Did John (Harcourt) de Harcourt have a daughter named Matilda?

+6 votes
517 views

On 5 Mar 2022 Bill Kent wrote on Harcourt-42:

Shouldn't Matilda Harcourt (Harcourt-410) be listed as a daughter of John Harcourt (Harcourt-42) as indicated in the resource "The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants" on approximately page 469?

I also found a profile for Matilda Harcourt on FamilySearch and lists a source as:

Pedigrees of Some of the Emperor Charlemagne's Descendants, Vol. III Compiled by J. Orton Buck and Timothy Field Beard Published by Order of The Crown of Charlemagne In The United States of America 1978

Pedigrees of Some of the Emperor Charlemagne's Descendants, Vol. III Compiled by J. Orton Buck and Timothy Field Beard Published by Order of The Crown of Charlemagne In The United States of America 1978

WikiTree profile: John de Harcourt
in Genealogy Help by Bill Kent G2G1 (1.1k points)
edited by John Atkinson

Hi Bill, the source Pedigrees of some of Emperor Charlemagne' Descendants, seem to be cut off from your question, so I've added it from the comment on the profile.  Apologies if you meant to add another source.

2 Answers

+6 votes

Thanks Bill

However, I have a feeling that "The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants" is no longer considered that reliable?

I'm not familiar with the other publication, but the website of the Order of the Crown of Charlemagne in the USA has a list of Links & Publications, and some of those are no longer considered reliable.  I suspect their list of Gateway Ancestors also includes some not included in Douglas Richardson's publications.

It's up to the Magna Carta project, but I would think they would need better, preferably primary sources, to include Matilda as a daughter of John Harcourt.

by John Atkinson G2G6 Pilot (609k points)

Looking at John Harcourt-42 I came across a John de Harcourt of Oxfordshire in a 1299 IPM entry listing a wife Joan which is not on his profile.  Was this a different man?  This John would have been 25 at this time, on the young side to have married a widow so maybe his uncle John de Harcourt-428?  There isn't much on that profile yet so I'm putting this comment here for eyeballs (sorry for the hijack).  Here was the IPM text:

Writ of certiorari to the escheator to enquire whether Roger de Nodariis deceased and Joan his wife, whom John de Harcourt has married, were enfeoffed jointly of 10l. land in the meadow of Milnham in the manor of Churchehull by Roger the father, or not &c. 9 July, 27 Edw. I.

from BHO 'Inquisitions Post Mortem, Edward I, File 85', in Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem: Volume 3, Edward I, ed. J.E.E.S. Sharp and A.E. Stamp (London, 1912), pp. 364-374. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/inquis-post-mortem/vol3/pp364-374

Thanks, John. Bill Kent also posted a comment on John Harcourt's profile, and earlier today I replied there saying much the same thing, and drawing attention to problems with Matilda Harcourt’s profile, which lacks good sourcing and has a chronological impossibility - a son (profile unsourced) born in 1399 when she was said to be 66. The Magna Carta Project would indeed require much more reliable, if at all possible primary, sourcing before considering attaching Matilda as son of John Harcourt, and the difficulty with dates for her would need to be resolved. If she had a child born at the end of the 14th century, she cannot be John Harcourt’s daughter as John died in 1330.

I had a quick look on the web and found no reliable evidence for who were Matilda's parents. If anyone can find such evidence, it would be helpful to have it.
+4 votes
In breaking news (from 1619) we have Matilda, daughter of John Harcourt in the Visitation of Kent marrying Henry Crispe and having bouncing baby boy John Crispe, son & heir who married the lovely and talented Anna Phillips, daughter of William. https://archive.org/details/visitationofkent00camd/page/72/mode/2up p. 73.  I'll add this to her profile with whatever sense I can make of dates.

To be clear, I have no idea "which" John Harcourt is her father, just "a" John Harcourt assuming the Kent visitation is reliable in this case.  I haven't found additional sources about her yet.

Her father John H. of Stanton Harcourt is noted "Armig." is it safe to assume this means he had a CoA?
by Brad Stauf G2G6 Mach 3 (33.0k points)
edited by Brad Stauf
Thanks, Brad :-) Great that you are looking at this.

Armiger would mean that, according to the Visitation, Matilda's father was entitled to heraldic arms.

How accurate the Visitation is may be another matter, as you recognise.

Michael, I've been nibbling around the edges of the Harcourt, Crispe/Crippes and Quekes families, adding some profile bits & pieces and was able to make a couple connections.

I'm still fairly new to pre-1500 research and sources, what's your take on the reliability of the Edward Hasted works that appear at BHO?  Most of what I've seen is the history of various parishes, I used him as a source for a John Quekes.  He does include footnotes for his articles but there is a huge amount of specific detail in them.  Obviously a lot of people use his work but I haven't really found anything claiming that he is error-prone or bullet-proof so would you consider him a pretty typical "trust but verirfy" source?

Thanks for asking. I would regard Hasted's work as to be treated with a degree of caution. I have found quite a few errors in it. So I would try to look elsewhere for corroboration (or otherwise) of what he says. It is an old work (volumes published around the year 1800), and there has been a lot of research since.

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