Isabel de Bolebec

Isabel de Bolebec , Countess of Oxford (also Isabel de Nonant or de Vere ) (* 1164 - † February 3, 1245 ) was an English noblewoman.

Isabel was a daughter of Hugh de Bolebec († around 1165), who had been Lord of Whitchurch in Buckinghamshire . Her first marriage was to Henry de Nonant , Lord of Totnes , who died in 1206. In 1207 she applied to the king for the right to choose her next husband himself. In the same year she married Robert de Vere , the younger brother of Aubrey de Vere, 2nd Earl of Oxford . She and her sister were at the time heir to the Bolebec family's estates, which included 30 Knight's Fees in Buckinghamshire. Her niece Isabel, the previous heiress of her family's estates, had been married to Aubrey de Vere, her husband's brother, but died childless in 1206 or early 1207. The de Vere family lost their claim to the Bolebec family's inheritance, but Robert de Vere's marriage to Isabel allowed them to retain at least part of the inheritance. After the childless death of her brother-in-law Aubrey de Vere, her husband became the heir of the de Vere family's estates in 1214. However, King John only confirmed him as Earl of Oxford in June 1215 , which was certainly one of the reasons that Robert was on the side of the rebels against the king in the war of the barons . It was not until 1217 that he submitted to the new King Heinrich III.

After her husband's death in 1221, Isabel acquired the guardianship of her underage son Hugh de Vere and the right to manage the estates of her late husband herself for 6,000 marks (about £ 2,228) . Her son came of age around 1231, when he took over her husband's inheritance. After the childless death of her sister in 1225, she inherited the other half of the Bolebec family's lands. In 1237 she and her son went on a pilgrimage to an unknown destination outside of Great Britain .

Isabel generously sponsored the Dominicans who came to Oxford in 1221 . She helped the Order establish a branch in the city and financed a first chapel on St Aldate's Street around 1227 . Later she bought property south of the city, which she gave to the order to build a new, larger settlement. After her death she was first buried in the chapel, after the consecration of the new church of St Ebbe's she was buried there. She also made donations to St Mary Magdalene Hospital in Crowmarsh in Oxfordshire and Woburn Abbey .

Web links

• RaGena C. DeAragon: Bolebec, Isabel de, countess of Oxford (c.1164-1245). 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