Roger of Glasgow

Glasgow Name Study: project home · research directory · digital workbench

Estimated Date

Biography

Roger de Glasgu (fl. 1175×1199), conventionally rendered Roger of Glasgow, is the earliest person so far identified in this one-name study with the recorded designation de Glasgu.

He is known from one documentary occurrence. No surviving source presently identifies his parents, occupation, residence, spouse, children, heirs, estate or later career.

Documentary record

Charter no. 41 of the Registrum Episcopatus Glasguensis records a grant and confirmation by Brother Raan Corbeht, master of the House of the Temple in the land of the king of Scots. Acting with the counsel and consent of the Templar brothers at Plentidoc—probably, but not securely, identifiable as Balantrodoch—he granted^[1] to William Gley of Glasgow, described as homini nostro (“our man”):

• the complete toft in the burgh of Glasgow which Bishop Jocelin had given to the Templars;
• specifically, the toft which William himself had held before the bishop transferred it to the Templars;
• one net in the fishery of the Clyde;
• the common easements of the territory of Glasgow in woods, waters and pastures; and
• hereditary tenure by William and his heirs from the House of the Temple.

William was to pay the Templars twelve pence annually at Michaelmas.^[2]

The witness list includes:

Rogero de Glasgu

Rogero is the inflected Latin form required by the witness formula; the citation form is Rogerus. “Roger of Glasgow” is a modern English rendering, not a second form stated in the charter.

The two witnesses called Roger

The charter names two different men called Roger. Earlier in the witness list it records:

fratre Rogero Elemosynar

— Brother Roger the almoner.

Roger de Glasgu was therefore not the Templar almoner. Unlike the first Roger, he is not styled frater and is not assigned an office within the order.^[2]

The full witness group comprises Templar officers and brothers, a chaplain, clerks connected with the Templars and the bishop of Glasgow, Roger de Glasgu, and two further Templar clerks. Roger’s presence places him within the social or administrative setting of the transaction, but witness order does not prove rank, occupation or membership of the order.

John, clerk of the bishop of Glasgow

The same charter names:

Johanne clerico Episcopi Glasguensis

— John, clerk of the bishop of Glasgow.

The People of Medieval Scotland database identifies this witness as Master John of Huntingdon, later an early Official of Glasgow. That is a modern prosopographical identification; the charter itself gives only the description quoted above.^[3]

Co-witnessing establishes only that Roger and John took part in the same transaction. It does not establish kinship, employment or membership of a continuing household.

Date and documentary transmission

The charter is undated. Innes assigned it to 1175×1199, the episcopate of Bishop Jocelin of Glasgow. No secure evidence located so far narrows that range.^[2]

The edition’s source table cites:

• a Glasgow University transcript, folio 99; and
• a manuscript formerly associated with Stirling’s Library in Glasgow, folio 271.

Modern manuscript research identifies the relevant Glasgow University transcript as part of Glasgow University Library MSS Gen 198–199 and the Stirling’s Library transcript as Glasgow University Library MS Gen 1245. “Stirling’s Library” here means the former Glasgow library, not a repository in the city of Stirling. Both are early-modern transcripts deriving from the work undertaken by Father Thomas Innes on the Glasgow Cathedral archive in Paris in the 1690s. Thomas Innes’s first transcript volume is now Aberdeen University Library, Special Collections, MS JB 1/7; the second is Paris, Irish College, MS 3, vol. 2.^[4]

The source apparatus for charter no. 41 states Ex autographo and records that a small, nearly complete white-wax seal displaying a cross was attached to the exemplar. This description appears to preserve information from the earlier transcript tradition; it does not establish that the original charter or seal still survives. Their present location was not established in this research.^[2]

The source table does not cite either of Glasgow Cathedral’s surviving medieval cartularies for charter no. 41. The immediate textual witnesses to be collated are therefore the early-modern transcripts, particularly Thomas Innes’s copy, rather than the medieval Registrum Vetus or Liber Ruber.

Status, name and family

Roger receives no title. He is not called brother, clerk, chaplain, master, knight, burgess, official or son of another named person. He may have been a lay or secular witness, but the absence of a title is not conclusive.

