Fox and Anderson and Taylor families in USA » Baron Guillaume William Malet I (± 1020-± 1071)

Sources

1. WikiTree, via https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Malet-2...

   Biography
   
   William Malet was a Norman baron who was present at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and later given important positions in England.
   
   Unusually he seems to have held land in England before 1066, and one medieval source remarked that he was half English.
   
   His parentage, including England connection
   
   MEDLANDS (Sep 2018):
   The Carmen de Hastingæ Prœlio by Guy d’Amiens records that "quidam partim Normannus et Anglus compatit/competit Heraldi" was charged with the temporary burial of the body of King Harold II after the battle of Hastings[846]. As noted below, Orderic Vitalis names Guillaume Malet as this person. If the Carmen can be believed, the mother of Guillaume [I] Malet was therefore English. From this information, Keats-Rohan conjectures that the father of Guillaume Malet may have been one of the men who accompanied Emma of Normandy to England in 1002 for her marriage to King Æthelred II, noting that it has been suggested that such men may have continued to hold land in England until 1066[847]. Brown suggests that the English origin of Guillaume’s mother is corroborated by the Domesday Book reference implying that Guillaume held Alkborough in Lincolnshire before the conquest (see below), by Guillaume’s son Robert [I] being described as "avunculus" of Lucy, mother of Ranulf Earl of Chester, who had English antecedents (also see below), and by Lucy’s first husband Ivo de Taillebois holding Alkborough in 1086[848].
   Sources:
   [846] Michel, Francisque (1840) Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, Tome III (Rouen), Widonis carmen de Hastingæ Prœlio, 587, p. 27. [847] Keats-Rohan ‘Malet’, p. 2, citing Douglas, D. C. (1964) William the Conqueror, p. 167 following Ritchie, R. L. G. (1948) Normans in England before Edward the Confessor (Exeter) [neither yet consulted]. [848] Brown (1994), Part 2, Introduction, p. 5.
   Keats-Rohan notes that the Miraculum de nobili genere Crispini, written by Miles Crispin, a monk of Bec in the 1120s and 1130s, is widely doubted in its accuracy concerning two points about William Malet:
   •That William's mother (not wife) was a daughter of Gilbert I Crispin named Esilia. As Keats-Rohan notes "William Malet was not the son of Esilia Crispin but her husband".
   •That William died as a monk in Bec. As Keats-Rohan notes, Domesday Book "clearly indicates that William went on campaign in the Fens sometime c.1071 and met his death there". (MEDLANDS notes that Round doubted this Domesday information.)
   
   Keats-Rohan proposes that both of these two facts might have originally been correct for William's son Robert.
   
   Battle of Hastings
   
   According to Crispin and Macary, "William (Guillaume) Malet de Graville stands out as one of the most imposing figures at the Conquest. There can be no doubt about his presence there, which is subscribed to by William of Poitiers, Guy of Amiens, Orderic Vital, and all the historians of this epoch." He was one of the companions of William who were remembered in poems and chronicles for some time after.
   
   Wace's "Roman de Rou" attests:
   William whom they call Mallet, Boldly throws himself among them; With his flashing sword Against the English he makes furious onset; But his shield they clove, And his horse beneath him killed, And himself they would have slain, When came the Sire de Montfort And Lord William de Vez-Pont With the great force which they had, Him they bravely rescued. There many of their men they lost; Mallet they remounted on the field On a fresh war-horse.
   William of Poitiers, 128:--
   "Enim non decere tali commercio aurum accipi, dictum est illudendo opportere situm esse coustodem litoris et pelagi, quae cum armis ante vesanus insedit, Gulielmo agnomine Maletto concessit."
   Benoit de St. More writes:--
   Le Reis Heralut fut sevelizMais a un Guillaume Malet, Et si me retrait li escriz,Qui n'est losel pas ne valet, Que sa mere pour lui aveir, Maiz chevaliers durs et vaillanz. Vout au Duc doner grant aveir;Icist l'en fut depreianz, Mais n'en vout unques doner prendre,Qu'il le dona a enfoir, Ne pour rien nule le cors rendre;La ou li veudreit a plaisir.
   Orderic Vital wrote, "ad tumulandum prope litus maris, quod diu cum armis servaverat Gulielmo agnomine Malleto victoris jussu traditus est."
   
