• General Notes

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  PAYN FITZ JOHN (son of JOHN 'MONOCULUS' Monoculus and (w of John Monoculus) --- died in 1137.  "SYBIL de Lacy = Payn fitz John (ob. 1137)
  ---  W E Wightman, *The Lacy Family in England and Normandy, 1066-1194*,
  genealogical chart following p 260.
  
  From same, p 175, 177-178:  "Payn fitz John and Sybil de Lacy were not allowed to inherit the whole of the honour.  Henry I seems to have taken the
  opportunity provided by the succession of an heiress to reduce in size a dangerously large barony, and to ensure that Payn, useful royal servant though he was, should not become too powerful by adding all the Lacy fee to his own not inconsiderable estates.  During the latter half of Henry I's reign, Payn fitz John was a prominent figure in the West Midlands. It has long been thought that he was the sheriff of Herefordshire and Shropshire at the close of the reign.  It is also well known that he appeared in company with Miles of Hereford in the Pipe Roll for 1129-30 in such a way as to imply that the two of them had been holding something very like a general eyre in Staffordshire, Bloucestershire, and Pembrokeshire.  Payn's origins are not so well known.  They afford a good illustration of the way in which a younger son of comparatuley obscure origins could rise to a position of considerable importance under Henry I.  This obscurity was only comparative:  all that can be said of his father John 'Monoculus' is that he was not an important member of the baronage.  A measure of his respectability -- or rather acceptability in the eyes of the rest of his contemporaries -- is to be found in the marrige of his sons, Payn, a younger son, married the Lacy heiress.

Details of Payn's family with Sybil de Lacy