302 Erlestoke and its Manor Lords. 
and their name from Mandeville, near Tréviéres, in the Bessin ? 
(Calvados), while M. Delisle, the great French authority, thinks 
that the two families had nothing in common but the name.? The 
Norman property of the Essex family was certainly situated in 
the neighbourhood of Mandeville, near Tréviéres, and was chiefly 
confined to the diocese of Bayeux, for the “land of Chambois,” 
near Argentan, was not acquired until the time of the third Earl 
of Essex, to whom it was given by Philip, Earl of Flanders. The 
chief seat of the Erlestoke family was at Olonde, near Ourville, in 
the diocese of Coutances and their property was chiefly confined 
to that neighbourhood. Here there are several places of the name 
of Magneville, but none of them can be connected with the family 
in any special manner. The most important of them is that near 
Valognes, which M. Delisle shows to have been a part of the 
possessions of the Bertrans of Briquebec from the eleventh to the 
fourteenth century.‘ 
The Essex family is the first to appear in England in the person 
of Geoffrey de Mandeville, a follower of the Conqueror, who, as a 
reward for his services in 1066, received large grants of land in 
different parts of the country, but chiefly in the eastern counties. 
Details of his family are preserved in a deed of gift to the Monastery 
of Hurley, where he mentions Leceline, his wife, and Athelais, his 
first wife, “the mother of my sons,” and at the end of which he in- 
vokes “all my sons” to maintain the integrity of his charter.’ The 
witnesses include his wife and two others of his name, William 
and Richard, but of ‘all his sons” William de Mandeville is the 
only one heard of in history. He was Constable of the Tower of 
London in 1101° and was succeeded in that office by his son 
Geoffrey, who was created Earl of Essex by King Stephen in 1140.7 

1 Rotuli Scaccarii Normannia, vol. II., p. clxxxviil. 
? Rotuli Seaccarii Normannie Fragmentum, p. 20. 
3 Thid, p. 41. 
4 Tbid, p. 21. 
> Madox, Formulare Anglicanum, No. 397. 
6 Ordericus Vitalis, Bohn, III., 280. 
7 Round, Geoffrey de Mandeville, p. 38. 

