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III.—The Manor of Eia, or Eye next Westminster

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2011

Wm. Loftie Rutton
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Extract

In the days of King Edward the Confessor the Manor of Eye next Westminster, entered as Eia in Domesday Book, was held of Queen Edith by William the Chamberlain. This William, to use the significant words of the record, lost the manor (manerium amisit) at the Conquest by William of Normandy, when it fell into the possession of Geoffrey de Manneville or Mandeville (latinized as Magna Villa), who, as perhaps chief of the Conqueror's companions in arms, profited in the acquisition of some 118 English manors, situated in ten counties, chiefly in Essex and Suffolk. This baron by many tenures, about twenty years after the Conquest, being in possession of the Manor of Eye adjoining the estate of the Abbey of Westminster, and no doubt desiring in a measure to atone for his misdeeds, gave the manor to the Abbey. He, in the words of the grant, “for his soul and the soul of Athelays his wife buried in the cloister of Saint Peter, where next to her he also was to be buried, and for the souls of his sons and daughters, gave to Saint Peter of Westminster the manor which near his church he had held, namely Eye, in perpetual heritage,” etc. The grant is undated.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 62 , Issue 1 , 1910 , pp. 31 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1910

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References

page 31 note 1 Dugdale, , Baronage, i. 200Google Scholar.

page 31 note 2 Eia was in possession of Mandeville at the time of making the Domesday Survey, commenced (as conjectured) in 1086; and as the grant was confirmed by the Conqueror, who died in September, 1087, its date must have been 1086 or 1087. Abbot Gislebert (or Gilbert) Crispin, 1082 (? 1085)-1117, witnessed it.

The name of the manor is printed “Ese” in the Monasticon Anglicanum, ed. 1817 (i. 309), and is similarly rendered in the transcript confirmation of the grant, Cotton MS. Faustina A. 111, f. 57b. But the writer learns from the Dean of Westminster that in the Abbey Liber Niger (f. 56) the word is “Eye” in both the grant and confirmation; and that in an older cartulary, the “y”, being dubiously written, has apparently by transcribers been incorrectly read as “s“.

page 32 note 1 Kemble, Codex Diplomaticus, iii. 72.

page 32 note 2 “Tachbrook” for “The Aye Brook” is suggestive, but is questioned.

page 32 note 3 Wharton, , Hist. de Episcopis, 252Google Scholar.

page 33 note 1 Besides a copy of the Conqueror's confirmation of the grant in the Abbey Liber Niger, f. 56, the same contains, f. 6, that of Henry I, which notes also the confirmation per breve of William II.

page 33 note 2 Archaeologia, xxvi. 223Google Scholar.

page 33 note 3 Environs ii. 113, 181Google Scholar.

page 37 note 1 Mr. Larwood has perhaps too ingeniously suggested that the name of the public-house, “The Monster,” which now occupies the site (and by him said to be the only London tavern with this sign), is a corruption of “Monastery”; “Minster” is also conjectured. The present writer offers on a subsequent page what may possibly appear to be the more probable origin of the name. The house is now modern, but has a standing of at least a century and a half; once famous for its tea-gardens, its present notoriety is that of an omnibus station.

page 38 note 1 “Abstract of Charters in a Cartulary of Westminster Abbey in the possession of Samuel Bentley,” 1836, Brit. Mus. [The MS. Abstract may perhaps be found at the College of Arms.]

page 38 note 2 Even earlier, in 1308, Edward II by letters-patent (see Calendar) “exempted John de Benstede during life, in respect of his dwelling-house in Eye near Westminster, called Rosemont, from livery of stewards, marshals, and other ministers of the king. And at the same time he had licence to crenellate his house.” “Rosemont” is suggestive of “Rosamund's land” (and “Rosamond's Pond”) enclosed in St. James's Park, but that land seems to have been beyond the limits of Eye.

page 38 note 3 Professor Skeat, Etymolog. Dict.: “Neat, black cattle, an ox or cow (E.). Neet, both sing. and pl. (M.E.). Neát, unchanged in the plural (A.S.).”

page 38 note 4 Monasticon Anglicanum, ed. 1817, i. 326; Lysons, Environs, ed. 1810, ii. pt. i. 395.

page 39 note 1 Ministers' Accounts (P. R. O.), Bundle 919, nos. 12 to 24.

page 39 note 2 Ibid. Rolls, nos. 12, 13, 14, 17.

page 39 note 3 Ibid. Rolls, nos. 19, 20.

page 39 note 4 Ibid. Roll no. 17.

page 39 note 5 Ibid. Roll no. 13.

page 39 note 6 Ibid.

page 40 note 1 Ministers' Accounts (P. R. O.), Roll no. 14.

page 40 note 2 Feudal Aids, iii. 383Google Scholar.

page 40 note 3 Victoria County History, London, i. 32Google Scholar.

page 40 note 4 Cal. Patent Rolls, 1344, pp. 238, 297, 321.

page 40 note 5 Such is Mr. Saunders's solution of an obscure and tangled matter. He says also: “In 1393 a charter was obtained from Richard II, which is enrolled in the Exchequer [probably now at the Record Office], and affirms that the abbot in right of his monastery was seised of the Manor of Westminster in the town of Westminster, and in the parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.” Archaeologia, xxvi. 236–9Google Scholar.

