THE DOMESDAY SURVEY earl. There are interesting allusions to her tenure among the Kenil- worth Priory charters, from which we learn that she consented to its being granted to the priory after she had proved her right to it in the court of Henry I. 1 But a charter of that king speaks of his having him- self established, as against the Earl of Warwick, that the manor was held of him in ' almoin,' Domesday's own expression.* Of the other Warwickshire tenants-in-chief, Earl Roger (of Shrews- bury) had for his under-tenant in three five-hide manors Rainald (de Bailleul) whose holding, here as elsewhere, is afterwards found in the hands of the Fitz-Alans ; and Earl Hugh (of Chester), who had for his prede- cessor King Edward's Norman chamberlain Hugh, bestowed some land at Pillerton on the monks from St. Evroul whom Hugh de Grentmesnil had endowed there. Of this last Hugh, the seat of whose power was in Leicestershire, the fief passed with his other possessions to the Earls of Leicester, while that of Henry de Ferrers descended to his heirs the Earls of Derby. The next two tenants-in-chief, Roger de Ivry and Robert d'Oily, 3 are of interest for their alleged sworn brotherhood ; they cer- tainly appear at times in conjunction, as, for instance, at Stow, Bucks, which manor they held jointly of the Bishop of Lincoln. The question implied by Domesday as to Roger's tenure of Cubbington in this county should be compared with the entry on his Gloucestershire manor of Hasledon, which had similarly, we read (fo. 268), been held of the Bishop of Bayeux. Robert d'Ouilly was constable of Oxford and a great man in that county, but, although in Warwickshire he held in chief one manor only, he was, I think, its sheriff and the ' Robert ' who is alluded to as farming the king's manor of ' Cotes,' as a sheriff would. For the king's charter confirming the gift of Turchil of Arden to Abingdon Abbey is addressed to him in a way that implies he was sheriff of the county. 4 Robert de Stafford had in Staffordshire itself a fief so large that it dwarfed even his great estate in Warwickshire. Three tenants with Breton names, Brien, 6 Hervey, and Urfer, held of him in both counties, and to these we may add in Warwickshire Ludichel and Iwein. Robert Despenser, brother of Urse d'Abetot, is chiefly remarkable, in this county, for having at some period obtained possession of Tamworth. 8 Robert de Veci's possession of land in Warwickshire, as in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, is accounted for by his having been given the fief of a Lincolnshire thegn, ./Ethelric the son of Meriet, who appears to 1 ' concessione et assensu Luithe monialis que idem manerium per judicium curie Regis Henrici recuperavit' (Harl. MS. 3650, fo. i8d). a ' quod fuit Livithe monialis, quod ego deracionavi adversum Rogeri comitem de Warewic fuisse de elemosina mea quodque ipse Gaufridus (de Clintona) de eodem comite tenuit' (ibid. fo. 143).
- They derived their names from Ivry-la-Bataille (Eure) and Ouilly (Calvados).
4 Abingdon Chronicle, ii. 8. He was the tenant of Ditchford. General Wrottesley says he was the ancestor of the family of de Standon, the most important of the tenants of the Barony of Stafford, holding seven knight's fees of Robert de Stafford in Staffordshire, Lincolnshire and Warwickshire (Hittoty of the Family of Wnttesley, p. 7). In 1 1 66 Ditchford appears to have been held of his heir by Roger de ' Dicford ' (Red Book of the Exchequer, p. 265) as two-thirds of a knight's fee. Geoffrey de Mandevllle, p. 314. 279
