William de Woodthorpe

  Information about this person:

• From Gen-Medieval Archives: Maud de Bernak . ¹⁹³
From: "Blair Southerden" <blairsou@globalnet.co.uk>
Subject: Fw: C.P. Addition: Maud de Bernake, wife of Sir Ralph de Cromwell -WOODTHORPE
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2005 19:13:50 +0100

The original source quoted below (A History of the villages of Aisthorpe and Thorpe in the Fallows by CW Foster MA, Canon of Lincoln, pub. JW Ruddock and Sons 1927.) provides further information about the origins of the Woodthorpe family.

Chapter 4 from which the original references were taken, gives information on the Immediate Lords of the Manor of Aisthorpe. The Woodthorpe's are traced to Hacon, who in 1086 held a small estate in Hainton. Foster comments "The story of Hacon's house is an interesting one in that it illustrates the rapid rise to a position of wealth and importance of a family of native descent.

C1 Hacon of Hainton appears in Domesday Book as Acun, a tenant of Roger of Poitou....... His name suggests that he belonged to one of the Scandinavian families which were established in Lincolnshire before the Norman conquest.......... Hacon was dead at the time of the Lincolnshire Survey AD 1115-18 for his son William has succeeded him. (Lindsey Survey included in the Lincolnshire Domesday., 16/15 (f.22)). Of his children three sons are known, of whom William was certainly the eldest. The order of birth of the other two is uncertain.

1. William of Saleby, or William of Hainton, or William Hacon, or William son of Hacon. He is called William of Wykeham (Wiccamie), the son of Hacon, in a notification of Alexander, bishop of Lincoln.......(Dean and Chapter of Lincoln, Registrum Antiquissimum f49). The date of the charter is prior to 20 July 1147 and the place referred to is Wykeham, an extinct village in the parish of Nettleton. In 1130 or 1133 he was sheriff of Lincolnshire......... William also held a knight's fee in Saleby and Thoresthorpe of Alan de Craon in the time of Henry I........

About the year 1150, William, son of Hacon, with Thomas his son and Ediva his own wife, founded the Gilbertine priory of Sixhill. William of Saleby had issue as follows:

i. Simon son of William, who witnessed the charter of Maurice of Craon 1151-2. In 1146-56 he with his brother Thomas witnessed a charter of Gilbert II of Ghent granting land in Scampton to Norwich priory. Since Simon's name occurs before that of Thomas it may be that he is the older of the two. ....................
ii Thomas of Saleby, or Thomas son of William, inherited his father's land holding the knight's fee in Salesby and Thoresthorpe of Maurice of Craon in 1166 and other lands..... He married a wife named Agnes, by whom he had a son William who died young, and a daughter Grace who, after being married four times, the first time when she was but five years old, died without issue in 1259. Grace was born when Thomas her father, was an old man, and her legitimacy was contested in the king's court and in the court christian. (Stenton, Transcripts of Charters pp 1,3,5,10, 22,25, 37)
iii A daughter who married Robert de Hardreshull (Hartshill, co. Warwick) whose great grandson William de Hardreshull succeeded on the death of Grace in 1259 to Thomas of Salesby's land.
The latest date at which William of Salesby has been found alive is 29 July 1155 when he witnessed a grant of land in Great Sturton to Kirkstead abbey.

ii Simon son of Hacon See below.

III Ralph of Grimblethorpe, or Ralph son of Hacon, nicknamed the Abbot, who married Aubrey, sister of Hugh Malet, and through her acquired land in Grimblethorpe, Welton le Wold and South Cadeby.....................

C2 Simon, son of Hacon was a son of Hacon of Hainton (C1) He ....witnessed a grant of land,..... probably no later than 1150. This is the only instance in which Simon himself, so far as is known, appears in a charter. From this , in view of the frequency with which the names of other important members of his family occur in documents, and especially in the Sixhill priory charters, we should probably infer he died about 1150, the approximate date of the foundation of that house. He had three sons, the order of whose birth cannot be determined:

I Ralf of Edlington, or Ralf son of Simon of Edlington, or Ralf the Knight, son of Simon of Hainton, who circa 1170 - 90 was benefactor of Bardney abbey and of St Sepulchre's hospital, Lincoln......... His eldest son seems to have been the Thomas son of Ralph son of Simon, who released to earl Ranulf all that he or his father had held of the earl in Edlington (Edelington)

II William of Woodthorpe C3 See previous postings.

III Alan of Woodthorpe, who in 28 Henry II AD 1182 owed one hundred marks because he had married, without the king's licence, the daughter of Picot de Lascelles and grand daughter of Alan son of Ruald the Constable, she being of the king's gift.................. In 32 Henry II he was dead, for William de Wudetorpe, his brother, rendered account of the money and paid £13. 6s 8d into the treasury and continued paying the fine until at least 1196-7"

This provides the history prior to the original posting on this family.
Best regards,

Blair

S.B. Southerden from Winchester, Hampshire
Researching Kearton; Kirton; Kyrton

William married Cecilia de Craon, daughter of Alan de Craon and Muriel de Beauchamp. (Cecilia de Craon was born about 1136 in Lincolnshire, England.)