Isoreus (Isore/Isidore) de Reresby was born c. 1174, the son of
Alexander de Reresby and
Juliana ___.
From
Barons1
ISORIUS FITZ ALEXANDER, surnamed de Reresby, party to suit 1194. A juror in the Testa de Nevill for the Wapentake of Wraghou(p. 13.) Held lands in Reresby, Steynton, Snellislund, Suntorp, and Hyngham, co. Linc. (p. 18.) Lord of Plesley, co. Derby, in right of his wife. Died before 1248.
With Isidore Fitz Alexander, a landowner in Reresby (close to Lincoln), and the adjoining villages, at the end of the twelfth and commencement of the thirteenth century, the herald's visitations ... genuine evidences begin; but curiously enough the hiatus between that date and the conquest can now be filled in, for Isidore's pedigree for four generations was legally proved in the court of Richard Coeur de Lion in 1194. His cousin and opponent, Sir Richard de Ormesby, explained his title to certain lands in Lincolnshire, by setting out in detail their common descent from a certain Hugh le Blount, whose identity I have proved with Hugh, the Earl of Chester's domesday tenant at Ormesby, co. Lincoln, the same person as Hugh Fitz Osbern, one of the Earl's greater tenants in Cheshire. I have given on pp. 87, 88 a table of the descendants of this Hugh...
...
Isore1 (or Isidore) Fitz Alexander was probably born in [1174], or not long before, had a long minority, and first appears in an undated suit concerning land in Reresby in the company of Juliana de Reresby his mother, who was evidently an heiress. From this place (Reresby,near Lincoln) he assumed a surname, and the site of his manor house was probably the orchard behind the present hall, an area of irregular shape which is surrounded by a great earthen rampart and by a moat lately half filled up. In 1194 he brought the suit at Westminster in the court of Richard Coeur de Lion to which I have so often referred, and of which I have given a facsimile, a translation on page 1, and an extended,copy of the Latin text in the appendix. Isore, the plaintiff, demanded against Richard de Ormesby seven bovates [210 statute acres] in Marton, co. Lincoln, and offered trial by battle by the body of a certain champion named Robert Botolf (the surname should, I think, be de Sancto Botulfo), whose father had seen Alexander, the plaintiff's father, receive the revenues of the land in question in the reign of Henry the Second.
Isore acted as a juror for the wapentake of Wraghow in the drawing up of one of the surveys contained in the Testa de Nevill, and I have printed a considerable number of entries concerning him, besides two charters and as many fines in which he was a principal. I have not been able to discover that he was ever engaged in war. In early life he owed homage and service to the Ralph de Normanville who accompanied King Richard to the Holy Land, and later on he became a tenant in capite by knight's service; but there is no evidence whatever that he performed in person the military service that was due. With Amicia
his wife, eldest daughter and co-heir of John Deincourt, and co-heir to her grandfather Serlo, Lord of Plesley and Ashover in Derbyshire, he obtained lands in the soke of Ashover in free marriage. After the death of her father the lordship of Plesley fell to her share, and Isore became a tenant in chief, and was no doubt summoned to parliament amongst the barones minores. At this place he had a park, the fence of which his free tenants were bound to keep in repair, and the site of his hall (or perhaps of the residence of his wife's ancestor, Serlo, lord of Glapwell and Ashover in 1086) may perhaps be marked by the great earthworks which are described in the local guide-books. He died before 1248.
[1] (p6) Isore, Ysore, or Isorius is the Norman French form of the name Isidore, which is of such rare occurrence in England that I doubt whether a single other instance in early times is known...Under the name of Ysore or Isore as in the suit of 1194, or as Isore de Reresby, notices of him can be found both in the public records, and in many original charters in the British Museum.
From
Halls2:
...New Hall Manor which Isidore Reresby had acquired, about 1282, from his marriage with Amicia Deincourt. He acquired also the Old Hall Manor from the Willoughbys, for which he exchanged Pleasley. The splendour of the Reresbys commenced when the son of Isidore and Amicia mated with the heiress of the Normanvilles (Margaret), who brought him Thriburgh, Brinsford, and other lordships
The 1194 Westminster Plea (Curia Regis Rolls)
What it says (in substance):
- Isoreus brought a claim for lands in Morton / Marton (Derbyshire/Lincolnshire region) which he stated belonged to his family.
- In setting out his title, the record notes that he was the son of Alexander de Reresby by Juliana.
- Alexander was already deceased at the time of the suit.
- The dispute reached the stage of trial by battle being offered.
Implications:
Juliana's name being recorded indicates she was part of the hereditary claim — almost certainly because the lands descended through her.
Testa de Nevill (c. 1210–1235)
Document type: Crown survey of tenants, jurors, and feudal obligations.
Persons named:
Isore(us) de Reresby appears as a juror/tenant in the wapentake of Wraghou (Wraggoe), which includes Reresby.
Relevance:
Although Alexander's mother Juliana is not named, this survey confirms that the Reresby holdings in this district were recognised by the Crown and that the family were established landholders, almost certainly through Juliana’s inheritance. This reinforces Juliana’s status as a local heiress whose property passed to her son and confirms continuity of the family in the same district cited in the 1194 Plea.
Family Life
Isoreus married
Amicia Deincourt, daughter of
John Deincourt and
Amabilia de Plesley (daughter of
Serlo de Plesley mentioned in the text above).
Footnotes
[1]
The Barons of Pulford in the Eleventh & Twelth Centuries, and their Descendants by Sir George R Sitwell, Scarborough, 1889; page xxviii
[2]
The Old Halls, Manors and Families of Derbyshire, Joseph Tilley,
https://archive.org/details/oldhallsmanorsa00tillgoog/page/n28/mode/2up
Abt 1174 - 1248 (~ 20 years)