The same charter styles its grantee Willelmo Gley de Glasgu. That parallel is important: it shows de Glasgu functioning as a locative description after another personal name in the same act. Roger’s designation most naturally means “of” or “from Glasgow”, but this single occurrence cannot show whether it was a temporary locative, a durable personal byname or an inherited family name.

The printed register’s index lists “Glasgu, Rogerus de, 37”. This shows how the nineteenth-century editor indexed the entry; it is not independent medieval evidence that Roger bore a hereditary surname.^[5]

The safest description is:

Roger de Glasgu was an otherwise unidentified witness to a Templar grant concerning a Glasgow toft and fishing rights in the Clyde.

No documented pedigree presently connects him with any later bearer of de Glasgu or Glasgow.

Research Notes

Later records of William Gley

The grantee in charter no. 41 had already held the Glasgow toft before Bishop Jocelin gave it to the Templars. That makes his earlier tenure a more useful property lead than the original page allowed.

Later records name one or more men called William Gley in the Glasgow burgh community:

• The printed Glasgow register assigned charter no. 236 to 1280×1290. The People of Medieval Scotland database, using the surviving original at Glasgow City Archives, redates the same act to 1245×11 June 1268 from the succession and death of Reginald of Irvine. William Gley is called a burgess and appears among the burgh prepositi; PoMS indexes the office as grieve, while prepositus has also been rendered “provost”. This is one record with a revised date, not two separate William Gley occurrences.^[6]
• William Gley, burgess of Glasgow, witnessed a gift of a house on 23 May 1270.^[7]
• An undated Newbattle charter records William Gley, burgess of Glasgow, granting urban land and houses to Newbattle Abbey.
• In 1295 Richard called Bruning, son of the late William Gley, conveyed neighbouring property in Fishergait.^[8]

These records are decades later than charter no. 41. They may concern a namesake or descendant, but no document presently bridges the generations or identifies the later urban land as the same Templar toft. Older local histories sometimes assumed continuity; that conclusion should not be repeated without a demonstrable chain of title.

Roger Glai and Roger son of Glai

The Paisley register prints Rogerio Glai and Rogerio filio Glaii in two charters of Walter fitz Alan. These are twelfth-century acts, broadly 1164×1177, and are therefore genuinely contemporary with Roger de Glasgu. The register’s index groups both forms under “Rogerus, filius Glaii”. That editorial grouping is useful, but it does not by itself prove that the two forms name one man.^[9]

The Melrose material makes this a stronger prosopographical lead. In a charter dated 1165×1177, Roger son of Glai granted land and common pasture at Innerwick to Melrose Abbey, described Walter fitz Alan as his lord, and appears as the grantor rather than merely a witness. Walter’s confirmation repeats Roger’s donation. Further Melrose occurrences extend the recorded name into 1204×1214, although that span should not be assumed to represent one individual without a fresh act-by-act comparison.^[10]

Roger son of Glai is therefore a real contemporary comparator and deserves a separate dossier of lands, lords and co-witnesses. No source presently calls him de Glasgu, links him to William Gley, places him in charter no. 41, or establishes that Gley, Glai and Glasgu were variants of one name. The comparison should remain explicit and unmerged.

Roger of Leicester or de Beaumont

Roger de Glasgu should not be identified with Roger of Leicester, sometimes called Roger de Beaumont, bishop of St Andrews. The bishop was a son of the earl of Leicester, served as royal chancellor, was elected bishop in 1189, consecrated in 1198 and died in 1202. His chronology overlaps Roger de Glasgu’s broad date range, but no source applies both identities to one man. The bishop is consistently recorded through elite, royal or episcopal status; the Glasgow witness appears without title.^[11]

The identification is unsupported and should remain rejected unless direct documentary evidence emerges.

Roger de Duffeld

A Roger de Duffeld appears in the Yorkshire Pipe Roll for Michaelmas 1194:

Rogerus de Duffeld’ debet dimidiam marcam quia non habuit quem plegiauit.

