Sybil

Who is Sybil?

Sybil was an Anglo-Norman noblewoman in 12th century England.

Historians disagree about Sybil's parentage. The entry for her first husband in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry states that Sybil was the niece of Hugh de Lacy. The Complete Peerage states that Sybil was the daughter of Geoffrey Talbot and Talbot's wife Agnes, who was herself probably the daughter of Walter de Lacy. The historian K. S. B. Keats-Rohan states Sybil was the daughter of Hugh de Lacy, a view shared by fellow historians Judith Green and Paul Dalton. Others such as Bruce Coplestone-Crow and David Crouch agree with the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography's designation of Sybil as Hugh's niece, and daughter of Geoffrey Talbot and Agnes, the sister of Hugh de Lacy.

Sybil married first Pain fitzJohn, a marriage that took place around 1115. Through Sybil, Pain acquired a number of holdings around Ludlow Castle, as well as control of the castle itself. Ludlow was an important strategic stronghold which controlled part of the Welsh Borders. Sybil also brought her husband lands in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and Worcestershire. Both King Henry I and King Stephen recognized Pain's right to his wife's lands. Sybil had inherited lands that originally had been held by her kinsman Gilbert de Lacy, the son of Roger de Lacy. Roger de Lacy had been banished from England in 1095 and his English estates confiscated; he had though retained his properties in Normandy. Roger's English possessions were given to his brother Hugh de Lacy, from whom Sybil had inherited them. On Roger's death Gilbert inherited the lands in Normandy, and pressed his claim to the family's former English estates. Coplestone-Crow notes that there was uncertainty hanging over the inheritance, and accounted for one reason why Sybil's husband worked to secure more lands around Ludlow. Sybil was not the only recipient of Hugh de Lacy's lands; some went to Josce de Dinan and some to Miles of Gloucester.