In Book Eleven of his Ecclesiastical History Orderic Vitalis records the feelings of Robert of Montfort, who was in Italy after fleeing Normandy in 1106, upon discovering the presence of others from the duchy in the entourage of Bohemond, prince of Antioch (1098–1111): ‘there to his joy [Robert] discovered some of his own fellow countrymen. Hugh of Le Puiset and Simon of Anet, Ralph of Pont-Echanfray and Walchelin his brother, and many others from North of the Alps were there with Bohemond’. The suggestion is that those Normans from north of the Alps formed a separate group of countrymen to those of Norman descent now based in the South. The suggestion is all the more striking because it talks of Robert's feelings, suggesting that he was comforted by the presence of those familiar to him whilst in a strange land, and uses language, the word compatriotas, which Orderic often used to denote not just that two or more individuals shared a place of residence or ethnic origin, but specifically that they felt friendship and obligations to one another as a result of these links. Orderic therefore suggests that Robert felt some sense of shared identity with those from north of the Alps, but not to those of Norman descent then living in Italy.

Orderic is not a writer often credited with drawing a distinction between the different parts of the Norman world.