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About Alain "Dapifer" fitz Flaald, Seneschal of Dol
Alain "Dapifer" (c1024-after 1080), Seneschal of Dol. He is now known to have scion of the seneschals of Brittany, but he was traditionally thought to have been a son of Fleance MacAlpin, Thane of Lochaber. In MacBeth, Shakespeare has the witches tell Banquo that he will be the father of kings. The play was written for James I (VI) of England and Scotland, who as a descendant of Alan Dapifer was thought to have been a descendant of Banquo.
His wife is unknown except in later legend.
Some spurious genealogies call Alain a son of "Fratmaldus the Seneschal".
Horace Round's Critique
J.H. Round: Studies in Peerage and Family History
I am very grateful to Mary Kifissia (née Stewart), who has transcribed most of J. Horace Round's paper on "The Origin of the Stewarts", from "Studies in Peerage and Family History" (Westminster, Archibald Constable and Co., Ltd., 1901, pages 115-146), and to Rick Eaton for permission to reproduce her transcript here.
[NB. Of course, any work of this age should be used with caution. However, this paper appears to have stood the test of time well, and I am not aware of any errors.]
Of the problems upon which new light is thrown by my Calendar of documents in France relating to English history, none, probably, for the genealogist, will rival in interest the origin of the Stewarts. It has long been known that the Scottish Stewarts and the great English house of Fitz Alan possessed a common ancestor in Alan, the son of Flaald, living under Henry the First. This was established at some length by Chalmers in his Caledonia (1807) on what he declared to be "the most satisfactory evidence."1 According to him, "Alan the son of Flaald, a Norman, acquired the manor of Oswestrie, in Shropshire, soon after the Conquest," and "married the daughter of Warine, the famous sheriff of Shropshire." Mr Riddell, the well-known Scottish antiquary, followed up the arguments of Chalmers, in 1843, with a paper on the "Origin of the House of Stewart,"2 in which he accepted and enforced the views of Chalmers, including his theory that Walter Fitz Alan brought with him to Scotland followers from Shropshire and gave them lands
1 Vol. I, pp. 572-575. 2 Stewartiana, pp. 55-70.
there. But research has hitherto been unable to determine the origin of Flaald father of Alan, or even to find, in England, any mention of his name.
No less an authority on feudal genealogy than the late Mr Eyton devoted himself to a special investigation on the subject of Alan "Fitz Flaald,"1 and arrived at the conclusion that, after all, he was a grandson of "Banquo, thane of Lochaber,", whose son "Fleance" fled to England. "My belief is," Mr Eyton wrote, "that the son of Fleance was named Alan ... and that he whom the English called Alan Fitz Flaald was the person in question."2 He admitted, however, of the priories of Andover, Sele, and Sporle, cells of the Abbey of St. Florent de Saumur, that he could "show a connection between Alan Fitz Flaald or his descendants and each of these cells3, which suggested an Angevin origin, and for which he could not account. But where he really advanced our knowledge was in showing that Alan Fitz Flaald married, not (as alleged) a daughter of Warine the sheriff, but Aveline daughter of Ernulf de Hesdin, a great Domesday tenant. I have now been able to trace Ernulf to Hesdin (in Picardy) itself, in connection with which his daughter 'Ava' also is mentioned.4 In 1874, an anonymous
1 History of Shropshire (1858), VII. 211-232. 2 Ibid, p. 227. It is essential to bear in mind that the old Scottish writers made Walter, the first Steward, a son of 'Fleance', wholly ignoring Alan his real father (see p. 119 below). This invalidates their whole story. 3 Ibid, p. 219. 4 See Preface to my Calendar, p. xlvii.
work, The Norman People, approached the problem from the foreign side, and adduced evidence to prove that Flaald was a brother of Alan, seneschal of Dol. But there was still not forthcoming any mention of Flaald in England, while the rashness and inaccuracy which marred that book resulted in his being wrongly pronounced a "son of Guienoc." The great pedigree specially prepared a few years ago for the Stuart exhibition by Mr W. A. Lindsay (now Windsor Herald) still began only with Alan son of Flaald, to whom a daughter of Warine the sheriff was assigned as wife. Moreover, in the handsome work on The Royal House of Stuart (1890), which had its origin in that exhibition, Dr. Skelton could only tell us that "there was (if the conclusions of Chalmers are to be accepted) an Alan son of Flathauld, a Norman knight, who soon after the Conquest obtained a gift of broad lands in Shropshire" (p. 5). Alan, we shall find, was not a Norman; the lands he was given were widely scattered; and he did not obtain them "soon after the Conquest."
The latest authoritative statement on the subject is that, it would seem, of Sheriff Mackay in the Dictionary of National Biography (1896).1 He tells us, of the House of Stewart, that
1 This passage is found in the biography of the first Stewart king, so that I only lighted upon it after this paper was written. It gave me the clue to Mr. Hewison's book, of which I had not previously heard, but which I have now read just in time to add his results to this paper (24th Jan., 1900).
Its earlier genealogy is uncertain, but an ingenious and learned, though admittedly in part hypothetical, attempt to trace it to the Banquho of Boece and Shakespeare, Thane of Lochaber, has been recently made by the Rev. J. K. Hewison (Bute in the Olden Time [Vol. II] pp. 1-38, Edinburgh, 1895).1
Mr Hewison's volume opens with the words:-
The origin of the royal house of Stewart has long remained a mystery, perplexing historical students, who feel tantalized at knowing so little concerning the hapless victim of the jealousy of King Macbeth - Banquo, round whom Shakespeare cast the glamour of undying romance, and to whom the old chroniclers of Scotland traced back the family of Stewart.
The author's 'glamour' augurs ill, and in spite of the unique advantage he enjoyed in having access to the late Lord Crawford's MS. collections on the subject, we soon find ourselves wandering, alas, with Alice in Wonderland.
It may be concluded that Walter, the son of Fleadan, son of Banchu, is identical with Walter, son of [A]llan (or Flan), son of Murechach of the Lennox family, if not also with Walter, son of Amloib, son of Duncan of the other genealogy. Chronology easily permits of the equation of Murdoch, the Maormor of Leven ... with Banchu ... who might have survived even his son Fleance -- we, meantime, only assuming that Fleance was slain in Cymru. Ban-chu, the pale warrior, would be his complimentary title; the old surname of his family ... also descended to his son, Flan-chu, the red or ruddy warrior, known to his Irish kinsmen as Fleadan.
We are surely coming to the Man-chu dynasty. But no.
This Irish form of the name Fleadan tan (i.e. either Fleadan the Tanist or Fleadan the younger) imports a significant idea -
1 Vol. XLVIII, p. 344.
namely, flead ... a feast, which corresponds in signification with Flaald ...
Then there bursts upon us yet another discovery:-
Fleanchus ... is the Latinised form of Flann-chu, the Red or Ruddy Dog ... and is also a sobriquet - the Bloodhound. ... This nomenclature is evidently a reminiscence of the dog-totem or dog-divinity, etc., etc.
There remains, however, the standing puzzle1 why Walter the first Stewart was made by the old romancers a son of Fleance son of Banquo, though his father was indisputably Alan son of Flaald. One solution offered by our author is that "Ailin or Allan may have become the family name"; but his own view is that
The native name of Banquo's son would be the common Goidelic one Flann, which signifies rosy or fair, and has an equivalent in Aluinn, beautiful, fair, to which the word Alan, both in Britanny and Ireland, may be traced.
Thus it was that 'Flann' would become 'Alan' in Britanny, "more especially when, in the vulgar tongue of Dol, the former, denoting a pancake, would sound like a nickname." And if we should still have our doubts, is there not, at Dol, to this day -
an imposing edifice, built of granite, in the purest Norman style of architecture of the twelfth century, which tradition names 'La maison des Plaids,' and avers was the revenue office and court-house of the archbishops. this name, "the House of the
1 See p. 116, note 2, above. It will be seen that to assert, as here, that Alan and 'Fleance' were the same will not overcome this difficulty.
Plaids," is touchingly significant of Fleance with the royal wearers of the tartan ...
But I really cannot pursue further these "ingenious and learned" new lichts. A dreadful vision of dog-totems, arrayed in the Stewart tartan, and feasting, with fiery visage, on pancakes in the streets of Dol, warns me to leave this realm of wonders and turn to the world in which we live. From "the House of the Plaids" I flee.1
Fortunately Flaald is a name, for practical purposes, unique; and we need not, therefore, hesitate to recognize in "Float filius Alani dapiferi" who was present (No. 1136) at the dedication of Monmouth Priory (1101 or 1102) the long-sought missing link. We thus connect him with the fourth, the remaining cell of St. Florent de Saumur in England. But we have yet to account for his appearance as a 'baron' of the lord of Monmouth, William son of Baderon. The best authority on Domesday tenants, Mr. A. S. Ellis confessed that he had failed to trace the lords of Monmouth in Britanny.2 The key, however, to the whole connection is found in the abbey of St. Florent de Saumur and in its charters calendared in my work. In the latter half of the eleventh century many Bretons of noble birth were led to
1 It is positively the fact that the author so renders the name of the 'Maison des Plaids' where the (Arch)bishops are supposed to have held their pleas ("plaids"). 2 Domesday Tenants of Gloucestershire, p. 46.
take the cowl. Among them was William, eldest son of that Rhiwallon, lord of Dol, whom, on the eve of the Norman Conquest, Duke William and Harold of England had relieved when he was besieged by his lord. Rhiwallon's son William, who was followed by his brother John (No. 1116), entered the abbey of St. Florent de Saumur, and became its abbot himself in 1070. Zealous in the cause of the house he ruled, he clearly urged its claims at Dol, receiving not only local gifts, but also, as its chronicle mentions, the endowments it obtained in England. Of the two families with which we are concerned the lords of Monmouth can, by these charters, be traced to the neighbourhood of Dol, for William son of Baderon confirms his father's gifts at Epiniac and La Boussac (No. 1134), which places lay together close to Dol. The presence among the witnesses to these charters of a Main or La Boussac and a Geoffrey of Epiniac affords confirmation of the fact. Guihenoc, the founder of the house in England (probably identical with "Wihenocus filius Caradoc de Labocac"),1 undoubtedly became a monk of St. Florent,2 and resigned his English fief to his nephew William (son of his brother Baderon), who is found holding it in Domesday.
Some charters were specially selected by me from the Liber Albus of St. Florent (Nos. 1152-4) to illustrate, about the end of the Conqueror's reign,
1 Lobineau, Histoire de Bretagne, II, 219. 2 Calendar, Nos. 1117, 1133.
the little group of Dol families who were about to settle in England.1 Among the witnesses to one of them are Baderon and his son the Domesday tenant. But the one family we have specially to trace is that which held the office of "Dapifer" at Dol. "Alan Dapifer" is found as a witness, in 1086, to a charter relating to Mezuoit2 (a cell of St. Florent, near Dol). He also, as "Alanus Siniscallus," witnessed the foundation charters of that house (ante 1080) and himself gave it rights at Mezuoit with the consent of "Fledaldus frater ejus," the monks, in return, admitting his brother Rhiwallon to their fraternity.3 He appears as a witness with the above "Badero" in No. 1152, and in 1086 as a surety with Ralf de Fougères (No. 1154). Mentioned in other St. Florent documents,4 he is styled in one, "Dapifer de Dolo"5. And it is as "Alanus dapifer Dolensis" that he took part in the first crusade, 10976. This style is explained in a charter of 1095, recording a gift to Marmoutier by Hamo son of Main, with consent of his lord "Rivallonius dominus Doli castri, filius Johannis archiepiscopi", in which we read:-
1 It would, no doubt, be a rash conjecture that the "Herveus botellarius" of these charters (Nos. 1153, 1154) was the ancestor of those Herveys, from whom the Butlers of Ireland are descended. But if it should eventually prove to be no mere coincidence, the Butlership of Ireland would have had an origin curiously parallel to the Stewardship of Scotland.
2 Lobineau, p. 250. 3 Ibid, 137, 138, collated by me with the Liber Albus at Angers. 4 Ibid 232, 234. 5 Ibid 310. 6 Ordericus Vitalis (Société de l'histoire de France), vol. III. 507.
