Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/498

 490 THE EARLY SHERIFFS OF NORFOLK October explain an entry on the dorse of the schedule of combustions. This entry runs as follows : Episcopus Iu[dc]us recognovit coram Baronibus de Scaccario quod Willelmus de Norwico pers[ol ?]uerat Isaac ludaico dccc m. et in m. et dim. unde fuerat ei atturnatus de Debito quod debebat Regi. Under Norfolk and Suffolk (p. 17) we read on this roll : Willelmus de Caisneto redd. comp. de DC et quater xx et xi U. et n s. <le debito suo quod summatum est per omnes partes debiti sui de Rotulo Huni preteriti. In Soltis per breve Regis Ysaac ludeo cccc et lxxix li. Et debet cc et xii h. et ii s. This equation is of great importance. In the first place, William's alias is shown to have been familiar : my own view is that it is parallel with the cases in which the capital of a county was used as a surname by the holders of more or less hereditary shrievalties.* Mr. Morris, citing my Feudal England, observes that ' the sheriff was in so many known instances surnamed from the chief town of his shire that this usage has been assumed to be the rule'.^ He seems to have ignored William ' of Norwich ', possibly as being outside ' the early Norman period'. He writes that ' the title of Swein of Essex affords almost the only case of a different usage for this period '.^ I think, however, that this is only an apparent excep- tion, due to the fact that Essex had no county town. Chelms- ford was only an episcopal manor, and Colchester stood, practi- cally, in a corner of the county. The proof that William ' of Norwich ' was identical with William du Quesnai is also of value as enabling us to detect the latter under that name. Further, it supplies the evidence needed for dating one of the difficult retiu-ns for the great honour of Boulogne. In the cartae of 1166, on which were based the payments in 1168 (14 Henry II), he is once entered as William ' de Chaisneto de Norum ' ^ and once as William ' de Norwico ' simply.^ These entries, therefore, have to be added to those in which he appears under his surname of ' Caisnei ', ' Caisneto ', &c., as well as to those in which he occurs as ' William ' only, in the two cartae which I have printed above. In the year 1170 (16 Henry II) he is found as William ' de Caisneto ' in the interesting fragments of the returns to the • Stapleton, however, held that it was ' from his frequent residence at the castle of Norwich that William du Quesnai had also the surname De Norwiz ' (Magn. RoU Scacc. Norm. ii. cxvii. note m). ' Ante, xxxiiL 155. Cf. Oenealogiat, xviii. 5 n. 3. ^ Ihid. His son Robert and grandson Henry also used ESssex as a surname. ♦ Red Book, p. 410. « Ibid. p. 365.