Revell Family Study
Somerset
Manors of Pitney, Stoke, Downhead
Richard Revel (d.1222) the younger m. Mabel, sister and heir of Sir Walter Esseleigh(Ashley) d.1246). Children Willam, Sabina
Their Daughter Sabina (d.1254) m. Henry L'Orty(d.1242)
Sabina m. Henry de Lorty. Son Richard (d.c.1253) m. Maud
Richard and Maud had son Henry Lord Lorty
Heir to Sabina - Henry, Lord Lorty (d.1321), grandson
1252 - Mabel Revel alias Rivel: Somerset; Stoke manor, Swell manor, Perrot manor, Swell. Source: National Archives. Chancery: Inquisitions C 132/13/12
Mabel Revel alias Rivel. Mandate from the abbot of Pershore to John de Aure, escheator in co. Somerset, with transcript of writ, 18 May, 36 Hen. III. Inq. Sabina de Ortiaco, her daughter, aged 40 and more, is her heir. Source: Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, Volume 1: Henry III
Downhead
¹The manor of Downhead probably originated in the estate held by Dodeman in 1086. Possibly, though not certainly, it was held in 1166 by Richard Revel. He or another of the same name was certainly holding two fifths of a fee there of the abbot of Muchelney in 1211. Richard Revel the younger had succeeded by 1213 but died in 1222, leaving as his heir a daughter Sabina, wife of Henry (I) de Lorty. She was succeeded in 1254 by her grandson Henry (II) de Lorty. He held two fifths of a fee of the abbot of Muchelney at Downhead in 1297. John de Lorty succeeded his father in 1321 and died in 1340, leaving a daughter Sibyl, wife of Robert Holme.
Pitney
²The later manors in Pitney were made up from a succession of Crown grants, mostly from Somerton manor, to Richard Revel the elder between c. 1190 and 1203. The first grant appears to have been described as a soke, held at a rent of 72s. 6d., confirmed to Revel in 1190. Richard Revel the younger still held this in 1219 and probably until his death in 1222. The second was a gift by Richard I to the elder Revel of rents of 60s. in Somerton in return for a quit rent. The third, made before 1203, was of land for £12 a year, to which was added in 1203 a further estate in the same manor comprising land worth 50s. a year, and described under the form 'Pettewurth'. The larger of these estates was subsequently described as at Pitney and at Wearne. Part of Richard Revel's land was granted to his son William in 1205. This holding was given in 1217 to Geoffrey de Craucumbe, and by 1219 he had evidently succeeded as tenant to the other former Revel property. In that year he was holding 12 librates of royal demesne in Pitney and Wearne in Somerton manor. The estate, assessed at ¼ fee, was granted to Geoffrey and his heirs in 1230, together with land and rents in Langport and free warren for hares in Pitney. By 1227 Henry Lorty, husband of Sabina, daughter of Richard Revel the younger, was holding lands in Pitney and Somerton by a quit rent. In 1242 he and his wife accounted together for land worth 72s. in Pitney and Wearne, and Henry paid a total of £12 5s. for a soke in Somerton and other lands. Sabina died in 1254, having settled her estate, described as the manor of PITNEY, and later known as PITNEY LORTY, on her son Richard (d. c. 1253) and his wife Maud, both minors. The manor, held in chief, passed to Sabina's grandson Henry, who came of age c. 1273, and who was summoned to Parliament as Lord Lorty in 1299. Lorty died in 1321 leaving the manor, with the advowson of the chapel, to his son John.
Stoke
³In 1254 Sabina Revel's lands in Stoke were seized by the Crown, but in 1259 the manor was leased to her heir Henry Lorty, grandson – probably a minor. In 1254 the estate of Sabina de Lorty in Stoke and Cucklington, known simply as Stoke, was valued at £22 2s. 9d. The demesne farm comprised 4 carucates of arable, worth £8, small areas of pasture and gardens, and pannage rights. Rents of free and customary tenants amounted to £9 16s. 8½d.; works were worth 55s. 9½d.
References
1 Source: 'Parishes: West Camel', A History of the County of Somerset: Volume 3 (1974), pp. 71-81. Date accessed: 15 February 2009.
2 Source: From: 'Parishes: Pitney', A History of the County of Somerset: Volume 3 (1974), pp. 50-56. Date accessed: 15 February 2009.
3 Source: From: 'Stoke Trister', A History of the County of Somerset: Volume 7: Bruton, Horethorne and Norton Ferris Hundreds (1999), pp. 201-208. Date accessed: 06 February 2009.
