A Neglected Charter of Margaret De Bohun1

Trans. Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 131 (2013), 179–188

A Neglected Charter of Margaret de Bohun1

By EMMA CAVELL

Among the muniments of the Augmentations Office, now housed at the National Archives, lies a charter of Margaret de Bohun that was seemingly unknown to David Walker when he published his impressive collection of charters of the Anglo-Norman earldom of Hereford.2 Written in book hand and beautifully preserved but for some minor damage to the left edge and the loss of its seal, this neglected deed contains Margaret’s confirmation of the gifts of several of her Gloucestershire tenants to the west Oxfordshire abbey of St Mary of Bruern, in the latter part of the 12th century.3 It may well be the only original among Margaret’s acta yet to have surfaced. This charter is a valuable addition to the extant Hereford corpus edited by Walker: the present article seeks to render it accessible by providing an edition of the Latin text and short contextual analysis of its content. Margaret de Bohun was the daughter of Miles of Gloucester (d. 1143), earl of Hereford, the widow of the royal steward Humphrey II de Bohun (d. before 29 September 1165),4 and the progenitrix of subsequent earls of Hereford and royal constables. The eldest of all the surviving children of Earl Miles and Sybil de Neufmarché, Margaret nevertheless only became a co-heiress in 1165 when the last of her adult brothers died without children of his own, leaving three sisters, Margaret, Bertha and Lucy, to carve up the family estates – although the division was unequal and Margaret took the lioness’s share. Hers were the family possessions in England, while Bertha and her husband William de Braose received the lordships of Brecon and Abergavenny. It was not until the 1190s that Lucy and her husband, Herbert FitzHerbert, managed to wrest control over some of the English estates from Margaret.5 At the time she became an heiress, Margaret was recently widowed and in her forties.6 She survived her husband by a further 30 years or more, and during her lengthy widowhood proved herself an ambitious matriarch, a generous and conscientious donor to the Church, a tough legal adversary and a striking figure in the history of her family and its lordship. She appears as grantor

1. I owe a debt of thanks to David Crouch for his comments on the first draft of this article and edition. 2. D. Walker, ‘Charters of the earldom of Hereford 1095–1201’, in D. Walker (ed.) Camden Miscellany 22 (Camden Soc. 4th ser. 1, 1964), 1–75. A contributor to the Victoria County History (VCH) was aware of the charter 20 years later: VCH Glos. VII, 185, n. 81. For another Hereford comital charter unknown to Walker, see J. Round (ed.), Calendar of Documents Preserved in France (1899), no. 1148 (a confirmation of Earl Roger to Monmouth priory). 3. The National Archives (TNA), E 315/52, no. 29. 4. Pipe Roll 1164–5 (Pipe Roll Soc. (PRS) 8), 57. 5. Pipe Roll 1193 (PRS 41), 121; 1194 (PRS 43), 237; 1195 (PRS 44), 177; 1196 (PRS 45), 104; 1197 (PRS 46), 123; 1199 (PRS 48), 35; F.W. Maitland (ed.), Three Rolls of the King’s Court in the Reign of Richard the First, A.D. 1194–5 (PRS 14, 1891), 51; Walker, ‘Heref. charters’, 3–4; D. Crouch (ed.), Llandaff Episcopal Acta, 1140–1287 (1988), 57–8, 67–8. See also D. Walker, ‘The “Honours” of the Earls of Hereford’, Trans. BGAS 79 (1960), 192–209. 6. She was born before 1123 and was dead by Michaelmas 1197, when her grandson Henry de Bohun fined 300 marks for her lands: Pipe Roll 1197 (PRS 46), 128; 1198 (PRS 47), 6.

