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caution. [75, B. 17.] It may be observed that King John's charter enumerates, next after the Bonneville donation, forty acres given by the Templars. The extent of Glamorgan in 1264 [Wallia. Bag. 1, N. 15] is signed by Simon de Bonvile as a juror.

Soon afterwards Abbot Gilbert is found executing agreements with John le Norreys, also a juror on the above extent, who holds lands and tenements in Bonevileston of the abbot and convent, by which John admits that he does so hold them at the service of 12d. per annum, and doing monthly suit to the abbot's court. at Bonvileston, paying such foreign service as pertains to the tenement, and reasonable relief to the abbot when due, and custody of the lands and heir when a minor, and fealty. For these considerations, and at the instance of Gilbert, Earl of Gloucester, the abbot warrants to le Norreys and his heirs the tenement of the fee of Bonevileston should he be impleaded in the earl's court; but should Le Norreys be so impleaded, and lose, he can only come upon Margam for a pair of gilt spurs of 6d. value, as value for the land so lost. And Norreys covenants under a forfeiture of £100 sterling not to sell more than the gilt spurs. [75, A. 36.]

In 1291, 1 Feb., the abbot, as lord of the fee of Bonvileston, is party to an agreement with Thomas le Spoḍur of that place, by which Thomas gives up, in perpetuity, an acre of land and a house and curtilage in the vill of Tudekistowe, which Thomas, son of Robert Acus, formerly held of Margam, and which lies between the Margam lands and the main road towards the common called Newton's Down.

In return the abbot grants to Thomas, in perpetuity, two acres in the fee of Bonevileston, one in Redelond field, and one near the vill, which Roger, son of Cady, formerly held, paying 14d. per annum, and doing suit of court. At Thomas's death a heriot of 5s. to be paid. [75, A. 42.

In 1302, on the Nativity of John the Baptist, 24 June, John, son and heir of Henry de Bonvyle de Bonevyleston, in Glamorgan, informs the faithful that

he has demised and acquitted to Margam, for himself and his heirs, 14s. sterling of a certain 40s. annual rent due to him from the abbey, and this in exchange for 14s. annual rent upon the tenement which Philip Le Especer formerly held of Margam in Bristol, and which is now assigned to his lord, Reymund de Sullye, who in return enfeoffs John and his heirs of 148. rent in exchange for 20s., which Matthew Everrard, Joan his wife, and Hugo their son, used to pay to Reymund for a tenement held by them at Holeton, in the lordship of Dinas Powys. A somewhat complex arrangement, shewing de Sully to have been Bonevilles lord, and pointing to the retirement of the Bonvilles from the county. [75, B. 22.]

It does not here appear how De Sully came to be the superior lord of De Boneville; perhaps this may be connected with the superiority of Wenvoe over Bonevileston, mentioned above, and the fact that in 1262, as appears by the county extent, Walter, the then lord of Sully held also two fees in Wenvoe.

A deed of 25 July, 1378, records an exchange by the abbot and convent of two acres of arable land in Redelond, and five acres next the old castle on the northern side of Bonvileston,' with Will. Wronou [Grono] de Bonevileston, against his seven acres next Helligogy on the west side. [75, A. 43.] The Spencer Survey of 1320 mentions Ma: Bonville, ij plough lands. This may be Maurice Bonville.

26 Nov., 1330, occurred a plea before the Sheriff of Glamorgan between the Abbot of Margam and John de Woledon, who held a free tenement under Margam in Bonevileston, for which John le Flemyng of St. George's claimed service. Woledon absconded, leaving nothing behind, upon which the abbot became responsible to John le Flemyng. [Francis MS.]

30 Nov., 1377, an indenture was agreed to between the abbot and convent and John Denys of Waterton, by which they granted him in farm eighty-nine acres of

1 This may refer to the castrum or military earthwork north of the church.

land in the fee of Bonvileston, during the minority of John, son and heir of John Norreis of Leche Castel, at 138. 4d. per annum. [75, A. 45.] The abbot held the Norreis lands as lord of the fee.

The Golden Grove Book mentions Elias de Bonville as contemporary with William Earl of Gloucester, Simon as the person who gave name to the parish and manor, William as named in a dateless deed, Maurice, and John, and adds that an heiress of Bonville married Lewis Raglan. Bonvileston probably remained in the crown from the dissolution until 18 Feb., 32 H. VIII [Orig., p. 90, part i, m. 62], when the manor and rectory were granted to Sir John St. John, Kt., in exchange for other lands. Sir John did not long retain his acquisition. 33 H. VIII he fined £4 13s. 4d. for licence to alienate to John Bassett the manor and rectory of Bonevileston, and John Bassett did homage and fealty to the crown for the manor and rectory of Bonevileston, and messuages in Brandiston, Monewydon, Hoo, Kilylboro', SomeCount, and Cretyngham. [Ibid., p. 93, m. 126, and p. 90, m. 69.] Further, 8 Eliz., is a memorandum concerning the exonerating William Bassett and Edward Manxwell from the annual rent of five marks from the manor of Bonwyshton. The Bassetts thus acquired Bonvileston, which they still retain in the person of Richard Bassett.

