Conteville, viscomte de Vernon and nephew of Fulk d'Anet. One curious fact in connexion with this last assertion I have still to mention. It occurs in the same confirmation charter of Henry II to the abbey of Bec, which certifies the grant of Emma, wife of Baldwin Fitz-Gilbert, and of her sons Robert and Richard. It is the recital of the gift of the manor of Mesnilsimon, with its church and all churches and manors pertaining to it, by Fulk d'Anet, and of the land of Groselers near Landan, etc., by Albreda sister of the same Fulk. Also of the manor of Conteville, its church, and all manors, etc., pertaining to it, by William Malet. Here is a distinct proof that Fulk d'Anet, one of whose sisters is said to have been mother of the first Baldwin de Reviers, had a sister named Albreda, whose mother was one of the nieces of Gunnora, and consequently a cousin of the Conqueror. We know that Arletta, the mother of the Conqueror, married secondly Herluin de Conteville, by whom she had issue Odo bishop of Bayeux, Robert comte de Mortain, and Emma de Conteville, wife of Richard d'Avranches, progenitor of the earls of Chester. But of Herluin's family we are in perfect ignorance.

Now should this Osmond de Conteville, viscomte de Vernon, of whom we have no other record, and whose existence almost has been denied by the English editor of Ordericus, prove to have been a brother of Herluin de Conteville, the affinity of Albreda to William would be more clearly established.1

The claim of kindred to the Conqueror is so continually made and so rarely established, that I trust I may be pardoned for drawing the attention of my brother antiquaries to a subject which is of the utmost importance to a satisfactory elucidation of the descent of so many great Anglo-Norman families. Any discovery that can be made of the connections, by blood or marriage, of his mother, Arletta, or his step-father, Herluin, is of the greatest value. He, himself, mentions an uncle, Walter, who saved his life when a child, and who, as I have shown in my paper on the earls of Salisbury, had a daughter Matilda, the wife of Ralph Taison; but how he was his uncle no one appears to know. The pedigree appended to M. Lappenberg's History of the Norman Kings of England, is by no means satisfactory, or worthy the very valuable text it accompanies.

1 There was an Osmond de Goz, second son of Ainsfrid the Dane, and brother of Omfray the Dane, viscomte D'Exmes 1083, the grandfather of Richard D'Avranches, also surnamed Goz, who married Emma de Conteville. Recherches sur le Domesday. It is by no means improbable that this Osmond may prove identical with the Osmond de Conteville mentioned by Gemeticensis. The above are all from the same stock as Hrolfor or Rolla, 1st duke of Normandy, and both Herfast the Dane and Herluin de Conteville may yet be traced up to it. It is worthy of note also that Elisenda, daughter of Richard D'Avranches and Emma de Conteville, was the wife of Gilbert Count D'Eu and mother of Baldwin de Brionne. Has there been any mistake; was Emma de Conteville daughter of Arletta by Herluin de Conteville, or was she the daughter of Osmond and the grandmother, not mother, of the first Baldwin de Redvers, and in that case de Brionne? I do not apologize for such speculations as these, as they are merely thrown out in the hope of their leading to some discovery important to other inquiries if not to this.

The vague account in Guilielmus Gemeticensis, is all we have to guide us in regard to the issue of the brother and sisters of Gunnora, or of the many natural children of the old dukes of Normandy, acknowledged in documents of that period by the same terms of consanguinity as would now be only applied to their legitimate descendants. Brethren of the half-blood are equally undistinguished from those of the whole, and the arbitrary use of the word "nepos," an additional embarrassment even to the most practised genealogist.

Here let me pause for the present. I have dedicated every instant I could spare, since my return from Devonshire, to the investigation of every authority within my reach, that I believed capable of affording the slightest aid towards the settlement of this longvexed question. As I stated in the paper which I read at Exeter, "the debateable points are all of that purely archæological character which, however important in themselves, have not only no interest for a general assembly, but, if argued, could not be followed by it." I have here entered into them more minutely, but feel how much there is yet to do, and request our Devonshire friends and associates to accept this only as an instalment of the debt of labour justly due to them, for their cordial and hospitable reception.

