A HISTORY OF WORCESTERSHIRE beorge ' to adjudge to himself on the Abbot's death ;^ but that his successor, abbot Walter, successfully reclaimed Hampton and half Bengeworth for his house/ This brings us at once into close relation with Domesday, which tells us of the five hides which formed the half of Bengeworth that ' abbot Walter proved his right (to them) at " Ilde- berga " in (a court of the) four shires ' ^(fo. 175*^). Bengeworth was a ten-hide manor, and the story told by the monks of Worcester was that bishop Brihtheah had given half of it (5 hides) to ' Atsere ' his kinsman and chamberlain, who had been deprived of it, in his lifetime, by Urse the dreaded sheriff. Alarmed by his fate, iErngrim, the tenant of the other half, had invoked the protection of his powerful neighbour, ^Ethel- wig abbot of Evesham, and transferred his ' service ' to him, only to be expelled from his land by the unscrupulous abbot.* The Evesham Chronicle similarly states that half the manor had been held by 'Erne- grim,' and the other half given to 'Assere ' by the Bishop;^ and Domesday itself records 'Azor' as the previous holder at Bengeworth (fo. 174). Such concurrence of testimony as this deserves notice. The net result, as Domesday shows (fos. 1 74-1 75*^), was that Urse retained Azor's half of the manor (5 hides), while Evesham Abbey succeeded in retaining Erngrim's half, though one of its five hides was secured by the sheriff Urse, who thus held in all six hides there.* The next struggle was that of the bishop of Worcester to assert his rights, as lord of Oswaldslow, over the lands at Hampton and Benge- worth held by abbot iEthelwig. To this dispute Professor Freeman rightly attached much importance.' He held that the great plea re-
- ' Quasi lupus rapax concilia malignantium in loco qui dicitur Gildenebeorge jubet
congregari, quinque videlicet sciras, ibique plus per suam iniquam potentiam quam recto jure ex triginta sex terris quas abbas Agelwius per dignam pecuniam ecclesiae acquisivit viginti octo villas fecit eidem abjurari et suo iniquo dominio usurpari ' (Evesham Chronicle, p. 97). The Worcester version was that Odo, on ^Ethelwig's death, obtained from his brother, the King, a grant of all the lands which the Abbot had held and which did not belong to the abbey itself (Heming's Cartulary, I. 273). There is a certain amount of evidence in Domesday (fos. 173, 176, 177^) that Odo did, somehow or other, succeed the abbot of Evesham in several Worcestershire manors, and that, in one case at least, the abbot had lawfully bought a manor from a thegn (fo. 177^'), as he is alleged by his monks to have done.
- ' De hiis vero Walterus abbas Westune, Hamptune, et medietatem de Beningwrthe
(quam Ernegrim tenuit) revocavit, medietatem vero quam Episcopus dedit Assere occupavit Urso ' (Evesham Cartulary, p. 97). The Evesham MS. Vesp. B. XXIV. fo. 28 contains a writ of Odo consequent on the ' Gildenbeorge ' plea, admitting the abbey's right to certain manors, and a confirmation of it by the King. But I look on them with some suspicion. ^ I have ventured, in my translation of the text, to identify the place of meeting as the ' Four shire stone ' still existing on the border of Evenlode. It is remarkable that, under Warwickshire (fo. 2T,^h), we find bishop Wulfstan asserting that he had proved his right to Alveston, Warwickshire (on which, however, see also Heming's Cartulary, II. 407, 418) ' before Queen Matilda in the presence of four counties.' This is suggestive of another plea held at the 'Four shire stone' (compare p. 307, note 3, below).
- Heming's Cartulary, I. 269-270.
- See note^ above.
® This explanation is necessary, because, without it, the Domesday text would be obscure. ' ' The affairs of the church of Worcester, especially its disputes with the abbey of Evesham, throw great light on both general and local history' {Norman ConqueH, V. 759). 254
