General Notes

Amongst the most distinguished companion in arms of the Conqueror wasRobe
rt de Todeni, a nobleman of Normandy, upon whom the victorious monarch con
ferred, with numerous other grants, an estate in the county of Lincoln up
on the borders of Leicestershire. Here de Todeni erected a stately cast
le and, from the fair view it commanded, gave it the designation of Belvo
ir Castle, and here he established his chief abode. At the time of the Gen
eral Survey, this powerful personage possessed no less than eighty extensi
ve lordships, viz., two in Yorkshire, one in Essex, four in Suffolk, o
ne in Cambridge, two in Hertfordshire, three in Bucks, four in Gloucesters
hire, three in Bedfordshire, nine in Northamptonshire, two in Rutland, thi
rty-two in Lincolnshire, and seventeen in Leicestershire. "Of this Robert
," saith Dugdale, "I have not seen any other memorial than that the Couche
r-Book of Belvoir recordeth: which is, that bearing a venerable este
em to our sometime much celebrated protomartyr, St. Alban, he founded ne
ar to his castle a priory for monks and annexed it as a cell to that gre
at abbey in Hertfordshire, formerly erected by the devout King Offa in hon
our of that most holy man." Robert de Todeni, Lord of Belvoir, d. in 108
8, leaving issue by his wife Adela, William, who assumed the surname of Al
bini; Berenger; Geoffrey; Robert; and Agnes. He was s. by his eldest so
n, William de Albini, Brito, Lord of Belvoir. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dorman
t, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., Londo
n, England, 1883, p. 160, Daubeney, Barons Daubeney, Earl of Bridgewater]
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Held 131 manors in Warwichshire and Lincolnshire. In his older age he beca
me a monk at Eversham.
From:  RAOUL DE TOENI
The Conqueror and His Companions
by J.R. Planché, Somerset Herald. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1874 (made ava
ilable by Pat Patterson)
"From Robert, a cadet of this house, the family of Stafford is descende
d, but I have not been able to satisfy myself as to the exact place of Rob
ert and his brother Nigel de Stafford in the pedigree. They were probab
ly younger brothers of the subject of this memoir, or possibly his uncle
s. They appear in Domesday as possessors of considerable property, but whe
ther companions of the Conqueror in 1066 is uncertain. The first Robe
rt de Toeni who assumed the name of Stafford, from the Castle of Staffor
d, married, it is said, Avicia de Clare; but I cannot identify any such pe
rson."2  SOUR S671