DOMESDAY SURVEY may recognise our thegn in the Siward who held before the Conquest the adjacent vills of Catton and Croxall, near the junction of the Trent and the Tame, and who had an important estate on the Derwent north of Derby comprising Duffield with its appen- dages, Breadsall, and Morley. There is no reason to doubt that it was the same man who held Norbury with Roston and Great Cubley in the west of the shire, Brassington near Wirksworth, and Wormhill in Miller's Dale. In one case, however, we are able to ascertain definitely that an Englishman not only held land at the time of the Survey under Henry de Ferrers but was the ancestor of a family which continued for centuries to hold of his successors. This was the ' Elfin ' who held Brailsford, Osmaston, Lower Thurvaston, and part of Bupton (Longford), in the first of which places he had succeeded no less a person than Earl Waltheof, at Thurvaston and Bupton his predecessor being a certain ' Ulchil ' or ' Uchel.' The Domesday form ' Elfin ' is very difficult to explain ; it may be a mistake for either ^EHwine or ^Elfsige, the latter seeming the more probable ; but in either case the name represented would be old English, and it is therefore of great interest to see the descendants of this man continuing to hold land in these vills. We are enabled to do this through the Chartulary of Tutbury Priory, which shows us Alfinus de Breleford granting Osmaston to that house with the consent of his son Nicholas. 1 In the Red Book of the Exchequer* Earl William de Ferrers states that his grandfather had enfeoffed Nicholaus de Breileford in one knight's fee which his son Henry was then holding, and members of the family of de Brailesford are frequently met with in later mediaeval records. Here then we have a clear instance of an important Derbyshire county family being of English descent. But the same chartulary affords us other information about the undertenants of Henry de Ferrers. It includes a charter of Earl Robert de Ferrers the younger in which he confirms all the grants which had been made to Tutbury Priory by his grandfather (the Henry de Ferrers of Domesday) and father and their respective ' men,' and in the list of grantees which follows we can identify many names which occur in Domesday. A list of these may be convenient for purposes of reference : Vill. Domesday undertenant. In Earl Robert's charter. Osmaston .... Elfin Alfinus de Breleford Catton Nigellus Nigellus de Albiniaco Hoon Saswalo Sewallus Osleston .... Johannes Johannes Ash Rotbertus Robert fitz Sarle Sedenefeld . . William William de Rolleston Dalbury . Trusley . Little Ireton Egginton Upper Thurvaston un Robert Robert de D Hugh Hugh le Arbalaster Orm ....... Orm 'Aselin' Anscelin de Heginton Robert Robert de St. Quintin 1 Dugdale, Men. iii. 392. Red Book of the Exch. (Rolls Ser.), i. 338. 301
