heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

320 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
in fact the Percy fee, which was in the deanery of Craven, was equal to
17,400 statute acres, and must have comprised a considerable number of
the 30,000 knights' fees (i.e.
two hides, or two hides and a half of land),
"into which," Madox says, "the Conqueror had divided the country, and
"which entailed the obligation of furnishing the King with one armed
" soldier for forty days in each year."
a book of the general survey of England, com-
In Domesday-book
menced by William's order, 1085, and completed 1086, by Commissioners
this entry occurs " Izelwode, Gamel, and Ulf, had three carucates of
:
"land to be taxed where there may be two ploughs. Malger now has it
" of William, himself one plough there, and three borders with two ploughs."
of William de Perci
So Malger, or Mauger, was probably one of the suite
(and these probably constituted the two knights' fees which his grandson,
William, is recorded to have held of William de Percy, the third baron,
1187). At any rate, in 1184, Maud de Percy, his daughter, widow of
William de Newburgh, Earl of Warwick, endowed the Church of our Lady
at Tadcaster, and the Chapel of Hazelwood, with a carucate of land in
her birthplace, Catton ;
and a yearly pension in consideration of the
performance of perpetual masses for the souls of her husband and family.
The grants being made in wording which indicates the quasi-royal state
in which the Percy heiress lived " by the advice of the Lord Vavaseur,
"and other of our faithful lieges, and of the whole court." (Monast. Angl.
vol. v., p. 510.)
In 1234, in a litigation between Richard de Percy and his nephew
William, the latter was attached to answer, inter alia, that he had distrained
William la Vavasur, and allowed him to do homage to him. So that
from this we gain some idea of the position of the earliest member of
the Vavasour family, and their relative connection with the Percies.
In
1070, Thomas, a wealthy Norman, Canon of Bayeux, and chaplain
to the Conqueror, was appointed Archbishop of York, " upon coming to
"which," says his friend Hugo, the cantor or precentor of York, "he
"found the church despoiled by fire, and commenced to rebuild it from
" its foundation." Mr. Brown says* that " on examining the remains that
"still exist of this once splendid edifice, the material is not of the oolite
"limestone nor coarse sandstone used in the more ancient buildings, but
"of the magnesian limestone which is found in and around Thievesdale,
"near Tadcaster; and it is
probable that the material came from there,
" and was granted to the Norman archbishop by William de Percy."
In 1137, however, the cathedral was burned down (Stowe says),
together with St. Mary's Abbey and 39 churches, and for nearly 40 years
lay in ashes. Probably some sort of building was erected in the ruins, for,
* History of York Minster.