Note 9 — PART I TERRITORIAL STUDIES (continued 2)

Stapleton boldly rendered the obviously corrupt words as 'son and daughter-in-law of the countess Lucia',9 and hence pronounced this Hugh to be 'a married brother of the whole blood' to the second Randulf, Earl of Chester.10 As he only knew their gift to Spalding to be 'prior to 1141', no chronological difficulty was caused by this view; but the occurrence of Hugh's name in the Lindsey Survey, as already in possession of his small fief, at once raises the difficulty I have explained. The solution that occurs to me is that the Hugh fitz Ranulf of our survey, and the 'Hugo frater Ranulfi Comitis Cestrie' of the Spalding charter, was a brother, not of the second but of the first Earl Ranulf, and that the words 'fil' filia Comitisse Lucie' were introduced in error by the compiler, whose head was full of the Countess Lucy, and who had here confused the two Earls Randulf.