Talk:Rohese de Vere, Countess of Essex

Birth & Death

The year of birth of Rohese is unknown, as is the month and day. No medieval or modern source supplies that information with any specificity. The year of her birth is deduced from the birth of her first known son and the probable birth order of her siblings.

The death date of Countess Rohese has erroneously been assumed to be in October 1166. She was well enough to attend the funeral of her eldest son, Geoffrey de Mandeville, second earl of Essex, at Walden Abbey after his death in Chester on Oct. 21, 1166, and she witnessed a charter of her second son, William, third earl, that is firmly dated to 1170.DeAragon DeAragon 05:09, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Illegitimacy as an objection

Although the foundation of the prejudice in inheritance is based on ancient biblical injunctions, the hard reality is that the prejudice had lapsed in the Dark Ages. For example, King William the Conqueror is generally known as William the Bastard on the Continent, and to a great extent Viking and Saxon traditions applied over a wide area of the Country, which were from a very different culture less focused on primogeniture and more on suitability, as shown in the role of the Witan. Therefore, the comment that a son of the couple was illegitimate is an anachronism, unless there is real evidence that inheritance passed elsewhere as a result. The general euphemism in such cases is, rather, "natural". In this precise instance, he was not promoted to the Earldom because he was in exile: the fact Ernulf was passed over motivates the distinctly documented grant of the Earldom to his brother, which otherwise would have been automatic.

A further aspect of this is that Ernulf is a Saxon, not a Franco-Norman name, raising a mild possibility that he was not so much born out of marriage as born to another mother. That can only be cited here, of course, because is is Original abd Undocumented thinking, and so cannot under any circumstances be included in the main meme, unless further research elucidates the issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.123.173.109 (talk) 22:28, 16 May 2018 (UTC)