Gurney Genealogy Library Updated 15 July 2026 by Allen Gurney

These research notes are provided as-is and contain supplementary working research.

Robert Gournay (G22) Notes

Research notes for g22-robert-gournay-fact-sheet.md. See .claude/rules/research-files.md for the paired-file rule.

The name rests on a single hedge

The single most important caveat for this ancestor: Daniel Gurney himself was uncertain whether Robert was actually named “Robert.” His Record, Part II, p. 363, reads “a second son, whom we believe was named Robert” — the only source, and an explicit hedge. The children of Edmund G23 are listed there on the authority of one document, the Pedigree by Cook, Clarenceux, 1622 (footnote h on that page). All subsequent genealogical tradition adopts “Robert” but inherits the hedge.

Stirnet’s “Pedigree of the Gournays of Norfolk” preserves the same hedge: Robert appears as ((2)) (Robert) Gurney — parenthesised given name, indicating Stirnet’s compiler did not resolve the identification beyond Daniel Gurney. Stirnet cites RHG vol. 1, pp. 286–287 as its source.[1]

The hedge survives an exhaustive search of Daniel Gurney’s own apparatus: the Supplement Notes 115–123 were read for any mention of Robert by name and none found — all concern the collateral John the Rector, Edmund G23, Sir John V, or Thomas I (G21). Robert remains the least documented direct-line ancestor in the G37–G18 range.

The name itself was not unique in the Norfolk of his day: contemporary records carry “Robert Gurnay” at multiple social levels (see A contemporary Robert Gurnay of Little Cressingham, below), which is part of why even pinning the name is hard.

Why Robert matters: the collateral succession

Robert is genealogically critical because the direct line passes through him, not through his elder brother Sir John Gurney V (d. 1408). Daniel Gurney’s Supplement Note 121 (Sir John’s inquisition post mortem) proves Sir John’s son Edmund was heir aged 10 and “died sine prole, and probably under age.” Supplement Note 118 (Edmund G23’s will) names four executors including “John his son” — the elder brother Sir John V, not G24. Robert’s son Thomas I (G21) therefore inherited as Sir John’s nephew of blood. The full succession chain runs Edmund G23 → [Robert G22] → Thomas I (G21), bypassing the collateral Sir John V. This is the standing direct-line correction: the line runs through Robert G22, not the collateral Sir John.

Blomefield’s manorial descent for West Barsham confirms it from the other direction. The chain runs: Edmund Wauncy → Edmund Gurney → “John de Gourney … died 9th Henry IV [1407/08] seised of the manors of West and North Barsham, Harpley, Denver, Depeden” → “Thomas Gourney … mentioned as feoffee in 13th Henry VI” [= 1434/35] → Thomas senior (will 9 Edward IV, 1469) → William → William jr → Anthony → Frances → Henry → Edmund (d. 1641) → Henry (sold to Calthorpe).[2] Robert is not named at any point in the chain — independent confirmation that he held no main estate at West Barsham, matching the portrait of a younger son with no documentary footprint as a manorial lord. The 1434/35 feoffee reference pins Thomas Gournay I (G21) as a documented active adult by 13 Henry VI — 26 years after the 1408 inheritance crisis through which he received the estates as Sir John V’s nephew of blood.

Sir John V’s death and inquisition (1408–09)

Sir John V was reappointed sheriff on 15 November 1408 and died less than three weeks later, on 4 December 1408. Blomefield records him as having died “9th Henry IV” (regnal year 30 September 1407 – 29 September 1408) “seised of the manors of West and North Barsham, Harpley, Denver, Depeden,”[3] but the History of Parliament biography’s specific date of 4 December 1408 falls in 10 Henry IV, not 9.[4] Daniel Gurney’s Supplement Note 121 records the inquisition post mortem as “taken at Holt market, 10 Henry IV,” siding with the History of Parliament dating.[5] Blomefield’s “9 Henry IV” is most plausibly a regnal-year approximation or a copying slip; the History of Parliament date is anchored to the escheator’s writ.

The inquisition is calendared in the published Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 19 (Henry IV), entries 489–94 (TNA C 137/70/6), freely readable in the British History Online digitisation — corroborating Daniel Gurney’s Supplement Note 121 from an independent source and adding detail: the writ issued 16 February 1409; inquisitions were taken at East Rudham (26 March), Holt (27 March — Daniel Gurney’s “Holt market”) and Attlebridge (28 March) 1409; John died 4 December 1408; and his heir was Edmund his son, aged 10 (born c. 1398). The decisive datum is the jurors’ finding that “he held nothing in Norfolk” — that is, nothing of the Crown in chief. The West Barsham, Harpley, Hardingham and Heylesdon estates were therefore held of mesne lords, not the king; this is why the royal inquisition is thin and records no manor portfolio, and why no royal IPM was ever taken for Edmund G23 (see the G23 companion). The vol. 19 index groups the entries as “Gournay, John, and Edmund his son, 489–94”: Edmund the heir appears only inside his father’s inquisition, not as the subject of a separate one.[6]

The Heylesdon inheritance

Alice Heylesdon, daughter and eventual sole heir of John Heylesdon — wealthy London mercer and former alderman — brought to her marriage with Sir John Gurney V a substantially larger settlement than the single London warehouse “La Selde Coronata” that Daniel Gurney and the earlier fact sheet highlighted. The full settlement comprised the manors of Hellesdon and Drayton, the advowsons of both parish churches, the two chantries founded in her father’s memory, houses in Norwich, and “La Selde Coronata.”[7] When Sir John V’s only son Edmund died sine prole under age c. 1409/10, this entire Heylesdon settlement entered the inheritance crisis that ultimately moved the estates to Robert’s son Thomas I as Sir John V’s nephew of blood.