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or confirmer in no fewer than 32 of Walker’s charters, 20 of them alone issued to her father’s foundation of Llanthony Secunda, just outside Gloucester, the mausoleum of her natal family and ultimately her own final resting place.7 A further three of her deeds were directed toward Gloucester abbey,8 two were issued to Chirton parish church (Wilts.),9 one related to Monkton Farleigh priory (Wilts.),10 and the remainder concerned individuals within the purview of her lordship and connection.11 On several occasions in adulthood – both during her marriage and again at the very end of her life – she headed the impressive witness lists gracing family members’ charters.12 So informative are many of Margaret’s charters, revealing much about her sense of family, community and religious commitment, that they call for further analysis. Such an exercise is, however, beyond the scope of the present article. The deed edited below represents the confirmation of a series of land-grants to Bruern abbey by five of Margaret’s tenants: Hugh of Condicote Cundicota( ), Maud de Watteville, Walter fitz Robert, Elias le Holt (Lohold) and Elias’s son Walter. As it stands it is a largely unexceptional document, less detailed than many of Margaret’s own charters of religious donation, and revealing little of her personal tastes and priorities. Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly rare – perhaps even unique – among her natal family’s deeds for having been issued to Bruern abbey, a poorly documented Cistercian house.13 The pro anima clause of the Bruern charter is shorter and more concise than those of Margaret’s eleemosynary deeds, whose clauses were characterized by Walker as ‘long, loosely organised and designed to cover as many as possible of her dead relations’.14 On this occasion only a core of spiritual beneficiaries is given (Margaret herself, along with her mother, father and all her ancestors) and, unusually for Margaret’s charters, no Christian names are offered. As the present charter simply confirmed several tenants’ grants, rather than expediting a bequest of Margaret’s own, the less-than-effusive phrasing may simply represent the stock formula used by the beneficiaries in drafting the deed. As far as Margaret was concerned, the deed belonged to her seigneurial, rather than her eleemosynary and filial, obligations. It is not clear whether Margaret or her immediate natal family had any association with Bruern abbey, a Cistercian house founded by Nicholas Basset in 1147, beyond the supervision of their tenants’ activities and beyond the evident interests of their distant de la Mare kin.15 From the extant

7. Walker, ‘Heref. charters’, nos. 88–123. 8. Ibid. nos. 103, 120–1; W.H. Hart (ed.), Historia et Cartularium Monasterii Sancti Petri Gloucestriae (1863), II, nos. 474, 559. 9. Walker, ‘Heref. charters’, nos. 93, 119. 10. Ibid. no. 97 11. Ibid. nos. 98, 115, 117, 118, 122, 123. 12. TNA, DL 27/1 (dated in the catalogue to 1199–1210, which is a too late for Margaret’s lifetime); DL 42/2, f. 171; Berkeley Castle Mun., A/2/8/2; Wilts. and Swindon Archives, D1/1/1, pp. 96, 104 (I owe thanks again to David Crouch for providing me with this reference). As an infant of no more than about two years old, Margaret was placed last in the witness list of a charter issued by her grandfather, Walter de Pîtres, to a kinsman: ‘Margareta filia ipsius Milonis [of Gloucester]’, TNA, DL 25/3 and printed in J.H. Round (ed.), Ancient Charters Royal and Private, Prior to A.D. 1200, Part 1 (PRS 10, 1888), no. 11. Margaret’s inclusion as an infant witness presumably signals her role as the future heir, and the only one at that stage, to the properties in question: this deed is a relic of some complex intra-family arrangements in which her parents, Miles of Gloucester and Sybil de Neufmarché, were involved. See Round, Ancient Charters, 19–20, note, for further details. 13. Her nephew Peter Fitz Herbert, the son of her sister Lucy, subsequently issued a confirmation of various grants, including the Condicote interests, to Bruern abbey: TNA, E 315/45, no. 223. 14. Walker, ‘Heref. charters’, 2. 15. Ibid. no. 11; Sir W. Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, (1655–73), VI(1), 136; Round, Ancient Charters, no. 45 (1171–83).

