26. PAUNCEFOOT

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Fay Sampson’s Family History

This site is a work-in-progress. There is a massive amount to cover. I have included both male and female lines, and some go back 30 generations. Keep coming back for more.
I have numbered the generations working backwards from my own as (1)

 

GEORGE PAUNCEFOOT (26)

 

GEORGE PAUNCEFOOT. We have found only one reference to George Pauncefoot. The British History Online account of Hasfield in Gloucestershire traces the ownership of the manor of Hasfield by the Pauncefoot family.

“In 1166 Henry de Newmarch was holding lands in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire from Westminster Abbey, and the lands probably included Hasfield, as Henry’s under-tenants were Humphrey and Eustace Pauncefoot, of the family which held Hasfield manor for the next four centuries. The intermediate Newmarch lordship passed to the Russell family but was not mentioned after the early 14th century when the yearly rent of a sparrow-hawk was owed to them by the Pauncefoots.

“The first of the Pauncefoot family recorded specifically as lord of the manor of Hasfield was Richard, the son of George Pauncefoot, in 1199.”[1]

The wording implies that George himself was not in possession of the manor.

What is interesting is the connection with Humphrey Pauncefoot, who was an under-tenant of land probably  including Hasfield in 1166, a century after the Norman invasion. There is an alternative family tree for the Pauncefoots compiled by Richard Whiting. It has Humphrey Pauncefoot as the grandson of Bernard Pauncefoot, who appears in the Domesday Survey.

The date of Humphrey’s tenancy of lands in Gloucestershire appear to make him a contemporary of George, rather than of Richard.

We can only speculate about the relationship between George and Humphrey – if indeed this is the same Humphrey Pauncefoot whom we find holding property in Hampshire around the same time. He and Eustace could be brothers, or cousins, or father and son. The same applies to their relationship with George.

The English Pauncefoots appear to descend from the one man of that name in the Domesday Book of 1086. In less than a century there was no time to establish a large extended family. We should expect these 12th century Pauncefoots to be closely related.

There is another Pauncefoot who may be another son of George Pauncefoot and a brother to Richard.. In 1206 Reginald de Pauncevolt was Sheriff of Gloucestershire.  This would put him in the same generation as Richard

We know nothing further about George Pauncefoot, not his wife nor his death date. We should expect him to be married and raising children in the mid-12th century. It is not impossible that he was the son of Bernard Pauncefoot, but he is more likely a grandson.

 

 

 

GRIMBALD PAUNCEFOOT (26)

 

GRIMBALD PAUNCEFOOT.  According to Richard Whiting’s tree, Grimbald Pauncefoot is said to be the son and heir of Bernard Pauncefoot, who appears several times in the Domesday Book.[2]

We have little information about Grimbald. We do not know when or where he was born, where he lived, when he married or when he died. No documents have been found concerning him. Since the Domesday Book was compiled in 1086-7 we can assume that Grimbald lived in the late 11th and early 12th centuries.

His father was a Norman. His properties in S and SW England were 5 manors in Hampshire, 2 in Somerset and 1 each in Dorset and Wiltshire. Grimbald presumably inherited these. They included Little Somborne in Hampshire. We do not know which of them was his home.

All Saints, Little Somborne [3]

Richard Whiting’s tree  says that Grimbald married the daughter and heir of Lord Crickhowell.[4] This is mistaken. There are several records of a later Grimbald Pauncefoot of Hasfield in Gloucestershire marrying the daughter and heir of the Hugh de Turberville, lord of Crickhowell, in the late 13th century.[5] It is not unknown for two families to intermarry in different generations. But no independent confirmation has been found of this earlier marriage. Ancient pedigrees can be unreliable, and it may be that Richard Whiting’s source confused two Grimbalds.

Whoever the couple were, they probably lived through the bitter civil war, when the right of Matilda, daughter and heir of Henry I, to be queen of England was challenged by her cousin Stephen. Stephen became king in 1135.

 

Whiting’s family tree tells us that they had a son Humphrey. We have confirmation of his existence. In 1166 he held two of the properties which were in the possession of Bernard Pauncefoot in the Domesday Survey, so he was probably Bernard’s grandson.[6]

He is likely to be the same  Humphrey Pauncefoot who was also tenant of lands in Gloucestershire in 1166, probably including Hasfield. If so, then this forms a link between the two versions of the Pauncefoot family tree.

Humphrey’s ownership of the Hampshire and West Country properties implies  his father was dead by 1166.

 

[1] British History Online. https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/glos/vol8/pp282-290
[2] Richard Whiting. Whiting of Wood: A Mediaeval Landed Family, 1974 (MS in DRO).
[3] https://www.britainexpress.com/images/attractions/editor/Little-Somborne-9873-s.jpg
[4] Whiting
[5] www.nlw.org.uk[6] A History of the County of Hampshire: Vol 4 (1911), pp. 480-482, ed. William Page. www.britishhistory.ac.uk

 

 

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