A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



identification. The most interesting of Gilbert's possessions are the two 

 manors which he held in Eakring, for they probably represent the 

 partition of one estate between co-heirs. Thus each of them was assessed 

 at 6 bovates and 2 plough-lands, each contained 3 acres of meadow, and 

 woodland 6 furlongs in length and 4 in breadth, and each had fallen in 

 value from i to i6j. Their former owners, however, had undergone 

 different fates, for while one of them, ' Ingolf,' was replaced by ' William, 

 Gilbert's man,' the other, ' Echebrand,' continued to hold his share as 

 Gilbert's under-tenant. 



The small fief of Gilbert Tison was more directly connected with 

 Nottinghamshire, for it appears later as the honour of Averham (Egrum). 1 

 In addition to Averham and one or two adjoining vills, it included 

 Finningley, the most northerly manor in the county, and had nearly all 

 belonged to one Swegen. The description of it is noteworthy in one 

 respect, for it incidentally mentions one of those mysterious ' senior 

 thegns ' in whose functions in the local courts Professor Stubbs sought 

 to discover the germs of the jury of presentments. The entry in 

 question runs : 



In Wicheburne [Winkburn], habuit Suain xii bovatas terrae ad geldum . . . 

 Duas bovatas de hac terra tenuerunt v taini. Unus eorum erat senior aliorum, que 

 (sic) non pertinuit ad suain. 3 



This passage unfortunately is by no means clear, but the que is 

 probably a short and obscure expression for cujus terra. Without making 

 conjectures as to the meaning of the ' seniority ' of this thegn, we may 

 note that Swegen himself must have been an important man, for the 

 entry seems to imply that the land of four of these five thegns had 

 ' belonged ' to him. It is perhaps worth while making the guess (it is 

 no more) that he may have been the Swen the son of Suave who appears 

 on folio 280$ as a former possessor of sac and soc. 



The survey of Ralf de Limesi's land contains a reference to a unit 

 of land-measurement sufficiently rare in the north of England to be 

 worth a note. In the account of Epperstone we are told ' Ibi Radulfus 

 habet in dominio iii carucas et xiiii sochmanni de vi bov' et ferding hujus 

 terrae,' and over ' ferding ' the scribe has added the words ' i bov ' in 

 explanation. The 'ferding' would seem to represent the 'fertinus ' or 

 ' farthing ' which occurs frequently in the survey of the south-western 

 counties, where it represented the quarter of a virgate, 8 whereas at Epper- 

 stone it was apparently the quarter of a bovate ; unless indeed the inter- 

 lineation is not explanatory but intended to correct the ' ferthing ' into 

 ' bovate.' 



A folio of our survey is assigned to Ilbert de Lacy the lord of 

 Pontefract, and it also contains an entry which looks as if it would be 



1 See the charter of Henry de Hose, the successor of the Tisons, to Thurgarton Priory, addressed 

 'Omnibus sanctae matris ecclesiae fidelibus et maxime hominibus honoris de Egrum.' Man. 

 Angl. vi, 191. 



1 Folio. 291, quoted by Maitland, DmesJay Book and Beyond, 165, and Vinogradoff, The Growth 

 of the Manor, p. 287. 



3 Domeiday Book and Beyond, 479. 



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