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documentation it seems unlikely. The Gloucester family’s own religious interests in England were confined to a select group of institutions in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire, with a particular emphasis on the family monastery at Llanthony by Gloucester (Secunda), and Margaret’s own interests were still more restricted. Nor do Margaret’s marital family, the Bohuns of Trowbridge (Wilts.), have any obvious connection to Bruern, preferring their own houses at Monkton Farleigh and Bohon (Côtentin), and later the Gloucesters’ foundation of Llanthony Secunda. The loss of any house cartulary or register that may have existed at Bruern abbey further masks the possibility of a relationship between the two families and the abbey.16 Nevertheless the greater significance of the present charter clearly lies not in Margaret’s role as benefactor or patron of the Bassett family abbey, but in her status as lord of the tenant-donors in her share of the Gloucester patrimony. In the early 13th century her nephew Peter FitzHerbert confirmed the donations to Bruern made from the fee of Hinchwick by various members of the Condicote family, suggesting that this interest belonged to the territories which his parents, Herbert FitzHerbert and Lucy of Gloucester, ultimately won from Margaret de Bohun during the 1190s.17 As far as the manor of Colesbourne is concerned, too, its presence within the purview of Margaret’s lordship at the time that she issued her confirmation to Bruern abbey clearly demonstrates that it had not, as David Walker assumed, always been attached to the purparty of Herbert and Lucy FitzHerbert and their descendants.18 The manor of Colesbourne, in south-eastern Gloucestershire, like Condicote, must also have been transferred from elder to younger sister in the 1190s. Apart from what it offers for the history of the abbey and the augmentation of its possessions, about which relatively little is known,19 much of the interest of the document lies in what it adds to our knowledge of the Gloucester family’s tenantry, and of the reach and operation of Margaret de Bohun’s own seigneurial responsibilities during her 30-year widowhood. The charter carefully sets out the east Gloucestershire tenements donated to Bruern abbey in the preceding generations, among them a field (cultura) called ‘Pailsgar’, one close in Colesbourne ‘where Edwin the parmenter used to dwell’ and another once held by Thedwald the harper, and some land in the fee of Hinchwick formerly held by David the priest. It also contains the statement that Hugh of Condicote was to compensate the monks with an alternative bequest if he found himself unable to honour his original gift. The confirmation of five tenants’ donations, alone of the extant confirmations expedited by Margaret in widowhood, was executed as a ‘job lot’, and it may have been so issued at the request of the monks themselves as an additional security measure.20 Seemingly incorporating most, if not all, previous grants made to Bruern by Margaret’s Gloucestershire tenants, the charter includes the gifts of at least one donor who was no longer living, but had been replaced in his lordship by his son and heir.21

16. No cartulary is known to survive, but scattered charters and other extant documents relating to Bruern abbey are identified in VCH Oxon. II, 79–81. None of these pertains to Margaret de Bohun or her family. 17. TNA, E 315/45/223. This charter is not dated, but Lucy FitzHerbert died in the 1220s and her son Peter in 1235. The second witness is Ralph Mortimer (c.1198–1246), whose mother, Isabel de Ferrers, married Peter FitzHerbert after the death of her first husband, Roger Mortimer, in July 1214. This charter therefore certainly dates to between 1214 and 1235, but was probably issued after Lucy’s death in the 1220s. 18. Walker, ‘Honours’, 201. 19. VCH Oxon. II, 79–81. Bruern’s possessions chiefly straddled W Oxon. and E Glos. 20. e.g. Walker, ‘Heref. charters’, nos. 92, 108, 116; D. Walker, ‘Ralph son of Pichard’, Hist. Research 33(88) (1960), 195–202. 21. Elias Le Holt had died and been replaced by his son Walter by 1183, whose gift to Bruern abbey was also confirmed below: Round,Ancient Charters, no. 45; M. Hollings (ed.), The Red Book of Worcester (Worcs. Hist. Soc. 1934), 437; C.D. Ross (ed.), The Cartulary of Cirencester Abbey, Gloucestershire (1964),

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The charter edited below belongs to the broad timeframe of 1174 to 27 March 1189, and almost certainly dates to the latter part of that period. The outer limits of the dating derive from the known time in office of the first witness, Roger ‘of Norwich’, prior of Llanthony,22 while the absence of any mention of Margaret’s eldest son Humphrey III de Bohun, who died in 1181 and was often, though not always, party to her transactions, may be grounds for assigning the charter to the period after 1181.23 Few other internal clues are evident. Apart from Prior Roger, none of the witnesses, all members of the Gloucester family tenantry or Margaret’s own household, can be assigned lifespans certain enough to assist with the dating of the charter. What can be determined, on the other hand, are the order and approximate timings of the original grants confirmed by Margaret de Bohun below, and these suggest that the charter’s date was in fact close to 1189. Several of the original deeds of donation survive, as do confirmation charters of the abbey’s possessions issued by Henry II and Richard I. Although most of these are of indeterminate date, the original acts can be assigned with some certainty to the following timeframes: Elias le Holt and Hugh of Condicote (1147–c.1160),24 Maud de Watteville (c.1160), Walter fitz Robert (c.1166–84)25 and Walter le Holt (before 27 March 1189).26

