Michael Linton's Bayeux Tapestry: 1066 - A Medieval Mosaic and Puzzles

Amoudreuile :

(so spelt in the Norman Exchequer Rolls of 1198): for Amondeville, derived from Amondeville, near Caen. In Lincolnshire, for some unaccountable reason, the head of the family always bore the mysterious alias of Humfines. The first who came to England, Roger de Amondeville, "called also Humfines," was Seneschal to Remigius, Bishop of Lincoln (one of the compilers of Domesday), and by him endowed with four Lincolnshire manors, Kingerby, the principal seat of his successors, Auresby, Ellesham, and Croxton. He married a daughter of Sir Gerard Salvin, of Thorpe-Salvin in Yorkshire, and left, besides Jolland, his heir, John, and Robert. Jolland's wife, Beatrix Paynell, brought him six sons; 1. Walter, with whom at some time before 1166, she founded a Priory at Ellesham; 2. William; 3. Ralph; 4. Adam; 5. Elias: and 6. Jordan. William and Adam both received grants, the former of the manor of Soredington, the latter of Scodelthorpe, from Gilbert de Gant, Earl of Lincoln; while Ralph obtained from the Earl of Albemarle the Yorkshire manor of Carlton. The Amondevilles had already an estate in that county; for Whitaker tells us that they "were probably the first grantees of Preston-in-Craven under Robert de Poitou." All the four elder brothers died s. p., leaving the inheritance to Elias, who, as Helias de Mundeville, witnesses a deed of William le Gros about 1154, and also appears as a benefactor of Salley Abbey. His son Jolland married a niece of his suzerain the Earl of Albemarle, and was the father of the last heir, Peter, who left two daughters and co-heiresses. Ermentrude, the eldest, married William Dive, who had with her Kingerby, &c.; and Amabel married John Hawton, and brought him Soredington.

But it is quite evident that the name had not died out, either in Yorkshire or Lincolnshire; though the objectionable form of Humfines occurs no more; for Walter de Amundeville was for seven years Viscount of Lincoln in the early part of Henry III.'s reign; and Whitaker speaks of a Nigel de Amundeville who succeeded Elias in Craven, and was most likely his younger son. "Ralph de Amundeville, before 1340, was one of the principal benefactors of Swine Priory, on condition the convent would receive his daughter as a nun."—Poulson's Holderness.

In the county Durham, John de Amundeville, who may have been Roger's son, was seated at Coatham-Amundeville, now a village on the banks of the river Skerne, towards the latter end of the eleventh century. He was its earliest recorded lord, and among the first Norman settlers in the North of England. His name appears on several deeds in the time of Bishop William de Carilepho (1080-99): and Robert, probably his son, witnesses a charter of Bishop Galfrid Rufus (1133-40). Hugh de Hamonda-Villa was one of guardians of the Bishopric during the vacancy of the See on the death of that prelate. Thomas de Amundeville, about 1189-1209, witnesses a charter of Matthew de Lumley to Finchale Priory, and founded a chauntry at Coatham-Amundeville for the soul's rest of his parents, Richard and Clarice. His son John, who succeeded, sold the property; and we next meet with the family in Weardale. "Robert de Amondeville demorant a Wotton in Werdale," stands fifth on the list of the "Chivallers demorantes en le Franchise de Duresme demy Tyne et Teys, q. furent a Baner a la Bataille de Lewes" in 1264.—Hutchinson's Durham. There is now no such place as Wotton in the county; but it was the ancient name of Witton-le-Wear, which about eighty years afterwards became the stronghold of the Lords Eure. How it passed into their possession does not appear; nor can I find any further mention of the Amundevilles in the North.

Another branch existed in Warwickshire and Northamptonshire. Henry de Newburgh, the first Norman Earl of Warwick, enfeoffed Ralph de Amundeville at Lighthorne and Berkeswell, where he was seated in the time of Henry I. In 1122 he witnessed his suzerain's foundation charter of the collegiate church of Warwick. Nigel his son confirmed to the canons of St. Sepulchre, t. Henry II., some land he had bequeathed to them, and likewise "had his seat at Berkeswell, as I guess; for it appears that he had then a Park at this place, and that Oliva his wife had the whole Lordship in dower."—Dugdale. His son and successor, Richard, "had many publique and eminent employments in this Countie;" and the next heir, a second Richard, was of no less account. In 1256 he attended the Earl of Cornwall to Germany; and in 1262, was in the Welsh expedition under Prince Edward. "Whether he did cordially adhere to the rebellious Barons shortly after, I will not take upon me to say; though plain it is that he was in Kenilworth Castle when the Royal army besieged it, and being reputed one of the Baron's partie, had safe conduct with Henry de Hastings and others, to march out upon the render thereof: yet so far he had favour by the Jurie, upon the seizure of his lands, as that they said upon their oaths, that he was there with young Simon de Montfort per districtionem et contra voluntatem suam: so that I do not find that he compounded for his estate. But I suppose that this Richard had no issue; for in 6 Ed. I. he past unto William de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, the inheritance of Berkeswell and Lighthorne, reserving only an estate for life to himself and Maud his wife, and the longer liver of them."—Ibid. His will bears date 27 Ed. I. Way-Amundeville retains his name in Dorset, where his father had received from Ralph Basset the manor of Up-Melcumbe. Thorp-Mundeville was their seat in Northamptonshire, where the last Sir Richard had a grant of free warren in 1253. Hutchins, in his History of Dorset, speaks of younger branches seated at Oakenhill, Stornefield, and Cransford in Suffolk.

Lord Byron, in one of his ballads, introduces an Amundeville as the Lord of his haunted Abbey, over which the vengeful Black Friar held ghostly sway;

"And whether for good, or whether for ill,
It is not mine to say;
But still with the house of Amundeville
He abideth night and day;
By the marriage bed of their lords 'tis said,
He flits on the bridal eve,
And 'tis held as faith, to their bed of death
He comes—but not to grieve."

The Lincolnshire Amundevilles certainly had property in Nottinghamshire, where they owned Winthorpe; but Newstead as certainly never belonged to them, and Byron simply adopted an harmonious and "mouth-filling" name that he had met with on his own pedigree. His ancestor, "Little Sir John with the great Beard," to whom the Abbey was first granted, was the son of Jane Bussy of Hougham in Lincolnshire, descended from one of the heiresses of Amundeville.