The first Whitley Charters (4) - who says what

Back now to the question:- Muncebot or Montbegon - who says what?

The Muncebot camp 

1. Original charter, 1232 x 1240 (if catalogue, Dodsworth, RHB are correct)

2. Roger Dodsworth, 1629

3. Dugdale, 1665 or 1666 (as published by Surtees Society, 1859)

4. RHB, c.1796. He not only must have had the original charter in his house, but he had been an Oxford student and had no doubt seen Dodsworth's MSS.

5. G.W. Tomlinson, c.1884, from material written by RHB then still at Whitley and shown him by H.F. Beaumont (Yorks Arch Journal 8 p.501).

6. EMB, 2021 - count me in!

The Montbegon camp

1. John Nichols, c.1804 (History of Leicestershire, vol. 3 part 2 p.662)... This large-scale work was printed over the years 1795-1815, this particular part in 1804, but the work must have been done over many years before.

Why was this included in Nichols' monumental work on Leicestershire? Apparently only to demonstrate that the Beaumonts of Whitley were not the same family as those of Leicestershire. No source was given, save "Le Neve MS." Nichols' work on this looks out of date. The Family Tree set out there is carried down only to the death of RHB's father in 1764.  

Nichols, Leicestershire, Vol. 3 Part 2 (1804) p.662

2. Perhaps. Thomas Dunham Whitaker's Loidis & Elmete (1816), apparently p.342. Whitaker was a friend and respecter of RHB and his work. It seems surprising he should make such a mistake (and yet I think he is also responsible for some the Crusade muddle). Despite its name I believe the book covers more than just Leeds and Elmet, specifically including the Calder valley. I have not been able to access a copy to check what was cited by Ellis, who said "Although Dodsworth made abstracts of the evidences of Sir Richard Beaumont of Whitley when there 20 Aug., 1629, it is remarkable that he took no note of the important early charter given in Loidis & Elmete, p.342, which would seem to refer to the first acquisition there [Whitley] of the founder of the Beaumont family." There then follows a summary of the deed, naming the grantee as "John (de) Montebegon." Unless I can check the book I will not know what name Whitaker himself gave. (A.S. Ellis, in Yorks Arch Journal vol. 8 1884 pp. 501-2). 

Ellis' note seems doubly inaccurate in that Roger Dodsworth did note the deed! Also we get both names Montebegon and Muncebote on the same page here (Mr Ellis was the editor in this respect, I think). 

3. Frances Collins.... Parish Registers of Kirkburton, County York; With Appendix of Family Histories. Frances Anne Collins, editor. 1902. Volume 2. Appendix: cxcii-ccxvi.....Mrs Collins refers to Tomlinson for an earlier matter so I think in this case she merely took the information from YAJ vol. 8. But she adds the express (and wrong) statement that John was the childless son of Roger de Montbegon (see next article). Mrs Collins used this to support her spurious argument that the Beaumonts were descended from Adam fitzSwein.... "Why John de Montbegon treated William de Beaumont as near kin and made him his heir, gives the clue to the ancestry of William de Beaumont." Well, well.

4. Legh Tolson's 1929 History of Kirkheaton Church, p.116, which expressly states page 342 of Loidis & Elmete to be the source...... copied eg on Huddersfield Exposed website.

5. Internet copyists. Mrs Collins is all copied into "wikitree" where it has become "Montbegan." Oh dear.

EMB 18 July 2021