De Warenne family

The de Warenne family were a noble family in England which included the first Earls of Surrey, created by William the Conqueror in 1088 for William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, who was among his companions at the Battle of Hastings. The family originated in Normandy and as Earls, held land there and throughout England.

Etymology

The name "Warenne" may come from the river Guarenne or Varenne and the town of the same name near Arques in Normandy.[1]

Founding and Earldom

The earliest mention of a member of the Warenne family is the Norman Ranulf (Ralph) I de Warenne, who is mentioned in a charter dated between 1030 and 1035. A Roger de Warenne was mentioned in a charter issued sometime before 1045 and may have been a son but was probably of the same generation.[2] Ranulf I was a relative of the Duke of Normandy by marriage, wife, Beatrice, was a niece of duchess Gunnor, first mistress then wife of duke Richard I.[lower-alpha 1] Their likely grandson[3], William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey (died 1088), fought for William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and after was made the first Earl of Surrey with land in Surrey and twelve other counties.[1] The family was based in Lewes, Sussex and had castles in Yorkshire, Normandy, and Reigate Castle in Surrey.

An account of the life of William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey (1088-1138) known as the Warenne Chronicle was written shortly after 1157, probably for his granddaughter Isabel de Warenne, Countess of Surrey and her husband William of Blois, Count of Boulogne.[4]

The family held the Earldom of Surrey for three generations, before William de Warenne, 3rd Earl of Surrey, died on crusade in 1248, leaving an only daughter and heiress, who married successively William of Blois, the son of King Stephen and Hamelin, illegitimate half-brother of king Henry II. The latter would adopt the Warenne surname and give rise to a second line of Surrey Earls that lasted until the death of John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey in 1347, when Surrey passed via his sister to the FitzAlan Earls of Arundel.

Other branches

Esneval

A likely brother of the 1st Earl of Surrey, another Rodulf, held lands which had been held by his father in the Pays de Caux and near Rouen. By 1172, these lands were in possession of Robert d'Esneval as a part of the barony of Esneval, and it is supposed that the family d'Esneval may descend from a female descendant of this Rodulf.[5]

Whitchurch

Among the holdings of William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey was some land in Whitchurch, Shropshire. It is likely that this connection led to his descendants becoming early Lords of Whitchurch.[6] William fitz Ranulf is the first individual of the Warenne family recorded as the Lord of Whitchurch, first appearing in 1176.[7] Robert Eyton considered it likely that Ralph de Warenne, son of William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey, was the father of William and that he first held that title.[8] Later work by William Farrer and Charles Travis Clay suggest that they may instead have descended from a Ranulf nepos (nephew) who was a Domesday tenant and of William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, at Middleton, Suffolk, land that was later held by the Warennes of Whitchurch. Clay suggested that William fitz Ranulf perhaps instead derived from this Ranulf nepos, presumed nephew of the 1st Earl.[9] This family would also appear as de Bloncmonster or de Albo Monsasterio in contemporary records.[10] William, son of William fitz Ranulf, left a sole daughter and heiress, from whom the Whitchurch inheritance passed to Robert l'Estrange.[11] Eyton would suggest that the 13th century founder of the Warrens of Ightfield, Shropshire, was son of William fitz Ranulf de Warenne of Whitchurch.[12]

Wormegay

Reginald de Warenne, younger brother of the 3rd Earl, married the heiress of Wormegay, Norfolk. His son William de Warenne of Wormegay would be a royal justice under Richard I and John. After his death in 1209, Wormegay passed with his daughter to the Bardolf family.[13]

Earls of Surrey

The Warenne Earls were called Earl de Warenne at least as often as Earl of Surrey; but they received the 'third penny' of Surrey. This means that they were entitled to one third of the county court fines. The numbering of the earls follows the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; some sources number Isabel's husbands as the fourth and fifth earls, increasing the numbering of the later earls by one.

Members of the family de Warenne

Notes

  1. ↑ Chronicler Robert of Torigny reported, in his additions to the Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges, that William de Warenne and Anglo-Norman baron Roger de Mortimer were sons of an unnamed niece of Gunnor. Unfortunately, Robert's genealogies are somewhat confused, (elsewhere he gives Roger as son of William, and yet again makes both sons of Walter de Saint Martin), and several of Robert's stemma appear to contain too few generations. Katherine Keats-Rohan suggests a reconstruction in which Ranulf I and Beatrice had sons Roger de Mortimer and a second Ranulf de Warenne, in turn father by wife Emma of Earl William and his brother Ranulf.[3]

References

  1. 1 2 Encyclopedia Brittanica 1911, v28 p324
  2. ↑ Farrer and Clay, p1
  3. 1 2 K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, "Aspects of Torigny's Genealogy Revisited", Nottingham Medieval Studies 37:21–27
  4. ↑ Van Houts, Elisabeth, and Rosalind Love. The Warenne (Hyde) Chronicle. Vol. 67. Oxford University Press, 2013. pxii
  5. ↑ Farrer and Clay, p2
  6. ↑ Encyclopedia Brittanica 1911, v28 p598
  7. ↑ Anderson, John Corbet. Shropshire, Its Early History and Antiquities. by John Corbet Anderson. Willis and Sotheran, 1864. p402-404
  8. ↑ Eyton, R. W. (1859). Antiquities of Shropshire. Volume X. London: John Russell Smith. pp. 15–16.
  9. ↑ Farrer and Clay, p37-38
  10. ↑ Farrer and Clay, p37-38
  11. ↑ William Farrer (1925), Honors and Knights' Fees, 3, London: Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & Co., pp. 370–74
  12. ↑ Eyton, R. W. (1859). Antiquities of Shropshire. Volume IX. London: John Russell Smith. p. 209.
  13. ↑
    • Sanders, I. J. (1960). English Baronies: A Study of Their Origin and Descent 1086–1327. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. p. p. 101. OCLC 931660.

Sources

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