A discovery in Totnes
Some 20 years ago I found myself in Totnes (in Devon) with a couple of hours to spare. I walked up and down the High Street and saw the site of the Castle.
Eventually I went into the Library. I took down a two volume book by H.R. Watkin called the "History of Totnes Priory and Town." I made this note from what I saw in Volume 2, page 1111:-
Thomas de Beaumont and Adeliza his wife, and Philip and Isabel Beaumont, were amongst the witnesses of a grant by Oliver de Tracy in favour of the abbey of St Saviour of 10s annually from the farm of Barnstaple for the soul of his lord king Stephen.
I hadn't a clue who these people were.
Over the following months and years I have learned that Oliver de Tracy was the lord of the Barnstaple barony, or a share of that, from about 1150 (I think it may be possible to improve on the account of Oliver in Sanders' "Baronies: (pp.104-105) but not here).
There was no full copy of the charter but I later learned that it looks as though H R Watkin, the author of the book, may have picked up the reference from Devon Notes & Queries, Volume 1, pp. 87-88 where a Mr Thomas Wainwright of Barnstaple asked for help identifying the abbey. He said that the MS had been sent to him by Mr Rider Haggard,** the owner, and he set forth this translation of it:-
To all the sons and daughters of Holy Mother Church, both present and future, be it known that Oliver de Tracey gave and granted for ever in alms to the Abbey of St. Saviour and the monks there serving God, ten shillings sterling annually, out of the tolls of Barnstaple fair, which he fixes to be paid to them at the Nativity of St. Mary until he charges these said shillings on the rent of land. This donation he granted for the soul of his Lord, King Stephen, and for the souls of his father and mother and of all his ancestors, and for his own salvation and that of his friends. These being witnesses, Robert and William Chaplain, Thomas Beaumont, his wife Adeliza, Philip and Isabel Beaumont, Gervase de Carrepus, Godfrey de Plassey. The said Gervase has granted to the said abbey six pence annually.
It seems this charter now resides in North Devon Record Office:-ref. B1/A27. The catalogue says merely Grant [by] Oliver de Tracey to Abbot and monks of S. Salvator - 10s. p.a. at Barnstaple fair. I still haven't seen a copy of it.
In answer to Mr Wainwright, the "abbey of St. Saviour" means the abbey of St. Sauveur-le-Vicomte in the Cotentin in Normandy. It would take too much space to set out all the various pointers to this, which have to do with the Tracy family's previous and current connexions.
It seems to me that this charter must have been done originally shortly after the death of King Stephen, which occurred on 25 October 1154. Normally a gift for someone's soul means that they have already died.
So who were these Beaumonts?
There was a Thomas de Beaumont in Devon at about that time, a wealthy man as he held four knights fees of the Okehampton barony in 1166 (Red Book of the Exchequer, page 252). He may well be the Thomas who witnessed the above charter.
It is likely that Thomas was the successor of the Robert de Beaumont who is mentioned in Domesday Book in Devon (the surname is actually only given in the "Exon DB") and it is also possible to suggest that this Robert had gone from the Cotentin to Devon in the Norman period under Baldwin son of count Gilbert of Brionne, who is known in England as Baldwin the Sheriff, or Baldwin of Exeter - he became lord of Okehampton (for him see Keats-Rohan, "Domesday People," page 162).
The brothers
People called Beaumont continued in the Cotentin, with links to Devon, throughout the 12th century. I suspect they were related to one another. It was possible and indeed normal to hold lands on both sides of the Channel during this period when the kings of England were Dukes of Normandy and vice versa (until 1204). Thomas de Beaumont in the Cotentin, quite possibly the same man as in Devon, had brothers named Philip, Juhel or Joel, and Geoffrey or Godfrey (see Keats-Rohan, "Domesday Descendants," page 283 and page 317, and the sources given there, which include charters of Saint-Sauveur abbey).
In a later piece I hope to explore these people, and whether they may be related to the Beaumonts at Pirton in Oxfordshire, where the names Thomas and Philip de Beaumont are found at least a generation or two later (Farrer, Honors & Knights Fees, vol. 2 pp. 251-252).
The Cotentin brothers headed by Thomas, were nephews of an obscure chap called William "the Monk" (Domesday Descendants p.317, as before, and p.1043). William the monk was a senior witness with William Constable of Chester, to a charter of the Earl of Chester in the 1130s (Barraclough, Chester Earldom Charters, no.35). The same combination of names, that is William the Monk and his nephew Thomas de Beaumont, are also found in the lands of the Constables of Chester in Lancashire (Whalley Coucher Book vol. ii, Chetham Society vol. 11, p. 420), which may well offer a lead as to the origins of the Yorkshire Beaumonts (see Part 1 of my piece "The First Yorkshire Beaumont.")
EMB 30 January 2021
Notes
** I do not know if this Mr Rider Haggard means the author of "King Solomon's Mines" and other great stories.
Witnesses:- Robert and William Chaplain. This would, I surmise, be two men who were both chaplains. Gervase de Carrepus. I suspect this is Champrepus. People of that name were tenants of the Tracys. Godfrey de Plassey. This might be a name like Plessis.
One day I shall write up my notes on the Beaumont "Vicomtes of Maine" from Sainte-Suzanne and Beaumont-sur-Sarthe. I mention this as some of the old Devon historians were really muddled and some stuff online today, such as in Wikipedia, is wrong because it is all based on that old stuff. I will just say that the history of South Tawton (a place which Henry I gave in marriage to vicomte Roscelin de Beaumont in marriage with one of his daughters and which passed later in the c12 by another marriage, to the family of Toeni (Tosny, Tony, etc)) has nothing to do with the people mentioned above.
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