1535944

[SUSANNA KEENE.FTW]

Cousin to Earl of Chester.

REF: K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, Linacre College, Oxford
(http://www.linacre.ox.ac.uk/staff_pages/prosop/PRSPN2.stm)
Antecessor Noster: The Parentage of Countess Lucy Made Plain

A lot of ink has flowed on the subject, but there can be no
doubt that the 'mysterious' Countess Lucy of Chester was
William Malet's thrice-married granddaughter, the daughter of
Robert Malet's sister and Turold the Sheriff of
Lincoln (dead by 1079). The suggestion was first made by R.
Kirk in 1888. As N. Sumner has more recently observed: 'This
account has the merit of explaining why the lordship of
Spalding and other places in Lincolnshire were held after Ivo's
death not by Beatrice, his direct heir and the daughter of his
marriage to Lucy, but by the later husbands of Lucy, Roger fitz
Gerold and Ranulph Meschines.' It is clear from her charters
that Lucy was an heiress; as was to be expected, her estates
passed to the sons of her second and third marriages. Kirk's
work was based upon conjecture, and contained a number of
errors. The question of Lucy's parentage has therefore remained
open. Nevertheless, there is proof that Kirk was right. A
spurious charter of Crowland Abbey made Turold of Bucknall (the
Sheriff) the founder of the priory of Spalding as a cell of
Crowland. It also called Turold brother of Godiva countess of
Mercia, but subsequently described Godiva's son Earl Algar as
Turold's cognatus (cousin). A genealogia fundatoris of Coventry
Abbey made Lucy a daughter of Earl Algar and sister and heiress
of earls Edwin and Morcar. The Peterborough Chronicle and the
Pseudo-Ingulf's Chronicle of Crowland both made Lucy the
daughter of Algar and niece or great-niece of Turold. We know
that William Malet was half-English, so these traditions
probably boil down to a relationship between Countess Godiva
and William's English mother. In 1153 a charter [RRAN, III,
180] of the future Henry II for Lucy's son Ranulf II of Chester
referred to her uncles Robert Malet and Alan of Lincoln. Alan
of Lincoln was the successor, and almost certainly the son, of
Domesday's Alfred of Lincoln. Chronologically, it is most
unlikely that Alan was Lucy's uncle. It was probably another of
Alfred's sons whom Domesday described as Alfred nepos [nephew
or grandson] of Turold, then holding a fee which was certainly
thereafter held with the rest of the senior Alfred's fee by his
heir Alan. Domesday provides a further indication that Alfred
senior married another of William Malet's daughters when it
names a William as Alfred's predecessor in two of his manors.
Other parts of each of these manors (Linwood and Rothwell) were
held in 1086 by Durand Malet, who was probably William's son.
It seems that Henry's charter can be explained by seeing a
scribe, perhaps in search of rhetorical balance, commit the
error of ascribing two uncles to Lucy, instead of a niece
(Lucy) and a nephew (Alan of Lincoln) to Robert Malet, who was
uncle to both. Turold is evidenced in Domesday Book as a
benefactor of Crowland Abbey, to which he gave a parcel of land
at Bucknall. The abbey also held land at Spalding that had
probably been granted to it by Earl Algar and there is evidence
to suggest that Turold the Sheriff gave further land there to
the abbey of St Nicholas, Angers, before
1079. Lucy and her first husband Ivo Taillebois subsequently
founded, or perhaps re-founded, a priory at Spalding subject to
St Nicholas, Angers. A revealing phrase from the Register of
Spalding Priory reads: 'mortuo quia dicto Thoraldo relicta sibi
herede Lucia predicta' [at his death Turold left an heir, the
aforesaid Lucy]. The word heres, 'heir', was often used of the
child who was to inherit his/her father's property. Lucy later
confirmed the gifts of all three of her husbands: 'pro
redempcione anime patris mei et matris mee et dominorum meorum
et parentum meorum' [for the souls of my father and mother, my
husbands and my (other) relatives]. The association of the
priory with such a small group of people and the description of
Lucy as heres of Turold strongly hint at Lucy's parentage. But
we can go further still. In their initial benefaction Ivo and
Lucy referred to 'antecessorum suorum Turoldi scilicet
uxorisque eius regine' [our 'ancestors' Turold and his wife].
The reference to Turold's wife indicates that some part of his
landholding had come to him through his wife, something also
indicated by the occurrence of William Malet amongst those
who had held the Domesday lands of Lucy's first husband Ivo
Taillebois before him. The apparently vague Latin words
antecessor and predecessor can both be used to mean something
like 'predecessor'. Each of them conveys
a range of very precise meanings in different circumstances.
The description of Turold and his wife as antecessores of Ivo
and Lucy may be compared to the usage in a charter in the
cartulary of Mont-Saint-Michel by which the Angevins Hugh
Chalibot and his wife confirmed the grants of her father, who
was described as antecessor noster. Other examples of this
phrase show clearly that it was used by a married man to
describe the parent from whom his wife had inherited the
property she brought to the marriage. Acting on her own account
(normally after her husband's death), the heiress will often
describe herself as the daughter of the parent her husband
described as antecessor noster. A rare use of the phrase was to
indicate the couple's immediate
predecessor, not her father but her brother. In Lucy and Ivo's
case the plurality of their antecessores, Turold and his wife,
puts the matter beyond doubt. Lucy's parents were indeed Turold
the Sheriff and a daughter of William Malet.

K. S. B. Keats-Rohan
Linacre College
Oxford

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Skipped subordinate line Line 12918: 4 TEXT Date of Import: Aug 7, 2000