Ranulf le Meschin, 3rd Earl of Chester (1070–1129) was a Norman magnate based in northern and central England. Originating in Bessin in Normandy, Ranulf made his career in England thanks to his kinship with Hugh d'Avranches - the Earl of Chester, the patronage of kings William II Rufus and Henry I Beauclerc, and his marriage to Lucy, heiress of the Bolingbroke-Spalding estates in Lincolnshire.
Ranulf fought in Normandy on behalf of Henry I, and served the English king as a kind of semi-independent governor in the far north-west, in Cumberland and Westmorland, founding Wetheral Priory. After the death of his cousin Richard d'Avranches in the White Ship Disaster of November 1120, Ranulf became Earl of the County of Chester on the Anglo-Welsh marches and Viscount of Avranches in Normandy. He held this position for the remainder of his life, and passed the title on to his son, Ranulf de Gernon. Ranulf also had a daughter Alice, who married Richard Fitz Gilbert de Clare.
Biography
Family and origins Ranulf le Meschin's father and mother represented two different families of viscounts in Normandy, and both of them were strongly tied to Henry, son of William the Conqueror.Hollister, Henry I, pp. 53–54 His father was Ranulf de Bessin, and likely for this reason the former Ranulf was styled le Meschin, "the younger".King, "Ranulf (I)" Ranulf's father was viscount of the Bessin, the area around Bayeux.King, "Ranulf (I)"; Newman, Anglo-Norman Nobility, pp. 97–99 Besides Odo, bishop of Bayeux, Ranulf the elder was the most powerful magnate in the Bessin region of Normandy.Hollister, Henry I, p. 60 Ranulf le Meschin's great-grandmother may even have been from the ducal family of Normandy, as le Meschin's paternal great-grandfather viscount Anschitil is known to have married a daughter of Duke Richard III.Douglas, William the Conqueror, p. 93
Ranulf le Meschin's mother, Margaret, was the daughter of Richard le Goz, Viscount of Avranches. Richard's father Thurstan le Goz had become viscount of the Hiémois between 1017 and 1025,Hollister, Henry I, p. 53 while Richard himself became viscount of the Avranchin in either 1055 or 1056.Barlow, William Rufus, p. 298, and Hollister, Henry I, p. 54, give the name "Margaret" for Ranulf's mother; King, "Ranulf (I)", gives the name "Matilda", as does Douglas, William the Conqueror, p. 93, who gives Maud Her brother (Richard Goz's son) was Hugh d'Avranches "Lupus" ("the Wolf"), Viscount of the Avranchin and Earl of Chester (from c. 1070).Hollister, Henry I, p. 54; Lewis, "Avranches, Hugh d'" Ranulf was thus, in addition to being heir to the Bessin, the nephew of one of Norman England's most powerful and prestigious families.Newman, Anglo-Norman Nobility, pp. 57–58, 78, 81, 119, 120, 125, 133, 167–68, 191
An entry in the Durham Liber Vitae, c. 1098 x 1120, indicates that Ranulf le Meschin had an older brother named Richard (who died in youth), and a younger brother named William.King, "Ranulf (I)"; Rollason & Rollason (eds.), The Durham Liber Vitae, vol. i, p. 159 He had a sister called Agnes, who later married Robert de Grandmesnil (died 1136).
Early career Historian C. Warren Hollister thought that Ranulf's father Ranulf de Briquessart was one of the early close companions of Prince Henry, the future Henry I. Hollister called Ranulf the Elder "a friend from Henry's youthful days in western Normandy",Hollister, Henry I, p. 200 and argued that the homeland of the two Ranulfs had been under Henry's overlordship since 1088, despite both ducal and royal authority lying with Henry's two brothers.Hollister, Henry I, p. 54; argument is based on a passage in Robert of Torigny, which says that in 1096, when Robert Curthose went on Crusade and pawned the duchy to William Rufus, Henry received ex integro the counties of Coutances and Bayeux save only Bayeux and Caen, a grant Hollister thought was probably a "renewal" rather than a new patronage Hollister further suggested that Ranulf le Meschin may have had a role in persuading Robert Curthose to free Henry from captivity in 1089.Hollister, Henry I, p. 342
The date of Ranulf senior's death, and succession of Ranulf junior, is unclear, but the former's last and the latter's earliest appearance in extant historical records coincides, dating to 24 April 1089 in charter of Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, to Bayeux Cathedral.Davis and Whitwell, Regesta Regum, no. 308; King, "Ranulf (I)" Ranulf le Meschin appears as "Ranulf son of Ranulf the viscount".
In the foundation charter of Chester Abbey granted by his uncle Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, and purportedly issued in 1093, Ranulf le Meschin is listed as a witness.Barraclough (ed.), Charters, no. 3; King, "Ranulf (I)" His attestation to this grant is written Signum Ranulfi nepotis comitis, "signature of Ranulf nephew of the earl".Barraclough (ed.), Charters, no. 3, at p. 7 However, the editor of the Chester comital charters, Geoffrey Barraclough, thought this charter was forged in the period of Earl Ranulf II.Barraclough (ed.), Charters, pp. 7–11 Between 1098 and 1101 (probably in 1098) Ranulf became a major English landowner in his own right when he became the third husband of Lucy, heiress of the honour of Bolingbroke in Lincolnshire.King, "Ranulf (I)"; Newman, Anglo-Norman Nobility, p. 40; Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, pp. 45-46 This acquisition also brought him the lordship of Appleby in Westmorland, previously held by Lucy's second husband Ivo Taillebois.