I, 177. The widow Maud de Watteville may also have been dead, because the other Colesbourne tenant alongside Walter le Holt in 1185 was William le Puher. See f.n. 24 for a possible explanation of William le Puher’s tenancy of this portion of Colesbourne. 22. D. Knowles, C.N.L. Brooke and V.C. London (eds.), The Heads of Religious Houses, England and Wales, 940–1216 (1972), 173. Roger’s abbacy was given as ‘occurs 1178’ in VCH Glos. II, 90, a date which was used for the present charter by the TNA catalogue. Roger’s successor, Geoffrey of Henlawe, was in office by 27 March 1189. 23. Walker, ‘Heref. charters’, nos 97, 99. After Humphrey’s death, Margaret’s grandson can also be found as a witness or consenter to some of her charters: ibid. nos. 104–8. 24. Bruern abbey was founded in 1147 and the gifts of Elias le Holt and Hugh of Condicote appear in Henry II’s confirmation charter, dated by Round to 1154–70 Cartae( Antiquae, rolls 11–20, no. 601). The gift of Maud de Watteville, not in Henry II’s charter but present in the later royal confirmations, was probably made around 1160: British Library (BL), Add. Ch. 20394; VCH Glos. VII, 187. This would further provide an earlier terminus ad quem for Henry II’s confirmation charter than that determined by Round. The original of Hugh of Condicote’s grant of ‘Pailsgar’, together with the promise of an alternative interest as insurance, is probably that at TNA, E 327/427 (and T. Madox (ed.), Formulare Anglicanum (1702), no. 427). The land formerly held by David the priest is not mentioned in this charter, and may belong to a separate grant, although the confirmation charter of Richard I (15 September 1189; from an inspeximus of 1372 in Cal. Charter Rolls , V, 221–2) suggests this interest was itself ‘in cultura Pailsgar’ (while elsewhere the preposition is cum: TNA, E 315/52, no. 29; Rot. Chart., 146; Dugdale, Monasticon, V, 497). 25. Maud de Watteville, widow of Dreu le Puher, probably made her original gift around 1160: BL, Add. Ch. 20394, and this was followed by what appears to be a reiteration, with the involvement of her sons William and Robert, soon after: TNA, E 327/438 (Madox, Formulare, no. 438). She was dead by 1166: Red Bk. Worcester, 437; H. Hall (ed.), The Red Book of the Exchequer (1896), I, 293–4; T. Hearne (ed.), Liber Niger Scaccarii (1728), I, 167–8. Both her grant and that of Walter fitz Robert appear in the confirmation charters of Margaret de Bohun (before 27 March 1189) and Richard I (15 September 1189). That Maud’s bequest was made after or alongside that of Elias le Holt, but before that of his son Walter le Holt, is revealed by the statement: ‘tantum de nostra terra in Collesburna ... quantum Dominus Elias de Colleburna de suo eis concessit in eadem villa’ (BL, Add. Ch. 20394). The two Colesbourne gifts are paired in Richard I’s confirmation as ‘in territorio de Colsburne terras quas Helyas Lehold et Matillis de Watevilla eis dederunt’. Walter fitz Robert succeeded to his lands in 1169/70 and died between 1182 and 1184: Pipe Roll, 1169–70 (PRS 15), 77; 1183–4 (PRS 33), 60. 26. Walter le Holt’s involvement is only mentioned in Margaret de Bohun’s charter, in which the wording suggests that he simply reiterated and confirmed by his own charter the grant made by his father.

