Hugh I Seigneur de Grandmesnil

  Information about this person:

• From Gen-Medieval Archives: A Hugh de Grandmesnil . ¹⁹³ From: "Chris Phillips" <cgp100@cgp100.dabsol.co.uk>
Subject: Re: A Hugh de Grandmesnil
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 20:43:04 -0000

Patricia Junkin wrote:
> In my research of the la Zouche family, I have found that Hugh de
> Grandmesnil held Essebi/Ashby before the de Belmess family and Thorpe
> Ernauld "which included Brentyngby, Thurnby, Bushby and Houghton" and
> subnsequently came into the possession of the de Boscos of which there
were
> four Ernaulds, all benefactors of the Abbey of Leicester. The History and
> Antiquities of Leicestershire continues, stating that Hugh was married to
an
> Adeliza. Does anyone have the last name of his wife?


Katharine Keats-Rohan has about a page and a half on this Hugh de Grandmesnil in "Domesday People" (pp.262, 263).

His wife, Adeliza, was the daughter of Ivo, count of Beaumont-sur-Oise.

The Grandmesnils are unusually well documented in Orderic Vitalis' "Ecclesiastical History", because Hugh and his brother Robert refounded the abbey of Saint-Evroul, where Orderic was a monk. Marjorie Chibnall's edition/translation (1969-1980) contains a pedigree and some additional discussion, as well as what's said in Orderic's text.

The genealogical bones, as given by Keats-Rohan, are: Robert of Grandmesnil (d.1040) = Hawise, daughter of Giroie, lord of Echauffour and Montreuil-l'Argillé, and sister of William fitz Giroie (she married secondly William, son of Archbishop Robert of Rouen)

Their sons:
Hugh of Grandmesnil (d. 22 February 1098)= Adeliza (d. 11 July 1091), daughter of Ivo, count of Beaumont-sur-Oise Robert, abbot of St-Evroul Arnald

Children of Hugh and Adeliza:
Robert (d.c. 1136)
William
Hugh
Ivo
Aubrey
Adelina = Robert d'Ivry
Rohais = Robert de Courcy
Matilda = Hugh de Montpinçon
Agnes = William de Sai
Hawise

I'd guess that the lands came to the de Boscos through the ("Beaumont") earls of Leicester, who acquired the Grandmesnil lands in England when Robert, Earl of Leicester (d.1190), married Pernel, Hugh de Grandmesnil's great granddaughter. Pernel was the daughter of a William de Grandmesnil, who was probably the son of Hugh's eldest son Robert (see <a href="http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/cp/vol7.shtml#leicester">Medieval Genealogy</a>).

The de Boscos were connected with the earls of Leicester. One Arnold de Bosco (or de Bois) was a steward of Robert, Earl of Leicester (d.1168), and was granted lands in Biddlesden by him in the 1140s [Victoria County History Bucks vol.1, p.365, vol.4, p.155].
Chris Phillips

• From Gen-Medieval Archives: A Hugh de Grandmesnil . ¹⁹³
From: "Chris Phillips" <cgp100@cgp100.dabsol.co.uk>
Subject: Re: A Hugh de Grandmesnil
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 22:07:27-0000


> > The Hugh referred to is the Domesday tenant, although I think the date
> > of his death should be 22 February 1098 [as stated by Orderic Vitalis,
> > vol.4, p.338 (Marjorie Chibnall's edition)].

Jay replied:
> How is the Domesday tenant related (if known) to the companion of the
> Conqueror and his son Hugh?

Sorry for not being clear.

The companion of the Conqueror is the same person as the Domesday tenant. (He is one of the small number whose presence at the Battle of Hastings is attested by William of Poitiers.)

Looking at A.J.Camp's "My Ancestors came with the Conqueror", I realise that what I said about the Earls of Leicester and the English Grandmesnil lands wasn't correct. It was the Norman Grandmesnil lands that Robert, Earl of Leicester, acquired on his marriage with Pernel. His grandfather Robert had acquired the English Grandmesnil lands early in the century, after Hugh de Grandmesnil's son Ivo had mortgaged them to him. (So the intervening Robert could have granted former Grandmesnil lands to the de Boscos around the 1140s, the same period he granted Biddlesden to Arnold de Bosco.)

