DERLEY ABBEY CHARTERS PRESERVED AT BELVOIR. I 5 



foundation charter from Dugdale, of which the following is a 

 translation : — 



(i) 3ttobert de Ferrers to Walter, Bishop of Coventry, and to 

 all the sons of Holy Church, and especially to all barons, and to 

 all the men of his honours, saluting ; I have founded a house of 

 religion in Derby out of the royal revenues by the agreement and 

 confirmation of King Stephen and the consent of King Henry, and 

 have placed in it an abbot and canons. I have presented the 

 abbot to either king, and I have given to them of my lands and 

 rents. In the first place, the Church of Uttoxeter and Crich with 

 all their appurtenances, and the tenth penny of my rents of Derby, 

 and the third part of the meadow which is on both sides of 

 Oddabroc, which I and my father hold by hereditary right of the 

 heirs of Stephen the Earl, afterwards King, and six shillings of 

 land at Osemundeston, and the oratory with the cemetery ; and 

 six acres in Hordwick (Hordwica)* at Aldwerke ; and as much 



* " Hordiuica :" — Simpson, quoting from Dugdale, gives this passage 

 thus — " Et sex acras in Hordwica apud Aldwerke." Here "Hordwica" or 

 Hordwick is evidently given as the name of a particular locality. In the 

 confirmation charter (No. 14) Hordwica is not mentioned, but in the second 

 charter by Will. Earl Ferrars (No. 15) it assumes another form, "Scilicet 

 Aldewerc & Seuewelledale & oritorium (nV) cum Heidewicis suis." 



We cannot find any satisfactory definition of the word, but it seems to be 

 derived from the Saxon ''Hired" a family, or household; and "ivic" a 

 habitation, village ; and so might be interpreted by the word "Homestead." 

 Mr. F. Edmunds has it " lieord" a shepherd ; and so, a shepherd's village or 

 living place. 



The word, however, occurs again in an early Aldwark Charter at Belvoir, 

 in which Will, fitz Ranulph de Ibole grants to Matilda, daughter of Nich. 

 de Aldwerch, a moiety of the land which the said Nicholas held of John de 

 Ibole, his brother, at the yearly rent of I5d. " Et quando contingerit me vel 

 lieredes meos recipere Herdewycos de dominis meis, predicta Matilda et 

 heredes sui recipient partem suam ad predictam terram pertinentem," etc. 

 Here the word appears in the aspect of a payment or grant made by the lord 

 of the manor to the tenant as a perquisite in virtue of the holding. 



Du Cange in his glossary gives no solution, but quotes from Spelman, "In 

 Wales sunt tres Hardwices, Lamecare, Potischmet, et dimid ex his sunt 

 8 carucatus, & 2 villani " — and then he suggests a derivation, " Saxonibus, 

 ludde est via, & ivic vicus, villa : s,\i an hue quadreiit, alii viderint." 



Dugdale in his " Monasticon Ang." (Vol. I., p. 830, edition 1655), gives 

 the foundation charter of Merivale Abbey, in which the word Herdcwic seems 

 to imply a homestead, and from the context, probably for shepherds. " To 

 Roger Bishop of Chester, and to all the sons of Holy Church, Robert Earl 

 de Ferrars saluting. Know ye that I have conceded (for the soul of Robert 

 Earl de Ferrars my father, and for the health of my soul and of my wife) to 



