Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/491

 1920 THE EARLY SHERIFFS OF NORFOLK 483 but, as I have shown, of his (first) wife Sibil ' de Caisneto'.^ Her nephew, John de ' Caisneto ', was the founder of the Augus- tinian priory of Cokesford (or Coxford) in Norfolk. She also joined her husband, Robert Fitz Walter, who founded the Benedictine house of Horsham St. Faith's, in the same county, in endowing it on her maritagium at Rudham.^ Their third son, William du Quesnai {de Caisneto), became eventually their heir. He was the third sheriff of his line and was founder of Sibton Abbey, a Cistercian house in Suffolk. We owe to this foundation a statement of the highest value for the true history of his family. Domina Sibilla soror lohannis de Cayneto, filia Radulphi de Cayneto, . . . raaritata fuit Roberto filio Walteri fundatori domus sanctae Fidis de Horsham, qui genuit ex ea filium nomine Rogerum et lohannem Vic[e- comitem] et Willelmum de Cayneto, fundatorem abbatie de Sybeton. Rogerus et Johannes Vic[ecomes] obierunt sine prole de se. Willelmus vero accepit uxorem et genuit ex ea tres filias, videlicet Margaretam, Clemenciam, et Saram.^ According to Dr. Jessopp, Robert Fitz Walter ' appears as sheriff in 1131, by the appendix to the 31st Deputy Keeper's Report '.^ This is an error ; for the list of sheriffs in that report was compiled from the Pipe Rolls and therefore does not extend beyond 1130. Moreover, Robert is shown by the roll of 1130 (p. 90) to have gone out of office at Michaelmas 1129. He lived on, however, into the reign of Stephen, as I shall show below, and, received a writ from that king directing him to restore seisin to St. Peter's, Gloucester, of the church of (Chipping) Norton, Oxon., which had been confirmed to that abbey, in 1126, by him and his second wife, Aveline. She had inherited lands in Oxford- shire from her mother Emmeline, wife of Ernulf de Hesdin,^ the original donor of the church. In the Horsham document Robert Fitz Walter and his wife Sibil (du Quesnai) spoke of Roger as if he were their eldest son, and the Sibton Abbey document mentions him as the eldest of their three sons and as dying childless. He seems to be last spoken of in 1141, when, with his younger brother, William, he joined Stephen's queen, who was then besieging the besiegers of Winches- ter. This we learn from a notable passage in the Gesta Stephani : Habuerat et rex proceres secreti sui privos, privataque familiaritate sibi coniunctiores, non quidem terris amplificatos, sed in castris tantum merentes, quorum digniores fuerunt Rogerius de Casneto et Willelmus ' Genealogist, xviii. 6-12. de Horsham. . . . Sciatis insuper quod predicta Sibilla eisdem concessit terram suam (de Rudham, quam pater suus dedit in liberum maritagium ' : Mon. Angl. iii. 635-7. ii2
 * ' Ego Robertus Walteri filius et uxor mea nomine Sibilla edificavimus ecclesiam
 * Mon. Angl. v. 559, from the Sibton Register among the Arundel MSS.
 * Op. cit. p. xxxiiin. * See Genealogist, xviii. 3.