THE LORDS OF ARDRES
In the History of the Norman Conquest (2nd ed.) we read of Eustace of Boulogne:
An incidental notice of one of his followers throws some light on the class of men who flocked to William's banners, and on the rewards which they received. One Geoffrey, an officer of the Abbey of Saint Bertin at Saint Omer, who had the charge of its possessions in the County of Guines, sent his sons, Arnold and Geoffrey, to the war . . . and in the end they received a grant of lands both in Essex and in the border shires of Mercia and East-Anglia, under the superiority of their patron Count Eustace (iii. 314).
In an Appendix on 'Arnold of Ardres', which Mr Freeman devoted to this subject (iii. 725-6), he gave the 'Historia Comitum Ardensium' (of Lambert of Ardres) for his authority, and he verified, by Domesday, the Manors which Lambert assigns to 'these adventurers', holding that a Bedfordshire estate was omitted, while 'Stebintonia', which he identified with Stibbington, Hunts, was wrongly included, as it was 'held of Count Eustace by Lunen'.
The first point to be noticed here is that 'these adventurers' were the sons (as Lambert explains) not of any 'Geoffrey', a mere Abbey officer, but of a local magnate, Arnold, Lord of Ardres. The next is that Lambert was quite correct in his list of Manors.
In the fourth series of his historical essays Mr Freeman included a paper on 'The Lords of Ardres', for which he availed himself of Dr Heller's edition of Lambert in the Monumenta (vol. xxiv). In this edition the passage runs:
Feodum Stevintoniam et pertinencias eius, Dokeswordiam, Tropintoniam, Leilefordiam, Toleshondiam, et Hoilandiam (cap. 113, p. 615).
Dr Heller, on this, notes:
Secundum 'Domesday Book' recepit Ernulfus de Arda Dochesworde, Trupintone (com. Cantabrig.) et Stiventone (comit. Bedford) a comite Eustacio . . . e contra Toheshunt [sic] Hoiland, Leleford recepit ab eodem comite Adelolfus de Merc (prope Calais).
This note enabled Mr Freeman to identify 'Adelolfus' (which he had failed to do in the Norman Conquest), though he must have overlooked the identification of'Stevintonia' (namely Stevington, Beds.), for we find him still writing:
But of the English possessions reckoned up by our author two only . . . can be identified in Domesday as held by Arnold . . . The local writer seems to have mixed up the possessions of Arnold with those of a less famous adventurer from the same reign, Adelolf—our Athelwulf—of Merck (pp. 184-5).
And he again insisted that 'Arnold had other lands in Bedfordshire'. We will now turn to an entry in the Testa de Nevill from the 'milites tenentes de honore Bononie':
Comes de Gines tenet xii. milites, scilicet—in Bedefordescire, in Stiveton et Parva Wahull 111 milites, in Gantabr' in Dukesword, et Trumpeton 111 milites ... in Essex, Tholehunt et Galdhangr' 111 milites, in Hoyland' et Lalesford ibidem 111 milites.
Here we have all the Manors mentioned by Lambert (with their appurtenances) assigned to the Count of Guines, the heir of Arnold of Ardres; and we can thus believe the Testa entry/(p. 272) of Tolleshunt and Holland, 'quas idem comes et antecessores sui tenuerunt de conquestu Angliae'. But the Testa does more than this; it informs us that Holland and Lawford were held of the Count by 'Henry de Merk'. Now, 'Adelolf de Merk is found in Domesday holding many Manors direct from Eustace of Boulogne, and these Manors are divided in the Testa between his descendants Simon and Henry de Merk.[1] It is, therefore, possible that he held the three Essex Manors in 1086, not directly from Count Eustace, but, like his descendant, from their under-tenant (Arnold). This raises, of course, an important question as to Domesday.[2]
It is interesting to observe that the village of Marck in the Pas de Calais has, through Adelolf and his heirs, transferred its name to the Essex parish of Mark's Tey, though not to that of Marks Hall (so named in Domesday).
While on the subject of the Lords of Ardres, it may be convenient to give the reference to a letter of mine to the Academy (May 28, 1892), explaining that Lambert's 'Albericus Aper', who puzzled Dr Heller and Mr Freeman, was our own Aubrey de Vere, first Earl of Oxford, and that Lambert's statement (accepted by Mr Freeman) as to the parentage of Emma, wife of Count Manasses, had been disproved by Stapleton.