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166
THE SHERIFFS AND THE
April

For almost two decades following 1110 the usual difficulties attending the study of the sheriff are very much increased. But despite the paucity of documents and the increasing use at the chancery of a form of writ which mentions sheriffs only by title and not by name, some rather striking data are attainable. If the long tenure and wide authority of Gilbert the knight are without parallel, it is more than a coincidence that William of Pont de l'Arche, who rose to high position through administrative service, governed in the fiscal year 1127–8 the same two shires[1] which were in his charge seventeen years before. Moreover the Radulf vicecomes, witness of a confirmation made to Abingdon by the count of Meulan in the eighth year of the reign, seems to be Ralph Basset, a vicinus and especial friend of this monastery[2] and a prominent official at the curia. It is quite possible that he is Ralph the sheriff of Warwickshire, predecessor of Geoffrey de Clinton, who at some time about 1125 witnessed a grant of the latter to Kenilworth, although in one of the charters of the same series the name of the sheriff of this county is Roger.[3] Hugh of Leicester in 1129, as in earlier years, was in possession of the shires of Northampton and Leicester.[4] He seems to be the same person as Hugh de Warelville who held these counties until Easter 1130.[5] He had for a time acted as sheriff of Lincolnshire.[6] Moreover in the Pipe Roll of 1130 Hugh de Warelville accounted for Sussex.[7] There is no doubt that Robert fitz Walter, a tenant-in-chief, was sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk for nearly, if not quite, fifteen years before 1129.[8] Odard of Bamborough, who held of the king a barony in his own county,[9] occupied the same position in Northumberland for as long a period,[10] probably retaining office until his death just before 1133. Warin, who may have been an

  1. ↑ In 1130 (Pipe Roll, p. 36) he still appears as sheriff of Hampshire, accounting for the old farm and for the auxilium civitatis of the third year before (p. 40; cf. Farrer, Itinerary, no. 551). The princely sums still due to the king in Wiltshire identify him as William the predecessor (Pipe Roll, p. 16) of Warin in that shrievalty (Farrer, Itinerary, nos. 350, 418), and link the earlier and later periods of his tenure there.
  2. ↑ Chron. Monast. de Abingdon, ii. 103; cf. pp. 105, 170, 188. He was in King Henry's service before 1103 (ibid.).
  3. ↑ Monasticon, vi. 221; Collections for a Hist. of Staffordshire (William Salt Arch. Soc.), ii. 195.
  4. ↑ Pipe Roll, p. 81.
  5. ↑ Ibid., p. 85.
  6. ↑ Ante, xxiii. 725, no. 2; Farrer, Itinerary, no. 464; Collections for a Hist. of Staffordshire, ii. 203. In 1130 Hugh paid a sum which he still owed (Pipe Roll, p. 81) pro separatione comitatus Lincolniae.
  7. ↑ The sheriff of this county at a time prior to December 1125 was William fitz Ang': Reg. de Bello (Exch. Misc. Books, Augmentation Office, no. 56, fo. 65 a).
  8. ↑ Sheriff in the period 1114–16 (Chron. Ramsey Abbey, p. 267); in office until Michaelmas 1129 (Pipe Roll, p. 90); mentioned at many intermediate points.
  9. ↑ Round, Ancient Charters, Pipe Roll Soc. Publications, x. 33.
  10. ↑ Sheriff in 1115 or 1116 (Farrer, Itinerary, no. 346) and also appearing in the Pipe Roll of 1130.
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