DOMESDAY SURVEY 



he cannot have been a very regular attendant at the king's court, but the 

 territorial position which he held in Leicestershire proves that the Conqueror 

 had no suspicion of his general loyalty, and he died still in the enjoyment of 

 his great possessions, on 22 February, ic-93. 84 On his death he was succeeded 

 in his English lands by his son Ivo, who has attained some notoriety as the first 

 person to introduce the custom of private warfare into England, and who ruined 

 himself by joining the rebellion of Robert of Belesme in noi. In order to 

 reinstate himself Ivo decided to go on crusade, and before his departure he 

 placed his entire estate in the hands of the count of Meulan for fifteen years, 

 on condition that the count should use his influence with the king to procure 

 his restoration. Ivo, however, died while on crusade, and the count of 

 Meulan, abetted by the king, ignored the claims of his son and united the 

 Grentemaisnil fief to his own, and thus becoming the most powerful magnate 

 in Leicestershire he was shortly afterwards created earl of the county. 86 



The estates of Hugh de Grentemaisnil fill two and a half folios of the 

 survey, the first folio describing the manors which he held in demesne, the 

 remaining entries relating to the manors held of him by mesne tenants. As 

 was the case with the count of Meulan, the chief strength of Hugh de Grente- 

 maisnil lay in the south of the county, in the wapentakes of Guthlaxton and 

 Gartree. It is only in regard to very few of Hugh's manors that we are 

 given the name of the pre-Conquest owners, but Wigston Magna and Stockers- 

 ton, like Great Easton which adjoins the latter, had belonged to Earl Ralf of 

 Hereford. The most interesting statement which we are given in this con- 

 nexion is contained in a note appended to the account of Wymeswold, to the 

 effect that ' two brothers held this land for two manors, and afterwards one 

 of them bought from the other his share and made one manor out of two 

 that were there in King Edward's time ' ; a remark which deserves notice 

 not only because we here for once see a manor in the making, but because 

 the transaction recorded would seem to have taken place after the Conquest, 

 as it certainly took place after the Confessor's death. 86 The question whether 

 a single manor represented one or more original estates was also raised in the 

 case of Thurmaston ; this Hugh claimed to hold as one manor, but was con- 

 tradicted by the witness of the shire court. The entry relating to Carlton 

 Curlieu deserves notice because of what it does not contain, for of the ii| 

 carucates described in it, Hugh had already, eight years at least before the 

 time of the survey, given a carucate and a quarter to the famous Norman 

 abbey of St. Evroult, although Domesday makes no record of the grant. 



Of Hugh's undertenants only few can be identified with persons occur- 

 ring outside our record. But a clear instance in point is Robert de Buci, the 

 first on the list, a prominent tenant in chief in Leicestershire itself, who held 

 of Hugh in Thurlaston, Smeeton Westerby, and Twyford. In the Hugh who 

 was tenant of Shangton and Stonton Wyville we may safely recognize Hugh 

 de Widville, the founder of a family in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire 



M We have exceptionally copious information about his family and himself, owing to his great benefactions 

 to St. Evroult, of which monastery Orderic the chronicler was an inmate. 



" Old. Vit. Hist. Eccles. iv, 168. See also below, p. 301. 



86 Professor Freeman believed that the 'foitea ' of Domesday was an indirect expression for the time of 

 King Harold. But the terminology of the survey in such a matter cannot be interpreted so strictly as this, 

 and the professor himself gave instances in which fasten referred to the Conqueror's reign. See Norm. Conj. v, 

 App. : ' Notes of time in Domesday.' 



2 9 I 



