A HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE 



All the Berkshire possessions of bishops and religious houses are 

 dwarfed by those of Abingdon Abbey, which fill some four and a half 

 columns of the Domesday record. The chronicle of the house would 

 enable one to write a lengthy essay on these manors alone. Of other 

 old English houses the estates were but few. Amesbury retained its 

 lands, as did Glastonbury, though the latter had suffered by having to 

 enfeoff Norman knights at Ashbury. This was also the case with the 

 New Minster of Winchester, whose manor of Satwell was now held of 

 it, as were several in Hampshire, by a powerful Norman, Hugh de Port. 

 The Surrey house of Chertsey retained its estate at White Waltham 

 intact, as did Westminster Abbey the manor of Easthampstead, for 

 William was careful not to detract from the gifts of his predecessor, 

 Edward. With Harold it was different, and here, as in Essex, land 

 given to his great foundation at Waltham Abbey was forfeited and 

 transferred to the bishop of Durham. The abbeys of St. Albans and of 

 St. Mary's (the Nuns' Minster) at Winchester actually benefited by the 

 Conquest, for the former received from Nigel de Albini, a Bedfordshire 

 baron, a Berkshire manor at West Hendred, while the latter was given 

 Coleshill by Walter de Lacy, when his daughter took the veil, as St. 

 Peter's, Gloucester, received from him a manor when his son was 

 ' dedicated to the lord and St. Peter.' Ponz, another of the new comers, 

 had bestowed on Westminster Abbey land at Eaton (Hastings), for the 

 weal of his soul. 



The foreign monks who swarmed across the Channel in the wake 

 of William's banner had not, in this county, obtained much as yet, 

 although the whole of the manors held by the Count of Evreux a son- 

 in-law of Walter deLaci were destined to endow the house of Noyon. 1 

 The Conqueror's foundation of Battle Abbey received, appropriately 

 enough, a manor of the fallen Harold, and the Abbey of St. Pierre 

 sur-Dives two small estates. The Abbey of Preaux held of the Count of 

 Mortain his only Berkshire manor, but we learn elsewhere that the 

 price paid for it was the Norman vill of St. Clair, which it surrendered. 1 

 On the same house Hugh Fitz Baldric bestowed the tithe of his Berk- 

 shire lands at Shaw.' The foreign bishops also had, in Berkshire, 

 obtained little, even Geoffrey of Coutances receiving but a single 

 manor. 



The great extent of the King's demesne in this county at the 

 Survey left less than usual for division among his barons. The most 

 conspicuous figure is that of Henry de Ferrers, forefather of the earls of 

 Derby, the entries of whose manors fill two columns. Although his 

 immense fief extended into some fifteen counties, one would not expect 

 to find him a great landowner so far south as this. The fact is chiefly 

 accounted for by his receiving the possessions of Godric, sheriff of 

 Berkshire before the Conquest. But we also find among his predeces- 



1 Cal. Docs. France, p. 220. Some of the Domesday tenants-in-chief became founders of religious 

 houses, as Geoffrey de Mandeville (Hurley Priory) and Robert d'Ouilly (Wallingford Priory). 

 1 Ibid. p. 108. 



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