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Source: ROBERT DE BRUS I : FOUNDER OF THE FAMILY -The Brus family in England and Scotland 1100-c.1290. Blakely, Ruth Margaret

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Titre	ROBERT DE BRUS I : FOUNDER OF THE FAMILY -The Brus family in England and Scotland 1100-c.1290. Blakely, Ruth Margaret

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Blakely, Ruth Margaret (2000) The Brus family in England and Scotland 1100-c.1290., Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1594/

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Pages 19-45 Chapter One ROBERT DE BRUS I : FOUNDER OF THE FAMILY ORIGINS The first Robert de Brus, the `conquisitor of Cleveland, Hartness and Annandale',' founder of the Augustinian priory of Guisborough and progenitor of both the English and Scottish branches of the family, came into England from the west of Normandy among the followers of Henry I, in or around the year 1100. By 1103 he had been granted some or all of the estates in Yorkshire which made up the core of his barony, as it was entered in the Domesday Book sometime between 1114 and 1128 under the heading 'The fief of Robert de Bruis which was granted after the Book of Winchester was written'. The entry was inserted at the end of the Domesday record for Yorkshire, in a space left blank at the time of the original survey, and is unique, being the only example of such a major addition to the manuscript in medieval times.2 The hundred or so manors listed in it also appear in the main survey, mostly as royal demesne lands. The reason for the Brus fief being the only one of the many fiefs created by William Rufus and Henry I to receive this treatment will be considered later in the light of his career.3 Like many of King Henry's supporters, and despite Loyd's caveat regarding insufficient evidence, the Bnis family undoubtedly originated from the Cotentin peninsula of western Normandy, where in Latin documents of the period the town and forest of Brix are entered as Brius, Bruis or Brus. 4 Brix was a royal forest, and much of the surrounding region was ducal demesne land, which in 1180 was farmed 1 GC, ii, no.1156. 2 The Yorkshire Domesday, 3 vols, ed. G.H.Martin and A.Williams (London, 1987-92) ff.332v-333r; M.Gullick, 'The Great and Little Domesday Manuscripts', in ibid., I, p.104; E.M.Hallam, 'Annotations in Domesday Book since 1100', in ibid., I, p.137. Not only is the entry written in a twelfth-century hand 'distinctively later than that of the main text', with many of the place-names in a different form from those of 1086, but there is additional evidence from the content of the entry that it could not have been made until Robert Fossard, who is described as having an interest in part of the Brus fief, had succeeded his father Nigel, for which the earliest possible year is 1114; EYC, ii, p.326; P.King, 'The Return of the Fee of Robert de Brus in Domesday', YAJ, 60 (1988) pp.25-28. 3 See below, p.37. 4 L.C.Loyd, Origins of Some Anglo-Norman Families (Harleian Society 103, 1951) pp.viii, 43; Barrow, Kingdom, p.322; Recueil des actes de Henri II, ed. L.Delisle and E.Berger (Paris, 1909-27)1, pp.331, 473; ibid, 11, pp.76, 150, 396; R.L.G.Ritchie, The Normans in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1954) p.147.

Pages 19-45
Chapter One
ROBERT DE BRUS I : FOUNDER OF THE FAMILY
ORIGINS
The first Robert de Brus, the `conquisitor of Cleveland, Hartness and Annandale','
founder of the Augustinian priory of Guisborough and progenitor of both the English
and Scottish branches of the family, came into England from the west of Normandy
among the followers of Henry I, in or around the year 1100. By 1103 he had been
granted some or all of the estates in Yorkshire which made up the core of his barony,
as it was entered in the Domesday Book sometime between 1114 and 1128 under the
heading 'The fief of Robert de Bruis which was granted after the Book of Winchester
was written'. The entry was inserted at the end of the Domesday record for
Yorkshire, in a space left blank at the time of the original survey, and is unique,
being the only example of such a major addition to the manuscript in medieval
times.2 The hundred or so manors listed in it also appear in the main survey, mostly
as royal demesne lands. The reason for the Brus fief being the only one of the many
fiefs created by William Rufus and Henry I to receive this treatment will be
considered later in the light of his career.3
Like many of King Henry's supporters, and despite Loyd's caveat regarding
insufficient evidence, the Bnis family undoubtedly originated from the Cotentin
peninsula of western Normandy, where in Latin documents of the period the town
and forest of Brix are entered as Brius, Bruis or Brus. 4 Brix was a royal forest, and
much of the surrounding region was ducal demesne land, which in 1180 was farmed
1 GC, ii, no.1156.
2 The Yorkshire Domesday, 3 vols, ed. G.H.Martin and A.Williams (London, 1987-92) ff.332v-333r;
M.Gullick, 'The Great and Little Domesday Manuscripts', in ibid., I, p.104; E.M.Hallam,
'Annotations in Domesday Book since 1100', in ibid., I, p.137. Not only is the entry written in a
twelfth-century hand 'distinctively later than that of the main text', with many of the place-names in
a different form from those of 1086, but there is additional evidence from the content of the entry
that it could not have been made until Robert Fossard, who is described as having an interest in part
of the Brus fief, had succeeded his father Nigel, for which the earliest possible year is 1114; EYC, ii,
p.326; P.King, 'The Return of the Fee of Robert de Brus in Domesday', YAJ, 60 (1988) pp.25-28.
3 See below, p.37.
4 L.C.Loyd, Origins of Some Anglo-Norman Families (Harleian Society 103, 1951) pp.viii, 43;
Barrow, Kingdom, p.322; Recueil des actes de Henri II, ed. L.Delisle and E.Berger (Paris,
1909-27)1, pp.331, 473; ibid, 11, pp.76, 150, 396; R.L.G.Ritchie, The Normans in Scotland
(Edinburgh, 1954) p.147.