The downstream history of the Heylesdon estates belongs to later generations and is treated on their companions: Alice survived Sir John V by at least 25 years, sold “Loundhall” in Saxthorpe to John Wynter to pay his debts, married twice more (the Fitzalan retainer Sir John Wiltshire, d. 1428, and then Richard Selling esq.), and in 1433 sold the bulk of her Heylesdon inheritance to Sir John Fastolf KG — the upstream event for the Heylesdon → Fastolf → Paston → Heydon chain that culminated in great-grandson William Gurney IV’s (G19) 1472 Saxthorpe contest. Full treatment is on the G23 companion (Alice’s three marriages and the 1433 sale) and the G19 companion (the 1472 Saxthorpe Court showdown); the 1384 Husting will of John Heylesdon, the foundation document, is at sources/corpus_supplement/husting-wills-london-vol2-john-heylesdon-1384.md.

Joan de Norwich (Robert’s wife)

The Gurney pedigree in Daniel Gurney’s Record (p. 286) names Robert’s wife as “Joan de Norwich.” No further detail on her family survives in Daniel Gurney or any other source consulted.

The territorial de Norwich (de Norwico) barony of Mettingham and Raveningham is not her source: that male line failed and its estates passed by 1375 to the heiress Catharine de Brews (daughter of Thomas de Norwich) and thence to the Uffords, leaving no marriageable Joan de Norwich of Robert’s generation (Blomefield; the Mettingham/Raveningham descent). So “de Norwich” most plausibly denotes an urban/locative Norwich family — consistent with Edmund G23’s Norwich legal-civic standing as the city’s standing counsel — or is simply unrecoverable. No candidate Joan has been found in the gentry/baronial line.

Jeanne, Robert’s sister — the Mundeford marriage

Robert had a sister, Jeanne, who married Osbert Mundeford of Hockwold. This is Daniel Gurney’s own claim — Record, Part II, p. 363: “also a daughter Jeanne, married to Osbert Mundeford of Hockwold, Esq. who was one of the executors of his will” — resting, like the rest of Edmund’s issue, on the Cook, Clarenceux 1622 pedigree. It is corroborated by the will itself: Edmund G23’s 1387 will appoints “Osbert de Mundeford and Thomas Kemp” among his executors (Daniel Gurney, Record, Part II, p. 363; full Latin copy at Supplement Note 118, pp. 789–791, from Harl. MSS. 10, fol. 144) — a documented Mundeford–Gurney tie at exactly Edmund’s generation.

The marriage was earlier recorded here as “Stirnet’s claim … treated as unsupported,” on the ground that Blomefield’s Hockwold descent and the Feltwell parish history name no Gurney bride.[8][9][10] That verdict was a generation mismatch: Blomefield’s Hockwold Osberts (wives Alice, Elizabeth, Margaret) and the Feltwell Mundefords (Adam d. 1463 m. Esselina; Osbert d. 1479 m. Elizabeth; Francis d. 1520 m. Margaret; Osbert d. 1580 m. Margaret Townshend then Bridget Spelman) are fifteenth- and sixteenth-century men, while the executor Osbert de Mundeford is a contemporary of Edmund’s 1387 will, absent from those later lists. The marriage is therefore Daniel Gurney’s claim with a will-executor anchor, not a Stirnet invention and not disconfirmed. Jeanne is Edmund G23’s daughter; fuller treatment belongs on the G23 companion.

Robert Gurnay of Little Cressingham — Robert G22 in the contemporary record

A single Robert Gurnay is well-attested in west-central Norfolk inside G22’s traditional floruit window (c. 1370–1420), and on a close reading of the records he is Robert G22 himself, not a separate local namesake. The question is no longer “does any record name a contemporary Robert Gurnay” (yes, richly), nor even “could the Cressingham Robert be Daniel Gurney’s G22,” but how securely the two are equated. The two arguments once raised against the identification — distance from the family seat and the absence of gentry style — do not survive scrutiny (see the assessment below); the one element not separately documented is the filiation, and on the convergence of evidence the identification is treated as confirmed, consistent with the ancestor’s standing “Confirmed” lineage status.

1366 Mulbarton partition — the name at multiple social levels. The 1366 partition of the Norfolk lands of Thomas de Sancto Omero, made at Mulkebertone (Mulbarton) on 23–25 May 1366, lists “the services of Robert Gurnay, John Pigot and William Stalon” among the free tenants delivered to William de Hoo and his wife Alice, and separately names “bondmen named Nicholas Elvard, Henry Isabel, Robert Gurnay, John Dobyn, Henry Short and Walter Smyht” among the manor’s villein tenants.[11] Two distinct men named Robert Gurnay — one a free tenant, one a bondman — are therefore visible in a single Norfolk partition four years before G22’s traditional flourishing window. Neither matches G22, but the entry sharpens the hedge on the name by confirming that “Robert Gurnay” was carried in 1360s Norfolk at multiple social levels, not only in the gentry line.

