Читать книгу Records, Historical and Antiquarian, of Parishes Round Horncastle онлайн

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Merry it is in the good green woods,

When the Mavis [47b] and Merle [47c] are singing, When the deer sweep by, and the hounds are in cry, And the hunter’s horn is ringing.

But no groves or hedgerows vocal with their songsters, gave the parish its name. The Lord of the Manor, in the 12th century was Richard de Malbyse, or Malbishe, a large proprietor, and exercising considerable influence in this neighbourhood, and elsewhere. The epithet has been retained to distinguish this from Bag Enderby, and Wood Enderby; one of which is near and the other not far away. The name Malbyse or Malbishe, means, in old Norman French, an evil beast (compare Bis-on); and the arms of the family, as still preserved at Acaster Malbis, near York, once belonging to a member of the family, are a chevron, with three wild stags heads “erased,” i.e., raggedly severed from the body.

Domesday Book, however, tells us of owners of land before the Malbyshes, in pre-Norman times. The Saxon, Thane Elnod, held land in Mavis Enderby and Raithby and East Keal, in the reign of Edward the Confessor (p. 31) [47c]; while another Saxon, Godwin, whose name appears in connection with several other parishes, had the Manor of Mavis Enderby (p. 159) [47c] The old hereditary owners of the lands met with no mercy from the Conqueror, who had to provide for his Norman followers. The historian records that as William passed along the ranks of his army before the great Battle of Hastings, he addressed them in a loud voice thus, “Remember to fight well, if we conquer we shall be rich, if I take this land, you will have it among you,” and the promise then held out, was amply fulfilled; the vanquished Saxons were robbed of their lands, to reward William’s favorites who had capacious maws. Among those rewarded extensively with plundered territory, was William de Karilepho, consecrated Bishop of Durham in 1082, and also made Chief Justice of England; he received grants of land in Mavis Enderby, Raithby, Spilsby, Hundleby, Grebby, and many other places. Ivo Taillebois (equivalent to the modern Underwood), who was then leader of the Angevin Auxiliaries of the Conqueror, also received very extensive grants; among them being lands in Mavis Enderby, Raithby, Hareby, Halton Holgate, Asgarby, Miningsby and many other demesnes. About the same time also (1070), another of the Conqueror’s favourites Eudo—son of Spirewic, subsequently the founder of the Tattershall family, received very extensive domains, among them being the Manor of Mavis Enderby, a Berewick (or smaller outlying portion) in Raithby, another in Hundleby, and in the two Keals, Hagnaby, and endless more possessions, his head-quarters being at Tattershall, all of which he held “in capite” or directly of the King. But, as we have repeatedly observed in these notes, these early Norman tenures were precarious, they were acquired by violence, and when the hand that held them waxed feeble, a stronger hand, in turn, took possession. Mavis Enderby, like very many other parishes, became an appurtenance of the Manor, or Honor, of Bolingbroke, and throughout that great appanage of the Crown there were many changes in the Lords of demesnes.