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Emma of Ivry, c. 1008–1080

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Medieval Elite Women and the Exercise of Power, 1100–1400

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Abstract

Emma of Ivry (c. 1008–1080)—wife of Osbern the Steward, mother of William fitzOsbern, and cousin of the Norman dukes—has never been the subject of a study. This biography shows that Emma was not a peripheral figure to her male kin, but a central agent who actively worked to maintain the ducal family’s power in Normandy, particularly during the minority of William the Conqueror in the 1040s. Emma served as guardian for William, her sons, and ducal kin; ruled her lands as a lord; and finished her career as a lord and ducal representative in Rouen as abbess of Saint-Amand. Emma’s life shows the many ways that women exercised power within the family, the noble court, and the church.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For further reading on the power of women in eleventh-century Northern France, see: Régine Le Jan, Femmes, pouvoir et société dans le haut Moyen Âge (Paris: Picard, 2001); Amy Livingstone, Out of Love for My Kin: Aristocratic Family Life in the Lands of the Loire, 1000–1200 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010); Theodore Evergates, ed., Aristocratic Women in Medieval France (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999); and Heather J. Tanner, Families, Friends and Allies: Boulogne and Politics in Northern France and England, c. 879–1160 (Leiden: Brill, 2004).

  2. 2.

    For the fullest treatment of Emma and her family connections see: Eleanor Searle, Predatory Kinship and the Creation of Norman Power, 840–1066 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 108–117. For her family connections and lands see: Pierre Bauduin, La première Normandie (Xe-XIe siècles)—Sur les frontières de la haute Normandie: identité et construction d’une principauté (Caen: Presses Universitaires de Caen, 2004), 198–208, 220–223.

  3. 3.

    Searle, Predatory Kinship, 108–109.

  4. 4.

    Richard Allen, “‘A Proud and Headstrong Man’: John of Ivry, Bishop of Avranches and Archbishop of Rouen, 1060–1079,” Historical Research 83:220 (May 2010): 192; David Bates, “Notes sur l’aristocratie normande, I. Hugues, évêque de Bayeux (1011 env.–1049), II. Herluin de Conteville et sa famille,” Annales de Normandie 23 (1973): 7–9.

  5. 5.

    Robert of Torigni (in an interpolation into the Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges) names Eremberga as the wife of Raoul and the mother of his sons Hugh and John: see The Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis, and Robert of Torigni, ed. Elisabeth M. C. van Houts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 2: 174–175. Hugh and John were born thirty years apart, and almost certainly had different mothers. See below for a fuller discussion.

  6. 6.

    Mark Hagger, Norman Rule in Normandy 911–1144 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2017), 71–72.

  7. 7.

    There is a possible third son, Thorstein, who appears in a charter dated 1015. Recueil des actes des ducs de Normandie de 911 à 1066, ed. Marie Fauroux (Caen: Société d’Impressions Caron, 1961), 18. Thorstein is not specifically named as a son of Raoul, but has been assumed to be so based on the placement of his subscription to this charter. However, the witness list of this charter, where Thorstein is named, is badly damaged and the placing of Thorstein’s name is ambiguous. None of Raoul’s other sons have Danish names, and so I think that without further evidence only the younger Raoul and Hugh can be determined to be sons of Raoul.

  8. 8.

    Recueil, ed. Fauroux, 13.

  9. 9.

    Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. Marjorie Chibnall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), 4: 290–291. Orderic Vitalis names Albereda as Raoul’s wife and provides the detail that she built the castle at Ivry and then had the architect executed to prevent him from building another like it. There is some disagreement among scholars as to whether Albereda or Eremberga was the first wife of Raoul, and Albereda’s role in building the castle at Ivry, a key border defense, has led to the belief that she was the first wife, see: Searle, Predatory Kinship, 109. However, Albereda was recorded in a charter of 1011 making a donation with her husband Raoul: Recueil, ed. Fauroux, 13. This must make her the second wife and the mother of John and Emma. Raoul may have considered Bayeux his primary residence in the tenth century, and moved to Ivry with his second wife in the eleventh century. His Bayeux estates would go to his son Hugh, consecrated as bishop of Bayeux c. 1011, which would be a logical time for Raoul and Albereda to have built a new, modern, castle at Ivry in preparation for their residence there.

