Page:VCH Suffolk 1.djvu/478

 A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK had been gathered into his fief, and he held much land in demesne. At Rushmere Walter of Douai, who ' made forfeiture,' seems to have been a tenant of Montfort ; '" at Thorney there was a dispute over a small estate of crown land mortgaged by Toli the Sheriff to Ralph the Staller, which had come to Hugh after Earl Ralph's forfeiture, and had been granted by him to Roger de Candos.'^^ At Dagworth Hugh had received by exchange an estate which had belonged to Breme, a freeman who was killed at the battle of Hastings {in hello hastingensi) .^^ Geoffrey de Mandeville belongs specially to Essex, where his descendants ruled as earls. His antecessor in Suffolk, as in Essex, was Ansgar or Esgar the Staller,^ whom he succeeded at Holton and Raydon ; he held also the lands of Witgar, Haldein, and other Englishmen, thegns and freemen of the Abbot of Ely, King Edward, Stigand, Ralph the Staller, and Edric of Laxfield. William son of Sahala de Bouville was his principal under-tenant. Ralph Baignard or Baynard, Sheriff of Essex, succeeded Ailad or Ailith, a Saxon freewoman, in the important manors of Kedington and Shimpling. She was also his predecessor in Essex and Norfolk. His other antecessores in Suffolk were Godwin the Thegn and Toret or Tored, with the freeman Alwin and the freewoman Elflet.^^^ Ralph was connected with London through 'Baynard's Castle,' to which, under his 13th-century representatives, the Fitz Walters, his Suffolk manors of Shimpling and Poslingworth seem to have rendered castle-ward.^*" The mention in the Ely placitum of Rotbertus homo Bainardi in Ralph's holding of Reydon makes it probable that ' Bainard' was the Christian name of the father of the Domesday tenant in chief.'" Ranulf Peverel was the successor in Suffolk and in Essex of Siward or Seward of Maldon, a great thegn, and in Suffolk, Essex, and Norfolk of Ketel, a thegn of King Edward, while ' Saxo ' is frequently referred to as his ante- cessor in Suffolk ; Garin, or Warin, his under-tenant at Glemsford, held land from him in Norfolk, which in the 14th century was still in the Peverel family.'*^ Of those tenants-in-chief who held estates in all the three eastern counties, we may also notice Robert Grenon, the successor of Harold's thegn and house-carl Scapi or Scalpi, Peter of Valognes, Sheriff of Essex and of Hertfordshire, who married the sister of Eudo Dapifer,'** and in Suffolk succeeded Alestan the thegn and Alti and Ketel, liberi homines teigni, and Roger ' de Ramis ' or ' de Raimes,' whose fief included lands held before the Conquest by freemen commended to Earl Algar, Edric of Laxfield, Gurth, Stigand, and Ranulf Peverel's predecessor Saxo.'" The story of the division of the lands of the Englishman ' Brictmar,' a thegn, as we learn from the Essex Survey, and the antecessor of Ranulf brother of Ilger and of Ralph »" Dom. Bk. 408^.; Freeman, Norm. Conq. v (ist ed.), 800 ; V.C.H. Essex, i, 350. "• Dom. Bk. 4093 ; cf. above, p. 382. "' Ibid. 409^. "^ Ibid. 41 1 et seq.; V.C.H. Essex,, 343. 'The Honour of Ansgar' is mentioned in Dom. Bk. 4123. "' Dom. Bk. 4133 et seq.; V.C.H. Essex,, 346, 347 ; V.C.H. Norf. ii, 20. "" Rot. Hund. (Rec. Com.), ii, 142-6 ; ' baronia Castelli Baynard,' 150^, ijia ; ' honor Castri Baynard,' 171^, I73'»> '74^; 'feodum Bainnard.' Some of Ralph's Essex manors subsequently owed castle-ward to Baynard's Castle ; V.C.H. Essex,, 346, 347. "' Round, Feud. Engl. 461 ; Inq. Co. Camb. (ed. Hamilton), 195. '" Dom. Bk. 4153 et seq ; V.C.H. Norf. ii, 20 ; V.C.H. Essex, i, 346. '^» Dom. Bk. 4193 et seq. ; V.C.H. Essex, i, 347, 349, 352 ; V.C.H. Norf. ii, 21. 400
 * " Round, Geoffrey de Mandeville, 399 ; cf. Dom. Bk. 337^.