Notes
With his father, he was given partial custody of the castle of Tillieresin 1013/14. He was a haughty and powerful man - the banner brearer of allNormandy. He founded the abbey of Conches in 1035. While Duke ROBERT (RIN1323) was away on pilgrimage, Roger went to Spain and had a distinguishedcareer fighting the infidel there. While in Spain, he married [Etienetteof Barcelona according to Cokayne's "Complete
Peerage", but later research, as per below, indicates ADELAIDE OFBARCELONA], but left her behind when, due to the treachary of some of thenatives, he had to leave Spain. When he returned to Normandy, he wasfurious to learn that the boy WILLIAM (RIN 798) has succeeded his fatheras Duke, declaring that a bastard ought not rule over him and otherNormans. Roger immediately rebelled, ravaging the lands of his neighbors- particulary those of HUMPHREY DE VIELLES (RIN 1036). HUMPHREY's son,ROGER DE BEAUMONT (RIN 1033) killed Roger and two of
his sons in battle in 1038/9.
There has long been controversy regarding Roger's Wife/wives as explainedin the following notes.
According to Schwennicke's Europaische Stammtafeln Band III, teilband 4,page 705 Roger de Conches fathered all his children by his first wife NNof Barcelona, daughter of Ramon Borrell, Count of Barcelona, andErmesinde de Carcassonne.
Cockayne's "Complete Peerage" (STAFFORD, p.168) identifies him as thefather of ROBERT DE STAFFORD.
Todd A. Farmerie posted to the soc.genealogy.medieval newsgroup on 6 Dec1995 :
Evans addressed this, in part, in an article (I think in the GenealogistsMagazine) on Todeny of Belvoir. The CP account of the Barcelona family isoff. The true known relationships are as follows:
. Roger of Borrell
. Bigorre of Barcelona
. | |
. |_________________ |
. | | |
. Bernard Roger Ermesende=Ramon Borrell
. | |
. | |___________
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|
. | |
|
. Estephania Berenguer Ramon I Adelaide
. =Garcia Sanchez =Sancha Sanchez ?=Roger de Toni
. |
. |
. Ramon Berenguer I
Thus the following points can be made. Stephanie is a red herring. Shewas not daughter of Countess Ermesende, nor was she sister of RamonBerenguer. Any chronological argument involving her can be rejected.Second, since Ermesende was grandmother of Ramon Berenguer, the wife
could not have been both daughter of one and sister of the other. Eitherthe chronicler was in error, confusing Berenguer Ramon with his son RamonBerenguer, or there were two marriages involved, the solution proposed byEvans. The use by the Todeni of Belvoir family of the name Berenger deTodeni (also known as Berenger Hispina, a nickname I have
seen elsewhere translated, I don't know how accurately, as "of Spain")suggested to Evans that this line descended from a Barcelona marriage,and he proposed that Roger de Toni married Adelaide, daughter of RamonBorrell and Ermesende, while a kinsman, married her niece (perhaps
named Stephanie) sister of Ramon Berenguer. (I don't have the referencehandy, so I may have this confused in detail.) Note that any attempt tonumber the early Counts of Barcelona or Kings of Navarre will end infrustration. I have seen three different numbering systems for Barcelona,and I have seen this Garcia Sanchez called anything from III-V.
That is the long version. The short version is that this is one thatstill remains to be worked out.
"Todd A. Farmerie" posted to
GEN-MEDIEVAL-L@rootsweb.com on 5 Jan 1999
Subject: Re: MOTHER OF ADELIZA (ALICE) de TOENI:
. "This remains difficult. (The following is from memory, but should giveyou some idea of the problem.) Roger was exiled, and ended up "crusading"in and around Barcelona. Sources from that area report that he married a(unnamed) daughter of the countess of Barcelona (widow of Ramon Borrell).Norman sources only show him married to a Godeheut, who as his widowremarried. What gives then? Was Adele his first wife and Godeheut hissecond? Was Godeheut the norman name for the Barcelona princess? Is theBarcelona search wrong in stating that they married? Helpful in solvingthe question would appear to be Berenger
Hispina de Toeny. I think it safe to conclude that he owed his name tothis marriage (and I have often wondered if Hispina wasn't a garbled 'ofSpain'). Unfortunately, his parentage is also in question. A recentaccount of the Tosny family showed him as son of Roger and Adelaide, butEvans, in his paper of Todeny de Belvoir showed him as belonging to
that branch, and suggested that a second Toeny married down south.Keats-Rohan seems to accept the marriage, and that Adelaide was mother ofRoger's children, but I will have to go back and reread the details to bemore precise on her views."