Hoc donum factum est per manum Guarini monachi nostri de Lauda Rigaldi tunc temporis prioris Combornii, testibus his: Alano siniscalco Rivallonii predicti, etc.1
His brother's son, Alan fitz Flaald (ancestor, as has been seen, of the Stuarts) also occurs, in these Breton documents, as releasing his rights in the church of "Guguen"2 to Bartholomew abbot of Marmoutier;3 while two charters of Henry I confirming the foundation of Holy Trinity Priory, York, as a cell of Marmoutier, and prior to 1108, contain his name as a witness (No. 1225). Again, a charter of donation to Andover Priory reveals him as present in the New Forest with William son of Baderon and "Wihenocus monachus" (William's uncle) early in the reign of Henry I4. It was Alan also who founded Sporle Priory, Norfolk (No. 1149), on land he held there, as another cell of St. Florent, the Bretons who witness his charter further attesting his origin. Among them is seen Rhiwallon "Extraneus," the founder of the Norfolk family of Le Strange, which, more than five centuries later, was so ardent in its loyalty to Alan's descendants, the Stuart kings of England.5
It will have been observed that "Float filius Alani dapiferi" is assumed above to have been the
1 Transcripts from (Bretagne) cartulary of Marmoutier in MS. Baluze 77, fo. 134, and in MS. lat. 5441 (3) fo. 343. Alan is also brought into conjunction with this Hamo son of Main in No. 1152. 2 Cuguen, near Dol. 3 Lobineau, II. 310; MS. lat. 5441 (3) fo. 235. 4 Mon. Ang. VI. 993. 5 His name has hitherto remained doubtful, and is given as Roland in the Dictionary of National Biography.
brother, not a son, of the crusader. This assumption is based upon the facts that the crusader's gift at Mezuoit was 'conceded' by his brother 'Fledald,' who was, therefore, his heir at the time, and that his office of "dapifer" at Dol was afterwards held -- a fact hitherto unsuspected -- by descendants of Alan fitz Flaald. The crusader, it must therefore be inferred, left no heir.
The sudden rise of Alan fitz Flaald and his evident enjoyment of Henry's favour from the early years of the reign, were thought by Mr. Eyton to be due to his (fabulous) Scottish origin. But it might, with some probability, be suggested that his Breton origin accounts for the facts. When Henry was besieged in Mont St. Michel, he is known to have had Breton followers ("aggregatis Britonibus") and, after his surrender, "per Britanniam transiit, Britonibus qui sibi solummodo adminiculum contulerant, gratias reddidit" (Ordericus)1. Dol was his nearest town in Britanny, and Alan may thus, like Richard de Réviers, have served him across the sea, when he was but a younger son.
It would seem, indeed, although the fact has been hitherto overlooked, that a group of families whom Henry had known when lord of the Côtentin were endowed by him when king with fiefs in England. In addition to Alan fitz Flaald, founder of the house of Stewart, and to Richard de
1 Elsewhere, Orderic observes that Henry, "dum esset junior ... ut externus, exterorum, id est Francorum et Britonum auxilia quaerere coactus est."
Réviers, ancestor of the earls of Devon1, the Hayes of Haye-du-Puits were given the Honour of Halnaker (Sussex), the Aubignys, afterwards earls of Arundel, obtained from him a fief in Norfolk; the two St. John brothers, from St. Jean-le-Thomas, were granted lands in Oxfordshire and Sussex, and founded another famous house2; while the family of Paynel also, sprung from the Côtentin, owed to Henry lands in England.
Among the documents calendered in my volume are Papal bulls to the abbey of St. Florent, ranging from 1146 to 1187 (Nos. 1124-9), which suggest that Alan's son William, who acquired by marriage Clun castle, must have bestowed its church of St. George, with all its dependent churches, on Monmouth Priory, a fact hitherto unsuspected. Mr Eyton thought that the gift of this church to Wenlock Priory by his widow (temp. Ric. I) represents the first occasion on which it is mentioned.
Alan fitz Flaald has hitherto been credited with two well-known sons, William and Walter, ancestors respectively of the Fitzalans and the Stewarts3
1 He is found, seemingly, in Domesday, holding a single lordship. 2 See my paper on "The Families of St. John and of Port" in Genealogist, July 1899, p. 1. And compare p. 66 above. 3 A third son, "Simon", is claimed as the ancestor of the Boyds, and is assigned to him, with William and Walter, in Mr. Lindsay's great Stewart pedigree, the standard authority on the subject. But although a Simon 'brother' of Walter occurs as a witness in the Paisley cartulary, his name is very low on the list, and he may have been only a uterine or even a bastard brother. The Empress Maud's bastard brothers are styled her 'brothers' in her charters, nor was this unusual.
He had, however, another son, who needs to be specially dealt with. This was Jordan, his heir in Britanny, and, apparently, at Burton in England. Mr. Eyton knew of his existence, but could state little about him. In No. 1220 we find him, as a "valiant and illustrious man," making restitution to Marmoutier in 1130, with his wife Mary and his sons Jordan and Alan. In the same year we detect him entered on the English Pipe Roll in several places, though one of the entries suggests his Breton connection1. He may safely be identified with that "Jordanus dapifer" who witnessed a charter to Mont St. Michel in 1128-9 (No. 722); and consequently he held the family office. We find him also in a St. Florent charter,2 and in one of Marmoutier3. Of his sons, Jordan restored to the priory of St. Florent at Sele the mill at Burton given it by Alan fitz Flaald4, but was, probably, soon succeeded by his brother Alan, who confirmed to a priory of Marmoutier (No. 1221) another gift of his grandfather, Alan fitz Flaald, at Burton, mentioning his wife Joan and his son Jordan5. This
1 Rot. Pip. 31 Hen. I., p. 11. 2 Lobineau, II. 232. 3 Ibid 146. 4 "Jordanus filius Jordani filius Alani hominibus suis de Burt[ona]. Sciatis me reddidisse monachis S. Florentii de Salmur molendinum de Burt[ona] sicut habuerunt tempore Alani filii Flealdi et tempore Jordani patris mei" (original charter at Magdalen College). 5 It was either this Jordan or his grandfather who, as "Jordanus filius Alani siniscalli," confirmed a gift to Combourg (MS. lat. 5441 [3] 437).
Alan, who meets us also, as his father's son, in a Savigny charter (No. 824), is identical with that "Alanum filium quondam Jordani Dolensem senescallum," who confirmed the grant of his grandfather Alan (fitz Flaald) at Cuguen, and himself added the church of Tronquet1 about 11602. We have further in No. 1013 the confirmation by Alexander III of his gifts to the abbey of Tiron, including the church of Sharrington and three others in England. He attested a charter of the lord of Dol in 11453 and, in or about 1165, a royal charter at Winchester concerning a release by his fellow-countryman Geoffrey son of Oliver de Dinan4. He also leads the list of witnesses in a dispute about the abbey of Vieuville (in the parish of Epiniac) in 1167, as "Alanus filius Jordani dapifer."5. His wife Joan and daughter Olive were benefactors to the abbey of Vieuville for his soul.6
With this clue we return to England, and detect the heiress of the Stewards of Dol in that Olive, daughter of Alan "filius Jordani," who in 1227 was impleaded by one of her Breton tenants, -- his father Iwan had been enfeoffed by her own father Alan, -- at Sharrington, Norfolk. The record of
1 MS. lat. 12,878, fo. 248d., and Lobineau, II. 310. 2 The gift is wrongly assigned in Gallia Christiana (XIV.1074) to 1133-1147, as being made before Hugh archbishop of Tours. The prelate was Hugh "archbishop" of Dol, whose date was 1155-1161 (Ibid. 1050). 3 Lobineau, II. 147. 4 Mon. Ang., VI. 486. 5 Lobineau, II. 308; MS. lat. 5476, fol. 98d. 6 "Johanna uxor Alani dapiferi de Dolo et filia ipsius Oliva." Lobineau, II. 310; MS. lat. 5476, fo. 91.
the suit gives us the name of Alan's mother, Mary, mentioned as we have seen, in No. 1220.1 In the middle, therefore, of the 12th century, this family flourished simultaneously in Scotland, England, and Britanny.
A short pedigree (see page 129) will make the descent clear.
[For some further details of Jordan's family, see Round's Addendum ]
A chronological difficulty is created by Mr. Eyton's statement that Alan fitz Flaald was "dead ante 1114", for his son (it will be seen) the Steward of Scotland lived till 1177. It is desirable, therefore, to examine his authority for this date. Dugdale was acquainted with a confirmation by Sybil, lady of Wolston (Warwickshire), of a gift by her mother Adeliza to Burton Abbey of land in Wolston. In his History of Warwickshire (p. 33) he held that she was probably a daughter of Alan fitz Flaald, because Alan was "enfeoft of this Lordship" before her. Mr. Eyton accepted Dugdale's conclusion, and therefore identified her mother 'Adeliza' as that 'Avelina' de Hesdin, whom he had so skilfully shown to be the wife of Alan. Further, as the land ex hypothesi belonged to Alan himself, and yet was given by her, she must, he held, have been a widow at the time of the gift; and as the abbey was already in possession at least as early as 1114. Alan, he concluded, must have been dead before that date.2 These conclusions
1 Bracton's Note-book, III. 620. Compare 'Feet of Fines' (Pipe Roll Society), II. 160. 2 History of Shropshire, VII, 221-223,228.
ALAN
Dapifer [Dolensis]
____________________________|_________________________
| | |
| | |
ALAN FLAALD RHIWALLON
Dapifer Dolensis occurs at Monk of
occurs in Britanny Monmouth St Florent
ante 1080 and in 1101 or 1102
1086; a leader in 'frater' (et
first Crusade 'filius') Alani
1097 Dapiferi
|
ALAN
FITZ FLAALD
Founder of Sporle Priory
______________________|_________________________
| | |
| | |
JORDAN WILLIAM WALTER
FITZ ALAN FITZ ALAN FITZ ALAN
occurs 1129-30 Founder of Haugh- "Dapifer Regis
Benefactor of mond Priory Scotiae"
Sele Priory ob. 1160 ob. 1177
Occurs also in (?Benefactor of Founder of
Britanny as Monmouth Priory) Paisley Abbey
"Dapifer (Dolensis) | |
||
|_________ _____l___________ |
| | | | |
| | | | |
ALAN JORDAN ALAN WILLIAM ALAN
FITZ JORDAN ob. infans FITZ ALAN THE STEWARD
Dapifer Dolensis* a quo Fitz "Senescallus
Founder of Tronquet Alan, Earl Regis
1155-1161 of Arundel Scotiae"
living 1167
- Among the obits at Dol we find that of another daughter of Alan fitz Jordan: "Kal. Sept. obiit Aelicia uxor G[uillelmi] Espine filia Alani Jordanis quae dedit episcopo et capitulo Dol ... pratum senescalli,", etc. (Gaignères' Transcript of Cartulary, MS. lat. 5211 C). A charter of her husband William Spina, son of Hamo, confirms the donations made to Vieuville "de feodo Aeliz uxoris mee filie Alani Dolensis senescalli ... concedente Alano filio nostro" (MS. lat. 5476, fo. 85). His father Hamo Spina occurs immediately after "Alan filius Jordanis dapifer" in the above letter of 1167 (Ib. fo. 98d). As we read of "Gaufridus Spina Doli senescallus"(Ib. fo. 91d) it would seem that the Dol office was inherited by the Spina family, and the English estates by the other daughter.
created difficulties, but, on Mr. Eyton's great authority, they have been duly accepted.1 Yet the whole edifice rests on Dugdale's careless reading of a document in the Burton Cartulary.2 That document does not connect Alan fitz Flaald with Wolston.
