Bertram de Verdun

Bertram de Verdun was the name of several members of the Norman family of de Verdun, native to the Avranchin. According to the historian Mark Hagger, the de Verdun family lived originally in Normandy where they held land, and after the Norman conquest of England they were granted land in England. Members of the family appear in original records in Normandy from at least c.1068-1085 when the first Bertram de Verdun attests a charter of Guillaume fitz-Guimond of Avranches, who makes a donation to the Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel. Bertram I de Verdun Bertram I de Verdun appears in the Domesday Book (1086), holding the land and the manor of Farnham Royal in Buckinghamshire, held before the conquest by princess Goda of England. In Domesday Book, Bertram is said to have been in Normandy for William II's business, "duc est transmare in servicio regis", and appears in two charters of William de Saint-Calais, bishop of Durham, and King's chief advisor. Bertram's wife's name is unknown, but his son and heir was Bertram II de Verdun (? – c. 1129/30). Bertram II de Verdun Bertram II de Verdun continued to amass land in England, and by 1128 also had been granted land in Staffordshire and Leicestershire. Hagger suggests that he also had assumed an administrative position for Henry I, and was possibly sheriff of Yorkshire in 1100.