ABSTRACT
This chapter is based on a survey of all surviving documents issued in the principality in the period 1098–1187, augmented by information from relevant narrative sources dealing with Outremer. The sketchy nature of the surviving evidence means that in establishing origins we are largely reliant on interpretations of the names of the nobles and knights themselves. The evidence relating to toponymic and other surnames suggests that the largest single group originated in Normandy, southern Italy or England. The evidence of the narrative sources indicates that any ideas of Normanitas were quickly subsumed in a wider ‘Frankish’ identity. While writers in the West like Orderic Vitalis and Henry of Huntingdon clung to the idea of Normanitas and its qualities of valour, writers in the East, who were obliged to reflect the new realities of settlement, referred to a gens Francorum and gens nostra.
