A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK of which ninety-five, with the castle of Clare, the caput of the later honour, were in Suffolk,'^' He was chief justiciar in 1075, and was active in the suppression of the revolt of the earls, but he does not seem to have received any of Earl Ralph's estates. He held lands in the hundreds of Risbridge, Babergh, Cosford, and Samford, on the Essex border, and also in the hun- dreds of Thingoe, Thedwastre, Lackford, Blackbourn, Hartismere, Bosmere, Claydon, Stow, and Wilford, and in the borough of Ipswich. He had estates in Essex also, but the centre of his influence was in Risbridge Hundred, where, just on the Suffolk side of the line which divides the county from Essex, still lies the market town of Clare, with the moated mound of the castle.^ Richard Fitz Gilbert's two chief antecessores were Wisgar or Withgar, son of iElfric or Aluric, and ' Phin the Dane.' ^Ifric, the father of Wisgar, and himself the son of an older Wisgar, was an Essex thegn and lord of the manor of Clare, which he gave to ' St. John,' placing a priest Ledmar over the religious house which he founded, and committing it by charter to the care of his son Wisgar and of Leustan or Leofstan, Abbot of St. Edmunds."' When King William came he took the foundation into his own hands and granted the whole property to his favourite, Richard Fitz Gilbert. ' Phin the Dane ' had held an ' honour ' in Suffolk, and, like Wisgar, he continued in power after the Conquest, and, as Mr. Round has pointed out, 'even in 1086 his widow was holding in Essex 2 manors, of which one at least had previously been held by her husband.' '" In Suffolk he had 80 acres at Wattisham in Cosford Hundred and a small estate at Shelland in Stow Hundred, thirteen burgesses in Ipswich, who belonged to his ' honour,' and a manor at Badley in Bosmere Hundred, where he held twenty-six freemen, who had been added to the manor under King William ' by arrangement with the sheriff, as the sheriff himself says.' At Ringsett also, and at Ash (Bocking), in the same hundred, he had added freemen and a soke- man to his manors, and we hear of his 'fee' [feudum). At Helmingham in Claydon Hundred and at Erwarton in Samford Hundred, Turi, a thegn of King Edward, had held two manors 'of Phin's land' which in 1086 were held of Fitz Gilbert by Walter of Caen and Roger ; at Boyton a com- mended freeman of Phin is mentioned, while at Higham and at Burstall Richard claimed freemen and lands as part of the ' honour ' or ' terra ' of Phin."' Of Fitz Gilbert's under-tenants it is worth noting William Peche [Peccatum), who held also in Norfolk,^^" Walter the Deacon, and Osbern de Wancy; while Roger ' de Ramis' and Ralph Peverel disputed Richard's title to his estate at Bricett in the hundred of Bosmere.'" The survey of his fief concludes with a list of the freemen in the hundreds of Risbridge and Cosford '" Dom. Bk. 3893 et seq. Diet. Nat. Biog. articles 'Clare, De, Family of,' 'Clare, Richard De'; Freeman, Norm. Conq. iv (ist ed.), 580 ; v (ist ed.), 430. He is often called Richard de Bienfaite. "« F.C.H. Essex, i, 348. '" Dom. Bk. 389^; F'.C.H. Essex, i, 348; freeman, op. cit. v (ist ed.), 753. The alternation of names in this family is worth noting. Grandfather and grandson bear the same name, as is also the case with the 'lawmen' of Lincoln, a Danish district ; Dom. Bk. i, 336. '" y.C.H. Essex, i, 348 ; Dom. Bk. 98, 98^, 'Terra Ulveve uxoris Phin.' '" Dom. Bk. 391, 392^, 393, 393*, 394, 394*, 395, 395^, ' Hecham, Burghestala,' 'ad honorem phin ;' 'ad terram fin.' "" Ibid. 39o3 ; y.C.H. Norf. ii, 21. He was ' the forefather of an East Anglian house.' The name occurs in Suffolk in the 13th century ; Rot. Hund. ii, I 5 la, 173a. "' Dom. Bk. 391, 393^, 394. Esgar the Staller is also mentioned as the former lord of one of Richard's freemen; ibid. 395. 398