The facts are these. In Domesday the three Warwickshire manors of Church Lawford, Wolston, and Stretton-on-Dunsmore are entered together (fo. 239) as held of Earl Roger (of Shrewsbury) by that 'Rainaldus', whom the historian of Shropshire so brilliantly identifies with Renaud de Bailleul.3. We find him, accordingly as "Rainaldus de Bailoul,"4 confirming in No. 578 the gifts at Wolston and Church Lawford of his own under-tenant, a certain Hubert Baldran. Another of the charters in my Calendar (No. 579) proves that this Hubert (not Alan fitz Flaald), was the father of Sybil, lady of 'Wlfrichestone' (Wolston), from whom we started. Thus Adeliza, mother of Sybil, and wife of Hubert Baldran, was quite distinct from "Avelina" wife of Alan fitz Flaald, with
1 Burton Cartulary, Ed. Wrottesley (Salt Arch. Collections, 1884), pp. 32, 33. 2 Ibid. p. 33 bis. 3 History of Shropshire, VII. 206 et seq. 4 See my Calendar, p. 202.
whom Mr. Eyton rashly identified her.1 Alan may have lived, and probably did, beyond 1114; and his gift at Stretton to Burton Abbey was made after he was placed in the shoes (as Mr. Eyton has shown) of Renaud de Bailleul.
We have thus seen how a single charter may prove of great importance, not only in establishing the true facts, but in demolishing erroneous conclusions with the corollaries based thereon.
Within the last few weeks there has unexpectedly been revived that view of the origin of the Stewarts which had long, one thought, been abandoned. As the whole story is most curious, and has, moreover, an important moral, I propose to discuss it in some detail. The pedigree of the Stuarts "of Hartley Mauduit," who hold a baronetcy dating from 1660, began in Burke's Peerage, so recently as last year, with Sir Nicholas Stuart the first baronet, "son of Simeon Stuart, Esq." But now, in this year of grace 1900, -
A more thorough revision than usual has been possible ... To the laborious researches and experienced counsel of my brother, Mr. H. Farnham Burke, Somerset Herald, the genealogical and heraldic value of this work is much indebted and is gratefully acknowledged (sic).
The "laborious researches" of Somerset Herald have indeed developed the Stuart pedigree, thanks
1 She has been even further promoted in the British Museum Catalogue of Stowe MSS., where, in the abstract of the original deed (Stowe charter 103), she is strangely identified with queen Adeliza, widow of Henry I.
to those "invaluable documents the Heralds' Visitations, documents of high authority and value."1 The illustrious ancestry of this family is given fully in the Visitations of Cambridge (sic), 1575 and 1619, in which is traced their descent from the Royal Stuarts. ANDREW STUART, younger son of Alexander Stuart, 2nd son of Walter Stuart, seneschal of Scotland, great-grandson of Walter, 1st high steward of Scotland, grandson of Banquo Lord of Lochaber. He m. the daughter of James Bethe, and had an only son. ALEXANDER STUART, to whom Charles VI of France granted an honourable augmentation of his arms.
And so the pedigree proceeds through another eight generations down to the first baronet. Dear old 'Banquo,' "whom we miss"!2 What a pleasure it is to welcome him back among us once more, and to know that he, and not Flaald, was the founder of the house of Stuart on the unimpeachable authority of the Heralds and their 'Visitations'! It is true that, according to the "Royal Lineage"3 contained in the same volume, it was not descended from Banquo at all, and that the "above Alexander Stuart, 2nd son of Walter Stuart", had no existence; but these are details with the editor, doubtless, will see to in his next edition. It is also true that the new pedigree would at once make Sir Simeon Stuart heir-male of "the Royal Stuarts", an honour foolishly claimed by sundry Scottish families.4 Let us hope that Somerset Herald will inform Lyon King of
1 Preface to Burke's Landed Gentry, Ed. 1898. 2 Macbeth. 3 Burke's Peerage, 1900, pp. cliii-cliv. 4 See p. 89 above.
Arms that his "laborious researches" have decided this long-contested question.
But, seriously speaking, what is the origin of the new descent, which, this year, makes its appearance in Burke's Peerage? Well, the story is, or ought to be, familiar to all genealogists. For, owing to Oliver Cromwell's mother having been a member of this family, his Stuart descent was alluded to by Carlyle, which has given genealogists the opportunity of making merry at his expense. The alleged descent was, for several years, discussed in the recognised organ of genealogical research;1 but of this discussion Somerset Herald is, no doubt, ignorant. So far back, indeed, as 1878 the very interesting heraldic glass of which I am enabled to give an illustration was exhibited to the Archaeological Institute, and that well-known Scottish authority, Mr. Joseph Bain,2 discussed the whole story thereon before it. He then observed of the alleged grant by "Charles VI of France," to which Somerset Herald appeals:
In M. Michel's Les Ecossais en France, published in 1862, he gives a drawing of this very design, and the text of the asserted grant by Charles VI of France in the fifth year of his reign, conferring the strange coat of arms on Sir Alexander Stuart on account of the merits of his father Andrew ... M. Michel says that 'it is enough to cast the eye on these pretended
1 The Genealogist [N.S.], vols. I (1884), II, III, VIII, X (1893). 2 Editor of the 'Calendar of documents relating to Scotland,' the 'Hamilton Papers,' the 'Calendar of letters and papers referring to the Borders,' etc. etc.
letters of concession, to recognise the patois of an Englishman little familiar with the language spoken at Paris at the end of the fourteenth century, and to doubt the fact asserted by the writer' -- an opinion which will be shared by anyone moderately versed in Old French."1
The alleged grant only exists in the form of a transcript in a private MS. of the 16th century;2 but we shall see below that not only deeds, but even sealed deeds, were among the fabrications of those who concocted false pedigrees.3
1 Archaeological Journal, XXXV, 302-3, 399. 2 Add. MS 15,644. 3 See the paper on "Our English Hapsburgs".
[Transcriber's note: The next part continues briefly into the family of Oliver Cromwell's mother. However, it is only in passing, and the reference to the periodical The Genealogist, New Series, and the article in Volume X, should be followed up for anyone who wants the whole story. Most of what Mr. Round has to say is about heraldry and its abuse.]
Pages 126-7. Too late for insertion in the text I discovered that Jordan Fitz Alan (Fitz Flaald) and his son Alan Fitz Jordan were lords of Tuxford, etc., in Notts, and that Alan was succeeded there, as in Norfolk, by his daughter and heiress Olive. Further, Olive is there found to be identical with that Olive who was wife (1) of Robert de St. John, of St. Jean-le-Thomas (see my paper on "The Families of St. John and of Port" in Genealogist [N.S.], XVI. 45), and (2) of Roger de Monbegon, who gave 500 marcs for her and her inheritance in 1 John. This completes the pedigree of the line.
Their Nottinghamshire estate consisted of Tuxford, with lands in Cymruby and Kirton, together with West Markham and Warsop, all of which had formed part of the escheated fief of Roger de Busli (see Thoroton's Notts, III. 213, 214, 219, 220, 227, 354, 369), and must have been bestowed by Henry I. on this favoured family. It was as holding the 6 carucates at which these lands were assessed that Jordan had his 12 sh. of danegeld remitted in 1130. Alan Fitz Jordan enfeoffed Geoffrey de la Fremunt at Cymruby and Kirton, and his daughter Olive (who occurs in the Rufford Cartulary) kept her court at Tuxford.
This discovery enables us to identify two of the churches given to the abbey of Tiron by Alan fitz Jordan as "seneschal of Dol." In my Calendar of Documents preserved in France they occur as 'Tophor' and 'Garsop' (p. 358); but they were clearly Tuxford and Warsop. The scattered character of tenures in this obscure period is illustrated by this seneschal of Dol holding land independently in the counties of Lincoln, of Norfolk, and of Notts.
http://genforum.genealogy.com/fitzalan/messages/41.html
also
http://www.mckinneyandstewart.com/genealogy/getperson.php?personID=...
Excerpts from a letter, dated May 10, 1967, from Heber Rankin, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 3rd cousin once removed of Joseph Philip Rhein, to Clayton Vogel, first cousin of Joseph Philip Rhein, follows.
I now have 18 generations back beyond our Revolutionary War Veteran, Lieutenant William Stewart, back to a little village of Dol in Brittany, France in the year 1040 A.D. Our ancestor came over to England with William the Conqueror and fought in the battle of Hastings in 1066. For his services in that battle he was given large tracts of land in England and about 100 years later some of the descendents came to Scotland in the train of David I of Scotland. There were given tracts of land in Renfrewshire and Ayrshire, and one William Stewart came to the Laggan in County Donegal, Ireland about 1608 as Captain of a Scottish regiment that was sent to protect the English and Scottish settler who came there at the time of the Plantation
also
http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/francedoldebreton.htm
Dol de Breton: (Menhir de Champ-Dolent - Menhir of the 'Field of Woe')
Currently the largest standing stone in France.
The Dol-de-Breton stands on the borders of Normandy and Brittany. The nearby 'Mont Dol' is the place where St. Michael is said to have fought Lucifer.
The syllable 'Dol' is also used in the Breton word 'Dolmen', which means 'stone-table'.
It has been dressed (from pink granite) so that it is almost square at the bottom...
http://mathematical.com/dolalan1020.html
Alan was the son of Flaad, who was in turn a son [7] of an Alain who had been the crusader (in 1097[8]) who was Dapifer to the Archbishop of Dol, which is situated near Mont-Saint-Michel. "Alan, dapifer" is found as a witness in 1086 to a charter relating to Mezuoit, a cell of St. Florent, near Dol.
A Commander in the !st Crusade
Alan; Breton noble living c1045; hereditary Steward of Dol in Britanny. [Burke's Peerage], Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, 106th Edition, CharlesMosley Editor-in-Chief, 1999, Page: 1985
Alain was a crusader in 1097 who was Dapifer to the Archbishop of Dol, which is situated near Mont-Saint-Michel. "Alan, dapifer" is found as a witness in 1086 to a charter relating to Mezuoit, a cell of St. Florent, near Dol.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_fitzFlaad for more information.
"Alain steward of Dol" was present at the capture of Nikaia in 1097. He died on the First Crusade
http://www.artema.com.au/Boyd/ancient_antecedents/Seneschals%20of%2...
Alain "Dapifer" fitz Flaald, Seneschal of Dol
Misc Alan, Dapifer of Dol, was the hereditary Steward or Dapifer of Dol-de-Bretagne is about 30 miles north of Rennes in Brittany, France. A steward or dapifer was the man responsible for running the day to day affairs of the lord's lands, usually supervising several manors. User defined 1045 A Breton noble living circa 1045
Sources
- Senechaux de Dol at Medieval Lands.
Alain "Dapifer" (c1024-after 1080), Seneschal of Dol. He is now known to have scion of the seneschals of Brittany, but he was traditionally thought to have been a son of Fleance MacAlpin, Thane of Lochaber. In MacBeth, Shakespeare has the witches tell Banquo that he will be the father of kings. The play was written for James I (VI) of England and Scotland, who as a descendant of Alan Dapifer was thought to have been a descendant of Banquo.
His wife is unknown except in later legend.
Some spurious genealogies call Alain a son of "Fratmaldus the Seneschal".
Horace Round's Critique
J.H. Round: Studies in Peerage and Family History
I am very grateful to Mary Kifissia (née Stewart), who has transcribed most of J. Horace Round's paper on "The Origin of the Stewarts", from "Studies in Peerage and Family History" (Westminster, Archibald Constable and Co., Ltd., 1901, pages 115-146), and to Rick Eaton for permission to reproduce her transcript here.
[NB. Of course, any work of this age should be used with caution. However, this paper appears to have stood the test of time well, and I am not aware of any errors.]
Of the problems upon which new light is thrown by my Calendar of documents in France relating to English history, none, probably, for the genealogist, will rival in interest the origin of the Stewarts. It has long been known that the Scottish Stewarts and the great English house of Fitz Alan possessed a common ancestor in Alan, the son of Flaald, living under Henry the First. This was established at some length by Chalmers in his Caledonia (1807) on what he declared to be "the most satisfactory evidence."1 According to him, "Alan the son of Flaald, a Norman, acquired the manor of Oswestrie, in Shropshire, soon after the Conquest," and "married the daughter of Warine, the famous sheriff of Shropshire." Mr Riddell, the well-known Scottish antiquary, followed up the arguments of Chalmers, in 1843, with a paper on the "Origin of the House of Stewart,"2 in which he accepted and enforced the views of Chalmers, including his theory that Walter Fitz Alan brought with him to Scotland followers from Shropshire and gave them lands
1 Vol. I, pp. 572-575. 2 Stewartiana, pp. 55-70.
there. But research has hitherto been unable to determine the origin of Flaald father of Alan, or even to find, in England, any mention of his name.
