Oct 21, 2014

Preliminary findings regarding the ancestry of Sir Thomas Mallory of Newbold Revel

Newbold Revel was brought to the Mallory family by the marriage, probably in 1332, of a certain Stephen Mallory with the heiress of the Revel family. This line has already been tentatively established by the ground-breaking research of P.J.C. Field. An examination of the notes I took in 2007 during a year of intensive research at the Institute of Historical Research of the University of London, the British Library, and the National Archives at Kew have enabled to confirm this lineage with rather more certainty than has been possible to date and to confirm my dating of the likely birth years of the earliest Mallorys. Instead of merely being a likely hypothesis, the following line of descent may now be categorized as "unlikely not to have been the case". New evidence could change things, though the likelihood of dramatic change should now be considered rather small, indeed, with the least certainty being in the first two generations. 

The lineage may be summarized as: Geoffrey Mallory, born before 1060. Robert Mallory born circa 1085. Richard Mallory born circa 1110. Simon Mallory born circa 1135. Sedgwyn Mallory born circa 1160. Simon Mallory born circa 1185. Richard Mallory born circa 1210. Simon Mallory born circa 1235. Roger Mallory born circa 1260. Simon Mallory born circa 1285. Stephen Mallory born circa 1310 and probably married in 1332. 

It is not entirely certain as to how many generations there are between Stephen Mallory and Sir Thomas Mallory of Newbold Revel, the knight often considered by contemporary literary historians to be the writer of very famous "Le Morte d'Arthur" (the story of King Arthur), largely because there is still no truly convincing academic consensus as to the estimated year of his birth, though, if the Mallory generation average continued to have held true in the case of his lineage, one would expect him to be the fourth generation after the above-mentioned Stephen Mallory and born circa 1410. The best fit would be a lineage also put forth as a possibility by P.J.C. Field (though only as one possibility and without estimated dates of birth), being John born circa 1335, Nicholas born circa 1360, John born circa 1385, and Thomas born circa 1410. I cannot, however, present the lineage after Stephen with the same certainty as the lineage before, only suggest that this should represent a first line of research for those interested in these individuals. 

Again, though I have every intention of eventually producing a work about the above lineage of academically acceptable standards discussing the above in detail with a thorough examination of the sources, I am not yet in a position to do so and do not expect to be able to begin writing what would be a full-scale book until after this school year ends for me in March of next year. In the mean time, I hope the above might prove useful to those who might be interested in the problems involved in properly identifying this particular gentry lineage. 


Please note that I am writing primarily for the benefit of the non-expert and have, therefore, choses to normalize my spellings, as the medieval spellings of Mallory are numerous. A common spelling during the time of Sir Thomas of Newbold Revel was Malory, but there were many others as well, before, during, and after the life of that particular knight. For this reason, I have chosen to normalize according to the most common modern spelling which is Mallory. Likewise, "Le Morte d'Arthur" is a normalization to modern spelling conventions of "Le Morte Darthur".

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