that the name has been variously written, viz., De Campania, Champaigne, Champion, &c. The family under the former appellation flourished from the time of Henry II. for several generations, in knightly rank, in the county of Kent; branches of equal pretensions being settled from very early periods in Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, and Essex, in which latter county alone the family seems to have survived the period of the Wars of the Roses, and to have kept to the English or thography of the name, Campion, and sometimes Champion. The name in any form does not appear in Domesday Book, though there is no doubt the family came in with the Conqueror.1 As no account of the Norman or French origin of the family has hitherto been published, it will not be altogether out of place to supply it in this paper. Chesnaye - Desbois, in his voluminous Dictionnaire de la Noblesse, art. Champagne, thus speaks of the origin of that house : "HUBERT, sire d'Arnay, might have been a cadet of the ancient Counts of Maine. Such, in fact, is the opinion of Abbé Le Laboureur, in the second volume of his Additions to the Memoirs of Castelnau. He was living 980-5-97, and died before 1002, during the reign of King Robert, son of Hugh Capet. His wife was Eremburga, or Ermengarde, lady of Vihers, daughter according to some, according to others niece, of Alberic, Sire de Montmorency, Constable of France. She was married in 997, and had for her dowry from Fulke-Nerva, Count of Anjou, her cousin-german, the estate of Vihers, situate on the confines of Anjou and Maine, which comprehends the barony of Champagne, the first in Anjou, with the seigneuries of Peschesval, Avoise, Bailleul, and St. Martin de Parcé, which the descendants of Hubert D'Arnay have constantly possessed, down to John, lord of Champagne, in 1576. Eremburga remarried in 1002, Hervé de Sablé. Her son, “HUBERT II., named Rasorius, after Hervé de Sablé, who was so styled, and in whose household he was educated, was As a full pedigree of the Campions of Danny has been published in Horsfield's History of Lewes, Berry's Sussex Genealogies, and in Vol. X. of Sussex Arch. Coll., it is unnecessary to reproduce it in this paper; it is also given in the History of Hurstpierpoint, 12mo, 1837. killed at the battle of Pontleroy, 1016. He married Ildeburga de Beauvoir-Mayenne, a younger daughter of Isamberg de Beauvoir-Mayenne, sovereign lord of Beaufort de Pethiviers, in Beauce. By her he was father of "HUBERT III., who founded, in 1059, the priory of St. Leonard, near Durnetal, the castle of which he received from the Count of Anjou. He abandoned the surname of D'Arnay, to take that of Champagne. He married, in 1080, Elizabeth de Mathéfelon, lady of Mathéfelon, in Anjou, who required that the eldest son should take the name of Mathéfelon, the younger ones that of Champagne. By her he had HUBERT IV., called the illustrious Hubert de Champagne,' from whom descended a long line of distinguished descendants." The following is an abridgment of Desbois' account of the Norman family of Campion, as contained in vol. xiii. (Supplement) : -- "This is an ancient Norman family. Du Moulin mentions a Sir Nicolas de Campion, Knight, who, in 1096, accompanied Robert Duke of Normandy to the Holy Land. La Roque, in his Histoire de la Maison de Harcourt, mentions a Mahy de Campion, and others of the same name, who in the fourteenth century had the honour to preside at the Exchequer of their province. "One of the principal branches of this house now existing is that of Campion, of Montpoignant, near Elbeuf, in Upper Normandy, and which estate belonged to them, from father to son, from Sir William de Campion, Knight, seigneur d'Esquaquelon and of Thiussimé, who married, in 1480, Françoise de Montpoignant, heiress of that property. This branch is now represented by three brothers. "The branch of St. Martin de Percy, in Lower Normandy, of which the present representative has but three daughters, has existed from 1300, when William de Campion married the heiress of that property; but he has a cousin-german of the same name, lord and patron of Buisson, Election de Carentan, and another, lord of Lengrie. The various branches of the family differenced their shields by a label, bordure, &c.; but all the existing branches bear d'or au lion d'azur rampant et lampassé de gules." The arms of the Champagnes of Maine were, according to the Dictionnaire Généalogique, 3 vols. 12mo, Paris, 1757, Sable fretty argent, on a chief of the last a demi-lion rampant issuant gules. As these arms substantially were the ancient arms of the Champaignes and Campions of England, there can be little doubt that the Campions of Normandy were cadets of the Champaignes of Maine, the coat of the latter containing their lion rampant; and that the Campions of England came from either the main stock or the Norman branch, but probably from the latter. At first sight, it might be presumed that this ancient and distinguished family sprung from the Counts of Champagne. Desbois, without the slightest authority, attributes to them the arms of the latter; but is totally silent as to their supposed derivation from that royal race. The Dictionnaire Généalogique begins its account of the family with an allusion to it, but does not pretend to connect them, and gives for their arms the fretty coat, as does also a