NO. X
GENEALOGICAL SUPPLEMENT TO THE BEDINGFELD PAPERS BY RICHARD THACKERAY
BEDINGFELD
As one who has devoted much time to genealogy, making East Anglia my special hunting-ground, and perhaps not unnaturally spending more time upon the Bedingfeld pedigree than upon any other, have been asked by the editor to write a few notes by way of Addenda to the Bedingfeld papers. The Papers speak for themselves ; they make genealogy a living thing, and it is only here and there that some mysterious individual requires identification . The present Baronet , who evidently takes the keen interest which it becomes the head of an old family to take in its history, in these few cases , has been appealed to in vain; for the men are not in his pedigree , neither are they to be identified by the perusal of the muniments at Oxburgh. Sir Henry has therefore referred to me. The Papers being already voluminous brevity now becomes a desideratum , and I shall therefore make use of the tabular form of pedigree to elucidate ; but perhaps it will be as well to first make . by the editor a few remarks upon a statement made in Note (p. 231), viz . that the Bedingfeld pedigree " is acknowledged to be of authority, though for some remote periods it cannot be confirmed from
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independent sources. "" In the Record Office and elsewhere have heard this before; eminent genealogists have informed me that Ogerus de Pugeys never existed , and that all sensible people have long since consigned him to the realms of myth, and that no family of the rank of the Bedingfelds have been told that the lord could prove an antiquity so great . Malet, lord of the honour of Eye in Suffolk, knew nothing of this Roger who is said to have been one of his four knights, and to have received from him a gift of the manor of Bedingfeld, in consequence of which he was afterwards known as Ogerus (i.e. Roger ) de Bedingfeld. One of these iconoclastic gentlemen said to me : defy you to produce any eleventh - century document, or authentic copy of such document, upon which the names of the great Norman baron and your supposed ancestor occur together! This is no place for the reprinting of long Latin charters ; but we know that Robert Malet founded the Monastery of Eye, and with the consent of King William the Conqueror gave to it the Church of St. Peter in Eye and many others with all the Immunities belonging to the Honor of Eye, as given him by the said King. We will refer to Dugdale . Here is his Monasticon Anglicanum , published by James Bohn in 1846. In vol. iii . p. 404 , we find, " Num. Carta Roberti Malet Fundatoris Ecclesiæ de Eya [ Ex Registro de Eya penes Thomam Deye generosum an . 1630 fol . 58 . It is too long for insertion here ; but an extract is sufficient . After the above- mentioned donations the founder confirms various gifts made to the monastery by his barons
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