A HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE 



to the days of Eadgar. Theodoric had been settled in England in King Eadward's 

 time, and he had held lands in various shires both under the King and under Earl 

 Harold. He now did not scruple to accept the confiscated lands of Englishmen at the 

 hands of William. 1 



But I think we can go further and detect another goldsmith in the 

 Grimbald who immediately precedes Theodoric, by identifying him 

 with the only other tenant of his name in Domesday, Grimbald the 

 Goldsmith, whose name is buried among those of the King's Wiltshire 

 thegns, but who held there two manors in which his predecessors were 

 those of Theodoric in Berks, namely Edward and Lane. We shall find 

 among the thegns of Berkshire yet a third goldsmith, while a fourth, 

 Leofwine, had formerly been attached to Abingdon Abbey and held land 

 under it. 



The names grouped at the end of the survey are not separated, as 

 they should have been, foreigners being placed with Englishmen under 

 the heading of thegns (Taint). Aubrey the queen's chamberlain, for 

 instance, is more correctly placed in Hampshire and Wiltshire among 

 the * King's Serjeants.' In this county he follows an English chamber- 

 lain, ./Elfwold, who is also found under the King's land as having 

 obtained possession, apparently under Harold, of the royal manor of 

 Pangbourne. Aubrey is in turn followed by another Englishman 

 Herding, a former tenant of Queen Edith and probably one of her 

 officers, for ' Hardingus reginas pincerna ' is a witness to a Waltham 

 Abbey charter. Robert son of Rolf who figures lower down is in Wilt- 

 shire entered separately as a tenant-in-chief. 



Of the English thegns at the time of the survey the greatest was 

 * Oda of Winchester,' whose holdings, with those of his brother, are 

 worked out in the Hampshire Domesday Introduction. 3 In this county 

 his four manors had all belonged to other owners. He had also 

 obtained an estate at Chaddleworth, but had given it, Domesday tells 

 us, to the steward of Hugh de Port. His name is followed by that of 

 jElfward the Goldsmith, who held at Shottesbrook the land which his 

 father before him had held of Queen Edith. It is interesting to find 

 that at least as late as 1167 his estate was known as * Shottesbrook of 

 the goldsmiths.' 3 The few other English thegns are of no interest with 

 one exception, of which I shall now speak. 



Berkshire affords an interesting case of an Englishman prospering 

 under the Conqueror by acting as one of those King's reeves who were 

 found useful by William as agents among his new subjects. ^Elfsige * of 

 Faringdon ' is mentioned by Mr. Freeman as a clear instance of a man 

 who held as a grant from King William an estate which had belonged to 

 Earl Harold * ; but Domesday can be made to tell us more about him 



i Norm. Conq. iv. 41. 2 V.C.H. Hants, i. 427. 



> ' Sotesbroch aurifabrorum ' (Pipe Roll 13 Hen. II. [Pipe Roll Soc.], p. 10). ' Alwardus ' was prob- 

 ably succeeded in his office (of goldsmith) and land by a son with the courtly name of William, for 

 we read on the Pipe Roll of 1130 (p. 124) : ' Willelmus nlius Alwardi redd. comp. de. v marcis argenti 

 pro terra et ministerio patris sui.' 



Norman Conquest, iv. 43. 



292 



