Ivo Taillebois (died 1094) was a powerfulNorman nobleman, sheriff andtenant-in-chief in 11th-century England.
Ivo Taillebois was a Norman most probably fromTaillebois, now a small hamlet in Saint-Gervais de Briouze,Calvados.[1] He sold land at Villers to theAbbey of Saint-Étienne, Caen and donated a church of Christot in Calvados.[1] The latter diploma was attested by his brother Robert. Another brother, Ralph Taillebois, wasHigh Sheriff of Bedfordshire and Ivo succeeded him as sheriff after Ralph's death shortly before 1086.[1]
In 1071King William, with Taillebois leading his army, besieged the Isle of Ely where the rebel leaderHereward the Wake was based.[2] Hereward escaped capture during the siege but was caught and imprisoned; Taillebois dissuaded William from freeing him.[3]
Hispower base appears to have been in Lincolnshire, where he probably becameHigh Sheriff of Lincolnshire before 1068.[4] He marriedLucy, daughter of Turold, the Sheriff of Lincolnshire before the conquest,[5] laterCountess of Chester, in whose name he held the extensive honor of Bolingbroke in Lincolnshire.[6] In the Domesday Book of 1086 he appears as a tenant-in-chief[7] also holdingBourne and many of its manors.[2]William Rufus further endowed him with the lands of Ribblesdale and Lonsdale inCumbria on the border with Scotland, possibly for his service as a royal steward.[2] He was also granted theBarony of Kendal by William Rufus, consisting of a sizable portion ofWestmorland.[8]
Ivo attested several charters for William the Conqueror before 1086, including theabbey of St. Armand and the abbey of St. Peter, Ghent, and several for William II Rufus including theabbey of St. Florent,Saumur and theabbey of St. Mary, La Sauve Majeure.[9]
According to annalist Peter of Blois, Ivo's "only daughter, who had been nobly espoused, died before her father; for that evil shoots should not fix deep roots in the world, the accursed lineage of that wicked man perished by the axe of the Almighty, which cut off all his issue." Ivo's only known heiress was Beatrix. Her sons by Ribald of Middleham, used the Taillebois surname on occasion.
It is not certain whether Beatrix was a daughter of Lucy, and it is also not certain what connection Beatrix or any other relatives might have had to later Taillebois families or the family ofWilliam de Lancaster I, who was also associated with the Taillebois surname.
There has been much speculation and discussion about Lucy, and even whether she was one person. In recent times, Keats-Rohan proposed to resolve this by describing her as a daughter to a previous Anglo-Saxon sheriff of Lincolnshire, who was married to a daughter of the Norman Malet family.
Ivo's widow Lucy married Roger FitzGerold, Baron of Kendal, by whom she was the mother ofWilliam de Roumare, Earl of Lincoln.[10] Lucy married thirdlyRanulf le Meschin, 3rd Earl of Chester, and was the mother of four children includingRanulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester.[11]
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