William "the Monk" and the Beaumonts - an original charter

Please read this as a follow-up in particular to what I wrote on 10 March 2021 - https://beaumontarchives.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-twelfth-century-beaumonts-of-ne.html

I discovered what seems a significant charter for the history of our family (in the most extended sense), in Cornwall's archives - https://kresenkernow.org/SOAP/detail/608be59d-7882-48b5-aba8-088a98d522d3/?tH=%5B%22william%20the%20monk%22%5D

By this charter, William "the Monk" gives Néville-sur-mer priory fifteen shillings a year rent from a place called Estintonie. William's nephew Thomas de Bellomonte gives his consent and other members of his family are witnesses (1).

(1) Their names are rendered as "Belin" in the catalogue summary but I am confident of their identity as there is so much other context that fits.

Néville-sur-mer priory was a dependency of Montebourg abbey. The gift was known about from the Montebourg charters (2) and in a confirmation by Henry II (3), but the place was not identified.

(2) The Montebourg Cartulary is MS Lat. 10087 in the Bibliotheque Nationale Francaise... including:- (no.422 on page 139):- I William monachus for salvation of my soul and that of my father and mother and all my antecessors with the assent and consent of Thomas & Philip de Bello mo'te my nephews…  in the parish of Nigeville  …… chapel …. Mary Magdalene.. ……. ? tenth penny of ?manor  of Estintona ........

BN Fr. MS Lat.10087 no.422 (part)

 

BN Fr. MS Lat.10087 no.422 (part)

(3) 1174 x 1182 ........ Ex dono Willelmi Monachi, capellam Sancte Marie Magdalene de Nigelvilla, cum ecclesia ejusdem ville ...... et in Anglia, in manerio de Extintona, terram que reddit annuatim XV. solidos (University of Caen "Scripta" database, no.7250). 

It seems what Kresen Kernow (Cornwall's Archive Centre) has (their ref AR/1/828) is the actual charter, or a counterpart of it from the original time. The foundation of Néville priory was confirmed in a charter dated 1163. (4)

(4) No. 45 on pp.27-28 of the cartulary - charter of R. bishop of Coutances.

I am fairly sure it means Ilsington in Devon (not far off the A38 between Plymouth and Exeter), which was Lestintone in Domesday Book. The tenant in chief there then was Ralph Pagnell, but it must have passed into the Honour of Plympton, which was created by Henry I for Richard de Reviers (5), who was actually the patron of Montebourg Abbey. Richard was foremost amongst the "new men" Henry I brought from the Cotentin (6). It is no surprise that benefits should trickle down to middle-ranking players.

(5) see Sanders, English Baronies p.137.

(6) see eg Judith Green, The Government of England under Henry I, pp. 146-147.

Incidentally, one of the witnesses to the Cornwall charter is called Robertus villanus, and a man of that name also witnesses another charter of William "the monk" (Archives Manche H.2439). 

After the "Loss" of Normandy (1204) Montebourg Abbey might no longer have been able to collect the money from Ilsington or be the owner of the manor (7).

(7) As it lost Loders in Dorset (Digital Humanities Institute, Sheffield, Lands of the Normans database).

The family of Beaumont, the heirs of William "the Monk," might have been split, some on each side of the English channel. Not much later, Beaumonts are known to have been at Ilsington or at Ingsdon nearby. An example reference is that in about 1242 a Philip de Bellomonte was holding a knights fee in Ilsington of the Plympton honour. (8)

(8) Testa de Nevill p.182; Book of Fees p.790.

I visited Ilsington church in 1990 and took this photo of the coat of arms on the end of a bench. I had been told that this was the arms of the Beaumonts in question. I have no idea if that is true!! I am sceptical.

A share in Ilsington eventually came to the Arundell family, a fact which presumably explains how the document came into their archives, and thus how it has survived to this day!

This document is a useful discovery. My thanks to Jennie Hancock, archivist at Kresen Kernow.

EMB 10 November 2021