Richard Revel (d. 1213),
Revel, Richard (d. 1213), administrator, was of unknown parentage. He is first recorded in 1166 (unless this is a reference to his father of the same name) holding land in Downhead, Somerset, of the abbey of Muchelney. Pipe roll evidence from the mid-1170s records administrative activity on the king's behalf including, from 1179/80, custody of Carmarthen Castle. In 1190 Richard I granted him the manors of Langport and Curry Rivel, Somerset, for the service of two knights, and land on the royal manor of Somerton, Somerset, which Revel had previously held in socage. From 1191 he was also in receipt of £50 annually from the manor of Horncastle, Lincolnshire. In the exchequer year 1193/4 he was appointed sheriff of Devon and Cornwall, a post he held until 1199. Under King John he fell from favour, losing his sheriffdom and the annuity from Horncastle, and in 1200 was called to account for considerable arrears incurred while sheriff. These were not paid off until 1212. He was dead by July 1213; his body was translated for burial in Muchelney Abbey on 31 March 1215. With his wife (name unknown) he had at least two sons, Richard, his heir, and William, who obtained land in Devon on his marriage to the daughter and heir of William, son of Reginald, but who died without known issue in 1208 or 1209. Richard the younger, who is recorded in 1204 as quarrelling with the sheriff of Somerset, forfeited his lands during the political crisis of 1215, but was reinstated on his making peace with the government of Henry III in July 1217. He married Mabel, sister and heir of Walter of Ashley, lord of Stoke Trister, Somerset, and died in 1222, leaving as heir his daughter, Sabina, married to Henry de l'Orty.
Sir Richard Revell
Revell or RIVELL, SIR Richard (d 1222), knight and landowner, said to have been the son of William Revell (POLE, Devonshire, p. 82), probably a landowner in Devonshire and lord of Revelstoke in that county, received from Henry II grants of Curry Rivell, and Langport, both in Somerset (MS. Record Office, Cartæ Antiquæ, R., Nos. 11, 12), and is said to have built a castle at Langport (Somerset Archæological Society's Proceedings, XI. i. 8). He was sheriff for Devonshire and Cornwall from the sixth to the tenth years of Richard I (Thirty-first Report of the Deputy-Keeper of the Records, p. 279), and is said to have received from Richard the custody of the castles of Exeter and Launceston (POLE, u.s.). He was paying rent to the crown in the reign of John, and was at Carrickfergus, Kilkenny, and Dublin in 1210, during the expedition to Ireland of that year (Rotuli de Liberate, etc. pp. 180, 204, 220). He married Mabel, sister and heir of Walter de Esselegh, or Ashley, in Wiltshire, and died in 1222. He appears to have had a son named Richard (Chancery Rolls, p. 94), who probably predeceased his father, for the elder Richard's heir, subject to the dower of his wife Mabel, who survived him, was his only daughter Sabina, wife of Henry de l'Orti. She survived her husband, who died in 1241, and had livery of the lands of her inheritance in Somerset and Dorset, which passed to her son Henry de l'Orti (de Urtiaco), summoned to parliament in 1299. It is probable that Revel's Hill, near Mintern in Dorset, takes its name from Sir Richard Revell. Contemporaries of Sir Richard were the landowners William Revell in Wiltshire and Hugh Revell in Northamptonshire; their connection with Sir Richard is not known.
Source: Oxford DNB published in 1896
Extract:Manor of Somerton - Held by the Crown, until the days of Richard I who, having occasion for baronial aid, gave it with other estates in the neighbourhood to Sir Richard Revel, Knight. This Richard Revel procured a Charter for the town, and is said to have built a castle here.
Collinson appears to have been in error; for we find from an entry in the Hundred Rolls, that at an inquest holden at Langport on Wednesday, the festival of St. James, in the Second year of King Edward I., the jurors declared on their oath that the Burg of Langport was given by King Henry II, the great grandfather of the reigning King, to a certain Richard Revel by the service of two Knights' fees as often as he should be summoned. He was at his own expense to attend the King in arms and on horseback for forty days. The value of the Burg at that time was 10 marks.
Revel or Rivel was a person of great note and Sheriff of Devon and Cornwall. For several successive years, Richard Revel is mentioned as one of the principal barons in this county in the time of Henry II. Sabina, his daughter and heiress, carried it by her marriage with Henry de Ortiaco or L'Orti into his family, who belonged to the hundred and manor of Pitney. This Henry L'Orti was a great baron and landowner in the West of England. In 21st Henry III., he obtained license of the King to impark his woods at Curry Rivell, in order to be exempt from the regard of the neighbouring forest of Neroche. He died, 26th Henry III., 1241, and Sabina his wife survived him and had livery of the lands of her inheritance. The issue of this marriage was a son Henry, who became heir to the large estates of his father and mother. He accompanied Edward I. in his expedition into Wales, A.D., 1284, and on his return from thence he received a precept from the King for scutage, which was a levy of three marks, 40s, on every Knight's fee, to pay the expense of the war, from all his tenants by military service. In 22nd Edward I., 1294, he had a summons to attend the King at Portsmouth, equipped as a Knight should be, to accompany him into France; and on the 25th of the same reign, 1297, he was summoned, as a Baron, to Parliament. In the 32nd of the same reign, 1304, he obtained a charter of free warren for all his lands in demesne (a liberty which after the Norman Conquest was absolutely necessary for every landholder, who was disposed to enjoy himself on his own territories), with a license to establish a market upon Tuesday, in every week, at Cucklington, with a fair yearly, on the eve, day, and morrow after the Feast of All Saints, and on the seven ensuing days. This Henry L'Orti granted to the Abbey of Brindon, in Dorsetshire, all suit of court, with the homage, etc., in Stoke Trister manor. He died, 14th Edward II., 1321, leaving issue Henry, his son and heir, who by a deed dated 19th Edward II, 1326, granted to Thomas Attayshe Baker.
Somerset