Vik Haakull Family history
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Countess Lucy De Rumily

Countess Lucy De Rumily

Female Abt 1070 - Abt 1136  (66 years)


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  • Name Lucy De Rumily 
    Prefix Countess 
    Birth Abt 1070  Crowland & Spalding, Lincolnshire, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Female 
    Death Abt 1136  [1
    Person ID I55057  Cecilie Family
    Last Modified 1 Jan 2010 

    Father Sheriff Turold Of Lincoln,   b. Abt 1015, Coventry, Warwickshire, England (Mercia) Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Bef 1079, Buckinghamshire, England Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 64 years) 
    Mother Alvarissa Malet,   b. Abt 1045, Graville St Honorine, Normandy, France Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Yes, date unknown 
    Family ID F30646  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family 1 3rd Earl Ranulph Of Chester,   b. Abt 1070, Briquessart, Livry, France Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Jan 1129, Chester, Cheshire, England Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 59 years) 
    Marriage Abt 1097  Of, England Find all individuals with events at this location  [1
    Children 
     1. Adeliza De Meschines,   b. Abt 1098, Hertford, Hertfordshire, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Aft 1142 (Age 45 years)
     2. William De Meschines,   b. Abt 1100, Of, Gernon Castle, Normandy Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Abt 1125, Of, Normandy, France Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 25 years)
     3. 4th Earl Ranulph Of Chester,   b. 1099, Guernon Castle, Normandy, France Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 16 Dec 1153, Chester, Cheshire, England (Poisoned) Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 54 years)
    Family ID F22972  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 1 Jan 2010 

    Family 2 Baron Ives (Ivo) De Taillebois,   b. Abt 1036, Cristot, Calvados, Normandy, France Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 1094, Kendal, Cambria, England Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 58 years) 
    Marriage Aft 1086  1st Husband 2ND Wife Find all individuals with events at this location  [2
    Children 
     1. Christina De Taillebois,   b. Aft 1086, Kendal, Cambria, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Yes, date unknown
     2. Beatrice De Taillebois,   b. Abt 1090, Taillebois, Orne, Normandy, France Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Yes, date unknown
    Family ID F30595  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 1 Jan 2010 

    Family 3 Seigneur Roger Fitzgerold De Roumare,   b. Abt 1050, Roumare, Seine Inferieure, Normandy, France Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Bef 15 Jul 1098, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 48 years) 
    Marriage Aft 1094  2ND Husband Find all individuals with events at this location  [2
    Children 
     1. Earl William De Roumare,   b. Abt 1096, Crowland, Peterborough, Lincolnshire, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Bef 1161, Revesby, Horncastle, Lincolnshire, England (As Monk) Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 65 years)
    Family ID F30654  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 1 Jan 2010 

  • Event Map
    Link to Google MapsBirth - Abt 1070 - Crowland & Spalding, Lincolnshire, England Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsMarriage - Aft 1094 - 2ND Husband Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsMarriage - Abt 1097 - Of, England Link to Google Earth
     = Link to Google Earth 

  • Notes 
    • Lucy, living 1130, widow susscessively, of Ives Taillebois and Roger Fitz Gerold; m. probably c 1098 Ranulph III le Meschin. [Ancestral Roots]

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      He [Ranulph le Meschin] married Lucy, widow of Roger FITZ-GEROLD (by whom she was mother of William de Roumare, afterwards Earl of Lincoln). He died 17 or 27 January 1128/9, and was buried at St. Werburg's, Chester. The Countess Lucy confirmed, as his widow, the grant of the Manor of Spalding to the monks of that place (f). [Complete Peerage III:166, XIV:170, (transcribed by Dave Utzinger)]

      (f) She paid 500 marks to King Henry in 1130 for license to remain unmarried for 5 years.

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      The following copied from www.linacre.ox.ac.uk/research/prosop/PRSPN2.stm,
      gives the latest research on the ancestry of Lucy:
      ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- ---------------------------

      Antecessor Noster:
      The Parentage of Countess Lucy Made Plain

      A lot of ink has flowed on the subject, but there can be no doubt that the 'mysterious' Countess Lucy of Chester was William Malet's thrice-married granddaughter, the daughter of Robert Malet's sister and Turold the Sheriff of Lincoln (dead by 1079). The suggestion was first made by R. Kirk in 1888. As N. Sumner has more recently observed: 'This account has the merit of explaining why the lordship of Spalding and other places in Lincolnshire were held after Ivo's death not by Beatrice, his direct heir and the daughter of his marriage to Lucy, but by the later husbands of Lucy, Roger fitz Gerold and Ranulph Meschines.' It is clear from her charters that Lucy was an heiress; as was to be expected, her estates passed to the sons of her second and third marriages. Kirk's work was based upon conjecture, and contained a number of errors. The question of Lucy's parentage has therefore remained open. Nevertheless, there is proof that Kirk was right.

