Notices of the Ellises of England, Scotland, and Ireland, from the conquest to the present time

4 - MANOR OF HURST-PIERPOINT.
Warren of Domesday, who might have been, and probably
was, father of Robert and Godfrey de Pierpoint, and perhaps,
also, of Reinald, and who might have fought at the battle
of Hastings, and died before the Domesday Survey.
We shall now endeavour to give an account of the succes-
sive lords of the manor, and of their families. The account
given by Collins in his Peerage, of the Pierpoints, is probably
in the main correct, and doubtful chiefly in the early part.
It professes to be compiled from authorities that are cited,
amongst others a pedigree of the family. But such pedigrees,
whether to be found in visitations, or made out irrespectively
by heralds, are in the early parts now so generally found to be
fabulous, or put together upon insufficient evidence, and often
upon none at all, that they are never to be relied upon, unless
confirmed by unquestionable testimonies. And such pedigrees,
and most genealogies, until the advent of a more sceptical
race of genealogists, were characterized by a frequent absence
of all criticism, and an utter confusion and inconsistency of
dates. Thus Collins, in the account before us, states that the
Robert de Pierpoint of Domesday held ten knights' fees of
Earl Warren in Sussex, giving as his authority the Testa de
Nevill, a document compiled in the time of Henry III., full
150 years afterwards. But when, in citing a Prench genealogy
of the family, he says this Robert was a lieutenant-general
in the Conqueror's army, it is possible he may be correct.
As to the place which gave name to the family, Collins,
giving as his authority, " family evidences at Holme-Pier-
point," says that they continued their possessions, viz., the
castle of Pierrepont, in the south confines of Picardy, and
diocese of Laon, in 35 Henry I., 13 Henry II., and 2
Richard I., and were benefactors to the Abbey of Thionville,
for lands in the territory of Sornicourt and Veel. Mr. Eyton,
however, states that the family took their name from Pont St.
Pierre, a vill in the diocese of Rouen, situate at the confluence
of the rivers Andelle and Seine. But this seems simply a
conjecture. Pont St. Pierre is evidently a bridge, or a town
clustering near a bridge, named after the family of St. Pierre,
as Pontdelarch, called also Pont-Arches, was after the family of
Arches, and others, as Pont-Audomare, Pont-Cardon, similarly
named.