Marriage of Warin de Vernon & Alde Malbank

I've recently been looking through some of the volumes from the successive Randle Holmes which are now in the Harley Manuscripts at the British Library.

Harl.MS.2065 contains extracts from early Cheshire Inquisitions Post Mortem and on f.25, dated to 32 Henry III (1248) is the order to John de Grey, justiciar of Chester, to make the inquisition into which lands Warin de Vernon held of the king in chief.

The interesting elements come from the jurors comments on his heir.

My rough translation is:

"When Warin was a young man he loved a certain woman named Auda who was first betrothed to Roger de Altaribus, and he took her into England after which the said Warin returned to Cheshire and held her as his own, and by her was born outside marriage a certain Annore by name, and Warin and William, and after censure from the church he married her, and after the marriage was approved was born Ralph"

I need to check my transcription/translation when I next return to the BL, as (typically) I found it fifteen minutes before the manuscripts room closed for the day and cameras are not allowed. It does though seem to pick up on, and clarify, a few elements of the Vernon/Malbank story.

After the death of Warin de Vernon in 1248, his inheritance was quickly divided between his son Ralph, and his grandson Warin, (the son of the Warin mentioned in the 1248 IPM). Ralph and Warin made a fine with the King of 100 marks on 15 Feb 1248/9 for his confirmation of their agreed split. (National Archives, C60/46 m.10 - also online at www.finerollshenry3.org.uk). This arrangement though had always struck me as a slightly unusual arrangement, and indeed a relatively mutual and civil agreement. If, as the jurors in the IPM suggest, there was general doubt over the legitimacy, but not the actual parentage of Warin, then this eventual split of the Vernon inheritanace could have been a practical resolution to this.

Another element from this IPM is the naming of Roger de Altaribus. Auda's first husband is sometimes stated to be Hugh de Altaribus, but there seems to have been a son by this first marriage of that name and confusion could have crept in from this. BL Harl MS 2077, f.63, is a transcript of a charter which dates from before c.1230 from Hugh de Altaripus son of Alde Malbank to "Warin de Vernon my father in law and Warin his son, my brother." However this transcription will need some further corroboration as Harl MS 1988, f.159 has another copy of the same charter in which it is transcribed, not as Hugh, but as "Auda de Altaribus filia Alde Maubank concessi Warino de Veron patri meo in lege et Warino filio suo fratri meo." If Hugh de Altaribus was a son, he may also have taken the name of his step-family as a Hugh de Vernon appears c.1216-c.1230 as parson of Davenham in a charter by Warin de Vernon to his son Nicholas of land at Haslegrove (BL Harl MS.2008, f.52). Who Roger de Altaribus was, or what his background was, I am not yet sure. Indeed given that the jurors were recollecting details of a presumably brief marriage from almost 50 years earlier, then there is a chance that the name of Roger could have been incorrectly recalled.

Another element to note from the transcript of the IPM are the jurors comments that Warin took Auda into England. At this time Cheshire was distinguished politically from the Kingdom of England and not viewed as part of it, so this comment would refer to Warin and Auda simply heading out of the county. (See H.Hewitt, Medieval Cheshire, Chetham Society, 1929, p.7 for more on this perspective plus other examples of this turn of phrase). Indeed, this might have some corroboration from an essoin recorded under the county of Oxfordshire that was provided by Nicholas son of Thomas in 1201 for the case between Warin de Vernon and the King in a plea over why Warin had married without the consent of the King. (see D.Stenton, Pleas before the King or his Justices 1198-1201, Selden Society Vol.67, 1953, p.337).

On the Trail of the Medieval Vernons

Almost twenty years ago I stumbled upon a mass of people with the name of Vernon.  To be precise, I did not actually meet them as all were long since dead. In fact, I think that rather ironically I have probably only ever met three or four living Vernons. These long dead Vernons' names though lept out to me from yellowing volumes of medieval charters and musty scented vellum rolls. At first the finer detail of their lives, relationships and deeds were hazy and confused when viewed through the telescope of time. However, like a blurred horizon, there was just enough visible to encourage me to keep staring to try to bring the detail into better focus and make sense of what I was seeing.

In their day Vernons helped shape the medieval world, but for me as a young history undergraduate at St Andrews University in Scotland, their lives helped shape how I saw the medieval world. History is often taught from the top down. Countries, religions, wars, monarchs and power-broking nobles. For me, uncovering the ebb and flow of the fortunes of the various branches of this one family gave me a different, more personal, insight into the changing medieval world. It helped me understand the top, from, if not the bottom of the feudal and social pyramid, then at least the middle from where the medieval Vernons generally forged their various lives.

It also gave me the chance to step outside the syllabus and follow my thoughts. There was a thrill in checking out books from the university library which had not seen daylight in the best part of a century. Indeed the shelf code for many of these evocatively named medieval tomes such as the Inquisitions Post Mortem, Curia Regis Rolls, and Pipe Rolls still springs to mind - DA90. There were raised eyebrows from tutors who were not probably not quite sure where this sudden enthusiasm had come from in someone who had been quite an average student until then. There were certainly many more raised eyebrows from my friends who were more used to me expousing on the relative merits of McEwans 80/- (the best value beer in the Student Union Bar), than detailing the numerous flaws in sixteenth-century Heralds' Visitations.

In a way though, the published volumes I stumbled on at St Andrews were only the travel guides. I have simply kept on following the trail that they had set me on. Over the years there were trips across England and Normandy and countless days at archives delving into those medieval documents whose silent scratched scripts still bring the world of medieval England back to life. Lives of men like the intriguingly named 'John Fuck God' whose name a medieval clerk carefully recorded during one fifteenth-century court case.

There were debriefings of my thoughts and views along the way; a dissertation at St Andrews on 'The House of Vernon, 1000-1250' followed a year later by an M.Phil at Fitzwilliam College at Cambridge University on 'The Vernons of Haddon, Derbyshire in the Fifteenth Century.'  In the late 90s, the internet also opened up access to the thoughts, research, challenges and support of a wide network of other people around the world; people like Todd Farmerie and Matthew Connolly on gen-medieval.com, Bob Carter and Dallie Vernon on myfamily.com. 

Now in 2012, it is to the internet I am turning again with the plan that this blog will give me a further chance to debrief some of my thoughts. Carrying around in your mind a few centuries worth of information and theories on long dead people is surely not good for you! I mostly hope though that this blog and my thoughts will be of use to others trying to look back through the telescope of time at the same distant medieval horizon.

The Vernons' story goes back ten centuries. It goes back to the world of the Northmen and Normandy. It is a tale of conquest and subjugation. A tale of land and allegiances. A tale of families and people. Posts on this blog will probably come in fits and starts, depending on how often my mind can extract itself from the day to day world of the twenty-first century and allow itself the leisure of jumping back to medieval Vernon, Shipbrook, Haddon and Harlaston. If you're able to join me, I am very welcoming to travellers on the same road.