Reginald de Warenne

Reginald de Warenne (sometimes Rainald de Warenne;[1] between 1121 and 1126 – 1179) was an Anglo-Norman nobleman and royal official. The third son of an earl, Reginald began his career as an administrator of his brother's estates and married the heiress to the feudal barony of Wormegay in Norfolk. By the reign of King Henry II in 1154, Reginald was a royal justice; he played a minor role in the Becket controversy in 1170. He died in 1179 and left a son as well as several daughters.

Reginald de Warenne
BornBetween 1121 and 1126
Died1179
Occupation
  • Feudal baron
  • Royal justice
Spouse(s)Alice de Wormegay
Children
Parent(s)

Origins

Reginald de Warenne was the third son of William de Warenne,[2] the second earl of Surrey; and Isabel de Vermandois.[3] Reginald was probably born between 1121 and 1126.[1] William died in 1138.[2] Reginald's brothers were William de Warenne, the third Earl of Surrey; and Ralph de Warenne. Reginald had two sisters: Gundrada de Warenne, who married first Roger, Earl of Warwick and then William of Lancaster; and Ada de Warenne, who married Henry, Earl of Huntingdon.[3] Ada's husband was the only son of King David I of Scotland, and she was the mother of two kings of Scotland – Malcolm IV and William I. From their mother's first marriage to Robert de Beaumont, Reginald was a half-brother of the twins Robert de Beaumont the Earl of Leicester and Waleran de Beaumont, the Count of Meulan and Earl of Worcester.[4] There was another Reginald de Warenne alive during Reginald's lifetime – he may have been an illegitimate half-brother.[1]

Early career

Reginald first appears in the historical record in early 1138, signing some of his father's charters as a witness.[1] On their father's death in May, William became the third earl of Surrey and Reginald was one of the main administrators of his estates until William's death in 1148 at the Battle of Mount Cadmus during the Second Crusade.[5] Reginald also had his own lands, granted from his brother's estates in Norfolk and Sussex.[1] While William was on crusade, Reginald granted the right to form a merchant guild to the inhabitants of Lewes, as long as his brother agreed after his return.[6] On William's death the earldom and estates passed to William's daughter Isabel. At the instigation of King Stephen of England she married the King's second son, William, Count of Boulogne, who thus became Earl of Surrey. Reginald continued in his role as an administrator under William and also began to serve the King, signing several royal charters as a witness. Reginald eventually became the main advisor to the new Earl.[1]

Reginald was granted the castles of Bellencombre and Mortemer by the charter of Westminster in 1153. This charter laid out the rights that William, the surviving son of King Stephen, would receive for not contesting the passage of the crown of England to Henry of Anjou after Stephen's death.[7] Reginald was a witness to the charter.[8] After Stephen died in 1154, Reginald continued to serve as a royal official under Henry, now Henry II, witnessing several of the new King's charters.[1]

Royal service

In 1157 Reginald was one of the justices present when King Henry II decided a case between Hilary of Chichester, the Bishop of Chichester, and Walter de Luci, the Abbot of Battle Abbey.[9] In 1164 he was present at the Council of Clarendon,[1] which was part of the long struggle between King Henry II and the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, over control of the English church.[10] Reginald was also in the party which accompanied the King's daughter, Matilda, to Germany for her marriage to Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony.[1]

Reginald was one of the four main justices involved with the general eyre between 1168 and 1170, along with Richard of Ilchester, Guy the Dean of Waltham Holy Cross, and William Basset.[11][lower-alpha 2] Besides these administrative and judicial roles, Reginald was a baron of the exchequer in 1169 and held the office of sheriff of Sussex from 1170 to 1176.[1]

In 1170 Reginald was involved in attempts to keep Thomas Becket, who had been in exile, from returning to England. Working with Reginald were Gervase de Cornhill, the Sheriff of Kent; Ranulf de Broc; and three senior ecclesiastics that Becket had excommunicated: Roger de Pont L'Évêque, the Archbishop of York; Gilbert Foliot, the Bishop of London; and Josceline de Bohon, the Bishop of Salisbury. At that time, Reginald was a member of the King's Council, or curia regis.[14] Reginald was a member of the party that met Becket at Sandwich on 1 December 1070 when the archbishop returned to England. This group, led by Gervase of Cornhill, complained that the archbishop was sowing dissension in the land by his excommunication of Roger of York and the two bishops, but Becket managed to calm the officials by stating he would consider the matter and reply to them the next day. The following day the group was joined by several clergymen sent by the excommunicated ecclesiastics, but nothing more was accomplished by this meeting, other than further offers by Becket to consider alternative options.[15] Reginald was involved in a subsequent attempt at resolving the differences between the King and Becket later in the month, which again came to nothing.[16]

In 1173 Reginald worked for the King, along with Richard fitzNigel and Nicholas de Sigillo, to assess a land tax on parts of the royal estate. They assessed the tax in Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Oxfordshire, Kent and Sussex.[17] During the Revolt of 1173–1174 Reginald served the King as castellan of Hastings Castle.[18]

Death and legacy

Reginald married Alice, the daughter and heiress of William de Wormegay, Baron of Wormegay in Norfolk. William de Wormegay had died in 1166. Reginald was fined just over 466 pounds by the King for the right to inherit his father-in-law's lands and become Lord of Wormegay, or Baron Wormegay.[19] This lordship was assessed at fourteen and a quarter knight's fees and was located mostly in Norfolk and Suffolk. The centre of this land was Lynn, in Norfolk.[20]