No less an authority on feudal genealogy than the late Mr Eyton devoted himself to a special investigation on the subject of Alan "Fitz Flaald,"1 and arrived at the conclusion that, after all, he was a grandson of "Banquo, thane of Lochaber,", whose son "Fleance" fled to England. "My belief is," Mr Eyton wrote, "that the son of Fleance was named Alan ... and that he whom the English called Alan Fitz Flaald was the person in question."2 He admitted, however, of the priories of Andover, Sele, and Sporle, cells of the Abbey of St. Florent de Saumur, that he could "show a connection between Alan Fitz Flaald or his descendants and each of these cells3, which suggested an Angevin origin, and for which he could not account. But where he really advanced our knowledge was in showing that Alan Fitz Flaald married, not (as alleged) a daughter of Warine the sheriff, but Aveline daughter of Ernulf de Hesdin, a great Domesday tenant. I have now been able to trace Ernulf to Hesdin (in Picardy) itself, in connection with which his daughter 'Ava' also is mentioned.4 In 1874, an anonymous
1 History of Shropshire (1858), VII. 211-232. 2 Ibid, p. 227. It is essential to bear in mind that the old Scottish writers made Walter, the first Steward, a son of 'Fleance', wholly ignoring Alan his real father (see p. 119 below). This invalidates their whole story. 3 Ibid, p. 219. 4 See Preface to my Calendar, p. xlvii.
work, The Norman People, approached the problem from the foreign side, and adduced evidence to prove that Flaald was a brother of Alan, seneschal of Dol. But there was still not forthcoming any mention of Flaald in England, while the rashness and inaccuracy which marred that book resulted in his being wrongly pronounced a "son of Guienoc." The great pedigree specially prepared a few years ago for the Stuart exhibition by Mr W. A. Lindsay (now Windsor Herald) still began only with Alan son of Flaald, to whom a daughter of Warine the sheriff was assigned as wife. Moreover, in the handsome work on The Royal House of Stuart (1890), which had its origin in that exhibition, Dr. Skelton could only tell us that "there was (if the conclusions of Chalmers are to be accepted) an Alan son of Flathauld, a Norman knight, who soon after the Conquest obtained a gift of broad lands in Shropshire" (p. 5). Alan, we shall find, was not a Norman; the lands he was given were widely scattered; and he did not obtain them "soon after the Conquest."
The latest authoritative statement on the subject is that, it would seem, of Sheriff Mackay in the Dictionary of National Biography (1896).1 He tells us, of the House of Stewart, that
1 This passage is found in the biography of the first Stewart king, so that I only lighted upon it after this paper was written. It gave me the clue to Mr. Hewison's book, of which I had not previously heard, but which I have now read just in time to add his results to this paper (24th Jan., 1900).
Its earlier genealogy is uncertain, but an ingenious and learned, though admittedly in part hypothetical, attempt to trace it to the Banquho of Boece and Shakespeare, Thane of Lochaber, has been recently made by the Rev. J. K. Hewison (Bute in the Olden Time [Vol. II] pp. 1-38, Edinburgh, 1895).1
Mr Hewison's volume opens with the words:-
The origin of the royal house of Stewart has long remained a mystery, perplexing historical students, who feel tantalized at knowing so little concerning the hapless victim of the jealousy of King Macbeth - Banquo, round whom Shakespeare cast the glamour of undying romance, and to whom the old chroniclers of Scotland traced back the family of Stewart.
The author's 'glamour' augurs ill, and in spite of the unique advantage he enjoyed in having access to the late Lord Crawford's MS. collections on the subject, we soon find ourselves wandering, alas, with Alice in Wonderland.
It may be concluded that Walter, the son of Fleadan, son of Banchu, is identical with Walter, son of [A]llan (or Flan), son of Murechach of the Lennox family, if not also with Walter, son of Amloib, son of Duncan of the other genealogy. Chronology easily permits of the equation of Murdoch, the Maormor of Leven ... with Banchu ... who might have survived even his son Fleance -- we, meantime, only assuming that Fleance was slain in Cymru. Ban-chu, the pale warrior, would be his complimentary title; the old surname of his family ... also descended to his son, Flan-chu, the red or ruddy warrior, known to his Irish kinsmen as Fleadan.
We are surely coming to the Man-chu dynasty. But no.
This Irish form of the name Fleadan tan (i.e. either Fleadan the Tanist or Fleadan the younger) imports a significant idea -
1 Vol. XLVIII, p. 344.
namely, flead ... a feast, which corresponds in signification with Flaald ...
Then there bursts upon us yet another discovery:-
Fleanchus ... is the Latinised form of Flann-chu, the Red or Ruddy Dog ... and is also a sobriquet - the Bloodhound. ... This nomenclature is evidently a reminiscence of the dog-totem or dog-divinity, etc., etc.
There remains, however, the standing puzzle1 why Walter the first Stewart was made by the old romancers a son of Fleance son of Banquo, though his father was indisputably Alan son of Flaald. One solution offered by our author is that "Ailin or Allan may have become the family name"; but his own view is that
The native name of Banquo's son would be the common Goidelic one Flann, which signifies rosy or fair, and has an equivalent in Aluinn, beautiful, fair, to which the word Alan, both in Britanny and Ireland, may be traced.
Thus it was that 'Flann' would become 'Alan' in Britanny, "more especially when, in the vulgar tongue of Dol, the former, denoting a pancake, would sound like a nickname." And if we should still have our doubts, is there not, at Dol, to this day -
an imposing edifice, built of granite, in the purest Norman style of architecture of the twelfth century, which tradition names 'La maison des Plaids,' and avers was the revenue office and court-house of the archbishops. this name, "the House of the
1 See p. 116, note 2, above. It will be seen that to assert, as here, that Alan and 'Fleance' were the same will not overcome this difficulty.
Plaids," is touchingly significant of Fleance with the royal wearers of the tartan ...
But I really cannot pursue further these "ingenious and learned" new lichts. A dreadful vision of dog-totems, arrayed in the Stewart tartan, and feasting, with fiery visage, on pancakes in the streets of Dol, warns me to leave this realm of wonders and turn to the world in which we live. From "the House of the Plaids" I flee.1
Fortunately Flaald is a name, for practical purposes, unique; and we need not, therefore, hesitate to recognize in "Float filius Alani dapiferi" who was present (No. 1136) at the dedication of Monmouth Priory (1101 or 1102) the long-sought missing link. We thus connect him with the fourth, the remaining cell of St. Florent de Saumur in England. But we have yet to account for his appearance as a 'baron' of the lord of Monmouth, William son of Baderon. The best authority on Domesday tenants, Mr. A. S. Ellis confessed that he had failed to trace the lords of Monmouth in Britanny.2 The key, however, to the whole connection is found in the abbey of St. Florent de Saumur and in its charters calendared in my work. In the latter half of the eleventh century many Bretons of noble birth were led to
1 It is positively the fact that the author so renders the name of the 'Maison des Plaids' where the (Arch)bishops are supposed to have held their pleas ("plaids"). 2 Domesday Tenants of Gloucestershire, p. 46.
take the cowl. Among them was William, eldest son of that Rhiwallon, lord of Dol, whom, on the eve of the Norman Conquest, Duke William and Harold of England had relieved when he was besieged by his lord. Rhiwallon's son William, who was followed by his brother John (No. 1116), entered the abbey of St. Florent de Saumur, and became its abbot himself in 1070. Zealous in the cause of the house he ruled, he clearly urged its claims at Dol, receiving not only local gifts, but also, as its chronicle mentions, the endowments it obtained in England. Of the two families with which we are concerned the lords of Monmouth can, by these charters, be traced to the neighbourhood of Dol, for William son of Baderon confirms his father's gifts at Epiniac and La Boussac (No. 1134), which places lay together close to Dol. The presence among the witnesses to these charters of a Main or La Boussac and a Geoffrey of Epiniac affords confirmation of the fact. Guihenoc, the founder of the house in England (probably identical with "Wihenocus filius Caradoc de Labocac"),1 undoubtedly became a monk of St. Florent,2 and resigned his English fief to his nephew William (son of his brother Baderon), who is found holding it in Domesday.
Some charters were specially selected by me from the Liber Albus of St. Florent (Nos. 1152-4) to illustrate, about the end of the Conqueror's reign,
1 Lobineau, Histoire de Bretagne, II, 219. 2 Calendar, Nos. 1117, 1133.
the little group of Dol families who were about to settle in England.1 Among the witnesses to one of them are Baderon and his son the Domesday tenant. But the one family we have specially to trace is that which held the office of "Dapifer" at Dol. "Alan Dapifer" is found as a witness, in 1086, to a charter relating to Mezuoit2 (a cell of St. Florent, near Dol). He also, as "Alanus Siniscallus," witnessed the foundation charters of that house (ante 1080) and himself gave it rights at Mezuoit with the consent of "Fledaldus frater ejus," the monks, in return, admitting his brother Rhiwallon to their fraternity.3 He appears as a witness with the above "Badero" in No. 1152, and in 1086 as a surety with Ralf de Fougères (No. 1154). Mentioned in other St. Florent documents,4 he is styled in one, "Dapifer de Dolo"5. And it is as "Alanus dapifer Dolensis" that he took part in the first crusade, 10976. This style is explained in a charter of 1095, recording a gift to Marmoutier by Hamo son of Main, with consent of his lord "Rivallonius dominus Doli castri, filius Johannis archiepiscopi", in which we read:-
1 It would, no doubt, be a rash conjecture that the "Herveus botellarius" of these charters (Nos. 1153, 1154) was the ancestor of those Herveys, from whom the Butlers of Ireland are descended. But if it should eventually prove to be no mere coincidence, the Butlership of Ireland would have had an origin curiously parallel to the Stewardship of Scotland.
2 Lobineau, p. 250. 3 Ibid, 137, 138, collated by me with the Liber Albus at Angers. 4 Ibid 232, 234. 5 Ibid 310. 6 Ordericus Vitalis (Société de l'histoire de France), vol. III. 507.
Hoc donum factum est per manum Guarini monachi nostri de Lauda Rigaldi tunc temporis prioris Combornii, testibus his: Alano siniscalco Rivallonii predicti, etc.1
His brother's son, Alan fitz Flaald (ancestor, as has been seen, of the Stuarts) also occurs, in these Breton documents, as releasing his rights in the church of "Guguen"2 to Bartholomew abbot of Marmoutier;3 while two charters of Henry I confirming the foundation of Holy Trinity Priory, York, as a cell of Marmoutier, and prior to 1108, contain his name as a witness (No. 1225). Again, a charter of donation to Andover Priory reveals him as present in the New Forest with William son of Baderon and "Wihenocus monachus" (William's uncle) early in the reign of Henry I4. It was Alan also who founded Sporle Priory, Norfolk (No. 1149), on land he held there, as another cell of St. Florent, the Bretons who witness his charter further attesting his origin. Among them is seen Rhiwallon "Extraneus," the founder of the Norfolk family of Le Strange, which, more than five centuries later, was so ardent in its loyalty to Alan's descendants, the Stuart kings of England.5
It will have been observed that "Float filius Alani dapiferi" is assumed above to have been the
1 Transcripts from (Bretagne) cartulary of Marmoutier in MS. Baluze 77, fo. 134, and in MS. lat. 5441 (3) fo. 343. Alan is also brought into conjunction with this Hamo son of Main in No. 1152. 2 Cuguen, near Dol. 3 Lobineau, II. 310; MS. lat. 5441 (3) fo. 235. 4 Mon. Ang. VI. 993. 5 His name has hitherto remained doubtful, and is given as Roland in the Dictionary of National Biography.
brother, not a son, of the crusader. This assumption is based upon the facts that the crusader's gift at Mezuoit was 'conceded' by his brother 'Fledald,' who was, therefore, his heir at the time, and that his office of "dapifer" at Dol was afterwards held -- a fact hitherto unsuspected -- by descendants of Alan fitz Flaald. The crusader, it must therefore be inferred, left no heir.
