A HISTORY OF ESSEX 



place-names. In Barstable Hundred, for instance, are two adjacent 

 parishes of which Morant wrote, with perfect confidence, as follows : 



North of Fange . . . are two contiguous parishes named Langdon. . . . The 

 common name of these two parishes is otherwise written in records Laingdon, Lain- 

 don, Laundon, Langenduna, Legniduna, and Leienduna. Langdon Hills is the most 

 southern of the two. By way of distinction from the other the word Hills is added. 

 . . . Langdon with Basildon is north of the other. By way of distinction from it, 

 it is called Langdon Clay (i. 246). 



Now, when we turn to Domesday, we find Suain of Essex 

 holding a five-hide manor entered as ' Langenduna ' ; and this manor, 

 which continued to be held in after times of his Honour of Rayleigh, 

 was demonstrably Langdon ' Hills.' ' But we also find in Domesday the 

 Bishop of London holding 9 hides at ' Legenduna ' and half a hide 

 at ' Leienduna.' These manors can, with equal certainty, be assigned to 

 Morant's ' Langdon Clay,' which is known to have been held by the 

 Bishop of London, and of which, as the Domesday forms would ob- 

 viously lead us to expect, the true name was Laindon, and not Langdon 

 at all. 2 How entirely distinct the names were is shown by the feudal 

 surveys, in which these places are regularly entered as ' Langedon ' and 

 ' Leyndon ' respectively in 1303, 1346 and I428. 3 Yet Morant, as we 

 have seen, believed Langdon to be the right name of both parishes, 

 while the Ordnance Survey of to-day has adopted the opposite alterna- 

 tive, and decided to assign to them both the name of Laindon ! 



Let us take another instance, also from Barstable Hundred. Not 

 far from Langdon and Laindon are the parishes of East and West 

 Horndon, two long strips of land lying side by side. In the same 

 Hundred, separated from them only by the breadth of Bulphan, lies 

 Horndon-on-the-Hill. We will deal first with the last of the three. The 

 Domesday holding of the Count of Boulogne at ' Horninduna ' was 

 here, and is the only occurrence of the place in Domesday according to 

 Morant (i. 216). It consisted of the manors of MalgrefFs 4 and Ardern 

 Hall. But the manor of Wythefeld, which is also there, was held, as 

 he knew, of the Honour of Rayleigh, and was clearly the ' Horninduna' 

 held by Suain in Domesday, which is wrongly assigned by Morant to 

 East Horndon (i. 2078). And there was also 'a manor or capital 

 messuage called Cantis,' which paid castle-guard to the Bishop of 

 London' (i. 219). This therefore was the 'Horninduna' assigned 



1 ' Honor de Reylege . . . Johannes de Langedone I feodum in Langedone in Essexa ' (Red Book 

 of the Exchequer, pp. 538, 739). 'John de Verejvho died in 1421 held the manor of Langdon of the 

 Honour of Raleigh by knight's service. He held also lands and tenements ... in the several parishes 

 of Leyndon J etc. (Morant, i. 250). 



2 The bishop had licence to enclose a wood there, as at ' Leyndon,' Ottober i, 1260, and obtained 

 view of frankpledge for his manor of ' Leyndon,' October 18, 1290 (gtA Report on Historical M SS. i. 45). 

 Morant himself cites (i. 248) the foundation (in 1329) of a chantry ' in this Langdon,' where the name 

 of the place and of its church is given as ' Leyndon.' 



3 Feudal Aids, ii. 133, 158, 217. They are similarly ' Langedon ' and 'Leindone' in the (printed) 

 Hundred Rolls under Edward I. And compare Ancient Deeds, A, 518. 



4 So named from the family of MalgrefFe, which long held it of his ' Honour ' (Red Book of the 

 Exchequer, pp. 501, 579 ; Feudal Aids, ii. 133, 158, 217, 440). In neither of these works is the place 

 identified as Horndon ' on the Hill.' 



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