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 DOMESDAY SURVEY Forest of Dean and one estate at Little Taynton by the service of keeping ' the hay of Hereford.' ^' William's son Hugh accounted for the Herefordshire forests in 1 1 30,*' and in 1 1 66 ' Hugh son of William the forester of Hereford- shire in Wales ' made a return for the fief." He was doubtless also the Hugh ' Forester ' returned as holding one fee of the lord of Monmouth in 1 166. According to the same great return the Cormeilles fief, which was one of ten knights' fees, was reckoned to belong to our county, although its Gloucestershire manors are in Domesday more numerous. It is also from the survey of the latter county that we learn of Ansfrid, who held it in 1086, having received land in one place from Earl William Fitz Osbern (founder of the abbey at Cormeilles), and in two others from Walter de Laci, whose niece he had married." A later marriage connected the houses of Cormeilles and of Monmouth ; for, some half a century after Domesday, Richard de Cormeilles " and Robert his brother gave Tarrington church to the priory of Monmouth at the insti- gation of' their uncle ' Baderon of Monmouth." This Baderon was the son and heir of that William son of Baderon who is found in Domesday holding a fief which was similarly reckoned in 1166 to have its caput in our county ; that caput was Monmouth Castle, which Domesday treats as in Herefordshire. Except for two outlying manors in Hampshire, William's fief lay in Herefordshire and Gloucestershire, his lands in the latter county lying partly between the Severn and the Wye. His great estate at Monmouth is surveyed separately from his Herefordshire lands, apparently on the ground that he was only keeper {custos) of Monmouth Castle. But his own estate there, we find, was six times as valuable as the king's share in Monmouth, and he had already bestowed the chapel of Mon- mouth Castle, with its endowments, on the abbey of St. Florent de Saumur. To the records of that house we are indebted for much valuable information on himself, his house, and their lands.'' I have elsewhere shown " that William had succeeded in the Monmouth estate his father's brother Guihenoc on the latter assuming the cowl. Guihenoc and his brother Baderon came from Epiniac and La Boussac, close to Dol in Brittany, and among their Breton followers, as his name implies, was Salomon, who received a holding on the fief at Hope Mansel and Ruardean, athwart the Gloucestershire border. He and William his son were the first witnesses to a confirmation of the charter, by which Guihenoc and his nephew William gave their Monmouth endow- ment to the abbey of St. Florent.'" The fief of the lords of Monmouth was one of sufficient importance to be charged with the military service of fifteen knights." Just as the lord of Monmouth gripped the passage of the Wye at the point where it left the county, so the lord of Clifford commanded the impor- " This is proved by later eridence. The tenure is the subject of an Inq. p.m. in Cat. of Inj. Hen. Ill,, 9, but, as it is damaged, the fact has not been recognized. " Rot. Pip. 3 I Hen. I. " Ltber Niger. " In Herefordshire he was an under-tenant of Laci at Tarrington, where he held also in chief. " He was in possession of the fief in 1 141, when its over-lordship was granted by the Empress Maud to Miles, earl of Hereford. " See my Cal. of Doc. France, no. 1 139. " Ibid. pp. 406-14. " Studiei in Peerage and Family Hist. 1 20 et seq. " Cal. of Doc. France, 407. " The actual territory of Domesday ' Monmouth ' lay about the town in what is now Monmouthshire, but must have extended into Herefordshire at one point at least, for one of its lords gave to St. Florent the church of St. Ruald of Tregate, i.e. Llanrothal. 277