BITTON (GLOS.)

Bitton was a large manor parts of which were held by several different lords. The de la More family held the manor of Oldland in Bitton, Stephen de la More (d. 1328) being succeeded by his young son William (d. 1340) and William briefly by his three-year-old son John (d. 1349), from whom it passed to his sister Cecilia, wife of Sir Nicholas de Berkeley of Dursley. [CIPM vii, nos. 148, 703; viii, no. 263; ix. no. 341; CPR 1385-9, 49.] William had married Maud, daughter of Sir John de Bitton who held another large manor in Bitton and resided at Barr's Court in Oldland. [Saul, Knights and Esquires, 71.] Sir John (d. 1314) was the elder brother of Thomas de Bitton, bishop of Exeter (d. 1307), and was succeeded by his son another Sir John (fl. 1345) and he by his son and heir Matthew (d. 1374); another Sir John (d. 1382) was the last of the family. Sir John's daughter and heir Katherine married Thomas Rugge and their daughter and heir married Robert Greyndour. [H. T. Ellacombe, History of the Parish of Bitton (Exeter, 1881), 80.] Most of those people appear in the charters for Bitton and for the other vills within Bitton (Hanham, Oldland, Swineford and Upton Cheyney).