Research Notes:
Complete Peerage states, [1]
Adam de Novo Foro, or Novo Mercato, was almost certainly the son of Sir William de Waddon by a sister of William de Novo Foro abovesaid, for whose succession to his uncle's holdings in the Honour of Blyth his father paid £25.(a) Adam was first witness to both foundation charters of Roche Abbey (1147), of which he was a benefactor.(b) He d. 1160-61.(c)
(a) See preceding note. Temp. Hen. II Adam granted land in Thurnscoe to Nostell Priory (Cott. MS., Vesp., E 19—cartulary of Nostell—fo. 28) as Paine de Novo Foro had done to Blyth. It was to the account of the Honour of Blyth that his br. William, after Adam's death, paid, to have the custody of his lands during the minority of Adam's heir (Pipe Rolls, 7-13 Hen. II) ; and to that of the Honour of Tickhill that the said heir proffered £100 in 1172 to have his inheritance, then in his uncle's custody (Idem, 18 Hen. II, p. 63). It would be in accordance with the common practice of the time for Adam, on succeeding to property of his mother's family, to take their name. Seeing that the Newmarch fee, to which he was made heir, was a much larger property than his father's estate, it is probable that Adam was his mother's eldest son ; whether he was also his father's heir is not known. Adam did not himself succeed to Whatton, which came to his grandson Adam after the death of Adeline (or Aline), lady of the manor of Whatton, da. and h. of Robert de Waddon, whose gifts to Welbeck Abbey, with her body, and for the souls of her father, her mother Beatrice, and her husband William de Heriz (living 1176, Pipe Roll, 22 Hen. II, pp. 91, 93), were confirmed to them by Adam de Novo Mercato, the grandson, who levied a fine with the abbot as to land in Whatton, Trin. term 1204 (Harl. MS. 3640—Welbeck cartulary—ff. 79, 79 d, 117 d, 124). It may be either that, as in a later generation (see post, p. 546, note "b"), Whatton was settled on a younger son, whole brother to Adam, or that Adam, son of William de Waddon, was brother of the half blood to the heir of Whatton—either the Robert mentioned above or his father.
(b) Dugdale, Mon., vol. v, pp. 502, 503, 505.
(c) Pipe Roll, 7 Hen. II, p. 37. His brother William abovesaid left descendants, of whom R. Holmes gives a pedigree (Pontefract Chartul., p. 596) more successful than that which he propounds for the elder branch, and largely borne out by the Chartulary of Monkbretton (Yorks Arch. Soc.); see also Farrer, Early Yorks Chrs., vol. i, p. 457; vol. iii, nos. 1756, 1771 ; Welbeck cartul., fo. 80 d.
[1] George E. Cokayne, H. A. Doubleday, Howard de Walden, eds., The Complete Peerage, rev., Vol. 9, Moels to Nuneham (London: St. Catherine Press, 1936), 544.