. They meet all the criteria. To question them, you need a reason why. [Ref: Paul Reed SGM 3/11/1998-A]



Pedigree of Gundred
 /-----Gherbod The Fleming, Advocate Of St. Bertins
Gundred



Descendants of Gundred

2nd generation


3rd generation


4th generation


5th generation