William Peche

The family name of Peche is mentioned in the Domesday Survey. One of the records also references Belchamp Walter (Thunderlow).

The geni.com page for Guillaume de Péché, I

There is a lot of information on this page and although there is a button that when pressed encourages you to join Geni, there are quite a few "curators notes". These will have to be pursued further but the first I have extracted from them is the reference to Aubrey de Vere as a "progenitor of the earls of Oxford".

It is known that Guillaume Pecche (William Peccatum), progenitor of the Cloptons of Suffolk and the Pecches, Barons of Bourn in Cambridge, was an undertenant to Richard de Bienfaite (FitzGilbert) at the Domesday Survey in 1086; of whom he held Clopton and Dalham in Suffolk and at Gestingthorpe in Essex. However, he was also an undertenant of Aubrey de Vere, progenitor of the earls of Oxford, at Belchamp Walter in Essex, in the immediate vicinity of Gestingthorpe;

I don't have a problem with that Aubrey was the "progenitor of the earls of Oxford" but I am less sure that Peche was an undertenant of his at the time of Domesday.

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Rishbridge, Suffolk

Rishbridge is not far from Hinkford, the current location of Belchamp Walter, the communities of Clopton and Dalham are located in Rishbridge. Gestingthorpe is also in Hinkford.

Risbridge is a hundred of Suffolk, consisting of 58,468 acres (236.61 km2).[1]

Risbridge Hundred forms the south western corner of Suffolk extending 15 miles (24 km) from north to south and between 4 and 9 miles (14 km) in breadth. It is bounded on the west by Cambridgeshire on the south by Essex, on the east by Babergh and Thingoe Hundreds and on the north by Lackford Hundred. It is in the Franchise or Liberty of St Edmund, in the Archdeaconry of Sudbury, Deanery of Clare and Diocese of Ely.

Progenitor of the earls of Oxford

This statement comes from the notes on the geni.com page for Guillaume Pecche (I will have to check was the source for this was),

Notes: The parentage or ancestry of Guillaume Pecche (William Peccatum) is unknown and there seems to be little chance of determining his origins. It has been suggested that there was a close relationship between Guillaume Pecche and Richard de Bienfaite, progenitor of the House of de Clare in England, and that he may have entered England at the conquest in the retinue of Richard FitzGilbert, Seigneur de Bienfaite, second cousin to Duke William ‘the Conqueror’. It is known that Guillaume Pecche (William Peccatum), progenitor of the Cloptons of Suffolk and the Pecches, Barons of Bourn in Cambridge, was an undertenant to Richard de Bienfaite (FitzGilbert) at the Domesday Survey in 1086; of whom he held Clopton and Dalham in Suffolk and at Gestingthorpe in Essex. However, he was also an undertenant of Aubrey de Vere, progenitor of the earls of Oxford, at Belchamp Walter in Essex, in the immediate vicinity of Gestingthorpe; and he held at Stoke Holy Cross in Norfolk of Roger le Bigod, progenitor of the earls of Norfolk. His holding in Norfolk was held in 1242 by his great-great-grandson Gilbert Pecche, Baron of Bourn. It is not unlikely that Guillaume Pecche held lands in addition to these and it is recorded that he received a grant of Over in Cambridgeshire from the Abbot of Ramsey for life and for the life of his first wife Alfwen. The possibility of there being a close family connection or blood relationship to Richard de Bienfaite seems to be very speculative as well as highly unlikely. Also, because of the fact that the name Pecche was one of those nicknames of which the Normans were so fond, it can not be determined if he was the offspring of a family with a connection to Richard’s holdings of Bienfaite and Orbec in Normandy. If a blood relationship did exist, the best guess, in my opinion, there being no evidence, is that the relationship was a maternal connection through the unknown wife of Richard’s father Gilbert, Comte de Brionne; or the unknown wife (or an unknown daughter) of Richard’s grandfather Godfrey, Comte de Brionne. The wives of Godfrey and his son Gilbert are unknown and one of them may have had a connection to the counts of Flanders. What is probably one of the most intriguing statements about William Peccatum is made by Coppinger in his Manors of Suffolk. Concerning the Cloptons of Kentwell Hall and the manor of Monks Melford, which reverted to the crown following the dissolution and which was granted to William Clopton of Kentwell in 1545, Coppinger states that the family is supposed to have taken their name from the parish of Clopton in the Hundred of Samford and to have given it to a manor in Wickhambrook before the conquest. If this statement is true, it opens some interesting questions concerning the time of the arrival of Guillaume Pecche in England and how he acquired possession of the manor of Clopton in Suffolk. Assuming that Coppinger’s statement is accurate, events in England during the reign of King Edward ‘the Confessor’ may provide some clues. In the mid to late 1040’s, King Edward found it necessary to form his own party of supporters to offset the growing power of Godwine, Earl of Wessex and his family. King Edward was one of the sons of King Aethelred II (d.1016) and his wife Emma of Normandy, daughter of Duke Richard I.

Enisant <of Belchamp>

The immediate lord over the peasants after the Conquest, who paid tax to the tenant-in-chief.

Again, this shows a deficiency with the recording of Domesday in a database.

Enisant could be just another term (Old English/Nirman/Latin) for undertenant (underlord) to the tenant-in-chief. It may not be an actual name. The way that it is displayed in OpenDomesday is with <> brackets, this is not clearly explianed. The map of the location is the same as it is for Belchamp Walter and there is no additional information on the OpenDomesday page.

William Peche

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