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Birth:          1078 Dol, Normandy
Death:          AFT 1121 

Notes
of Shropshire, England
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_fitz_Flaad
Alan fitz Flaad (c.1078 – after 1121) was a Breton knight, probably recruited as a 
mercenary by Henry I, son of William the Conqueror, in his conflicts with his brothers.
[1] After Henry became King of England, Alan became an assiduous courtier and 
obtained large estates in Norfolk, Sussex, Shropshire, and elsewhere in the Midlands, 
including the feudal barony and castle of Oswestry in Shropshire.[2][3][4] His duties 
included supervision of the Welsh border.[5] He is now noted as the progenitor of the 
FitzAlan family, the Earls of Arundel (1267–1580), and the House of Stuart,[6] although 
his family connections were long a matter of conjecture and controversy.
Family origins: a contested history[edit]

The controversy over Stewart ancestry[edit]

Alan's role was formerly obscure because of the political implications of examining the 
origins of the Stewart dynasty. Holinshed, deriving his information from the work of 
Hector Boece, asserted that Banquo, Thane of Lochaber, was the ancestor of the 
Stewarts.[7] Distorting the role of Banquo, who is presented by Holinshed as 
Macbeth's chief accomplice in regicide,[8] William Shakespeare presented him 
flatteringly in Macbeth as a martyred ancestor of James VI of Scotland and I of 
England. These legends, accepted as history, became part of the foundation narrative 
of the Stewarts and forced later writers to trace the Stewart ancestry through Fleance, 
Banquo's son. David Symson, the Historiographer Royal of Scotland, in a work 
dedicated to Queen Anne, followed the chroniclers in having Fleance marry a 
daughter of the Welsh ruler Gruffydd ap Llywelyn,[9] and then introduced Walter as 
his son[10] and Alan fitz Walter, 2nd High Steward of Scotland as his grandson.[11] 
However, this greatly distorted the chronology, forcing Sym to transpose Alan fitz 
Walter, actually born around 1140, to about 1073. This created a gap in the record, 
which was filled by multiplying the Alans and Walters in the Stewart line.

David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes, in his Annals of Scotland, published in the 1770s, went 
some way to establish a convincing chronology for Walter fitz Alan, who, he asserted, 
belonged to the reign of David I of Scotland (1124-53) and his successor, Malcolm IV. 
Moreover, he was the first of the Stewarts: there was none in the reign of Malcolm III 
(1058–93), as Symson had been forced to maintain.[12] He went on to demolish the 
legendary background to the Stewarts, which he described as "flattering and ignorant 
fictions". He showed that there was a need to distinguish the various Alans who were 
connected with the Stewart line, something he was unembarrassed to be unable to do:


Some of my readers may demand, "Who then was Alan the father of Walter, Stewart of 
Scotland in the reign of Malcolm IV?" ... In the reign of David I, before the middle of 
the twelfth century, the family of the Stewarts was opulent and powerful. It may, 
therefore, have subsisted for many ages previous to that time; but when, and what 
was its commencement, we cannot determine.[13]

Andrew Stuart, a notable Scottish MP, accepted Dalrymple's critical work on the 
legendary ancestors, although he included among these a crusader Alan who was 
subsequently to emerge as genuine.[14] He sought to establish a definite 
chronological framework, placing Walter fitz Alan's death in 1177.

Not until the first decade of the 19th century did George Chalmers definitely prove that 
Walter fitz Alan, an acknowledged link in the Stewart ancestry, came from Shropshire 
and was actually the son of Alan fitz Flaad. This finally established Alan fitz Flaad's 
existence and importance, and confirmed the kinship between the Stewarts and the 
FitzAlan Earls of Arundel.[4] Even then, the legendary background took almost a 
century to fade. In 1858, Robert William Eyton, the distinguished historian of 
Shropshire, while clarifying Alan fitz Flaad's connection with the county and details of 
his marriage, still tried to maintain a link with the legendary Banquo,[15] and even 
surmised that Flaad was actually Fleance.[16]

After an anonymous work of 1874 drew attention to a strong connection between Alan 
fitz Flaad and Brittany, and confirmed Flaad's relationship to Alan the Seneschal,[17] 
J. Horace Round definitively established and publicised Alan fitz Flaad's true Breton 
origins in 1901 in a collection of genealogical essays. Alan's father, Flaad (rendered in 
numerous way, including Flaald and Flathald), was a son (or possibly a brother) of 
Alain, dapifer to the Ancient Diocese of Dol,[18] with its see at Dol-de-Bretagne, who 
had taken part in the First Crusade in 1097.[19] "Alan Dapifer" is found as a witness 
in 1086 to a charter relating to Mezuoit, a cell near Dol of the Abbey of Saint-Florent 
de Saumur. The area of Dol is near Mont-Saint-Michel and has figured in the history of 
the Duchy of Brittany since at least the rule of Nominoe. Round's genealogy was 
confirmed in 1904 by Sir James Balfour Paul, then Lord Lyon King of Arms, who, in a 
definitive work, The Scots Peerage, stated that "the Stewarts or Stuarts are of Breton 
origin, descended from a family which held the office of Senescal or Steward of 
Dol."[20] He then reinstated Alan fitz Flaad to his place in the ancestry of the Scottish 
royal family and gave a summary of what was known of his career.

