A HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE 



Before passing from Benham we may note that it affords us one of 

 those rare cases in which we can trace the son and successor of a 

 Domesday tenant. ' Wigar ' appears among the thegns in the survey as 

 holding there a small estate, and, a generation later, in 1109 we find 

 Hugh the son of * Witgar de Bennaham ' bestowing his tithes on the 

 abbey and arranging to be buried there with his wife when they died. 1 

 Here is yet another instance of an English thegn giving his son a Norman 

 name. 



We will now turn to another source of loss and trouble for the 

 abbey. 



Domesday bears frequent witness to the disastrous effect for 

 religious houses of their leasing their manors for lives with the result 

 that, after the Conquest, the new comers who found themselves in the 

 shoes of the lessees refused to admit the reversion. The Abingdon 

 chronicler bitterly laments the losses thus incurred,' and the case of 

 Leckhampstead shows how difficult it was for an abbey to regain 

 possession of land which had been thus dealt with. According to the 

 cartulary this manor had been given, as ten hides, by King Edmund to 

 Eadric, one of his retainers in 943," and Eadric at his death left it to 

 the abbey. In the time of King Cnut (1017-1035) a certain Brihtmund 

 obtained a lease of it for three lives, of which his widow and his son 

 Brihtnoth were the second and third. But on Brihtnoth's death his 

 younger brother Brihtwine prevailed on abbot Siward (before 1043) to 

 extend the lease for his own life. 4 He subsequently claimed that 

 Siward had given him the land in inheritance, nor was it till the eve 

 of the Conquest that a later abbot, Ordric, compelled him, with the 

 help of Earl Harold, to disgorge the ' landboc ' which formed the title 

 deed to the estate. 5 This Brihtwine is the ' Bricstuin ' of whom Domes- 

 day records that he held of the abbot, * nee potuit recedere.' 



Another interesting example of the risk incurred by religious 

 houses in leasing out their lands is afforded by the case of Blacheman 

 the priest, who appears in Domesday as the former holder of three 

 manors of Abingdon Abbey, Sandford on Thames in Oxfordshire, and 

 Chilton and Leverton in Berkshire. A very wealthy man, he had 

 built a handsome church in honour of St. Andrew on Andresey island 

 close to the abbey, and the monks, influenced by his riches and his 

 persuasive eloquence, were induced to grant him the above manors on 

 lease 6 (adfirmani). After the Conquest he left England with Harold's 

 mother, Gytha, and his lands, forfeited by William, were only recovered 

 with great difficulty by the abbot. 7 It is significant that the survey 



1 Chron. Ab. ii. 145. 



3 ' mos illis diebus, futurum ad damnum non parvum, insoluerat ut, offerente quolibet auri vel 

 argenti copiam, trium aut quinque terra; portionem hidarum, sive villam integram, diversis abbatix locis 

 reciperet emptione, quodam subornatu id palliantes, quatinus trium vel duorum vita hominum inde 

 possidendi protenderetur possessio ' (i. 481). * 



3 i. 103-5. On p. 476 of that volume he is said to have been given it by Edwy in 958, but this may 

 have been a confirmation. * i. 457-9. 



5 i. 475. The short account of this proprietary action (as it may be termed) is of some interest 

 legally. Chron. Ab. i. 474, 484 ; ii. 283. ' Ibid. i. 484. 



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