Reginald gave up his public duties in 1176.[18] Although his considerable debts (including the levy for the Wormegay Barony) had been tacitly ignored while he was in the king's service, as soon as he retired the Exchequer demanded that he start to quickly repay them.[18] Sometime between Michaelmas 1178 and the start of 1179, Reginald became a monk at Lewes Priory in Sussex, which had been founded by his family in the previous century.[1] He died in 1179, still owing a large portion of the fine levied against him for the inheritance of his father-in-law's estates.[1] His heir was his son William de Warenne.[19] Besides his son, Reginald also had several daughters. One was Gundrada, who married three times: firstly to Peter de Valognes,[2] son of Roger de Valognes;[21] then to William de Courcy,[2] son of William de Courcy[lower-alpha 3] and Avice de Rumilly the daughter of William Meschin;[22] and finally to Geoffrey Hose,[2] the son of Henry Hose.[23] Another daughter, Alice, married Peter, Constable of Mealton. A possible third daughter, Muriel, was a nun at Carrow Abbey,[2] and another possible daughter, Ela, married Duncan the Earl of Fife.[24]

The historian Edmund King has called Reginald "the fixer in that formidable family".[25] Reginald gave lands and gifts to several monasteries. Among these were the Warenne family foundations of Lewes and Castle Acre Priory, with further gifts to Carrow, Clerkenwell Priory, and Binham Priory.[1]

Notes
  1. According to Warren, the others summoned by Henry were: 1174: John de Cumin, William fitzRalph, William fitzStephen 1176: William Basset, Roger fitzReinfrid 1177: Hugh de Cressy 1179: Hugh de Gaerst, Ranulf de Glanvill, Hugh Murdac 1182: William de Auberville, Osbert fitzHervey 1184: Ralph fitzStephen.
  2. Writing in 1942, Edward Warren argued that in 1168 Henry II summoned Reginald as a serjeant-at-law,[12][lower-alpha 1] but later researchers have not agreed with Warren's conclusions.[1][13]
  3. The son of William de Courcy who was the son of Richard de Courcy.[22]

Citations
  1. Chandler "Warenne, Reginald de" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  2. Keats-Rohan Domesday Descendants pp. 777–778
  3. Keats-Rohan Domesday Descendants pp. 239–240
  4. Stringer "Ada , countess of Northumberland" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  5. Crouch Reign of King Stephen p. 128
  6. King King Stephen pp. 238–239
  7. King King Stephen pp. 282–283
  8. King King Stephen pp. 288–289
  9. Richardson and Sayles Governance of Mediaeval England p. 213
  10. Carpenter Struggle for Mastery pp. 205–206
  11. Richardson and Sayles Governance of Mediaeval England p. 203
  12. Warren "Serjeants-at-Law" Virginia Law Review p. 919 and footnote 18
  13. Baker Order of Serjeants at Law pp. 9–10
  14. Barlow Thomas Becket p. 223
  15. Barlow Thomas Becket pp. 224–227
  16. Barlow Thomas Becket p. 230
  17. Richardson "Richard fitz Neal" English Historical Review p. 169 footnote 1
  18. Vincent "Court of Henry II" Henry II p. 301
  19. Sanders English Baronies pp. 101–102
  20. Turner English Judiciary pp. 90–91
  21. Keats-Rohan Domesday Descendants p. 758
  22. Keats-Rohan Domesday Descendants p. 428
  23. Keats-Rohan Domesday Descendants p. 1006
  24. Chandler "Ada de Warenne" Scottish Historical Review p. 128
  25. King King Stephen p. 337

References
  • Baker, J. H. (1984). The Order of Serjeants at Law. London: Seldon Society. OCLC 27811571.
  • Barlow, Frank (1986). Thomas Becket. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-07175-1.
  • Carpenter, David (2004). The Struggle for Mastery: The Penguin History of Britain 1066–1284. New York: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-014824-8.
  • Chandler, Victoria (October 1981). "Ada de Warenne, Queen Mother of Scotland (c. 1123–1178)". The Scottish Historical Review. 60 (170 Part 2): 119–139. JSTOR 25529417.
  • Chandler, Victoria (2004). "Warenne, Reginald de (1121x6–1178/9)" ((subscription or UK public library membership required)). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/47230. Retrieved 9 January 2013.
  • Crouch, David (2000). The Reign of King Stephen: 1135–1154. New York: Longman. ISBN 0-582-22657-0.
  • Keats-Rohan, K. S. B. (1999). Domesday Descendants: A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents, 1066–1166: Pipe Rolls to Cartae Baronum. Ipswich, UK: Boydell Press. ISBN 0-85115-863-3.
  • King, Edmund (2010). King Stephen. The English Monarchs Series. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-11223-8.
  • Richardson, H. G. (April 1928). "Richard fitz Neal and the Dialogus de Scaccario". The English Historical Review. 43 (170): 161–171. doi:10.1093/ehr/XLIII.CLXX.161. JSTOR 552059.
  • Richardson, H. G.; Sayles, G. O. (1963). The Governance of Mediaeval England: From the Conquest to Magna Carta. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. OCLC 504298.
  • Sanders, I. J. (1960). English Baronies: A Study of Their Origin and Descent 1086–1327. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. OCLC 931660.
  • Stringer, Keith (2004). "Ada , countess of Northumberland (c.1123–1178)" ((subscription or UK public library membership required)). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/50012. Retrieved 9 January 2013.
  • Turner, Ralph V. (2008). The English Judiciary in the Age of Glanvill and Bracton, c. 1176–1239 (Reprint ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-07242-5.
  • Vincent, Nicholas (2007). "The Court of Henry II". In Harper-Bill, Christopher; Vincent, Nicholas (eds.). Henry II: New Interpretations. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press. pp. 278–334. ISBN 978-1-84383-340-6.
  • Warren, Edward H. (May 1942). "Serjeants-at-Law: The Order of the Coif". Virginia Law Review. 28 (7): 911–950. JSTOR 1068630.

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