heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

THE VAVASOURS. 319
That held opinion, that plein
Was veraily felicite parfite.
delit
An housholder, and that a grete was he ;
Seint Julian he was in his contree.
His brede, his ale, was alway after on ;
A better envyned man was no wher non.
Withouten bake mete never was his hous,
Of fish and flesh, and that so plenteous,
It snewed in his hous of mete and drinke,
Of all deintees that men coud of thinke,
After the sondry sesons of the yere,
So changed he his mete and his soupere.
Ful many a fat partrich hadde he in mewe,
And many a breme, and many a luce in
Wo stewe.
was his coke, but if his sauce were
Poinant and sharpe, and redy all his gere.
His table dormant in his halle alway
Stode redy covered alle the longe day.
At sessions ther was he lord and sire,
Ful often time he was knight of the shire.
An anelace and a gipciere all of silk
Heng at his girdel, white as morwe milk.
A shereve hadde he ben, and a countour
Was no wher swiche a worthy vavasour."
Such may be the portrait of Malger, who possibly came over in the
train of William de Perci, 1067 the (i.e. year after the Conquest), whose
name appears not in the roll of Battle Abbey, and there is no evidence
that he took part in the battle of Senlac ;
but for some reason he was
highly in favour with the Conqueror. Indeed, Mr. Fonblanque, in his
Annals of the House of Percy, suggests that William de Perci had been one
of the Norman colonists who came over and established themselves during
the days of Edward the Confessor, and that he had married Emma de
Port, daughter of Gospatric Earl of Northumberland, and heiress of
Seamer, near Scarborough, then an important seaport, and a large district
of the lands adjacent. Her fellow-countrymen gave Perci the sobriquet
of " Al-Gernons," i.e. " aux moustaches," or "a la barbe," on account of
his hairy face, which, under the more euphonious form of Algernon,
remains a family name to the present day. Guizot (History of France]
says that Edward, " having passed 2 7 years of exile in Normandy, returned
" to England, almost a stranger to the country of his ancestors, and far
" more Norman than Saxon in his manner, tastes, and language. He was
" accompanied by Normans whose number and prestige, under his rule,
" increased from day to day." Mr. Fonblanque further suggests that he
had retired to Normandy to tide over the approaching complications, and
returning when William's power was established, the Conqueror found it
expedient to conciliate him with large gifts. At any rate, in 1085 he
possessed in capite no less than eighty-six lordships in the North Riding;