9710 Individuals
in our Database | |  | | | | Ralph Le Roux of Pont Echanfre Ralph the Red Sex: Male | | | |  | | Birth Date | 1080 | | | | | Father | Robert de Lacy Lord of Pontefract | Born: 1070 May 20 | Died: 1102 Nov 23 | | Mother | Matilda | Born: 1147 | | | Ralph Le Roux of Pont Echanfre
Notes: | Fifteen years after the Doomsday accounting of William’s lands “Ralph the Red” was granted manors by Robert de Lacy at “Mitune”, now Great Mitton and Aighton as well as many other Clitheroe area manors in a charter dated Nov. 23, 1102. These were “reputed manors” or separate manors held by “Ralph the Red” in “demesne”. They were his to do as he wanted. Other manor lands granted were Bayley, Chaighley, Great Mearley, Twistleton, plus two oxgangs of land in Clitheroe including a manor “in and about the castle rock” of Clitheroe. Ralph the Reds feudal grants were the first “alienation of the de Lacy’s after their acquirement of the fee of Clitheroe” according to T.D Whitaker’s, “The History of the Parish of Whalley” written in the early 19th century. The “Honour of Clitheroe” was part of the Lordship of Bowland that Robert de Lacy was granted in 1102 by Henry I. These lands had reverted back to the crown after being confiscated from Roger de Poitou for his support of Robert Curthose’s failed invasion of England in August 11, 1102. Robert de Lacy’s eldest son, Ilbert de Lacy (2) confirmed his father’s grants of Ralphs lands in 1135 (during the reign of King Stephen). That second charter reads ‘eidem Radulfo fratri meo’ – the same to my brother Ralph. These charters are the primary documents to Ralph the Reds identity. However no other de Lacy genealogies refer to Ralph the Red as a de Lacy except these charters. They are however primary legal documents. It does beg the question why Ralph the Red is identified in these charters but not on other genealogies of the de Lacy’s. The fact that Ralph received so many manors as well as their important strategic locations would seem he was a member of the family in some way which is how the Normans first subinfeudaled land. These manors did not go to Henry or Robert, the other de Lacy brothers at that time, but to Ralph. The grant by Robert de Lacy to Ralph rather than to Ilbert his eldest son seems unusual. Under primogeniture Ilbert would have been the heir. Yet, Ilbert, Roberts eldest son, confirms the original charter in 1135, with his Yorkshire tenets as witnesses and calls Ralph his brother. As these grants were separate free hold manors the grantor’s motivation may have been the practical need to have a loyal family member holding land in this area to counter Saxon resistance as well as secure it for the de Lacys after reverting to the crown from the banished Roger Poitou. It is unlikely Ilbert would have acquiesced this grant without his father’s approval and with out some close family relationship to “Ralph the Red” under the feudal system. Clitheroe became the main administrative site of the de Lacy barony as well as a medieval commerce town. The de Lacy’s continued to live at Pontefract castle but Clitheroe began to developed after Ralph’s arrival in 1102. Eventually Henry de Lacy, the younger brother of Ilbert granted the town burgesses the right to be a market town circa 1148. This marked the beginning of Clitheroe as a legitimate commerce center defended by the strategic castle on the rock where Ralph had been granted a manor in 1102.
| | Ralph Le Roux of Pont Echanfre Will: | Death: November 25 Aboard the White Ship off coast of Barfleur
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