A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



had been gathered into his fief, and he held much land in demesne. At 

 Rushmere Walter of Douai, who ' made forfeiture,' seems to have been a 

 tenant of Montfort ; '" at Thorney there was a dispute over a small estate 

 of crown land mortgaged by Toli the Sheriff to Ralph the Staller, which had 

 come to Hugh after Earl Ralph's forfeiture, and had been granted by him to 

 Roger de Candos.'^^ At Dagworth Hugh had received by exchange an estate 

 which had belonged to Breme, a freeman who was killed at the battle of 

 Hastings {in hello hastingensi) .^^'' 



Geoffrey de Mandeville belongs specially to Essex, where his descendants 

 ruled as earls. His antecessor in Suffolk, as in Essex, was Ansgar or Esgar 

 the Staller,^'' whom he succeeded at Holton and Raydon ; he held also the 

 lands of Witgar, Haldein, and other Englishmen, thegns and freemen of the 

 Abbot of Ely, King Edward, Stigand, Ralph the Staller, and Edric of 

 Laxfield. William son of Sahala de Bouville was his principal under-tenant. 



Ralph Baignard or Baynard, Sheriff of Essex, succeeded Ailad or Ailith, 

 a Saxon freewoman, in the important manors of Kedington and Shimpling. 

 She was also his predecessor in Essex and Norfolk. His other antecessores in 

 Suffolk were Godwin the Thegn and Toret or Tored, with the freeman 

 Alwin and the freewoman Elflet.^^^ Ralph was connected with London 

 through 'Baynard's Castle,' to which, under his 13th-century representatives, 

 the Fitz Walters, his Suffolk manors of Shimpling and Poslingworth seem 

 to have rendered castle-ward.^*" The mention in the Ely placitum of Rotbertus 

 homo Bainardi in Ralph's holding of Reydon makes it probable that ' Bainard' 

 was the Christian name of the father of the Domesday tenant in chief.'" 



Ranulf Peverel was the successor in Suffolk and in Essex of Siward or 

 Seward of Maldon, a great thegn, and in Suffolk, Essex, and Norfolk of Ketel, 

 a thegn of King Edward, while ' Saxo ' is frequently referred to as his ante- 

 cessor in Suffolk ; Garin, or Warin, his under-tenant at Glemsford, held land 

 from him in Norfolk, which in the 14th century was still in the Peverel 

 family.'*^ 



Of those tenants-in-chief who held estates in all the three eastern 

 counties, we may also notice Robert Grenon, the successor of Harold's 

 thegn and house-carl Scapi or Scalpi, Peter of Valognes, Sheriff of Essex 

 and of Hertfordshire, who married the sister of Eudo Dapifer,'** and 

 in Suffolk succeeded Alestan the thegn and Alti and Ketel, liberi homines 

 teigni, and Roger ' de Ramis ' or ' de Raimes,' whose fief included lands held 

 before the Conquest by freemen commended to Earl Algar, Edric of Laxfield, 

 Gurth, Stigand, and Ranulf Peverel's predecessor Saxo.'" The story of the 

 division of the lands of the Englishman ' Brictmar,' a thegn, as we learn from 

 the Essex Survey, and the antecessor of Ranulf brother of Ilger and of Ralph 



»" Dom. Bk. 408^.; Freeman, Norm. Conq. v (ist ed.), 800 ; V.C.H. Essex, i, 350. 



"• Dom. Bk. 4093 ; cf. above, p. 382. "' Ibid. 409^. 



"^ Ibid. 41 1 et seq.; V.C.H. Essex, \, 343. 'The Honour of Ansgar' is mentioned in Dom. Bk. 4123. 



"' Dom. Bk. 4133 et seq.; V.C.H. Essex, \, 346, 347 ; V.C.H. Norf. ii, 20. 



"" Rot. Hund. (Rec. Com.), ii, 142-6 ; ' baronia Castelli Baynard,' 150^, ijia ; ' honor Castri Baynard,' 

 171^, I73'»> '74^; 'feodum Bainnard.' Some of Ralph's Essex manors subsequently owed castle-ward to 

 Baynard's Castle ; V.C.H. Essex, \, 346, 347. 



"' Round, Feud. Engl. 461 ; Inq. Co. Camb. (ed. Hamilton), 195. 



'" Dom. Bk. 4153 et seq ; V.C.H. Norf. ii, 20 ; V.C.H. Essex, i, 346. 



'^» Dom. Bk. 4193 et seq. ; V.C.H. Essex, i, 347, 349, 352 ; V.C.H. Norf. ii, 21. 



*" Round, Geoffrey de Mandeville, 399 ; cf. Dom. Bk. 337^. 



400 



