Robert FitzHamon

Robert FitzHamon
Robert Filius Haymonis et Sibilla uxor eius ("Robert son of Hamon (d.1107) and Sibilla (de Montgomery) his wife"). They are shown jointly giving the church building of Tewkesbury Abbey, of which they were founders. He wears a tabard showing attributed arms of: Azure, a lion rampant guardant or. Underneath below his wife is shown a shield of: quarterly 1 & 4: Azure, a lion rampant guardant or; 2&3: Gules a cross or (Oddo and Doddo, Dukes of Mercia, Saxon founders of Tewkesbury Abbey)impaling: Gules, a lion rampant or. Bodleian Library Manuscript: Top. Gloucester, d. 2, Founders' and benefectors' book of Tewkesbury Abbey, made in Tewkesbury c.1500-1525
Spouse(s)	Sybil de Montgomery
Father	Hamo Dapifer
Born	c. 1045-1055
Died	March 1107

Robert Fitzhamon (died March 1107), or Robert FitzHamon, Seigneur de Creully in the Calvados region and Torigny in the Manche region of Normandy, was the first Norman feudal baron of Gloucester and the Norman conqueror of Glamorgan, southern Wales. He became Lord of Glamorgan in 1075.

As a kinsman of the Conqueror and one of the few Anglo-Norman barons to remain loyal to the two successive kings William Rufus and Henry I of England, he was a prominent figure in England and Normandy.

Not much is known about his earlier life, or his precise relationship to William I of England.

Robert FitzHamon (born c. 1045-1055, d. March 1107 Falaise, Normandy) was, as the prefix Fitz (fils de, "son of") suggests, the son of Hamo Dapifer the Sheriff of Kent and grandson of Hamon Dentatus ('The Betoothed or Toothy', i.e., probably buck-toothed). His grandfather held the lordships of Torigny, Creully, Mézy, and Evrecy in Normandy, but following his death at the Battle of Val-ès-Dunes in 1047, the family might have lost these lordships.

Few details of Robert's career prior to 1087 are available. Robert probably did not fight at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and does not appear in the Domesday Book of 1086, although some of his relatives are listed therein. He first comes to prominence in surviving records as a supporter of King William Rufus (1087-1100) during the Rebellion of 1088. After the revolt was defeated he was granted as a reward by King William Rufus the feudal barony of Gloucester consisting of over two hundred manors in Gloucestershire and other counties. Some of these had belonged to the late Queen Matilda, consort of William the Conqueror and mother of William Rufus, and had been seized by her from the great Saxon thane Brictric son of Algar, apparently as a punishment for his having refused her romantic advances in his youth. They had been destined as the inheritance of Rufus's younger brother Henry (the future King Henry I); nevertheless Fitzhamon remained on good terms with Henry.