A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



Here we see that even those Englishmen who continued to hold land 

 after the Conquest suffered some disturbance and reduction of their 

 tenure. We might perhaps add to the list but for the carelessness of the 

 Domesday scribes in recording the names of Englishmen, an extra- 

 ordinary instance of which occurs at Lenton. The former owner is 

 given as ' Unlof,' but directly afterwards we read Ibi isdem Ulnod babet, 

 etc. We certainly dare not have assumed Ulnod and Unlof to be the 

 same man without this distinct statement to that effect, but in its light 

 we may probably recognize him in the Ulnod who is said to hold at 

 Radford (adjoining Lenton) ' i bovate in thegnland.' It is perhaps 

 worth noting that in none of these seven cases is the Englishman described 

 after the normal fashion as William Peverel's ' man ' ; the almost equi- 

 valent formula (Fredgis) tenet sub or de Willelmo is used instead. 



Two and a half columns of our survey are assigned to Walter de 

 Aincurt, the kinsman of Bishop Remigius of Lincoln and the lord of 

 Granby, whose principal seat was at Braunstone, Lincolnshire. Although 

 the fact is somewhat obscured by the plan of the survey, his estates 

 formed a roughly continuous group extending from his west Lincolnshire 

 possessions, through Staunton, Gotham, Granby, and Flintham, to a 

 number of manors on the left bank of the Trent, comprising the whole 

 of Thurgarton, Hoveringham, and Bulcote, with part of Fiskerton and 

 Rolleston. One of his under-tenants, the Mager who held in Staunton, 

 deserves notice as the ancestor of the Nottinghamshire family of Staunton, 

 who, however, appear later as holding of the lords of Belvoir in virtue 

 of a grant made by Oliver de Aincurt to William de Albini the younger. 1 

 In each of his Nottinghamshire manors, except Granby, and in most of 

 his Derby and Lincoln possessions, Walter de Aincurt had been preceded 

 by one or both of two Englishmen, called Swegen and Tori, of whom 

 nothing else is known ; but the case of Granby is peculiar. It was by far 

 his most valuable manor in Derbyshire or Nottinghamshire, and he is 

 said to have possessed sac and soc over it. 8 Its former owner had been a 

 certain Haminc who does not appear elsewhere in Nottinghamshire, but 

 occurs in the list of those who had held sac and soc in Lincolnshire, and 

 also as Walter's predecessor at Branston and Blankney in that county. 8 A 

 considerable amount of sokeland belonging to Granby was scattered 

 over the neighbouring vills, over which Haminc had doubtless exercised 

 powers of jurisdiction before the Conquest. Domesday reveals a church 

 at Granby, and the register of St. Mary's Abbey, York, shows us Walter 

 de Aincurt granting his tithes there and at Gotham, Knapthorpe, Hick- 

 ling, and Thurgarton to that foundation. 4 But the Aincurt fief, like all 

 the greater fiefs in our county, afterwards supplied an endowment for a 

 religious house of its own, for Ralph de Aincurt, Walter's son, founded 

 an Augustinian priory at Thurgarton between 1114 and 1140. We 

 may, in passing, note one curious detail concerning the Aincurt estates ; 

 they had risen in value in face of a general depreciation throughout the 



1 Thoroton, Hut. of Notts. \, 305. * Dom. Bk. f. 28o3. 



' Ibid. .361. < Mm. Angl. iii, 549. 



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