William de Moyon

William I de Moyon (d. post 1090)[1] (alias de Moion, later de Mohun), 1st feudal baron of Dunster in Somerset,[2] was seigneur of Moyon in Normandy and Sheriff of Somerset in 1086. He was the founder of the English de Mohun family, prominent in the Westcountry. He is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as a tenant-in-chief of William the Conqueror holding a large number of manors in Somerset with caput at Dunster Castle.[3][4]

Origins

The historian the Duchess of Cleveland wrote as follows in her 1889 work Battle Abbey Roll concerning the origins of the de Mohun (alias Mohon, Moion, etc.) family:[5]

"From Moion, near St. Lo, Normandy, where the site of their castle is still to be seen. Wace tells us that "old William de Moion had with him many companions" at the Battle of Hastings, and one of Leland's rolls of the Norman conquerors is nothing but a long list of those who came in the train of "Monseir William de Moion le Veil, le plus noble de tout l'oste".[6] It gives him a following worthy of an Emperor, comprising all the noblest names of Normandy, and numbering at least ninety-four knights, but it is evidently, as Mr. Planché points out, a mistake of the copyists. Sir Francis Palgrave, though he calls him "one of the greatest Barons of the Cotentin," says he was only accompanied by "five knights who held of him." Dugdale, however, gives him "forty-seven stout Knights of name and note," and he was rewarded for his services by the grant of no less than fifty-five manors in Somerset, besides two in Wiltshire and Dorset. He chose Dunster — a place of some note in Saxon times — and built his castle where a former fortress of the West Saxon kings had stood, in a situation unsurpassed in beauty by any in England".

Career

He accompanied William, Duke of Normandy in the Norman conquest of England in 1066. He is stated erroneously to have had in his following forty-seven or fifty-seven of the greatest lords in the army. The contemporary Norman chronicler Wace called him le Viel, (modern French: le Vieux), "the Old", to distinguish him from his son William II de Mohun (d. circa 1155);[7] for as William I de Moion the elder did not die until after 1090 he can scarcely have been old in 1066.[8]

He acquired as many as sixty-eight manors in the west of England, one being in Devon, one in Wiltshire, eleven in Dorset, one of them Ham, which was inherited by a junior branch of his descendants, and was called Ham-Mohun, or as now Hammoon, and fifty-five in Somerset.[8]

The estate connected to his caput at Dunster consisted of the ancient hundreds of Cutcombe and Minehead, in the parishes of Minehead, Cutcomb, and Dunster, with some additions, being in all 19,726 acres.

He was apparently involved in the breeding of horses, for both at Cutcomb and at Nunney, near Frome, sub-infeudated to a tenant, large numbers of unbroken brood-mares were kept.[8]

He was Sheriff of Somerset from 1083 to 1086,[9] from the tenure of which office his manor of Brompton-Ralph was called in contemporary records 'Brunetone Vicecomitis ("Brompton of the Viscount", i.e. Sheriff).

Founds Dunster Priory

William de Moion is believed to have founded Dunster Priory. Certainly at some time between 1090 and 1100 he granted the Church of St. George, at Dunster, where part of the Norman building survives, together with certain land and tithes and a tenth of his mares, to theAbbey of St. Peter at Bath and to Bishop John de Villula (died 1122), in order that they might "build and exalt" the said church.[8] Bath Abbey accordingly established at Dunster a cell of their own abbey under the rule of a prior, at which place was dated one of William's charters, recorded in a manuscript at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. In this charter William declared his wish to be buried in Bath Abbey, not at Dunster.[8]

Landholdings

The manors he held included: Minehead, West Quantoxhead and Combe Sydenham.[10]

Marriage & progeny

He married a certain Adelisa, by whom he had three sons, all of whom were living at the date of his grant to Bath Abbey:[8]

References

  1. ↑ Sanders, I.J. English Baronies: A Study of their Origin and Descent 1086-1327, Oxford, 1960, p.114
  2. ↑ Sanders, I.J. English Baronies: A Study of their Origin and Descent 1086-1327, Oxford, 1960, p.114
  3. ↑ Sanders, I.J. English Baronies: A Study of their Origin and Descent 1086-1327, Oxford, 1960, p.114
  4. ↑ Dunning, Robert (2001). Somerset Monasteries. Stroud: Tempus. p. 21. ISBN 0-7524-1941-2.
  5. ↑ Cleveland, Duchess of (Catherine Powlett), The Battle Abbey Roll with some Account of the Norman Lineages, 3 vols., London, 1889
  6. ↑ "Sir William de Moyon, the most noble of all the host"
  7. ↑ Sanders, I.J. English Baronies: A Study of their Origin and Descent 1086-1327, Oxford, 1960, p.114
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 Hunt 1894.
  9. ↑ Dunning, Robert (1983). A History of Somerset. Chichester: Phillimore & Co. pp. 109–117. ISBN 0-85033-461-6.
  10. ↑ Domesday Book: A Complete Translation. London: Penguin, 2003. ISBN 0-14-143994-7 p.262-6
  11. ↑ Sanders, p.114
Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Hunt, William (1894). "Mohun, William de (fl.1066)". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography 38. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 112.