A HISTORY OF WARWICKSHIRE 



stance of Osbern Fitz Richard and Hugh de Grentmesnil, the under- 

 tenants are, as usual, Norman ; but on others the prevalence of English 

 names is worthy of careful study. As we might expect, the fief of Tur- 

 chil is the most remarkable in this respect. ' Bruning ' at Wigginshall, 

 four brothers at Wolfhamcote, four franklins at Birdingbury, Wulfric at 

 Walcote, Wulfcytel at Napton, 'Leuiet' and Godwineat Willoughby, and 

 ' Hadulf ' at Binley, all continued to hold under him their own old 

 estates. Brihtric was still living, as before, on his land at Baddesley 

 Ensor. 



Of Turchil's other English tenants, some of whom held two and 

 even three manors, we cannot speak so positively, for they may or may 

 not have been related to the Englishmen entered as their predecessors ; 

 in any case they seem to have been eighteen in number. One might 

 have suggested that, on Turchil's fief, the prevalence of English tenants 

 was due, either to smaller men ' commending ' themselves to their 

 fellow-countryman in order, under his protection, to escape confiscation, 

 or to his selecting English tenants for the lands he had obtained. But 

 the occurrence of the same phenomenon on the fiefs of Norman lords 

 is fatal to this explanation. On that of the Count of Meulan, which 

 immediately precedes his own, we find a Hereward holding under him 

 three of his old manors, Waltheof holding two, and Merewine holding 

 one, while five of his under-tenants also have English names, one of 

 them holding in three places. One of them, Salo, installed at Bulking- 

 ton, was clearly, as Mr. Carter points out, the Salo who had lost his land 

 at Bramcote adjoining. Robert de Stafford, again, had seven under- 

 tenants bearing English names, of whom two at least held their old lands 

 under him, while William Fitz Corbucion, William Fitz Ansculf, and 

 Geoffrey ' de Wirce ' are responsible for ten, each of them having at least 

 one seated at his old home. The case of Geoffrey's fief is of special 

 interest, because after stating that his manor of Hopsford had formerly 

 been held freely by his English tenant Wulfric, the record goes on to 

 tell us that all his lands had belonged to Leofwine (of Newnham ?). 

 Wulfric, therefore, had but exchanged an English lord for a foreign 

 one ; he must formerly have held under Leofwine, as he did now under 

 Geoffrey. Whatever may have been the cause of the prevalence of 

 English tenants, it leads us to believe that in feudal times a goodly 

 number of the Warwickshire gentry were probably of native origin. 



It is singular, and in this connection appropriate, that while not a 

 single Warwickshire parish (except, perhaps, Brownsover) commemorates 

 in its name a Domesday baron or under-tenant of alien birth, Wootton 

 Wawen derives its appellation from Waga, a Warwickshire thegn who 

 held that manor and six others in days before the Conquest. 1 



The variety of classes and even of nationalities named in the 

 Warwickshire survey is exceptionally large. On Robert de Stafford's fief 

 we have seen there were Breton tenants, and nine Flemings (JlanJrenses) 



He was possibly the Wagen minister ' who attests a Worcestershire charter of Edward the Con- 

 fessor in Heming's Worcester Cartulary (ed. Hearne), p. 398. 



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