Ranulf le Meschin, 3rd Earl of Chester

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Ranulf le Meschin
DiedJanuary 1129
Resting place
Chester Abbey
Other namesRanulf de Briquessart
TitleEarl of Chester
(previously) Lord of Cumberland
Term1120–1129
PredecessorRichard d'Avranches
SuccessorRanulf de Gernon
SpouseLucy of Bolingbroke (Countess-consort of Chester)
ChildrenRanulf de Gernon, Alicia
Parent(s)Ranulf de Briquessart
Margaret Goz

Ranulf le Meschin, 3rd Earl of Chester (1070–1129) was a

Lucy
, heiress of the Bolingbroke-Spalding estates in Lincolnshire.

Ranulf fought in Normandy on behalf of Henry I, and served the English king as a kind of semi-independent governor in the far north-west, in

Ranulf de Gernon
.

Biography

Family and origins

Ranulf le Meschin's father and mother represented two different families of

bishop of Bayeux, Ranulf the elder was the most powerful magnate in the Bessin region of Normandy.[4] Ranulf le Meschin's great-grandmother may even have been from the ducal family of Normandy, as le Meschin's paternal great-grandfather viscount Anschitil is known to have married a daughter of Duke Richard III.[5]

Ranulf le Meschin's mother, Margaret, was the daughter of

Hugh d'Avranches "Lupus" ("the Wolf"), viscount of the Avranchin and Earl of Chester (from c. 1070).[8] Ranulf was thus, in addition to being heir to the Bessin, the nephew of one of Norman England's most powerful and prestigious families.[9]

An entry in the Durham Liber Vitae, c. 1098 x 1120, indicates that Ranulf le Meschin had an older brother named Richard (who died in youth), and a younger brother named William.[10] He had a sister called Agnes, who later married Robert de Grandmesnil (died 1136).[2]

Early career

Historian C. Warren Hollister thought that Ranulf's father Ranulf de Briquessart was one of the early close companions of Prince Henry, the future Henry I.[4] Hollister called Ranulf the Elder "a friend from Henry's youthful days in western Normandy",[11] and argued that the homeland of the two Ranulfs had been under Henry's overlordship since 1088, despite both ducal and royal authority lying with Henry's two brothers.[12] Hollister further suggested that Ranulf le Meschin may have had a role in persuading Robert Curthose to free Henry from captivity in 1089.[13]

The date of Ranulf senior's death, and succession of Ranulf junior, is unclear, but the former's last and the latter's earliest appearance in extant historical records coincides, dating to 24 April 1089 in charter of Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, to Bayeux Cathedral.[14] Ranulf le Meschin appears as "Ranulf son of Ranulf the viscount".[14]

In the foundation charter of

Lucy, heiress of the honour of Bolingbroke in Lincolnshire.[18] This acquisition also brought him the lordship of Appleby in Westmorland, previously held by Lucy's second husband Ivo Taillebois.[2]

Marriage to a great heiress came only with royal patronage, which in turn meant that Ranulf had to be respected and trusted by the king. Ranulf was probably, like his father, among the earliest and most loyal of Henry's followers, and was noted as such by Orderic Vitalis.[19] Ranulf was however not recorded often at the court of Henry I, and did not form part of the king's closest group of administrative advisers.[20] He witnessed charters only occasionally, though this became more frequent after he became earl.[21] In 1106 he is found serving as one of several justiciars at York hearing a case about the lordship of Ripon.[22] In 1116 he is recorded in a similar context.[2]

Ranulf was, however, one of the king's military companions. When, soon after

Helias, Count of Maine.[27] Ranulf's line consisted of the men of Bayeux, Avranches and Coutances.[28]

Lord of Cumberland

Wetheral Priory
, founded by Ranulf c. 1106.

A charter issued in 1124 by

Wetheral Priory, where Ranulf is found addressing his own sheriff, "Richer" (probably Richard de Boivill, baron of Kirklinton).[31] No royal activity occurred in Cumberland or Westmorland during Ranulf's time in charge there, testimony to the fullness of his powers in the region.[32]

Ivo Taillebois, when he married Ranulf's future wife Lucy, had acquired her Lincolnshire lands but sometime after 1086 he acquired estates in

William Rufus seized the region from its previous ruler, Dolfin.[34] There is inconclusive evidence that settlers from Ivo's Lincolnshire lands had come into Cumberland as a result.[35]

Between 1094 and 1098 Lucy was married to Roger fitz Gerold de Roumare, and it is probable that this marriage was the king's way of transferring authority in the region to Roger fitz Gerold.

