♂Ralph FitzGeremund

Ralph FitzGeremund was a Derbyshire knight of the twelfth century, lord of half the manor of Ockbrook and of Alvaston with its soke, and the father of William FitzRalph, sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire and seneschal of Normandy. His name means Ralph son of Geremund. He was the twenty-fifth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his daughter Margaret.

Lands

Ralph held his manors under the great Alselin fee. In the returns the barons made to the king in 1166, the Cartae Baronum^W, Ralph Alselin listed him as holding two knights’ fees^W of the old enfeoffment, and Robert de Cauz returned him as holding half a fee more. Some years before, between 1154 and 1164, Henry II had named him, with Froger, archdeacon of Derby, Ranulf, the sheriff, and burgesses of Derby, to inquire into the patronage of the church of St Peter in Derby.

He and his forebears gave the priory of Tutbury^W half the land of Hardwick, a gift his son William later confirmed. A lady named Hawisia, who had been his wife, gave the canons of Darley eight acres between Boulton and Osmaston.

The hermit of Depedale

The chronicle of Dale Abbey tells how Ralph came to shelter its first hermit. A Derby baker, Cornelius, had gone after a vision of the Virgin to live alone at Depedale, a marshy hollow in Ralph’s woods at Ockbrook, where he cut himself a cell and an altar in the rock. Ralph, back from Normandy and out hunting with his dogs and attendants, saw smoke rising from the cave and was astonished that anyone had dared to live in his wood without leave. But when he found the man in rags and skins and heard why he had come, he “was smitten at the heart”: according to the chronicle he granted the hermit the place and gave him the tithe of his mill at Burgh, now Borrowash, for his support. The brethren at Depedale still received that tithe when the chronicle was written.

The story stayed in the family. In the next generation his son William founded a house of Premonstratensian^W canons in his park at Stanley, next to Depedale, and Margaret’s son William de Grendon gave the hermit’s site to it. It was William’s daughter Matilda, honored by the canons as the foundress of their church, who in her old age told them how her grandfather had found the hermit.

Family

His daughter Margaret married Serlo de Grendon, lord of Bradley, and brought him half the manor of Ockbrook as her marriage portion; the greater part of her inheritance passed in the end to her three daughters, Johanna, Isolda and Agatha. His son William FitzRalph was sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire from 1168 to 1180, with Serlo as his deputy for the last years, and seneschal of Normandy^W from 1178 until about 1189.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his daughter Margaret, her daughter Isolda de Grendon and Isolda’s son Henry Brailsford (died about 1260), then through Henry Brailsford (died about 1304), Ralph Brailsford (died 1344), Henry Brailsford, Joan Brailsford, Thomas Basset, Joan Basset and Beatrix Shirley (died 1483), and on through Governor Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653) and his son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683). One comes down to Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844), and the other to Nathaniel’s wife, Anna Smith (1764–1825); the two lines meet again in their daughter Sarah Dudley (1795–1839).

Notes

Sources

The records of Ralph’s life are gathered in S. P. H. Statham, “Later Descendants of Domesday Holders of Land in Derbyshire”, Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, vol. 48 (1926), pp. 57–62: the 1166 returns (from the Red Book of the Exchequer), the inquiry into St Peter’s church and Hawisia’s gift (from the Darley chartulary), and William’s charter to Tutbury confirming the half of “Herdewicke” “which Ralph f. Geremund, my father, and other my ancestors gave to them” (Tutbury chartulary, British Library Add. MS 6714). That charter is what places William’s parentage, which earlier writers had taken as probable, “beyond all doubt” in Statham’s words.

The story of the hermit is in the chronicle of Thomas de Musca, a canon of Dale, translated by Charles Kerry in Depedale, and the Chronicle of Thomas de Musca, Canon of Dale Abbey (1883), chapters III and IV; the founding of the abbey at Stanley is in chapter XII. The chronicler wrote it down from the account of the Lady Matilda de Salicosa Mara, Ralph’s granddaughter, so it is a family tradition set down at least two generations after the event. Kerry identifies “Burgum” as Borrowash.

Margaret or Margery

The chronicle calls his daughter Margery; Statham and the Dale chartulary call her Margaret, the form the family tree uses.

His wife

Statham quotes Alexander Hanselin’s confirmation of a grant made by “the lady Hawisia late the wife of Ralph f. Geremund”. Whether Hawisia was the mother of Margaret and William is not known, and the family tree does not name a wife.

Kerry’s additions

Kerry’s note to chapter IV calls Ralph “de Hanselin” and “Seneschal of Normandy”. Neither is in the chronicle’s own words; the records Statham gathers give the seneschalship to Ralph’s son William.

Geremund and Thomas

Statham found no record of Geremund himself. He suggests that Geremund succeeded Azelin of Egginton, a tenant in Domesday Book, perhaps as his son. Ralph had a brother, Thomas, who gave up to Tutbury two virgates he had recovered in the king’s court.