Sir William de Widworthy (
fl.
''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...
1240–1272) was a knight during the reign of
Edward I of England
Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a vassa ...
, based in
Widworthy
Widworthy is a village, parish and former manor in Devon, England. The village is 3 1/2 miles east of Honiton and the parish is surrounded clockwise from the north by the parishes of Stockland (a short boundary only), Dalwood, Shute, Colyton, ...
in the
Colyton Hundred
The hundred of Colyton was the name of one of thirty two ancient administrative units of Devon, England.
The parishes in the hundred were:
Branscombe;
Colyton;
Cotleigh;
Farway;
Monkton;
Northleigh;
Offwell
Offwell is a village and civil p ...
, Devon. He was the earliest lord of the manor recorded by the Devon historian Sir
William Pole
William Pole FRS FRSE MICE (22 April 181430 December 1900) was an English engineer, astronomer, musician and an authority on Whist.
Life
He was born in Birmingham on 22 April 1814, the son of Thomas Pole.
Pole was apprenticed as an engineer t ...
(died 1635).
[ Pole, Sir William (d.1635), Collections Towards a Description of the County of Devon, Sir John-William de la Pole (ed.), London, 1791, pp.144–5]
Activity
In 1240, William was one of a dozen knights bound by oath to the
Sheriff of Devon who set out to settle a land boundary dispute between
Richard of Cornwall and four local knights. The party journeyed from
Okehampton Castle across
Dartmoor, including
Cawsand Beacon,
Hound Tor
Hound Tor is a tor on Dartmoor, Devon, England and is a good example of a heavily weathered granite outcrop. It is easily accessible, situated within a few minutes from the B3387 between Bovey Tracey and Widecombe-in-the-Moor.
The site is admin ...
and all the way to
Dartmeet.
In 1246, de Widworthy was witness to a deed for a transfer of land relating to
Buckfast Abbey
Buckfast Abbey forms part of an active Benedictine monastery at Buckfast, near Buckfastleigh, Devon, England. Buckfast first became home to an abbey in 1018. The first Benedictine abbey was followed by a Savignac (later Cistercian) abbey cons ...
.
Holdings
de Widworthy's holdings included the 1272 acquisition of the village of
Lustleigh
Lustleigh is a small village and civil parish nestled in the Wrey Valley, inside the Dartmoor National Park in Devon, England. It is between the towns of Bovey Tracey and Moretonhampstead.
The village is focused around the parish church of St ...
, which stayed in the de Widworthy family until 1413.
He was also noted as the holder of
Culm Davy
Culm Davy is a historic Manorialism, manor and present-day hamlet within the parish of Hemyock in Devon.Thorn, Part 2, 36:18
History
The estate of ''Cumbe'' is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as one of 27 Devonshire holdings of Theobald Fitz ...
in the 13th century
Book of Fees
The ''Book of Fees'' is the colloquial title of a modern edition, transcript, rearrangement and enhancement of the medieval (Latin: 'Book of Fiefs'), being a listing of feudal landholdings or fief (Middle English ), compiled in about 1302, but f ...
.
Issue and descent
William's heir was
Hugh de Whitworthy, and his daughter and heir was Alice.
The family married with Sir
William Prouz of
Gidleigh Castle
Gidleigh Castle was the manor house of the manor of Gidleigh on the north-eastern edge of Dartmoor, about north-west of the town of Chagford, Devon, England.
History
The Prouz family had held the manor of Gidleigh from at least the later hal ...
.
References
{{Reflist
Normans in England