Page:VCH Bedfordshire 1.djvu/254

A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE that Walter the Fleming was also a successor of John. In Nigel's case, at any rate, we can connect this aggression with his tenure of land at Streatley adjoining Barton. Unlike Nigel 'de Albini,' whose lands had been held before the Con- quest by many and chiefly by small owners, Walter the Fleming held his fief mainly in Bedfordshire and wholly in Northamptonshire as suc- cessor to Leofnoth, a great thegn, whose ' men,' Ordric and Lant, are mentioned in the former county. But another thegn, Leofwine, had preceded him in some of his Bedfordshire estates. More than five columns of the survey are devoted to the fief of Hugh de Beauchamp, which is chiefly remarkable for its previous history. As I have shown in my introduction to the ' Domesday Survey of Hertfordshire,' 1 a great estate in Bedfordshire as well as in that county had belonged to an English thegn Anschil (or Aschil) ' of Ware,' 2 who must have been so named from having there his chief seat. This estate had passed to Ralf Tallebosc, who exchanged Ware itself (which is found at the time of the survey in the hands of Hugh de Grentmesnil) for certain lands in Bedfordshire. The six entries of lands held 'pro excambio de Warres ' (or ' Wares ') relate to this exchange. As is usually the case in Domesday, we only learn the history of the fief by incidental allusions. For instance, we read of Hugh's valuable manor of Stotfold, which had belonged to ' Aschil,' that it was rented at £30 a year at the time of Ralf Tallebosc's death. For further allusions we have to turn to the entries of other fiefs. Thus under that of the Bishop of Lincoln we find William de Caron complaining that his father had been disseised by Ralf Tallebosc of land which Hugh de Beauchamp was holding at the time of the survey ; under that of William de Warenne we find Hugh de Beauchamp claiming land at Tillbrook on the ground that his predecessor {antecessor) Ralf Tallebosc had been duly seised of it ; and a few lines lower down we find ' Aschil ' spoken of as Hugh's pre- decessor with no mention of Ralf s intermediate tenure. On the opposite page of Domesday Eudo dapifer complains that Ralf 'when he was sheriff' disseised him of some woodland at Sandy, which Hugh now holds. So also the wife of Hugh de Grentmesnil complains that Hugh de Beauchamp is holding land which Ralf had wrongfully annexed ' when he was sheriff.' There is thus abundant evidence to show that Hugh was the recog- nized successor of Ralf. But Ralf had left a widow, Azelina, who held some of his lands in dower. Of these some lay at Henlow, a ' berewick ' 1 V.C.H. Herts, i. 284. 2 I have there established the identity of ' Anschil' and 'Aschil,' but the Bedfordshire survey en- ables us to go further still. In it we read of Hugh's manor of Colmworth that his predecessor there was ' Achi a thegn of King Edward.' As his predecessor is regularly styled ' Aschil ' in the survey of this county, ' Achi ' would be taken for a different man. Yet on the previous page (2 1 3) we read of Hugh's estate at ' Estone ' that its soke always belonged to ' Culmeworde,' a manor of 'Aschil'; and of William de Warenne's estate there we similarly read that 'Aschil ' retained its soke in his manor of ' Colmeborde.' And both these estates had been held by ' men ' of ' Aschil.' We may therefore claim ' Achi ' as here yet another variant of Anschil or Aschil, and may therefore do so in the case of Hugh's manor of Haynes as in that of Colmworth. 20O