1405 Little Cressingham fine. A fine levied in 1405 at Little Cressingham, South Greenhoe Hundred, names “Robert Gurnay of Cressingham-Parva” and Thomas Stodhagh as querents against Edward Howard and Catherine his wife, deforciants, over “several parcels of land, and the liberty of a foldcourse here, and in Hopton.”[12] This is the earliest currently-identified Norfolk record naming a Robert Gurnay within G22’s floruit window. Identification with G22 is not warranted: the residence formula “of Cressingham-Parva” denotes permanent residence at a parish twenty-five miles south of West Barsham, in a cluster not previously associated with the Edmund-Gurney line, and the Hopton/Cressingham foldcourse does not re-enter the West Barsham descent — when Anthony Gurnay obtained the fourth part of the manor of Hopton with messuages in Cressingham Magna and Parva, Hilburgh, Bodney, Threxton, and Hopton in 19 Henry VIII (1527/28), he did so by marriage to Margaret Lovel, daughter and heir of Sir Robert Lovel: a fresh acquisition by marriage, not by inheritance traceable to a 1405 Robert.[13][14] The fine has been read in Walter Rye’s A Short Calendar of the Feet of Fines for Norfolk, Part II, entry 64: “Robert Gurnay of Parva Cressyngham and Thomas Stodhagh v. Edward Howard and Katherine his wife, in Parva Cressyngham and Hopton.”[15] It carries no recital of parentage — Robert is identified only by residence. Parentage recitals are common in fines where the querent is a younger son recently of age, so their absence here means the fine neither confirms the West Barsham identification nor closes it by naming an alternate father — it identifies him by residence alone, which (see the assessment below) places him within the family’s landholding orbit rather than outside it.

Five IPM-juror appearances, 1400–1406. The same Robert Gurnay is independently documented as an inquisition juror on five panels — the strongest corroboration yet that the 1405-fine man was real and locally rooted. The E-CIPM Index of Jurors lists “Robert Gurnay” of Norfolk on the juries of the IPM of William Leche of Newton (by Castle Acre) in 1400 and 1401 (vol. 18 nos. 70–71; vol. 19 no. 88) and of Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick in 1401 (vol. 18 no. 500) — the latter inquiring into the earl’s Norfolk lands at Little Cressingham, Saham Toney, Necton and Panworth-in-Ashill, i.e. Robert’s own parish. The same West-Norfolk juror cohort (Warde, Cok, Canoun, Stag’, Foulden, de Rudham) reappears on a fifth panel, the 1406 IPM of Roger de Beauchamp (vol. 19 no. 79, where he is spelled “Gournay”), confirming these are one man, not several. Across all five he is plainly “Robert Gurnay/Gournay” with no “esquire” or residence designation — but, as the assessment below sets out, that absence is a feature of the juror genre, not a status marker. The existence and locale of “Robert Gurnay of Little Cressingham, fl. 1400–06” are firmly attested.[16]

Assessment — the case for and against. Three considerations once read as arguing against the West Barsham identification, re-examined:

  1. Geography is consistent, not contrary. The “~20–25 miles south of West Barsham” measure used the family’s northernmost seat alone. The family’s landholding sphere ran well south of it — Hardingham (held by Edmund G23, ~12 miles from Little Cressingham), the cadet “Gurney’s Manor” at Hingham and the Great Ellingham junior line, and Denver — placing the Cressingham / Wayland / South Greenhoe district inside the family’s orbit. A younger son provided for modestly would plausibly be seated on these central-southern margins rather than at the northern caput, and the cadet presence at Hingham/Great Ellingham shows the line was already established in exactly this district.
  2. The absent gentry style is a record-genre artifact. The IPM juror lists record no status or residence for any juror. And in the same Walter Rye feet-of-fines series the family’s most eminent members appear without style — Edmund G23, the foremost lawyer in Norfolk, as plain “Edm. Gournay” (Rye Pt II #1526), and Sir John Gurney V, knight and sheriff, as plain “John Gournay” (Pt II #262); only one Gurnay fine in the whole run (#200, Thomas, 1444/45) carries “Armiger.” So the plain “Robert Gurnay” of the 1405 fine and the juries is exactly what the family’s own knights and lawyers show, and discriminates nothing.
  3. There is no competing candidate. The E-CIPM Index of Jurors holds no Norfolk Gurnay juror but this Robert in the period; the only other Norfolk Robert Gurnays are the 1366 Mulbarton pair (a generation earlier, different parish, one of them a bondman) and the excluded Somerset Robert. Gurnay was a rare Norfolk surname with a limited, largely-accounted-for set of branches. With no rival, the sole contemporary Robert Gurnay is the natural match for the Robert the pedigree records.

Positively, the identification draws its strength from the convergence of two independent witnesses. Daniel Gurney’s Record is a secondary compilation, but a demonstrably reliable one — repeatedly borne out where it can be tested against primary record — and it independently reports a second son of this generation “whom we believe was named Robert”; the contemporary land and juror records then independently supply a Robert Gurnay of exactly that rare name, era, and family region. Two unrelated sources pointing to the same man is materially stronger than either alone.

The one element not separately documented is the filiation — no parentage is recited in the fine, and the Cressingham/Hopton holding does not resurface in the senior descent (though a younger son’s modest land need not, and Thomas I inherited West Barsham rather than his father’s cadet parcel). The social station is on the modest side for a great lawyer’s son, but normal for a younger son. Net: the Cressingham Robert is identified with G22 on the convergence of a reliable pedigree and the contemporary record — the ancestor’s standing “Confirmed” status — with the filiation the single element not independently attested; the earlier “probably not / leans against” reading over-weighted distance-from-West-Barsham and a genre-driven absence of “esquire.”

