EPONYMOUS FAMILIES OF DORSET. 133 



Beauchin was granted by Margaret, widow of Anthony Bew- 

 shine, to Sir William Eye, Knt.* 



BELET. 



William Belot, or Beler, deserves more than a passing notice, 

 for he was a person of sgme consequence in the country, and 

 was, in some respects, considerably in advance of his time. He 

 had a full share of the energy, resourcefulness, and adaptability 

 that characterised the Norman immigrants, as is shown by his 

 masterly management of his estates. 



At Lyme (Regis) he seems to have annexed the entire guild of 

 salt-makers, inducing them (14 in number) by his promise of 

 protection to consider themselves his tenants of the foreshore. f 



At Frome he kept up an ox gang in excess of the require- 

 ments of his own estate, and, whereas on other estates in this 

 county the team power was, as a rule, inadequate, he was in a 

 position either to fill up his own occasional vacancies, or to let 

 out his spare team to his less provident neighbours. J 



One does not expect to find a humorous situation in the 

 severely practical pages of Domesday, but Wm. Belet's name 

 introduces a rather comic incident in connection with his 

 Hampshire estate of Woodcote (" Odecote "). 



It is believed that the Domesday Commissioners were nearly 

 all foreigners, and chiefly Italians, who consequently found 

 themselves in the unsatisfactory position of receiving answers 

 they did not understand from people who, on their part, did not 

 understand the questions asked. So we can picture to ourselves 

 the scene as the King's Commissioners approached the house of 

 the peasant who farmed Lord Belet's lands, and at the door 

 is a little girl. "Who holds this farm, my child," asks the 

 Commissioner. "Vaterlein" (i.e. Little Father), answers the 

 girl. " And you ? " asks the visitor. " His daughter, reverend 



* Further information as to this family of Bewshine, would be welcome, 

 f Eyton's Dorset Domesday, p. 141. 

 Eytoii ou Dorset Domesday, p. 58. 



