Research Notes:
The biography of Alan la Zouche in Complete Peerage states, [1]
Alan Ceoche or la Coche, otherwise la Zouche,(a) yr. br. of Eudon, or Eon,(b) Vicomte of Porhoët, sometime (1148-56) recognized jure uxoris as Duke of Brittany,(c) both being sons of Geoffrey, Vicomte of Porhoët (d. 1141),(d) by Hawise, da. of Alan Fergant, Due of Brittanny, assented to his br. Eudon's charter to the Abbey of Marmoutier in 1153.(e) He is first mentioned in England in 1172, when the sheriff of Northants answered for the scutage due from one knight's fee on his lands;(f) there are many references to him in lawsuits, 1175-90;(g) and as Alan la Zouche of North Molton he was fined in Devon in 1185.(h) He m. Alice, da. and (eventually) h. of Philip de Belmeis, of Tong, Salop, Ashby, co. Leicester, &c, by Maud, da. and coh. of William Le Meschin, of Skipton-in-Craven.(a) He d. 1190.(b)
(a) The "true origin" of the family of Zouche was apparently first "deduced with certainty," from the Chart. of Marmoutier and Lobineau's Hist. de Bretagne (vol. ii, col. 157), by R. E. Chester Waters, for whose letter thereon to G.E.C. see the 1st edn. of this work, vol. viii, Corrigenda, p. 529. This deduction can be confirmed from Dugdale, Mon., vol. vi, p. 263, and Morice, Hist. de Bretagne, Preuves, vol. i, col. 656; cf. Hatton's Book of Seals, no. 180. The description of Alan in the transcript of a charter of William la Zouche s. of Roger la Zouche, confirming the charters and gifts of Alan Zouche "avi nostri quondam comitis Britanniae" made to Swavesey Priory, co. Cambridge, is clearly wrong (Dugdale, Mon., vol. vi, p. 1002). Though Alan was br. and grandson of two Dukes of Brittany, Swavesey had been founded, before 1086, by Alan the Red, a Count of Brittany, with whom there is perhaps confusion (Idem, p. 1001; ante, vol. x, pp. 783-84, sub Richmond). Moreover the Zouche interest in Swavesey (and Fulbourn) had been acquired by Roger, in 1230, per escambium (confirmed by the King) with his kinsman Alan de Rohan and not by inheritance from his father (Book of Fees, p. 616; Cal. Charter Rolls, vol. i, p. 125; cf. Plac. de Quo Warranto, pp. 103—04).
(b) For the name Eudon or Eon and its various forms see ante, vol. xii, pt. 1, p. 645, note "f," and Appendix K, p. 32.
(c) See ante, vol. x, pp. 790—91, sub Richmond.
(d) This Geoffrey was the elder br. of Alan, who built the Castle of Rohan and became the ist Vicomte of Rohan, from whom the Zouche family is often deduced in error (Chester Waters, loc. cit.; see note "a" above).
(e) He also witnessed Eudon's foundation charter of Lantenac Abbey (Lobineau, op. et loc. cit.).
(f) Pipe Roll, 18 Hen. I I, p. 37. The spelling Lachuche is apparently corrected to Lazuche.
(8) Pipe Rolls, passim.
(b) Idem, 31 Hen. I I, p. 162. In 1212 it was said that North Molton had been given to the ancestors of Roger la Zouche by Henry I (Book of Fees, p. 99). No other evidence of this has been found.
(a) Alice's two brothers Philip and Ranulph (d. 1167), who both suc. to Tong, d. s.p. (Dugdale, Mon., vol. vi, p. 263; Morice, op. et loc. cit.; Pipe Roll, 13 Hen. II, p. 63; Curia Regis Rolls, vol. xi, no. 524; ante, vol. ix, p. 271, sub Mortimer (of Wigmore); see Eyton, Antiq. of Shropshire, vol. ii, p. 201 et seq.).
(b) Pipe Roll, 2 Ric I, p. 130.
[1] George E. Cokayne and Geoffrey H White, ed., The Complete Peerage, rev., Vol. 12, part 2, Tracton to Zouche (London: St Catherine Press, 1959), 930-931.