126 EPONYMOUS FAMILIES OF DORSET. 



Probably no word carried with it so many associated ideas of 

 such opposite characters, beginning with the Macedonian King 

 of Syria, founder of the line so prominent through the history of 

 the Maccabees, and of the city that invented the name of 

 Christian. Perhaps the Dorset family derived their name from 

 some ancestor who took part in the Crusader's battle of Antioch, 

 where, according to the legend, St. George appeared in person 

 and rallied the wavering bands of Christians, eventually leading 

 them to victory in the year A.D. 1098 ; or, as that city remained 

 in Christian hands for 170 years, there was ample time for the 

 name to become permanently connected with a family that had 

 lived or even traded there ; or, again, as Antioch was finally lost 

 in 1268, and this family is first mentioned in Dorset in 1299, it 

 is not impossible that their founder may have been a refugee 

 who had the good fortune to escape from the doomed city. At 

 any rate, the family held land in Dorset in the latter part of the 

 1 3th century from Wm. de Gouis on the curious tenure of 

 enclosing a perch every third year about Gouis' Park at Duntish 

 and paying 8d. a year.* 



In 1316 Nicholas Antioch was certified by the Sheriff as " Lord 

 of the township of Tarant Antioch. "f In 1409 John Antioche 

 held lands in Bakebere, Cheping-Blandford, Auntycheston, all 

 in the County of Dorset. J 



In Henry VI. 's reign the heiress of the family conveyed the 

 estates away by her marriage to John Lovel. The Manor of 

 Antiocheston, or Tarent Antioch, is now incorporated with 

 Tarent Rawson, and has been so for a long time. Coker, how- 

 ever, maintains that they were formerly distinct places. 



There is also a Manor of Antioch in Stalbridge, once the 

 property of a family of that name, but it is not certain that they 

 were related to those of Tarent Antioch. Their seals are 

 different. Those of Tarent bear argent a chevron between three 

 ermine spots, the lower one reversed, whereas the Stalbridge 



* Escheats' Wm. de Gouis. 

 t Norn. Villarum. J Calend. 357. 



