CURATOR's NOTE: By most accounts, Eldred was either the son or son-in-law of Ivo de Taillebois, Baron of Kendal. If his son, it would have been by his first wife, Gondreda (Countess of Wessex), rather than Ivo's second wife Lucy (daughter of Thorold of Lincoln), another powerful and well-connected Anglo-Norman woman. Ivo and Beatrix are a couple who inherited the barony of Kendal. Whether Beatrix was the heiress--and thus Ivo's daughter, making Eldred in fact Ivo's son-in-law, is a matter of uncertainty. Beatrix was first married to Ribald of Middleham. The research at the current time makes a stronger case that Beatrix was in fact Ivo's and Gondreda's daughter, and so that is the way I am structuring it on Geni.

Eldred (Aelftred) was a powerful Anglo-Saxon lord in Norman England, and this power was a legacy to his son Ketel, who was probably the daughter of Eldred and an Anglo-Saxon mother, Aeldgytha.

----------------------------------

Alternate names:

Eldred Unknown, Baron of Kendal

Eldred ll of Kendal (de Lancaster)

Ælfred "the Englishman" de Taillebois

Eldred of Workington

-----------------------------------

From Andrew Lancaster's The de Lancasters of Westmorland. See also Dix Preston's post on GEN-MEDIEVAL

Eldred. Everything we know about this man is that he is the father of Ketel. The name is normally standardized to Eldred, which was the normal Frenchification of the Old English name Ethelred, and that is probably correct. But the wide variations in spelling are perhaps the reason that there is at least some speculation that another name underlies this spelling, such as Alfred (latinised as Alured) or Uchtred (one charter calls him Eutred)[2]. Reverend Ragg referred to him with a more unusual name, Elftred, because he also found that unusual spelling somewhere and felt it was the earliest reference he'd seen.

Eldred must have been a close contemporary of Ivo de Taillebois (perhaps even a little older) and like him he is said to be an ancestor of the de Lancasters of Kendal. In two much later monastic accounts he is said to be the son of Ivo de Taillebois, which seems impossible. The families seem to have been equated in people's minds because Ketel, Eldred's son, held several possessions which had been held by Ivo, and confirmed grants made by Ivo. But more recently it became more common to suggest that Eldred is Ivo's son-in-law, married to his daughter Beatrice or Beatrix, either after or before her more well-known husband Ribald of Middleham, who is mentioned above. This also presents difficulties. But there are other possibilities. For example could he be a step son, or an illegitimate son, or the husband of an illegitimate daughter, or might his son Ketel and/or a daughter, have married a member of the de Taillebois family? It is perhaps best to assume that the common jurisdictions of Ivo and Ketel did not pass on by inheritance. Ivo may even have been Ketel's overlord. (See below.)

It is supposed by some people that Eldred's was a relatively rare case of a powerful Anglo-Saxon (or Anglo-Danish, or Anglo-British, because in this part of England the ancient lordly families had inter-mixed) man in the new Norman kingdom. This was apparently more common on both sides of the English-Scottish border where a Northumbrian clique, with blood links to the old royalty of England, Denmark and Northumbria, held an important balance of power while it married into the new Gaelic and Norman dynasties to the north and south. Might Eldred have been related to Ivo’s wife, Lucy, who seems to have been a member of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy of Lincolnshire, which is known to have included an Alured of Lincoln? Her family also seems to have maintained their position under the Normans, but also seems to have had strong links to Scotland. The antiquarian George Washington has suggested that Eldred was "a scion of the great house of Dunbar". Lucy's later husbands apparently also held claims to various parts of Cumbria, where the de Lancasters would later live, and Lincolnshire, her homeland.

-------------------------------

• TAILLEBOIS, BEATRIX: Daughter of Ivo Taillebois (q.v.) and his unknown first wife. Clay thought Beatrice was probably illegitimate (EYC, v, 291), because none of Ivo's property passed to Ribald with his wife Beatrice. Ivo's second wife Lucy was an important heiress whose inheritance formed the basis of the land Ivo held in Domesday Book This fief, the honour of Bolingbroke, was inherited by the two sons of Lucy's subsequent marriages, whereas Ivo's own barony of Kendal, granted after 1086, went (possibly) to Ketel son of Eldred and then to Ketel?s nephew William fitz Gilbert of Lancaster, surnamed Taillebois (Sanders, 56). In the late twelfth century the writer Peter of Blois claimed that Ivo had had a sole daughter, ?nobly married?. Defective genealogies, in the Cockersand Cartulary and the Register of St Mary's York (Cockersand Cart., ii, pp. 305−8) made William a descendant of Eldred and Ivo Taillebois, who must have been father of Eldred's wife.

