Gundrada (Normandie) de Warenne

Born [date unknown] in Flanders [uncertain]

Descendants

Died 27 May 1085 in Castle Acre, Norfolk, England

Biography

Gundred (Gundreda, Gundrada etc.) was Flemish, and probably a relative of the advocates of Saint-Bertin, and more distantly of the counts of Flanders. It has been suggested that she and her brother Frederic were already land-holders in England before the Norman invasion of 1066.^[1][2]

The medieval Hyde Chronicle, also known as the Warenne Chronicle says, when read together with the contemporary writings of Orderic Vitalis, that Gundred the wife of William (I) de Warenne was a sister of Gerbod the Earl of Chester, who returned to Flanders in 1071.^[3][4] According to her tombstone, she was born to a line of "dukes". This could refer to different families, but two are worth commenting on:

• The family of the counts or margraves of Flanders were described this way on the tomb of her contemporary Queen Mathilde, the wife of William the conqueror.^[3]
• This can not refer to the line of the Dukes and counts or dukes of Normandy, because when Gundred's son was prohibited from the king's daughter it was on the basis of them having a much more distant relationship.^[5]

Gundrada, Gerbod and Frederic may have been the children of Gerbod, the advocate of St Bertin, 1026-67.^[6]

Gundrada married William de Warrene before 1077, as in that year the first prior of St Pancras at Lewes was appointed, and Gundrada and William had founded the priory together.^[6]

Gundrada and William had children, and Orderic confirms that at least the sons were both children of Gundrada^[7]:

1. William, second earl of Warenne and Surrey,^[6] died in 1138;
2. Rainald, second son, was old enough to command troops in 1090,^[6] inherited lands from his mother in Flanders and died before 1118;
3. Edith, who was married to 1) Gerald de Gournay, and 2) Drogo of Moncey;^[6]

Dugdale claimed they had another daughter who married to Erneis de Colungis or Coluncis, but the daughter's son, Erneis who entered the monastery of St Evroul before 1089, was too old to be Gundrada's grandson;^[6]

According to a tradition at Lewes priory, Gundrada died in child-birth on 27 May 1085 at Castle Acre.^[6] However, the surviving document we have contains mistakes and was written centuries later.^[8]

She was buried in the chapter-house at Lewes. The burial location of Gundrada and her husband, William, was lost until 1845-47 when the railway to Brighton was built across the priory site. Among the finds were lead caskets inscribed WILLEMS and GUNDRADA respectively containing bones. Also found was the black marble tombstone of Gundrada. The bones were reburied in the parish church of St. John the Baptist, Southover High Street in Lewes, East Sussex. Most of the inscription on her tombstone, which begins with Stirps Gundrada ducum has worn away, and the black marble tombstone has been relocated to St John's Church, Southover (Lewes).^[6]

--- Final and Conclusive Evidence of Parentage---

Ordericus Vitalis names her sister of Gherbod the Fleming, 1st Earl of Chester, but G. F. Duckett states that she was his foster-sister and she was the eldest daughter of Queen Matilda & William the Conqueror. ^[9]

Sources

1. ↑ C. P. Lewis, "Warenne, Gundrada (d. 1085)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
2. ↑ Gundrada's and Frederic's holdings in 1066:
   • PASE project: https://domesday.pase.ac.uk/Domesday?op=5&personkey=39967; https://domesday.pase.ac.uk/Domesday?op=6&filterString=frederic
   • Open Domesday project: https://opendomesday.org/name/gundrada/; https://opendomesday.org/name/frederic/
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} Elisabeth M. C. Van Houts, Rosalind Love eds., The Warenne (Hyde) Chronicle, Appendices https://books.google.be/books?id=bjAdPwEb81IC
4. ↑ http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/families/gundred/gundocs.shtml#departure
5. ↑ http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/families/gundred/gundocs.shtml#anselm
6. ↑ ^{6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7} Leslie Stephen, and Sidney Lee, ed., Dictionary of national biography, Archive.org, Vol. XXIII Gray-Haighton, (London: Smith, Elder, & co., 1890), accessed 14 July 2014, https://archive.org/stream/dictionaryofnati23stepuoft#page/338/mode/2up pp.338-9.
7. ↑ http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/families/gundred/gundocs.shtml#1088
8. ↑ http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/families/gundred/gundocs.shtml#1085
9. ↑ "Gundreda De Warenne ; Final and Conclusive Evidence", Volume15. Editor: G. F. Duckett Yorkshire Archaeological Journal Pages 428-433. (1900) Printed by John Whitehead & Sons for the Yorkshire Archaeological Society Leeds, England Digital Image: [1]

To be used in future versions:

• C.T. Clay, Early Yorkshire Charters, volume 8 - The Honour of Warenne (1949).
• L.C. Loyd, "The Origin of the Family of Warenne", in Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, vol. xxxi, pp. 97-113. https://archive.org/details/YAJ0311934/page/106/mode/2up

See also:

• Rev Mandell Creighton MA LLD, ed., Notes and Documents, the Parentage of Gundrada, Wife of William of Warren, Archive.org, The English Historical Review, III, (London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1888), accessed 14 July 2014, https://archive.org/stream/englishhistorica03londuoft#page/680/mode/2up pp.680-701.
• William de Warenne and Gundrada, Arch Expo, Franco-British Cooperation Project, East Sussex City Council, http://www.archexpo.fr/en/timelinr/william-de-warenne-and-gundrada/ Accessed 22 August 2023.
• Wikipedia:Gundred, Countess of Surrey vandalised at time of writing. (She was never Countess of Surrey, since she was dead before her husband was created Earl.)
• Weis, Frederick Lewis, Sheppard Jr eds, Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America before 1700, 7th ed., Walter Lee Publication, Baltimore, MD, 1992
• A rant.

Haven't located a profile for her brother Gerbod the Fleming, Earl of Chester, but it could be lurking somewhere.