[4] The Guido de Totteneys of this charter seems to be identical with the Wido de Nunant of the charter granted by Henry II to this priory. This conjecture is confirmed by the entry in the Pipe-Roll of 31 Hen. I: 'Wido de Nunant reddit comp. de x. marcis pro concessione ferie de Totneis' (p. 154). There is a story quoted by Dugdale, under Totnes priory, from the records of the abbey of Angers, that Juhel 'of Totnes', the Domesday baron, was expelled by William Rufus, and his lands given to Roger de Nunant. I certainly find Roger de Nonant attesting in 1091 the foundation charter of Salisbury Cathedral in conjunction with William fitz Baldwin (see pp. [256], [358]); and Manors belonging to Juhel in 1086 are found
afterwards belonging to Valletort, Nonant's successor, as part of his honour of Totnes. But it would seem that Juhel retained part of his honour of Barnstaple, while the Nonants held the rest as the honour of Totnes. Indeed, he must have held both capita so late as 1113, when, say the monks of Laon, 'venimus ad castrum, quod dicitur Bannistaplum, ubi manebat quidam princeps nomine Joellus de Totenes', etc. (Hermannus, ii. 17), adding that they afterwards visited Totnes 'præfati principis castrum' (ibid., 18).
[5] Reprinted, with additions, from English Historical Review.
THE ORIGIN OF THE NEVILLES
It is difficult to believe that so interesting a genealogical question as the origin of this famous house should have remained as yet undetermined. I have shown above (p. 137) that we can identify in Domesday Gilbert and Ralph de Neville, the earliest bearers of the name in England, as knightly tenants of the Abbot of Peterborough; but the existing house, as is well known, descends from them only through a female. It is at its origin in the male line that I here glance. The innumerable quarters in which, unfortunately, information of this kind has been published makes it impossible for me to say whether I have been forestalled. So far, however, as I can find at present, two different versions are in the field.
First, there is Dugdale's view that Robert fitz Maldred, their founder, was 'son of Dolfin, son of Earl Gospatric, son of Maldred fitz Crinan by Algitha daughter of Uchtred, Earl of Northumberland, who was son-in-law to King Æthelred'. This was, apparently, Mr Shirley's view, for, in his Noble and Gentle Men of England he derives the Nevilles from 'Gospatric, the Saxon Earl of Northumberland', though he makes Robert fitz Maldred his great-grandson, as Rowland had done in his work on the House of Nevill (1830), by placing Maldred between Dolfin and Robert fitz Maldred. Even that sceptical genealogist, Mr Foster, admitted in his peerage their descent from this Earl Gospatric. The immediate ancestry, however, of their founder, Robert fitz Maldred, can be proved, and is as follows:
