Nicholas de Meriet

  Noted events in his life were:

• Background Information. ¹²⁸²
Nicolas de Meriet, [Hearne's Liber Niger Scaccarii, i. 76], also called Nicholas Fitz Harding [ibm. 95] :--Roger, Bishop of Sarum (1107-1139), while Chancellor--having the custody of the Abbey of Abbotsbury,--gave two hides of the Abbey lands at Atram (in the parish of Whitchurch Canonicorum, Dorset), in marriage with a certain niece of his to Nicholas de Meriet, without consulting the Convent. Nicholas and his wife and Henry their son held this land a long time--adversely--without rendering any service to the Abbey. This is embodied in the return of the knights' fees held by the Abbey in 1166, wherein the then Abbot certifies that--being unable to recover service from Nicholas de Meriet and his wife and Henry their son\emdash he had granted, by arrangement, the same land to this Henry the son, and his heirs, subject to the service of half a knight's fee [Lib. Nig. i. 76], his descendent, John de Meriet, held these two carucates, or hides, of land in 49 E. III., 1375.

Nicholas fitz Harding had an estate in lands in Somerset, little inferior to his brother Robert fitz Harding (ancestor of the Berkeley family), where he paid escuage in 7 and 8 H. II. (1161-2), assessed at two marks for a knights' fee, towards the King's wars in the siege of Tholouse, and he also paid in 13 H. II. (1167) aid towards the marriage of Maud the King's daughter, to the Duke of Saxony [Red Book of the Exchequer: Pipe Roll 14 H. II., as quoted in Smyth's MS. 'Lives of the Berkeleys '].

According to the return of knights' fees ordered by the King in the second Council of Clarendon, February, 1166, and required to be sent in by the first Monday in Lent following (13 March) [Eyton's Court, Household, and Itinerary of H.I.], 'Nicholas fitz Harding' certified that he held a knight's fee of the old feoffment of the Honor of Gloucester, and two knights' fees in capite in Somerset, and he describes in his return the sub-enfeoffments made by his father (Harding). in the reign of H. I. [Lib. Nig. i. 95). Nicholas fitz Harding was dead before 1171, as in that year we find his son in possession, as successor, and therefore of full age [Lib. Nig. i. 93].

~Genealogy of the Somersetshire Family of Meriet, pp. 6-7

• Background Information. ¹²⁷¹
At the time of the Conquest the later manor of Merriott formed two estates. The second estate, of five hides, occupied in 1066 by Godwin, had passed by 1086 to Harding son of Eadnoth the staller.

The manor evidently passed from Harding son of Eadnoth, or Harding de Meriet, to his son Nicholas FitzHarding (d. by 1171), followed by his grandson Henry de Meriet (d. by 1192). [Proc. Som. Arch. Soc. xxviii. 100-4.] Nicholas de Meriet (d. by 1229) inherited his father's lands in 1212, and in 1229 was succeeded by his son Hugh (d. c. 1236). [Pipe R. 1212 (P.R.S. n.s. xxx), 119, 223; Cal. Inq. p.m. i, p. 2] From Hugh's son Nicholas (d. c. 1258) the manor passed in turn to Nicholas's son John (d. 1285), and grandson, also John. The last succeeded as a minor and received his lands in 1297. [Cal. Inq. p.m. ii, pp. 341-2; Plac. Abbrev. (Rec. Com.), 293] On his death in 1308 he was followed successively by his sons John (d. by 1322) and George (d. 1328). [Proc. Som. Arch. Soc. xxviii. 104-24; Cal. Inq. p.m. vii, p. 119.] From George's son, Sir John de Meriet (d. 1369), the manor descended to his son Sir John (d. 1391), and subsequently to the latter's daughter Elizabeth, wife of Urry Seymour.[Cal. Inq. p.m. xii, pp. 376-7; Proc. Som. Arch. Soc. xxviii. 126-64] On Elizabeth's death without issue c. 1395 the estate was inherited jointly by her cousins Elizabeth and Margaret d'Aumale, granddaughters of George de Meriet (d. 1328) and wives of Sir Humphrey Stafford and Sir William Bonville (d. 1408) respectively. [Proc. Som. Arch. Soc. xxviii. 164-7]

~A History of the County of Somerset, Volume IV, p. 53-55