The sudden rise of Alan fitz Flaald and his evident enjoyment of Henry's favour from the early years of the reign, were thought by Mr. Eyton to be due to his (fabulous) Scottish origin. But it might, with some probability, be suggested that his Breton origin accounts for the facts. When Henry was besieged in Mont St. Michel, he is known to have had Breton followers ("aggregatis Britonibus") and, after his surrender, "per Britanniam transiit, Britonibus qui sibi solummodo adminiculum contulerant, gratias reddidit" (Ordericus)1. Dol was his nearest town in Britanny, and Alan may thus, like Richard de Réviers, have served him across the sea, when he was but a younger son.
It would seem, indeed, although the fact has been hitherto overlooked, that a group of families whom Henry had known when lord of the Côtentin were endowed by him when king with fiefs in England. In addition to Alan fitz Flaald, founder of the house of Stewart, and to Richard de
1 Elsewhere, Orderic observes that Henry, "dum esset junior ... ut externus, exterorum, id est Francorum et Britonum auxilia quaerere coactus est."
Réviers, ancestor of the earls of Devon1, the Hayes of Haye-du-Puits were given the Honour of Halnaker (Sussex), the Aubignys, afterwards earls of Arundel, obtained from him a fief in Norfolk; the two St. John brothers, from St. Jean-le-Thomas, were granted lands in Oxfordshire and Sussex, and founded another famous house2; while the family of Paynel also, sprung from the Côtentin, owed to Henry lands in England.
Among the documents calendered in my volume are Papal bulls to the abbey of St. Florent, ranging from 1146 to 1187 (Nos. 1124-9), which suggest that Alan's son William, who acquired by marriage Clun castle, must have bestowed its church of St. George, with all its dependent churches, on Monmouth Priory, a fact hitherto unsuspected. Mr Eyton thought that the gift of this church to Wenlock Priory by his widow (temp. Ric. I) represents the first occasion on which it is mentioned.
Alan fitz Flaald has hitherto been credited with two well-known sons, William and Walter, ancestors respectively of the Fitzalans and the Stewarts3
1 He is found, seemingly, in Domesday, holding a single lordship. 2 See my paper on "The Families of St. John and of Port" in Genealogist, July 1899, p. 1. And compare p. 66 above. 3 A third son, "Simon", is claimed as the ancestor of the Boyds, and is assigned to him, with William and Walter, in Mr. Lindsay's great Stewart pedigree, the standard authority on the subject. But although a Simon 'brother' of Walter occurs as a witness in the Paisley cartulary, his name is very low on the list, and he may have been only a uterine or even a bastard brother. The Empress Maud's bastard brothers are styled her 'brothers' in her charters, nor was this unusual.
He had, however, another son, who needs to be specially dealt with. This was Jordan, his heir in Britanny, and, apparently, at Burton in England. Mr. Eyton knew of his existence, but could state little about him. In No. 1220 we find him, as a "valiant and illustrious man," making restitution to Marmoutier in 1130, with his wife Mary and his sons Jordan and Alan. In the same year we detect him entered on the English Pipe Roll in several places, though one of the entries suggests his Breton connection1. He may safely be identified with that "Jordanus dapifer" who witnessed a charter to Mont St. Michel in 1128-9 (No. 722); and consequently he held the family office. We find him also in a St. Florent charter,2 and in one of Marmoutier3. Of his sons, Jordan restored to the priory of St. Florent at Sele the mill at Burton given it by Alan fitz Flaald4, but was, probably, soon succeeded by his brother Alan, who confirmed to a priory of Marmoutier (No. 1221) another gift of his grandfather, Alan fitz Flaald, at Burton, mentioning his wife Joan and his son Jordan5. This
1 Rot. Pip. 31 Hen. I., p. 11. 2 Lobineau, II. 232. 3 Ibid 146. 4 "Jordanus filius Jordani filius Alani hominibus suis de Burt[ona]. Sciatis me reddidisse monachis S. Florentii de Salmur molendinum de Burt[ona] sicut habuerunt tempore Alani filii Flealdi et tempore Jordani patris mei" (original charter at Magdalen College). 5 It was either this Jordan or his grandfather who, as "Jordanus filius Alani siniscalli," confirmed a gift to Combourg (MS. lat. 5441 [3] 437).
Alan, who meets us also, as his father's son, in a Savigny charter (No. 824), is identical with that "Alanum filium quondam Jordani Dolensem senescallum," who confirmed the grant of his grandfather Alan (fitz Flaald) at Cuguen, and himself added the church of Tronquet1 about 11602. We have further in No. 1013 the confirmation by Alexander III of his gifts to the abbey of Tiron, including the church of Sharrington and three others in England. He attested a charter of the lord of Dol in 11453 and, in or about 1165, a royal charter at Winchester concerning a release by his fellow-countryman Geoffrey son of Oliver de Dinan4. He also leads the list of witnesses in a dispute about the abbey of Vieuville (in the parish of Epiniac) in 1167, as "Alanus filius Jordani dapifer."5. His wife Joan and daughter Olive were benefactors to the abbey of Vieuville for his soul.6
With this clue we return to England, and detect the heiress of the Stewards of Dol in that Olive, daughter of Alan "filius Jordani," who in 1227 was impleaded by one of her Breton tenants, -- his father Iwan had been enfeoffed by her own father Alan, -- at Sharrington, Norfolk. The record of
1 MS. lat. 12,878, fo. 248d., and Lobineau, II. 310. 2 The gift is wrongly assigned in Gallia Christiana (XIV.1074) to 1133-1147, as being made before Hugh archbishop of Tours. The prelate was Hugh "archbishop" of Dol, whose date was 1155-1161 (Ibid. 1050). 3 Lobineau, II. 147. 4 Mon. Ang., VI. 486. 5 Lobineau, II. 308; MS. lat. 5476, fol. 98d. 6 "Johanna uxor Alani dapiferi de Dolo et filia ipsius Oliva." Lobineau, II. 310; MS. lat. 5476, fo. 91.
the suit gives us the name of Alan's mother, Mary, mentioned as we have seen, in No. 1220.1 In the middle, therefore, of the 12th century, this family flourished simultaneously in Scotland, England, and Britanny.
A short pedigree (see page 129) will make the descent clear.
[For some further details of Jordan's family, see Round's Addendum ]
A chronological difficulty is created by Mr. Eyton's statement that Alan fitz Flaald was "dead ante 1114", for his son (it will be seen) the Steward of Scotland lived till 1177. It is desirable, therefore, to examine his authority for this date. Dugdale was acquainted with a confirmation by Sybil, lady of Wolston (Warwickshire), of a gift by her mother Adeliza to Burton Abbey of land in Wolston. In his History of Warwickshire (p. 33) he held that she was probably a daughter of Alan fitz Flaald, because Alan was "enfeoft of this Lordship" before her. Mr. Eyton accepted Dugdale's conclusion, and therefore identified her mother 'Adeliza' as that 'Avelina' de Hesdin, whom he had so skilfully shown to be the wife of Alan. Further, as the land ex hypothesi belonged to Alan himself, and yet was given by her, she must, he held, have been a widow at the time of the gift; and as the abbey was already in possession at least as early as 1114. Alan, he concluded, must have been dead before that date.2 These conclusions
1 Bracton's Note-book, III. 620. Compare 'Feet of Fines' (Pipe Roll Society), II. 160. 2 History of Shropshire, VII, 221-223,228.
ALAN
Dapifer [Dolensis]
____________________________|_________________________ | | | | | |
ALAN FLAALD RHIWALLON
Dapifer Dolensis occurs at Monk of
occurs in Britanny Monmouth St Florent
ante 1080 and in 1101 or 1102
1086; a leader in 'frater' (et
first Crusade 'filius') Alani
1097 Dapiferi
|
ALAN FITZ FLAALD
Founder of Sporle Priory
______________________|_________________________ | | | | | |
JORDAN WILLIAM WALTER
FITZ ALAN FITZ ALAN FITZ ALAN
occurs 1129-30 Founder of Haugh- "Dapifer Regis
Benefactor of mond Priory Scotiae"
Sele Priory ob. 1160 ob. 1177
Occurs also in (?Benefactor of Founder of
Britanny as Monmouth Priory) Paisley Abbey
"Dapifer (Dolensis) | | || |_________ _____l___________ | | | | | | | | | | |
ALAN JORDAN ALAN WILLIAM ALAN
FITZ JORDAN ob. infans FITZ ALAN THE STEWARD
Dapifer Dolensis* a quo Fitz "Senescallus
Founder of Tronquet Alan, Earl Regis
1155-1161 of Arundel Scotiae"
living 1167
•Among the obits at Dol we find that of another daughter of Alan fitz Jordan: "Kal. Sept. obiit Aelicia uxor G[uillelmi] Espine filia Alani Jordanis quae dedit episcopo et capitulo Dol ... pratum senescalli,", etc. (Gaignères' Transcript of Cartulary, MS. lat. 5211 C). A charter of her husband William Spina, son of Hamo, confirms the donations made to Vieuville "de feodo Aeliz uxoris mee filie Alani Dolensis senescalli ... concedente Alano filio nostro" (MS. lat. 5476, fo. 85). His father Hamo Spina occurs immediately after "Alan filius Jordanis dapifer" in the above letter of 1167 (Ib. fo. 98d). As we read of "Gaufridus Spina Doli senescallus"(Ib. fo. 91d) it would seem that the Dol office was inherited by the Spina family, and the English estates by the other daughter.
created difficulties, but, on Mr. Eyton's great authority, they have been duly accepted.1 Yet the whole edifice rests on Dugdale's careless reading of a document in the Burton Cartulary.2 That document does not connect Alan fitz Flaald with Wolston.
The facts are these. In Domesday the three Warwickshire manors of Church Lawford, Wolston, and Stretton-on-Dunsmore are entered together (fo. 239) as held of Earl Roger (of Shrewsbury) by that 'Rainaldus', whom the historian of Shropshire so brilliantly identifies with Renaud de Bailleul.3. We find him, accordingly as "Rainaldus de Bailoul,"4 confirming in No. 578 the gifts at Wolston and Church Lawford of his own under-tenant, a certain Hubert Baldran. Another of the charters in my Calendar (No. 579) proves that this Hubert (not Alan fitz Flaald), was the father of Sybil, lady of 'Wlfrichestone' (Wolston), from whom we started. Thus Adeliza, mother of Sybil, and wife of Hubert Baldran, was quite distinct from "Avelina" wife of Alan fitz Flaald, with
1 Burton Cartulary, Ed. Wrottesley (Salt Arch. Collections, 1884), pp. 32, 33. 2 Ibid. p. 33 bis. 3 History of Shropshire, VII. 206 et seq. 4 See my Calendar, p. 202.
whom Mr. Eyton rashly identified her.1 Alan may have lived, and probably did, beyond 1114; and his gift at Stretton to Burton Abbey was made after he was placed in the shoes (as Mr. Eyton has shown) of Renaud de Bailleul.
We have thus seen how a single charter may prove of great importance, not only in establishing the true facts, but in demolishing erroneous conclusions with the corollaries based thereon.
Within the last few weeks there has unexpectedly been revived that view of the origin of the Stewarts which had long, one thought, been abandoned. As the whole story is most curious, and has, moreover, an important moral, I propose to discuss it in some detail. The pedigree of the Stuarts "of Hartley Mauduit," who hold a baronetcy dating from 1660, began in Burke's Peerage, so recently as last year, with Sir Nicholas Stuart the first baronet, "son of Simeon Stuart, Esq." But now, in this year of grace 1900, -
A more thorough revision than usual has been possible ... To the laborious researches and experienced counsel of my brother, Mr. H. Farnham Burke, Somerset Herald, the genealogical and heraldic value of this work is much indebted and is gratefully acknowledged (sic).
The "laborious researches" of Somerset Herald have indeed developed the Stuart pedigree, thanks
1 She has been even further promoted in the British Museum Catalogue of Stowe MSS., where, in the abstract of the original deed (Stowe charter 103), she is strangely identified with queen Adeliza, widow of Henry I.
to those "invaluable documents the Heralds' Visitations, documents of high authority and value."1 The illustrious ancestry of this family is given fully in the Visitations of Cambridge (sic), 1575 and 1619, in which is traced their descent from the Royal Stuarts. ANDREW STUART, younger son of Alexander Stuart, 2nd son of Walter Stuart, seneschal of Scotland, great-grandson of Walter, 1st high steward of Scotland, grandson of Banquo Lord of Lochaber. He m. the daughter of James Bethe, and had an only son. ALEXANDER STUART, to whom Charles VI of France granted an honourable augmentation of his arms.
