The Battle Abbey Roll. Vol. III.
by
The Duchess of Cleveland.

Prepared by Michael A. Linton
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Patefine : for Poitevin. "Guillaume Le Poitevin" and "Roger Le Poitevin" are on the Dives Roll. The name speaks for itself. They both appear in Domesday as Pictavensis, or Peteuinus; William as an under-tenant in Kent, and Roger in Suffolk. It would seem that the former also held land in Yorkshire. "Burg (afterwards Burgh-Waleys) was held at the date of the Domesday Survey by William, who appears in a grant to St. Clement's, Pontefract, by the name of William Pictavus.

"The Pictavi, or Pictaviensis, or Peytevins, were a family (if one family, and not rather several), who emigrated here from Poitou in the train of the Lacis, and appear in several parts of the West Riding, where they had great possessions. They became extinct at too early a period to have left materials for any connected history of themselves; nor, when we find them ended in co-heiresses, is it easy to show particularly the marriages made by the heiresses or the issue from them. Robert Pictavus was the last who held the manor, and had seven daughters; Eva, married to Richard de Reecroft; Dionysia, mother of Richard le Wallis" (from whom Burgh took the addition to its name); "Galiena, Agatha, Matilda, Muriel, from whom descended Richard de Rockley, and Agnes, who married Elias de Midhope."—Hunter's South Yorkshire. Perhaps this was the same Robert Pictaviensis who was a benefactor to St. Peter's, York, and Nostel Priory (Mon. ii. 34, 393). They were also seated at Hedingley; "Walter Paytefen, Lord of Hedingley, came into England with William the Conqueror: he married Lettice, daughter of Hugh Morker, who by the Title of Lord of Normanton, Clayton, and Carlston, near Newark, gave him half of the town of Normanton with his Daughter in Frank Marriage, that is, to her, and her Husband, and the Heirs of her Body, without any Homage or Service to the Donor. They had Issue one Daughter named Berlet, married to Gilbert of Snythall, to whom she bore three sons, Hugh, Richard, and Robert; to her son Richard she gave four Oxgangs of Land in Normanton, which after her Decease William the son of Morker seiz'd upon: Robert, his Brother, thereupon brought a Writ of Right against the said William (temp. Hen. I.) and recovered the Land, because the said William had absented himself in the Day of Battle. I suppose, those five of his seven Sons proved better Soldiers, who went into Ireland at the Conquest thereof. The said William, to supplant his elder Brother, doubled the Rent of Normanton to William of Warren, Earl of Surrey."—Thoresby's Leeds. Elsewhere he tells us that, when Henry de Laci built Kirkstall Abbey in 1147, "William Pictavensis was Lord of the Soil, of whom it was rented at five Marks per Annum, and that he resided at Hedingley is probable from an ancient deed sans date in my Collection." Other scattered notices of them are given, for the name, under various forms of degradation, survived till the fourteenth century. "In 13 Ed. I. William Petunn (Patefine rather) held a knight's fee of the Earl of Lincoln; and 5 Ed. II. William de Patenn (I presume the same Family) held of the Abbott of Kirkstall in Hedingley. In a list of the Knight's Fees of the Wapentake of Skireake, William Patefyn (the second Person of the Jury who were all Persons of Quality) is said to hold half a Fee in Hedingley." Finally about 1325, "William Scott, or Calveley, had a sister (if not daughter) married to one Pattfyn of Hedingley, a man of great possessions, who, it should seem, left them to her or her brother, John de Calveley, and she and her brother gave all or most of them to the Abbey of Kirkstall." Hunter believes (though it is but a suggestion) that this family bore Paly of eight Gules and Argent.

The name is found in many other parts of England. Richard Payefyn and William Paynefyn held lands at Cornforth in the county of Durham at the time of Bishop Hatfield's Survey; Roger Peitivin (according to Sir Richard Hoare) was a benefactor of Todeputte Church in Wiltshire in 1297; and Credy-Peitivin in Devonshire (now called Credy-Wiger) was so named from its successive owners. "William Pictavensis was Lord thereof, and after him Robert Paytevin, anno 27 of King Henry III., whose daughter Grimond was wief unto Sir John Wiger."—Pole's Devon. "William Pictaviensis held of Ralph de Pomerai at the date of Domesday; but his manor—Odeordi—has not been identified."—Lysons.