General Notes

HUGH D'AVRANCHES, EARL OF CHESTER
The Conqueror and His Companions
by J.R. PlanchÈ, Somerset Herald. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1874.

Richard Goz, Vicomte d'Avranches, or more properly of the Avranchin, was one of the sons of the aforesaid Turstain, by his wife Judith de Montanolier, and appears not only to have avoided being implicated in the rebellion of his father, but obtained his pardon and restoration to the VicomtÈ of the Hiemois, to which at his death he succeeded, and to have strengthened his position at court by securing the hand of Emma de Conteville, one of the daughters of Herluin and Herleve, and half-sister of his sovereign. By this fortunate marriage he naturally recovered the lands forfeited by his father and bestowed on his mother-in-law, and acquired also much property in the Avranchin, of which he obtained the VicomtÈ, in addition to that of the Hiemois.

There was every reason, therefore, that he should follow his three brothers-in-law in the expedition to England, if not prevented by illness or imperative circumstances. He must have been their senior by some twenty years, but still scarcely past the prime of life, and his son Hugh a stripling under age, as his mother, if even older than her brothers Odo and Robert, could not have been born before 1030, and if married at sixteen, her son in 1066 would not be more than nineteen at the utmost. Mr. Freeman, who places the marriage of Herleve with Herluin after the death of Duke Robert in 1035, would reduce this calculation by at least six years, rendering the presence of her grandson Hugh at Senlac more than problematical.

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Crispin, M 1969 (pp. 79-80) is no doubt incorrect in showing Emma de Conteville as Richard's wife.  Moriarty, 1985 (p. 11) says the marriage is probably unfounded.