The l'Aigle family was a Norman family that derived from the town of L'Aigle, on the southeastern borders of the Duchy of Normandy. They first appear during the rule of Duke Richard II of Normandy, in the early 11th century, and they would hold L'Aigle for the Norman Dukes and Kings of England until the first half of the 13th century, when with the fall of Normandy to the French crown the last of the line was forced to abandon the ancestral French lands, only to die in England a few years later without surviving English heirs. Their position on the borderlands, and near the headwaters of three rivers, the Risle, Iton and Avre, gave their small holding a special importance, as did a set of marriage connections that provided this relatively minor Norman noble family with a more elevated historical visibility.[1] Having been neighbors and benefactors of the Abbey of Saint-Evroul, the family receive mostly favourable coverage in the 12th-century chronicle of Orderic Vitalis.[2]
The earliest-known member of the family was Fulbert de Beina, who built a castle 'in the time of Duke Richard', hence before that duke's death in 1026.[3] The location of his origin, as represented by his toponymic Beina, remains unidentified and it is not possible to definitively identify him among the several men named Fulbert appearing at the ducal court.[1]
Fulbert's son, Engenulf, lord of L'Aigle, was a benefactor of the local religious houses at Saint-Evroul and Saint-Sulpice-sur-Risle, their own foundation. To the former, he and his wife, Richeroeda, donated the warhorse of their eldest son, Roger, following his death,[4] Engenulf only appears with the Norman Duke in a document from Fécamp, just prior to the Norman Conquest of England, in which Engenulf became the only prominent Norman nobleman to be killed at the Battle of Hastings.[5] His sister Hiltrude married another prominent local baron, William fitz Giroie, while Engenulf's son and successor, Richer, married Judith, daughter of Richard le Goz, Viscount of Avranches, indicating a rise in the family's standing among the Norman nobility.[3][5]
Richer, the new lord of L'Aigle, was unable to capitalize on his father's sacrifice, his family only holding two English manors in 1086, Witley and Mildenhall, and unlike many Norman families, the L'Aigles did not shift their centre of power to England. Richer did appear at the royal court in 1081 and a brother, Robert, would serve the Anglo-Norman noble, Robert de Tosny of Belvoir. Like his father, Richer died fighting for William the Conqueror at the Siege of Sainte-Suzanne in 1084, where his brother Gilbert of L'Aigle led a revenge assault in January 1085.[5] As 'Gilbert de Aquila', this famous Norman knight would feature in Rudyard Kipling's tale, "Old Men at Pevensey", part of his Puck of Pook's Hill.[6] He was given the castle of Exmes by Robert Curthose in 1089. Under the leadership of two Gilberts, Richer's brother and son of the same name, the family would continue to support the Norman dukes, though it becomes difficult to distinguish the two prior to the death of the elder Gilbert, killed at Moulins-la-Marche in an ambush by vassals of Geoffrey, Count of Mortagne, in what may have been a kidnap and ransom scheme gone awry. To prevent bloody reprisals, Count Geoffrey offered his daughter Juliana in marriage to the younger Gilbert, Richer's son.[7][8] This marriage would provide the family with a web of prominent connections that included the King of Navarre and Aragon, who was the bride's first cousin. The family also married again into the Anglo-Norman nobility, perhaps through the influence of Richer's wife Judith and her brother, Hugh, Earl of Chester, their daughter Matilda would marry Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland, later divorcing the disgraced Earl and taking his lands with her into a second marriage with a royal favourite, Nigel d'Aubigny.[9]
Gilbert, lord of L'Aigle, would serve successive Norman dukes, first Robert Curthose, then following his departure, William II of England, who would leave him to garrison Le Mans after its capture. With the latter's death, Gilbert is found both in England with Henry I and in Normandy with Robert, but an ongoing squabble between his brother-in-law, Count Rotrou of Mortagne, and the latter's kinsman, Curthose's ally Robert de Belleme, seems to have driven Gilbert firmly into the king's camp, and Henry would meet with Archbishop Anselme at L'Aigle in 1105.[9] Gilbert became the agent of Henry I of England in Normandy after the king succeeded in wresting it from his brother the next year.[10] His loyalty to the king was also rewarded by the grant of lands in England, in the Rape of Pevensey.[11] His death occurred on a 15 May, the year being not precisely known, but after 1114 and before 1118.[11] His younger brother, Richard had by 1089/90 joined the Norman adventurers in Italy, and would there become duke of Gaeta and count of Suessa,[12] dying in 1111.
Decline
Richer, lord of L'Aigle, would succeed his father in their lands in Normandy, but King Henry had other plans for the family's Pevensey holdings, intending to give them to Richer's brothers, Engenulf and Geoffrey. Richer, for his part, threatened to turn L'Aigle over to King Louis VI of France if the English king would not give him his father's English possessions,[13] and about the same time he dabbled in supporting William Clito's claim to Normandy.[14] In spite of the threatened betrayal, Henry still refused to allow Richer to inherit the English lands, but was brought around when Richer's uncle, Count Rotrou, hinted that were he to support the L'Aigle lord, Henry risked losing his Norman southern marches. Receiving his English inheritance, Richer backed out of his plan to surrender L'Aigle to Louis, but the French king then took it by force, apparently in 1118, and it was only a year later that Henry was able to take it back. L'Aigle was restored to Richer, again through Rotrou's influence, [13] but the young lord had lost the king's confidence and would only appear at court once during the rest of Henry's reign.[15] It was presumably during a visit to administer his English lands that he stayed with Gilbert Becket and became friends with the latter's son, the future Archbishop Thomas Becket, who perhaps even served as Richer's notary.[15] Richer primarily involved himself in local Norman affairs, joining his neighbor Eustace de Pacy in his struggles over the lands around Breteuil, and in the process ravaging Saint-Evroul lands and attracting the vitriol of its chronicler, Orderic.[16][2] The dispossessed brothers, Engenulf and Geoffrey, would die in 1120 in the wreck of the White Ship along with Rotrou's son and wife, and the Count would leave his County of Perche in the hands of his sister Juliana, Richer's mother, and turn his attention to fighting Muslims in Aragon.[17] There in 1130 he would arrange the marriage of Richer's sister, Margaret, to a royal scion, García Ramírez, lord of Monzón, who was soon to become King of Navarre.
With the succession of King Stephen and his struggle to solidify his southern Norman frontier, Richer was again to gain royal access, and again the relationship with Rotrou paid dividends. Henry had built frontier castles in the region, bypassing L'Aigle and the untrustworthy Richer in the process, but Stephen granted two of these to Rotrou and his nephew, with Richer receiving Bonsmoulins.[18][19] Richer was in England in 1139 recruiting troops for Stephen, and was again headed for England in 1140 when he was set upon, taken captive and imprisoned at Breteuil by another of Stephen's men, Robert de Beaumont, Earl of Leicester, as a result of a private dispute, Robert having received the lands confiscated by Henry from Richer's ally, Eustace de Pacy.[16] In spite of his uncle Rotrou's intercession on Richer's behalf, a weakened King Stephen did not have the power to force his release.[20] Rotrou then turned to Stephen's ascendant Angevin rivals, only to see a reversal of fortune that restored Stephen's control. Though Richer was released, a resentful Stephen deprived him of his lands in Sussex.[21] In 1152, Richer alienated another prince, the Angevin Henry, apparently by supporting another scheme of French king Louis. Henry burned Bonsmoulins and took hostages. To make matters worse, the next year Henry was named Stephen's heir, and thus a new king brought Richer no respite from royal displeasure.[21] Richer seems to have reached a rapprochement with the new king in the late 1050s, surrendering Bonsmoulins but again holding at least a portion of his lost English lands, though he largely disappears from royal records. He also appears also to have reached accommodation with his former captor, the Earl of Leicester, but this led to additional misfortune: Richer appears to have sided with the Earl's successor in the rebellion of Henry the Young King, and thereby again lost his Sussex land. They were again restored in 1174. His death in 1176 brought an end to a career that had squandered his father's power and royal good will through a particular penchant for choosing the wrong side in one conflict after another.[22]
Richer, lord of L'Aigle, the son of Richer and his wife Beatrix, would succeed his father, but he and his wife Odelina left little documentary record. He appears to have spent his time primarily in and around his Norman lands. He disappears from English scutage records in the mid-1180s, and is thought to have died about 1186.[23]
End
Gilbert, lord of L'Aigle, son of Richer and Odelina, would go a good way toward recovering the family's status in one swipe, when as follower of William of Salisbury, 2nd Earl of Salisbury, he would marry the earl's niece, a rich and well-connected widow, Isabel de Warenne, daughter of Hamelin de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, King Henry's half-brother, and Isabel de Warenne, Countess of Surrey, heiress to one of the most powerful Anglo-Norman families. She brought with her her own lands as well as the dower right to those of her first husband, Robert de Lacy, lord of Pontefract.[24] In addition, Gilbert found favour with the new king, John, who succeeded in 1199.[24] This royal access would be short-lived, as John almost immediately struggled to retain control over his kingdom, and when Gilbert left the royal court without permission to go defend his Norman lands, John confiscated his property in England. Gilbert's English holdings would be rescued through the intervention of Gilbert's brother-in-law, William de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, who pledged 3000 marks hold Gilbert's lands during his absence, and when Gilbert finally returned to England about 1215, he resumed possession.[25] However, things came to a head in 1216. Gilbert had married his daughter, Alice, to John de Lacy, Constable of Chester, who was one of the leaders of the opposition to King John, and when control of Pevensey castle was given to the Earl of Arundel, Gilbert turned to the rebels in their attempt to make the French ruler Louis VIII king. Negotiations to bring Gilbert back into the royalist fold following the death of John and succession of Henry III came to nought, though Gilbert managed to retain control of his properties after Louis' 1217 defeat.[26] However, the fall of most of Normandy to the French left him with land in two separate kingdoms ruled by mutually hostile monarchs. He would fight for Henry in Wales in 1225, then with Louis in Languedoc in 1226 and 1227, only to have Henry seize his English lands when he was away too long.[27] Forced to choose, he opted for England, abandoning his family's Norman lands, including L'Aigle. He founded Michelham Priory in 1229,[28] and in 1230 he joined Henry in his attack on France, as well as another against Wales the next year.[29] He died later in 1231, and having outlived all of his children and his only grandchild, the L'Aigle properties in England reverted to the crown. His nearest French-loyal relative, Henry III d'Avaugour, titular Count of Penthièvre, would receive many of the family's Norman lands.[30]
Peter II, called the Little Charlemagne, was Count of Savoy from 1263 until his death in 1268. He was also holder of the Honour of Richmond, Yorkshire, England, the Honour of the Eagle also known as the Honour of Pevensey and the Honour of Eu also known as the Honour of Hastings. His significant land holdings in Sussex were also marked by his holding of the wardship of John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey which brought with it lands centred upon Lewes castle. Briefly, from 1241 until 1242, castellan of Dover Castle and Keeper of the Coast. In 1243 he was granted land by the Thames in London where he later built the Savoy Palace.
Henry de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Warwick or Henry de Newburgh was a Norman nobleman who rose to great prominence in the Kingdom of England.
Hamelin de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, was an Anglo-Angevin nobleman, being an elder half-brother of the first Plantagenet English monarch King Henry II.
William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, Lord of Lewes, Seigneur de Varennes, was a Norman nobleman created Earl of Surrey under William II Rufus. He is among the few known from documents to have fought under William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. At the time of the Domesday Book in 1086, he held extensive lands in 13 counties, including the Rape of Lewes, a tract now divided between the ceremonial counties of East Sussex and West Sussex.
William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey was the son of William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey and his first wife Gundred. He was more often referred to as Earl Warenne or Earl of Warenne than as Earl of Surrey.
William I, also referred to as William of Blois, was Count of Boulogne and Earl of Surrey jure uxoris from 1153 until his death. He was the second son of Stephen, King of England, and Matilda I, Countess of Boulogne.
William III of Ponthieu also called William Talvas. He was seigneur de Montgomery in Normandy and Count of Ponthieu.
The House of Mowbray was an Anglo-Norman noble house, derived from Montbray in Normandy and founded by Roger de Mowbray, son of Nigel d'Aubigny.
Waleran de Beaumont (1104–1166) was an Anglo-Norman nobleman. In his early adulthood, he was a member of the conspiracy of Amaury III of Montfort; later in his career, he participated in the Anarchy and the Second Crusade. During the reign of Henry II of England, Waleran's close ties to Louis VII of France caused him to fall out of grace.
Ranulph I de Mortimer was a Marcher Lord from the Montgomery lands in the Welsh Marches. In England, he was Lord of Wigmore in Herefordshire. In Normandy, he was the Seigneur of St. Victor-en-Caux. Ranulph was the founder of the English House of Mortimer of Wigmore. He acquired Wigmore Castle after William Fitz Osbern's son Roger de Breteuil joined the Revolt of the Earls of 1075. His lands and holdings in Herefordshire and Shropshire were granted to him by William the Conqueror before 1086.
William the Conqueror had men of diverse standing and origins under his command at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. With these and other men he went on in the five succeeding years to conduct the Harrying of the North and complete the Norman conquest of England.
Nigel d'Aubigny, was a Norman Lord and English baron who was the son of Roger d'Aubigny and Amice or Avice de Mowbray. His paternal uncle William was lord of Aubigny, while his father was an avid supporter of Henry I of England. His brother William d'Aubigny Pincerna was the king's Butler and father of the 1st Earl of Arundel. He was the founder of the noble House of Mowbray.
Isabel de Warenne, 4th Countess of Surrey was an English peer. She was the only surviving heir of William de Warenne, 3rd Earl of Surrey, and his wife, Adela, the daughter of William III of Ponthieu.
Events from the 1080s in England.
Margaret of L'Aigle was Queen of Navarre as the first wife to García Ramírez of Navarre. She was the daughter of Gilbert of L'Aigle and Juliana du Perche, daughter of Geoffrey II, Count of Perche.
Rotrou III, called the Great, was the Count of Perche and Mortagne from 1099. He was the son of Geoffrey II, Count of Perche, and Beatrix de Ramerupt, daughter of Hilduin IV, Count of Montdidier. He was a notable Crusader and a participant in the Reconquista in eastern Spain, even ruling the city of Tudela in Navarre from 1123 to 1131. He is commonly credited with introducing Arabian horses to the Perche, giving rise to the Percheron breed. By his creation of a monastery at La Trappe in memory of his wife, Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England, in 1122 he also laid the foundations of the later Trappists.
Reginald de Warenne was an Anglo-Norman nobleman and royal official. The third son of an earl, Reginald began his career as an administrator of his brother's estates, and continued to manage them for his brother's successor, William, the second son of King Stephen. Reginald was involved in the process that led to the peaceful ascension of Henry fitzEmpress to the throne of England in 1154 and served the new king as a royal justice afterwards. He played a minor role in the Becket controversy in 1170, as a member of the party that met Becket on his return to England from exile in 1170.
Geoffrey II, Count of Mortagne and Count of Perche, was the son of Rotrou I, Viscount of Châteaudun, and Adelise de Bellême, daughter of Guérin de Domfron. Geoffrey was Count of Mortagne and Seigneur of Nogent from 1060 to 1090, and Count of Perche from 1090 until his death.
The de Warenne family were a noble family in England that included the first Earls of Surrey, created by William the Conqueror in 1088 for William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, who was among his companions at the Battle of Hastings. The family originated in Normandy and, as Earls, held land there and throughout England. When the senior male-line ended in the mid-12th century, the descendants of their heiress adopted the Warenne surname and continue as Earls of Surrey for another two centuries. Several junior lines also held land or prominent offices in England and Normandy.
Sussex in the High Middle Ages includes the history of Sussex from the Norman Conquest in 1066 until the death of King John, considered by some to be the last of the Angevin kings of England, in 1216. It was during the Norman period that Sussex achieved its greatest importance in comparison with other English counties. Throughout the High Middle Ages, Sussex was on the main route between England and Normandy, and the lands of the Anglo-Norman nobility in what is now western France. The growth in Sussex's population, the importance of its ports and the increased colonisation of the Weald were all part of changes as significant to Sussex as those brought by the neolithic period, by the Romans and the Saxons. Sussex also experienced the most radical and thorough reorganisation of land in England, as the Normans divided the county into five tracts of lands called rapes. Although Sussex may have been divided into rapes earlier in its history, under the Normans they were clearly administrative and fiscal units. Before the Norman Conquest Sussex had the greatest concentration of lands belonging to the family of Earl Godwin. To protect against rebellion or invasion, the scattered Saxon estates in Sussex were consolidated into the rapes as part of William the Conqueror's 'Channel march'.
References
1 2 Kathleen Thompson, "The Lords of Laigle: Ambition and Insecurity on the borders of Normandy" in Anglo-Norman Studies; XVIII; ed. Christopher Harper-Bill, Woodbridge, 1996, pp. 178, 199
1 2 Marjorie Chibnall, The World of Orderic Vitalis: Norman Monks and Norman Knights, Boydell Press, 1984, p. 26
1 2 Ordericus Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, trans. Thomas Forester, Vol. I (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1853), p. 393
↑ L.F. Salzmann, The History of the Parish of Hailsham, the Abbey of Otham and the Priory of Michelham (Farncombe & Co, London 1901), pp. 199-200 (Internet Archive).
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