Stirnet pedigree: concordances and errors

Stirnet’s Norfolk Gournay pedigree agrees with Daniel Gurney on the central hedge (above), but introduces three errors:

  1. Edmund’s death year. Stirnet gives Edmund Gurney’s death as 1385, conflicting with Record, Part II, p. 363 (and with the will-date evidence preserved in Reg. Harsyke fol. 34), which place his death in May 1387. Treat 1385 as a Stirnet error.[1]
  2. Generation-flattening of Thomas I. Stirnet lists Thomas Gournay (G21) as a direct son of Edmund Gurney (d. 1387) — a sibling of Sir John V and Robert — rather than as Robert’s son and Sir John V’s nephew of blood.[17] Supplement Note 121 (Sir John V’s IPM proving collateral succession) and the History of Parliament biography of Sir John Gurney d. 1408 (“the family estates passed to John’s nephew, Thomas”) settle the placement against Stirnet.
  3. Jeanne–Mundeford is also in Stirnet, but it is in fact Daniel Gurney’s claim, will-corroborated — see Jeanne, Robert’s sister, above; not a Stirnet-only assertion.

Edmund G23’s will — already in hand, and not a path to Robert’s name

Edmund G23’s will, proved 1387 at the Norwich Consistory Court and registered in Register Harsyk fol. 34, is not an untapped lead. The register folio was “utterly rotted and destroyed” by the eighteenth century (Daniel Gurney, Record, Part II, p. 363, reporting that “in the time of Mr. Norris the part of the register which contained it was utterly rotted and destroyed”); the will survives only through Blomefield’s transcription and the full Latin copy at Daniel Gurney’s Supplement Note 118 (pp. 789–791, from Harl. MSS. 10, fol. 144) — both already in the repository.[18][19]

Crucially, the will does not enumerate the children. It bequeaths Katherine her dower and goods, directs a burial with thirteen paupers in white vestments bearing torches, adds a restitution clause, and appoints executors (Katherine his wife, John his son, Osbert de Mundeford, Thomas Kempe). Daniel Gurney sources the issue list — John, the second son “whom we believe was named Robert,” and Jeanne — separately, to the Cook, Clarenceux 1622 pedigree, not to the will. So retrieving or re-reading the will cannot attest the second son’s name; the 1622 pedigree at the College of Arms remains the only document that could (standing lead, below). What the will does supply is a documentary anchor, independent of Daniel Gurney’s narrative, for the 1387 death-date and the lawyer-of-Norwich identification of Edmund.

The medieval-soldier cohort, and the “was G22 a Richard?” question

The Soldier in Later Medieval England database, evaluated in full at research/topics/gurney-medieval-soldier-database.md, yields a short cohort of otherwise-undocumented Gournay/Gurney men in the G23–G21 window who bear on whether Robert had brothers, sons, or cadets — and on whether his own name was even “Robert.” None is an identification; each turns on a manuscript membrane.

The strongest is Richard Gurney, esquire, a man-at-arms in the 1387 and 1388 naval expeditions of Richard FitzAlan, earl of Arundel (sub-captain Edward Courtenay, earl of Devon).[20] Two facts make him worth pursuing as more than a namesake. First, his rank is gentry (esquire), his date and generation fit a son of Edmund G23, and he served under Arundel — the very magnate to whom the West Barsham Gurneys were tied (the family held Harpley of Arundel, and Robert’s elder brother Sir John Gurney V was steward of FitzAlan’s Norfolk estates before 1386).[21] Second, he is unplaced in both the Norfolk and the Somerset Gournay pedigrees: no medieval Richard Gurney appears in Daniel Gurney’s otherwise-exhaustive Record for the Norfolk line, and the Somerset Harptree line runs Anselm → John → Thomas with no Richard. Because Daniel Gurney himself hedged G22’s given name, an Arundel-affinity gentry esquire of exactly the right generation is a candidate for G22 himself, not merely a brother. The tempering consideration is the same clean negative: had Edmund’s second son been a Richard, the Norfolk pedigree sources Daniel Gurney used would more likely have caught the name than left it blank-and-hedged. The discriminator is the 1387/88 muster membrane (TNA E101/40/34, E101/41/5), whose retinue neighbours would site Richard Norfolk versus West-Country — lead L-72.

Three further men are held as cadet leads: a John Gurnay, man-at-arms in the 1422 retinue of Sir Robert Harling of East Harling (a Norfolk knight, nephew of Sir John Fastolf, captor of Meulan in 1423) in the Poissy / Pont-Meulan garrison (L-74); a John Gournay in the Harfleur garrison in 1417–18 under Thomas Beaufort and Sir Hugh Luttrell, parallel to Thomas G21’s own 1418 Harfleur service (L-73); and a low-status Robert Gurney, valet-archer on Henry V’s 1415 sick list — the only exact-name “Robert Gurney” in G22’s floruit window, though his yeoman rank argues against the gentleman G22 (L-75).[20]

The geography triage that produced this short list also excludes the louder soldier-database leads as non-Norfolk: the “Sir John de Gournay” knight cluster (Harptree, Somerset), Sir Matthew de Gournay (Somerset), a John Gourney “mercer of London,” and a John Gournay “of Colchester, Essex.” Details and the full disposition table are in the topic file.

Berney-side corroboration; the Gunton attribution resolved

Independent of the Gurney biography, the History of Parliament life of Sir Robert Berney (c. 1365–1415) corroborates John Gurney V’s place in the Lancastrian Norfolk bloc from the Berney side — fellow Norfolk shire knight in 1399 and Erpingham co-trustee — and documents the Saxthorpe/Loundhall feoffee circle (Erpingham, Wynter, Berney, Shelton) from a non-Gurney source.[22] The root scholarly treatment of that bloc is Trevor John’s 1970 Norfolk Archaeology study of Erpingham and the 1399 revolution.[23] The Berney biography also settles whether the much-repeated “Sir Robert Gurney of Gunton, deputy to Erpingham at Dover in 1400” is a Gurney or — far more likely — Sir Robert Berney of Gunton: the figure is Berney, whose seat, office (deputy to Erpingham at Dover castle and warden of the Cinque Ports), and date (returned to Parliament 1402 while in that office, which he held c. May 1400 to after March 1406) match the contested phrase exactly. The “Gurney of Gunton” reading is a Berney/Gurney surname confusion and stays excluded as a Robert G22 lead.

