Comments on Rohese (Unknown) de Lucy

Question

On 10 Jan 2023 David Kearns wrote on Unknown-475048:

Richardson in Royal Ancestry (Vol 3, p 648) and (Vol 1, 467) gives Rohese's father as William of Boulogne, cross referencing his Boulogne 4 at RA Vol 1, p 467. Her line from RA Boulogne 4 is William of Boulogne, wife unknown (RA Vol 1, p 467), Geoffrey of Boulogne and Margaret de Mandeville (RA Vol 1, p 466), Eustache II and unknown mistress (RA Vol 1, p 466), Eustache I, and Matilde or Mahaut of Louvain (RA Vol 1, p 463). Translating that into WikiTree references I see Eustache I as Boulogne-92 Eustache II as Boulogne-8 Geoffrey as Boulogne-29 (listed in WT as Godfried) William as Boulogne-49 (listed in WT as Guillaume) Someone with qualifications should attach Rohese as a daughter to Boulogne-49.

Answer 1

Keats-Rohan in her publication Domesday Descendants, published 2002, mentions that the wife of Ricardus de Lucy (p. 558-59) is named Roesia, but doesn't give her father's name or state that she was of the Boulogne family.  Equally there is no mention of Rohese/Roesia in articles about the Boulogne (de Bolonie) family on pp. 335-336 in the same volume.

If someone has access to the Richardson volumes, then it would be good to see what sources he is citing, before we make the change suggested in this G2G.

I have had a quick look in the soc.genealogy.medieval discussion group, where Douglas Richardson often introduces some of his work but couldn't see anything where this is commented on.

Comments

Thanks, John. The sources given for Rohese and her husband (Vol. III p.648) go on for a page and a half, and as usual with Richardson, it is not possible to say what facts derive from what sources. I don't have time to comb through them all and check what they say, but there is nothing which leaps out as identifying her father.

William de Boulogne, the alleged father, has a much shorter entry (Vol. I p. 467) which lists the following sources:

• Manning and Bray. History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey, Vol. II, 1809, pp. 506-508: viewable on Google Books. Appears to be nothing relevant to Rohese.
• Daniel Gurney. Records of the House of Gournay, Vol. I, 1845, pp. 233-236: viewable on Internet Archive. Nothing relevant to Rohese.
• E J Sellers. De Carpentier Allied Ancestry, 1928, p. 188: viewable on Internet Archive. Nothing relevant to Rohese.
• Early Charters of the Cathedral Church of St Paul, Royal Historical Society/Camden Society (Vol. 58), 1939, pp. 156-158. Not viewable on web but brief snippets here on Google Books. Unlikely to contain anything relevant.
• Select Documents of the English Lands of the Abbey of Bec, Camden Society Vol. 73, 1951, pp. 25-26. Not viewable on the web but the index suggests there are no relevant entries: Google Books.
• Johnson and Cronne. Regesta Regum Anglo-Nprmannorum, Vol. 2, pp. 52-53: Richardson here tells us what it says and all it does in name William as a witness to a charter of 1106. So nothing relevant to Rohese.
• Schwennickwe. Europäische Stammtafeln 34, 1989, p. 621 (sub Boulogne). I do not have access to this.
• Heather J Tanner, Families, Friends and Allies: Boylogne and Politics in Northern France and England c.879-1160, 2004, p. 291 (chart) and p. 302 (Mandeville-Tingry pedigree). A search of the limited/snippet view on Google Books yields these results, none of which look hopeful for identifying Rohese's father. But there may conceivably be something here.

At the moment, I myself would not want to trust Richardson on this without further evidence.

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Thanks Michael for looking up Douglas Richardson volumes and reviewing all those sources.

I did have another look at soc genealogy medieval, and it looks like the sole source for Rohese being the daughter of William de Boulogne and sister of Pharamus de Boulogne, is a charter where Godfrey de Lucy, Bishop of Winchester (known to be a son of Richard de Lucy and Rohese) refers to Pharamus as his 'avunculo nostro' usually translated as uncle.  See the end of this post from the late Leo van der Pas dated 29 July 2005

There is also quite a long discussion, titled 'Faramus of Boulogne and Richard de Lacy' which partly covers the fact that avunculus didn't just mean uncle or necessarily maternal uncle.  It also points out that the name of Faramus de Boulogne's mother is unknown, as is the name of Richard de Lucy's father, which means there could be some other relationship.  The very last post by Peter Dale, dated 15 Apr 2017 sets out the points for and against clearly, though without coming to any conclusion.

I would favour the we continue to use Unknown as the LNAB for Rohese, and explain the possibility of connection of the Boulogne family in Research Notes.  The other possibility is that we do connect them up, and mark the relationship as Uncertain.