William Kapelle, was that Ranulf's authority in the region did not come about until 1106 or after, as a reward for participation in the Battle of Tinchebrai.[37] Another historian, Richard Sharpe, has recently attacked this view and argued that it probably came in or soon after 1098. Sharpe stressed that Lucy was the mechanism by which this authority changed hands, and pointed out that Ranulf had been married to Lucy years before Tinchebrai and can be found months before Tinchebrai taking evidence from county jurors at York (which may have been responsible for Cumbria at this point).[38]

Ranulf likewise distributed land to the church, founding a

Holy Trinity, as well as another saint named Constantine.[41] Ranulf gave Wetheral, among other things, his two churches at Appleby, St Lawrences (Burgate) and St Michaels (Bongate).[42]

As an incoming regional magnate, Ranulf would be expected to distribute land to his own followers, and indeed the record of the jurors of Cumberland dating to 1212 claimed that Ranulf created two baronies in the region.

Copeland), even larger than Gilsland stretching along the coast from the River Ellen to the River Esk, was given to William.[44] Kirklinton may have been given to Richard de Boivill, Ranulf's sheriff.[2]

Earl of Chester

Chester Cathedral today, originally Chester Abbey, where Ranulf's body was buried.

1120 was a fateful year for both Henry I and Ranulf.

White Ship Disaster near Barfleur on 25 November.[2] Only four days before the disaster, Ranulf and his cousin Richard had witnessed a charter together at Cerisy.[2]

Henry probably could not wait long to replace Richard, as the Welsh were resurgent under the charismatic leadership of Gruffudd ap Cynan. According to the Historia Regum, Richard's death prompted the Welsh to raid Cheshire, looting, killing, and burning two castles.[45] Perhaps because of his recognised military ability and social strength, because he was loyal and because he was the closest male relation to Earl Richard, Henry recognized Ranulf as Richard's successor to the county of Chester.[46]

In 1123, Henry sent Ranulf to Normandy with a large number of knights and with his bastard son,

Waleran, Count of Meulan.[49] Scouts informed Ranulf that Waleran's forces were planning an expedition to Vatteville, and Ranulf planned to intercept them, a plan carried out by Henry de Pommeroy, Odo Borleng and William de Pont-Authou, with 300 knights.[50] A battle followed, perhaps at Rougemontier (or Bourgthéroulde), in which Waleran was captured.[51]

Although Ranulf bore the title "earl of Chester", the honour (i.e., group of estates) which formed the holdings of the earl of Chester were scattered throughout England, and during the rule of his predecessors included the cantref of Tegeingl in Perfeddwlad in north-western Wales.[52] Around 1100, only a quarter of the value of the honour actually lay in Cheshire, which was one of England's poorest and least developed counties.[53] The estates elsewhere were probably given to the earls in compensation for Cheshire's poverty, in order to strengthen its vulnerable position on the Anglo-Welsh border.[54] The possibility of conquest and booty in Wales should have supplemented the lordship's wealth and attractiveness, but for much of Henry's reign the English king tried to keep the neighbouring Welsh princes under his peace.[55]

Ranulf's accession may have involved him giving up many of his other lands, including much of his wife's Lincolnshire lands as well as his lands in Cumbria, though direct evidence for this beyond convenient timing is lacking.[56] That Cumberland was given up at this point is likely, as King Henry visited Carlisle in December 1122, where, according to the Historia Regum, he ordered the strengthening of the castle.[57]

Hollister believed that Ranulf offered the Bolingbroke lands to Henry in exchange for Henry's bestowal of the earldom.

Ranulf de Gernon, when he succeeded his father to Chester in 1129, owed the king £1000 "from his father's debt for the land of Earl Hugh".[59] Hollister thought this debt was merely the normal feudal relief expected to be paid on a large honour, and suggested that Ranulf's partial non-payment, or Henry's forgiveness for non-payment, was a form of royal patronage.[60]

Ranulf died in January 1129, and was buried in Chester Abbey.

Richard de Clare, a lord in the Anglo-Welsh marches.[2] One of his offspring, his fifth son, participated in the Siege of Lisbon, and for this aid was granted the Lordship of Azambuja by King Afonso I of Portugal.[2]

That his career had some claim on the popular imagination may be inferred from lines in William Langland's Piers Plowman (c. 1362–c. 1386) in which Sloth, the lazy priest, confesses: "I kan [know] not parfitly [perfectly] my Paternoster as the preest it singeth,/ But I kan rymes of Robyn Hood and Randolf Erl of Chestre."[61]

