A HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE to the days of Eadgar. Theodoric had been settled in England in King Eadward's time, and he had held lands in various shires both under the King and under Earl Harold. He now did not scruple to accept the confiscated lands of Englishmen at the hands of William. 1 But I think we can go further and detect another goldsmith in the Grimbald who immediately precedes Theodoric, by identifying him with the only other tenant of his name in Domesday, Grimbald the Goldsmith, whose name is buried among those of the King's Wiltshire thegns, but who held there two manors in which his predecessors were those of Theodoric in Berks, namely Edward and Lane. We shall find among the thegns of Berkshire yet a third goldsmith, while a fourth, Leofwine, had formerly been attached to Abingdon Abbey and held land under it. The names grouped at the end of the survey are not separated, as they should have been, foreigners being placed with Englishmen under the heading of thegns (Taint). Aubrey the queen's chamberlain, for instance, is more correctly placed in Hampshire and Wiltshire among the * King's Serjeants.' In this county he follows an English chamber- lain, ./Elfwold, who is also found under the King's land as having obtained possession, apparently under Harold, of the royal manor of Pangbourne. Aubrey is in turn followed by another Englishman Herding, a former tenant of Queen Edith and probably one of her officers, for ' Hardingus reginas pincerna ' is a witness to a Waltham Abbey charter. Robert son of Rolf who figures lower down is in Wilt- shire entered separately as a tenant-in-chief. Of the English thegns at the time of the survey the greatest was
- Oda of Winchester,' whose holdings, with those of his brother, are
worked out in the Hampshire Domesday Introduction. 3 In this county his four manors had all belonged to other owners. He had also obtained an estate at Chaddleworth, but had given it, Domesday tells us, to the steward of Hugh de Port. His name is followed by that of jElfward the Goldsmith, who held at Shottesbrook the land which his father before him had held of Queen Edith. It is interesting to find that at least as late as 1167 his estate was known as * Shottesbrook of the goldsmiths.' 3 The few other English thegns are of no interest with one exception, of which I shall now speak. Berkshire affords an interesting case of an Englishman prospering under the Conqueror by acting as one of those King's reeves who were found useful by William as agents among his new subjects. ^Elfsige * of Faringdon ' is mentioned by Mr. Freeman as a clear instance of a man who held as a grant from King William an estate which had belonged to Earl Harold * ; but Domesday can be made to tell us more about him i Norm. Conq. iv. 41. 2 V.C.H. Hants, i. 427. > ' Sotesbroch aurifabrorum ' (Pipe Roll 13 Hen. II. [Pipe Roll Soc.], p. 10). ' Alwardus ' was prob- ably succeeded in his office (of goldsmith) and land by a son with the courtly name of William, for we read on the Pipe Roll of 1130 (p. 124) : ' Willelmus nlius Alwardi redd. comp. de. v marcis argenti pro terra et ministerio patris sui.' Norman Conquest, iv. 43. 292