Alan fitz Flaad: family tree[edit]

Round provided a family tree[21] to embody his essential findings, which is adapted 
below.

Family of Alan fitz Flaad[show]

Career[edit]

Arrival in England[edit]

Henry's royal seal, showing the King on horseback and seated on his throne. The 
images reflect Henry's peripatetic knigship, with the court constantly mobile while 
transacting business.

Flaad and his son Alan had come to the favourable notice of King Henry I of England 
who, soon after his accession, brought Flaad and Alan to England. Eyton, consistently 
following the theory of the Scottish origins of the Stewarts, thought this was because 
he was part of the entourage of the Queen, Matilda of Scotland,[22] but Round 
pointed out that Henry had been besieged in Mont St Michel during his struggle with 
his brothers,[1] an event which probably occurred in 1091. He is known to have 
recruited Breton troops at that time and, after his surrender, left the scene via the 
adjoining regions of Brittany, where Dol is situated. This is a likely explanation for the 
Bretons in the military retinue he brought to England after the death of William Rufus.

Alan's career in England can be traced largely through his presence as a witness to 
charters granted by the king during his travels in the first decade or more of his reign. 
Some of his activities were traced by Eyton, and his researches overlap with William 
Farrer's calendar of Henry I's travels. All of the business in which he took part was 
ecclesiastical, involving grants, sometimes disputed, to churches and monasteries.

Appearances at court[edit]

Alan appeared in Henry I's company at least as early as September 1101, probably at 
a court held in Windsor Castle,[23] when he witnessed important grants to Norwich 
Cathedral, confirming its foundation and various endowments.[24][25] Next, he 
appeared with the king at Canterbury in 1103,[26] where he witnessed the grant of a 
market to the nuns of Malling Abbey and land acquisitions by Rochester Cathedral, 
then in the process of rebuilding.[27]

Later that year[28] or early in the next,[29] Alan was with the king in the New Forest, 
where the business concerned Andover Priory, a daughter house of the great 
Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Florent de Saumur.[30] He was probably selected 
deliberately for this meeting because of his family's close connections with Saumur 
Abbey: one of his uncles was a monk there.[19] William Rufus had decreed that all 
chapels in the parish of Andover church should be handed over to the monks or 
destroyed.[31] One problem at issue revolved around Foxcote chapel, which was 
evidently being defended from destruction or annexation by Edward de Foscote, a 
local landowner. Another seems to have been the administration of justice in the 
monastic estates.[32] Wihenoc, a monk of St Florent, had initiated an action against 
the reeve of Andover to have these issues clarified and resolved. Alan fitz Flaad was 
called upon to witness a compromise, although Foxcote was among the properties 
confirmed to the priory by Pope Eugenius III in 1146.[33]

In the autumn of 1105 Alan was called to York to witness confirmation of Ralph 
Paynel's transfer of his refounded Holy Trinity Priory in York to Marmoutier Abbey, 
Tours[34][35] and his many endowments of the priory itself.[36][37] At some point he 
also witnessed the Roger de Nonant's gift of the church at Totnes and various tithes 
to the Abbey of SS Sergius and Bacchus at Angers, a gift which was earmarked as 
being for the souls of the royal family.[38]

In May 1110 Alan was at court at Windsor again to witness the king's settlement of a 
property dispute between Hervey le Breton, Bishop of Ely, and Ranulph Flambard, 
Bishop of Durham, resolved in favour of the former.[39]

Probably only later does he appear as a witness to a royal command issued to Richard 
de Belmeis I, the Bishop of London and the king's viceroy in Shropshire, to see that 
justice was done in the case of a disputed prebend at Morville.[40][41] The collegiate 
church there had been dissolved in order to endow Shrewsbury Abbey[42] and it 
seems that the son of one of the prebendaries was resisting the loss of what he 
regarded as his patrimony. Alan is listed among a group of Shropshire magnates, 
including Corbets and a Peverel, perhaps during Henry I's 1114 military expedition into 
Wales. Johnson and Cronne tentatively place the meeting at Holdgate Castle in 
Shropshire. Eyton dates the event earlier, around the time of a royal expedition to 
Shropshire in 1109.[43] Whatever the date, it shows Alan as an important member of 
the Shropshire landowning class.

