• General Notes

  [SUSANNA KEENE.FTW]
  
  W E Wightman, *The Lacy Family in England and Normandy,
  1066-1194*,
  genealogical chart following p 260.
  
  From same, p 17, 19:  "The honour of Pontefract is the name
  later given to the
  estates built up by the Lacy family, mainly by Ilbert I under
  the first two Norman kings.  In 1086 the bulk of these estates
  were already to be found in
  the south half of the West Riding of Yorkshire, held by Ilbert
  I as tenant-in-chief direct of the king, though there was also
  an appreciable quantity of land scattered over the counties of
  Lincoln, Nottingham, Buckingham, Oxford, counties of Lincoln,
  Nottingham, Buckingham, Oxford, Berkshire, and Surrey.  .....
  The military importance of this stretch of territory was
  enormous."
  
  From same, p 55:  "The first holder of the honour of Pontefract
  was Ilbert I
  de Lacy, brother of the first lord of the honour of Weobley,
  Walter I. Proof of their relationship comes from their estate
  in NOrmandy.  This single holding was held jointly by the
  descendants of Ilbert I and Walter I by the Norman tenure of
  parage, under which land was divided amongst the sons and
  daughters whilst at the same time remaining a single fee.  Had
  it not been originally a family holding this tenure would not
  have applied, and the details of the dissolution of the joint
  fee show that the family link must have been via Ilbert and
  Walter as sons of the same father.  The senior branch of the
  family was probably that of Ilbert of Pontefract.  He followed
  his Norman overlord into England, whereas Walter arrived in the
  train of
  William fitz Osbern, much as a younger son might do.  In all
  probability the
  younger brother would have no obligation to follow his liege
  lord outside
  Normandy and thus might choose to attach himself to the most
  convenient
  leader he could find.  An additional piece of evidence comes
  from the grant
  of twenty- two acres of land at Montmain to the nunnery of St.
  Amand by
  Emma, the mother of Ilbert de Lacy.  She was categorically
  described as
  Ilbert's mother, to distinguish her from the abbess of St.
  Amand, whose name
  was also Emma.  This implies either that Ilbert was the more
  important of
  the two brothers in Normandy, and under the rules of tenure by
  parage
  therefore the elder, or else that Walter was not Emma's son,
  but a cousin.
  As this would have been impossible, in view of the later
  descent of the fee,
  it is most likely that Ilbert was the elder.  Little is known
  about either
  of the brothers.  They were not, for example, amongst the
  favoured few whose
  participation at the battle of Hastings can be proved.  Ilbert
  I was
  probably born not later than 1045, though this is little more
  than a guess
  based on the likely assumption that he came over in 1066, and
  was enfeoffed
  as a tenant of Bishop Odo soon afterward.  He was still alive
  shortly after
  Odo's banishment on 14 November 1088.  It is possible that he
  was alive in
  or soon after 1091, but he was undoubtedly dead by the end of
  the reign of
  Rufus, for by that time he had been succeeded by his son Robert
  I.  Little
  more is known about his family.  His wife's name was Hawise,
  and that is the
  total extent of information about her."
  
  From same, p 58:  "It has been frequently stated that the abbot
  of Selby from
  1096/7 to 1122/3 was Hugh de Lacy, son of Ilbert I.  .....
  There is no medieval
  evidence that the surname of Abbot Hugh was 'de Lacy', even
  though the
  introduction and the index in the published edition of the
  Selby cartulary
  use it. The error can be traced to Burton, who committed it for
  the first
  time in 1758 [J. Burton, *Monastican Eboracense*, p 405].
  Burton quoted as
  his authority Dugdale's *Monasticon*, of nearly a century
  earlier, but
  Dugdale only called him Abbot Hugh, with no surname -- and no
  pre-Reformation account adds any surname either. Hugh de Lacy,
  as abbot of
  Selby, is undoubtedly an eighteenth century promotion."

Details of Ilbert's family with Hawise (de Lacy)