Hervey fitzBagot, of Bramshall, MP

https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/enguntac.htm#HerveyBagotdied1214A

“It is more than probable that the Family of Bagot were possessed of Lands, and seated in the county of Stafford, before the Conquest; though no absolute proof is to be adduced till the general Survey of Estates, made by command of William the Conqueror, A.D. 1086, when they are recorded as possessors of a moiety of Bagot's Bromley, which they held of Robert de Stafford.” The first document he records is as follows, and it appears to be written in Latin:

HISTORY OF THE BAGOT FAMILY. THE family of Bagot is one of the few which can claim an authentic Domesday ancestor — Bagod, who held Bramshall in 1086, being the undoubted progenitor of all the numerous Bagots of a later date. Domesday gives the following account of his holding. Under the heading of TERRA ROBERTI DE STATFORD, in Tatemaneslau Hundred, it says : " Ipse R. (i.e., Robert de Stafford) tenet in BRANSELLE unam virgatam terre, cujus vcro medietas est Regis sicut via eain dividit sed R. eandem partem regis invasit et sc defensorem facit. Bagod tenet de eo. Ulviet tenuit et liber homo fuit. Terra est iij carucate in dominio cst una et ij servi Ibi sunt iiij villani et i bordarius cum i carucata. Silva dimidia leuva longa et iiij quarentena lata. Valet xx solidos." This translated would be — " Robert de Stafford holds in Branselle a virgate of land, but the moiety of it belongs to the King, as the road divides it, but Robert had taken possession of the whole and defended his title to it. Bagod held it of Robert. Ulviet formerly held it as a freeman. The arable land is three carucates (or ploughlands) : one is in demesne, and there are two serfs. There are four villein tenants and one boor with one carucate. There are 240 acres of wood1 and it is worth 20s." The moiety of the manor claimed by the Crown was sub sequently severed from it and added to Uttoxeter, an adjoining manor which had fallen to the King as an escheat of the Mercian 1 This is Eyton's computation. Pedigree attached.

Earls. It still forms a part of Uttoxeter, and is known as Little Bramshall. A Bagot next occurs as a witness to a deed in the Kenihvorth Chartulary of about the date II22.1 In this deed he is one of the leading witnesses of Robert de Stafford's grant of Idlicote in Warwickshire to the Priory, which is printed in Vol. II of the Staffordshire Collections. He occurs again on the Staffordshire Pipe Roll of 31 H. I. ( 1 1 29) where he accounts for two marks due from one of his tenants for an exchange of lands.2 As this date brings us down to a period of 43 years subsequent to Domesday, it is a question whether this Bagot may not be a son of the Domesday tenant. It depends, of course, upon the age of the first Bagot, of which we know nothing ; but the fact of the Christian name having been adopted afterwards as a surname points to the probability of two Bagots, father and son ; and if this is the case the first Bagot would have been a contemporary of the Conqueror and one of the suite of his feudal lord, Robert de Stafford at the Conquest of England in 1066. HERVEY FITZ BAGOD, the son of the last Bagod, first occurs in 1 130 when he witnesses the grant of Nicholas, son of Robert de Stafford, of the Church of Stone to the Priory of Kenilworth.3 Here we have an important and authentic date, for the succession of this Hervey must have occurred between the years 1 129 and 1 130. We may therefore conclude that this Hervey fitz Bagod is identical with the Hervey Bagod who witnesses various deeds of Robert de Stafford II. during the reigns of King Stephen and Henry II. Some of these have been printed in Vol. I I of the Stafford shire Collections : the most important of them for the history of the Bagot family is one taken from the Rideware Chartulary4 which is attested by a full Court of the Knights and vassals of the Barony. Amongst these are — 1 Staff. Hist. Coll., Vol. II, p. 195. • Ibid., Vol. I, p. 2.

Hervey Bagot. Hervey and Roger, sons of Hervey Bagot. William Bagot. Robert Bagot. William and Richard, sons of John Bagot The date of this deed is circa 1 160. It must be prior to 1 166, for Helyas de Copenhale, one of the witnesses, was dead at the latter date. Eyton's notes on this deed and his account of the witnesses will be found in Vol. II of the Staffordshire Collections, pp. 248-249. He identifies William Bagot as the tenant of Robert de Stafford at Bromley Bagot, and William and Richard as the sons of John Bagot of Blymhill.1 In the Feudatory known as the Liber Niger of 1166 Robert de Stafford returns Hervey Bagot as holding of him three Knight's Fees of old feoffment, i.e., fees in which he or his ancestor had been enfeoffed before the death of Henry I. Of these fees Hervey held in demesne, i.e., in his own hands, one Knight's Fee, and the other two were held by sub-tenants under him, viz. : — Alured de Hacumbi held two-thirds of a Fee, Hervey de Acleia held one-third of a Fee, and Rualdus de Dulerna held one Knight's Fee. These fees can be identified by later evidence, as follows : — The Knight's Fee held in demesne consisted of Bramshall and half of Billington. Alured's Fee was Haconeby in Lincolnshire, Hervey de Acleia held Oakley in Staffordshire, and Rualdus held Dilhorn and the other moiety of Billington. Hervey the younger married some time after this date Milicent, the daughter of his feudal lord Robert de Stafford. At the date of the marriage Robert had two sons living, Robert and Nicholas, and it was not foreseen that Milicent would be the great heiress which she subsequently became. The male line of the original family of Stafford was extinguished by the Crusade of 1190-1192, and on the Staffordshire Pipe Roll of 5 Ric. I. (1192-1193) Hervey Bagot is returned as owing 1 See also Staff. Hist. Coll., Vol. I, p. 291, and Vol. II, p. 235, by which it appears that Robert Bagot, living 1155, was a " Clericus."