more modern authority, De Courcelles. The account in Hozier (Armorial de la France) pretends to derive them from the Counts of Champagne, and attributes to them their arms, but without the slightest proof. The fact is, the country whence the name is derived, and in which the estates constituting the barony are situated, is an open champaign country or district, and many places therein, as may be seen on a good map, are distinguished from others of the same name, aux bois, by the suffix en champaigne, as our Weald is distinguished from the Downs, and has, moreover, the signification of district, as Champaign d'Alençon, &c. Desbois says that the name of Champagne, however, was first assumed by Hubert III., it is to be presumed not before his marriage in 1080. It may be, that the first mention of the family with that designation which happens to be met with is in the person of this Hubert; but its use must unquestionably have been much earlier, for the Campions of Normandy were evidently not descended from this Hubert, but from some earlier ancestor. THE MANOR OF PAKYNS. To complete the manorial history of Hurst, it now only remains to narrate the descent of the principal subordinate manor, that of Pakyns. This, if not existing at the Domesday Survey, must have been an early subinfeudation. There can be little doubt that it takes its name from Paganus, Sheriff of Sussex, 3 Henry II. (1157), who occurs as witness to a charter in the Lewes Cartulary, along with Robert de Pierpoint, Bartholomew de Kaines, Ralph de Chiltington, &c. A Paganus occurs in Domesday as under-tenant in Western Sussex, who may have been ancestor of the Sheriff. The manor of Wickensands, in Woodmancote, extends into the parish of Hurst. This word is compounded of Wyke and Sandes, which were either two manors or one manor of the name of Wyke, with the distinctive appellation of Sandes, from some owner of that name. For in the Testa de Nevill, Paganas de Mare is said to hold half a knight's fee in Sandys, of the honour of Warren. In the Inquis. Post Mortem, vol. 1, John de la Mare is said to have died seized of Wyke and Sonde; and by the same description, the property is recorded among the possessions of the family of Poynings, temp. Edward IV. By the deed conveying Randells (ut ante) it appears that Randolph de Pierpoint held land in the manor of] Wyke, doubtless the Wyke in question. These circumstances are brought together to show the connection of this Paganus with the Pierpoints, and to afford materials to assist in ascertaining its precise degree. Temp. Henry III., a charter of Walter de Legh (in the Lewes Cartulary) is witnessed by Walter Pakyn, Simon Pakyn, and Hugh Pakyn. A William Pakyn also occurs about the same time; a Simon Pakyn in 1304, and a Walter Pakyn in 1341. The Pakyns, it is probable, if not derived in the male line from the Pierpoints, were descended from them by a female ancestor. The name is met with as late as Henry V., when Thomas Pakyn of Chailey, constable of the hundred of Street, is mentioned as having Richard Hyder, of Westmeston, in his custody, for murdering Richard Ökley.2 1 Coll. Top. et Gen. 2 Inquis. ad. quod damnum, p. 374. In a Subsidy Roll, temp. Henry VIII., the names of Roger and Richard Pakyn occur in the hundred of Street. No owner after the Pakyns' can be ascertained till the time. of Edward VI. Richard Holden, of Herstperpoint, yeoman, in his will dated and proved 1553, recites that he enfeoffed Thomas Luxford, whom he mentions as his father-in-law, and another, with his manor of Pakyns. He left three daughters and cohieresses, Mary, Agnes, and Joan, who were all very young at his death. Agnes married John Fienes,' of Claveringham, who died May 12, 5 Car. I., possessed of the manor of Pakyns (as appears by the inquisition taken at East Grinstead on his death), leaving John, his son and heir, aged six years and upwards. John Threele, of Bexhill, son of William Threel, also married Ann, daughter of Giles Fienes, of Arlington, and sister of Edward Fienes, father-in-law of Agnes Holden, remarried the latter, after the death of her husband, and thereby acquired the manor of Pakyns; for his descendant, Lawrence Threel, of Lewisham, Esq., in 1675, makes a settleof the estate, whereby certain annuities are, inter alia, secured to his brothers, Henry and Maurice. The next known owner is Richard Scrase, of Pangdean and Hurstpierpoint, grandson of Tuppin Scrase, of Blatchington, who by his will (1730-3) leaves the manor of Pakyns to his grandson, Richard Whitpayne, by Mary Scrase, his daughter and heir, who in 1705 married at Clayton, Richard Whitpayne, of Hurstpierpoint. Mr. Thomas Butcher was the next owner, who died March 12, 1767, æt. 58; from whose heirs the estate was purchased by Mr. Philip Soale, who died in 1780, and whose trustees sold it to William Borrer, Esq., grandfather of the present owner, William Borrer, Esq., of Henfield. ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. The earliest ecclesiastical record of this place that we have after that of Doomsday, is that in 1291, the church, with the vicar's portion, was taxed at £13. 6s. 8d. In the Valor Ecclesiasticus, 28 Henry VIII., the following valuation is made: Rectory-clear value per annum above reprisals ix iiij xiij iiij 1 In Berry's Sussex Gen. his father Edward is erroneously said to marry Agnes Holden. |