Ralph fitzStephen | |
---|---|
Sheriff of Gloucestershire | |
In office 1171–75 | |
Monarch | Henry II of England |
Ralph fitzStephen (sometimes Ralf fitzStephen; [1] died either 25 July 1202 or c. 1204) was an English nobleman and royal official.
Ralph had brothers named William fitzStephen, [2] and Eustace. They were probably the sons of Stephen the chamberlain,who is mentioned as a royal chamberlain in the pipe roll for 1156–57. [3]
Ralph was a royal chamberlain for King Henry II of England and King Richard I of England,serving in that office until at least 1191. [2] His work would have involved not just household duties,but the financial aspects of the office,both accepting monies owed to the royal household and paying salaries and other expenses of the king's chamber. [1] In 1170 he was appointed as one of the "tutors" to the eldest living son of the king,Henry. Ralph was a frequent witness on royal charters,and during the last years of Henry's reign was also responsible for the maintenance of Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine,who was incarcerated in house arrest by the king. [3]
Ralph was Sheriff of Gloucestershire, [2] from 1171 to 1175,succeeded by his brother William. [lower-alpha 1] Ralph served as a royal justice for the southwest in 1176 and continued as a justice in other counties until 1190. He assessed the tallage,a tax,from 1176 to 1190 also. [3] In 1184,Henry II summoned Ralph as a Serjeant-at-law,one of the first identifiable members of that order in the historical record. [4] [lower-alpha 2]
King Henry gave Ralph the manors of Wapley and Winterbourne in Gloucestershire. In the feudal inquest of 1166,Ralph listed him as holding half a knight's fee at the honour of Totnes,one fee from the bishop of Exeter,and two fees at Crich in Derbyshire that were part of Hubert fitzRalph's honour there. At some point,he held a fee at Blackwell,Derbyshire from Robert fitzRandulf,as he gave that fee as a marriage portion to his niece Idonea when she married William fitzRandulf. [3] Sometime between 1186 and 1190,Ralph granted a third of a knight's fee at Potterspury in Northamptonshire to Geoffrey fitzPeter,another royal official. [5]
Ralph married Maud or Matilda, [3] the daughter of Robert de Calz. According to the historian Katharine Keats-Rohan,the marriage took place sometime before 1177,as on that date he was given the forestership of Sherwood Forest which had been held by Robert de Calz. [2] But Julia Boorman in Ralph's entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says the marriage occurred around 1184 or 1185. Ralph controlled Sherwood Forest until 1197,as well as Chippenham Forest in Wiltshire from 1176 to 1190. Ralph may be the same as the Ralph fitzStephen who was given custody of Guildford Castle in Surrey in 1192 and 1193. [3]
According to Keats-Rohan,Ralph died around 1204 and had no issue from his marriage. [2] Boorman,however,states he died on 25 July 1202. [3] According to Keats-Rohan,Maud/Matilda married Adam fitzPeter of Birkin after Ralph's death, [2] but Boorman says that Maud/Matilda was the widow of fitzPeter when she married Ralph. [3] Ralph gave gifts to Haverholme Priory,Darley Abbey,Gloucester Abbey,and Stanley Abbey. In 1225 the king recognised Richard of Gloucester as Ralph's nearest heir and confirmed his custody of Winterbourne. Boorman speculates that Richard might have been Ralph's son by a previous marriage before Maud/Matilda. [3]
Robert de Chesney was a medieval English Bishop of Lincoln. He was the brother of an important royal official, William de Chesney, and the uncle of Gilbert Foliot, successively Bishop of Hereford and Bishop of London. Educated at Oxford or Paris, Chesney was Archdeacon of Leicester before his election as bishop in December 1148.
William de Chesney was an Anglo-Norman magnate during the reign of King Stephen of England and King Henry II of England. Chesney was part of a large family; one of his brothers became Bishop of Lincoln and another Abbot of Evesham Abbey. Stephen may have named him Sheriff of Oxfordshire. Besides his administrative offices, Chesney controlled a number of royal castles, and served Stephen during some of the king's English military campaigns. Chesney's heir was his niece, Matilda, who married Henry fitzGerold.
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William de Chesney was a medieval Anglo-Norman nobleman and sheriff. The son of a landholder in Norfolk, William inherited after the death of his two elder brothers. He was the founder of Sibton Abbey, as well as a benefactor of other monasteries in England. In 1157, Chesney acquired the honour of Blythburgh, and was sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk during the 1150s and 1160s. On Chesney's death in 1174, he left three unmarried daughters as his heirs.
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Hugh de Cressy was an Anglo-Norman administrator and nobleman. Little is known of his ancestry and he first served two brothers of King Henry II of England before becoming a royal official. He was rewarded with a marriage to an heiress for his service to the king. In England he often served as a royal justice and witnessed documents, which showed his closeness to the king. On the continent, he recruited mercenaries for the royal army and was named constable of the castle of Rouen in the royal lands in France. He died in 1189 after giving lands to various monasteries before his death.
William Meschin was an Anglo-Norman nobleman and baron. The brother of the earl of Chester, Meschin participated in the First Crusade. After returning to England, he acquired lands both from King Henry I of England and by his marriage to an heiress.
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