January 20. 1851.
_Herstmonceux Castle_ (Vol. ii., p. 477.).--E. V. asks for an explanation
of certain entries in the Fine Rolls, A.D. 1199 and 1205, which I can, in
part, supply. The first is a fine for having seisin of the lands of the
deceased mother of the two suitors, William de Warburton and Ingelram de
Monceaux. As they claim as joint-heirs or parceners, the land must have
been subject to partibility, and therefore of socage tenure. If the land
was not in Kent, the entry is a proof that the exclusive right of
primogeniture was not then universally established, as we know it was not
in the reign of Henry II. See _Glanville_, lib. vii. cap. 3.
The next entry records the fine paid for suing out a writ _de rationabili
parte_ against (_versus_) one of the above coheirs. The demandant is either
the same coheir named above, viz. Ingelram, altered by a clerical error
into Waleram,--such errors being of common occurrence, sometimes from
oscitancy, and sometimes because the clerk had to guess at the extended
form of a contracted name,--or he is a descendant and heir of Ingelram,
{125} claiming the share of his ancestor. I incline to adopt the former
explanation of the two here suggested. The form of writ is in the Register
of Writs, and corresponds exactly with the abridged note of it in the Fine
Roll. The "esnecia," mentioned in the last entry (not extracted by E. V.),
is the majorat or senior heir's perquisite of the capital mansion. E. V.
will pardon me for saying, that his translation of the passages is a little
deficient in exactness. As to E. V.'s query 4., does he think it worth
while to go further in search of a reason for calling the bedroom floor of
Herstmonceux Castle by the name of _Bethlem_, when the early spelling and
common and constant pronunciation of the word supply so plausible an
explanation? I myself knew, in my earliest days, a house where that
department was constantly so nicknamed. But there certainly _may_ be a more
recondite origin of the name; and something may depend on the date at which
he finds it first applied.