A HISTORY OF RUTLAND vanished from the modern map, its lord, Oger Fitz Ungemar, bears a name unknown elsewhere in Domesday, and not appearing to our knowledge in any- other record. Fortunately, however, part of the vill passed subsequently to Domesday into ecclesiastical hands, and this fact enables us to trace, its history with more certainty than would otherwise be possible. In the Hundred Rolls the Abbot of Bourne holds i carucate in ' Alestorp ' of Baldwin Wake's fee, and the Prior of Nuneaton has also i carucate there of the gift of Simon de Aneseye.^' On turning to the Bourne documents in the Monasticon, we find Edward III confirming the gift which Hugh Wake, with the assent of his wife Emma, made to that house of his demesne pasture in ' Alstanstorp.' " The connexion of the Wakes with the vill in question at once suggests the identification of the mysterious Oger Fitz Ungemar with the well-known Oger the Breton, the lord of Bourne, whose lands elsewhere, after the death or forfeiture of his son Roger, were granted to Baldwin Fitz Gilbert de Clare, from whom they subsequently came into the possession of the Wake family. '* This identification is of more than local importance, for it reduces the number of tenants in chief by one, and it supplies the name, otherwise unknown, of the father of Oger the Breton, who ranks among the most powerful of the western auxiliaries of the Conqueror, although the family which he founded soon came to an untimely end. Lastly, it may be noted that ' Alestanestorp,' under the name of Awsthorpe, reappears in the beginning of the 17th century in Speed's map of Rutland, published in 16 10, from which we gather that the vill in question lay midway between Burley and Cottesmore, where accordingly it is represented in the Domesday map included in the present volume. The whole of the neighbouring wapentake of Martinsley was possessed outright by the king in 1086,-" its constituent vills being grouped as ' bere- wicks ' round the three ' manors ' of Oakham, Hambleton, and Ridlington. Manors of this type are rare in the Danelaw, but similar examples may be found among the Crown lands of north-west Derbyshire, and, nearer to Rutland, in the Archbishop of York's estate at Southwell, Nottinghamshire. Domesday informs us that Edith, the Confessor's queen, had held Martinsley Wapentake in 1066, and we may reasonably suppose that the lady remained in possession until her death in 1075. Upon that event it would seem that the king entered upon the estate ; there is at least no record of any inter- mediate occupancy, but a writ of Edward the Confessor has been preserved in which that king is represented as granting ' Roteland ' to his new foundation of Westminster Abbey, reserving only a life interest in the estate to his queen. ^^ It was in general the Conqueror's practice to confirm the grants which his predecessor had made, and the monks of Westminster had obtained from him a whole series of writs confirming them in their possession of lands in other parts of the country. We may conjecture that the exceptional value of the estate deterred the king from surrendering it outright to Westminster ; but it is a curious fact that even the churches of " F«»a'. /?. (Rec. Com.), ii, 54. " Mow. vi, 371. " See Round, F^im'. £»;?■/. " To the king's ownership there was the curious exception of a manor of I carucate held in 1066 by a certain Leofnoth, and in 10S6 by a man bearing the singular name of Fulcher Malaopera. Probably, however, this holding was regarded as a sub-manor of Oakham, within the bounds of whxh it seems to have been included. Mr. Round says that the name ' Malaopera,' representing ' Malesceuvres,' became corrupted to Malsor. " Mon. i, 299. 132