And so the pedigree proceeds through another eight generations down to the first baronet. Dear old 'Banquo,' "whom we miss"!2 What a pleasure it is to welcome him back among us once more, and to know that he, and not Flaald, was the founder of the house of Stuart on the unimpeachable authority of the Heralds and their 'Visitations'! It is true that, according to the "Royal Lineage"3 contained in the same volume, it was not descended from Banquo at all, and that the "above Alexander Stuart, 2nd son of Walter Stuart", had no existence; but these are details with the editor, doubtless, will see to in his next edition. It is also true that the new pedigree would at once make Sir Simeon Stuart heir-male of "the Royal Stuarts", an honour foolishly claimed by sundry Scottish families.4 Let us hope that Somerset Herald will inform Lyon King of
1 Preface to Burke's Landed Gentry, Ed. 1898. 2 Macbeth. 3 Burke's Peerage, 1900, pp. cliii-cliv. 4 See p. 89 above.
Arms that his "laborious researches" have decided this long-contested question.
But, seriously speaking, what is the origin of the new descent, which, this year, makes its appearance in Burke's Peerage? Well, the story is, or ought to be, familiar to all genealogists. For, owing to Oliver Cromwell's mother having been a member of this family, his Stuart descent was alluded to by Carlyle, which has given genealogists the opportunity of making merry at his expense. The alleged descent was, for several years, discussed in the recognised organ of genealogical research;1 but of this discussion Somerset Herald is, no doubt, ignorant. So far back, indeed, as 1878 the very interesting heraldic glass of which I am enabled to give an illustration was exhibited to the Archaeological Institute, and that well-known Scottish authority, Mr. Joseph Bain,2 discussed the whole story thereon before it. He then observed of the alleged grant by "Charles VI of France," to which Somerset Herald appeals:
In M. Michel's Les Ecossais en France, published in 1862, he gives a drawing of this very design, and the text of the asserted grant by Charles VI of France in the fifth year of his reign, conferring the strange coat of arms on Sir Alexander Stuart on account of the merits of his father Andrew ... M. Michel says that 'it is enough to cast the eye on these pretended
1 The Genealogist [N.S.], vols. I (1884), II, III, VIII, X (1893). 2 Editor of the 'Calendar of documents relating to Scotland,' the 'Hamilton Papers,' the 'Calendar of letters and papers referring to the Borders,' etc. etc.
letters of concession, to recognise the patois of an Englishman little familiar with the language spoken at Paris at the end of the fourteenth century, and to doubt the fact asserted by the writer' -- an opinion which will be shared by anyone moderately versed in Old French."1
The alleged grant only exists in the form of a transcript in a private MS. of the 16th century;2 but we shall see below that not only deeds, but even sealed deeds, were among the fabrications of those who concocted false pedigrees.3
1 Archaeological Journal, XXXV, 302-3, 399. 2 Add. MS 15,644. 3 See the paper on "Our English Hapsburgs".
[Transcriber's note: The next part continues briefly into the family of Oliver Cromwell's mother. However, it is only in passing, and the reference to the periodical The Genealogist, New Series, and the article in Volume X, should be followed up for anyone who wants the whole story. Most of what Mr. Round has to say is about heraldry and its abuse.]
Pages 126-7. Too late for insertion in the text I discovered that Jordan Fitz Alan (Fitz Flaald) and his son Alan Fitz Jordan were lords of Tuxford, etc., in Notts, and that Alan was succeeded there, as in Norfolk, by his daughter and heiress Olive. Further, Olive is there found to be identical with that Olive who was wife (1) of Robert de St. John, of St. Jean-le-Thomas (see my paper on "The Families of St. John and of Port" in Genealogist [N.S.], XVI. 45), and (2) of Roger de Monbegon, who gave 500 marcs for her and her inheritance in 1 John. This completes the pedigree of the line.
Their Nottinghamshire estate consisted of Tuxford, with lands in Cymruby and Kirton, together with West Markham and Warsop, all of which had formed part of the escheated fief of Roger de Busli (see Thoroton's Notts, III. 213, 214, 219, 220, 227, 354, 369), and must have been bestowed by Henry I. on this favoured family. It was as holding the 6 carucates at which these lands were assessed that Jordan had his 12 sh. of danegeld remitted in 1130. Alan Fitz Jordan enfeoffed Geoffrey de la Fremunt at Cymruby and Kirton, and his daughter Olive (who occurs in the Rufford Cartulary) kept her court at Tuxford.
This discovery enables us to identify two of the churches given to the abbey of Tiron by Alan fitz Jordan as "seneschal of Dol." In my Calendar of Documents preserved in France they occur as 'Tophor' and 'Garsop' (p. 358); but they were clearly Tuxford and Warsop. The scattered character of tenures in this obscure period is illustrated by this seneschal of Dol holding land independently in the counties of Lincoln, of Norfolk, and of Notts.
http://genforum.genealogy.com/fitzalan/messages/41.html
also
http://www.mckinneyandstewart.com/genealogy/getperson.php?personID=...
Excerpts from a letter, dated May 10, 1967, from Heber Rankin, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 3rd cousin once removed of Joseph Philip Rhein, to Clayton Vogel, first cousin of Joseph Philip Rhein, follows.
I now have 18 generations back beyond our Revolutionary War Veteran, Lieutenant William Stewart, back to a little village of Dol in Brittany, France in the year 1040 A.D. Our ancestor came over to England with William the Conqueror and fought in the battle of Hastings in 1066. For his services in that battle he was given large tracts of land in England and about 100 years later some of the descendents came to Scotland in the train of David I of Scotland. There were given tracts of land in Renfrewshire and Ayrshire, and one William Stewart came to the Laggan in County Donegal, Ireland about 1608 as Captain of a Scottish regiment that was sent to protect the English and Scottish settler who came there at the time of the Plantation
also
http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/francedoldebreton.htm
Dol de Breton: (Menhir de Champ-Dolent - Menhir of the 'Field of Woe')
Currently the largest standing stone in France.
The Dol-de-Breton stands on the borders of Normandy and Brittany. The nearby 'Mont Dol' is the place where St. Michael is said to have fought Lucifer.
The syllable 'Dol' is also used in the Breton word 'Dolmen', which means 'stone-table'.
It has been dressed (from pink granite) so that it is almost square at the bottom...
http://mathematical.com/dolalan1020.html
Alan was the son of Flaad, who was in turn a son [7] of an Alain who had been the crusader (in 1097[8]) who was Dapifer to the Archbishop of Dol, which is situated near Mont-Saint-Michel. "Alan, dapifer" is found as a witness in 1086 to a charter relating to Mezuoit, a cell of St. Florent, near Dol.
A Commander in the !st Crusade
Alan; Breton noble living c1045; hereditary Steward of Dol in Britanny. [Burke's Peerage], Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, 106th Edition, CharlesMosley Editor-in-Chief, 1999, Page: 1985
Alain was a crusader in 1097 who was Dapifer to the Archbishop of Dol, which is situated near Mont-Saint-Michel. "Alan, dapifer" is found as a witness in 1086 to a charter relating to Mezuoit, a cell of St. Florent, near Dol.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_fitzFlaad for more information.
"Alain steward of Dol" was present at the capture of Nikaia in 1097. He died on the First Crusade
http://www.artema.com.au/Boyd/ancient_antecedents/Seneschals%20of%2...
Alain "Dapifer" fitz Flaald, Seneschal of Dol
Misc Alan, Dapifer of Dol, was the hereditary Steward or Dapifer of Dol-de-Bretagne is about 30 miles north of Rennes in Brittany, France. A steward or dapifer was the man responsible for running the day to day affairs of the lord's lands, usually supervising several manors. User defined 1045 A Breton noble living circa 1045
Sources •Senechaux de Dol at Medieval Lands.
Alain "Dapifer" (c1024-after 1080), Seneschal of Dol. He is now known to have scion of the seneschals of Brittany, but he was traditionally thought to have been a son of Fleance MacAlpin, Thane of Lochaber. In MacBeth, Shakespeare has the witches tell Banquo that he will be the father of kings. The play was written for James I (VI) of England and Scotland, who as a descendant of Alan Dapifer was thought to have been a descendant of Banquo.
His wife is unknown except in later legend.
Some spurious genealogies call Alain a son of "Fratmaldus the Seneschal".
Horace Round's Critique
J.H. Round: Studies in Peerage and Family History
I am very grateful to Mary Kifissia (née Stewart), who has transcribed most of J. Horace Round's paper on "The Origin of the Stewarts", from "Studies in Peerage and Family History" (Westminster, Archibald Constable and Co., Ltd., 1901, pages 115-146), and to Rick Eaton for permission to reproduce her transcript here.
[NB. Of course, any work of this age should be used with caution. However, this paper appears to have stood the test of time well, and I am not aware of any errors.]
Of the problems upon which new light is thrown by my Calendar of documents in France relating to English history, none, probably, for the genealogist, will rival in interest the origin of the Stewarts. It has long been known that the Scottish Stewarts and the great English house of Fitz Alan possessed a common ancestor in Alan, the son of Flaald, living under Henry the First. This was established at some length by Chalmers in his Caledonia (1807) on what he declared to be "the most satisfactory evidence."1 According to him, "Alan the son of Flaald, a Norman, acquired the manor of Oswestrie, in Shropshire, soon after the Conquest," and "married the daughter of Warine, the famous sheriff of Shropshire." Mr Riddell, the well-known Scottish antiquary, followed up the arguments of Chalmers, in 1843, with a paper on the "Origin of the House of Stewart,"2 in which he accepted and enforced the views of Chalmers, including his theory that Walter Fitz Alan brought with him to Scotland followers from Shropshire and gave them lands
1 Vol. I, pp. 572-575. 2 Stewartiana, pp. 55-70.
there. But research has hitherto been unable to determine the origin of Flaald father of Alan, or even to find, in England, any mention of his name.
No less an authority on feudal genealogy than the late Mr Eyton devoted himself to a special investigation on the subject of Alan "Fitz Flaald,"1 and arrived at the conclusion that, after all, he was a grandson of "Banquo, thane of Lochaber,", whose son "Fleance" fled to England. "My belief is," Mr Eyton wrote, "that the son of Fleance was named Alan ... and that he whom the English called Alan Fitz Flaald was the person in question."2 He admitted, however, of the priories of Andover, Sele, and Sporle, cells of the Abbey of St. Florent de Saumur, that he could "show a connection between Alan Fitz Flaald or his descendants and each of these cells3, which suggested an Angevin origin, and for which he could not account. But where he really advanced our knowledge was in showing that Alan Fitz Flaald married, not (as alleged) a daughter of Warine the sheriff, but Aveline daughter of Ernulf de Hesdin, a great Domesday tenant. I have now been able to trace Ernulf to Hesdin (in Picardy) itself, in connection with which his daughter 'Ava' also is mentioned.4 In 1874, an anonymous
1 History of Shropshire (1858), VII. 211-232. 2 Ibid, p. 227. It is essential to bear in mind that the old Scottish writers made Walter, the first Steward, a son of 'Fleance', wholly ignoring Alan his real father (see p. 119 below). This invalidates their whole story. 3 Ibid, p. 219. 4 See Preface to my Calendar, p. xlvii.
work, The Norman People, approached the problem from the foreign side, and adduced evidence to prove that Flaald was a brother of Alan, seneschal of Dol. But there was still not forthcoming any mention of Flaald in England, while the rashness and inaccuracy which marred that book resulted in his being wrongly pronounced a "son of Guienoc." The great pedigree specially prepared a few years ago for the Stuart exhibition by Mr W. A. Lindsay (now Windsor Herald) still began only with Alan son of Flaald, to whom a daughter of Warine the sheriff was assigned as wife. Moreover, in the handsome work on The Royal House of Stuart (1890), which had its origin in that exhibition, Dr. Skelton could only tell us that "there was (if the conclusions of Chalmers are to be accepted) an Alan son of Flathauld, a Norman knight, who soon after the Conquest obtained a gift of broad lands in Shropshire" (p. 5). Alan, we shall find, was not a Norman; the lands he was given were widely scattered; and he did not obtain them "soon after the Conquest."
