Gurney Genealogy Library Updated 29 May 2026 by Allen Gurney

Walter de Gournay (fl. c. 1108–1154)

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Junction point: youngest son of Gerard de Gournay; ancestor of all English and American Gurneys.

Born
c. 1108, probably England or Normandy. Youngest son of Gerard de Gournay (G32) and Edith de Warenne. The genealogist Daniel Gurney suggested he may have been named after his father's kinsman Walter Giffard, Earl of Buckingham, or after Walter de la Ferté. 1
Died
Dates uncertain. Active during the reign of King Stephen (1135–1154). Son William I living 1167, suggesting Walter died c. 1150–1165. 2
Occupation / Status
Lord of manors in Norfolk and Suffolk. Mesne tenant under the senior Lords of Gournay and under Manasser de Dampmartin in Suffolk. 3
Buried
Unknown. No record. 2
Marriage(s)
Unknown. No wife named in Daniel Gurney's Record or any other source consulted. 4

Highlights

  • The junction point — every English and American Gurney descends from this man. Walter's elder brother Hugh IV inherited the great Norman barony. Walter received a younger son's share of the English estates. From this seemingly minor partition descend the Harpley Gournays, the West Barsham Gurneys, the Quaker banking Gurneys, and — through Francis Gurney's son John Gurney-1 — the American Gurneys. 5
  • Confirmed as Gournay blood by a French royal court. The Les Olim — the official records of the French royal court (Curia Regis / Parlement) — formally recognized the Swathings Gurneys as legitimate blood descendants of the Lords of Gournay. The same Gournay-blood descent is independently anchored by Walter's Liber Niger Scaccarii entry and by the parage tenure of Montigny-sur-Andelle that his son later held. 7
  • Documented in the Black Book of the Exchequer, c. 1166. The Liber Niger Scaccarii — one of the most authoritative financial records of medieval England — records Walter as holding a quarter knight's fee in Suffolk under Manasser de Dampmartin. This is the primary document that places Walter in the historical record as an identified, landed individual. 6
  • Survived "The Anarchy" — Stephen's civil war. Walter's adult years coincided with the breakdown of royal authority during Stephen's reign (1135–1154), when shifting loyalties and local violence engulfed much of England. There is no record of Walter in any political or military event — probably the wisest course for a minor Norfolk landlord. 6
  • A Norman village may bear his name. The historian De la Mairie conjectured that the village of "Bois Gautier" (Gautier = Walter in Norman French) in the Pays de Bray was named for Walter, suggesting he held a small Norman parcel near the family's ancestral seat before the junior line became primarily English. 1

Children

Name Dates Mother Notes
William de Gournay I fl. c. 1150–1180 Unknown G30 in direct line. Knight ("Dominus Willelmus"). Lord of Runhall; held Montigny-sur-Andelle in Normandy in parage. Living 1167. 8

Narrative

Walter de Gournay occupies a peculiar position in this family history. He is, genealogically, one of the most important ancestors in the entire line — the single person through whom every English and American Gurney descends — and yet he is also one of the least documented. A single sentence in the Liber Niger Scaccarii, the Black Book of the Exchequer compiled c. 1166, establishes that he held lands in Suffolk under Manasser de Dampmartin. Daniel Gurney’s identification of him as the youngest son of Gerard de Gournay (G32) and Edith de Warenne rests on the pedigree’s internal logic, the geographical pattern of the estates, and — most critically — the Montigny-sur-Andelle tenure that his son William inherited, which could only have been granted to a blood relative of the senior Gournay lords.

Walter appears to have received his portion of the family’s English holdings as a younger son’s share when his father Gerard died in Palestine before 1104. The estates he held — Runhall and Swathings in Hardingham, Norfolk, and lands in Suffolk — were part of the Norfolk and Suffolk manors that had come into the Gournay family through Gerard’s marriage to Edith de Warenne. Under Norman custom, a younger son could hold a portion of the fief “in parage” — at equal tenure with his elder brother — and this is precisely the tenure William de Gournay I held for Montigny-sur-Andelle. Parage was not available to vassals or tenants; it required blood descent. Daniel Gurney called this “incontestable proof of his descent in blood from the Barons of Gournay.”

The proof is further strengthened by an entry in the Les Olim, the records of the French royal court, which formally recognized the Swathings Gurneys as being of the blood of the Lords of Gournay. The Liber Niger, the parage tenure, and the Les Olim ruling independently confirm Walter’s descent from Gerard.

Walter lived his adult years during “The Anarchy,” Stephen’s reign (1135–1154), when the breakdown of royal authority left many English lords navigating a dangerous landscape of shifting loyalties and local violence. He navigated it quietly — there is no record of Walter in any political or military event, which was probably the wisest course for a minor Norfolk landlord.

Citations

  1. Daniel Gurney, The Record of the House of Gournay, Part I (1848), p. 286 (Norfolk pedigree): "WALTER DE GOURNAY, held lands in Suffolk, under Manasser de Dampmartin, in the reign of Stephen (Liber Niger Scaccarii, vol. i. p. 298), probably son of Gerard de Gournay and Editha Warren." Daniel Gurney, Supplement (1858), Note 104, pp. 776–777: generational proof that Walter = son of Gerard. Naming hypothesis: "He might probably have been named by his father Gerard, after his near relation Walter Giffard, Earl of Buckingham" or "after Walter de la Ferté." Bois Gautier conjecture: De la Mairie cited in the same Supplement note. ↩
  2. No death date in any source. Son William I living 1167 (Daniel Gurney, Record, Part I (1848), p. 278); active generation therefore c. 1108–c. 1155. ↩
  3. Daniel Gurney, Record, Part I (1848), p. 278: Walter "was lord of the manor of Runhall and Swathings in Norfolk." Liber Niger Scaccarii, vol. i, p. 298 (Suffolk tenure under Manasser de Dampmartin). ↩
  4. No wife named in Daniel Gurney's Record or any other source consulted. ↩
  5. Daniel Gurney, Record, Part I (1848), p. 277: "WALTER DE GOURNAY, youngest son of Gerard and Editha, ancestor of this line." Same volume, p. 286 (pedigree). ↩
  6. Daniel Gurney, Record, Part I (1848), Norfolk pedigree p. 286: "he lived during the civil wars in the reign of Stephen." Liber Niger Scaccarii reference as above. ↩
  7. Daniel Gurney, Record, Part I (1848), p. 293: Les Olim cited for proving "the Gurneys of Swathings to be of the blood of the Lords of Gournay." Same volume, p. 278: Montigny-sur-Andelle parage tenure as "incontestable proof." ↩
  8. Daniel Gurney, Record, Part I (1848), pp. 277–278 and pedigree p. 286. The adoption on this site of Daniel Gurney's "Walter as son of Gerard" identification is a conscious editorial choice; an independent line of modern scholarship — most fully argued by Douglas Richardson, soc.genealogy.medieval, 11 September 2002 (Google Groups thread cPiFbsyHAa8), drawing on Hasted vol. 4, Copinger Manors of Suffolk vol. 3, Loyd & Stenton Hatton Book of Seals, VCH Essex vol. 4, and Genealogist vol. 15 — rejects the Gerard-paternity identification on English-side feudal evidence. The full case is at research/case-files/walter-de-gournay-as-son-of-gerard.md. Source IDs: dg-rec-pt1, richardson-sgm-soc-genealogy-medieval-2002. ↩