The two brothers were reported to have been holding the lands that had been held by one Richer, count in Luihgau and Hainaut, who had recently died, and was possibly a close relative.
They claimed Mons by right of their dead rebel father, Reginar III, Count of Hainaut.
Werner's exact parentage is unknown, but historian Eduard Hlawitschka has proposed that he was a member of the Matfriede family, and therefore closely related to his predecessors in Hainaut: Richer (count from 964 until his death in 972) and Richer's uncle and predecessor Godfrey I, Duke of Lower Lorraine, who died in 964.
It is possible Werner and Renaud were brothers of Richer, and cousins of Godfrey I of Verdun through his mother, who was a member of this Matfriede family.
[8] Belgian historians, including Léon Vanderkindere and Jean Baerten, have traditionally connected the records involving Werner with other records to propose a narrative whereby Werner and his brother were loyalists to the king and longer term enemies of the Reginar family, a powerful Lotharingian family which had an alliance with France in this period.