Ralph de Neville

Notes:

"Ralph de Neville, a younger son of Alan aforesaid, is known only as being father of Hugh the Forester." [Complete Peerage]

Family/Spouse: (Unknown) Rafin. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Hugh de Neville was born in of Great Hallingbury, Bishop's Stortford, Essex, England; died before 21 Jul 1234; was buried in Waltham Abbey, Essex, England.

Notes:

Judge of the Court of Exchequer, 1165; Justice of the Forest throughout England, 1165-77.

From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

The first mention of pleas, probably forest pleas, held by him occurs in Wiltshire in 1163. Neville supported the king in his quarrel with Archbishop Thomas Becket, and was twice excommunicated by the latter -- in 1166 and 1168. About 1166 he was appointed Henry II's chief forester, and he held forest pleas in many counties in 1166 and 1167. According to Roger of Howden, Neville remained chief forester until his death, when he was succeeded by Thomas son of Bernard. Neville's death took place about 1176.

Alan de Neville was widely hated for the vigour with which he enforced the forest laws. The chronicler of Battle Abbey said that he used the power the king had given him to enrich his master by harrying various counties of England with numerous and unaccustomed inquiries; since he feared neither God nor man, he spared no man of rank, whether churchman or layman. Confirmation that great men feared him comes from an official source; the treasurer, Richard fitz Nigel, reported that the justiciar Robert, earl of Leicester, obtained a special writ from the king in order more easily to avoid the pressing demands of Neville's men (Alaniorum). When Neville was dying, a monastic community asked the king for Neville's body for burial; the king replied 'I will have his wealth, you shall have his corpse, and the demons of Hell shall have his soul' (Chronicle of Battle Abbey, 223).

Regarding his possible wife:

In a post to SGM dated 14 Oct 2001, Rosie Bevan quotes an early pedigree from "a series of articles in the later volumes of The Genealogist (IIRC vols 26-30ish) about the various branches of the Neville families by Edmund R. Nevill" which states that this Alan de Neville married "Juliana da of Robert Canu."

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, in its article about Alan de Neville, states that he "is first recorded in 1138, in the retinue of Count Waleran of Meulan, whose butler he became with an annual fee of 100s. About this time he married a daughter of a baron of the honour of Pont Audemar."

Dictionnaire historique, géographique, statistique de toutes les communes de l'Eure by M. Charpillon, 1868, p. 39, describes "Julienne, fille de Robert Canu" of Pont Audemer, as the wife of Alain de Beuzeville.

Notes:

Complete Peerage describes him as "probably" the father of Gilbert and Alan. "Geoffrey de Neville in or before 1146 was lord of the fee in which the church of Scothern lay, and held Walcut 'cum appendiciis suis.'"

Notes:

Called in Domesday People Gislebert De Noua Uilla.

Possibly, but far from certainly, the father of Geoffrey who d. abt. 1146.

"Gilbert, identified as Gilbert de Neville, in 1086 held in Lincs a carucate, &c., at Walcot near Folkingham, and another at Yawthorpe, of the Abbot of Peterborough. Presumably the same Gilbert, about 1115-18, held of Peterborough in Lincs 2 carucates for 2 hides, and found one knight; of the Bishop of Lincoln land in Scothern, Reepham, &c.; and in Middle Rasen and elsewhere of Manasser Arsic." [Complete Peerage. The identification of this Gilbert as a Neville is footnoted to Feudal England by John Horace Round.]

"Gilbert I de Neville; held in the year 1086 carucates (a carucate was an area of land that could be cultivated by an eight-ox plough team throughout a single year) at Waltcot, Lincolnshire and Yawthorpe, together with others in that part of England by 1115-18; kinship is plausible but has not been proven with [son Geoffrey]." [Burke's Peerage]

The idea that he was William the Conqueror's "admiral", persistent in many sources, is almost certainly fanciful.