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Vieuxpont [Veteri Ponte, Vipont], Robert de (d. 1228), administrator and magnate, came of a family
that took its name from Vieuxpont-en-Auge (Calvados) in Normandy. He was the younger son of William de Vieuxpont (d. in or
before 1203), who became an important Anglo-Scottish landowner, and his wife, Maud de Morville (d. c.1210), whose father Hugh
(in 1170 one of the assassins of Thomas Becket) forfeited the barony of Westmorland in 1173. Robert's elder brother, Ivo,
inherited their father's estates in Northamptonshire and Northumberland, while Robert had entered royal service by 1195, and
was custodian of the honours of Peverel, Higham Ferrers, and Tickhill in the latter years of Richard I's reign. But he achieved
much greater eminence under John. At first he was principally employed in Normandy, especially as a paymaster of troops and
director of military works, including those on Rouen Castle, and in 1203 he became bailli of the Roumois. His services were
rewarded by the grant of Vieuxpont itself, formerly held by an uncle who had joined the French, and also by grants in England.
In February 1203 he was given custody of the castles of Appleby and Brough, to which the lordship of Westmorland was added
a month later; then in October 1203 custody during pleasure was changed to a grant in fee simple, for the service of four
knights, and Vieuxpont had become one of the leading barons in northern England. He was also to be given a number of valuable
wardships, while his wife, Idonea, the daughter of John de Builli, whom he married before June 1213, brought him lands in
Bedfordshire and a claim to the Yorkshire honour of Tickhill. After leaving Normandy with John in December 1203 Vieuxpont
was in frequent attendance on the king until the end of 1205, when he became increasingly involved in northern administration.
In October 1204 he became sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, and so had control of the strategically important castle
of Nottingham, which was also a major repository for royal treasure—11,000 marks were sent there from Winchester in
July 1207—and thus a base for the king's authority. Employed in 1206 as a justice and assessor of tallage in the northern
counties, in 1207 he was given custody of the see of York, and in April 1208 custody of that of Durham. His manifold responsibilities
may have been more than he could handle, since at the end of 1208 he had to proffer 4000 marks for royal ‘grace and
favour’, and undertake to submit a number of delayed accounts. But he was pardoned 3000 marks of his fine, and though
he ceased to be sheriff of Nottingham he continued to be prominent in John's service. He held Durham until 1210, and in the
following year was employed in Wales, as the king's lieutenant in Powys. His loyalty to John brought him the accolade of a
place in Roger of Wendover's list of that king's evil counsellors, and John himself acknowledged Vieuxpont's reliability by
temporarily placing his second son, Richard, and his niece Eleanor in his custody. He also continued to handle substantial
sums of royal money—in May 1213 he and Henry of Braybrooke received 30,000 marks from the king's treasure. He accompanied
John to France in 1214, and in the civil war that broke out in the autumn of 1215 was one of the principal defenders of royal
castles and interests in Yorkshire. In January 1216, moreover, he was entrusted with the custody of Cumberland and Carlisle
Castle. He also had important interests of his own to defend in the north-west. His acquisition of Westmorland had been followed
by an accumulation of estates in the region, including one on which he built a castle at Brougham, in order to defend his
lordship against attack from the north—the constable of Scotland, Alan of Galloway, had a claim to Westmorland through
his mother, Helen de Morville, and occupied the lordship for a year when the Scots overran English Cumbria in 1216. Vieuxpont
fought for the young Henry III at Lincoln in 1217, but gave much trouble in the years that followed. He was said by Wendover
to have continued to plunder after peace had been made, but greater difficulties arose from his claim to Tickhill, which was
disputed by Alice, countess of Eu. In order to appease him for the time being the regency government, which had reappointed
him sheriff of Cumberland in September 1217, conceded in the following year that he should hold that office without accounting
for the profits of office until justice had been done on his claim to Tickhill. In the event he held Cumberland until 1222,
without accounting for any issues at all. Having dislodged Alan of Galloway from Westmorland, he was by far the greatest figure
in the north-west, which he governed with a heavy hand—there were complaints over his administration of the royal forest
in 1220 and 1225, and he quarrelled with William of Lancaster, lord of Kendal, over suits to Westmorland county court. He
was not always fractious, however, and served as a justice itinerant in Yorkshire and Northumberland in 1218–19. In
1222 the dispute over Tickhill was settled; Vieuxpont abandoned his claim to the honour, settling instead for six and a half
knights' fees and £100 in cash. A further consequence was that he immediately lost his shrievalty of Cumberland, and with