ON THE PRIORY OF MONMOUTH.

BY

THOMAS WAKEMAN, ESQ.

THE remains of this religious house are so inconsiderable, and so disguised by modern alterations and additions, that it is probable in a few years even the site may be unknown. It stood on the north side of the parish church on a high bank overhanging the river Monnow. A new street, to which the name of Priory Street is given, now runs between the existing remains and the river. The church of St. Mary was taken down, with the exception of the tower, in 1740, and rebuilt by one Smith of Warwick, in the execrable style prevalent at that period. I am not aware that any view of the original edifice is extant; in the corner of Speed's map of the county is a sketch plan of the town, and if any dependence can be placed upon it, the church had a spire; the western part or nave was used as a parish church, and the eastern part or choir was still called the monk's church.

The monastery was founded by Wihenoc, Gwithenoc or Gwerthenoc, as the name is variously written, soon after the Norman conquest, as a cell to the Benedictine Abbey of St. Florentius, at Saumur in Anjou. Dugdale has given a copy of the original charter, wherein Wihenoc recites, that he had built a church in his castle of Monmouth, and had granted it for ever to St. Florentius at Salmure, whence he had invited monks that they might there live and regularly serve God in the said church, to which end he had granted them the church of St. Cadoc near his castle, which the said monks had occupied before the one in Monmouth was finished; also the churches of St. Wingaloc (Wonaston), Rockville, Llangaddoc, Bicknour Wallensis, with six others in Herefordshire and Gloucestershire; three carucates of land near the castle of Monmouth, one carucate in Llangattoc, and one carucate in Suenton; two parts of the tithes of his manor, and the tithes of all mills and duties. The witnesses were Badaron, brother of the donor, and William, Yvin, Robert, Pagan and Ywentroue, sons of Badaran. The document has no date. Dugdale erroneously fixes the foundation in the reign of Henry I, in which, as a matter of course, he has been followed by all subsequent writers. In a work of such magnitude as the Monasticon, it is by no means surprising that many errors should be discovered. The mistake in this instance may have arisen in this way. The first witness to the charter was Badaran, brother of the founder, and finding a person of the same name who

was also a benefactor of the priory in the reign of Henry I, the learned author seems to have jumped to the conclusion that he was the same individual as the brother of Withenoc, instead of his great nephew, as the fact was. Had he chanced to have referred to the Herefordshire Domesday the mistake could not have occurred, as we there read, “Hujus castelli (Monemude) ecclesiam et omnem decimam cum duobus carucatis terræ tenet Sanctus Florentius de Salmur," which shows beyond a doubt that the monastery was founded prior to 1083. At the same time, William Fitz-Badaron, another of the witnesses to his uncle's charter, held Monmouth and other manors.

