Page:VCH Sussex 1.djvu/440

 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX in his shipwreck on the Norman coast ; Lyminster was possibly con- nected with Swegen's downfall/ and Pevensey was the first scene in his murder of Biorn, which was accomplished at Bosham ; and the seizure by Harold of Steyning which the Confessor had granted to the abbey of Fecamp was one of the many excuses put forward by William to justify the invasion of which the tirst act saw the fall of Harold, Gurth and Leofwin on the field of Hastings. Altogether Sussex played a large part in the history of the house of Godwin, and if mainly the scene of their disasters was also the source of much of their wealth and influence. Earl Godwin is shown to have held in his own hands 348 hides in the important manors of Bosham, Singleton, Westbourne, Climping, Hurst- pierpoint, Laughton and Willingdon and elsewhere, besides 178 hides held of him by various tenants ; and some part of another 45 hides which are assigned to ' Godwin ' probably belonged to the earl. Harold^ was, as we should expect, the next largest landowner with 297 hides in Findon, Steyning, Patcham, Rodmell, Ripe, Crowhurst and other manors, and another 41 hides held of him in dilTerent places. Next comes the Countess Gida, Earl Godwin's wife, who held 123I hides including the manors of Harting, Washington, Trotton and Binderton. Earl Leofwin is only given his title in connection with a small holding in ' EUede ' in Hastings rape, but most if not all of the 70 hides attri- buted to ' Lewin ' in Sompting, Lancing, Street and elsewhere may be put to his share. Gurth is also only called Earl in connection with his manor (of 59 hides) of Washington, but also held 8 hides in Merston and 5 in ' Cumbe ' ; and Tostig held 6 hides in Fishbourne and half a hide belonging to Leofwin's manor of Sompting. Altogether the house of Godwin held over 1,100 hides, or more than a third of the county. How much of this was personal property and how much consisted of ' villae comitales ' it is unfortunately impossible to estimate. Mr. Round observes that the peculiar distribution of lands in Sussex by the Normans prevents our tracing, as in other counties, the English predecessors of the Domesday tenants by the succession to their lands. Of the lesser English landowners in Sussex Azor stands out prominently,^ his scattered estates ranging from West Dean and Tarring Neville to Greatham, and including such considerable manors as Kingston-Bucy (21 hides), Keymer (14 hides). Cocking and Wiston (12 hides each), and yielding a total of 146 hides. A man of wider fame and more historic importance was Alnod ' cild,' who is elsewhere called Alnod of Kent, and has been shown to be identical with Ethelnoth of Canterbury, one of the hostages whom King William took with him to Normandy in 1067.'' In Sussex he held the fifty-hide manor of Alciston and > It is not quite certain whether the abbess whom he abducted belonged to this place or to Leo- minster in Hereford, though the latter is more probable. 2 Mr. Round points out that the Sussex entries bring out acutely the difficulty caused in Domes- day by the entries both of Godwine and of Harold as holding T.R.E. ; for T.R.E. is taken to mean the time of King Edward's death, and Godwine predeceased the King. It is difficult to understand why Harold is not given as the former holder in all cases if he had succeeded his father. 3 It is, however, impossible to be certain that there was only one Azor. « V.C.H. Sun. i. 283. 370