Nigel Fossard
He was one of two major Domesday tenants in Yorkshire of Robert, Count of Mortain, holding extensive properties from the count in all three ridings. Nigel Fossard and the other major tenant, Richard de Sourdeval, held almost all the 114 tenant manors of Count Robert in the county and Nigel himself held about 500 carucates in Yorkshire. In the North Riding he had over 200 carucates including 25 in Guisborough, Middleton' and Hutton Lowcross.
In the West Riding he had almost 60 carucates including 12 in Bramham. It has been suggested that this concentration of lands resulted from Count Robert's intention that Nigel live and work in the county. After Count Robert's rebellion and fall in 1088 Nigel Fossard's tenancy was transformed into a tenancy-in-chief, although he had already acquired that status because of a small property holding in York. The relationship between the crown and the Fossards was strengthened further in the early twelfth century when Henry I actively encouraged the development of the compact lordship around Lythe Castle as part of his plan to increase royal influence in north-east Yorkshire. Nigel was a patron of St Mary's Abbey, York, to which he gave property in Doncaster and lands and churches in York, Hutton Cranswick, Bainton, and Caythorpe. He also gave Bramham church to Ramsey Abbey.
Nigel Fossard held five parcels of land in Yorkshire in succession to three named individuals, but the soke belonged to Conisborough which had been held by Earl Harold in 1066
Nigel held much of the Mortaine lands in other parts of the county. Besides the manor and soke of Doncaster, he had Rotherham, held of him by the family of Vesci. Source: Hunter's South Yorkshire.
It has been suggested that Nigel was living until at least 1120 and it is probable that he survived until nearly the end of the decade because at some point before 1129, his son and successor, Robert Fossard (d. c.1138), was having difficulties with his inheritance. Shortly before 1129 the Fossard estate was in the king's hands and Robert is recorded as making a fine to gain their recovery. It was in that year that the Fossard lands at Doncaster were leased to the crown for twenty years, although neither Robert nor any of his immediate successors was able to redeem the property. Among the recipients of Robert's patronage was Nostell Priory, which received churches in Bramham, Wharram-le-Street, and Lythe and 3½ carucates of land in the same villages. Robert's gift of Bramham church was made at the expense of his father's gift of the same church to Ramsey Abbey and in a writ issued between 1126 and 1129 Henry I commanded Robert to do right to the abbot of Ramsey while confirming the church to Nostell in a separate charter. Robert's support of Nostell was, however, uncertain, as in 1130 another charter of Henry I referred to the fact that Robert and another man had unjustly seized land in Bramham given by Anschetill of Bulmer to the priory.
Robert was probably dead by 1138, when his son William Fossard (d. 1168/9) was involved in the battle of the Standard against David, king of Scots. The chronicle of Richard of Hexham records that before the battle William was among those Yorkshire barons who assembled with Archbishop Thurstan at York to debate the best course of action to be taken in response to David's aggressive activities in northern England. William was still supporting King Stephen's cause in 1141 when he was captured at the battle of Lincoln. He made a donation to Watton Priory between 1154 and 1160, which referred to his impending journey to Jerusalem, and he may have been on crusade during the early years of Henry II's reign. It was probably this William who made a grant to the Hospitallers of Jerusalem at Huntington near York and he was a generous patron of a number of East Riding religious houses including Meaux, Ellerton, and Swine. In 1166 the return of Hugh, bishop of Durham, recorded that William held one knight's fee from the bishop in the East Riding and his own return listed thirty-three and a half fees of the old and new enfeoffment. William¹died in 1168 or 1169 when the custody of his son William Fossard (d. 1194?) was given by Henry II to William le Gros. In 1170 William owed a fine of 10 marks, and by 1171 he was in possession of his father's lands, as in that year he rendered account of 80 marks for a fine of his land. William Fossard, probably died in 1194, and by 1197 Robert of Thornham (de Turnham) had obtained from Richard I the marriage of William's daughter and heir, Joan. In that year Thornham consolidated his hold on the Fossard inheritance when he redeemed the former family estate at Doncaster by paying 500 marks to the crown.
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