Marriage to a great heiress came only with royal patronage, which in turn meant that Ranulf had to be respected and trusted by the king. Ranulf was probably, like his father, among the earliest and most loyal of Henry's followers, and was noted as such by Orderic Vitalis.Hollister, Henry I, pp. 116, 200, 257 (n. 90 for the reference to Orderic, which is book 6.222) Ranulf was however not recorded often at the court of Henry I, and did not form part of the king's closest group of administrative advisers.Newman, Anglo-Norman Nobility, p. 98 He witnessed charters only occasionally, though this became more frequent after he became earl.Hollister, Henry I, pp. 342–43 In 1106 he is found serving as one of several justiciars at York hearing a case about the lordship of Ripon.Green, Henry I, p. 116 In 1116 he is recorded in a similar context.
Ranulf was, however, one of the king's military companions. When, soon after Whitsun 1101 Henry heard news of a planned invasion of England by his brother Robert Curthose, he sought promises from his subjects to defend the kingdom.Hollister, Henry I, p. 136 A letter to the men of Lincolnshire names Ranulf as one of four figures entrusted with collecting these oaths.Hollister, Henry I, p. 136; Johnson, Cronne, and Davis (eds.), Regesta Regum, vol. ii, no. 531 Ranulf was one of the magnates who accompanied King Henry on his invasion of Duke Robert's Norman territory in 1106.Green, Henry I, p. 90; Hollister, Henry I, p. 200 Ranulf served under Henry as an officer of the royal household when the latter was on campaign; Ranulf was in fact one of his three commanders at the Battle of Tinchebrai.Kapelle, Norman Conquest, p. 200; King, "Ranulf (I)" The first line of Henry's force was led by Ranulf, the second (with the king) by Robert of Meulan, and third by William de Warrene, with another thousand knights from Brittany and Maine led by Helias, Count of Maine.Green, Henry I, pp. 91–92 Ranulf's line consisted of the men of Bayeux, Avranches and Coutances.Green, Henry I, p. 91
Lord of Cumberland
A charter issued in 1124 by David I, King of the Scots, to Robert I de Brus cited Ranulf's lordship of Carlisle and Cumberland as a model for Robert's new lordship in Annandale.King "Ranulf; Phythian-Adams, Land of the Cumbrians, p. 149 This is significant because Robert is known from other sources to have acted with semi-regal authority in this region. A source from 1212 attests that the jurors of Cumberland remembered Ranulf as quondam dominus Cumberland ("sometime Lord of Cumberland").Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, p. 47 Ranulf possessed the power and in some respects the dignity of a semi-independent earl in the region, though he lacked the formal status of being called such. A contemporary illustration of this authority comes from the records of Wetheral Priory, where Ranulf is found addressing his own sheriff, "Richer" (probably Richard de Boivill, baron of Kirklinton).Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, p. 48 No royal activity occurred in Cumberland or Westmorland during Ranulf's time in charge there, testimony to the fullness of his powers in the region.Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, p. 51
Ivo Taillebois, when he married Ranulf's future wife Lucy, had acquired her Lincolnshire lands but sometime after 1086 he acquired estates in Kendal and elsewhere in Westmorland. Adjacent lands in Westmorland and Lancashire that had previously been controlled by Earl Tostig Godwinson were probably carved up between Roger the Poitevin and Ivo in the 1080s, a territorial division at least partially responsible for the later boundary between the two counties.Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, pp. 39–40 Norman lordship in the heartland of Cumberland can be dated from chronicle sources to around 1092, the year King William Rufus seized the region from its previous ruler, Dolfin.Phythian-Adams, Land of the Cumbrians, p. 24; Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, p. 34 There is inconclusive evidence that settlers from Ivo's Lincolnshire lands had come into Cumberland as a result.For details, see Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, pp. 36–38
Between 1094 and 1098 Lucy was married to Roger fitz Gerold de Roumare, and it is probable that this marriage was the king's way of transferring authority in the region to Roger fitz Gerold.Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, pp. 41-42; Sharpe also cites (p. 42) the "unexplained interests in Westmorland in the 1130s" held by Richard fitz Gerard of Appleby, the son of the marriage, as additional evidence for this Only from 1106 however, well into the reign of Henry I, do we have certain evidence that this authority had come to Ranulf. The "traditional view", held by the historian William Kapelle, was that Ranulf's authority in the region did not come about until 1106 or after, as a reward for participation in the Battle of Tinchebrai.Kapelle, Norman Conquest, p. 200; King, "Ranulf (I)"; see also Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, pp. 43–44 Another historian, Richard Sharpe, has recently attacked this view and argued that it probably came in or soon after 1098. Sharpe stressed that Lucy was the mechanism by which this authority changed hands, and pointed out that Ranulf had been married to Lucy years before Tinchebrai and can be found months before Tinchebrai taking evidence from county jurors at York (which may have been responsible for Cumbria at this point).Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, pp. 44–46
Ranulf likewise distributed land to the church, founding a Benedictine monastic house at Wetheral.King, "Ranulf"; Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, p. 47 This he established as a daughter-house of St Mary's Abbey, York, a house that in turn had been generously endowed by Ivo Taillebois. This had occurred by 1112, the year of the death of Abbot Stephen of St Mary's, named in the foundation deed.Knowles, Brooke and London, Heads of Religious Houses, vol. I, p. 84; Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, p. 47 In later times at least, the priory of Wetheral was dedicated to St Mary and the Holy Trinity, as well as another saint named Constantine.Knowles, Brooke and London, Heads of Religious Houses, vol. i, p. 97 Ranulf gave Wetheral, among other things, his two churches at Appleby, St Lawrences (Burgate) and St Michaels (Bongate).Sharpe, Norman Rule in Cumbria, p. 49