Now this Thorold (Turoldus) has been the subject of much speculation by Mr Stapleton, Mr Freeman,[34] etc., in connection with William Malet and the mysterious Countess Lucy, but the facts about him are of the scantiest, nor, I believe, has any one succeeded in finding him actually mentioned in the Conqueror's reign, though he is referred to in Domesday. This, however, I have now done, lighting upon him in a passage of considerable interest per se. In the 'De miraculis sancti Eadmundi' of Herman we read that when Herfast, Bishop of Thetford, visited Baldwin, Abbot of St Edmund's, to be cured of an injury to his eye, the Abbot induced him to renounce his claim to jurisdiction over the Abbey:
In sacri monasterii vestiario, præsentibus ejusdem loci majoris ætatis fratribus, sed etiam accitis illuc ab abbate quibusdam regis primoribus, qui dictante justitia in eadem villa regia tenebant placita. Quorum nomina, quamvis auditoribus tædio, tamen sunt veræ rationis testimonio; videlicet Hugo de Mundford, et Rogerius cognomento Bigot, Richardus Gisleberti comitis filius, ac cum eis Lincoliensis Turoldus et Hispaniensis Alveredus, cum aliis compluribus.[35]
The date of this incident can be fixed with certainty as 1076-79; and it is of great interest for its mention both of the eyre itself and of those 'barons' who took part in it; there can be no question that 'Turoldus' was the mysterious Thorold, sheriff of Lincolnshire, taking his name from Lincoln.[36] He was, therefore, not 'an English sheriff' of days before the Conquest, but a Norman—as were his fellows—who died before Domesday.[37]
The name of William Malet, connected with that of Thorold, reminds me of a suggestion I once made,[38] that he held Aulkborough in Lincolnshire, T.R.E., 'and was, to that extent, as M. le Prêvost held, "established in England previously to the Conquest"'.
Stapleton, whose name in such matters rightly carries great weight, maintained that because the Manor was held in 1086 by Ivo Tailbois, and is stated in Domesday 'to have previously belonged to William Malet', it must have been alienated by William by a gift in frank marriage with a daughter, who must, he held, have married Ivo. But I pointed out, firstly, that 'it is not the practice of Domesday to enter Manors held in maritagio thus', and gave an instance (i. 197) 'where we find Picot holding lands from Robert Gernon, which lands are entered in the Gernon fief with the note: "Has terras tenet Picot Vicecomes de Roberto Gernon in maritagio feminæ suæ."' I can now, by the kindness of Dr Liebermann, add the instance of the Mandeville fief in Surrey, where we read of 'Aultone': 'De his hidis tenet Wesman vi. hidas de Goisfrido filio comitis Eustachii; hanc terram dedit ei Goisfridus de Mannevil cum filia sua' (i. 36).[39] In addition to this argument I urged that 'in default of any statement to the contrary, we must always infer that the two holders named in the survey are (A) the holder T.R.E., (B) the holder in 1086'. This would make William Malet the holder T.R.E.
Another 'Norman' on whom I would touch is 'Robert fitz Wimarc', so often mentioned by Mr Freeman. I claim him too as a Breton, on his mother's side at least, if Wimarc, as seems to be the case, was his mother, for that is a distinctively Breton name. Mr Freeman queried the Biographer's description of him as 'regis consanguineus', when at Edward's death-bed;[40] but he is clearly the 'Robertus regis consanguineus' of the Waltham charter.[41] He was also of kin to William.[42]
The last on my list is Regenbald 'the Norman chancellor of Edward', as Mr Freeman termed him throughout. He must have had, I presume, some authority for doing so: but I cannot discover that authority; and, in its absence, the name, from its form, does not suggest a Norman origin.[43] Of Regenbald, however, I shall have to speak in another paper.
[1] Quarterly Review, June 1892, pp. 9, 10.
[2] Norm. Conq., i. 525, 526.
[3] Ibid.