Page:VCH Bedfordshire 1.djvu/251

 THE DOMESDAY SURVEY dowment, entered as worth no less than £5 a year ; and it was poor compensation for this that ' Leuiet,' an English priest, had bequeathed to it since William's accession one virgate at Biddenham, to which Ralf Tallebosc had added three more, for the whole of this was only worth 1 3/. It held indeed of Countess Judith, seemingly as a fresh endowment, 3 hides at Harrowden, but even this was only worth 30J. If, as I have assumed above, ' the church of Bedford with its possessions,' which was held by Bishop Remi, was identical with the endowment (of the same value) of St. Paul's, which he had annexed, the alternative descrip- tion is worth noting. 1 The well-endowed church of Leighton (Buzzard), worth £4 a year, was also held by Remi, as it had been by his prede- cessor Bishop Wulfwi. Of the two royal manors, Luton and Houghton (Regis), the churches, with their appendant estates, were held by 'Wil- liam the Chamberlain.' In his erudite history of Luton church, 2 Mr. Cobbe has discussed the exact position of this ' William the Chamberlain,' contending that he was probably ' an ordained clergyman,' but there is nothing to show that this was so beyond his holding the churches of Luton and Houghton ; and it is proved, as Mr. Cobbe observed, by the Gesta Abbatum of St. Alban's, that a younger ' William the Chamberlain ' actually claimed to hold the church and its appendant estate of the Earl of Gloucester. The whole story is very curious, and illustrates the temptation presented by church endowments, 3 when they were so valuable as at Luton, where the six ploughlands of glebe were assessed at 5 hides. Mr. Cobbe arrived at the conclusion that this estate is now represented by Dallow manor in Luton. There can be no reasonable doubt that William the Chamberlain, who also held lands in capite at Battlesden, Potsgrove, and Totternhoe, was identical with the man of that name who held land, also in capite, at Hartwell, Bucks, and at Wincot, Gloucestershire, who was joint-fermor of a Crown manor in Cambridgeshire, and who held of the Bishop of London at Stepney and of the abbot of Westminster in Essex. Mr. Cobbe, it would seem, was not acquainted with the cartulary of Ramsey Abbey, which contains charters of considerable importance in connection with William the Chamberlain.' These show us a man of that name, probably the Domesday tenant's son, residing at Luton under Henry I. and restoring to Ramsey Abbey its estate at Pegsdon (in Shillington) in this county, of which the abbey was in full possession at the time of Domesday. They further establish his identity as William the Chamberlain ' of London,' which accounts for the appearance of a tenant so styled on the Earl of Gloucester's fief, Luton having been be- stowed on Robert, the first earl, by his father, Henry I. 1 The similarly double entry of his tenure of the church of Leighton makes the identity certain. 2 Luton Church, by Rev. Henry Cobbe (1899). 3 A good instance in point is found at Colchester, where the church of St. Peter's, which 'two priests ' had held before the Conquest, was endowed with a good estate. A quarter of this endowment, at the time of the Survey, was in the hands of ' Eudo Dapifer,' and the rest was claimed by Robert son of Ralf de Hastings. 4 Ed. Rolls Series, i. 142-+. 197