Talk:Aubrey de Vere I

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Origins[edit]

Through the centuries several assertions have been put forward regarding the birthplace and region of origin of Aubrey de Vere I. A common theory of the late middle ages and early modern period was that the Veres ancestors included a minor Roman emperor, Marcus Antonius Verus, Charlemagne, and the counts of Guînes. Aubrey's wife was said to have been a sister of king William the Conqueror. Those grandiose theories have been easily disproved. The theory that Aubrey or his ancestors were from the island of Veere in modern Zeeland, the Netherlands, is unlikely. That leaves the most common recent proposals: the area of Vire in southwestern Normandy and Brittany.

The majority of scholars have accepted Vire. That region is approximately 55 km. southeast of Coutances and Aubrey de Vere I is listed as a vassal of the bishop of Coutances, Geoffrey de Mowbray, in England in 1086 (Domesday Book). The Breton origin theory nominates Vern-sur-Seiche, which is approximately 10 km southeast of Rennes, the main town of Brittany. Aubrey also held of Count Alan of Brittany, lord of Richmond, in England in 1086. K. Keats-Rohan has claimed Aubrey I de Vere as a Breton, but she has ignored evidence that he was more closely associated with Geoffrey bishop of Coutances, a diocese in western Normandy about 55 km northwest of Vire, until the death of the bishop in 1093. There is, however, little likelihood that Aubrey I was from the town of Ver-sur-Mer on the coast of central Normandy. That town is far too distant from either Coutances or Brittany to make his feudal connections with the bishop and count probable if he were from there.DeAragon 17:13, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Here follows a list of all locations held by Aubrey de Vere and his wife as subtenants, according to the Open Domesday site created and maintained by Anna Powell-Smith, who used Domesday data created by Professor J.J.N. Palmer, University of Hull.

As one can see, the claim that Aubrey de Vere "was more closely associated with Geoffrey bishop of Coutances" than with Count Alan of Brittany is not supported by this data.

Aubrey de Vere

Aubrey de Vere’s wife

http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/TL8132/napsted/ Lord under Bishop Odo of Bayeux as TIC. http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/TL9125/aldham/ Lord under Bishop Odo of Bayeux as TIC.

Zoetropo (talk) 02:09, 2 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Lists of manors from Domesday Book does not in any way prove or disprove the degree of association of Aubrey I de Vere with Geoffrey de Mowbray bishop of Coutances in comparison with his association with Count Alan. He held three manors from each lord in 1086. The Domesday value of the lands he held of the bishop was 33 pounds, while those he held of the count was 18 pounds. The names of the tenants on lands he held in chief include two Bretons, Everard fitz Brian de Scalaris and Enisant of Belchamp, but also at least seven Normans and five Englishmen. Aubrey I named his eldest son Geoffrey--for his lord the bishop? His own Christian name (and that of his second son and namesake) was shared with men from many regions in Europe, but the names of his other sons were quite common among the Normans: Robert, Roger, and William. Bishops Geoffrey and Odo of Bayeux chose the wrong side in a rebellion against William II in 1088; the manors Aubrey had held of Bishop Geoffrey were converted to tenancies in-chief. The Richmond connection necessarily became more important to him thereafter, the count being the only lord other than the king to whom he continued to owe service. The evidence is open to various interpretations as to his origins.DeAragon 04:38, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Aubrey's origins do pose an interesting challenge. You're right that Robert, Roger and William were popular Norman names, and naming patterns often commemorate recent family members, as with Prince George Alexander Louis (an argument I've used to support Trevor Foulds's suggestion that Matilda d'Aincourt was the Conqueror's daughter Princess Matilda). But it should also be borne in mind that there were large numbers of Bretons all over Normandy, and that extensive intermarriages (the Norman aristocracy were by this time of majority local, i.e. Gallic, Breton and Frankish, descent) and the growing incidence of names from far afield were making ethnic identifications increasingly difficult. In Count Alan's family, all of whom self-identified as Bretons, names were diverse: one finds Frankish (Odo), Angevin (Geoffrey), Norman (William, Robert, Richard), Celtic (Brian), Celtic/Iranian (Alan), Latin (Musard), Biblical Greek (Stephen, Agnes), German (Adela) and some quite odd names such as Ribald, Bodin and Bardolf; the children of Count Stephen and his Breton wife Hawise (perhaps from the Latin Avis) were Geoffrey, Alan, Henry, Maud, Olive, Theophania and Eléonore. Zoetropo (talk) 01:58, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There's circumstantial evidence that the immediate cause of the Rebellion of 1088 was jealousy by Bishop Odo of Bayeux of Count Alan Rufus and William de St Calais usurping (as he saw it) Odo's accustomed position of influence over the crown. Odo and his allies lost because, although they had superior strength on paper, the loyalists were more battle-hardened (Alan and the royal household knights had recently fought a long, hard war against the French in Maine) and had the political acumen to win the support of the Bishops based in England and of the English people. Zoetropo (talk) 01:58, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

DeAragon, would you be so kind as to present the evidence that the Brian who was the father of Everard was Brian de Scalaris? Is this the same Everard who is listed first in the Domesday record of the Hundred of Cheveley in Cambridgeshire? (It has a bearing on the credibility and suitability of a contribution I made to another article.) Also, what was this Brian's relationship to Harduin de Scales? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zoetropo (talk • contribs) 02:05, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Aubrey's tenant is listed simply as Everard in Domesday Book for Cambridgeshire, but in the Inquisitio Comitatus Cantebrigiensis (1086) he is identified as Everard fitz Brian de Scalaris. It has been assumed that Brian was kin to Harduin; both were tenants of Count Alan in that county in 1086. That's all I have on these men.DeAragon 23:16, 26 April 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dearagon (talk • contribs)

What evidence is there either way that Aubrey is (or is not) the son of the count of Guînes? The Jade Knight (talk) 06:04, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is no evidence that Aubrey I was related in any way to the count of Guînes. His grandson Aubrey de Vere, 1st Earl of Oxford married Beatrice, heiress to the county of Guînes through her mother, and was briefly Count of Guînes by right of his wife. Within seven or eight years the couple had divorced, allegedly because the marriage had not been consummated due to her ill health. That is the only evidence of connection between the de Veres and the counts of Guînes. DeAragon 01:48, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Marriage[edit]

A recent episode of the British series Time Team on Earl's Colne and the de Vere earls of Oxford perpetuated a long-standing myth that Aubrey de Vere I who founded the priory at Earl's Colne was married to Beatrice, "half-sister to William the Conqueror". There is no evidence to support this assertion and plenty of evidence against it. First, William duke of Normandy is not known to have had a sister (full or half or step) named Beatrice. Second, Aubrey's origins are obscure, while William's known sisters who married were wed to prominent lords. Third, Aubrey's unnamed wife is stated in Domesday Book to have held 90 shillings' worth of land in Essex, far too minor to have been the dowry of a close kinswoman of the Conqueror. Finally, Aubrey himself was a relatively minor tenant-in-chief in 1086; his holdings in-chief were almost equaled by lands he held of the bishop of Coutances and the lord of Richmond; it is highly unlikely that a half-brother-in-law of the king would hold so much of his lands of other lords.

The claim that Beatrice was the Conqueror's kinswoman is almost certainly linked with the erroneous assertion that the Veres were counts of Guines before the Conquest.DeAragon 21:51, 8 July 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dearagon (talk • contribs)