Walter D'Aincourt (or Walter Deincourt) accompanied William the Conqueror to England in 1066 and was rewarded with a large number of manors in a number of counties but particularly Nottinghamshire after the Norman conquest.
D'Aincourt's mark on history is recorded principally in the Domesday Book which records eleven of his manors in Derbyshire, a manor in Northamptonshire, four in Yorkshire, seventeen in Lincolnshire and thirty-four in Nottinghamshire.[2] He made his home in Blankney in Lincolnshire.[3]
His surname is said to have had its origin in the village of Aincourt in Normandy which is close to Mantes on the River Seine.[2]
Walter's first son, William, died young and was buried in Lincoln Cathedral, but his other son Ralph lived to become the second Baron Deincourt. Walter was known to Remi or Remigius, Bishop of Lincoln who contributed substantially to William I's conquest of England. It has been speculated that D'Aincourt's rewards were due not to his contribution to the conquest but to kis kinship of Remigius. Although it is also believed that Walter's wife was of royal descent.[3]