General Notes

REFN: 1568AN
REFN: P1568
The Conqueror and His Companions
by J.R. Planché, Somerset Herald . London: Tinsley Brothers, 1874.
Orderic has supplied us with plenty of mater ial for a memoir of the
family of St. Valeri, indifferently written Waleri an d Galeri, so many of
which were benefactors to his beloved Abbey of Ouche, ot herwise St.
Evroult, and, as the fleet of Duke William sailed from the port o f St.
Valery-sur-Somme, the bourg from which they took their name, it would b e
strange indeed if a "Sire De St. Galeri" had not been found in Wace's
cat alogue of the companions of the Conqueror.
They did not, however, hold the fie f of St. Valeri in their own right,
but as hereditary advocates of the abbey, founded there by Lothaire in
613, in which the lordship was vested. To the d evotion of the Duke and
his barons to its patron saint, the Merovingian Walle ric, and the solemn
procession of the abbot and monks bearing the shrine whic h contained his
holy relics, was attributed the favourable change of the wind for which
William had so long waited.
The Sires of St. Valeri were also con nected by marriage with the ducal
family, and could claim cousinship by blood with the Conqueror. Gilbert,
the Advocate of St. Valeri, married Papia, daug hter of Richard II. Duke
of Normandy, by his wife, more Danico, of that name. She bore to him two
sons, Bernard and Richard. Of Richard I shall speak here after. It is with
his elder brother that we have first to deal, as he has bee n
unhesitatingly named by M. le Prévost as the "Sire De Galeri" of the
Norm an poet, though upon what authority I have not been able to discover.
Certain ly not upon that of Orderic, who, provokingly enough, while most
liberal in h is information respecting Richard and his descendants, tells
us nothing about Bernard except that he was the father of Walter de
St.Valery, who was probab ly the Walter of Domesday, possessing at the
time of its compilation, amongst other estates, the extensive manor of
Isleworth, in the county of Middlesex, but whether as the heir of his
father, on whom they might have been bestowed by the Conqueror, or
acquired by himself, either as a reward for service ren dered to his
sovereign or through some fortunate marriage, we are left to con jecture.
If Bernard was really the companion of the Conqueror at Hastings and
Senlac, the former solution of the question is most reasonable, and the
pos session of the domains by his son Walter has probably been the chief
ground f or Le Prévost's statement, which Mr. Taylor copies without
observation, as we ll as for that of MM. De Magny and Delisle. Still it is
rather extraordinary that the historian of the family should record the
military services, the mar riages and issue of Richard and his sons, and
make no mention of so interesti ng a fact as the presence of the elder
brother Bernard in the expedition whic h sailed from his own port, and the
famous victory in which it resulted.
We must therefore content ourselves perforce with the assurance of Wace,
that th e Lord of St. Valeri, and those he roDe with, demeaned themselves
like brave men, and sorely handled all whom their weapons could reach. We
hear nothing o f him after the Conquest, and he was probably dead when
Walter De St. Valery was found seized of the manor of Isleworth. The
latter was living in 1097, wh en, with his son Bernard, he was in the Holy
Land, and fought under the banne rs of Bohemond in the great battle of
Dorylaeum.
But Walter De St. Valery wa s not the only one of the name who held lands
in England at the time of the s urvey.
A Ranulf De St. Walerie was Lord of Randely, Stamtone, Refan, Stratone,
Burgrede, and Scotome, in Lincolnshire, but how related to Walter does
not appear. "What came of him or his posterity," says Dugdale, "if he had
any, I know not, for those in the succeeding ages had not any lands in
that county. " "Those" being the issue of Reginald, son of Guy