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)
RICHARD PAUNCEFOOT and ISABEL (24)
RICHARD PAUNCEFOOT. There are two versions of the ancestry of Grimbald Pauncefoot, lord of Crickhowell Castle in the 13th century. British History Online has an account of the manor of Hasfield between Gloucester and Tewksbury. It traces the lordship from the Pauncefoots in the 12th century.[1]
This is supported by The Baronetage of England, which has an abbreviated form of this tree. This also names Grimbald’s father as Richard.
The Hasfield history has Richard as the son of an older Richard Pauncefoot, who was lord of the manor in 1199. We should assume Richard junior to have been born around the turn of the century, in the time of King Richard I, the crusading king known as the Lionheart, or his unpopular brother King John.
The Baronetage of England has Richard descending from Bernard Pauncevolt. Bernard Pauncevolt is the earliest of that name we know. He held a number of properties in the Domesday Book of 1086. He would not have had a son who was lord of the manor more than a century later, but the Baronetage says only that “Richard Pauncefote, his descendant, obtained a grant from King Henry III of the manor of Hasfield, co. Gloucester, which was regularly transmitted to his posterity till the beginning of the 17th century.”
This Richard Pauncefote woul have been Richard junior’s father.
ISABEL GRIMBAUD. Both the Hasfield manor tree and the Barontage of England agree that Richard’s wife was Isabel. She was the daughter of Robert Grimbaud (or Grimbald) of Clapton in Northants and Maud Danleys.
“By 1269 the moiety or manor (Hildersham) had come to Isabel, daughter of Robert Grimbald & John le Danleys’s sister Maud, & former wife of Richard Pauncefoot (d. after 1262). Isabel held the manor in 1274 & died after 1277. By 1279 her son Grimbald Pauncefoot held that moiety.. He was granted free warren there in 1281 & died in 1287. [2]
“In the 33rd of the subsequent reign,(Henry III, 1249) Richard Pauncefort had a grant of the manor of Hasfield, and, according to Camden, ‘built a fair house at this Hasfield called Pauncefort Court, and his ancestors were possessed of fair lands there in the Conqueror’s time.’ By his wife Isabel he had a son Sir Grimbald Pauncefort.”
The site of Pauncefort Court is now occupied by the later Hasfield Court.
“The final parcel (of the Clopton estate) was that of seven virgates of villeinage given by William Dacus to his daughter Maud on her marriage to Robert Grimbaud, and given by them in turn to their daughter Isabella on her marriage to Richard Pauncefot.” [4]
GEOFFREY (GODFREY) PAUNCEFOOT and SYBIL CANTELOUPE (24)
The alternative version of the Pauncefoot tree has the father of Grimbald Pauncefoot as Geoffrey (or Godfrey) Pauncefoot.
GEOFFREY or GODFREY PAUNCEFOOT was said to be the son of Humphrey Pauncefoot, who owned land in Hampshire and probably in Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire too. He is thought to have been born around 1178.[5] This was the reign of Henry II, which saw a flowering of art and learning and the building of many cathedrals and churches.
SYBIL CANTELOUPE or CANTELOU was the daughter of William de Cantelou and Mascelina de Bracy. She is thought to have been born about 1182.[6] The Canteloupes, like the Pauncefoots, were a Norman family. They came from Canteloupe in the Calvados district of Normandy, via Jersey and Buckinghamshire. Her mother was from Shropshire.[7]
They were married in 1204, in the reign of King John.[8] This was the year England lost its sovereignty over the lands of Maine, Anjou and Normandy.
They are believed to have had two sons, Lemuel and Grimbald. Lemuel is mentioned as inheriting the manor of Sorborne through Humphrey Pauncefoot.
The barons, Church and general populace grew increasingly dissatisfied with John’s rule. In 1215 he was forced to sign the Magna Carta, handing over some of the absolute power of the monarch.
There is a nineteenth-century work that says that “Geoffrey de Pauncevote was steward to the household of King John”.[9]
During the reign of Henry III (1216-1272) Geoffrey Pauncefoot witnessed a grant of land in Clopton, Warwickshire.[10]
Geoffrey apparently inherited his father’s manors of Headbourne Worthy, Little Somborne and Mainstone in Romsey, all in Hampshire, since they passed to his son.[11] He probably owned land in other counties too.
Geoffrey died after 1235.
There is also a family tree which makes Geoffrey the father of Richard Pauncefoot of Hasfield. [12] This would combine both versions of the Pauncefoot tree, introducing an extra generation between the two Richard Pauncefoots. The history of the manor of Hasfield lists the known Pauncefoot lords of the manor. It is not impossible that Geoffrey was omitted because no record was found of his lordship. It does not, however, explain the descent from Humphrey Pauncefoot.
[1] https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/glos/vol8/pp282-290
[2] https://www.hildersham.com/hildersham-vch.html[3] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Hasfield_1_-_SE_from_Hasfield_Court_1714283_d6baa2db.jpg
[4] A Northamptonshire Miscellany: Estate Records of the Hotot family. http://www.northamptonshirerecordsociety.org.uk/eBooks/Miscellany/Hotot_Intro.pdf
[5] http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com
[6] http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com
[7] http://familytrees.genopro.com
8] http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com
[9] Lower, Mark Antony, Patronymica Britannica, 1838-1860. https://forebears.io/surnames/pauncefoot
[10] www.A2A.rog.uk: ER 3/234
[11] www.southernlife.org.uk/somchurc.htm, ‘Parishes: Headbourne Worthy’, A History of the County of Hampshire: Volume 4 (1911), pp. 426-430. http://www.british-history.ac.uk
[12] https://fabpedigree.com/s098/f830211.htm
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