a family name. Like the chieftains of the Scottish clans of our own
days, they generally adopted for their surname, that of their parish or
fief. The fief or manor of Tamerville had, from before the conquest,
borne the appellation of Cyfrevast, or Sifrevast, (Sifredi Vassum;) and
down to the period of the revolution, the possessors of that fief were
patrons of the advowson of the parochial church. One of them, and,
probably, the very one who built the church now standing, followed the
Conqueror into England, and obtained from him considerable grants in
Oxfordshire and in Dorsetshire. In the latter county, the family
continued long to flourish. Hutchins states, that the branch of them,
established at More-Crichel, bore for their arms, _argent, three bars
gemels azure_; and he quotes the epitaph of one of them, who died in
1581, from which the following is an extract:--

"Intombed here one Cyfrevast does lie,
Whom nature caused by death to yealde his due.

. . . . . . .

Lord of More-Crichel was he by ----
_Three hundred yeares possessed by line and descent._"

Another of the same family, named John Cyfrevast, represented
Dorsetshire in parliament, during the seventh, sixteenth, and eighteenth
years of Edward II.; and Robert Cyfrevast had the same honor in the
eighteenth and twentieth years of the following reign. About 1424, the
fief of Chiffrevast at Tamerville, passed, by marriage, into the house
of Anneville, which had also supplied a companion to the Conqueror; and
this family continued to possess it till the moment of the revolution,
the epoch of the abolition of all feudal rights.

In the burial-ground at Tamerville, have been found many coffins made of
volcanic tuff: similar ones are by no means of unfrequent occurrence
throughout the diocese of Coutances; but they are never met with, except
in places which were formerly held in particular veneration.

NOTES:

[20] The reader will observe, that this pillar is probably imperfect;
for that there seems reason to believe, that it was originally
surmounted by a capital, which united with the moulding above.

[21] See _Cotman's Architectural Antiquities of Norfolk_, plate 37.

PLATES XVIII. AND XIX.

CHURCH OF ST. MICHEL DE VAUCELLES, AT CAEN.

(CENTRAL TOWER AND NORTH PORCH.)

[Illustration: Plate 18. TOWER OF THE CHURCH OF ST. MICHEL DE VAUCELLES,
CAEN.]

The Abbe De la Rue, in his excellent publi