Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thorpe, Robert de (fl.1290)

740644Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 56 — Thorpe, Robert de (fl.1290)1898William Hunt

THORPE, ROBERT de (fl. 1290), judge, appears to have been head of an ancient family residing at Thorpe Thewles, near Stockton, Durham, and to have descended from Geoffrey de Torp, who in 1166 held that estate of the bishopric of Durham as half a knight's fee (Liber Niger, i. 308). When Edward I turned out the judges in 1289, he appointed Thorpe a justice of the common pleas, and fines were levied before him in 1290. He perhaps died soon afterwards, and certainly before 1306, for in that year his widow, Aveline, was claiming a third of the manor of Thorpe Thewles.

[Foss's Judges, iii. 164; Rot. Parl. i. 198; Surtees's Durham, iii. 89.]

W. H.