General Notes

REFN: 7655AN
The Conqueror and His Companions
by J.R. Planché, Somerset Herald. London: Tin sley Brothers, 1874.
It is with great diffidence that I offer any observations whatever on
this very mysterious family, from whom so many of the noblest ho uses in
England claim a descent.
Wace enumerates amongst the combatants at S enlac, "William ki l'on dit
Crespin," and he has previously mentioned "Cil ki donc gardont
Tillieres," who, if not the same personage, must have been one of the
family, and is presumed by M. le Prévost to have been Gilbert Crispin,
second of that name, brother, according to some genealogists, of William,
who was Seigneur De Bec-en-Caux, and whose name appears in charters of
the da tes of 1080 and 1082. But if brothers, of whom were they the sons?
The late Mr . Stacey Grimaldi, who considered himself a collateral
descendant of the fami ly of Crispin, or Crespin as indifferently written,
took great pains to estab lish the fact, and published in the "Gentleman's
Magazine" for October, 1832, a pedigree, founded on his researches,
differing from that set forth in the appendix to the works of Lanfranc by
D'Achery. His son, the Rev. Alexander B. Grimaldi, of Eastry, Kent, has
most kindly intrusted to me what I may call t he working papers of his
father; but unfortunately they do not throw sufficie nt light on the point
in question. Mr. Stapleton, in his illustrations of the Norman Rolls of
the Exchequer, only deals with the later generations, and Le Prévost, in
his notes on Wace, simply makes a statement differing from that of Mr.
Grimaldi, without citing any evidence in support of it.
According to the latter, Crispinus, Baron of Bec, was the son of
Crispina, daughter of Rol lo, by Grimaldus, Prince of Monaco. By his wife
Heloisc of Guynes and Boulogn e, Crispinus had five sons, one of whom,
Rollo, was the father of Goisfrid De Bec or Marescal, and Toustain Fitz
Rou, the standard-bearer at Hastings. Ano ther, named Gilbert Crispin,
first succeeded his father as Baron of Bec, and had three sons, William,
Gilbert, and Milo, all present at Hastings. The usua l provoking omission
of the names and families of the wives of these noble No rmans renders it
impossible to verify their descent, and deprives genealogy o f half its
interest. In this particular case it is exceedingly deplorable, ,a s any
information respecting the female members of this family would tend to
clear up the mystery still involving those of Malet, Lincoln, Roumare,
Tank erville, and others, as I have already pointed out.
We may fairly consider, ho wever, that William Crispin I was the son of
Gilbert, Baron of Bec and Castel lan of Tillières, who defended that
fortress against the French King Henry, a nd reluctantly surrendered it to
him by command of the boy-duke William at th e commencement of his reign.
According to Père Anselm, who quotes, however, n o authority, his mother
was Gonnor, sister of Fulk d'Aunou, the companion of the Conqueror. She
was also the mother of four other children -- Gilbert, who succeeded his
father as Baron of Bec; Robert, who died without issue; and tw o daughters
-- Emma, married to Pierre De Condé, and Elise, wife of Robert Ma let.
According to the same genealogist, William Crispin who fought at Senlac
married, previous to 1077, Eva, the daughter of Simon De Montfort
l'Aumary, by whom he had William Crispin II, the doughty warrior at the
battle of Bremu le, and Gilbert, who became a monk in the Abbey of Bec,
and eventually Abbot of Westminster.
William Crispin I, the subject of this memoir, we have previou sly heard
of as one of the victorious leaders in the murderous battle of Mort emer,
1054. He must have been a very young man at that time, and probably it
was the first combat of consequence he had ever been engaged in. He was
liv ing in 1082, when he witnessed the foundation charters of the
Conqueror to th e Abbeys of St. Stephen and the Holy Trinity, at