A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



the Domesday name of Stone in this county, I am disposed to think 

 that this entry refers to Staines, Middlesex, which is just across the 

 border ; for Stone is more than twice as far from East Burnham, and 

 Staines, moreover, belonged, by the time of the Survey, to Westminster 

 Abbey. There seems, however, to be no trace of a ' minster ' or 

 specially important church at Staines. 



Foreign monks had already begun to receive endowments in 

 English lands ; from the Count of Mortain his abbey of Grestain re- 

 ceived manors at Ickford and Marsh Gibbon, and the monks of St. 

 Nicholas one at Crafton, while the noble abbey of La Couture at Le 

 Mans obtained from Walter GifFard lands at Great Woolstone. Very 

 shortly after Domesday the abbey of the Holy Trinity on Mont St. 

 Catherine above Rouen received the manor (mansionem] of Tingewick 

 from Ilbert de Laci, who held it, at the Survey, of the Bishop of Bayeux' 

 fee, his original charter of donation, with equestrian seal attached, being 

 still preserved in the archives of Winchester College. 1 



The occurrence of the Count of Mortain as a tenant-in-chief in 

 the county left an impress on its feudal history deeper than that created 

 by the holdings of his brother the Bishop of Bayeux. For the knight's 

 fees upon his lands enjoyed the peculiar privilege of paying only two- 

 thirds (or rather less) of the amount exacted from other fees. Thus the 

 existence of his fief became of lasting importance. Although through- 

 out England it was known as the fief of Mortain, it was alternatively 

 styled in this district the Honour of Berkhampstead from the count's 

 great castle of that name just beyond the eastern border of the county. 

 Accordingly we find in the feudal returns of 1302-3 and 1346 'the 

 Honour of Berkhampstead ' entered by itself at the end of the Bucking- 

 hamshire Hundreds, 2 and the holdings therein (which represent Domes- 

 day manors of the count) distinguished as ' de parvo feodo de Morteyne.' 

 The count's predecessor at Berkhampstead, ' Edmar Atule,' had held 

 but one Buckinghamshire manor, namely Bledlow, which, however, was 

 by far the largest of those that the count was holding here in 1086. 



The Earl of Chester's lands call for no special notice, but those 

 of Walter GifFard, which follow them in the record, constitute the 

 most important fief in the county. Extending over five columns of 

 the record, and assessed in all at as nearly as possible three hundred 

 hides, his lands may be reckoned from that standpoint as representing 

 between a sixth and a seventh of the whole county. The great fief of 

 Walter, who was himself a Domesday Commissioner, extended over 

 ten counties, and on it there had been enfeofFed before 1 1 66 nearly a 

 hundred knights. But its head was in Buckinghamshire, where Domes- 

 day mentions his park at Long Crendon, and of which county he became 

 earl a few years, probably, after the date of the Survey. Owing to there 

 having been a succession of Walter GifFards, it has never been quite 

 possible to distinguish one from the other, but the Domesday baron 

 was probably the son of the Walter who fought at the Conquest. The 



* Arch. Journ. iv. 249. feudal Aids, i. 107, 132-3. 



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