Notices of the Ellises of England, Scotland, and Ireland, from the conquest to the present time

17
money to have the office of his father, then recently deceased.
This John's son John, and his brother and heir, William, created
Earl of Pembroke, were successively sheriffs for the united coun-
ties of Surrey and Sussex, in which latter county they owned
considerable property. Gilbert Norman also filled the same
office, 1 and died in 1130; 2 this date would just accord with the
date of the death of Gilbert le Marshall. Might not then these
two individuals be the same? Most, if not all, of the families
bearing the name of Norman, bore leopards' heads and fleurs de
lis. William Fitz-Norman occurs in Domesday as a Sussex
proprietor, also in other counties. Hugh Fitz-Norman, alias
de Mara, occurs also in Cheshire. William de Mara was witness
to the above-mentioned charter of " John, son of Gilbert."
Assuming the identity in question, what would be the results,
affecting the general inquiry, of discovering that Gilbert Norman
was of the family of the Fitz-Normans alias De Mara ? Would
it be found consistent further to assume that Gilbert Norman
was brother of William Fitz-Norman and of Robert de Venuz ;
and, moreover, that William Fitz-Norman and William Alis were
identical ? What facts and circumstances are there to support
these hypotheses ? Are there any opposed to them ? These we
will proceed to ascertain, by an endeavour to trace the descent
and possessions of the Fitz-Norman or De Mara family, bearing
constantly in mind the fact, hitherto not sufficiently considered
in compiling genealogies, that, in the early Norman reigns, the
same person, as we have seen in Domesday, was often described
by half a dozen different designations. 3
Mr. Ormerod, in his Miscellanea Palatina, gives a well-authen -
ticated pedigree of the baronial family of Montalt, derived from
Robert Dapifer de Montalt, alias Robert Fitz-Ralph Fitz-Norman,
1 A " Gilbertus Vicecomes " is mentioned in the Domesday for Sussex.
2 He founded Merton Priory in Surrey, and laid the first stone in 1130,
dying in the calends of August in the same year. He was there buried,
and a monument existed to his memory. He is said to have been born in
Normandy, and to have lived in great splendour. — (Manning and Bray's
S?irrei/.)
3 Robert de Ivery died 1083, leaving three sons, Ascelin, Gouel, and
William. The first is sometimes called by the same historian, Ascelin
Gouel, Gouel de Breherval, Gouel de Perceval, and Gouel de Ivery. He
was also named Lupellus, bearing for his ensign a wolf, to distinguish him
from his contemporary Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, and his descendants
corrupted this name into Lovell. Baldwin, the first Earl of Devon, and
son of Gilbert Crispin, Earl of Brionne, was styled Baldwin Eitz-Gilbert ;
Baldwin Vicecomes (sheriff of Devon), Baldwin de Devonia ; Baldwin
de Exeter (where he had a castle), and de Brioniis, de Moels, and de
Sap, from his manors so called. His eldest son was called de Ripariis,
or Kivers, and his second son de Vernon.