Other Bedfordshire barons, Hugh de Beauchamp and Nigel de Albini, had here outlying estates, while the Wiltshire sheriff, Edward of Salis- bury, had secured the three manors of ' Wulwene ' of Creslow, who, though described as 'a man of King Edward,' was an English lady whom he had succeeded in one Middlesex, two Wiltshire, and two Dorset manors.
The names of the Buckinghamshire barons remind us that the Conquest was not the work of the duke and his Normans alone. From Flanders on the east to Brittany on the west William's recruiting ground had stretched. The former was represented in this county by Gilbert of Ghent (de Gand), Walter the Fleming, and Winemar the Fleming, the latter by William and Ralf de Fougeres (' Felgeres '), Maino the Breton, Gozelin the Breton, Hervey, bearer of one of the favourite Breton names, and Hascoit Musard. Of these by far the largest land- owner was Maino the Breton, whose barony subsequently owed the service of fifteen knights and had Wolverton for its head.[1] But Hanslope, although the only holding of Winemar in this county, is of interest as the head of his little barony, [2] of which the rest lay in Northamptonshire.
Another barony of which the head was here, though it ex- tended into four adjoining counties, was that of Gilo, brother of Ansculf (de Picquigny) the late sheriff. We find it represented in 1 1 66 by that of Gilbert de Pinkeni, which was of fifteen knight's fees, and on which Gilo de ' Pinkeny,' a namesake of the Domesday baron, was a tenant.[3] Of the other holdings the most interesting, perhaps, is that of Farnham Royal, the solitary manor of Bertram de Verdon, for his heirs held it by a grand serjeanty which still inures at coronations.<refWollaston, Coronation Claims, pp. 136-44. ></ref>
Some of the smaller men are of interest for their scattered posses- sion. William the son of Constantius, for instance, had one manor in Buckinghamshire and one in Essex ; William ' filius Manne ' had single manors in Oxfordshire and Hampshire[4] as well as in this county, be- sides being an under-tenant of William de Braose, in Sussex. William the chamberlain (of London), who was chiefly associated with Bedfordshire, had one manor here, two in Gloucestershire, and a vineyard in Middle- sex, and seems to have been an under-tenant as well. ' Martin ' was probably the bearer of that uncommon name who held four manors far away in Lincolnshire ; but there is not even a common tenure by an English predecessor to account for his lands lying thus far apart. It is difficult in this county, as it often is in Domesday, to dis- tinguish the smaller barons, who held by military service, from the king's officers or ' Serjeants.' We may, for instance, suspect that Hervey 'legatus 'who was, I suggest, an interpreter belonged to the latter class, although he is entered immediately before an undoubted baron,
- ↑ Stoke Hammond owes its name to his descendent Hamon son of Meinfelin, who held this barony in 1166.
- ↑ Red Book of the Exchequer, p. 313.
- ↑ Ibid. p. 317.
- ↑ He had there succeeded an ^Elfric who was possibly his Buckinghamshire predecessor, King Edward's chamberlain ; and it is added that he obtained the land with his wife.
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