Quote (haxorz @ Mar 1 2019 07:20pm)
inb4 wyrm posts info about his bloodline
it takes a little bit of faith believing I'm from the House of Belleme, but it is a very real possibility, I've studied it quite a bit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Bell%C3%AAmeNotoriety
The chroniclers of ducal Normandy, William of Jumieges and Orderic Vitalis depict several members of the family as cruel and deceptive. While William Talvas was as treacherous and self-serving as any of his family before him he surpassed them in wickedness and cruelty.[19] He had married a Hildeburg, daughter of a nobleman named Arnulf, but he had his wife strangled on her way to church, according to Orderic, because she loved God and would not support his wickedness.[19] Then on the occasion of his second wedding, William Talvas invited one of his vassals William fitz Giroie to attend. Suspecting nothing, fitz Giroie, while a guest at the festivities, was suddenly seized by Talvas' men and imprisoned, then according to Orderic horribly mutilated and blinded before being released. Somehow William Giroie survived his torture and mutilation and retired to Bec Abbey to live out the remainder of his life as a monk.[20]
Of all of Orderic’s female subjects William's daughter Mabel was the most cunning and treacherous; if not entirely for her own misdeeds then as the mother of Robert de Bellême, who had a reputation for savagery as well as cruelty.[21] In one passage Orderic describes her as "small, very talkative, ready enough to do evil, shrewd and jocular, extremely cruel and daring.[22] Mabel was hostile to most members of the clergy; but her husband loved the monks at Saint-Evroul so she found it necessary to be more subtle.[23] She deliberately burdened their limited resources by visiting the abbey for extended stays with a large retinue of her soldiers. When rebuked by Theodoric the abbot for her callousness she snapped back that the next time she would visit with an even larger group. The abbot predicted that if she did not repent of her evilness she would suffer great pains and that very evening she did.[23] She left the abbey in great haste as well as in great pain and did not abuse their hospitality again.[23] In continuing her family’s feud with the Giroie family she set her sights on Arnold de Echauffour, she son of William fitz Giroie who her father had mutilated at his wedding celebration.[24] She attempted to poison Arnold of Echauffour by placing it in a glass of wine but he declined to drink.[24] Her husband's brother, Gilbert, refreshing himself after a long ride, drank the wine and died shortly thereafter.[24] In the end though she bribed Arnold's chamberlain providing him with the necessary poison, this time being successful.[24] In 1077 she took the hereditary lands of Hugh Bunel by force.[25] Two years later while resting after a bath, she was murdered in her bed by the same Hugh Bunel[26]
But, Orderic Vitalis may have been most strongly biased against Robert de Bellême and his treatment of that magnate belies a moral interpretation of his actions.[27] The basis for Orderic's animosity towards Robert and his de Bellême predecessors was the longstanding and bitter feud between the Giroie family, patrons of Orderic's Abbey of Saint-Evroul, and the de Bellême family.[28] William Talvas (de Bellême), Robert's grandfather, had blinded and mutilated William fitz Giroie.
[8] Robert did at times appropriate church properties and was not a major donor to any ecclesiastical house. But Robert's attitudes toward the church are typical of many of his contemporaries; certainly no worse than the secular rulers and other magnates of his day.[29] The assessment of William II Rufus by R.W. Southern could well apply to Robert de Bellême as well: "His life was given over to military designs, and to the raising of money to make them possible; for everything that did not minister to those ends he showed a supreme contempt".[29]