Research Notes:

Richard Pincerna appears in the Domesday Survey as holding the manor of Pulton near Pulford in Cheshire. In that age, when money was scarcer than broad acres, a great man often recompensed his follower's services by a grant of land. For this cause Richard received the manor of Pulton; but the earl's cook was still better remembered, for his services were rewarded with two manors ; while his huntsman, as his reward, had still three or more manors. Thus it often happens that the ministers of pleasure are better paid than those employed on more solid and useful services. The entry respecting Richard Pincerna in the Survey is as follows : " Richard Pincerna holds of the earl Poytone. Edwin held it, and was a free man." (Translation of the Cheshire portion of the Domesday Survey p. 31.) By some oversight of the compilers of the Survey, this entry occurs out of its proper place, and instead of being placed in Broxton (or Dudestan) hundred, it has slipped in between two of the manors of Richard Vernon in Nantwich (or Warmun-destrou) hundred. This error of the compilers did not escape the notice of the learned author of the History of Cheshire, who saw it and remarked upon it (Hist. Ches., vol. iii. p. 261) ; but he omitted to notice a second mistake in the Survey, to which the first has led, that is the giving of Calvintone (Calveley), the next manor, to Richard Pincerna instead of to Richard Vernon, to whom and not to Pincerna it undoubtedly belongs. The second mistake has arisen from the christian names of both owners being the same. In the time of Hugh Lupus earl of Chester, in one of whose charters he is styled not Pincerna but " Pincernarius," he witnessed William Malbedeng's gift to St, Werburgh's (Hist. Ches., vol. i. p. 162); and in the year 1119 he himself gave to St. Werburgh's the church of St. Olave in Chester, and two houses in the market-place of that city. (Ibid, vol. i. p. 17, and Chester Archaeological Journal, pt. iii. p. 295.) This was but a small offering from the earl's butler, but it was large in proportion to his means, and it showed at all events his good will to the church. Our knowledge of this first ancestor of the Warrington Botelers is but scanty. We do not know when he died, but we know that he left two sons — Robert the eldest, who succeeded him, and William, who was witness to a charter of earl Hugh Lupus in 1093 and to another charter of earl Randle Meschines to the city of Chester. (Hist. Ches., vol. i. p. 172.) He was also witness to a charter of earl Randle Meschines' countess. (Dugdale's Monasticon under St. Werburgh's.) ¹