Hugh de Neville

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Hugh de Neville († before July 21, 1234 ) was an English forest clerk who was chief royal forest judge from 1198 to 1216 and from 1224 to 1229.

Origin and advancement under Richard the Lionheart

Hugh de Neville was likely a son of Ralph de Neville and thus a grandson of the extremely unpopular Alan de Neville , chief forester of King Henry II. According to the Chronicle of Matthew Paris , Richard the Lionheart brought Neville to the court of his father Henry II. Towards the end During the reign of Henry II, Neville became administrator of two baronies in Northumberland . When Richard became king after his father's death, he gave Neville the Hallingbury estate in Essex . Neville took part in Richard's crusade , including the 1192 siege of Jaffa . According to Matthew Paris, he fought a lion in the Holy Land, but this legend only served to explain his seal, which showed a man killing a lion.

Close follower of King Johann

In 1198 the king gave him the office of chief forest judge. In this office he was responsible for maintaining the royal forest sovereignty . His first forestry court, held by Neville, was criticized by the chronicler Roger von Hoveden , who was a forest judge himself in the 1180s, as there was only one tournament with numerous knights and barons during the meeting. The king arranged for Neville's marriage to Joan, the eldest daughter of Henry of Cornhill . In 1194 he paid 100 marks to get her guardianship, the marriage took place before 1200. Through the marriage he finally received half of the Barony of Courcy , which Joan inherited from her mother Alice de Courcy (see House Courcy ). In addition, Neville was sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire in 1197 , which he remained until 1200. Under King John Ohneland he took over these offices again from 1203 to 1204. He was later from 1210 to 1212 sheriff of Hampshire . King John appointed him in command of the royal castles of Marlborough and Ludgershall , which he remained for almost the entire reign of John, and he was temporarily in command of other castles. The king's favor was also shown by the lands that Neville was given to administer. For this purpose, the estate of Arnold in the Sherwood Forest was transferred to him in 1204 . As the chief forest officer, he was able to operate largely without the control of the royal treasurer, since he had his own treasurer, based in Marlborough and Nottingham , for the administration of the royal forests . Thus Neville was de facto only subordinate to the king, who sometimes intervened personally in the management of the forests. Evidently he played for money with the king several times.

Relationship with King John

As one of the king's closest advisers, Neville had enormous influence under King John, but his relationship with the king was difficult. He had to pay high fines several times if the king was dissatisfied with his work. Apparently his wife suffered from the king's amorous advances, perhaps she was even a mistress of the king. The chronicler Roger von Wendover counted him among the poor advisers of King John. In 1210 Neville was sentenced to a fine of 1,000 marks for illegally allowing Peter des Roches , the Bishop of Winchester, to fence in part of the royal forests. Part of the sentence was later waived, but the large sum was apparently intended to show Neville that he owed obedience to the king. In 1212 Neville was to pay an enormous fine of 6,000 marks, allegedly because he had let two knights captured in Ireland in 1210 escape from Carrickfergus Castle . Presumably, this sentence was also imposed for his misconduct in managing the forests of northern England and the lands of the Diocese of Salisbury , which he took over during the interdict . Shortly thereafter, he was replaced as sheriff of Hampshire and administrator of Cumberland , which he had been since 1209. In 1215 he testified with the recognition of the Magna Carta by the king. He was forgiven part of his debts to the king, but during the First Barons' War , Neville, like numerous other nobles and apparently familiar officials of the king, probably changed sides in 1216, when Johann's position seemed hopeless after the landing of a French army under Prince Ludwig . The aristocratic opposition gave him back the administration of Marlborough Castle.

Service under King Henry III.

Due to his apostasy, he was deposed as a forest judge and had to give up parts of his possessions. Although in 1217, after the end of the war, the barons of the government of the new King Henry III. subjugated and his relative Ralph de Neville became seal-keeper , Neville remained out of favor for the next several years. During this time, he was litigating Falkes de Bréauté , who married her younger half-sister Margaret, about his wife's inheritance .

It was not until January 17, 1224 that he was appointed chief forest judge as the successor to Brian de Lisle . As a forest judge, Neville initially acted strictly again and sometimes arbitrarily, as he had acted under the reign of King John. During his tenure, however, the implementation of the provisions of the Charter of the Forest issued in 1217 over the boundaries of the royal forests fell. In doing so, he had to make concessions, because forests had been afforested since the reign of Henry II and so the forest boundaries had been expanded. These reforestations should only be added to the royal forests if they had taken place on the direct property of the king. Nevertheless, there were numerous lawsuits and lawsuits across the forest borders. Previous attempts to resolve this dispute between the government and the counties had failed under forest judges John Marshal and Brian de Lisle. In October 1224, Neville was ordered to define the forest boundaries as they had existed before the outbreak of the War of the Barons in 1215. The re-confirmation of the Charter of the Forests and the Magna Carta by the king in 1225 now increased the pressure to resolve the dispute over the borders of the royal forests. After Neville was confirmed as a forest judge in April 1225, he himself carried out most of the visits in the individual counties. He was able to resolve some issues in this way, but at the beginning of 1227 the young king himself intervened in the forest management. In doing so, he challenged some of the boundaries previously set by his forest judges. The resulting ongoing dispute over the forest borders finally led to Neville's replacement on October 8, 1229. As his successors, the King appointed John of Monmouth and again Brian de Lisle. Neville died shortly before July 21, 1234 and was buried at Waltham Abbey , Essex, which he had sponsored.

Family and offspring

Neville's first wife, Joan of Cornhill, apparently died after December 1224. He had several children with her, including:

Before April 1230 he had married Beatrice, the widow of Ralph de Fay († around 1223), who was an heir to Stephen of Turnham with her four sisters .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wilfred L. Warren: King John . University of California Press, Berkeley, 1978, ISBN 0-520-03494-5 , p. 140
  2. ↑ Wilfred L. Warren: King John . University of California Press, Berkeley, 1978, ISBN 0-520-03494-5 , p. 190
  3. ↑ Nicholas Vincent: King John's evil counselors (act. 1208-1214) (Oxford DNB). Retrieved January 13, 2016 .
  4. ↑ Wilfred L. Warren: King John . University of California Press, Berkeley, 1978, ISBN 0-520-03494-5 , p. 140
  5. ↑ Wilfred L. Warren: King John . University of California Press, Berkeley, 1978, ISBN 0-520-03494-5 , p. 252
  6. ^ DJ Power: Bréauté, Sir Falkes de (d. 1226). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004
personal data
SURNAME De Neville, Hugh
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English nobleman and chief forest judge
DATE OF BIRTH 12th Century
DATE OF DEATH before July 21, 1234