The latest authoritative statement on the subject is that, it would seem, of Sheriff Mackay in the Dictionary of National Biography (1896).1 He tells us, of the House of Stewart, that
1 This passage is found in the biography of the first Stewart king, so that I only lighted upon it after this paper was written. It gave me the clue to Mr. Hewison's book, of which I had not previously heard, but which I have now read just in time to add his results to this paper (24th Jan., 1900).
Its earlier genealogy is uncertain, but an ingenious and learned, though admittedly in part hypothetical, attempt to trace it to the Banquho of Boece and Shakespeare, Thane of Lochaber, has been recently made by the Rev. J. K. Hewison (Bute in the Olden Time [Vol. II] pp. 1-38, Edinburgh, 1895).1
Mr Hewison's volume opens with the words:-
The origin of the royal house of Stewart has long remained a mystery, perplexing historical students, who feel tantalized at knowing so little concerning the hapless victim of the jealousy of King Macbeth - Banquo, round whom Shakespeare cast the glamour of undying romance, and to whom the old chroniclers of Scotland traced back the family of Stewart.
The author's 'glamour' augurs ill, and in spite of the unique advantage he enjoyed in having access to the late Lord Crawford's MS. collections on the subject, we soon find ourselves wandering, alas, with Alice in Wonderland.
It may be concluded that Walter, the son of Fleadan, son of Banchu, is identical with Walter, son of [A]llan (or Flan), son of Murechach of the Lennox family, if not also with Walter, son of Amloib, son of Duncan of the other genealogy. Chronology easily permits of the equation of Murdoch, the Maormor of Leven ... with Banchu ... who might have survived even his son Fleance -- we, meantime, only assuming that Fleance was slain in Cymru. Ban-chu, the pale warrior, would be his complimentary title; the old surname of his family ... also descended to his son, Flan-chu, the red or ruddy warrior, known to his Irish kinsmen as Fleadan.
We are surely coming to the Man-chu dynasty. But no.
This Irish form of the name Fleadan tan (i.e. either Fleadan the Tanist or Fleadan the younger) imports a significant idea -
1 Vol. XLVIII, p. 344.
namely, flead ... a feast, which corresponds in signification with Flaald ...
Then there bursts upon us yet another discovery:-
Fleanchus ... is the Latinised form of Flann-chu, the Red or Ruddy Dog ... and is also a sobriquet - the Bloodhound. ... This nomenclature is evidently a reminiscence of the dog-totem or dog-divinity, etc., etc.
There remains, however, the standing puzzle1 why Walter the first Stewart was made by the old romancers a son of Fleance son of Banquo, though his father was indisputably Alan son of Flaald. One solution offered by our author is that "Ailin or Allan may have become the family name"; but his own view is that
The native name of Banquo's son would be the common Goidelic one Flann, which signifies rosy or fair, and has an equivalent in Aluinn, beautiful, fair, to which the word Alan, both in Britanny and Ireland, may be traced.
Thus it was that 'Flann' would become 'Alan' in Britanny, "more especially when, in the vulgar tongue of Dol, the former, denoting a pancake, would sound like a nickname." And if we should still have our doubts, is there not, at Dol, to this day -
an imposing edifice, built of granite, in the purest Norman style of architecture of the twelfth century, which tradition names 'La maison des Plaids,' and avers was the revenue office and court-house of the archbishops. this name, "the House of the
1 See p. 116, note 2, above. It will be seen that to assert, as here, that Alan and 'Fleance' were the same will not overcome this difficulty.
Plaids," is touchingly significant of Fleance with the royal wearers of the tartan ...
But I really cannot pursue further these "ingenious and learned" new lichts. A dreadful vision of dog-totems, arrayed in the Stewart tartan, and feasting, with fiery visage, on pancakes in the streets of Dol, warns me to leave this realm of wonders and turn to the world in which we live. From "the House of the Plaids" I flee.1
Fortunately Flaald is a name, for practical purposes, unique; and we need not, therefore, hesitate to recognize in "Float filius Alani dapiferi" who was present (No. 1136) at the dedication of Monmouth Priory (1101 or 1102) the long-sought missing link. We thus connect him with the fourth, the remaining cell of St. Florent de Saumur in England. But we have yet to account for his appearance as a 'baron' of the lord of Monmouth, William son of Baderon. The best authority on Domesday tenants, Mr. A. S. Ellis confessed that he had failed to trace the lords of Monmouth in Britanny.2 The key, however, to the whole connection is found in the abbey of St. Florent de Saumur and in its charters calendared in my work. In the latter half of the eleventh century many Bretons of noble birth were led to
1 It is positively the fact that the author so renders the name of the 'Maison des Plaids' where the (Arch)bishops are supposed to have held their pleas ("plaids"). 2 Domesday Tenants of Gloucestershire, p. 46.
take the cowl. Among them was William, eldest son of that Rhiwallon, lord of Dol, whom, on the eve of the Norman Conquest, Duke William and Harold of England had relieved when he was besieged by his lord. Rhiwallon's son William, who was followed by his brother John (No. 1116), entered the abbey of St. Florent de Saumur, and became its abbot himself in 1070. Zealous in the cause of the house he ruled, he clearly urged its claims at Dol, receiving not only local gifts, but also, as its chronicle mentions, the endowments it obtained in England. Of the two families with which we are concerned the lords of Monmouth can, by these charters, be traced to the neighbourhood of Dol, for William son of Baderon confirms his father's gifts at Epiniac and La Boussac (No. 1134), which places lay together close to Dol. The presence among the witnesses to these charters of a Main or La Boussac and a Geoffrey of Epiniac affords confirmation of the fact. Guihenoc, the founder of the house in England (probably identical with "Wihenocus filius Caradoc de Labocac"),1 undoubtedly became a monk of St. Florent,2 and resigned his English fief to his nephew William (son of his brother Baderon), who is found holding it in Domesday.
Some charters were specially selected by me from the Liber Albus of St. Florent (Nos. 1152-4) to illustrate, about the end of the Conqueror's reign,
1 Lobineau, Histoire de Bretagne, II, 219. 2 Calendar, Nos. 1117, 1133.
the little group of Dol families who were about to settle in England.1 Among the witnesses to one of them are Baderon and his son the Domesday tenant. But the one family we have specially to trace is that which held the office of "Dapifer" at Dol. "Alan Dapifer" is found as a witness, in 1086, to a charter relating to Mezuoit2 (a cell of St. Florent, near Dol). He also, as "Alanus Siniscallus," witnessed the foundation charters of that house (ante 1080) and himself gave it rights at Mezuoit with the consent of "Fledaldus frater ejus," the monks, in return, admitting his brother Rhiwallon to their fraternity.3 He appears as a witness with the above "Badero" in No. 1152, and in 1086 as a surety with Ralf de Fougères (No. 1154). Mentioned in other St. Florent documents,4 he is styled in one, "Dapifer de Dolo"5. And it is as "Alanus dapifer Dolensis" that he took part in the first crusade, 10976. This style is explained in a charter of 1095, recording a gift to Marmoutier by Hamo son of Main, with consent of his lord "Rivallonius dominus Doli castri, filius Johannis archiepiscopi", in which we read:-
1 It would, no doubt, be a rash conjecture that the "Herveus botellarius" of these charters (Nos. 1153, 1154) was the ancestor of those Herveys, from whom the Butlers of Ireland are descended. But if it should eventually prove to be no mere coincidence, the Butlership of Ireland would have had an origin curiously parallel to the Stewardship of Scotland.
2 Lobineau, p. 250. 3 Ibid, 137, 138, collated by me with the Liber Albus at Angers. 4 Ibid 232, 234. 5 Ibid 310. 6 Ordericus Vitalis (Société de l'histoire de France), vol. III. 507.
Hoc donum factum est per manum Guarini monachi nostri de Lauda Rigaldi tunc temporis prioris Combornii, testibus his: Alano siniscalco Rivallonii predicti, etc.1
His brother's son, Alan fitz Flaald (ancestor, as has been seen, of the Stuarts) also occurs, in these Breton documents, as releasing his rights in the church of "Guguen"2 to Bartholomew abbot of Marmoutier;3 while two charters of Henry I confirming the foundation of Holy Trinity Priory, York, as a cell of Marmoutier, and prior to 1108, contain his name as a witness (No. 1225). Again, a charter of donation to Andover Priory reveals him as present in the New Forest with William son of Baderon and "Wihenocus monachus" (William's uncle) early in the reign of Henry I4. It was Alan also who founded Sporle Priory, Norfolk (No. 1149), on land he held there, as another cell of St. Florent, the Bretons who witness his charter further attesting his origin. Among them is seen Rhiwallon "Extraneus," the founder of the Norfolk family of Le Strange, which, more than five centuries later, was so ardent in its loyalty to Alan's descendants, the Stuart kings of England.5
It will have been observed that "Float filius Alani dapiferi" is assumed above to have been the
1 Transcripts from (Bretagne) cartulary of Marmoutier in MS. Baluze 77, fo. 134, and in MS. lat. 5441 (3) fo. 343. Alan is also brought into conjunction with this Hamo son of Main in No. 1152. 2 Cuguen, near Dol. 3 Lobineau, II. 310; MS. lat. 5441 (3) fo. 235. 4 Mon. Ang. VI. 993. 5 His name has hitherto remained doubtful, and is given as Roland in the Dictionary of National Biography.
brother, not a son, of the crusader. This assumption is based upon the facts that the crusader's gift at Mezuoit was 'conceded' by his brother 'Fledald,' who was, therefore, his heir at the time, and that his office of "dapifer" at Dol was afterwards held -- a fact hitherto unsuspected -- by descendants of Alan fitz Flaald. The crusader, it must therefore be inferred, left no heir.
The sudden rise of Alan fitz Flaald and his evident enjoyment of Henry's favour from the early years of the reign, were thought by Mr. Eyton to be due to his (fabulous) Scottish origin. But it might, with some probability, be suggested that his Breton origin accounts for the facts. When Henry was besieged in Mont St. Michel, he is known to have had Breton followers ("aggregatis Britonibus") and, after his surrender, "per Britanniam transiit, Britonibus qui sibi solummodo adminiculum contulerant, gratias reddidit" (Ordericus)1. Dol was his nearest town in Britanny, and Alan may thus, like Richard de Réviers, have served him across the sea, when he was but a younger son.
It would seem, indeed, although the fact has been hitherto overlooked, that a group of families whom Henry had known when lord of the Côtentin were endowed by him when king with fiefs in England. In addition to Alan fitz Flaald, founder of the house of Stewart, and to Richard de
1 Elsewhere, Orderic observes that Henry, "dum esset junior ... ut externus, exterorum, id est Francorum et Britonum auxilia quaerere coactus est."
Réviers, ancestor of the earls of Devon1, the Hayes of Haye-du-Puits were given the Honour of Halnaker (Sussex), the Aubignys, afterwards earls of Arundel, obtained from him a fief in Norfolk; the two St. John brothers, from St. Jean-le-Thomas, were granted lands in Oxfordshire and Sussex, and founded another famous house2; while the family of Paynel also, sprung from the Côtentin, owed to Henry lands in England.
Among the documents calendered in my volume are Papal bulls to the abbey of St. Florent, ranging from 1146 to 1187 (Nos. 1124-9), which suggest that Alan's son William, who acquired by marriage Clun castle, must have bestowed its church of St. George, with all its dependent churches, on Monmouth Priory, a fact hitherto unsuspected. Mr Eyton thought that the gift of this church to Wenlock Priory by his widow (temp. Ric. I) represents the first occasion on which it is mentioned.
Alan fitz Flaald has hitherto been credited with two well-known sons, William and Walter, ancestors respectively of the Fitzalans and the Stewarts3
1 He is found, seemingly, in Domesday, holding a single lordship. 2 See my paper on "The Families of St. John and of Port" in Genealogist, July 1899, p. 1. And compare p. 66 above. 3 A third son, "Simon", is claimed as the ancestor of the Boyds, and is assigned to him, with William and Walter, in Mr. Lindsay's great Stewart pedigree, the standard authority on the subject. But although a Simon 'brother' of Walter occurs as a witness in the Paisley cartulary, his name is very low on the list, and he may have been only a uterine or even a bastard brother. The Empress Maud's bastard brothers are styled her 'brothers' in her charters, nor was this unusual.
