Hi Peter, Many thanks for the informed & thoughtful reply. I respond as follows: [1]. As per consanguinity, I am not familiar enough with the subject, save for the basic and changing prohibitions, to know whether a relationship in the 3rd degree was likely to be ignored or readily accommodated with dispensation or, alternatively, whether the granting of a technically required dispensation was to be expected in a case like this but simply absent from the surviving record. I, generally, am loathe to rely on missing evidence to satisfy genealogical challenges. However, as I said earlier, I simply do not know enough about this topic to make any determinations. [2]. I just re-read the Hollister article on the Mandeville family you kindly quoted. Are you in agreement with his conclusions? The arguments, while I understand the logic and import, are too advanced for me to really hazard a guess as per who is correct - Round v Hollister. Again, I'm grateful for you & others taking the time to review & opine on my comments & queries. Cheers, Pete

On 2/05/2016 2:48 PM, Peter G. M. Dale via wrote: > Hi Peter, > > Many thanks for the informed & thoughtful reply. I respond as follows: > > [1]. As per consanguinity, I am not familiar enough with the subject, save for the basic and changing prohibitions, to know whether a relationship in the 3rd degree was likely to be ignored or readily accommodated with dispensation or, alternatively, whether the granting of a technically required dispensation was to be expected in a case like this but simply absent from the surviving record. I, generally, am loathe to rely on missing evidence to satisfy genealogical challenges. However, as I said earlier, I simply do not know enough about this topic to make any determinations. > > [2]. I just re-read the Hollister article on the Mandeville family you kindly quoted. Are you in agreement with his conclusions? The arguments, while I understand the logic and import, are too advanced for me to really hazard a guess as per who is correct - Round v Hollister. > > For what it's worth, I think Hollister has the better of this argument - Round evidently supposed that inheritance was secure at the time of Eudo's death, but careful work has been done of this question since he wrote and the answer is "not so much". It has calculated that inheritance within families occurred within the frequency range of 60-80% through the reign of Henry I. We know that William de Mandeville had fallen from favour, and his father-in-law Eudo may have been incapacitated in the last two decades of his life. I wouldn't think it surprising if William's underage son Geoffrey fell into the unlucky 20-40% until Matilda decided to give him all she could of his rights - that is, lands and the dapiferate in Normandy that were under her (or officially her husband's) control, and the estates in England if Geoffrey could obtain them. Peter Stewart