Urse d'Abetot

Urse helped to put down a rebellion against King William I in 1075, and quarrelled with the Church in his county over the jurisdiction of the sheriffs.

Edward's lack of children meant there was no clear legitimate successor, leading eventually to a succession dispute.

Some medieval writers state that shortly before Edward's death he named his brother-in-law, Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex, as his heir.

Others claim that Edward had promised the throne to his cousin, William, Duke of Normandy, a powerful autonomous ruler in northern France.

William, lacking Harold's proximity to the centres of English royal government, gathered troops and prepared an invasion fleet.

[6] Between his coronation and 1071, William consolidated his hold over England, defeating a number of rebellions that arose particularly in the north and west of the country.

Immediately after Hastings, only those English noblemen who fought in the battle lost their lands,[7] which were distributed to Normans and others from the continent who had supported William's invasion.

[8] The rebellions of the years 1068 to 1071 led to fresh confiscations of English land, again distributed to William's continental followers.

[9] By 1086, when William ordered the compilation of Domesday Book to record landholders in England, most of the native English nobility had been replaced by Norman and other continental nobles.

The historian Lewis Loyd refers to Urse as "in origin a man of no importance who made his way as a soldier of fortune".

[23] As sheriff, Urse was responsible for collecting taxes and forwarding them to the treasury, and was empowered to raise armies if rebellion or invasion threatened.

[1] In 1075, three earls rebelled, for reasons unknown,[30] and sought aid from the King of Denmark, Sweyn II Estridsson, who had a distant claim to the English throne.

[31] Urse and the magnates fighting alongside him, in addition to their obvious desire to suppress rebellion, had an interest in defeating de Breteuil, as he was the most powerful lord in the area.

Urse received his share of complaints, but he was part of a wider trend during the early years of William I's reign.

[35] This behaviour was not limited to the sheriffs, as other nobles were also accused in contemporary chronicles of appropriating land from churches and from native Englishmen.

[36] During the reign of William I, Urse became involved in a dispute with Bishop Wulfstan over the rights of the sheriff in the lands of the diocese.

[4] By the time of Domesday Book in 1086, Urse's powers as sheriff had been excluded from the Oswaldslaw, the area of Worcestershire controlled by the bishops of Worcester.

Domesday Book records that the Oswaldslaw was regarded as an immunity, exempt from judicial actions by royal officials.

[39][40] Hemmings' Cartulary mentions not just Azur's lands, but others at Acton Beauchamp, Clopton, and Redmarley as taken from the diocese of Worcester by Urse.

Gerald goes on to relate that Wulfstan stated he would only relinquish his episcopal staff to the king who had granted it, William I's predecessor, Edward the Confessor.

This was just the amount due for the royal estates in Worcester, as Urse was also responsible for payments of £23 and 5 shillings for the royal lands in the Borough of Worcester, £17 as profits on the shire and hundred courts with an additional £16 or a hunting hawk, specifically a "Norway hawk"; also due from the courts.

[55] Urse was an assistant to William II's main minister, Ranulf Flambard,[56] and frequently served as a royal judge.

[51] During his absence from England, the king addressed a number of writs to Urse, along with Haimo, Eudo, and Robert Bloet, ordering them to enforce William's decisions there.

The historian Francis West, who studied the office of the justiciarship, asserts that Haimo, Eudo, and Urse, along with Flambard, could be considered the first English justiciars.

[57] Urse's estates grew under William II,[58] partly as a result of the inheritance of some of the lands of his brother, Robert Despenser,[59][e] who died about 1097.

From this, the historian Judith Green speculates that Urse had been summoning these courts at unusual times and then fining those who did not attend.

[40] His exactions were also mentioned in Domesday Book, where an entry in the survey for Gloucestershire noted that he oppressed the inhabitants of Sodbury so much that they were unable to pay their customary rents.