Keats-Rohan states, [1]
Judhel De Totnes
Domesday writes Judhael where every other document concerning this man writes Juhel, but his name remains unmistakeably Breton, an observation confirmed by the fact that his father and son were both named Alfred (Round Feudal England, 255-6). He appears to have attested a grant of William I, made at Downton, Wiltshire, late in 1082, to Saint-Calais in Maine as 'Ruhalis filii Alvredi (RRAN i, no. 147). The contest in which Judhael is found is invariably Norman and in particular west Norman. J.B. Williams, 'Judhael of Totnes: the life and times of a post-Conquest baron', Anglo-Norman Studies 16 (1994), 271-289, has shown that he held his honour of Totnes since at least 1068, and was still holding it in 1086 according to Domesday. Early in the reign of William II, however, he lost it for unknown reasons which surely involve support for the claims of William's brother Robert Curthose. Oderid Vitalis reported that in 1079 one of the young and reckless companions of Robert Curthose in his war against his father was one Juhel son of Alfred the Giant. After their defeat, Robert and his companions went on to Flanders (Ord. Vit. iii, 100-102)7. Between 1087 and 1096, when he went on the First Crusade, Robert was duke of Normandy and active there. During the same period we know nothing of Judhael, only that he found favour with Henry I, Robert's rival until 110g, early in the twelfth century. He had certainly been established as lord of the Devonshire honour of Barnstaple by 1113. In 11 23, at an advanced age, he retired as a monk to the priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs he had built at Barnstaple, probably dying shrtly thereafter. The identification of Judhael with Orderic's Juhel son of Alfred the Giant is problematic because Judhael was not especially youthful or feckless in 1079, and there is not firm reason to suppose him to have been absent from England between 1079 and 1086. Nevertheless, there are reasons for supposing that Orderic did provide teh key to Judhael's origin. The journey of Robert's companions to Flanders very probably passed through or near Picquigny, home of the vicomtes of Amiens. We know from the work of the monk Herman, who records a visit of monks from Laon to Judhael at Barnstaple, and that Juhael's wife was the sister of Germond of Picquigny (Hermani monachi de Miraculis S. Mariae Laudunensis de gestic verabilis Bartholomei episcopi et S. Norberi Libri Tres, in PL, clvi, cols 983-4). Her rapturous welcome of men from her homeland suggest that she had been married from there, and not from the various Picquigny families settle in England. Such a marriage, for a west Norman or Breton, would be difficult to explain without the passage in Orderi. Alfred the Giant was an early benefactor of the abbey of Cerisy (Manche, cant. Cerisy-la-Fôret), of which he became a monk in the mid-eleventh century. His earliest occurences came in 1028, in a charter of William of Bellême, and in 1029 when he helped Nigel I of the Cotentin to repel Alan III of Brittany's invasion of Normandy (Fauroux, Recueil, now. 33, 69, 99, 195; William of Jumièges, ed. van Houts, ii, 58-9). He certainly had both sons and daughters, of whom William and Adselina are known, both of them active in the 1080s another daughter was the mother of William de Milly, and hence probably the wife of Rivallon de Milly, a Norman with a Breton name who confirmed his tenant's grant to the Breton abbey of Redon, in association with Robert of Mortain, in the mid-eleventh century. Judhael could well have been another of Alfred the Giant's sons. In founding Totnes Priory, a cell of the abbey of SS Serge and Bacchus in Angers, he may have provided the name of another in providing for the soul of his brother Robert. The foundation occurred between 1082 and 1086, and perhaps closer to 1082 since a notable absentee from the witness list is his tenant Nigel. Of Judhael's numerous manors in Devonshire in 1086, ten stand out as the most valuable; 8 of them were held by Judhael and 2 by Nigel, who held several other manors from him. Combined with the fact that Nigel's sons were named Alfred and Juhel, this suggests a strong possibility that Nigel had married a sister of Judhael. Juhel son of Nigel attested Judhael's acts for Barnstaple priory. Both Alfred son of Judhael and Juhel son of Nigel were close to Baldwin I de Redvers, earl of Devon, and head of a network of western Normans in Devon, in the 1130s and 40s; it is not unlikely that Baldwin's wife Adeliza was the sister of Juhel son of Nigel and the niece of Judhael of Totnes (DB Devon 17, 4-5; 10; 82; Mon. Ang. v, 197-8, attested by Alfred fitz Nigel (facsimile in Watkin, ii; Redvers Charterter pp. 76-8, Juhel fitz Nigel). THere is a very storn west Norman 'feel' to Judhael's backgrouns and career, but it is difficult to clarify because few of his tenants can be identified -- with the exception of the west Norman Ralph de Pomeroy -- and because he left no lasting mark on either of his honours. On the other hand, his foundation charter for Totnes priory had numerous witnesses, including two west Normans, Ralph Malbank and Hervey Avenel. The latter does not appear in Domesday book, but attested William of Mortain's confirmation charter for Montacute priory before 1106. Judhael, or rather Juhel's son Alfred died withoug issue after his part in the failed campaign of 1139 against King Stephen, when his heir was his sister Aanor, wife of Philip de Braose.
[1] K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, Domesday People, A Prosopography of persons occurring in English documents, 1066-1166 (Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 1999), 285-286, [GoogleBooks].