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 A HISTORY OF ESSEX Boulogne the greatest lay baron in Hertfordshire as well as in Essex. But Essex was the chief seat of his power, and at Witham in this county was held the court of the ' Honour.' This fief, of which the wide extent is shown on the Domesday map, was composed partly of the lands of a number of English predecessors and partly of those which had been acquired, both under Edward the Confessor and in the earlier days of William, by Ingelric the priest, a favourite of both sovereigns and the founder of St. Martin-le-Grand. 1 The existence of this element in the fief accounts for the traces of another court held in connexion with the fief at that religious house. In the Essex Domesday there are found two mysterious allusions to the Count's ' 100 manors ' (mansiones) which have as yet defied explanation. But for the history of the county the feature of greatest interest on his fief is the relation it established between the barons and religious houses of the Boulonnais and this East-Saxon land. I may perhaps be allowed to quote what I have elsewhere said of 'Adelolf de Merc,' who is found holding of the Count in 1086 no fewer than eleven estates in Essex. Deeper than the counts themselves or than any other of their vassals, have Adelolf and his heirs stamped their name on the East-Saxon land. This younger branch of the vicomtes of Marck, near Calais, which was at that time in the Boulonnais, is commemorated in the parish of Marks Tey, as in the manor of Merks or Marks in Dunmow, which was held by Adelolf himself in 1086, by his heir Enguerrand de Merc in 1258, and by the same family in 1340. Mark Hall, in Latton, is another of the manors which take their names from this family, and was held by Adelolf, its founder, in 1086. His descendants increased and multiplied in the land : Fulc de Merc and M. de Merc attended the count's feudal court in Essex before H2O; Geoffrey and Enguerrand de Merc of Essex are found on the Pipe Roll of 1130 ; Henry and Simon de Merc are recorded as holding lands on the Boulogne fief in the days of John. 2 The seigneurs of Austruy, constables of the Boulonnais, held under their counts at Shopland and Chich (St. Osyth), and their tenants at Parndon derived their name from Wissant, the port of the Comte. Of its religious houses Rumilly-le-Comte obtained rent-charges on Fobbing and Shenfield, together with the churches of High Ongar, Stanford Rivers, Langenhoe, Little Laver, and apparently of Coggeshall ; and St. Wulmer de Samer received a rent-charge on Fobbing and tithes at Rivenhall. To anticipate a little further, the importance in Essex his- tory of the great Boulogne fief was shown when, forty years after the Domesday Survey, the heiress of the counts brought it in marriage to Stephen, afterwards king. When a great fief escheated to the king, it retained its corporate existence under the name of an ' Honour.' Essex affords other instances besides that of the Honour of Boulogne, and two of these may be dealt with together, because under Stephen they both came, by descent, to Henry of Essex, and in the early years of the next reign escheated, on his fall, to the Crown. These were known as the Honour of Rayleigh, which was held in 1086 by Suain of Essex, Henry's paternal ancestor, 1 See p. 341 above. * Studies in Peerage and Family History, pp. 156-7. 344