474 The Society s MSS. Clyffe Pyimrd, Bupton. 



gifts in fiank inari'iage, or otherwise, become reduced below the 



quarter which was the niiniraum for assessment, that the service 



had been in some way commuted, or, simply that it was overlooked. 



It is well to bear in mind that the knight's fee was not a measure 



of land, but a unit of assessment. A bishop might hold almost 



innumerable manors by, let us say, the service of five knights. 



That was his bargain with the King. lie himself made his 



bargain with his own knights, and though we may produce an 



example of the sort of bargain struck by one of tlie de Dunstan- 



villes with a Wiltshire tenant, it does not follow that the bishop 



of Salisbury adopted the same standard. The particular transaction 



alluded to was as follows (Deeds P.R.O., A. 10146) :— 



Grant by Walter de Dunstanvill in fee and heredity to Reginald de Daivill 

 for his service, of 100s. of land in Winterburn, viz., 80a. in on e field and 

 82a. in the- other, provided for the said Reginald from his demesne and de- 

 livered for 100s. worth of land by the lawful oath of the men of that town, 

 with pasture for the oxen of two ploughs in common with his oxen, and 

 pasture for 200 sheep with his sheep. To hold by service of a half knight ; 

 and the said Reginald shall do the full service of a knight when Walter shall 

 have provided him other 100s. worth of land, &c. Witnesses, Thomas and 

 Alan Basset, &c. 



To return from this digression, at this point of the history a 



fresh complication is introduced. In the same return of 1428, in 



the inquisition taken the Saturday before Midsummer, for the 



hundred of Kingsbridge, in which, as mentioned above, Bupton is 



locally situate, occurs the following finding : — 



Willelmus Horn tenet inmediate de Johanna, regina Anglie, ut de manerio 

 suo de Hampstede Marschall, certa terras et tenementa, ut de jure uxoris 

 sue, in Brodeton, que nuper fuerunt Johannis Bernard, per servicium quarte 

 partis unius feodi militis. 



Tlie family of Bernard, of Broadtown was ancient. We have 

 already noted a Michael Bernard on a jury for Kingsbridge 

 Hundred in 1255, and with the assistance of entries on the Close 

 Eoll, &c., a pedigree of some generations of the name might 

 doubtless be drawn. It had ended at last, according to the above 

 passage, in an heiress married to William Horn, and it was, possibly, 

 upon the occasion of this marriage, as above suggested, that the 

 fine was levied of Bupton to William and his heirs. Born, let iis 



