A HISTORY OF WORCESTERSHIRE owner, in the county consisted in the vast extent of land he held as an under-tenant. The baronial houses ofBeauchamp 'ofElmley,' Beauchamp ' of Powyk,' and Beauchamp ' of Holt,' all derived their names from places which Urse or his brother Robert the Despencer held as under- tenants of the churches of Westminster and Worcester. It would, indeed, hardly be safe, at this stage of our history, to estimate the amount of church land which thus passed to the Beauchamps, for Urse lived some twenty years beyond the Domesday Survey, and seems to have secured fresh lands between the survey and his death. But we have to remember that he also held, on a small scale, of sundry others, of Nigel the physician, of the bishop of Bayeux, of earl Roger, of Osbern Fitz Richard, and of Ralf 'de Todeni,' besides securing nearly 12 hides on the royal manor of Bromsgrove. It is clear that Urse obtained several of those manors which the bishop of Bayeux had made his own on the death of abbot iEthelwig.^ Two of those which he held in chief are the subject, in Domesday, ot short narratives. Half a hide at Droitwich had been held, T.R.E., by Evesham Abbey, to which it was given by the father of a youth who was made a monk there in 1047-8. Then the Abbot granted it for life to an uncle of his, on whose death at Stamfordbridge the abbey recovered this land ' before king William came into England.' Abbot iEthelwig held it till his death, and abbot Walter held it after him ' for more than seven years.' But at the time of the survey Urse was in possession. We have here an interesting note of time in connection with the date of Domes- day.^ Of the manor which follows Domesday tells us that the abbot of Evesham held it T.R.E., ' having bought it from a certain thegn who had a right to sell it.' Here we are struck by the close correspondence between the language of Domesday and that of Heming's Cartulary.^ These two manors are preceded by that of Upton (Warren), which was held by Urse, though ' the county ' said that it had been held by abbot iEthelwig, and ought rightfully to belong to the abbey (fo. lyjb). Now ' See p. 261 above. ^ The chronology of the abbots of Evesham, under the Conqueror, is by no means clear. Abbot iEthelwig died of gout 16 Feb. ' 1077 ' (Chron. Evesham, p. 95), and ' tercio quoque mense post discessum patris hujus Agelwii ' {Ibid. p. 96, and Harl. MS. 3,763, fo. I'jib) there was appointed abbot Walter, Wfhose succession, therefore, is dated in 'May, 1077.' Mr. Freeman reckoned the years of Walter's rule as ' 1077-1084 ' {Norman Conquest, IV. 388), and observed of the Domesday entry that 'as Walter succeeded in 1077, ^^^ alienation is fixed as late as 1084' [Ibid. V. 765). It is tempting to conclude that Urse had taken advan- tage of abbot Walter's death to seize the manor. But what the Evesham MS. (Harl. MS. 3,763, fo. 171^^) says of Walter is that 'cum fere octo ann[is] isti ecclesie profuisset, diem suum clausit extremum xiii kal. Febr. [20 Jan.] anno vero gracie millesimo lxxxvi.' {sic). And this date is accepted by the editor of the Chronicle (p. 98) as 1086. As this would assign Walter a rule of nearly nine (not ' nearly eight ') years, there must, on any hypothesis, be an error somewhere. It is tempting, as I said, to connect the ' fere octo annis ' of the Evesham MS. with the ' amplius quam vii annis ' of Domesday, and to conclude that abbot Walter died in January ' 1085' (which may mean 1085 or 1086, just as his accession in '1077' would be 1077 or 1078); but Florence of Worcester, a good authority, dates Walter's death 20 Jan., 1104 ! In any case, Urse's possession of the land must have been recent at the time of the Survey. ^ See p. 267 below. 264