it yearly revenues of nearly £300. He may have been discontented, since at the end of 1223 he was one of the adversaries of
the justiciar, Hubert de Burgh, protesting against the resumption of royal castles and sheriffdoms. But he had been reconciled
to the government by February 1225, when he attested the reissue of Magna Carta, and in 1226–7 headed a judicial eyre
in Yorkshire. Although Vieuxpont was a benefactor to the Cumbrian monasteries of St Bees and Shap, in 1227 he bequeathed his
body, along with his estate at Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, to the knights templar. The bequest itself, and the fact that its
witnesses included a doctor, point to failing health, and by 1 February 1228 he was dead, probably very recently. He left
a son and a daughter. The latter, Christian, he married to his ward, Thomas, son of William of Greystoke, the heir to the
barony of Greystoke in Cumberland. His son and heir, John, died in 1241, his grandson, another Robert, in 1264. Divided between
this younger Robert's daughters, the Vieuxpont inheritance was finally reassembled by the Cliffords, to form the basis of
one of the greatest, and longest-lasting, northern lordships. Henry Summerson Sources Chancery records (RC) · Chancery records
· Pipe rolls, 7 Richard I – 17 John · H. C. M. Lyte, ed., Liber feodorum: the book of fees, 1 (1920) · T. D. Hardy,
ed., Rotuli Normanniae, RC (1835) · Curia regis rolls preserved in the Public Record Office (1922–), vols. 9, 11T. Stapleton,
ed., Magni rotuli scaccarii Normanniae sub regibus Angliae, 2, Society of Antiquaries of London Occasional Papers (1844) ·
J. Parker, ed., Feet of fines for the county of York, 3: from 1218 to 1231, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 62 (1921), 42–3
· Bodl. Oxf., MS Dodsworth 70, 83 · J. C. Holt, The northerners: a study in the reign of King John (1961) · D. A. Carpenter,
The minority of Henry III (1990) · K. J. Stringer, ‘Periphery and core in thirteenth-century Scotland: Alan, son of
Roland, lord of Galloway and constable of Scotland’, Medieval Scotland: crown, lordship and community: essays presented
to G. W. S. Barrow, ed. A. Grant and K. J. Stringer (1993), 82–113 · H. Summerson, M. Trueman, and S. Harrison, Brougham
Castle, Cumbria (1998) · I. J. Sanders, English baronies: a study of their origin and descent, 1086–1327 (1960) · H.
M. Colvin, The white canons in England (1951) · Rogeri de Wendover liber qui dicitur flores historiarum, ed. H. G. Hewlett,
3 vols., Rolls Series, [84] (1886–9) · CPR, 1232–47, 284 · T. D. Hardy, ed., Rotuli litterarum clausarum, RC,
1 (1833), 136 · Calendar of the charter rolls, 6 vols., PRO (1903–27), vol. 1, p. 77 Wealth at death very wealthy; wardship
of son valued (presumably conservatively) at £400 p.a. in 1241: CPR · tenure of Cumberland valued at nearly £300 p.a. extra
© Oxford University Press 2004–5 All rights reserved: see legal notice Henry Summerson, ‘Vieuxpont , Robert de
(d. 1228)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28276,
accessed 28 Nov 2005] Robert de Vieuxpont (d. 1228): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/28276
Public Record Office Ref for doc below.
| Scope and content |
Account of the receipts and expenses of Robert de Vieuxpont. Printed in RSN, II, pp 568-571 (rot 1) |
| Covering dates |
[1203] |
| Availability |
Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years |
| Note |
^^ See also E 373/12 |
| Held by |
| The National Archives, Kew | |
Below is an English translation of the Latin Document above. Re Robert de Vieuxpont 1203. Translated
by B Westcott
Account
of Robert de Vieuxpont, 1203
Account
of Robert de Vieuxpont concerning his receipts
Robert de Vieuxpont gives an account, through
William Quaggel’, and John the Queen’s Chaplain,
Of 9 measures 1 quarter and a half of wheat
which he received out of the chattels of William Poignard of Bretevill’ and of Verson, in the measure
of the same towns,
And of 2 8 measures 4 sesters of
wheat which he received out of the chattels of the same William from Lengrova in the measure of the same town,
And of 8 measures 9 sesters 3 quarters
of barley which he received out of the chattels of the same William from Bretevill’ and of Verson, in
the measure of the same towns,
And of 2 measures 10 sesters of oats which
he received out of the chattels of the same William from the same towns in the measure of the same towns,
And of 10 bushels of lentils which he received
out of the chattels of the same William from the same towns in the measure of Cad’,
And of 2 bushels of beans which he received
out of the chattels of the same, from the same towns, in the same measure,
And of 3 quarters of malt which he received
out of the chattels of the same William from the same towns in the measure of Cad’,
And of 2 measures 2 sesters of barley which
he received out of the chattels of the same William from Lengrova in the measure of the same town,
And of 1 measure 10 sesters of barley which
he received out of the chattels of John Ruffus of Corcella in the measure of Corcella.
Sum; 17 measures 4 sesters 1 quarter and
a half of wheat,
And 2 measures 10 sesters of oats,
And 12 measures 9 sesters 3 quarters of
barley,
And 10 bushels of lentils,
And 2 bushels of beans,
And 3 quarters of malt.
Into the treasury; nothing.
In expenses of the Queen, the wife of the
King, staying at Cad’, to make bread; 3 measures 7 sesters of wheat, by the King’s writ.
Account
of Robert de Vieuxpont, 1203
And he owes 13 measures 9 sesters 1 quarter
and a half of wheat,
And 2 measures 10 sesters of oats,
And 12 measures 9 sesters 3 quarters of
barley,
And 10 bushels of lentils,
And 2 bushels of beans,
And 3 quarters of malt,
Which are worth £193 14s 9d.
The same renders an account for the same
debt,
And for 66s 1d which he received from customary
payments [censibus] of William Poignard of Bretevill’,
And for 20s which he received from his
bakehouse [or furnace] in the same town,
And for 56s from the customary payments
and straw [or perhaps some payment in respect of straw] in the same town,
And for 11s 1d from straw [stramine]
and customary payments [waspalio] of the same town,
And for £6 which he received from the sale
of one windmill at Lengrova of the same William,
And for 40s which he received for one horse
of the same William which was sold,
And for 13s which he received from the
sale of pigs of the same William,
And for 21s which he received from the
feudal aid [auxilio] of the same William at Lengrova,
And for 31s 6d which he received for martens
taken in the house of the same William at Cad’,
And for 26s which he received from the
sale of tuns of the same William,
And for 36s 8d which he received from the
sale of wool of the same William,
And for 30s which he received from the
sale of two cows of the same William.
Sum; £217 6s 1d.
Into the treasury; nothing.
Account
of Robert de Vieuxpont, 1203
In the work of the King’s house
of Direval £40 by the King’s writ.
In expenses of the Queen, the wife of the
King, staying at Bonevill’, £100 by the King’s writ.
In expenses of the same Queen staying at
Cadom’ £80 by the same writ.
For directing a certain ship to carry the
King’s daughter, and the King’s equipment, to England, £18 13s 4d by the King’s
writ.
To William the [?]engineer [ie master]
of 13 carpenters, £33 3s 8d by the King’s writ.
To the same William to buy two cords [quantities
of wood] for the King’s use at Dol, 37s 4d by the same writ.
And he is acquitted.
And he has a balance due of £16 8s 3d which
is accounted for to him below.
The same gives an account of £10 which
he received from the sale of hay of William Poignard.
In his balance of the afore-written account;
£16 8s 3d.
And he is acquitted.
And he has a balance due of £6 8s 3d which
is accounted for to him below.
The same gives an account of £511 from
the tallage [tax] charged in the bailiwick of Cad’ to send servants to the See of Alençon [Alenchon].
Into the treasury; nothing.
In his balance of the afore-written account;
£6 8s 3d.
To the Constable of Normandy [Norm’]
£10 which he took from the men of his land for the same tallage by the King’s writ.
To the Earl of Arundel [Arondel]
£6 which was taken from the men of his land for the same tallage by the King’s writ.
To the King in his chamber £400 by the
King’s writ.
To two [?]Catalan [de Cateloigne]
knights £100 by the King’s writ.
And he is acquitted.
And he has a balance due of £11 8s 3d which
is accounted for to him below.
Account
of Robert de Vieuxpont, 1203
The same gives an account of £100 which
he received from John Ruffus for his amercement,
And of £8 which he received from the parish
of Lengrova for new servants,
And of 40s which he received from the parish
of Cuffero for the same.
Sum; £110.
Into the treasury; nothing.
In his balance of the afore-written account;
£11 8s 3d.
To the King in his chamber £100 by the
King’s writ.
And he is acquitted.
And he has a balance due of 28s 3d which
is accounted for by him below.
The same gives an account of £53 8s which
he received out of the chattels of Simon de Escuris.
Into the treasury; nothing.
In his balance of the afore-written account;
28s 3d.
For directing a certain ship to carry the
Queen’s equipment to England, £7
by the King’s writ.
To Vitaly Curtal, Burgess of the [?]barony
[garonis] de Biard’ for 10 tuns of wine, £75 by the King’s writ.
And he is acquitted.
And he has a balance due of £30 0s 3d which
is accounted for by him below.
The same gives an account of 25 hogsheads
and 6 tuns of wine which he received in provisions in the castle at Cadom’.
Into the treasury; nothing.
In expenses of the King and Queen staying
at Cad’ 25 hogsheads and 6 tuns of wine by the King’s writ.
And he is acquitted.
Account
of Robert de Vieuxpont, 1203
The same gives an account of £7 4 for one
measure of wheat out of the chattels of William Poignard taken at [?]Moulins [Molinellos].
Into the treasury; nothing.
In his balance of the afore-written account;
£30 0s 3d.
And he is acquitted.
And he has a balance due of £22 16s 3d.
[Note at foot]
William P… [posibly Ponte Veteri,
Vieuxpont] gives an account. He gives to our lord the King £2 … to have our lord the king’s mercy, and now at
present renders one thousand pounds, so that they are accounted for by him … … … the same … …
took out of the chattels of the same W., and to render another thousand pounds at appropriate times … … nothing
… …
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