  10. 10.

    Recueil, ed. Fauroux, 13, 15, 16, 18.

  11. 11.

    Elisabeth van Houts, “Countess Gunnor of Normandy (c. 950–1031),” Collegium Medievale 12 (1999): 18–21.

  12. 12.

    Hugh was one of the most frequent attesters of ducal charters during this period: Hagger, Norman Rule, 68.

  13. 13.

    Emma was related to Gunnor by marriage, not by blood, so she and Osbern were not blood kin.

  14. 14.

    Livingstone, Out of Love for My Kin, 31–34.

  15. 15.

    For the roles of aunts and uncles see Livingstone, Out of Love for My Kin, 34–40.

  16. 16.

    Hagger, Norman Rule, 71–72, 86. Hagger suggests that the granting of the castle at Ivry to Hugh took place soon after Duke Richard II had given Evreux to Archbishop Robert of Rouen and was part of a strategy to have the border castles held by bishops, making any attack on the border an attack on the church.

  17. 17.

    Allen, “A Proud and Headstrong Man,” 192–195.

  18. 18.

    It is not clear at what point Emma actually took control of the lands at Ivry. It seems likely that they were intended for her, but they may have been held by Hugh or by the dukes before Emma married.

  19. 19.

    Hagger, Norman Rule, 99–100.

  20. 20.

    Searle, Predatory Kinship, 114.

  21. 21.

    Gesta Normannorum Ducum, 2: 38–41.

  22. 22.

    Hagger, Norman Rule, 71–72.

  23. 23.

    van Houts, “Countess Gunnor,” 15–17.

  24. 24.

    Kathleen Thompson, “Being the Ducal Sister: The Role of Adelaide of Aumale,” in Normandy and Its Neighbours 900–1250: Essays for David Bates, ed. David Crouch and Kathleen Thompson (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 63–64.

  25. 25.

    Bates, “Notes sur l’aristocratie normande,” 30–31.

  26. 26.

    Bates, “Notes sur l’aristocratie normande,” 30–31.

  27. 27.

    Gesta Normannorum Ducum, 2: 174–177.

  28. 28.

    Hagger, Norman Rule, 104.

  29. 29.

    In particular see Elisabeth van Houts, Memory and Gender in Medieval Europe, 900–1200 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999), 71–73. Van Houts notes both the role of Gunnor in informing Dudo and the role that heiresses to family lands (such as Emma) would play in preserving the family memory.

  30. 30.

    Hagger, Norman Rule, 105–111.

  31. 31.

    The regency council of 1035 was entirely gone: Archbishop Robert had died in 1037; his successor was Mauger, the son of Duke Richard II and his second wife Papia, was at most eighteen. Osbern, Count Alan, and Count Gilbert were all killed within a year and by 1042 Guy of Burgundy had joined in the rebellion against the duke.

  32. 32.

    Searle, Predatory Kinship, 116. Edward would become king of England later that year when his half-brother, Harthacnut, died.

  33. 33.

    Hagger, Norman Rule, 106–107.

  34. 34.

    Recueil, ed. Fauroux, 119.

  35. 35.

    All four appeared together in a charter c. 1050 in which William fitzOsbern and his new wife Adela founded a monastic house at Lyre. Recueil, ed. Fauroux, 120.

  36. 36.

    Hagger, Norman Rule, 106–111.

  37. 37.

    Bates, Normandy before 1066, 209. Hagger, Norman Rule, 122–123.

  38. 38.

