Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/172

164 of some of the baronial sheriffs in shires which they had long held. Gilbert the knight, whose shrievalty in Surrey begins not later than 1107, in 1110 had also the counties of Cambridge and Huntingdon. Hugh of Leicester, the seneschal of Matilda, daughter of Earl Simon of Senliz, in her widowhood, is represented as sheriff and also as benefactor of the church at Daventry in Northamptonshire. Hugh almost certainly held the shrievalty of Northamptonshire before the death of Earl Simon in 1109, and apparently held that of Warwickshire by about 1108. His surname, moreover, indicates that he was best known as sheriff of a third county, which he is known to have held at some time after 1109 and before 1120. Indeed he may have been made sheriff of Leicester, through the influence of Robert of Meulan, not long after the disgrace of the Grantmesnils. Other baronial shrievalties had vanished, one in Wiltshire by 1107, and another in Hampshire by 1110. At the latter date William of Pont de l'Arche, already prominent in the king's curial service, held both counties. Since Hugh of Buckland is mentioned in the tenth year of the reign as sheriff of his eight shires, it seems, clear, therefore, that no less than seventeen shires were at that date under the control of six of the king's trusted agents, who were all new men.

This high centralization, obviously the result of unusual stress, was probably soon relaxed somewhat, for in the lifetime of Hugh of Buckland another sheriff is mentioned in Hertfordshire. Certainly this was the case after his death and that of Osbert, both of which seem to have occurred in 1115. Fewer counties were now likely to be controlled by one person, and a succession of sheriffs of lesser rank becomes traceable in various localities. In Oxfordshire alone do sheriffs of some rank seem to supersede obscure persons. Here Thomas of St. John and Richard de Monte,