1. Torf. According to Robert of Torigny (GND, viii. c. 37), Torf was the father of Turold and Turchetil (see also OV ii. 12). It is wrongly assumed that this Turchetil was a forefather of the Harcourts; he died childless, passing his estate to his great-nephew, Asketil (cart. Preaux, fol. 97v; CP xi. Instr., col. 201 a. d., Du Monstier, Neustria Pia, p. 522, 1663). Turold mar. Duvelina de Crepon, sister of Gunnor, the wife of ‘Duke’ Richard; they were ancestors of the Beaumont family of Pont-Audemer, and, according to Auguste le Prevost, of the Harcourts, with Turold and Duvelina being the parents of both Onfroi de Vieilles (GND vii. 1. 3.), and Turchetil. (See Ordericus, ed. Prevost, vol. i., p. 180; ii. pp. 14, 369, 370; iii. pp. 42, 229).
1.1. Turchetil.
1.2. ‘Turoldis teneri ducis pedagogus perimitur’ (Will. Gemet, VII.).
1.2.1. Hunfrid (Onfroi de Vieilles, alias Vetulis or Vaux, lord of Vieilles; a small commune in the canton of Beaumont, arrondissement of Bernay.
1.2.1.1. Roger de Beaumont; Asketil, his dapifer, being a junior kinsman.
1.2.1.1.1. Robert de Beaumont, Ist Earl Leicester.
1.2.1.1.1.1. Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl Leicester, founder of Garendon in 1133, to which donated his kinsmen, Hugh de Berges, and his son, Asketil.
1.2.2. Turchetil.
1.2.2.1. Asketil (de Harcourt) de Rieu, gave the abbey of Tréport, c. 1060, the tithes of ‘decimam suam de Riu’. (Carlularium sanctae Trinilatis, p. 425). He is noted as ‘senis’, distinguishing him from his son.
1.2.2.1.1. Hugues de Rieu, confirmed his father’s gifts to Treport. At Domesday, he held Rotingedene (near Bergemere, contracted to Burg and Berges) from William de Warenne. His son, William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey (d. 1138), m. Isabelle de Vermandois, widow of Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester, whose son founded Garendon.
1.2.2.1.1.1. Anscherio (dapifer) de Moncellis. In Easter of 1107, before the barons of king Henry, he gave witness in a dispute concerning fisheries, donated to Treport by Robert d’Eu; the witnesses being Abraham de Petra; Geroldo dapifero; Gauffrido de Envremou; Anscherio de Moncellis, multisque aliis. Dr Keats-Rohan suggests that the Ansketil who held land at Bexhill, Footland and Wellhead in Sussex from the Count of Eu was ‘perhaps’ Ansketil of Rieux, who accounted in Sussex in the Pipe Roll of 1130 and whose family appears in the early charters of Tréport abbey, founded by the Count of Eu. He may have been the Ansketil de Jorz who is recorded in England in 1110 and who (it is suggested) is synonomous with the “nobis Aschetillus dispensator” and his son “Galfridus” noted by Bridgeman (The Burton Abbey Twelfth Century Surveys, Collections for a History of Staffordshire, p. 225, 1918). Sometime during the period 1133- 48, as “Asketillus de Berges,” he gave four carucates of the land of Burton to the Abbot and Convent of St. Mary at Garendon, the charter being witnessed by Robert, Earl of Leicester, and Ives de Harcourt, who d. 1148. (B.M. MS Lansdowne 415, folios 8, 31v.).
1.2.2.1.1.1.1. Geoffrey le Despenser (‘Gaufrido dispensatore’), ‘dispensarius’ to the Earl of Chester.
1.2.2.1.1.1.1.1. Thomas le Despenser, donated to Garendon as ‘Tomas Dispensator, filius Gaufridi Dispensatoris’. (John Nichols, The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester, vol. III, part 2, 1804).
1.2.2.1.2. Asketil. D.B.: The Land of the Count of Eu, Bexill Hundred: ‘Ansketil of Rieux 1/2 hide‘. The English Harcourts:
1.2.2.1.2.1. Robert fitz Anschetil, ob. 1118 (ctl. Preaux, fol. 102v). Held Norman fiefs.
1.2.2.1.2.1.1. William fitz Robert, fl. 1149 (P.R. 31 H. 1). Granted Stanton-under-Bardon, Leic., to Garendon Abbey, founded by Robert de Beaumont (cart. Garendon, fols. 5v., 15v.).