Territorial magnate[edit]

Alan's rapid ascent to wealth and power was a symptom of the troubled times. The 
abortive revolt of Robert de Belleme in 1102 had torn apart the Anglo-Norman system 
of governing the Welsh Marches With other Breton friends, Alan had been given 
forfeited lands in Norfolk and Shropshire, including some which had previously 
belonged to Robert de Belleme himself.[44] Robert had proved a threat to Henry in 
both the Welsh Marches and in Normandy, so the king was determined to insert 
reliable supporters to counterbalance or replace his network of supporters. Alan 
received more land as he proved his worth. A large portfolio of lands in Shropshire and 
around Peppering, near Arundel in Sussex, was taken from the holdings of Rainald de 
Bailleul,[45] ancestor of the House of Balliol, which was also later to provide a king of 
Scotland. These were lands granted to Rainald by William the Conqueror in 
recognition of his role as Sheriff of Shropshire. There is no evidence that Rainald or 
his successor, Hugh, were rebels, and it seems that their lands came to Alan as a 
consequence of his elevation to the shrievalty of the county.[43] He also gained a 
stake in the very large estates of Ernulf de Hesdin by marriage to his daughter, 
Avelina.[46]

Religious grants and foundations[edit]

Alan was actively involved in a number of grants to religious institutions. One of the 
grants to Norwich Cathedral that he witnessed in 1101 concerned advowson of the 
church at Langham, Norfolk, which "had been Alan's", along with the tithes. It is 
possible this was a donation by himself.[23] At some point unknown he gave the 
manor of Eaton, near Norwich, to Norwich Cathedral, a gift the king promised "to 
confirm when Alan comes to my court."[47][48] It is unclear whether this implied the 
king doubted the existence or the authenticity of the monks' charter:[49] it certainly 
implies that Alan's attendance at court was to be expected. He also made 
considerable grants of land to Castle Acre Priory,[50] which lay on the boundary of his 
Norfolk honour of Mileham.[51]

However, his most important grants in Norfolk were to Sporle Priory, another 
Benedictine house subject to St Florent de Saumur, which he founded.[52] He gave to 
the monks of St Florent the church at Sporle, its tithes, a man's landholding, a 
ploughland in Sporle and another in Mileham, firewood and building timber, and 
pasture for sheep.[53] The Liber Albus of St Florent mentions that one of the monks 
present when Alan made the gift was Wihenoc, who initiated the action at Andover.
[54] Sporle was later endowed with property in Norfolk villages, including Great and 
Little Palgrave, where the priory had the church,[33] Great Dunham, Hunstanton and 
Holme-next-the-Sea.[28]

Alan acquired Upton Magna, the manor in Shropshire on which Haughmond Abbey was 
later built, as part of the group of estates that had belonged to earlier sheriffs.[55] A 
note at the beginning of the abbey's cartulary dates the foundation to 1100 but 
attributes it to Alan's son, William Fitz Alan,[56] which is impossible, as he was not yet 
born.[57] The existence of a religious community at Haughmond is not definitely 
attested before a grant of a fishery to what was still a priory by William, around 1135.
[58] While Eyton assumed that William was the founder, although at a later date than 
suggested by the introductory note on the cartulary, the Victoria County History 
account leaves open the possibility that a small semi-eremetic community existed 
earlier at Haughmond under Alan's protection, without leaving a written trace.[45]

Alan probably many small grants of land or property rights. He gave land at his manor 
of Stretton-on-Dunsmore in Warwickshire to Burton Abbey.[59] He granted the tithes 
from his demesne at Burton on Trent to the monks of Léhon in Brittany, where there 
was a priory subject to the Abbey of Marmoutier: this is known from its confirmation 
some decades later by his grandson, Alan fitz Jordan.[60] Alan fitz Jordan also 
confirmed his grandfather's grant to Marmoutier of property at Cuguen[61] and 
confirmed or restored Alan fitz Flaad's gift of a mill at Burton to Sele Priory, a small 
Sussex monastery subordinate to St Florent de Saumur.[28]

Marriage and family[edit]

