William (Braose) de Braose (abt. 1049 - abt. 1095)

Born about 1049 in Briouze, Normandy, France

Descendants

Died about 1095 at about age 46 in Bramber, Sussex, England

Biography

William was a major Anglo-Norman tenant-in-chief in Sussex in Domesday Book in 1086.^[1] This became known as the honour of Bramber, and it is treated as a probable feudal barony (held per baroniam) by Sanders.^[2]

• OpenDomesday website profile: https://opendomesday.org/name/william-of-braose/
• PASE website profile: http://domesday.pase.ac.uk/Domesday?op=5&personkey=39023

He was one of the 5 castellans of the new Sussex Rapes. By 1072 at the latest. He became the first known lord of the Rape of Bramber. He also had holdings in Dorset and Hampshire.^[1] He became the first Lord of Bramber Rape by 1073 and built Bramber Castle.

Loyd concluded that this family's French place of origin was modern Briouze (postcode 61220) where they kept a connection for some time:^[3]

From the time of Domesday the family of Briouze were lords of the rape of Bramber, Sussex. Their place of origin is established by a series of charters for the abbey of St. Florent at Saumur, [Cal. Docs. France, nos. 1110 et seq.^[4]] particularly by one ante 1080 in which William de Briouze gave to the church of St. Gervaise and St. Protaise at Briouze all his tithe except his demesne profit from the mills of Briouze, and also the church of St. Nicholas at his castle of Bramber. [Cal. Docs. France, nos. 1112^[5]]

He founded the priory of Saint-Florent de Saumur at Sele in Sussex, and from the cartulary of this priory we have some early charters, and also references in later charters.^[1]

The last evidence for William is his presence at the consecration of his church at Briouze in 1093. In 1096 his son Philip was issuing charters. From this we can deduce that William died between 1093 and 1096.

Family

The name of his mother was recorded as Gonnor. She was holding lands at "Bavent Rouvres, Ciemeium, Oraissanvilla, and Quatrepuis" in Normandy which were granted to the Abbey of the Holy Trinity in the time of King William the conqueror and his wife Mathilda.^[6]

According to Keats-Rohan, William had a brother named Robert, who was probably William's tenant in Dorset,^[1] and a tenant-in-chief in Wiltshire in 1086. This Robert apparently had a son Payn de Braose.^[7] The tenant in Dorset who Keats-Rohan refers to is apparently the one who held Hethfelton.^[8] The PASE website constructs a person called "Robert 120 Robert ‘the man of William de Briouze’, fl. 1086" uniting all the cases where the lord under William was named Robert.^[9]

One of the Fécamp charters of William mentions his only son is Philip.^[5] Keats-Rohan says William also had a daughter Agnes "wife of Robert fitz Ansquetil de Harcourt".^[1] See Research notes below.

Research notes

The wife of William is unknown. However there are some indications about who she might have been. For example, Keats-Rohan mentions that "she was probably a close relative the Ralph son of Waldi for whose soul William made a grant to Saint-Florent in the 1080s. She speculates that a relative might be William Gualdi who fought the sons of Harold in the 1080s, according to the report of Orderic Vitalis.^[1][5]

Brydges edition of Collins' Peerage claims he was first married to Agnes, daughter of Waldron de Saint Clare but no evidence for this can be found.^[10] (This wife also appears in the Braose genealogy published by Elwes in the The Genealogist, but he cites Collins for this fact.^[11])

A widely copied claim on the internet is that "according to L C Perfect, a 13th century genealogy in the Bibliothèque de Paris gives the name of his wife as Eve de Boissey, widow of Anchetil de Harcourt". One webpage which seems to have researched it, and not just copy-pasted, is http://douglyn.co.uk/BraoseWeb/note5.1.htm which names the work involved as Rev. L C Perfect, The de Braose Family in the 11th and 12th Centuries and Their Connection with the Conquest of the Middle Marches of Wales (Oxford, unpublished). The webpage says that on the one hand, the claim of Collins might be supported by land records: "William de Braose III's transactions included lands known to have been held by the Saint Clares, for example in 1184 Esquerdreville, south west of Cherbourg". On the other hand:

The evidence for William de Braose's second (or only) marriage to the widow Eve de Boissey is slightly more convincing. Records of the Templars in England in the Twelth Century, The Inquest of 1185 with Illustrative Charters and Documents, edited by Beatrice A Lees MA (London, published for the British Academy by Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1935), page 227, has a charter which provides the clue.

