page_title: Arnulf de Montgomery
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Arnulf de Montgomery / Background
caption_attribution_description: Map illustrating the locations of certain places mentioned in the Wikipedia article concerning Arnulf de Montgomery.
context_page_description: Arnulf de Montgomery was an Anglo-Norman magnate. He was a younger son of Roger de Montgomery and Mabel de Bellême. Arnulf's father was a leading magnate in Normandy and England, and played an active part in the Anglo-Norman invasion of Wales in the late eleventh century. Following the Montgomerys' successes against the Welsh, Arnulf established himself at Pembroke, where an earth and timber castle was erected, and was probably rewarded with the title Earl of Pembroke.
  At the turn of the twelfth century Arnulf reached height, with his lordship including much of the former Welsh Kingdom of Deheubarth as well as various lands in Yorkshire. Not long after reaching this apex of his career, Arnulf assisted his eldest surviving brother, Robert de Bellême, in a rebellion against Henry I, King of England. It was also about this time that Arnulf married a daughter of Muirchertach Ua Briain, King of Munster, in what appears to have been an effort to gain military support against the English Crown.
context_section_description: Arnulf was likely born in the late 1060s, possibly about 1066. He was a younger son of Roger de Montgomery, Vicomte of the Hièmois and Mabel de Bellême. Arnulf's parents likely married in about 1050. His mother was a daughter of, and eventual heiress of, William de Bellême, Lord of Alençon. Arnulf's father, a kinsman and close companion of William II, Duke of Normandy, was an eminent magnate in Normandy. As tutor to Matilda, Duchess of Normandy, Roger and his eldest sons did not embark on the 1066 Norman invasion of England. When William returned to Normandy as king in 1067, Roger accompanied him back to England, and was granted extensive lands, including the Sussex rapes of Arundel and Chichester, followed by the county of Shropshire. Soon afterwards, Roger was made Earl of Shrewsbury. By 1086, he was one of the wealthiest tenants-in-chief in England. Arnulf makes his first appearance in the historical record at about this time when he and his elder brother, Roger de Poitou, witnessed William's confirmation of their father's grant to the Norman abbey of Troarn in 1082/1083.
  In 1088, Roger and at least three of his sons participated in plot to eject William Rufus, King of England from the throne with the intent to replace him with Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, William Rufus' elder brother. This rebellion is documented by several sources, such as the ninth- to twelfth-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and the twelfth-century texts Chronicon ex chronicis, Gesta regum Anglorum, and Historia Anglorum. According to the "E" version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle—the only strictly contemporary source of the four—Robert Curthose's followers captured Odo, Bishop of Bayeux and thereby gained control of the castle of Rochester. This source identifies several leading members of the insurrection, including three unnamed sons of Roger. Whilst it is possible that these brothers were Roger's eldest sons Robert de Bellême, Hugh de Montgomery, and Roger de Poitou, it is not impossible that the latter took no part in the rising, and that the third brother was in fact Arnulf himself. Although the rebellion was an ultimate failure, the king imposed no penalty upon Roger, and allowed Roger de Poitou to be reinstated with most of the lands that the eleventh-century Domesday Book shows he previously held.
caption: Locations relating to Arnulf's life and times.
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