Catalogue description THE BLOUNT ESTATE

The early history of the Blount estate is illustrated by the charters sabstracted below. The manor of Bitton, near Bristol, passed from Adam de Damneville, who held it of Henry II, to his son and heir Robert. Robert received confirmations of Bitton in 1189, as Adam's heir, from Richard I and in March 1227, as Adam's son and heir, from Henry III. He married Petronilla, one of the three daughters and coheirs of Roger de Croxley, of the manor of Oxhey in Watford (Herts.). Petronilla survived him and had dower in Bitton. They had a son Robert and two daughters, both called Petronilla, one of whom married Nicholas de Oxhey and the other William de Putot. The elder Robert granted a holding in Mangotsfield to William in marriage with his daughter between 1207 and 1230, and before April 1230 the younger Robert granted to William the dower third of Bitton which had been held by his mother Petronilla. [The assumption is that Adam de Damneville did not leave a widow Petronilla, and that the grantor of the dower third was therefore a son of Petronilla de Croxley and Robert de Damneville.] By 1231 William was holding portions at least of both Bitton and Mangotsfield, but the other Petronilla and her husband Nicholas de Oxhey also had interests in Bitton, where they granted a half-virgate to a tenant; in 1241 they leased their demesne at Conham, in Kingswood (Glos.), which had been acquired by Robert de Damneville, to William for five years. William and Petronilla had a daughter, also called Petronilla, who married first John de Vivonia, by whom she had a son John, and secondly David le Blount, by whom she had a son David. In 1257-8 she granted Bitton to her son David and his wife Amabel. She held Mangotsfield in 1263-4, when a rental was made for her, and in 1270 she and her husband sold a rent of 10 marks in Croxley and Oxhey, which she had presumably inherited from her grandmother Petronilla. Her son David and his wife Amabel were active in Bitton in 1275 but she was also acting in Bitton as late as 1282. That suggests that her aunt Petronilla, widow of Nicholas de Oxhey, had died without issue and that Petronilla le Blount inherited another portion of Bitton after her grant to her son David. [David claimed some lands in Bitton by inheritance from his mother rather than by her grant below, BCM/E/1/1/6 [GC 2500].] Her son John de Vivonia, presumably after her death, quitclaimed the manors of Bitton and Mangotsfield to Amabel Arthur and David le Blount and their issue; presumably Petronilla's son David had died, his widow had remarried and it was their son David to whom John made the quitclaim. [David le Blount (d. 1323) is likely to have been the son of David and Amabel. David and Amabel were both still alive in 1304, at least 46 years after their marriage; Edmund, son of David (d. 1323), lived until 1361 and had a grandson born in 1352, which suggests that he was the grandson, not the son, of a marriage that took place in 1258 or earlier.]

The descent of the Gloucestershire manors, usually described as a moiety of Bitton and the manor of Mangotsfield, is then clearly shown in inquisitions post mortem. [CIPM vi, nos. 496, 747; xi, no. 298; xiv, no. 69; xv, no. 303.] David died in 1323 and was succeeded briefly by his elder son Richard who died without issue in 1326, leaving his brother Edmund to succeed. Edmund died in 1361 and his heir was his grandson Edmund, son of his son Hugh, although there was another son John very active in acquiring land in the period 1338-49. John may have been either the elder son, dying without issue before his father, or a younger son acquiring a living. The younger Edmund, aged nine in 1361, proved his age in 1374 and died in 1381, leaving two sons, William and John. The custody of Edmund's lands had been granted to Sir Thomas Moyne in 1362, but after Moyne's death in the following year his brother and executor, John Moyne, sold it to Thomas Stiward of Gloucester. To prevent a further wardship, in 1381, shortly before his death, Edmund granted his manors to feoffees. Both manors continued to pass in the Blount family until the end of the 15th century when they eventually fell to Margaret, daughter and heir of the last Blount, Simon, who married John Hussey. Their son William Hussey sold Bitton manor, with Hanham and Mangotsfield, to Robert Dormer, who in 1519-20 sold them to Maurice (VI) Lord Berkeley (d. 1523), and in the following year Maurice bought the lands in Elmington from William. [Smyth, ii. 196, 215, 256. Robert Dormer had bought the manor of Wing (Bucks.) from Maurice in 1515: VCH Bucks. iii. 451; BCM GC 4599. Maurice's brother and heir Thomas Lord Berkeley died at Mangotsfield in 1533: GEC ii. 137.]