Tancred of Hauteville

Tancred of Hauteville was an 11th-century Norman lord. Little is known about him, and he is best remembered by the achievements of his twelve sons. Various legends arose about Tancred, but they have no supporting contemporary evidence that has survived the ages.

Life and marriages

Tancred was a minor landowner in Normandy. Goffredo Malaterra says that he was a knight of very noble lineage, who inherited the village of Hauteville from his ancestors. On the other hand, Anna Komnene, in the Alexiad, describes his son Robert as of insignificant origin.
In his youth, Tancred dedicated himself to his military abilities, and jumped through a number of different courts. Supposedly, while residing at the court of Richard II, Duke of Normandy, he went hunting with him, and heroically killed a boar. Instead of being punished, Tancred was praised for his actions. From then on, he served in the duke’s court, commanding a small group of ten knights on his behalf. Aside from this tale, little else is known about him, and he doesn't seem to have had any exceptional characteristic, aside from his persistent fecundity.
His first wife was a certain Muriella, whom Malaterra records being "distinguished for her morals and noble birth". When Muriella died, Tancred married Fressenda, whom, according to Malaterra, "in birth and morals was by no means inferior to his first wife". Malaterra specifies the reasons of Tancred's choice to remarry:

Issue

With his first wife, Muriella, he had at least five sons:

Serlo I, succeeded him as Seigneur of Hauteville-la-Guichard
Geoffrey, Count of the Capitanate
William Iron Arm, Count of Apulia
Drogo, Count of Apulia and Calabria
Humphrey, Count of Apulia and Calabria

With his second wife, Fressenda, he had at least eight more sons and one daughter:

Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia and Calabria
Mauger, count of the Capitanate
Fressenda, who married Richard I, Prince of Capua
William, count of the Principate
Aubrey
Hubert
Tancred
Frumentin
Roger, count of Sicily

Finally, the Annales of Romuald Guarna state that Tancred had three daughters, but without naming them or stating by which marriage they were born. One of these daughters is the Fressenda named above, who married Richard I of Capua. One of the two remaining daughters is sometimes given the name Beatrice, and has been erroneously identified as the mother of Geoffrey, Count of Conversano. All of the informations regarding her are dubious.