      A spurious charter of Crowland Abbey made Turold of Bucknall (the Sheriff) the founder of the priory of Spalding as a cell of Crowland. It also called Turold brother of Godiva countess of Mercia, but subsequently described Godiva's son Earl Algar as Turold's cognatus (cousin). A genealogia fundatoris of Coventry Abbey made Lucy a daughter of Earl Algar and sister and heiress of earls Edwin and Morcar. The Peterborough Chronicle and the Pseudo-Ingulf's Chronicle of Crowland both made Lucy the daughter of Algar and niece or great-niece of Turold. We know that William Malet was half-English, so these traditions probably boil down to a relationship between Countess Godiva and William's English mother.

      In 1153 a charter [RRAN, III, 180] of the future Henry II for Lucy's son Ranulf II of Chester referred to her uncles Robert Malet and Alan of Lincoln. Alan of Lincoln was the successor, and almost certainly the son, of Domesday's Alfred of Lincoln. Chronologically, it is most unlikely that Alan was Lucy's uncle. It was probably another of Alfred's sons whom Domesday described as Alfred nepos [nephew or grandson] of Turold, then holding a fee which was certainly thereafter held with the rest of the senior Alfred's fee by his heir Alan. Domesday provides a further indication that Alfred senior married another of William Malet's daughters when it names a William as Alfred's predecessor in two of his manors. Other parts of each of these manors (Linwood and Rothwell) were held in 1086 by Durand Malet, who was probably William's son. It seems that Henry's charter can be explained by seeing a scribe, perhaps in search of rhetorical balance, commit the error of ascribing two uncles to Lucy, instead of a niece (Lucy) and a nephew (Alan of Lincoln) to Robert Malet, who was uncle to both.

      Turold is evidenced in Domesday Book as a benefactor of Crowland Abbey, to which he gave a parcel of land at Bucknall. The abbey also held land at Spalding that had probably been granted to it by Earl Algar and there is evidence to suggest that Turold the Sheriff gave further land there to the abbey of St Nicholas, Angers, before 1079. Lucy and her first husband Ivo Taillebois subsequently founded, or perhaps re-founded, a priory at Spalding subject to St Nicholas, Angers. A revealing phrase from the Register of Spalding Priory reads: 'mortuo quia dicto Thoraldo relicta sibi herede Lucia predicta' [at his death Turold left an heir, the aforesaid Lucy]. The word heres, 'heir', was often used of the child who was to inherit his/her father's property. Lucy later confirmed the gifts of all three of her husbands: 'pro redempcione anime patris mei et matris mee et dominorum meorum et parentum meorum' [for the souls of my father and mother, my husbands and my (other) relatives]. The association of the priory with such a small group of people and the description of Lucy as heres of Turold strongly hint at Lucy's parentage. But we can go further still.

      In their initial benefaction Ivo and Lucy referred to 'antecessorum suorum Turoldi scilicet uxorisque eius regine' [our 'ancestors' Turold and his wife]. The reference to Turold's wife indicates that some part of his landholding had come to him through his wife, something also indicated by the occurrence of William Malet amongst those who had held the Domesday lands of Lucy's first husband Ivo Taillebois before him. The apparently vague Latin words antecessor and predecessor can both be used to mean something like 'predecessor'. Each of them conveys a range of very precise meanings in different circumstances. The description of Turold and his wife as antecessores of Ivo and Lucy may be compared to the usage in a charter in the cartulary of Mont-Saint-Michel by which the Angevins Hugh Chalibot and his wife confirmed the grants of her father, who was described as antecessor noster. Other examples of this phrase show clearly that it was used by a married man to describe the parent from whom his wife had inherited the property she brought to the marriage. Acting on her own account (normally after her husband's death), the heiress will often describe herself as the daughter of the parent her husband described as antecessor noster. A rare use of the phrase was to indicate the couple's immediate predecessor, not her father but her brother. In Lucy and Ivo's case the plurality of their antecessores, Turold and his wife, puts the matter beyond doubt. Lucy's parents were indeed Turold the Sheriff and a daughter of William Malet.

      K. S. B. Keats-Rohan
      Linacre College
      Oxford

  • Sources 
    1. [S1631] Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists, 7th, 132a-26 (Reliability: 3).

    2. [S1631] Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists, 7th, 246b-25 (Reliability: 3).