25. ST AUBYN

Sampson  Tree

EARLY ST AUBYNS (25)

 

The Duchess of Cleveland’s account of the Battle Abbey Roll and the origins of Norman families claims:

Sent Albin: from a place so named near Evreux: another West-country family. Mauger de St. Albyn witnessed the foundation charter of Barnstaple Abbey in the time of the Conqueror, and his posterity remained for many generations in Devonshire.[1]

The town of Evreux lies in Haute-Normandie, between Le Havre and Paris.

The St Aubyn/Sancto Albino name does not appear in the Battle Abbey Roll of the knights who fought with William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings. The Roll is, in any case, unreliable and includes spurious claims by other aristocratic families.

Nor has any reference been found to the Sancto Albino or St Aubyn family among those given land in the Domesday Book, though many of the new Norman landowners appear without surnames.

The St Aubyns were certainly in North Devon by the 13th century. No confirmation has yet been found that a Mauger de St Aubyn was indeed at the founding of Barnstaple Priory. But if true, that would mean that the family was established in Devon within a generation of the Norman Conquest.

There was no abbey at Barnstaple, but there was a Cluniac priory.

King William held the Borough of Barnstaple for himself. When Henry the first came to the throne [1100], the first Lord of Barnstaple was appointed, Judheal of Totnes. In 1107 Judhael founded the Priory of St Mary Magdalene outside the town defense wall.[2]

If a Mauger St Albyn witnessed it, he would almost certainly be an ancestor of the men in subsequent generations bearing his name.

 

[1] The Duchess of Cleveland, The Battle Abbey Roll , with some account of the Norman lineages, John Murray 1899. www.archive.org.
[2] www.discovering-devon.com/barnstaple-history.html