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Birth:          1060 Argentan, Normandy
Death:          AFT 1086 Croxton Manor, Cambridgeshire, England

Notes
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=jweber&id=I13310
CP:Volume 1, page 196, note b:
The family took its name from Argenton in Poitou, and not from Argenton in Berry, nor 
from Argentan in Normandy.

K.S.B. Keats-Rohan [Domesday People I, p.177 (1999)] says that the Domesday 
tenant Dauid De Argentomo was "Norman, from Argentan, dépt. Orne". This is perhaps 
based on his likely identity with David latimer, a tenant of William de Braose in Dorset, 
who originated from Briouse-Saint-Gervais, Orne, arr. Argentan [p.471].

-------------------------------

The following information taken from Medieval English Genealogy website at:
http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/families/arg/argoutl1.shtml

The family originated from Argentan in the département of Orne, in Normandy, 
according to Keats-Rohan. (It had previously been suggested, in the Complete 
Peerage (vol.1), that they came instead from Argenton in Poitou.)

The surname occurs in documents in a bewildering variety of spellings. In the 
Domesday Book, it appears in the Latin forms 'de Argentomago' (Farrer) and 'de 
Argentomo' (VCH Bedfordshire), and in early documents the spelling is frequently 
'Argentom' or 'Argentem'. Eventually - in fact, probably after the family itself had 
become extinct - it evolved into 'Argentine', which Hunter describes as a form 'more 
euphonious and more pleasing in every respect'. In these pages, except when quoting 
specific documents, the compromise form 'Argentein' will be adopted.

on David Argentein:

In Tudor times, no pedigree was complete without a Norman ancestor who had fought 
at Hastings, and frequently one would be provided even if the family had risen only 
recently from the yeoman class. When an elaborate pedigree was drawn up, in the 
reign of Elizabeth, for the Alington family of Horseheath, a descent was concocted, 
extending over three centuries, to connect the family with a fictitious Sir Hildebrand 
de Alington, later described as 'under Marshall to William the Conqueror' (Banks), and 
his son Alan, who was 'thought to be the chief doer for the building of Westminster 
Hall' under William Rufus (Burke).

More plausibly, another descent was given for the Argenteins, whose heirs the 
Alingtons were, to one 'Dauid de Argentonio', who was later called 'a Norman, and a 
martiall knight, who under King William the Conquerour, served in the warres' 
(Weever, apparently quoting Camden). The same David is shown, together with the 
arms later borne by the Argentein family, in a forged document known as the 'Tabula 
Eliensis', which purports to be a list of knights quartered on the monks of Ely by 
William the Conqueror (Topographer).

Although the surname appears in several versions of the late compilation known as 
the 'Battle Abbey Roll', it is impossible to know whether David de Argentein was 
among the Norman knights at Hastings in 1066: there is good evidence for only a 
handful of their names, and most of those come from the nobility (Camp). But he 
certainly existed, for he appears 20 years later in the Domesday Book, as a tenant in 
chief in Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire. His holdings were small: in Cambridgeshire, 
one manor, in Croxton (of which he had been temporarily deprived by Eustace de 
Lovetot, sheriff of Huntingdon), 1 virgate, 20 acres in Caldecote and 1 hide in 
Westwick, and in Bedfordshire, 1 hide in Riseley. There does not appear to be any 
later record of the Argentein family holding land in any of these places, although they 
were active elsewhere in both these counties.

At this time the name David - like many other Biblical names - was evidently very 
uncommon both in Normandy and England. Only one other land-holder with this name 
is mentioned in the entire Domesday Book: David 'Latimer', or the Interpreter. Keats-
Rohan suggests that this David, who was a tenant of William de Braose in Dorset, was 
probably identical with the David 'de Argentomo' of Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire. 
William came from Briouze-Saint-Gervais, in the arrondissement of Argentan, and 
feudal relationships in Normandy were often replicated in England after the Norman 
Conquest.

In any case, David de Argentein's holdings in England were modest, and given the 
paucity of records in this period, it is not surprising that we know nothing more of him.


Marriage To ----- ----- ()
    m.  

Notes


Children by ----- ----- 
DE ARGENTEIN Roger (ABT 1080 - )

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