Ralph de Limesy

Ralph de Limesy (alias de Limesi) lord of the manor of Limésy in Normandy (now a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Haute-Normandie region in northern France) was a Domesday Book Anglo-Norman magnate and tenant-in-chief of King William the Conqueror. According to Camden: "At the time of the General Survey made by King William the Conqueror, Ralph de Limesi had great possessions in this Realm; viz. in Devonshire four lordships, in Somersetshire seven, in Essex three, in Norfolk two, in Suffolk eleven, in Northamptonshire one, in Warwickshire one, in Hertfordshire four, and in Notinghamshire eight".

The Duchess of Cleveland (1819-1901) wrote as follows concerning the family of Linnebey in her "Battle Abbey Roll with some Account of the Norman Lineages" (1889)

"Leland here once more comes to our assistance, for he gives this and the following name as "Lymesay et Latymer." It appears in another part of Duchesne's copy under its Scottish form of Lindsay. Lord Lindsay tells us that "the names Lindesay and Limesay are identical, both of them implying 'Isle of Lime-trees,' and are frequently interchanged, and applied to the same individuals, not merely in the heraldic MSS. of two hundred years ago, but in ancient public records, and in the early transcripts of Battle Abbey Roll.

"The original Norman Sires de Limesay were seated at the place so called in the Pays de Caux, near Pavilly, fives leagues N.W. of Rouen. They flourished for many generations after the Conquest, and failed apparently shortly after the middle of the thirteenth century, when the Sires de Frontebosc, a younger branch, succeeded to the property. Their descendants in the female line, Comtes de Frontebosc and Marquesses de Limesay, flourished till the French Revolution, and still, I believe, exist. Randolph de Limesay, said to have been sister's son to the Conqueror, was the first of the Anglo-Norman stock who settled in England. He obtained above forty lordships in different counties of England, including Wolverley in Warwickshire, the chief seat of his posterity, and from which they took their style as barons. There was but little of the castle remaining in Dugdale's time, save the moat, and certain 'great banks, whereon ancient trees do grow,' coeval probably with the first arrival of the Normans. Randolph died towards the close of William the Conqueror's reign, after founding the Priory of Hertford, in dependency of the Abbey of St. Albans, within whose hallowed precincts he and his wife Hadewisia were admitted as brother and sister before their decease. Alan de Limesay, his son, and Gerard, his grandson, succeeded him, and were similarly bountiful, but the son of Gerard dying without issue, the property went to his two daughters, Basilia, wife of Sir Hugh de Odingsels, and Aleonora, wife of Sir David de Lindsay of Crawford."

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