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Ensconced in the eastern reaches of Gloucestershire, toward the borders of Warwickshire and Oxfordshire, the Bruern donors enjoyed both a shared interest in the abbey and the multifaceted interconnections of community and neighbourhood. Hugh of Condicote, donor of that furlong called ‘Pailsgar’, and of David the priest’s old tenancy in the fee of Hinchwick, came from a family recorded in the north-east of the county throughout the 12th and 13th centuries, and was probably the son of the original feoffee, Hugh of Condicote senior.27 The Condicote family connection to Bruern dated back at least as far as the original frankalmoin grant of ‘Pailsgar’ by Hughs senior and junior, and Lecia wife of the former, at some point between the abbey’s foundation in 1147 and the year 1160.28 The family’s interest continued well to the next century, as Hugh senior, Hugh junior, one Osbert son of Hugh (almost certainly of Hugh junior) and one Richard brother of Hugh made further grants, witnessed the gifts of neighbours and associates in Hinchwick and confirmed the donations of their own tenants in the same fee.29 The Condicote family were thus very closely associated with the substantial estate held by Bruern in the manor of Condicote.30 In the south-eastern sector of Gloucestershire were three donors associated with the manor of Colesbourne: father and son Elias and Walter le Holt and their neighbour Maud de Watteville. (Great) Colesbourne, like Condicote, belonged to Margaret de Bohun’s tenancy in the lands of the bishop of Worcester, from whom she held several knights’ fees in Gloucestershire during the latter half of the 12th century.31 Elias le Holt held much of Colesbourne in demesne under Margaret’s father, Earl Miles, but had been succeeded in his estates by his son Walter at some stage before 1183, when the latter witnessed a grant to Bruern abbey by one William de Mara (de la Mare).32 The le Holts appear to have been county figures of some standing, for in 1278 a later Walter le Holt presided over a plea in the abbot of Cirencester’s court.33 In the bishop of Worcester’s survey of 1185, Margaret’s two tenants in Colesbourne were Walter le Holt and one William le Puher, undoubtedly a younger kinsman of the other Colesbourne donor, Maud de Watteville. Maud de Watteville, who made her original gift to Bruern around 1160, was by then the widow of Dreu le Puher, Earl Miles’s steward, and she had sons named Robert and William,

This may account for Walter’s absence from the confirmations subsequently issued by Richard I and John. 27. Red Bk. Exchequer., I, 293–4 (Carta Margaretae de Boun); Red Bk. Worcester, 437; TNA, E 315/37/13; E 315/45/223and 225; E 315/49/55; Pipe Roll, 1193 (PRS 41), 120; Feudal Aids, II, 254; Reg. Giffard (Worcs. Hist. Soc. 1902), 433; VCH Glos. VII, 90. 28. Madox, Formulare, 252–3. The date of the original donation is indicated by a confirmation charter to Bruern issued by Henry II between his accession in 1154 and c.1160: Cartae Antiquae, rolls 11–20, pp. 185–6. 29. TNA, E 315/45, nos. 223, 225; E 315/37, no. 13; E 315/49, no. 55. In 1258, after Easter, Richard son of Cecily of Condicote made an exchange of land with Bruern abbey: Madox, Formulare, no. 270 (TNA, E 327, no. 270). 30. TNA, E 210, no. 114 (Cal. Ancient Deeds, III, D. 144); Rot. Chart., 146; Cal. Charter Rolls, V., 221. 31. The Domesday manor of (Great) Colesbourne in Rapsgate hundred was divided into two parts, one held of the Crown by the bishop of Worcester, the other by Ansfrid of Cormeilles; nearby was Little Colesbourne, in Wacrescombe hundred, and also held by the bishop of Worcester: J. Morris (ed.), Domesday Book – Gloucestershire (1975), 3:2, 68:9 (Great C.), 3:5 (Little C.). It is clear from Red Bk. Worcester, 437, that it is what became known as Great Colesbourne that is referred to here. 32. Walker, ‘Heref. charters’, no. 11; Dugdale, Monasticon, VI (1), 136; Round, Ancient Charters, no. 45 (1171–83). See also Red Bk. Worcester, 437 (1185). 33. Ross, Cart. Cirencester, II, no. 337.

