DOMESDAY SURVEY 



Other Bedfordshire barons, Hugh de Beauchamp and Nigel de Albini, 

 had here outlying estates, while the Wiltshire sheriff, Edward of Salis- 

 bury, had secured the three manors of ' Wulwene ' of Creslow, who, 

 though described as 'a man of King Edward,' was an English lady 

 whom he had succeeded in one Middlesex, two Wiltshire, and two Dorset 



manors. 



The names of the Buckinghamshire barons remind us that the 

 Conquest was not the work of the duke and his Normans alone. From 

 Flanders on the east to Brittany on the west William's recruiting ground 

 had stretched. The former was represented in this county by Gilbert 

 of Ghent (de Gand), Walter the Fleming, and Winemar the Fleming, 

 the latter by William and Ralf de Fougeres (' Felgeres '), Maino the 

 Breton, Gozelin the Breton, Hervey, bearer of one of the favourite 

 Breton names, and Hascoit Musard. Of these by far the largest land- 

 owner was Maino the Breton, whose barony subsequently owed the 

 service of fifteen knights and had Wolverton for its head. 1 But Hanslope, 

 although the only holding of Winemar in this county, is of interest as 

 the head of his little barony, 2 of which the rest lay in Northamptonshire. 



Another barony of which the head was here, though it ex- 

 tended into four adjoining counties, was that of Gilo, brother of 

 Ansculf (de Picquigny) the late sheriff. We find it represented in 

 1 1 66 by that of Gilbert de Pinkeni, which was of fifteen knight's fees, 

 and on which Gilo de ' Pinkeny,' a namesake of the Domesday baron, 

 was a tenant. 3 Of the other holdings the most interesting, perhaps, is 

 that of Farnham Royal, the solitary manor of Bertram de Verdon, for 

 his heirs held it by a grand serjeanty which still inures at coronations.* 



Some of the smaller men are of interest for their scattered posses- 

 sion. William the son of Constantius, for instance, had one manor in 

 Buckinghamshire and one in Essex ; William ' filius Manne ' had single 

 manors in Oxfordshire and Hampshire 6 as well as in this county, be- 

 sides being an under-tenant of William de Braose, in Sussex. William the 

 chamberlain (of London), who was c'hiefly associated with Bedfordshire, 

 had one manor here, two in Gloucestershire, and a vineyard in Middle- 

 sex, and seems to have been an under-tenant as well. ' Martin ' was 

 probably the bearer of that uncommon name who held four manors far 

 away in Lincolnshire ; but there is not even a common tenure by an 

 English predecessor to account for his lands lying thus far apart. 



It is difficult in this county, as it often is in Domesday, to dis- 

 tinguish the smaller barons, who held by military service, from the 

 king's officers or ' Serjeants.' We may, for instance, suspect that Hervey 

 * legatus 'who was, I suggest, an interpreter belonged to the latter 

 class, although he is entered immediately before an undoubted baron, 



1 Stoke Hammond owes its name to his descendent Hamon son of Meinfelin, who held this 

 barony in 1 1 66. 



a Red Book of the Exchequer, p. 313. 



3 Ibid. p. 317. 4 Wollaston, Coronation Claims, pp. 136-44. 



6 He had there succeeded an ^Elfric who was possibly his Buckinghamshire predecessor, King 

 Edward's chamberlain ; and it is added that he obtained the land with his wife. 



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