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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 1999-08 > 0934308513
From: Stewart Baldwin< >
Subject: Aufrica de Connaught, heiress of Man
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 18:08:33 GMT
In my previous long postings on the kings of Man, one loose end that
has remained has been the status of Aufrica de Connaught, one of the
heiresses of Man after the kingdom ceased to exist. At the time, the
lack of access to primary sources had forced me to rely on good
secondary sources (such as CP), but I now have found transcriptions of
some of the relevant primary sources. Although primary documentation
can now be given for some of the previous material, loose ends still
remain, as will appear from the discussion below.
The primary sources given here are transcribed (in original Latin with
English translations) in "The Manx Society" 7 (1861), 125-7, 137-8. I
give brief abstracts here which give the substance of the documents.
pp. 125-7: 15 June 1293. Aufrica, kinswoman [consanguinea] and
heiress, as she asserts, of Magnus, formerly king of Man, having
unsuccessfully pleaded her claims before the king of Scotland [John de
Baliol], had appealed her case to the king of England [Edward I, to
whom John de Baliol had sworn fealty the previous year], who cited the
king of Scotland to appear before him to answer the claims of Aufrica.
[source given as "Rotuli Scoti" (Scottish Rolls)]
pp. 137-8: "Thursday the vigils of the Annunciation of the blessed
Mary the Virgin", 1305. Aufrica de Connoght, heiress of Man, cedes
all of her rights as heiress to Simon de Montacute, knight. [source
given as "Dods. MSS." (Bodleian Library, Oxford)]
Although some secondary sources have suggested that Aufrica had
married Simon, there is no good evidence that such a marriage ever
took place (and two other marriages are known for Simon, see CP). Two
obvious questions which are immediately suggested from the above items
are:
1. What was Aufrica's exact relationship to Magnus, king of Man?
2. Where did the appellation "de Connoght" come from?
A strange piece of evidence (possibly a red herring) comes from the
article on Simon de Montacute in the "Dictionary of National
Biography" [DNB]. There, it states that "Montacute married Aufricia,
daughter of Fergus, and sister of Orray, king of Man, by whom he had
two sons, William, who succeeded him, and is separately noticed, and
Simon." This statement is strange for a couple of reasons that go
beyond the apparently undocumented marriage. First, king "Orray" (or
Orry) of Man is a legendary king of Man who is generally believed to
be ultimately based on the historical Godred Crovan, two centuries
earlier. Second, it reminds one of another Aufrica who was the
daughter of a Fergus, namely, Aufrica, daughter of Fergus of Galloway,
who was the wife of Godred Crovan's son Olaf of Man and apparently an
ancestor of the present Aufrica, which along with the reference to
"Orray" suggests that there has been some confusion between the
present Aufrica and the earlier one. Still, even though DNB is not
always the most reliable of secondary sources, it does not generally
make blunders that bad. As usual, sources for most of the statements
of DNB (including the one here) are not individually cited, but the
references are listed at the end (most of which are unavailable to
me), and it is not clear which one provided the cited data. Needless
to say, I would be interested an any references which give a better
clue as to the ultimate origin of that claim.
As for the two questions asked above, here are some possible answers,
although other options should also be considered.
1. It seems unlikely that Aufrica was a daughter of either of the
brothers of Magnus who had formerly reigned in Man, because she
probably would have been identified as such. One of the brothers of
Magnus, Reginald, had a daughter and heiress Mary who appears in the
records already discussed in my previous postings. Thus, Aufrica
could not have been a more distant relative (as has sometimes been
suggested), because then Mary (and not Aufrica) would have been the
legal heiress of Magnus. Thus, the most likely possibility is that
Aufrica was a daughter or granddaughter of Magnus. Chronologically,
the former seems more likely.
2. Aufrica appears without the designation "de Connoght" in the 1293
record, and is then called "de Connoght" in the 1305 record. Thus, a
reasonable conjecture would be that she had married in the interval,
to a _____ de Connoght (presumably Connacht, or Connaught, in
Ireland). I am not aware of any Irish records which would confirm
such a marriage.
If anyone has any evidence either for or against the above
suggestions, I would be interedsted in seeing it.
Stewart Baldwin
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