Hildeburg

BIOGRAPHY

Guillaume II Talvas was born about 995, a son of Guillaume I de Bellême, 'princeps' de Bellême, sire d'Alençon, and Mathilde de Condé-sur-Noireau. According to the chronicler Ordericus Vitalis his nickname Talvas, meaning shield, presumably alluded to his hardness or callousness, like that of a shield.

While as treacherous and self-serving as any of his family before him, Guillaume surpassed them in wickedness and cruelty. He had married a Hildeburge, daughter of a nobleman named Arnoul, but he had his wife strangled on her way to church, according to Ordericus, because she loved God and would not support his wickedness.

They had had a son:

1. Arnoul. (-murdered). Guillaume de Jumièges names "Arnoul et Mabille" as children of Guillaume Talvas and Hildeburge, recording in a later passage his revolt against his father whom he forced into exile, and his being strangled in his bed[128].

and a daughter:

1. Mabile, (-murdered Bures 2 Dec 1079, bur 5 Dec 1079 Troarn), who would have progeny, marrying Roger II de Montgommery, 1st earl of Shropshire/Shrewsbury.

Guillaume married secondly a daughter of Ralf de Beaumont, vicomte de La Mans. They may have had a son Oliver who became a monk.

Guillaume confirmed a gift to St. Aubin of Angers made by his brother Ives, and after that nothing more is heard of him. He is thought to have died after 1055.

Dates

The second marriage of William II 'Talvas' de de Bellême, to an unnamed daughter of Rodulf, Viscount of Beaumont[1] is dated to about 1046[4] which means Hildeburg must have died before then.

The marriage of her daughter Mabel is dated to the late 1040s - early 1050s, which would place her birth in about 1030 or perhaps slightly later.

Research Notes

Who is her father Arnulf?

In some unsourced online genealogies, (Arnulf (or Arnoul) the father of Hildeburg, has been equated with Arnulf, Count of Holland. However as he died in 993, it seems chronologically difficult for him to have been the father of Hildeburg, apart from the fact that the father, Arnulf is definitely named as a nobleman, not as a Count.

For similar reasons he couldn't be Arnulf II, Count of Flanders who died in 987 or 988.

https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/NORMANDY%20NOBILITY.htm#GuillaumeB...

4. GUILLAUME [II] "Talvas" de Bellême (-after [1050/54]). m firstly HILDEBURGE, daughter of ARNOUL & his wife --. Guillaume of Jumièges records that “Willelmus cognomento Talavatius” married “Hildeburge...filiam Arnulfi” by whom he had “Arnulfum et Mabiliam” and whom he had strangled “a duobus parasitis”[58].

[58] Willelmi Gemmetencis Historiæ (Duchesne, 1619), Liber VII, X, p. 271

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References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_I_Talvas
2. https://genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00177417&tree=LEO cites
   1. [S00301] Schwennicke, Detlev (Ed.), ~Europäische Stammtafeln, J.A. Stargardt Verlag, Marburg. 3:636
3. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Unknown-623213 cites
   1. The Gesta Normannorum Ducum of Wiliam of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis, and Robert of Torigni, vol. 2, books V-Viii, edited & translated by Elisabeth M. C. Van Houts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). pp. 108-09.
   2. Cokayne, George Edward, The Complete Peerage; or, A History of the House of Lords and all its Members from the Earliest Times, vol. 11, ed. Geoffrey H. White (Vol. XI, 1949), p. 686
   3. Gesta Normannorum Ducum, ed by E. Van Houts, pp. 118-9.
   4. Gesta Normannorum Ducum, ed by E. Van Houts, pp. 110, note 1.
4. https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/NORMANDY%20NOBILITY.htm#GuillaumeB...