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as well as other children.34 A connection between the le Holt and the le Puher-Watteville families is signalled by the statement in Maud de Watteville’s original bequest that she was giving to the monks as much land as lord Elias le Holt gave to them from his own land in Colesbourne.35 The remaining portion of land confirmed by Margaret de Bohun was a single virgate in Shipton donated by Walter fitz Robert. Little is known of the donor or his estates, but that he held his lands of Margaret de Bohun in the 1160s and died in 1183/4, and that his son was probably the John son of Walter fitz Robert who witnessed one of Margaret’s grants to LlanthonySecunda in 1188–9.36 The land being confirmed in the charter below was presumably in the manor of Shipton Sollars, part of which belonged to the Gloucester family estates as they were held by Durand the sheriff in 1086, and in which Bruern abbey itself appears to have acquired several further interests during the 12th and early 13th centuries.37 Walter fitz Robert’s grant thus helps to shed some light on the rather shadowy under tenancies in Shipton Sollars, and of the abbey’s establishment of the four-virgate interest it held there at the Dissolution.38 Further insight into Margaret’s seigneurial obligations is provided by the witnesses list on the charter edited below. First among eight witnesses is Prior Roger ‘of Norwich’, head of the priory of Llanthony, Margaret’s natal family monastery and mausoleum. None of the other known charters issued by Margaret or her immediate kin were witnessed by the prior of Llanthony, and it may be that her confirmation of her tenants’ grants in eastern Gloucestershire was transacted on site at the priory, the focal point for the intersection of her family’s seigneurial and eleemosynary responsibilities, and, of course, the place where Prior Roger was on hand to function as a witness. It is possible that Prior Roger also wished to make certain that no conflict of interest between his own house and Bruern abbey arose from the grants which Margaret now confirmed, for although there is no record of any dispute between the two houses, the reservation of the Llanthony canons’ tithes indicates an overlap of interests.39 Following Roger as witnesses are seven members of Margaret’s lordship and household, with her chaplain Humphrey the most prominent among them. Humphrey can be found on the witness lists of 15 more of Margaret’s known deeds and was clearly an intimate member of her household.40 Also employed as a farmer (firmarius) for Llanthony priory, Humphrey is first found

34. Walker, ‘Heref. charters’, nos. 3, 11; Madox, Formulare, no. 438. Dreu le Puher was alive in 1143, but certainly dead by 1166: Red Bk. Worcester, 437. Peter FitzHerbert later ratified a grant to Llanthony Secunda made by Hawise de Watteville and confirmed by Roger le Puher. 35. TNA, E 327, no. 438; BL, Add. Ch. 20394; Madox, Formulare, no. 438. See also Feudal Aids, II, 239, 247, 271, 280. 36. Cf. Pipe Roll 1169–70 (PRS 15), 77, where he fines for right to 1½ fees held of Margaret de Bohun, and Red Bk. Exchequer, I, 294, where he holds 1 knight’s fee by 1166. He is recorded as dead in Pipe Roll 1183–4 (PRS 33), 60. For his son see Walker, ‘Heref. charters’, no. 105. It is not clear what, if any, relationship existed between Walter fitz Robert and the Nicholas fitz Robert associated with Margaret de Bohun and, in 1185, with Gloucester abbey: ibid. nos. 89, 117; Hart, Hist. et Cart. I, 102; II, 42–3. 37. Morris, Glos. Domesday, 53:9 (under Shipton ‘Pelye’); Feudal Aids, II, 245; TNA, CP 25/1/73/3, no. 59; E 315/50/94 and 131; VCH Glos. IX, 187–208. 38. VCH Glos. IX, 187–208. 39. For Llanthony’s disputes with Gloucester abbey, Monkton Farleigh priory and Brecon priory, see D. Walker (ed.), ‘Some charters relating to St Peter’s abbey, Gloucester’ in P.M. Barnes and C.F. Slade (eds.) A Medieval Miscellany for Doris Mary Stenton (PRS 74, 1962), 263; Hart, Hist. et Cart. II, no. 436; Walker, ‘Heref. charters’, nos. 24, 97; R.W. Banks (ed.), Cartularium Prioratus S. Johannis Evangelistae de Brecon (Cambrian Archaeol. Assoc., 1883), 37, 78, 80. 40. Walker, ‘Heref. charters’, nos. 90–3, 95–6, 99–100, 105–7, 113–4, 120; Walker, ‘Ralph son of Pichard’, 201 –2.

