Michael Linton's Bayeux Tapestry: 1066 - A Medieval Mosaic and Puzzles

Bonnet :

Fuller tells us that "Bonet, or Benet, was one of such persons as, after the Battle, were advanced to Seigneuries in this land of Glamorgan," when he held Penelawdd, in Gower. From him Sir Bernard Burke somewhat vaguely derives the Bennetts of Laleston in Glamorganshire.

But I very much doubt whether Bennett is the name here intended. A family of Bonett, said to have come from the neighbourhood of Alencon, is found in Sussex very soon after the Conquest, and held of De Braiose. Roger Bonitas, in 1073, witnessed a charter of William de Braiose (Mon. i. 581). "In 1268 Haymen Bonet paid to William de Braiose eighteen marks of silver to exonerate his lands in Wowend and Wappingthorpe from the claim of murage. In the Testa de Nevill we find Robert Bonet possessed of Steyning, held of the Honour of Bramber, and in 1351 Margaret, wife of William Bonet, died seized of it."—Dallaway's Sussex. This is all he can tell us of them.

The name is, however, forthcoming in other counties. John Bonet was Sheriff of Staffordshire 1224-1227: and Custos of Salop 1225-1227: and possibly the same John Bonet, who, with William Earl of Salisbury, was Joint-Sheriff of Lincoln in 1217, and the four following years. This implies him to have been a person of wide possessions and weighty influence.