Nielsen Hayden genealogy

Aliz de Clara

Female


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  • Name Aliz de Clara  [1, 2
    Gender Female 
    Person ID I29576  Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others | Ancestor of TWK
    Last Modified 13 Aug 2020 

    Family Cadwaladr ap Gruffudd ap Cynan, King in Wales   d. 1172 
    Marriage Bef 1151  [3
    Children 
    +1. Richard ap Cadwaladr ap Gruffudd ap Cynan,   b. Abt 1170
    Family ID F17642  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 13 Aug 2020 

  • Notes 
    • Also called, in non-contemporary sources, Adles de Clare. She is frequently given, for instance by Eyton's Antiquities of Shropshire and Richardson's Royal Ancestry, as a daughter of Richard Fitz Gilbert de Clare (d. 1136) and his wife Alice (Adeliza) of Chester. In a variant suggestion, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says that Cadwaladr's wife is "quite possibly to be identified with Adeliza, widow of Richard de Clare". Meanwhile, Adelis de Tunbridge, wife of William de Percy who died 1175-76, has also been asserted, for instance by Complete Peerage [X:441], as a daughter of Richard Fitz Gilbert de Clare and Alice of Chester. (Although Richardson, following Horace Round's 1895 Feudal England, asserts Adelis de Tunbridge as a daughter of Richard's father Gilbert de Clare and his wife Alice de Clermont.) Regarding all this confusion, see below.

      Peter Stewart, post to soc.genealogy.medieval, 18 Nov 2014 (citation details below):

      The wife of William de Percy was named as "Adelis de Tunbridge" (variously spelled) in three charters of her daughters Agnes and Maud for Sawley (or Sallay) abbey written at the end of the 1180s. Presumably this indicates that she belonged to the Clare family, but apart from surmises about her chronology we don't have evidence as to whose daughter she was.

      The third (probably) wife of Cadwaladr ap Gruffudd was named "Aliz de Clara" in his charter for Haughmond abbey written at some time while the bishop of Bangor was Maurice (consecrated in or soon after January 1140, died in August 1162). Una Rees in her edition of the Haughmond cartulary (1985) speculatively placed this charter in 1141/43 "when Cadwaladr was involved in English affairs". Huw Pryce has more recently (in The Acts of Welsh Rulers, 2005) placed the charter in 1140/52 or 1157/61. Sir John Lloyd in his history of Wales had placed it in 1153 and his apparently arbitrary dating has stuck so that others have forced the chronology around it. Lloyd also followed Eyton's guess that Cadwaladr's wife Aliz was a daughter of Richard fitz Gilbert, while Pryce has proposed that she was actually his widow Adeliza of Chester. Her name was rendered as Adles in late-15th century Welsh genealogical collections, according to which she was daughter of an earl of Clare ("ferch iarll Klaer"), but we don't have evidence as to which one.

      The solution of making [Adelis de Tunbridge and Aliz de Clara] into full sisters, both of them daughters of Richard fitz Gilbert and his wife Adeliza of Chester, then naming William de Percy's wife "Adelaide" and Cadwaladr's wife "Alice", is just a guess. These two names became fully distinct after the 12th century. It's not impossible that two legitimate sisters had the same name, or that variants were treated as separate names in the Clare family before this became customary.

  • Sources 
    1. [S4262] Peter Stewart, 18 Nov 2014, post to soc.genealogy.medieval.

    2. [S3215] Medieval Welsh Ancestors of Certain Americans by Carl Boyer III. Santa Clarita, California, 2004.

    3. [S142] Royal Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families by Douglas Richardson. Salt Lake City, 2013.