He had, however, another son, who needs to be specially dealt with. This was Jordan, his heir in Britanny, and, apparently, at Burton in England. Mr. Eyton knew of his existence, but could state little about him. In No. 1220 we find him, as a "valiant and illustrious man," making restitution to Marmoutier in 1130, with his wife Mary and his sons Jordan and Alan. In the same year we detect him entered on the English Pipe Roll in several places, though one of the entries suggests his Breton connection1. He may safely be identified with that "Jordanus dapifer" who witnessed a charter to Mont St. Michel in 1128-9 (No. 722); and consequently he held the family office. We find him also in a St. Florent charter,2 and in one of Marmoutier3. Of his sons, Jordan restored to the priory of St. Florent at Sele the mill at Burton given it by Alan fitz Flaald4, but was, probably, soon succeeded by his brother Alan, who confirmed to a priory of Marmoutier (No. 1221) another gift of his grandfather, Alan fitz Flaald, at Burton, mentioning his wife Joan and his son Jordan5. This
1 Rot. Pip. 31 Hen. I., p. 11. 2 Lobineau, II. 232. 3 Ibid 146. 4 "Jordanus filius Jordani filius Alani hominibus suis de Burt[ona]. Sciatis me reddidisse monachis S. Florentii de Salmur molendinum de Burt[ona] sicut habuerunt tempore Alani filii Flealdi et tempore Jordani patris mei" (original charter at Magdalen College). 5 It was either this Jordan or his grandfather who, as "Jordanus filius Alani siniscalli," confirmed a gift to Combourg (MS. lat. 5441 [3] 437).
Alan, who meets us also, as his father's son, in a Savigny charter (No. 824), is identical with that "Alanum filium quondam Jordani Dolensem senescallum," who confirmed the grant of his grandfather Alan (fitz Flaald) at Cuguen, and himself added the church of Tronquet1 about 11602. We have further in No. 1013 the confirmation by Alexander III of his gifts to the abbey of Tiron, including the church of Sharrington and three others in England. He attested a charter of the lord of Dol in 11453 and, in or about 1165, a royal charter at Winchester concerning a release by his fellow-countryman Geoffrey son of Oliver de Dinan4. He also leads the list of witnesses in a dispute about the abbey of Vieuville (in the parish of Epiniac) in 1167, as "Alanus filius Jordani dapifer."5. His wife Joan and daughter Olive were benefactors to the abbey of Vieuville for his soul.6
With this clue we return to England, and detect the heiress of the Stewards of Dol in that Olive, daughter of Alan "filius Jordani," who in 1227 was impleaded by one of her Breton tenants, -- his father Iwan had been enfeoffed by her own father Alan, -- at Sharrington, Norfolk. The record of
1 MS. lat. 12,878, fo. 248d., and Lobineau, II. 310. 2 The gift is wrongly assigned in Gallia Christiana (XIV.1074) to 1133-1147, as being made before Hugh archbishop of Tours. The prelate was Hugh "archbishop" of Dol, whose date was 1155-1161 (Ibid. 1050). 3 Lobineau, II. 147. 4 Mon. Ang., VI. 486. 5 Lobineau, II. 308; MS. lat. 5476, fol. 98d. 6 "Johanna uxor Alani dapiferi de Dolo et filia ipsius Oliva." Lobineau, II. 310; MS. lat. 5476, fo. 91.
the suit gives us the name of Alan's mother, Mary, mentioned as we have seen, in No. 1220.1 In the middle, therefore, of the 12th century, this family flourished simultaneously in Scotland, England, and Britanny.
A short pedigree (see page 129) will make the descent clear.
[For some further details of Jordan's family, see Round's Addendum ]
A chronological difficulty is created by Mr. Eyton's statement that Alan fitz Flaald was "dead ante 1114", for his son (it will be seen) the Steward of Scotland lived till 1177. It is desirable, therefore, to examine his authority for this date. Dugdale was acquainted with a confirmation by Sybil, lady of Wolston (Warwickshire), of a gift by her mother Adeliza to Burton Abbey of land in Wolston. In his History of Warwickshire (p. 33) he held that she was probably a daughter of Alan fitz Flaald, because Alan was "enfeoft of this Lordship" before her. Mr. Eyton accepted Dugdale's conclusion, and therefore identified her mother 'Adeliza' as that 'Avelina' de Hesdin, whom he had so skilfully shown to be the wife of Alan. Further, as the land ex hypothesi belonged to Alan himself, and yet was given by her, she must, he held, have been a widow at the time of the gift; and as the abbey was already in possession at least as early as 1114. Alan, he concluded, must have been dead before that date.2 These conclusions
1 Bracton's Note-book, III. 620. Compare 'Feet of Fines' (Pipe Roll Society), II. 160. 2 History of Shropshire, VII, 221-223,228.
ALAN
Dapifer [Dolensis]
____________________________|_________________________ | | | | | |
ALAN FLAALD RHIWALLON
Dapifer Dolensis occurs at Monk of
occurs in Britanny Monmouth St Florent
ante 1080 and in 1101 or 1102
1086; a leader in 'frater' (et
first Crusade 'filius') Alani
1097 Dapiferi
|
ALAN FITZ FLAALD
Founder of Sporle Priory
______________________|_________________________ | | | | | |
JORDAN WILLIAM WALTER
FITZ ALAN FITZ ALAN FITZ ALAN
occurs 1129-30 Founder of Haugh- "Dapifer Regis
Benefactor of mond Priory Scotiae"
Sele Priory ob. 1160 ob. 1177
Occurs also in (?Benefactor of Founder of
Britanny as Monmouth Priory) Paisley Abbey
"Dapifer (Dolensis) | | || |_________ _____l___________ | | | | | | | | | | |
ALAN JORDAN ALAN WILLIAM ALAN
FITZ JORDAN ob. infans FITZ ALAN THE STEWARD
Dapifer Dolensis* a quo Fitz "Senescallus
Founder of Tronquet Alan, Earl Regis
1155-1161 of Arundel Scotiae"
living 1167 •Among the obits at Dol we find that of another daughter of Alan fitz Jordan: "Kal. Sept. obiit Aelicia uxor G[uillelmi] Espine filia Alani Jordanis quae dedit episcopo et capitulo Dol ... pratum senescalli,", etc. (Gaignères' Transcript of Cartulary, MS. lat. 5211 C). A charter of her husband William Spina, son of Hamo, confirms the donations made to Vieuville "de feodo Aeliz uxoris mee filie Alani Dolensis senescalli ... concedente Alano filio nostro" (MS. lat. 5476, fo. 85). His father Hamo Spina occurs immediately after "Alan filius Jordanis dapifer" in the above letter of 1167 (Ib. fo. 98d). As we read of "Gaufridus Spina Doli senescallus"(Ib. fo. 91d) it would seem that the Dol office was inherited by the Spina family, and the English estates by the other daughter.
created difficulties, but, on Mr. Eyton's great authority, they have been duly accepted.1 Yet the whole edifice rests on Dugdale's careless reading of a document in the Burton Cartulary.2 That document does not connect Alan fitz Flaald with Wolston.
The facts are these. In Domesday the three Warwickshire manors of Church Lawford, Wolston, and Stretton-on-Dunsmore are entered together (fo. 239) as held of Earl Roger (of Shrewsbury) by that 'Rainaldus', whom the historian of Shropshire so brilliantly identifies with Renaud de Bailleul.3. We find him, accordingly as "Rainaldus de Bailoul,"4 confirming in No. 578 the gifts at Wolston and Church Lawford of his own under-tenant, a certain Hubert Baldran. Another of the charters in my Calendar (No. 579) proves that this Hubert (not Alan fitz Flaald), was the father of Sybil, lady of 'Wlfrichestone' (Wolston), from whom we started. Thus Adeliza, mother of Sybil, and wife of Hubert Baldran, was quite distinct from "Avelina" wife of Alan fitz Flaald, with
1 Burton Cartulary, Ed. Wrottesley (Salt Arch. Collections, 1884), pp. 32, 33. 2 Ibid. p. 33 bis. 3 History of Shropshire, VII. 206 et seq. 4 See my Calendar, p. 202.
whom Mr. Eyton rashly identified her.1 Alan may have lived, and probably did, beyond 1114; and his gift at Stretton to Burton Abbey was made after he was placed in the shoes (as Mr. Eyton has shown) of Renaud de Bailleul.
We have thus seen how a single charter may prove of great importance, not only in establishing the true facts, but in demolishing erroneous conclusions with the corollaries based thereon.
Within the last few weeks there has unexpectedly been revived that view of the origin of the Stewarts which had long, one thought, been abandoned. As the whole story is most curious, and has, moreover, an important moral, I propose to discuss it in some detail. The pedigree of the Stuarts "of Hartley Mauduit," who hold a baronetcy dating from 1660, began in Burke's Peerage, so recently as last year, with Sir Nicholas Stuart the first baronet, "son of Simeon Stuart, Esq." But now, in this year of grace 1900, -
A more thorough revision than usual has been possible ... To the laborious researches and experienced counsel of my brother, Mr. H. Farnham Burke, Somerset Herald, the genealogical and heraldic value of this work is much indebted and is gratefully acknowledged (sic).
The "laborious researches" of Somerset Herald have indeed developed the Stuart pedigree, thanks
1 She has been even further promoted in the British Museum Catalogue of Stowe MSS., where, in the abstract of the original deed (Stowe charter 103), she is strangely identified with queen Adeliza, widow of Henry I.
to those "invaluable documents the Heralds' Visitations, documents of high authority and value."1 The illustrious ancestry of this family is given fully in the Visitations of Cambridge (sic), 1575 and 1619, in which is traced their descent from the Royal Stuarts. ANDREW STUART, younger son of Alexander Stuart, 2nd son of Walter Stuart, seneschal of Scotland, great-grandson of Walter, 1st high steward of Scotland, grandson of Banquo Lord of Lochaber. He m. the daughter of James Bethe, and had an only son. ALEXANDER STUART, to whom Charles VI of France granted an honourable augmentation of his arms.
And so the pedigree proceeds through another eight generations down to the first baronet. Dear old 'Banquo,' "whom we miss"!2 What a pleasure it is to welcome him back among us once more, and to know that he, and not Flaald, was the founder of the house of Stuart on the unimpeachable authority of the Heralds and their 'Visitations'! It is true that, according to the "Royal Lineage"3 contained in the same volume, it was not descended from Banquo at all, and that the "above Alexander Stuart, 2nd son of Walter Stuart", had no existence; but these are details with the editor, doubtless, will see to in his next edition. It is also true that the new pedigree would at once make Sir Simeon Stuart heir-male of "the Royal Stuarts", an honour foolishly claimed by sundry Scottish families.4 Let us hope that Somerset Herald will inform Lyon King of
1 Preface to Burke's Landed Gentry, Ed. 1898. 2 Macbeth. 3 Burke's Peerage, 1900, pp. cliii-cliv. 4 See p. 89 above.
Arms that his "laborious researches" have decided this long-contested question.
But, seriously speaking, what is the origin of the new descent, which, this year, makes its appearance in Burke's Peerage? Well, the story is, or ought to be, familiar to all genealogists. For, owing to Oliver Cromwell's mother having been a member of this family, his Stuart descent was alluded to by Carlyle, which has given genealogists the opportunity of making merry at his expense. The alleged descent was, for several years, discussed in the recognised organ of genealogical research;1 but of this
view all
Alain "Dapifer" fitz Flaald, Seneschal of Dol's Timeline
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1024
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Dol, Ille-et Vilaine, Bretagne, France
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1046
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Dol-de-Bretagne, Bretagne, France
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1050
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Dol-de-Bretagne, Ille-et-Vilaine, France
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1050
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Dol-et-Bretaigne, Isle de Vilaines, Brittany
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1058
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Dol-de-Bretagne, Ille-et-Vilaine, France
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1080
Age 56
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Dol, St Malo, Ille-et-Vilaine, Bretagne, France
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