Gilbert Le Teuton De Neuville

GIVN Gilbert le Teuton
RESEARCHER: Le nom de Gilbert de Neuville apparaisse sur le memorial des compagnons de Guillaume por la bataille de Hastings.

Relationships between the Dukes de Neuville and De Normandy (Not exhastive document)

"Richard de Nova Villa (Neuville) was cousin to the Conqueror on his mother's side. The name and parentage of his wife remain in obscurity; but it is known that he left four sons, Gilbert, Robert, Richard, ..... Ralph. From Gilbert's Clan, descended the houses of Westmorland, Warwick, Latimer, Abergavenny, (and a 100 years later: Cluain-Ioraird .....in Wexford, Ireland) "'Gilbertus Normanus' commonly called the _Admiral_, is placed at the head of the Neville pedigree by all the early genealogists. Leland styles him the Conqueror's Admiral, on the authority of a 'roulle of the genealogie of the Erles of Westmoreland'. Henry Drummond--into whose work Stapleton's researches into the Norman ancestry of the Nevills were incorporated--considered Leland's information as a mere family fabrication, introduced towards the close of the 15th century. Whether the device of the ship on the seal of Henry de Neville (date circ. 1200) supports the tradition, or whether the tradition arose from the seal, is a matter on which opinions differ. Foulk d'Anou, the uncle of Gilbert, certainly furnished forty ships for the invasion of England. There is no other evidence to support Leland's assertion that Gilbert himself was Admiral. "'From a passage in Odericus Vitalis it is clear that the Norman family of Neville issued from a Teutonic stock, some members of which offered their services to Richard, second duke of Normandy, and are known to have held high office, contracted important alliances, and possessed large fiefs in England _previous_ to the Conquest. Balderic Teutonicus was Lord of Bacqueville en Caux, and _Archearius_ under Duke William. He married a niece (or a daughter called Alix) of Gilbert Comte de Brionne, grandson of Duke Richard I., and Regent of Normandy in 1040.'" "'The fourth son of Baldric was called Richard de Nova Villa [*], or De Neuville, from his fief of Neuville sur Tocque, in the department of the Orne, the arrondissement of Argenton, and the Canton of Gacé. Hawisia, sister of Richard de Nova Villa, married Robert Fitz Erneis, who fought and fell at Hastings.'--_Vide Planché's Norman Ancestry of the Nevills, a paper read at Durham in 1865, and published in the British Archaeological Journal, Vol XXII, p.279_." Swallow adds a footnote: "[*] The name of Richard de Nevill is given by M. Leopold de Lisle in his catalogue of the companions of the Conqueror, and by the Vicomte de Magny in his book, entitled _La Nobiliare de Normandie_. The name of Ralph occurs in the _Clamores in Westreding, co Lincoln_. Ralph Neville held Thorpe of Turold, Abbot of Peterborough, but the name is omitted by Sir Henry Ellis in his _Introduction and Indexes to Domesday_. De Nove Villa _is_ found in the Roll of Battle Abbey, and in other lists of doubtful authority, but Odericus Vitalis makes no mention of the presence of any Neville at the battle of Hastings, nor does Wace in his _Roman de Rou_; but that some of the brothers, sons, or nephews of the elder Richard de Nova Villa, of not Richard himself, were present at the battle is very probable." Obviously this has to be contrasted with Ethel Stokes' article in CP (Vol IX, pp502a to 502d) where much of Swallow's words have to be consigned to the waste-paper basket. But Swallow himself put the weakest parts in quotes and seems to be very well aware that there was little evidence for any of it. Swallow's problem was that he was writing with the protection of the Bergavenny Nevilles and obviously hoped to sell copies around the various Nevill families so he could not throw out the old fables too violently.

Sources: From the book "De Nova Villa" by Henry J Swallow, pub jointly in 1885 by Andrew Reid of Newcastle upon Tyne and Griffith, Farran and Co of London, pp 2 and 3: