Felicia (Normandy) Normandie (abt. 1017 - 1084)

Born about 1017 in Normandie, France

Died 1084 at about age 67 in Brix, Normandie, France

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Biography

Although this profile can be found in many online genealogies under the name Felicia of Normandy and is highly likely to have originally been presented under the name Felicia of Hastings, her existence is not confirmed under either name and she would appear to be totally fictional. See below for further discussion.

Felicia of Normandy

Felicia of Normandy appears in many unsourced online genealogies, mostly as a daughter of Robert, Duke of Normandy with sometimes his mistress Herlève as her mother, which would make Felicia the sister or half-sister of William I 'the Conqueror'.

She is listed in these genealogies as the wife of Rognvald Brusisson, Earl or Jarl of Orkney, and the mother of various children, including supposed ancestors of the Bruce/Brus family, based on the idea that this family descends from Rognvald's father Brusi Sigurdsson.

None of this genealogical information is confirmed by any primary or reliable secondary sources. Robert, Duke of Normandy is only known to have had two children, William 'the Conqueror' and his sister Adelaide. See for instance, Stewart Baldwin's entry for Robert in The Henry Project.^[1]

Rognvald Brusisson is mentioned in two Norse sagas; Orkneyinga Saga,^[2] and Heimskringla,^[3] but neither give a name to any wife or female partner, nor names of any children if they existed.

Felicia of Hastings

The precursor of these online genealogies is likely to be an entry in an 1870 publication Family Records of the Bruces and the Cumyns by Mary Elizabeth Cumming Bruce.^[4] She mentions a Felicia de Hastings, the daughter of a Robert de Hastings. Cumming Bruce states that Felicia didn't marry Rognvald Brusisson (p. 223), but instead was married to Rognvald's supposed son, Ulf, who settled in Normandy and after baptism used the name Regenwald de Brussée.(p. 226) Thus she retains the theory that the Bruce family were descendants of Brusi Sigurdsson of Orkney by way of settlement in Normandy.

It seems to be likely that Felicia de Hastings the daughter of Robert de Hastings, has been transposed at some point after 1870 to Felicia de Normandy the daughter of Robert, Duke of Normandy. This is not to suggest that Felicia de Hastings or any of the new information presented by Cumming Bruce is confirmed by any reliable source either, and a review of her book states that "the pedigree of the Bruces is ... purely imaginary".^[5]

According to Cumming Bruce, Felicia de Hastings' brother, another Robert de Hastings, fought at the Battle of Hastings, but although the surname Hastings is listed in a number of versions of the Battle Abbey Rolls^[6] there is no listing of a Robert.

Robert de Hastings does occur in 1086 in the Domesday book in Sussex and is possibly the same man as a Robert of Hastings in the Domesday book for Essex, along with his father Radulf/Ralph.^[7]-but again there is no mention of a daughter or sister named Felicia. Given the surname Hastings probably originated because they held land in Hastings, Sussex^[8] it is anyway unlikely to have been used by the family in Normandy prior to the Norman invasion.

Sources

1. ↑ Baldwin, Stewart, 'Robert I "le Magnifique" ("the Magnificent"),' in The Henry Project: The ancestors of king Henry II of England, 8 Feb 2004. American Society of Genealogists, https://fasg.org/projects/henryproject/ : accessed 12 November 2020.
2. ↑ Orkneyinga Saga: The history of the Earls of Orkney, translated by Hermann Pálsson & Paul Edwards, London: Penguin Books, 1981.
3. ↑ Sturlason, Snorre, Heimskingla: Or the lives of the Norse kings, ed. by Erling Monsen, translated by A.H. Smith, New York: Dover publications, 1990.
4. ↑ Cumming Bruce, M.E., Family Records of the Bruces and the Cumyns with an historical introduction and appendix from authentic public and private documents, Edinburgh & London: William Blackwood & Sons, 1870. Digital image, Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/familyrecordsofb1870bruc/ : accessed 12 November 2020.
5. ↑ 'The Bruces and the Cumyns' review, in The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, no. 803, vol. 31, 18 March 1871, p. 345-346, London: J.W. Parker & Son, 1871. Digital image, Google Books, https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=8eQ9AQAAIAAJ&hl=en_GB&pg=GBS.PA345 : accessed 12 November 2020.
6. ↑ Camp, Anthony J., My ancestors came with the Conqueror: Those who did and some of those who did not, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2008, p. 54.
7. ↑ Keats-Rohan, K.S.B., Domesday people: A prosopography of persons occurring in English documents 1066-1166, vol. 1 Domesday book, Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1999. p. 376.
8. ↑ Keats-Rohan, Domesday people, p. 333.