A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE 



Here the first point to be noted is the danger of inferring that all 

 the men who bear the same Christian name are identical. 1 In this short list 

 we find three distinct bearers of the name Robert. In Earl Robert's 

 charter we also find two Englishmen appearing as benefactors of Tutbury : 

 ' Chetel ' (Ketel) gave the customary two-thirds of his demesne tithes in 

 Sturston, and 'Ulsius' (Wulfsige ?), the same in Twyford and Stenson. 

 In neither of these cases is the immediate holder of the manor mentioned 

 in Domesday, and we must add them to our list of Englishmen who 

 weathered the Conquest in Derbyshire. But the list has other features of 

 note. It is interesting to see that the undistinguished Nigel who held 

 Catton of Henry de Ferrers was so important a person as Nigel de Albini, 

 the lord of Cainhoe in Bedfordshire and the son in law of his overlord. 

 He also seems to have held part of Awstrey in Warwickshire of 

 Henry de Ferrers, and his tenure of Catton illustrates the process by 

 which one tenant in chief often held of another. This is also curiously 

 shown in the case of Henry de Ferrers himself. Vast as his possessions 

 were he did not disdain to hold of the abbey of Burton the latter's 

 portion of Ticknall at a rent of i os. yearly. 2 As the ' valet ' of this part 

 of Ticknall was IQS. it is interesting to find this sum identical with that 

 actually received by the abbey for this estate. The case of Nigel 

 de Albini given above also illustrates in a striking way the possibility 

 of confusing different bearers of the same name. Nigel is not a very 

 common name in Domesday, and yet the Nigel who is entered in 

 the Leicestershire survey as the undertenant of Henry de Ferrers at 

 Linton, which is only distant some four miles from Catton, was not 

 Nigel de Albini but Nigel de Stafford, an important tenant in chief 

 in the south of Derbyshire where he was lord of Drakelow. 8 



One of Henry de Ferrers' undertenants can, as it happens, be 

 proved to be the ancestor in the male line of a still existing family. This 

 is the man who appears in the Survey with the strange name of Saswalo, 

 which in the Tutbury Register is reduced to Sewallus. He held of 

 Henry de Ferrers in several counties ; in Derbyshire his estate consisted of 

 Hatton, Hoon, and Etwall. He has been ascertained to be the ancestor of 

 the Shirley family, and his position is discussed in the Victoria History of 

 Warwickshire, vol. i. 2812. 



The statement under the manors ofMarston on Dove andDoveridge 

 that ' the monks hold (them) of Henry ' deserves notice because it is the 

 earliest record of the existence of Tutbury Priory. The foundation 

 charter of the latter, printed in the Monasticon* purports to have been 



1 This has been illustrated by Mr. Round in the case of the knights of Peterborough (Feudal England, 

 138), and he has shown what error has resulted from confusing Henry's undertenants Nigel de 

 Albini and Nigel de Stafford. 



8 This appears from a very interesting grant made by Abbot Geoffrey de Malaterra to Robert de 

 Ferrers the first Earl of Derby. He is to hold Ticknall ' quam tenuit pater suus,' paying los. yearly at 

 Martinmas, and also 'debet diligere et manutenere nos et ecclesiam nostram et per se et per suos sicut 

 amicus et tutor ipsius ecclesiae.' Burton Chartul, (Salt Soc.), i. 32. Doubtless the monks found 

 it advisable to enlist in their behalf the greatest landowner in Derbyshire. 



3 See Mr. Round's paper on the origin of the Shirleys and of the Gresleys in Derbyshire Arch. 

 'Journal (1905). It may be noted that Mr. F. Madan, ' The Gresleys of Dtakelowe? 182, wrongly 

 includes Catton among the original possessions of the Gresleys. * iii. 391. 



302 



