Richard de Reviers of Devon

• General Notes
  • Richard de Brionis or Abrincis, surnamed de Redvers. He resigned the barony of Okehampton, custody of Devon and government of Exeter to his nephew, Robert de Abrancis, but they were brought back in again when Hawise above married Reginald. He stood in high favor with King Henry I, who later made him Earl of Devon, and who granted him the Isle of Wight in fee. He died 1137 and was buried at Brightley Abbey, but afterwards transferred to Ford Abbey. He married Adeliza, daughter and coheiress of William Fitz-Osborne, Earl of Hereford. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Baldwin.
    (Kin of Mellcene Thurman Smith, page 276)
    
    He accompanied William the Conqueror to England in 1066.
    The precise origins of this 'Richard de Ripariis' or Richard de Redvers are unclear; one school of though places him as the son of Baldwin Fitz Gilbert, who was Sheriff of Devonshire and brother of the Richard Fitz Gilbert who established the de Clare family, another denies the connection and claims the two families were entirely separate.
    Richard Fitz-Gilbert, first Earl of Devon, who has been more than once previously confounded with his father's kinsman, Richard Fitz-Gilbert Clare, was one of the earliest Norman settlers this country, and although he did not receive at first such a large share of the plundered property of the Saxons, as fell to the lot of his brother Baldwin de Brion, yet he held six manors, as sub-tenant to the latter, five under the Earl of Mortaigne, uterine brother to King William; two, under William the Porter and Ralph de Pomeroy respectively, besides the Manor of Levaton in that part of the parish of Ipplepen (now Woodland), which was his own demesne in the year 1087.
    
    He assumed the name of Richard de Ripariis, afterwards anglicized into Redvers, or less commonly, Rivers.
    Richard de Redvers was one of the principal supporters of Henry I in his initial struggle against his brother Robert Curthose for control of the English throne, and bestowed on him the towns of Tiverton, Honiton (1100) and the honour of Plympton, together with a yearly pension of one-third of the revenue of that county. shortly after Henry took power. The Lordship of the Isle of Wight was also bestowed on him in 1102, which remained in his lineal descendants through a series of De Redvers and De Vernons until the reign of King Edward I.
    In the cartulary of Carisbrook he is called the nephew of William Fitzosbern, 1st Earl of Hereford, and the grant of the Isle of Wight to him after the death of Roger de Breteuil, certainly gives some support to the assertion. William Fitzosbern had at least one other daughter besides the unfortunate Countess of Norfolk, of whom we learn no more than that she became the mother of Raynold de Cracci. Her daughter may have been the wife of Richard de Redvers, which would justify the expression "nepos," used indifferently for nephew or grandson.
    By others sources, his wife was Lady Adeliza, a daughter of William Peverel of Nottingham and his wife Adelina of Lancaster.
    (From Wikipedia, the community-written free encyclopedia)
    

Click here for details of Richard's family with Adelise Peverel

¹ http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=jdp-fam&id=I66830&style=TABLE
Source/Citation http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=arciek&id=I17943

---

This page is within a frameset. View the entire genealogy report of de Reviers families, or surname index of de Reviers pedigrees or report summary de Reviers heritage from 'The Skaggs-Files'.
Genealogy Research.

---

Copyright © 2007 GenoPro Inc. All rights reserved.