Ranulf de Gernon, Second Earl of Chester, was born around 1100 at the Château Guernon in Normandy.

He is the son of Ranulf le Meschin, Third Earl of Chester and Lucy of Bolingbroke, both significant landowners with considerable autonomy within the county palatine.

His father had begun a new lineage of the earldom of Chester.

Ranulf had married Maud, daughter of Robert, first Earl of Gloucester and in 1128 had inherited the earldom.

He founds an abbey three years later in North Wales, colonized by Benedictine monks from Savigny Abbey in southern Normandy.