Beatrice is known to have married Ribald, half−brother of the Conqueror's Breton cousin Count Alan before 1093; Monasticon Anglicanum. III, p. 553 no. xx. She was dead by c 1121 at the time of a gift to St Mary's by Ribald and their son Ralph Taillebois: Given that Ketel Fitz Eldred, his nephew William of Lancaster, and Ralph fitz Ribald, were all active c.1120, .just a few years before Ivo?s widow buried her third husband, one can conclude that Beatrice was a legitimate heir of Ivo by a wife previous to Lucy, who was Beatrice's contemporary, and that she was first the wife of the Englishman Eldred and subsequently the wife of Ribald. For the descendants of Beatrice and Ribald see Rev. H. C. Fitz Herbert An original pedigree of Tailbois and Neville', The Genealogist, ns iii, 31. Clay. Early Yorkshire Charters (1936), V, no. 358.* Source: DOMESDAY DESCENDANTS; by K. S. B. Keats−Rohan, page 1121

• FILIUS ELDRED, KETEL: Son of Eldred and a daughter of Ivo Taillebois (q.v.), some of whose land in the barony of Kendal he inherited. Benefactor of the abbey of St Bees, founded 1120, to which he gave land in Morland and Workington (Register St Bees, pp. 233 −34, no. 212) with the assent of his wife Christiana and son William. Father also of Orm, whose son Gospatric was his eventual heir. His grant of land to St Leonard's, York, was confirmed by his sister's son William fitz Gilbert of Lancaster (q.v.). He died several years after 1120. G. Washington, ?The parentage of William de Lancaster, lord of Kendal', Transactions Cumberland & Westmorland Antiquarian & Archaeological Society 62 (1962). Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, III, pp. 548−60, no. V.* Source: DOMESDAY DESCENDANTS; by K. S. B. Keats−Rohan, page 881

posted by Dix Preston, 28 Nov 2005, on http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Soc/soc.genealogy.medieval/2005−11/msg01282.html

Eldred of Kendal, c. 1035 Anjou, Loire, France, died ? Kendal, Westmoreland, England

married Aldgytha, b. 1037, Northumberland, England

Parents unknown

Children:

1. Ketel of Kendal, c. 1055-1120, married Christiana de Taillebois

http://www.gurganus.org/ourfamily/browse.cfm/Eldred-of-Kendal/f3430 -------------------- See "My Lines"

( http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cousin/html/p243.htm#i27549 )

from Compiler: R. B. Stewart, Evans, GA

( http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cousin/html/index.htm ) -------------------- •Name: Ketell 1 •Sex: M •Title: 3rd Baron of Kendell •Birth: ABT 1100 1 •Death: UNKNOWN

Father: Eldred b: ABT 1070 Mother: Aldigatha b: ABT 1070

Marriage 1 Christiana b: ABT 1100 Children 1. Gilbert Fil Ketrell b: ABT 1120

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=monicap&id=I07984&style=TABLE

somewhat less compelling:

 Ketel Fitz ELDRED 3rd Baron of Kendall 1215 1217 was born circa 1055 in Workington in Coupland, Cumberland, England and died after 1120 of Kendal, Westmorland, England 

-------------------- Elftred, a purely Anglo-Saxon name has various spellings according to different dialects and languages. The various spellings of the name are Eldred, Eldreth, Eltred, Eltreth, Elred, and Heltred. Elftred appears as the second entry for the Curwen family in the 1616 and 1666 Visitations of Cumberland and Westmorland Counties, shown as the son of John Talboise and the father of Ketel. For many years, historians believed that he had three sons, Ketel, Gilbert and William. More recent sources believe that Gilbert was a son-in-law, which means Elftred also had a daughter.

Not much is known of Elftred, either in legend or in history. We can only surmise that he was a man of considerable position as the possessions of his two elder sons, held in part as over-lords, in part as mesne lords, extended widely over Cumberland,Westmorland and Furness. Moreover his grandson was of such a social position that he was able to marry the daughter of Gospatric, the great Earl of Northumbria and of Dunbar.

There appeared a close relationship between Gospatric, Earl of Dunbar and Elftred 'the Englishman' (also called Eldred, the Thane); specifically, Elftred (or Eldred) had held Milburn in Westmorland under Gospatric, Earl of Dunbar, with the lordship being continued through Elftred's descendants, the de Lancaster family of Kendal (Milburn in Westmorland was traditionally English land which was holden to the house of Dunbar until their lordship was deprived of the said manor in 1314).

The lordship of Milburn in Westmorland was a very important symbolic holding for the Scottish house of Dunbar, as it represented their foothold within England (for more than 200 years), and as such, they would have only placed its keeping into the hand of a very trusted underlord, most probably of blood connection. There are several well-documented theories as to the nature of this "blood connection."

One major theory about Elftred is that he was the son of Ivo de Talboise, and that he married Edgitha of Northumberland (dau. of Gofpatrick, Earl of Northumbria, and Aetheldreda, Princess of England) 1072, Mercia, England. The other major theory is that he married Beatrice, daughter of Ivo de Talboise. Both theories give nearly identical list of his children.

Elftred is believed to be the common ancestor of the two families of de Lancaster and de Culwen - a name that for a time in the thirteenth century became de Currewenne, then fell back to Culwen and finally settled into Curwen in the end of the fifteenth century.

Children of Elftred the Thane:

• Ketel (Ketellus), who married Christiana
• Godith, married Gilbert, sometimes called Gilbert de Lancaster

Links to additional material:

• http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=allerton_manor&id=I14838
• http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/2006-11/1162419614
• http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/RADCLIFFE1.htm#Aelftred De TAILBOIS