General Notes

William Malet, of Granville, Normandy; also held lands in Lincs before 1066 (possibly by virtue of his mother's putative status of Englishwoman); granted the feudal Barony of Eye, Suffolk, following the Conquest, in which he was one of William I's chief lieutenants, being allegedly given the task by William of burying Harold's body after Hastings; Sheriff of Yorks 1068; married Hesilia Crispin (living 1086), gggdau of Rollo The Dane, Duke of Normandy, and died c1071.  [Burke's Peerage]

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William, according to some, was grandson of Lady Godiva & brother of Harold Godwyn's wife, while not necessarily entirely true, probably there was some relationship.  I have William's mother as a daughter of Godiva's husband Leofric Earl of Mercia, by an earlier wife or mistress.  There is conjecture that William's father one of the men who accompanied Emma of Normandy to England in 1002 for her marriage with Aethelred.

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According to Crispin and Macary, "William (Guillaume) Malet de Graville stands out as one of the most imposing figures at the Conquest. There can be no doubt about his presence there, which is subscribed to by William of Poitiers, Guy of Amiens, Orderic Vital, and all the historians of this epoch. So much has been placed on record concerning him that just a few facts of his life will be recited here. He was probably descended from Gerard, a Scandinavian prince and companion of Duke Rollo, which gave the name of the fief of Gerardville or Graville, near Havre. Robert, the eldest son, occurs in a document of about 990 in Normandy. On his mother's side William Malet was of Anglo-Saxon origin, for she was probably the daughter of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and Godwa or Godgifu, the supposed sister of Thorold the Sheriff in the time of Edward the Confessor, and therefore the aunt of Edwin and Morcar, Earls of Northumberland. He was nearly killed in the battle of Hastings but was rescued by the sire de Montfort and William of Vieuxpont, and was appointed by William the Conqueror to take charge of the body of Harold, a statement that has been disputed. The consensus of opinion favors it, and it is most logical if William Malet's mother was as stated the sister of Algar II., 7th Earl of Mercia, who was the father of Alditha, wife of Harold. He accompanied King William at the reduction of Nottingham and York in 1068, for which he was rewarded with the shreivalty of land in that county. Gilbert de Gand and Robert Fitz Richard were also commanders in this expedition. The following year he was besieged in the castle of York by Edgar, the Saxon prince, and was only saved from surrender by the timely arrival of the Conqueror. In the same year he was attacked by the Danes, who captured the city of York with great slaughter and took William Malet, his wife and children, prisoners, but their lives were spared, as was that of Gilbert de Gand, for the sake of their ransoms. There is evidence that he was slain in this year, but it is uncertain and the date of his death is unknown. An entry in Domesday that "William Malet was seized of this place (Cidestan, Co. Suffolk), where he proceeded on the King's service where he died," would indicate that his death occurred during the compilation of that book. He was witness to a charter of King William to the church of St. Martin-le-Grand, in London, and is there styled "princeps," which title, however, was honorary and not hereditary, having ceased with his death."

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William Malet, or Guillaume, as he may have been called, "Sire de Graville", came from Graville Sainte Honorine between Le Havre and Harfleur, in what is today the French province of Normandy. He is said to have had a Norman father and a Saxon (read English) mother, and had some sort of association with King Harold of England before the conquest. William, through his Saxon mother, may actually have been related to King Harold, and also to the well known Lady Godiva. It is also possible that William and Harold were both God fathers of Duke William of Normandy's daughter, Abela.

The Malet Castle at Graville Sainte Honorine had an important strategic location, at the mouth of the Seine. It has now fallen into the sea, though some remnants of it may still be visible. A large section of wall with large iron rings attached was still there just over 100 years ago. The Abbey church, in which some of the Malets are buried, is now in the town of Le Havre. Though William Malet had connections to both sides in the conflict to come, his main allegiance was to Duke William of Normandy.

William fought with distinction at Hastings, as the following Excerpt from Wace's "Roman de Rou" attests:



William whom they call Mallet,
Boldly throws himself among them;
With his flashing sword
Against the English he makes furious onset;
But his shield they clove,
And his horse beneath him killed,
And himself they would have slain,
When came the Sire de Montfort
And Lord William de Vez-Pont
With the great force which they had,
Him they bravely rescued.
There many of their men they lost;
Mallet they remounted on the field
On a fresh war-horse.


When the battle was over, Duke William entrusted William Malet to attend to the burial of the dead English king. The body was buried under a heap of stones on top of a cliff at Hastings overlooking the shore that Harold had so bravely defended. William placed a stone on the grave with the epitaph:


"By command of the Duke, you rest here a King, O Harold, that you may be guardian still of the shore and sea".
This burial of Harold was only temporary and the body was later re-buried at Harold's Abbey at Waltham.

William and his brother Durand held lands in Lincolnshire, England, during the reign of Edward the Confessor, and through the reign of Harold right up to the conquest, in addition to those in Normandy. These Lincolnshire holdings, all in the Danelaw, probably came from William and Durand's mother. After the conquest William's English holdings were greatly increased, again, principally in the Danelaw, as English lands were taken from their Saxon owners and handed over to Norman Barons. It is likely that Duke William conferred these estates on William, partly because of his loyalty and skill in battle, but also because of his prior connections with his Danish "cousins" there. Perhaps the Duke felt that William was the best man to bring these proud, warlike and independent settlers under the control of their new King.

