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While Mike Ashley is an otherwise excellent encyclopedic work, it does contain at least a few errors and Gunnora as a daughter of Harald ‘Bluetooth’ appears to be one of them. Dudo of Saint-Quentin in his Gesta Normannorum does not name Gunnor’s father, only that she was: “descended from an extremely famed family of noble Dacians and the most beautiful of all Norman maidens…” He later applies that same term (Dacian) to the duke himself making it doubly clear she was a Norman herself. Then, ES II:97 lists the daughters of Harald ‘Bluetooth’, and although he did have a daughter named Gunhild, she married Palig, Ealdorman in Devon, and that she was killed 13 Nov. 1003, not the considerably later date of 1027-31 as given by AR7:121E-19/ Moriarty PA:11 for Gunnor wife of Richard I ‘the Fearless.” So the different dates of death here as well as lack of any authoritative source connecting her to Harald ‘Bluetooth’ indicate this is not the same person.
One clue to a possible misunderstanding of her origins is the term applied to her in several sources, “Danish wife.” This refers to the type of marriage (Danish wife as opposed to a Christian wife), not her country of origin. David C. Douglas, “William the Conqueror,”pp. 34, 77, et al, identifies Gunnor with her nephew, Osbern, which CP VI:477 note (e) confirms: “Osbern was s. of Herfast, whose sister Gunnor m. Richard I, Duke of Normandy (William of Jumieges, ed Duchesne, p. 299 D).” Moriarty (op cit), BTW, calls her the daughter of the forester of Arques, called le Crepon.
As for Judith de Bretagne (aka; Judith of Rennes) there are ample authoritative sources showing her to be the daughter of Conan ‘le Tort’, Duke of Brittany, and as such, a direct descendant of Charlemagne. Anyway, I hope this helps.
Jim
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