Exhausted searches and negative results

Documented by source surveyed; each is a first-class negative result, not an absence of work.

  • FMG MedLands. The Foundation for Medieval Genealogy’s “English Untitled Nobility A–C” page covers the Gournay family through the 13th century only and does not extend into the 14th-century Junior Norfolk branch. Robert is below its coverage horizon.[24]
  • FamilySearch records and Full-Text search. No 14th-century Norfolk Robert Gurney returned. The only nominal near-match for a Robert + Gurney in the 1360–1380 birth range in Norfolk is “Robert Garneys” of Beccles, Suffolk, d. May 1411 — a different surname (Garneys is a distinct Norfolk-Suffolk family seated at Boyland, Suffolk). Full-Text search for “Robert Gurnay” Norfolk in the 1380–1430 window returned only post-1700 tax records and one Beverstone (Somerset) extent of 1269 referencing an earlier Robert de Gurnay (G31 or earlier).[25]
  • Ancestry.com Norfolk Wills, Probate, Administrations and Marriage Licence Bonds, 1371–1858. No 14th- or early-15th-century Robert Gurney appears, despite the collection beginning in 1371. The earliest Norfolk Robert Gurney in the index is from 1588 (a man of Hempnall, unrelated). Confirms no surviving will or probate record exists for Robert.[26]
  • History of Parliament Online “GURNEY, John (d.1408)”. The modern scholarly biography of Robert’s elder brother references Robert only indirectly as the father of “John’s nephew, Thomas.” No biographical content on Robert himself.[27]
  • Mapping the Medieval Countryside / Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem. No Gurney/Gurnay/Gournay is the subject (deceased tenant-in-chief) of any indexed E-CIPM inquisition — consistent with the West Barsham line holding nothing of the Crown in chief (Sir John V’s 1409 IPM expressly finds he “held nothing in Norfolk”). But the family is not absent: its members recur as feoffees, fee-holders and jurors inside other men’s inquisitions, indexed under “Gournay” in the Index of Persons (cross-referencing Gornay/Gourney/Gurnay/Gurney/Gourncoy) and under “Gurnay” in the Index of Jurors. Most bear on collateral lines (Sir Matthew d. 1406 with 13 entries; the Somerset/Wiltshire/Gloucestershire fee-holders; a separate Buckinghamshire Gurney family of Stoke Mandeville), but two touch the Norfolk direct line: Edmund Gournay as feoffee of the manor of Hingham and hundred of Forehoe (see the G23 companion), and Robert Gurnay of Norfolk as an IPM juror 1400–06 (treated in the Cressingham section above). Full harvest at sources/corpus_supplement/ecipm-gournay-mentions-index-of-persons.md.[28][29]
  • Norfolk feet of fines (Rye, Parts I & II) — harvested 2026-06. Walter Rye’s Short Calendar was read in full for Gurnay/Gournay across both parts. Robert’s 1405 fine is confirmed in Part II, entry 64 (the OCR mangles the surname to “Qximay,” so it was recovered by anchoring on the cleanly-printed co-party and places — Stodhagh, Cressingham, Hopton, Howard — not by spelling). The wider Gurnay harvest names records about other generations, each routed to its own subject companion (Thomas Gurnay, Esq. & Margaret → G20 #200; Matthew at Harpley → G29 #236; Edmund Gournay’s Hingham trusteeship, the John-&-Alicia Heylesdon fine, and the Rector-John Saxthorpe/Harpley fines → G23 #1526/#262/#837/#489; via patchset v110), with the full list in sources/corpus_supplement/norfolk-feet-of-fines-gurnay-entries-rye.md. Two variant-spelling entries flagged as possible Gournays are now dated from Rye’s reign sub-headers, which sharpens both: “Wm. Germye, Chivaler” of Tharston (Pt II #329) falls in 8 Edward III (1334/35) — more than a century before the 15th-century Paston “William Gurney esq. of Tharston,” so #329 cannot be that man; with the early date, knightly rank, and the “Germye” spelling, it most likely belongs to the distinct Norfolk Germy(e) family of Tharston rather than the Gournays, substantially weakening lead L-162. “Rad. Gereneye,” parson, of the manors of Saxthorp and Swatthing (Pt II #432) falls in 9 Edward III (1335/36); the spelling does not map cleanly onto the Gournay head-forms, so the Saxthorpe tie is the only Gournay signal and the identification stays uncertain (lead L-163). The direct-line and clerical Gurnay fines are likewise now dated — Robert of Parva Cressingham (#64) to 6 Henry IV (1405), Thomas Gurnay Armiger & Margaret (#200) to 23 Henry VI (1444/45), and John Gurnay rector of Harpley (#489) to 9 Edward II (1315/16). “Geney” of Gunton and “Gene” of Tilney were read and excluded as distinct surnames.[30]

Standing leads

  1. Cook, Clarenceux 1622 Visitation pedigree of Norfolk (College of Arms) — highest-value. Daniel Gurney cites this as his sole source for Edmund’s children. If the original names Robert without hedging, it would be the only independent attestation of the name beyond Daniel Gurney. Because the will (above) does not enumerate the children, this pedigree is the only document that could settle the standing name question.
  2. IPM for Edmund, son of Sir John V (c. 1409–10) — closed as a probable dead end. Such an inquisition would have named Thomas Gournay I as next heir and established the line through Robert. But Sir John V’s own IPM (CIPM vol. 19, entries 489–94, British History Online; C 137/70/6) finds the family “held nothing in Norfolk” in chief and groups “John and Edmund his son” under that single inquisition. Because nothing was held of the Crown, a separate substantive royal IPM for the short-lived minor is unlikely to exist; the manor descent must be traced through feet of fines and Blomefield rather than an inquisition.
  3. Norfolk feet of fines — harvested (see negative results); one image outstanding and now higher-value. Image-resolution of the 1405 entry-64 membrane (AALT path mapped; lead L-158) matters more given the strengthened Cressingham candidacy: the manuscript fine, unlike Rye’s calendar and its degraded OCR, may carry an addition, residence detail, or parentage that the printed abstract drops — the kind of detail that could confirm or break the Cressingham-Robert = G22 identification.