page 42 note 1 pront = paront [?].

page 43 note 1 The letter of John of Gaunt is exhibited in the Chapter-house of the Abbey. As transcribed by Joseph Burt, Assistant Keeper of the Public Records, it is printed in Archaeological Journal, xxix. 144Google Scholar.

page 43 note 2 William of Worcester, Liber Niger, ed. Hearne, , 1728, ii. 424, 526Google Scholar.

page 43 note 3 The Brut, or Chronicles of England, pt. ii. 482; Early English Text Soc, 1908.

page 43 note 4 “Conventual Leases,” No. 53. For the discovery of this and other papers, and for much kind assistance, the writer is greatly indebted to Mr. Salisbury of the Public Record Office.

page 44 note 1 Thus indicated in Dart's Westminster Abbey.

page 45 note 1 The account of the funeral is fully quoted in Monasticon Anglicanum, ed. 1817, i. 278, and, with facsimile reproductions of the Obituary Roll, in Vetusta Monumenta, iv and vii.

page 45 note 2 Roll 1 Ed. VI, pt. i, mem. 15.

page 46 note 1 Strype, ed. Stow's Survey, bk. vi. 78.

page 47 note 1 “Dammison” on the plan is presumed to be a mistake for Davies.

page 47 note 2 These fields, nos. 1, 2, 3, are shaded on the plan.

page 47 note 3 Probably of that branch of the Stanley family sometime seated at Stanley House, Chelsea. See Lysons, , Environs, ii. 124Google Scholar. “Stanley Place” is now found close to the site of Neyte Manor-house.

page 49 note 1 Walford, in Old and New London (v. 45), quotes all that is recorded of “Jenny's Whim”, and he reproduces from the Crace Collection a view in 1750 of Jenny's Whim Bridge; the wooden bridge over the canal was for a time so called. “The Monster” in 1820 is also represented.

page 52 note 1 Calendar to the Feet of Fines of London and Middlesex, by W. J. Hardy and W. Page.

page 52 note 2 Rymer, , Foedera, ed. 1710, xi. 29–32Google Scholar. Mr. A. Morley Davies, in an excellent study of “London's First Conduit System” ([Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, 1907), shows by an authentic diagram the course of the conduit of 1439. Crossing the highway where is now the Marble Arch, the corner of Hyde Manor is avoided, and the conduit is laid in the land along the south side of the highway now Oxford Street. As evidence of the extension of the Manor of Eybury to the highway it is interesting to notice in the Agreement of 1439 that it was to the abbot's tenants of Eybury, as well as to those of Paddington, that compensation had to be paid.

page 53 note 1 The view that the word manor in the case of Neyte had no more than the significance of mansion, or as in French “manoir”, which was advanced by the writer when reading this paper, is now withdrawn. In the case, however, of the late dated lease already referred to, in which certain fields are said to lie opposite and off the Manor of Neyte, and certain produce was to be delivered into the manor, it is evident that the manor-house is intended.

page 56 note 1 1 on plan. The extent “within the compass of the moat” was about 2 acres, which with 3½ acres “about the same site” made 5½ acres as the whole area of the site.

page 56 note 2 2 on plan. The large field lying between the manor-house and the river. It was always an adjunct of the manor-house.

page 56 note 3 For “Hall” read “Haw”, i. e. Cawsey or Causeway Haw.

page 56 note 4 3 on plan, in three divisions. The large triangular parcel on the south side of the Willow Walk or Causeway. This field was also an adjunct of the manor-house eastward.

page 57 note 1 This, of course, is quite indefinite.

page 57 note 2 Thames Mead, by the river in Eybury.

page 57 note 3 The “Aye or Tybourn Brook”.

page 57 note 4 Chelseth = Chelsea.

page 57 note 5 Totyngton = Todington = Tuddington = Teddington. See Newcourt's Repertorium.

page 57 note 6 On the plan of 1723 “The Manor of Eybury” is written against the farm, 4, which evidently was only a part of the original manor, as parcels formerly found to be in Eybury are in the list now quoted classed separately. The two closes, “late parcel of Longmore,” are marked 5 and 6 on the plan; 5 had been divided.

page 57 note 7 Moor.

page 58 note 1 On the plan the meadow is numbered 7, and the bank 8. The bank (not the Aye or Tyburn Brook, 10, along which it ran) seems to have marked the boundary between the parishes of St. Margaret and St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Abbot's Bridge evidently carried the causeway, called the Willow Walk, over the Aye Brook.

page 58 note 2 Along the Chelsea Road. The Eye Bridge carried the road over the “Aye Brook or Tybourn”, near the site of Buckingham Palace, probably where in Saxon times was Cowford. Eybury here evidently means Eybury Farm.

page 58 note 3 The Conduit Mead is known to have lain where is now Bond Street, and “the great close of Eybury” is supposed to have been the site of Grosvenor Square.

page 58 note 4 This parcel (9 on plan) is marked “Longmoore” on the plan of 1614. The moor-farm lay along the “Aye Brook or Tybourn”, and at one time included two parcels in Eybury, 5 and 6 as noted. The farmstead seems to have been about where is now the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Westminster.