A HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE Before passing from Benham we may note that it affords us one of those rare cases in which we can trace the son and successor of a Domesday tenant. ' Wigar ' appears among the thegns in the survey as holding there a small estate, and, a generation later, in 1109 we find Hugh the son of * Witgar de Bennaham ' bestowing his tithes on the abbey and arranging to be buried there with his wife when they died. 1 Here is yet another instance of an English thegn giving his son a Norman name. We will now turn to another source of loss and trouble for the abbey. Domesday bears frequent witness to the disastrous effect for religious houses of their leasing their manors for lives with the result that, after the Conquest, the new comers who found themselves in the shoes of the lessees refused to admit the reversion. The Abingdon chronicler bitterly laments the losses thus incurred,' and the case of Leckhampstead shows how difficult it was for an abbey to regain possession of land which had been thus dealt with. According to the cartulary this manor had been given, as ten hides, by King Edmund to Eadric, one of his retainers in 943," and Eadric at his death left it to the abbey. In the time of King Cnut (1017-1035) a certain Brihtmund obtained a lease of it for three lives, of which his widow and his son Brihtnoth were the second and third. But on Brihtnoth's death his younger brother Brihtwine prevailed on abbot Siward (before 1043) to extend the lease for his own life. 4 He subsequently claimed that Siward had given him the land in inheritance, nor was it till the eve of the Conquest that a later abbot, Ordric, compelled him, with the help of Earl Harold, to disgorge the ' landboc ' which formed the title deed to the estate. 5 This Brihtwine is the ' Bricstuin ' of whom Domes- day records that he held of the abbot, * nee potuit recedere.' Another interesting example of the risk incurred by religious houses in leasing out their lands is afforded by the case of Blacheman the priest, who appears in Domesday as the former holder of three manors of Abingdon Abbey, Sandford on Thames in Oxfordshire, and Chilton and Leverton in Berkshire. A very wealthy man, he had built a handsome church in honour of St. Andrew on Andresey island close to the abbey, and the monks, influenced by his riches and his persuasive eloquence, were induced to grant him the above manors on lease 6 (adfirmani). After the Conquest he left England with Harold's mother, Gytha, and his lands, forfeited by William, were only recovered with great difficulty by the abbot. 7 It is significant that the survey 1 Chron. Ab. ii. 145. 3 ' mos illis diebus, futurum ad damnum non parvum, insoluerat ut, offerente quolibet auri vel argenti copiam, trium aut quinque terra; portionem hidarum, sive villam integram, diversis abbatix locis reciperet emptione, quodam subornatu id palliantes, quatinus trium vel duorum vita hominum inde possidendi protenderetur possessio ' (i. 481). * 3 i. 103-5. On p. 476 of that volume he is said to have been given it by Edwy in 958, but this may have been a confirmation. * i. 457-9. 5 i. 475. The short account of this proprietary action (as it may be termed) is of some interest legally. Chron. Ab. i. 474, 484 ; ii. 283. ' Ibid. i. 484. 298
