Nele Fossard (abt. 1040 - abt. 1120)

Born about 1040 in England

Descendants

Died about 1120 at about age 80 in Mulgrave Castle, Yorkshire, England

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Biography

He was one of two major Domesday tenants in Yorkshire of Robert, Count of Mortain, holding extensive properties from the count in all three ridings. Nigel Fossard and the other major tenant, Richard de Sourdeval, held almost all the 114 tenant manors of Count Robert in the county and Nigel himself held about 500 carucates in Yorkshire. In the North Riding he had over 200 carucates including 25 in Guisborough, Middleton and Hutton Lowcross.

In the West Riding he had almost 60 carucates including 12 in Bramham. It has been suggested that this concentration of lands resulted from Count Robert's intention that Nigel live and work in the county. After Count Robert's rebellion and fall in 1088 Nigel Fossard's tenancy was transformed into a tenancy-in-chief, although he had already acquired that status because of a small property holding in York. The relationship between the crown and the Fossards was strengthened further in the early twelfth century when Henry I actively encouraged the development of the compact lordship around Lythe Castle as part of his plan to increase royal influence in north-east Yorkshire. Nigel was a patron of St Mary's Abbey, York, to which he gave property in Doncaster and lands and churches in York, Hutton Cranswick, Bainton, and Caythorpe. He also gave Bramham church to Ramsey Abbey.

Nigel Fossard held five parcels of land in Yorkshire in succession to three named individuals, but the soke belonged to Conisborough which had been held by Earl Harold in 1066. Nigel held much of the Mortaine lands in other parts of the county. Besides the manor and soke of Doncaster, he had Rotherham, held of him by the family of Vesci.

Before the Norman Conquest, Doncaster and much of its southern vicinity was part of the Northumberland district was the property of Tosti, Earl of Northumberland and held by Nigel Fossard on the Saxon tenure. After the Conquest, William the Conqueror gave the manor of Hexthorpe, of which the soccage of Doncaster is part of, to his step-brother Robert, Earl of Mortaigne. At that time it was recorded in the Domesday Survey of 1085/86 that "Nigel has of Earl Robert in demesne, on plough and three villanes, and two borders, with two ploughs. There is a church and a priest there, having five borders and one plough, and two mills of thirty shillings. Meadow four acres. Pasturable wood, one mile and a half long and one broad. The manor two miles and a half long, and one mile and a half broad."

After the death of William the Conqueror, Robert de Montaigne joined a revolt against William II, which ended up with his death. This proved to be very fortunate for the Fossard Family, for they became reseized of the manors of Doncaster, Hexthorpe and other lands. This placed them on nearly the same terms with their land as they had been before the Conquest.

Notes

Yorkshire: Historical and Topographical Introduction to a Knowledge of the Ancient State of the Wapentake of Strafford and Tickhill; With Ample Account of Doncaster and Conisbrough. pp. 5-8, doesn't give this Fossard's name, but his son Robert is referred to as the grandson of Nigel Fossard.

~Select Civil Pleas: Volume I A.D. 1200 - 1203, p. 18, refers to him without naming him with calling Robert the grandson of Nigel Fossard.

Sources

• Sanders, English Baronies, pp.66-67.
• Keats-Rohan, Domesday People, pp.302-303
• http://cybergata.com/roots/10036.htm
• http://www.rotherhamweb.co.uk/h/fossard.htm
• Cokayne, George E. The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant. London: St Catherine Press (1910), vol. 8, pp. 619-635

Acknowledgements

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