Tom:

"My only comment is that I believe that the Fitz-Allan's [sic] were of Norman descent set up to control the Welsh marches. In that locality "fitz" meant "son-of" to those of Norman descent and "ap" meant "son-of" to the Welsh on their side of the border area.

David's Reply:

Tom prefers a hyphen. I cannot tell whether more common spellings are Fitz Alain, Fitz Alan or Fitzalan. Every reference I looked at had a different spelling.

If by Norman we mean someone from Normandy, Walter Fitz Alan was clearly not Norman. Walter Fitz Alan’s father came from Brittany [Dol-et-Bretagne, Isle De Vilaine] and acquired lands in Norfolk and Shropshire. (Scotland: The Story of a Nation, by Magnus Magnussonm 2003, p. 73.) Bretons had been occupying Brittany and lower Britain for centuries before the occupation of Normandy by the Franks.

Scottish medieval historian G.W.S. Barrow is emphatic. “The Stewarts of Scotland were not of Norman origin, but Bretonic.” G.W.S. Barrow, The Kingdom of the Scots, 1973, reprinted Edinburgh Press, 2003, p. 287. Barrow cites J.H. Round, “Studies in Peerage and Family History” (1901), 115-31.

But Rounds points out that the evidence is conflicting. J.H. Round writes:

“It has long been known that the Scottish Stewarts and the great English house of Fitz Alan possessed a common ancestor in Alan, the son of Flaald, living under Henry the First. This was established at some length by Chalmers in his Caledonia (1807) on what he declared to be "the most satisfactory evidence." [Vol. I, pp. 572-575] According to him, "Alan the son of Flaald, a Norman, acquired the manor of Oswestrie, in Shropshire, soon after the Conquest," and "married the daughter of Warine, the famous sheriff of Shropshire." Mr Riddell, the well-known Scottish antiquary, followed up the arguments of Chalmers, in 1843, with a paper on the "Origin of the House of Stewart," [Stewartiana, pp. 55-70] in which he accepted and enforced the views of Chalmers, including his theory that Walter Fitz Alan brought with him to Scotland followers from Shropshire and gave them lands there. But research has hitherto been unable to determine the origin of Flaald father of Alan, or even to find, in England, any mention of his name.

“No less an authority on feudal genealogy than the late Mr Eyton devoted himself to a special investigation on the subject of Alan "Fitz Flaald,"[History of Shropshire (1858), VII. 211-232.] and arrived at the conclusion that, after all, he was a grandson of "Banquo, thane of Lochaber,", whose son "Fleance" fled to England. "My belief is," Mr Eyton wrote, "that the son of Fleance was named Alan ... and that he whom the English called Alan Fitz Flaald was the person in question." [Ibid, p. 227. It is essential to bear in mind that the old Scottish writers made Walter, the first Steward, a son of 'Fleance', wholly ignoring Alan his real father (see p. 119 below). This invalidates their whole story.] He admitted, however, of the priories of Andover, Sele, and Sporle, cells of the Abbey of St. Florent de Saumur, that he could "show a connection between Alan Fitz Flaald or his descendants and each of these cells [Ibid, p. 219], which suggested an Angevin origin, and for which he could not account. But where he really advanced our knowledge was in showing that Alan Fitz Flaald married, not (as alleged) a daughter of Warine the sheriff, but Aveline daughter of Ernulf de Hesdin, a great Domesday tenant. I have now been able to trace Ernulf to Hesdin (in Picardy) itself, in connection with which his daughter 'Ava' also is mentioned.4 mentioned.4

“In 1874, an anonymous work, The Norman People, approached the problem from the foreign side, and adduced evidence to prove that Flaald was a brother of Alan, seneschal of Dol. But there was still not forthcoming any mention of Flaald in England, while the rashness and inaccuracy which marred that book resulted in his being wrongly pronounced a "son of Guienoc." The great pedigree specially prepared a few years ago for the Stuart exhibition by Mr W. A. Lindsay (now Windsor Herald) still began only with Alan son of Flaald, to whom a daughter of Warine the sheriff was assigned as wife. Moreover, in the handsome work on The Royal House of Stuart (1890), which had its origin in that exhibition, Dr. Skelton could only tell us that "there was (if the conclusions of Chalmers are to be accepted) an Alan son of Flathauld, a Norman knight, who soon after the Conquest obtained a gift of broad lands in Shropshire" (p. 5). Alan, we shall find, was not a Norman; the lands he was given were widely scattered; and he did not obtain them "soon after the Conquest."

Even today there are historical references placing the Fitzalans among the Normans. Walter is the younger brother of William Fitz Alan, the Sheriff of Shropshire, an English county bordering Wales. William has been listed in the Norman families of England.

Walter’s maternal lineage includes Nesta, daughter and heiress of Gruffudd ab Llewelyn. Nesta’s daughter Avelina, Adalina or Adeliza ab Hesding, was Walter’s mother..

