Early History
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The earliest recorded use of the surname I have found was located in Tamworth (Staffordshire) castle, this was on a scroll listing the fallen at Battle Abbey (Hastings) in 1066. A number of early manuscripts including the Domesday book, the Wace poem, the Curia Regis, and the Falaise Roll show that the first record of the name was found in Lincolnshire where they were seated from very early times having been granted lands by William the Conqueror for distinguished service at the battle of Hastings.

In the late 12th. Century during the reign of Richard I, Girard de FURNIVAL, a Norman knight arrived in England from Normandy. He accompanied the king on the Crusades and was a constant companion of Richard and took part in the siege of Acon.

In 1181 on the death of William de Lovetot, lord of Hallamshire, his vast estates passed to his only child the seven year old Maud. Being so young Maud was made a ward of King Henry II and about 1190, now aged sixteen and with Richard I on the throne, was given in marriage by the king to Girard the son of Girard de FURNIVAL above. This was probably a favour for the elder Gerard’s service with Richard in the Crusades.

By this marriage the de FURNIVALS came into possession of Sheffield and district, the lordship of which they were to hold for one hundred and eighty years. The family’s influence on the area is remembered today by Furnival Street, Furnival Gate, Furnival House and a pub "The Furnival" which has now been converted to a church of the same name.

Girard followed in his father’s footsteps and went to the Crusades dying in Jerusalem in 1219 leaving Maud to bring up their three sons and three daughters.

Two of Girard’s sons, Thomas and Gerard, also fought in the Crusades. Thomas, the eldest, was killed in Palestine, his body was brought back to England by Gerard where it was buried at Worksop Priory where his mother and two brothers are also buried.

Thomas’s son, also Thomas, succeeded to his father’s titles. During his lordship there was a rebellion against King Henry III led by Simon de Montfort, the Earl of Leicester. Thomas sided with the king which act resulted in an attack on Sheffield by a party of opposing barons who destroyed the town, burning down the wooden castle and the parish church. In 1300 Thomas applied to the king for permission to rebuild the castle in stone, this was granted and a massive castle was constructed. This lasted until the Civil War when by order of Parliament it was demolished in 1648. Little or nothing of it remains today.

According to one source of information the next lord was Thomas’s son Gerard as shown in the family tree constructed below, this, however, is contradicted by other sources which give the next lord as Thomas, the third of that name.

What is generally agreed however, is that this Thomas was the most outstanding FURNIVAL of his line. Thomas was summoned to attend king Edward I with 60 other "magnates" on 8th June 1294 to advise upon urgent affairs of the realm, from this summons he was commanded to repair to Portsmouth on the 1st September with horse and arms for the intended expedition against France.

On the 23rd June the following year he was first summoned to Parliament as a baron and gave distinguished service for several years in the Scottish wars, in 1299 being made captain-general and lieutenant to the king for the counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire and was summoned to Parliament uninterruptedly until January 1332.

In 1296 Thomas obtained from the king a Charter under the Great Seal of England, for a market to held in Sheffield on the Tuesday of each week and for a fair to be held each year during the three days of holy Trinity. They are both still held to the present day except that the Fair is now held for one day on the Tuesday following Trinity Sunday. In the following year he was to grant to the people of Sheffield a Charter of still greater importance and which was often described as the Magna Carta of Sheffield. This Charter created the Burgery of Free Tenants which abolished those base and uncertain services by which the tenants of Sheffield had previously held their tenements, and replaced them with a small fixed annual monetary payment. The sum agreed as the burgage rent was £3. 8s. 9¼d.

He also gave the tenants exemption from all "exactions and demands of toll, as they were wont to be in the time of my ancestors, forever". In a small way, Thomas had given certain privileges and made the tenants a free independent body of self-governing people, he also established trial by jury. The tenants elected themselves a leader who they called "Town Collector" and took over various public duties including road improvement and bridge repair.

Li beaus Thomas de Fourneval,

Ki quant feoit fur le cheval

Ne fembloit home ki formeille.

Sis merlos e bende vermeille

Portoit en la baniere blanche

The seal of Thomas Lord Furnival

The handsome Thomas de Furnival,

Who, when seated on horseback,

Did not look like a man asleep.

He bore six martlets and a red bend

In a white banner.

