Page:VCH Derbyshire 1.djvu/392

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A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE western edge of the county, covering a barren district which is not described in Domesday and which William Peverel significantly calls his ' demesne pastures in the Peak.' Among the obscure places mentioned it is interesting to meet with Buxton, which here appears (as ' Buchestanes') for the first time in any record. It is not possible to identify William Peverel's undertenants in Domesday among the benefactors to Lenton, as has been attempted above with those of Henry de Ferrers in the case of Tutbury, partly no doubt because Lenton Priory was the later founda- tion of the two, but partly also because the grants to Lenton were made out of lands which had belonged to the king at the time of Domesday and of which the immediate holders are not specified. On the next folio of the Survey are entered the Derbyshire estates of Walter de Aincurt, and Geoffrey Alselin, each occupying rather more than half a column of the record. With the exception of Brampton and Wadshelf, all Walter de Aincurt's land in this county had belonged to a certain Suain ' cilt.' This is noteworthy, for in the account of Derby borough ' Stori ' appears to be regarded as the normal predecessor of Walter de Aincurt. He certainly, however, does not appear as such in the actual Survey, the name occurring only once in Derbyshire, at Spondon, on the fief of Henry de Ferrers. A Stori appears in Nottinghamshire as the predecessor of the count of Mortain in nearly all his manors, and the same name occurs among those who had exercised soc and sac in Lincolnshire before the Conquest. At Lincoln itself Stori had held a messuage which had passed to the Countess Judith, and an * Estori ' had preceded her at ' Hecham ' in the same county. A Bedfordshire Stori had been the ' man ' of Earl Tostig, but there is no evidence to connect him with his northern namesake, nor indeed to connect the latter with Walter de Aincurt. This case, therefore, it would seem, must for the present remain unexplained. A Suain or Suen, who is once described as ' cilt,' had several times preceded Walter de Aincurt in Derbyshire. It is curious that a person of the same name appears in Lancashire seventy years after Domesday, for among the signatures to the foundation charter of Penworthan Priory we find that of ' Sweni child.' 1 The account of Brampton and Wadshelf is of interest for the statement that 'Walter vouches the king as warrantor of this land (protector) and Henry de Ferrers as having given him seizin (liberator),' 3 one of the early instances in Domesday of the technical practice of * vouching to warranty ' which is so common in mediaeval transfers of land. As we might expect in the case of a later acquisition, Walter's English predecessor in this manor was not the usual Suain cilt, but an otherwise unknown man called Wade. It may be well to notice here that Walter de Aincurt was the only landowner in the county whose estates, taken as a whole, had risen in value since the Conquest. His six manors had risen from 12 I 5 J - 4^- to 1 9 5 s - 4^- This advance, however, is more apparent than real, since Morton, 1 Dugdale, Man. iii. 419, and Farrer, Lancashire Pipe Rolls, 322-5, where the charter is dated 1153-1160. 8 ' De ista terra advocat Walterus regem ad protectorem et Henricum de Ferraris ad liberatorem.' 304