DOMESDAY SURVEY is founa leasing or subjecting, apparently, to ' King Gruffydd,' certain Welsh vills in what is now South Monmouthshire.'" Mr. Freeman, however, inclined to identify the Herefordshire grantee with another Meredydd who flourished a generation later ; but this, again, raises chronological difficulties."' Nor does one see why a son of that Bleddyn of North Wales who had joined Eadric the Wild in his devastating inroads in Herefordshire should be enfeoffed in that county. But the fact is that we know little of the details of that sporadic warfare which raged along the Welsh March throughout most of the Conqueror's reign, as it had done under Edward the Confessor. Who or what, for instance, was that ' Riset de Wales,' "'of whom we read, at the head of the Herefordshire Survey : ' reddit regi Willelmo xl libras ' ? And where was the ' terra Calcebuef ' which immediately follows it .? Again, we read of William Fitz Osbern and Walter de Laci attacking and defeating the men of Brecon ; "" although the invasion and conquest of Brecknock, by Bernard de Neufmarche, only took place, it is held, more than twenty years later. And this brings us to one of the puzzles of the Hereford- shire portion of the Survey. Bernard's invasion is usually assigned to the reign of William Rufus, but as early as 1088 he gave Glasbury in Brecon (now in Radnor) to St. Peter's of Gloucester, according to the cartulary ""* of that house ; and so great was his position by then that he is named with Roger de Laci and Ralph de Mortimer as leading the revolt that year, against William Rufus, in Herefordshire."" If he had attained so great a position within two years of the Survey one would expect to find his name mentioned somewhere in Domesday. And yet we cannot trace him. Nor is this all. For he is also found, at the same time, giving to St. Peter's the church of Cowarne ; and this Cowarne, we know, was part of his daughter's inheritance."' But in Domesday Cowarne was part of the fief of Alvred of Marlborough. Now it is a striking, though obscure circumstance that Orderic Vitalis connects Bernard with two other manors held by Alvred in Domesday. These are Burghill and Brinsop,"^ of which Domesday records that Alvred's uncle Osbern had held them when Godwine and Harold were exiled. As. only a portion of Alvred's fief is found in the possession of his successors at Ewyas Harold, Harold son of Earl Ralf and his heirs, it would seem to have been dismembered on his death or forfeiture shortly after the great Survey. We have yet to glance at the lands in ecclesiastical possession. The contrast between such a county as Gloucestershire, where these lands form '" 'Hocmisit W[illelmus] comes ad consuetudinem Grifin regis licentia regis W[illelmi]' {J)om. Bk., 162).. ™ ' I conceive that this is Meredydd the son of Bleddyn, who is mentioned in the Brut y Tywysogion, 1 100, and his son Grufiyd in 1 1 I 3. But, if so, Meredydd was not dead at the time of the survey ; he must, therefore, have given some offence and lost his lands, though they were kept by his son.' 'Norm. Conq. (ed. i), iv, 679. "" One must not introduce into the text the tempting conjecture that this was Rhys ap Tewdwr, who- became King of South Wales in 1 079, an event which, Mr. Freeman suggested, might not be unconnected with William's expedition through South Wales not long after, when he is said to have reduced Welsh kings, to submission (op. cit. 679). The absence of r^;*' before 'Riset' is against this conjecture. "" ' Rex Guillelmus . . . eum cum Gualterio de Laceio aliisque probatis pugilibus contra Britones bellis. inhiantes opposuit. Horum audacia Brachaniannos primitus invasit, et Guallorum reges Risen et Caducan et Mariadoth aliosque plures prostravit.' Ord. Vit. "»• Hist. Mon. Glouc. (Rolls Ser.), i, 80. The chronology of this work (Mr. J. G. Wood holds) is not above suspicion. "'"' Flor. Wore. Chron. (Engl. Hist. Soc), ii, 24. '" See my And. Chart. (Pipe R. Soc), p. 8. '" ' Bernardus Goisfredi de Novo Mercato filius ecclesiam de Speinis . . . sanctae Mariae [the Priory of Aufai] dedit, et pro mutmtione ecclaiarum de Burchella et de Bruneshopa xx solidos de censu Neoburiae,' &c, &c.- The whole passage is very difficult of explanation. I 281 36
