PLYMPTON CASTLE. 263 
to have been a grant by the king of a district in which the grantee 
might exercise all the authority, and possess absolutely all the 
rights and advantages, which the king himself possessed therein. 
Many of these liberties were held by the Church, others had been 
granted to the great thegns and gesiths. 
Such a liberty was probably Plympton. Held by a thegn before 
the Conquest, it fell into the hands of William after that event, 
and was held by him and his immediate successors as crown land. 
When such a liberty became vested in the sovereign it retained 
its separate existence, free from any exterior jurisdiction. As in 
the cases mentioned. by Mr. Stubbs,* in his Constitutional History 
of England, such estates were either set apart as a provision for the 
king’s ministers, or held by the king himself, the rent being col- 
lected by the Royal Exchequer, and they were known by the name 
of Honours. 
Every Honour had a capital seat. That seat was called Caput 
Honoris, or Baronice, and it was commonly a castle. t 
Among the knights to whom the Conqueror confided the care of 
Exeter after its capture, in 1068, and by whom the erection of the 
castle projected by him was to be superintended, was one who 
had accompanied William from Normandy, fought with him at 
Hastings, and during the efforts made to establish his new king- 
dom had been his trusty soldier and well-tried friend. 
This was Baldwin of Moeles, de Molines, or de Sap, son of 
Gilbert Earl of Ewe, whose father was Godfrey, also Earl of Ewe 
(Eu) or Brion, a natural son of Richard I., Duke of Normandy, 
grandfather of William. But besides this relationship, there was 
another tie. It is said, and with some appearance of truth, that 
Baldwin had married Albreda, William’s niece, and had in other 
ways than as a warrior and at the.council, showed his willingness 
to assist the fortunes of his ambitious relative, and that the 
marriage of Matilda of Flanders with William was in a great 
measure brought about by him. 
It was therefore but natural that William should amply reward 
one who had thus served him so well and so long, and extensive 
* Stubbs, “ Const. Hist.,” vol. i. p. 401. 
+ Madox, “ Bar. Ang.,”’ p.17. Madox says that an Honour was the fee of 
an earl or baron, and that it must at some time have been such; and he seems 
to imply that it took its name from being, or having been, vested in an earl. 
s 2 
