A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE 



western edge of the county, covering a barren district which is not 

 described in Domesday and which William Peverel significantly calls his 

 ' demesne pastures in the Peak.' Among the obscure places mentioned it 

 is interesting to meet with Buxton, which here appears (as ' Buchestanes') 

 for the first time in any record. It is not possible to identify William 

 Peverel's undertenants in Domesday among the benefactors to Lenton, 

 as has been attempted above with those of Henry de Ferrers in the case 

 of Tutbury, partly no doubt because Lenton Priory was the later founda- 

 tion of the two, but partly also because the grants to Lenton were made 

 out of lands which had belonged to the king at the time of Domesday and 

 of which the immediate holders are not specified. 



On the next folio of the Survey are entered the Derbyshire estates of 

 Walter de Aincurt, and Geoffrey Alselin, each occupying rather more than 

 half a column of the record. With the exception of Brampton and 

 Wadshelf, all Walter de Aincurt's land in this county had belonged to a 

 certain Suain ' cilt.' This is noteworthy, for in the account of Derby 

 borough ' Stori ' appears to be regarded as the normal predecessor of 

 Walter de Aincurt. He certainly, however, does not appear as such in the 

 actual Survey, the name occurring only once in Derbyshire, at Spondon, 

 on the fief of Henry de Ferrers. A Stori appears in Nottinghamshire 

 as the predecessor of the count of Mortain in nearly all his manors, and 

 the same name occurs among those who had exercised soc and sac in 

 Lincolnshire before the Conquest. At Lincoln itself Stori had held a 

 messuage which had passed to the Countess Judith, and an * Estori ' had 

 preceded her at ' Hecham ' in the same county. A Bedfordshire Stori 

 had been the ' man ' of Earl Tostig, but there is no evidence to connect 

 him with his northern namesake, nor indeed to connect the latter with 

 Walter de Aincurt. This case, therefore, it would seem, must for the 

 present remain unexplained. A Suain or Suen, who is once described as 

 ' cilt,' had several times preceded Walter de Aincurt in Derbyshire. It 

 is curious that a person of the same name appears in Lancashire seventy 

 years after Domesday, for among the signatures to the foundation charter 

 of Penworthan Priory we find that of ' Sweni child.' 1 The account of 

 Brampton and Wadshelf is of interest for the statement that 'Walter 

 vouches the king as warrantor of this land (protector) and Henry de Ferrers 

 as having given him seizin (liberator),' 3 one of the early instances in 

 Domesday of the technical practice of * vouching to warranty ' which is so 

 common in mediaeval transfers of land. As we might expect in the case 

 of a later acquisition, Walter's English predecessor in this manor was not 

 the usual Suain cilt, but an otherwise unknown man called Wade. It may 

 be well to notice here that Walter de Aincurt was the only landowner 

 in the county whose estates, taken as a whole, had risen in value since the 

 Conquest. His six manors had risen from 12 I 5 J - 4^- to 1 9 5 s - 4^- 

 This advance, however, is more apparent than real, since Morton, 



1 Dugdale, Man. iii. 419, and Farrer, Lancashire Pipe Rolls, 322-5, where the charter is dated 

 1153-1160. 



8 ' De ista terra advocat Walterus regem ad protectorem et Henricum de Ferraris ad liberatorem.' 



304 



