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)
WILLIAM DE PAULET (23)
William was the third in a succession of William de Paulets of Pawlett in Somerset and Legh Paulet in Devon.
He was the son of an older William de Paulet.
As with all these early William Paulets, we do not know the names of his mother or his wife.
The one distinctive piece of information about him we have is that he was a juror at the Perambulation of the Forest of Neroche, in Somerset, about 1298.[1]
Neroche Forest is an ancient hunting park on the northern escarpment of the Blackdown Hills, on the Somerset-Devon border. It contains the Iron Age hillfort of Castle Neroche, later overlaid with a motte and bailey.
A Norman “forest” was not necessarily tree-covered.
In 1298 a perambulation was made of all the royal forests in Somerset by the view of Macolm de Harleigh and John de Wrothesley for the king and Baldric de Nunnington and Sir Hugh Popham for the county. At least one forester and verderer, together with a jury, toured the boundaries of the forest, checking the markers and resolving disputes about the legal extent of the forest.
In 1300 the Great Perambulation was held. Many, if not all, the royal forests were perambulated and often reduced greatly in their extent, in theory to the boundaries at the time of Henry II. However, this depended on the decisions of local juries.
William had one known child, his son and heir William de Paulet.
[1] Winn, Colin G., The Pouletts of Hinton St. George (London: Research Publishing, 1976.)
[2] Photograph: Martin Bodman
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