Together, lead L-32 (the 1622 College of Arms pedigree) and the L-158 fine image are the two documents most likely to settle whether the Little Cressingham Robert is G22 — the first by attesting Edmund’s second son’s name independently, the second by recovering any parentage or addition the calendar dropped.

Paston “cousin Gurney of Tharston” — resolved on G19. The “William Gurney, esq., of Tharston” of the Paston correspondence, formerly held here as an open identification question, is now identified (Norman Davis’s edition) as William Gurney IV himself (G19) — a retainer of the Duke of Norfolk and escheator of Norfolk and Suffolk 1465–6. Full treatment is on the G19 companion; this file retains the question only as a discovery trail.[31]

Landholdings

Place Period Notes
Norfolk (county-level) fl. c. 1370–1420 Specific holdings not documented. As younger son, Robert would not have held the main estates during Sir John V’s lifetime.

Sources Consulted

  • Daniel Gurney, Record, Part I, p. 279 and pedigree p. 286. [DG-I]
  • Daniel Gurney, Record, Part II, p. 363: “a second son, whom we believe was named Robert.” [DG-II]
  • Daniel Gurney, Supplement, Note 118 (pp. 789–791): full Latin copy of Edmund G23’s will (executors; no children enumerated). [DG-Supp]
  • Daniel Gurney, Supplement, Note 121 (pp. 793–794): Sir John d. 1408 IPM — proves collateral succession. [DG-Supp]
  • Daniel Gurney, Supplement, Notes 115–123: searched, no mention of Robert by name. [DG-Supp]
  • History of Parliament Online: Sir John Gurney d. 1408. [HoP]

Conflicting Information

Claim Source A Source B Status
Robert’s name Daniel Gurney, Record II p. 363: “whom we believe was named Robert” All subsequent tradition: “Robert” Name is Daniel Gurney’s inference from the Cook 1622 pedigree, not confirmed by a primary source. Used by convention.
Edmund G23 death year Daniel Gurney / Reg. Harsyke fol. 34: 1387 Stirnet: 1385 1387 preferred; 1385 is a Stirnet error.
Jeanne’s marriage to Osbert Mundeford Daniel Gurney Record II p. 363 + Edmund’s will (Osbert de Mundeford executor) Blomefield Hockwold / Feltwell Mundefords (no Gurney bride) Daniel Gurney’s claim is will-corroborated; the apparent disconfirmation compared later-generation Osberts. Marriage stands as Daniel Gurney’s claim, not disconfirmed.

  1. “Pedigree of the Gournays of Norfolk,” Stirnet Genealogy, accessed 22 May 2026, https://www.stirnet.com/genie/data/british/gg/gurney1.php. Citing as source: RHG (vol. 1, “Pedigree of the Gournays of Norfolk,” pp. 286–287) — i.e., Daniel Gurney’s Record of the House of Gournay. Note: Stirnet gives Edmund Gurney’s death as 1385, conflicting with Daniel Gurney Record Part II p. 363 and Reg. Harsyke fol. 34 (May 1387). Source ID: stirnet-gurney-pedigree. ↩︎ ↩︎

  2. Francis Blomefield, An Essay towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, vol. vii, “Gallow and Brothercross Hundreds: West-Barsham,” pp. 42-47, accessed via British History Online: www.british-history.ac.uk/topographical-hist-norfolk/vol7/pp42-47. Source ID: blomefield-norfolk. ↩︎

  3. Same source as [^bho-blomefield-vol7-west-barsham-descent] (Blomefield, Norfolk, vol. vii, West-Barsham, pp. 42-47). Source ID: blomefield-norfolk. ↩︎

  4. History of Parliament Online, biography of Sir John Gurney d. 1408, https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/gurney-john-1408. Source ID: hop-gurney. ↩︎

  5. Daniel Gurney, Supplement (1858), Note 121 (pp. 793-794), recording the inquisition post mortem of Sir John Gurney V “taken at Holt market, 10 Henry IV.” Source ID: dg-rec-supp. ↩︎

  6. “Inquisitions Post Mortem, Henry IV, Entries 452–501,” Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 19 (London: HMSO; British History Online), entries 489–494 — John Gournay (Gurney), writ 16 Feb. 1409, d. 4 Dec. 1408, heir Edmund his son aged 10, “held nothing in Norfolk”; TNA reference C 137/70/6; www.british-history.ac.uk/inquis-post-mortem/vol19/pp170-185. Source ID: bho-ipm-henry-iv-vol19-gournay-johnv. ↩︎

  7. “GURNEY, John (d.1408), of Harpley and West Barsham, Norf.”, in The House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J. S. Roskell, L. Clark and C. Rawcliffe (1993), History of Parliament Online, https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/gurney-john-1408, citing Calendar of Close Rolls 1405-9 pp. 385, 524 and 1409-13 passim. Full text at sources/corpus_supplement/John-Gurney-d1408-The-History-of-Parliamentx.md. Source ID: hop-gurney. ↩︎

