Page:The Ancestor Number 1.djvu/244

192 This brings us to the Hundred Rolls, some thirty years later, and to the 'Monasticon' document. Here again we have Honington divided into three portions, and only three, of which one was held of the Earls of Chester and the other two of the 'Gaunt' fief. Of these two one was held by the Crevequer family throughout, as half a knight's fee, and their name is correctly given in the 'Monasticon' and the Hundred Rolls. The other (which is the portion of Honington with which alone we are concerned) was similarly held throughout, as a quarter of a knight's fee, by the family of Armenters or Ermenters. It is this last name which has been corrupted into 'Ermondeys' and which the daring of a pedigree-maker has eventually converted into 'Estmonte.' We have, happily, the highest evidence of all for the true name of the house which gave its land at Honington to Stixwold. The original charter of donation is preserved at the British Museum (Eg. Ch. 427), and by it the twelve bovates, which, the Testa de Nevill has shown us, were the holding of the Armenters family, are given by David 'de Arment(er)iis' to Stixwold. In the legend on the fine seal attached to this charter the name is given in bold letters as ARMENTIRS. The Museum authorities assign this Charter to about 1150, so that the donor may well be identical with that David who held no fewer than ten knights' fees on the 'Gaunt' fief (then