DOMESDAY SURVEY 



wise unidentified, may be, like St. Pancras, a Lewes church, that of 

 St. John-sub-castro. ' Holy Trinity,' which had held and lost i| hides 

 in ' Berchelie,' was then the name of the archbishop's monastery at Can- 

 terbury. This estate was an outlyer of his manor in Westmeston, which 

 he held in trust for the monks. Domesday tells us that this manor's 

 assessment had been reduced from 6 to ^l hides, 'quia aliud (sic) est in 

 rape comitis de Moritonio,' and the above 1 1 hides at ' Berchelie ' are 

 the ' aliud ' spoken of. 



The consideration of the lay tenants-in-chief and their lands need 

 not detain us ; it was as ' rapes ' rather than as ' honours ' that their 

 possessions aiFected the history of the county. The honours of Lewes 

 and Bramber remained for centuries in the heirs of the families of 

 Warren and Braose, while those of Earl Roger and the Count of Mortain 

 were forfeited by their respective sons and became, one the honour of 

 Arundel and the other, from its subsequent connection with the lords of 

 Laigle (de Aqiiila), the honour of the Eagle, or of Aquila. 



It is interesting to observe that — with the exception of Pevensey, 

 with its rape, which fell, as ' the first fruits of the Conquest ' to the 

 Conqueror's half-brother. Count Robert of Mortain — East and West 

 Sussex were respectively allotted to Norman lords east and west of the 

 river Seine. Thus the most easterly of the rapes, that of Hastings, 

 was assigned to the Count of Eu, a little port in the extreme north- 

 east of Normandy, while Lewes was given to William de Warenne, 

 the earthworks of whose stronghold on the Varenne (now the Arques) 

 are still to be seen at Bellencombre to the south-west ofEu. Bramber, 

 with its rape, was secured by William de Briouze ('Braose'), whose 

 Norman lordship lay to the south-west of Falaise, while the western 

 rapes of Chichester and Arundel were the portions of Roger de Mont- 

 gomery, who raised in the latter a hill fortress such as that which 

 he had left in Normandy, where its traces are still visible at St. 

 Germain de Montgomery, south of Lisieux. 



Of these magnates it was the Count of Eu who most certainly 

 bestowed Sussex lands upon his own knights. Geoffrey de Floe, who 

 is found in Domesday holding of him at Guestling, was named from 

 Flocques adjoining Eu, while Robert de Cruel, his tenant at Ashburn- 

 ham and in Bexhill, derived his name from Criel hard by on the coast. 

 Another Bexhill tenant, Robert (de) St. Leger, came probably from St. 

 Leger-aux-bois to the south-east of Eu, while yet another, William de 

 ' Sept Mueles,' had his Norman home at Sept-Meules, which Ues half- 

 way between St. Leger and Eu. To these we may add the Freulleville 

 family, who were knights of the count in Normandy, and who held 

 land in Playden ' ; Ricarville near Freulleville gave name to the sheriff 

 of the rape of Pevensey." The tenants of William de Warenne in his 

 rape cannot be similarly traced to his own Norman district. In East 

 Anglia, where his great fief was connected in some mysterious way with 



' Cal. of Doc. France, p. 8l. = Walter de Ricarville, see above, p. 352. 



I 377 48 



