The Hero of Ascalon

At dawn on Friday 12 August 1099 an army from Western Europe drew up its battle lines in a valley near the town of Ascalon south of Jerusalem. The battle of Ascalon required another supreme effort of will and physical endurance from the Franks who had left their homes three years before. In a hard fought engagement, the Egyptians were routed and forced to abandon their plans to recapture Jerusalem.

One incident at Ascalon stands out as the epitome of the courage that the Franks had shown throughout the expedition to the Holy Land. Robert, duke of Normandy, the eldest son of William the Conqueror, made a daring direct attack on the Egyptian command position. Robert, a short stocky man in his late forties, drove towards the Vizier's standard-bearer and delivered him a mortal wound. Robert's decision to target the heart of the enemy lines was risky, but the sheer audacity of the charge led to panic and began the rout of the Egyptians.

In the year 1100, there can have been few men more famous in northwestern Europe than Robert of Normandy. His participation in the First Crusade had given him a leading role in the greatest chivalric adventure of his day, an achievement which overshadowed his father's victory at Hastings in 1066. However, despite the kudos that came with the status of a successful ‘Jerusalemite’, by the end of 1106 Robert was languishing in a castle gaol, a prisoner of his younger brother King Henry I of England. Henry had defeated Robert at Tinchebray in southern Normandy and the hero of Ascalon remained a prisoner for the rest of his long life. He died in Cardiff, South Wales twentyeight years later in February 1134.

A Medieval Life

This is a biography of Robert nicknamed ‘Curthose’, who ruled as duke of Normandy from 1087 until 1106. He lived into his eighties and his long and eventful life offers the chance to examine one of the most dramatic periods in the history of Western Europe from a prominent individual's point of view. The writing of a biography of a medieval individual might seem at the outset to be an impossible task.