Hamo Lord of Folkstone possesed Lenham 7 miles S.E. of Maidstone then
Possesed Mereworth in 1087, after the discrace of Odo, by William the
First of England.
Odo, Bishop of Bayeux and Earl of Kent, was born in Normandy about 1032.
He was brother by the mother's side of William, Duke of Normandy (the
Conqueror), and was named by him Bishop of Bayeux in 1049.
Odo was deprived of his dignities and estates, and prisoner at Rouen till
William's death, in 1087.
Our thanks for this information go to Colin Hinson GENUKI.
For more information on Odo please goto GENUKI
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/royalty/bishopo.html
HAMO DE CREVECŒUR from The Conqueror and His Companions
by J.R. Planché, Somerset Herald. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1874.
Wace speaks of a Sire "de Cregrave;vecœur," who, in company with those of
Driencourt and Briencort, followed the Duke wherever he went in the
battle.
Hamon-aux-Dents, or "with the teeth," who was killed in the battle of
Val-egrave;s-Dunes in 1045. He left two sons, the eldest Hamo or Hamon,
who became Dapifer to King William, and the second Robert, both of whom
subscribe a charter of the Conqueror to the Abbey of St. Denis, at Paris.
The latter appears to have died without legitimate issue before Domesday
was compiled. Hamo, the Dapifer, was sheriff of Kent, and one of the
judges in the cause between Lanfranc and Odo, Bishop of Bayeux. He had
two sons, the eldest, Robert Fitz Hamon, a prominent personage in the
reign of Rufus and of Henry I, the founder of Tewkesbury and father of
Mabel, wife of Robert de Caen, Earl of Gloucester. Of the second son,
Hamo, nothing appears absolutely known, but I believe him to be the
progenitor of that family of Cregrave;vecœur, the last male of which,
Hamon de Cregrave;vecœur, married, temp. Richard I, Maude d'Avranches,
the great heiress of Folkestone. But who then was the Sire de
Cregrave;vecœur who fought at Senlac? We must hark back to examine that
question.
Hamon-aux-Dents was Lord of Thorigny and Creulli; but, dying in
rebellion, his estates would be forfeited, and we consequently find his
grandson, Robert Fitz Hamon, coming over to England with Duke William,
described as a young man, Lord of Astremeville, in Normandy,* [Dugdale,
Mon. Ang. vol. i. p. 154] a designation soon lost sight of in the great
honour of Gloucester bestowed upon him by Rufus, his conquest of
Glamorgan, and the lordships of a host of manors and castles seized or
given to him by Jestin ap Gurgunt for his assistance against Rhys, Prince
of South Wales, in 1091.
His father is only known as Hamo the Dapifer, or "Hamo Vice-comes,"
holding certain lands in England, but not as the possessor of any
seigneurie in Noranandy. Hasted, however, asserts that his familyname was
Cregrave;vecœur, implying, of course, his possession of a fief of that
name, Cregrave;vecœur-en-Auge, in the arrondissement of Lisieux, which
might have passed to his son Hamon, Robert succeeding to Astremeville.
If Hasted had satisfactory authority for his assertion, and I have found
nothing whatever to contradict or throw the least doubt upon it, Hamo the
Dapifer must surely have been "the Sire de Cregrave;vecœur" of the Roman
de Rou. Robert Fitz Hamon, we know, had no male issue but Hamon; Fitz
Hamon I take to be the father of the first Robert de Cregrave;vecœur of
whom we are cognizant, who, in 1119, founded the Priory of Leeds, in
Kent, and had, by his wife Rohais, three sons, Adam, Elias, and Daniel,
and a daughter named Gunnora.
He was succeeded by Daniel, who, in the 12th of Henry II, on assessment
of aid for the marriage of the King's daughter, certified to the
possession of fourteen knights' fees "de veteri feoffemento," and his son
and successor, another Robert, was the father of Hamon, the last of the
race and name, who married the heiress of Folkestone.