WILLIAM DE COLOMBIERES.

mentioned by Wace (Rom. de Rou, l. 13,462)

He was probably deceased before the compilation of Domesday, in which a Rannulph de Columbels is returned as the holder of sundry manors in Kent, the reward of the services rendered to the Conqueror either by Rannulph himself or the William of Wace, whom he might have succeeded. Colombieres is in the arrondissement of Bayeux. The family of Colombieres (Columbers, Columbels) alone appears to have struck root in England, and had become an important baronial family in the reign of Henry II., in the 12th of whose reign Philip de Columbers accounted for ten knights' fees "de veteri feoffemento " and one "de novo," and in the 22nd of the same reign paid twenty marks for trespassing in the King's forests. In a Plea Roll of Henry II. Roger Bacon is set down as brother to Philip de Columbers, and a Gilbert de Columbers was a contemporary of Philip and settled in Berkshire.

The family of Columbers intermarried with the families of Chandos and Courtenai, and were Seigneurs of Dudevill, in Normandy; but the male line failed in England towards the close of the 13th century.

--(Planche)