Clays of Normandie

Walterus de Clais

The first Clay we have recorded in England is Walterus De Clais in 1086, in the document, The Cambridge Inquisition, it is also spelt Cleis. He is described as a Frank.

The Cambridge Inquisition was a satellite survey to the great Domesday Book, the survey went into much greater depth than Domeday.

In the survey Walterus is a juror of both Northstowe Hundred and the Chilford Hundred.

The position of juror is important to the local structure of law and establishment and the juror would be a sworn man, meaning he has taken an oath to provide justice. The juror is not like the modern day equivalent, he was a man of some position, likely holding a Lordship under the tenant in chief  and he would be called upon by his overlord to act in regard to civil and criminal disputes.

In her book, Domesday people. Prof Keats - Rohan surmises that Walterus may have come from the Normandy village of Clais, there is also just some 37 miles away, Le Clais and next to that we have Cleuville.

In 1155 there is an Oelard de Clai mentioned in a charter alongside empress Matilda regarding Foucarmont abbey, Foucarmont abbey is just some seven miles from Clais.

What is also interesting is that Alain de Rufus, whose barony of Richmond is mentioned on the same Domesday page as Walterus, is the Lord of Richemont and again Richemont is only some seven miles away from Clais. If Walterus did indeed come from Clais then he would have undoubtedly worshipped in the 11th century church of St Martin's which still stands in the village today.

Others mentioned in the Hundred of Northstowe are Briendus de Scalaris. Picot the sheriff of Cambridge and the Lordship of Wormegay. The Scales family as Scalaris became known and the Lordship of Wormegay feature with the Clays some 300 years later.

Robin Fleming in her book, Domesday and the law, states that "Walter De Clais is Picots Man".  Whilst Prof Keats - Rohan surmises that Walterus could have been a tenant of both Alain of Richmond and of Picot, we have located the manors of some of the other jurors and we believe that Walterus was according to the Domesday book the Lord of the manors of  Landbeach and Impington, the tenants in chief of these being Alain and Rufus.

Given the date 1086, might we be able to suggest that Walterus came over with the invasion force of 1066 ?  Alain De Rufus was a Breton and he was also a cousin of William but his Lordship and other properties were in Normandy, Alain is said to have led the opening wave of the invasion with his Bretons, was Walterus amongst them ?  Alains first properties, manors and lands in England were in Cambridgeshire, he also held manors in nearby Norfolk where we have Peter De Cley , son of Sir Ralph De Cley as Lord of the manor of East Hall Manor in the village of Cley but that was c1150. After a rebellion in the north, William later sent Alain North to Richmond and it is said he transplanted trusted men from East Anglia to manors in the North, this may explain the proliferation of Clays in the Yorkshire area.

In the Cambridge Inquisition we also have mention of Radulphus De Cleiu, in the Radesfeld hundred, he too is a juror, could this be Ralph De Cley, father of Peter De Cley, persumably Ralph was dead in 1150.

                                 The Clays of Normandy

Regesta Anglo-Normannorum 1066-1154            

Page 395

Calendar of documents preserved in France

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