UNKNOWN, Beatrice

  Research Notes:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Unknown-670312
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Biography

Beatrice's family origins are unknown.[1] She was old enough to be recorded as holding lands in her own right in the Domesday Book, completed in 1086, suggesting she was of age then, and that she was therefore born no later than 1065: her birth date may well have been earlier, and one Domesday Book entry explicitly refers to her acquiring one of her estates at an earlier date. Two of these estates were held from Odo de Bayeux,[2] and it is likely that she was born in Normandy. K S B Keats-Rohan suggests that she was "very probably" from a family of the Cotentin peninsula in Normandy,[3] but there is no clear evidence for this and the suggestion is probably best regarded as speculation.

Domesday Book entries on the Open Domesday website refer to her as "Aubrey de Vere's Wife". The Domesday Book lists her holding four small estates in the same area of Essex, at:[2]

Little Maplestead, as tenant-in-chief of William the Conqueror: land worth 3 shillings a year, enfeoffed to Theobald
Pebmarsh, as tenant-in-chief of William the Conqueror: land worth 3 shillings a year, enfeoffed to Theobald
Aldham, as tenant of Odo de Bayeux: land worth £3 a year in 1086, and £1 10s when Beatrice acquired it
Napsted, in the Hundred of Hinckford as tenant of Odo de Bayeux: land worth £1 1s a year

Beatrice married Aubrey de Vere: the Domesday Book entries for her indicates that they were married by 1086.[2] Her first name is confirmed by:

a deed no later than 1107 in which, when he was near death, her son Geoffrey gave a church at Kensington, Middlesex to the abbey of Abingdon with the consent of his parents Aubrey and Beatrice and his brothers, and Aubrey and Beatrice's subsequent confirmation of this gift for the soul of Geoffrey[4]
records of the foundation by Beatrice and her husband of the priory of Earls Colne, Essex[3][4]
a record of 1111 in which Henry I confirmed gifts to the abbey of Abingdon and the priory of Earls Colne made by "Aubrey de Vere and his wife, Beatrice, and their son Aubrey and his brothers and their men"[4][5]

Beatrice and her husband had the following children:

Geoffrey,[3] their oldest son and heir apparent, who died in his parents' lifetime: the deathbed gift by him to the Abbey of Abingdon, made no later than 1207,[4] suggests that he was of age by then, and so born by 1086
Aubrey,[1][3][6] who became heir on his brother Geoffrey's death[4]
Roger[3][4][7]
Robert[3][4][7]
William,[3] their youngest son, who died soon after his father and was buried at the priory of Earls Colne[4][7]
possibly a daughter, called Aethelaise/Alice on WikiTree, whose granddaughter Maud (daughter of Richard de Camville) held land at Hildersham, Cambridgeshire in 1185, which the Domesday Book records as held by Beatrice's husband in 1086[7][8]

Beatrice's marriage place, and the birthplaces of her children, are not known. K S B Keats-Rohan suggests tentatively that her husband, who had Breton links, may have spent much of his time before 1100 in Brittany, where he is believed to have attested one charter.[3] Cokayne states that during the reign of William the Conqueror he established vineyards on some of his English estates.[7]

Beatrice's death date is also not known. She clearly survived her son Geoffrey who died no later than 1107. Her husband became a monk of the priory of Earls Colne before his death in 1112,[1][4] and it is likely she died before he did so. They were both buried in the church of the priory of Earls Colne.[1]
Research Notes
Domesday Book

K S B Keats-Rohan, in her entry in Domesday People for "Uxor Alberici de Ver", says that Beatrice also held land from Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances.[9] She lists four Domesday Book references, and the four identified above name Beatrice as either tenant-in-chief of William the Conqueror or tenant of Odo de Bayeux. It is possible there is a confusion with Beatrice's husband , who was a tenant of Geoffrey.[10]
Inscription in Earls Colne Priory

Weever's Ancient Funeral Monuments (1631) states that an inscription in Earls Colne Priory, Essex read: "Here lyeth Aulbert de Vere, the first erle of Guines, the son of Alphonsus de Vere, the whych Aulbery was the fownder of this place and Bettrys his wyf sister of king Wylliam the conqueror."[11] No reliance should be placed on this: it is a much later inscription, as the language makes clear; it is not known who was the father of Beatrice's husband; he was not "Earl of Guines"; and William the Conqueror had no known sister called Beatrice. Assuming the inscription is genuine, it will reflect de Veres of a later period seeking to lay claim to a more distinguished ancestry than they really had.

Beatrice de Bourbourg, who inherited the county of Guînes, married Aubrey de Vere, grandson of the Beatrice of this profile.[12][13]
Pedigree on de Vere Society website

Beatrice is shown in a de Vere pedigree on the de Vere Society website as being "Beatrice de Gand".[14] Gand is the French name for Ghent. Beatrice has previously been shown on WikiTree as daughter of a Henry de Ghent and Sibilla (Manasses) de Ghent, whose profiles have been merged, respectively, into those of Henri de Bourbourg and Sybille de Guînes, the parents of Beatrice de Bourbourg. There is no evidence of any "de Gand" or "de Ghent" origins for the Beatrice of this profile.
Sources

? 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 G E Cokayne. Complete Peerage, revised edition, Vol. X, St Catherine Press, 1945, pp. 193-195, entry for her husband, viewable on Familysearch (image pages 205-207)
? 2.0 2.1 2.2 Open Domesday website, page for Aubrey de Vere's wife, accessed 11 July 2024
? 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 K S B Keats-Rohan. Domesday People, a Prosopography of Persons occurring in English Documents 1066-1166, I, Domesday Book, The Boydell Press, 1999, pp. 131-132, entry for 'Alberic de Ver'
? 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 John Hudson (editor and translator). Historia Ecclesie Abbendonensis [The History of the Church of Abingdon], Vol. II, Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 82-91 and 162-163, available on short-term loan from Internet Archive
? Charles Johnson and H A Cronne (eds.). Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066-1154, Vol. 2, Oxford University Press, 1956, p. 100, entry 981, Internet Archive
? Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry by RaGena C DeAragon for 'Vere, Aubrey de (d. 1141)', print and online 2004, revised online 2007 ($)
? 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 G E Cokayne. Complete Peerage, revised edition, Vol. X, Appendix J, pp. 111-112, viewable on Familysearch (image pages 971-972)
? Open Domesday website, page for Hildersham, accessed 11 July 2024
? K S B Keats-Rohan. Domesday People, p. 440
? See for instance Open Domesday website, page for Wadenhoe, Northamptonshire, accessed 11 July 2024
? John Weever. Ancient Funerals Monuments, Thomas Harper, 1631, p. 614, Internet Archive
? Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry by David Crouch for 'Vere, Aubrey de, count of Guînes and earl of Oxford (d. 1194)', print and online 2004, revised online 2007 ($)
? G E Cokayne. Complete Peerage, Vol. X, pp. 199-207, viewable on Familysearch (image pages 211-219)
? Pedigree of the de Vere family, Earls of Oxford, de Vere Society website, accessed 11 July 2024

See also:

Richard Sharpe and David X Carpenter (both Faculty of History, University of Oxford). Charters of William II and Henry I Project, Colne Priory, PDF, accessed 11 July 2024
Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Vol. 58, pp. 220-221, entry by John Horace Round for 'VERE, AUBREY de (d. 1141)', Wikisource
Wikipedia: Aubrey de Vere I

Beatrice married Aubrey DE VERE I before 1086. (Aubrey DE VERE I was born in France and died on 1 Sep 1112 in Earls Colne Priory, Colne, Essex, England.)