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Sunday, 14 June 2009

William the Conqueror link?

I had read the history of Gidleigh village and manor in the Middle Ages in Tony Grumley-Grennan's book, and taken note of the family trees on Ancestry of the Prouz family that start with Giles de Gidley, but not really taken much notice of them. Then Pete Gidley sent me a copy this week of an extract from “Devonshire Wills “ by Charles Worthy written in 1896, pages 394-399. I reproduce it here:

"GIDLEY OF GIDLEY AND HOLCOMBE PARAMORE.

This ancient family derives its name from the parish of Gidley, on the north-eastern escarpment of Dartmoor, which land was given by William the Conqueror to his half brother the Earl of Mortain, and held under him, in 1086, by a certain " Godwin," and in the Confessor's reign it had also belonged to " Godwin," described as the " Priest" Westcote, in his seventeenth century View of Devonshire, declares that he had seen a grant of this land, by " Martine," Earl of Cornwall, in favour of his " nephew, Giles de Gidleigh,'' the seal bearing the impress of a triple towered castle, and that the said grant was "exemplified, under the great seal of England, in the reign of Henry VIII."
The said " Giles de Gidleigh," to have been a " nephew " of the Earl of Mortain, whose brother Odo, Earl of Kent, and Bishop of Bayeux, had no issue, should have been a son of his sister Emma D'Abrincis, the mother of Hugh, Earl of Chester, and there is no record that she had such a son as "Giles." Robert of Mortain, Odo, and Emma were the children of Harlotta of Falaise by her marriage with Harlowen de Conteville. Their half-brother and sister, King William and Adeliza, were the offspring of an earlier, and less respectable, intimacy on the part of Harlotta, with Duke Robert of Normandy, and it is most probable that the several personages who have been handed down to us as " nephews " and " nieces " of the Conqueror, or of Mortain, such as "Albreda," wife of Baldwin de Brion of Okehampton, William " Warlewast," Bishop of Exeter, and this Giles de Gidleigh, were children of the king's whole sister, Adeliza de Falaise aforesaid, who was married thrice, and had issue by each marriage, inter a/us, Adeliza, Countess of Albemarle in her own right, 1081-1090 ; Stephen, who succeeded his half sister in that earldom ; and Judith, wife of Waltheof, Earl of Huntingdon. The daughter of Albreda of Okehampton was also called Adeliza, and doubtless so after her grandmother. It is certain that this Dartmoor property descended in the name of Gidleigh for some generations, and down to the middle of the fourteenth century, when the daughter and heir of Giles de Gidley married William, son of Waiter Prouz, by the daughter of the Lord Dinham. Her eldest son and heir succeeded to Gidleigh, and his only child, Alice, married, first, Sir Roger Moels, and, second, Sir John Damerell. The latter family inherited Gidley for several generations, until it passed by intermarriage with one of them to the Coades of Morvell, in the county of Cornwall. It was during their ownership that Gidley Castle probably fell to decay ; the remains of it appear to be of early fourteenth century date, and consist chiefly of the large square keep, the lower chamber of which is barrel vaulted, and has two newel staircases communicating with the upper portion of the building. The name of Gidley, however, appears to have been preserved by a younger branch of the family which settled at Winkleigh, the Devonshire seat of the Honour of Gloucester, upon a property called Holecombe, which had been held under those Earls by William de Portu Mortuo in the reign of Henry III., and was afterward corruptly known as Holcombe Paramore. Richard Gidley was buried at Winkleigh, 26th March, 1574."

Tony Grumley-Grennan is not convinced by the supposed grant of the manor of Gidleigh by Martin, Earl of Mortain to his nephew, Giles de Gidley. The language used in the grant is apparently not from early Norman times, but more likely to be legal language from the 13th and 14th century.
The Prouz family tree produced from Charles Worthy's account also differs in some respects from other Prouz trees I have seen. It is unlikely that it will ever be proved that the Gidleys of Winkleigh descend from William the Conqueror's mother. That there is a link with other Norman barons seems highly likely, however. Manors weren't granted to Saxons or peasants.
The supposed link between the Gidleys and the Coades family of Cornwall is worth investigating, and I shall be checking the Visitations of Cornwall on my next trip to the Society of Genealogists, and trying to contact some Coades family historians, to see if I can find out if the Gidleys of Holcombe Paramore really were a younger branch of the Coades family.

5 comments:

Joe Flood said...

Interesting. I am writing a book about the Coads and Coodes of Cornwall and am stumbling through the many contradictory accounts of the ownership of the manor of Gidleigh. As yet I dont know what to make of it. See my blog post on heiresses in coadcoode.blogspot.com

The Gidley Family History blog said...

Joe's blog post on abducted heiresses is very interesting (actually, all his blog entries are interesting, including the maps of where the Codes of Gidleigh went in Devon), and confirms that a Code family owned the manor of Gidleigh in the 15th century, owing to their descent in the female line from William le Pruz, a Crusader knight. But where our Cavalier Bartholomew Gidley fits in, I still have no idea. He apparently felt he should buy back the manor of Gidleigh, but whether that was simply because of his name or because he had evidence that he was descended from the former owners, I shall probably never know. Even in Victorian times spurious genealogies were extremely common, and appeared in such respected volumes as Burke's Peerage. However, the Gidley family may well have kept deeds of property, etc. in their family chest, and Bartholomew may have had access to these.

MrsCL said...

Gydda was the mother of King Harold, not William :) There is a dispute as to whether Gidleigh is derived from her name or whether it means "clearing". I have studied Anglo Saxon placenames extensively, particularly in Devon, and it would be more likely to be Gydda as a name. Also, Gydda appears to have had a connection with Devon, as after King Harold's defeat, she retreated to Exeter and helped with the defence against William's troops. She managed to escape through the water gate when the city walls were stormed.
Anyway, I would be disappointed if it were proved not to be Gydda's!
Christine Lewis (nee Gidley)

Jade's an Open Book said...

Thank you for this article, I'm part of the Gidley family and its nice to know that some people are still into history.

Clare said...

It is interesting to read, which might answer the odd record of the Countess of Devon giving all the Advowsons to the Monks on the Isle of White on her death bed and then selling the Isle of White to Edward.
A history Parliament has now admitted not true. What might help is the Second Doomsday 1279-80 covering this period.