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Birth:          ABT 1049 of Brienze, Normandy
Death:          ABT 1093 Bramber, Sussex, England

Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_de_Braose,_1st_Lord_of_Bramber
William de Braose (or William de Briouze), First Lord of Bramber (died 1093/1096) was 
previously lord of Briouze, Normandy. He was granted lands in England by William the 
Conqueror soon after he and his followers had invaded and controlled Saxon England.
Norman victor[edit]
Braose had been given extensive lands in Sussex[1] by 1073. He became feudal 
baron of the Rape of Bramber[2] where he built Bramber Castle. Braose was also 
awarded lands around Wareham and Corfe in Dorset, two manors in Surrey, Southcote 
in Berkshire and Downton in Wiltshire[1] and became one of the most powerful of the 
new feudal barons of the early Norman era.

He continued to bear arms alongside King William in campaigns in England, Normandy 
and Maine in France.

He was a pious man and made considerable grants to the Abbey of Saint Florent, in 
Saumur, and endowed the foundation of priories at Sele near Bramber and at Briouze.

He was soon occupying a new Norman castle at Bramber, guarding the strategically 
important harbour at Steyning, and began a vigorous boundary dispute and power 
struggle with the monks of Fécamp Abbey in Normandy, to whom William the 
Conqueror had granted Steyning, brought to a head by the Domesday Book, 
completed in 1086.

Land disputes[edit]

Braose built a bridge at Bramber and demanded tolls from ships travelling further along 
the river to the busy port at Steyning. The monks challenged this, and they also 
disputed Braose's right to bury people in the churchyard of his new church of Saint 
Nicholas at Bramber, demanding the burial fees for themselves, despite the church's 
having been built to serve the castle and not the town. The monks then produced 
forged documents to defend their position and were unhappy with the failure of their 
claim on Hastings, which was very similar. They claimed the same freedoms and land 
tenure in Hastings as King Edward had given them at Steyning. On a technicality, King 
William was bound to uphold all rights and freedoms held by the Abbey before King 
Edward's death, but the monks had already been expelled ten years before that. 
William wanted to hold Hastings for himself for strategic reasons, and he ignored the 
problem until 1085, when he confirmed the Abbey's claims to Steyning but 
compensated it for its claims at Hastings with land in the manor of Bury, near 
Pulborough in Sussex. In 1086 King William called his sons, barons, and bishops to 
court (the last time an English king presided personally, with his full court, to decide a 
matter of law) to settle the Steyning disputes, which took a full day. The result was 
that the Abbey won over William de Braose, forcing him to curtail his bridge tolls, to 
give up various encroachments onto the Abbey's lands, including a farmed rabbit 
warren, a park, 18 burgage tenements, a causeway, and a channel used to fill his 
moat. Braose also had to organise a mass exhumation of all Bramber's dead, the 
bodies being transferred to the Abbey's churchyard of Saint Cuthman's in Steyning.[3]

Progeny[edit]

William de Braose was succeeded as Lord of Bramber by his son, Philip de Braose, 
and started an important Anglo-Norman dynasty (see House of Braose).

Death[edit]

William de Braose was present in 1093 at the consecration of a church in Briouze, his 
manor of origin whence originates his family name, thus he was still alive in that year. 
However, his son Philip was issuing charters as Lord of Bramber in 1096, indicating 
that William de Braose died sometime between 1093 and 1096.

Parents
DE BRUS Robert (ABT 1030 - ABT 1090)
____ Gunnora (ABT 1030 - BEF 1050)

Siblings
DE PITRES Roger (ABT 1047 - BEF 1083)
DE BRAOSE William (ABT 1049 - ABT 1093)

Marriage To DE ST. CLAIR Agnes (ABT 1054 - )
    m.  

Notes

Parents
DE ST. CLAIR Walderne (Waldron) (ABT 1022 - )
OF NORMANDY Helena ("le Bon") (ABT 1027 - )

Children by DE ST. CLAIR Agnes ABT 1054 - 
DE BRAOSE Philip (ABT 1070 - ABT 1134)
DE BRAOSE ----- (ABT 1077 - )

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