Nigel d'Aubigny (''Neel d'Aubigny'' or ''Nigel de Albini'', died 1129), was a Norman Lord and English baron who was the son of Roger d'Aubigny and Amice or Avice de Mowbray. His paternal uncle William was lord of
Aubigny,
while his father was an avid supporter of
Henry I of England
Henry I (c. 1068 – 1 December 1135), also known as Henry Beauclerc, was King of England from 1100 to his death in 1135. He was the fourth son of William the Conqueror and was educated in Latin and the liberal arts. On William's death in ...
. His brother
William d'Aubigny ''Pincerna'' was the king's Butler and father of the
1st Earl of Arundel.
He was the founder of the noble
House of Mowbray
The House of Mowbray () was an Anglo-Norman noble house, derived from Montbray in Normandy and founded by Roger de Mowbray, son of Nigel d'Aubigny.Clay, C., & Greenway, D. E. (2013). Early Yorkshire Families (Vol. 135). Cambridge University Pres ...
.
Life
He is described as "one of the most favoured of Henry's 'new men'". While he entered the king's service as a household knight and brother of the king's butler, William d'Aubigny, in the years following the
Battle of Tinchebrai in 1106 Nigel was rewarded by Henry with marriage to an heiress who brought him lordship in Normandy and with the lands of several men, primarily that of Robert de Stuteville.
[King, E. (1974). King Stephen and the Anglo-Norman Aristocracy. ''History'', 59(195): 180-194.] The Mowbray honour became one of the wealthiest estates in Norman England. From 1107 to about 1118, Nigel served as a royal official in Yorkshire and Northumberland. In the last decade of his life he was frequently traveling with Henry I, most likely as one of the king's trusted military and administrative advisors. He died in Normandy, possibly at the abbey of Bec.
Family
Nigel's first marriage, after 1107, was to Matilda de L'Aigle, whose prior marriage to the disgraced and imprisoned
Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumbria, had been annulled based on
consanguinity
Consanguinity ("blood relation", from Latin '' consanguinitas'') is the characteristic of having a kinship with another person (being descended from a common ancestor).
Many jurisdictions have laws prohibiting people who are related by blood fr ...
.
She brought to the marriage with Nigel her ex-husband's lordship of Montbray (Mowbray). Following a decade of childless marriage and the death of her powerful brother, Nigel in turn repudiated Matilda based on his consanguinity with her former husband,
and in June 1118 Nigel married to Gundred de Gournay (died 1155), daughter of Gerard de Gournay and his wife Edith de Warenne, and hence granddaughter of
William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey
William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, Lord of Lewes, Seigneur de Varennes (died 1088), was a Norman nobleman created Earl of Surrey under William II Rufus. He is among the few known from documents to have fought under William the Conqueror ...
.
Nigel and Gundred had son who would be known as
Roger de Mowbray after the former Mowbray lands he would inherit from his father,
and he was progenitor of the later noble Mowbray family.
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:D'Aubigny, Nigel
Anglo-Normans
1129 deaths
Feudal barons of Mowbray