13 - BW in the 13th Century

Belchamp Walter in the 13th Century

This page is currently being reviewed with repect to how the history of country relates to the region. More is known about some of the families active in the era of the 13th Century that there was from the 12th

The Thirteenth Century is not well documented as far as Belchamp Walter is concerned. However, as will all periods of world history a lot was going on in England, the rest of Europe and of course the "Holy Land". and, of course, there was the Magna Carta (1215).

You don't have to travel far from Belchamp Walter to see where the wealth came from, the Medieval English wool trade was at its height 1250 - 1350. The towns of Sudbury and Hadleigh and the villages of Long Melford, Clare and Lavenham are testament to this. The buildings in these locations are largely from the 16th Century by which time the Wool Trade had evolved into the cloth industry.

I have many family names that are mentioned by Thomas Wright in 1831/36. In the style of historians of that period, and also today, dates are not really well documented and there has to be a lot of supposition. Places and names of families are metioned in Domesday and accounts of who was "honoured" with land by William the Conqueror, but again there is a lot of interepretation still required to put things in perspective.

Top

Some of the names that I have found that are mentioned with respect to Belchamp Walter from this century include:

Mowbray, 1281
de Monchensy, 1230??? - a.k.a. William Moncansio Montecanyso of Edwardestone
Gernon, 1220 - Sir Ralph Gernon
de Steyngrave, 1245-1295 (aka Stonegrave, Stonegreve, Stynegrave or Stynegreve)
Wake, 1237-1282
de Tey, 1250-1270 - The connection of the Walter de Tey name
de Patesull, 1296 - connection to de Botetourt - the manor of Wottone
de Botetourt, 1265-1324
and Geofrey de Mandeville (d. 1144) - The de Mandeville here is a descendant of the 12th Century Geofrey but probably was still associated with Pleshey castle.

While all these names are local to the region of Belchamp Walter they are not necassarily families that lived there. They may have "owned" or "held" the lands, but these were Medievil times and the concept of ownership was not the same as it is now.

Sir John Botetourt was born in 1265 and married Maud Fitz Otho in 1302.
This was the early 14th Century it is not known where Botetourt was living at this time but the marriage "brought" him Belchamp Walter. It is for this reason that it is likely that he had something to do with expansion of the village church, the building of the Nave and a Chantry to be used on his death. His grandson, another Sir John married and lived in Mendlesham, Suffolk where he built a side chapel at the time of the Black Death (1346).

Sir Ralph Gernon was probably the father or Grandfather of John Gernon.

Thomas Wright recounts that John Gernon's daughter married ???? to Botetourt. in ????.

Sir Ralph Gernon

By extension, this Gernon was connected by marriage to the Earls of Oxford, the de Veres.

John and Joan Gernon are mentioned by Thomas Wright.

" When Sir Ralph Gernon was born in 1220, in Essex, England, United Kingdom, his father, Sir Roger Gernon II, of West Lavington, was 35 and his mother, Maud, was 30. He married Eleanor de Vere about 1249. They were the parents of at least 2 sons and 2 daughters. He died in 1274, in Bakewell, Derbyshire, England, United Kingdom, at the age of 54. "

Medieval English wool trade - 1250-1350

The Wikipedia says:

The medieval English wool trade was one of the most important factors in the medieval English economy. The medievalist John Munro notes that "[n]o form of manufacturing had a greater impact upon the economy and society of medieval Britain than did those industries producing cloths from various kinds of wool."[1] The trade's liveliest period, 1250–1350, was 'an era when trade in wool had been the backbone and driving force in the English medieval economy'.[2]

The wool trade was a major driver of enclosure (the privatisation of common land) in English agriculture, which in turn had major social consequences, as part of the British Agricultural Revolution.

Among the lasting monuments to the success of the trade are the 'wool churches' of East Anglia and the Cotswolds; the London Worshipful Company of Clothworkers; and the fact that since the fourteenth century, the presiding officer of the House of Lords has sat on the Woolsack, a chair stuffed with wool.

Belchamp Walter in the 13th Century

Links