Descent of the Manor 0/ Etchilhampton. 181 



have been the case here, for in the year 1316 John Malwyn is said 

 to have been Lord of the Manor of Etchilhampton,' The name of 

 this family will already have been noticed in the extracts above 

 given. We shall say more concerning them presently ; — meanwhile 

 we must endeavour to trace the history of the second of the estates 

 recorded in Domesday. 



This smaller Manor, which in extent was not quite one third the size 

 of the former holding, belonged at the close of the eleventh century 

 to Ernulf de Hesding, as chief Lord. He was the first Earl of 

 Perch and father to Earl Rotrock who married Matilda, the natural 

 daughter of King Henry L* It is interesting to observe that the 

 family of Edric, the Anglo Saxon tenant in the days of the Confessor, 

 was allowed still to remain in possession of the estate. It seems to 

 show an immunity from the evils which desolated other parts of 

 county at the Norman Conquest, when we thus find the occupier of the 

 land undisturbed. He had changed masters, but still held and cul- 

 tivated his farm on similar conditions, and with like services, as in 

 the time of King Edward. 



Of the chief Lord or his descendants, as connected with this 

 Manor, we have no account. We may conjecture perhaps, that, 

 as in the case of other of his estates, Ernulf de Hesding^ was in 

 reality but the Tenant in Capite, or chief mesne Lord, and that the 

 Crown retained in its own hands the nominal Lordship of the Manor. 

 At all events the following extracts give color to the supposition. 



The earliest allusion that we have to this smaller estate, roundly 

 reckoned at half a knighfsjee, is contained in the Hundred Rolls* 

 39 Henry IIL, (1255). The Jurors there report as follows: — 

 " Richard le Blund ^ holds half a Knight's fee in Hochelhampton by 

 the serjeancy of paying at the Castle of the Devizes ten 



' Nomina Villarum, 9 Edw. II. 

 * Sandford's Genealog. Hist., p. 32. 

 ' Thus under Chivele (Keevil) it is said " Ernulfus de Heading tenet de Rege 

 Chivele." Domesday for "Wiltshire, p. 74. 



* Hundred Rolls, ii., 235. 

 "Blund, or Blunt, the origin of the family name of " Blottnt," is derived 

 from the French " blond,'''' i.e. "fair" In the Wiltshire Domesday (p. 126) we 

 have Robertus Flavus, that is, literally, Robert "the fair," or " le 6/omc?," 