References

  1. ^ a b Hollister, Henry I, pp. 53–54
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m King, "Ranulf (I)"
  3. ^ King, "Ranulf (I)"; Newman, Anglo-Norman Nobility, pp. 97–99
  4. ^ a b Hollister, Henry I, p. 60
  5. ^ Douglas, William the Conqueror, p. 93
  6. ^ Hollister, Henry I, p. 53
  7. ^ Barlow, William Rufus, p. 298, and Hollister, Henry I, p. 54, give the name "Margaret" for Ranulf's mother; King, "Ranulf (I)", gives the name "Matilda", as does Douglas, William the Conqueror, p. 93, who gives Maud
  8. ^ Hollister, Henry I, p. 54; Lewis, "Avranches, Hugh d'"
  9. ^ Newman, Anglo-Norman Nobility, pp. 57–58, 78, 81, 119, 120, 125, 133, 167–68, 191
  10. ^ King, "Ranulf (I)"; Rollason & Rollason (eds.), The Durham Liber Vitae, vol. i, p. 159
  11. ^ Hollister, Henry I, p. 200
  12. Robert of Torigny
    , which says that in 1096, when Robert Curthose went on Crusade and pawned the duchy to William Rufus, Henry received ex integro the counties of Coutances and Bayeux save only Bayeux and Caen, a grant Hollister thought was probably a "renewal" rather than a new patronage
  13. ^ a b Hollister, Henry I, p. 342
  14. ^ a b Davis and Whitwell, Regesta Regum, no. 308; King, "Ranulf (I)"
  15. ^ Barraclough (ed.), Charters, no. 3; King, "Ranulf (I)"
  16. ^ Barraclough (ed.), Charters, no. 3, at p. 7
  17. ^ Barraclough (ed.), Charters, pp. 7–11
  18. ^ King, "Ranulf (I)"; Newman, Anglo-Norman Nobility, p. 40; Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, pp. 45-46
  19. ^ Hollister, Henry I, pp. 116, 200, 257 (n. 90 for the reference to Orderic, which is book 6.222)
  20. ^ Newman, Anglo-Norman Nobility, p. 98
  21. ^ Hollister, Henry I, pp. 342–43
  22. ^ Green, Henry I, p. 116
  23. ^ Hollister, Henry I, p. 136
  24. ^ Hollister, Henry I, p. 136; Johnson, Cronne, and Davis (eds.), Regesta Regum, vol. ii, no. 531
  25. ^ Green, Henry I, p. 90; Hollister, Henry I, p. 200
  26. ^ Kapelle, Norman Conquest, p. 200; King, "Ranulf (I)"
  27. ^ Green, Henry I, pp. 91–92
  28. ^ Green, Henry I, p. 91
  29. ^ King "Ranulf; Phythian-Adams, Land of the Cumbrians, p. 149
  30. ^ a b c Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, p. 47
  31. ^ Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, p. 48
  32. ^ Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, p. 51
  33. ^ Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, pp. 39–40
  34. ^ Phythian-Adams, Land of the Cumbrians, p. 24; Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, p. 34
  35. ^ For details, see Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, pp. 36–38
  36. ^ Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, pp. 41-42; Sharpe also cites (p. 42) the "unexplained interests in Westmorland in the 1130s" held by Richard fitz Gerard of Appleby, the son of the marriage, as additional evidence for this
  37. ^ Kapelle, Norman Conquest, p. 200; King, "Ranulf (I)"; see also Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, pp. 43–44
  38. ^ Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, pp. 44–46
  39. ^ King, "Ranulf"; Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, p. 47
  40. ^ Knowles, Brooke and London, Heads of Religious Houses, vol. I, p. 84; Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, p. 47
  41. ^ Knowles, Brooke and London, Heads of Religious Houses, vol. i, p. 97
  42. ^ Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, p. 49
  43. ^ Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, pp. 46–47
  44. ^ Kapelle, Norman Conquest, p. 200; King, "Ranulf (I)"; Phythian-Adams, Land of the Cumbrians, pp. 8–10
  45. ^ Hinde (ed.), Symeonis Dunelmensis Opera, p. 117; Green, Henry I, p. 172; Stevenson, Simeon of Durham, p. 190
  46. ^ Green, Henry I, p. 173; King, "Ranulf"
  47. ^ Green, Henry I, p. 182
  48. ^ Hollister, Henry I, pp. 294, 296–7; King, "Ranulf"
  49. ^ Hollister, Henry I, p. 298; King, "Ranulf"
  50. ^ Green, Henry I, p. 185; Hollister, Henry I, p. 298
  51. ^ Green, Henry I, pp. 185–86; Hollister, Henry I, pp. 299–301
  52. ^ Thacker, "Introduction", p. 10
  53. ^ Lewis, "Formation of the Honor", p. 42
  54. ^ Thacker, "Introduction", p. 9
  55. ^ Davis, Conquest, p. 42; Thacker, "Introduction"
  56. ^ King, "Ranulf (I)"; Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, pp. 51–52
  57. ^ Hinde (ed.), Symeonis Dunelmensis Opera, p. 119; Green, Henry I, pp. 176–77; Summerson, Medieval Carlisle, p. 25; Stevenson, Simeon of Durham, p. 192
  58. ^ Thacker, "Introduction", p. 11
  59. ^ Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, p. 52, n. 135
  60. ^ Hollister, Henry I, p. 343
  61. ^ V.396 in Schmidt's ed. Hti.umich.edu. 1993. Retrieved 12 March 2010.

Sources

Peerage of England
Preceded by Earl of Chester
1120–1129 		Succeeded by
Ranulf de Gernon
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