BARONS OF HUGH LUPUS.
(Vol. iii., pp. 87. 189.)
The inquiry of P., in p. 87., seems to indicate an impression that all the witnesses to the charter of Hugh Lupus to Chester Abbey were barons of the Palatinate, but only a few of them were such, the rest being of England generally.
The original barons of the Palatinate were clearly distinguishable by possession of privileges confirmed to them by a well-known charter of Earl Ranulph III.; and all the Norman founders of their baronies will be found, under Cestrescire, in Domesday, as tenants in capite, from the Earl Palatine, of lordships within the lyme of his county.
Bigod de Loges (one of the subjects of P.'s inquiry) will not bear this test, unless he was identical with Bigot, Norman lord of the manors afterwards comprised in Aldford Fee, which is not known to have been the case. For this last-named Bigot, whose lands descended through the Alfords to Arderne, reference may be made to the History of Cheshire, I. xxix., II. 411.
William Malbanc, the other subject of inquiry, who has eluded M. J. T.'s searches, is easily identified. He was the Norman baron of Nantwich, the Willelmus Malbedeng of the Domesday Survey (vol. i. p. 265. col. 2.), and the name is also written thus in the copy of H. Lupus's charter referred to, which was ratified under inspection by Guncelyn de Badlesmere, Justiciary of Chester in 8 Edw. I.
The charter, with Badlesmere's attestation prefixed, will be found in Leycester's Cheshire Antiquities, p. 109., and in Ormerod's Hist. of Cheshire, vol. i. p. 12. In the latter work, in vol. iii., the inquirer will also find an account of William Malbedeng or Malbanc, his estates, his descendant coheirs, and their several subdivisions, extending from p. 217. to p. 222., under the proper head of Nantwich or Wich Malbanc, a still existing Palatine barony.
Lancastriensis.
Your correspondent M. J. T. says it appears from—
"The MS. Catalogue of the Norman nobility before the Conquest, that Robert and Roger de Loges possessed lordships in the districts of Coutances in Normandy."
Will he be so good as to say what MS. Catalogue he refers to? He seems to speak of the MS. Catalogue of Norman nobility as if it were some well-known public and authentic record.
Q. G.