A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



the * castle ' or ' castlery ' of Lewes/ a subsequent document enables us 

 to detect a local follower in that William ' de Grinnosa villa ' who be- 

 stowed lands on Lewes Priory,* and who derived his name from 

 Grigneuseville in the ' canton ' of Bellencombre. It is also only in 

 Suffolk that Domesday mentions the full names of Godfrey and Robert 

 de Pierpoint (' Petroponte '), who held of him in Sussex as Godfrey 

 and Robert/ and who came from Pierrepont near Falaise in a distant 

 part of Normandy. William de Wateville, his tenant at Brighton 

 and elsewhere, derived his name from Watteville on the left bank of 

 the Seine between Rouen and the sea ; and Ralf de ' Caisned,' who 

 held of him at Plumpton, is believed to have been named from Ques- 

 nay between St. L6 and Caen. The tenants of William de Braose are 

 hard to localize in Normandy, but if Morin of Thakeham was Morin de 

 St. Andre,* he doubtless came from St. Andre-de-Briouze, near the 

 stammhaus of his lord, while Pointel, from which was named the William 

 de ' Pointel '^ who witnesses a grant of Philip de ' Brausia,' actually ad- 

 joins Briouze. And the Bucy family, whose name is preserved in 

 Kingston Bucey or Bowsey, may have been named from Bouce in the 

 Cange valley some fourteen miles from Briouze. Not only in Sussex 

 but in Northants the Count of Mortain had a great follower in that 

 William de ' Cahainges,' as the Sussex Domesday terms him, whose 

 name is preserved in Horsted Keynes, and who came from Cahagnes, 

 between Vire and Bayeux, according to Mr. Stapleton, who asserts that 

 he held there, as in England, under the Count de Mortain." 



In the western rape by far the most important tenant was Robert 

 Fitz-Tetbald, the lord of what afterwards became the honour of Pet- 

 worth. Of his bequest of the manor of Toddington to the abbey of 

 Sees, Mr. Round says : ' — 



One of the most interesting illustrations of Domesday is that afforded by the 

 death-bed gift of Robert son of Tetbald, ' the sheriff,' to St. Martin of Se'es. To Mr. 

 Eyton belongs the credit of discovering the importance of this tenant of Earl Roger 

 of Shrewsbury (Hist, of Shrops. ii. 266). He boldly claimed him as ' by far the great- 

 est feoffee in the earl's Sussex fief, and as the Domesday lord of the honour of Pet- 

 worth ; and he further suggested that it may have been Sussex of which he was the 

 Norman sheriff. Mr. Eyton, however, was not acquainted with this instructive char- 

 ter, which proves the identity of the Robert who held ' Totintune ' (Toddington in 

 Lyminster) in Domesday with Robert son of Tetbald. It supplies not only the name 

 of his wife (Emma), but the date of his own death (1087). This date is the more im- 

 portant because Mr. Eyton held that Robert was still living after 1 108, and was not 

 affected by his lord's catastrophe in 1 102. But further, the last four witnesses to the 

 charter are ' Robertus de Petehorda presbiter, Corbelinus, Hamelinus, et Turstinus 

 de Petehorda.' We have clearly here the priest of Petworth, the ' Corbelinus ' who 

 held under 'Robert' in 1086 at Barlavington^ the 'Hamelinus' who held of him 

 similarly at Burton, and probably also the ' Turstinus ' who held of him at Greatham. 

 We may therefore identify him with the Robert who appears in Domesday Book as 



> See its entry in Dom. Bk. piissim. - Anct. Charters (Pipe Roll Soc), p. 5. 



= Ibid. p. 7. * Cal. of Doc. France, p. 401. 



6 Ibid. " Rotuli Scacc. Norm. ii. ccli. 



' Cal. of Doc. France, pref. 1. 



X He held also at Marden, and Richard and Robert, sons of Corbelin, attested Earl Roger's con- 

 firmation of this grant of Robert's. 



