t-Jean-_le-Thomas_, after Thomas, its lord in the days
of Henry the First. His name is written in Orderic, but he is hardly so
famous even as the name-father of Beaumont, much less as the name-father
of Hauteville. One needs to know the exact state of things at Saint-Jean
in the days of Thomas, before one can tell why the place took his name
as its surname rather than the name of any other lord before or after.
But mark that it was the Christian name only that Saint-Jean could take;
it could not, like _La Lande-Patry_ and _Longueville-Giffart_, take the
surname of the house which was called after itself. But if Hauteville
had to take the name of a Tancreding, Robert was the obvious one to
choose, and his surname of the _Wiscard_ was the most distinctive name
that the family could show. The fame of Robert, the actual founder of
the Apulian duchy and indirectly of the Sicilian kingdom, the ally of
Gregory the Seventh, the deliverer or the destroyer of Rome, the invader
of Eastern Europe, must have quite overshadowed the fame of his elder
brothers. And, while he lived, it must have overshadowed the fame of
Roger of Sicily also.[39] The Great Count was the younger brother and
the liegeman of the Duke. It was later events which caused the youngest
branch of the house of Hauteville to outstrip all that had gone before
it, to rise in the next generation to the royal crown of Sicily, and in
the female line to the crown of Jerusalem and the crown of Rome.

It is then the Hauteville of Robert Wiscard, Hauteville-la-Guichard,
that we seek for. As far as the map goes, as far as the road goes, there
is no difficulty. But it is a strange thing that in such books as we are
able to carry with us we can find no account of Hauteville whatever.
Joanne does not mention it; Murray does not mention it; it does not come
within the range of De Caumont's _Statistique Routiere de la Basse
Normandie_. A little local book on Coutances and its neighbourhood looks
upon Hauteville either as too far off or unworthy of notice. Yet the
distance at least, as the map witnesses, is not frightful, and one would
have thought that the mere fact of the setting up of the new statues
would have awakened the writer of the Coutances guidebook to the fact
that such a spot was not far off. Anyhow, if all refuse to describe, the
place seems to describe itself. _Hauteville_, _Alta Villa_, must surely
be what its name implies. We may have unluckily forgotten the warning