Richard de Morville

Who is Richard de Morville?

Richard de Morville, also called Hugh de Moreville, was a noble of Normandy and Norman England.

A Hugh de Moreville is said to have come over with William the Conqueror. However, according to Professor G. W. S. Barrow, an expert on this period of history, his name was not Hugh, but Richard: "The commune of Morville in the canton of Bricquebec is about four km south of Valognes, about 25 km south of Cherbourg. This family, evidently of knightly rank, was proprietarial enough to take a surname from the village belonging to the same class of minor but substantial gentry or petty nobility as the Bruces who lived not too far from them. It seems probable that the father of the first Hugh de Morville and William was the Richard de Morville who witnessed charters by Richard de Redvers of Montebourg and the church of St. Mary in the castle of Néhou in the early twelfth century."