Page:VCH Bedfordshire 1.djvu/250

A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE ting, Newton Bromshold, Rushden, Melchbourne, Yelden, Shelton, Dean and Riseley. From the Northampton Survey we learn that the bishop claimed as Burred's successor the ' homage ' of William Peverel's sokemen, at Rushden, Irchester and Raunds (fo. 225b), together with some land at Podington (in Bedfordshire) which had been held by 'two "men" of Burred' (fo. 229). The account of these lands illustrates alike the position of a great English landowner, with thegns and soke- men under him, on the eve of the Norman Conquest, and the system by which a Norman magnate was placed in the shoes of his English prede- cessor, all whose rights he thereby acquired. Two of his Bedfordshire estates, however, had come to the bishop in another way. They are alleged to have been held by him ' pro Excambio de Bledone,' a phrase which there is nothing to explain, but which recurs in Buckinghamshire, where two estates are similarly alleged to be held ' de Excambio pro Bledone ' (fo. 145b). It is clear that the place spoken of must be Bleadon, Somerset, although in the survey of that county there is nothing to connect it with the bishop. He must, however, have disgorged it in exchange for these lands in Beds and Bucks, such incidental mention of changes being found elsewhere in Domesday. 1 It can hardly be said that the bishop left any mark on the county, save through his tenant Geoffrey de ' Traillgi ' — who doubt- less derived his name from Trelly, a few miles to the south of Cou- tances — with whom originated the Bedfordshire family and ' barony ' of Trailly. The fief of the Bishop of Bayeux was soon forfeited to the Crown, and is only remarkable in this county for two cases of subinfeudation, that is, of an under-tenant enfeoffing a man under him. Ansgot of Rochester and Herbert son of Ivo, who held here of the bishop, were considerable tenants of his in Kent, the sphere of his power. The Bishop of Lincoln, in whose diocese the county then lay, had only succeeded to a small estate in his official capacity, the others in his possession having previously been held by English owners, now for- feited. Of the English religious houses some had lost by the Conquest, Harold's foundation at Waltham in honour of the Holy Cross being despoiled, here as in Essex, in favour of a Norman prelate, the Bishop of Durham. Ramsey Abbey complained bitterly that the valuable manor of Clapham belonged to the endowment of its monks, a claim which its neighbours endorsed, though Miles Crispin had possession at the time of the Survey. Probably, as happened in other cases, Miles had obtained it as successor to the Englishman, Brihtric by name, who had held it, not in his own right, but as a tenant of the abbey. At Bedford itself St. Paul's, a house of secular canons, had lost more than it gained. The Bishop of Lincoln had robbed it of its local en- 1 In this county we shall see below Ralf Tallebosc had received lands in exchange for Ware in Hertfordshire, and William Spech held two manors in exchange for ' Totingedone.' 196