26. HACCOMBE

Sampson  Tree

JORDAN DE HACCOMBE (26)

 

JORDAN DE HACCOMBE.  We do not know for certain that Jordan was the son of William de Haccombe who owned the family estates in 1166, but it seems likely. He witnessed a deed for Isabel de Wadeton whose father also flourished around 1166.

He is thought to have been born around 1170.[1] This was in the reign of England’s first Plantagenet king, Henry II. 1170 was the year of the murder of Archbishop Thomas a Becket in Canterbury Cathedral by supporters of the king.

 

We do not know who Jordan married. His eldest son was Stephen, probably born around 1200.

 

Jordan first enters the records in 1216. Between then and his birth, the crusading king Richard the Lionheart had come and gone. His deeply unpopular brother King John had signed Magna Carta, guaranteeing certain rights to the barons and common people. In 1216 King John died and was succeeded by his 9-year-old son Henry III. It was in the first year of the young king’s reign that Jordan is first recorded.

Sir William Pole writes of: “Haccombe, the dwelling of Jordan de Haccomb in y^e beginnnynge of Kinge Henry 3 (1216) whom followed S^r Stephen.”

Risdon records a Jordan de Haccombe who witnessed the agreement between Isabel de Wadeton quondam uxor (the former wife of) Martin Fizacre (Fishacre) and the  Abbot of Torr. This Isabel was a daughter of Osbert de Wadeton who flourished around 1166.

At the beginning of Henry’s reign, an amnesty was declared for the rebellious barons who had opposed King John. Many of them went on crusade to the Holy Land.

In 1228, Bishop Briwere of Exeter and Peter de Rupibus of Winchester went together on the 5^th Crusade. The bishop took with him the active members of the leading Devon families. Some researchers have thought that both Jordan and his son Stephen were among them.

There was speculation that Jordan may have died on this crusade, perhaps around 1230. But A. W. Searley, who published extensive research into the Haccombe family in 1918, thinks it improbable that both father and son went on this crusade. The son Stephen was young and healthy, and legend has it that he was a Crusader. Searley believes it unlikely that the older Jordan accompanied him. He would have been about 58, if he was still alive then.

The sparse dates we have for Jordan, and the first documented date for his son as lord of the manor, give him a death date between 1216 and 1241. It was probably in the later part of this range.

 

[1] Genealogical information from A. W. Searley, “Haccombe, Part I, (1086-1330)”,  Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 1918.