Actually 3 documents are described by this website:

• "Philip de Harcourt (son of Robert and grandson of Eve de Boissey and Anchetil de Harcourt) refers to Philip de Braose (son of William I) as "patruus", ie uncle on the father's side"
• "In an accompanying charter of the same date William de Braose II confirms the gift of Shipley, which he says was held from his father Philip de Braose by Richard, brother of Philip de Harcourt."
• "In 1103 (Pipe Roll Society, Volume 71, number 544), Philip de Braose was supported by "his brother Robert, the son of Anketill" in yet another court battle between the abbeys of Saint Florent and Fécamp."

Charles Cawley of the MEDLANDS website also writes that:^[12]

The charter dated 13 Jan 1103, under which “Philippus de Braosa” confirmed agreement with the abbey of Fécamp witnessed by “ex parte Philippi, Robertus frater eius, Anchetilli filius...” [Dugdale Monasticon VI.2, Fécamp, II, p. 1083. ], suggests that Guillaume de Braose may have married, as her second husband, the widow of Anschetil d’Harcourt.

Counter argument: Keats-Rohan notes that William's daughter married Robert fitz Ansquetil de Harcourt.^[1] Might Philip and Robert have been brothers in law only? The word "patruus" tended to be used more correctly than its maternal-side equivalent, avunculus, but both of them could be used to mean "uncle" in a non-specific way.

Counter argument to the counter argument: We should consider whether Keats-Rohan, and others who mention the daughter Agnes, have not constructed her existence based on the same documents mentioned above, as a different way to explain how Philip de Braose and Robert de Harcourt were "brothers". (That Robert's wife was named Agnes is known from contemporary documents, but is there any which directly names her parents?) For an older modern work which seems to be using this reasoning see Elwes.^[13]

In effect it looks like our modern secondary sources are proposing two different reasonable proposals about how Philip and Robert were brothers.

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6} Keats-Rohan, Domesday People, p.471
2. ↑ Sanders, English Baronies, p.108.
3. ↑ Lewis Christopher Loyd. The origins of some Anglo-Norman families. p.20.
4. ↑ Round, Calendar of documents preserved in France, illustrative of the history of Great Britain and Ireland. Vol.1. A.D. 918-1206, Vol. 1, p. 395ff.
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1 5.2} Round, Calendar of documents preserved in France, illustrative of the history of Great Britain and Ireland. Vol.1. A.D. 918-1206, Vol. 1, pp. 396-7. This charter of about 1080 also appears in the Monasticon under Sele Priory.
6. ↑ Round, Calendar of documents preserved in France, illustrative of the history of Great Britain and Ireland. Vol.1. A.D. 918-1206, Vol. 1, p.148.
7. ↑ Keats-Rohan, Domesday People, p.375
8. ↑ Open Domesday: https://opendomesday.org/place/SY8588/hethfelton/ Compare to William's land holdings listed on the PASE website which gives a handy reference to lords holding land under him: https://domesday.pase.ac.uk/Domesday?op=5&personkey=39023
9. ↑ Robert in PASE: https://domesday.pase.ac.uk/Domesday?op=5&personkey=52321
10. ↑ Collins and Brydges (1812) Peerage of England, Vol. 4, p.46
11. ↑ D.G.C. Elwes, "De Braose Family", The Genealogist, vol. 4, p.133. The pedigree is in a later edition, vol. 5, p.164
12. ↑ MEDLANDS entry for William: https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISHNOBILITYMEDIEVAL3.htm#GuillaumeIBriousedied1093
13. ↑ D.G.C. Elwes, "De Braose Family", The Genealogist, vol. 4, p.138