RALPH DE PLAIZ, who in 1177 had a tenant amenable to the sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, and in 1179 held the manor of, or a manor in, Barnham, Suffolk, was perhaps 3rd in descent from Hugh de Plaiz, who gave land in Barnham to Ralph son of Herlouin in marriage with his daughter Heloise (h). Allowing the usual 30 years between generations, he was born about 1125. He confirmed to Lewes Priory the churches of Iford, Sussex, Toftrees and Shereford, and the land in Feltwell, Norfolk, and all he had in the church there, "and all other things that my ancestor gave." He was a prominent tenant of the Warenne Fee, witnessing charters of Earl William, 1147, of the Earl's brother Reynold, and of the Countess Isabel and her husband. He was living 29 August 1185. [Complete Peerage X:535-7, (transcribed by Dave Utzinger)]
(h) This Ralph son of Herlouin is presumably the Domesday tenant (under Bigod) of Hunstanton, etc., and not the Ralph s. of Herlouin, one of three who, in 1130, paid 6 marks ut exeant de Vicecom' Lond'; the later date would not allow of the pedigree givenby the plaintiff in 1194 v. Ralph de Plaiz in regard to the land in Barnham in question. Hugh de Plaiz the ancestor must have been of an age to be father-in-law of a Domesday tenant; therefore in point of time the Ralph de Plaiz abovenamed could have been his great-grandson. It has been impossible, while MS sources are inaccessible, to prove the descent from Hugh to Ralph; the following conjuectures are based on the printed material examined. Comparison to Domesday entries with the Lewes chartulary showsthat the Hugh son of Golda of the latter, who gave to the priory Iford church and tithes there, the land which he held in Rottingdean, etc., was the Hugh of Domesday, who held of Earl de Warenne lands in Allington, Iford, Rottingdean, etc., in Sussex, and obviously the Hugh son of Golda who was the Earl's tenant at Barnham, Suffolk. His son Hugh (called variously in the chartulary Hugh son of Hugh, and Hugh son of Hugh son of Golda) gave to the priory two hides at Pacheleswia, the tithe of Baldean, in Sussex, and in Norfolk the churches of Shereford and Toftrees. Further, it appears probable that Hugh de Plaiz, born not later than 1040, if he gave land in Barnham to his daughter's marriage with a Domesday tenant, was the Hugh son of Golda of Barnham in 1086; the latter was certainly living after 1086, as he gave Iford church to the priory, for Domesday shows the church in the Earl's demesne; and (1088-91) Hugh son of Golda witnessed Rufus's confirmation of the grant of the 2nd William, Earl de Warenne toLewes. Hugh son of Hugh abovenamed perhaps dsp. Ralph de Plaiz, perhaps brother and heir, witnessed a grant by Reynold de Warenne, and Earl William's confirmation of it, to Lewes Priory. Eyton suggests that this Ralph de Plaiz was the Ralph son of Hugh whom William d'Aubigny enfeoffed with two knights' fees in Norfolk temp. Henry I. The material examined has yielded nothing in support of this; nor has anything been found to indicate what lands were given by d'Aubigny to Ralph son of Hugh, except what maybe deduced from the fact that the grant of land in Creake to Thetford Priory by Ralph son of Hugh was confirmed by William Bigod, whose sister brought the lands in question to d'Aubigny; nor has any evidence been found concerning the descendants of Ralphson of Hugh, unless they were the family of de Plaiz; while the other ten of William d'Aubigny's feoffees in Norfolk and their descendants are traceable in the localities in which, presumably, they were enfeoffed. If this earlier Ralph de Plaiz be identical with Ralph son of Hugh, the chronology of the 1194 pedigree requires that he should be son of Hugh son of Golda. The son of Ralph de Plaiz (qy. identical with Ralph son of Hugh and qy, brother and heir of Hugh son of Hugh) was perhaps Hugh de Plaice, who gave the church of Weeting and 6s. rent in Feltwell, Norfolk (both places being de Plaiz manors), to Huntingdon Priory at some time between the confirmation of the priory's possessions by Henry I and that of Pope Eugenius in 1147. |
