The Earliest Mallorys, an update

 

Previously, the earliest known Mallory was identified as Anschetil, born around 1075.  This information came from Hikaru Kitabayashi in a post written in 2007.  A blog written in 2011 and 2013 by the same author (a professor of linguistics and author of Post Norman Conquest Mallorys*) now identifies the first Mallory in England as Geoffrey Mallore (pronounced Mallory, spelled in a variety of ways).

Geoffrey, aka Goisfrid Malloret, “seems to have had his origin in Bessin in Normandy” but it is not known if he participated in the Norman conquest of 1066.  According to Kitabayashi’s 2011 post, Geoffrey was listed in the earlier Exeter Doomsday of 1086 “as the lord of Todber in co. Dorset, as tenant of William de Moyon” and possessed “the manor of Steepleton Iwerne (Werne), also of William de Moyon.”  He likely possessed other properties that cannot be identified with certainty because they were recorded only as belonging to “Geoffrey” with no last name.  However, “a charter of Robert de Stafford” granted the property of Botley (Warwickshire) to “Galfrido Mallore…his heirs and assignees, meaning that this was the original grant…and that Geoffrey was free to assign the property to anyone he wished.”  The grant is estimated to have occurred about 1086 to 1088.

What is significant about this last property is that it was not entailed (an inheritance over generations so that ownership remains within the family) and was perhaps “made with the intent of passing it on to someone who would not have otherwise been in line to inherit it…a younger son.” 

A certain Anketil is the next Mallory to be identified with Botley.  Kitabayashi’s 2013 post suggests that, shortly before his death circa 1120/5, Geoffrey assigned Botley to his grandson, a younger son of Geoffrey’s own younger son, Robert.  (Anschetil, born circa 1075, is identified as Geoffrey’s older son.)

Geoffrey’s younger son, Robert, was possibly born in the mid-1080s and “entered into the service of the first Beaumont earl of Leicester” around 1110, and “would seem to have been granted Kyrkby Mallory by the first earl.”  Kitabayashi also identifies Robert’s wife as “the heiress of the family of an Englishman by the name of Leofric,” although no source for that information is given in the post.  Their sons were Richard, born around 1110, and Anketil, born around 1114. 

To be continued...

 

*Available on Amazon or at https://www.lulu.com/shop/hikaru-kitabayashi/post-norman-conquest-mallorys/hardcover/product-21231781.html

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