A HISTORY OF WORCESTERSHIRE 



beorge ' to adjudge to himself on the Abbot's death ;^ but that his 

 successor, abbot Walter, successfully reclaimed Hampton and half 

 Bengeworth for his house/ This brings us at once into close relation 

 with Domesday, which tells us of the five hides which formed the half 

 of Bengeworth that ' abbot Walter proved his right (to them) at " Ilde- 

 berga " in (a court of the) four shires ' ^(fo. 175*^). Bengeworth was a 

 ten-hide manor, and the story told by the monks of Worcester was that 

 bishop Brihtheah had given half of it (5 hides) to ' Atsere ' his kinsman 

 and chamberlain, who had been deprived of it, in his lifetime, by Urse 

 the dreaded sheriff. Alarmed by his fate, iErngrim, the tenant of the 

 other half, had invoked the protection of his powerful neighbour, ^Ethel- 

 wig abbot of Evesham, and transferred his ' service ' to him, only to be 

 expelled from his land by the unscrupulous abbot.* The Evesham 

 Chronicle similarly states that half the manor had been held by 'Erne- 

 grim,' and the other half given to 'Assere ' by the Bishop;^ and 

 Domesday itself records 'Azor' as the previous holder at Bengeworth 

 (fo. 174). Such concurrence of testimony as this deserves notice. The 

 net result, as Domesday shows (fos. 1 74-1 75*^), was that Urse retained 

 Azor's half of the manor (5 hides), while Evesham Abbey succeeded in 

 retaining Erngrim's half, though one of its five hides was secured by the 

 sheriff Urse, who thus held in all six hides there.* 



The next struggle was that of the bishop of Worcester to assert 

 his rights, as lord of Oswaldslow, over the lands at Hampton and Benge- 

 worth held by abbot iEthelwig. To this dispute Professor Freeman 

 rightly attached much importance.' He held that the great plea re- 



* ' Quasi lupus rapax concilia malignantium in loco qui dicitur Gildenebeorge jubet 

 congregari, quinque videlicet sciras, ibique plus per suam iniquam potentiam quam recto jure 

 ex triginta sex terris quas abbas Agelwius per dignam pecuniam ecclesiae acquisivit viginti octo 

 villas fecit eidem abjurari et suo iniquo dominio usurpari ' (Evesham Chronicle, p. 97). The 

 Worcester version was that Odo, on ^Ethelwig's death, obtained from his brother, the King, a 

 grant of all the lands which the Abbot had held and which did not belong to the abbey itself 

 (Heming's Cartulary, I. 273). There is a certain amount of evidence in Domesday (fos. 173, 

 176, 177^) that Odo did, somehow or other, succeed the abbot of Evesham in several 

 Worcestershire manors, and that, in one case at least, the abbot had lawfully bought a manor 

 from a thegn (fo. 177^'), as he is alleged by his monks to have done. 



* ' De hiis vero Walterus abbas Westune, Hamptune, et medietatem de Beningwrthe 

 (quam Ernegrim tenuit) revocavit, medietatem vero quam Episcopus dedit Assere occupavit 

 Urso ' (Evesham Cartulary, p. 97). The Evesham MS. Vesp. B. XXIV. fo. 28 contains a 

 writ of Odo consequent on the ' Gildenbeorge ' plea, admitting the abbey's right to certain 

 manors, and a confirmation of it by the King. But I look on them with some suspicion. 



^ I have ventured, in my translation of the text, to identify the place of meeting as the 

 ' Four shire stone ' still existing on the border of Evenlode. It is remarkable that, under 

 Warwickshire (fo. 2T,^h), we find bishop Wulfstan asserting that he had proved his right to 

 Alveston, Warwickshire (on which, however, see also Heming's Cartulary, II. 407, 418) 

 ' before Queen Matilda in the presence of four counties.' This is suggestive of another plea 

 held at the 'Four shire stone' (compare p. 307, note 3, below). 



* Heming's Cartulary, I. 269-270. 



* See note^ above. 



® This explanation is necessary, because, without it, the Domesday text would be 

 obscure. 



' ' The affairs of the church of Worcester, especially its disputes with the abbey of 

 Evesham, throw great light on both general and local history' {Norman ConqueH, V. 759). 



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