A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



of which ninety-five, with the castle of Clare, the caput of the later honour, 

 were in Suffolk,'^' He was chief justiciar in 1075, and was active in the 

 suppression of the revolt of the earls, but he does not seem to have received 

 any of Earl Ralph's estates. He held lands in the hundreds of Risbridge, 

 Babergh, Cosford, and Samford, on the Essex border, and also in the hun- 

 dreds of Thingoe, Thedwastre, Lackford, Blackbourn, Hartismere, Bosmere, 

 Claydon, Stow, and Wilford, and in the borough of Ipswich. He had estates 

 in Essex also, but the centre of his influence was in Risbridge Hundred, 

 where, just on the Suffolk side of the line which divides the county from 

 Essex, still lies the market town of Clare, with the moated mound of the 

 castle.''^ Richard Fitz Gilbert's two chief antecessores were Wisgar or 

 Withgar, son of iElfric or Aluric, and ' Phin the Dane.' ^Ifric, the father 

 of Wisgar, and himself the son of an older Wisgar, was an Essex thegn and 

 lord of the manor of Clare, which he gave to ' St. John,' placing a priest 

 Ledmar over the religious house which he founded, and committing it by 

 charter to the care of his son Wisgar and of Leustan or Leofstan, Abbot of 

 St. Edmunds."' When King William came he took the foundation into his 

 own hands and granted the whole property to his favourite, Richard Fitz 

 Gilbert. ' Phin the Dane ' had held an ' honour ' in Suffolk, and, like 

 Wisgar, he continued in power after the Conquest, and, as Mr. Round has 

 pointed out, 'even in 1086 his widow was holding in Essex 2 manors, of 

 which one at least had previously been held by her husband.' '" In Suffolk 

 he had 80 acres at Wattisham in Cosford Hundred and a small estate at 

 Shelland in Stow Hundred, thirteen burgesses in Ipswich, who belonged to 

 his ' honour,' and a manor at Badley in Bosmere Hundred, where he held 

 twenty-six freemen, who had been added to the manor under King William 

 ' by arrangement with the sheriff, as the sheriff himself says.' At Ringsett also, 

 and at Ash (Bocking), in the same hundred, he had added freemen and a soke- 

 man to his manors, and we hear of his 'fee' [feudum). At Helmingham in 

 Claydon Hundred and at Erwarton in Samford Hundred, Turi, a thegn of 

 King Edward, had held two manors 'of Phin's land' which in 1086 were 

 held of Fitz Gilbert by Walter of Caen and Roger ; at Boyton a com- 

 mended freeman of Phin is mentioned, while at Higham and at Burstall 

 Richard claimed freemen and lands as part of the ' honour ' or ' terra ' of 

 Phin."' Of Fitz Gilbert's under-tenants it is worth noting William Peche 

 [Peccatum), who held also in Norfolk,^^" Walter the Deacon, and Osbern de 

 Wancy; while Roger ' de Ramis' and Ralph Peverel disputed Richard's title 

 to his estate at Bricett in the hundred of Bosmere.'" The survey of his fief 

 concludes with a list of the freemen in the hundreds of Risbridge and Cosford 



'" Dom. Bk. 3893 et seq. Diet. Nat. Biog. articles 'Clare, De, Family of,' 'Clare, Richard De'; 

 Freeman, Norm. Conq. iv (ist ed.), 580 ; v (ist ed.), 430. He is often called Richard de Bienfaite. 



"« F.C.H. Essex, i, 348. 



'" Dom. Bk. 389^; F'.C.H. Essex, i, 348; freeman, op. cit. v (ist ed.), 753. The alternation of 

 names in this family is worth noting. Grandfather and grandson bear the same name, as is also the case with 

 the 'lawmen' of Lincoln, a Danish district ; Dom. Bk. i, 336. 



'" y.C.H. Essex, i, 348 ; Dom. Bk. 98, 98^, 'Terra Ulveve uxoris Phin.' 



'" Dom. Bk. 391, 392^, 393, 393*, 394, 394*, 395, 395^, ' Hecham, Burghestala,' 'ad honorem phin ;' 

 'ad terram fin.' 



"" Ibid. 39o3 ; y.C.H. Norf. ii, 21. He was ' the forefather of an East Anglian house.' The name occurs 

 in Suffolk in the 13th century ; Rot. Hund. ii, I 5 la, 173a. 



"' Dom. Bk. 391, 393^, 394. Esgar the Staller is also mentioned as the former lord of one of Richard's 

 freemen; ibid. 395. 



398 



