William Peverel

This article is about the Norman knight known properly as William Peverel the Elder. For his son, see William Peverel the Younger.

William Peverel († 28. January 1114), Latinised to Gulielmus Piperellus), was a Norman knight granted lands in England following the Norman Conquest.

Origins

Little is known of the origin of the William Peverel the Elder. Of his immediate family, only the name of a brother, Robert, is known.^[1]

The name Peverel is an Anglo-Norman variant form of the Old French surname Pevrel, Peuvrel diminutive form in -el of Pevrier, Peuvrier meaning "pepper or spice seller".^[2][3] It developped a svarabhakti in Anglo-Norman which consists in this case of interposing an -e- between the v and the r. This phonetic feature is regularly observed in Anglo-Norman,^[4] for example: D'Evreux "of Évreux" > Devereux ; French ouvrit vs AN overi ; French oeuvre vs AN o(e)vere, etc. The medieval latinization Piperellus is correct, piper meaning "pepper" in English and is the source of Old French peivre > French poivre and Old English piper > English pepper. The diminutive suffix -ellus gave regularly -el in northern French, but later -eau in western and central French.

Lands held in England

William Peverel was a favourite of William the Conqueror. He was greatly honoured after the Norman Conquest, and received as his reward over a hundred manors in central England from the king. In 1086, the Domesday Book records William as holding the substantial number of 162 manors, forming collectively the Honour of Peverel, in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, including Nottingham Castle.^[5] He also built Peveril Castle, Castleton, Derbyshire. William Peverel is amongst the people explicitly recorded in the Domesday Book as having built castles.^[6]

He is considered first Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the Royal Forests

Marriage and children

William married Adeline, who bore him four children: two sons both named William, one dying childless, the other often called William Peverel the Younger, and two daughters, Maud and Adeliza, who married Richard de Redvers.^[1]

References

1. The Complete Peerage, Vol IV, App. I, pp 761–770, "Peverel Family". This also dismisses the Tudor-era genealogical invention that made him illegitimate son of William the Conqueror (after William Camden, Britain or a chorographicall description... (1637) p.550-551)
2. Albert Dauzat (revu et complété par Marie-Thérèse Morlet), Noms et prénoms de France, éditions Larousse, p. 479b.
3. Jean Tosti, "Pevrel, Peuvrel" on Geneanet (online)
4. Jacques Allières, La formation de la langue française, Que sais-je ?, PUF, 1982, p. 120
5. A description of holdings in Derbyshire, from the Domesday Book (http://www.infokey.com/Domesday/Derbyshire.htm). A local history of Duston, Northampton (http://www.duston.org.uk/peverel.htm).
6. Harfield 1991, p. 391

Bibliography

• Harfield, C. G. (1991), "A Hand-list of Castles Recorded in the Domesday Book", English Historical Review, 106 (419): 371–392, doi:10.1093/ehr/CVI.CCCCXIX.371, JSTOR 573107