Cylchgronau Cymru

be found in the Falaise Roll.3 Vitre, Fougeres, Chateaugiron and Dinan were all baronies of Rennes, the centre of ducal power, but Dinan was on the very border of Penthievre. It is perhaps worth mentioning that the descendants of Richard fitz Turold, dapifer to Robert of Mortain who held the earldom of Cornwall, called the administrative centre of their estates Cardinan, i.e. Castle Dinan, from which the family took the name of Dinan or Dinham, suggesting a connection, at least, with Dinan on the Rance in Brittany. The Breton settlers in Cornwall seem to have preferred the north- eastern coasts of the county, much of which would have reminded them of their homeland. Cornwall at the time was an isolated area, very sparsely populated, averaging only 2.5 to five people per square mile while the high moorland and parts of the far south-west were almost uninhabited. Bodmin was the only borough and agriculture was mainly pastoral. This implies that a traveller would be largely dependent on the manors for hospitality if he could not reach his destination in a day's journey. In the far north of Cornwall, between Morwenstow and Marham- church, we find a group of manors held of the Count of Mortain by Alvred. These include Bottoborough near Morwenstow, Launcells, Can Orchard and Thurlebere near Stratton, Burrow to the west of Bridgerule, and Hilton in the parish of Marhamchurch. Further south he also held part of a small manor named Roscaret or Hroscarec in St. Endellion. Hilton, Launcells and Thurlebere seem to have been rich manors well stocked with cattle, sheep and goats, and included some woodland. Alvred (Alfred, Alured), as shown by J. H. Round, had been a popular name in Brittany and is frequently found in cartularies of the eleventh century.5 There is therefore great probability that this tenant was of Breton descent though whether he came with Brient of Bretagne or with the Norman Robert of Mortain is not known. For some unknown reason it was the small southern manor of Roscaret which became the family seat and from which the descendants of Alvred took the name of Roscarrock. The Ros- carrocks were a well-known Cornish family until the seventeenth century. 6 3 Rupert Furneaux, Conquest 1066 (1966), pp. 205-10. 4 H. C. Darby and R. Welldon Finn, The Domesday Geography of South-west England (1967), p. 318. » J. H. Round, Feudal England (1964 ed.), p. 254. William Sincock, 'Principal landowners in Cornwall, 1165', Jnl. Royal Inst. Cornwall, vol. 10(1890-91), pp. 160-61.