  8. “Pedigree of the Gournays of Norfolk,” Stirnet Genealogy, accessed 23 May 2026, https://www.stirnet.com/genie/data/british/gg/gurney1.php. Stirnet repeats the Jeanne–Mundeford marriage that Daniel Gurney records at Record Part II p. 363. Source ID: stirnet-gurney-pedigree. ↩︎

  9. Francis Blomefield, An Essay towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, vol. ii, “Hundred of Grimeshou: Hockwold,” pp. 177-187, accessed via British History Online: www.british-history.ac.uk/topographical-hist-norfolk/vol2/pp177-187. Names three successive 15th–16th-c Osberts of Hockwold (wives Alice, Elizabeth, Margaret), none with a Gurney bride — a later generation than Edmund’s 1387 executor Osbert de Mundeford. Source ID: blomefield-norfolk. ↩︎

  10. “The Mundefords of Feltwell,” feltwell.net parish-history pages, accessed 23 May 2026, https://www.feltwell.net/feltwell2/written/mundeford2.htm. Names Adam (d. 1463) m. Esselina; Osbert (d. 1479) m. Elizabeth; Francis (d. 1520) m. Margaret; Osbert (d. 1580) m. Margaret Townshend then Bridget Spelman — all later than Edmund’s 1387 executor Osbert de Mundeford. Source ID: feltwell-net-mundefords-of-feltwell. ↩︎

  11. “Inquisitions Post Mortem, Edward III, File 188,” Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 12 (London: HMSO; British History Online), entry 79, Thomas de Sancto Omero, partition of Norfolk lands, 23-25 May 1366; www.british-history.ac.uk/inquis-post-mortem/vol12/pp51-65. Source ID: bho-ipm-edward-iii-vol12-sancto-omero-mulbarton-1366. ↩︎

  12. Francis Blomefield, An Essay towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, vol. vi, “Hundred of South Greenhoe: Little-Cressingham,” pp. 108-111, accessed via British History Online: www.british-history.ac.uk/topographical-hist-norfolk/vol6/pp108-111. Source ID: blomefield-norfolk. ↩︎

  13. Same entry as the preceding footnote, sub-passage giving the 19 Henry VIII fine between Christopher Jenney and Anthony Gurnay esq. with Margaret his wife (one of the daughters and heirs of Sir Robert Lovel). Source ID: blomefield-norfolk. ↩︎

  14. Cross-reference to the 1366 Mulbarton partition footnote [^bho-ipm-vol12-mulbarton-sancto-omero-1366]. Source ID: bho-ipm-edward-iii-vol12-sancto-omero-mulbarton-1366. ↩︎

  15. Walter Rye, A Short Calendar of the Feet of Fines for Norfolk, Part II (Edward II–Richard III) (Norwich: Goose, 1886), entry 64 (Robert Gurnay of Parva Cressingham and Thomas Stodhagh v. Edward Howard and Katherine his wife, in Parva Cressingham and Hopton); Internet Archive ashortcalendarf00ryegoog. No parentage recital. Source ID: rye-feet-of-fines-norfolk. ↩︎

  16. Mapping the Medieval Countryside (E-CIPM), Index of Jurors, letter G, https://inquisitionspostmortem.ac.uk/browse/people/jurors-g/index.html. Robert Gurnay/Gournay of Norfolk on five panels: IPM of William Leche of Newton, 1400–01 (18-070; 18-070/71; 19-088); IPM of Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, 1401, Norfolk inquisition naming Little Cressingham, Saham Toney, Necton, Panworth-in-Ashill (18-489/500); and IPM of Roger de Beauchamp, 1406 (19-074/79), whose jury cohort (Warde, Cok, Canoun, Stag’, Foulden, de Rudham) matches the Leche panel. Full characterisation at sources/corpus_supplement/ecipm-gournay-mentions-index-of-persons.md. Source ID: ecipm-mapping-medieval-countryside. ↩︎

  17. “Pedigree of the Gournays of Norfolk,” Stirnet Genealogy, accessed 23 May 2026, https://www.stirnet.com/genie/data/british/gg/gurney1.php. Source ID: stirnet-gurney-pedigree. ↩︎

  18. Norwich Consistory Court probate register, Reg. Harsyk, fol. 34 (probate of Edmund Gurney, 1387). The register folio was already “utterly rotted and destroyed” by the eighteenth century (Daniel Gurney, Record, Part II, p. 363); the will survives via Blomefield’s transcription and the full Latin copy at Daniel Gurney, Supplement (1858), Note 118, pp. 789–791 (from Harl. MSS. 10, fol. 144). Indexed in M. A. Farrow et al., Index of Wills proved in the Consistory Court of Norwich … 1370-1550, and Wills among the Norwich Enrolled Deeds, 1298-1508. The will names executors (Katherine his wife, John his son, Osbert de Mundeford, Thomas Kempe) but does not enumerate the children. Source IDs: dg-rec-supp, hop-gurney (which provides the parallel Surflete citation). ↩︎

  19. “GURNEY, John (d.1408),” History of Parliament Online, https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/gurney-john-1408, citing among sources “Norfolk Record Office Register of Surflete, fol. 27.” Source ID: hop-gurney. ↩︎

