THE DOMESDAY BOOK 
the county. This compilation opens with the statement that king 
William duke of Normandy, the conqueror of England, gave all the 
land of the county of Cumbria to Ranulf Meschin ; and all the county 
of Chester to Geoffrey his brother ; and all the land of Coupland, be- 
tween the Duddon and Derwent, to William, another brother. As the 
authority of this manuscript has been accepted and repeated, not only 
colouring the statements of Kelham and Ellis, but troubling the whole 
stream of Cumbrian history, an inquiry into its origin may be desirable. 
It has been generally considered in recent years that we have in this 
document a monkish legend, of little or no authority, composed by the 
monks of the priory in whose register Dugdale found it. We cannot 
accept that view of its origin. No reason has been given to show its con- 
nection with Wetheral, and the historic statements in the body of the 
document have not even an indirect reference to the lands and endow- 
ments of that religious house. The bulk of the manuscript is concerned 
with the territorial succession of the lords of Allerdale and Coupland, 
those two great baronies which embraced nearly the whole of the sea- 
board on the western coast. The ‘Chronicon Cumbrie’ is but a maimed 
version of a similar document in the Register of the Priory of St. Bees.’ 
The statements of both manuscripts, with some textual differences, agree 
as far as they go; but in the later descents of the baronies, the St. Bees 
copy is much fuller in genealogical detail. Another manuscript of similar 
purport, which is just as explicit on William the Conqueror’s connection 
with Cumberland, has been preserved among the Miscellaneous Rolls 
of the Tower.’ It states that Ranulf Meschin came to England with 
William the Bastard, who created him earl of Karliol and gave him all 
the land from Rerecrosse on Staynmore as far as the river towards 
Scotland called Sulewaht, that is, the Solway, the true marches between 
England and Scotland. With this preface, the writer at once pro- 
ceeds to trace the history of the baronies in question, and confines 
his attention exclusively to their ownership, in which performance he 
does not display a wide divergence from the style and scope of the 
Wetheral and St. Bees compilations. On comparison of the three 
documents there cannot be two opinions, having regard to the internal 
evidence, that they had a common origin. If we turn toa great lawsuit’ 
1 Harleian MS. 434, ff. 73-6. 
2 Tower Miscellaneous Roll, No. +82 ; Bain, Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland, ii. 64. 
3 This suit furnishes a very interesting series of pleas. On the death of Aveline de Fortibus, widow 
of Edmund earl of Lancaster, the king’s brother, without heirs, which took place before 1275 (Caln- 
darium Genealgicum, i. 224), the Honor of Cockermouth was seized by the Crown, to the exclusion of 
the Lucy and Multon families. In 4 Edward I., John de Eston claimed the manors, but his title was 
waived in consideration of the gift of a ‘hundred pound land.’ The date of the document in the 
Tower Rolls, which carries the genealogy to the death of Aveline, synchronises with this royal bargain. 
The suit was revived in 1306 at the instance of Thomas de Multon and Thomas de Lucy as Aveline’s 
heirs, when the king pleaded the former settlement with Eston (4dérev. Placit. p. 2612). With these 
claimants the ‘Chronicon Cumbrie’ brings the baronial descent to a close. The St. Bees document 
carries the pedigree one generation further to the persons of Thomas de Multon of Egremont and 
Anthony de Lucy, as the representatives of William Fitz Duncan and Alice his wife, adding signifi- 
cantly gui nunc petit after each name. With this story the pedegradus entered on the rolls of the Court 
in 1316 agrees, the pedigree in each case ending with gui unc petit as in the St. Bees document 
(Abbrev. Placit. p. 323 : Rotuli Parliament. i. 347-9). The legal origin of this bundle of disturbing 
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