Independently of this, we have the testimony of the Liber Landavensis, compiled in the time of bishop Urban, about the year 1110, and, therefore, an unexceptionable authority for the transactions of the preceding half century, indeed it is not improbable that the writer was an eye witness of the events he relates, respecting the church of Monmouth. After telling us that the castle was erected by William Fitz-Osbern, and that his son Roger forfeited his estates for rebellion, the date of which has been fixed about the year 1073, the record informs us that "after these things the castle was given to Gwerthenanc, and in his time bishop Herwald consecrated the church of the castle of Monmouth, king Caradoc being present." This was Caradoc ap Griffith ap Rhydderch, lord of Caerleon and Gwent, who died in 1079. We have, then, the limits 1073 and 1079 between which the foundation of the monastery must have taken place-Gwerthenanc became a monk and died in the priory he had founded; of his brother Badaron we have no further account. The names of these noblemen and the sons of the latter indicate an Armorican origin, of which country many individuals settled in the marches of Wales, where they had grants of lands. No doubt they were found useful as interpreters between the Normans and the natives. Of William Fitz-Badaron, the Domesday proprietor, no grant to the priory has been preserved. Badaron Fitz-William, lord of Monmouth, and great nephew of the founder of the priory, succeeded his father before the 19th April, 1128, at which date he is mentioned in a bull of pope Honorius II. He married Rohesia, daughter of Gilbert Strongbow, earl of Pembroke, and sister of Richard Strongbow, the noted conqueror of Ireland. Upon the day of his marriage he and his wife made a grant to the monks of certain tithes, which he afterwards confirmed by a charter which escaped the researches of Dugdale, but was published by Madox,1 and has since been copied in the additions to the Monasticon. This very interesting document recites that the marriage was performed at Strugul (now Chepstow), by Odo, the prior of that place, and Godfrey, prior of Monmouth. In the absence of the earl the bride's uncle Walter acted as father in church; there were present her mother, the countess Isabella, the uncle of the bridegroom, Robert Fitz-Badaron, and his son John Fitz-Robert, Formul. Angl.

Thomas Fitz-Pagan his cousin, Meno de

and Reinald de Hagepen, etc. I suspect there is some error in the transcription, for as printed it is by no means clear of what the grant consisted: it runs thus, " decimam quam præcor redditurus est de villa de Monemuta. Hujus rei concessio facto est circa festum omnium sanctorum in die qua mihi desponsata fuit uxor mea Rohes apud Striguliam. Donatio vero facta est in sequenti festo Sancti Martini apud Monemetam super altare Sanctæ Mariæ per unum cultellum, etc." For præcor we should certainly read prætor; the town crier could have no payments to make to the lord, but the mayor, or bailiff, or by whatever name the chief officer of the corporation was called, was no doubt here, as elsewhere, accountable for rents and tolls, etc., received by him, the tenth part of which was, I suppose, the subject of the grant; what follows illustrates the legal distinction between concessio and donatio, the first implying a covenant or agreement to do a thing, the latter its confirmation and warranty. The ceremony of depositing his dagger (cultellum) on the altar may have been an usual thing, but I do not recollect any other instance of its being recorded in the grant. The date of this must have been, I think, between 1125 and 1130. Another grant by the same Badaron is published in the Monasticon, whereby, with the consent of his sons Gilbert and James, he gives the prior and monks three forges on the Wye in his town of Monmouth, with freedom from toll, etc., in exchange for Hodenack (Hadnock); among the witnesses we find the name of Sitsyllt ap Dyfnwal, who was killed in 1172, prior to which the exchange must have been made. Other benefactors, contemporary with Badaron, were Richard de Cormeils, who gave the monks the church of Weston, and Hugh de Lacy, with Rohais his wife, who gave them a rent of three shillings in Lidney. Badaron was living in 1168, but the time of his death is unknown. No grant to the priory by either of his sons has been discovered; the eldest, Gilbert, died in 1189 or 1190, leaving his son and heir John under age, for whose wardship his maternal uncle, William de Braoce, gave the king one thousand marks.1 He was still in ward in 1199, as his guardian then paid the scutage assessed upon his lands on king John's coronation; but from the oblata roll of 3rd John, 1201, we find that he was then of age, and married to Cecily, daughter and coheiress of Walter Walerand, and paid the king one hundred and twenty marks, and two Norway hawks, to have her share of her father's lands. This shows that Cecily was John de Monmouth's first wife, and is important in reference to two charters or pretended charters of this nobleman, relating to a certain hospital dedicated to the Holy Trinity and Blessed Virgin, in some way or other mixed up and connected with the priory. One of these, evidently by the context the earliest, assuming them to be authentic, is in the library of Jesus College, Oxford, and has never been published; the other is copied in the Monasticon 1 See Pipe Roll 2nd Rich. I.