Robert de Meynell

  Noted events in his life were:

• Background Information. ¹⁴¹
Robert de Meinill is the first member of this family in England of whom there is record. Robert is probably of Norman extraction, and he was possibly from the Coutances in the département of Manche.

Robert de Meinill held property in Yorkshire, much of which formed part of the Moartain fee at the time of the Domesday Survey. He was probably the founder of the original castle at Whorlton in Yorkshire. He granted the vill of Myton-0n-Swale to St. Mary's Abbey, Yorkshire, circa 1100-1106. With his wife Gertrude, he granted the church of Great Ayton to Whitby Abbey in the time of Abbot William, circa 1109. This grant was confirmed by their son Stephen de Meinill later sometime between 1130-1150. Robert de Meinill married Gertrude, most likely the daughter of Nele Fossard and sister of Robert Fossard. Robert de Meinill died before 1135, and his widow married as her second husband, Jordan Paynel.

~ Cokayne's Complete Peerage, 2nd Edition, Vol. VIII, (Meihill), pp. 619-620

• Background Information. ¹⁰⁶³
Robert "de Meinil" made a grant to the abbey of St. Mary, York, of the town of Myton-up-Swale.

"The origin of the fee of Meinil is obscure. It was mainly created out of the fee of Mortain. Some of the lands, belonging to that fee at the (Domesday) Survey, of which belonged to Robert de Meinil was origiannly enfeoffed, were afterwards held of the archbishop of Canterbury, some were held of the fee of Fossard, and no inconsiderable extent was at one time held of the fee of Paynel of Hooton. This diversity of tenure is difficult to explain." The fee of Great Ayton and Breat Broughton was of the fee of Fossard, and is explained by the marriage of Robert Meinil to Gertrude Fossard, of whom Dodsworth said was the daughter of Robert Fossard, but due to the chronology, it is much more likely that Gertrude was the daughter of Nigel and the sister of Robert.

Robert married Gertude Fossard, daughter of Nele Fossard Lord Mulgrave and Unknown.¹⁴¹