Roger St. Jean

  Information about this person:

• Background Information. ¹⁴¹
Roger de St. John, brother of Thomas. In July 1118 with his brother John, he defended the castle of La Motte-Gautier for Henry I against Fulk, Count of Anjou, but was forced to surrender. Before 1121 he gave the church of Compton in West Sussex to Lewes Priory.

Roger de St. John married Cecily, daughter of Robert de la Haie, by Muriel, probably daughter of Colswegen, tenant-in-chief in Lincs in 1086 with whom he received the honor of Halnaker in Sussex. Roger died in or before 1130. His widow, Cecily, was living in 1162 and dead in 1177.

Besides his sons William and Robert, Roger de St. John had a daughter Muriel, who married an Orval and was the mother of Mabel, wife of Adam de Port of Basing, through whom both St-Jean-le-Thomas and the manor of Halnaker passed to that family.


~Cokayne's The Complet Peerage, Vol. XI, p. 342

It is equally certain that Halnaker came to Port through Mabel and her mother, and this being so the mother must have been a daughter of Roger and a sister of William and Robert de St. John, not only on chronological grounds but also because, if she had been of an earlier generation, Roger's brother John de St. John and his male issue would have inherited to her exclusion. Since the wife of Robert de la Haie was named Muriel and they were the parents of Cecily, Roger de St. John's wife, it is quite likely that Roger's daughter should have been named after her, and on this point one seems justified in accepting the statement of the Historia.

~Cokayne's The Complet Peerage, Vol. XI, pp. 320-321, footnote (f)

Roger married Cecilia de la Haye, daughter of Robert de la Haye and Muriel of Brattleby ¹⁴¹.^,1002