General Notes

REFN: 1345AN
REFN: P1345
The earliest reference (12??) to a representative of the De Brienn e
family in England is Guy De Brienne VI of
Brienne-le-Chateau, Champagne, F rance, styled Sir Guy De Bryen I of
England, who settled in South Wales on th e Bay of Carmarthen. According
to the compilationof David C. McMurtry and Mic hael L. Kallan, Sir Francis
Bryan et
Compagne[sic]: Avant et Apres Son Temps (Lexington, KY: Mil-Mac
Publishers, 1994) pp. 26- : "Guy De Brienne (IV), wh o may properly be
called in the English records of this family, Guy De Brien (I), was
probably born in France in about 1200. He is known to have been a
contemporary of Henry De Tracy (1202-1274). He was reared for a military
care er, which was befitting to his status of being a "lackland knight
adventurer, " or a knight without inherited lands or title. He was the
first of the De Br ienne lineage to be identified by name in the records
of England. The primary seat of residence of the early De Brien/Bryan
family in the British Isles ap pears to have been in southern Wales
according to Burke (1883). They are conn ected for 5 generations to
Pembrokeshire and Devonshire. "This family is espe cially associated with
that of Tor Brian, a place named for the Brienne (Brie n) family.
Torrebriene, as it is alternately called, is a geographic place na me in
Devon in southwest England. According to Abstracts of English Records
(1929), "Torbryan" was a "parish, rural deanery o Moreton, archdeaconry
of T otnes and diocese of Exeter." Also connected with this site is
"Talacharn" or Talagharne Castle. "'How?' and 'Why?' Guy De Brien
ventured to and settled i n England and Wales cannot be stated at this
time with any certainty. It is k nown that at about this time there were
other Norman baronial families that s ettled in this territory that was
often hotly contested over by these newcome rs, who fought with the Welsh
inhabitants. King William Rufus, son of William ‘the Conqueror,’ set in
motion during his reign (1087-1100) a 'System of Lor d Marcher's
Conquest.’ In this feudal system of government, the King consider ed
himself the owner of all the land and gave authority to any ‘adventurer
knight,' who had the 'enterprise' to seize any ‘obnoxious district' in
the Ki ng's name and possess it as a fiefdom of his own. As speculated,
this willing ness to resettle and claim the region by force of arms and
with the consent o f the monarch was one way that landless younger sons
could retain their accus tomed life style. The district surrounding the
manor or castle of 'Talacharn' was probably acquired in just this manner
"Nichols (1892) provides the follo wing additional information: ‘A Norman
Lord Marcher of an inferior grade, De Brian by name, afterward took it
[Talacham (Talagharn) Castle up as his stron ghold, and seems to have
become an established resident of the place.’ "This Guy De Brienne,
Sometimes called ‘Guydo De Brian,’ was married in about 1221/ 2, to
Johanne/Jane De la Pole, the daughter of William De la Pole. She is
r eferred to in certain Latin documents as ‘D'na Johanna De Pola,’ the
daughter of 'Dn's Willm's De Pola' as found in The Genealogist of 1920.
The first men tion of 'Guy De Brion’ [subsequent scribal miscopy for
Brien?] – in the court records is found in 1248/9. As stated in The
Calendar of Charter Rolls (1247 -1258), on '15 December, in the 32nd year
of Henry III,' a grant was made to:
'Guy De Brion [sic] and his heirs of a yearly fair of his manor of
Talachar n on the vigil the feast and the morrow of St. Michael.’
"This would mean that he was given permission by the crown to hold a fair
and market that generall y occurred from the 28th through the. 30th of
every September, a lucrative ve nture that coincided with the Autumn
harvest."
"Guy De Brienne/Brien is repo rted to have fought in the wars between
England and France that occurred betw een 1244 and 1266, during the reign
of.King Hen