Page:VCH Sussex 1.djvu/448

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A HISTORY OF SUSSEX the * castle ' or ' castlery ' of Lewes/ a subsequent document enables us to detect a local follower in that William ' de Grinnosa villa ' who be- stowed lands on Lewes Priory,* and who derived his name from Grigneuseville in the ' canton ' of Bellencombre. It is also only in Suffolk that Domesday mentions the full names of Godfrey and Robert de Pierpoint (' Petroponte '), who held of him in Sussex as Godfrey and Robert/ and who came from Pierrepont near Falaise in a distant part of Normandy. William de Wateville, his tenant at Brighton and elsewhere, derived his name from Watteville on the left bank of the Seine between Rouen and the sea ; and Ralf de ' Caisned,' who held of him at Plumpton, is believed to have been named from Ques- nay between St. L6 and Caen. The tenants of William de Braose are hard to localize in Normandy, but if Morin of Thakeham was Morin de St. Andre,* he doubtless came from St. Andre-de-Briouze, near the stammhaus of his lord, while Pointel, from which was named the William de ' Pointel '^ who witnesses a grant of Philip de ' Brausia,' actually ad- joins Briouze. And the Bucy family, whose name is preserved in Kingston Bucey or Bowsey, may have been named from Bouce in the Cange valley some fourteen miles from Briouze. Not only in Sussex but in Northants the Count of Mortain had a great follower in that William de ' Cahainges,' as the Sussex Domesday terms him, whose name is preserved in Horsted Keynes, and who came from Cahagnes, between Vire and Bayeux, according to Mr. Stapleton, who asserts that he held there, as in England, under the Count de Mortain." In the western rape by far the most important tenant was Robert Fitz-Tetbald, the lord of what afterwards became the honour of Pet- worth. Of his bequest of the manor of Toddington to the abbey of Sees, Mr. Round says : ' — One of the most interesting illustrations of Domesday is that afforded by the death-bed gift of Robert son of Tetbald, ' the sheriff,' to St. Martin of Se'es. To Mr. Eyton belongs the credit of discovering the importance of this tenant of Earl Roger of Shrewsbury (Hist, of Shrops. ii. 266). He boldly claimed him as ' by far the great- est feoffee in the earl's Sussex fief, and as the Domesday lord of the honour of Pet- worth ; and he further suggested that it may have been Sussex of which he was the Norman sheriff. Mr. Eyton, however, was not acquainted with this instructive char- ter, which proves the identity of the Robert who held ' Totintune ' (Toddington in Lyminster) in Domesday with Robert son of Tetbald. It supplies not only the name of his wife (Emma), but the date of his own death (1087). This date is the more im- portant because Mr. Eyton held that Robert was still living after 1 108, and was not affected by his lord's catastrophe in 1 102. But further, the last four witnesses to the charter are ' Robertus de Petehorda presbiter, Corbelinus, Hamelinus, et Turstinus de Petehorda.' We have clearly here the priest of Petworth, the ' Corbelinus ' who held under 'Robert' in 1086 at Barlavington^ the 'Hamelinus' who held of him similarly at Burton, and probably also the ' Turstinus ' who held of him at Greatham. We may therefore identify him with the Robert who appears in Domesday Book as > See its entry in Dom. Bk. piissim. - Anct. Charters (Pipe Roll Soc), p. 5. = Ibid. p. 7. * Cal. of Doc. France, p. 401. 6 Ibid. " Rotuli Scacc. Norm. ii. ccli. ' Cal. of Doc. France, pref. 1. X He held also at Marden, and Richard and Robert, sons of Corbelin, attested Earl Roger's con- firmation of this grant of Robert's.