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The St Valery family

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Miss Moppet
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The St Valery family

Post by Miss Moppet » Fri November 27th, 2009, 9:21 pm

Trying to find a family tree for the de St Valery family which covers 1066 to about 1250. There seems to have been a Norman and an English branch. The most famous of the English branch is probably Maude de St Valery who married William de Braose, fell foul of King John and came to a nasty end. Of the Norman branch, Thomas de St Valery played an important role at Bouvines. There is lots of stuff on the internet but I don't know which sites are reliable and which not. I haven't had much truck with geneaology before because I've usually been dealing with the C16 at the earliest and by then you know who is who (usually). The London Library has a whole section on geneaology and I expect I can find something there on important Norman families but being in print, it may be out of date. So my question is: can anyone recommend a geneaology website, or indeed any recent print sources? There's a book by Daniel Power, The Norman Frontier in the 12th and 13th centuries, which has geneaologies for a lot of families, but irritatingly, if he has the St Valerys Google Books doesn't include that page.

annis
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Post by annis » Sat November 28th, 2009, 4:47 am

This is only a little bit, Miss M, but does seem to be the same family -- you might have already checked it out

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.anc ... ro/ips.htm

Scroll down to Sant Valery listing

Maud appears in the listing for Bernard IV de Saint Valery, amongst his children

The Seigneurs de Saint Valery are also mentioned in this Normandy Nobility listing, Chapter 7, section C
http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/NORMAN% ... c243182175
Last edited by annis on Sat November 28th, 2009, 4:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

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EC2
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Post by EC2 » Sat November 28th, 2009, 11:50 am

Dang, I've seen something but can't remember where because it wasn't part of my need to know research. If I see it again, I'll let you know. I think it was when I was grubbing about in my investigations re Speen and the marshals (the Braoses were involved). There is an awful lot of bad information out there when it comes to family trees. Soc.gen.Medieval may be able to help, but some of the list members are a bit bonkers. You could always check out the Newsgroups listings and put in a search to see if anyone has submitted information... That was initially how I found out about William Longespee being Ida de Tosney's son by Henry II.
Les proz e les vassals
Souvent entre piez de chevals
Kar ja li coard n’I chasront

'The Brave and the valiant
Are always to be found between the hooves of horses
For never will cowards fall down there.'

Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal

www.elizabethchadwick.com

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Post by annis » Sat November 28th, 2009, 5:43 pm

And there are so many family genealogies out there which haven't yet caught up with your discovery about Ida, EC, and still list William de Longespee's mother as any number of variations!

I did check the old faithful "Dictionnaire de la noblesse, contenant les généalogies--" by Aubert de La Chesnaye des Bois, but didn't spot any Saint Valerys there.

I did come across this piece about Maud ( did she really have 16 children!) which gives provenance for Maud's father being Bernard IV de Saint-Valery -- there seems to have been some thought that she was a daughter of the Reginald de Saint Valery who appears on the Battle Abbey roll
http://freespace.virgin.net/doug.thomps ... audsv.html

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Miss Moppet
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Post by Miss Moppet » Sun November 29th, 2009, 2:54 am

[quote=""EC2""]Soc.gen.Medieval may be able to help, but some of the list members are a bit bonkers. You could always check out the Newsgroups listings and put in a search to see if anyone has submitted information... That was initially how I found out about William Longespee being Ida de Tosney's son by Henry II.[/quote]

I have had a look and they have had a few threads about it. Apparently there was an article about the St Valery/Walery family in vol 30 of The Genealogist and I found a link to this extract from the Histoire des Ducs de Normandie et des Rois d'Angleterre, which is the proof of Maude de Braose's paternity you mentioned, Annis:

http://freespace.virgin.net/nigel.nicho ... #extract_e

So where the Reginald thing came from, I don't know.

Many thanks for the links and suggestions. The Normandy Nobility one is especially useful as it mentions the primary sources. I have got enough from this to make a family tree but I'll try to track down the article too.

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Post by annis » Sun November 29th, 2009, 3:08 am

Posted by Miss Moppet
have had a look and they have had a few threads about it. Apparently there was an article about the St Valery/Walery family in vol 30 of The Genealogist and I found a link to this extract from the Histoire des Ducs de Normandie et des Rois d'Angleterre, which is the proof of Maude de Braose's paternity you mentioned, Annis:

http://freespace.virgin.net/nigel.ni....htm#extract_e
Love the story about the lethal cheeses :)

*Edit --There must also be some confusion about who the St Valery listed on the Battle Abbey roll is. I see that Renaud (Reginald) II de Saint Valery was Bernard IV 's father and therefore Maud's paternal grandfather, but was not born until after the Battle of Hastings I see a suggested birth date of 1094, rather later than 1066!

Now, I'm curious and have to check. Ok - it looks as if it was Bernard II de Saint Valery who was killed in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings. No wonder people end up terminally confused when trying to sort out genealogical questions!
Last edited by annis on Sun November 29th, 2009, 3:30 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Ken
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Post by Ken » Sun November 29th, 2009, 2:14 pm

Not sure if this will be of any help as it's for a later period, but I came across this while reading an account of King Louis' crusade in 1250:

"When this was done, the King and barons sent for my Lord John of Valery the paladin, and spoke to him as follows: " My lord of Valery," said the King, "we have agreed that the Legate shall deliver these six thousand pounds to you, to distribute as you shall think best." "Sir," said the paladin, "you do me great honour, and I thank you; but this honour and this offer that you make me, please God, I shall not accept; for I should be breaking the good customs of the Holy Land, which are these: that when any of the enemies' cities is taken, the King should have one third, and the pilgrims two thirds of the goods that may be found in it...."

This is taken from Ethel Wedgwood's 'Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville' (1906). A full copy of this book is available on line.

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Post by Miss Moppet » Sun November 29th, 2009, 11:50 pm

[quote=""Ken""]Not sure if this will be of any help as it's for a later period, but I came across this while reading an account of King Louis' crusade in 1250:

"When this was done, the King and barons sent for my Lord John of Valery the paladin, and spoke to him as follows: " My lord of Valery," said the King, "we have agreed that the Legate shall deliver these six thousand pounds to you, to distribute as you shall think best." "Sir," said the paladin, "you do me great honour, and I thank you; but this honour and this offer that you make me, please God, I shall not accept; for I should be breaking the good customs of the Holy Land, which are these: that when any of the enemies' cities is taken, the King should have one third, and the pilgrims two thirds of the goods that may be found in it...."

This is taken from Ethel Wedgwood's 'Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville' (1906). A full copy of this book is available on line.[/quote]

Not sure who this would be - I can't find a C13 John de (Saint) Valery and as far as I can tell the St Valery name died out because women inherited. I may have missed something though, or perhaps it's a different family.

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