The Richards of Prenton Family History Website:Information about Bernard II de ST. VALERY

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

Home Page |Surname List |Index of Individuals |InterneTree |Sources

Bernard II de ST. VALERY (d. 14 Oct 1066)

Bernard II de ST. VALERY (son of Gulbert (Advocate) de ST. VALERY and Papia (Papie) de NORMANDIE) died 14 Oct 1066 in Battle of Hastings. He married DOMMART.

Notes for Bernard II de ST. VALERY:
PRESEUMED KILLED AT HASTINGS BUT NOTE BELOW:

BERNARD DE ST.VALERI
The Conqueror and His Companions
by J.R. Planché, Somerset Herald. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1874.

Orderic has supplied us with plenty of material for a memoir of the family of St. Valeri, indifferently written Waleri and Galeri, so many of which were benefactors to his beloved Abbey of Ouche, otherwise St. Evroult, and, as the fleet of Duke William sailed from the port of St. Valery-sur-Somme, the bourg from which they took their name, it would be strange indeed if a "Sire de St. Galeri" had not been found in Wace's catalogue of the companions of the Conqueror.

They did not, however, hold the fief of St. Valeri in their own right, but as hereditary advocates of the abbey, founded there by Lothaire in 613, in which the lordship was vested. To the devotion of the Duke and his barons to its patron saint, the Merovingian Walleric, and the solemn procession of the abbot and monks bearing the shrine which contained his holy relics, was attributed the favourable change of the wind for which William had so long waited.

The Sires of St. Valeri were also connected by marriage with the ducal family, and could claim cousinship by blood with the Conqueror. Gilbert, the Advocate of St. Valeri, married Papia, daughter of Richard II. Duke of Normandy, by his wife, more Danico, of that name. She bore to him two sons, Bernard and Richard. Of Richard I shall speak hereafter. It is with his elder brother that we have first to deal, as he has been unhesitatingly named by M. le Prévost as the "Sire de Galeri" of the Norman poet, though upon what authority I have not been able to discover. Certainly not upon that of Orderic, who, provokingly enough, while most liberal in his information respecting Richard and his descendants, tells us nothing about Bernard except that he was the father of Walter de St.Valery, who was probably the Walter of Domesday, possessing at the time of its compilation, amongst other estates, the extensive manor of Isleworth, in the county of Middlesex, but whether as the heir of his father, on whom they might have been bestowed by the Conqueror, or acquired by himself, either as a reward for service rendered to his sovereign or through some fortunate marriage, we are left to conjecture.

If Bernard was really the companion of the Conqueror at Hastings and Senlac, the former solution of the question is most reasonable, and the possession of the domains by his son Walter has probably been the chief ground for Le Prévost's statement, which Mr. Taylor copies without observation, as well as for that of MM. de Magny and Delisle. Still it is rather extraordinary that the historian of the family should record the military services, the marriages and issue of Richard and his sons, and make no mention of so interesting a fact as the presence of the elder brother Bernard in the expedition which sailed from his own port, and the famous victory in which it resulted.

We must therefore content ourselves perforce with the assurance of Wace, that the Lord of St. Valeri, and those he rode with, demeaned themselves like brave men, and sorely handled all whom their weapons could reach. We hear nothing of him after the Conquest, and he was probably dead when Walter de St. Valery was found seized of the manor of Isleworth. The latter was living in 1097, when, with his son Bernard, he was in the Holy Land, and fought under the banners of Bohemond in the great battle of Dorylaeum.

But Walter de St. Valery was not the only one of the name who held lands in England at the time of the survey.

Children of Bernard II de ST. VALERY and DOMMART are:

+Gautier (Walter) de ST. VALERY, d. Abt. 1061.