Nigel de Stafford

  Noted events in his life were:

• Background Information. ²⁰⁷
The manor of Drakelow, which, in the Survey of Domesday, is described as belonging to Nigel de Stafford, ancestor of the Gresley family, was held by the service of rendering a bow without a string; a quiver of Tutesbit, twelve fleched and one unfeathered arrow. Another record (of the year 1200) only expresses the render to have been a bow, a quiver, and twelve arrows; this render was then due to William Earl Ferrars. [Chart. Rot. 2 John]

The manor of Swadlincote or Swartlincote (Sivardingescote) was one of the manors of Nigel de Stafford at the time of the Domesday Survey. His grandson, Robert de Gresley, gave it to his brother Eugenol.

~Magna Britannia,Volume V, Derbyshire, pp. 165-172

• Background Information. ¹³⁹⁴
William de Gresley, son of Nigel de Stafford, founded in the time of Henry I a small priory of Austin Canons, near his castle of Gresley, in honour of St. George. There is no chartulary known to be extant of this priory, but in the Chetham Library, Manchester, there is a family chartulary of the Gresleys from which certain particulars relative to this religious house can be gleaned. [Reliquary, vi, 29-37, 79-86, 139-147]

~A History of the County of Derby, Volume II, pp. 56-58

• Background Information. ¹³⁹⁵
In the Domesday Survey of 1086 it states that Nigellus de Statford held in Derbyshire nine manors and two sokes, and Nigellus held two more manors. He also had thirteen holdings in Staffordshire, four Leicestershire and one in Warwickshire. Many of these same holdings later are in the hands of the Gresley family.

In a charter of Henry I (1124-35) [S.R. Wigram's Elstow, 1885, p. 153] there is a confirmation of gfts to the nunnery of Elstow in Bedfordshire, which had been founded in about 1078 by Judith widow of Waltheof of Huntingdon, and the sixth grant is one by Nigel de Stafford of 10½ vigrates of land in Erendesby, Leicestershire. [Dugd. Mon., ii, 290] One of Judith's daughter was married to Nigel's first cousin Ralph de Toeni.

Nigel de Stafford, as well as the Countess Judith, appear on a list of benefactors to the Abbey of St. Alban's as donating to the church of Norton. The Belvoir Chartulary contains a final concord of 1224 about the advowson of Norton that proves that Geoffrey de Gresley was an heir of Nigel de Stafford.

~The Gresleys of Drakelowe, pp. 18-21