   A memorable incident involving William is that, apparently because of his English blood, he was chosen to look after the body of the fallen king. However not all sources agree on what happened next.
   
   Sheriff of York
   
   Crispin and Macary:
   He accompanied King William at the reduction of Nottingham and York in 1068, for which he was rewarded with the shreivalty of land in that county. Gilbert de Gand and Robert Fitz Richard were also commanders in this expedition. The following year he was besieged in the castle of York by Edgar, the Saxon prince, and was only saved from surrender by the timely arrival of the Conqueror. In the same year he was attacked by the Danes, who captured the city of York with great slaughter and took William Malet, his wife and children, prisoners, but their lives were spared, as was that of Gilbert de Gand, for the sake of their ransoms. There is evidence that he was slain in this year, but it is uncertain and the date of his death is unknown.
   Death
   
   As already discussed, the Domesday book describes his death in England, although the Crispin family history says he died as a monk in France. MEDLANDS summarizes (version of Sept 2018, giving Cawley's footnotes):
   Freeman suggests that William Malet died on campaign in Ely, dated to [1070/71], on the basis of two passages in Domesday Book which record land held "in die quo pater R. Malet ivit in servitium Regis…ubi mortuus est" and "pater suus…tenuit quando ivit in maresc [marshland]" (in Happisburgh, Norfolk).[1] Round suggests that the interpretation of the passage in question is too precise and in any case that the word "maresc" may in any case represent a mistranscription for "Eurvic", indicating York, which, if correct, would negate the theory entirely.[2]
   Round's speculation about a mistake in Domesday seems to have convinced almost no one.
   
   Family
   
   His widow Hesilia is recorded in Domesday Book as the "Mother of Robert Malet."
   
   William Malet had issue by Hesilia two sons, Robert and Gilbert, and one daughter, Beatrice, married to William de Archis.
   
   More daughters have been proposed at various times.
   
   Sources
   1.↑ Freeman, E. A. (1876) The History of the Norman Conquest of England, its causes and its results 2nd Edn. (Oxford), Vol. 4, Appendix, Note W, pp. 787-90, quoting folios. 247, 332b and 133b.
   2.↑ Round, J. H. ‘The Death of William Malet’, The Academy, Vol. XXV (Jan-Jun 1884), 26 Apr 1884, no. 625, p. 297 (available in Full View on Google Book).
   •Cawley, "Malet" link on MEDLANDS website, consulted Sept 2018
   •M. Jackson Crispin et Léonce Macary. The Falaise Roll recording prominent companions of William, duke of Normandy at the conquest of England. Londres, Butler and Tanner, 1938.
   •Foster and Longley (1910) "Lincolnshire Domesday and the Lindsey Survey" The Publications - Lincoln Record Society 19 link
   •E.A. Freeman, Norman Conquest
   •Keats-Rohan, Domesday People pp.143-4
   •K.S.B.Keats-Rohan (1996 pre-publication proof) of Nottingham Medieval Studies 41 (1997) 13-56 "Domesday Book and the Malets: patrimony and the private histories of public lives" on her website
   • Malet, Arthur (1885), Harrison & Sons, St. Martin's Lane, London, England, pp 1-17, appendix A1-A10.
   •Round, Feudal England, pp.254-5
   
   Also see
   •An extensive pedigree, in French: pdf
   • George Washington 1st US President's 27 Generation Line of Descent from De Graville MALET
   • Source: http://awt.ancestrylibrary.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=tmebl&id=I48869&style=TABLE&ti=5542 (needs subscription)
   

   http://www.wikitree.com
   

Matches in other publications

View all
matches

• Warder Family Tree

About the surname Malet

• View the information that Genealogie Online has about the surname Malet.
• Check the information Open Archives has about Malet.
• Check the Wie (onder)zoekt wie? register to see who is (re)searching Malet.