Page:VCH Hertfordshire 1.djvu/333

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THE DOMESDAY SURVEY manor. He was the ' Edmer Atule, a thegn of king Edward,' whose great manor of Bledlow, separated from Berkhampstead by the whole width of Buckinghamshire, had similarly passed to count Robert (fo. 146), as had his manor of Stanmore, on the Hertfordshire border, in Middlesex (fo. I2gb}. 1 Whether he was also identical with a far greater landowner, Edmar ' atre,' a predecessor of the count in Devon and other south- western counties, one cannot safely say, for the Domesday scribes were very loose in the names and styles they gave as those of English pre- decessors. In Hertfordshire, for instance, Kensworth is entered as having been held of king Edward by ' Lewinus cilt,' but Caddington (the next entry) only as held by 'Lewinus' (fo. 136). But on turning to the Bedfordshire portion of Caddington (fo. 211), we find that it was 'Lewinus cilt' who had held it T.R.E. and who gave it to the canons of St. Paul's.* We similarly read under Hertfordshire, of its detached portion of Meppershall, that its former owner was Leofwine ' a thegn of king Edward ' (fo. 211); and it is only when we turn to the Bedford- shire portion that we learn that this was the above Leofwine (Lewinus} ' cilt, a thegn of king Edward ' (fo. 216^). This Englishman of noble birth for such I take to be the meaning of ' cilt ' held land in Bedfordshire at two other places (fos. 214^, 215), and is quite possibly identical with that Leofwine the thegn who occurs elsewhere as a former owner in Herts as well as in Bucks. Next, in Domesday, to the fief of count Robert of Mortain is that of Eustace count of Boulogne, of which the head, in Hertfordshire, was the great manor of Tring (fo. 137).' His predecessor there, as often in Essex, where lay the bulk of the count's estates, was Ingelric, a man of some interest, who had enjoyed the favour of William as well as that of Edward, but who was somewhat given to the sin of removing his neighbour's landmark. 8 At Tring, for instance, he had added to the manor since the coming of William 2 sokemen of Oswulf who had not belonged to it, and a ' man ' of the abbot of Ramsey with no less than 5 hides which he had no power to alienate from that abbey. Ingelric had founded the house of canons at St. Martin-le-Grand, London, and 1 See also p. 269 above for this Edmer.

  • This leads us to an interesting discovery. Kemble printed in his Codex Diplomatictu (iv. 259)

the will of ' Eadwinus de Cadendune ' (No. 920), in which he bequeathed Watford to St. Alban's, and to his son Leofwine seven estates, of which ' Beranlea ' was to pass to St. Alban's after Leofwine's death. He further expressed his wish to be buried at St. Albans, to which abbey he bequeathed 20 of his best oxen and 20 of his best cows. Kemble identifi^l ' Cadendune ' as Chadlington in Oxfordshire, which is out of the question, as the Domesday form of O^ 1 - place-name was ' Cedelintone.' The real place was Caddington, the ' Cadendone ' of Domesday, at which Eadwine was succeeded by his son Leofwine (' Cilt ') Not only was ' Cadendune ' one of the estates bequeathed by him to Leofwine, but ' Strxtlea ' was another ; and this place was Streatley, Beds (some five miles north of Caddington), where Domes- day duly shows us Leofwine 'Cilt' as a former holder (fo. 214^). We may now advance a step further and turn to Kemble's document No. 945 (iv. 280-1), which records the gift to Leofstan abbot of St. Alban's (and his house) of land at Studham, which stood like Caddington on the border of Herts and Beds, and was only some four miles from it. To this gift, which seems to have been made within a dozen years before the Conquest, the last witness named is ' Leofwinus de Cadendune,' obviously the same Leofwine ' Cilt,' taking his name, like his father before him, from Caddington, which was probably the chief residence of them both. 8 See for him my paper on ' Ingelric the priest ' in the Commune of London and other Studies, pp. 28-36. 28l