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attached to Margaret’s household in the mid 1160s; and he held – so one of Margaret’s charters tells us – a house and grange within the bounds of Caldicot, in modern-day Monmouthshire.41 After Humphrey the chaplain are listed several lay tenants who can variously be found among the testators of a large number of Margaret’s own eleemosynary bequests and other grants, and several of whom could trace their forebears in the Gloucester family lordship back to the time of Earl Miles and beyond. Thus Geoffrey de la Mare, last of the witnesses, almost certainly belonged to the Gloucesters’ de la Mare kin who had held the manor of Little Hereford since the time Margaret’s grandfather, Walter de Pîtres (d. 1129), had enfeoffed his nephew William de la Mare there.42 Independent evidence demonstrating interconnections between the de la Mares, Bruern abbey and the le Holt and Puher families can also be found.43 Likewise, the family of Miles Parvus (or le Petit), the fourth testator, had held a number of Gloucestershire manors of Margaret’s family since the first half of the 12th century at least.44 He himself witnessed six more of Margaret’s acta issued during her widowhood,45 while his elder brother Hugh, although not present on this occasion, can be found in an even greater number of Margaret’s deeds and is probably that Hugh Parvus recorded as holding several Gloucestershire knights’ fees of her in 1166 and c.1191.46 Elias Cockerel was a tenant of Margaret de Bohun in Gloucestershire by 1166 and was recorded as such again c.1191.47 He and Nicholas of St Brides (Netherwent), who can be found among Margaret’s Gloucestershire tenants c.1191, together with Ralph de Vehim, witnessed some 12 more of Margaret’s deeds.48 As a young man, Ralph de Vehim, whose elder brother Richard was also a regular on the witness lists of Gloucester family charters, could also be found on deeds of Margaret’s brothers Walter and Mahel.49 Little is known of Thomas son of Payn, except that he was himself a donor to Llanthony Secunda at

41. Walker, ‘Heref. charters’, nos. 90, 109. A brief history of Caldicot manor can be found in R.A. Griffiths et al. (eds.), The Gwent County History (2008), 57–9; however, the identification of Lucy FitzHerbert (and, indeed, her sisters) as Mahel of Hereford’s daughter is incorrect. 42. Round, Ancient Charters, no. 11. For evidence of association between the de la Mare family and the le Holts and Puhers of Colesbourne, see Walter le Holt’s grant to Bruern abbey: Madox, Formulare, no. 518. 43. In a deed of temp. Hen. II or Ric. I, Robert de la Mare gave land in upper Rendcombe, in Rapsgate hundred not far from Colesbourne, to Bruern abbey. In a second deed of a similar period William de la Mare, with the consent of his wife Amfelisia and son Thomas, also gave land in upper Rendcombe to Bruern, a gift that was witnessed by Walter le Holt and Robert de la Mare. In a third deed Walter le Holt gave to Bruern certain interests in Colesbourne, his grant being witnessed by Thomas de la Mare and Roger le Puher: Madox, Formulare, nos. 426, 460, 518 (TNA, E 327, nos. 426, 460, 518). Thomas de la Mare also witnessed Hugh of Condicote junior’s confirmation of a gift to Bruern made by two of his tenants in the fee of Hinchwick: TNA, E 315/49, no. 55. 44. Hart, Hist. et Cart. II, nos. 672–78; W.W. Capes (ed.), Charters and Records of Hereford Cathedral (1908), 12, 27; Red. Bk. Exchequer, I, 294. 45. Walker, ‘Heref. charters’, nos. 99, 105–7 (where he is preceded by his brother Hugh Parvus), 118, 122 (where he is again with Hugh). 46. Red Bk. Exchequer, I, 294 (four fees); Walker, ‘Heref. charters’, nos. 89 (three fees), 98, 103–7, 112–15, 122. Other members of the Parvus family, like Roger father of Hugh and Miles, and an earlier Hugh, were also associated with Gloucester family deeds: ibid. nos. 3, 21–2, 60; Hart, Hist. et Cart. II, nos. 673, 675, 678. See also Walker, ‘Ralph son of Pichard’, no. vi. 47. Red Bk. Exchequer, I, 294, 296; Walker, ‘Heref. charters’, no. 89. 48. Walker, ‘Heref. charters’, nos. 86, 89, 90, 91, 101, 105–7, 112, 115, 119, 121. See also Walker, ‘Ralph son of Pichard’, no vi. 49. Walker, ‘Heref. charters’, nos. 69, 73, 85.

