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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 1998-07 > 0899428140
From: Cristopher Nash< >
Subject: (---) FitzEustace, father of John de Lacy?
Date: 2 Jul 1998 18:09:00 -0700
I notice that in several recent postings under a variety of headers John de
Lacy, Constable of Chester (d. ca. 1190) has with confidence been called
son of Robert FitzEustace.
This is conventionally an issue fraught with confusion. One poster,
probably quite wisely, has referred instead to this father (as husband of
"Albreda Lisoiers") as "Richard (Robert) FitzEustace"
(< >, 11 June 98). There's a problem here.
The trouble springs from a tendency for conflict to arise between accounts
of descent from the FitzEustace line given by researchers interested in the
Lacy family and those interested in the FitzRobert (Wark[worth)]/Clavering)
family. Only readers happening to be so unlucky as to have an interest in
both are likely to find it a problem. On balance, if Lacy, then 'Robert'
inclines to be chosen; if Wark(worth)/Clavering, then 'Richard'. Sadly
it's not even quite so simple as that. Briefly, among the traditional
readings, for John de Lacy's father with Aubrey de Lisours --
These choose 'Richard': Burke's Ext.& Dorm. Peerage ["Clavering"];
Turton (95); Hodgson, Northumberland County History; Clay, _Early
Yorkshire Charters_, III, chart 199; DNB ["Roger de Lacy" and
"Eustace FitzJohn"]; and CP XII, pt 2 [1959, "Vescy", 274, note d].
These choose 'Robert': CP VII (1959, "Lincoln", chart p 677);
Wightman,
_The Lacy Family in England and Normandy 1066-1194_; Le
Patourel and
others deferring to Wightman.
JH Round says the father of John de Lacy remains undetermined (e.g.in
"Who was Alice de Vere", Trans Essex Arch Soc n.s. vol 3).
Wightman, as the most recent among these and often unproblematically
accepted by subsequent historians, seems in principle (in spite of the
weight of previous readings) a man to stick with. Unfortunately, Wightman
(showing no awareness of Round on the subject) skirts the issue altogether
by never considering the argument for - or indeed mentioning - the name
Richard FitzEustace. And more unfortunately, he appears to have inherited
"Robert" from the rough chart in CP VII "Lincoln", p 677, which he has
obviously copied line-for-line and without awareness of its supercession by
"Richard", 30 years later, in CP XII, pt 2.
Unfortunately, the business of given names here isn't as trivial as we
might like. Those familiar with the similar problem of who is the father
of Roger FitzRichard (antecedent of the Wark(worth)/Clavering line) -- is
it Richard FitzEustace? -- will know how identities in this generation have
been utterly confounded by the erroneous attribution of names. A mistake
that even the much-relied-on scholar Clay makes in _Early Yorkshire
Charters_, where he calls the same man Roger FitzRichard and Roger
FitzRoger. Obviously an easy resolution of the father-of-John-de-Lacy
puzzle might seem within reach if we adopted the formula offered by
< >, viz. "Richard (Robert) FitzEustace", with the
presumption that Richard and Robert are the same man. But naturally this
conflation of names/identities can be only as good as the document it's
found written on.
I hope someone here may have found an argument explicitly confronting the
Robert/Richard FitzEustace choices. Failing that, the husband of Aubrey de
Lisours and father of John de Lacy, Constable of Chester, must remain quite
simply a (----) FitzEustace, son of Eustace FitzJohn. Contrary to
historians' blithe assumption, Wightman cannot be taken as a fresh source
of any special value on this particular Lacy sequence, and any assignment
of either Robert or Richard FitzEustace as father of John de Lacy, while
the choice we hit on may be correct, must be made independent of Wightman,
Clay, Complete Peerage, Burke, Turton et al. (And I hope friends here will
forgive me if once again I ask if we can please refrain from citing ES
unless it gives a _source_ excluding -- and hopefully more reliable than -
the ones we already have?)
Sorry for bringing up this mess!
Cris
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