William (Warenne) de Warenne

Born [date unknown] in Bellencombre, Seine-Maritime, Haute-Normandie, France

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 24 Jun 1088 in Pevensey, Sussex, England

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Brian Quesnell [send private message]

Biography

Willelm de Warenna, as his contemporaries might have known him,^[1] was a relative and close ally of his ruler, William "the bastard", Duke of Normandy, who he helped become "the conqueror" and King of England. In England he became one of the most important landholders in England when the 1086 "Domesday Book" was made. Maps and documentation illustrating his landholdings are available on specialized websites:

• PASE: http://domesday.pase.ac.uk/Domesday?op=5&personkey=39074
• Open Domesday: https://opendomesday.org/name/william-of-warenne/

His English lands are frequently commented upon because of their political and military importance, during the takeover of England:

• One of his most important clusters of holdings was in the militarily important "Rape of Lewes" in Sussex near Hastings and the coast south of London. This came to be seen as a feudal barony.^[2]
• In the rebellious north he held another militarily important position in Conisborough, Yorkshire, a large old royal manor, which "occupied the gap between the marshes at the head of the Humber estuary and the Pennine foothills, and commanded the fords where the main road north crossed the River Don".^[3]
• Far more valuable than the above was William's concentration of holdings in and around Norfolk, where he was "the largest landowner in a large and wealthy shire". His chief residence here was Castle Acre, "where Warenne built not a castle but a large stone manor house".^[3]

William was the son, but probably not the eldest son, of Ralph de Warenne, who was a relatively minor landholder in Normandy. Despite his small inheritance, records consistently indicate that William was considered to be a blood relative of the king.^[3] In particular, both the chronicler Robert of Torigny, and some generations later a fellow monk at Bec St Anselm, wrote as if William de Warenne's mother was the daughter of a sister of Gunnora, who was the wife of Duke Richard I of Normandy, King William's great grandfather.^[4] The identity of William's mother has been the subject of different published opinions. Most importantly:

• Loyd (p.107), who presumed that there was only one Ralph de Warenne, who must have had two wives, Beatrix and then Emma, pointed out that Beatrix was still living in 1053. If Emma started having children after Beatrix then William, who fought in the Mortemer campaign in 1054, could not possibly be Emma's son.^[4] Unfortunately, at least one contemporary document, the Holy Trinity of Rouen cartulary, says that Emma was his mother!
• More recently Keats-Rohan proposed that this problem could be resolved by assuming that there were two generations of Ralphs. The grandfather of William married Beatrix, and the father married Emma.

Regarding the relationship between William de Warenne and William the conqueror, Keats-Rohan also suggests that Beatrice the wife of the first Ralph (in her scheme) was a "great niece" of Gunnora.^[5] Keats-Rohan therefore adds more generations between William and his common ancestry with the king - one between Beatrix and William, and one between Beatrix and Gunnora.

The male line of the family has not been traced beyond Ralf (or the two Ralfs, as per Keats-Rohan), who first start appearing in records in the 1030s. Their surname is derived from a hamlet named Varenne, on a small river named Varenne.^[4] Modern Varenne is within Saint-Aubin-le-Cauf and the postcode is 76510. Loyd (p.111) suggested that William's original inheritance as younger son was limited to Louvetot in the canton of Caudebec and Allouville-Bellefosse in the canton of Yvetot. His older brother Ralf III probably inherited the majority of the family lands, although there is no detailed evidence to give us the details.^[4]

His French lands also included the castle of Mortemer, which had been forfeited by his kinsman (Keats-Rohan believes he was a paternal uncle), Roger de Mortimer, after the Battle of Mortemer in 1054. Although his uncle received many lands back later, William was able to establish his French base at Bellencombre, and he held various fiefs in the immediate area.

In England William and his wife Gundrada founded Lewes priory as a cell of Cluny abbey, about 1078-82, and they already planned a daughter of this in Castle Acre, which their descendants established.

William married twice:

• m1. Gundred, sister of Gerbod the Fleming, earl of Chester, hereditary advocate of the Abbey of St. Bertin at St. Omer. She died in child-birth, 27 May 1085, at Castle Acre, Norfolk, and was buried the chapter-house at Lewes. William and Gundreda. They had children:

1. William, 2nd Earl of Surrey (d. 1138);
2. Reginald/Reynold de Warenne, who inherited lands from his mother in Flanders and died before 1118;
3. Edith de Warenne who married (1) Gerard de Gournay, and (2) Drogo de Monchy.^[1]

• m2. The sister of Richard Guet (living 1098) who was a landowner in the Perche region in France.

As noted by Lewis in William's modern ODNB biography:^[3]

In the turmoil which enveloped England after the death of William the Conqueror in September 1087, William de Warenne stood firm by William Rufus. His reward, some time between Christmas 1087 and the end of March 1088, was the titular earldom of Surrey and very probably three valuable Surrey manors, Reigate, Dorking, and Shere. Warenne fought for the king during the invasion of England by supporters of Robert Curthose and was wounded by an arrow during the siege of Pevensey Castle in spring 1088. He was carried to Lewes and died there of his wounds on 24 June.

The burial locations of William and Gundrada were redisocvered in 1845-47 when the railway to Brighton was built through the site of the priory and among the finds were lead caskets thought to contain the bones of William de Warenne and his wife Gundrada, the founders of the priory. Two lead caskets were found with their names inscribed on them. The remains inside were later moved to the parish church of St John in Southover, Lewes.^[3]

Research notes

The 17th-century antiquarian Dugdale also thought William had a daughter who married Ernise de Colungis. On Wikitree she is Warenne-99, and it is suggested she is a sister of William, not a daughter.

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} K.S.B. Keats-Rohan, Domesday People, p.480
2. ↑ I.J. Sanders, English Baronies, p.128
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4} C.P. Lewis, "Warenne, William (I) de, first earl of Surrey (d. 1088)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/28736.
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3} L.C. Loyd, "The Origin of the Family of Warenne", in Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, vol. xxxi, pp. 97-113. https://archive.org/details/YAJ0311934/page/106/mode/2up
5. ↑ K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, "Aspects of Robert of Torigny's genealogies revisited", in Nottingham Medieval Studies, 37 (1993) p.21. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285148810_Aspects_of_Robert_of_Torigny's_Genealogies_Revisited

References?

• Complete Peerage XII/1:493-5, XIV:604 Note: (j)
• Douglas, David C. (1964). William the Conqueror. ISBN 0300078846.
• C. P. Lewis, "The Earldom of Surrey and the Date of Domesday Book", Historical Research 63 (1990)

Useful?

• Weis, Frederick Lewis, ed, Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America before 1700, 7th ed. Sheppard Jr., Walter Lee. (Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., , 1992).
• The Roll of the Battle Abbey, The New England Historical & Genealogical Register (New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Mass.) Vol. 2, Page 34
• Brian Tompsett, Royal and Noble Genealogical Data, 1994-2001, www.dcs.hull.ac.uk/ Department of Computer Science, University of Hull, Hull, UK (Website no longer available.)
• Stephen, Sir Leslie, ed. Dictionary of National Biography [older edition], 1921-1922. London, England: Oxford;
• Wikipedia: House of Warren
• Wikipedia: William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey
• http://www.maulefamily.com/dc_williamconq.htm