Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Revell, Richard
REVELL or RIVELL, Sir RICHARD (d. 1222), knight and landowner, said to have been the son of William Revell (Pole, Devonshire, p. 82), probably a landowner in Devonshire and lord of Revelstoke in that county, received from Henry II grants of ‘Curi’ or Curry Rivell, and Langport, both in Somerset (MS. Record Office, Cartæ Antiquæ, R., Nos. 11, 12), and is said to have built a castle at Langport (Somerset Archæological Society's Proceedings, XI. i. 8). He was sheriff for Devonshire and Cornwall from the sixth to the tenth years of Richard I (Thirty-first Report of the Deputy-Keeper of the Records, p. 279), and is said to have received from Richard the custody of the castles of Exeter and Launceston (Pole, u.s.). He was paying rent to the crown in the reign of John, and was at Carrickfergus, Kilkenny, and Dublin in 1210, during the expedition to Ireland of that year (Rotuli de Liberate, &c., pp. 180, 204, 220). He married Mabel, sister and heir of Walter de Esselegh, or Ashley, in Wiltshire, and died in 1222. He appears to have had a son named Richard (Chancery Rolls, p. 94), who probably predeceased his father, for the elder Richard's heir, subject to the dower of his wife Mabel, who survived him, was his only daughter Sabina, wife of Henry de l'Orti. She survived her husband, who died in 1241, and had livery of the lands of her inheritance in Somerset and Dorset, which passed to her son Henry de l'Orti (de Urtiaco), summoned to parliament in 1299. It is probable that Revel's Hill, near Mintern in Dorset, takes its name from Sir Richard Revell. Contemporaries of Sir Richard were the landowners William Revell in Wiltshire and Hugh Revell in Northamptonshire; their connection with Sir Richard is not known.
[Collinson's Somerset, i. 28; Pole's Devonshire, p. 82; Somerset Archæolog. Soc. Proc. (1861) XI. i. 8, (1895) XLI. ii. 76; MS. Chanc. Cart. Antiq. Nos. 11, 12, Roberts's Calendarium Genealog. i. 11, 46, Rot. Litt. Claus. i. 119 b, Rot. de Liberate, &c., pp. 180, 204, 220, Chancery Rolls, p. 94, Report of Deputy-Keeper, xxxi. 279 (these six Record publ.); Dugdale's Baronage, i. 768; information from Mr. E. Green.]