Alan fitz Flaad married Avelina de Hesdin, daughter of Ernulf de Hesdin, a tenant-in-
chief in ten counties at the time of Domesday,[62] who was killed on crusade at 
Antioch.[63][64] The Burkes' Royal Families of 1848 was one of the sources that 
asserted Alan's wife was the "dau(ghter) and heir of Warine, Sheriff of Shropshire, 
temp. William the Conqueror."[2] The underlying reasoning seems to be that Alan held 
the lands formerly held by the sheriffs of the county and goes back at least as far as 
William Dugdale, but it was rejected by Eyton,[65] not least because of lack of any 
evidence. He noted that
William fitz Alan, in grants of his Sussex estates to Haughmond Abbey, referred to his 
mother as Adelina
in the account by Orderic Vitalis of the siege of Shrewsbury in 1138, the defender 
"Ernulf de Hesding" is referred to as the avunculus or maternal uncle of William fitz 
Alan.[46]

By deduction, this Ernulf, who shared his father's name and byname, was the brother 
of Avelina. Round traced the elder Ernulf's activities in Picardy and confirmed that he 
had a daughter, called Ava in this context, who was named as one of those 
consenting to a charter granting family holdings at Hesdin to the Priory of St George, a 
Benedictine house subject to Anchin Abbey[66] and located by Vieil-Hesdin, the 
original site of the town of Hesdin. The priory's record of the grant makes clear that 
Ernulf was riding in the entourage of William Rufus and returning to England at the 
time.

The issue of Alan and Avelina was:
William fitz Alan, eldest son (d. 1160), made High Sheriff of Shropshire by King 
Stephen of England in 1137. He married a niece of Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester.[67] 
His son William (d. c1210) acquired by marriage the Lordship of Clun and he became 
designated "Lord of Clun and Oswestry".[68] William is ancestor of the FitzAlan Earls 
of Arundel.[69]
Walter fitz Alan, second son, became first hereditary High Steward of Scotland,[67] 
and ancestor of the Stewart Kings of Scotland.[6]
Jordan fitz Alan, of Burton, who inherited lands in Brittany, and restored to the Priory 
of St. Florent at Sele, West Sussex, the mill at Burton given it by his father.[70]
Simon fitz Alan, brother of Walter, who also went to Scotland and witnessed his 
brother's Foundation Charter of Paisley Abbey.[71] Round suggests he may have been 
either a uterine brother or even a bastard brother.[72]

After Alan's death, Avelina married Robert fitz Walter, Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, 
as shown in a grant, dated no earlier than 1126, of their church at Chipping Norton to 
Gloucester Abbey.[73]

Death: a contested date[edit]

Alan's death, when dated at all, is generally said to have been in or by 1114. This is 
based on reasoning set out be Eyton. He read in Dugdale's History of Warwickshire 
that Sybil of Wolston had confirmed a gift of land made by her mother, Adeliza, to 
Burton Abbey.[59] He was convinced the land in question had belonged to Alan and 
that Adeliza was the same as Avelina, his wife. As Adeliza would not have been able 
to grant the land until it passed into her control on his death, and the Abbey was 
known to have had the land by 1114, it followed that Alan could not have lived 
beyond 1114. However, Round's researches established the reasoning was based on 
a false premise. Eyton had conflated three distinct but neighbouring Warwickshire 
manors, all belonging at one time to Rainald de Bailleul. One of the charters he 
collected, in which Sybil confirms a land grant to the Benedictine abbey at Saint-
Pierre-sur-Dives, showed clearly that Sybil was not the daughter of Avelina and Alan 
fitz Flaad, but of one Hubert Baldram, a vassal of Rainald.[74] Round thus concluded:


Thus Adeliza, mother of Sybil, and wife of Hubert Baldran, was quite distinct from 
Avelina, wife of Alan Fitz Flaald, with whom Mr. Eyton rashly identified her. Alan may 
have lived, and probably did, beyond 1114...[75]

However the date stuck and appears in the 1973 Victoria County History account of 
Haughmond Abbey, it appears as a terminus ante quem for events in Alan's life.[45] It 
is known that Avelina de Hesdin, as a widow, made a claim for her dower, relating to 
Eaton manor, against Everard of Calne, Bishop of Norwich. She obtained 100 
shillings-worth of land in the manor for life, an award that Henry I confirmed in 
April/May 1121 at his court in Winchester.[76] Alan's death must have pre-dated this 
award, but not necessarily by more than a few months.

Parents
____ Fledaldus (Flaald) (ABT 1046 - )
----- ----- ()

Siblings
FITZ FLAALD Alan (1078 - AFT 1121)

Marriage To DE HESDIN Avelina (1081 - )
    m.  

Notes

Parents
DE HESDIN Ernulf (Arnulf) (ABT 1038 - AFT 1091)
DE NORMANDY Emmelina (ABT 1040 - )

Children by DE HESDIN Avelina 1081 - 
FITZ ALAN William (ABT 1105 - 1160)
FITZ ALAN Walter (ABT 1106 - 1177)

Produced by Fzip 1.7 6/20/2017