Renfrew historian William M. Metcalfe mentions Walter Fitz Alan numerous times in his book, “History of the County of Renfrew From the Earliest Times,” 1905.

Metcalfe read the Registrum Monasterii de Passelet (Register of Monastery [Abbey] of Paisley), which begins in 1160, to identify the companions of Walter Fitz Alan from Shropshire who acquired lands in Renfrew, and all appear to have been French names (Fulbert, Montgomery, Riccarton, et al).

Metcalfe states that the charter by which David I granted lands to Walter Fitz Alan in Renfrew and hereditary Title of Steward of Scotland has been lost. Similarly lost are many of the charters by which Walter Fitz Alan conveyed lands in Renfrew to his companions.

In “Scottish Highlanders by Charles MacKinnon,” discussing The Clans Skene/Stuart, the author states at p. 237: "It was an Alan of this Breton family who became Baron of Oswestry in Shropshire under King Henry I of England, and his son Walter FitzAlan was created..."

"[T]he name Alan in the Arthurian tradition from the Celtic-Breton name Alan" "From Scythia to Camelot: A Radical Reassessment of the Legends of King Arthur, the Knights..." by Scott Littleton, Linda A Malcor, p. 25.

Barrows states that Walter was the son of Alan son of Fla(h)ald son of Alan, who was seneschal of the bishops of Dol in the eleventh century, (Barrows, supra, p. 287.).

I found an explanation of the unfamiliar word “Seneschal” online in the 1911 Encyclopia Britannica:

“SENESCHAL (the O. Fr. form, mod. senechal, of the Low Lat. senescalcus, a word of Teutonic origin, meaning " old or senior servant," Goth, sini- old; cf. Lat. senex and scalks, servant; Du Cange's derivation from seneste, flock, herd, must be rejected), the title of an official equivalent to "steward." The seneschal began presumably by being the major-domo of the German barbarian princes who settled in the empire, and was therefore the predecessor of the mayors of the palace of the Merovingian kings. But the name seneschal became prominent in France under the third or Capetian dynasty. The seneschal, called in medieval Latin the dapifer (from daps, a feast, and ferre, to carry), was the chief of the five great officers of state of the French court between the nth and the I3th centuries, the others being the butler, the chamberlain, the constable and the chancellor. His functions were described by the term major regiae damns, and regni Franciae procuratormajor-domo of the royal household, and agent of the kingdom of France. The English equivalent was the lord high steward, but the office never attained the same importance in England as in France. Under the earlier Capetian sovereigns the seneschal was the second person in the kingdom. He inherited the power and position of the mayor of the palacehad a general right of supervision over the king's service, was commander-in-chief .of the military forces (princeps militiae regis, or Francorum), was steward of the household and presided in the king's court in the absence of the king. Under weak rulers the seneschal would no doubt have played the same part as the mayors of the palace of the Carolingian line. It was the vast possibilities of the office which must be presumed to have tempted the counts of Anjou of the Plantagenet line to claim the hereditary dapifership of France, and to support their claim by forgeries. A count of Anjou who was also in effective possession of the office would soon have reduced his feudal lord to absolute insignificance. French historical scholars have shown that the pretension of the Anjevins was unfounded, and that the treatise concocted to support it the De majoratu et senescalia Franciae, attributed to Hugues de Cleresis a medieval forgery. At the close of the nth century the seneschalship was in the hands of the family of Rochefort, and in the early part of the following century it passed from them to the famay oi Garlande. The power of the office was a perpetual temptation to the vassal, and a cause of jealousy to the king. The Garlandes came to open conflict with the king, and were forcibly suppressed by Louis VI. in 1127. After their fall the seneschalship was conferred only on great feudatories who were the king's kinsmenon Raoul of Vermandois till 1152, and on Thibaut of Blois till 1191. From that time forward no seneschal was appointed except to act as steward at the coronation of the king. The name of the seneschal was added with those of the other great officers to the kings in charters, and when the office was not filled the words dapifero vacante were written instead. The great vassals had seneschals of their own, and when the great fiefs, Anjou, Touraine, Maine, Poitou, Saintonge, Guienne, were regained by the crown, the office was allowed to survive by the king. In the south of France, Perigord, Quercy, Toulouse, Agenais, Rouergue, Beaucaire and Carcassonne were royal senechaussees. In Languedoc the landlords' agent and judicial officer, known in the north of France as a bailli, was called senechal. The office and title existed till the Revolution.

“See Du Cange, Glossarium mediae etinfimae Latinitatis (Paris, 1840-1850); A. Luchaire, Histoire des institutions monarchiques de la France sous les premiers Capetiens (Paris, 1883-1885); Manuel des institutions franQaises (Paris, 1892); Paul Viollet, Droit publique Hist, des institutions politiques et administratives de la France (Paris, 1890-1898).”

The genealogy of the Fitz Alans is listed at http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/FITZALAN.htm