24. ST AUBYN

Sampson  Tree

MAUGER DE ST AUBYN (24)

 

MAUGER DE ST AUBYN is likely to be descended from the Mauger de St Albyn who is said to have witnessed the foundation charter of Barnstaple Priory in 1107.[1] There are probably four generations between the two.

We have very little information about this Mauger de St Aubyn. From the dates of his descendants we assume him to have been born in the last half of the 12th century, probably in the reign of Henry II, perhaps around 1175. [2]

Henry II was the first Plantaganet king. His empire ran from the Scottish border to the Pyrenees, though it did not include Wales. It was a time of great expansion in cathedral and church building.

Mauger’s home was in Georgeham, a village close to the long sandy beach of Woolacombe Bay in North Devon.[3] In the Domesday book the village is known simply as Ham. By 1231 it was Ham St George, witnessing to the fact that by then it had a church dedicated to St George. We do not know the date of the foundation of that earlier church, but it may have been in Mauger’s time.

He married around 1200. We do not know his wife’s name.

Their only known child, Mauger, was born in the early years of the 13th century, possibly as early as 1201.

 

It is likely that Mauger the elder was still alive in 1215, when the unpopular King John was forced by his barons to sign Magna Carta, which offered greater justice and freedom to freemen.

We have no information about Mauger’s death.

 

[1] The Duchess of Cleveland, The Battle Abbey Roll , with some account of the Norman lineages, John Murray
[2] www.linleyfh.com
[3] Photograph www.northdevon.com