The Warenne family is an Englishnoble family founded by William de Warenne, who was created Earl of Surrey by William II Rufus in 1088. The family originated in Normandy and, as Earls, held land there and throughout England. William de Warenne was a cousin to William the Conqueror and was among his companions at the Battle of Hastings. When the senior male-line ended in the mid-12th century, the two branches descended from their heiress adopted the Warenne surname. Several junior lines also held land or prominent offices in England and Normandy.
William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey is accepted as having been son of a Norman named Ranulf de Warenne,[4] but the early Anglo-Norman chroniclers gave confusing and contradictory accounts of the origins and relatives of this family. In his additions to the Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges, chronicler Robert of Torigny reported that William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, and Anglo-Norman baron Roger of Mortemer were brothers, both sons of an unnamed niece of Gunnor, Duchess of Normandy, making the family akin to her great-grandson, William the Conqueror. Unfortunately, Robert's genealogies are somewhat confused, and he elsewhere makes Roger a son of William de Warenne, and yet again makes both the sons of Walter de Saint Martin. Likewise, several of the descents Robert gives for Gunnor's family appear to contain too few generations.[5]Orderic Vitalis describes William as Roger's consanguineus, literally "cousin" but more generically a term of close kinship that is not typically used to describe brothers, and Roger de Mortemer appears to have been a generation older than William de Warenne.[6][5]
Charters report several earlier men associated with Warenne. A Radulf de Warenne appears in two charters, one dated between 1027 and 1035, with a second dating from about 1050 and also naming his wife, Beatrice. A Roger son of Radulf de Warenne appears in a charter dated 1040/1053. In 1059, a Radulf appears with his wife Emma and their sons Radulf and William. These occurrences have historically been interpreted as representing a single Radulf with successive wives, with Beatrice being the mother of William and hence identical to Gunnor's unnamed niece.[7][8] However, the 1059 charter explicitly names Emma as William's mother.[5] A reevaluation of the evidence led Katherine Keats-Rohan to suggest that the traditional view has mistakenly compressed two distant men of the same name into a single chimeric individual. She sees the earliest known family members as Radulf (I) and his wife Beatrice. Associations with the village of Vascœuil led Keats-Rohan to identify the latter with a 1054/60 widow, Beatrice, daughter of Tesselin, vicomte of Rouen, and since another Rouen vicomte married a niece of Gunnor, this may represent the connection to the ducal family to which Robert de Torigny alluded. Keats-Rohan sees Radulf (I) and Beatrice as parents of a Radulf (II) and Roger de Mortimer, with Radulf (II) in turn being the 1059 husband of Emma and by her father of Radulf (III), the heir in Normandy, and Earl William.[5][a]
Warenne Landholdings in the Domesday Book
Landholdings in the Domesday Book of William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey
The medieval Warenne Earls were called Earl of Warenne at least as often as Earl of Surrey; but they received the 'third penny' of Surrey. This means that they were entitled to one third of the county court fines. The numbering of the earls follows the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; some sources number Isabel's husbands as the fourth and fifth earls, increasing the numbering of the later earls by one.
The use of the title‘ ‘Earl of Warenne’ ‘ persisted among the direct line descendants of The Earls of Surrey and Warenne, and the two titles are said to have ‘split’. The Warenne family remain today the Earls of Warenne, while the Howard family presently hold the Earldom of Surrey.
Coat of arms of Hamelin de Warenne, Earl of Surrey (Husband to Isabel de Warenne, The Countess of Warenne): Azure semy-de-lis or (France) Bordure Semy Gules lions passant guardant in pale Or armed and langued Azure (England) In Escutcheon Checky Or And Azure.
