Geoffrey de Mandeville: A study of the Anarchy - John Horace Round

We are now in a position to construct this remarkable pedigree:—

I say that this is a remarkable pedigree because, from the dates, Edward of Southwark must have been born within a very few years of the Conquest, and also because we can feel sure, in the case both of him and of his son-in-law, that we are dealing with men of the old stock, connected with the venerable gild of English "Cnihts." But it further shows us how the elder of the two bestowed on his English son the name of the Norman Conqueror, and how the Norman settlers intermarried with the English stock.

Let us now return to the father of Gervase, Roger "nepos Huberti." Here, again, there come to our help the records of the duchy of Lancaster. Among them are two royal charters, the first of which grants to Roger the manor of Chalk, in Kent,[900] while the second was consequent on his death,[901] and should be read in connection with the above extracts from the Pipe-Roll of 1130. This charter has a special interest from its mention of the fact that Roger had gone "ad Jerosolima." We may infer from this that he had died on pilgrimage.[902] As Gervase inherited from his father so large an estate, Roger must have been, in his day, a man of some consequence. It is, therefore, rather strange that his name does not occur in the report on the muniments of St. Paul's, nor in any other quarter to which I have been able to refer. Luckily, however, Stow has preserved for us the gist of a document which he had seen, when he tells us that on the grant of their soke, in 1125, by the Cnihtengild—

"The king sent also his sheriffs, to wit Aubrey de Vere and Roger nephew to Hubert, which (upon his behalf) should invest this church with the possessions thereof; which the said sheriffs accomplished, coming upon the ground, Andrew Buchevite[903] and the forenamed witnesses and others standing by."[904]

If we can trust to this passage, as I believe we certainly can, our Roger was a sheriff of London in 1125. This makes it highly probable that he was identical with the "Roger" named in a document addressed, a few years earlier:—

"Hugoni de Bocheland, Rogero, Leofstano, Ordgaro, et omnibus aliis baronibus Lundoniæ."[905]

I do not know of any other Roger who is likely to have been thus addressed.

We are given by Gervase de Cornhill a further clue as to his parentage in a charter of his, under Henry II., in which he mentions Ralph fitz Herlwin as his uncle ("avunculus"). Ralph fitz Herlwin was in 1130 joint-Sheriff of London.[906] This clue, therefore, is worth following up. Now, Ralph must either have been a brother of the father or of the mother of Gervase. It is highly improbable that Ralph "filius Herlwini" was a brother of Roger "nepos Huberti," each of the two being always mentioned by the same distinctive suffix. It may, therefore, be presumed that Ralph was brother to Roger's wife. Now, we happen to have two documents which greatly concern this Ralph and his son, and which belong to one transaction, although they figure widely apart in the report on the muniments of St. Paul's.[907] Nicholas, son of Ælfgar, parish priest of the church of St. Michael's, Cheap, a living which, like his father before him, he held at lease from St. Paul's, exercised his right to the next presentation in favour of a son of Ralph fitz Herlwin, who had married his niece Mary. From the evidence now in our possession, we may construct this pedigree:—