Allusion has been made to the Templar lands in or near Bonvileston, of which they gave forty acres to Margam before 1205. The residue no doubt descended to the Knights of St. John, for in the Lansdown MS. [No. 200, p. 6] is a charter by John Kendall, Prior of St. John of Jerusalem in England, dated 20 June, 1492, by which he lets to Roger Vaughan, and Roger his son, all their demesne lands in the Lordship of Milton, Glamorgan, with a water mill newly built there, for forty-one years from the Assumption of the Virgin, at a rent of 448., payable to the Preceptor of Dynmor.

This property was acquired by John Bassett, who did homage 35 H. VIII for the manor of Milton. [Orig., p. 77, part i, m. 91.] It has descended with Bonvileston.

(To be continued.)

60

EWYAS-HAROLD.

THE first thing that occurs to me is an inquiry into the etymology of the name. With respect to the first part of it, Ewyas, I only know of two other combinations in which it occurs-1, Ewyas-Lacy, the hundred in which Ewyas-Harold is situated; and 2, Teffont-Ewyas, a small parish in Wiltshire. I have sought in vain from Welsh scholars for any reliable explanation of the name. It occurs as Euas in a Welsh life of St. Beino, edited by the late Rev. Mr. Rees, of Cascob. By Leland it is spelt Ewis, which is the present pronunciation of the name in the district. Can it have any connection with the Welsh glas, which, in composition, seems sometimes to have reference to streams? There is, in the immediate neighbourhood, Dulas and Pontrilas; or can it be of Saxon origin, like its affix of Harold? Its occurring in a part of England so remote from Wales as Wiltshire, may favour its derivation from the Saxon Ea, water.

The name of Harold occurs in several other combinations. In Bedfordshire there is Harrold, simply; in Leicestershire, Stanton-Harold; in Pembrokeshire, Harroldstone. Though there is no doubt that King Harold, the last of the Saxon line, before the conquest, laid his hands upon a good deal of property in Herefordshire, which, according to the survey in Domesday Book, was restored to the owners by William the Conqueror, yet the connection of Ewyas-Harold with him. and his family is an unsupported suggestion of Leland's. It seems to have derived this name from a Harold, lord of the castle here, of whom we have clear notices as being in possession of it very soon after the conquest,at all events, in the first years of the twelfth century. From Camden it would seem as though there had been a castle here at the period of the Conquest; and, as appears from the Conqueror's survey, refortified by Alured de Marleberg. Dugdale, however, says that this fortress

was originally built by Fitz-Osborne, Earl of Hereford, after the Conquest. He was father of Harold, in whose possession it is, any how, certain the lordship and castle were within half-a-century from the Conquest. In old maps of Herefordshire the place is marked as Harold's Ewyas, and in other old descriptions it is put down as Mapharald. Mab being Welsh for son, can this have reference to Harold's son and successor, filius Haraldi, as we find him described in documents to which I shall presently refer, and so be equivalent to the Fitz which enters into the composition of some English names of places?

The first Harold was the founder of a priory of Benedictines here, removed, it is supposed, from Dulas a mile higher up the brook. This monastery was a cell or dependence of the Abbey at Gloucester, and lasted at EwyasHarold for about two and half centuries, being reunited to Gloucester in 1358.1 During this period it was, we read, a common burying-place for the nobility of the county; so that excavations might produce results of interest. But the But the very site cannot now be identified. By the kindness of the truly venerable father of archæ ology in this county, the Rev. John Webb, I have been favoured with a copy of the cartulary of this priory, extending through the whole of its existence. This document, amidst the formal legal phraseology, of which, of course, it mainly consists, gives us curious and valuable glimpses of the period. It is all in Latin, with the exception of the deed which recites the dissolution of the priory, which is in the Norman French of that date (the middle of the fourteenth century).

The names of localities in the neighbourhood occur in these deeds so as to be easily recognised. Thus Dulas, both the brook and the parish, appears as

1 The connexion of Ewyas-Harold with Gloucestershire is still retained by the great tithes of Ewyas-Harold forming part of the endowment of the see of Gloucester (only just lapsed to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners), and the presentation to the vicarage being in the patronage of the Bishop of Gloucester.

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