Lawrence de Warenne (1394-1444) 12th Earl of Warenne (1413–1444)
Margerey de Bulkeley, Countess of Warenne (1389-1440)
Emma de Warenne <br/1413 (c1395-____)
Elizabeth de Warenne (c1397-____)
Lawrence de Warenne (c.1412-1413)
Margaret de Warenne (c.1413-____)
John de Warenne (1414-1475) 13th Earl of Warenne (1444–1475)
Isabel de Stanley, Countess of Warenne (1435-1460)
Cicely de Warenne (c1415-____)
Margery de Warenne (c1416-____)
Elizabeth de Warenne (c1417-____)
Randle de Warren (c1418-____)
Edward de Warenne (c1419-____)
Joan de Warenne (c1420-____)
Elizabeth Warenne (1433-____)
Lawrence Warenne (1435-1474)
Isabel Leigh (1440-1475)
Jane Warenne (1436-1508)
Margaret Warenne (1436-____)
Henry Warenne (1438-1492)
Richard Warenne (1439-1474)
John Warenne (1440-1518)
Joan Warenne (1444-____)
Jane Arderne, Countess of Warenne (c1475-____)
John Warenne (1459-1518) 14th Earl of Warenne (1475–1518)
Eleanor Gerard, Countess of Warenne (1467-1542)
William Warenne (1460-1506)
George Warenne (1462-____)
Richard Warenne (1465-____)
Anthony Warenne (1467-1557)
Laurence Warenne (1469-____)
Margaret Warenne (1495-1546)
Thomas Warenne (1496-1558)
Sibil Honford, Countess of Warenne (1500-____)
Laurence de Warenne (1476-1531) 15th Earl of Warenne (1518–1531)
Margaret Leigh, Countess of Warenne (1479-1545)
Richard Warenne (1477-1530)
Cicely Warenne (1480-____)
Nicholas Warenne (1482-____)
Ralph Warenne (1483-____)
John Warenne (1487-1525)
Christopher Warenne (1494-1587)
Margaret Ellen Leigh (1510-1575)
Margaret Warenne (1495-1546)
Cicely Warenne (1495-____)
Mabel Warenne (1496-____)
Edward Warenne (1498-1558) 16th Earl of Warenne (1531–1558)
Dorothy Booth, Countess of Warenne (1500-1584)
Ellen Warenne (1499-1551)
Dorothy Warenne (1503-____)
Randolph Warenne (1504-1562)
Ann Warenne (1506-____)
Richard Warenne (1507-1568)
Catherine Warenne (1508-____)
Jane Warenne (1509-____)
Isabel Warenne (1511-____)
George Warenne (1516-____)
Laurence Warenne (1516-____)
Grech Warenne (1520-____)
Ellen Warenne (1520-)
Joan Warenne (1523-)
Margaret Warenne (1527-)
Francis Warenne (1533-)
John Warenne (1535-1587) 17th Earl of Warenne (1558– 1587)
Margaret Molineaux, Countess of Warenne (1541-1617)
Lawrence Warenne (1537-1623)
Edward Warenne (1539-1542)
Peter Warenne (1544-1620)
Ethelred Warenne (1545-)
Ann Warenne (1546-)
Cadet branches
Esneval
A likely brother of the 1st Earl of Surrey, another Rodulf, held lands that had been held by his father in the Pays de Caux and near Rouen. By 1172, these lands were in possession of Robert d'Esneval as a part of the barony of Esneval, and it is supposed that the family d'Esneval may derive from an heiress of this Rodulf's line.[29]
Whitchurch
Among the holdings of William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey was some land in Whitchurch, Shropshire, and this likely led to his kin becoming its early lords.[25] A William fitz Ranulf is recorded as the lord of Whitchurch, first appearing in 1176, and was ancestor of a family that sometimes were called de Warenne, along with de Whitchurch, de Blancminster, and de Albo Monasterio.[30][31]Robert Eyton considered it likely that Ralph de Warenne, son of William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey, was the father of this William, and that Ralph had likely been lord before William fitz Ranulf.[32] It is known that Ralph de Warenne had a son named William, who confirmed and expanded a donation of Norfolk land that his father had made to made to Lewes Priory,[33][34] and that the Whitchurch heirs likewise maintained an association with Lewes.[35] Writing in 1923, William Farrer agreed.[31] However, in a later publication Charles Travis Clay elaborated on Farrer's original work and drew attention to a Domesday tenant of William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, named Ranulf nepos (nephew). It does not specify of whom he was nephew, but Clay suggests it was his feudal overlord, Earl William. This Ranulf nepos held Middleton, Suffolk, which was later owned by William fitz Ranulf, Lord of Whitchurch, leading Clay to speculate that the Warennes of Whitchurch may instead have descended from this Domesday tenant rather than from the son of the 2nd Earl.[31] William, son of William fitz Ranulf of Whitchurch, left a sole daughter and heiress, from whom the Whitchurch inheritance passed to Robert l'Estrange.[36] Eyton suggested that Griffith de Warenne, the 13th century founder of the Warrens of Ightfield, Shropshire, was son of William fitz Ranulf de Warenne of Whitchurch.[37]
^There are three places in Norfolk called Rockland. Rockland All Saints and Rockland St Peter lie to the south-west of Norwich, and together make up the modern civil parish of Rocklands. Rockland St Mary lies to the south-east of Norwich. It is uncertain which one was meant. Rockland St Peter is listed separately, and Rockland St Mary was mentioned in the Domesday Book; but neither of those facts helps resolve the question
References
^K.S.B. Keats-Rohan, Domesday People, a Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066-1166 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1999), p. 480.