1.2.2.1.2.1.1.1. Robert fitz William, mar. Eve Crispin, da. of baron of the Vexin Normande, Joscelin Crispin.
1.2.2.1.2.1.2. Ivo de Harcourt. He ratified the confirmation of his brother, William, of their father’s gifts to Garendon (ctl. Garendon, fol. 15v.; Nichols’ Leic. vii.). ‘In 1148/9, William de Harcourt, with the consent of his brother and heir, Ivo, and mother, Agnes, alienated to Garendon the manor of Stanton-under-Bardon, which was specifically their patrimonium’ (Benjamin Thompson, Monasteries and Society in Medieval Britain, p. 107, 1999). It was Ivo who was the progenitor of the English line of Harcourts. “The later forfeiture of the English lands of the ‘Norman’ Harcourts makes them difficult to trace, but we do at least know some of them in Leicestershire … the remaining part of the Harcourt inheritance in the manor of Leicester was being held by Ivo de Harcourt before the end of Stephen’s reign” (Crouch, Beaumont Twins, pp.125-6).
1.2.2.1.1.2. Ralph de Monceaux. In 1130, he was pardoned 20s 6d of Danegeld in Sussex. Wibert’s holding of the count of Eu in 1086 was 9 hides and 1 virgate, of which the danegeld would be 18s 6d; one hide on the honour of Warenne would make the total danegeld 20s 6d. Farrer’s notes introduce the suggestion that in 1129/30 Ralf de Monceux was in possession of Wibert’s 1086 holding. On November 14, 1148 he witnessed a charter of John Count of Eu and in the same month was addressed in terms that suggest he was acting in the role of sheriff of Hastings Rape: “John, count of Eu, to Ralph de Munceaus and all his men of the Rape of Hastings. I have restored to the church of Chichester and to Bishop Hylary the manor of Bixla, to be held of the King, and have seized him thereof. I order you to let him hold it. Farewell”. (Chichester Chartulary. Liber Y, nos 299 and 300; Sussex Record Society vol XLVI 1942-3).
1.2.2.1.1.2.1. Anscher (Asketil) de Monceaux (de Moncellis). “Ego Hugo de Mortuo-mari aliquando cogitans de morte et vita, volens unam evitare et aliam adipisci, dubitans qua via incederem, labore enim manuum non queo, quia fodere non valeo, putavi levius per elemosynam perficere, quia audivi à multis quod sicut aquaextinguit ignem, itaelemosyna extinguit peccatum. Les témoins sont : Hugues, abbé de St.-Victor, Anscher de Monchaux (de Moncellis), Willaume, son fils, H. de Nellette, H. de Rue,* W. Gourle, etc. *Hugues de Rieux.
1.2.2.1.1.2.1.1. Raoul de Monchaux. In 1175, with the consent of Agnes, his wife (probably de Balliol), Guillaume and Jean, his children, and in the presence of Guy d’Avesnes, Guy de Balliol, and Gauthier de Saint Remy, granted, perpetually and frankly, Abbey of Saint-Michel du Tréport, all the rights which he and his predecessors could have over his church at Rieux and chapel at Monchaux, within the same parish; the chapel later to be made a church. In 1186, he donated to Sery in memory of his son, William. His last donation was in 1205.
1.2.2.1.1.2.2. Hugues de Rieux, as given.
1.2.2.1.1.2.3. Alan de Monceaux, s.l. 1161, of Monchxaux-Soreng, near Aumale. Canton de Blangy (from whence the Crispins), arrondissement de Neufchâtel-en-Bray (Seine-Inférieure)
1.2.2.1.1.2.3.1. Ingelran de Monceux, d. 1205. He was also known as “Inghelramus de Jortis“. (Publications of the Bedfordshire Historical Record Society, vol. 13 p., 60, 1930, cit. Cartulary of the Abbey of Old Wardon, 1 John). He married Idonia, granddaughter of Juliana ‘filia John fitz Waleran’, of Herstmonceux and Warberton, Sussex, and Little Easton, Essex, who had livery of her father’s lands in 1128. She m. (1) William de Hastings, as 2nd wife, (PR 31 Henry I). She m.(2) Robert Doisnel, a royal marshal. By a first wife, William de Hastings was father of Robert de Hastings, despenser to King Henry II, confirmed in the office of Ralph de Hastings, his uncle. Ingelran took possession of his wife’s inheritance in 1199.
1.2.2.2. Lesceline, m. William I, Count of Eu, illegitimate son of ‘Duke’ Richard I. of Normandy. Lesceline, Countess of Eu, held the fief of Jort.
1.2.2.2.1. Robert d’Eu, the founder of Treport, to which Asketil de Rieu probably donated as his uncle.
Generally, the repetition of patterns of association is paramount to understanding these people, as they organised themselves to survive through familial bonds.
copyright m stanhope 2017
Walter FitzGilbert de Hamilton 