DOMESDAY SURVEY
were enfeoffed of 9½ carucates of land in Lowton and Golborne with their members before the death of Henry I., to hold by the service of one knight's fee, and they or their successors afterwards took their names from these two vills.[1]
Passing to Salford hundred, 'Nigel's' fee of three hides and half a carucate first claims attention. There is some reason for believing that this fee comprised Manchester and its members within that parish, the half carucate apparently being the glebe of the church of St. Mary in Manchester. The details are: Manchester, 2 car.; Ancoats, 3 bov.; Moston, 3 bov.; Ardwick, 2 car.; Gorton, 3 car.; Openshaw, 6 bov.; Newton, 6 bov.; Clayton, 1 car. 4 bov.; Crumpsall, 2 car.; Withington with its members, including Denton and Haughton, 5 car. 2 bov., making in all 3 hides. The question of Nigel's identity has not been satisfactorily solved, but it is not altogether improbable that he was Nigel de Stafford[2] whose descendants, the Gresleys, subsequently held Drakelowe of the honour of Lancaster as a serjeanty. The only manor which Nigel de Stafford held in chief in Staffordshire, viz., Thorpe Constantine, was also incorporated in the honour of Lancaster by Henry I. as an escheat. There is no record of the date when Nigel lost his fee in Salford hundred, but there appears to be some reason for believing that it was at, or immediately after, the date of Domesday. His successor was Albert Grelley, who held large estates under Roger of Poitou in the counties of Lincoln,[3] Norfolk,[4] and Suffolk,[5] and in this county in the hundred of Blackburn, which he held jointly with Roger de Busli. We read in one of Roger of Poitou's charters to St. Martin of Sées, dated in 1094, that he gave 'tithes of the whole land of Albert Greslet (Grelley), and tithe of Warin Boissel of Brostone (i.e., Preston in Amounderness), and tithes of the land of Roger de Montbegon, of Calisei (South Kelsey) and Tablesbei (Tealby), and of Tit (Tydd Gout), and of his whole demesne between Ribble and Mersey.[6] In several charters of this period Albert Grelley, Roger de Montbegon, Ralph Gernet, Geoffrey Bussel and Albert, his brother, appear as witnesses to Roger of Poitou's grants to St. Martin of Sées,[7] so that we seem to be justified in looking upon these persons as representing his greatest feudatories.
Indications that new military fees had been created since 1086 are not wanting. We have seen that Roger de Montbegon occurs in the survey as holding several manors of Roger of Poitou in Lincolnshire, and we have suggested that he might be identified as the 'Roger' who held 1½ hide in West Derby hundred and 2 car. in Leyland hundred. In these 11 carucates we have the exact extent of the fee of Sefton which Roger of Poitou gave in these hundreds to the ancestor of Molyneux, of Sefton.[8] In place of these lands, and perhaps of one car. in Warrington hundred, and in augmentation of his fee, Roger de Montbegon received the fee of Tottington, in Salford hundred, and Hornby with its members in Lonsdale, of which we find evidence of his tenure in a charter wherein he and Sezilia his wife gave to St. Martin of Sées the tithe of their demesne between Ribble and Mersey, 'and even beyond
- ↑ Testa de Nevill (Record Com.), 405b, 406.
- ↑ It is proper to state that such authorities as Professor Tait, Mr. Round, and General Wrottesley do not concur in this suggested identity.—W. F.
- ↑ Dom. Bk. i. fol. 352, s.t. Haintone.
- ↑ Dom. Bk. ii. fols. 243b. 244.
- ↑ Ibid. fol. 351b.
- ↑ Reg. of the Abbey of Sées, fol. 104; Round, Cal. of Docts. France, 237.
- ↑ Reg. of the Abbey of Sées, fol. 103b, 109b.
- ↑ Testa de Nevill (Record Com.), 402; Record Soc. Lanc. and Ches. vol. 48, p. 12.
