Ralph the Staller

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Biography

Ralf (or Ralph) is mentioned many times in the Domesday book of 1086, although he was no longer alive at that time, and his son Ralf Gael had lost all his English lands. The elder Ralf is typically referred to in that book as Ralf the staller, or the old Earl Ralf (in contrast to his son). Maps of his Domesday mentions:

• PASE https://domesday.pase.ac.uk/Domesday?op=5&personkey=38877
• Open Domesday https://opendomesday.org/name/earl-ralph-the-constable/

Before 1066, Ralph the staller was an officer of the Anglo-Saxon king Edward the Confessor, and also a noble in Brittany. One of the positions he held, and by which he was later often described, was the position of "Staller", which is sometimes translated as constable. It appears to have only been after 1066, under the Normans, that Ralph was given the Earldom of Norfolk and Suffolk. His son, also named Ralph, later also became Earl of Norfolk and Suffolk.^[1]

The historian Ann Williams wrote the modern Oxford Dictionary of National Biography article for Ralph the staller, and wrote more about him in her book The English and the Norman Conquest. She largely followed the earlier conclusions of the 2nd edition of Complete Peerage. Her fellow historians Keats-Rohan and Green agree on most points. The following summary is based upon those 4 accounts.

The birthplace and parentage of Ralph the Staller are uncertain, but he was probably born about 1000-1010, given that he started appearing in Breton records as an adult in the late 1120s or early 1030s (under the name Radulphus Anglicus, Ralf the Englishman). Before 1066 his son Ralph de Gael held an important lordship (or "barony") over Gael, Montfort and Montauban, and also started appearing in Breton records. There is some uncertainty possible about whether he inhierted from his father or his mother, whose name is unknown, and may have been English or Breton or Norman.

Ralph the Staller, whose name is not English, was described in contemporary records as English and as someone born in England. The Anglo-Saxon chronicle even says he was born in Norfolk, where he later held an Earldom. Here it is in Old English:

se ylca Raulf [Ralph II] waes Brittisc on his modor healfe & Rawulf his faeder waes Englisc & waes geboren on Northfolce

Roughly: This Raulf [de Gael, who married the daughter of William fitz Osbern] was Breton^[2] on his mother's half and Rawulf his father was English and was born in Norfolk

Williams accepts the chronicle's account that his wife was Breton but nevertheless thinks that Ralph the staller's own ancestry was Breton, and that his mother was probably English. For example, while the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle indicates that Ralph the staller's son was Breton through his mother, the Norman writer William of Malmesbury specifically said that he was Breton through his father. Hariulf's chronicle of the abbey of St Riquier in France, where Ralf made a grant, described Ralph the staller as being a noble of "natione Britto". It is for example possible that the father of Ralph the staller came to England with Emma of Normandy when she married Aethelred II in 1002, and perhaps he married and had children in England.

The main reason for discussion about Ralph's wife and/or mother being English is that the Domesday Book, indicates various relatives with unmistakably Anglo-Saxon names. In Norfolk, Godwine, avunculus of Ralf de Gaël, must be a brother or brother-in-law of the staller. He held land in Sall and Burnham Thorpe and he seized land at Quidenham 3 years after King William came. There was also an Alsige who was described as a nephew of Earl Ralf, and who may have been Godwine's son.

Ralf the staller was alive in 1068 when he and his son were mentioned together, with the king, but had died by April 1070 when Bishop Aethelmer was deposed, because Domesday book tells us that Aethelmer had held Eccles in Norfolk under both the father and the son.^[1]

Research notes

Williams (p.49) reports that Hereward the Wake's father Leofric of Bourne was a nephew of Ralph the Staller.

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Domesday Book, concerning Eccles, p.116
2. ↑ We know the text is referring to continental Britanny, because it proceeds to mention the castle of Dol there.

• Ann Williams , The English and the Norman Conquest, https://books.google.be/books?redir_esc=y&id=Su1IbQKzocsC
• Cockayne et al. Complete Peerage, 2nd ed., volume 9, p.568ff (under NORFOLK).
• Keats-Rohan, Katharine S.B (2016). "Raoul l'Anglais et Raoul de Gaël: un réexamen des données anglaises et bretonnes" Mémoires de la Société d'Histoire et d'Archéolgie de Bretagne. pp. 63–93. https://www.academia.edu/26605351