Richard de Luci

Richard de Luci (1089 – 14 July 1179) (also Richard de Lucy) was first noted as High Sheriff of Essex, after which he was made Chief Justiciar of England.

Biography

His mother was Aveline, the niece and heiress of William Goth. In the charter for Séez Cathedral in February 1130/31 Henry I refers to Richard de Luci and his mother Aveline. His brother Walter de Luci was abbot of Battle Abbey. ^[1]

An early reference to the de Luci family refers to the render by Henry I of the Lordship of Dice, Norfolk to Richard de Luci, Governor of Falaise, Normandy, after defending it with great valour and heroic conduct when besieged by Geoffrey, Earl of Anjou.

In 1153–4 de Luci was granted Chipping Ongar, Essex by William, son of King Stephen and his wife, Maud of Boulogne, where he built Ongar Castle. He was appointed Sheriff of both Essex and Hertfordshire for 1156.

The ruins of Lesnes Abbey, near London

When Henry II came to the throne in 1154, de Luci was made Chief Justiciar of England jointly with Robert de Beaumont, Earl of Leicester. When de Beaumont died in 1168, de Luci continued to hold the office in his own right.^[2] One of the members of his household was Roger fitzReinfrid, the brother of Walter de Coutances. Roger became a royal judge and later donated land to Lesnes Abbey in Kent, which had been founded by de Luci.^[3]

He resigned his office between September 1178 and Easter of 1179,^[2] and retired to Lesnes Abbey, where he died and was buried three months later on 14 July 1179.

De Luci's wife, Rohese, who is named in several documents, was a sister of Faramus of Boulogne.^[4] Rohese and Faramus were children of William de Boulogne who was the son of Geoffrey fitz Eustace and Beatrice de Mandeville.

De Luci's second son was Godfrey de Luci (d. 1204), Bishop of Winchester. His daughter, Maud, who inherited all his Essex lands, married Walter Fitz Robert; their son was Robert Fitzwalter. Richard also had a son Geoffrey and daughters Aveline wife of Gilbert de Montfichet of Stansted Mountfitchet, Alice wife of Odinel de Umfraville of Prudhoe, Northumberland and Rohese (Rose) who married William de Mounteney and later Michael Capra, both of Mountnessing, Essex.

Notes

References

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Powicke, F. Maurice and E. B. Fryde Handbook of British Chronology 2nd. ed. London:Royal Historical Society 1961
• Keats-Rohan, K. S. B. (1999). Domesday Descendants: A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents, 1066–1166: Pipe Rolls to Cartae Baronum. Ipswich, UK: Boydell Press. ISBN 0-85115-863-3. 

External links

• The Lucy & Lucey Family net
• Richard de Luci/de Lucy in 1911encyclopedia
• Knowles, Dom David The Monastic Order in England: From the Times of St. Dunstan to the Fourth Lateran Council Second Edition Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1976 reprint ISBN 0-521-05479-6