Robert of Normandy (1051-1134)

    Robert of Normandy  or Robert duke of Normandy or Robert Curthose (1087–1106) and one of the leaders of the First Crusade (1096–1099).

    Born around 1154, the eldest son of William I of England and Matilda of Flanders, Robert was the subject of unflattering  portraits  by  the  chroniclers  Orderic  Vitalis  and William of Malmesbury, who revealed that his father nicknamed  him  Curthose because he was short and plump.

    Robert of Normandy, son of William the Conqueror, set out with nearly all his nobles. To raise money for the expedition, he mortgaged his duchy to his brother, William Rufus of England, for ten thousand silver marks, a sum which that impious monarch raised by stripping the churches of their plate and taxing their clergy. Robert was companioned by Stephen of Blois, whose castles were " as many as the days of the year," and by Robert of Flanders, "the lance and sword of the Christians."

References:

Douglas (D. C.), William the Conqueror, University of California Press, 1964.

Crouch (D.), The Normans, The History of a Dynasty, New York, 2002.