50 Erlestoke and its Manor Lords. 



Pipe EoU of 31 Hen. I. is recorded the pardon to him of 14s. due 

 for Danegeld in Wiltshire, but if that sum be reckoned at the 

 usual computation of 2s. per hide and the hide at a hundred and 

 twenty acres, the extent of his holding would be too large to refer 

 to a share of Stanton Fitz-Warren alone, and it may be presumed 

 tliat the Calston manor was already included. In 1194 an action 

 was instituted against Herbert Fitz-Herbert and his eldest surviving 

 son, Peter, by Hawyse Fitz-Waryn and Sybil de Plugenet, the 

 daughters of Goce de Dinant, for land in Calston withheld from 

 their lawful inheritance after the death of their father, and at that 

 time the question of the ownership of the whole property was 

 under the consideration of the King,^ and it was perhaps on this 

 account that an inquisition was made " in the time of Eichard I," in 

 the scanty report of which it is stated that Calston was demesne of 

 the King and that " the Shei'iff " held it originally but later Peter 

 Blundus had it and after him Herbert Fitz-Herbert.^ The statement 

 of the increase in the value of the manor during the period covered 

 by the report is interesting : the sheriff made £6 10s., and from 

 profits of live and dead stock 24s. ; Peter Blundus took £10 6s. 8fZ., 

 twelve oxen, two mares and one (?) pullet; while Herbert Fitz- 

 Herbert took £47 and other profits, the details of which are lost, 

 but for which the sum of ten marks is given. ^ 



It was in this year (1194) that King Eichard had returned to 

 England from his captivity, when Herbert seems to have fully 

 recovered the royal favour which had been withheld from his family 

 for so long. At Easter he was appointed Sheriff of Gloucestersliire, 

 in which county some portion of his wife's or his mother's dower 

 must have been situated, for in the first scutage after his office 

 had lapsed, that is 1199-1200, he paid on seven knights' fees, 

 whereas in 1166 his holding was half a fee only. At the same 

 time in Wiltshire his property had increased in value from one to 



' Palgrave, Rot. Cur. Begis., i., 37. 

 - Abh. Plac, p. 13. 

 ■■* In 1227 the question of the past ownership of Calston by this family was 

 again the subject of an inquisition. {Rot. Claus, ii., 2135.) 



