Re: Kendal, Gospatric, Samlesbury

In a message dated 10/2/06 2:45:05 PM Pacific Daylight Time,

<< I think any way you slice it or dice it, Gospatrick Fitz Orm was born
in or before 1110. I believe that is a very reasonable estimate of his
birth. >>

And I'm not saying it's unreasonable. I'm saying it's unwarranted.
The records we have just do not support pinning it to 1110.
A charter that must have been writen by 1157, naming three sons as witnesses
only tells us that
1) The three sons were living, and presumably old enough to be "witness" to a
charter.

If we assume or prove what age a person must be in order to be a witness to a
charter, then we could state the minimum ages the sons must be. We cannot
state the maximum ages they must be, except that their father is living.

Michael Anne informs me that you had to be at least 14 to be a witness. I
can not comment on that. Every so often we debate this issue of "age to be a
witness" and there never seems to be any firm answer, just generalizations.

If we allow Michael Anne to be correct, and very conservatively say the boys
were 16, 15, and 14 then we only get that Gospatric FitzOrm had to be born by
1124 allowing him to be 17 himself at the birth of his eldest son.

Other than the fact that he was fined for engaging in a duel in 1176 (so
presumably he wasn't say 80 years old...) I've seen nothing else to allow us to
pin down any birthyear for him or his sons. Personally I would think a 70 year
old man engaging in a duel would be awfully hot-headed.