Chris Phillips

• Background Information. ¹⁷⁸
The Grandmesnil, was one of the founding families of Orderic's abbey of Saint-Evroult. Hugh de Grandmesnil, lord of Grandmesnil and Leicester, was one of the Norman magnates who took power in England after the Norman Conquest.

~England and Normandy in the Middle Ages, p. 53-54

• Background Information. ¹⁹⁰
Hugh de Grandmesnil was the son of Hawise, daughter of Giroie and of Robert de Grandmesnil. He married a daughter of Ivo of Beaumont-sur-Oise and they had five sons and five daughters. His son Ivo married a daughter of Gilbert de Gant.

~The Aristocracy of Norman England, p. 352

• Background Information. ¹⁹⁵
Hugh, called of Grantmesnil, or Grentemaisnil, baron and sheriff of Leicestershire, son of Robert of Grantmesnil, in the arrondissement of Lisieux, by Advice (Hadwisa), daughter of Geroy, Lord of Escalfoy and of Montreuil near the Dive, was probably born not later that 1014. He served Duke Robert the Magnificent, who resigned the duchy in 1035. His father, at his death, left his lands in equal shares to Hugh and his younger brother Robert. On receiving their inheritance they determined to build a monastery, and fixed on a spot near their home. Their uncle, William FitzGeroy, pointed out that the site was unsuitable, and persuaded them to restore the abbey of St. Evroul, which they obtained by exchange from the abbot and convent of Bec, for it was then a cell of that house. They undertook their work in 1050, endowed their house, and peopled it with monks from Jumièges. Robert became a member of the convent, and was appointed prior and afterwards in 1059 as the abbot. He was expelled by Duke William in 1063, betook himself to Italy, where he was welcomed by Robert Guiscard, and was given an abbey to rule over, and two others over which he placed two of his followers [Orderic, pp. 474, 481-4]. Hugh was also banished along with some other lords in consequence of accusations brought by Roger of Montgomery and his wife Mabel. He was recalled, was one of the inner council consulted by the duke as to a invasion of England, and took part in the battle of Hastings [ib. p. 501]. When the Conqueror visited Normandy in 1067, Hugh was left in command of Hampshire. He was appointed sheriff of Leicestershire, and received many grants of lands, chiefly in Leicestershire, where he held sixty-seven manors, and in Nottinghamshire, where he held twenty. His wife, Adelaide, daughter of Ivo of Beaumont, was very handsome, and he returned to Normandy in 1068, in order, it is said, to prevent her getting into mischief [ib. p. 512].

Two of Hugh's sons, Ivo and Alberic, were concerned in the rebellion of Robert in 1077, and in conjunction with other Norman lords he prevailed on the Conqueror to forgive Robert. He joined in the rebellion against Rufus in 1088, and committed ravages in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire. In January 1091 he helped Richard of Courcy, whose son Robert had married his daughter Rohesia, against Robert of Bellême, and Robert's lord and ally, Duke Robert, who was besieging Courcy, and though then too old to wear harness gave his friends much useful advice. His son Ivo was taken and imprisoned by the duke, to whom Hugh sent all indignant remonstrance, reminding him how faithfully he had served him, his father, and his grandfather, and requesting to be allowed to deal with Robert of Bellême without interference. As far as Hugh was concerned the arrival of Rufus in Normandy must have brought matters to a satisfactory conclusion.

Hugh was in England, when in 1094 worn out by old age, he felt death near and accordingly assumed the monastic habit which had been sent some time before from Evroul for that purpose. He died on the sixth day after so doing, 22 Feb. His body was salted, carefully sewed up in an ox-skin, and conveyed to St. Evroul, where it was honorably buried. Orderic, a monk of the house, wrote and recorded his epitaph [ib. p. 716]. By his wife Adelaide he had five sons and five daughters who grew up, and apparently a son and daughter who died in infancy [comp. ib. pp. 622, 717]. Of his sons his eldest, Robert, who inherited his Norman estates, alone was long-lived; he married thrice, and died in 1122 without leaving children. His second son, William, married Mabel, daughter of Robert Guiscard, and his third, Ivo, who inherited his sheriffdom and his English estates, a daughter of (de Gand), lord of Folkingham and other lands in Lincolnshire. Three of Hugh's sons, William, Ivo, and Alberic, went on the first crusade, and were among the 'rope-dancers' (under cover of darkness secretly let themselves down from the wall on ropes) of Antioch [William of Tyre, vi. 4, ap. Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 715; Orderic, p. 805]. Four of Hugh's daughters were married [Orderic, p. 602].

