46 
PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 
191S 
in a Norman Castle, crowning this steep mound above the then 
great forest over the Severn, for more than two centuries 
flourished his descendants, until the dawn of the fourteenth 
century saw the extinction of the male line and the estates 
passing to Hugh le Dispenser, and then to Edward, Earl of 
Kent, by gift of the Crown. 1 
Thus, even the last Musard here may still have hunted the 
wolf on his property, perhaps roused it in Clymperwell and 
killed it in Honeycombe, or up near Winston. There were 
728 acres of woodland and but eight of meadow, and no mill. 
For as late as 1290 Roger Corbet, the King’s Receiver of 
Estate, had license to hunt this animal in Gloucestershire, 
wherever he might find it, and there was a wolf-hey and pit at 
neighbouring Brimpsfield of the famous Giffards, and another at 
Cobberley ; and the large Manor at Painswick 2 hard by still 
included miles of oak- and beech-land, out of which its own 
castellated Manor House that had descended from Pain Fitz- 
John and his De Laci wife to her heirs (and nephews), the 
De Monchensi family, 3 * peeped out commandingly beside still 
another small Norman Church. There were thus three castled 
Norman Manors (besides Bisley and Througham) up in this 
wild hunting region, where, by inch and by ell, the various 
monks of Gloucester, and the Cirencester and Llanthony Austin- 
Canons, were edging their ways to presently very 7 extensive 
possessions of field, and farm, and buck-holt, with an unerring, 
businesslike instinct. But Miserden kept the monasteries more 
at bay than did her neighbours. 
But though the Giffards, who over-lorded the entire Irmin 
Street with their fierce mvrmidons and with their gallows, at 
Brimpsfield, presently (to compound for their crimes) kept a 
small priory of French monks within that “ bailey,” and the 
1 It is perhaps well to recall at this point that Earl Harold’s Manor of Brimpsfield was given 
to Osbern Gitfard, who had aided the Conqueror with ships. Wyke (later, Painswick) was given 
to De Laci that had been Emesi’s and Green Hampstead, also Emesi’s, went to Hascoit Musard. 
Througham and Bisley were bestowed upon Hugh D’Avranches, Earl of Chester. That forms 
the main group of local Norman and Breton owners. 
2 20,600 acres; then (1086). 
3 The De Monchensis held Painswick onwards, until 1313, when it passed to Aymer de Valence 
and so to the Talbots, 