^Lewis C. Loyd, The Origins of Some Anglo-Norman Families, ed. Charles Travis Clay (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1992) pp. 111–12
^G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, Vol. XII/1 (London: The St. Catherine Press, 1953), p. 491.
^C. P. Lewis, "Warenne, William (I) de, first earl of Surrey (d. 1088)" (Oxford, UK: OUP, 2004) Retrieved 6 April 2017.
^ abcdK. S. B. Keats-Rohan, "Aspects of Torigny's Genealogy Revisited", Nottingham Medieval Studies 37:21–27
^Lewis C. Loyd, "The Origins of the Family of Warenne", Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 31:97–113
^Thomas Stapleton, "Observations in disapproval of a pretended marriage of William de Warren, earl of Surrey with a daughter ... of William the Conqueror", Archaeological Journal, 3:1–12
^ abG. H. White, "The Sisters and Nieces of Gunnor, Duchess of Normandy", Genealogist, n. s. 37:57–65
^Eleanor Searle, Predatory Kinship and the Creation of Norman Power, 840–1066, pp. 100–105
^Elisabeth M. C. van Houts, "Robert of Torigni as Genealogist", Studies in Medieval History presented to R. Allen Brown, pp. 215–33
^Kathleen Thompson, "The Norman Aristocracy before 1066: the Example of the Montgomerys", Historical Research 60:251–63.
^ abcdefghijkThe Domesday Book: England's Heritage Then and Now, ed. Thomas Hinde (UK: Coombe Books, 1996), p. 186
^ abcdefgThe Domesday Book: England's Heritage Then and Now, ed. Thomas Hinde (UK: Coombe Books, 1996), p. 187.
^ abThe Domesday Book: England's Heritage Then and Now, ed. Thomas Hinde (UK: Coombe Books, 1996), p. 47.
^ abcdefghijklmThe Domesday Book: England's Heritage Then and Now, ed. Thomas Hinde (UK: Coombe Books, 1996), p. 188.
^ abcdefghijklmnoThe Domesday Book: England's Heritage Then and Now, ed. Thomas Hinde (UK: Coombe Books, 1996), p. 189.
^ abcdefghijklmThe Domesday Book: England's Heritage Then and Now, ed. Thomas Hinde (UK: Coombe Books, 1996), p. 190.
^ abcdefghijklmnoThe Domesday Book: England's Heritage Then and Now, ed. Thomas Hinde (UK: Coombe Books, 1996), p. 191.
^ abcdefThe Domesday Book: England's Heritage Then and Now, ed. Thomas Hinde (UK: Coombe Books, 1996), p. 48.
^ abcdefghijklmnoThe Domesday Book: England's Heritage Then and Now, ed. Thomas Hinde (UK: Coombe Books, 1996), p. 192.
^ abcdefghijklThe Domesday Book: England's Heritage Then and Now, ed. Thomas Hinde (UK: Coombe Books, 1996), p. 193.
^ abcdefghijklmnThe Domesday Book: England's Heritage Then and Now, ed. Thomas Hinde (UK: Coombe Books, 1996), p. 194.
^ abcdefghijklThe Domesday Book: England's Heritage Then and Now, ed. Thomas Hinde (UK: Coombe Books, 1996), p. 195.
^ abcdefghijklThe Domesday Book: England's Heritage Then and Now, ed. Thomas Hinde (UK: Coombe Books, 1996), p. 196.
