Richard de Redvers

Richard de Redvers (or Reviers, Rivers, or Latinised to de Ripariis ("from the river-banks")) (fl. c. 1066 – 8 September 1107), 1st feudal baron of Plympton in Devon, was a Norman nobleman, from Reviers in Normandy, who may have been one of the companions of William the Conqueror during the Norman conquest of England from 1066. His origins are obscure, but after acting as one of the principal supporters of Henry I in his struggle against his brother Robert Curthose for control of the English throne, de Redvers was rewarded with estates that made him one of the richest magnates in the country. He was once thought to have been created the first Earl of Devon, but this theory is now discounted in favour of his son Baldwin.

Little is known for certain of the Redvers family before Richard. In his Baronage of England (1675–6), William Dugdale wrongly identified Richard de Redvers with Richard the son of Baldwin FitzGilbert (also known as Baldwin de Meules) who was sheriff of Devon under William the Conqueror. This error was still being repeated in the late 19th century. In around 1890 The Complete Peerage advanced the alternative theory that Richard de Redvers was the son of William de Vernon, but later research has cast doubt on this too, suggesting that all that can be said is that his father may have been Baldwin, one of three brothers named Redvers in Normandy in 1060; the other brothers being William, and Richard, who died in that year. Similarly nothing is known of Richard's early life. The Norman poet Wace, writing c.1170, mentions a "sire de Reviers" as one of those who accompanied William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings, but it is not known if this was Richard de Reviers.

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