THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



Sacombe, while the rest were scattered. Most of his land had belonged 

 to that great local thegn vEthelmasr of Bennington and his ' men,' l and 

 in Cambridgeshire also the land at Bourn, which was all that he held in 

 that county, had belonged to ./Ethelmasr. His Hertfordshire fief was 

 substantially enlarged later on by Henry I., who gave him the Crown 

 manor of Bayford(bury) with Essendon 2 together with a house in 

 Hertford and the king's mills there. 3 Domesday tells us that, at its date, 

 Peter had already bought in Hertford a house and two churches, one of 

 which was probably All Saints', for his descendant and namesake 

 bestowed it on Waltham Abbey, Essex. He himself was the founder of 

 Binham Priory, Norfolk, which he made a cell to St. Alban's early in 

 the reign of Henry L* At the time of the Domesday Survey he was 

 sheriff of Essex as well as of Herts, a fact of interest in view of the long 

 continuance of such union. 6 One considerable tenant remains : this was 

 Hardouin d'Echalers (' de Sealers'), whose name lingered in the manor 

 of Challers (in Reed), and is still preserved in Scales Park on the north- 

 east border of the county. His fief, reckoned at some 40 hides, consisted 

 of scattered estates, which had in the main belonged to sundry small 

 holders, sokemen and others. This was also characteristic of his extensive 

 fief in Cambridgeshire (fos. 197^9), where was the caput of his barony. 

 His descendants were benefactors to the Cluniac Priory of Lewes, Sussex, 

 on which, early in the twelfth century, Hugh ' de Scalariis ' bestowed the 

 Hertfordshire churches of Widiall, Reed, and Little Berkhampstead. 



Of the other Hertfordshire tenants-in-chief ' Maino the Breton ' 

 was a Buckinghamshire baron, whose chief seat was at Wolverton. 

 Walter the Fleming had large estates in Bedfordshire, where Woodhill 

 was the caput of his barony, much of which lay in Northamptonshire. 

 Hugh de Beauchamp was the founder of the baronial house of Beauchamp 

 of Bedford, and of his Bedfordshire estates I am about to speak. Hugh 

 de Grentmesnil had obtained land in no less than eight counties, but the 

 centre of his power was in Leicestershire, where he was succeeded by 

 the earls of Leicester in the possession of his great fief. Although, like 

 the three tenants mentioned before him above, his holding occupies but a 

 small space in the Hertfordshire Domesday, it was of exceptional value 

 and importance. Ware, which had been the seat of Anschil, a great 

 local thegn," was worth in those days no less than 50 a year. When 

 it appears in Domesday as held by Hugh de Grentmesnil it has a ' park 

 for beasts of the chase ' and a newly planted vineyard, sure signs that its 

 Norman lord had there a personal residence. Now under Hertfordshire 

 there is nothing to show how Hugh de Grentmesnil became possessed 



1 See p. 276 above. * See p. 278 above. 



8 Cart. Antlq. k. 22. Domesday enters the mills there as three, worth 10 a year by tale to the 

 king. They are valued at i l in the ' roll of Robert Mantel ' (Red Book of the Exchequer, p. 774). 



4 Mmastlcon Angllcanum, iii. 341-53. The charters of this priory afford valuable information 

 concerning his wife, children and descendants. 



6 Compare Geoffrey de Mandeville, pp. 39, 142, 150, 166-7. The two counties were under one 

 sheriff till 1567 with trifling exceptions. 



6 See p. 276 above. 



283 



