Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mohun, Reginald de
MOHUN, MOUN, or MOYUN, REGINALD de (d. 1257), sometimes called Earl of Somerset, was son of Reginald de Mohun, lord of Dunster in Somerset, the great-grandson of William de Mohun (fl. 1141) [q.v.], earl of Somerset ; his mother was Alice, fourth daughter of William Brewer or Briwere [q.v.], who brought a large inheritance to her husband's family (Dugdale, Baronage, ii. 497), and married for her second husband William Paynell (Excerpta e Rotulis Finium, i. 169). Reginald was under age at the time of his father's death, which took place in or before 1213, and was a ward, first, of Henry FitzCount, son of the Earl of Cornwall, and afterwards of his own grandfather, William Brewer (ib. pp, 79, 242, 243). In 1234 he sat among the king's justices (Foss), in 1242 and 1252 he was chief justice of the forests south of Trent, and he received from Henry III rights of warren and of the chase and of a weekly market at Dunster. Among the lands that he inherited from his mother was Torre or Tor in Devonshire, where William Brewer had in 1196 founded a Premonstratensian abbey (Monasticon, vi. 923). There he often resided, having a court-house there, whence the place became called Torre Mohun or Tor-Moham. The Mohun arms are still to be seen on the ruins of the abbey, Reginald having confirmed the grants of his grandfather to the convent. His younger brother, William, having conveyed to him lands at Tor and Maryansleigh in Devonshire, at Endicombe, near Dunster, and at Clythorn, near Woodstock, in Oxfordshire, in order that he might build a Cistercian abbey in a suitable place, desiring that Reginald should be the founder and patron, he, with the advice of Alcius of Gisors, abbot of Beaulieu in Hampshire, founded in 1146 the abbey of Newenham at Axminster in Devonshire, and placed therein a colony of monks from Beaulieu, who took possession of their new house with much ceremony in the presence of Reginald and William on 6 Jan. 1247. In that year his foundation was confirmed by Pope Innocent IV, and a curious legend records that the pope, on his appearing at the papal court at Lyons, presented him with a rose, or other flower, of gold, and asked him of what degree he was Reginald replied that he was a plain knight bachelor, on which the pope said that, as such a gift could be made only to kings, dukes, or earls, Reginald should be earl of 'Este,' or Somerset, and to maintain his title granted him two hundred marks a year, and created him a count apostolic, with power to appoint public notaries (Fuller, Church History, ii. 178-80). It is certain that he bore as his arms a dexter hand holding a fleur-de-lys and habited in a maunch (figured by Lyte, p. 24), and sometimes styled himself Earl of Somerset; he did not, however, hold an English earldom. He and his brother William joined in laying foundation-stones of the church of Newenham in 1254. Reginald also made a grant to the convent of Bath for a mass to be said for ever for the souls of his son John, lately dead, and other members of his house, by a monk of Dunster priory [see under Mohun, William de, fl. 1066], or a secular priest, in the chapel of Dunster Castle (Lyte). He was a benefactor to the canons of Bruton [see under Mohun, William de, fl. 1141] and the abbey of Cleeve. He gave two charters to the townsmen of Dunster (Lyte). He died at Tor on 20 Jan. 1257, or possibly 1258 (Oliver, Monasticon Diocesis Exoniensis, p. 358), and was buried on the left side of the high altar at Newenham. A long account of his holy death is extant, by a monk of Newenham (ib.), who says that thirty-five years after Reginald's death the writer saw and touched the founder's body, which was then uncorrupt.
Reginald's first wife was named Avice ; her surname is not known (it was not Bohun, as Dugdale says, mistaking the M of her married name for B, Lyte, p. 14 ; Somerset Archæological Society's Proceedings, vi. i. 27, 28). It has been suggested that she may have been the heiress of the Flemyngs of Ottery (Lyte, u. s.) By her he had a son John, who married Joan, daughter of William Ferrers, earl of Derby, and died in Gascony in 1254, leaving a son named John (d. 1279), whose son John (1270 P-1330) is separately noticed. Reginald's second wife was Isabel, widow of Gilbert Basset [q. v.], and daughter of William Ferrers, earl of Derby, by Sybilla, fourth daughter of William Marshal, earl of Pembroke (d. 1219) [q. v.], and so sister of her stepson's wife. By this marriage a part of the inheritance of the Earls Marshal fell to the Mohuns ; this part included certain lands in Leinster about which Reginald and his wife appear to have been involved in some legal proceedings (Calendar of Documents, Ireland, i. Nos. 2949, 3080, ii. Nos. 29, 139, 184). By Isabel Reginald had a son named William, who, besides inheriting part of the Marshal estates, was possessed of an estate that belonged to the Flemyngs (this, as Mr. Lyte notes, makes his suggestion that Reginald's first wife was a Flemyng improbable). Reginald was succeeded by his grandson John.
His brother William died on 17 Sept. 1265, and was buried in Newenham Abbey.
[Lyte's Dunster and its Lords, pp. 9-15, 24, 34 ; Oliver's Monasticon Dioc. Exon. pp. 169, 185, 357-71; Oliver's Eccl. Antiq. of Devon, i. 205-8 ; Davidson's Hist, of Newenham Abbey, pp. 2-11, 210-14; Foss's Judges, ii. 409; Fuller's Ch. Hist. ii. 178-80, ed. Brewer; Dugdale's Monasticon, v. 690 sq., vi. ii. 926 ; Dugdale's Baronage, ii. 497 ; Savage's Hist. of Carhampton, p. 468 ; Excerpta e Rot. Fin. i. 79, 169, 242, 243, ed. Roberts (Record Publ.); Cal. G-eneal. i. 94, 227, ed. Roberts (Record Publ.) ; Cal. of Docs., Ireland, i. Nos. 2949, 3080, ii. 29, 139, 184, ed. Sweetman (Rolls Ser.); Somerset Archaeol. Soc.'s Proc. 1856, vi. ii. 27.]