                                                

(Tomb effigies of left, Thomas the Hasty and right, his daughter Joan Neville. These are located in the refurbished chapel of Worksop Priory, the "amputation" of Thomas allegedly occurring in the16th century at the time of Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries. This effigy is believed to have adorned the outside of a Worksop pub until placed in the chapel in the 1920's.)  I am indebted to William Furnivall of California for these pictures and information.

Thomas’s son, yet another Thomas, was summoned to Parliament as a Baron in his own right as Thomas de FURNIVAL Junior from 25th August 1318 until 27th January 1332. After his father’s death he attended without the "junior" until 15th November 1338. In about 1317 he married Joan the heiress of the de Verdun estates at Alton in Staffordshire. Joan had been married at the age of twelve to the son of Lord William Montague, he shortly died and while still in her thirteenth year the young widow married Thomas. The marriage was carried out without the king’s license needed as Joan was a minor and Thomas was fined £200. Thus on his father’s death he was able to add the Staffordshire estates to those of Hallamshire. . The couple spent much time at Alton when not in Sheffield and their marriage, deaths, and the births of their children are in the registers of Croxden Abbey.

Thomas proved to be an unjust and overbearing Lord of the manor, maintaining a garrison which menaced his more peaceful neighbours, and causing a break in the good relations between the monks of Croxden Abbey and the de VERDUN family with outrageous demands on the Abbey. In 1324 is recorded the lawless behaviour of Thomas and his retainers and in 1333 he was granted a general pardon at Berwick on Tweed for homicide and monies.

In 1334 Joan died in childbed and was buried with her infant son, Theobald, at Croxden Abbey. Five years later Thomas and his eldest daughter Margaret died within months of each other at Sheffield.

The couple left two sons Thomas and William, the former born in 1322 became the 3rd baron and was summoned to Parliament between 20th November 1348 and 4th October 1364. In 1345 he had embarked on the expedition into France and the following year took part in the battle of Cr¾ cy, he continued in the French wars some years subsequently and later served in Scotland under Henry, Lord Percy. He died, without issue, in about the year 1368 at Sheffield Castle and was buried in Beauchief Abbey.

The younger brother, William, succeeded to the estates as 4th baron and was summoned to Parliament between 20th January 1368 and 7th January 1383. He married Thomasin the heiress of Dagworth and thereby added the manor of Dagworth in the county of Suffolk to his estates. He permitted the pale of his park at Worksop to be so defective as to allow a number of the king’s deer to enter it from Sherwood Forest, leading to their being destroyed. Because of this the forest warden seized the park for the king, it was soon released with William being pardoned after paying a fine of £20

The marriage to Thomasin resulted in a daughter, Joane, who married Thomas Nevill, brother of the 1st Earl of Westmoreland. Thus, with William’s death in 1383, expired this male line of FURNIVALS and the barony passed by his heiress to her husband. Thomas Nevill was called to Parliament 20th August 1383 as Thomas Nevill de Hallamshire afterwards styled "Lord Furnival". The couple produced two daughters, Maude and Joane. The latter died unmarried while Maude married Sir John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury in 1408. Sir John was called to Parliament between 1409 and 1421 as Lord FURNIVAL. For his many achievements he was created Earl of Shrewsbury in England and Earl of Waterford and Wexford in Ireland, the Baronry of Furnival was merged with the higher honours for two hundred years until the death of the 7th Earl of Shrewsbury without male issue. The baronry fell into abeyance between the Earl’s three daughters. It was later through marriage to merge with the Earldom of Arundel and the Dukedom of Norfolk until the death of the 9th Duke when it again fell into abeyance between his two nieces. It apparently continues to be in abeyance between the Lords Stourton and Petre although the 1987 edition of "Who’s Who" refers two co-heiresses of the name Dent.

Sr John Talboite, first Sr John Fournivall,
Was most worthie warriour we reade of all.
For by his Knighthode and his chivalrye
A Knight of the Garter first he was made;
And of King Henry sixt, Erle Scrovesberye
To which Sr. John his sone succession hade
And his noble successors now thereto sade
God give them good speede in their progresse
And heaven at their end, both more and lesse.

The de Verdun/de Furnival shield (Sacristy window Alton)

Detail of painting showing the banners of opposing armies at battle of Crécy.

Alton Castle in the present day

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