Serlo de Burci

• Preferred Name: Serlo de Burci^{[1] [2]}
  
• Gender: M
  
• Burial: 1086 in Axbridge, Somerset, England at LATI: N1.2844 LONG: E2.8201
  
• FSID: GZZ5-GZ3
  
• Birth: ABT 1029 in probably Burcy, Calvados, Normandy, France at LATI: N8.8683 LONG: E0.8014
  
• Death: ABT 1086 in Blagdon, Somerset, England at LATI: N1.3284 LONG: E2.7194 with note: NOT UNITED KINGDOM
  
• Notes:

  === Life Sketch ===
  Serlo de Bracy was an Anglo-Norman landholder in the period following the Norman Conquest of England, witnessing a 1068 charter involving a grant by King William I to the Bishop of Wells. His toponymic suggests an origin at Burcy, Calvados, arr. Vire, comm. cant. Vassy. He held directly of the king lands mostly in Somerset that would come to form the core of the feudal barony of Blagdon, including Blagdon, Uphill, Chew Stoke, Chillyhill, Aldwick, Ridghill, Kilmington, Lovington, Wheathill, Compton, Morton, Mudford, and Stone in Somerset, plus Puddle and Whitcliff in Dorset. He also held additional lands in Somerset and Wiltshire as tenant of the Bishops of Wells and Bath, of the king, of the Abbey of Glastonbury. Serlo was apparently still living at the time the Domesday survey was initiated in Somerset but dead before it was completed in Dorset, so he died about 1086.
  
  He had two known daughters, one a nun of Shaftsbury, the other named Geva was wife of William de Falaise in 1086, but her heirs were the FitzMartin children of her earlier husband, an otherwise unknown Martin.
  
  === Not son of Eustace, nor same as Serlo de Burgh ===
  There has been a longstanding sloppy historical confusion between Serlo de Burci and Serlo de Burgh. The former, the subject of this profile, is of unknown origin except for his toponymic, which suggests he came for Burcy, in Normandy. He held lands mostly in Somerset, in the southwest of England. He died about 1086.
  Based on nothing but superficial name similarity, he has been confused with Serlo de Burgh, a man generations younger, who held properties in Yorkshire, in the northeast of England, and derived his name from one of his properties there. He was closely affiliated with Eustace fitz John, best known as the progenitor of the Constablels of Chester and the de Vesci family. He joined Eustace in an 1155 grant, and when he died, after being predeceased by his only known child, Osmund, Serlo de Burgh's lands went to Eustace fitz John, probably his nephew.
  
  Some very confused person, at some point in the 19th century or even earlier, confused these two men, replacing the historical Serlo de Burgh with Serlo de Burci, and also confusing the relative relationship, making Eustace fitz John, Serlo de Burgh's apparent nephew, the father of Serlo de Burci. a relationship that is completely impossible, chronologically (a man who died in 1086 with a married daughter was not the son of someone who was still active long after 1155). As a result, the identity and chrnology was then stripped away from Eustace fitz John, the son of the historical (probably brother of Serlo de Burgh) John 'Monoculus', and he was turned into Eustace 'de Burgh' (a name he never bore), son of John de Burgo, the invented supposed ancestor of everyone named Burgh.
  
  As a result, we end up with a compeltely nonsensical pedigree whereby Serlo de Burci was son of Serlo de Burgh's nephew, thrown a century back in time and given a false identity. Nothing is known of Serlo de Burci's parentage, other than absolute certainty it is not to be found in this sloppy genealogical fever-dream with no basis in reality.

1. Title: Domesday People
   Author: K.S.B. Keats-Rohan, Domesday People, A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066-1166. I. Domesday Book, The Boydell PRess, 1999, p. 418
   Note: Gives brief biography which implies, by the absence of any mention of parentage, that this is unknown.
   
2. Title: Burci, Falaise and Martin
   Author: Henry C. Maxwell Lyte, "Burci, Falaise and Martin", Proceedings of the Somersetshire Archæological & Natural History Society, vol. LXV (1920), pp. 1-27