William was dead at the time of the Domesday survey in 1086, but the holdings at that time of his son Robert, and of his wife, give a good indication of the extent of his estates. He held large parts of what are today Suffolk and Norfolk, with smaller amounts of land in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. Eye, in Suffolk appears to have been William's stronghold. Here he built a Motte and Bailey castle, after the Norman fashion. Nothing remains of the Norman fortifications, but the outline of the baileys and "Castle Mound", are still evident. There is even a slight indication of where the Market, founded by William Malet under Royal License would have been held.

William married Hesilia Crispin, by whom he had two sons, Robert and Gilbert, and one daughter, Beatrice. Robert and possibly Gilbert, along with their uncle Durand, accompanied their father at the battle of Hastings. The arms shown at the top of the page, likely carried by the Malets at Hastings, were used by many generations of the Malet family, both in England and in France, and can be seen on the Bayeux tapestry.

William was made Sheriff of York and granted considerable lands in Yorkshire following the building of the first Norman castle there (the mound now supports 'Clifford's Tower') in 1068. He and his fellow captains, Robert Fitz-Richard and William of Ghent, with 500 picked knights had to fight off a local revolt, headed by Edgar the Atheling; this in or shortly after January 1069. Robert Fitz-Richard and many of his men were killed and it was only by the timely arrival of King William that the City was saved. The natives remained restless and had another, token go, as soon as King William left but were quickly put down. The troops were strengthened and another castle built on the other side of the river from the original but, notwithstanding, in September 1069, William, his wife and two of his children were captured by a combined force of Danes and English under Sweyn of Denmark supported by Earls Waltheof and Gospatric and the Northumbrians, when York fell to them after a terrible fight. This led to King William ordering the burning and killing of everything in the north and Domesday, even 16 years later, records most of northern England as still being waste and uninhabited.

William, his wife and two children must have been released some time later and William retained most of his lands apart from those in Yorkshire, which will have come with the office of Sheriff, which had been taken from him. At some point the King awarded William the appellation of "Princep", and in the Chart granted by the King to the church of St. Martin le Grand, his signature appears as "Wilielmus Malet Princep". In the context of the times, Princep would likely have been interpreted as "leader, or chief". William is believed to have died fighting "Hereward the Wake" in the Fens near Ely Cathedral, which lies between South Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk (and in the middle of the Malet holdings), in 1071. The Domesday book records that "...He went into the marsh", and that "...he went on the King's service, where he died".

William is generally accepted to be the progenitor of many of the various branches of the Malet family (those that can trace their lines back that far), both in England and in France. The descendants of Durand continued to hold lands in Lincolnshire, and are recorded in Irby on Humber up to the 16th century.

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NORMAN SHERIFFS
By 1066, when William the Conqueror seized power, he replaced all of the existing sheriffs with his own loyal comrades in arms. When William conveyed the offices of sheriff to his Normans, he also bestowed to them the title "Vicomte," which added nobility to their positions. He allowed Vicomte sheriffs to build castles, a powerful symbol of privilege and a far greater honor than had ever been granted to prior Anglo-Saxon sheriffs. The castles were a sign of aggressive force. This fortification symbolism helped identify William as the incomparable authority in the newly conquered land.

The most famous William the Conqueror sheriff was a man named William Malet, a ferocious warrior. During the Battle of Hasting his horse was killed from under him. Mounting a fresh horse, he continued leading the charge, killing the enemy along the way, to a Norman victory. William continued to use Malet to crush insurgent forces within his reign.. . . As a reward, William named Malet the sheriff of Yorkshire.

King William sought aggressive types for the office of sheriff whose ambitions were consistent with his. Those willing to squeeze the peasants to their maximum were the best qualified in William's eyes. He instituted the practice of selling the office to the highest bidder. This brought forth evil men willing to pay exorbitant prices for the office and then willing to do whatever it took to recoup their investment. . . No one spoke out for the peasantry because their only representative to the king was the very sheriffs embezzling them. The most notorious was Picot, Sheriff of Cambridgeshire. . . . Monks describe him as:

a hungry lion, a prowling wolf, a crafty fox, a filthy swine, a dog without shame, who stuffed his belly like an insatiable beast as though the whole country were a single corpse.

If events reduced production within the shires and thereby reduced the prosperity of King William, the sheriff was then forced to press the peasants even more to make up for the deficiency. In 1083, William levied the highest tax assessment of his reign to make up for the previous year's famine and low production. . . . To enhance their income, sheriffs commonly pillaged Church properties. . . .

The only coin in circulation in twelfth century England was the silver penny. It was the responsibility of the sheriff to police the silver content in the coinage. If the sheriff failed to see that the tender did not meet quality assurance in the amount of silver content versus the alloy percentage, he was held personally liable for the shortage. Because this burden was placed on the sheriffs in the area that effected them the most, their pocketbooks. . . .Enforcement of the matter was particularly unkind under the reign of King Henry II to punish offenders that circulated "bastard" coins. The first offense routinely resulted in the severing of a hand or castration. . . .

The coming of King John in 1199 brought about one of the most stirring periods in the history of the medieval sheriff. . . . As King John waged war against the Welsh, the French, and the Irish, he placed the emphasis upon the sheriffs to finance his wars. . . . Because of the sheriff's authority and ability to raise funds, the 13th century saw the sheriff as the most powerful administrative force in medieval England. . . .

King John personally knew every one of the 100 or so sheriffs that he appointed between 1199 and 1216. Some were his intimate friends and most trusted advisors. In contrast to the prior practice of King Richard, he appointed only two members of the Church to the post. He instead chose to select intense, secular men, with strong military backgrounds. . . . His deliberate selection of men of harsh demeanor . . . was considered by people of his time as a substantive answer for the difficult issues of the day . . . tough men for tough times. . .