Hugh de Morville

There are several historical British persons with the name Hugh (or Hugo) de Morvile (Moreville, Morville).

*A Hugh de Moreville is said to have come over with William the Conqueror. However, according to Professor G. W. S. Barrow, an expert on this period of history, his name was not Hugh, but Richard: "The commune of Morville in the canton of Bricquebec is about four km south of Valognes, about 25 km south of Cherbourg. This family, evidently of knightly rank, was proprietorial enough to take a surname from the village belonging to the same class of minor but substantial gentry or petty nobility as the Bruces who lived not too far from them. It seems probable that the father of the first Hugh de Morville and William was the Richard de Morville who witnessed charters by Richard de Redvers of Montebourg and the church of St. Mary in the castle of Néhou in the early twelfth century." [Barrow, pp. 70–71n.]
*Hugh de Morville, Lord of Cunningham and Lauderdale (d.1162), from the Cotentin Peninsula, accompanied David I of Scotland to Scotland. Barrow ponders on "the rise in only one or at most two generations of an obscure knightly family from the unfashionable side of Normandy to the highest baronial rank in the Scottish realm." [ Barrow, Geoffrey W.S., "Some Problems in 12th and 13th century Scottish History - a Genealogical Approach", in "The Scottish Genealogist", vol.XXV, no.4, December 1978, p.100, ISSN 0300-337X ]
*The most famous Hugh de Morville, Lord of Westmorland was the son of the above. He was involved in the assassination of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and subsequently went on pilgrimage to obtain absolution. In his later life he seems to have served King Richard I.

Notes

References

* Barrow, G. W. S. (1980). "The Anglo-Norman Era in Scottish History", Oxford University Press, p.70/1n.
* Eyton, Robert William. "Itinery of Henry II".
* Ramsay, James Henry. "Angevin England".
* Ritchie, R. L. Graeme (1954). "The Normans in Scotland". Edinburgh University Press.