THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



been one ; at some there was ' half a mill.' A single case will explain 

 the matter. 



Under Rivenhall we read (fo. 27) that there was ' then one mill, 

 (but) now a half ; and that ' Richard de Sachevilla has taken away a 

 moiety of the mill.' What was Richard doing at Rivenhall ? We 

 know him only, in Domesday, as holding Aspenden, Herts, under Eudo 

 Dapifer. 1 If we follow the clue thus given us and look for a manor in 

 this neighbourhood held by Eudo, we find that he held Great Braxted, 

 divided only by the stream from Rivenhall, and that his tenant there was 

 'Richard' (fo. 49). We find, moreover, that on this manor there was 

 ' now half a mill ' ; and a charter of donation to Eudo's abbey enables 

 us to clinch the matter. For by this charter William 'de Sakevilla' gave 

 a rent of five shillings in Braxted from ' Rivenhall mill.' * We thus 

 learn that Eudo's tenant, in 1086, at Braxted, was Richard de Sachevilla, 

 and that he had annexed a moiety of the mill which still stands on the 

 stream between Rivenhall and Braxted. The whole of the mill had be- 

 longed to Rivenhall ; but thenceforth each of the manors possessed 

 ' half a mill.' A common but obscure Domesday phrase is thus at once 

 explained. 



The above gift was confirmed by a charter of Richard de Anesti 

 as nephew and heir to William ; and this enables us, for the first time, 

 to trace the origin in England of the noble house of Sackville. It has 

 long been known that Richard de ' Anesti,' whose seat was at Anstey, 

 Herts, succeeded an uncle, William de Sackville, but the parentage of 

 this William has remained in doubt. Mr. Chester Waters, who claimed 

 to have ' corrected,' with the aid of the charters of St. John's, Colchester, 

 the pedigree of the Essex Sackvilles, made him the son of another 

 William, of whom he wrote : 



William de Sackville and his younger brother Robert were the sons of Herbrand, 

 a noble Norman knight, and came to England in the reign of Henry I. in the train of 

 Stephen de Blois, who rewarded their services by lands in Essex and Suffolk held of 

 his honour of Eye.* 



But the evidence I have now given enables us to trace the settlement of 

 the Sackvilles back to the time of Domesday. As Great Braxted 

 descended by marriage from Sackville to Anesti and thence to Mont- 

 chensy, there can be no question that these houses were the heirs of 

 Richard de Sackville. It is of much interest to find that Richard held 

 under Eudo, for Secqueville-en-Bessin, from which he must have come, 

 was only some seven miles, as the crow flies, from Eudo's home at 

 Ryes.* 



1 This is one of the entries omitted in Ellis' Index (Introduction to Domesday, ii. 385). 



* Cartulary of St. John's Abbey, Colchester (Roxburghe Club), pp. 163-5. 



* Chesters of Chic he ley, p. 191. See also the 'corrected pedigree' of the Essex Sackvilles on 

 p. 200, in which Richard of Braxted finds no place. 



* The settlement of the Sackvilles at Mount Bures (see p. 290 above) and West Bergholt (' Berg- 

 holt Sackville ') was no doubt somewhat later and was quite distinct. These manors were held by 

 Roger of Poitou in Domesday, and the fact that Roger's fief, as well as the Honour of Eye, was eventu- 

 ally granted to Count Stephen seems to have led to the two being confused (see preceding note). 



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