    For Cecilia of Normandy see Laura L. Gathagan, “‘You Conquer Countless Enemies, Even as a Maiden’: The Conqueror’s Daughter and Dynastic Rule at Holy Trinity, Caen,” History 102:353, Special Issue: Political Culture c. 800–1200 (December 2017): 840–857. For Ermengarde of Brittany see Amy Livingstone, “‘You Will Dwell with Barbarous and Uneducated Men’: Countess Ermengarde and Political Culture in Twelfth-Century Brittany,” History 102:353, Special Issue: Political Culture c. 800–1200 (December 2017): 858–873.

  39. 39.

    Isabelle Theiller, “55H: Abbaye Saint-Amand de Rouen” (Répertoire numérique, Archives Départmentales de la Seine-Maritime, 2005), 10.

  40. 40.

    Recueil, ed. Fauroux, 61.

  41. 41.

    Recueil, ed. Fauroux, 60, 81, 83, 84, 104.

  42. 42.

    Recueil, ed. Fauroux, 82.

  43. 43.

    Recueil, ed. Fauroux, 96.

  44. 44.

    Joscelin’s last recorded activity came between 1040 and 1044; Recueil, ed. Fauroux, 104. The donation was made with the consent of the vicecomites Nigel and Thurstan. This is most likely Nigel I of the Cotentin who died in 1042 and Thurstan Goz who was vicecomes from 1040 until his rebellion and exile in 1042.

  45. 45.

    Recueil, ed. Fauroux, 118.

  46. 46.

    Pancarte des biens de l’abbaye deSaint-Amandcontenant la charte de fondation de l’abbaye par Gosselin, vicomte d’Arques, Cote 55H 8, Archives Départementales de la Seine-Maritime, Rouen, France.

  47. 47.

    Pancarte de Saint-Amand, lines 1–11.

  48. 48.

    Pancarte de Saint-Amand, lines 14–23.

  49. 49.

    Pancarte de Saint-Amand, lines 24–31.

  50. 50.

    Pancarte de Saint-Amand, line 32.

  51. 51.

    Pancarte de Saint-Amand, lines 32–33.

  52. 52.

    Pancarte de Saint-Amand, lines 33–34.

  53. 53.

    Pancarte de Saint-Amand, lines 34–35.

  54. 54.

    Pancarte de Saint-Amand, lines 35–39.

  55. 55.

    Pancarte de Saint-Amand, lines 40–42.

  56. 56.

    Isabelle Theiller, “55H: Abbaye Saint-Amand de Rouen” (Répertoire numérique, Archives Départmentales de la Seine-Maritime, 2005), 10.

  57. 57.

    In 1277, King Philip III of France overruled the “mayor and peers” of Rouen who objected to the nuns’ claims of town property for the completion of the abbey wall. Cartulaire de l’abbaye deSaint-Amandde Rouen, Cote 55H 7, Archives Départementales de la Seine-Maritime, Rouen, France, folio 2v.

  58. 58.

    Pancarte de Saint-Amand, lines 43–45.

  59. 59.

    Pancarte de Saint-Amand, lines 58–61. Added to the reverse side of the pancarte.

  60. 60.

    Pancarte de Saint-Amand, lines 51–52.

  61. 61.

    Allen, “A Proud and Headstrong Man,” 196–198.

  62. 62.

    Allen, “A Proud and Headstrong Man,” 212–215.

  63. 63.

    Theiller, “55H: Abbaye Saint-Amand de Rouen” 7–13. The dates suggested by Theiller in her table of abbesses are speculative. Emma could easily have lived to 1080.

  64. 64.

    Jean-François Pommeraye, Histoire de l’abbaye de Saint-Amand de Rouen (Paris: Richard Lallemant, 1662), 73.

  65. 65.

    Allen, “A Proud and Headstrong Man,” 215.

  66. 66.

    Pancarte de Saint-Amand, line 45.

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  1. Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA, USA

    Charlotte Cartwright

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  1. Department of History, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Heather J. Tanner

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Cartwright, C. (2019). Emma of Ivry, c. 1008–1080. In: Tanner, H.J. (eds) Medieval Elite Women and the Exercise of Power, 1100–1400. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01346-2_5

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