Note 35 — Chapter XXII

WILLIAM WARREN, named from the fief of Varenne, in St. Aubin-le-Cauf, arrondissement of Dieppe. His English history as earl of Surrey is well known; Introd. Dom. i. 506. M. Le Prevost expresses his opinion that William was not son of Walter de St. Martin, as Duchesne stiles him, but of Ralf de Warren,—a benefactor of the abbey of la Trinité du mont about the middle of the eleventh century,—by a niece of the duchess Gunnor; Roger de Mortemer, the first of the name, being another son. In a charter to St. Wandril by the conqueror, there is subscribed as witness, 'S. Rogerii filii Rodulfi de Warena.' A Gilbert de Warena witnesses a charter to Jumieges in 1088. A.L.P. We have good authority for observing that the hamlet of Varenne in St. Aubin never belonged to the Warrens, but to a family named Neville or Neuville, the adjoining hamlet. The river was anciently called Varimna, and there was a town of the same name, which appears to have been changed to that of Bellencombre—Bellus cumulus—from the lofty mound on which stood the castle of the Warrens, their caput baroniæ. Warren is in the Red book one of the defaulters.