For D’Auvay or D’Aufay, from Auffay, near Rouen. This was a branch of the great baronial house of St. Valery. According to Orderic, it was Richard, the second son of Gilbert the Advocate of St. Valery, and his wife Papia (the illegitimate daughter of Richard II. of Normandy), who built a town on the river Sie, naming it Aufay (Alfagium) from the beech-clothed hill that rose above it. “This Richard had a son named, as usual, after his grandfather Gilbert, who married Beatrice, daughter of Christian de Valenciennes, ‘an illustrious captain.’ This lady was a cousin of Queen Matilda, and bore her husband two sons and one daughter. Gilbert d’Aufay, as he was called from his patrimonial inheritance, was also, by his grandmother Papia, a kinsman of Duke William, and Orderic affirms that ‘he fought by the Duke’s side at the head of his vassals, in all the principal actions during the English war. But when William became King, and peace was established, Gilbert returned to Normandy, notwithstanding William offered him ample domains in England, for with innate honesty of character, he refused to participate in the fruits of rapine. Content with his patrimonial estates, he declined those of others, and piously devoted his son Hugh to a monastic life under Abbot Mainer, in the Abbey of St. Evroult.’ The name of St. Valery is only to be found in Brompton and the modem lists, and that of Aufay nowhere, yet he is the only member of the family of St. Valery who appears indubitably to have been a companion of the Conqueror.”—Planché’s Conqueror and his Companions. In spite of this assertion, “Goubert d’Aufay” is entered on the Dives Roll.

John de Aufey and Juliana de Aufey of Somersetshire occur in the Rotuli Hundredorum c. 1272. Robert de Alfey, Daunfey, or Daufey (the name is variously given) was a tenant of the Chapter of St. Paul’s at Kemsworth in Hertfordshire in 1222.—Domesday of St. Paul’s.