• General Notes

  [316552.ftw]
  
  See Historical Document.
  
  ALIA Ilbert /de Lacy/ de Pontefract
  _FA1 PLAC With William the Conqueror.  Followed his Norman overlord into England abt 1066.
  _FA2 PLAC Built large estates in the south half of the West Riding, Yorkshire.
  _FA3 PLAC Held estates as tenant-in-chief direct of the king.
  _FA4 PLAC Also had land in Lincoln, Nottingham, Buckingham, Oxford, Berkshire, and Surrey.
  _FA5 PLAC Military importance of this stretch of territory was enormous.
  _FA6 PLAC Participation at the battle of Hastings can not be proved.
  _FA7 PLAC Enfeoffed as a tenant of Bishop Odo (William's brother) soon after 1066.W E Wightma n, *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 buil t up by the Lacy family, mainly by Ilbert I under the first two Norman kings.  In 1086 the bu lk of these estates were already to be found in the south half of the West Riding of Yorkshir e, held by Ilbert I as tenant-in-chief direct of the king, though there was also an appreciab le quantity of land scattered over the counties of Lincoln, Nottingham,\7? Buckingham, Oxford , counties of Lincoln, Nottingham, Buckingham, Oxford, Berkshire, and Surrey.  .....  The mil itary importance of this stretch of territory was enormous." From same, p 55:  "The first hol der of the honour of Pontefract was Ilbert I de Lacy, brother of the first lord of the honou r of Weobley, Walter I. Proof of their relationship comes from their estate in NOrmandy.  Thi s single holding was held jointly by the descendants of Ilbert I and Walter I by the Norman t enure of parage, under which land was divided amongst the sons and daughters whilst at the sa me time remaining a single fee.  Had it not been originally a family holding this tenure woul d not have applied, and the details of the dissolution of the joint fee show that the famil y link must have been via Ilbert and Walter as sons of the same father.  The senior branch o f the family was probably that of Ilbert of Pontefract.  He followed his Norman overlord int o England, whereas Walter arrived in the train of William fitz Osbern, much as a younger so n might do.  In all probability the younger brother would have no obligation to follow his li ege lord outside Normandy and thus might choose to attach himself to the most convenient lead er he could find.  An additional piece of evidence comes from the grant of twenty- two acre s of land at Montmain to the nunnery of St. Amand by Emma, the mother of Ilbert de Lacy.  Sh e was categorically described as Ilbert's mother, to distinguish her from the abbess of St. A mand, whose name\7? was also Emma.  This implies either that Ilbert was the more important o f 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, i n view of the later descent of the fee, it is most likely that Ilbert was the elder.  Littl e is known about either of the brothers.  They were not, for example, amongst the favoured fe w whose participation at the battle of Hastings can be proved.  Ilbert I was probably born no t later than 1045, though this is little more than a guess based on the likely assumption tha t he came over in 1066, and was enfeoffed as a tenant of Bishop Odo soon afterward.  He was s till alive shortly after Odo's banishment on 14 November 1088.  It is possible that he was al ive in or soon after 1091, but he was undoubtedly dead by the end of the reign of Rufus, fo r by that time he had been succeeded by his son Robert I.  Little more is known about his fam ily.  His wife's name was Hawise, and that is the total extent of information about her." Fro m 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 o f Abbot Hugh was 'de Lacy', even though the introduction and the index in the published editi on of the Selby cartulary use it. The error can be traced to Burton, who committed it for th e first time in 1758 [J. Burton, *Monastican Eboracense*, p 405].  Burton quoted as his autho rity Dugdale's *Monasticon*, of nearly a century earlier, but Dugdale only called him Abbot H ugh, 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 de's family with Hawise de Lacy