William Malet

William Malet coat of arms

William Malet , Lord of Curry Mallet (* around 1175 ; † before December 20, 1215 ) was an English nobleman and rebel. He was a member of the aristocratic opposition that forced King John Ohneland to recognize the Magna Carta in 1215 .

Life

William Malet came from the Anglo- Norman Malet family . He was a descendant of Robert Malet († before 1156), the first baron of the Malet family, and a son of Gilbert Malet († 1194). From 1190 he took part in the Third Crusade under King Richard the Lionheart . After arriving in the Holy Land in June 1191, he supported the siege of Acre . Upon his return, he paid the king a fee of £ 150 in 1196 to take over his Somerset inheritance after his father's death . As was customary for a small country nobleman at the time, he then entered the service of the king.

At Christmas 1209 he became sheriff of Somerset and Dorset after the representatives of the two counties had paid a high fee to King John Ohneland so that a member of the local nobility would become sheriff instead of the foreign William Brewer , a favorite of the king. Malet remained sheriff until the end of September 1212, when he ran into financial difficulties. The exact reason for this is unclear, the fact is that until 1214 he owed the king over 2,000 marks , i.e. more than £ 1,333. In order to pay his debts, he agreed that he this year with ten knights and twenty other soldiers in the campaign of the king in the Poitou attended, yet its debt in 1221 were still not settled. Presumably due to his debts, William, like numerous other nobles, joined the aristocratic opposition to the king in Stamford on Easter 1215 . After the king's recognition of the Magna Carta in June 1215, he was elected one of the 25 barons who were supposed to monitor the king's compliance with the provisions of the charter. For this he was in August together with 30 other barons of Pope Innocent III. excommunicated by name. However, he died at the end of the year after an open war between the barons had broken out between the king and the opposition . On December 20, 1215, his son-in-law, Hugh de Vivonia of Chewton, Somerset, administered his estates.

Family and inheritance

From his marriage to Alice Basset, a daughter and co-heir of Thomas Basset of Headington in Oxfordshire, Malet had three daughters, among whom his estates were divided:

• Mabel

1. ∞ Nicholas Avenel
2. ∞ Hugh de Vivonia († 1249)

• Helewise

1. ∞ Hugh Pointz (Poyntz) († 1220)
2. ∞ Robert de Mucegros († 1254)

• Bertha († before 1221)

Web links

• Nigel Saul: Magna Carta 800th: William Malet
• Ralph V. Turner: Malet, William (c.1175-1215). 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