Tancred of Hauteville


Tancred of Hauteville was an 11th-century Norman petty lord about whom little is known. He was a minor noble near Coutances in the Cotentin. Tancred is also known by the achievements of his twelve sons.
Various legends arose about Tancred which have no supporting contemporary evidence that has survived the ages.

Ancestors

The Hauteville family was said by later traditions to descend from Hiallt, a Norseman active in 920, who is credited with founding the village of Hialtus Villa in the Cotentin of Normandy. Tancred is a supposed descendant of Hiallt, from whom the village of Hauteville and the family drew their name. This cannot be identified with certainty, and some modern scholarship favours Hauteville-la-Guichard over Hauteville in Cotentin.

Family and descendants

With his two wives, he had twelve sons and several daughters, almost all of whom left Normandy for Southern Italy and acquired some prominence there.
With his first wife, Muriella, he had five sons and one daughter:
According to the Italian chronicler of the Norman feats in the south, Amatus of Montecassino, Tancred was a morally upright man, who would not carry on a sinful relationship and being unable also to live out his life in perfect celibacy, he remarried.
With his second wife, Fressenda, he had seven more sons and at least one daughter:
Tancred's great-grandson, also bearing the same name, Tancred, Prince of Galilee, was a leader in the First Crusade. The line of descent was: