A HISTORY OF LEICESTERSHIRE 



hand, and was granted out again by him to his minister Richard Basset, a 

 member of one of the families which Henry ' raised from the dust ' at the 

 expense of the nobility of the Conquest. The completeness of the transfer is 

 proved by a comparison of the Leicestershire Survey with the documents 

 relating to the Basset foundation of Launde Priory, Leicestershire," and it will 

 be worked out in its own place. The fief had been held before the Conquest 

 by a number of small but independent people, all of whom had been able 

 to * go (with their land) whither they wished,' with the exception of one 

 Seric, who held three carucates in Ragdale, ' but could not depart with them.' 



The small estate of Roger de Busli in Leicestershire was merely a frag- 

 ment of the great honour of Blyth, and the succeeding fief of Robert Dis- 

 pensator calls for no special notice here. The land of Guy de Reinbudcurt 

 is more interesting. Guy held in demesne a manor of eighteen carucates in 

 Thrussington on the Wreak, and a number of lands in the extreme south of 

 the county, at Starmore, Misterton, Husbands Bosworth, and Kilworth. 

 The lands in Kilworth, Husbands Bosworth, and Starmore, had been held by 

 a certain Leuric, the pre-Conquest owner of Stanford on Avon just across the 

 Northamptonshire border, and are entered in Domesday as ' belonging ' to 

 Stanford. None of them is described as containing any demesne, so that 

 we have here a case in which an estate forming an economic whole is cut 

 by a county boundary. Further, we are told that the land in Starmore and 

 Misterton is held of Guy de Reinbudcurt by 'Abbot Benedict,' and that he 

 had ' bought ' from Guy 2j carucates of land in Husbands Bosworth. Now 

 the abbot in question is Benedict, the founder of the great religious house of 

 Selby, Yorkshire, 45 and the hero of one of the most romantic of modern 

 legends. On turning to the Selby records printed in Dugdale's Monasticon 48 

 we find a charter of Guy de Reinbudcurt himself, in which he states that, for 

 the love of God and the soul of his lord King William, and for the remission 

 of his sins and those of his wife, sons, and all his relatives, he has given his 

 vill of Stanford with all its appurtenances, including, of course, the Leicester- 

 shire lands which we are considering, to Abbot Benedict and the church of 

 St. German of Selby. Were it not for the evidence of Domesday Book we 

 should never suspect that this pious formula covered a commonplace money 

 transaction between the parties concerned ; and the fact has a wider bearing 

 in its suggestion that the definite statements of legal documents of the period 

 require careful scrutiny before we can be sure that we are possessed of their 

 real meaning. 47 



The Leicestershire fief of William Peverel, like that of Roger de Busli, 

 was merely an appendage of a larger estate elsewhere. It comprised part of 

 the honour of Nottingham, one of the typical ' escheats ' mentioned in Magna 

 Charta. Within twenty years of 1086 the Cluniac priory of Lenton (Nott- 

 inghamshire) had been founded on the estate, and several of William's 

 Domesday tenants can be identified as contributing to the foundation. This 

 is not definitely the case with regard to Leicestershire, but the Pagen who 

 held of William in Lubbesthorpe, and the Sasfrid who was tenant of Ashby 

 Magna, may reasonably be identified with the men of the same name who 



44 See Teud. Engl. 212-13, an ^ Mm. Angl. vi, 188. 



44 See Freeman, Norman Conquest, iv, App. The Foundation Legend of Selby Abbey.' 

 46 Mm. iii, 499. Compare also V.C.H. Northanti, i, 287. 



294 



