given to Stixwold a hundred years before, by Lucy mother of Ranulf Earl of Chester, while the other four and a half were held of Gilbert de Gaunt, and had been given to Stixwold by his under tenants Alexander de Crevequer and Geoffrey de 'Ermondeys,' the latter's holding being the smaller of the two. The narrative is obviously loose in details, for Lucy had lived and made her gift considerably more than a century before; but the division of Honington into three parts is right and is essential to remember.
Honington, which lies a few miles north-east of Grantham, is a place of which the early history presents no difficulty. Its whole assessment was twelve carucates, when we meet with it in Domesday Book, this being in the Danish district the typical assessment of a vill. We find it, in 1086, divided into two unequal portions, of which the larger was held by Ivo Taillebois, and the smaller by Gilbert de Gand. At the time of the great Inquest of 1212[1] these two portions were respectively held by their successors, the Earl of Chester and Gilbert de 'Gaunt.' The former's fee is returned as seven and a half carucates and the latter's as four and a half, thus accounting between them (as in the 'Monasticon' narrative) for the whole twelve carucates.[2] But Gilbert had divided his own share between two under-tenants, namely, Henry de 'Armenters,' who held of him twelve bovates (one and a half carucates) as a quarter of a knight's fee, and Alexander de Crevequer, who held of him twice that amount (three carucates), as half a knight's free. A generation later, in the survey assigned to 1243, we find Honington divided into exactly the same portions, which are now entered as having all passed to the 'Master of Stixwold.' He held there half a fee of Simon de Crevequer who held under Gaunt, and a quarter fee of Geoffrey de 'Armeters ' who held under Gaunt, together with 'all the rest of Hundington,'[3] which had been given to his house by the Earl of Chester's predecessors.
- ↑ See, for this, my paper on 'The Great Inquest of Service (1212)' in The Commune of London and other Studies, pp. 261–77.
- ↑ 'In Hundington de feodo com' Cestr' VII caruc' terre et IIII bovate quas illi de Stikeswald habent de dono antecessorum comitis.
In eadem villa sunt IIII carucate et IIII bovate de feodo Gilberti de Gaunt unde Henricus de Armenters tenet XII bovatas pro IIIIta parte feodi unius militis, et Alexander de Crevequer tres carucatas pro servicio dimidii militis' (Testa de Nevlll, p. 348). Eight bovates went to the carucate. - ↑ 'totum residuum illius ville de Hundington' (Testa de Nevill, p. 323).
