Gilbert, Count of Brionne - Life

Life

Gilbert was son of Geoffrey, Count of Eu (b. 962) who was an illegitimate child of Richard the Fearless. He inherited Brionne, becoming one of the most powerful landowners in Normandy. He married Gunnora d'Aunou in 1012. He had children by his wife and a mistress. Gilbert was a generous benefactor to Bec Abbey founded by his former knight Herluin in 1031.

When Robert II, Duke of Normandy died in 1035 his illegitimate son William inherited his father's title. Several leading Normans, including Gilbert of Brionne, Osbern the Seneschal and Alan of Brittany, became William's guardians.

Read more about this topic:  Gilbert, Count Of Brionne

Famous quotes containing the word life:

    “The life of the wealthy is one long Sunday.”
    —Georg Büchner (1813–1837)

    “The law is only one of several imperfect and more or less external ways of defending what is better in life against what is worse. By itself, the law can never create anything better.... Establishing respect for the law does not automatically ensure a better life for that, after all, is a job for people and not for laws and institutions.”
    —Václav Havel (b. 1936)

    “Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth, that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)