The entry records a half-mark debt arising from a pledge or surety proceeding. It gives no occupation, status, alias, Scottish association or connection with Roger de Glasgu.^[12]

The shared forename, roughly contemporary date and locative form are insufficient for identification. Roger de Duffeld should not be described as an English collateral of Roger de Glasgu without a documented genealogical or institutional link.

DNA evidence

Modern Y-DNA comparisons may support hypotheses about relationships among tested modern paternal lines. They cannot assign a haplogroup to Roger de Glasgu, Roger de Duffeld or any other untested medieval individual; identify which medieval man was a common ancestor; or establish a route through a particular household or lordship.

DNA material should therefore be maintained on the one-name study or DNA-project page, with its own methods and caveats, rather than used as biographical evidence for Roger.

Evidential assessment

Secure:

• The charter records Rogero de Glasgu as a witness.
• Roger witnessed the Templar grant to William Gley.
• He was distinct from Brother Roger the almoner.
• The edition assigns the act broadly to 1175×1199.
• Roger is given no title or office in the act.
• William Gley had held the toft before Bishop Jocelin transferred it to the Templars.
• The source apparatus reports an original exemplar with a small white-wax cross seal, although the original’s present whereabouts are unknown.

Plausible but unproved:

• Roger had a personal connection with Glasgow.
• He was a lay or secular witness.
• His presence reflects access to a Templar, episcopal or burgh transaction network.
• de Glasgu became a durable byname for Roger or his family.
• A later William Gley was related to the twelfth-century grantee.

Unsupported at present:

• identification with Roger of Leicester/de Beaumont;
• identification with Roger de Duffeld;
• identification with Roger Glai or Roger son of Glai;
• a parent-child relationship with any later de Glasgu bearer;
• continuity between the Templar toft and the later Gley properties without a chain of title;
• a specific noble patron or feudal employer for Roger; or
• assignment of a modern Y-DNA haplogroup to Roger.

Research Priorities

1. Obtain complete images of the relevant entry, including adjoining pages, in Thomas Innes’s first transcript volume, Aberdeen University Library, Special Collections, MS JB 1/7. Check the wording, source note, seal description, corrections and any indication of where the original charter was then kept.
2. Collate that text with Glasgow University Library MSS Gen 198–199, fol. 99, and MS Gen 1245, fol. 271. Confirm which of Gen 198–199 contains folio 99 and record all spelling, abbreviation, punctuation, witness-order and marginal differences.
3. Ask the Aberdeen and Glasgow repositories whether any catalogue, correspondence, seal drawing, old shelfmark or provenance note can identify the former original charter or its small white-wax cross seal.
4. Consult the other transcripts deriving from Thomas Innes only where they may preserve a lost note or resolve a disagreement: National Records of Scotland GD45/31/3; Glasgow City Archives MS A4/1; and Bibliothèque nationale de France, MSS Latin 5540 and 17191, ff. 34–49.
5. Build a witness matrix for charter no. 41, but accept an identification only where title, office, associates, place and chronology agree. Common forenames alone are not enough. Priority names are Raan Corbeht, Brother Alan the preceptor, John the bishop’s clerk, Warin the chaplain and the named Templar clerks.
6. Search unindexed charter catalogues and manuscript finding aids for Rogerus, Rogero and Rogeri combined with de Glasgu, de Glasgw, de Glascu, de Glascou and de Glasgow. Treat “Roger of Glasgow” as a translation search, not a manuscript spelling.
7. Trace William Gley through Glasgow burgh and Newbattle records from 1245×1268 to 1295, mapping plots, neighbours, rents and offices. Keep those later bearers separate from the twelfth-century grantee unless a chain of title or explicit descent is found.
8. Build a separate dossier for Roger Glai/Roger son of Glai from the Paisley and Melrose acts. Map his Innerwick land, relationship to Walter fitz Alan and co-witness network; test whether the two printed name-forms and the later occurrences represent one man. Compare that dossier with Gley and Roger de Glasgu only after each cluster has been established independently.
9. Keep the Yorkshire Roger de Duffeld search low priority unless a record supplies an alias, Scottish journey, Templar connection or named associate linking him to Scotland.
10. Keep documentary identity, property reconstruction and Y-DNA inference in separate evidence tracks. Merge them only when a source supplies an explicit bridge.

Sources