Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/105

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1920 THE TWELFTH CENTURY 97 of the porters' rate of wages, and this and the manner in which they are charged suggest that they constitute a pension. There is nothing to show that Engelram was doing the ordinary work of a porter or janitor, though it is possible that they were helping in the administration of the honour. See Pipe Roll 22 Hen. II, pp. 76, 89. So these entries do not prove ' the payment of porters' wages ' (p. 351). Again, towards the close of the reign the honours of Eye and Lancaster were in the king's hand. A certain Engelram, described either as janitor or porter, received an annual payment of about five pounds from Eye and twenty from Lancaster, and this was charged every year upon the same manor. Roger de Sancto Albino is associated with Engelram, but neither of them accounts for the issue of the honour. If these payments, so much in excess of the normal stipend of a porter, &c. (p. 354). There is error in both these passages ; the £40 of the first should be £20, and ' about five pounds ' in the second should be £10 6s. M. Of the two manors named, Sedgbrook and Croxton Kyriel, both lay in Leicestershire, although belonging feudally to the Honours of Eye and of Lancaster.^ As for Enguerrand, his style of ' porter ' was derived from the king's castle of Lions-la-foret, Normandy, according to Stapleton ; ^ he was f ermor of Bray in 1 1 80 and had charge of the castle of Beauvoir-en-Lions, and was a benefactor to the abbey of Mortemer-en-Lions.^ In Birch's Margam Abbey (pp. 64-5) reference is made to two Harleian charters (75 C. 44, 45 *) which are grants, at Roath near Cardiff, by ' Adam, son of Roger the Porter of Cardiff ', to the monks of Margam. To one of these ' there is an interesting seal of office attached, bearing a dexter hand and arm, grasping a key, symbolical of Porter's duties '. There is also mention of Thomas, his son, and in a later charter we read of ' Rogerus filius Roberti Cusin portarii de Kardif ', confirming the grant of land by Adam the Porter, his uncle, I cannot understand Mr. Lapsley's difficulty in distinguishing the ostiarius from the ianitor or portarius (pp. 353-4, 356). Surely the ' porter ' who kept the gate (porta) is never confused with the ' usher ' {huissier) wKo kept the door of a chamber. Indeed, he refers for the latter (p. 354), to my Kings Serjeants, pp. 98-112. The ushership of the exchequer is a well-known office, though its connexion with the tenure of land is by no means clear. J. H. Round.

  • See, for my identification of these lands and of 'Engerannus', M88. of the Duke

of RuUand (Hist. MSS. Comm.), iv. 174, 175, 177.

  • Magn. Rot. Scacc. Norm. vol. i, pp. ex, cxi, cxii, cxiv, ccviii.
  • See also Powicke, op. cit., pp. 105, 277.
  • Circ. 1200 (Index to Charters and Soils in the British Museum, i. 619).

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