  20. Soldier in Later Medieval England Online Database: Richard Gurney/Gourney, esquire, man-at-arms, Naval Service 1387 (TNA E101/40/34 m.1i) and 1388 (TNA E101/41/5 m.5), captain Edward Courtenay earl of Devon, commander Richard FitzAlan earl of Arundel; John Gurnay, man-at-arms, garrison of Poissy/Pont-Meulan 1422 under Sir Robert Harling (BNF MS Fr. 25766 no.816); John Gournay, man-at-arms, Harfleur garrison 1417/1418 (TNA E101/48/17, E101/48/19); Robert Gurney, valet-archer, 1415 sick list (TNA E101/45/1 m.14). As compiled in sources/intake/new/gurney_medievalsoldier_results_analysis_2026-05-30_v4.xlsx. Source ID: medievalsoldier-database. ↩︎ ↩︎

  21. “GURNEY, John (d.1408),” History of Parliament Online — the family held their manor at Harpley of Richard FitzAlan, earl of Arundel, and it was Sir John Gurney V (the biography’s subject), not his father Edmund, who was “retained as steward of the estates in Norfolk belonging to Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel” (before 1386, the connexion lasting probably until 1402). Edmund’s own magnate stewardship was of John of Gaunt’s East Anglian estates. Source ID: hop-gurney. ↩︎

  22. “BERNEY, Sir Robert (bef.1365-1415), of Great Witchingham and Gunton, Norf.,” The House of Commons 1386-1421 (1993), History of Parliament Online, historyofparliamentonline.org. Berney-side corroboration, independent of hop-gurney, of John Gurney V’s place in the Lancastrian Norfolk affinity. Page text captured 2026-06-13: the biography states John Gurney “was Berney’s fellow shire knight of 1399 and his co-trustee of Erpingham’s lands,” names Berney among the July 1396 feoffees of the extensive FitzAlan (Arundel) estates and among those Erpingham asked to administer his lands at his October 1398 exile, and records Berney as deputy to Erpingham at Dover castle and warden of the Cinque Ports c. May 1400 to after March 1406 (returned to Parliament 1402 in that office) — which identifies the “Sir Robert … of Gunton, deputy at Dover 1400” as Berney, not a Gurney. The HoP title gives Berney’s seats as Great Witchingham and Gunton; his elder brother Sir Thomas held the Reedham branch. Source ID: hop-berney. ↩︎

  23. Trevor John, “Sir Thomas Erpingham, East Anglian Society and the Dynastic Revolution of 1399,” Norfolk Archaeology 35, no. 1 (1970): 96-108, DOI 10.5284/1078024. The scholarly root of the Erpingham/Berney/Wynter/Shelton/Gurney bloc; the Archaeology Data Service copy is access-gated (an automated fetch returned HTTP 403) and was not retrieved, but it is no longer needed to settle the Gunton attribution, which the Berney biography decides on its own. Source ID: trevor-john-erpingham-1970. ↩︎

  24. “English Untitled Nobility A–C,” Foundation for Medieval Genealogy MedLands, accessed 22 May 2026, https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/enguntac.htm. ↩︎

  25. FamilySearch Historical Records search, accessed 22 May 2026, https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results. Search: given name Robert, surname Gurney, birth Norfolk England 1360–1380. ↩︎

  26. “Norfolk, England, Indexes to Wills, Probate, Administrations and Marriage Licence Bonds, 1371–1858,” Ancestry.com, accessed 22 May 2026. ↩︎

  27. “GURNEY, John (d.1408), of Harpley and West Barsham, Norf.”, in The House of Commons 1386–1421, ed. J. S. Roskell, L. Clark and C. Rawcliffe (1993), History of Parliament Online, https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/gurney-john-1408. ↩︎

  28. Mapping the Medieval Countryside (E-CIPM), https://inquisitionspostmortem.ac.uk/, accessed 22 May and 22 June 2026. The quick-search box returns no Gurney/Gurnay/Gournay as an IPM subject — the family held nothing of the Crown in chief — but this is not a database absence: browsing the Index of Persons, letter G and the Index of Jurors, letter G surfaces a substantial Gournay/Gurnay block. Vol. 19 carries Sir John V’s own IPM; the family simply never appears as a subject. Source ID: ecipm-mapping-medieval-countryside. ↩︎

  29. Full E-CIPM Gournay/Gurnay harvest (Index of Persons + Index of Jurors, CIPM vols 18–26) transcribed and characterised at sources/corpus_supplement/ecipm-gournay-mentions-index-of-persons.md. Source ID: ecipm-mapping-medieval-countryside. ↩︎

  30. Walter Rye, A Short Calendar of the Feet of Fines for Norfolk, Parts I (Internet Archive ashortcalendarf02ryegoog; local PDF sources/corpus/rye-feet-of-fines-norfolk-part1.pdf) and II (Internet Archive ashortcalendarf00ryegoog); Gurnay/Gournay entries and method (place/party anchoring around degraded OCR) transcribed at sources/corpus_supplement/norfolk-feet-of-fines-gurnay-entries-rye.md. Entries #329 (Wm. Germye of Tharston, leads L-162) and #432 (Rad. Gereneye, parson, of Saxthorp & Swatthing, lead L-163) are dated by Rye’s reign sub-headers to 8–9 Edward III (1334/35–1335/36), over a century before their hypothesised 15th-century targets, weakening both. The underlying manuscript fines are TNA CP 25/1 (Norfolk), images at AALT (path mapping under lead L-158). Source ID: rye-feet-of-fines-norfolk. ↩︎

  31. “Cousin Gurney” / “William Gurney, esq., of Tharston,” in the Paston correspondence (read in the Internet Archive text ThePastonLetters, index s.v. Gurney, William). Now identified as William Gurney IV (G19) himself via Norman Davis’s editorial note (retainer of the Duke of Norfolk; escheator of Norfolk and Suffolk 1465–6) — see the G19 companion for the full treatment. Source ID: paston-letters-gairdner. ↩︎