Ivo in 1101, after his return to England, levied private war on his neighbors, was tried, and made an arrangement with Robert of Meulan, by which he secured Robert's good offices with the king, but was forced to agree to a marriage between his young son Ivo and Robert's niece. He died on his pilgrimage.


[Sources given by author: As a monk of St. Evroul, Orderic naturally gives many particulars about Hugh and his house, and was of course well informed; references to Duchesne's Hist. Norm. SS.; Will. of Jumièges, vii. 4, 29 (Duchesne); Anglo-Saxon Chron. an. 1088 (Rolls Ser.); Will. of Malmesbury, iv. 488 (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Will. of Tyre, Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 715; Ellis's Introd. to Domesday, i. 429; Freeman's Norman Conq. ii. 233, iii. 183, 187, iv. passim, and William Rufus, i. passim; Gibbon's Decline and Fall, v. 220, ed. Smith, 1862.]

~ Rev. William Hunt, The Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. X, pp. 159-160

• Background Information. ¹⁴¹
Hugh de Grandmesnil, the Domesday tenant, had five sons, Robert, William, Hugh, Ives and Aubrey. William went to Apulia, where he married Mabel, daughter of Robert Guiscard. Hugh died young and was buried at St. Evroult. Ives (Ivo) succeeded to his father's land in England, which he mortgaged and lost to Robert, count of Meulan.

~Cokayne's Complete Peerage, 2nd Edition, (Leicester), Vol. VII , p. 532, footnote (h)

• Background Information. ⁴¹⁷
Hugh de Grandmesnil was one of the founders of the Abbey of Ouche, known as that of St. Evroult, about 25 miles E.N.E. of Falaise in Normandy. He granted to this abbey "for the good of his soul," the benefices of many of his lands in Quilli. He was an overlord in Normandy, as well as in Leicester. He was a "brave Souldier," and fought stoutly at the Battle of Hastings, and "was that day in great peril: his horse ran away with him, so that he was near falling, for in leaping over a bush the bridle rein broke, and the horse plunged forward. The English seeing him ran to meet him with their hatchets raised, but the horse took fright, and turning quickly round brought him safe back again" (Wace, quoted in Battle Abbey Roll, Vol. II, page 305). Two years after the battle he was appointed, with others, one of the Justiciars of England during the King's Absence in Normandy. He was Viscount of Leicester and Hampshire, and according to Domesday Book, held one hundred and four Lordships, of which two-thirds, with the Honor of Hinckley - in right whereof he was Lord High Steward of England - were in Leicestershire. He lived to be a very old man, and in 1094, "being grown aged and infirm, he took upon him the habit of a Monk; and within six days afterwards departed this life, whereupon Bernard and David, two Monks of St. Ebrulfe's (the Norman monastery, St. Evroult's, which he had restored and endowed), having seasoned his Corps with Salt, and wrapped it in an Hide, conveyed it to Normandy, where it was honourably buried on the South side of their Chapter-house"

~ Cooley Genealogy: The Descendants of Ensign Benjamin Cooley, p. 7

• Background Information. ²⁰¹
"The noble Hugh de Grantmesnil was in his youth distinguished for his valour, and married a very geautiful lady, Adeliza, daughter of Ivo, count de Beaumont, by whom he had Robert, William, Hugh, Ivo, and Aubrey; Adeline, Havise, Rohais, Matilda, and Agnes. This large and promising family was prey to various misfortunes, so that none of them except Robert lived to an old age."

~ The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, Vol. II, p. 505

Hugh married Adeliza de Beaumont-sur-Oise, daughter of Ivo comté de Beaumont-sur-Oise and Judith ^167,195.^,201 (Adeliza de Beaumont-sur-Oise was born in Beaumont-Sur-Oise, Seine-et-Oise, France, died in 1087 in Rouen, Seine-Inferieure, Normandy, France and was buried in St. Evroul's Monastery, Calvados, Normandy, France.)