| History |
Lucia, sometimes called Lucia of Bolingbroke, was an Anglo-Norman heiress in central England and, later in life, countess-consort of Chester. Probably descended partly from the old English earls of Mercia, she came to possess extensive lands in Lincolnshire which she passed on to her husbands and sons. She was a notable religious patron, founding or co-founding two small religious houses and endowing several with lands and churches,
A charter of Crowland Abbey, now thought to be spurious, described Thorold of Bucknall, perhaps the same as her probable father Thorold of Lincoln, as a brother of Godgifu (Godiva), wife of Leofric, ealdorman of Mercia. The same charter contradicted itself on the matter, proceeding to style Godgifu\'s son (by Leofric), Alfgar, as Thorold\'s _cognatus_ (cousin). Another later source, from Coventry Abbey, made Lucia the sister of Earls Edwin and Morcar Leofricsson, while two other unreliable sources, the Chronicle of Abbot Ingmund of Crowland and the Peterborough Chronicle, also make Lucia the daughter of Earl Alfgar.
Although there is much confusion about Lucia\'s ancestry in earlier writings, contemporary historians tend to believe that she was the daughter of Thorold, sheriff of Lincoln, by a daughter of William Malet (died 1071). She inherited a huge group of estates centred on Spalding in Lincolnshire, probably inherited from both the Lincoln and the Malet families. This group of estates has come to be called the \'Honour of Bolingbroke\'.
Lucia was married to three different husbands, all of whom died in her lifetime. The first was Ives Taillebois, possibly about 1093. Ives took over her lands as husband, and seems in addition to have been granted estates and extensive authority in Westmorland and Cumberland. He died in 1094.
Her second marriage was to Roger FitzGerold, son of Gerold \'Miles Christi\' and his wife Aubraye, with whom she had a son William de Roumare (future earl of Lincoln), who inherited some of her land. Roger died in either 1097 or 1098.
Sometime after this, though before 1101, Lucia was married to Ranulph de Meschines, 1st earl of Chester, vicomte de Bayeux, her last and longest marriage. He was the son of Ranulph de Meschines, vicomte de Bayeux, and Margaret Le Goz d\'Avranches. In 1128 or 1129 their son Ranulph II succeeded his father to the earldom of Chester (which the elder Ranulph had acquired in 1121). He and his sister Alice/Adeliza would have progeny. She married Richard de Clare, lord of Clare and Tonbridge.
Upon Lucia\'s death about 1138, most of the Lincolnshire lands she inherited passed to her younger son William, while the rest passed to Ranulph II (forty versus twenty knights\' fees). The 1130 pipe roll informs us that Lucia had paid King Henry I 500 marks after her last husband\'s death for the right not to have to remarry.
Lucia, as widowed countess, founded the convent of Stixwould in 1135, becoming in the words of one historian, \'one of the few aristocratic women of the late eleventh and twelfth centuries to achieve the role of independent lay founder\'. Her religious patronage however centred on Spalding Priory, a religious house for which her own family was the primary patron. This house (a monastic cell of Crowland) was founded, or re-founded, in 1085 by Lucia and her first husband Ives Taillebois.
Later she was responsible for many endowments. For instance in the 1120s she and her third husband Earl Ranulph granted the priory the churches of Minting, Belchford and Scamblesby. In 1135 Lucia, now widowed for the last time, granted the priory her own manor of Spalding for the permanent use of the monks. The records indicate that she went to great effort to ensure that, after her own death, her sons would honour and uphold her gifts. Lucia died about 1138. [1] |
Ellie Wood Keith Genealogy
Abt 1080 - 1138 (~ 58 years)