WILLIAM DE COLOMBIERES

Little is known of this personage mentioned by Wace (Rom. de Rou, l. 13,462) beyond the fact of the occurrence of his name in a charter in favour of the Abbey aux Dames at Caen in 1032.

He was probably deceased before the compilation of Domesday, in which a Rannulph de Columbels is returned as the holder of sundry manors in Kent, the reward of the services rendered to the Conqueror either by Rannulph himself or the William of Wace, whom he might have succeeded. Colombières is in the arrondissement of Bayeux, and it is worthy of note that in the charter above mentioned a Raoul d'Asnieres is found in company with the Lord de Colombières. Asnières being in the same arrondissement, and "Gilbert le viel d'Asnières" coupled with "Willame de Columbières" in the Roman de Rou, it is fairly presumable that they were near connections as well as near neighbours. The family of Colombières (Columbers, Columbels) alone appears to have struck root in England, and had become an important baronial family in the reign of Henry II, in the 12th of whose reign Philip de Columbers accounted for ten knights' fees "de veteri feoffemento" and one "de novo," and in the 22nd of the same reign paid twenty marks for trespassing in the King's forests. Dugdale's account only begins with this Philip, and he has not noticed that in a Plea Roll of Henry II Roger Bacon is set down as brother to Philip de Columbers, nor that a Gilbert de Columbers was a contemporary of Philip and settled in Berkshire. (Lib. Niger.)

The family of Columbers intermarried with the families of Chandos and Courtenai, and were Seigneurs of Dudevill, in Normandy; but the male line failed in England towards the close of the 13th century.

Added to this site through the courtesy of Michael Linton, who provided scanned text.