THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



Pierre-sur-Dive, Gilbert of Ghent had similarly bestowed a small estate 

 at Easton ; but this also was entered under his own fief. 



In the absence of other foreign monasteries, we may note the appear- 

 ance of a foreign monk, Benedict, formerly of Auxerre, who, as abbot 

 of the newly-founded Benedictine abbey of Selby, is entered in Domes- 

 day as holding two houses in Northampton and land at Stanford. 



Stanford (on Avon) supplies an example of a lordship formed before 

 the Conquest passing down for centuries. Leofric had ' held freely,' 

 in the days of Edward the Confessor, not only Stanford in Northamp- 

 tonshire (fo. 226b), but two manors in Leicestershire, which 'belonged 

 to Stanford ' (fo. 235). From Guy de Renbudcurt, his Norman successor, 

 Benedict abbot of Selby acquired all three ; and with Selby Abbey these 

 manors remained till the Dissolution, after which they were held, still 

 together, by the family of Cave. It is particularly interesting to note 

 that Benedict, according to Domesday, ' bought ' Stanford of Guy, 

 though the charters represent Guy as ' giving ' the manor to the abbey.' 

 There is reason to believe that there were other cases of the same kind. 



None of the bishops mentioned in Northamptonshire was holding 

 land derived from his predecessors, a fact which emphasises the small 

 proportion of the land in this county that was held by churchmen before 

 the Conquest. Of these prelates, who were all Normans, the bishop of 

 the diocese, Remi of Lincoln, had been given the lands of a Lincoln- 

 shire thegn, Bardi, whose chief holding was at Sleaford (fo. 344*^), but 

 who also held a manor in Leicestershire (fo. 231) and land in North- 

 amptonshire and Rutland (fo. 221). Hollowell, which the bishop of 

 Lincoln thus obtained in our county, passed to his successors in the see. 



Intermediate between the church lands and those of the lay tenants 

 in chief are the fiefs held in their personal capacity by Odo, bishop of 

 Bayeux, and Geoffrey, bishop of Coutances. 



The great fief of the latter prelate, a trusted officer of the king, 

 enables us to catch glimpses of an English landowner and his son. A 

 namesake of the last king of Mercia, he appears in Domesday as Borgeret, 

 Borgret, Borred, Borret, Burgret, Burred, or Burret, holding lands not only 

 in Northamptonshire, but in Bedfordshire and Bucks as well. In one place 

 (fo. 210) he is styled ' a thegn of King Edward,' but he himself is entered, 

 in Bucks, as having ' thegns ' under him. Eadwine, his son, who also 

 (fo. 145) is styled ' a thegn of King Edward,' had held some Oxfordshire 

 manors, which are entered under Northamptonshire (fo. 221), and is also 

 doubtless the ' Edwinus ' who had held Harrowden Magna in the latter 

 county (fo. 220b). All the lands of the father and the son had passed to 

 the bishop of Coutances, who accordingly claimed, as Burred's successor, 

 the ' homage ' of William Peverel's sochmen at Rushden, Irchester, and 

 Raunds (fo. 225^^), together with some land at Piddington which had 

 been held by * two "men" of Burred' (fo. 229). As the bishop had 



* See Monasticon, III. 499, and the royal charters of confirmation in Coucher Book of Selby 



Abbev, vol. I. 



287 



