Gamel, son of Osbern was

High Sheriff of Yorkshire The Sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown. Formerly the Sheriff was the principal law enforcement officer in the county but over the centuries most of the responsibilities associated with the post have been transferred elsewhere o ...

in 1066. He remained

Sheriff A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland, the , which is common ...

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

till 1068 and may have been the last

Anglo Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to Ge ...

Sheriff allowed to remain in office. Gamel was son of Osbern, a king’s

thegn In later Anglo-Saxon England, a thegn or thane (Latin minister) was an aristocrat who ranked at the third level in lay society, below the king and ealdormen. He had to be a substantial landowner. Thanage refers to the tenure by which lands were ...

(sometimes referred to in the Normanized form Gamel FitzOsbern) and Gamel was a substantial

landowner at the time of the Domesday Survey. He may have been the unnamed

who

Ealdred (archbishop of York) Ealdred (or Aldred; died 11 September 1069) was Abbot of Tavistock, Bishop of Worcester, and Archbishop of York in early medieval England. He was related to a number of other ecclesiastics of the period. After becoming a monk at the monaster ...

complained to

William William is a masculine given name of Germanic languages, Germanic origin. It became popular in England after the Norman Conquest, Norman conquest in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle ...

about.Ann Lyon, Constitutional History of the UK (Cavendish Publishing, 13 March 2003) p. 20. The complaint was that the Sheriff had been appropriating treasures from the churches of

York York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...

. At some point between 1067 and 1068 Gamel was informed in a

writ In common law, a writ is a formal written order issued by a body with administrative or judicial jurisdiction; in modern usage, this body is generally a court. Warrant (legal), Warrants, prerogative writs, subpoenas, and ''certiorari'' are commo ...

William the Conqueror William the Conqueror (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), sometimes called William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England (as William I), reigning from 1066 until his death. A descendant of Rollo, he was D ...

that

''Archbishop Ealdred should draw up a privilegium for the lands belonging to the church of St John of Beverley and that they shall be free from the demands of the king, his reeves, and all his men, except for those of the
archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...
and
priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...
s of the church''.

The Church of St Johns at

Beverley Beverley is a market town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is located north-west of Hull city centre. At the 2021 census the built-up area of the town had a population of 30,930, and the smaller civil parish had ...

was at this time a large and influential

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of Monasticism, monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in Cenobitic monasticism, communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a ...

founded about 700 AD by Saint John of Beverley. He may have been deprived of lands to a purge of the northern

nobility Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally appointed by and ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. T ...

in 1070.Robin Fleming, Kings and Lords in Conquest England (Cambridge University Press, 5 February 2004) p. 167.

References

{{reflist, 2 High sheriffs of Yorkshire Sheriffs in the United Kingdom 11th-century English people 11th-century births Year of death unknown