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Fig. 1. TNA, E 315/52, no. 29. (Photo: author, reproduced with the permission of TNA).

some point in the 1180s or 1190s and also held two knights’ fees of Baderon of Monmouth in the Herefordshire marches in 1166.50 The late 12th-century charter edited below is an important addition to the published collection of charters emanating from the earldom of Hereford – more so because it adds to what we know of the single most prominent and active female member of the comital family, Margaret de Bohun.

50. Ibid. nos. 95, 99, 108. See also Walker, ‘Ralph son of Pichard’, no. viii; Red. Bk. Exchequer, I, 281; V.H. Galbraith and J. Tait (eds.), Herefordshire Domesday, c.1160–70 (PRS 63, 1950), 56.

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The charter is also one of a limited collection of known deeds issued to Bruern abbey, for which few records survive. As a neat confirmation of what appears to be all of the gifts issued to Bruern by Margaret’s Gloucestershire tenants and their predecessors, the document reveals a close-knit and interconnected community of landholders in the eastern reaches of the county, whose shared interest in this Cotswold monastery may have been its principal source of support in the absence of magnate patronage. Thus Bruern abbey emerges from the deed as one of those Cistercian houses – so different from wealthier and better-connected counterparts (such as Bordesley abbey in Worcestershire) – which needed actively to cultivate interest and court donations from local manorial lords. Moreover, the deed edited below provides additional, invaluable insight into the division of the Gloucester family lands among the three co-heiresses to the earldom of Hereford in the latter half of the 12th century, revealing that certain properties believed always to have belonged to the purparty of Lucy FitzHerbert, the youngest of the sisters, had in fact originally been part of Margaret’s interest. It seems that Margaret de Bohun had taken an even greater share of the Gloucester family lands than had always been thought.

* * *

Deed of Margaret de Bohun to Bruern abbey (Oxon.) confirming the grants of several of her tenants in Gloucestershire. 1174×89; possibly c.1189. Original: The National Archives, Exchequer, Court of Augmentations, Miscellaneous Books, E 315/52, no. 29. Approx. 158×169 mm. Seal wanting. (Fig. 1).

Sciant qui sunt 7 qui venturi sunt quod ego Margereia51 de Bohun concessi 7 presenti carta confirm|aui pro anima mea 7 pro animabus patris mei 7 matris mee 7 omnium antecessorum meorum| Deo 7 Sancte Marie 7 monachis de Brueria in perpetuum illam donationem quam Hugo de| Cundicota illis dedit 7 carta sua confirmauit, scilicet totam terram quam David presbiter| tenuit de feudo meo in Hunchewic 7 unam culturam Pailesgar nomine quam si illis| warantizare non poterit escambium illis se daturum promisit. Item confirmo eis in territorio| Colesburnie ex dono Helie Lohold 7 Walterii filii eius sicut carta eiusdem Walterii confir|matur, scilicet clausum in quo manebat Edwin parmentarius 7 totum pratum eidem terre pertinens| [ad re]liquam terram, sicut in diebus domini Helie mensuratum fuit per metas 7 legales divisiones | [7 d]estinctum; et ex dono domine Mattildis de Wattevilla in territorio eiusdem Colesburnie| sicut carta eius confirmatur, scilicet clausum quod fuit Thedwaldi citharede 7 exsartum quod| fuit Aschetilli 7 de reliqua terra sua quantum habent de terra supradicti Helie per metas 7 lega|les divisiones mensuratum; et ex dono Walterii filii Roberti in territorio de Siptuna unam| virgatam terre quam isdem Walterius eis dedit, illam scilicet virgatam quam Robertus Fiz te|nuit. Volo itaque 7 firmiter constituo ut predicti monachi habeant 7 teneant predictas te|nuras inperpetuum de me 7 de heredibus meis salvo servicio nostro 7 salvis decimis ca|nonicorum de Lantonai. His testibus Rogero priore de Lantonai . Hunfrido capellano| . Rad’ de Veim . Milone Parvo . Thoma filio Pagani . Helia Cokerel . Nicholao de Sancta| Brigida . Gauf’ de la Mara.

Endorsed: Hunchewik. Margareta de Bohun.

51. usually ‘Margareta’, as per the endorsement.

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